A compilation of con-temple-ations

I would say that I just got back from my school trip to Kyoto and Nara, but that would be a lie. I got back last week, and since then I have been procrastinating--but not anymore!

A little background...

Kyoto and Nara were both at one time capitals of Japan, meaning that there is a ton of temples and palaces and temples and palaces (and temples.) I emphasize this because in the reasonably short period of 5 days, we saw 20 and some more of these. But more on that later.

On day 1...

After an overly early start (5:30 am) I met a friend along the train route and we went together to Tokyo Station's Shinkansen station. Shinkansen is the Japanese word for "train that goes zipping through the countryside really really fast by means of electro-magnets [I believe] and has seats that flip around and is roomy and comfy." The ride was 3 hours, during which smart people slept, and my friends and I played cards. This didn't present itself as an issue until we got off at Shin-Osaka station and promptly boarded a bus to go start the temple-excursion once and for all. After somehow sleep-walking through 2-3 temples, we arrived at a Japanese inn, called a Ryokan. A ryokan is different from a normal hotel in that in general, upon arrival you change your shoes for slippers, the rooms are empty, save for perhaps a futon closet (maybe), and only have a half-bathroom attached. There are no beds, but at night, either the staff bring a rolled up futon for you, or you do it yourself and get them out of the closet. In regards to showers, or conventional lack thereof--I officially really like onsen. Onsen, as mentioned on multiple occasions, is a communal bath one takes with family/friends/strangers, or any assortment of the three. There are 3 parts to onsen...the changing room, the seated line of showers, and the steaming hot bath itself. These are all pretty much self explanatory. Anyway, before I tried, I was really--anticipatory, but everyone acts completely normal about it here (because it is to them) so it's actually really fun. You'll have to trust me on this one. Fun fun.

MANY MANY TEMPLES.

Everyday we went to 4-6 temples. While this was cool and historical in the beginning, we all got temple burnout really quickly. The push to get to the next temple often meant that we had strict time limits to look around and were sometimes running out of one temple to get to the next. Also a contributing factor to our temple burnout was the fact that all the temples have extremely similar architecture, and when we were roing through each so quickly, they all soon seemed to be the same--this is unfortunate, because we saw some really famous and important temples and treasures--for example, the oldest temple (1400 years old), the oldest Buddha statue (also 1400 years old), many famous tierred (spelling?)-towers...sadly, only a few really stand out.

At every temple, two things you are always guaranteed to find are lucky fortune papers (I forgot the Japanese name) and omamori. The fortune papers are usually ￥100 (around $1.00) and if you are or have a convenient friend with you who can read a translate Old Japanese to some extent, you can take a hypothetical peek at your future. I got one, and found out about my life's length, love life, money luck, health, etc. This was nothing too special, but guess what! It's an ideal time for me to buy or sell land! Just my luck...[now, my mom has told me that she is going to give me a plant for Christmas. I hope that counts.] Omamori are essentially lucky charms for your every need. The most common ones were "victory," "good luck," "good health," and that sort of thing, whereas some of the bigger temples branch out to a wider variety of needs, like "Traffic Safety" and "Conception." Whatever floats your boat.

Two random things: On many statues of the Buddha, the fingers are webbed like a frog's. This is because the Buddha can technically save more people when he employs a scooping technique. (After the trip, my host family was watching television when the TV host randomly asked the trivia question, "What is a characteristic of the Buddha's hands themselves?" Guess who got it right? [me]) Also, many temples post signs warning passerby not to take pictures or sketch. I had to restrain my oh-so-passionate urge to sketch. Honestly, I think if you are going to work so hard to do a sketch of all that we saw, you might as well go ahead. Either it's not very good at all and there is no loss, or it is great and you have brought art into the world. But I guess that belief is the minority.

Another constant throughout the trip was a tremendous amount of inclines, stairs, or inclines with stairs. Though tradition calls for religious buildings to be as high to heaven as possible, it doesn't allow us tourists much relaxation time, especially at our high temples/day ratio. We were learning about each of these temples while doing so many stairs (such a workout...) that I supposed we were being en-lighten-ed...get it? never mind.

The fourth day, we were in Kyoto, and we had essentially the whole day off. I was with 4 of my friends, and we went to Kiyomizu (very famous) temple, got yatsuhashi and other omiyage and went some other places, too. Kiyomizu is very famous because it is very high up (naturally) and is very large as well. It might be famous for other reasons, too, but I have yet to discover those. Anyway. After mulling around the temple for a little bit (remember, temple burnout!) and checking out the wide variety of omamori (this is the place with Traffic Safety and Conception,　etc...)and ever larger variety of tourists (there were soooo many), we took advantage of our freedom to buy omiyage. As mentioned before now, omiyage is the word of souveneir, and bringing them back for everyone you know is pretty important. This wasn't such a huge deal for the people I was with, sinc ethey were the grade above me and most of their friends were on the trip with them, but for me, I had promised about 60+ people omiyage inadvertantly by being friendly with them. The best option in general for in masse omiyage from Kyoto is yatsuhashi. Kyoto is famous for yatsuhashi, which in and of itself is baked rice flour, sugar, and cinnamon, usually containing ankou (Japanese sweet beans) or other varieties of things. To some people, yatsuhashi doesn't stand out as something particularly special, but I myself find it de-licioussss! I brought back so much for my classmates, Japanese teacher, host family, etc...

