Getting Orientated

So...It has been like a week since I posted last. Sorry about the absence. I was pseudo-busy with stuff... Anyhoo, this last week I was at the local orientation which was full of adventures and experiences. Here we go! Buckle up!

 Seriously though, you buckled? Cause that right there in the hazy distance is the renowned Mt. Fuji. You can see the lake in front of it as well. This is taken from the Houtou restaurant that we went to (picture later in post).

This is a picture of me looking out over all that I will someday possess. All the way to the Elephant Graveyard.

 We visited a town at the base of Fuji that is known for its water that flows from Fuji, one of the 5 springs or something. I drank it, it was good, but I wouldn't write home about it. I would blog home though...

 Looking into the little lake of Fuji-spring water.

 All the people gathered to look at the water (which is crystal clear) and the Koi that swim around in it. 

 Here, some dragons spit the water out for you to drink.

 Hot mochi. It is like a bun thing...which has sweet red bean paste inside. It is the Japanese sweet of choice, especially during New Years...

 Here is the picture of the Houtou dish. It is traditionally a winter dish. It has squash, noodles, carrots, onions and a bunch of other Japanese vegetables.

 This is the picture of the hotel where we stayed. It was wild, the key was old fashioned and had a keychain attached to it that made it possible to turn on the lights. I can't explain it, but you had to put the keychain part of the key into the slot to operate the power in the room. 

 It was quite small

 That's pretty much it. The only hotel room I have been in that was smaller was in Paris.

The bathroom 

This was laid out for me on the bed. I guess it is Japanese pajamas or something, but it looked suspiciously like a hospital gown/button up moomoo. I didn't fall for it. Jeff 1 - Japan 0

Picture Post

On Saturday I went on a trip to visit Kofu and see what it had to offer. I went down early for the Ping Pong night at church and walked around. First up is the temple that is up the street from the church building. Apparently, we are in the middle of a Japanese time known as Obon (sp?). It is kind of like Japanese Halloween, where they believe that the spirits of ancestors come back and stuff. At the temple, there were monks singing and ringing bells as the families lit incense and left flowers on the shrines to their ancestors. 

 This is on the pathway up to the older shrines. Bonafide bamboo is what you are looking at. I wish I could express how painfully loud the cicadas were in here. The air was vibrating with the sounds of these stinking bugs. 

A sea of shrines 

 This was at the temple site. I am sure there is significance, but I don't know what it is.

 Another view of it.

 This area was closed off. I think this is where the monks are monks at. 

 This was the entry way into the temple

 These are the walls of Kofu Castle, which was built about 1600. These walls represented the pinnacle of scientific achievement and engineering at the time.

 The entire time I walked around the castle, I couldn't help but think of the 3rd Ninja Turtles movie where they go back in time to feudal Japan. On my way out I caught this picture of TURTLES!!! The movies were real...

 Utah isn't the only place to have a statue for a bird

 A view of the lake with the turtles

 A zen path running through a rocky zen-like garden

 This is a big, rather ornate, building on the grounds of the castle. I don't know what it is used for...it didn't have any signs up or anything. 

 Upon further inspection, this was it. A big room with some laundry in the corner. True Japanese memorials.

 These are replica doors from the times when they were built. There is a little door built into the big door. I think this is proof that several hundred years ago, people were small. My backpack is there to show you how small the door is...

 The castle literally just runs into the city proper. It is actually more in the middle of the city.

 Ancent Japanese scaffolding. Rumor is that a project was started here by ancient ghosts and the scaffolding is only visible during a full moon...oooooo....

 Down the steps

There is a big obelisk on the grounds. I don't know why, except to give more rumor fodder for the next Dan Brown novel.  

 This is the lawn up to the watchtower

 Ah...A rare find indeed. This is the actual stone table that C.S. Lewis based the stone table on for the Chronicles of Narnia. It was grossly exaggerated it would seem...Aslan the Lion? More like Aslan the Housecat.

 A shot of the walls and another gate.

 I have already shown you evidence that the people back then were very short. I don't understand why they would make these stairs like this though. These stairs about about 30% bigger than normal sized stairs, making it really difficult to go up and down...and I have long legs!

 Some building...

More walls. 

Well, that was the trip to Kofu Casle. I also went to an outdoor mall and lost in Ping Pong to Sister Watanabe, she was ruthless...

