Halloween!

Halloween is not a very big holiday in Japan, which is understandable. Unfortunately, this meant no trick-or-treating or pumpkin carving, but I did manage to go to a party. I had been a bit ill the night before, but was luckily quite well enough the next day to dress up and go out. I had been planning my costume since before the 21st when I went to the Toji market, and was luckily able to pull it off. I went as a Tayuu, which is an Edo-era (around the 17th or 18th century for my costume) courtesan. The main features of a tayuu as visible in woodblocks of the period are the obi and hair. The obi is always tied in front, and the hair is usually a veritable forest of ornaments, ranging from long lacquered pins to large clusters of silk flowers surrounded in strips of silver. Of these two, I could only really manage the obi and a couple representative hair pins, since my hair could certainly never support the shear numbers required to pull off the real deal. I addition to these, tayuu wore massively tall ‘geta’, which are essentially wooden flip-flops with blocks of wood on the bottom. These sorts of shoes are really not available for purchase, and even if they were they would be a little out of my price range, so I borrowed a pair of normal geta from my host mother. It was very fun, really, and since I had opted out of the full white makeup I could actually speak and the like without being afraid of cracking my makeup or something. Unfortunately I still didn’t feel like taking the chance on candy after being ill the night previously, so it was a healthier Halloween than I’ve ever had. So many of the costumes at the party were great, and though I arrived too late to vote on any of them for the contest, one of my friends won first place! She had made a really great ‘Princess Mononoke’ costume, including the mask, from scratch while here. After it all, many people headed out to go clubbing, but I wasn’t up to it, so a friend and I went to a Thai restaurant instead.
-There is an amazing capacity for people in this country to decide to take no notice of something that doesn’t really concern them. I walked by tons of people in my costume and no one mentioned it, asked me where I was going, or even stared. Maybe they were just being polite?
-When you’re not feeling well in Japan, they make a dish that is rice warmed with water into a sort of porridge, cooked with broth and a pickled plum. It’s delicious.
-If you want to buy traditional Japanese shoes in Japan and are over a women’s size 8 American, you’ll probably have to buy men’s shoes. I wore my host mother’s, but I was hanging off the back by about an inch.
-There are women in Japan today who are engaged in preserving the specific dance, music, and dressing arts of the old Tayuu profession, and who essentially work like geisha, entertaining at parties and making appearances at events.

Kamishichiken

Sunday was considerably more entertaining. After emailing in my paper, my host sister and I went to lunch in Kamishichiken, which is actually the oldest geisha district in Kyoto. The restaurant that we went to was 140 years-old, in a 200 year-old building, and only served one thing for lunch: oyako-don. Luckily, I love oyako-don, which is spelled with the characters for ‘parent’ and ‘child’, and consists of chicken and egg over rice with a little seasoning. I addition to being a lovely setting, it is also not very expensive, at about 400yen a head. After that, we decided to walk around the district, which is beautiful. While Gion is the most famous and the most well-preserved, it feels extremely fake and is filled with hordes of tourists. Pontocho feels like something that you discover on accident, that you wouldn’t even know was a geisha district if there wasn’t a sign on the street in front of it, but Kamishichiken still has its old-fashioned houses and store-fronts, cobbled stone streets and a calming and quiet quality. We stopped at a couple stores here, the first one sold purses of all sizes and descriptions made out of kimono fabrics and very reasonably priced. The next one that we stepped into sold extremely upscale kimono accessories, but the women that ran it were extremely nice, and one even told me that she was rooting for the Rockies when I told her that I was from Colorado. When we came out on the other side, we were at Kitano Tenmango, one of the major shrines in Kyoto, which is home to a shinto god of learning, who is a bull. Because of this, it is a favourite pilgrimage place for students and concerned parents. The most famous ‘omamori,’ or shinto protection charm, for good grades is the one that they sell at Kitano Tenmangu. Also, because it was once the site of a massive tea ceremony gathering, it is also often the site of tea ceremony recitals. While on the grounds of the shrine, we ran into a Kamishichiken maiko-san! Again, she was not too busy to stop for a picture with me, and was very nice about the whole thing. After this we walked down to the Nishijin textile district, where they have been producing fine silks since before the capital was moved to Kyoto before the 9th century AD. They had a display there of kimono used in Noh performances, which were beautifully patterned and filled with colour and texture. After this we went to the Nishijin Textile Centre, where there is a kimono fashion show every hour or so, displays of kimono weaving and dyeing techniques, and a large gift shop. You can also dress up in different styles of kimono and get photographed for set amounts of money. We had stopped at a café near Kitano Tenmangu that sold tofu-based desserts that were actually very nice (the grape tart was excellent), but when we got back to the house a family member was visiting, and had brought a delicious roll-cake, which we also ate. All in all, a very nice day.
-There is something called a ‘Kimono Passport’ which, if you have it and are wearing a kimono, will get you discounts at places all around Kyoto. It’s free, and available at various kimono stores and the Nishijin textile center.
-I have noticed something with my own host family members, and after asking my Japanese teacher about it she confirmed that it’s fairly common: when we order at a restaurant or café, we’ll always all order the same thing. Usually I’ll order something and then they’ll follow suit.
-Kamishichiken is my favourite geisha district thus far, though I think that I’m going to have to try them all..
-Some of the exclusive restaurants and teahouses in these districts don’t even have signs out front. I guess that if you don’t know that it’s there then you probably don’t belong there.
-I believe once a year or so, maiko-san give the stores that they often patronize fans with their names written on them as a sort of ‘thank-you’. They are round ‘uchiwa’ style ones and always prominently displayed in the shop.

