Nara Trip

Apparently we were in Nara. We didn't go anywhere near the famous sites, which was fine with me since I've seen most of them. But we did some pretty cool things!

We took tea in a really pretty garden:




We also made clay pots here:



That night we arrived at Yoshino.





We played Pictionary Telephone again that night:


It was really pretty that morning



It looked about like this from the outdoor onsen that morning (!):




It was amazing. It's basically a whole mountain of cherry blossoms.

Hanami

The sakura are out! My campus actually looks vaguely nice:





Saturday was apparently the best day for 花見(hanami), whose characters mean "flower" and "look". I was always confused by the concept of a national pastime of just going to look at flowers and say "oh, pretty". But apparently drinking sake is an important part of the ritual as well, and I suppose that's part of what keeps it fun. It was really amazing though to see so many people just out to enjoy the cherry blossoms. We went to Tsurumai Park, and there was a whole stand of cherry trees in bloom. Under the trees were blue tarps for people to sit on, but the space under the trees was seriously almost full of people.





Basically there are little food stands, then a street, then a stand of cherry trees with tarps and tons of people under them. We shared a tarp with a group of おじいちゃん (great way to describe Japanese old men, like "little grandfather") who kept offering us sake and snacks. They left their food and snacks with us too, as well as the bottle of water they'd been using to water down the sake for us.




Tonight (after a really nice meal - we had some really tasty fried rice-type dish with little fishes and pickles in it, which you take pieces of and put in seaweed like sushi; also some tasty soup with ham and egg and tofu) I learned all about how many things you can do wrong when eating in Japan. I knew most of the things-you-can-do-wrong-with-chopsticks, but I didn't know that you can't use them to pull something towards you nor can you use more than the last couple centimeters of the end, and I certainly did not know that each misdemeanor had a name. Although I guess I should have guessed. I'm sure my tea ceremony teacher knows all the names. My host mother was explaining that there used to be a "way of rice" the way tea ceremony is literally the "way of tea".

Saitama and Tokyo

My friends and I took the night bus to Tokyo the day after getting back from the IES trip.












Saitama was awesome, as usual. I was a little sad that I spent the whole first day there, since I had been hoping to go into Tokyo, but it was a good time because Miki had a whole lot of her friends over. People kept on showing up with bags of snacks and soda, and we actually ate almost all of them. The Japanese make so many types of snacks; we had chips and also chocolate, cookies, corn-soup-flavored puffy things....it was intense.






I met a couple new people, as well. Everyone was from the tennis club, though. And Hukki gave me the movie "NANA"! It's in Japanese, but I may be able to figure out a way to understand it. I love that movie :)

I feel really bad for Miki.....Friday I returned from Tokyo kind of late, but the bus taking me from the train station to Miki's house was supposed to be still running. However, I think it was a holiday, meaning they stopped at 10. I called Miki, and she ended up biking over to take me back. It was awfully fun.....except that right at her doorstop, we got stopped by the cops for riding two to a bike. Everyone does it, but I suppose it's technically illegal. Like jaywalking, I guess. Miki said it's nothing to worry about, although it does seem a little worrisome the Japanese police now have my contact information.

Went to Omiya with Miki one day when it was raining. _It seems to be the closest place to go shopping, something Miki enjoys :)

Himeji-jo

The last day of the trip we went to Himeji Castle, which was unbelievable. The weather was really nice, too....