Off to the Park

So...it has been a few days since I posted, probably because I have been busy eating gyoza, napping and reading. Japan is awesome sometimes. So I went to a park just down the road from my house and I took a few pictures. It is weird being the only white person, alone in a park. Kinda makes me feel like a creeper. But whatev right?

 This is a little charming...water wheel thingy attached to the giant koi pond

 Hmm...this picture may not have turned out as I would have liked it to for some reason. There is a nice waterfall and the pond is on the bottom that you can see.

 This is a picture of the koi. They are massive! There is only one gold one that I could see...The rest are all black and look like giant carp. People feed them, and they all wrestle on top of each other to get at the food. Not attractive fish. Not attractive at al.

 Here is a little charming pattern that the gardeners have carved into the hillside. The hills literally smile in Japan.

 Funny story about this. What flavor would you say these chips are? Can you read Japanese? If you can, you would know. I was in a hurry and thought, "Those would be delicious, I should procure some for my culinary enjoyment." I purchased them and got home to watch some TV. I popped 5 in my mouth and immediately found out my mistake. These chips are not Sour Cream and Onion as I would have supposed....They were Wasabi. It was a hot, unfortunate mistake. 

And for Cyndi, and fans of all cephalopods, this is an octopus tentacle that you can purchase. It is even 30% off.

Fireworks Festival

On Sunday night, there was a giant fireworks festival in a place called Ichikawadaimon. It translates to something about a river. A bunch of the English Teachers from all around Yamanashi were going, so I jumped in my car, then onto a train and then on to the festival. When I got to the Kofu station to change trains, I found all the other Gaijin. Gaijin is a less than polite word for foreigner in Japanese. The politically correct term is Gaikokujin, which means someone from a foreign country. Shortening it makes it less nice. If someone at a school were to call you a gaijin, it would be considered rude. Kind of like the word Gringo in Spanish. Naturally, we call ourselves gaijin.

So there is a gaggle of gaijin waiting on this PACKED train platform. When you think of the crowded Japanese trains, you may think of the one where the people are stuffed on by guys in white gloves. That isn't too far off. We don't have guys with white gloves, but everyone is uncomfortably sandwiched in. I would have taken a picture, but my hands were above my head during the whole ride, praying to heaven that it would end.

It is kind of nice being tall, because you can find other white people really easily in a crowd, I will tell you why it is not fun being tall in just a minute. The train went for something like 45 minutes of heat and oppressive humanity all around before we were finally free. When we got off the train it was raining. The temperature was still in the 80s and it was raining. Blech. Not only are you sweating, but you are now wet and sticky. Still...it was an improvement over the train.

For some reason, this video is here now. These were little parachutes that came out of the firework and slowly floated back to the ground sparkling all the way down. It was weird because they just hung there in the air like they were magic. I know it isn't magic because this is Japan and J.K. Rowling made no mention of Asian wizards except for Cho Chang. 

The first thing I can say, is that these fireworks were BIG. Imagine your average show, and then multiply it by 4. We walked a long way to get to where the other foreigners were gathered and finally ended up sitting on a hill that looked like a channel for if there was a flood. It was a veritable sea of umbrellas and tarps. The police (equipped with blinking vests and light sabers to lead the way) finally ushered us by where we were going. 

I was starving because I just hadn't eaten much of anything, so I ventured off to find some food. I ended up getting some corn on the cob (covered in some kind of tangy sauce) and some Yakitori (chicken on a stick) that was interspersed with chewy bamboo chutes. It was expensive, but it was food. I also got some water (I have had better water pretty much anywhere I have ever been).

When I got back to the group, the show had started. Anyone who has ever tried knows how difficult it is to take pictures of fireworks, and I am not very good at any kind of pictures. Here are some of the pictures I did catch though. 

 This was my attempt to show the paper lanterns hanging all along the half mile walk that lit up the way. You see all the people with the umbrellas in this picture. Here is the problem with being tall in Japan (this is what I was hinting at earlier in the post): When you are above average height in Japan and people bring out their umbrellas to cover them, they only come up to eye level. this makes walking through a crowd with your long white legs very dangerous. I escaped with no injuries to my eyes during this perverse game of gaijin gouging though.

 This firework was so huge that my camera could not capture it all. 

