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).

God I hate finals.

And Eliza, who commented on a previous post - not sure if you enabled e-mail notification but yes, please feel free to email and ask me questions about Waseda/Japan! (And anyone else who comes across this blog). My email is bookwyrm13 [at] gmail dot com. :)

I'm gonna take you to the gay bar~

Ooh, there is one story I forgot to write about here.

A couple weekends ago, I went to a gay bar that a friend's friend (also an exchange student) worked at. And hey, we don't get hit on by sketchy guys! There are a lot of little specialty gay bars in Tokyo, particularly Kabukicho Nichome in Shinjuku - some for gay men, some for lesbians, some for foreigners while others are Japanese only, and different bars for different kinks. This one (Dragon Men in Shinjuku - a really, really nice bar actually) allowed foreigners and prided itself about being able to provide service in English.

Being gay in Japan is a fairly closeted thing (despite how very, very touchy-feely many Japanese boys get with each other when drunk...). It's not so bad in Tokyo, but it's still not exactly something talked about in polite society. Historically, Japan was more acceptable of homosexuality - like the Romans, relations between older men of middle or upper classes (such as samurai) and younger boys who were apprentices were accepted, and it was not banned by Buddhism. In the famous "Tale of Genji," Prince Genji uses a a lady's younger brother as a go-between - and decides to bed the boy who is "more attractive than his chilly sister." And gender lines have been fluid as well - in kabuki plays, women have been banned from the stage since the 1600s, so female parts have been played by men (called onnagata). More recently, the Visual Kei movement, bands such as Dir en Grey, Malice Mizer (particularly Mana, also in Mois dix Mois), and X Japan would sometimes dress up like (very convincing) women. The Westernization of Japan brought with it the stigma of homosecuality.

There are a lot of people on TV who are gay or transgender, and beautiful gay young men are popular in certain genres of manga, but the idea of normal people who are gay is not as accepted. These are a couple of interesting articles on the topic: http://www.starobserver.com.au/community/2008/11/05/sun-not-rising-on-gay-rights/2468 and http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20081223i1.html.

Anyway. We met a very nice young Irish guy at the bar, who's been living in Portland for the last 10 years and is taking a break from getting his PhD to teach English for a year in Japan - oh, and he's 21 now. And almost done with his PhD. He also spoke Irish Gaelic (his first language), Scottish Gaelic, another kind of Gaelic, Japanese quite well, Spanish very well, and French. ... Damn. (And obviously more interested in my friend's friend the bartender than us. Siiigh.) We had a few drinks, and then I experienced my first unisex bathroom. Where the toilet was beyond the urinals. I kept trying to wait for them to empty, but guys kept walking past me to go in so eventually I gave up. Just a little bit awkward!

As we got up to leave, a group of Japanese men at the next table starting talking to us. They asked us if we were lesbians (no), if we had boyfriends (yes for two of us), and they were shocked: "Your boyfriend is okay with you coming to a gay bar?" "Yeah, my boyfriend comes with me to gay bars in DC..." my friend said, haha. One was a 34 year old Waseda alum (though he looked as though he was a current student!). They were incredibly nice as well, and interesting to talk to. We're definitely planning to return to that bar, we met a lot of really interesting and friendly people.

Finals the next two weeks, not going to be a whole lot of interesting stuff going on.

Ugh. Hate finals.

But I am definitely going to Hokkaido in early February for the Yukimatsuri (snow festival). :) Should be fun! Just have to decide if I'm going to Beijing before that, too...

New Years trip part I! Even more image heavy...

Onwards to Shizuoka
- Leave in the morning for the 4-hour drive to Mari's grandparents' house in Shizuoka. It's a very, very old house and in quite bad shape - cluttered, falling apart a bit, old style toilet that drops into a pit rather than flushing. We all sit around a with our legs under a kotatsu (table with a heating mechanism underneath, blanket draped over to keep the heat in). Her family is incredibly, incredibly sweet though. Her grandparents were telling people they had a foreigner coming for New Years, and they were given a cell phone charm (waving cat with chilis) and handmade paper chopstick holders of girls in kimono made out of paper. Beautiful. Her grandfather makes tako - circular kites - and he let me make a little one. :) I painted a koi. Lots of fun.

