Hiatus
Sorry I’ve been gone so long. Life really took off here; school is crazy, I’m very involved with the Koto Club at the University, and to top it all off I’m working at Starbucks (again) which is both a blessing and a curse. I don’t think I could catch you up on the last two months any better than just showing you what I’ve been up to, so I’ll post quite a few pictures down below here.
I do have some exciting news though. Our Winter vacation here runs from February to the beginning of April, so to escape the cold of Nara and have an awesome adventure, I’m planning to spend almost the entire month of Feb. in Okinawa. Okinawa is the southernmost island chain of Japan, its so far South that the people there were originally self-governed and had their own language. Because of this the culture and dialect of Japanese spoken there today is distinctly different from Mainland Japan. Think Hawaii, it’s kind of a similar story.
And now the pictures.
Hiking Yamanobe-no-Michi (Yamanobe Road), the oldest road in Japan.
A road sidestand, completely run on the honor system. I bought ume-boshi (pickled plum)
The mountains are lined with THICK bamboo forest.
Terraced farmland, very common in Japan. This isn’t the best example because its so hard to see…
A secluded house up in the mountains.
You see this a lot too, onions hanging to dry.
Tenri farmland
A tiny Jizo Shrine. I think they protect travelers, which is why you find them all over the place by roadsides. I left him an ume-boshi as offering, but usually people leave open canisters of sake or salt, thinks like that.
One of the many Shinto Shrines along the path. There gate are called torii and always mark the entrance to Shinto Shrines. If this isn’t there, than its probably a Buddhist Temple.
Himatsuri (Fire Festival) in Kyoto
This was a really fun and dangerous event. The streets are packed, and very narrow. And weaving down the middle of them are families carrying HUGE torches and chanting. It’s basically up to the observers to stay out of the way, I nearly took a torch to the face many a time.
Oh. And the men wear thongs. Kinda awesome, kinda creepy.
Kids carrying a torch and a TALL GAIJIN!!! I bet there were more Japanese people taking pics of him than the kids!
Just to show you what I mean by crowded.
Here’s a good butt shot. In the end, it became a contest between Sarah and I to see who could get the best one.
Lighting their torch.
More butts, more fire.
Sometimes they would randomly drop their torches and perform these crazy dances. I have a video, I’ll post that up here too somehow.
Kurumi and I. We came to see her, but that only happened for about 5 minutes.
We met this beauty on the way out. He is called Tengu, and lives in the mountains and has a really really big nose. When foreigners first came to Japan, the drawings the Japanese did of them greatly resembled this guy, due to our gargantuan noses.
Bunka-Hi at Nara Kouen (Culture Day at Nara Park)
We had a random weekday holiday, and decided since the weather was nice to go to Nara Kouen. Turned out so did everyone else. It was packed (as Japan usually is), but there were special tours going on and stuff so it turned out to be a great day.
Sarah ringing a bell.
Me ringing the bell! I have no idea why you are supposed to ring the bell. Sorry.
One of the buildings we got to tour. It had really cool, very old carvings of Buddhist deities inside.
Todaiji, where the biggest Buddha in Japan lives. He’s so big you can supposedly fit inside his nostril.
The big guy himself.
My favorite part of Nara Kouen, feeding the deer!
Well that’s all I have for now. I’ve been up to much more these last two months though, I just don’t want to bombard you with photos. I’ll update the blog again real soon.
Rice Harvest and Tenri Hondori Tour!
Today has been quite an eventful day! This morning, many of the foreign exchange students and I went to a nearby farm and learned how to harvest rice! It wasn’t too hard, although the field was not so big and we had about 20 people helping…. Once enough of the field had been cut away frogs started pouring out, and I felt a little bad for them since the rice paddy was obviously their home… A sad sad day for the frogs. But not for us! Here’s some pictures for you to enjoy:
The rice paddy before…
Busy at work…
I helped too… a little. :)
This is what rice looks like while still on the plant. In Japanese, there are three words for rice. At this point, it’s called Ine (eeneh). Once its dried out, the way it comes in the supermarket, its called kome (kohmeh). After’s its been cooked, its called gohan. Meals in Japan are simply called ‘gohan’, so that should tell you how important it is!
The end result!
The harvest was a ‘cultural experience’ so we worked for free. Well, we did get tea from the farmers but that was it. Plus, after harvesting their crops they directed us to their little market of their farm produce, tea, and handicrafts - which of course we were suckered into buying. All in all, a very profitable day for the farmers! After we got back from the harvest we were dropped off at school, so I decided to record a video riding down the Hondori (or mainstreet) on the way home. Enjoy!
Mulch for Brains, Migratory Birds, Japanese Harps, etc.
About a week has passed since I’ve posted anything up here, and quite a lot has happened! Firstly, I had my first solid week of school. I’m taking 10 classes, although since each class meets only once a week for one and a half hours, its about the equivalent of 5 classes in the United States. All but two are in Japanese, and they really vary from being quite understandable to making me wonder if I can even speak the language at all! My favorite so far is probably my Cross Cultural Communication class, or 異文化コミュニケション to be exact. It’s taught by an American man, whose Japanese is far more understandable than many of my actual Japanese teacher’s, probably because his background in the language is academic, like mine. Another favorite is Grammar class, because it really focuses on my weakest points in Japanese (you guessed it, grammar!) and my teacher is very good so I’m actually learning instead of my brain being turned to mulch. But that’s not to say my brain ISN’T being turned to mulch, because it is. My other classes, well two in particular (the one’s taught by Japanese men, interestingly enough), are INSANE. They just ramble in front of class for seemingly ever, and one had the nerve to give us our homework questions ORALLY, which is a HUGE no no in Japanese. Well, at least for people like me who barely know 500 Kanji (or Chinese characters), and can’t just write them out of thin air. Unfortunately for me, a large portion of my classmates are CHINESE. So they’ve got the whole Kanji thing down, and people like me are left to sink, or try to swim for a while and probably sink eventually in the end anyway. But I really don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like my classes, because I love the eight that aren’t taught by crazy Japanese masochists. And even the two that are will probably really help my language ability in the end.
