Arashiyama: walking, rowing, cycling through NW Kyoto

Thanks to Gretchen (we love you!), we still have this one picture from our funnest day in Japan so far. (we lost all our Kyoto pics when Mike's computer died, but he had emailed this to G.) This is the best picture that I've ever seen of Mike. Glad I can now share it with the world.
Our 2nd day began by biking from the hostel to Arashiyama. We walked through town and found a cute little soba shop for lunch. We quickly realized that the "Arashiyama walking tour" described in Lonely planet was just as touristy as the Kiyomizu temple. The streets are very cute; dotted with Japanese sweets shops, tea shops, handicrafts, and many temples are just a short detour off the streets.
But, instead, we headed straight across a huge river for MONKEY PARK! We payed a small fee, got the basic info from a bilingual brochure ("Don't look monkeys in the eye or feed them"), and took off hiking up the mountain. After about 20 minutes, were huffing and puffing & hearing monkey screetching. Then we saw them! Cute little monkeys, about two feet tall or so. Many of them were relaxing in the afternoon sun, some were picking bugs off each other. They didn't seem bothered by us walking by, and went about there business. They were all roaming free on this mountaintop. What a relief! I had my doubts, thinking it might be tiny overcrowded cages. But these guys seemed to be happy. Well... at one point we two screetching males ran right by us on the trail. A little scary, but one backed down before things got ugly. Wish we hadn't lost these photo! We had great pics of the babies.
Then we hiked back down to the river bank. Here we joined other couples and rented a boat for an hour. I made fun of Mike's rowing, and then when I took a turn, I almost steered us into a big motor boat full of Japanese tourists. All I could do was laugh and cry, and we definitely got some curious stares. Japanese honeymoon!

Kyoto Round-Up One: Temples and Tourism

Sooo... While Colleen was taking a break from classes and my computer was taking a break from constantly crashing, we made our way to Kyoto. We spent three days there in the middle of the week and I'm glad it worked out that way. The tourism industry is doing quite well in Kyoto and based on our experience, I'm afraid of what the weekends look like. The first day (Tuesday) our only real goal was to visit the famous Kiyomizu Shrine and we accomplished it, but soon realized that tourism and temples aren't always the best mix. The place was overwhelmed by everyone from international visitors to school groups and it was hard to find the solace and comfort places like that are supposed to bring. We did find a small stone path and followed it away from the group and down into a mossy grove which brought back a little of the majesty and we exited via an enormous hillside graveyard (eerie how tombstones and skyscrapers blend so easily) instead of the usual route, the only Gaijin in sight.

Wednesday brought a breath of fresh Temple air through with a trip (on rented bicycles!) to Ninna-ji near the hostel we were staying at. Maybe it's because there is still a functioning Buddhist school there or maybe because we showed up at 8:30AM, but either way Colleen and I agreed that it was hands down the best of the temples, shrines, and castle we visited. You weren't given free reign of the place because of the school, but besides the parts that the school was using, there was no guided rope path or anything else telling you were to go or not go. It was quite refreshing. Unfortunately nearby Ryoan-ji brought the tourist tide back. Ryoan-ji houses a world famous rock garden which brought in a busload of pretty obnoxious Eastern Europeans making it hard to even see the garden, let alone take it in. Again though, a quick trip around the premises revealed several interesting, and less overrun sights around the temple.

It's not that the tourism is all bad. Obviously busloads of people paying three to six dollars each (depending on which temple) is helping the Buddhists and Shintos financially, but seeing how utterly disrepectful - either intentionally or naively - many of them were was saddening. And there were at least a number, like us, doing their best not be a pain. At Kiyomizu some visitors were actually praying, lighting candles and striking the giant prayer bowl and it was refreshing to see how they could carry on and not be distracted by everyone around. I wish I had that level of patience.

Before our trip I read about a Temple that makes you write a letter one week in advance of your visiting. Then they send you a postcard telling you exactly what time to show up. Then when you arrive, you are required to do 90 minutes of Buddhist exercises/chants (after paying the admission fee) and then you are given a 90-minute tour. When I first read that I thought it was a total crock, but now it makes so much sense.

A less-pensive, more-fun post on the rest of our trip (COMPLETE WITH LIVE MONKEYS!!!) coming soon.

Computer Problems... Again

OOF. I guess my job 'fixing' the Mac wasn't as good as i thought. Maybe a band-aid on a broken arm? It went down again Monday afternoon & has been even harder to get back up and running this time. I'm using a very basic version of the operating system now & probably taking it to the Apple Store in Osaka this weekend for some professional help . I still have all the stuff I backed up two weeks ago, but unfortunately lost all the photos from our trip to Kyoto. There will still be a post with a run-down of the events/highlights once I weed through all this. I swear.

Mike

Iwa-jinja

The famous shrine here in Ichinomiya hosted their annual festival 10/16. This happened before our Kyoto excursion (stay tuned for that...)

We could hear the low bass Taiko drum sound for a couple weeks before the fest, as the local men practiced the fighting dance with portable shrines right down the street from our house. Under the golden ornaments & fabric you see below, 4 men beat the Taiko drum. The men follow the chants and shouts of the leader. The energy from the drum is so powerful, I felt like I could carry that huge mother myself.




