Catch-up #6: Hiroshima and Miyajima

Monday was Enoshima. Wednesday was Kawagoe, Thursday night was a party at the izakaya with my Japanese class (a sort of farewell party for me and this guy named Hong who was going back to Korea).

Friday and Saturday was a 2-day trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima with my homestay parents.

These people are incredible. They paid for everything, from the expensive Shinkansen tickets to the hotel to the little things like drinks out of the vending machine. They wouldn't let me take my wallet out for anything (which of course, just made me feel guilty. I'm not used to that). Hiroshima is twice the distance away from Tokyo than Kyoto is. And I was gawking at the price to get to Kyoto.

Hiroshima, the site of the first atomic-bombing, has been turned into a tourist location. A very beautiful tourist location. But a very sad place to tour. Preserved ruins, statues dedicated to the deceased, and a museum explaning the situations that led to the bombing and the effects a nuclear bomb had on the people.

200,000 people died. This included soldiers, forced laborers, prisoners of war, and local civilians. 200,000....

We people in America balk at the hit 5,000 was during the 9/11 attack. Enough to go to war against another country. But we made the decision to kill off 200,000 people with a single bombed strategically dropped for political reasons. Yes, it ended a very devastating war, but it seems a bit excessive to throw something that big at another country.

The museum itself did nothing to victimize Japan or villianize America. It didn't proclaim America the hero and Japan the country of shame. It just presented the facts. That all sides had been wrong in this war and that such chaos should be avoided at all costs in the future.

The thing I didn't know about Hiroshima was America's strategy in dropping the bomb there. At the time, America had 3 options. To invade, to call on the Soviets for help, or to drop an atomic bomb. The bomb was decided b/c it would raise America up as a country of power and dominance, especially against the Soviets. Hiroshima in particular was chosen b/c it supposedly had no American prisoners of war. It was a military city (taken over by the military for its ports) and was strategically chosen for the impact an atomic bomb would geographically make if dropped there.

It's very disgusting when you think about it, how disconnectedly people can decide to end 200,000 lives. But I guess in war, when you're representing people by numbers bunched in shapes of triangles and dots, empathy is taken out of it. And pure cold-cut strategy is put in place. Like a game.

But yeah, there's my history lesson.

Miyajima on the other hand is a island with a shrine built directly on the water. The TV said it was because in the past, the people believed the island itself to be a god. But it was a beautiful experience there visiting the dock/shrine and going up the mountain on skylines. We stayed in a Japanese hotel on the island too which was cool. Although it did mean I had to experience a Japanese public bath.

The World Heritage Site. I.e. the a-bomb dome. The only building the survive the nuclear bomb attack, I think. It's been preserved and maintained, so it still stands as a site.

A statue dedicated to the children who lost their lives during the atomic bomb attack.

One particular girl who died b/c of the radiation poisoning caused by the bomb created massive awareness among the youths for the victims of Hiroshima. This statue is in memory of her. In the class cases are thousands upon thousands of paper cranes.

Hiroshima castle.

A temple... I forge the name.

The inside of our hotel room. Tatami floors n all.

The Miyajima Temple.

The infamous gate of the Miyajima temple.

Another shot. It was lowtide when we went, but usually all that land is underwater.

Okaa-san and me standing at the top of the mountain.

The rope bridge.

A creek/river in the park on the way down from the mountain. We stopped to play around.

Deer! There were so many here and they're not afraid of people at all. Kind of like goats in a petting zoo. Except it's not a fenced off area. They walk along the streets with you. You can feed them and touch them.

After visiting Hiroshima and from the very brief interaction with the various people on the streets, I have to say, I think western Japan just might be friendlier than eastern. Also, the various cities are much closer to each other and easier to get to. Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, etc etc. They're all over there.

When coming from CMU's art exchange program, I would refer to the Japan exchange as this: Do you want to go to Japan? Or do you want to go to Tokyo?