On a lighter note, I also had the first meetings for both clubs I’m joining on campus! One is the Tenri Daigaku branch of Wandervogel, and I’m going to steal the wikipedia explanation of what that is:
“Wandervogel is the name adopted by a popular movement of German youth groups from 1896 onward. The name can be translated as migratory bird and the ethos is to shake off the restrictions of society and get back to nature and freedom”.
There you have it. The club has about ten people in it, and about once a month we will go on hikes (sometimes overnighters) in the mountains around Kansai. I think I might be the first foreigner to join their club, because they were almost shockingly excited to have me in their group!
The other club I’m joining, is called Hogakubu - Traditional Japanese Music Club. We start out by learning the Koto (Japanese harp), and can eventually move onto Shamisen (Japanese banjo-type thing) which I DEFINITELY plan on doing. Koto are absolutely huge, probably six feet long and they cost at least $5,000. Shamisen can be dismantled and easily transported PLUS they can be found for only a few hundred dollars. I want to bring one back so I can continue playing in the US. But anyway, I’ve already began learning ‘Sakura Sakura’ on the Koto, and am due to perform (along with the rest of the club) sometime in November. One of the wonderful things about Hogakubu is that they gave me the code to the padlock on the clubroom door, so I can go practice ANYTIME. I’m going to try to go at least a few times a week. Below is an example of what a REALLY good Koto player sounds like. I’ll eventually post a video of myself playing, so you can see how horrible I am in comparison!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM73f6ZG4Ok&feature=related
Well, that’s about all I’ve got for now. Tune in soon, I’m planning as series of videos touring Tenri City so you’ll have a better idea of what this place is like!
Until next time~
A little update
I’m so sorry for how long its been since my last post, but a lot’s been happening lately and I’ve been way too distracted to sit down and type anything out! Today I want just let you know a little of what’s been going on, and I will post more very soon!
Last weekend I worked the English booth at Tenri University’s Open Campus event, which was basically an open house for Japanese high school students showcasing the school. It was the easiest 30,000¥ (about $30) I ever made. All I had to do was pronounce words like “woman” and “wolf”, which showed the difference between the correct pronunciation and the way most Japanese students pronounce the words: “ooman” and “oolufu”. Other than that, I just sat back and watched the head of the English Dept. rap Humpty Dumpty to his high school audience and provide the percussion for his tear-jerking rendition of “We Will Rock You”.
This past week, I went on a overnight “camping” trip with about thirty Japanese students, and some of my American and Canadian friends. It was a beautiful trip-we were out in the middle of absolutely no where, surrounded by forested mountains and we spent the day playing in the river. But it certainly didn’t qualify as camping. We stayed in a big guest house with bedrooms, a kitchen, showers, etc. It was a little overwhelming speaking Japanese non-stop for nearly 24 hours, but all in all a wonderful time.
Here’s a couple pics from my trip:
Riding one of the many trains to get there.
JAPANESE SPIDERS ARE HUGE!
I’m here!!
Hi everyone,
I’m here in Japan! It’s been about 5 days now, and I’m finally starting to feel truly settled in. At first everything was SO new and exciting, I felt totally ADHD and could do nothing but explore. Now that I’ve got my bearings, and I’m no longer reeling from the fact that I’m in Japan, I’ll try to be more diligent about this blog. I’m trying to post a video that will give you a tour of my new apartment, but I’m having some technical difficulties. Check back in a day or two and I’m sure it’ll be up. I also wanted to put my address up here in case you want to send me goodies, check below for that. I promise pictures and videos and stories soon!
~Cameron
Room 403 Amenity Houkoku
129-5 Kawaharajo, Tenri, Nara 632-0016, Japan
In less than two weeks, I will be boarding a plane headed for Japan. Last week this concept was, while true, a seemingly distant event. Two weeks out, the reality that I will be in Japan for 11 months hit me like a ton of bricks. But don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t be more excited for my adventure to begin! There is much to do however, and I won’t bore you with the details. Instead I want to introduce the beautiful part of Japan in which I will be living; Nara:
As you can see, Nara is located south-west of the Tokyo Metropolitan area, in the Kansai area of Japan (right where the HUGE earthquake struck in 1995). Nara is both a Prefecture (similar to a state in the US) and also name of the capital city of Nara Prefecture. At the dawn of Japanese history, Nara was the cultural and political center of Japan, so it boasts some of the oldest and most prominent shrines and temples in the entire country.
Nara is also widely known for its rampant man-eating deer infestation, but that really deserves a post all to itself. More about the deer later :)
I will be living in Tenri City, a suburb of Nara City. From what I understand its a relatively small town (about 70,000 people), and is nestled against a huge national park. The city is named after a religion/philosophy (Tenrikyo) that began in the late 1800s when Miki Nakayama became possessed by the “One True God” and revealed his teachings through her. It is currently the largest religion in the world with a female founder.
…Anyway, I honestly don’t know too much about Tenri City yet, so I am very anxious to get over there and experience it for myself - and of course share what I find with you.
Peace&Love,
Cameron
