Home sweet home

Final exams were a breeze, and the last night was fairly topsy turvy/I do not remember what happened for all of it, but apparently we went to warawara to pregame (all you can drink, some amount of money, two hours) starting at 7, and we were out drinking at various places until about 2am. Brandon and tom punched a sign and shattered the class on it, creating a little drunken chase scene to end the evening, but I don't really remember things between one point and another. The plane flight was pretty boring, I didn't sleep on either one of them though, and so I've now only slept four hours out of what has been for me the last 36 or so (I lost a couple with the int'l date line/time travel.) But I'm still going strong. Having a bit of reverse culture shock, as Lani said in the comment to my last post, and it's really strange, because it's the first time I've had this happen, despite how much I've traveled around the world. Though this was the longest I've been out before. I hope that everyone has enjoyed my journal writings, I'm not certain if I'll continue posting things here or not... Maybe significant stories or zazen induced thoughts, but I make no promises. I'm here in VA for another week or so, and then it's back to college, and I hope everyone is well and getting ready to restart school. My friends are some of the finest people on earth,-J

one more saturday night...

Well, three nights of adventure, or two really. I spent friday night tagging along with mike (aka. Black Dragon, from NYC). We started friday night at the usual izakaiya, then we went to shinjiku, stayed at a karaoke bar for 30 minutes (I lit up the house with my rendition of baby got back, hell yeah sir mix alot), after which we went to another bar, I had an "oki biru" which was about 4 beers in one mug, the kind of portions beer was meant to be served in. Played a drinking game with some japanese friends we met there, and after that we all wandered to this little jazz club that was tucked underneath a railroad bridge, basically a door into the concrete pileing, but was a very good jazz band and it was nice to get some dancing in, even if my partner was 5'1". Saturday I stayed in my hotel, mostly in my friend Don's room watching the olympics. We watched the first round of Judo, women's 48K and men's 60K. Tani-san and Nomura-san from Japan won the gold in both (Tani-san beat a french women in the finals, we were all quite happy about that) and that Iranian who said he was going to back out of the running in honor of Israel ended up wrestling, and ended up losing to a Georgan. Most likely because he bit him on the hand and pissed him off. Good to see Japan winning Judo, having invented it and all. The women's basketball team from here didn't do so well though, losing 62-128 against Brazil. I wish I could say that I've seen one competition with Americans in it, but the onlything played here are the sports with the japanese competing in it (which is more than fair enough). Japan killed the Italian men's baseball team, gambare nihon. Last night was a boisterous night at the izakaiya, Brandon and I sang many rugby songs, in honor of the Japan National Rugby jersey that I bought earlier that day.I go home in three days. Trippy.I've been here so long, I'm starting to forget some faces from home, nice to know I can uproot myself that well. It's going to be strange being away from this country, and I'm certainly going to miss it. -J

Fuji-san Kajimashita

Well now...After class on wednesday I went around Shinjiku looking for tickets for the people I was supposed to go climbing with.. that took up about four hours walking, which made me quite tired before I even got on the train for Fuji. Tickets to take the bus to station five fill up really fast. We ended up heading out about 7:30 something and boarded the train. We went by train to Otsuki, and then on to another train line to the base of Mt. Fuji. Of course, the buses from the train station had stopped at 9:00, strange because a majority of people seem to climb it at night like we did. So we ended up getting two cabs with a group of Canadians, splitting the cab fare 9 ways... Got to the top, and after a short settling of affairs at the sovenior shop at station 5, we headed out, all gung ho and setting a killer pace. Of course none of us realized just how much the air had thinned out, and by the end of the first 30 minutes (seven minutes of real climbing) we took our first serious break, and my friend Bladge (not really sure how to spell his name actually), was already having a hard time. We went on, and eventually bladge had to turn back with Miki. The four of us, Shanna, Tom, Ryan, and myself, kept climbing up the mountain with Tom and Ryan singing ROTC marching songs. After about three hours of non-commental climbing, I began to suck a little too much wind myself, and by the time it was 4:45 I had lost sight of the rest of my group. I'd been up for 24 hours by then, most of which had been spent in motion, and I had about had enough. I trailed off behind the group, and they said that they'd meet me at the top. At about 5 o'clock I saw the sun come up above the cloud layer (much like you would see if you were in an airplane) and I passed out. I woke up an hour later with enough altitude sickness/hypothermia to not really be able to move about on my own, and a passerby, at my request, helped me move down into a mountain lodge that wasn't too far away. I paid the $30 to get into there, and passed out under a mountain of comforters above a japanese heater (which is an amazing invention, a fire underneat your bed that never felt so good..). I woke up two hours later from there, and upon emerging I looked up and saw the final summit, and gave about 3 seconds thought to climbing the rest of the way up, but decided that since I was still suffering from mountain sickness, it might be better to get on down the mountain. I practically skipped the whole way down on the lava gravel, and made it to the bottom in under two hours. It turned out that I had made it down to the base of the mountain considerably ahead of the rest of my group, and I spent three hours sleeping outside in a place where my group could see me if they came down. Bladge was down at the bottom too. They didn:t come, but the three hours sleep outside gave me an amazingly terrible sunburn, which I'm still in the process of dealing (peeling) with. The others of the group it turned out had taken the wrong turn on the way down, and ended up on the other side of the mountain. All in all, an impressive mountain, that is good enough to be seen in pictures, but not really that incredible to hike up. More news to come when it comes, I slept 16 hours the night I got back from Fuji, haven't really done anything since then. Until later,-JudFuji-san kajimashita = Mt. Fuji won.

