Oita

Earlier this afternoon I left Mary's house and with the help of Mary and her dad, lugged my baggage to the train station. From Takeo Onsen (the station right near Mary's place), it was a 45 minute ride to Kosu. At Kosu station I bought myself a ticket to Oita, as well as a little bento box of shumai.

(It was tasty)

I enjoyed my little lunch while riding on the train to Oita. This train ride was much longer, but it was on a much nicer train through much nicer countryside. (Granted, I slept through more then half of it.)

(Here's the nice train I was riding)

(And here's some nice mountainous countryside I was riding through)

When I arrived at Oita station, Ayumi and Kengo, (Two of my three tutors) were waiting for me. Kengo has a car, so we were able to load my baggage into the back of his station wagon and he drove us to the international house where I'll be living for the next year. Ayumi got me signed in and handed me my key.

(My apartment for the next year)

After getting my stuff into my room, Kengo and Ayumi took me shopping for anything I might need. I got all the stuff I could think of off the top of my head as far as living necessities. I also got some food to cook over the next few days. Once they brought me back to my room they informed me that I have my placement test tomorrow morning. At this point I would like to point out that I don't really know where I am exactly. I don't yet know how to get to the station from where I am, much less where the university is. Fortunately there were some other students in the lobby who have been here for a while, and were able to give me at least some idea of where to go. Sounds like there will be a group of people going tomorrow, so we'll all be able to go together.

So now it's just a matter of getting myself all unpacked and settled in. I have run into a small problem though. It seems there was some kind of error and my futon and bedding aren't arriving until tomorrow. I found an email in my inbox that basically said, "Sorry we screwed up, please stay warm tonight." So that ought to be fun. Fortunately I've read Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and have my beach towel to sleep on tonight.

~Daniel

P.S. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: If you ever want to see a picture better, all you have to do is click on it, and you'll get a bigger version. Enjoy!

The Mary Story

So about a week ago there was a little bit at the end of my blog about me having a girlfriend, and I promised I'd share that story. So here's a little bit about that.

I met Mary when I first started taking classes at SF State a year and a half ago. We had an Asian American studies class together. She had studied Japanese in the past and offered to help me study Kanji. We hung out periodically throughout the school year, and more during the summer, which is when we started dating. She graduated at the end of spring semester with a Major in English Education, and is now here in Japan teaching English as a second language to Japanese students through the JET program. Mary's parents are in Japan right now to visit her and do some sightseeing. That I was able to meet up with them in Kyoto was just a coincidence in overlapping itinerary, but we're all in Saga now, and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

Tomorrow I head to Oita (which is on the east coast of Kyushu), and get checked in to my room at the International house. Two of the tutors that Oita has set up for me will be meeting me at the train station there. Beyond that I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I'll let you guys know once it happens.

~Daniel

The Saga Begins

In this case, Saga is actually the prefecture where I've been the past few days though. Sadly, I have not developed force powers like the title might suggest.

So... Saga. Saga is the prefecture where Mary lives and works as an English teacher. She has opened up her apartment to myself and her parents, and we've been meeting her friends and co-workers. Saga is not a tourist area by any means, but Mary's friends (Who so far have mostly been little old, extremely generous Japanese ladies) have been taking us out and showing us around.

Tatara-san, (One of the little old ladies Mary knows from doing Tea Ceremony) took us to two towns famous for their pottery, Imari and Arita. Imari was actually sealed off for hundreds of years and all the people there were forced to continue making pottery for the Emperor. So much of their history being cooped up as potters has lead them to be some rather fine craftsmen. And although they still do a large quantity of work by hand (for a justifiably high price), nowadays you can also buy printed works for a more moderate cost.

(An artisan hand painting the design on a piece of ceramic ware)

(An artisan throwing vases on a wheel)

(Mary perusing one of the many shops filled with hand made pottery)

Yesterday was the spring festival in Takeo. Beyond spring, I'm not exactly sure they were celebrating, but they had a large number of mobile shrines being carried around the town, and the street vendors were out en-mass. Also dancing. Lots and lots of dance groups were doing performances. We only saw a few of them, but it was neat seeing all the people done up in costumes both traditional and modern. After all the shrines made it back to the main area, the celebration was concluded by the members of the organizing committee getting up on top of the main gate and throwing mochi down into the crowd. Not a bad way to end a celebration in my opinion.

(Synchronized dance. The best way to celebrate!)

Today I'm taking as a rest day. All the traveling around and lugging my luggage has not been terribly kind to my back, and it has been complaining for a couple days now. So today I rest, write, and upload photos. In two days I'll be headed to Oita to get settled in. I imagine that's about when I'll be updating next too. Take care until then.