Catch-up #5: Kawagoe (Little Tokyo)

Kawagoe is called Koedo (Little Tokyo). It's where the castle of the Tokugawa family and is the reason I wanted to visit. Plus it's supposed to be a city that preserved the architecture of old Japan. History fact: b/c Kawagoe was so prosperous in its time, the merchants were able to built the homes and warehouses out of fireproof material instead of the commonly used dry wood. So it didn't burn down like a lot of the structures of Japan.

Kawagoe's trademark food? The sweet potato. They put sweet potato in everything. Of the things I tried, there were sweet potato ice cream, sweet potato popsicle, sweet potato chips, and sweet potato cake. I have to say I really liked the ice cream.

Throughout my personal exploration, I kept wondering where all the tourists were. This was a tourist location, after all. The thing was, the tourists were the smart ones. They were taking busses to all the sites. I was walking. It's quite a bit of a walk. But I did prefer it. You see so much more when you're on your feet. I took a lot of shots of streets and local architecture, but I'm just going to share these few (there's too many for me to want to upload it all).

One of the many temples I saw (I forget which one this is).


A sidestreet I thought looked really cool.

The Kawagoe Castle called the Honmaru Goten. It didn't look like much, but you could wander around inside of it for the very cheap price of 50 yen.

A shrine at the Kitain Temple.

The Gohyaku-Rakan Statues of the Kitain Temple. Technically, there are 538 ("gohyaku" means "500"). These guys are really small, but each one has a different expression. Unfortunately I couldn't get any closer. I arrived at the location right when they closed the gate (this picture was achieved by me holding the camera over the fence and blindly taking the shot).

The cool thing was a lot of the temples and things were connected to occupied areas. For example, one was part of an elementary school. Wouldn't that be cool going to school at an ancient temple?

Catch-up #4: Enoshima

Prior to this, Jyun and I had a final "let's hang out" day by doing an all-nighter in a karaoke house. It was really fun. She passed out around 3:00AM. Me around 4:30AM. We had the room from 12:00AM to 5:00AM.

We also made tacos and spaghetti and Americanized food that I made for dinner. It was fun having a house guest again.

No photos though. Sorta forgot the camera the entire day.

The week afterwards (Monday), I got to see my homestay parents again. Mr. and Mrs. Yokota. They took me to Enoshima, which I learned, was where they had their first date (how cute!).

The walking "bridge" of the ocean. (Not really a bridge, although elevated. Maybe it was a dam?)



Some shots of the ocean and the area we walked around.

Enoshima Road. Lots of touristy shops and snacks.



A couple of temples at the end of the Enoshima Road up the mountain.


The view from the top in an observation tower.

The entrance to the walk up the mountain.

The famous Enoshima ramen. All that stuff we saw on the rocks? We're eating it.

I have a ton of aquarium photos. It's just really beautiful. But I'm just gonna post one to give the idea.

Jellyfish. Eerily beautiful. But I'm glad they are behind glass.

And of course, dolphins! I'm a kid again!

Catch-up #3: Harajuku w/ Esther

This day wasy special. I met up with Esther in Shinjuku and took her and her sister to Harajuku. ^_^

For those who don't know, Esther is a friend I met in Taiwan during the Formosa Study Tour (a.k.a. the Loveboat) in 2005. Loveboat was a memorable month of touring and friend-making, but sadly, since I live in the backwater state of Ohio (not really backwater, but hey, all Asians are from California), I never got to see any of the people I made friends with afterwards. So it's been 2 years since I last saw or heard from her. Randomnly, I got a Facebook message saying "hey, I'm coming to Japan" so we took advantage of the chance and met up.

Unfortunately for her, she came during the typhoon (also the reason why I didn't go anywhere that weekend myself), so there wasn't much for her to do. So her family mistakeningly went to Akihabara and Ikebukuro. I say mistakenly b/c while these places are tourist attractions, you already know what I found in Akihabara. And they had a 5-yr-old son with them.