 We decided to take the earlier train and miss sitting front row for the last 20 minutes or so of fireworks. This is the view from the platform. Other people who didn't leave as early ended up waiting in line to get on an impossibly packed train for over an hour. I had a seat. 

 This is from over a mile and half away. Just look how giant those things are. I don't know what we are doing in America, but we are definitely losing the fireworks arm race. I am calling for a new cold war. 

That all being said, I will say that the Japanese have got to work on their presentation. I mean, this fireworks show went for over an hour and a half. I tire of fireworks like anyone else, but they would sit and narrate for 5-10 minutes before they would shoot off a few and then more talking. Granted, all of the talking was in Japanese, so it was especially boring, but still. I think we need to fly the Blue Angels over to Japan and show them how to put on a show...

Like a Hobbit

I have been thinking about this post for quite a while. I will warn you now that it isn't a travelogue and is not rife with pictures. It might even be kind of a downer, but I feel it would be disingenuous to anyone reading to think that all I do is go on adventures, see giant bugs and eat delicious food. As with all things in life, there are ups and downs. 

You may be wondering what I mean by the title, "Like a Hobbit." I don't mean that I am growing out my feet-hair and taking up smoking from a pipe. Before I left to come to Japan, I reread (see: devoured) The Hobbit in a matter of a week. I was sucked in again to the simplicity and clarity that Tolkien writes with in this book. The major point I took with me from this reading was Bilbo's internal struggle with what he sees as his two heritages. On one hand, he is a Baggins, who love to sit and be comfortable and not make a ruckus. On the other hand he is descended from the Tooks, who are prone to adventures and restless. 

It is not my desire to bore you with lineage of Tolkien's created worlds, but these two heritages are referenced again and again at different times. Bilbo follows the Took side when he decides to undertake the adventure, saying that "he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walkingstick." When things got difficult and unpleasant, he finds himself straying to the Baggins side wishing he "was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!"

I have felt that this has accurately illustrates what I have been feeling over the last few weeks. A part of me wants to run out and have adventures, but another part wishes to be home where it is safe and comfortable. I hope my journey isn't fraught with peril, but I wish for comfort all the same. Change is tough. Big change is tougher. Most things that are familiar to me are gone, across the globe and a 15 hour time difference. 

The hopeful message I take from the book is that Bilbo's adventure (just like mine) shaped the rest of his life. If you have read the rest of the books, or seen the movies, you know that it also shaped the world that he lived in. I am hopeful that my journey will hold similar (positive) positive changes for me. I can already see some changes in my life that have been positive in just a short time. 

For tonight, the Baggins side is winning as I listen to the thunder and rain half a world away from friends and family as I think of home and comfort. Tomorrow, I will venture again into an unfamiliar world to seek adventure.

Primer on Japanese Bugs

So...Just in case you didn't catch it before...Japan is mostly a tropical island...that has snow. Confusing? Yes. Most of the time, my house is full of bugs. I have been collecting some of the pictures of the bugs that terrify me on a regular basis. Luckily, there are no mukade. What is a mukade? This is a mukade:

 This is absolutely terrifying. They are poisonous (not lethal) and they like the dark. No thank you. We don't have these though. 

 We do have this large spider that builds webs like a champion.

 This is another, bigger spider that I saw and when I got close to take a picture, it started dropping and I think it said something offensive to me. It is dang scary. We have some spiders that are called Huntsman spiders (that I guess they have in Australia as well). They are big but not poisonous. Evidently all the spiders in Japan are non-lethal and most aren't poisonous. Something about being an island or something...I don't know. 

 On to other annoying and less terrifying bugs. This is a cicada (on the left side of the ladder, you can see the big wings). They amek an awful ruckus that ensures that I don't sleep past 10 am because they and all their buddies are making noise. 

 This is a dead one I found, From nose to tip they are about 3.5 inches long. 

And finally, the super crunchy Japanese Beetle. I saw this at the train station and it is was huge. It is roughly the size of my old cell phone. I am told that the kids gather these and fight them against each other. 

Not appearing are the fruit flies that have invaded my house, gnats that are EVERYWHERE, 7 or 8 different kinds of moths outside my house every day and a terrifying cricket that looked like something from the movie Starship Troopers. I am not a bug person, but I am learning to ignore them. Except mukade, if i ever see one of those, I'm coming home.