Golden Week...not so golden this year

So said one of my sensei. We had Thursday off, today we have classes, and next week we have off until Wednesday.
Just posting this in case our hostel doesn't have internet service/wireless.
If we do have internet, I might just explain what Golden Week is....   =D
But I have to run now!

"I am no better than monkey"

Last night could be called a milestone in my culinary--well, my history of food-preparation.

I haven't felt much up to getting out and seeing places since last Friday when I realized I had a sinus infection. I spent most of the weekend keeping to myself and keeping myself entertained with movies and such. A couple of days ago I started losing my voice because I've been taking an expectorant, so of course a bunch of people thought I was getting sick just now.

I think I'd take a standard cold over sinusitus right now--I'd much prefer to be taking a cough supressant and fevering-out the illness. Being well enough to go to classes and not having a voice to ask questions or discuss things is almost as irritating as the infection itself. 

In any case, I was feeling well enough to attend Emi-chan's sushi-making birthday party last night, for which I'm very grateful. Now I know how to make sushi! Or how to make the actual roll...still not clear on the preparation of the rice.


My first sushi roll turned out pretty well too. I only used cucumber and shredded tuna mixed with mayonnaise, so naturally it was delicious.


And very beautiful if I do say so myself.
I kind of squashed the last 2 pieces when I was slicing up the roll though. 

 

So that was pretty much my first experience with making traditional Japanese food. I'm not counting packaged ramen, frying gyoza, or stir-fry. There were also various birthday partyish activities: we sang, Emi-chan opened her presents, we danced to YMCA in Japanese, people were dared to eat sushi with too much wasabi. Or Mei-chan did because she lost the Japanese version of mass rock-paper-scissors. A bunch of us had pitched together money and bought her a good set of watercolor pencils--one of Emi's hobbies is drawing fashion designs--and art supplies are a tad more expensive here, compared to what I remember anyway. Masuo and Kurachi gave her a Birthday Book (you know, those kind that have things that happened in history or whatnot on the day you were born, astrological stuff, etc) and a homemade royal sash, respectively. Maybe it was more of a pageant sash--I didn't get a good look at what was written on it--but seeing as the latter was modeled after the former, it's hard to tell.

Between all of us, Emi received three birthday cards, I think. One was a cute puzzle card, and the other two were traditional Japanese birthday cards, which are actually 1'x1' paper-covered pieces of cardboard or bristol board perhaps...That description sounded kind of unceremonious. They're actually very nice looking and convenient, especially for a group of people living in a dorm, because you can write, draw, and decorate both sides however you like. When someone's birthday comes up, you can always find their card lying around on one of the tables and jot a short message of birthday good-wishes, even if you have to find a creative way to squeeze it in between everyone elses' Happy Birthdays written in various languages.

MONKEY SIGHTING #2!!!

 

On the way to my class earlier today (or yesterday, more precisely), I saw about 6 or 7 monkeys in the trees over/behind the fenced area next to the sidewalk. I think they were all macaques, but there may have been a couple of different subspecies. Or the smaller ones could have been juveniles, but they didn't look particularly immature to me. Juveniles are usually a little fluffier, for one...

Ha, as mature as monkeys can be, in any case.

 

The smaller ones were actually in the trees overhanging the sidewalk, and all I had on me at the time was my keitai, so the pictures aren't that great. Had to get close enough that they wouldn't run off too quickly--some of them did anyway--and I was pointing my lens up into a bright sky, which was very beautiful and pleasant for walking today, but slightly obstructive to good photography.

 

Finally, pictorial truth. There are monkeys.

Now I just need to catch one on campus or on I-house, doing something...monkeyish.

An American in Kyoto

 An interesting view of Kyoto Tower from inside Kyoto Station

After a little less than a month of living here, things are starting to settle down. Although, I doubt the culture shock will be completely over anytime soon.　Already mentioned the sort-of convenience of rent payment: as long as you're carrying your invoice on you, you could potentially pay your rent at any konbini in the country. The downside is you have to pay with cash--more on this slightly annoying aspect of Japan coming up later!

Rent is nicely cheap here--cheaper than room is at the home university or an apartment, only about $170 a month for a shared room. And the rooms aren't that small either: not at all like the little box rooms in our I-House. I suppose the whole room, including the closets, kitchenette, and bathroom at the front, is probably about the size of my studio apartment last semester, but I don't have nearly as many things to crowd my space here, and there's enough storage space that my desk isn't always a complete mess and/or makeshift shelf. We have pretty enormous closets at the front, where I store the extra futon covers I don't need, my bookbag, my suitcase, and my 1 coat and 4 scarves.