Kitayama Halloween

I spent most of my Saturday writing a paper for class that had me endlessly frustrated, but that evening my host mother and sister took me to Kitayama, which is not far from our house, where there was a small Halloween event. Basically, several of the shops in the area were open later than usual, and some booths with games and crafts were set up in a parking lot. For me, though, the main event was the jack o’ lantern display. In large groupings in front of stores and around the game booths were beautifully carved pumpkins all lit up and everything. It was very beautiful and more than a little nostalgic. One of the stores had a selection of imported American candy, but they didn’t have candy corn, Reese’s cups, Sugar Daddy’s or anything of that sort so I didn’t buy any. Plus, it was really expensive for sub-par Hershey’s. I almost bought some pumpkin bread though. My host mother bought a little ceramic pumpkin that she put out on the front path with a little light that really looks like a candle. I love seeing it there.
-Even though Halloween is a very new addition, there are some virtuoso pumpkin carvers here.
-Of all things to import, why Hershey’s pumpkin marshmallows?

Friday plans

After classes on Friday two other students and I went to Doshisha’s elementary school to help them learn about Halloween and carve pumpkins. Unfortunately, once we got there we were told that a weather warning had gone out, which meant that all of the students had to return home directly after classes. This was because many of the students commute an hour or more to school everyday by themselves, so if a bad storm came through and the trains had to be closed they could be stranded alone somewhere between school and Osaka. So, even though we couldn’t meet with the students and carve pumpkins, we did get a good look at the brand-new elementary school building, which is beautiful. Unlike my elementary school, where I really don’t remember there being pretty much anything in the way of windows, the place was full of light and space, even on a grey and raining day like Friday.
-I’ve seen kids alone on trains before, but it still amazes me that small kids are allowed to travel so far on public transportation by themselves.
-These students had already started learning English. In elementary school.
-One of the classes was doing a dance to a Japanese version of a song from ‘The Lion King’, which apparently exists.

So many Kimono!

Even though we (unusually enough) had class on Monday, it was still a great deal of fun. Monday was Jidai Matsuri or, roughly translated, the Festival of Ages, which is one of the 3 great festivals of Kyoto. Because it to a certain extent was relevant to the class that conflicted it, our professor cancelled class so that we could go. The basic idea is that all of the major periods in Japanese history up to around 1900ish are represented by people in costume who process from the Imperial Palace grounds to the Heian Shrine. I was, understandably, very excited by this prospect. Some friends and I secured a decent place outside of the Imperial Palace and some convenience store lunch and settled in for the show, which began at about 12:15. The best seats are those inside the walls of the imperial complex, but those spots had long since disappeared, so we were a bit down the road from its South gate, close enough to the beginning. It really was amazing, with hundreds, maybe even a thousand or more people walking, riding on horseback or on platforms, playing instruments and carrying banners. I was, however, a little disappointed that the majority of those in the parade were men. In my opinion, the most interesting clothes are those worn by women, especially since they seem to change more quickly and notably over time than those worn by men. Even so, it was a great time, and when it was over I still had another exciting activity to go to. AKP has some sort of relationship with an antique kimono shop in Demachiyanagi, so a group of us were able to go there and take lessons in how to put on kimono and tie obi. After we’d gotten dressed, they served us an unusual iced tea and meringues, and the final price for the whole thing was only 500yen, which was a steal. Another lovely day.
-Jidai Matsuri was begun when the capital of Japan moved from Kyoto to Tokyo, and was created as a means of restoring the suddenly empty old capital.
-The wigs, makeup, costumes, and armour were intensely detailed, and besides where the materials themselves came from, I wonder where the expertise needed to put everything on was found.
-On very crowded trains, it’s always the foreigners who have airspace around them forcing everyone else to cram into each other. In this case, it wasn’t that the Japanese people didn’t want to trust them so much as the foreigners not wanting to touch each other.
-It’s possible that the number of men’s costumes (and consequently soldier’s costumes) was meant of old to represent the emerging militarism of the period in which the festival was created.
-Similarly, the women present were almost all historical figures (such as Murasaki Shikibu, Sei Shounagon, Izumo no Okuni), which would seem to underline the emergent nationalism of the period as well.