But before I go, a couple more pictures for the fun of it!

(Sakura has just started here in Saga. We walked with Mary's boss, Hashima-san and enjoyed them some)

(KOI!)

~Daniel

P.S. If you see a string of numbers somewhere in my posts, it's not a formatting error or a secret message. That's just me writing down the numbers of the photos I want to upload and forgetting to delete them afterwards. I usually write these updates at night before I go to bed, and don't always get around to editing them.

Na na na NARA!

Mary and her family took me to Nara with them. I've got a ton of pictures, but we've been traveling most of the day so I'm just going to throw up a couple for now and then get to bed.

This is the Daikokuji (I'm pretty sure anyway) It is the largest wooden structure in the world (Even at 2/3 of its original size it's still the largest. It got destroyed and had to be rebuilt) The building houses an enormous Buddha statue.

(The picture came out much lighter then I wanted, but it serves to show the scale.

Just look at the size of the people in the front doors.)

We stayed at a rather rustic Ryokan (Traditional Japanese style inn) while we were in Nara. The building was definitely older, but it was beautiful and had a nice garden in the inner courtyard.

(These beds were super comfy, but a little too soft for my back.)

I have no idea what the plans are for the next couple days, but we are all back in Saga prefecture where Mary lives now. Sounds like we're going to be meeting up with some of Mary's friends and co-workers. Hopefully I'll have some time to sort through this mess of photos and post up some good pictures for all you guys. Until then, take care.

~Daniel

Brief Kyoto Update

So I've been in Kyoto for two days now and have been to a lot more places then I expected thanks to the generosity of Mary and her Family. Today we visited the Golden Pavilion, that famous zen rock garden (Which for some reason I didn't take a picture of) and some other temple complex.... I apologize for not really having good details. Mary and her family are the ones who have things they want to see and do. I'm just here for the people. Speaking of people, here is a photo of Mary, her parents John and Leah, and myself.

(I don't know what this temple complex was called, but it had some wonderful areas)

While at the golden temple, I had an unexpected but welcome surprise. I ran into Michele (the classmate who let me stay with her in Tokyo) and several other CSU students who were on a school trip in Kyoto. One of whom was another of my classmates, Lauren. I got Mary to take a picture of us to commemorate the occasion.

(Left to right: Lauren, Myself, Michele)

The day was mostly walking around and looking at beautiful architecture and gardens. I didn't take as many pictures as I thought I might, mainly because I'd taken a lot of them 2 years ago when I was here last time. I was able to see some stuff in different light though which was nice for picture taking (Last time I was here it was raining most of the time)

(The moss in this garden was fantastic!)

Tokyo to Kyoto

So, yesterday started with me waking up around 6am so I could see Michele off (She was headed to Kyoto for a class trip). After she left I walked around Asakusa to see how much of the place I still remembered from my last time in Tokyo. I was pleased to see that my memory has served me well. I took a walk along the river on the new pedestrian walkway that has been getting built since I was here 2 years ago. I also walked to where the big lantern is (I'm sure it has a name, but I honestly don't know that I ever learned it.) and looked around there. I was pretty hungry so I wound up eating bacon topped okonomoyaki again. There were several street vendors selling food in the temple courtyard, and the okonomoyaki seemed like the most amount of food for the price.

After eating I returned to Michele's and reorganized the contents of my luggage a bit so that I wasn't carrying so much on my back. Now that I've landed I don't care if they're over 50 pounds. They have wheels, they can take it. (I would also like to take a brief moment to thank the whoever invented the wheel. I'd probably have put myself in a hospital by now if I'd had to carry all this stuff.) I also took some time to write a couple e-mails and check around for night bus tickets from Tokyo to Kyoto. I found one I wanted, and saved the page so I could come back to it later with some help (The whole process was through a Japanese website).

In the early afternoon I set out to meet my friend and former classmate Kevin. Kevin and I took Kanji together for a year before he left for Study Abroad at Akita International university (Northern Japan). He happened to be in Tokyo as the same time as me, so we had been planning on meeting up. We met outside Asakusa station and then went to this nifty little ramen shop, and were served delicious noodles by an awesome old man.

