Field Trip to Koyasan (高野山)

Koya-san is a mountain in the Wakayama prefecture 3 hours away from Konan University, where Shingon Buddhism was founded by a monk called Kobo Daishi Kukai.  1200 years ago he brought it from china, apparently led by a black and a white dog to the area which looked like the centre of an eight petal lotus flower.

Faith in Kobo Daishi and in the thinking that he never died,  just entered a state of eternal meditation at Okunoin (cemetery) has brought pilgrims to the area for centuries.

Open arrival to the temple we were staying at we were introduced to our shared rooms and then had lunch, and for breakfast and dinner we had a feast, complete with as many bowls of rice as we want~

Bento (lunchbox) my host mum packed for me!



Famous koyasan tofu, vegetable tempura, miso soup, pickled seaweed and more: all delicious



Breakfast

 In the temple no shoes could be worn, they had slippers provided, and in the tatami rooms no slippers could be worn, so you had to keep taking them off to enter each individual room. For those thinking of coming to Japan - wear shoes that you can easily slip on and off! Everywhere you go, it is custom to take them off. Even trainers for the gym are unacceptable.

watching a japanese drama in their free time



Koya-kun (above) is Koyasan's mascot ~


In our free time we explored the town. The Daito was very beautiful, the orginal structure was built in 816 and perished in a fire. They should really cut down on their use on incense, these buddhist monks...

Daito (Great Pagoda, rebuilt in 1937) has a 49m high budda inside.

Torii gates

these steep steps led to the image below

a rooftop view of Koyasan

In our wanderings my friend brought herself some tradtional footwear from a local shoe shop for 5000 yen. A bargin, apparently ~

if was fun watching her walk back in these

And then there was OKUNOIN, a cemetery the likes of which you have never seen, with over 200,000 gravestones dedicated to people throughout it’s long history, from the first ever samurai and the kobe earthquake disaster 16 years ago to the termite exterminator company, out of respect for the loss of life. 110 out of the 250 daiyos of japan (feudal lords who owned the lands in japan) were buried on the grounds. It comes with many stories, so I'm glad we had a tour guide that spoke good english.

the cross-dressing Kobo Daishi, if make-up is applied you get blessed with good looks. I dug out my cherry chapstick for some of the action ~

 Inside the sacred temple photos weren't allowed, but my friend managed to sneak a few anyway. Here's the ceiling, and lining the walls were thousands of tiny buddha figurines with name plates on them, a tribute to all those who donated to the temple.


this room smelt great from all the incense

There are even gravestones for major companies, which I didn’t really understand, complete with a little meishi slot for business cards to let the spirits know you dropped by to say hello.

Tierney sensei popping in his buisness card

Jizo's were everywhere, this one happy in his lil broken house

more jizos, little gods that take care of children

rock garden

if you look down this well and don’t see your reflection you die within the next 3 years

There was also a rock that everyone had to try and lift with one hand, and if it was too heavy for you it meant our sins were too great. Very unfair challenge for the women because that stone was really heavy! But it was more technique over strength because I managed to lift it with my stubbornness, and apparently it means I have the power to over come my sins. Awesome. ^^

There was a bunch of other things that I'm too tired to put up right now. But yeah, Koyasan was great.

Typhoon, cooler weather and the reason I’m here

So classes were cancelled on Wednesday on account of typhoon 15 sweeping through, so I missed the Noh play which was apparently 2 hours long~  but on the upside I got to witness  some awesome weather. If we get a red weather warning from this site http://www.jma.go.jp/en/warn/332_table.html then classes are off.

 And after that, Autumn came. Just like that. Right on time, like the rest of Japan, its trains and people.

I went for a run that night, and I asked my Japanese friend who’s good at English why I had so many stares, do people not usually run at 6pm? And he said oh don’t worry it’s probably because you’re a foreigner and you have big hair and aha, I guess that’s that. I do indeed.

 I met up with the Art teacher who took me and Pomai (from Hawaii) to the messiest room I’ve ever seen in Japan so far and perfect for drawing, so I may join that club along with the Aerobics class I joined, which is all in Japanese (and the little lady who teaches it is energetic and throws out random words in English to help me out, bless).