This seems to be the last of the season's harvest festivals, and definitely the best. It lasted all day. I have no idea how these guys lasted that long. Maybe being drunk off sake and the thrill of bearing your bum helps too. After gathering at the shrine midday, there was a procession down to Ibo-gawa (river). There on the river bank, the scantily-clad men gave their shoulders a rest while the town elders performed a ceremony. Offerings of food, sake, and flowers were given up the gods while bamboo flutes were played. After this, we all (hundreds of people from towns all around) paraded back to the shrine for more shrine fighting/dancing and flying mochi balls!

Kyoto

Sorry for the lack of updates, but we just got back from a mid-week trip to Kyoto. Colleen's students had exams & she didn't have any classes to teach, so we stuffed the backpacks and got out of here. We actually squeezed so much into our three days there that a single post couldn't do it justice. It'd just end up looking like a rambling novella with 15 pictures scattered throughout or something. So look for several posts over the next few days - and answers to lingering comments & questions. We'll be caught up soon.

From our upstairs window...

This one is from a few weeks ago. Lately, the clouds come down low to fill the valley, and then climb back up the mountains.

On the Request Line

A few things some people asked for...

First: Sasha, using a common sense I (we?) sometimes lack, asked that I put up some pictures of Ichinomiya. I meant to do it a while ago, but it's been grey & crappy here lately the town hasn't often looked very photogenic. The sunshine came though and Colleen got a few shots this weekend and I got some this morning too. I don't think any of them do the town justice, but that'd be pretty hard as it's basically a really long, narrow strip. If only I could rent a plane...






1. Route 29, the main strip through town
2. Our neighborhood (our place is behind the trees, downhill from the large red-roofed rec. center)
3. The neighborhood zoom-out, with full mountain view
4. Our Street, Higashi Ichiba

Second: Our British cohort and fellow Ichinomiya ALT (and the birthday girl who we were partying with in Kobe) Pippa asked - in a subtle, demanding, and maybe just a little bit threatening kind of way - why her picture hasn't been posted yet. So for her, and your, pleasure, here are some pics from English Conversation Class.




1. The proprietor of the local cafe Apple, Colleen, Pippa and Tooru
2. Tamako, Charlie, Pippa and Tooru

Part-Time Bean Harvesters : Sasayama

While the computer was down and out we weren't just moping around, doing nothing all day - at least not every day. After a rowdy birthday/karaoke party in Kobe on Saturday, we headed to the small town of Sasayama with one of Colleen's English teachers, Nishida-sensei. The point of our trip was to meet an old teacher friend of Nishida's and help him pick some beans from his farm plot. The town of Sasayama is well-known for it's particular type of soybean and this weekend was the town festival which celebrated the beans and sold them like mad. While we trimmed leaves from the bean plants we watched the long line of traffic idle by as people from all over flocked to the tiny town for beans.

Chikanari-sensei and his wife Tsutako were totally amazing and inspirational people. In addition to teaching and farming, they are both amazing artists (her: flower arranging, him: drawing) and social-minded individuals. After our light work in the field (I'm a little embarrassed by how easy they were on us - maybe 2 hours work at most) they took us to a great restaurant called the Community Cafe. It employs handicapped people and uses profits, along with donations and money from various fundraisers, to run a center for others with mental/physical disabilities where arts & crafts are made to be sold and different programs/classes are held. We were amazed to find such an awesome and progressive place in such a little town and even more so when Chikanari told us how much literally every person in the town supports the place and that people with disabilities have started moving there from all over Japan. We left in awe with Colleen's social worker gears turning double-time.

Risen

The household Mac -and my only connection to the outside world - died last week. Crashed. HARD. Wouldn't even start up. But like the Phoenix and Kobe and Habatan it has risen from the ashes and is back full force. I even managed to save/recover all the important files. Thanks to Ryan for expert advice & Jeff for the helping hand. Non-technical update in the next day or two.

The Red Weeds, The New Kid

I don't know what these are, but they started popping up all over town as soon as the rice started getting harvested and are already starting to disappear as quick as they came. Most of them are right alongside the fields, so I'm guessing they are directly related to the harvest but I'm not 100% sure. They've been amazing to look at for the last week or so.



And here's the newest addition to the family, Kiyo. He's named after the very unfunny anecdote/warning about having children abroad my mom repeated to me about 75 times before I left. Kiyo is actually just one of his names though. He also goes by Square Bear and simply Square. I love his grumpy blank stare. You can tell he's a real badass.

Also this weekend the family dog died in Ohio. (R.I.P. Shy Baby.) She was 16 & I pretty much knew when I left it would be the last time I saw her, but it's still upsetting that I was so far away when she passed. We've been separated by plenty of miles the last few years, but she'd been my pup since elementary school. Rough. Luckily I've got Colleen & Kiyo to keep my spirits up.

And in less heavy news (said with a nice fake smile, like a horrible television anchor segueing from a report on a house fire), the Hanshin Tigers, the local baseball team, are going to the Japanese Baseball Championships while the Cleveland Indians, the old local team, blew their chance to make the playoffs. What else is new?

Mike