After Lunch Kevin and I headed to his hostle, got him checked in, and then opened up my night bus stuff to try and sort it out. It turned out to be rather more complicated then Kevin (Who had recommended them to me in the first place) had dealt with before. After much searching, running around to various stores to try and pay for my reservation, we wound up giving up. Instead I went to Michele's land lady and asked her if it would be ok for me to spend one more night in the room even though Michele wasn't home. Thankfully she said yes! (I thanked her with a healthy stack of chocolates when I returned the key before left this morning)

While all this bus nonsense was going on I recieved a message from Yoshimi (Who I met 2 years ago when I was in Yamanashi). Turns out she's still living in Tokyo, and whats more was free for the evening. So Kevin and I got on the trains and headed to Shibuya where she lives and met her at the Hachiko Statue (A famous statue of a dog that is a very popular meeting place). It was really good to see her after so long. Because my travel plans were so haphazard I wasn't expecting to be able to see her. I'm really glad it worked out.

Since none of us had eaten dinner yet (It was 7:30) Yoshimi lead Kevin and I to a shabu-shabu place. The place was delicious. Rather then trying to explain what shabu-shabu is, here's a picture.

(Yoshimi demonstrating her superior knowledge of shabu-shabu)

Basically you've got hot broth in the center, and you toss in vegetables and stuff to season it. Then you put in thinly sliced pieces of meat for a moment to cook it, and then you dip it in sauce and eat it. It's tasty stuff. And we had way too much fun hanging out and enjoying the food and each others company.

(Smiles all around. This is Kevin by the way.)

After dinner Yoshimi had to head home because she had work in the morning. (I hope she was able to get home early enough to get a good nights sleep) and Kevin and I headed back to Asakusa to sleep in our respective accommodations. A fantastic day if I do say so myself.

This morning, I woke up, checked mail and cleaned up the room that I was so graciously being lent by Michele and her land lady. After packing my stuff and returning the keys, I headed to Tokyo station. There I purchased a shinkansen (Bullet Train) ticket to Kyoto and boarded the train. The train ride was about two hours, and I was able to get some sleep. (I'm pretty sure I was snoring.) In between sleep though I did manage to take a couple pictures of Fuji.

Got to have pictures of Fuji right?

After arriving in Kyoto I hoofed it to K's House Backpackers Hostel (I highly recommend K's House if ever you're considering traveling around Japan. They are an excellent company.). I had looked a map briefly before I left but I was able to find my way there mainly on memory. The hardest part was figuring out how to get to the northern side of the train station. I made it to K's House and checked in. While I was doing that, I made a grown man cry.... tears of laughter. Let me explain this a bit. So I'm pretty sure you know what I look like. I'm big, and scruffy. I've also just lugged in two rather large pieces of baggage plus my huge shoulder bag. And then when I'm handing him my money to pay for my reservation I pull out this:

(Isn't it cute?)

This..... This is where I keep my coins while I'm in Japan. It was a gift from Yovonne (A girl I met 2 years ago on the orchard in Yamanashi. She's a total sweetheart and was very kind and super talkative when I first arrived at the orchard.) The juxtoposition of the big gruff American that is me, and this coin purse was just too much for the guy at the counter and he broke down into fits of laughter and tears. It was great!

Anyway, I'm here at the hostel now, and will be meeting up with Mary and her family in an couple hours. Oh yes, Mary is my girlfriend. I realize some people may not even know I have one, and are probably wondering all about that. I'll do a post about that whole story soon.

Until then, Take care!

~Daniel

On the road again!

Hello Everybody!

So I arrived at Tokyo's Narita airport yesterday. My friend Michele (Who has been studying abroad here in Tokyo since fall semester) was kind enough to meet me there and put me up for the night in the spare room at the temple she's staying at. Interestingly enough, the temple is literally right next door to the hostel I stayed at last time I was in Tokyo. So I'm in a familiar area, even though it's been two years since I was here last. After we dropped off my luggage in the spare room, the two of us hopped on the trains and headed out to Harajuku to go to this awesome tucked away okonomiyaki place (Which I realized I'd passed by and taken a picture of when I was here two years ago).

This place works a little differently then most though. Here you pick what kind of okonomoyaki you want to order off the menu, and they bring you a bowl (Very nicely arranged) of all the ingredients needed, and you cook it yourself on the hotplate embedded in the table, and season it as you like. (There was even a hand drawn little instruction comic detailing the steps to do so) 2821 2809

This is the ingredients bowl for my "Sakura-yaki". It was Delicious!

This is Michele shaping her okonomiyaki on the grill.

The one on the right with the bacon on it is mine.

And if you look in the background, you'll notice there's a tree growing through the room.

Yeah, this was a nifty little place.

Today I'm meeting up with my friend Kevin (Who is also studying abroad here in Japan) and hanging out with him for the day. Tomorrow I'll be in Kyoto.

~Daniel