Steph's Trip To Japan
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25 July, 2004
We went on a walking tour of Japan this day, occasionally catching the
public bus. I picked the wrong day to wear a skirt…it was a very hot day.
We visited Kiyomizu Temple, which turned out to be built on a mountain.
We climbed many, many steps to reach the first flat area, where you
could wash your hands and face with a special fountain provided.
This temple had many attractions. You can see behind the dragon there is a
fenced area. This was actually part of a pillar that held up one of those
traditional arches, except inside this fenced area, and in the other pillar, was a
giant scary statue. With grotesque faces, they were made to scare evil spirits
away. So we walked a ways, passing by an extremely old building which may
have been a single room prayer building. It was not available to the public,
though, so we passed on past a couple of charm shops. Mr. Hernandez got his
shrine/temple book stamped. This involves taking a small, blank book, and
paying 300 yen to the people who work at the shrine. They stamp a book page,
then write in Japanese calligraphy when you visited and the name again (I
believe). They will also write your name on the book if you bought it from them
(another opportunity I missed). At the end of this straight line there was an
actual shrine to this little goblin guy holding a hammer. As will most deities, he
had a wooden coin casket in front of him, with valleyed wooden slots so coins
would slip easily down if you tossed them in, but no one could get them out. This
little goblin guy was just a guy…who would supposedly bring you money if you
took his hammer and hit a gong with it. Of course, you can’t actually take this
brass hammer from the statue, so you fling coins at him instead.
That thing to the left of me there is a coin casket. About this picture:
Up the mountain some more, there was a Temple with a very large and ornate
Buddha. You could use a rope to hit a gong here as well. There were a few
smaller buildings off to its right, with some fountains in between and such. There
was a Buddha statue, the kind you rub, sitting in front of one of these old
buildings, so after watching some Japanese people rub it for good luck, I rubbed
him too, all over his fat little brass body. His joints and cheeks were very popular
with the Japanese people. =)
Descending down a different pathway, we passed the three streams of academic
luck. My friends drank from ladles while I filmed them, even though, being in IB, I
need all the luck I can get. Yet ANOTHER thing I regret. This area was a mix of
very old, and very new; the ladles, once used, were put in an ultraviolet cleaning
machine.
We passed by a graveyard, its tall spires and miniscule houses seeming
cheerful under the bright blue sky. A few of us went into the shops while waiting
for the middle school group. These shops on the street that led up to the shrine
were built on a hill, with no sidewalks and just enough room for two of their cars
(this equals 1 of our Hummers). I found a music memorabilia shop =) and spent
about 70$ in it. For the rest of the trip, I was very content and happy with myself.
Other than that, I went in this gift shop sort of store, where they sold a little bit of
everything. There I bought the largest oilpaper Japanese umbrella I could find. I
also bought some star candy, which is very popular over there. It’s basically rock
candy in the shape of little stars.
From there we walked a very long way to the next shrine, which I believe was
Nishijin. It too had fountains, and near the entrance, people were performing a
comedy on stage. They were doing this dressed in the traditional comic apparel.
These comic plays evolved from little “shorts” that the Japanese performed
during the intermission of dramatic plays, in order to lighten the mood and
decrease the seriousness a little. A lot of people were watching them under a
tent, but the humor was sadly lost on us.
In the center of the area was a building with three mini-shrines, like those the
Gion Festival people carried around. The building (it was like a four sided
gazebo. That you couldn’t get up on.) was bedecked with tons of fabric lanterns
made to look like the old paper kind; each lantern had the name of a community
sponsor on it. Neat, huh?
It was getting late in the day, but we did manage to look at the best shrine of all—
the Yasaka Shrine. This shrine is home to the Gion Festival, the huge one that
had been going on for days. Strangely, the only thing I remember about it was
the two pillars as we were leaving. Each one had an Oriental Lion sitting on top,
and on the base were two pictures and two character plates to each. The four
pictures were of the four gods of the directions, or winds: Suzaku (the phoenix),
Seiryuu (the dragon), Byakko (the tiger), and Genbu (the turtle god, also
accompanied in this picture by his snake buddy, who served as a messenger).
For those who don’t know, I’m nearly obsessed with these gods.
We soon headed back to the hotel, as it was getting toward noon. We had lunch
somewhere, but I don’t quite remember…after that, we took all our stuffs we had
left in the hotel lobby and walked a couple of blocks with our bags to a bus stop.
