The sun, some clouds and the moon

Happy Halloween! Had a really great Friday of crisp beautiful autumn weather and a great Halloween lesson with my favourite class, as showed below! The students in that class are just such a pleasure to teach and whether actually interested or not, the always manage to feign interest in my class so for all their hard work, we made origami pumpkins! It was a great day!

Then after school I had Nikki meet me at the train station and we went to Kofu for the evening. We stopped at one of my favourite shrines, with all the zodiac animal as statues in this little grove of woods tucked to the back, at sunset. It was lovely and the lighting was warm and gorgeous! After we did a bit of shopping and went out for curry for dinner!

The next morning we had to be up earlyish to take the train to Kamakura! It was a brilliant blue day to contrast the white sky I encountered last time. We didn’t have as much time as last so I took Nikki to what I believed was the best of the best that Kamakura had to offer: Hase temple, daibutsu, Zeninari Benten shrine, Hachimangu shrine and of course a bit of the hiking trails I loved so much from last time!

Hasedera was as beautiful as ever but less crowded this time and we enjoyed strolling about, through the caves and the path of prospects and after shared a steam bun and looked at the hawk dappled view of Kamakura. Next it was to the great Buddha where we ran into some university students from Tokyo in an English communications degree who asked if it would be okay to give us a tour so that was fun as we ate some ice cream!

 

Next I dragged Nikki up into the hills to follow a hiking trail to the next shrine. The weather was the perfect temperature and all the hikers were in such pleasant moods that the Japanese and gaijin alike were actually quite friendly and talkative. The Benten srhine is dedicated to the snake goddess which is related to wealth and with less crowds I was actually able to go and wash my money this time in order to double my luck with money! Fingers crossed this time! The shrine was so cool with the way it’s hollowed into a hill so that the easiest way to it is through a cave tunnel and little caves within the shrine hold koi fish and islands of lanterns and shrines built into the rock!

As it was past four now, in Japan that means the sun is setting… so with one more stop we had to pick up the pace and only got side tracked by a few cute chops and maybe a warm cup of coffee, but it all worked out for when we arrived at the last shrine we were blessed with a gorgeous sunset and the shrine all lit up brilliant in a way that made it shine brighter and the twilight sky bluer. I stood at the top of the stairs for a long time thinking there was nothing more beautiful than watching the sun set between the lanterns over the town from the vantage point of a shrine, until a slim crescent of the moon seemed to appear from nowhere, completing the portrait of beauty! 

We finished the day with canned hot chocolate from a vending machine, that actually comes out hot!, and then dinner at the café before retiring to our hostel in Yokohama!

On Sunday I took Nikki to Enoshima! It was a great day but to make up from the blue sky in Kamakura, there was a white one over the island. Regardless we had a great morning, climbing up and over the islands hill and admiring each of the little shrines on the way before spending an hour or so playing around in the tidal pool and watching the fishermen at work. There were these cute little neon blue fish and tiger striped fish in the pools and we think we saw a puffer fish but I couldn’t scare if enough to puff!

In the afternoon we went to Tokyo for dinner and then headed home after a great weekend but not before I snapped a few shots of a strange parade that went by and nighttime in Shibuya!

This weekend Nikki goes home… it feels so weird that there is still five months to go and a small part of me would like to go home with her as I miss my friends and family and food! But, another part of me knows I’m not ready yet! Still loving Japan! 

All things bright and beautiful

The weather turned cold and gloomy after Kanazawa. Had a long week. Taught at a high school on my Saturday, which was… and experience. I’m definitely an elementary teacher. Then took Kevin to a judo tournament on Sunday and watched kendo and karate and wandered a little festival in Kofu enjoying a bit of sun and an apple pastry that tasted of not enough sugar. Then we went for Subway and I remembered what a real sandwich tasted like before the weekend ended and led into a slightly better week. There was a full moon, a praying mantis and a cool cloudy sunset over Fuji and then it was the weekend to which I would be rewarded with!

Just in time to combat a bit of homesick Nikki arrived with all my favourites: skittles, coffee crisp, smarties, St. Ives apricot exfoliating scrub and my best friend! We had a fabulous weekend in Tokyo despite it being rainy and ridiculously warm and humid for October. We went out for ramen and curry and did some shopping and had a fabulous time!

However the highlight was the concert that I had bought tickets for in the second month I was here and back when my Japanese was so awful that I stumbled over ‘concert ticket o kaitai desu.’ Maybe I didn’t even get that out as it took thirty minutes before I conveyed to the combini clerk what I actually wanted. But in the end I had two floor tickets to see Owl City in Tokyo!

