Kamakura

Less than two weeks in Japan... :(

Whew okay I am behind on write-ups for a couple of things. But for now I want to write about Kamakura, which I went to last weekend with friends. Kamakura is a town about an hour outside of Tokyo. We were originally planning to stay overnight, but as everyone was too busy we ended up just doing a day trip. It was amazing though, I loved it - I wish I'd discovered it earlier!

The full set of photos is here. Some of my favorite photos, Kamakura was GORGEOUS.

Anyway. We got in around 10:30 or 11 in the morning, and after hopping on the cute streetcar-like Enoden train we headed off to see the Daibutsu, the second largest Buddha statue in Japan. On the way, we saw a sign for Hase Kannon Temple, and stopped there first. This is probably my favorite part of the trip. It was a beautiful, beautiful Buddhist temple. Much of Kamakura was more tropical-looking and covered in green, and Hase Temple has a beautiful garden, plus a walkway up the mountain/hillside covered with thick hydrangea bushes and other flowers, as well as bamboo trees. It had a lot of levels, and you got a great view of the ocean and the surrounding mountains/hills. It also had a cave full of little statues, that was very dark and very low and gave the tall German kid in our group some trouble. Overall, it was just so green and incredibly peaceful. Probably my favorite place that I've been to in Japan.


View of Kamakura

There were a lot of these cute states

Not entirely sure why these statues have bibs.



Next, the Daibutsu. Great big Buddha! An older Japanese man stopped to tell me I had a beautiful Japanese accent; he thought I might have been a natural speaker at first. :) That made me smile.


It was incredibly hot and humid, so we stopped for ice cream (mmmm, cassis ice cream) before heading off to another temple. I can't actually remember this one's name. Anyway, it had beautiful decorations up for tanabata (a festival on the 7th day of the 7th month, though most of the celebrations aren't actually until August, sadness) and a small inari shrine. We also ran into an Amish restaurant. In Japan. Wait, how did the Amish get to Japan?? Aren't planes...? We were so confused, but it was more of a cafe and we didn't go in to see if they were actually Amish people.


Crowd of people in front of the shrine, along with tanabata decorations

Inari statue

AMISH COOKING


Following that temple, we originally intended to do a hike and see yagura (tomb caves) along the way. However, when trying to find where the trails began, we found out that the hike actually takes about 3 hours, instead of what we thought would be 1-1/2 hours, and was quite dangerous. So we went off to find another temple that had them. They sounded really cool - exploring caves! Ooh! Unfortunately, after a forty minute or an hour walk to get to the small, out-of-the-way temple, we found it was less than enthralling. They turned out to be a hole in the cliffside, that went in about 6-10 feet. Well... it looked kind of cool from the outside at least. We sat around that temple for a little bit recovering from the walk and the hot, sticky weather, disappointed by the not-caves, but it was another beautiful spot at least.

It looked cool from the outside... This one was empty. Another, smaller one had miniature torii gates inside and a small shrine.



We took a long walk back, stopped at another small... temple? Garden? We weren't sure what it was, but it was very pretty. And also mosquito-infested. Despite spraying my legs with bug spray every hour or so, I got bitten over a half-dozen times and UGH Japanese mosquitos are worse than the ones back home! Anyway, we grabbed some ramen for dinner, picked up snacks, drinks, and fireworks (hanabi) and headed for the beach.

The previous few days were grey and rainy, but we ended up with a perfect day. It was sunny and if hot while exploring temples, it was at least great on the beach where there was a good breeze. Japanese beaches aren't terribly nice, but we spread out a blanket and started drinking, waiting for dark to set off fireworks (as it was the 4th of July and the couple of other American girls and I thought it would be fun). We saw a kitty on a leash stalking a pigeon at the start of the beach, talked, watched the huge number of dogs on the beach, and took a lot of pictures. We also soon saw the reason for a sign saying "beware of hawks" - a huge one swooped down on three Japanese teens, flying between two of them, to grab something from one girl's hand as she started shrieking and jumping away from it. Damn. I would've expected that from seagulls - oddly enough, there weren't any on the beach - but a hawk?? Wow.

Sunset was not quite as exciting as we hoped - got a few big dark clouds around that time - but it was still quite a sight and once the sun went down we set off sparklers and one larger firework. A few other people on the beach did the same.


Friends :)

Sunset



So yeah. That was an amazing trip. :) And I don't want to leave Japan, I want to do more traveling...

Back in Japan & Ohanami

I'm finally back in Japan as it grows to the end of spring break. Though jet-lagged and out of it, it's sakura time and I went to Iidabashi with my friend Mari to take a look at the famous cherry blossoms. Most are only partially bloomed, as the weather turned cold again - they'll probably reach their full bloom later this week and I am going to Yoyogi Park at least on Saturday for more, but they were still quite beautiful. As always, more photos on flickr.











Hungry koi, a staple of Japanese gardens. :p

Hokkaido - yukimatsuri

So... Here is my delayed write-up on Hokkaido and the yukimatsuri (I flew back to the States a day after getting back). All my photos are up on my Flickr account, but there will be some in the post too (as well as some photos taken by friends).

First day
We left for Haneda airport in the morning. I like Haneda, it's smaller (mostly just domestic flights, though also some to Korea and such) and so relaxed - they didn't even check our ID! We arrived just before getting dark, and headed to our hostel, which was a few minutes' walk from Sapporo station, right at the center of everything.
We grabbed some ramen for dinner (Hokkaido is known for its miso ramen) and headed out to see the ice sculptures all lit up at night. Unfortunately on the way, I realized my boots were not waterproof and in fact had holes in them - snow got stuck up the holes and then melted, and melted on the end of my boots and soon I had wet, freezing feet. We stopped at a convenience store to grab some plastic bags that I wrapped my feet in (and would the rest of the trip, sigh). The sculptures were *amazing* though. They had mostly snow sculptures (quite a few of them huuuge) at Odori Park, and ice sculptures down the entertainment district of Susukino. We mostly saw the ice sculptures that night.

