kanazawa

I just got back from my field trip to kanazawa so I wanted to write this down before I forgot the details. Ok so the plan was to meet saturday morning. It was at 8:30 so I thought thats about the time I arrive at school normally I'll just leave a little bit earlier so while on the train I noticed that the paper said to meet at 8:15. I was really worried at this point but ridding a train you can't do anything about it. I started to run once I left the station (even though it was still like 8:07) and only stopped when I saw other ryugakusei. I worry so much about being late to things. So as always we waited around and didn't leave even close to our scheduled time, one ryugakusei pak (big afro guy in the pictures, really fun guy by the way) was really late so we waited for him.

The bus was one of those really tall buss where you can put luggage and what not in the bottom. There was a section in the back where like 8 people could sit around a table me, emily, and erin (I hang out with those two a lot) plus a few other people sat back there and we had so much fun. We tried to get 4 players going at final fantasy crystal chronicles but it would keep getting disconnected for some reason. We were playing the pirated rom version but still we were confused as to why we couldn't get there. I felt a little bad because that game can only do 4 players and emily wanted to play something wifi but just played phoenix wright instead. While on the trip we played a lot of mario kart and tetris (courtney is really freaking good at tetris and kicked our buts) and I started to read batman the dark knight returns on my mini laptop.

(forgot this part and added it later) We stopped for lunch in the same town as the temple and it was a traditional Japanese style restaurant. It had tatami floors, and we sat on the square pillows and had the square trays. It was various vegetables and cold tempura and some soba. My taste buds must just not have adjusted the same way other's have because the food was barely edible, some of it just wasn't. Some people really liked it, I dunno why. After we ate we had a few mins at the gift shop on the first floor. I saw something so bad their, it was a cross with Jesus on it but then it had skulls with red eyes around it and the key chain package said horror series. Its so crazy how few Christians there are here and even how little Japanese people know about it. At the scheduled time most of us gathered up but two people Healy and Patrick ran off on their own somewhere. Those two can really frustrate me sometimes. Healy is the stereotypical California bimbo and Patrick is the stereotypical gay guy. Separate they don't annoy me, Patrick is even in my Japanese class and not a bad guy, but together ugh its painful. Truth be told I don't know why they annoy me but the example of them just going off on their own when we are supposed to be a group and stuff is a good example. If you just think of those stereotypes you'll understand.

We first arrived after a few hours to eiheiji which means temple of eternal piece. It was a really cool temple but was really cool was the amazing fall colors (kouyo), I took a lot of pictures but was worried about my camera's battery running out when I needed it so I held back taking a crazy amount of them. The word temple might not be the best translation the more I think about it. It feels very much like a tourist trap in my opinion. You can buy little souvenirs from the temple and talismans things like that. It is a place where there are statues and pictures of gods and Buddhas but their isn't a very strong sense of reverence. I really want to learn more about Buddhism because I don't even know if you can really call it a religion in a Western sense, its like its just about discovering your own mind through meditation rather then your actions having any consequences.

Any ways after we were rushed out of that we headed towards this amazing sea shore and took a boat ride. The sight was breathtaking but because we were behind schedule they rushed us down to the boat for the boat tour. This shore has these very particular shape rocks that are only found in 3 places in the world. The boat ride was very cool, espically since I haven't really been out on the ocean since I was very little living in Washington. The pictures really speak for themselves at this part so I won't try and describe it in vain. After the boat ride we were once again rushed along back to the boat, even though we all tried to steal a few more pictures.

We rode for another hour or so until we arrived at our hotel in Kanazawa. This was the weirdest hotel I've ever seen. We all got individuals (because apparently its the cost per person regardless of amount of rooms) and it was very small but functional I suppose. The bathroom was really small and slightly off the ground so you had to step into it. The way the whole thing felt it was like being in an airplane bathroom. Also it was a regular key, not a card key, and they gave you toothbrush and toothpaste. When you enter the room you have to insert the stick attached to the key into this hole in the wall for the lights to work.

So every dropped their stuff off and we went off to get some food because we were starving. Kanazawa isn't as packed as even sannomiya is so it had just that normal city vibe which is kind of nice every once in a while. We wanted to go to the conveir belt sushi place but their was a big group of us and lots of people in front of us so me emily and erin ended up eating at a Chinese restaurant. After that lunch we wanted something with a lot of meat and it was pretty good despite the gunsa being too buttery for some reason. After that we walked around a bit and saw some really cool lights and some modern art statues but didn't go too far away from the hotel. We ended up turning in like around 9 and I layed in bed until 11 reading more of that batman comic. My little laptop works really well for it resolution wise. I couldn't sleep very well last night, the AC wasn't working right, the pillow was really bad and stuff like that.

We had breakfast at this buffet called the olive garden (no relation to the state one) and it was pretty lack luster, I just had some scrambled eggs and bread. After the usual lateness of everyone we turned in all of our keys and headed off, one group was going to the geisha district the other was going to this kimono painting place. It was raining of course and would continue until we went home. At the kimono place they gave us this handkerchief with a flower design on it and using stencils we painted in the color. None of us really understood the explanation apparently because if you swirl the brush around it works much better so everyone's first leaves looked terrible. We all wanted to use different colors and mix them but the lady was really against it. If we wanted to change the color we made sure she wasn't around. Mine turned out ok, I just wish I could have had a practice one first. So they had a cool shop with this fancy cloth paint on it, most of it crazy expensive though.

After some walking and getting distracted we ended up at the big park, and after waiting for the other group we finally got to see some of this park with a guide. The place is huge and so beautiful and I did my best with my camera to take decent pictures but I dunno, that camera kind of sucks and I kind of want to get a better one (but I doubt I will).

We then had free time from 11:30 to 1:45, Christy made reservations at this ninja temple but it was at 12:00, we would have had to take a taxi, and we couldn't find Christy so that didn't happen. After more waiting around for people we got some food and did a little shopping before it was time to head back. At starbucks I saw these two girls in their Lolita clothes and I asked to take a picture and they let me but they were really shy about it. I don't get, don't you put all of that time and money into the costume so that you will get attention from strangers?

From there it was time to go home and the bus ride was fun, we played SO much mario kart. And Les kept calling bullet bill, billy the bullet and every time someone got that item we would yell it out to freak out all of the other players. It was a lot of fun. All in all it was a really fun trip but now I only have a little bit of time to do some homework, geez chotto iya ne