`Reality is a love place but I wouldn’t want to live there.`

Owl City is by far my favourite music! Adam Young, the singer, composer and master of every musical instrument and words, was absolutely stunning and it was such a nice cozy venue! So many words came to mind as I listened but now I’m at a loss for them. It’s such a magical form of music that makes me sway my hips and clap my bangled clad wrists in the air so I’m greeted with a view of Adam framed in a sea of rejoicing arms and the chime like sound of my jewelry chorusing his beautiful lyrics.

`Back and forth if my heart was a compass you’d be north

Risk it all because I’ll catch you if you fall

Wherever you go if my heart was a house you’d be home.`

Needless to say it was amazing and so worth it! During Fireflies he had the audience sing the chorus and everyone knew it! (A feat remember as I was in a crowd of non-English speakers.) As one of the songs overplayed in Canada, hearing him sing it outloud to us gave it a new light and I loved it again as much as I did the first time I heard it.

Walking back to the guesthouse I could have cared less that I seemed crazy as I danced my way home twirling in circles and pulling at random fragments of his lyrics to patch together into a resembling song. It was a warm night and a shiver of past excitement still energized me as I fell asleep humming.

The next morning we went to the Sunshine City Aquarium in Ikebukuro and saw some pretty cool fish and sharks and assorted sea creatures! There were this really cute little wormy guys who peaked out of the sand and one stood alone striped orange and black while the others were sand coloured so he was really cute. And we saw sunfish which I have never seen up close before but they were huge! There was this pretty neat tank that had a cave like design and little glowy fish and another section that had all sorts of jelly fish including one that looked like red eyes. In the outdoor section there were sea lions that had this cool figure eight tank above us and there were penguins and pelicans as big as me at feeding time that dove their head in this little tank to open their mouths wide enough to eat me. But the biggest surprise and my favourite thing there had nothing to do with water! Two little fenix foxes played in a corner of a habitat with a lemur and three armadillo! It was really random but I love! foxes! So I didn’t mind that they seemed more than a little out of place! They were so so so so SO cute!!! We watched them for forever until dragged away by hunger we ate pizza and tiramisu for lunch and slowly made our way back to the guesthouse to collect our things.

 

 

 

 

Three hours later found us back in Otsuki sharing a meal with Kevin and being thoroughly exhausted. It was such a good weekend but do I ever love home! It’s nice having Nikki share it with me for a couple of weeks! A common cure for a bit of homesickness and now I can share some of my favourite places with here! This weekend I am revisiting Kamakura and Enoshima!

Across Japan in a weekend

This past long weekend I finally got to go on a trip I have wanted to do for months. Go to Kanazawa, the city of gold, which is on the west coast of Japan. Anywhere else I wouldn’t dream of crossing the country in a day but with Japan it’s was feasible. So off we went in this little piece of crap car (mine has been in the shop… for three weeks) north and then west through the Japanese Alps and the beginning of Autumn to Shirakawa and then Kanazawa by night fall.

We had to take these ridiculously windy mountain roams up through mountains that made us vow to take the tolled expressways back, but our reward was the famous Shirakawa village. The village is in this little valley and has the best preserved and oldest thatched roofed wooden houses in Japan. The best part about them is unlike other places in Japan, where buildings are moved within a park to make them more approachable and tourist-friendly, the Shirakawa village has a real feeling to it because all the buildings have been left where they are and they are. A lookout point looks down over the village and the mountains and our lucky blue sky with the warm afternoon sun. We had the most perfect weather and once down wandering through the houses and rice field the lighting complimented all of the sights so well it was like walking through a painting. It was very atmospheric with the breeze and a smell of sandalwood in the air, the purple and yellow flowers and rice like brush grasses and little red hot pepper lining small gardens, ponds filled with koi fish, (and little toy ducks) and a gentle blue sky caressing the landscape.

 

 

The rest of the afternoon was dedicated to making it to Kanazawa, finding some maps and dinner (delicious chicken katsu that was the size of both my hands and warm tea), settling down at the guest house (with its awkward angled walls and unfortunate taste in television XD) and having a soak in the common bath. Rhee and I had the unfortunate luck of both being a little sick so we called it an early night with plans for an early morning.