To cross the street: wataru

Spent the day sleeping in my busniess class (getting better about it these days but still don't win every battle), and meaningful contributions in politics. After class I grabbed a quick snack from the convenience mart and went to a showing of the documentary *A2* which was about the radical AUM religious group that conducted the 1995 sarin gas attacks. Their story seemed sympathetic, and it was just a radical aspect of their cult (albiet their Guru was the one that told them to do the attacks). Momoko and I skipped out before the movie ended and headed out to the J.R. trains to travel to harajiku. We went to the shrine that the japanese emperor visited before world war two, that had been dedicated to the veterens, and walked through a brief art museum that was filled with depictions of ships exploding and many men dieing. It was established that we both had relatives on either side of the war, in some cases perhaps fighting eachother. Strange to think about, though there are plenty of stories of Germans soldiers getting together with allied veterens and having the best of times, just two soldiers on different sides. After that we walked through a shopping district on our way to shibuya. we both filled out a street survey (about the possibility of a new department store) and looked in various other shops. A quick JR ride to ikebukoro and then we were off hunting for BOH tea, something which I had had in malaysia but had not been able to find anywhere else in the world (I'll try online sometime, later). We then met tsutsu-san outside the east exit, and wandered through tokyu hands, and went to rakeru for dinner (a place that I frequent). Said goodbye to those two on their way back to the station to write here. A great afternoon that I hope I can repeat, however, tomorrow is Mt. Fuji! Gambare!gohenji wo machi shite orimasu-Jud

After a long weekend of drinking with japanese people...

First of all, I'm not really going to bother with the things that happened during the school week, beacuse they were mostly just going to the local izakaya (they finally handed me a discount card) most every night and getting mildly buzzed... BUT, the weekend was something else. Friday night we decided to hang with a bunch of the kids from the Asia Center (the other hotel here that's keeping the exchange students), and we all met in Shibuya to pregame/eat before going to a club. (which was cool because I hadn't drank with my Belgin friends yet). we all went around the area (those of us that wanted to eat) and we ended up at this resdurant where you sit around a hibachi grill, just in the center of a normal sized table, and they bring you the raw ingredients and you cook the food yourself. It was very very good, I had made myself some beef steak bits that were fantastic. We then went to a "pub" and chilled for a little bit, and some of the asia center people and I decided that we didn't want to go to the club (the people that went said it was nothing different than what you find in america except there are lots of people that don't speak english). So I took some of the Asia center kids to the izakaya place that I go and hang out at.. and we had some merriment. Saturday, after sleeping in till 2, I went around did some shopping etc. and then we headed out for the afternoon to go to fireworks with Teru and his friends from school (sofia). We went and watched some fireworks from a hill side, and then we went down onto an open field and played "suica kitta" or "cut the watermelon". It's sort of like a pinata, but japanese style. A watermelon is layed out in the center of an open space (on a piece of plastic so you can get the bits) and a person is blindfolded a ways away from it, and spun several times. The people on the person's team tell them where to go, and they walk out until they're in front of the watermelon, and they raise a wooden sword above their heads and get one firm strike down. I have to say that I missed, but it was all good. I have a "date" to hang out with momoko, definitely one of the cooler japanese girls I've met here, look forward to that... After the watermelon we went back to ikebukoro, and went to Karaoke. It was something else having mostly japanese people singing, though they wanted us to chose mostly songs that we were familiar with. Teru, our event co-ordinator, decided that he'd go head to head with brandon, and they both got incredibly sick. I ended up carrying Teru back to our hotel (the trains were closed and our japanese friends were unable to get home until 5), and he passed out in my friend Jason's room. All in all an interseting weekend, I can't wait to see what the next one brings. Coming up, it's Mt. Fuji on wednesday night/thursday morning (trying to be ontop of the mountain right at sunrise) and this weekend I think I go to kamakura. hope all's well in the U.S.-Jud

In Tokyo, first week

Well, it's saturday, and the first week (sort of) is over for school. Classes themselves are interesting but not worth comment here, I'm taking Japanese Busniess Management, and Contemperary Japanese Politics. It's the nightlife that's been interesting so far. I mostly hang out with a senior rugby player from Seaton Hall named Brandon (rugby alais "El Pissar") and a ROTC guy from Layola named Tom. The first night we got drunk we went to the "hub", which was their take on an english pub, which cost us a shit load. The second night, we wandered around, asking where a cheap place was, and ended up in a Karaoke room (Karaoke was never that much fun in the U.S., but when you throw in six japanese girls who can't speak english at all, it's a lot better), and I had sort of a rough night on the return to dorm. The next night we went to an "Izakiya" or a "sit down and drink place" which has really cheap beer, cheaper than in the U.S. as it were, but you have to order a small meal to go with it. There were tons of young japanese people there, and we ended up doing several drinking games with the table next to us, and I ended up Sumo wrestling and flicking the forheads of some. I learned two games that I think I could do again, Pin Pon Pan and Gyu Tai. Last night we had Curry, and then wandered, ending up near some of the soapland (two naked japanese women bathe you and fuck your brains out, as daiki said) and other red light district sights and attractions. We were approached by several street walkers, but no one took up any offers. Headed back early, and relatively sober so that we could go crazy tonight. Unfortunately I've lost the rest of my group and none of us have cell phones, so I go now to try to figure out how I can find them. To all Y'all at home, take care, and I'll bring more stories later.-J

