So just to let everyone know - i had been so busy that I only sent this out as an email and didn't have the chance to post this up on blogger. I apologize for those who were able to see thing. I'll try and post a little more about my trip. Hope everyone is well!Long time no see everyone! I'm really sorry! It's been quite a long time since I have last updated. Nearly an entire month! I've been quite busy since my friend has visited me. I actually had another friend visit me for a few days. In addition to all of that, I had a school project due and I have been quite busy with the holiday festivities. Today we start our school vacation, but I actually have Project D (my design class) class on Monday Dec 26, the day after christmas. Honto taihen! mendokusai! (it's really difficult and very troublesome). So I'll make a quick table of contents below this minor blurp so you can do a quick find and read whenever you have the time.
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Table of Contents in this post
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[A-1] Happy Holidays
[A-2] Christmas in Japan
[A-3] Christmas photos
[B-1] Nagasaki
[B-2] Momoji viewing in Dazaifu
[C-1] New Years
[C-2] What I've been doing lately...
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[A-1] Happy Holidays!
Just wanting to wish everyone a wonderful and joyous holiday. I hope that you spend your time with your loved ones and cherish the wonderful winter moments. I personally wish that my family was here with me to experience such amazing things here in Japan. Actually, I wish all of you were here with me to experience the amazing things that I have just by living here.
The photo here was taking at Tenjin Station displaying their large christmas display. Tenjin station is one of the main stations in Fukuoka, home to the Nishitetsu train line.
[A-2] Christmas in Japan
Christmas in Japan... isn't a spend time with your family sort of thing like it is in America. Actually... since Christmas is a Christian holiday... it makes sense why it isn't that sort of holiday. Instead, taking upon trendy things that happen in America, Christmas in Japan has been completely commercialized. It's most comparable to Valentines Day in America. Christmas in Japan is a "Dating" holiday. Full of romance, and love in the air, Christmas is for lovely couples to spend a night together. Basically, it's another business day for most people. Also... the big things you see during christmas time are children's toys in "Christmas packages" that you can buy at the convience store, or at the supermarket. Another popular thing that comes out are Christmas Cakes. You can order them the local bakery, or even at the convience store!
Some of my classmates who have boyfriends or girlfriends will be spending time with their significant other. I've asked them what they're doing and they said they were going to go to a nice dinner of some sort, or just spending time together. It's interesting to hear what these people have to say about Christmas. Some other ones will probably be spending time at our studio working hard on their projects... everyones projects are all due the end of next month.
My tutor, Nishimura-san will be doing volunteer work with some of his friends at an orphanage on the otherhand. As for me, I've been invited by two other single classmates in my studio (Tonraga-san [international student from Mongolia] and Nao-san). We're planning to do some winter shopping, go watch a movie (probably King Kong, a remake by Peter Jackson), and over to Tonraga-san's place for a "Gyoza" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyoza) dinner and Christmas cake. It shall definately be a "girls night out." I look foreward to spending time with them, they're always so friendly in my class and well I've been meaning to go shopping for winter clothing anyway.
Speaking of which, yesterday (12/22/2005) my class and I went out for a delicious dinner. We had our Kenkyu (Our class studio) Bonenkai Party. A Bonenkai party is basically, "Forget the year" type of party. We went to a lovely resturant and the dinner was sparse, but over the span of 2 hours or so it gets really filling. But, Kanekiyo-sensei lead the end of the year speech saying how this year has been great and everything... and that everyone has done well and that they should work hard next year too. Basically something like that.
We also had a christmas present exchange... and me not knowing that I only had to get one gift - ended up making gifts for my entire lab *laughs* Oh well, Christmas to me means giving and caring to everyone - so I didn't mind at all. Actually, in our Kenkyu we were each given a theme and everyone had to buy a gift. I was given the theme of "Oishii" which translates to "Tasty" (it also has another meaning, but i didn't know till later) and well... i made tons of gifts for everyone. I made everyone a scarf, a bag of chocolate balls, and chocolate rice crispy balls. I really didn't mind making all those gifts... actually seeing everyones surprize and reaction made me really happy. Watching people take a bite into those chocolate balls and then yelling out loud, "Oishi!!" (tasty) and "Umai!!" (unbelievably tasty) and then hearing people brag to other people we ran into about what I did for Christmas was quite flattering. But just seeing the glee on the faces of my other peers was well enough for me. As for everyone else, each had a different "theme" and purchased a gift and we did this round around present passing while we were "singing" Jingle Bells. More like... humming and giggling really. I ended up with a gift from Taniguchi-san whose theme was "Something foul" Actually I didn't anything foul at all... but something rather hysterical. I got this white tiger costume hat type of thing. It's the head of a tiger and you strap it onto your head like a hat. I thought it was kinda funny. I'll take a picture next time and share it with everyone.
