So the first noteworthy thing I did this week was go see watchmen at nishinomiya gardens. Now this movie came out almost a month ago in America but it was only a few days after the japanese release that I saw it. In a nut shell I think it was 4 out of 5 stars. It pretty much did everything a film adaptation of the graphic novel needed, the different ending still worked, but the music selection was terrible. The music made for the movie was really good but every popular song that was put in didn't fit the scene at all an I think really hurt the movie. It was also really bloody. Like the comic is supposed to be dark and serious and people do get murdered but I felt uncomfortable how much gore there was. But the biggest thing about the movie is the fact that Dr. Manhattan is naked for almost the whole thing. They could have made him have a loin cloth that he wears in the Vietnam scene but they chose not to for some reason.
So nothing big really happened in school this week. Well the Japanese students started coming back to school so its more crowded now. Thursday night we made bean dip and soft tacos at church and that was pretty fun. I really like mexican food so even so so stuff tastes really good.
Friday night at oji koen (park) they had a night hanami (flower viewing). As you probably know Japan is full of these beautiful cherry blossom trees. These cherry blossom (sakura) have these wonderful white/pink flowers on them but the flowers only bloom for about 1 week or so. Poets and such say that the flowers represent the frailty of life. The night viewing (hanami/flower viewing) was really nice because they would have these paths with branches going over the top making this tunnel of white flowers. They added lights to the flowers so they really stood out. It was almost like a light show. I did take a lot of pictures of that but because of the odd lighting situation they all came out atleast a little blurry. We went with a big group but ended up splitting some how. The group I was with sat down on some benches and talked for a bit. The parked closed at 8:30 so we went through the rest of it then found a little park where we could hang out some more. Its really nice being in Japan because even though it was night time and there wasn't much light at the park I felt completely safe.
Once we found a good bench we started to play this really fun drinking game, I of course drank apple juice. You sit in a circle and you all take turns counting off 1 to 21. When you get to 21 you say "cheers to the general", everyone takes a drink and the person who gets to 21 makes up a rule to replaces one of the numbers with a phrase, simple action, or word. So for example it could be "3 is butterscotch" so when you take turns counting it goes 1,2, butterscotch, 4,5,6,etc. If someone messes up on counting they have to take a drink then start the counting over again. Also there are two numbers that are replaced from the start 7 is 14 and 14 is 7, these prove to be hard to remember no matter how many times you do it.
I had a lot of fun that night, lots of laughs and had a hard time with the game even though I was sober. This was also one of the rare times I hung out with Martin and Fabin, the two German students in our program. They are really cool guys and make me want to learn German someday.
Saturday I planned to do hanami with the people at church rather then go with the other ryugakusei. It was raining however so we went to the nearby park, took some pictures then went back inside and ate some food. I was under the impression that everyone bring their own lunch but it was more of a pot luck so I felt kind of bad. There are two Japanese people there who we kind of joke around with their names. One is Nagabashi and we call him Tom Longbridge and the other is Macchin and I call her machine. It was a fun afternoon, we played some badmitten and jenga but I went home around 4 or so. When I got home I was just kind of out of it so I crashed on my bed and watched gundam 00 on my computer. I don't quite know how I feel about 00 actually. In some senses its really different from Seed and Seed Destiny but in other I feel its too similar. Almost like super sentai where you can tell whats going to happen by looking at the timer in the corner of the screen and what episode number it is.
Sunday I went to church, got appointed as young men's advisor (over all 3 of the young men), went home and messed around on the computer. I'm doing my report for Japanese class on tokusatsu so I was learning about the history of Godzilla movies. I actually got pretty addicted to this video series that explained them all.
Monday we had a JLPT practice test. I didn't think the test was insanely hard or anything but when I took the test I got a really bad score, 48%. I realized that, or rather assumed, that I got the lowest score in class and was feeling really bad about my Japanese ability. Like Japanese is my special thing and I was feeling really bad because I'm with nothing but people who that also is their special thing or its their natural thing. I didn't want to go but I ended up going to family home evening but I'm glad that I did because my bad mood quickly disappeared. FHE was pretty nice we had some good cake and longbridge and machine came. Longbridge is actually an investigator so they showed a video but the cable was going in and out. Randomly I remebered that I had a video cable in my bag from when we were watching movies at school and I just pulled it out and gave it to them. Everyone was surprised I had it with me and machine said "sasuga otaku san ne" or something like "thats an otaku for you".
Tuesday is when the real fun starts. Ok so like I said there is only a small opportunity to see the sakura and the best place to see them arguably is Kyoto. So right after japanese class I printed some maps off and headed to Kyoto. I wasn't sure how much time I would have because if I could I wanted to eat dinner at home because my host mom said she would make okonomiyaki for me. So I got to Kyoto in about an hour or so and decided to take the bus to Kinkaku temple (the golden pavilion). Their were two buses I could have taken, one had more stops, was coming a few minutes sooner and went directly to kinkukujinja. The other had fewer stops but stoped just a tiny bit before. I thought I should take the later but when the former came I just jumped on. The bus ride took a really long amount of time and I was wishing I would have just looked up the subway info instead.
I got there in about 30 mins and the first thing I noticed was the amount of foreigners there were. This might sound in some bizzaro self hating racist way but I feel really weird when I see other foreigners in Japan. Its like maybe I've adopted a little of the Japanese soto/uchi thing but its like the foreigners in my program I know and are my friends and we all kind of stick together. With japanese people there is this separation feeling. So when I see a foreigner I dont know where to put them. They are like me they aren't the sort of distant Japanese people but I don't know them they aren't my friends. I try not to make eye contact because its like we shouldn't have to make eye contact just because our skin is the same color. I don't know if that made any sense but its a really unique feeling.