So, given the time limit (I met up with her at 9:00AM and she had to leave at 12:00PM to get to her plane to leave), I did the best thing I could and took her and her sister to Harajuku to shop and to admire the youth life and interesting fashions.

It was really fun getting to hang out with her and kinda strange how normal it felt. It's been 2 years, but we talked like we had known each other the entire time. Like it wasn't weird meeting each other in another country.

Esther and I standing in front of the Harajuku Station. (Her sister is very fast with a camera....)
Oh that old lady is just in there b/c... yeah, I don't know.

Esther's sister getting water to wash her hands at a small local temple we found in the backstreets of Harajuku. Hey! At least they can say they saw a temple. ^^"

Catch-up #2: Okonomiyaki w/ Friends

I thought people might like to see just what going out for okonomiyaki is like. It really is an event in itself. We reserved the tables for 2 hours of all-you-can-eat. And I was quite terrified by the amount these little asian girls can consume. 1 okonomiyaki is enough to make me full. My particular table of 4 ordered (and finished off) a total of: 4 okonomiyaki, 3 monjyayaki, and 2 yakisoba. Afterwards, one still wanted to run in to another restaurant and get cake for dessert. Of course it was the littlest.

Anyways, it was a fun party, even though I'm incredibly sick of eating this stuff. It tastes awesome though, just had it one too many times.

Two okonomiyakis still cooking.

Monjyayaki. You use the little spatulas to pick it up and eat it.

Catch-up #1: Photos from Tokyo Tower, Zojoji Temple, and Roppongi

Wow... has it really been that long since I last posted? The list of photos in my camera seems to think so.

Well, here goes a long string of posts: First are the photos I promised from last time, then we'll go chronologically.

Tokyo Tower as seen from the ground.

This is how high we were. It's only halfway (Hashimoto-san has a thing against heights), but it was fairly cloudy anyways.

View from the mid-point of Tokyo Tower.

View of Zojoji Temple from Tokyo Tower. Zoomed in (It was smaller....).


Zojoji Temple.

These statues lined one entire side of the Zojoji Temple grounds.

Hashimoto-san in front of Roppongi Hills.

This is how high up we were inside Roppongi Hills.

Tokyo Tower as seen from the top of Roppongi Hills (zoomed in again.... smaller in real life).

And finally, skyview from Roppongi Hills. It became much clearer towards the end of the day.

Last day of Class

Whoohoo! No more homework no more books! No more teacher`s dirty looks.

Er... not that we had books. Or much homework.
... and the teachers were pretty nice.

But yay! School`s out.

Prof. Furukawa is taking the class out to an izakaya (like a bar... but more casual/relaxed atmosphere), but I declined the invitation with an excuse that I was already busy. Not entirely a complete lie (I made plans afterwards to get dinner with some freshmen...), but I have no interest in going drinking w/ that class. No one in there talks to me. I`ve tried a couple of times to get them to talk to me individually. I think they`re all too comfortable in their groups or something to really take interest in me. In the end I gave up. But yeah... if I went, it`d end up being me drinking in silence at the edge of the table. Not sounding too fun. Even if I like the professor and assistant. They`re pretty cool.

However... today someone said "tsukaresamadeshita" to me... which essentially is a formal phrase you use with people when the day ends. Like a... thank you for working hard and have a good day. Something like that. There`s no direct translation. That`s probably the only time someone`s tried talking to me. (O_____o) Sad....

But it`s only that class. Heh.

3 weeks left til I go home. Kinda strange. I got used to living here. Found those routines like grocery shopping n stuff. Going to be strange to not hear the "cheese and oaties" song repeatedly as I buy vegetables. (it sounds like "cheese and oaties" I have no idea what it actually is saying.)

But I got a DVD as a present. That was nice of the teachers. So now I`ve got documentation of the 3rd year on-going project. I`ll show you guys if I see you.

