Excusemimasen again

So for some reason that last post is really funky, as in I can't properly edit it on here. So, please forgive any funkiness of ze last post. I'm just tired of copy-pasting, changing, and reposting it just to find something else wrong with it....eehhhhhh....

Day 3: Gion, Take 1, and Eine Klein Nachtmusik

Last Tuesday began with one of several attempts to go see Gion, an area very near Shijo (of the wonderous Wonder Tower and nightlight) which is famous for geisha, maiko, and teahouses in Kyoto. Robert and I got on the wrong bus line and sat for a while until I was pretty sure we should have passed Gion. When I asked a lady about it, and she talked to the bus driver, we discovered which line we needed to have rode, and the driver was kind enough to return our fare to use for the other bus. By then, it was nearing the time to meet Gerry at Nijojo castle, so we decided instead to head in that direction.

The construction of Nijojo--the last "jo" being the suffix for castle, like -tera and -in are suffixes for temples, and -ji is a counter for temples, and -jinja is a suffix for Shinto shrines--began in 1603, under the first Tokogawa Shogun Ieyasu. Itty bitty abbreviated history lesson. The castle was completed in 1626 under Iemitsu, the third Tokogawa shogun, and is a prime examples of early Edo design. Most of the walls are covered in murals, several with gold leaf, depicting landscapes or nature scenes. Lot of peacock and eagle imagery.

The ceilings are adorned mostly with elaborate floral and geometric patterns. They also have mannequins in many of the main rooms, showing where the shogun, the first lady-in-waiting, and so on, would have sat.

Historical murals aside, the most fascinating thing in Nijojo is the nightingale floors, or uguisubari, which were built as security devices against ninjas and sneaky pirates with cat-like tread. It's a very bizarre experience to walk on these, because it doesn't feel like the floorboards are creaking under you. With a ton of tourists moving down the corridors, the floor was constantly chirping as well. The musical squeaks are created by nails rubbing against cramps under the floorboards, in response to pressure.

We also walked the Ninomaru and Seiryu-en gardens, making our way around the castle grounds, through sakura and ume groves before getting caught in the tourist trap.

The tourist trap consisted of an initial group of vendors in tents and then the souvenir shop. I might have purchased a beautiful and expensive peachy-pink sakura-colored scarf from one of the tent vendors. (The reason they were so expensive, besides the whole 100% silk thing and the complexity of the weave, was the fact the dyes used came from Kitayama cedar bark and leaves. Kitayama cedars grow in Keihoku, one of the mountainy outer-skirt areas of Kyoto. Robert bought a couple of scrolls and a pouch from another tent vendor, and I guess he spent enough that the lady threw in a free card-carrier walletish thing.
Then we were viciously lured into the souvenir shop.
Actually, I was just curious. In addition to specifically Nijojo-oriented souvenirs, they also sold a lot of the usual and traditional Japanese kiosk gifts: fans, postcards, handkerchiefs, cell phone charms. I couldn't help myself. It was so cute. I bought a charm of Stitch dressed up like a maiko, but what tickled me the most was the lady behind the counter calling it "Maiko-san". There's a lot of Stitch merchandise here in Japan. Some is from Lilo & Stitch, and some is from that spin-off tv show--there are a few charms of the pink feminine experiment abomination. I'm not sure if its the character or the show that's more popular...

The shop also sold those white headbands you see guys putting on in anime when they're determined to study for an exam, and inevitably fail. No ichiban headband for Robert yet.     

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K

The trip back to the guesthouse was pretty eventful as well. Something was going on near the intersection outside Nijojo; a ton of traffic police were out in the huge intersection with their white uniforms. Hilariously, Kyoto traffic police also ride on Kawasaki Ninja motorcycles. There was some sort of banter between one of the officers and a biker waiting at our crosswalk. Don't think it was particularly witty, just very soulful and rhythmic. Something along the lines of:
"Hey, can we go yet?"
"No, sire, please do not cross yet."
"How about now?"
"Please be patient, sir."
"Oh, come on! I've got places to be!"
"Sir, I SAID please wait!"
A loose translation based only on tone, and zero verbal language.

Once Robert and I returned to the guesthouse, we figured out that we'd somehow just missed Gerry at the station outside Nijojo. We all went there, but he took a different exit from us, right when Robert wasn't making a round in that direction, and went in before us far enough ahead that we never ran into each other inside. I suppose he was sauntering along at the same leisurely pace as Robert and I were...

That night we were invited--through Ben--to one of his friend's small going-away party in her apartment. (She was also a ryuugakusei at our university, going back to China.)This was also a privilege it seems, because everyone but us was Asian...So we ate at Freshness Burger in Kitaoji station while Ben went to pick up gifts. The burger Gerry ordered was reported horrible, but the hot dogs Robert and I ordered weren't bad at all.
The party was tiny, kind of like the apartment--only the apartment was bigger than my old one when you count the loft-space. And the loft was where we hung out awkwardly while we waited for Ben's friend to return. (We think she forgot to tell the rest of the party that we were coming...) I got to meet my future roommate though, and she seemed cool and awesome. Ben's friend told us to call her Alpha, although I believe her real name was Wei...She was extremely cute. Said I was pretty...called Ben her "best husband" when they were bantering about whether they liked people for their looks or their hearts. Her gift was a Queen album, which she loved, and then we all laughed at the card he got her, when someone translated it out for us and it turned out to be an extremely sappy card and very near a marriage proposal.We did not wear out our welcome, thankfully, and left early enough in the night to still have some energy to go down the street to Operetta karaoke.
We sang, we yelled, we dramatically spoke lyrics for about three hours. The food and drinks were good. I had fun seeing what Japanese songs I knew were in the database, and even more fun trying to sing the ones I didn't know so well. (Turns out there are quite a few anime songs in the database, probably because many of them are sung by Japanese pop artists, not nobodies.) They had a pretty good selection of English music as well: Muse, Bowling for Soup, the Who, the Killers, Black-Eyed Peas, Journey, Michael Jackson,  Cyndi Lauper, Rick Astley, Toni Braxton...can you see where the night went?