Also on the free day, we went to this restaurant that was very old (100 years!) and very traditional. We had yudofu, which was mainly tofu and tempura veggies, but that said it was the best Japanese food I have ever had--and I have tried some really good Japanese food, I must say. Check the website. http://www.to-fu.co.jp/english/index.html When my dad comes to Japan, I really want to take him here to try it--it was that good.

We went to Kyoto at the second best time to be there (spring is the first--think cherry blossoms) because fall means dazzlingly brightly colored leaves. Check the pictures--but even those don't completely show how beautiful it was. While our time in Nara was sooo cold and rainy, when we got to Kyoto, the mos tof it had passed--so the sun was out, we saw 2 rainbows, the weather was pretty perfect...it was great. We walked through a bamboo forest, as well--it was so fresh and cool, besides the fact that we were again running to be on time for the next place. One thing I am still trying to understand is why there were massive amounts of flowers blooming when we were in Nara. I saw at least 2 more-than-flourishing flower gardens next to people's houses, and in at one temple, there were hundreds of thriving camellia flowers. I'm sure there's something I am missing here, especially since my knowledge of Nara's flower growth patterns is pretty non-existent, but I thought that if we all were freezing cold, the flowers techniquely should be, too. But enough about nature--it was fantastic, but as a 3rd-party observer, oh dear reader, there's only so much you can get out of my description of my flower/bamboo/leaf enjoyment.

In Nara, there are a sort of deer they call shika, which Nara is famous for having. These deer are reasonably docile (though my friends warned me to stay away from the male deer--it's shika mating season) and for a cheap price you can buy deer crackers and feed them. If you hold the deer cracker above the shika's head, it will bow, and then you can feed it the cracker. We tried the deer crackers, and we decided that they were a bit bland, but would be tasty in ice cream. (Baskin Robbins, I'm sure, will soon release "Crunchy Shika Crunch.")

Maybe the best part of the trip was actually apparent after I got back. This week, after the Kyoto trip, many of my classmates have told me that I speak and understand Japanese a lot better. I suppose I was speaking more Jpaanese--though I'm not sure why a class trip would awaken any latent Japanese skills within me. I don't think I have made any groundbreaking self-discoveries, but I do feel like I am reasonably significantly better than 2 weeks ago. Yay!

We took the shinkansen back, during which I attempted to catch up on all the homework I had, like this blog post, so successfully put off. I finished my kanji flashcards, to say the least, but I pretty much procrastinated while doing my homework. I didn't know that was possible. (Don't worry, I got it all done in the end.) I apparently hadn't learned from the first shinkansen ride, though, because I didn't sleep at all, even though I knew that I was going to karaoke with my host family and their relatives when I got back. During karaoke, it was pretty fun--although really awkward for me because I knew I would have to sing, and I am pretty shy about singing in front of people I don't know. I suppose I got over that by the end, because I sang 2 songs (English--not going to try to sing a song I don't know in Japanese yet) and before I knew it we were going home. Needless to say, I was completely exhausted at the end.

Today was my Japanese Proficiency test (Level 4, in case you were curious) at Tokyo University.There were soooo many foreign people there, most 25 years old and above. *insert deep annoucer's voice* They gathered by the thousands. Their reasons were different, whether it be for college or for a job--but they all came together for a common goal that would affect the course of their futures forever--bringing some together and pulling some apart. They all had one purpose there--to take the test.

Okay, okay, sorry, that was a little melodramatic. I was definitely the youngest person in my room, though, and I still am not sure my purpose for taking this test besides the fact Sakurai-sensei and Kobayashi-sensei told me to. In my practice tests, I was doing actually pretty well on the 3 sections (Vocab/Reading, Listening, Grammar), scoring 90% and above, but in retrospect, I am not as confident about today's actual test. The listening sections were really annoying. They would always be something like [translated]

Narrator: A man and woman are talking. What day was it yesterday?

Man: Today is Thursday, isn't it?

Woman: No, it isn't. Tomorrow is Thursday.

Man: Is that so. Ummmm, wasn't Thursday two days ago, because today is actually Friday?

Woman: Is that so.

Narrator: What day was it yesterday?

Audrey: Wait, wait, wait, what?

I won't sweat it too much--I don't have enough adrenaline to last me until February. However, technically, if I'm correctly informed, my PSAT scores should be rebounding to be about now. That would be nice.

This week and is pretty important because I have finals in my two real classes, math and chemistry. This could be interesting. I am actually not too worried about chemistry, because the teacher promised me an easy test over a list of things from class, making it really easy to study (contrary to my prior belief), and I am going to meet with a math teacher tomorrow who speaks English to aquire 100% understanding of the class...I had my first dream in partial Japanese, by the way. I only said one phrase ("Are you okay?"), but I think that counts for something, right? I have had so many dreams here in Japan--about 4 or 5 a week.

I have been a little more homesick than usual, but I think that's because I am not quite as busy, since all clubs (including my track and field team) are canceled because of the exams. I am bracing myself for when my dad comes, because I think that when he leaves I will be sooooooo homesick, since he can go home and I still have to stay (have to in the least unwilling of ways--I love Japan!). I miss my friends and family a lot everyday, and there isn't one day that I don't think about them. But regardless, I'm really looking forward to seeing my dad, and no worries, concerned reader! I have to much to do to be homesick for more than an hour, at most.

Isn't the title great?

AUDREY, who apologizes for posting this in such an untimely manner.

PS Hey! A squid! Also, I would like to apologize--there are so many pictures in this post, but they are all really poorly organized. Sorry.