Bargain Shopping

Sunday was a great deal of fun, but was exhausting in both the physical and financial sense of the term. I have perhaps mentioned it before, but there is a flea market at the Toji temple on the 21st of every month, and Sunday was the 21st. A couple friends and I toured around the whole thing, but due to the 21st falling on a weekend and the occurrence of simply beautiful weather it was incredible crowded. There are really good deals to be had at the Toji market, and I took full advantage: I walked away with two kimono in good condition at 500yen and 800yen per, a beautiful and flawless obi for 3000yen, two lovely hair ornaments for 1000yen each and a good under-kimono for 1000yen. There was also pretty good cheap food, which I availed myself of, though the drinks are pretty inflated in the price department, but there are plenty of vending machines outside of the temple grounds where a bottle of tea is 150. After staying there almost all day with various groups of friends, I headed over to Kyoto station, which has a vast number of shops, including three or so malls. I was in desperate need of a new laptop bag as the one I brought with me was literally hanging on by a thread, and wanted to get a new handbag to use in the place of my favourite one, which was showing signs of wear after almost 3 years of constant use. I chose, at my host sister’s suggestion, to go to Avanti, which is one of the collections of stores at the station, and was very successful. By the time I got back to my host family’s house with my nearly obscene number of shopping bags I was thoroughly worn out.
-When you see the bins of kimono with ‘500’ written on it, it’s worth digging through, because there are some good buys in there.
-You do not need to speak the language to bargain, it’s more than half body language.
-Taiyaki is still one of my favourite things.
-When you buy almost anything with a credit card here they will ask you if you want to pay in instalments, and I don’t know why.

Tea Ceremony for Foreigners

Saturday two other AKP students and I went to a tea ceremony (or Ochakai) hosted by the Urasenke school which was for and by foreigners in Japan. It was held at their headquarters about a 15 minute walk away from Doshisha and was moving through over 400 guests that day. The tea ceremony itself was very nice, and the snack that they served us was a sort of fluffy crepe filled with only mildly sweet roasted chestnut paste. Unfortunately, it seems to be the custom here to narrate tea ceremonies to those who might have never seen one before. Personally, I find it hard to concentrate on the carefully practiced and almost ritually exact movements of the ceremony when I’m having someone tell me ‘and now she’s adding the water…’ which I am certainly capable of seeing for myself. After the ritual, we picked up our gift and looked in some shops around the area, most of which are either tea ceremony implement shops or little tea cafes attached to shops that sell sweets that are used in tea ceremony. At one of these shops, directly by next to the tea school, we mentioned to the owner that we were studying at Doshisha. When he heard this he said ‘I went to Doshisha too!’ and told the shop girls to bring us tea and lovely hand-painted envelopes of the papers that tea ceremony guests use to eat their snacks. The tea actually wasn’t tea, but a tasty drink made with hot water, shiso (beefsteak plant, I think, but a very strong flavour) and sour plum. After that we toured around the quarter some more looking at things that we could not possibly afford (but then, is $100 really that much to spend on a ladle rest?) and got some food of both lunch and dessert varieties. When I got home and shared my gift from the tea school with my host family, they told me that it was from a rather famous traditional Japanese dessert store called Tsuruya that was in the area. All in all another great day, especially since it stayed sunny, cool, and crisp the whole time.
-There is a style of tea ceremony invented by the Urasenke school in order to make foreigners more comfortable that uses stools and little tables.
-The whole area reminded me of the novel ‘The Tea House Fire’ which was quite a good read.
-Tea ceremony is an amazingly expensive hobby, but also rather like collecting art, since the finest implements are one of a kind, often antique, and seemingly always produced by workshops that have been producing for over 300 years.
-I’ve had yet another experience with a very generous person here in Kyoto.

Manga Day

Friday poured all day, which is in one way a good thing: since it was already raining when I woke up I could prepare for it. Still, it’s hard to get ready for a constant downpour. Since the weather was so cold and wet, and I only had one class that day, a friend and I decided that it was time to try out the curry house across the street from the university. It proved to be a wise choice. I ended up ordering their seasonal specialty chicken curry soup, which had potatoes, carrots, hard boiled egg and a side of rice. Very tasty and not very expensive. On our way back to campus, I ran into some of my other friends who were going to the manga museum, and decided to tag along. For the uninitiated, manga are Japanese comics, which are almost always in black and white and tend to have complicated storylines, rather like novels, and are one way that I waste money. Anyway, the manga museum in Kyoto was having a special exhibit on the treatment and depictions of samurai in various comics, especially focusing on specific historical characters that often come up, such as Miyamoto Musashi, the Shinsengumi, and Oda Nobunaga. After that we stopped at the café attached to the museum for cake and tea and talked for awhile. It was really the best possible way to spend a cold wet day.
-Curry is the best possible rainy day food.
-Even though it was pouring out, there was no hot tea to be had at the curry place, and I wonder if this is normal.
-When a Japanese menu refers to ‘chew’ (which is I believe how they put it into roman letters) it means whipped cream.
-Once, when the Hanshin Tigers (the Osaka baseball team) won a major game, the fans stole the statue of Colonel Sanders from outside of a KFC and threw it into the river. The statue is now chained to the building.
-The manga museum has on display a scroll from the Edo period (probably 400 or so years old) that shows cartoons of frogs and rabbits, possibly the oldest example of ‘comics’ in Japan.