long entery

I returned to Tokyo from Sapporo on the 23rd, and once I got to Tokyo Eki, I headed down on a local train to Kamakura. Kamakura was my favorite city from the entire trip. unbelieveable. On the train ride down I had the good fortune to sit next to a man from New Zealand, and we talked about politics and the state of the world for the four hour leg of the trip that we were together. Quite an interesting man, he dealt with trading in tractors and did most of his work with Japanese. Hadn't learned the langauge though, interestingly enough, he was on the side of the U.S. I everything. he said that he loved the U.S. and what it did for the world (we talked about the hegemonic stability theory), and he said that he was absolutly dumbfounded by all the european countries that continue to rag on the U.S. A very good point of wisdom that he had was that the key thing other people and other nations should do is not to look at what the U.S. does, but what the U.S. Could do. It would be quite possible, he said, for the U.S. to become strongly imperialist, and take things that it wanted, but instead we are willing to play by the rules of the U.N. and instead of following a course that superpowers have historically, we're one of the first to work with the rest of the world. I stayed at a fairly nice hotel in Kamakura, the Kamakura Park Hotel (actually over in the Hase area, but it wasn't too hard to get to). The first day that I was there I rented a bicycle and went to EVERY TEMPLE in the city, which was really quite impressive the sort of ground that I had to cover to be able to do that, but I did it all. The most impressive there was by far the Daibatsu, which is a 131 something ton bronze buddha statue that sits out in the open air. A very popular stop as well. I went down to a surf bar for dinner, had some grilled tuna, and then met some japanese interpreters in the hot tub who had studied english in England. One of them, Yuki, ended up staying a long while beyond her friends, and we had some good conversation. The second day in Kamakura I decided to relax, and spent most of it out on the beach, which lead to the first sunburn I've had all summer (sad to say I'm going to go back to school and not have anything in the way of a tan). The next day I went to Tokyo, but I'll put the rest of that on another entery. -J

sorry, not much now

In collegelots of fun"meeting" many new peopleenjoying the landscapehave about six days worth of travel to type up that I don't know when I'll get the chance to do. Meeting many new peoplehad one day of class so far, not too bad, not too easy.more to come later.including contact info.peace.-Jud

Bit off the beaten path

Well,I said goodbye to my sister and my mother at the Train station in tokyo, that was three days ago. Now I'm in Sapporo, which is the largest town in the northernmost island. Coutesy of a 10 hour train ride that included three connections, and a three mile long underwater tunnel. I hate tunnels, and I hate underwater ones the most. Thank god they sold beer on the train, I put myself to a slightly buzzed sleep in anticipation of that leg of the journey. It is quite a different japan here. There are many mountains, that are constantly mist covered, and it is a whopping 24 C here in the afternoon, instead of the 37 that I encountered in Tokyo. Not really different so much in terms of the people, though since this is a lot less cosmopolition of an area I'm treated as a more novel amusement than the sometime indifference and disgust that I get in Tokyo. Speaking of which, I met an acupuncturist from Tokyo at a bar last night. She thought that I was working for the U.S. government, as that's the only reason an American would come up here, but I convinced here I was merely a student, no not at student there, indeed I was 19 instead of 25... etc. She didn't speak a word of english, so the conversation got bogged at some points, but was an interesting exchange none the less. I wandered around a few beer gardens last night, and went to the Sapporo beer factory, various shopping factories, and various downtown underground Malls. I also walked through Hokkaido University today, which yeilded some interesting conversations with female students there, but nothing of substance was said. Tonight I might head into Shinjiku if I have the energy, which will be a very interseting experience. Shinjiku is open nightly till 5am, and has 4,500 different night life activities, from porno flicks to bars to karaoke, etc. I'm not really one that's keen on nightlife in the first place, being somewhat provincial in nature, and I'm even less sure about doing this thing on my own.. but Japan is a very safe place, and it might be good to get out and develop some real distractions. Can't wait till school, and the U.S. of A.. I'll try to keep the journal updated a bit more often. Peace,-J

Third night in Tokyo

Well,I've been in tokyo three days now... Not really sure what the best highpoint would be. The first day we were here we went to the science museum (cutting through the impressivly boring imperial palace grounds) and spent most of the afternoon dicking around there. it was mostly a hands on sort of place, with lots of games etc. About the only thing notable I was able to do was to shock myself with the electric globes that have the purple lightning. It was a pretty bad shock, I pressed a coin to the top of it and it zapped me when I pulled away. The next day we went to the kabuki theater. Kabuki is one of the most ancient forms of theater in the world, and one that, to this day, is played exclusively by men. This is not due to the general stereotypes of gender, but because the costumes have an average weight of about 44 pounds, and it was impracticle to expect women (especially the slight of frame japanese women) to be able to carry this kind of weight in addition to reciting their lines and manouvers. The costumes, as you may have gathered, are very ornate, and include many layers and masks. The words are not spoken as sort of sung, and this allows them to project their voices and allows them to be completely unmiked. Heavy amounts of makeup are worn on every surface of the body, with many of the actors having their skin color completely changed (usually to white). The play that we saw was an interpretation of a traditional buddhist fable, which began with two male lovers pledging to eachother that they would die together in suicide, in hopes that in the next life, one of them would be born a woman and then they could be man and wife. They had exchanged an incense box with their names on one of two parts, the womenly person had the lid with "Saigo" written in the top, and vice versa. The more effeminate partner then jumped off the cliff ahead of his partner, a priest. The priest then meant to go, but fear overcame him, and he was not able to jump. He saw the spirit (in this case a small flaming green ball) and a heron float away from the cliff side, and the curtain closed. Next a stage manager came out, and told us it was 17 years later, there was a princess *17* years old, who wanted to into the priest hood, who opened her left hand for the first time and dropped an insense box when reciting a buddhist prayer with the monk, but though various plot twists, including the competition of two samurai couters over her, and the rekindling of an old love with the worst criminal in japan, it turned out that she had a baby and was discovered having intimate affairs with the criminal (this was very much a border crossing part of the play...), and she was compelled to not join the preist hood, and was indeed banished from her house and all. She had with her an insence box that linked her to the priest Saigo, who had actually been the lover of the man who jumped off the cliff. Saigo was cast out from the priesthood as well, and he claimed to be the one that seduced the princess. She then abandons him asa she has no feelings for him, even though she is the reincarnated form of his love. I left shortly after this (three hours).today, we went to the Tokyo metro museum, saw some art that's really noncommental except for some articulate statues (you can move their brozed parts about and put them into various positions). We went to another science muesum that left me thinking that the japanese had discovered evolution, atomic theory, the theory of relativity, and light speed travel, which was either because of a distortion in the museum's presentation or becuase some of my japanese fell through, and I'm really not sure which. We went to a movie theater next, saw harry potter (my mom and sister had not seen it) and as i watched my third movie in english in japan, i was grateful to be one of three people there that probably understood it. We ended the day with a trip to a video arcade, which was really an amazing experience. My mom and sister ended up getting hooked on this game which proudly advertised "TYPE OR DIE!" and was a game where Zombies and other such monsters came out at you, and you had to type their name inorder to shoot them. I went upstairs and played a few street fighter games, that turned out to be head to head with the person on the opposite side (you can't see them from where you are sitting) and i was against people who probably sat there everyday after work and played this. I was beaten throughly, though I managed to win once when my mom was there, and she said that the man on the other side looked rather worried that someone had beaten him. Another floor had gambling machines all across it, the most prominent being a horseracing arena in which people sat at various stations, placed their bets on different horses, and watched the race. The winner recieved money in the appropriate odds. there was also a game in which you undressed a woman as you scored points, but I decided to give that one a special wide bearth, because the man working the game seemed to have a particular fondness for it... and we'll leave it at that. All else is well, my family leaves tomorrow and i head to the northenmost island. good luck to all at home and good night. -J