And concerning that vein of the Japanese trying to make me feel at home, my host mum tentatively knocked on my door the other day and came in with a mug in her hand that had a pie sheet over it, asking ‘kore wa ee desuka?’ to which I didn’t have the heart to say ‘no that’s not how you make pie’ because she’d put so much effort into it, so I ended up having what was essentially cup-a-soup with a muffin pie top for dinner, with rice. It was delicious. XD I must remember to make her some English food some time ~

Oh yes and concerning English, I managed to get a little teaching English for an hour a week for moneys thing going on but now I need to find out how to set up a Japanese bank account -_- troubles ahead I think. Lucky I’ve made friends so far who could potentially help me out...

Best thing that’s happened this week was obv the field trip with everyone. I’ve always said that it’s not so much the destination but the people you travel with, and this trip had BOTH! And the added bonus of such amazing Buddhist monk food!

So that you can really appreciate the time I had and so that I can relive it, I’m going to post my trip to Koya-san separately on this blog, complete with little explanations of the things I experienced. I don’t really want to forget what I learned, and it was some truly awesome stuff.

I mean, I get asked a lot why I’m learning Japanese, and at Koya-san I think I felt more than ever that I’d made the right decision. I chose Japanese at first honestly just because I wanted to learn a language, one that wasn’t French, and Japanese seemed the natural alternative since it was the only country I had a serious interest with.

Back then it was just from a vague idea of ninjas, the ways of the samurai, the appreciation for nature and transience and technology and the knowledge that this was the land where a lot of my favourite things originated from, like son gohan, murakami, ghibli, sushi and monkey d luffy. I thought, ‘how can something so awesome that it’s as though it was made especially for me come from people on the other side of the world? I want to see for myself.’

There was also the challenge of it too, bigger than Kilimanjaro, or prying gabrielle away from the tv, or keeping up with tash. (It’s really, really hard for me. Learning languages is not what I’m good at, and japanese isn’t as hard as you’d think but it is not easy!!)  

Now, though ~ the more I see the more I love, the good and the bad and I could easily see Japan becoming like a second home, despite being labelled a foreigner there probably for the next 100 years, no matter how I dress or what I say or do.

 But it was the best last minute decision I ever made, taking Japanese with English Literature way back when I was choosing courses, and I don’t believe in fate but it’s a popular concept in Japan and if I hadn’t taken it I think Uni level Lit would have chewed me up and spit me out, and I wouldn’t have gone to leeds, met the awesome people I did, and come here to Japan, to konan, to experience this place in the best way physically possible.

I’m digressing into this because when I was at Koya-san it really hit me, the place I went to was the more spiritual side of Japan, something I can’t possibly get across in a blog, but I highly recommend the experience.

I can, however, do the next best thing and give you some pictures!

There are more on my facebook.

Uni week, Kyoto and Lots of Rain

Something both fortunate and unfortunate about Japanese culture affected me on Friday.

UNfortunately, japanese women generally have really small feet.
So when my old sandals snapped at school, and the selotape kept coming off them because of the rain, I was faced with either going the hour and a bit journey home bare footed or else taking up a sensei's offer of borrowing her shoes. So, I had her shoes cutting into the flesh of my toes (and the painful blisters to prove it).

Fortunately, however, the roads around where I live are really clean (like most of Japan). So when I gave up on the torture of the sandles and walked bare foot home after all, it wasn't so bad. I got a few funny looks, but they probabily just thought it was something foreigners do. Discard our shoes in rainy weather ~

I took some pictures of my area when I went wondering around the other day, in case you were interested in the path I walked home with no shoes on.

It's rained quite a lot since then, so I guess autumn is on it's way? It's still too hot for jeans or even tights, but the heat is not as crushing as before.

Concerning the last week, well, it's been a school week, as in nothing new or exciting. Got a softbank mobile, feels good to have contact with people again. Classes are all in Japanese. Host family still being their awesome selves, Tokishi is yet to so much as frown every time I see him ~ and the food they are feeding me is getting more and more Japanese. I had udon with tofu for breakfast, and today I had some spear fish and onigiri (riceballs).

The english people they've hosted before me apparently didn't like japanese food o_0 so i've been compensating for that by eating EVERYTHING they give me (not hard actually) and making it clear that it is delicious. Which it is.