Anyways... rainy season was supposed to be last month, but I think it started this month. Lots of pouring sporadic rain. And an earthquake. It woke me at 5:30AM yesterday. 3rd one I experienced in Japan, but this one was in Tokyo, so it was strong enough to startle me awake. But nothing fell down, so maybe it wasn`t so strong? I`m not sure. B/c once it stopped, I was tired enough to just drop my head back down to sleep. ^^"

Anyways... I went to Tokyo Tower, Roppongi Hills, and Zojoji Temple last Sunday with Hashimoto-san. I`ll share pictures of that next time.

1 Month Left

Wow.... One month left.

Now that I am nearing the end of the trip (felt even moreso since this is my "finals" week (as in, projects are due, but there are no tests or anything... One big project on my part, but that was it....)), I am sort of looking back at it all and then, looking forward at my time remaining. Just to see if I can still make up for anything I missed.

With only one month left, I can't really say that it came up too quickly, like I most often hear from people who went abroad b/c quite honestly, I'm ready to go back. And I feel like I'm just waiting for August 2 to happen so I can board that airplane and head home.

I know that makes this trip sound awful, but no. It was fun in many ways. I think if anything, I've just drained that feeling of adventure out of me these last couple of months. I didn't really go anywhere on my own this last month (mostly due to homework and busy schedules, but some due to sheer laziness). And things like money and travel costs prevent me from making great ideas happen like touring Nagoya, Osaka, and Kyoto like I wanted to in the beginning.

Moneywise, I need to save a bit to get to San Diego when I get back. Time to start working on that job networking stuff at SIGGRAPH.

Therefore, I might not go to Kyoto like I had hoped. Japan is insanely expensive, especially travel costs. I think I can spend a weekend in Kyoto for $300. Not too bad, but I think I'm lacking that kind of funds.

But it's okay. I went to Kamakura, and that's supposed to be called the "Kyoto of East Japan". Works enough for me.

And when I'm a full-fledged adult I can come back on a tour. Do the tourist things.

I've definitely explored a lot of the city, but I am finding the local life is much more beautiful to look at than the shopping malls and flashing screens. Finding the small hidden temple the locals go to pray to versus taking a trip to the big tourist attraction. The small temple seems a lot more meaningful. I liked going to Saginomiya and walking down the walkway by the canal and watching the locals go back and forth. It's much slower. Gentle. And much friendlier. An old woman started talking to me when i stopped to take a photo. Unfortunately, I had no idea what she said.

Of course, I arrived during a time when all the kids were away in Tokyo or in school.

Not many people are in to nature like that around here, but they live in it. It's probably like someone telling me the life in suburban America is a wonderful thing to watch.

So I think I might do that instead. The next day that is sunny without threat of rain, I will go out with my camera and just ride my time-bomb-of-a-bike around Atsugi's farmland and just take photos. Rice fields, etc. I saw quite a bit that day I got lost, but it was rainy so I didn't stop for photos.

I really need to remember to have my camera on me always. I should go around photographing the school too now that I think about it.

Photos from Kamakura

In no particular order (b/c I don't feel like organizing in this tiny window that I get to type in)...


The beach! We didn't go in it. But pretty!

The group I toured with. Every student is from a different country, except for one of them is from Tokyo. He was interesting though. Wish I talked to him more, but was hesitant to do so b/c he's deaf and me speaking Japanese to people who can hear the language is bad enough. Stupid uncertainties.
Countries represented: China, Korea, Burma, Bangladesh, and United States (me!)

"My peanut!" (*waves to Katherine and Midori*)

The big buddha statue at a temple.




It's sake.




That's all for now. I was a lazy bum and didn't go anywhere this weekend. Well, went around Atsugi on Friday, but meh. It's relatively normal stuff (karaoke, arcade, food) and found it awkward if I took pictures everywhere.