end of Kobe trip and onto tokyo

This is the last leg of the journey with my mom and sister. We went to Himeji castle today, in Himeji Japan, which was two shinkansen stops west of Kobe. It is the largest castle in japan and was a damn impressive place to visit... if only it hadn't been 37 degrees C, plus "wicked" humidity. The gait barriers to the Shinkansen played the melody to the "eency weency spider" song, whenever a train was coming of leaving. The Japanese have many simular cultural misunderstandings about what we are into here in America, many of which are simply impossible to describe, but this is one exemplifying sample. Am reading Cold Mountain, or read it in one day today, as we completed the three hour shinkansen journey from Kobe to Tokyo. Still trying to distract myself, maybe feeling a bit better. -J

Last day here in Kyoto

Well, a long day today. Started out with a journey by foot to the Chion-in　temple, which is nestled into another moutainside... as in another long walk up a steep hill to get to it. The temple was very large, and we were able to witness a buddhist ceremony in progress. The monks all processed in, and they sat in a line on the side of the room in the order of their rank. The abbot (most senior monk) then led the prayers, with the other monks and the laypeople responding, and then answering. I couldn't make out any of their japanese, but then again, i can't understand any sung japanese, and little sung english, so them's the brakes. We also traveled around to a grave site (where the man who made the front gate project run over budget and come two months late committed seppiku, along with his wife for their shame), and a painting of a cat whos eyes seemed to follow you no matter what angle you stand at. We saw the oil umbrella in the roof that the builder left there to ward against fire (since umbrellas are supposed to call for rain, the temple has never burnt down) and we saw the large rock, 25 small rocks, and azealia bushes where the Buddha and 25 bodhisattvas came down from heaven to absolve the sins of the people of Kyoto (this was explained in japanese to me by a monk who was walking down the hallway in the other direction and decided we should know this story).After we left the temple complex, we took a cab to the museum of Kyoto, where we saw a special exhibit about the shinsen gumi. the shinsen gumi were samurai retainers of the Shogunate, formed in response to the ronin who were part of the anti shogunate movement in the 1860's era of japan. They were modern troops, with a mix of cannon, matchlock rifle, swordsmen, and pikes. They defeated the head of the anti-shogunate plotters by ambushing an inn late one night in the middle of a meeting (and killing almost all the plotters) and were later used when the Shogunate had a civil war with the emporer. They were officially disbanded when the Shogun handed power over the Emporer Meji, who then led japan through a period of modernization )and this is when the counterrevolution was held, and the traditional samurai, ala Tom Cruise's movie, came into play). The rest of the museum was fairly boring, some small collections of art work and items that were seen as part of Kyoto's history. Next we went to Gion Courner, and saw several traditional japanese entertainment forms. The first was a tea ceremony, then some women playing the koto (a 13 stringed instrument, much simular to a guitar on the floor, with handpicks), and some ikebana (flower) arrangement. We heard a musical piece from the court form (Gagaku) with a dancer, who both, in turn, sucked. The next bit was amazing, a Kyogen play (comical twin to the traditional Noh plays). The plot line ran something like this: the japanese lord was going away, and he knew that his two servents would most likely get into his precious sake if he left them alone. So through various tricks he ties both of their hands up. One behind the back, one with arms out tied to a pole. he then leaves on his trip. The guy with the pole figures that he is still able to open up the sake place, reach with a bowl to get the sake, and at least feed his friend. But he can't give himself the sake because his hands are too far away, so he give a full bowl to the guy with his hands behind his back, who stands, and they both get very drunk. The lord comes back and sees that they're drunk, and stands so that his reflection can be seen in the sake bowl. Both of the men just think they're drunk, but are unnerved. The lord eventually makes himself known and they all three go running off. I do a terrible job retelling it, but even understanding little to none of what they were saying, it was very funny. The next art form was a geisha girl dancing in the Kyomai style (a kyoto style dance) that was meant to be preformed in small spaces (she really only needed a 5x5 space at most). The last thing we saw was a Bunraku, or puppet play, which was masterfully done, though it did need three men to one puppet. I met a woman from Denmark while I was at this art preformance, and we talked for a long while: she used to work as an architect in tovoli gardens but was now traveling the world. Very interesting, and I got some good tips on hotels. The next event was another tip of hers, that there's a festivle starting tomorrow here (when we leave of course) and that we should head over to the other side of the river. There we were in a blocked off area that must have had 20,000 people in it, and we (my sister and I at this point) saw many different cultural things: a puppeteer in the street, a childrens orchestra working on a parade float etc. but the coolest thing was a Japanese drum band. If you've never seen it, it's something like this: there are a series of small percussion instruments, blocks, chimes, symboles, etc. and there's one very large bass drums and several medium sized drums. All of the drummers (there are about 10 total) have two thick wooden sticks, and they strike the drums in various beats. The thing of it is that the sticks and drums are so large that they have to take turns hitting the big ones, and they rotate through. The drums are also hit in a highly stylized mannor... which I guess will be hard to put into words, but it was one of the top three things that I wanted to see coming here to japan and it was awesome to see it. I got my picture taken with them at the end, very cool. Well, that's all (I know, gasp! shock! all?) for tonight, tomorrow it's on to Kobe... the home of Kobe beef, said to be the finest steak in the world... I'll let y'all know how that goes. -J

