Spring? Festivals

With summer in Japan inevitably come festivals. Now there are of course spring events and festivals ( お花見 flower viewing and かなまら祭り kanamara festival) but you don't hear much about the festivals until summer. The summer festival is a time for food stalls that sell chocolate dipped bananas and fried squid on a stick, for kids games for $4 each, and, for everybody over the age of 14, it is possibly the only time where people think wandering around wearing yukata (informal/ligher-weight-for-summer kimono) is okay. Personally that's my favorite part. Though the fresh made yakisoba is a close second.

So last week when I started seeing posters up in the train stations around here (there are 3 within walking distance) I got a little excited. So I had some extra time today after my traditional dance class was over and I headed toward the festival. I guess it isn't summer-ish enough for the yukatas to come out yet at the end of April, though we're supposed to be in the 70's all next week. Unfortunately my phone died just as I was getting there so the picture below is one I found on the internet. Sorry! But this is what the flowers did look like today.


As I was leaving the festival and contemplating whether or not to buy the aforementioned yakisoba, I picked up a mother's day present for my mom, a green handkerchief with turtles on it because she likes turtles so much, and headed home. Only to find that the street was blocked so the parade could go through. More than the flowers, I really wanted to take pictures of the parade. It was about 80 old ladies and several, not many, old men doing some traditional dance as they moved at a snail's pace down the road. It was really funny because at the end of each repeat of the dance they all yelled, "Sore sore sore! Yatta sore!" which may have a traditional value, have something to do with the so-badly-recorded-you-can't-understand song that was playing, or could mean, "There, there, there! Yay over there!" There was this one lady who was really into it and yelling way louder than anyone else in the whole group, and was just smiling like nobody's business.

So if you ever show up in central Tokyo in late April, the Tsutsuji Matsuri is something worth spending a couple hours on before you move on to your regularly scheduled activities.

Day Trip to Nara

Well I told you already that I was staying in Kyoto with my friend, but our first day of vacation was actually spent mostly in Nara. If you're not sure where that is, it's about an hour (by train, is there any other way to travel in Japan?) west from Kyoto station. We were lucky enough to get a rapid train and got there in 40 min, at about 10 am. There were tourist maps in 6 languages at a stand in the station, and unlike both Kyoto and Osaka stations this one was pretty small, we didn't get lost trying to find the exit, and most of the things there were to see are fairly close together and on the same side of the station.

There was a tourist info center right next to the station. I had to take a picture of it though because the building was really interesting. It was mostly western but had some very Asian elements to it in a combination that is very rare to see,  even in a place like Japan that loves to mix the modern and traditional in all kinds of interesting ways. We started out just going down the main street, heading eventually toward the 5 tiered pagoda. We saw an old burial ground on the map, but somehow managed to walk right past it without seeing it. Oh well, the pagoda was pretty cool, and the temple that went with it.

We made our way over to Todaiji Temple from there, passing a couple of gardens, one was free for foreign tourists and the other was about 600 yen for everyone. We didn't end up going to either one because they were both closed for the spring pruning and replanting. If we'd been one week earlier or later in the season we would've been able to go in. Despite this, it was a nice walk through some residential backstreets and the whole place was pretty quiet. Though that may be because it was the off season on a weekday.
If you are wondering, yes, there are deer, after all the whole city was named after the deer, that just wander around and will let you pet them, but only if you have food. If you're not offering them anything to eat they either ignore you or run off if you get too close.

We stopped beside a lake outside Daibutsudo, the temple of the great Buddha, to eat our lunch and one decided that she wanted to share. My friend picked up our food to keep the deer away from it, but the map that we had spread out on the bench between us to look at while we ate wasn't so lucky. This deer here grabbed it right out from under my leg and tried to eat it! I took it away from her then she started snuffling around my legs looking for something else and must have thought my shoelaces looked good because they were her next targets. The deer are nice and all, and there're stands that sell rice cracker things for you to feed them all over the place so it's not like feeding them is discouraged, but you might want to remember that they've learned to beg borrow or steal food if they can get it. Just like seagulls or those disgusting monkeys you see on documentaries about India, so if you wanna eat something yourself, be careful!

 We finished up the afternoon with a trip to the Forest of 1000 Lanterns. The whole thing was beautiful there was a shrine at the beginning and a whole bunch of the stone lanterns lustered everywhere. Then you follow this walking trail back behind the shrine and through the forest where there are torii and lanterns and small shrines dotting the sides of the path. The walk took us about 15 minutes, and when we came out at the other end of the park we were a little out of the city. There were a few more things to do here and there, the Edo-style townhouse probably topping the list, before we headed home. If the gardens had been open it would have been dark by the time we headed home. As it was we got back to the station to head back to the hostel at about 4 pm.

Olympic Legwarmers

So in honor of the olympics I thought I would do some knitting. During the games I`m challenging myself to complete a pair of legwarmers. I`m using a pattern called Mosey with some yarn I was
lucky enough to find in Nippori Fabric Town when I was there with a friend. More about that in a bit. The yarn is pure wool and was super cheap, which means not great quality, but these are leg warmers, and I`m a poor college student so thats just how it adds up. Everything`s knitting up really nice so far, except for some dropped stitches and my inability to gauge. (No matter what it turns out longer than it should even if the width is right.)