The bathroom is quite spacious compared to my last bathroom, where you could practically shower, go to the bathroom, and brush your teeth at the same time. It's also very easy to clean, and you can use the showerhead to wash clean the rest of the bathroom if you wanted--there's a drain in the floor. It's kind of like a European shower in that sense, except our bathroom does have an actual bathtub built in, instead of just the shower. The showerhead has 2 places to hang: above-head-level and waist-level. There's also a small, rather ineffective fan which is constantly running, so when we do shower, it gets very humid in the room very quickly. Don't mind shower humidity so much, but it makes it much easier for mildew to grow on the walls or the shower curtain if you forget to hang it flat to dry.

In addition to the closet by the hallway door--which for me is almost completely occupado by my suitcase--we have wardrobes. Mostly closet space, but with two smallish dresser drawers at the bottom. I manage to hang most of my clothes, except for pants, socks, and unmentionables, which I keep in the top drawer. (The bottom is where I keep my yukata and tae kwon do uniform. I also keep all of my shoes, except my slippers and sneakers on the floor of the wardrobe, along with 1.5 L bottles and some food items.

My slippers and sneakers I keep in my shoe box on the bottom floor of I-House. Everyone's shoe boxes are right by the two entrances, so we can change from out outdoor to our indoor shoes without putting the outside shoes on the inside-floor. Since I was going to have to get slippers anyway (and I didn't want to have to keep borrowing the visitors' slippers), I bought a cute pair from Vivre. I thought I might as well make a souvenir out of them. At the university, you don't have to worry about changing your shoes when you go to your classes indoors, but at places like the training room or running track inside the gym building, you need to have a pair of indoor sneakers.

We have western-style beds in our rooms, but with a futon mattress on top of the regular mattress. Most Japanese typically fold up their futons, sheets, and futon comforters to make up their beds I think--Wendy does it sometimes--but I usually end up just straightening out my sheets and comforter on my bed before going out. The sheets and comforter aren't really big enough to tuck under either of the mattresses, so by the time I wake up in the morning, it's pretty much a complete messy nest of blankets and sheets.

Traditional pillows here are actually filled with buckwheat, which makes them feel kind of like small bean bags. I didn't mind the one at the guesthouse so much--it was actually comfortably firm--but the ones we had here were a little too small and stiff, so I ended up buying a slightly bigger, looser one. It was still cheaper than the western-style feather or foam pillows, which I think is what most of the exchange students here bought in the end.

Each room also has a small balcony, good for hanging laundry, and possibly sunning. I feel much more comfortable hanging my laundry to dry outside on my balcony than on the roof--although it supposedly doesn't matter when it comes to the issue of bra-stealing monkeys. Also still trying to work out the issue of a good sunning spot: we're not supposed to go out on the roof, the balcony's kind of small--and you might get ogled by the boy's dormitory across the way. Ganguro girls aside, it's not at all normal to sunbathe or have a tan in Japan; getting a sunburn appears to be slightly devastating in the eyes of most Japanese girls. Having pale, milky skin is still the epitome of epidermal beauty; many of the soaps, lotions, and creams you find here have various kinds of "whiteners."

On a more scholastic note, the class schedule here is quite a bit less terrifying than back home. But this probably has more to do with the fact that in America, I'm usually taking 16-18 semester hours (usually 5 or so 3 or 4-credit-hour courses and a couple of 1-credit-hour dance or martial art classes) and here I'm taking the minimum 8-course requirement. (It's actually equivalent to the 12-semester-hour minimum class requirement back home.) The school day is set up similarly to block scheduling: there are four 1 1/2-hour blocks in a day, with 15 minutes between blocks, and an hour lunch break between 2nd and 3rd period. Classes meet once a week. My Japanese class is actually split into four classes, meeting Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings, focusing on reading, writing, listening comprehension, and speaking practice.

I'm taking the required 4 Global Japan Program courses, which tend towards cultural subjects and are taught in English. Monday 3rd period I have Business and Management in Japanese Systems, which I honestly took because people said it was an easy workload, it wasn't 4th period, and the subject/issues explored in class weren't completely restricted to business. The rest of my classes I am earnestly interested in--and need as General Education requirements for my degree back home. Tuesday is my busiest day: after lunch, I have Introduction to Japanese Culture, and then a seminar in Outlaws in Japanese Film/Cinema. I nearly fell over when my professor in my Outlaws seminar said we were required to go see a live performance involving an outlaw story, and that there were very few going on this season, so our choices were pretty much limited to a Noh theatre production or the Takarazuka Revue's production of The Scarlet Pimpernel.

