week 28

this week went by very quickly and was a fab and groovy one. ever since i decided to leave, time has been whizzing by which is a little scary. i told people here that i will be leaving around august and i was quite suprised at some of the reactions. i hadnt really thought to much about what leaving japan actually means, which i know sounds odd, but i was thinking more about what i will do when i get home rather than the actual leaving process here. it will be incredibly sad saying goodbye to other jets and my japanese friends such as mayoumi, tea ceremony people and tennis crew. I was suprised at a few of the teachers being so sincerely sad at hearing i was leaving. Mr Mura said it was bad news! Awwww bless him....

But i dont want to dwell much on leaving as i have an awesome 6mths ahead of me now!
so this week....
on monday i joined Maruoka gym. Sarah had already joined and said it was great so i was keen to try and increase my activity levels. It is a small but really friendly little gym. 600yen per session which isnt too bad either. It was cool meeting some new faces, and i felt super after a 2hr session! i felt so pumped it was amazing! Tuesday i went to the gym for only an hour before i met with Mayoumi and we went to tea ceremony together. The tea ceremony people were lovely as always. I also got the chance to look in on the flower arranging class next door. The room contained middle aged women silently and diligently arranging sakura, narcisususususes, sweet peas and other flower type stuff. the smell from the room was divine and the arrangements were wonderful. I would love to know more about it but the language barrier prevented me from finiding out a few of the basic theories and ideas around the placement of flowers. I picked up that placing the flowers up and forward are important, and that the arrangement should be a certain height. The bowl or dish is also important, and some of the dishes being used were wonderful shapes and sizes.
On wednesday i had my hair cut with Kim at Destin in Fukui. We were both a little worried about what we would under go and what the final outcome would be, but it was great! i fell in love with the man who washed and then massaged my head..wow is all i can say, he has great hands. We both left the salon with subtle but nice haircuts..and headed to the 100yen sushi, yay!

On thursday i had an elementary visit at Higashijyugo. It was really tiring as usual but i was chuffed with how it went. Afterwards i went to the gym for a few hours before going to Harue for my english class. As usual the english class was quite interesting, and quite funny at times with the one and only Nagata san making some classic remarks once again declaring who is boss!

On friday i simply went to tennis and then packed my bag for a fun weekend away...
oh we also had an earthquake this week..and i was awake for this one. But i may as well have been asleep. It was rubbish!! The first earth quake i have experienced, and i didnt even wobble a bit. It simply made the windows rattle for a few seconds. I want better than that!- but not too strong

So this weekend, Jill, Katie and i headed to Kyoto. I drove down on saturday which turned out to be a bit stressful due to my alarm clock not going off, but the journey was quick and traffic free (until the city). We had arranged to leave the car in a bargain car park near the hostel which meant that we saved money over the weekend on travel which was great. We were extremely lucky as from the moment we arrived to the moment we left, the weather was magnificent. It was as if winter had been cancelled.

After checking in we headed straight out to Fushimi Inari. This turned out to be only a half hour walk away south of our hostel, so off we trotted. This temple is one of the most impessive inari temples (dedicated to the shinto goddess of sake, rice and fertility) with the recognizable inari traits of fox statues and numerous tori gates. Tori gates made of wood or stone are placed at the entrance to shinto shrines as a way of marking the entrance to a holy place. Passing under the gate after washing oneself is a mark of purification and sanctification. This is an interesting story about the origin of these gates;

...in an old Japanese legend, the sun goddess Amaterasu became extremely annoyed with her prankster brother, so she hid herself in a cave and sealed the entrance with a rock, causing an eclipse. The people were afraid that, if the sun never returned, they would all die. So, at the advice of a wise old man, they built a large bird perch out of wood and placed all the town's cockerels on it. They all started to crow noisily, causing the curious sun goddess to peek out of her cave. The door being open a crack, a large sumo wrestler from the town ran up and pushed the rock away, letting the sun out, and thus the world was saved. That bird perch was the first torii gate. From then on, the torii became a symbol of prosperity and good fortune, and spread all over Japan...

the reason for me dwelling on what torii gates are is that Fushimi Inari has over 10,000 large tori gates and countless smaller ones, making it an incredible sight! We walked through these toriis all the way to the top of a larger and higher than anticipated hill!! We climbed for over an hour and a half, but it was a lovely climb through forrest and toriis! A great temple to visit.

After this tiring afternoon we walked back to the hostel stopping off for 100 yen sushi, yay! we then decided to have a nap before our evening out in Kyoto. It was a good idea as we had a long evening at bars and eventually in a dodgey club. My idea of drinking a football filled with gin and tonic turned out to be not such a great idea, but i had fun! We met some strange gaijin, many women looking like prostitutes, some funny japanese people and jill and i even found 'bar africa'! rock on africa.

The next day we drove to Nara. It was a painfully slow drive due to crappy traffic and because it was a 3 day weekend every japanese person and their friend was out and about in Nara, so we had to find parking a little outside of the main town. Nonetheless i had a good day.We first had a chat and a play with the many deer in Nara park. There are hundreds of the cheeky buggers who pester you quite persistently for food. So much for cute old bambi.
We then walked up the lantern lined path to Kasuga Taisha which is a Shinto shrine as old as the city, and was built as a shrine to pray to the deity who protects the city. Unfortunately we were unable to go inside due to some ceremony. But we walked to a smaller shrine in the same complex where we were able to watch a small ceremony take place. The Shinto priests were chanting in a rather melodic and harmonious way, and there were a few instruments that were played at the end of the ceremony too. In the glorious sunshine this ceremony was fascinating and very atmospheric.

Next I had a wander over to the Todai ji complex. Unfortunately there were hundreds of over sight seers there along with the sacred Sika deer (believed to be messengers). Luckily for me, as usual Japanese tourists only ever seem to go to the main sights to get there photos and then they quickly leave. So the steeper walk up to the less famous Nigatsu do was far less crowded, and there was a lovely view over the city from the top. I then wandered back down a lane where there were some traditional Japanese style houses with beautiful gates, roves and gardens.

I then paid to go in with the masses to Todai ji. This Buddhist temple is famous for housing the largest wooden Buddha statue in the world known as Daibutsu. The statue is nearly 15m tall and weighs over 500 tonnes. What a big one. It was a colossal sight, although to be honest I think I preferred the grand hall and the statues in Katsuyama which is never visited!

I then met back up with Katie and jill and we had a walk via a picture shop. We also went via the 5 storey pagoda to find a chilled out yummy coffee shop. By this time it had become quite cold, so the hot beverages and paniniis were well worth it!

After this we headed back to the car and back to Kyoto for a mellow evening at the hostel. The next day we got up, packed the car up and then headed into the city for a short shopping spree. We went in to a department store which had a chocolate exhibition on but unfortunately there was a severe lack of samples and freebies!! But the wander around Zara was fab, as was the bookshop and the traditional Japanese goods shop- in all I happened to purchase the odd thing! I love Kyoto so much. I think there is so much to do, and I love the vibe that it oozes. We finished the weekend off early afternoon with once again, sushi! Yay! And then it was time to drive home so that we all got back in time for the following day at school. Why do long weekends go too quickly?!