- Dinner for New Years is soba noodles - something that is traditionally eaten on New Years. And something I can eat!! Thank goodness, because the other thing eaten on New Years is osechi, as seen here. Little boxes filled with various types of fish, octopus tentacles (with the suckers on!), pickled things... I really dislike the texture of traditional Japanese food. Sigh. Mostly avoided that except for renkon, a nifty-looking type of root.

- Couple hours to kill, then off to 2 Buddhist temples. The first one is huge - many booths selling food and trinkets lined up along the way, then a long hike up a hill to get to the temple. There's a huge line of people waiting in line to pray exactly at midnight. We left before then for a smaller temple that her grandfather works for. We rang the huge bell outside at midnight, and sat inside the temple listening to the monks pray before heading home. Mari and I stayed in a hotel (her grandparents didn't want me to stay in such an old house - I think they were a bit embarrassed about it.) Really nice evening though, pretty quiet. :)
Entrance of the temple


Line of people at the temple

Ringing the bell at midnight

Tako kites


- Lunch in Shizuoka (mmm, nabe!!) and wandered around the area a little bit. The area her grandparents live in is on the Tokaido - a route that connected Kyoto and Edo during the Edo period. There was a little building with information about the route, some maps and history and trinkets. Several older Japanese men were there (quite drunk, it was around noon) and invited us in. We had green tea and chatted for a while, mostly about the history of the road and the area - they were very nice, if difficult to understand because they slurred their words a bit.
The Tokaido house


- Finally, on to Nagoya. Here we stayed at Mari's late aunt's house (I thought we were staying at her grandmother's, but her grandmother lived elsewhere.) Her aunt was quite wealthy and had a really nice house. Heated floors!! Very nice when you're sleeping on the floor. We had dinner with her grandmother, who was also very sweet.

- Got up earlyish to hit the mall, in order to grab some fukubukuro - basically grab bags. I was a bit dubious, but picked up some accessory grab bags for 500 yen and 1000 yen ($5 and $10). And damn, they were really good value - got several earrings worth $15-20, plus hair stuff. Fun! We came across a mall pet store there that was... quite a shock! It had a sheep (in a little pen about twice its size, tucked away under some parrots); an odd badger/raccoon looking critter, no idea what it was; an American kestrel, I think; a tiny owl; monitor lizards; sugar gliders; a squirrel monkey... Not exactly pets I think would fit in well with tiny Japanese houses and apartments.
Owlie-burd!

Kestrel? The katakana says American kachuugenbou. No idea what that is.



Badger raccoon thing


- After securing ourselves some nice New Years deals, we head to nearby Nagoya castle. Very beautiful. I liked the kinshachi, or the golden dolphins (...translated as dolphins, but they're not actually according to Mari, they're just fish), on the roof of the castle. I don't have a whole lot to say about the castle, so here are some castle-ly pictures.
Nagoya Castle from a distance.

Whee high!

Cutaway of the original castle

Riding a replica of a the kinshachi!


Took the shinkansen back to Tokyo the next day, and there we go!

I don't want to write a Japanese essay and work on my two final class essays, boo... :(

New Years trip part I: Kyoto and Osaka

Back from the trip!

Kyoto
- Mari and I took an overnight bus that left around 11:45, and we arrived in Kyoto around 6 am. Didn't really sleep at all - the bus stopped every hour and a half for a 20 minute break, and it turned the lights on full every time. Our friend in Kyoto told us not to expect her to be able to wake up until about 8 or so. We got some breakfast, went to two temples near the station, and met up with Sakiko and her boyfriend around 9.
Purifying ourselves at a temple


- Back to Saki's place, quick shower, then went out onto teramachi - a fun shopping street within walking distance of her apartment. Had amaazing tonkatsu.
- Then Sanjusangendo Temple, a Buddhist temple with over 1,000 statues of Kannon, the Buddhist goddess of mercy, 28 statues of Japanese deities, and 2 statues of traditional Buddhist temple guardians (Raijin, the thunder god, and Fujin, the wind god).. It's also the longest wooden building in Japan, apparently. It's also well known for archery contests.

We could only take photos outside, not of the status inside. Pretty little garden though.

For some reason, it had bright orange walls

- After that, we went to Gion - place of the geisha and maiko. We didn't see any, too early for them, but wandered through some pretty little alleyways and looked in the far too expensive stores with beautiful geisha supplies.