Went to Kyoto to visit Calyx on her birthday and had a great time, saw some amazing shrines and castles. Kyoto is very beautiful and more traditionally Japanese than Kobe, probably because it used to be the capital in Japan before it moved to Edo, modern day Tokyo. But still castles and shrines that were occupied by Shoguns and buddists remain.

Got to witness a traditional japanese wedding ceremony at a shino shrine! Whoo!

The gates to the shrines. Free entry for the win.

Purification before entry into the shrines

Ring bell, clap twice, pray to the shinto gods ~

I felt no guilt in praying to the Shinto gods when I wasn't strictly shinto because a lot of Japanese people are like that. There's a saying, that a japanese person is 'born shinto, marries christian and dies buddist'. Whatever takes their fancy I guess ~

We went to the most popular tourist attraction, the KinKokuji (golden pavilion). Built in the 1600's for the shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa (wiki him) as a pleasure house and then made into a temple by his son (haha), it's a temple covered with gold leaf. A buddist monk accidently knocked over a lamp and burnt some of it 60 years ago, which is how things went a lot of the time with the wooden structures back in the day, but it's beautiful to see.

Apparently it's stunning in the snow of winter and the cherry blossoms in spring, too.

My favourate was Ninomaru Castle, the interior of which was absolutely gorgeous (and smelt really good, a fresh woody smell despite it's age). The art on the walls, ceilings and screens had a lot of symbolism to them that Calyx, having already had a guided tour before, enlightened me on. Like the armoury had hawks on the walls, the hunting bird - and the paisey flowers representing royalty. The shogun had a floor that creaked and made squeaking noises on purpose so that he wouldn't be assassinated by ninjas in his sleep. He called it the 'Nightangle Floor'.

No photos were allowed on the inside to preserve the centuaries old paintings, so here's some of in and around the castle grounds instead:

We walked around a lot, ate, went shopping, and I slept at her dorms for the night. We'd spent a lot of time in a keyring store looking at our fav. characters and a korean pretty boy random stuff store:

Characters popularity are made clear by the price discrepency between them. It was fun looking for them.

 Met up with Amanda who had lost her iPhone within 24 hours of getting it in Kyoto (ouch T-T) and marveled at Calyx's brown tap water. Got up at 6AM Sunday next day (lots of people around) to come home, then left again for another rendezvous.

Met up with friends from Leeds in Sannomiya and had some good times ~

engrish

torii gate, the shinto passage between this world and the next

I'm easily amused..

This week is going to be packed too, I can tell, with a Noh play, Paul's birthday in Kobe, having an interview with the art club sensei (why, though?) and field tripping to a buddist temple over the weekend.

I still haven't gotten my head around everything tbh. I'm just going with the flow.

Thank god the trains are so simple to use  ~

More photos of this weekend are on my facebook.

And Gabrielle, this one's for you ^^:

on the subject of waste and other things...

I made some observations today ~ I spent it out with my family all day on trains around Itami, the airport, a service station (looking for postcards - btw, japanese people never use postcards so they don't exist. Sorry to disapoint those expecting one) and also a bread shop. I've also fallen into the routine of dinner at 7pm with TV, then shower then bed.

You know how when you go shopping in England there's various asian people, black people, red haired people, blonde, brunette, latino mixed whatever - well I've spent the three days here and seriously, I haven't seen a single other gaijin (foreigner) anywhere. For real. Just sayin'.

I watched a program where famous people have to find out which is the girl and which is the boy from a line up (and it's surprisingly difficult! They all look like really cute young girls! Complete with slim legs and pretty faces...) but I couldn't help but think it was a bit cruel to the actual girls being mistaken for men in the line up. They make them do tasks like kiss and throw a ball to help decide whether it's a girl or not, and only in Japan would this kinda thing be entertainment. XD

Other observations I made, is that they're really big on recycling here, which is great. There's special bins everywhere.

Bread is very varied (like melon bread and coloured bread and spicy fish bread and chocolate croissants...)

Frozen ice-cream-filled croissants in the bakery freezer - great idea!

bread slices the colours of the rainbow ~

And no food waste! At least in my family. If 4 year old Tokishi doesn't finish his breakfast, that's what he'll have for lunch. If he doesn't eat his lunch, then its a snack before dinner. And if he doesn't eat dinner, then it's a make shift snack for the next day...and if he doesn't eat it then mum and dad will. No food is wasted, it's a wonderful thing to see.

