Golden Week (a month ago)

End of April/beginning of May marks the one time of the year the Japanese are given more then one day off from work at a time through the whole year. While many people get off the whole week we only had monday, thursday and friday off. And you can only imagine the craziness that becomes the public transportation and touristy sites. Well since all my friends were off traveling around the world I decided to skip on down to Osaka, Kyoto and Nara for 3 days. I stayed in the same hostel I was in with Charrissa during our Osaka trip and just local trained it to Kyoto and Nara everyday.

Oh Kyoto, how I love thee-let me count thy ways. 1) absolutely beautiful, 2) very ancient amazing history, 3) many of the original architecture is still standing (Kyoto was left alone during WWII to preserve its history)..............I spent 2 days in Kyoto, one day I went to the Geisha show in Pontocho Geisha district and the next day I went to the Fushimi Inari Shrine and climbed up a hill through thousands of torii gates.

Day 1: Pontocho/Gion Districts-Geisha Performance

The Geisha were absolutely gorgeous, elegant graceful dancers that made you forget everything and feel like you were in a different world. The music was eerie and beautiful. In all the performance was an hour long but felt like it was only 10 minutes.

Infamous Gion Geisha district-Kyoto

Crazy Foreign Story Time

The more time I spend here the more time I realize how small the world really is. And that really, really hit home as I was wondering the streets of Gion. I was at a crosswalk with someone I meet at the hostel when this random girl turns around and asks me if I am from California. A bit freaked out-I said yes (seceretly wondering what on earth gave me away as a cali girl), then she asks if I am from Folsom-WHAT WHAT!!! are you serious. Well it turns out I went to school with her and her friend since elementary school. They were a year younger then me in school and I kind of recognized them after talking to them for a minute. But It was a bit weird considering the fact that I don't remember them at all and it would have been at least 7 years since I last saw them anywhere. As it turns out the girl has a strange memory and can remember faces even in foreign counties. Needless to say I walked away with a very eerie feeling.

Day 2: Fushimi Inari Shrine-Kyoto
Fushimi Inari is the major shrine in Japan dedicated to farmers and small businesses, so I automatically had a special bond with this Shrine. But it is one of the most amazing places I have been in Japan. An entire mountian side is covered in torii gates dedicated to this shrine. There is a very spiritual feeling in the as you walk up the mountian through a tunnel of orange gates. P.S. If you saw Memoirs of a Giesha you will recognize this shrine

Day 3-Nara and the big Buddha

On my last day away I decided to visit Nara. It is very famous for its giant Buddha-largest in Japan and the bowing deer. Yes, you read that right-they have deer that bow to you when you feed them. It is a very cute old historic town and I wish I had more time to spend walking around but it was off to the train back to Nagoya.

Buddha's House-Todai-Ji Temple

The great Buddha-massive thing

Another cool shrine-beautiful view of Kyoto from the balcony

The infamous bowing deer

I promise to soon blog about the company trip we had last weekend, then I will be all caught up on my blogging-YEAH!!!! only took 3 months :)

Okazaki Sakura Matsuri

Here are some pictures from the Okazaki Cherry Blossom Festival-only a month late :)

Eating bentos under the Sakura and waiting for the festival activities to start

Underneath the Sakura

Absolutetly beautiful walking under the sakara-words cannot explain

look down-new big blog

just a heads up-not sure why there is a massive empty spot on the blog but if you go down a bit there is a new blog about what has been going on a bit (right below-breaking news in nagakute)

Update

Here are a few articles on the hostage situation that ended Friday night. Very sad, 2 children shoot and 2 police officers were shot. One of the police officers died at the hospital. It took place less then a mile from my apartment.

International news. A few articles from CNN if your interested:

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070518/kyodo/d8p6g4co1.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/05/18/japan.shooting.reut/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Breaking News in Nagakute, Japan

OK, so I was riding my bike home with Lizzie and Charrissa from work today around 6pm. And as we were riding home we could see helicopters coming from all angles towards us. We were counting at least 6 then a few minutes later there were 10. It was the strangest thing to see them coming from everywhere and they all started following each other. SInce this is not an everyday occurance in sleepy suburbia Nagakute we were trying to think of reasons why there would be sooo many helicopters circling around. We finally decided it must be some kind of training because there is no other reason for 10 helicopters to be circling in the sky (some kind of violence did not occur to us). As soon as we got home Lizzie and I went for a run in the park. We we got back I had a missed call on my phone from Charrissa (I never get calls so it must have been something big). She had recieved a message from Naomi who recieved a frantic message from Soari to NOT leave the house because there was a shooting in Nagakute. WHAT!!! Japan is the safest country in the world (I feel safe walking down the streets at midnight by myself.) And Nagakute none the less. Nagakute is the Japanese version of Folsom, a very upper middle class suburb. So I was a bit surprised . Anyways long story short a older man went a bit crazy and shot his son, daughter and a police officier and was holding his wife hostiage. I can still hear the helicopters hoovering over us a mere 7 hours later so Im not sure what is going on. Im sure i will find out more tomarrow, but with this little blog I am off to bed and im not rereading it tonight so if this doenst make much since I will fix it later.

