hey people, happy halloween! i'm leaving for tokyo this weekend to party my ass off and to meet lots of jap people (guys) at clubs if possible! so everynite from friday to sunday, it'll be at diff clubs and day time, if i can get up, seeing more of the diff downtowns. course, i'll take lots of pics and upload them. in the meantime, i thought i would leave this pic for u to look at, i took at it the osaka aquariam 2 weeks ago. no! i did NOT lope the heads of the penguins! it just so happened they were walking around like that!
Ocotober 24, 2003
that time, going to nara, i didn't think i would make it. going to kyoto to see those castles, then the same nite, friends birthday party went clubbing too. went home at like 6:30 am, crashed in bed for 3 hrs, got my ass up at 9:30 am to get ready to go to nara. after nara, karaoke! uh... and everyone thought i wouldn't be able to do it! but i did!
so after that weekend, my friend yuko from tokyo came to visit, and since i never been to kobe. why not! kobe's a really clean city, but then the city in 1995 got flattened by that major earthquake. so all buildings look new to me. so we went to harborland, next where they had the giant ferris wheel and the out door "Mosiac" shopping area.sorry if this pic refuses to turn the other direction.
behind us, u can see kobe tower, i think it's pretty hideous. come to think of it, all jap cities have towers. in tokyo, it was tokyo tower, osaka has one, somewhere. kyoto, kyoto tower and now kobe.
and here, part of the harbour area.
afterwards, we went to chinatown. i was dying to eat chinese food. i can't find a single dim sum restaurant in japan! they have that ramen noodles, which they claim is "chinese" , yeah rite! so i stuffed my face with food that's not quite what i'm used to. i noticed they're big on the pork buns and those gyoza's, steamed meat dumplings. hm.... dumplings.
this was at like 2 pm, then afterwards, at around 7 pm, had kobe beef! i can't believe that 150 g was like $40! but it was good beef, but expensive!
then the weekend after that, i went clubbing again. i never would have that that rock club was so so, but then i never really like rock that much. so crashed home at 6:30 am, got up again at 8:30 am to go.. hiking! the people who i went clubbing with thought i was insane but hey! i'm in japan so i'm gonna try to see much of japan if possible.
so we went hiking up the mountain to see the suspension bridge. damn that bridge sways! hiking was like a major exerise, the stairs they had for us were like huge gaps so it was a good exercise for the butt and thighs. and at the top, here's me celebrating after reaching the top.
and at the bottom of the bridge, they ahve that cool bamboo where it goes up and down with water pouring down on that.
and with the bbq, they fed us so much beef, chicken, noodles... hm... good stuff.here's me tearing into my beef like a dinosaur :)
and here's one of the star cooks of the club, salmon noodle mish mash of something but it was good too!
October 22, 2003
sorry people! had a round of jap midterms and now with my other classes giving me stuff to do, i didn't have much time to really update anything. or it just mite be that i'm lazy.....
rite! nara, about 1 hr or so away from kyoto by JR trains. Nara is a really small town but it's famous for all the deers roaming around. i don't know how many deers there are , but there are a hell lot! they go around checking people for food, and man, they can be scary. i saw a deer knocked down a small kid, making it cry. but the deers also bow to u! they go up to u, stare at u b4 bowing! it was so cute! i wanted to make it memorable and feed them.... almost a bad idea! u feed 1 deer, then they all swarm at u! the deers usually have their antlers shaven so they don't hurt the tourists. my luck, the deers i was feeding, 1 of them had sharp antlers in the 3rd pic! and i had to try my deer crackers to make him go away!
so one of nara's well known attractions is todaiji, is supposed to be the oldest wooden temple in the world.
it houses the world's largest golden buddha statue
also, in the temple, they had lots of bronze statues of warrior gods. near the back, they had a wooden replica of the todaiji temple, carved by youths who were still in prisons last year.