Einstein Noh

Though it was a Wednesday, today was actually noteworthy. In my Literature and Performance class we had a guest ‘speaker’ who was one of the people that we had watched perform Kyogen a couple weeks previous. I was surprised, not only by how young and good-looking he was, but by his near-perfect, unaccented English. The best part about this class period was that it wasn’t a lecture in the proper sense of the word. Instead, we cleared away all of the desks and chairs and he taught us several basic moves in the Kyogen repertoire, including laughing, crying, opening a door, and impersonating a chicken. All of these actions were extremely exaggerated (which is part of why they are so funny) and had an accompanying word/noise. I have to say that it’s the most fun that I have ever had in that class. After classes ended for the day, a small group of us had tickets to see the practice performance of a new Noh play called ‘The Hermit Isseki,’ which is actually about Einstein, only set in the Noh world. It was very contemporary, to my rather un-knowledgeable eyes, with the stage on the steps of one of the buildings of the Toji Buddhist temple and surrounded by a shallow pool of water, which reflected the lights oddly onto the building that formed a backdrop. In the place of the usual four pillars that hold up the roof of a Noh stage were four clear plastic cylinders with lights on the bottoms of them and filled partially with water. It was very beautifully presented, but I spent a good time feeling quite cold: I don’t fully understand why anyone would think that it was a good idea to stage a couple-hour play outside at night in October, even in an unseasonably warm year.
-When you read textbooks it sounds as though the conventions of Noh are set in stone, but they clearly are not so static as all that.
-Toji temple is beautiful by night, but usually closed.
-Practice Noh performances are about half as expensive as official Noh performances, and after some initial rehearsing they do a full costumed run through of the show.
-Nothing feels quite as good as a hot bath after sitting in the cold for a couple hours.

Miyajima

Saturday was, for me, a very fun and yet very tiring day. I had at first intended to go with the group that was visiting Etajima to see the old Royal Naval Academy and the Battleship Yamato museum, but decided against it. That group was going to have to haul its luggage the whole day, take a couple long-ish boat rides (I really don’t do well on boats), and basically included rushing from spot to spot all day. I had had my fill of museums the day before at Hiroshima, which was incredible, if emotionally stressful, and was really looking forward to a relaxing day on Miyajima. After my breakfast of fish, miso, rice, tofu and various other traditional Japanese foods, I went with a couple of other people to see Itsukushima shrine about 3minute’s walk away from our hotel. It is a Shinto shrine that was built by Taira no Kiyomori of The Tale of Heike fame back a really long time ago on the inland sea. I mean, literally on the inland sea, with the buildings (including a contained Noh stage) built over the water, and the large Torii arch that marks a shrine’s official entrance out in the ocean a considerable distance. After visiting that, we stopped by the five-storied pagoda that is also affiliated with the Itsukushima shrine, and went into the odd sort of shrine that sits across from it. It is called Hokoku shrine, and it was commissioned by Toyotomi Hideyoshi back in 1587 as a Buddhist temple to pacify the souls of the war dead. It was, however, never completed, and thus has no proper interior ceiling or front entrance, and was recreated as a shrine to the soul of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. It really has a beautiful location on top of a hill, and has various paintings and woodcuts on the rafters inside, as well as a ton and a half of rice scoopers in various sizes. They are standing in corners, attached to the rafters with the other art, stacked by next to the main shrine, and even available for sale so that one can write a wish (I assume) on it and offer it to the enshrined god. I had seen a massive rice scoop displayed in the town centre the day before, but after this I started to see them everywhere. No shop that I stopped in failed to have some sort of rice scooper for sale and every restaurant had at least one displayed inside. When shopping for my Hiroshima regional Hello Kitty, rice scoops again figured prominently among the choices. On the official Hiroshima Hello Kitty front I decided on Kitty dressed as a maple leaf and riding a rice scooper and one of Kitty riding a paper crane. The rest of the day was spent shopping around for Omiyage for my host family and eating more than was probably healthy. I finally settled on a bottle of sweet potato shochu (a form of Japanese liquor that is not made from rice) and one of sweet red bean shochu, some pickles and a box of the compulsory momiji manjuu, which are essentially cakes the texture of pancake filled with various things (everything from traditional red bean to blueberry or cheese) and made in the shape of maple leaves. Out of every 10 shops I saw, 13 sold momiji manjuu.
I feel compelled to make a note about the deer. As I noted before, they are quite cute, and completely used to humans and thus do not mind being touched, but they are crazed when it comes to food. One of them took a bite out of my shopping bag, and another ate a friend of mine’s map. I saw them chasing down schoolchildren that were carrying any kind of food, and they were not averse to walking right into the centre of a group of people and rifling through bags and pockets. After a long day, it was great to finally fall into my bed back in Kyoto and sleep until some ridiculous hour.
-Itsukushima is over the ocean, so it is nicer to visit the shrine while the tide is in for the full effect, thus the morning or late evening.
-Once you’ve seen the main buildings reflected in the water at high tide, wait for later afternoon when the tide goes out so that you can walk out to the torii to see how big it is.
-Food and other things are surprisingly cheap for a tourist town.
-beware of the deer.

