This week has been most eventful, so I will provide another piece of the Digest two days after the last one went up.
Yesterday, after waking up at 6:45 and not wanting to go back to sleep, I got a lot of work done on the FACES (the conference on Asian influences on American culture that I helped with last year and am helping with again this year) web page and another application that I am working on for FACES. It was a good morning spent with my best friend, good old Laurana (my laptop's hostname, you see).
After this laid-back morning, I went on a "bus tour of Kanazawa" with about 20 of my fellow students from the Kaikan. We caught the bus at about 13:30 and rode to Kenrokuen, one of the most famous gardens (more like an American park) in all of Japan. After standing in a line for about 20 minutes, we finally entered the park. It was very beautiful, but I would have enjoyed it much more without all the people. It is one of those places that is very personal, and it just seemed wrong to share it with so many people. I plan to go back sometime, by myself or with one or two other people, to catch a sunrise or a sunset. When I do, I promise to take some pictures. I did get a lot of pictures taken yesterday, so hopefully I will be able to get them up on this web site before too long.
After walking through Kenrokuen for about half an hour, we walked across the street to see the remains of Kanazawa castle. It has been very well kept, and is still quite striking. I also have pictures of it. At one time (as I learned in my Reading Comprehension class) early in the Edo-jidai (or Edo period, 1615-1868), Kanazawa was the capital of a powerful nation-state called Kaga. The castle here was one of biggest and strongest in all of Japan. Even today, it is quite imposing.
After the castle, we rode a tiny tour bus to the old section of Kanazawa. It is amazing! Other than the occasional peice of the 20th (or should I say 21st) century and the modernly dressed kankoukyaku (tourists, and most of them were Japanese, we saw very few fellow gaijin), I cannot imagine that the quaint little streets looked any different 800 years ago.
The winding little streets led us to larger (by Japanese standards, meaning about a car and three-fourths wide) streets, which in turn led us to a jinjya (Shinto shrine). This was a rather large jinjya, in fact. The first thing that one must do upon entering the large gates is wash one's hands in a well, to cast off the influences and cares of the outside world, I suppose. Next, you proceed to the main building, at the gates of which you clap your hands together once in front of your face and hold them like that, saying a quick prayer (at least, that seemed to be what people were doing, but I guess they could have been calling down a curse on the other bread shop across the way, for all I know!). In a very Catholic-esque way, you may then "buy" a block of wood on which to write a wish or a piece of paper with your fortune written on it. After doing so, you tie the paper or wood block to the appropriate board (I have pictures, so this may make more sense in conjunction with them). Amusingly enough, I saw a wood block written by a medical student at Kanazawa Daigaku (University), wishing that he would pass his final exams!
After the jinjya, we walked through more of the old section of Kanazawa. We stopped in a geisha house and had a tour. This was a historical geisha, so it contained no actual geisha. It was very interesting, all the same. The host told us that the house was the only one remaining in the entire city of Kanazawa that had not been rebuilt. The house was 180 years old, and kept up perfectly. It was quite richly (I though) furnished, and very nice to look at.
Next, we caught the last bus back to Korimbo one of the two town centres of Kanazawa, between which lies the "business district" (I would say downtown) of Katamachi, where all the nightlife is. The main group went their own way, and five of us (an Englishman, an Irishman, an Indian, an Israeli, and an American, me) set out for a restaurant that I had eaten at once before. It is a tradition-style Japanese restaurant, one where you take off your shoes and sit in a recessed area, above which is the table. (My description is somewhat lacking, I know.) We had a bunch of food and drink, and then walked around Katamachi for a while. There was rumoured to be a "salsa party" going on somewhere, so we went to a Brazilian bar called Apres to try and find someone we knew. Luckily we did, and found out the location of the party. After three games of pool, we went to find the party. A Japanese guy that we know named Masa joined us at Apres. Anyway, we checked out the salsa party and found it lacking (or we were too cheap to pay the Y1000 door fee, one or the other), so we kept walking around. Asef, the Israeli, found quite a few of his countrymen selling jewelry, strangely enough. We headed home not too long afterwards.
Well, that is my latest adventure. I will keep you posted.
Until next time, I remain,
-Yoshi