my sister's version

Yesterday, we went to an old castle, which was kinda nifty... It was where the shogan stayed ( the shogan was the head lord of a feutal society, basically meaning that he was the leader of a clan and his clan conquered the other clans). The castle had "nightengale floors", which means that when you step on the floor, the cramps and nails rub together, making a squeaking sound. This sound sounds like birds singing, thus earning the floor the title "nightengale floor." ... It's literally impossible to even sneak by this floor-- believe me, i know, i tried. lol. The floor was also built all the way around the inner part of the castle, so that no one could sneak in.... Sounds like the kinda house I'd like to have. lol. jfa. Also, another security thing was that the doors could only be unlocked from the inside of the house, meaning that you couldn't get into the next room if someone didn't let you in from the inside. So, you might think this guy was paranoid, but wouldn't you be too if you thought you had political assassins crawling at you from all sides( and having to swim accross the moat-- ewwie). All of the walls, sliding doors and ceilings were painted. Mostly pine trees, symbolizing longevity (the crane actually is a sacred bird in Japan which also represents longevity). One of the pine branches is actually 12 meteres long! There were also eagles and tigers, though. The interesting thing about the tigers is that tigers had never been brought to Japan before. So, the school of artists that painted the room with the tigers in it had to rely on hides that had been brought back to Japan... Basically,they had to paint a tiger, based on the hide, not knowing what a tiger was.Also, the gardens originally did not ahve any native Japanese trees because the shogan did not want to be reminded of the whole dying/rebirth process that the leaves/trees underg in the winter. The gardens did have ponds, however, and one of the ponds had three islands in it. A cool thing (you may think) about the shogan: only women were allowed to be his attendants in his personal chambers,though he had male bodyguards.A little more history about the castle: it was built by Tokugawa Shogunate in 1603 for defense of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, and there are six buildings on the grounds, including a "rice storage" fascility that we passed which is freakin huge!-- can hold a TON of rice.. omg!Sorry if this just seems like a random boring text book to read-- all we did was basically walk around the whole time and of course, i took notes, and then, right when we were on the opposite side of the castle grounds, an announcement came on that we were supposed to get back to the main entrance because the castle was closing for the day (4:00pm). ... so we had an exhillarating romp back to the entrance. It was fun..... (not so much). Nothing really entertaining happened. We're teaching mommy sarcasm-- it's an interesting journey of a lesson, you might say. She's picking it up rather well, though she's relying on the badddd-not-so-fun side of sarcasm, which is no good in hot weather.Today, we went to a huuuge temple (at the top of a mountain...which we hiked up... in the middle of the day again.... in 100 degree weather). It seems to be a trend... we never walk around unless it's in the middle of the day (from 11:00am-1:00pm) and the temperature is above 100 degrees. We set out from our hotel at about 10am, and took the subway to the middle of town. We needed to go to a bank, so well..we did. (haha...great story-- i should tell it at parties, right?) Anywho, after we got out of the bank, we decided it was time to teach mom how to use a map because well.. she can't orrient herself worth a darn. So, every time we turned a block, we had mom figure out where we were gonig next-- the museum of Kyoto.........only about.... five blocks away from the bank... so we walked...and we walked.... and we walked...and walked some more.. and then, just for a change in pace, we walked... in the 100 degree heat... at 10:45am... After about fifteen minutes, we stopped and had mom orrient us again. Two blocks to the left. So we turned, and walked. lol. We passed a sidestreet and mom stopped and was like 'is this where we turn?' our response: dunno.. you tell us. but, she decided that it wasn't the turn, so we kept walking until we got to the next street.... And when mom orriented us, we found out that the small street was the right street, so we turned around and walked back to the museum of kyoto... oh wait... did i mention it was the wrong museum of kyoto that mom led us to, which we found out as soon as we got there..?-- yeah. made jud and i real happy... we then pointed out to mom that the first rule of orrienting yourself is to know where you are going. So, since it was so bloody hot, we decided to go to a huge temple... which was up on the top of a mountain that we had to hike up... at 12:15pm. hahaha. yeeess... And, at the top of the mountain was.......STEPS!!!! yaaay... oh how we love steps... (ps. my ass hurts from climbing up so many steps in the past couple weeks--that's how many steps we've gone up.) However!-- the temple was really really cool and had an awesome view. A Buddhist temple (of course), which belongs to the Kida Huso sect and was founded by Enchin (a great priest) in the eigth year of Hoki (appx. 778 A.D.).The Kiyomizu-dera temple was originally created in 778 by the Enchin, who had enshrined an image of Kannon (the God of mercy) on the top of the mountain, overlooking the Otowa-notaki falls. It was not until 798 A.D. that the famous general Sakanove no Tamuramoro built a Buddhist hall at the same location that the temple was on the map.The falls that I just mentioned are now just a mountain spring, and the water that comes out of the mountains is considered as holy water (and yes, ya get to drink some and wash your hands with it..etc). One thing that was really cool is that the metal cups, which are attached to rods to collect the mountain water-- the sanitzer for them is basically a tin resting place with UV rays that sanitize the cups-- pretty gosh darn cool, if you ask me. :P Another thing which was really really cool was that, in one of the first buildings you get to in the temple, there is a basement with a rope in it. you go into the basement (after taking off your shoes) and you have to feel the rope to get through..... Half way through, there is a stone-- the sacred stone of St.Hara. You reach out and touch the stone (which looks like it's floating because it's so dark that you can't see anything except the stone because a light is shining down on it from above) and make a wish. The thing is... when I touched the stone, I felt lighter.... Just felt so lifted and suddenly so calm and peaceful. Spiritual experience, anyone? I kept my hand on it for a good minute or two, just feeling as if I was floating away, and I hated to take my hand off of it. When Jud touched the stone, he later said he was almost at that same point of floating as me when mom bumped into him from behind and whispered loudly, "JUD! JUD! I wanna get your picture with the stonneee!"..........this is a sacred basement place where people ahve spiritual revilations..the last thing you want is to be blinded by the camera flash of a crazy american woman for a picture that wouldn't show up anyway... but yeah.. that's mom for ya ;)