Hiroshima

Well, today was an amazingly full day! Early this morning, all of us exchange students and all of the program teachers boarded the bullet train for Hiroshima. One and one half hours later, we arrived at the atomic bomb dome in the centre of the city. This is the first stop in the Hiroshima city Peace Park, and is the government building over which the first atomic bomb detonated. It has been preserved just as it was after the bombing, when it was one of the few structures left standing. From there, it was a beautiful stroll down the river, where we met one of the many groups of Japanese schoolchildren there for class trips. The ones that came up to me asked me (in English, this must have been part of the assignment) who I was and where I had come from, and then asked me to sign their little booklets. After that, we visited the memorial for child victims of war that was built by the friends of Sadako, of 1,000 paper cranes fame. All around the monument where glass boxes filled with sets of 1,000 cranes from all over the world, and in front of it a group of grade schoolers had gathered and sang a song in harmony. It was surprisingly effective. I had brought origami paper with me that I bought at a 100yen store beforehand, so several of us folded cranes and dropped them into the donation box. After that we wandered around downtown Hiroshima before heading to the Peace Museum, which chronicles the invention of the atomic bomb, its effect on Hiroshima, and its possible consequences for the world as a whole. I actually found the whole thing to be very well done, and clearly aimed at promoting peace and disarmament instead of pointing fingers. I have to say though that there were some rather gruesome moments. After that we listened to talk by a bomb victim who had been about 12 years old at the time of the war, and who is one of a group of such people who travel the world to protest nuclear weapons. Again she did not try to place blame and she even said that she at one point realized that if Japan had had the bomb, that they would have used it as well. After this, we boarded a trolley, then a ferry, bound for Miyajima island, site of a shrine that has been dedicated a world heritage site and our hotel. This was a traditional Japanese hotel, with cotton kimono, green tea and sweets waiting for us in our beautiful room. Dinner was a feast of traditional foods, which we followed up by a trip to the hot spring public bath. This was actually surprisingly fun and very relaxing. Afterwards, another girl and I walked around the island, which was incredibly peaceful, and petted the deer that appear to be pretty much tame. So, it was a long but definitely rewarding day.
-The peace park is vast and extremely lovely. It is probably possible to spend an entire day there.
-Hiroshima city is devoted to a message of peace, and as such its main symbol is the dove, while a secondary one is the paper crane.
-They said after the blast that nothing would grow there for 75 years, but that was luckily not the case. In fact, certain trees in the city (called, appropriately, phoenix trees) survived the bombing and bloomed again afterward.
-The bullet train is very smooth, but not really smooth enough to write a letter on.
-There was no hot tea on the snack cart on the bullet train, which seems to go against everything that this country stands for.
-Miyajima is beautiful at night when they light it up, but the lights don’t stay on all night and were off by 10pm.
-The deer here allow themselves to be petted, and are about the height of extremely tall dogs, and quite delicate-looking.
-Public baths are actually really fun after the initial awkwardness, though I wouldn’t want to go alone.

Sushi time

For the most part today was a not-so-interesting school day, but this evening my host family took me out for something called ‘kaitenzushi.’ This is where you sit at a table, and little plates of various types of sushi and other foods glide by on a conveyor belt for your perusal. At least at this place, there was also a touch-pad where you could specifically request foods that you wanted, which would then come by on a special red dish (apparently there are flags at other restaurants) that other people know not to pick up unless it’s what they ordered. When you are finished with a plate, you slide it down a slot on the side of your table, which reads the little barcode on the plate and charges it to your bill. The whole experience was very novel, and the sushi wasn’t half bad either. Honestly, the selection was amazing. There were not only more different species of fish than I had ever seen before, but more preparations and unusual combinations than I’d ever seen before. Corn gratin sushi, anyone? Or maybe hamburger is more your style? Not only sushi, but also beer, parfaits, miso soup, roasted chestnuts and traditional Japanese desserts came rolling by. Another thing about this whole experience is that it seemed significantly less expensive than most any restaurant that I’ve been to since being here (not that my host family let me pay, they almost never do).
-Nato (fermented soy bean) was not so much disgusting as so completely odd in texture, smell and flavour that it was hard to palate.
-At least at this place, little prizes would be dropped, I believe having to do with a mixture of lottery and how many dishes you ordered. In this way, I received a very cute octopus sushi character cell phone charm.
-There was almost no waiter involvement. They seated us and gave us our tally at the end, but that was it.
-This was one of the first places that I’ve been since coming here where I have no idea how a non-Japanese speaker would function. The touch-pad and the tags on the reserved sushi were entirely in Japanese, as were all of the other signs in the place. Not that this is a bad thing, just an observation

