金曜日, 5月 26, 2006
Friday was a wasted day. i finished tutoring training and wrote a bunch of postcards
that's about it.
....
[about Thursday]
Thursday, yesterday, we did this thing sponsered by the Pacific Culture Club. I assumed that Pacific Culture Club meant a group of students that wanted to do cultureal things.. nope. it was a bunch of old nationalistic japanese women who taught americans about pacific culture.
any who.. we first took the subway then the train. and at the metro station we stopped for lunch. I had a bagel- but there were these fish-shaped pancakes that had flavored stuff in them and i'm pretty sure they actually had tuna in them... yeah...
There was also a ton of sushi.
and melons... and apples that were without a doubt genetically modifeid... they were the same size.
OH, and after my bagel i had the best drink ever. It's the middle one on this list. Baically there was this lemon flavored syrup and then some carbonated lemon juice(sweetend) and ice and then on top of that, soft serve vanilla ice cream. Like a refreshing lemon float. It was soooo good.
so... after we took the train, we walked to the women's house. It was in the suburbs of tokyo in this ritzy neighborhood that was very traditional in the japanese style.. you'll see when you see the gardens...
oh, and all the homes had a japanese style room. most people owned koto. There was a shinto shrine set into the wall.
shrine.
koto.
One of the women playing the koto.
VIDEO: Japanese Scale
I have videos of more of the songs but for some reason photobucket isn't letting me upload any videos now... it's being snarky... so you'll have to wait for later...
Then, some of us did caligraphy..(not me)
oh, btu it was so funny... the women playing the koto was such a nazi about how to hold this brush. She kept yelling at the guy on the left and finally went around to the other side of the table and held the brush with him until he got it right. he felt kinda terrible. but..i'm a terrible person so i thought it was funny...
oh, and when she was explaining about the ink, she was talking about how in the olden days japanese people would rub sticks of coal in water to make the ink and she had one and demonstrated... it looked pretty monotonous... and then she looked at the stick of coal and said... something along the lines of "this is a traditional japanese artform... here's the coal used to make the ink... *looks at it* this coal came from china... unfortunately"
Oh, and when most people were doing calligraphy, three of us got to dress up in kimono.
kimono...
tying a bow....
Here's jessie doing the same
See the bow!
Danielle, Jessie, and me in kimono
and again....
Then we went back in and had a traditional tea ceremony..but my camera was back with my pants so i don't have any pictures of it.
and a traditional garden...
anther traditional garden.
afterwards we went to an onsen (japanese hot spring)
but, since the busses only came every hour and we got there at 4:03, we missed the bus. so we had an hour to chill.
this is the "parking lot" for the train station.
as we were wondering around we found what we thought was a temple... well, it was a temple, but there was also a graveyard. but there weren't graves- just markers. I think people are cremated in shintoism but i'm not sure about buddhism... but i'm not acutlaly sure whether this was shinto or buddhist because there was a jizu statue which is buddhist but tehre were tori gates and white paper things and that are shinto. But in Japan, most people observe both religions. Actually, now that i think abuot it, it had to be buddhist ebcause shintoism doesn't deal with death at all. there's life and that's it. death, blood, things like taht are unpure and so the religion doesn't deal with them.
a grave marker
more markers...
even more...
jizu
then we went back... no smoking and walking...
the most menacing sign ever:
watch out for pickpockets.
the entrance to the onsen building.
salt to ward off bad spirits... on top of buddah at the door.
and that's where my camera stopped because it's an onsen.
ok, information about onsen for those who don't know.
Onsen, or hot springs, are just about everywhere in japan because japan is at the intersection of many techtonic plates and that makes it volcanically active. so, the heat from these volcanoes besically heats water in differernt areas around japan. some are natural, but this one was drilled to. the heat is is still natural, just the location isn't. anywho, differnt onsen have differnt minerals and stuff in the water that give each spring it's own healing/whatever aspects. Hot spring water is supposed to be good for your skin but whatever. i just felt gritty.
Some onsen are mixed, where both men and women are allowed into the same area, but in this one they were separate. It as already akward enough because you're naked, but i think it would have been too much if we were with the guys in our group.
oh, and some onsen don't let you in if you have tattoos because they're considered impure and many old people think that they'll make the healing powers of the onsen impure too so a lot of onsen just don't let tattooed people in. (Personally, I just think it's because the onsen owners don't want to deal with the yakuza but i can't substantiate that with any evidence)
The onsen water, which had all these minerals and whatnot was dark. like it looked black when you looked into it,but when you cupped it in your hands it was kidna dark purple/brown.
there 6 differnt pools in the women's area. 5 were warm and one was freezing- it was kept at 4 degrees C or something craazy. I tried to go in but i only made it up to my knees before i couldn't take it any more so i ran back to the closest hot one... and that hurt so much. 4c to 85c is not something i'd reccomend. ever.