 Morning found us leaving the hostel at just after seven so we could make an early start to the main attraction of Kanazawa; the famous _____ garden. It is the second of the top three in Japan that I have been to but is considered by some as the best in Japan! It was definitely gorgeous in the early morning light as we beat some of the larger crowds. What makes it truly unique is the two legged lantern standing in the pond, and to my luck, right beneath a maple tree that has eagerly begun to change colour already! That combined with its perfect reflection in the still pond made for a breathtaking sight! The rest of the garden was of course beautiful but it was the lantern that sets it apart. Also notable was the statue of the mythical prince Yamato Takeru, that was dedicated to the warriors who died in the Satsuma Rebllion in 1877.

 

 

 

After the garden we strolled into this quieter path of trees and sunlight where we found a sacred well, shrine and the remains of a samurai house. The shrine was beautiful and playing soft music for a baby’s christening. The well was where the name Kanazawa originated, the marsh of gold. We passed by what remains of Kanazawa castle but I believe they are working on reconstructing it. As late morning fell, we walked to the old quarters of the town which is a well preserved Edo style district. It’s where Kanazawa gets its other claim to fame as the Kyoto of the west. Lining the street are classy geisha houses and fancy shop that sell the prettiest gold I’ve ever seen. The city claims that 99 per cent of the gold leafing found in Japan comes from Kanazawa and to exhibit this one store has gold plated an entire building within the little courtyard of their shop. I overheard a store clerk say we were lucky for the good weather as it makes the walls shine even golder!

 

 

 

In the afternoon we collected the car, which had been taking a well deserved break at the hostel, and headed north up the Noto peninsula. There I got to go one of the coolest things ever in a car! Drive on a beach designed for such! It was so much fun! I parked eventually and we played on the beach and collected rocks and then drove a bit further and watched some fishermen pull in their catch. This was all interesting, although a little gruesome to watch, until the pulled in a manta ray and instead of freeing it, they pulled it from the net so the crowd could watch it die on the sand. I was disgusted and longed to grow enough courage to jump out of the crowd and throw the poor creature back to sea. It’s not like it is good for anything like the fish, it may be the one sea creature I haven’t seen served… Instead of being the hero I wanted to be I cowardly slunk back to the car and gave Rhee a chance to drive. In the end we parked at a series of shops and saw these amazing sand sculptures and enjoyed Blue Hawaiian ice cream floats as we watched a sports car attempt sand donuts. I decided I hadn’t quite had enough so I drove a bit further up the beach before turning around only to attempt a sand doughnut of my own and succeed where the shiny red sports car had failed! Good job piece of crap car!

 

We continued our way up the coastline and stopped only at a little shrine before coming across what I’d set my eye on! I rocky coast line with a hole in the giant cliff side! It was a marvelous place where one side of the bay had rocky tide pools so deep and clear not a fish could escape my glance and the other side a tunnel through the rocks gave way to a cave with an exceptional view of said hold in the rock. With the afternoon sun in our favour for a second time in a row I was able to snap some great pictures before searching for the perfect spot for sunset. I found it at another set of married rocks on the opposite coast of the first. But, the original married rocks do not have one with a hold in it and a little shrine on top! These ones were a little more magnificent in my books and with the brilliant gold setting sun there was little more I could ask for after a glorious day!

The next morning it was time to set back home but not before squeezing out one last amazing day out of the long weekend. On my last trip to Japan I was taken by this small city up in the mountains. It was where I believe both Nikki and I truly fell in love with Japan. Takayama is the a quiet city with a very peaceful air, a lazy river with herons and gold koi, a forest shine, many quiet roads lined with heritage houses, my favourite little shrine in all of Japan, with its own purifying fountain and soundtrack of the river from the bank it sits on, a morning market where I enjoyed freshly cut local apples from the same stall this time as last and one of the three most magnificent festivals of Japan which was its lure this weekend as if the rest was not enough for me to return. The festival marks the beginning of Autumn in Takayama as ten amazing floats are placed on display for the only time of the year to be admired on this particular day to a backdrop of blue sky and edo styled houses and to the sound of traditional music. We made our way through the market and the festival stalls: eating roast pita, a chocolate covered banana, little round honey donuts and coffee flavoured ice cream until we were swept into the crowd heading for the shrine. The shrine was as I remembered, tucked into the edge of the forest and a shrine higher up the hill provided a much need break from the crowds. We enjoyed the atmosphere just strolling circles around the town, sitting by the river and watching the parade of locals in old style garb as they paraded the god, Hachiman sama who usually resides in the main shrine, around the town. It was such a wonderful day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The drive home was long as I weaved back through the mountains and their anxious fall foliage into the dark and nearly full moon until home at last I collapsed in bed and slept the rest of the night away. It was a fantastic weekend! I couldn’t have asked for a better time, or better weather or better anything! I’m so lucky to be living to the fullest! Ja ne!