then, if u crawl through the hole of the wooden temple, u're supposed to be blessed with enlightment and health i think. the size of the hole is the same size of the nostril of the buddha statue. good thing i didn't get stuck :) it's easier to go in with your arms up.
and b4 leaving the place, a group shot of my speaking partner, the speaking partner's friend and an international student.
outside the temple, the park had ponds and on the other side of the pond, u can see the red torii gate for the religion shinto. almost all shrines should have this red gate at the entrance.
and at another temple, kasuga shrine, it's known more the lanterns. there were so many lanterns all over the place, that they don't bother doing it anymore. only for major celebrations do they light it up.
and at the shrine, i also saw a japanese wedding going on. i wanted more shots but these guys kept on ruining the pic~! they go up to the groom, bride and other people to adjust SOMETHING but at the end i can't tell what it was! this was the best shot i think for that.
october 10, 2003
hello people, in case u didn't noticed, i switched the entries around. thanks to my sister complaining, it makes more sense to have the newer updates on top since the pics get shown faster.
at this point of time, i have to resist the urge to just party all the time. i haven't really been motivated to study anymore :p well, back at UC, i would study like 3, 4 hours at least each nite. hey, lots of accounting practice problems and readings and group work! but here, it's so slack, i'm afraid i'll get used to it. but i better shape up since i have 1 test and 3 japanese midterms next week. -_-
anyhoo, here's the hanshin dept in umeda area, the centre for major shopping. high class dept stores all competing against each other with shopping malls and not as high class dept store (think the bay). daimaru and hankyu as expensive vs the heppu shopping mall and hanshin (bay like).
like i said b4, hanshin dept have bargins if the local baseball team wins. the final game is set around late october or so, then it'll be another round of bargins plus people jumping in the water. :) and this time, i'm gonna go to that bridge to check the action!
anyhoo, back tract to last friday. went to kyoto to do a bit more of the tourist thing, checking out castles! well, i did 1 and a 1/2.
so i checked out nijo-jo castle, it's still in its original state from 400 years ago and was once the home of the shogun tokugawa, one of the 3 unifiers of japan. the palace actually let people go in and check it out. so b4 entering the palace, leaving a memorable pic :)
i wish i could have a whole shot of the palace but it was so big, it was impossible. so i just got it near the exit -_-
so the inside of the palace, everyone had to remove their shoes. and once u step inside, the floors squeak! that's the point of the floors, to warn the guards of intruders. called the "nighting gale boards" (i think), the boards squeak and make small chirping sounds. and inside the rooms had tatami mats and paintings on the walls.
at that time, i didn't see the sign of no pictures so... my bad!
outside the main palace, they had another smaller palace but that was closed off to the public. but the castles had really nice gardens. an example, me again :) hey, i'm a tourist so i'm gonna do all touristy stuff!
1 of the 2 cstles, can`t go in cuz the castle was closed! they're renevating the area for a freaking amusement park rite next to the castle!
the castle, momoyama castle, set on a hill with expensive houses around it, famous as it was once the house of toyotomi hideyoshi, 1 of 3 people to unify japan. but since i couldn't go in, i could just see from the outside.
and here's what i think of their policy.
i would update some more, but geocities put a cap on my picture checking in my folders so i have no clue what pictures are what. i'll just update some more to my trip in nara.
October 6, 2003
ok, to finish off the last temple from last Saturday of sept. I thought we were onna go to ninaji but instead we went to ryoanji temple cuz it�fs closer cuz we were getting short on time. So this temple has a rock garden of white sand and 15 rocks laid out at the end of the 15th century. The garden is only 30 metres to 10 metres but according to this brochure that I�fm copying from :) is that it is up to each visitor to find out for himself what this unique garden signifies. The longer u gaze at it, the more varied your imagination becomes. but it was a really nice place to sit there and stare out at it. I wish my house could have one.