[A-3] Christmas Photos
Well Christmas in Japan is quite commercialized as I said before, so I spend a day wandering around downtown Tenjin taking random photos of Christmas decorations. I'm only going to select a few photos to talk about to reduce the length of this email (it's already long... and it will get longer). If you have any questions about the photos I didn't take, please ask me!
Photos in Tenjin can be found here:
http://photobucket.com/albums/a50/jocyinjapan/Christmas_Tenjin/Tenjin Station
This area right before the ticket gates always has interesting displays and changed quite often. You can see the christmas decorations hanging over the Nishitetsu office and the Apple IPOD advertisement on the right. The are where the IPOD advertisement is actually changes quite often depending on what happens. In the past I've seen advertisements for the new Harry Potter movie, a credit card/bank card, and a few other things. I bet it costs a lot of money to get ads up on there.
Daimaru Building
The Daimaru building is a shopping area with an open space area in the middle (there are sky bridges overhead that connect the two building). The tree is made out of PET bottles. PET is actually a specific type of plastic that is constantly recycled here in Japan. It was really cool to check out and it is illuminated by lights from the inside. It kind of reminds me of the lighting construction project we had to do last year.
[B-1] Nagasaki
I went to Nagasaki back in October with my American friend (who came to visit). I got around to writing up about my travels, but had been so busy lately that I didn't have the chance to share it with all of you. So following after this paragraph will be a LONG report about my one day trip to Nagasaki. I hope you enjoy it.
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So a friend of mine from the USA decided to come and visit for a week. We were lucky and able to visit Nagasaki for a day thanks to my friend Hiromi and her car!
Accidently, we arrived quite a bit late by train (I didn't realize how far Daizenji from Ijiri really is!). But we met up with Hiromi at Daizenji station, hopped into her car and started the 2 hour drive over to Nagasaki. I kinda fell asleep in the car going over... seeing so much lush green kinda put me to sleep (similar to all the times i've fallen asleep on the shinkansen).
Eventually we arrived in Nagasaki (after paying around 3000Yen toll to use the expressway!) and we parked across Nagasaki seaside park. Following that we were quite hungry and strolled into the downtown "Chinatown" area for some great Chinese food. Following after we spent quite some time wandering around the hills of Nagasaki, we walked up the hill and went to Oura Catholic Church to see beautiful stained glass windows. We wandered the main street that lead up to the church and I bought some delicious Yuzu (a citrus type fruit) honey. We had some honey softcream and ate samples of "Castella" (this type of pound cake Nagasaki is most famous for).
Oura Catholic Church
Oura Monochrome (I don't know why...)
Oura Building
Following that we started walking towards the general area where we parked the car and then explored the Nagasaki Perfectual Art Museum. The architecture of that building is spectacular. We spent quite a lot of time there, exploring the landscape around it as well as the building itself. We had the opportunity to go in and wander around, take photos, visit the shop and just explore the building entirely. It was quite interesting. The only part that I really disliked about the building would have to be... part of the rooftop garden. It wasn't much of a garden. But what bothered me most was the elevator on the rooftop garden that sat in a glass room. Talk about the greenroom effect! Despite it being so cold outside, inside it was so hot due to the amount of heat build up in the room. We waited to use the elevator and was dying of the heat trapped inside.
Nagasaki Perfectual Museum
Reflection
"Hooru"
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Bridge
Bridge 2
Glass Sky
"What's Up there?"
The Shadow is Sayaka-san
Wandering Outside
After visiting Nagasaki Perfectual Art Museum, we hopped back into Hiromi's car and then went for a car ride through Nagasaki. I took a bunch of random pictures along the way. Nagasaki feels a lot like Hakodate and San Francisco. The hills are full of buildings - they remind me of home. Following that there were cable cars and of course that always reminds me of home. In addition the numerous amount of buildings that have been infuenced by the European architecture style. Nagasaki is quite an interesting town.
