catching up

Oops, busy month. So a couple days after my last entry, I went to Osaka with C-chan. Work was canceled for that week, so we had some free time, and we were sick sick sick of the aftershocks. Osaka was so calm! It was really nice to relax for a little while, although there was some ever-present stress about how much packing needed to be done in Tokyo to move out of our apartments. Anyway, managed to book a room the night before and then shinkansened there first thing Thursday morning. It was a clear day, so we were lucky enough to have a gorgeous view of Fuji-san for ages! Visited the aquarium, had okonomiyaki, met up with some friends. Went to Kyoto as well to visit Kinkakuji and wander up to Kiyomizu-dera (I was devastated to discover that the amazing vegetarian restaurant from my last Kyoto visit was gone). Got back to Tokyo on Sunday; after the normalcy of Osaka, the empty shelves, infrequent trains, and dark stations of Tokyo were really strange. But it didn't take long to get used to it.

Finished work at the end of March. My last week was so hard! I didn't expect to get so emotional. But I ended up crying so much, after classes, during classes, during our farewell party. I was ready to leave, but it was a bit sad too. I'll miss so many people there! I had a week off and then got talked into working a bit longer, but at a different school. So I've been helping out at Toyosu school for a couple weeks. Am going to stay on for about a month more, then hopefully a vacation and then super hopefully another job!

During my week off, I moved. I'm living in a guest house now, which means I've got my own room, but bathroom and kitchen are shared. It's not bad! I mean, the place is ridiculously ugly, but it's kind of so ugly that I just can't hate it. And I quite like the area, and I like that utilities and internet are included in my rent so I don't need to worry about them. Anyway, I'm not homeless, so I'm pretty happy!

Lots of friend time this weekend! And lovely weather! We're still shaking a lot and things aren't back to normal, but I'm feeling pretty content.

Osaka Odyssey

Last weekend Andrew and I had a Kansai adventure! After work on Saturday night, I met him in Shinjuku and we got some dinner. Sweets Paradise, obviously a brilliant choice for an amount of food to eat before getting on a bus all night. After getting our all-you-can-eat money's worth, we and our cake babies managed to find the spot where we got our bus (totally just on some random sidewalk). We enjoyed the fact that our bus said "Fantastic Story" on the side, but night bus is neither the most luxurious nor the most comfortable way to travel. We enjoyed listening to music, and I enjoyed looking out the window when we were driving through the countryside (so many stars!), but sleeping was not really enjoyed.

Got to Osaka very early on Sunday morning and proceeded to get lost. Eventually found ourselves at that most Japanese of establishments, Starbucks. After breakfast and relaxing (the super comfy chairs were lovely after the bus), we visited Osaka castle where we took pictures and ate pineapple. Then it was about time for Wicked! First order of business on entering the theatre was to stop by the merchandise booth. I kind of wanted to buy everything; they had really good merchandise. I managed to restrain myself a bit and only purchased the souvenir program, an Elphaba phone charm, and a pouch with all the characters on it, super manga style! Then the show, which was totally fantastic! Really interesting to see it in Japanese (didn't understand it all, of course, but easy to follow since, oh, I'm pretty familiar with the show). Obviously some things don't translate well, linguistically or culturally, so it was interesting to notice how they translated some things (for instance, at the beginning of "What Is This Feeling?", where in English Elphaba sums up Galinda by calling her blonde, in Japanese she just flat out called her stupid). After the show, we checked into our super luxurious hotel, then went to the aquarium. After visiting our aquatic acquaintances, we had okonomiyaki, then headed back to our station and went to karaoke. Dessert from the conbini, probably our most bizarre photoshoot ever (recreating the Wicked poster), then sleeping (in a real bed! glorious!).

Planned to get up super early in the morning to go to Nara. Ended up resetting the alarm several times, but still got a good start, although we were pretty zombie-like for a while . It was a beautiful day (lovely weather the whole time, actually, sunny and pleasantly not cold), and it was fantastic visiting Nara. I'd been there before, but Andrew hadn't, so it was really enjoyable for me to get to see his reaction to THE DEER OF DOOM. I'd told him that they were everywhere, but he hadn't quite believed the extent of the craziness. We wandered a little at a temple I hadn't visited last time and then went to Todai-ji, which I had. It was lovely again! On our way back to the station, and for the sake of our documentary (there was a lot of videotaping going on all weekend), I plucked up my courage and fed the deer again. Made the great decision to not do it in the area near Todai-ji where there are a million deer and instead did it in an area where there were, like, two. Neither of them tried to bite me, so much more successful than last time! I was still kind of terrified though.

From Nara to Kyoto (nice nap on the train in between)! We went to Gion where we did some shopping (super luxurious Disney + WA-Qu store!) and found an amaaaaazing vegetarian restaurant. It was delicious and we were the only customers and it was kind of like it existed just for us. I got avocado taco rice , and it was so fantastic. Vegetarianism is in short supply in Japan, so it was a really lucky find! After a stop to sample and purchase yatsuhashi (my favorite Kyoto sweet, and maybe favorite Japanese sweet in general), we went to Kiyomizu-dera. It was my third time to visit, but it was well worth going again. It was almost closing time when we got there, so it wasn't crowded, and the atmosphere was so different in the dark. Really beautiful and a bit spooky and just lovely. We headed back to Kyoto station after and enjoyed Starbucks and karaoke (we weren't sure about the amazingness of it before we eventually discovered a treasure trove of DisneySea songs) before getting the bus back to Tokyo.