Oh, and i thought that the onsen might hurt or whatever because it was so hot but it wasn't painful(unless you just cam from amost freezing water) it was very nice. the temperature a bath should be.
One of the pools had this area where there were electric currents in certain parts. When you put your hand there you could feel it all tingly, but when your back was next to it it feltlike a massage. it was nice.
um, that's about it for onsen.it was 10 bucks for an hour and 15 for all day. but we just stayed for an hour. because we had to get to dinner!
we took the train then the metro. (look, suica vending machines)
dinner, with giant beer.
basically that side of the table had beer and our side had chuhai which this awesome drink made from shochu(alcohol distilled from potatoes or grain), soda water and flavoring. Mine was green apple flavored. It was awesome. mostly because you couldn't taste the alcohol.
then everyone but me had yakitori. the top left part of the plate was skin, the bottom left was heart, the top right was liver, the bottom right was muscle...or whatever part of the chicken you usually eat.
you can see my chuhai in the bottom of the picture.
i had tofu, a salad, and this dish made of rice, seaweed, and green tea. it tasted about as good as it looks and sounds. i recommend never ever eating this. it's bland and icky. there was wasabi to spice it up, but i think that would have made it much worse.
oh, and speaking of wasabi, some people tried wasabi flavored icecream. they finished it (it took 4 people to finish one cone) but they did it. i don't know why.
there were some very loud drunk japanese people at the other two tables in the area where we were sitting. They were a tennis team that had just won a match(or whatever it's called in tennis). They were playing drinking games with chuhai and beer. and they kept chanting things. It was kinda interesting though.
anway, the other side of my table (natalie, jessie, and danielle)
and my side of the table. whee.
on the way back we passed this games place. it had really cute posters...
and here is shibuya by night. it's in a differnt metro station., but where we transfered to go home. you can see the shibuya 109 building. it still reminds me of times square.
and that was my thursday.
[fin.]
that's about it.
....
[about Thursday]
Thursday, yesterday, we did this thing sponsered by the Pacific Culture Club. I assumed that Pacific Culture Club meant a group of students that wanted to do cultureal things.. nope. it was a bunch of old nationalistic japanese women who taught americans about pacific culture.
any who.. we first took the subway then the train. and at the metro station we stopped for lunch. I had a bagel- but there were these fish-shaped pancakes that had flavored stuff in them and i'm pretty sure they actually had tuna in them... yeah...
There was also a ton of sushi.
and melons... and apples that were without a doubt genetically modifeid... they were the same size.
OH, and after my bagel i had the best drink ever. It's the middle one on this list. Baically there was this lemon flavored syrup and then some carbonated lemon juice(sweetend) and ice and then on top of that, soft serve vanilla ice cream. Like a refreshing lemon float. It was soooo good.
so... after we took the train, we walked to the women's house. It was in the suburbs of tokyo in this ritzy neighborhood that was very traditional in the japanese style.. you'll see when you see the gardens...
oh, and all the homes had a japanese style room. most people owned koto. There was a shinto shrine set into the wall.
shrine.
koto.
One of the women playing the koto.
VIDEO: Japanese Scale
I have videos of more of the songs but for some reason photobucket isn't letting me upload any videos now... it's being snarky... so you'll have to wait for later...
Then, some of us did caligraphy..(not me)
oh, btu it was so funny... the women playing the koto was such a nazi about how to hold this brush. She kept yelling at the guy on the left and finally went around to the other side of the table and held the brush with him until he got it right. he felt kinda terrible. but..i'm a terrible person so i thought it was funny...
oh, and when she was explaining about the ink, she was talking about how in the olden days japanese people would rub sticks of coal in water to make the ink and she had one and demonstrated... it looked pretty monotonous... and then she looked at the stick of coal and said... something along the lines of "this is a traditional japanese artform... here's the coal used to make the ink... *looks at it* this coal came from china... unfortunately"
Oh, and when most people were doing calligraphy, three of us got to dress up in kimono.
kimono...
tying a bow....
Here's jessie doing the same
See the bow!
Danielle, Jessie, and me in kimono
and again....