Where do I start??

Ok, yes I know I am a slacker and it has been about 2 months since I last posted a real blog about what I have been doing in Japan. Now that life has come pretty much back to normal (especially since last week was soooo insane with the hostage situation and helicopters hoovering over my apartment for 48 hours straight) I'm not exactly sure where to start but I'll highlight the biggest occasions. How about with my fam coming to visit that seems like a good place to start. (Sorry I don't have any pictures of the Family's trip to Japan-I somehow lost them all so you'll have to ask the fam if you want to see :(

THE FAM
The visit from the fam was very nice. Only thing was, it was not just the parents but the bro and sis too. Let me just say traveling with 4 other adults in a foreign country where everyone thinks they know what they are doing and do not have the patience to listen to the one person who has a inkling about what is going on can get very frustrating. But we made it through without any deaths or injuries :) With the JR Pass in hand they were off traveling the country while I was stuck working and traveled further and wider then I have in the 9 months I've here. We went to Kyoto for 2 days and saw the Imperial Palace, Nijo Palace (with the mockingbird floors-awesome), Kinkajuji Temple (Golden Palace) and Gion-the Geisha district (we saw real live geisha in Gion-ahhh). I have to say Kyoto is my new favorite place in the world (I've been back since more on that later). Kyoto is absolutely amazing, beautiful and full of history and ancient buildings.
A little historical tidbit for y'all-Kyoto is the one city that was not bombed during WWII because of the historical significance. Many of the buildings are original buildings not replicas like you will see if you go to Osaka or Nagoya.
We also stayed near Mt. Fuji and had the most amazing view of the mountain from our 10th story hotel room. We were lucky enough to have two very clear days (although on the way up we went through a massive snow storm for about 10 minutes -very strange). And it was very nice for once to hear English coming out of a TV-we had CNN. I know all you want to know about the British soldiers who were being held in Iran.
They came at the best time in Japan: Sakura or Cherry Blossom season. They were absolutely amazing and beautiful.
I was very sad to see them head back, but such is life, so with a impromptu Easter brunch I sent them off to Fujigaoka to catch the bus to the airport.

SAKURA
Sakura season is when all the cherry blossoms in Japan are in bloom. It is an absolutely amazing whimsical magical time to be in Japan. The scenery of Japan is dotted with pink wherever you go. (Once again I have lost all my pics :( The Japanese love to have picnics under the sakura trees and drink sake. They call these picnics Hanami's, and wherever you go during this time of year you will see people sitting under Sakura trees on blue tarps eating bento lunches and drinking sake.

Gamagori Shell Picking and Koto Lesson

It is very popular in Japan for people to flock to the sea during Spring to shell pick on the beach. Naomi, Lizzie, Megumi (and her 2 year old son Takato) and I were luck enough to have Saori the shell picking queen set us up on a shell picking date in Gamagori. So one Sunday morning we set out to Gamagori with our shell picking clothes on to pick us some shells on the beach (try to say that 10 times fast). It was actually quite fun. We each had a bucket and a shovel and we just found a place on the beach and dug for hours to fill our buckets.

Gamagori beach filled with shell pickers

After our exhausting day of picking shells, sorting shells and washing shells (yes, we did get to take them home to cook them-and no I didn't eat any of them:) Saori's lovely mommy had a wonderful surprise for us. She had arranged with a friend of hers to teach us how to play the Koto, a Japanese musical instrument at her lesson studio-an absolutely amazing 100 year old traditional Japanese house.

The Koto is a gorgeous instrument that is very long with 14 strings and has an amazing sound.

Me, trying to play the famous Japanese song "Sakura" on the Koto-surprisingly those 5 years of violin helped

Anyways there is a miniature update to what has been going on in Japan. I will write another massive blog about my Golden Week trip to Kyoto, Osaka and Nara another night. And I promise I won't wait so long to blog again. It is exhausting trying to put in 3 months into one blog :)

P.S. I will post some pics from a Hanami we had in Okazaki soon-thanks to Char's massive photo collection

I'MMMM BACK!!!

Ok, Ok I get it, I have been a bit lazy these past two months with updating my blog but in my defense I have had a lot going on with reports, graduation, family visit...now that all that is over (a month ago :) I am back and ready to blog. I dont know where to start. But I will tomarrow right now I am watching Iwo Jima and probably annoying the Aussies with my typing. So expect another blog soon-I promise.

Until tomarrow...(or the next day :)

P.S. Happy Mother's Day Mom and Grandma and all the moms out there