Kakuozan Project--I'm FAMOUS!

So, in our Japanese class we had to do a project where we went to a place called Kakuozan and interview a shopkeeper. We split up into groups of 3 and chose different shops. I was with Nell and Van and we went to a tatami shop. It was pretty fun, but today we had our presentation! ahh! at least it's over now.

Oh and the reason I'm famous is that they made a newspaper article about our groups going to Kakuozan and the picture is of us! This is the picture and the article is here: CLICK!

Yes it's in Japanese. Roughly translated it means...62 Nanzan University study abroad kids went to interview shopkeepers in Kakuozan. The center at Nanzan has been doing this for 5 years. They split up into groups of 3. At the tatatmi shop, they asked questions like "how do you make tatami mats?", and "What kind of people order tatami mats?" Oh and it says we used polite language to the shopkeeper (which is a complement to us because we tried haha)

Extra Pictures from Kyoto trips! (from Facebook)

Me and Joo at Eikan-do under the Momiji!

Me and Joo at Fushimi Inari

Getting my hair done for the kimono-ness

Joo and I at a temple

IES group at Kiyomizudera!

Me, Paula, Nell, Van, and Celeste at karaoke!

Me, Paula, Celeste, and Nell at dinner

Van, Paula, Erika, Bethany, and Me at Kiyomizudera

Nell and Me on the rickshaw!

My Two Kyoto Trips

So yeah for two weekends in a row I went to Kyoto. Kyoto is probably the second most famous city in Japan besides Tokyo. It's known for really old and pretty temples, as well as the changing leaves in fall and the sakura flowers in spring. My first trip there was with IES. Our bus first went to Sanjusangendo which has 1001 buddhist statues!! 1000 of them were the same and the 1 is a giant one in the middle. it was awesome but we couldn't take any pictures!!
Next we went to Kiyomizudera, one of the most famous temples in Kyoto. It's on a hill, so it has a great view of the changing leaves, as well as Kyoto tower and the city. At Kiyomizudera, For example, there is the famous deck, where people used to jump off and if you didn't die from the fall, then you were lucky and you'd live a long life. Yeah, I didn't attempt that one. haha!
Inside Kiyomizudera, there is a temple especially dedicated to lovers, and inside there are the "love stones." If you can touch one with your left hand and then walk across to the other one with your eyes closed and touch it with your right hand successfully, then you will be with your lover forever or you will find true love or something like that. But if you fail, you will not find true love. So, yeah I didn't want to try that one, but a lot of people in my group did and most were successful haha. After that, there was the long life water, where if you drink of it, you will live a long life. The line for it was also long, so I skipped that one too. Outside the temple, there are many shops (with TONS of free samples!) so we stopped around there for some shopping, then got back on the bus.
We got to our hotel, chose our roommates (Paula, Nell, Celeste, and me) put our yukatas on, and went down to dinner. When I got there I found my "Vegitalian" dinner in the vegetarian section hehe. Hey at least they attempted to spell it right! We had a lot of tofu and veggies, but the tofu was really good because Kyoto is also famous for their tofu! I know, what are they not famous for? Actually haha another thing Kyoto is famous for is geishas. We got to see an apprentice geisha dance (apprentice geishas are called "maiko"). She was really good and only 15 years old! So yeah after her a geiko danced (geishas are called geiko now I guess) And after they were done, we got to take pictures with them and then talk to them! They were really nice. After dinner, we decided to go drinking with Satoshi-san, our IES director. But instead we decided to drink AND karaoke! hehe. It was really fun!
We started out the next day by painting fans. Mine was pretty ugly, but oh well. I think Kyoto is also famous for fans haha. Then we went to Arashiyama. This place is next to a beautiful river and has a giant bamboo forest in it. It is also VERY touristy like Kiyomizudera. We wandered around the bamboo forest and on our way to the meeting point we saw all these boats with people on them dancing and playing music it was so cool!! Next we went on rickshaw rides through Arashiyama. I went with Nell and it was really fun!! More than I thought haha. The guy who was pulling us was soo nice! So after that we had time for shopping, we got crepes, climbed the hill for a good view, then left! It seemed soo short! Luckily I went back the next weekend!

The pictures from the first weekend are right HERE CLICK HERE!!