Hokkaido from the plane


This sculpture had fish and various sea creatures frozen in the ice blocks.

Phoenix


Day 2
All 8 of us slept in one room (girls and guys - slightly awkward, and arrrgh a couple of the guys snored and kept me awake!) We woke up later than intended, and I went down to the basement to shower - but the showers were open only from 6-9:30 in the mornings, and I went down a few minutes before 9:30. A woman glared at me, pointed at the hours, and went "Nooooo! Cleaning! Nooooo!" Seriously, she had this long, drawn-out "nooo!" as though I was killing a puppy or something. I snuck down again a half hour later, she was gone, and showered quickly - but she came back as I was getting dressed and went "Noooooo!!" again. Yeesh. :p

We went out to see the snow sculptures in Odori Park. Some elementary school kids came up asking us to fill out some surveys for them, practicing their English - they were so cute! They gave us little laminated cards with their names and what they like on them. Aww.



Disney sculpture

Filling out the survey for the kids


Then we went to the Sapporo dome, which had snow slides and more snow sculptures - unfortunately it closed 15 minutes after we got there...
WALL-E~~ ♥


Day 3
The girls went to a Scandanavian (?) bread museum; the guys went to a beer museum. The bread museum was pretty boring (although we did buy some tasty bread) - the "museum" was a single room, only interesting thing about it was the huge longboat in the center with stuffed caribou on it. :p
We then went on to a chocolate museum/factory that was known for its shiroi koibito (literally "white lover"), which was a cookie with chocolate in the center. The factory was beautiful, but rather bizarre. It had exhibits of western tea cups, saucers, etc., as well as a large exhibit of old toys. It had a lovely view of the mountains though.
After we came back to Sapporo, we went to the Sapporo Factory, which was a huge mall (but full of only pricey stores). The center atrium was beautiful.

View from the chocolate factory

The chocolate factory itself



Final Day
Our last day, we headed out to Otaru - a fishing village about a 45 minute train ride from Sapporo. They have illuminations at night, with lights strung out along the canal and candles in little snow sculptures along the sidewalks.

Sea + snow!

Hokkaido's peculiar mascot........ It's called marimokkori, after a little ball of algae (marimo) that we saw being sold in a lot of souvenir shops, and the word mokkori (slang for "large crotch"). Soo, it's basically what you get if you cross the marimo algae with mokkori... Read more here.

Illuminations






We came back in the evening, failed to sleep (much to my annoyance, people were still packing at 2 am), and got up at 6 am to fly back to Tokyo. And there you have it. :)

Setsubun, Kichijouji & Inokashira Park, Onsen

Phew okay recapping. (Also, leaving for Hokkaido on Monday, one day back in Tokyo and then on to the US? Ahh! Major cleaning and packing today.)

So - Tuesday was Setsubun. The girls and I went to Asakusa, where I bought a bunch of gifts for people back home (there are a lot of market stalls in front of the temple - definitely a good place for souveneirs). There was no bean throwing, except a few by various people (monks? celebrities? I couldn't understand but they didn't look like monks!) to the people in the front of the crowd. There was a little parade. We mostly just wandered around the area and bought things. Oh, and I had an older man tell me I made his heart go "doki-doki" (beat faster, I think. I tell ya, these older Japanese men. I've never had things like this happen in the US!) and a Japanese lady asked me if she could snap a photo with her cell phone - the latter right after the three of us were taking inappropriate pictures with chocolate-covered bananas... Oops.

When we got back, two of the girls bought beans and attacked me when I went to meet them later in the evening. Then the three of us attacked Jess. And I called out another friend because we wanted someone else to throw beans at. (Technically I think you're not actually supposed to throw them people, but in your house/at someone with a demon mask in order to drive away bad luck/bad spirits - but ah well. You're also supposed to eat as many beans as your age for good luck.)





We bought chocolate-coated bananas and took inappropriate pictures with them (mostly not with my camera though, it's dying :(


ATTACKING FRIENDS WITH BEANS MEANS LOVE.


Wednesday we went to Kichijouji, a nice shopping area. I bought a bag to use as a second carry-on for going home/for schoolbooks next semester. We also went to Inokashira Park, which contains a shrine to Benzaiten - a vengeful goddess of love. It's said that couples who go boating on the lake will soon break up (we didn't see anyone boating since it's winter, but we still saw plenty of couples at the park, so I don't think that's really followed anymore :p).

Slightly blurry picture of the shrine...


Ducks and huuuge~ koi!



Thursday we went to the onsen at Urayasu. (I especially recommend it for people who want to go as a co-ed group: most onsen do not have co-ed sections, or if they do they are tiny. This one has a huuge outside complex of baths, including one that runs through a cave). Spent a lovely, lovely time relaxing and soaking. We decided we especially liked the collagen bath, which was a violent, almost opaque purple-pink-red but it makes the skin feel soooo soft. The yellowy-green jasmine bath was nice too. I love onsen. <3 I hope I get a chance to go again before the weather gets much warmer and you don't really feel like broiling in hot water.

Dressed in yukata at the onsen


So there's most of what I've been up to lately. It's a quiet weekend, which is good since I still have to finish cleaning my room and packing. Trying to bring home most of my winter stuff since it'll be warmer by the time I get back and it takes up so much room. I'm trying to avoid shipping things home since it's so expensive (I managed to come here with just 2 suitcases and 2 carry-ons).