It was such an amazing weekend! I was pretty impressed that we managed to do as much as we did in the short time we had, especially as it felt like we were doing things at a pretty leisurely pace. It was lovely to visit Kansai again - both to revisit placed I'd loved before and to see some new things - and see the show and just relax. Happiness!

But the company was kind of the best part.

Day 4: Kyoto (Daitoku-ji and Arashiyama)

My last day in Kyoto was not quite as templetastic as the day before, but was still pretty great! I first visited Daitoku-ji, which is a huge temple that has lots of subtemples. You could spend a lot more time there than I did (and I was there for quite a while), but I really enjoyed what I saw. I especially liked Daisen-in, which had a really fantastic zen garden, complete with really good explanation of what everything in it and the patterns in the sand meant. Super interesting! But no pictures allowed, sorry!

After that, I headed to the Arashiyama area, which was where we visited the bamboo forest and monkey mountain before. I visited the big temple there, Tenryu-ji, which has a really lovely garden (and which is bordered by the bamboo forest). I also visited Nonomiya-jinja, which is a shrine in the bamboo forest. And then I ate matcha ice cream and bought souvenirs and headed back to Kyoto Station where I ate soup and bought more souvenirs and then got on the shinkansen and came home. It was a lovely, lovely, lovely vacation!

Enjoy five pictures of Tenryu-ji (the first and the last four) and six at Daitoku-ji.







And now, your moment of zen.

Day Three: Kyoto (Tetsugaku no Michi, Fushimi Inari, and dessert)

My third day in Kyoto was templetastic, a lot creepy, and very delicious!

First, the templetastic. My friend had recommended a temple that is very close to a lot of other temples, along a path called Tetsugaku no Michi (the Philosopher's Path, named for a philosophy professor who walked along it and meditated every day or something), so I decided to just hang out in that area and visit a bunch of them. A good decision! The first temple I visited, Nanzen-ji, turned out to be one of my favorite temples I've ever been to. It was really peaceful and beautiful, and there was a cool aqueduct and some cool screens (no pics allowed, sorry) with tigers and leopards on them (at the time, they thought leopards were female tigers!) and a nice zen garden. Next I visited Eikan-do (my friend's recommendation), which was also really fantastic. Very peaceful and beautiful! They have a Buddha in an unusual pose there (again, sorry, no pics allowed), looking back over his shoulder to make sure he's not leaving you behind or something.

Then a small shrine, Otoyo-jinja, which I had to myself. There were some cute animal statues there! Then back the temples with Honen-ji, which was very pretty, and Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion, although it never received its intended silver coating), which is one of the more famous places in Kyoto. It is similar (on purpose) to Kinkaku-ji (the Golden Pavilion), which we visited last time. It is being renovated, but since I was close, I decided I should check it out anyway, and I'm glad I did! The renovation wasn't, like, covering up the entire building or anything. And there was super interesting sand!

Next, the creepiness! I had been planning on leaving that area and heading to another big temple, but by the time I finished, there wasn't time to get there before it closed (sometimes inconvenient thing about temples and shrines: they close early), so I decided to go to Fushimi Inari shrine, which is 24 hours. We visited last time (the place with all the torii), but did not have time to climb all the way up the path, so I really wanted to finish it. Unfortunately, it got dark while I was climbing. This was cool at first; there are some lights on the path, and it was kind of great to be walking through all the torii in the dim light. And then everyone around me disappeared. And then it got really dark. And then there were weird noises in the forest. And then I got super super super freaked out and had to give up and turn back.

Finally, deliciousness. After the scariness of Fushimi Inari in the dark, I needed some happiness, so when I got back to Kyoto Station, I headed for that matcha dessert place we had visited last time. There was a much shorter wait this time! And I could enjoy the nice view of Kyoto and eat a delicious parfait and relax and not feel creeped out anymore! A nice end to a (mostly) nice day!

Enjoy four pictures of Nanzen-ji, six pictures of Eikan-do, two pictures of Otoyo-jinja, one of Tetsugaku no Michi, two of Honen-in, and two of Ginkaku-ji.

Day One: Kyoto (Higashiyama-ku)

So after my amazing shinkansen trip, I arrived in Kyoto in the afternoon. I had been up late the night before at a Halloween party, so I was kind of tired, and it was raining, so I decided to not bother trying to figure out how to get to a new sightseeing spot and just went back to Kiyomizu-dera. It was very pretty in the rain, although I got annoyed at being crammed together with a bunch of umbrellas while I waited to drink the water.

Afterwards, I enjoyed sampling yatsuhashi and walking back to civilization via Sannen-zaka and Ninen-zaka, in the preservation district. Much less crowded than last time we were there, and the atmosphere was very nice in the rain and the ever-increasing darkness. Please enjoy walking with me down Ninen-zaka in this video!

And enjoy a few pictures of the temple and my walk there! It was nice not having to fight through a huge crowd of people this time!