Another dawn, another day

Another day spent here in Kyoto. Was also another day off, we really didn't go and see much. We did go and exchange some money, then walked/rode the bus over to the kyomizu temple. It was about 400 feet up a mountainside, nestled into the rocks. There we went to the sacred tunnel of st. hara, who is a Hindu saint of love and mercy, and we went "into the sacred womb" or we held prayer beads that lined the wall and went into an area that was completly cut off from light. There was one antechamber with a single sandskrit symbol written on it, and you were supposed to touch the symbol and make a wish. I tried to concentrate and make mine but my mother decided to interrupt my train of thought and bump into me. completely irritated me. I don't know if y'all know what that's like, but being interrupted during deep thought is about the worst thing in the world as far as I'm concerned. It's like being woken from a good dream. Anyhow, after that we went into the main complex, saw serveral buddha statues, and washed our hands and drank the sacred water coming out of the mountainside. It was very cold, but possibly the best tasting water I've ever had. After that we wandered into the Kyoto craft center, which had various traditional japanese artifacts on sale, at a reduced cost to foreigners, but they seemed a little touristy. None the less, I got a matching set of yukattas and mom and sarah got several other souveniors. If anyone has any requests for small things they'd like from japan, i might be able to help out, or big things if you'll pay me back. Drop an E-mail to Jacrane@gwu.edu or post a comment. 'S all good. -J

Western Kyoto

We went to Nijo Castle today, the palace of the Tokugawa Shogunate while they were in power for the 500 odd years that they maintained peace. The place was fairly impressive. Not really so much the tall walls that we think of in European Medieval life, but they certainly had thick ones (I'd say 20 feet or so, and all rocks as big as I). The coolest part was probably the gardens, and the floors of the main building, which were called nightingale floors because they make chirping sounds when you walk on them. This to alert the inhabitants to intruders, pretty ingenious design. Nothing else particularly eventful about the castle. There were several displays showing how the formal court seating went... in all of them, the shogun is about 12 feet away from the nearest person. This isn't so bad when in the formal court, but there was another room that showed him with the ladies in waiting... and his wife, and they too were 10-12 feet away. Makes me think that he led a lonely life, I suppose the price one pays for a balance in so much power. We also went to a movie theater, in the Gino district of Kyoto (where all the Karaoke bars, bowling allies, and video game arcades are). It was an awesome movie, have to say I was pretty impressed. Well, I'm running, gotta find something to keep my mind occupied. peace,-J

In Kyoto

Well, Nara was a very quaint town that centered around a few Buddhist Temples. The Todojin Temple was very impressive, it is 2/3 the original size but still remains the largest wooden structure in the world. The Buddha in there is big enough that a family of four people could comfortably sit in the palm of his upturned hand, and I'd guess that it was about four stories tall. I lit a candle for my recently deceased grandfather, and left my name and a prayer on a roof tile that will be put in for the reconstuction that will begin once the rainy season ends. Wasn't quite small enough to make it through the lucky hole (you crawl through this hole in one of the wooden coloums and it's good luck, unfortunately my shoulders would not make it through on any dimension). We then traveled around the rest of Nara (about 5k of walking, my daily average exersice) and we went to the oldest buddhist temple in japan, which was supposidly first constructed in 580bc, though I'm not sure if they really meant bc, because I thought that buddhism came to japan a bit later. That temple had some of the most beautiful lotus plants that one could imagine. Now I'm in a hotel in kyoto, and we're going to see the Geisha districts and things of that nature tomorrow. There was a wedding tonight, a lot of drunk japanese people in traditional kimonos and clogs running around. I had yet another japanese girl hit on me, that's a strange endevour to go through. Nothing new or interesting on the pallate, but I do think that my sister and mom are addicted to watching sumo wrestling. After that one day, mom and sarah try to check in and get into the room by 5, because the next round of the yokozuma league is on then. They've even got nicknames for their favorite, and they're completely fixated... the slightest interruption is unexcuseable. But now I'll have something to retort with if they bother me while I'm watching a football game. Anyhow, here in one place for several days, 81-75-771-7111 room 6077 if anyone's intersted. -Jud

Samurai

Went to the Tokugawa art museum this morning. The old artifacts and collection items that the owari tokugawa family had kept that dated all the way back to the first Tokugawa shogonate. Unfortunately there weren:t too many swords, armor, or battle items, though there was something very surprising. That is that the Japanese warlords and samurai believed in the same things that Roman Generals did, that it was not just the military capacity that made great commanders, but also their understandings of theater (many warlords were said to be accomplished amature actors), philosophy, religion (Zen Buddhism was highly regarded by the warrior class), courtly ritual, and art (including caligraphy). well, gotta run to Nara.Jud

you speak rerry grud engrish

Well, we left our hotel in Nagoya to go to Toba, which is a little bit to the south of Nagoya. There we got off the train and took a tour of the Mikimoto Pearl factory, which was a cultural experience...

We saw the Ama, who are female divers that do the breath diving for oysters. They wear all white dresses and this large single piece face plate/mask, and have a bucket with a rope. Interestingly enough, while the japanese here say that the white is to repel sharks, I distinctly remember a man in Belieze saying that you were supposed to wear anything but white because that:s the color that the fish flash that gets the sharks excited... but no attacks on the young ladies who were demonstrating for us. We then went through the museum and learned the process of making pearls, which is basically cutting out the (nearl?) organs and planting that and a shell piece from a mississippi freshwater clam into the gonads of a mother oyster, which causes the pearl to replicate the coating across the shell piece and produces a pearl. We bought some items and headed on our way to the hotel. Dinner was uneventful, other than a clear demonstration that I'm much more adjusted to japanese food than the rest of my family is (mmm, hand me that shashima... yes mom, it does look like they just caught it), and then off to bed.