Random shots
car window, Nagasaki port side
London Park! (pachinko parlor)
Buildings nestled into the hillside
Cable car in Nagasaki!
Nagasaki Station
The Sea
Lights
European Influenced Building
Welcome to Nagasaki
We reached our next destination, but we were a little too late. We arrived at the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb museum and it was closed. But we made the best of our trip anyway and wandered through the landscape around the museum. We went to see a very interesting memorial dedicated to all of the people who had passed away during the Atomic bombing. However the sky wasn't dark enough yet, so we decided to go to Nagasaki Memorial park and go back to the other memorial after sunset.
Nagasaki memorial park... what can I say? It's where the Atomic bomb landed; the hypocenter. But if you didn't know... then you wouldn't have known. The park itself is very nice, its peaceful and quiet. We wandered down into the park and eventually made our way to the hypocenter itself. It was completely amazing to see it. I wasn't emotionally compelled or anything, but there is that feeling that looms over you. I felt, "How can people do things like this?" and "It's hard to believe how far Nagasaki has come through..." and i'm glad that many Japanese people that I have met in my life have no grudge against me because of my countries historical past. There was a memorial for the exact spot that the Atomic bomb hit. It was a huge pillar with inscriptions on it. Following that there were many bundles of paper cranes. 1000 paper cranes in each bundle. There is a folk tale that goes with it. A long to the side there is a small alcove which also housed for more bundles of thousands of cranes. Following that, we noticed an interesting pillar like figure off to the side. After reading the information boards (thankfully in English) it was apparently an existing piece of a building that survived the bombing and relocated to the park. It is nearly impossible to describe all the intense feelings that I had while I was in that particular area. It is just something that can only be felt by physically going there. I took a bunch of pictures - sadly it was starting to get dark and I currently don't have a tripod so many photos turned out blury. But I think most importantly it was about the feelings that came through; that human society can be cruel, unkind... and act without any considerations and that I as an individual should try my hardest not to be anything of those things.
After wandering around Memorial park for quite some time, we wandered back back to the Atomic Bomb Museum. We spent some time admiring and observing the memorial and the bright illumination. It wasn't until later that Hiromi wanted to visit these places based on design (as well as other reasons) and that they were featured in the Japanese Landscape Design magazines the past few issues. The memorial itself is really quite nice, it is beautiful at night, it reminds me of the big buildings in Japan and the little city that surrounds it, almost like a suburban district.
Nagasaki Memorial Park
Shot from the bridge
A piece that survived the bombing
Atomic Hypocenter (blurry)
Strange lights
Hypocenter of Bomb
1000 Cranes, hopes and dreams
Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum (outside)
Golden Trees
How many lives?
Illuminated
After visiting Nagasaki memorial park and atomic bomb center, we grew quite hungry and headed towards a local shopping building, had dinner, and drove the 2 hours home. Following that we managed to catch an super express train back and managed to get home within an hour. My short trip to Nagasaki was quite exciting. But hearing from others about all the things there is to do in Nagasaki... I might have to go back sometime.
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[B-2] Momoji viewing in Dazaifu
I was talking to Spencer one time (one of the other exchange students from Cal Poly) and asked if he wanted to go momiji viewing in Dazaifu. He said he was going the next day (this was a while back by the way, in late november). Actually it was the three of us, Spencer, and Yan (von? i don't know how his name is spelled). We got together at the crack of dawn and managed to catch the first train to Dazaifu. We spent the day roaming around, watching the sun rize, hanging out at Tenmangu Shrine, Myozenji (my favorite garden in Dazaifu), and the little shopping area. There was a huge arts and crafts type of festivity going on - so I managed to do quite a bit of christmas shopping (for my family and friends) here. There isn't really much to say... but we went Momiji viewing - which is basically what japanese people do when they want to see Fall leaves. i wanted to go back to Kyoto for momiji viewing - but I just didn't have the time. At least Dazaifu has done me justice. Here is a link to a bit of photos that I took:
http://photobucket.com/albums/a50/jocyinjapan/dazaifu_momiji/Actually I think Spencer took the photo of the female archer. Actually all the archers at the shrine are female. :) it's an interesting fact to know. Part of the time I spent watching the beautiful maple leaves falling from the sky and taking them and weaving them into my scarf. Overally it was really quite relaxing - i had such a wonderful time spending my entire day in Dazaifu. Dazaifu is actually really close to Ijiri (where I live).