over here, we have a wash-basin of stone �gtsukubai�h for the tea room. Supposed to be inscribed into it �gI learn only to be contented.�h He who learns only to be contented is spiritually rich while the one who does not learn to be contented is spiritually poor even if he is materially wealthy, (copy from brochure). Well I)guess for all us students, this makes us spiritually poor cuz we�fre forced to attend school and in university, we go there to make lots of $ in the future. :)
over hear is the tea-room, zoroku which is closed off to the public, but we can still see it along the path. zoroku means to contain 6, so the 6 stands for the head, tail and 4 legs. Also zoroku means a tortoise, which is the symbol of genbu, the guardian god of the north. I�fm not too sure what this thing is in the middle of the tea room, but maybe it�fs supposed to be the turtle?
Over hear is the kyoyochi pond before entering the main buildings. Supposed to be lots of mandarin ducks but I didn�ft see any. Mmm�c..ducks.
So according to marcus�f request, he�fs laughing at me doing touristy stuff : ) hey man, I AM a tourist! a tourist who will be in japan til next year. Well not entirely true, I�fll be coming back to Canada on dec 12 to visit family and friends before flying back to japan on the 6th of January. From then on, I�fll be joining a tour to visit the northern island, Hokkaido, then flying down to the south to Kyushu. Then flying back to Tokyo to see more of the city. We�fll that�fs what I want to do!
ok, here�fs city life marcus. Den den town. Den is short for denki meaning electricity. So den den town means electronic electronic town. Tokyo has akihabara , an electronics district. Osaka has one too and I visited this one like 3 weeks ago. The place was insane. Every shop with electronics of all sorts, from tv�fs to video games, music etc etc. but the prices were pretty similar to each other, so I wasn�ft gonna go into every shop to check for 1 item. Well, I visited like 5 stores checking out mp3 players but reluctant to spend an additional $200. I already spent a hell lot of money!
and in the district of shinsaibashi, a famous pick up spot for guys to hit on chicks. Especially on the bridge over the dontobori river. i went to shinsaibashi to go to this high class department store in search and buying a Gucci purse, I got hit on by 3 guys at the same time with my friend. They were like 20 or so, I remember one guy dying his hair blond. But they looked at us, I stared at them and my friend look at away. She was terrified apparently. So they all approached us. I couldn�ft hear them very well , so it was like �gblah blah blah, onegai shimasu.�h Onegai shimasu = please. So I was like �ghuh?�h and my friend ran away from them! So I had to ditch the guys to catch up to my friend. But guessing they want to go karaoking, clubbing, drinking, a love hotel?!! This may sound stupid, but my jap friends understand what I�fm talking about. I would like to get hit on, yet I don�ft need it! It�fs all about having power, u attract them then flick them away. But I heard that if u speak English to those kind of guys, they�fll back off fast enuf. They can�ft speak English well enuf to carry on a conversation. Anyhoo, so that�fs my experience with another set of guys hitting on me. Gee, and I wasn�ft even dressed slutty! But guys like them try to pick up any females, as long as they�fre not fat or ugly. Must try that again soon:)
so as I was gonna write b4 I got carried away, at shinsaibashi, the dontonbori river. this river is incredibly disgusting. So disgusting the city can�ft clean the river up. The bacteria in there and the garbage, gives the river a dark color. But this river is famous as people do jump in it. People, Osaka people, jump in the river when japan wins. So from I heard, when japan won some matches for the world cup soccer, people jumped in. this time of the year, osaka�fs baseball time, hanshin tigers, have won the central league baseball in japan. It�fs been 18 years since the tigers have grabbed this title so the Osaka people are incredibly happy and they jump in! it�fs illegal and people have died in the past doing so. This year, 1 business guy was drunk from celebrating, he climbed over the fence partway and someone pushed him. The guy doesn�ft know how to swim and he drowned. Sad.anyways, here's the famous pick up and jumping spot in shinsaibashi.
u see that sign behind me? The guy with the baseball outfit?
the guy doesn�ft have the baseball outfit on all the time. It�fs just for this time that the Osaka city is rooting for its home baseball team. So for the world cup soccer, it had the guy wearing the japan�fs soccer jersey.