Sake

Today was another national holiday, this time commemorating the 1964 Olympic games which were held in Japan. For me, this meant a trip to the Gekkeikan sake factory in Fushimi, a short ride on the express train from the center of Kyoto. Because of the quality of the water, sake has been made in Fushimi for over 300 years, and the tools that were used for a certain amount of that history were on display, along with old sake bottles, advertisements, and beautiful sake sets. My favourites were most certainly the sake bottle made for easy drinking on the new Japan Railways system around 1910 (which had a cup that could be attached to the top of the bottle so that it swiveled with the movement of the train, making it less likely to spill) and the special signboard made to commemorate Babe Ruth’s visit to Japan (featuring a cartoon boy swinging a sake bottle like a bat). With the price of admission, you get your own small bottle of Gekkeikan sake (enough for a family of four to each have a small glass) and a sake tasting at the end. After this, we wandered around Fushimi a bit until we ran into the Teradaya Inn. This was the site of a famous incident involving the revolutionary Ryoma Sakamoto at the end of the Edo era. It was only as I was leaving that I realized that I’d just been hanging out in the refuge of a major player in the anti-foreigner beginnings of the Meiji restoration. Next was lunch, which was a ‘Western food box lunch’, consisting of salad with sesame dressing, fried fish, chicken, and a small hamburger patty with tomato sauce and…miso soup, rice, and sake pickles. After dinner, we watched a popular television show called ‘Smap Smap’, which follows the antics of a very popular boy-band-that-was. The most notable parts of tonight’s show was a guest appearance by Alain Delon (sp?) an apparently very famous French actor, for whom the band made competing meals. After this, there was a series of ‘destination impersonations’, where each of them was assigned a place to go and a person to be. The easiest to explain was the unfortunate one charged to dress up as a large sea creature and go to marine world, where, at one point, he was forced to join the seal show (flapping flippers and making noises and the like), where he was rewarded with peanuts flung at his head and, later, had to be dragged bodily out of the pool because while his massive costume kept him afloat, it didn’t actually allow him to swim. The final piece, however, was the one that I had been waiting for, which was a collaboration between the band and the top stars of Takarazuka, an all-female, extremely flamboyant revue-type theatre form specific to Japan. One of my classes actually has tickets to go see Takarazuka in its birthplace in November. I really can’t wait!
-They really weren’t over-concerned about drinking age at the sake factory, since the legal age here is 20, which I just make, and I was never carded.
-They use sake to make everything from pickles to beauty products.
-There is a ridiculous amount of national holidays here.
-I have no clue how to retrieve photos taken on my cell phone for use in this post, sorry!

The Kyoto Student Festival

Sunday was the Kyoto Student Festival at Heian Jingu shrine, and it was seriously a blast. The previous day’s events had been at Kyoto Station, but I don’t think that the sheer size of Sunday could have been accommodated in such a small space. Essentially, dance groups from all over Kyoto and, I believe, Osaka competed in three or more locations set up in the blocked-off street behind the shrine’s Torii arch. The dance styles ranged from modern renditions of Japanese folk dances to hula to flamenco, cheerleading, modern and even break dancing. Each group had its own choreography, costumes and some had even made their own mixes to dance to. While they were seriously talented on the whole, the main impression that I got was that they were having a lot of fun with what they were doing, from the little middle-school cheerleaders to the older women doing Okinawan folk dances. Besides the dancing, there was also a kids’ game area, a couple stands for buying souvenirs and student-run booths selling food. I was also seriously impressed with the salesmanship skills of the booth people. Every booth was over-staffed and run with efficiency by students who, again, looked like they were having a great time. They would try to grab attention with sales pitches, signs, pamphlets, all matter of things. I think that this would be the best place ever to recruit the next generation of salesmen for anything. I have never been so tempted to buy amateur-made foods of unknown origin. After the festival I began a long and tortuous search for a bus stop that would provide me with a means to get home. I finally found one (with some help from a couple of nice people) and when the bus I needed finally came it was so crowded that I went for several stops before I was no longer packed in like a sardine, and several more before I could sit down. Unfortunately, the bus I was on got me only a certain portion of the way home before bedding down for the night, at which point I had to wait for another bus. It wasn’t until I got home rather later than I had intended that I learned that I’d taken a bus going the wrong direction, adding at least 30 minutes to my travel time on a good day. I have to say though, it was still a good day.
-Make sure that you get on a bus going the correct direction.
-There are surprisingly few bus stops in the wrong part of Higashiyama.
-Nice people will do their best to help you, but they can’t really save you from your own bad sense of direction.
-Japanese students seem able to muster up a considerable amount of enthusiasm doing a school activity on a Sunday.
-Matcha (green tea) ice cream parfaits are amazing. The one I had today was matcha ice cream, cornflakes, red bean paste and sweet rice dumplings (dango).