Fell. Over. It was the perfect excuse to see a Takarazuka musical/opera, which I'd wanted to check out ever since I'd read Japan Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures in Japan. The Takarazuka Revue is an all-female theatrical troupe who do Broadway musical (and operas, I believe) adaptions of both Western and traditional Japanese works. I wasn't sure until I looked it up, but the Takarazuka production of The Scarlet Pimpernel is the same musical which ran on Broadway from 1997-2000--and was not exceedingly popular--just translated into Japanese. Frankly, I'd forgotten that the musical even existed; probably no production of The Scarlet Pimpernel will ever, ever, ever top the 1982 made-for-TV movie with Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour, and Ian McKellan in my mind. But that film was actually a pleasant amalgamation of The Scarlet Pimpernel and El Dorado, and I think the Scarlet Pimpernel musical is only based on the events which occur in the first novel.

Wednesdays are typically the day for clubs and circles to meet. Many students arrange their schedules so they don't have any classes on Wednesdays, so they get a nice break in the middle of the week. Besides being particularly interested in the subject, I needed the Japanese Religion as my ethical-religious General Ed credit. This is my only class on Wednesdays, just after the lunch period. A good amount of the material covered in Intro to Japanese Culture overlaps with and reinforces subjects covered in Japanese Religion, which is helpful. And now I can put names to all the structures and objects that I've seen in various shrines and temples. The reading for class thus far has proved very intriguing as well--I'm saving that commentary for another blog post though.

Japan: The Necessities of Life as a Ryuugakusei

1) Cash
No one ever bothers to tell you this--they're too busy talking about culture shock involving focus on group cooperation vs individualism in Japanese society, or the Confucianism-derived social structures, or how Japanese guys still don't know how to talk to girls when they get to college (it's true, they can be very shy)--but the Japanese monetary system is primarily cash-based. This is kind of important. You can use Visa sometimes, at chain-stores, certain restaurants, some konbinis, large department-stores, and stores which sell generally expensive things, but you really shouldn't count on it. Most restaurants and moderately-sized stores (especially ones selling traditional crafts) are cash only. The bookstore at my school is cash-only. My rent is cash-only. Some of the supermarkets are cash-only. And of course, public transportation is cash-only--well the bus systems and subways are anyway. Sometimes you can use credit/debit to pay for things like train tickets.

It's a little bit of a pain sometimes, coming from a society where it's much safer and more convenient to carry your money in credit or debit cards rather than cash. And I don't even need to begin to talk about how impossible it is to live in America if you don't have a credit score as an adult. I would never walk around in the States with the amount of cash I carry around in my wallet here in Japan. But I suppose here people don't face the danger of being mugged quite so often. Not in Kyoto in any case.

2) Keitai
It's very inconvenient to live in Japan without a cell phone. I find it inconvenient in the first place because I've always treated a cell phone as a security blanket--I feel safe knowing I can contact people in emergency situations, when I'm lost, or when my rubber tire unravels on the road. But the Japanese use cell phones not just for calling, but for texting (big surprise there), emailing (you receive an email address associated with your cell phone--which the Japanese use much more often than their gmails/etc on their computers), internet surfing, as cameras, personal agendas, dictionaries...

Ok, when I write it down, it doesn't sound that different from an iPhone.

In America I pretty much just use my cell phone as a watch, and for calling people. I don't text--I didn't really learn how to text until I came here and it was the primary means of communication with my tutor. (I still feel more comfortable texting her in Japanese than calling her and trying to understand what she's saying and respond in Japanese with a loud crowd buzzing in the background. Quite the opposite of when I was in America, where I still believe calling someone and talking to them directly would still be faster than sending a text.) And I still find it a scary sight in America when I come across little middle-schoolers texting away on their Blackberries or whatever. Guess I'm already getting old-fashioned in my early twenties. But everyone here has a cell phone, and uses it to text and send emails. People use them to organize/arrange meetings all the time. At tourist hot spots, people are always breaking out their keitai cameras. It's my emergency English-Japanese dictionary when I forget my denshi jisho.

And you have to admit, the ridiculous amount of cell-phone charms, called strappu (straps), are fun. I saw a woman on the subway once who must have had 15 strappu hanging off her cell phone. I wish I'd taken a picture. (As for the strappu and stickers people use to decorate their keitai here: there should be a TV show, like "Pimp my Keitai" or something.)