And food here is always delicious, always well presented, and instead of being piled up in big portions on one plate it's seperated into lots of little portions on little seperate plates.

Now wasn't all that interesting?

Tomorrow I have placement tests,
and I'm getting a Japanese phone (the prepaid deals from Softbank)
and then bowling maybe
and possibly a night out in Osaka with everyone.

The subject of curfew is yet to be breached, but Chihoko gave me a spare house key upon arrival soo...good times ahead I think. :-) xx 

Now for some Doctor Who on TV Links ~

konan uni, izakaya and host family

A lot has happened since Sunday when I first arrived in Osaka. It's been brilliant, and I have the
people I've met to thank for it! There's 33 of us, 13 from America, 5 from University of Leeds and the rest are from France, Canada, Hawaii and Germany. It's been fun.
And it's so hot! Even tights is too much for me to wear. And I've been bitten to buggary already by mosquitos -_-

My host family
has gone to take Tokishi to nursery for a few hours, so I'm left to sort out my stuff and come to grips with the fact that I'm living with a Japanese family!

Takamitsu-san is a buisness man working in Tokyo who speaks fluent English. But because of his work I'll be spending my time with Chihoko-san, who speaks mostly in Japanese and therefore lets me practice my stunted sentences which must sound like that of a 2 year old (and still she insists on how 上手 I am. Ofcourse.)
But the best thing is a) she's hosted a lot of students from all over the world and so knows exactly how things are going to be done and got right down to rules and practicalities and b), she has a 4 year old son and so she is probably used to working out baby talk.

Tokishi-kun was friendly and happy and loving from the start, saying 'Sha-ro-tou! Shaaa-ro-tou!'again and again. He loves me showing pictures of myself for some reason, he has a bad habit of turning stuff off and on again (like my laptop while I'm on it or the light switch) and he seems content with just hanging out in my room. He's determined to make me watch the Transformers dvd until I know it off by heart like him I think, but he's perfect - I'll probably learn more Japanese from him than anywhere else xD God I love kids...

He keeps stealing my chapstick because he likes the smell ~ かわいいね！

The house is small and very Japanese. We kneel at the dinner table and the study room is a tatami room, and it's all very compact and neat.

Meeting with them was a huge ceremony at the hotel, where everyone dressed up real nice, gave speeches and had a buffet.

They made such a big deal out of it that it made me even more nervous, I seriously thought I was going to be sick, but it seems silly in hindsight. There was really nothing to worry about, of course my host family would be understanding.

Hotel Okura in Kobe was amazing, by the way, though I didn't take any pictures for some reason. The all you can eat breakfast was the best part, and the view of Kobe city was a close second.

It was 3 people per room and I was with Caroline from Illinois, America and Marina from Lion, France, and they were awesome. I went out every night after the day of orientation, for the first night to an everything is 280円 居酒屋　（Izakaya).

On the second night we wondered around and found a shop, bought some stuff and sat at the habour (which is great because the temp cools down to warm and comfortable at night from the hot and sticky daytime).



How does one go about eating this?



Third night was the best, where after a day touring the city our Uni is based in, we got together with some of our guides (Japanese Konan Uni students) and went to a bigger Izakaya for some fun times!

 I got to practice japanese with people without feeling embarrased (thanks to the はちみつうめしょ and りんごサオワ ：D) and got my English mocked by a bunch of Americans (It's Jelly, not Jello!) . Later, headed for the habour again to play 20 questions. Got back for about 3am. Got up for 6.30am to get ready to meet my host family for the first time...ahaa yeah.

I met up with my friend from the e-mail swap at Konan, too, and found that she couldn't speak English as well as I'd hoped -_- and by Japanese is pitiful. But maybe that's a good thing, I can practice with her better - I always feel dumb speaking Japanese to a nihonjin who is fluent in english. It seems pointless to stuggle.

I shall leave you now with these pics while I go compile my list of stuff to get and do this week (like buy a mobile, open a japanese bank account etc). Remember to keep your skype on guys if you ever want to speak to me this year x

ice cream and luminous green pop

food is displayed as delicious looking plastic models in most windows instead of photos 

'We English Speak'