Then we went back in and had a traditional tea ceremony..but my camera was back with my pants so i don't have any pictures of it.
and a traditional garden...
anther traditional garden.
afterwards we went to an onsen (japanese hot spring)
but, since the busses only came every hour and we got there at 4:03, we missed the bus. so we had an hour to chill.
this is the "parking lot" for the train station.
as we were wondering around we found what we thought was a temple... well, it was a temple, but there was also a graveyard. but there weren't graves- just markers. I think people are cremated in shintoism but i'm not sure about buddhism... but i'm not acutlaly sure whether this was shinto or buddhist because there was a jizu statue which is buddhist but tehre were tori gates and white paper things and that are shinto. But in Japan, most people observe both religions. Actually, now that i think abuot it, it had to be buddhist ebcause shintoism doesn't deal with death at all. there's life and that's it. death, blood, things like taht are unpure and so the religion doesn't deal with them.
a grave marker
more markers...
even more...
jizu
then we went back... no smoking and walking...
the most menacing sign ever:
watch out for pickpockets.
the entrance to the onsen building.
salt to ward off bad spirits... on top of buddah at the door.
and that's where my camera stopped because it's an onsen.
ok, information about onsen for those who don't know.
Onsen, or hot springs, are just about everywhere in japan because japan is at the intersection of many techtonic plates and that makes it volcanically active. so, the heat from these volcanoes besically heats water in differernt areas around japan. some are natural, but this one was drilled to. the heat is is still natural, just the location isn't. anywho, differnt onsen have differnt minerals and stuff in the water that give each spring it's own healing/whatever aspects. Hot spring water is supposed to be good for your skin but whatever. i just felt gritty.
Some onsen are mixed, where both men and women are allowed into the same area, but in this one they were separate. It as already akward enough because you're naked, but i think it would have been too much if we were with the guys in our group.
oh, and some onsen don't let you in if you have tattoos because they're considered impure and many old people think that they'll make the healing powers of the onsen impure too so a lot of onsen just don't let tattooed people in. (Personally, I just think it's because the onsen owners don't want to deal with the yakuza but i can't substantiate that with any evidence)
The onsen water, which had all these minerals and whatnot was dark. like it looked black when you looked into it,but when you cupped it in your hands it was kidna dark purple/brown.
there 6 differnt pools in the women's area. 5 were warm and one was freezing- it was kept at 4 degrees C or something craazy. I tried to go in but i only made it up to my knees before i couldn't take it any more so i ran back to the closest hot one... and that hurt so much. 4c to 85c is not something i'd reccomend. ever.
Oh, and i thought that the onsen might hurt or whatever because it was so hot but it wasn't painful(unless you just cam from amost freezing water) it was very nice. the temperature a bath should be.
One of the pools had this area where there were electric currents in certain parts. When you put your hand there you could feel it all tingly, but when your back was next to it it feltlike a massage. it was nice.
um, that's about it for onsen.it was 10 bucks for an hour and 15 for all day. but we just stayed for an hour. because we had to get to dinner!
we took the train then the metro. (look, suica vending machines)
dinner, with giant beer.
basically that side of the table had beer and our side had chuhai which this awesome drink made from shochu(alcohol distilled from potatoes or grain), soda water and flavoring. Mine was green apple flavored. It was awesome. mostly because you couldn't taste the alcohol.
then everyone but me had yakitori. the top left part of the plate was skin, the bottom left was heart, the top right was liver, the bottom right was muscle...or whatever part of the chicken you usually eat.
you can see my chuhai in the bottom of the picture.
i had tofu, a salad, and this dish made of rice, seaweed, and green tea. it tasted about as good as it looks and sounds. i recommend never ever eating this. it's bland and icky. there was wasabi to spice it up, but i think that would have made it much worse.
oh, and speaking of wasabi, some people tried wasabi flavored icecream. they finished it (it took 4 people to finish one cone) but they did it. i don't know why.
there were some very loud drunk japanese people at the other two tables in the area where we were sitting. They were a tennis team that had just won a match(or whatever it's called in tennis). They were playing drinking games with chuhai and beer. and they kept chanting things. It was kinda interesting though.
anway, the other side of my table (natalie, jessie, and danielle)
and my side of the table. whee.
on the way back we passed this games place. it had really cute posters...
and here is shibuya by night. it's in a differnt metro station., but where we transfered to go home. you can see the shibuya 109 building. it still reminds me of times square.
and that was my thursday.
[fin.]