Today I went to see something called Mibu Kyogen, which is a style of kyogen that it is performed only (as far as I know) at the Mibu temple in Kyoto, and which has been declared an ‘intangible cultural asset’ or something along those lines. Basically, except that one of the shows was of the same story as one I’d seen the night before at regular kyogen, this was a completely different animal. It was entirely pantomime with rhythmic accompaniment by flute, drum and gong, with all of the actors wearing masks, and performed outside during the afternoon for only ¥800 a head. There were also some exciting special effects in the second piece, where a spider demon shot handfuls of rolled narrow strips of paper, rather like those that come out of party poppers, to simulate spider webs. At the end of the piece, the demon leapt off of the stage entirely, which was exciting because the stage was a sort of platform with a separate platform where the audience sat facing the it. This meant that the actor jumped into a space of indeterminate depth. The final piece that I saw was actually the same story that my dancing teacher had presented when she came to give her talk at Doshisha, just entirely pantomime and a completely different dancing style from Noh, Kabuki, Mai or modern.
Besides the performances that happen there, the Mibu temple is famous for being where the Shinsengumi trained back before the fall of the Tokugawa Shogunate, and is I believe where some of them are buried. Because of this, there were a great many Shinsengumi-themed shops in the area, including one that had the full range of Kyoto regional Hello Kitty’s, including Hello Kitty wearing the Shinsengumi uniform and carrying a sword. I am seriously considering buying this, but I also want the maiko Hello Kitty, the Murasaki Shikibu Hello Kitty, the Shinto priest Hello Kitty and the rickshaw driver Hello Kitty. This is the sort of choice that I must grapple with daily in this country.
On my way home, I was having some serious issues figuring out how to pay for my bus fare (after I was already more than halfway to my stop) and again encountered someone really nice. An older woman sitting by next to me noticed my trouble and gave me a ticket that would cover my fare, without ceremony and just as we reached her stop, which was a couple before mine. I know that some of the other students have had problems with how they are treated here, but the nice people that I’ve met here have truly outweighed the difficult ones.
-Neither the bus driver nor the fare machine will take any higher denomination of money than a ¥1000 note.
-You cannot throw a rock in this city without hitting a shrine or temple. On the short side street between my bus stop and the Mibu Temple I went by a shrine and two temples, and two of the major stops on the bus itself were large shrines.
-Hello Kitty owns this city.
-They make Andy Warhol obi. The woman sitting next to me was wearing one with the series of pictures of Marilyn Monroe in different technicolor shades.

Kyogen

Today was a pretty normal day on the school end of things. After class and post-class hanging out with the other students I went and picked up my alien registration card, which was painless. This evening my pre-modern class had tickets to go see Kyogen, which was a lot more fun than I had anticipated. Kyogen is a style of traditional Japanese comedy, often interspersed between Noh episodes, but also performed, as tonight, by itself. I had expected it to be over my head in terms of language, which was true, but the physical comedy and the help of short English summaries I read beforehand made it genuinely entertaining. The first piece was called ‘The Plum Blossom Hut’, which was about five ladies who go to visit a very old nun in her hut amid, you guessed it, plum trees. Once there, they write poetry and chat, and then drink a great deal of sake and start to dance. I believe that this may be the origin of karaoke. They finally get the nun to do a dance of her own, which was a good bit of physical comedy. All of the parts were played, of course, by men, and I believe that the man playing the nun was a designated living national treasure, and 88-years-old. The next piece was about a samurai and his bumbling servant trying to steal a nice sword from another samurai, which of course ended badly for them, and the third was about three gamblers who pretend to be handicapped so that they can get jobs from a man who is hiring only handicapped people. Of course, the gamblers break into the sake while their employer is out, and when he catches them at it they are so drunk they can’t remember which disability they had been pretending to have before. Unfortunately, while looking for the theatre we ran out of time to have a real, sit-down dinner, and thus wound up eating convenience store boxed dinners on the steps of the theatre itself. Very classy. While we were eating, we noticed a maiko (yes, another one) entering the theatre with a man. This was very exciting. I’m sure that the novelty of it will wear off eventually, but I have not yet reached that point. Throughout the performance all of us were keeping one eye on the action and the other on the maiko down below us. I would have asked for a photo, but she was working so I figured that that would be rude. Instead, the whole group of us followed her and her date to their taxi (actually they really just happened to be walking in front of us, but I’m sure that that’s how it felt to her).
-It appears that sometimes maiko do not wear their tall, belled clogs, but rather normal lacquered sandals (zori). This might be, in this case, because she was going to the theatre, where bells might be a problem.
-The kimono for Noh, and I believe also for Kyogen for that matter, are made with a different embroidery technique than regular kimono, which makes the patterns more textured.
-When you buy a boxed meal at the convenience store they will heat it up for you if you ask.
-They had hot tea in glass cups available for free in the lobby during intermission, which was really nice, though I’m not certain how usual this is.
-If you sit outside, essentially on the ground, you will be stared at.

Island Food

On Thursday night I came home from school directly, because a relative of my host family’s had come in from out of town and we were taking her out to dinner. We went out for Okinawan food at a restaurant near to Pontocho, which was different from usual Japanese food but also quite good. To start with there were some different seaweeds that were heavily battered and tempura-fried, along with something like a cross between garlic and onion that received the same treatment. There was a dish with egg, pork, and a bitter squash-like vegetable called goya, as well as pig’s ear sashimi, which is better than it sounds, that was served with green onions and vinegar. The next round was Okinawan soba noodles, which were more like udon in that they were white and thick, which were served in a spicy broth with ginger. With this came okonomiyaki, which is a savory pancake of sorts that can be filled with whatever you want (which is what the ‘okonomi’ part means, I believe), in this case meant pig’s ear, and topped with a sauce that’s like a mixture of ketchup and Worcester. Finally, we had small servings of ice cream for dessert, and were given what were basically Okinawan doughnut holes that we had to take with us due to lack of stomach-room. What I ended up having to drink was red sweet potato sake (for lack of a better term) that was actually a brilliant shade of magenta, and a glass of iced tumeric tea, which was really just the perfect thing after so much food.
-Apparently you just had to know that this restaurant was there, since it was invisible from the street and at the top of a narrow set of stairs.
- It was over ¥600 for a single alcoholic beverage, which is the rule rather than the exception.
-Don’t expect refills to be included unless you’re drinking regular tea or water.

