Kyoto Adventure

Sunday, June 6, 2010, 7:35 p.m.

It’s just before dinner time here. I spent most of the day studying, first at the school with Alex for a couple hours and then at a bakery by myself for the rest of the afternoon. I came back home are 6:00, showered and cleaned my bedroom. Right now, it’s just me and my host father at home. He’s making dinner tonight because my host mom and brother are in Nagoya, watching my host sister’s dance performance. I offered to help him cook, and I think he said that he would call for me when there was something that I could do. It’s getting slightly easier to understand my host parents and siblings now, because last week in class I was introduced to the informal forms of verbs and adjectives. Before I didn’t realize that the reason so much of what my host family said to me sounded so unfamiliar was because they were using an entirely different form of speech with me. Everything I had learned in any of my Japanese studies before had all been formal tense, the type of speech you would use in the work place or with strangers. Now that I am learning the informal forms of words, it’s becoming easier to understand the particular words that are being spoken to me, not just the overall gist of the conversation.

I have two big tests this week, one tomorrow and one on Wednesday. There are still seven people in my class this week. Everyone is the same except that Lee moved into the next class, so he’s gone, and a boy from Israel joined us. The boy from Israel’s name is Churchill, and he’s incredibly nice and interesting to talk to. He also winks more often than anyone that I’ve met in my entire life. It caught me off guard a little bit at first. I realized that I wasn’t sure what the appropriate reaction was for when someone winked at you five or six times during a single conversation; however, I quickly realized that it’s not just me that receives his charming winks, it’s everyone, even our teacher, who also seems to find it pretty entertaining.

Yesterday (Saturday) I went to Kyoto with my friend Alex. We rode the train from Okazaki to Nagoya and then bought tickets for the local trains to Kyoto. The whole trip there took about 3 hours total on various trains. I didn’t mind the length at all though. We studied on the trains, and actually got quite a lot accomplished, and the scenery was absolutely beautiful. No matter where you are at in Japan this part of Japan, you can see mountains in the distance. On the train ride we pasted through a lot of rural Japanese towns and saw breathtaking rolling hills. Then all of a sudden we were in Kyoto. By the time we arrived it was nearly noon, so we got some food at the train station. Ah, I should take a moment to attempt to describe the train stations in Japan (or at least, what I’ve seen of the Nagoya and Kyoto train stations). They seem to be completely self-sustaining eco-systems. I’m convinced that a person could live there entire life inside one of these train stations and not run out of things to do. They are huge buildings; probably 5 or 6 stories tall, and have more places to shop and dine than in all of Springfield. Buying a ticket is pretty easy, but after that, it’s impossible to figure out where to go. Every time that I’ve taken a train we’ve had to ask someone for help. But the workers are really nice, and it’s fun to get to practice our Japanese.

Kyoto train station: This picture doesn't even show half of it. 

My new friend Alex, also the most talented piano player I have ever met. He'll start working on his doctorate in piano performance when he gets back to USC in the fall.

After eating at the station, we ventured out into Kyoto. I had gotten a map from a woman at one of the information desks inside the station, and it seemed pretty straight forward, but this turned out to not be the case. It was really warm yesterday, probably 85 degrees, but the sun made it seem even hotter. We discovered a couple temples pretty quickly, and took our time looking around. They were absolutely beautiful, so intricate and unique. When we were quickly sitting inside one of the temples, looking around while a dozen or so people prayed, several monks walked in and began some type of worship ritual. It was fascinating, and really quite lovely. There is something incredibly serene about being in the temple atmosphere.

Entrance to one of the temples.

Inside a temple.

It's hard to see, but there is a giant dragon statue spraying water out of it's mouth into the fountain (at which one is supposed to cleanse him or herself before going into the temple). 

It seems that you have to take your shoes off before going inside practically anywhere in Japan.

After we had finished looking around the temples, which probably took the better part of two hours, we got lost. Not seriously lost, but we couldn’t figure out where we were on the map, so we stopped at a store and asked for directions. Everyone who I’ve asked for help with directions in Japan has been incredibly kind and patient. We found a bus stop finally, and got on to a bus that we thought would take us to a famous castle in Kyoto. However, as we rode the bus, we realized that we didn’t recognize the names of any of the places that the bus was stopping at, and the people on the bus were rapidly thinning out. Finally we decided to just get off and try to figure out where we were. We stopped at a flower shop, and a very enthusiastic elderly man looked at our map with us. He explained that we had gone so far south (we had wanted to go Northwest) that we were not even on the map any longer.  He pointed out the bus stop that we should wait at and gave us very concise directions for getting back. This entire conversation took the better part of twenty minutes, by the way. And after a twenty minute wait at the bus stop, we were on our way back to Kyoto.

At least there was pretty scenery as we accidentally rode a bus into the middle of nowhere.

Back in Kyoto.

 By the time we finally arrived at the castle, it was 5:15p.m. and it had closed for the day. It’s strange, everything seems to open much later in Japan, but lots of places close very early too, and almost every business (in Okazaki, at least) has a couple days that it is closed each week. Being lost can be pretty exhausting, so we decided to walk along a creek that we found leading through the middle of the city and eventually found somewhere to eat. 