As I was saying earlier about Nippori Fabric Town; it is not a place for knitters or any other type of needle crafter really. There`s bolts and bolts of fabric overflowing (literally, in boxes on the sidewalks) from shops on either side of the street, and shops selling buttons and thread and dyes and even leather, but I only found two places selling yarn. In both places it was more as an afterthought than as an actual sales item from the looks of it, and one of the places only had a few solid colors of acrylic. My wool yarn was a lucky find, at one of the three Tomato stores on the street and there was just enough of the color for me to make both legwarmers if my gauge is right *cringe* I may have to stop the pattern a few rows early. Luckily this won`t be a problem, and the extra inch I would have added by finishing the complete pattern with my bad gauge would have made them too long anyway.

 This beautiful coat I found on display outside a shop selling all kinds of leather, and smelling like heaven. I would love to own this jacket so I`m showing it off and wishing to no avail that it was priced so I could afford to buy it.

Long Time No See

So, it's been a while since I've posted, I'll try to keep updated more frequently in the future... 

Anyway, lots has happened, and it's too much to write about really, but the main, major, exciting things are... I went to the Ghibli Museum for a friend's birthday, my computer is broken and making horrifying noises, I won NaNoWriMo, and last but not least... Christmas break is next week! Yay!

Ghibli was awesome! I will definitely be going again, as this time we entered at the 4pm entrance time and only got about 2 hours in the museum. Since Sophie wanted to eat at the cafe we completely skipped the 2nd floor. The first and 3rd floors were amazing and the rooftop garden was fun. Gotta love that Laputa robot!The interior of the building on the 1st floor made me think, "If Santa's workshop were steam punk." Unfortunately the entire interior is a no-photo zone, the outside is fair game though, so here's a quick pic! Notice the 2 story Christmas tree hiding amongst the ivy background.


Anyway, I've already pretty much given the rundown on the computer situation, and if you wanna know more about what went on during NaNo, and haven't been reading my other blog, here's the address Koori-chan's Writing. The story is not yet finished, and the blog form is unedited, so there may be issues with grammar or punctuation, don't let that bother you. Updates will be going a bit slower now that NaNo is finished, but please go look!


That bit of personal advertisement over, Christmas break is on the way. I have school on the 23rd, :( so feel sad for me. I have Christmas Eve through the 5th of January off, then dead week, then finals week. These are then followed by spring break, which in Japanese universities is about 2 1/2 months long. I'm planning on flying to Kyoto in Feb, and having a few day trips to Osaka and Nara while there. Actually, a friend who's family lives in Osaka told me today that she likes Kobe better than Osaka... That said, I know another girl from school back in the US (Japanese student) who grew up in Kobe, so I'll probably head there too. Time to find travel guides at the library!

Nekobukuro

Nekobukuro, Cat City... The name really speaks for itself, I think. It's located on the 8th floor of a department store in Ikebukuro called Tokyu Hands. The store has some crafty things, and a whole floor dedicated to stationary and another to bags and travel supplies, but noting too interesting to report short of the pet shop on the top.

Sorry about the lack of photos of the actual building, but my camera was not cooperating with me and did not want to focus on anything out of arms reach. 

Basically the whole place is two rooms that have ramps, stairs, and walkways all over the walls and ceilings for the 15 or so cats that live there. You pay 600 yen and go in for an unlimited amount of time. I got there just at the end of nap time, I think because the cats all started to wake up a few minutes after we got there.

Keep in mind this is a busy shopping district in Tokyo, so if you want to come visit the cats, try to go during school hours. That seriously decreases the chance that the place will be filled with 5-10 year olds chasing the cats with strings tied to sticks; or all the benches being full of high schoolers trying to keep the hair off their uniforms. All in all it was a fun place to go, and the cats were great, though they do make me lonely for my cat back home.

Ah, Japan

So, I'm finally here, and have been for a few days actually. Classes start on the 21st. Yes I know that's a Saturday, but its really not that uncommon to have Saturday classes or practices in America either. Until then I have orientations and placement tests and free time. My roommate and I went to Asakusa the other day after some school scheduled event or other that I don't even really remember now... Funny how that works. first we went to Sensouji, which is a beautiful Buddhist temple in an older district, which is set apart form other temples (I think anyway) by the fact that they let you go into the main temple area where the Buddhas and the statue of Kannon, the river goddess the temple was built for, are enshrined.



Then we wandered around for about an hour trying to get to Tokyo Sky Tree. This thing is incredible. You can see it from where I'm living now actually, but really it's the second highest building in the world, and when we finally... and I do mean finally, it was hot outside and we'd been walking for almost three hours by the time we made it there, it was awe inspiring to just look up at it from the base. Don't expect to go up inside it for free. There are two observation decks, and the lower one costs 2,000 yen to go to, the upper one 3,000. One nice thing is that there is no need for reservations. You can just show up and get a ticket as long as they are open. Also there is an aquarium and a mall on the bottom five floors, and the basement includes a train station, so if, like us, you are tired at the end of a long day sightseeing, you can get on the train to go back to your hotel, or apartment or dorm or wherever it is that you're staying.