3) Denshi Jisho, the Amazing Electronic Dictionary
Not necessarily a must-have for all exchange students, especially beginners who can't benefit very much from the kanji-search function. Most actually have a number of English-Japanese and Japanese-English (or what-language-have-you) dictionaries on them, but the most nifty feature I think is definitely the kanji input. They come with a stylus so you can draw on a currently unidentified kanji and look it up, without having to know the phonetic reading. In the Japanese entries, you can also highlight unknown kanji with the stylus and look up the readings. Pretty handy if you've got a handle on the basic alphabets and at least some previous knowledge of kanji. I managed to get a second-hand denshi jisho from Kai, an exchange student from New Zealand who makes very interesting-smelling dishes in the kitchen sometimes. It's practically as good as new, the kanji-input is just finicky sometimes about using the correct stroke order.
 

Kokumin: More Beautiful, More Healthy and More Clean,

with all our Heart.

The massive feast the Korean students made us tonight was very spicy and delicious. And thanks, Kiri-san, for checking out and commenting on my blog! It made my day, and I was happy that I could read and understand most of your comment!　
（きりさんは私のブログを読んでくれて、ありがとうございます！コメは少しだけ読まないでうれしいでした！）
And that's all for now, folks.

Hateshinai Aka: Endless Red

My computer sounds like it's dying sometimes.

 Whirring frantically.
 I sure hope it isn't dying.



Sunday, I paid a visit to Fushimi Inari-Taisha--which is practically on the opposite side of Kyoto--with Sunyoung, a law major from Korea. A few years ago, there weren't as many foreigners visiting this shrine, but since the Memoirs of a Geisha came out, everyone visiting Kyoto wants to see the thousands of red torii Sayuri ran through in the film. And there are literally thousands of torii, donated by various companies and businesses. Originally Inari was a kami of agriculture, rice, and fertility, but nowadays is revered as a patron kami of businesses and industry.

 Waiting for the procession

which reminded me a lot of a church procession/parade I saw in Spain once

These are mikoshi, portable shrines used to transport the enshrined kami.

This was one of the few times of the year the kami is basically brought out into the public. 

I've waited to write about this shrine visit since I actually started learning about its history in my Intro to Japanese Culture and Japanese Religion classes just this week. I also learned why kitsune--the hengeyoukai, not the animal--purportedly have a great love of sake.
Foxes have always been the messengers of Inari, and kitsune statues all over Fushimi Inari-Taisha. Some hold objects in their mouths, like keys to granaries, scrolls for accounting, wish-fulfilling jewels, or small spheres which hold the power and energy of the kami.
The red bibs on the statues are offerings.

 This one was a nice portrait I think

The ema at this shrine are rather unique: they're shaped like fox faces. People write their wishes on the back and can draw on their own fox face on the front. Some of the fox faces looked more like dogs or people though...

 Offerings of sake, water, and rice are brought her for breakfast and dinner.

Kami need breakfast and dinner just like people.

Fushimi Inari-Taisha is built on a mountain with three peaks; people usually travel from the shrine on the third peak to the first, on paths lined with red torii.
The lower shrine is for the Ukanomitama no kami, the soul of rice, the middle shrine for Sarutahiko no mikoto, a deity of the ground, and the upper shrine for Oomiyanome no mikoto, a female deity.

 

Funny note, candles are very, very rarely allowed to be lit here. For a while, the crows were making off with lit candles. Kind of a fire hazard. (There was a guy watching these candles though. Plus, these candles were pretty hefty.)

 

There are also hundreds of otsuka, stones with the names of kami or budhha/bodhisattva inscribed on them. All are various representations of Inari. 

I'm not sure if we actually walked the whole thing or not...We got to the top of, well, something with a great view. There were about 2 or 3 other paths back downwards, and a very convenient place to eat, grab a drink or some ice cream...

Thinking the paths were going to circle back around towards the front, we were glad to be walking downhill, until we discovered the easiest way back to the front of the shrine was back uphill towards the way we came from.

I'd like one of these in my future dream garden

After a very serene mountain path, a bamboo grove, some rice paddies, and a pretty little hillside garden with tulips, and a very, very steep hill, we made it back at the earlier intersection, then back towards the entrance, thence to back to the station. Fortunate, because it was starting to get cold. The cool weather was nice and refreshing when we were climbing up stairs and stairs and through tunnels of torii.

A last few peaceful thoughts nearby and at the station: