Kyoto, and Sports Day!

My appologies for the absurdly long time since my last post. I've been amazingly busy here, and any free moments I've had have going to cleaning my room and washing clothes. The first task is immensely important, as I have concluded that Japan is weird bug capital of the world. last Sunday we had Sports Day, which was awesome. Monday was a holiday, and I got tuesday and wednesday off as compensation for working the weekend. I took thursday off, and friday was a holiday. So, my friends Mac and Taubee and I went to Kyoto for three days.

Kyoto adventures!
So, Tuesday we caught the train to Kyoto, which is about 2 hours from here on the "Shinkaisoku"- also known as "the fastest train that you don't have to pay extra for". I slept most of the way. This is primarily what trains in Japan are for- sleeping. I don't think you're supposed to talk at all, and definately are not supposed to use phones. Everyone just gets on the train and sleeps. So we got to the train station, found the tourist info center, and had them book us a room at a "ryokan"- or Japanese style hotel. Ours was pretty cheap- not the cleanest or newest of places, but centrally located (right next to Gion) and only 2200 yen a night (~$20). "Japanese style" means basically, tatami floors and futons. We also opted for the public bath, which, is the best invention known to man, right behind escalators and the bicycle. Anyway, so our first night in town we tried to walk down to this temple, "Sanjusangendo", which is supposed to have some mighty impressive 33 (san ju san) buddhist statues. We walked through this really awesome little alley/market area, where I found giant fish heads for sale, and a dog with its fluffy tail dyed pink and yellow- one of the strangest things I have seen thus far in Japan.
Well, we got a little lost and ended up at this other temple/shrine complex, Chion-ji. You can't really get very far in Kyoto without finding some sort of hundred year old historical buddhist or shinto structure of some sort. It had a lot of cool enormous old buildings. But the best part was what happened in regard to the cemetary. The cemetary grounds go all the way up the side of a big hill behind some shrines. Well, Mac decided he wanted to explore the area, and Taubee and I waited at the bottom for him.

<-- Mac next to Choin-in temple bell- the biggest bell in Japan. Lonely Planet reports it takes 17 monks to ring it on New Year's.

Not long after Mac departed, some Buddhist monks came running across the balconey of one of the temples and urge us to leave, as the temple closed to tourists already. So some guards escorted Taubee and I out, and we left Mac behind to finish exploring and make it out. mac made it out a little while later- but he had apparently been locked inside the cemetary. To get out, he had to scale the cemetary wall, sneak ninja style over the tile roofs of one of the buildings, and jump back down. I guess the guards saw him and laughed- which is probably a good thing since he could've gotten in a bit of trouble.

Taubee and me in front of Choin-ji temple entrance gate.

More later! I must pause to hang up my laundry (not in my shower-dryer) outside while still light out.

typhoon season?

So earlier this week, typhoon 14 hit Japan. I was really excited, because my teachers said I didn't have to come in if an emergency was declared (they all do). However, the typhoon came in the night and I slept through it. It was really windy for about 2 days, and a bit of rain in the evening, I guess the action all happened at night. So in to school anyway.

A good deal has happened since my last blog, some exciting, some less so. Today was my first day in elementary school. Both the junior high and elementary schools are preparing for "sports day", so classes are irregular for the next two weeks. So today I went in and taught one class, of 100 elementary students. It was a lot of fun actually. The teacher I work with is a big really energetic lady. So I showed up an hour early to prepare for the lesson, and I find out we're working with puppets. We started the lesson doing a dialogue between Lion and Rabbit (hi, how are you? I'm fine thank you, and you?...) and then played a counting game, and sang a song. Then we went and just hung out in her "word room" where she teaches Vietnam students Japanese. She kept trying (successfully) to feed me cookies and fruit. Then we had lunch, and I found out she had called me a taxi. So, I think my JH school was expecting me back, but this was not to be. So it is now 2:00 and I am home.
So since I wrote last I have visited Mt. Shosha, the second and last of the attractions in Himeji. It was built over 1200 years ago, at least. But it's more famous for being the site where Tom Cruise filmed The Last Samurai. it was really really awesome. It's a big mountain Buddhist temple complex. After getting off the bus, there's a cable car to the top of the mountain, after entering, I proceeded up a path littered with buddhist statues, mini-shrines to different boddhisatvas and buddhas. There was an enormous bell that I rang before starting, you grab a rope at the end of a large hanging log, pull back and release it to swing into the bell and toss in ten yen. and maybe make a prayer. anyway, after walking past a good number of small shrines, there's a little path through the woods that suddenly opens up, and there's an enormous temple out of nowhere that just takes your breath away. I went in, and tried to talk to one of the monks there for a little while (very little english+ no japanese= small dialogue). He was really really excited that I was trying to ask him questions. I guess he must get kind of bored just doing calligraphy in people's temple books. Anyway, we finished up there and headed into town. I went to aikido and the rest of my crew went to play frisbee for a while.
Not exciting part of blog- I got really really sick last week for the first few days of school. Had a fever for 3 days. I finally went into the doctor on Saturday. he made a clip art rendition of my medical diagnosis on the computer, told me I had tonsilitis, and gave me some antibiotics. At any rate, all better now.
more later, going to go run some errands, buy a bike, while shops are still open.
Allison