Ok ok so Kinkaku jinja, not that awesome. First of all it cots 400 yen to enter which isn't a lot but there are so many places that are free. The pavilion itself is pretty small and it sits across this nice scenery but the water is pretty dirty looking and you can only see it from a few angles. There is a path and a nice garden-esq area to walk through but I've seen nicer ones other places. Also like most things in Japan its become so touristized its hard to really feel any sort of calmness or tranquility. I got some nice pictures and can say I've been there so I guess thats worth the effort to go I suppose.
Since there were actually no sakura at kinkau I decided to head to my next destination. I was thinking of doing ginkakujinaja (the silver pavilion) but regardless of what I did I needed to get back to the other side of town. Since the bus took as long as it did I wanted to use the subway. I looked at the map and it looked like there was a station just a few blocks from there. I thought I would just head for that instead. As I was going down that way I found a little video game store. I of course went straight to the sega saturn section because for collectors sake I am buying a lot of those here. I found two of the games I had been searching all over for; shinning force 3 part 2 and part 3. Part 3 was reasonable price at 1100 yen but part 2 was 2900 yen. I debated what to do for a long time. I really want the trilogy but can I justify 2900 yen for an old video game I might play once but other then that just sit on my shelf so I can say that I have it. I ended up just getting part 3 but I'm still not sure if it was the right decision to pass up part 2.
Anyways I bumped into this pretty big temple what I think was called heiya temple. It was jam backed with sakura trees. Oh man it was like the clouds were only a few feet above my head. I spent a lot of time there taking a lot of pictures, it was really cool. I think the pictures kind of speak for themselves so I won't say too much more on this place.
A little bit from there I saw another bus stop. The station should have been just a little further down but I didn't know where exactly, the bus was right here. I ended up taking the bus just to be safe and waited another 30 mins. I actually rode the bus to kyoto JR station. I decided from there it would be good to go to inari jinja so I got on the train line and rode for two stops.
A torii gate is the tale red gates that you see all over Japan. Inari Jinja has thousands of them. They have pathways that are just tunnels of torii gates. Take a look at the crazy pictures I took there it was incredible. So I get there and its a lot like a regular temple but you go off to the side and you find the torii path. Inari jinja is part of tofuku jinja I believe and both are located in this huge park on the south eastern part of Kyoto. Its also mountainous so going through the gates is a lot like a hiking trail except you have stone walk way and the tunnels of gates. This area seems to really like the fox spirit because there were lots of fox statues and lots of mini shrines with for statues on them. Along the trail there were parts where you could break off for a bit and have just a regular hiking trail. I would go on these for just a little bit to get some pictures and go back but it was really stunning being there. Coming from Arizona forests in general are something very rare but Japanese forests are full of skinny tall trees packed together, there was also a lot of bamboo trees so it gave this very surreal feeling.
As you get toward the top there are resting spots, because you do get tired, over looking the kyoto city scape. It was a very beautiful sight even if there was a lot of haze. Surprisingly there seemed to be either stores or houses up this high on the mountain. I don't know how anyone could live there. At the very top was a shrine area that was packed with a bunch of mini ones. One of them had a big stone in the center with holy looking rope around it. I walked around that area a bit and decided to take a back exit out of that place.
Going up there were a few little side detours you could take or alternative pathways and going down was the same way. I got two this three way fork and decided to go down to the left. It was a somewhat steep stair climb down and there were much less torii gates this way. When I got down to the bottom I really took in the beauty of it all. It was so calm and quiet and peaceful. I continued on the stone path for a bit more and I ended up infront of this house and a bunch more fox type shrines. This house was pretty far away from anything but the door was open and there were shoes in the entrance way so people did live there somehow. I kept going but the path then became just a dirt path. I again took it all in and also thought of how amazing it was that I was here on this trail. Like I really didn't know where I was. I knew I could go back all that way and find the original path but I had no idea where my current location was. I wasn't worried about it but rather thought how I am one of few people who actually explore Japan like this. Tourists don't have time to explore nooks and crannies like I do and natives don't usually care too much about exploring their own area. Its only foreigners living here like me who really can explore.
So I continue on the trail and the forest breaks up a little and I see houses. I go a bit more and the trail is over but now I am in some really fancy looking neighborhood. Like a gated community. I was really baffled how I got there. I knew that towards the sunset was the main part of Kyoto so I headed that way but I really did not know where I was at all. I amaze myself sometimes with these adventures I go on. Like I genuinely get lost sometimes, I should be more worried about that then I actually am. Just walking around in a city I don't know very well without even a compass, its a big adventure for sure.
So as I exit the gated community what do I see? A sign with three kanji 任天堂 which I learned recently means NINTENDO. I totally accidentally stumbled across the Nintendo headquarters. There isn't much to see in all actuality but just to get a picture of the building where so many awesome games is made was a pretty exciting thing for me. After I got my fanboy pictures over with I tried to find the station. I did find the train tracks and hoped they were JR and followed them. I was in a part of Kyoto I didn't know at all but somehow I found the station and headed back to Kyoto station. I actually arrived on the hankyu line karasawa so I had to go north a few blocks. I marked on my map where it was but that was actually a mistake, it was a block ahead of that. Again somehow I got to the station and headed home.
Today, Wednesday I went to Sannomiya with Courtney and we both bought more anime goods. Courtney bought a lot and I have no idea where she gets all of her money from.
Well I think I might have written enough now so bye
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