The next morning (this morning) we went to the Grand Shinto temple at Ise, or the Ise-jima. There we toured the shrines (well, the outside at least, the shinto japanese lay persons are not allowed inside, makes you wonder if all of the artifacts that they claim are there are really there...) and a fairly strange old man took us under his wing as our guide. He tried initially to speak in english, but his ability was fairly limited so I ended up taking over in japanese. The people here are opening up to us more, and we provide english practice daily with strangers now. I got a fair amount of japanese in in that conversation, something that I had not had a chance to do as of yet. Nothing else eventful happened, besides discovering that we:d walked almost 3.5K in the wealtering midday sun when we were too stubborn to take a cab. Ah well. One more night in Nagoya and then off to bigger and better. Feeling better spiritually after such an adventure, the Ise-Jima was very asthetic. unagi ga suki janaidesukara, kekko desu= I don't like unagi, so no thanks.

SUMO

The first morning in Nagoya we decided that we wanted to go and see a sumo wrestling match. We were told that matches were unpopular on the week days and that we'd have no problem getting tickets. so after a breif sorray to try to find Citi bank to get some cash (which apparently it's a completely different bank than the one in the U.S.). It wasn't too much to get the seats, and they were fairly close. The ritual surrounding sumo is quite interesting. I'll describe the Yokozuma match, as it's the most complex... It starts out with a man, one of the assistants that sweeps the ring, steps into the center, infront of the referee (who is wearing a black hat and a multi-colored kimono and white sock/shoes) and holds out a fan to each of the competetors, one on each side, and while facing them, chants (kind of sings) their name out to introduce them. The two wrestlers then step up, bow to eachother slightly, and then go to the back side of the ring. They put their arms up, lean to the side, and give the stomp that we associate with sumos. They then clap, and lift up the other side. They come to the middle, squat, and clap their arms at the same time, and lift them up their sides, flip the palms, and lower them again. They walk back to their corners, and receive a drink from the next sumo to wrestle on their side, and hold a piece of paper over their mouth as they spit it out, wipe their mouths, and go back to the middle again. This time they adapt the starter stance, with both fists on the ground, much like a four point football stance. the ref is holding the mirror away, which is how you tell that it's not time to begin. They then go back to their corners, and an attendant holds up a washcloth, which they wipe their face, and maybe armpits and stomach, and hand it back to him. They grab a handful of salt, and wave it near themselves or they toss it onto the ring, a Shinto means of purification. They then crouch, the ref holds the mirror to them, and when they both have both fists on the ground they go. Matches last anywhere from four seconds to twenty. After the match, which ends by the loser either touching something inside the ring with anything other than the sole of his feet, or the first one to touch ground outside of the ring, they face eachother and bow. The winner then crouches, and the referee points the mirror at them. They then wave the palm of their right hand at the ground, and leave the ring. When they leave the ring side, they bow to it. It was really interesting once we got to the Yokazuma level. All in all, a six hour even, that lasts every day for 15 days, each wrestler getting one match a day. We finished up with Sumo and headed back to the hotel, where I am now. I hope everyone reading this enjoys it, and I promise pictures upon my return. Trying my best to keep up with those at home, but little luck so far, for the most part I'm going incommunicato with the people in the U.S. I'll have more adventures later. Take care,-Jud

long one today, quite a lot happened...

Miyashita / Mt. Fuji Park

Well, Starting where my last journal entery left off, we headed out of tokyo on the morning of the 5th... (all my stuff now is EST, not Tokyo Time, since I'm using my laptop.) We took the Shinkansen (FAST TRAIN!) to Odowara, and took a much slower train to Hakone/Miyashita, which included a few switch backs, where upon the conductor got out of the train, switched the track, and we backed onto the track that went on the higher leg. We arrived at Miyashita station, and walked the 15 minutes up/down steep hillsides to our Riyokan, which is a traditional japanese inn.

When we entered, we took off our shoes, and put on the house slippers. The hostess then took us to our room, which was bedecked with tatami matts and on-the-ground furnature. there was a sliding door that led outside, and on the doorstep there were wooden clogs. The garden in the back was very Zen, with stepping stones and very well tended plants, and a little waterfall leading into a pool with many of the large goldfish that populate the areas around here. then we went off to dinner, and I'm actually going to be lazy here and put in my sister's entery on this subject, as I'm too lazy to type the whole thing out:Sarah's accounting:So... yeah.. we're all excited after the long hike to the dinner table in the room next door. and we all sit down and notice there are complimentary shots of sweet sake at each place.... joy of all joys for me, i gave mine to jud. so, basically, by this time, i knew that this was going to be my "favorite" meal of all time. yes, yes, yes, it gets better. (ps. I feel really bad for what we did during this meal (kinda mocking the culture in some ways, I s'pose but you had to be there to understand it fully so if you're going to think omg she's such a prick and a loser, then...skip the next couple screen fulls of typing ;))... The first course was a sort of bean curd (kinda in a gellitan form that was diced up), three beans, lemon juice and some sort of seafood thing in a small clear container in the upper left of the tray. the presentation was beautiful for all o fthe courses we had that night.