Alleyway

Goldfish bowls on the sidewalk in the alleyway



Kyoto Day II
- Paninis for brunch, then we wandered more around teramachi, browsing the shops - I bought gifts for friends; Kyoto is definitely a good place for omiyage (presents). Mostly just goofing off and having a good time.

Japan is very into parfait ice cream - which I will get more into later

Oh, Engrish. :)

- Went to a cultural thingymajig, made some glass enamel keychains and browsed through the gift store of traditional items - more omiyage!
- Highlight of the day: going to a store specializing in parfait ice creams. Very popular in Japan, this place had almost 200 different types of parfaits. Plus huuuge party-sized parfaits running between $80-180. Hoo boy.

Paaaarty~


- And finally, we head to Osaka for dinner with Mari's family. Her parents are very sweet (although her dog is INCREDIBLY YAPPY. CONSTANTLY.), and after dinner the family quizzed me with kanji flashcards I brought while her sister practiced her English with me. In the morning, we left for her grandparents' house in Shizuoka, a four hour drive away.

Part II coming tomorrow!

Pic-post pic-spam!

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it. I did not do anything terribly exciting for Christmas (except make yummy pancakes with a friend) so I will gloss over that and use this as mostly a picpost. Christmas is more of a romantic holiday here than anything (and they have 2 Valentine's Days - Valentine's Day and White Day. They sure love commercialized romance), since very few Japanese are Christian.

I just got photos from the yukata fan dance and the Shirakawa trip taken by someone involved with the dorm (ie, has a much better camera than mine), and organized them into my Flickr account.

So! Here's the fandance set.


And the Shirakawa photo set.


And here are some pictures of Nekobukuro.


Poor funny-looking cat




Grumpy-looking kitties!


I leave on Sunday for Osaka, Shizuoka, and Nagoya to stay with my friend's family for New Years. Should be an interesting experience!

woo, 30th post. Seijinshiki, Nekobukuro, and purple-haired obaa-sans

Woo! I got an invitation to Seijinshiki (the coming-of-age ceremony in Japan on the second Monday in January for all those who turn 20. That's the important age here, not 21). Exciting! :) Except that girls usually wear furisode kimono (the fancy kimono with the very long sleeves reaching almost to the ground) - and to rent one costs about $1000. Yeah, kimono are incredibly expensive. So beautiful though. My friends and I are probably going to have to settle with yukata or just a fancy western dress. ... Probably the western dress, yukata are cheap and casual. And generally thin cotton, which will be very cold in January.

Oh! Speaking of which, I participated in traditional Japanese fan dances yesterday. I had one practice and then did a performance for the dorm Christmas party.......... (which they also used to trick us into going to a sermon. Christian dorm. I wasn't very happy about that - wouldn't have minded if they just told us we were going to a sermon instead of "we're moving the party to the next room! There will be more food there." Anyway.)

Here are a couple of pictures.




I also went to Nekobukuro this week. I've been missing my cats a lot, and Nekobukuro is a kind of cat petting zoo on the top floor of Sunshine City in Ikebukuro. You pay about $6 to go in and play with about 20 kitties for as long as you want. Unfortunately they weren't too friendly, mostly sleeping in high, out-of-the-way areas. I'm sure they have to deal with just too many people. Still nice though, I got some pictures I'll put up later. I still miss my kitties though... Honestly, I'm rather sad I'm not going to be home for the holidays. First time away from home for them. I don't have any plans for Christmas (which is a romantic holiday here, sigh.) I'm visiting my friend Mari's family around New Years - going down to Osaka the 27 or 28, then Shizuoka, Nagoya, and back to Tokyo probably around the 3rd or 4th of January, though that's not set yet. She told me I'm going to have to "get over" my dislike of seafood though when I'm visiting her family. :( I've tried, I have been trying seafood here, and I didn't have a lot of choice on the Shirakawa trip, but I hate it still. I'm worried I'm going to have to eat everything to be polite too, and I just... can't. Argh.

Need to think of omiyage (little gifts) for her family too. I'm terrible at thinking of ideas for presents.