standing from the famous jumping bridge spot, a nite view of this area.
and here�fs the ladder for people who jumped into the waste water.
so when the hanshin tigers win the championship game in late October, it�fll be another massive celebration on the bridge. I missed celebrating on the bridge cuz I was in Tokyo. But I heard that a couple of international students from my school also jumped in. the host family for 1 of them was so pissed! They said to him, we don�ft wanna wash your clothes. They�fre too filthy!
but if I get the chance, I also wanna go on the bridge to watch people. And when the hanshin tigers won the central league, the baseball �es department store, hanshin department store, had a massive bargain sale. I only went in twice for like 1 hr b4 closing but it was insane. can u imagine all females in the store, 10 floors, checking out bargains. It means major shoving and pushing to get what u want. Of course, I enjoyed this cuz I enjoy shoving and pushing : ) will upload that picture and it�fs area soon enuf.
october 3, 2003
zzzz...lately i've had no energy. party cuz of studying and staying up late and getting up early. but also cuz i've been partying my ass off every friday, saturday and sunday. whether it's going sightseeing or shopping or clubbing, i don't know if i can pull an allniter! i'll find out if i can go to kyoto in the afternoon, then go to osaka at nite for friends' b-day party / clubbing and then meet my speaking parter at 10:30 am on saturday to go do some sightseeing. i would sleep except the trains stop running at 12:30 am so i'm forced to stay in the city til 5 am when the trains start running again. of course, it would be nice if i can be sober when i meet my speaking parter tomorrow -_-
anyhoo, correction about the ninaji temple, it's not that one. but since i don't have my tourbook with me,i'll just finish off with what the students and me did and then backtrack to that other temple another day.
kaitenzushi? ah, brings back memories of me working at a sushi restaurant with the conveyer belt. well, sushi boat didn't have conveyer belts, it was boats. this is my first time in japan eating sushi after arriving in japan for a month! but the sushi resaturant, kappasushi, dirt cheap! only 100yen a plate! no matter what kind it is, same price. i can't believe how little japanese girls eat! they had like 6 or 7 plates each, and that's it. check my plates out!
everyone was really surprised at how much i could eat -_-
afterwards, drinking at a pub! i have to admit, i really drink in canada. but now that i'm in japan, it's like drinking at least once a week or so at karaoke or at dinner with friends.
these japanese chicks are so fun to hang out with! already made plans to go clubbing and getting drunk already!
now, i'll start with ginkakuji temple before i go talking about the other temple. this one was last sunday. my host mom's friend's son wanted to practice speaking english and in exchange, he would show me around kyoto. it was pretty much a blind date since we had no idea what each looked liked and never spoke to each other before.lol
so ginkakuji is supposed to be the replicate of the golden pavillion , except gold, it's silver. trying to remember, but ginkakuji was built a generation after the golden one. silver cuz supposed to be more elegant and refined than the flashy gold one.
on the map, near the rite hand corner, u see the hill with a chinese character? every august, the monks lite the hill up on fire with that symbol. there's supposed to be another one at the golden pavillion too. but they set the hill on fire to guide the spirts back to the underworld.now, on to what the silver temple looks like.
ok, so i'm blocking the view of the temple. but this is the "blind date" guy that showed me around. it was pretty fun watching him sweat with only english! :P
so far similar, the temple set next to a pond like the golden one. and on the roof, there is a silver phoenix. here's where it differs.
u're prob all thinking, what the hell is this?! that's my first reaction. i asked ryoto, "what building is this?" well , it's the silver pavillion! ginkakuji! i couldn't believe my eyes, where's the silver? the history was that, the shogun had original plans to make the temple silver but they ran out of funding. so it's a wooden temple with the silver phoenix on top. i showed the pic to one other international student, he was so disgusted by this temple compared to kinkakuji. he's not even gonna go now that i showed him what it really looks like.
other than the temple not being silver, the landscape is pretty nice. lots of cultivated trees and some rock gardens.
i've noticed a lot of carps at both silver and golden temples
finally, along the paths towards the hills, they had a little waterfall. if u can see the sign behind me, roughly translates as moon washing spring. when the moon shines, it's supposed to reflect on the water like it's washing it.
anyhoo, that's my updates for today. more will be coming since i'm going to kyoto friday, and nara saturday and need to backtrack to 1 other temple and a couple of other places from 2 weeks.