After walking around the city for a while longer we headed back to the train station (finally oriented properly). I had been hoping all day to find an opportunity to practice my Japanese by asking a stranger to please take a picture for me. When we were walking on a crossway that passed over a large Kyoto street, there was a man in a suit walking towards us. I grabbed my camera and started to ask him to please take a picture for me in Japanese. Said yes and reached for my camera before I could even finish my question, but I still stood there and continued to ask, even though it probably took a painfully long time. Alex thought it was pretty entertaining. I just really wanted to prove that I knew how to properly ask my question.

I'm pretty proud of this photo. I really wish I could have taken a picture of the man who I asked to take it. He managed to work my camera while holding a cigarette. Impressive, huh?

It was about 8:00p.m. by the time we got back to the Kyoto train station.  Instead of taking local trains back to Okazaki, like we had traveled on to come to Kyoto, we decided to ride the Shinkansen back to Nagoya and then take a train from Nagoya to Okazaki. The Shikansen makes fewer stops and travels about three times as fast as the normal trains, but it’s also a lot more expensive. However, we were both pretty exhausted, and didn’t want to be out until midnight. 

On the Shinkansen. 

Quick stop in Nagoya to change trains.

Traveling by Shinkansen, our trip back to Nagoya took 35 minutes, as opposed to 2.5 hours. When we got back to Okazaki, it was just before 10:00p.m. I rode my bike back to my homestay family’s house, took a shower, and fell asleep.

This size of this map might be a little extreme, but I wanted to make sure that everyone could see the yellow line that I drew on it, which is the path we traveled today. I also realized that most people probably have no idea where Okazaki is located (actually, a lot of Japanese people probably don't know- it's not a very big city). I think Japan is also a bit bigger than some of my followers (my darling cousin Evan, for example) might realize. From Okazaki to Kyoto (the yellow line) takes 2.5 hours by car according to GoogleEarth. 

It's funny, I've seen several world maps since coming to Japan, and America seems so much smaller than it appears to be on the maps I remember looking at back home. Although, I'm sure that Japanese people (or anything other non-Americans, think the same thing about their home countries when they look at American maps. 

Monday, June 07, 2010 6:55 p.m.

I started writing this blog entry yesterday, but didn’t have enough time to finish it. Hence, the new date and time of composition. I spent almost all of yesterday studying for my classes this week. Like I had mentioned before, we are working on the informal forms of verbs and nouns, which I had never studied before, and they can be pretty tricky. Last night I helped my home-stay father make dinner while the rest of the family was in Nagoya, at Mao’s dance performance. We made curry, and it was delicious. The type of Japanese curry that I’ve eaten here a few times now isn’t spicy, but actually tastes rather sweet. It’s really good. Last night was the first chance that I had really gotten to talk very much to my host-father, and I think I understood about 70% of the things that he said, which is definitely an improvement overall. He told me that he played the trumpet, flute, and saxophone in high school and college, and also knows a little bit on the piano, electric guitar, and drums. By “a little,” he actually meant a lot. Since the family has a dance/music studio that takes up the first floor of the house, we went there while we waited for the rice to cook and he played the piano and the drums. The first thing he played on the piano was the American anthem, then some jazzy music. It was so fun to watch. We finished cooking and ate dinner together. Topics of conversation during dinner: baseball, Japanese rice, and the weather. In case I hadn’t mentioned, baseball is the number one sport in Japan. A few days ago when I told my host mother that my younger brother plays a lot of baseball, she said that I should come back to Japan and bring him with me, and we could like with them again. I didn’t know how to explain that Neil would never agree to that in a million years, even if it was a possibility, so I just agreed that it would be really great if that could happen.

After I get done with classes during the week, I always spend at least two or three more hours studying. Until today, I had always just stayed at school during this additional study time. However, I decided today that from now on, I’m not going to study at the school outside of class. I’m going to find Japanese coffee places or inexpensive restaurants, and bring my work there. I can study Japanese by myself anywhere in America. There’s something about being surround by the culture and language while I’m studying that reminds me why I like Japanese so much. I spent two hours today after classes studying at a coffee/donut shop that is on my way home, and it was really nice. Plus I even got to practice my practical skills when one of the other customers (a middle aged business man) came up to me and started asking me how long I had been in Japan, why I was studying, ect.

Before I go take my clothes out of the washer and hang them up to dry, one last thing I’d like to post: here are some of the more bizarre things I’ve eaten since coming to Japan:

-Mochi wrapped inside of a leaf

-Lots of squid and fish eggs

-A chicken’s liver

-A chicken’s heart

For each dinner, my host father uses a mortar and pestle (check out my chemistry vocab) to grind up fresh ginger. It is delicious, and in no way pink at all, which is the color that I thought ginger naturally was before coming to Japan. It’s actually an off-white, cream sort of color. Today I tried pineapple cider of the first time. I’m not sure why America hasn’t discovered it yet; it was really good.

Something else I was thinking about today: It's been three weeks since I've used a telephone, and I haven't missed my cell phone in the slightest. It seems strange that something I always have with me at home in America, could really be so painlessly removed from my life. Although, I'll admit, I think it would start to miss it eventually. I got to talk to Hannah yesterday morning on skype, and it made me realize how much I have missed getting to talk to her about things every day. (I have the best roommate in the world). And if I didn't get to communicate with my parents and grandma (and everyone else) via email and facebook, I know I would be missing that communication pretty terribly as well. But it's nice to know that I can go 33 days without using my cell phone once and easily survive.