Hmm. There are a LOT of older women in Japan with their hair dyed purple or violet. Apart from that, they appear to be a typical Japanese obaa-san (grandmother)... I actually saw an older man today too with a purple hint to his hair. I have no idea why this is. It's kind of awesome (I love older folks who dye their hair crazy colors :p There was one really nice lady with purple streaks who came into the jewelry store one day) but random! Japan is usually not so hot on dyeing hair, except for bleaching it or making it more auburn. So there's obaa-sans in kimono at the subway and obaa-sans with purple hair, heh.

Not a terribly coherent post. Midterm essay and constant Japanese studying frying my brains. Definitely need a break. Classes go until the beginning of February, yuck!

I went to Namja Town in Ikebukuro yesterday. Man... that place is trippy. It's really hard to describe. Awesome place for a date, though. There's lots of game arcades and so forth, and a lot we didn't see. We mostly went to Gyoza Stadium, which had an overwhelming amount of different types of gyoza (dumplings); Ice Cream Castle (lots of ice creams/crepes); and a dessert place that was especially romantic with lots of little booths tucked away in corners, and two-person tables under fake trees with lights and fountains and so forth. My friends took pictures, I'll probably put them up when I see them. :p

Then back to the never-ending round of cramming and forgetting kanji and vocabulary. Ugh. I absolutely detest the Japanese language classes here. They're not at all conducive to actually learning Japanese, just stressing you out... My Japanese has gone downhill since coming here. *sigh* It's incredibly depressing, and my teachers back home are not going to be happy. =/

Shirakawa Pt. 2

H'okay. Part deux!
Day two: Gorgeous gardens, tea ceremony, baby's first castle, dharma pantings, sleeping at a Buddhist temple. Day three: museum, carving a stone necklace, hooome

We leave the ryokan and head back into Shirakawa-shi to go to Nanko Park - the first park ever built in Japan, back in 1800. We attend a tea ceremony, sort of. It's not a proper ceremony - the tea master talked a lot in Japanese, which hardly any of us exchange students understood, and the Japanese organizers didn't translate. They gave us tea and just showed us how to turn the cup, but it wasn't actually a proper ceremony like I saw in high school. We mostly enjoyed the heated tatami mats and looked out the nice big windows at the garden. Once we finished at the tea house, we wandered around the garden for a while. So gorgeous...




Following the teahouse and garden, we went to visit Shirakawa Castle. Pretty beautiful and imposing from the outside, but tiny within... Just one room, with steep stairs going up another two or three levels. I started to call it "Baby's First Castle," since it didn't really seem to have much room for a family!



We left the castle and went on to paint our own dharma (or "daruma") dolls. Dharma was an Indian Buddhist saint. Daruma dolls are red paper-made dolls that have a weight added to the bottom, allowing it to always bob back up when its knocked over. It suggests invincible will power and is often used as a mascot for good luck. Painting is rather hard though.... You make a wish, and paint in the eyes once the wish comes true.
Before being painted

My daruma doll... Haha.


Finally we head to our last destination for the day: a Buddhist temple where we will spend the night. It's unheated (in the morning, we could see our breath in the air) and the room we slept in had some rather intimidating paintings...


We go to a hotel (heat!!) for dinner and a farewell party, then go back to the Buddhist temple to drink and chat some more. No one slept very well - up late talking, and the clock in the room played a song and counted off the hour every hour... I'm a light sleeper and it woke me up almost every time, sigh.

We wake up at 7 for meditation at 7:30. Whoever thought of trying to make sleep-deprived college students wake up abysmally early and sit with their eyes closed for 30 minutes... :p Then breakfast of picked radishes, pickled plums, salty strips of seaweed, and a rice porridge thing. I didn't eat a much for breakfast.
Meditation

Breakfast

All the statues at the temple were wearing little hats and jackets or bibs.


After leaving the temple, we head to the Shirakawa Field Museum. It's a small museum focusing mainly on the Jomon era or Japan, and other early history. We get to carve a necklace out of soapstone or some other soft stone, using sandpaper. I quite enjoyed it, and now have a nice worry necklace, although my hands cramped up like crazy from sanding so much (and I also sanded my fingernails and fingers, ouch). Ramen for lunch (apparently a Shirakawa style of ramen is quite famous. All I know is that it was hot and tasty! Mmm, hot food). We stop at a small baked goods/ice cream shop (150 yen/$1.50 ice cream! Yum) and head home... to SHOWERS and sleep!

So, yes. :) A very fun trip, quite an interesting experience, and it was nice to get out of Tokyo for the first time.