Dancing

Today was my first lesson in traditional Japanese dance (Nihon Buyo), and it was really fun. On the way to the studio, a couple of us (big shocker coming up here, are you ready for it?) got lost. I swear that I spend more time lost in this city than found. Once we managed to find the studio though, it was very spacious, clean and truly beautiful. Today, as perhaps will be the usual procedure, we were not taught by the head of the studio but rather her apprentice, Kayo-sensei. I really like her. She might be as tall as me or even taller, and she usually wears these very thick and prominent glasses, which while certainly not ugly, don’t exactly scream ‘elegant’. They also make her look rather severe. When she’s not wearing her glasses, though, and is teaching a class, she is very graceful and a great deal of fun, and even tried to teach us beginners a few cool twirling tricks with our fans that might be used in more complicated dances. And then there’s the dance that we’re learning. It’s called ‘Sakura’, and set to a very famous song of the same name that I seem to remember learning in elementary school at some point. When we watched a video of some students from last year performing this dance a couple weeks ago, it really looked very simple, however, having actually tried to learn a small section this evening I know that it is definitely anything but. Every motion is carefully timed and executed, with several small points to remember, such as the position of head and feet and the exact angle of the fan. We were also taught how to walk while wearing kimono in an onstage situation. It was kind of odd, but even though we were just slowly moving back and forth across a room by sliding one foot in front of the other, it still wasn’t in the least bit boring.
-Dancing fans are bigger, both in length and width, than usual fans, and definitely heavier.
-When brand new, a dancing fan takes a considerable amount of effort to open.
-On dancing surfaces, which are usually covered in polished wood, one always wears tabi socks, which are white cotton, because the oils from your skin can hurt the floor.
-They are really not big on street signs here. At all.
-I am now convinced that pretty much everything from Engrish.com was purchased in a ¥100 store.
-If you know which one to use, the bus is definitely the way to go. It’s not as fast as the subway or train, but is only ¥220 for anywhere in the city, as opposed to usual ¥250 or more to use the subway, with more in addition if you change lines.

A Day with the Alums

Sunday those of us Wellesley people who were studying abroad or living in Kyoto were invited to join an alumnae tour that was coming through town. We were supposed to meet the group at their hotel near Shichijo station, from which we would proceed on our tour. Unfortunately, due to a variety of misunderstandings about which trains to take and from where, one of the girls and I wound up getting very far off course, eventually having to meet the group at their second stop of the day, the Kyoto National Museum. At least we got our share of exercise with all of the walking that we did. The Museum was very nice, though, with many objects well over a thousand years old, and kimono and lacquer ware that was well over 200 years old. After that, we visited the preserved home of a famous potter named Kojimo Kawai (…I think), which was very spacious and had a number of unusual sculptures. Next was lunch, which was a variety of small dishes including various types and preparations of fish, pickles and tofu. I found it to be quite good, but, like seemingly most Kyoto cuisine, it was very subtle in flavour, and thus probably a bit of an acquired taste. After that, we went to see tea ceremony performed at the beautifully maintained mansion of a famous Kyoto painter. The tea ceremony itself was lovely, though it was a little difficult to adapt it to serve more than 20 people. The gardens of the house are beautiful, but unfortunately, we didn’t really have time to stroll in them. Our last stop of the day was at the antiques district, which had some truly amazing things, including a 200-year-old screen, for sale that were completely out of my price range. So, after a wonderful day provided for us by Wellesley College, we returned home. On our way back, we stopped at a department store rumoured to have Chinese mooncakes (a favourite food of mine). Sadly, when I actually got my mooncake all the way home and unpackaged, I discovered it to be filled with coconut and sesame seeds instead of anything remotely mooncake-like.
-There is no Chinatown in Kyoto, and apparently no Chinese bakeries.
-Americans will go out of their way, it seems, to mispronounce foreign (in this case Japanese) words. In this way, the word ‘Meiji’ (pronounced May-G) becomes ‘Maijai’ (My Jai).
-Proper tea ceremony guest procedure: When you are presented with the tea bowl, bow to the tea master, lift it with both hands, look at the design on the side facing you. Next, holding the bowl in your left hand, use your right hand to turn the bowl clockwise in two short turns. Raise the bowl to your lips, drink the entirety of its contents, finishing it off with a distinct short slurping noise. This done, bow your head slightly and use two fingers on your right hand to wipe where you have just drunk the tea, and rotate the bowl again in the same matter as before, only counterclockwise this time so that the same design that was facing you when you received the tea is facing you again. Put down the bowl with both hands and bow again. There is a more complex procedure as well, but this is the basic part.
-Try anything once. I this isn’t really something I’ve learned recently so much as it has been a philosophy passed on to me by my parents. Some foods will look strange, even unappetizing, but might actually be amazing.