[C-1] New Years
So... New Years is actually a much bigger holiday in Japan compared to Christmas. It's the Shogatsu holiday. Actually I will be in Tokyo spending time with my friend Taka and hopefully will run into a few of my closer friends while I am there. People will go to the shrines on the New Years and they'll ring a huge bell i think 118 times this year. It's supposedly saying good bye to all the bad spirits. At least thats how my Japanese teacher described it... something like ring the bell, "Sayonara" to bad spirits. She's not exactly sure why its 118 times this year either - so I don't know either. :D
Following that - I plan to spend most of my time in Tokyo catching up on the things I couldn't do last time... and participating in the Shogatsu sales! If you think black day is bad (the friday after Thanksgiving)... I hear Shogatsu Sales (day after New Years) is much more worse. So I hope to go and participate in this rampage and let you all know how that will turn out. I'm leaving to Tokyo Dec 30th by Highway bus. It's an overnight bus and will take 14 hours. It's a long ride... I will arrive in Tokyo on Dec 31st sometime in the early morning. I'll be in Tokyo until Dec 8th and arrive back in Fukuoka Dec 9th. If anyone needs to reach me they can send short emails to my cell phone: dreamy-lilusako@docomo.ne.jp or you can call me if you'd like. But that'd be rather expensive. I hope everyone has a good new years. :)
[C-2] What I've been doing lately...
So You all must be wondering what I do if i'm not updating here. Mainly just running around between school, namaoto club (my wind ensamble), and doing other things. Every once in a while (one or twice a month) I'll get the urge to go karaoke and will usually ask a bunch of friends if they want to go. It's actually really good practice in studying japanese! When we had our Bonenkai party the other day... we also went karaoke and it was quite a lot of fun. Here are few photos of my classmates when we went karaoke-ing (taken with my keitai... er cell phone).
Nishimura-kun singing "Last Holiday" or not... he was just posing for the picture.
Taniguchi-san and Yu-chan laughing to Nishimura-kun singing
actually... I seem to go karaoke a lot more than my wallet can handle. usually its like the thing you do late at night when you've got nothing else better to do. Sit down, have a good drink and sing a bunch of songs... its really hillarious. Some people go all out. Then... when you're tired you pass out and thats where I come in and take photos of everyone!
Spencer who passed early on during karaoke (You could see me reflected in the window)
Then when i'm not going out and singing my butt off... I'm usually eating! I strangely... go out and eat a lot of food here and there. Fast food doesn't feel so fast... and greasy in America. It feels light. It's strange when your classmate says, "Mister Donut" is healthy. Donuts are healthy? I think... Mister Donut has the lightest donuts ever - I could eat so many! they're bad for me. Actually, my favorite fast food joint is MOS burger (mountain ocean sun). I really love their food... so much I took a picture to share with you all.
MOS Cheese Burger set (fries and onion ring)
A typical MOS burger has two buns, a slice of tomato, a whop of this tasty tomato sauce, cheese, the patty and some other stuff. It's really tasty... at least those who love tomatos and what not. It's really delicious. See! We're always eating... for example - our bonenkai party... we went to a nice resturant... and then ate some more at an izakaya with Nakamura-san (who missed the dinner) and then we ate a little more when we went karaoke (you can see all the food on the table). It's weird... i swear Japan is all about eating.
Then... if we're not karaoking... or eating... then I'm probably in Design class (or other classes). Our design class is 6 hours long and even during that time... sometimes it'll go till 9PM or even later. Sometimes its more troublesome.... i wish that the teachers would have a more efficient way of going through critiques and stuff so we don't have to spend an additional 3 hours waiting. But when we're waiting for 3 hours and have nothing to do... we do stupid things like take photos with our cell phones and cameras.
Spencer being a goonie before going back to work
Everyone falling asleep to the lecture about school architecture design
Anyway - that's it for now. I hope everyone is doing well. I'd like to hear how everyone is doing... I'll try and update again sometime soon. But for now I have to go to school and work on my design project. That way I will have some plans and other documents to present to the teacher the day after christmas. Yes... I have school the day after christmas. How sad. :( It's okay - i've already planned for much fun afterwards! Happy Holidays everyone! May it be joyous and fun. ^_^