October 1, 2003
the start of fall! it's about 26C or so during the day, but as pathetic as it may sounds, it's pretty cold! especially when i wake up in the morning in my little house with central heating. about 10C or so i guess, and freezing! had to dig up my ski jacket to survive for the next hour and half or so.
well, i got off my lazy ass and got around to uploading pics onto the net and resizing it. now i'm just a bit annoyed, buying a wireless router has caused more trouble than b4. the damn thing keeps cutting off the connection and it�fs really slow. If I�fm in the middle of uploading pictures to people, the bloody thing keeps cutting off. So I hope the host bro can do something about it. The wireless router costed like 350$ Canadian and if it keeps acting this way, I mite just have to throw that thing out the window. If any of u guys have wireless routers, is it supposed to keep breaking the connection?!
the pics here mite be a bit big but I resized them already, so it�fs a 800X600.
first off, last Saturday sept 27th, I signed up for a tour of 2 temples to be brought around by Japanese volunteer students. The temples were kinkakuji temple and ninaji temple.
the bell rite before the entrance. Visitors aren�ft allowed to even go near it, it�fs roped off. But the students said that monks do ring it around 5 am or 6 am everyday. Apparently, the residents do get annoyed.
some of us students with the golden pavilion temple in the background surrounded by the lake kyouko-chi = mirror pond. the pond has lots of large and small islands plus u can see turtles and lots of carps in this one corner. History of it is that it was built in 1397 as a retirement villa for the shogun ashikaga yoshimitsu but later was converted to a zen temple. But the temple was burnt down in 1950 by a monk. So in 1955, a reconstruction was done and is a replicate of the original including gold foils. So according to this pamphlet they gave to me, the building has 3 types of architecture. The 1st floor is the palace style, the 2nd floor is the samurai house and the 3rd floor is the zen temple style. The 2nd and 3rd floors are covered with gold-leaf on Japanese lacquer. As much as I wanted to go in, we�fre not allowed. But inside are supposed to be paintings on the ceiling and a statue of yoshimitsu.
a golden phoenix perched on its roof
behind the temple and the path around the mountains, visitors can pay to experience a short Japanese tea ceremony. I would give u more details but I didn�ft do it cuz we ran out of time : ( but the classic tea house is called sekka-tei and it was restored too.
here's me trying to get the rope to swing into the gongs at the top of the praying temple. afterwards, u can pay like 100 Yen to find out your fortune. this time, i FINALLY got a good luck one. i tried this fortune thing 3 times altogether, 2 of them were bad that i shouldn't travel. too late! but my japanese friends say that they can't even understand the little piece of people cuz apparently it's like jumbled up japanese.
along the pathway was a little mini waterfall . for those who can�ft read Chinese or kanji, it roughly translates as dragon gate. I�fm not too sure where they get that idea though�c.
u see that little white statue behind me? It�fs the grave for a white snake on a tiny island on the small pond, an-min-taku. the name of the pagoda is called hakuja-no-tsuka. Whether it�fs a story or not, the Japanese consider a white snake to be lucky. For me�c snakes are creepy�c.and directly behind me, people attempt to throw coins into the centre of the bowl. not too sure if that little circle of rocks is also for the white snake or if it's a tiny buddha statue.
anyhoo, getting late here. like 11:20 pm. i'll finish updating the rest. there's still ninaji temple, ginkakuji temple and finish the day off with friends at the sushi bar with the revolving converter belt.