The first bus wasn’t ours, but the second one was. We took up most of the
space, and we dug frantically for the correct money to pay for the fare (you paid
when you got off, a total of 220 yen). We were dropped off at the train station,
where we hurriedly rushed around, following Michelle and Elissa. Only two or
three of us would fit in the elevator between floors with our tons of bags. It was a
rather hot and humid day in Japan, and there was a single glass room in the
center of the train station labeled “Waiting Room”. Of course, we were too
anxious to not miss this train, because we had reserved tickets. The bullet train
soon came. Let me tell you—those things are fast! It’s like a souped-up version
of a subway, but above ground.
We stood for the first leg of the trip. Actually, I stood, because my skirt and I
were having difficulties. We stopped to switch stations, got our first taste of the
trench toilet, and continued on. This part of our trip was better—we had
reserved seating in a certain car. Evan, the middle school guy, asked me to sit
next to him. He was my sole amusement for the next two hours. And he was
pretty cool anyway—he liked pocky almost as much as I did!
The white train stopped in Shirahama station 4:20pm. There, the middle school
guys met their Japanese counterparts, none of which spoke any English. They
were interesting in that they were totally unlike any Japanese person I’d met
yet—they were very hyper, and laughed and talked loudly. This was probably
viewed as weird in the Japanese culture. We hopped a public transport bus and
got off at “Rinkai”. This must be a bus station—I’m going by the schedule here.
After being given the tour, we dragged our luggage up stairs to our rooms. Alex,
Jill, and I shared the same room, number 9. I got the key, but we never locked
the door. When we entered the dorms (which is what they were—the Seto
Research Facility Dorms), we kicked our shoes off and put them in cubbies, then
put on guest slippers, made of soft green plastic. The doors into the hall opened
outward, and led to a tiny area where we could put our guest slippers before we
stepped on the tatami mats that covered the floor of our room. Socks or bare
feet only on these mats—shoes ruin them.
We headed downstairs, and milled around a bit. Well, I did anyway. The
Japanese high school boys were already there. Yes, they were all boys. I
remember “Shiba”, Ogawa, Tomoki, and “Keese” (though he would not be there
till the next morning). Unfortunately, I only remember the first letter of the last
guy—M.
Anyway, they were helping to set up the grills, charcoal, and fire for a Japanese
barbecue. With their teachers and some of the adults (not guest adults,
however), they heated up the grills fairly quickly. Then they basically dropped
chunks of raw meat (beef, I’m sure), little sausages, onions, squash, some other
random veggies…and then on a homemade skillet (a pan with tinfoil on it) they
sautéed cabbage in a sauce. I was the first to finish, so I immediately began to
hobnob with the Japanese boys. They were very surprised, and at first couldn’t
understand me very well, so they called over Hirohata-sensei to translate for
them. His English isn’t so hot either. ; ) Anyway, we talked a while, and they
warmed up, changing from extremely shy boys to energetic, opinionated ones.
One even did an impression of one of my music idols. When I asked them their
names again for the second time (though we all wore name necklaces, I forgot
my glasses), they gave me nicknames as well. And, as luck would have it, they
were all single.
After a few speeches by the adults, we all returned to our rooms. After a while,
all the high school students grouped in the boys’ much, much larger room. This
is because there would be 7 sleeping in there—our two and their five. They only
had two fans (did I mention the lack of air conditioning yet? It was horribly hot
and humid) and one insect repeller, but we made the best of it. Jake, John, and
the girls talked mostly to each other, and I made friends with the Japanese boys.
Tomoki, the artist, drew a dragon for me after I showed him my rather pathetic
sketchbook (the IB still has my good ones), and for a while we just asked each
other questions until someone broke out the UNO.
This game, with a total of 9 people, was really, really fun. Some people didn’t
know how to play, but they learned quickly. I actually won! And my reward was to
watch the rest of the game and eat some candy the guys offered me. Their idea
of snack food is different from ours, though it did include some taffy-like stuff
that was really good. They had a bag of these very airy biscuit-type things with a
dab of chocolate in the center, each smaller than an Oreo. They also had a bag
of very bitter tasting chips, and some fish jerky stuff that I think I tried.
I stayed up with the Japanese guys till about 11—the rest of my group was now
asleep, but the boys wanted to go to the beach. Though I would have loved to
go with them, I told them Mr. H wouldn’t like me wandering off in the middle of the
night. I took a shower, even though the nice Japanese ladies tried to make us
believe they had turned the hot water off at 9. Very interesting shower, with a
tub and an area to rinse off, but I heard the boys had open showers and a
single large bath. I returned to the room and, finding it mostly covered by Jill,
Alex, and JillandAlex’sStuff, I pulled a mattress out of the closet and slept on it,
with a hard pillow filled with beans or rice. Or something equally as hard. The
only comfort was that, since the girls were asleep, I had the fans all to myself. I
shut the screen door too; I don’t know why they had that open.
