BeroBero

This weekend we went on a trip to Kanazawa. I’m still not exactly sure where that is, but it’s a two hour train ride from Kyoto Station. Before I start on that though, Christian our DA is really sick and in the hospital. I think he’s a bit better now, poor guy, but Dorsey’s class got cancelled on Thursday because he was taking Christian to the doctor. So Free day wooot. No it was really only half an hour free. But anyway, so at one thirty we ventured through Kyoto with one of the office aids at our school to this place where we did a traditional dye workshop. It was so much fun! We each got a thin scarf (furoshiki) and got to pick out stencil-ish things that

(*okay side note—I would just like to point out that I am currently eating little tiny fish. You can see the eyeballs still….. at least I think they’re fish……….)

we would put the dye over. I did one with my own pattern. A lot of people used just one big pattern because the cloth was fairly large, but I picked this phoenix thing with mountains and a sun. I think it looks pretty cool haha I dunno. So that was really great. We also walked twenty minutes from the bus stop there and back to the bus stop in pouring rain. I was soaked through haha it was a problem. The rainy season is supposed to have ended…. Definitely rained yesterday. I don’t remember what we did on Friday really…. Oh no, I do. I did chores because I wasn’t going to be there on Saturday morning when we usually do them. So Saturday morning I got up really early, had breakfast at like six or something and biked to Gaby’s house at seven. We then got on a bus to Kyoto Eki where we took a train to Kanazawa.

            We took a bus to another station (the transportation details are a little fuzzy at this point, it being Wednesday.. my apologies.) and from there walked to the Ryokan (Japanese style Inn) where we would be staying. Then we went off and did some sightseeing. That area is really pretty. We went to this weird modern art museum thing which didn’t really appear to have much art. Although, we just got tired halfway through and sat down in the lobby (we also got the meeting up time wrong so..) and joked around, getting stared at by random Japanese people who probably thought we were ridiculous. Although, we did get an EXCELLENT rendition of the dramatic chipmunk from Miraa-san (if you haven’t watched that on youtube- ‘dramatic chipmunk’- I strongly encourage you to do so.) and a lot of random dancing was involved. The museum was pretty cool though. It was interactive so you would walk through a bunch of mirrors or look at this giant fabric thing that looked like a hole. There was an invisible wall maze, that was entertaining. We put on these headband things that buzzed every time you hit a wall. I wasn’t exactly sure where the thing ended, but oh well. There was also this thing that, from the top looked like a pool, but when you looked down into, there were people! I then figured out that you’re supposed to go downstairs to the basement floor and you stand under the “pool” which is actually a large pit with a piece of glass over it. The glass had water running on top of it, it was sooo neat. Before that though we went to this really pretty … temple? No I’m not exactly sure what it was. It wasn’t a temple, but it had a lot of gorgeous garden areas and water and this really tall statue. It’s really nice being able to see all kinds of greenery everywhere. The architectural work is stunning. We saw this lantern thing made of stone that was supposed to have had three legs at one point, but apparently one fell down and they just left it that way. Looked like it was doing fine with two.. So that was great.

            Back at the hotel, some people used the “onsen.” That’s supposed to be a hotspring/giant public bath, but at this ryokan it was really only a bigish ofuro (a hot bath) that constantly is pouring small amounts of water into it. It was pretty, but I was always scared some rando was going to walk in on me, so I went really fast and didn’t exactly get as much enjoyment out of it as I should have maybe. That night was absolutely a mess. We were up quiet late with some of our friends who had a bit too much to drink. We got a cool comradery experience out of it though, the sober ones. And a bit closer with the others too, I believe. So the next day, we all got up exhausted and had breakfast in the main dining hall thing. Oh! That’s another thing, the inn fed us this beautiful dinner the night before too. We did it in the style of a tradition Japanese drinking party, is what sensei said. He then added, but we can’t order alcohol for you guys, so it’ll just be Yukari and I (his wife)! He’s great hahaha. Apparently in a traditional Japanese drinking party, everyone sits in hierarchal order, the lowest at the bottom and the highest with his back to.. shoot I forgot what it’s supposed to be, but in our case it was just a wall-sensei being the highest. Fun fact, Miraa-san hates fish and Anna is a pescatarian (which they humorously took to mean vegetarian, so she was rather disgruntled when she didn’t get any fish and instead got a bunch of soggy vegetables haha), so they sat at the very bottom. Coincidence? Maybe… haha anyway we all sat on cushions with the low one-person tables. Oh it was so cool! So that’s how breakfast was set up too. Brian and Sugi sat closer to sensei at breakfast because they wanted to up their standing ahahah. So after breakfast we all packed up our stuff and put it in a front room for us to come back and get later. We took a bus? Train? I forgot. On Sunday and then walked forever to get to this cool little place where we made rice crackers! We put the flat rice cracker in this prong forkish thing, only you put it inbetween to clamps (sorry it’s sory of hard to explain) and hold it in a kiln(right word? I dunno) and flip it over a few times and the thing expands! Then you place the cracker in the opposite direction in the clamp thing so it gets rid of the original line that was made. Sorry that probably didn’t really make sense. But it was SO COOL to watch the tiny cracker expand to this huge one. Oh man. That was when Brian, Sugi, and I decided that we were going to make sensei and Yukari a cult following (obviously very much joking. Cults are bad.). Brian would be president, I’d be vice president, and Sugi would be secretary. Then we made a tshirt design! Most important thing I learned from this weekend: When all else fails, do what Yukari-san does. Sensei told me that wise piece of information. She’s the real nihon-jin (Japanese person) after all. So after that we went to this famous place I forgot the name of and were allotted an hour and a half to check the place out and get lunch and do whatever.

            We ended up meeting these three Japanese college girls wearing Yukata who wanted to practice their English. They toured us around the place, which had these really cool old buildings, most of which were tea houses. We also saw this temple and they showed up to a great place where we ate shaved ice and ice cream. We then had half an hour left so the six of us, calling ourselves KI-6, walked around a bit and found this really shallow river. So we took our shoes off and walked across it to the other side and sat in the shade a bit before we had to go back to meet everyone at the bus stop. We met these cute thirteen year old school girls who were obsessed with miraa-san. He got them to splash Juliana and it was hilarious. So we walked back to the bus stop and from there went to this gold leaf museum. I was just happy to sit down, frankly. It was really cool though, we watched this video on how they make it. They take gold I think mixed with copper and they pound it with a hammer. Then they do it again and it’s something like 1/10,000 of a mm or something ridiculous like that. So pretty. Then we went back to ryokan, grabbed our stuff,  and took a train back to Kyoto. At the station we split up and had dinner. Our group had okonomiyaki which was great as always and then we went home. I had to take a bus back to Gaby’s with her because my bike was there, then I exhaustedly rode home, took a shower, and went to bed. Good weekend.

            Monday nothing really happened. Tuesday we gave our presentations on a famous place in Japan. I’ve been really good about doing my work, I’ll just let you all know. My granddad would be proud. I think he would even say “Keep up the good work!” Hahah I would also like to take this opportunity to lament over the fact that I’m missing camping in Carlsbad right now and it’s very upsetting. Today we’re going to make Wagayashi! (Japanese confectionary things) So pumped! I made it with Yuki and Rei a couple weeks ago. Can’t wait! Last night we went the four of us (Yuki, Rei, and Takanari) to an Udon restaurant (noodles). The service was so great!!!! They took our order while we were waiting so we basically sat down and then got our food. Also as we were leaving, a couple of them followed us out, thanking us and waving and stuff. I was amazed haha. So yeah, today should be fun. This week is Gion Matsuri festival! Until later,

Jya~