My second trip was with my friend Joo. Her host family is originally from Kyoto so they took us around. Her host mom is so exceedingly nice. She paid for all our meals (believe me we tried to pay. I even put money down and she like threw it back at me!) and she took time off work to show us around Kyoto!
So we got there Friday night on the shinkansen (bullet train) which is FREAKISHLY fast!! haha. It only took us 30mins to get there. scary. (normal trains take like 2 hours haha) When we got there we went to dinner with Joo's host mom's co-workers who were pretty drunk when we got there. It is common in Japan to go to dinner and get drunk with your boss and co-workers. In fact, if you don't it's probably rude. Anyway, so yeah we got offered a lot of beer and wine. I don't like wine and Joo doesn't like beer so we kept switching hahaha. But we didn't get drunk like them! We were staying in a tiny little house that is Joo's host mom's friend's second house. haha. it was cool tho!
The next day, Joo's other host grandma (the one who doesn't live in Nagoya) dressed us up in kimonos! Oh and Joo's host mom took us to get our hair done and paid for it too! So yeah I wore a blue kimono and Joo wore a peachish/pink one. We walked around Kyoto in them! I couldn't fit in women's shoes so I wore man shoes around hahaha. We went to temples and Joo's host brother's high school which was kinda awkward cuz it's an all boys school and we were walking around in our kimonos! Apparently, his friends made fun of him after we left lol. Oh yeah that night we went to dinner at a really expensive restaurant with the family. It was a tofu restaurant and the food was soo yummyyy!!
On Sunday, (wearing normal clothes) we visited Eikan-do, which has awesome momiji (changing maple leaves) and took tons of pictures hehe. We also went to Kinkaku-ji (golden temple) and Fushimi-Inari which has rows of TONS of toori gates. You have to see the pictures to fully appreciate them so go HERE!! CLICK IT!! hehehe. yep those were my experiences in Kyoto. Amazingness! I loved every minute of it!

Long Weekend/Obama-happiness

Soooo yeah for the long weekend we (Nell, Paula and I) decided to go to Osaka, Himeji, Kobe, and Nara. In that order yeah. We had last Thurs, Fri, and this Mon off so we had plenty of time! And it was really fun! Osaka is the 2nd biggest city in Japan, so some aspects are a little like Tokyo, but it also is way more west so it has a Kansai (that's the area) feel to it. And apprantly their accent and way of speaking is different but luckily they didn't use that with us!

So our first two days, we stayed in Osaka and hung out. The first day was mostly temples, Osaka castle, and historical stuff, to the bay for sunset, then for the night time we went to the awesome Dotonbori area which is very...flashy. But super fun! We ate dinner there and looked around a lot. The second day we went to the North part of Osaka and saw the giant building called the Osaka Sky Tower. We went up to the top floor and it was cool! We also went to a mall with a ferris wheel in it. Oh we rode a ferris wheel the night before:) So yeah we also went to Dotonbori again and Shinsaibashi as well. We got the famous Okonomiyaki. They even had a cheese one so I could eat it too! Here are my Osaka pictures --> CLICK <-- Our third day was Himeji and Kobe. In Himeji there is basically the castle and that's the best part so that's all we really saw. It is said to be the most beautiful castles in Japan. It is also one of the oldest. (I think). So we toured around there and had lunch in Himeji, then headed to Kobe on the train. We started in the Europe town of Kobe first which is really cool because it was started by the European settlers in Japan. They have a house for every European country! Anyway, after they we went to the Port of Kobe which has an amusement park/boarwalk type place where we hung out and took pictures, then stayed for nightfall and saw the beautiful lights around the port. For dinner we went to Chinatown which is also really cool. Since Nell is Chinese she told us the good stuff to get. haha. And the food was really cheap there! Kobe is definitely an international city. We took the train back to Osaka for the night, then traveled to Nara for our last day. Nara is famous for being one of the old capitals and it has an amazing park which has lots of deer wandering around and beatiful temples. Apparently back when Nara was the capital of Japan, they saw deer as sacred creatures so they were not hurt and I guess that is still the tradition today. So in the park there are deer everywhere! It was really cool! Ok so here are the Himeji/Kobe/Nara pictures! >>CLICK<<

Ok and as for the election, we were watching CNN in the office at school! It was really fun!! And we were so excited!!! GO OBAMA! So happy:) There were a whole bunch of Americans in the office and we were all cheering for Obama haha.

Ooh also this weekend we are going on our last IES field trip! And it is to Kyoto! It will be super exciting! We get to meet some geishas-in-training haha. Ok it just started raining outside and I have a kanji test tomorrow. Unrelated but whatever. CYAA

PS: I found out yesterday that there is a city in Japan called Obama! hahahaa