The curd, beans and juice was presented in a small, turquoise canoe looking poetry thingy mc bob in the middle of the tray. underneath, on the tray itself, was ... white powder something in the shape of a river. the river was the milky way. There's also a myth behind the river, and the river separates man and woman. Mom, inspired by Jud's recitation of the myth, took her first bite of the meal and basically dislocated her jaw.... The second course was a liquid soup (yes, you're probably thinking 'liquid soup?-- of COURSe the soup is liquid'... hahaha.. that's what I also thought...before I ate the .... like.. .fifteenth course of this meal). there was a bunch of stuff in the bowl. mom opened up the lid to her soup bowl and exclaimed 'look! there's a band aid in there!'...band aid= pressed and thinly sliced chicken. There was also another darker "band aid", which tasted pretty good but we werent' really sure what it was exactly. There was also a collection of flour dumplings in various shapes, sizes and colors. one of them was shaped as a star...and covered with gold foil which was slowly coming off in the broth of the soup....ya can't tell me that gold foil is edible...it just doesn't work that way...but the server INSISTED that it was edible...we still didnt' eat it. The biggest thing in that course was a "mystery" dumpling... which was HUGE. Mom was the first, of course, to bite into this "mystery" dumpling. she quickly discovered that the mystery was that the dumpling was basically a whole fish...bones and all. mom had bitten into it not expecting bones, but some sort of meat. Naturally, I, hating seafood with the firey passion of one-thousand suns, didn't touch it.... I was still hopefully for chicken teriyaki...The third course presented to us was seafood. joy. three kinds of fish, two balls of sauces (one ginger, the other wasabi), a whole shrimp and some random vegetables... pickled vegetables. there were also two liquid sauces that our server brought out. When ya soaked the fish in the liquid sauces for about three good minutes and then put some ginger on it, it wasn't that bad... lol. There was also something standing up in a roll in front of the shrimp... mom, of course, at it and quickly discovered that that part that she had just decided to sink her teeth into was the shrimp head, tale and legs all ground up and stuck together for presentation's sake. All the vegies were pretty bland and i tried putting some wasabi on them to make them somewhat flavorful but ended up putting on too much and having a coughing fit right as our server came back into the room (embarrassing much?).

The fourth course was all seafood again. haha..this is by far the best course. i kid you not... ok. so it was served in a box tray... imagine.. looking down... and hating seafood... and this is what you'd see... in the middle of the tray was a snail shell full of..you guessed it...snails... complete snails.... and caviar... all stuffed into one big conch shell... to the upper left was a small white cup of something that looked like beef that was diced up. to the left of the snail was a hollow red flower. Below the snail and to the right was a crab.... not crab meat... a crab ... a whole crab.... complete with eggs on its back..... to right of the snail was a pickled potatoe and to the upper right of the snail was rice, wrapped in fish skin... the best part of the fish... ::rolls eyes:: Mom went for the "beef" in the cup and realized that.. .well.. it didn't quite taste like beef. Jud decided he was about to try it and i told him...'wait........this looksl ike it has eyes--OMG'... guess what it was.... guppies... or no, wait... tadpoles.. yes, that's right..tadpoles... each one fried and stuck into a cup. if you looked closely, you could see the tails, the eyes, the legs and even, if you looked even harder and closer, you could see the intestines through the thin skin over their stomachs.... yeah.. i didn't really decide to eat that. I did, however, eat my former mascott (the snails). Oh man.. I ate every single freakin' one of them (with a LOT of water). I also ate the rice (afer unwrapping it from the fish skin). I was the only one to eat the snail... and when i was about half way through choking it down, the hostess came in with yet another course....This course is just about what killed us, because well.. it's presentation was just... stunning... bell peppers, chili peppers, onions... and eel. yes... eel... and the kicker was that the eel's stomach had been cut off and was twisted in a loop and layed over against one side of the mound of food. between that and the guppies, it was a little too much for us americans to handle. mom started laughing and i started crying from resetraining my laughter. of course... i'm not one for eel or bell peppers or chili peppers... in fact... i pretty much loathe all of them. lol. but i really didn't have to worry about the course yet, because at that point, i was still eating my snail. :) Mom and Jud both don't like eel so they only ate the peppers.Shortly after presenting us with the eel, our server returned with another course. It was then that mom decided to ask how many meals we were going to have in total. she said...well... ten. This course that she was bringing would be the sixth course which was goop soup. The server took away mom's seafood assortment with the crab. This goop soup violated mom's food rule: something cannot be silmy and gooey... it can be either slimy or gooey... but never both. There was a mushroom at the bottom of the goop soup... she pulled it out and ate it... big mistake. It definately violated her gooey/chewy rule, but was hilarious to see the different faces that she made. From then on, she decided that she was "full" and "couldn't possibly eat anything else". By this time, I finished eating my snail (delish...) and opened up the hallow red flower that was beside the snail.... I looked in it and was like 'what is that..?' (it looked like puke) 'it's a surprise!!!'... indeed it was. after I had a bite, i was like 'it's BEEF!' jud was like 'beef?! WHERE?!' and mom looked at me and started pouting, whimpering 'she took mine away'. (you have to understand.. my mom is just as animated as I am... any face I would make is what she'd make...times ten) As soon as Jud put the beef in his mouth, he leaned all the way back in his small chair and closed his eyes, in utter bliss. The seventh course was another jello/goopy stuff, but the kicker was that on the top of the jello was calamari suckers...yes... the suckers... not the tentecles, but the suckers.... they were actually quite chewy and didn't really taste like anything and of course, i ate them. They were the perfect size to cap over one of my back molars though, so every time I bit down ,all I heard was a squish.... it was grrrreat. :PAfter that was another soup course with rice. liquid soup. fish liquid soup. which tasted horrible. at this point... it was obvious that we were not getting any chicken teriyaki. The ninth course was a tempora of some sort... not sure exactly what it was but it was actually good. And finally, the last, the tenth course was fruit. Not just any fruit: mango and watermellon--the two fruits i really don't like....yippy skippy. ----------------------------------------------------------After the night on the soba pallets, we awoke with stiff backs, got a "western" beakfast, and headed up the mountain side. We went onto a gondola style ropeway and then went to a "fantasy pirate boat" that took us around a lake, and finally a series of buses to bring us back to Odawara, and the shinkansen back to Nagoya.