Kamakura Trip! (Day 2)

Day two!  First stop was Hokokuji Temple, famous for its bamboo garden.  Pictures, go!

I love how, in Japan, you can go from metropolis to forest in almost no time

Not sure why it's wearing a tuque...

Bamboo garden!

More garden

A cool dragonfly that we saw

Next stop was Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, one of the most famous temples in Japan, certainly the most famous in Kamakura.  Pictures!

Torii gate at the entrance

Cool bridge bro

Unfortunately the lotus plants weren't really in bloom.  The story goes that the lotus plants on either side of the bridge represented the two families that built up Kamakura: one side would bloom white, the other red, the families colours.  However, today, the plants have mingled, so red, white and pink show up on both sides.

Lotus...?

This is a pineapple stand - yup, you can go buy a piece of pineapple on a stick

On our way to the temple!

Weddings are often held in this pavillion - it was too hot that day, though,
so we didn't get to see one =(

Who's this guy?

The guards got upset at me for taking this picture...

Next stop was Komachi-dori street, which is famous for Kamakura lacquerware.  Here are a few other gems that I found:

Gotta love the random French!

Ghibli store!

Next, we went to Hasadera Temple.  The garden here was so beautiful, I had to take pictures.

He looks so happy!

Before I get questions, no, that's not a swastika; yes, Hitler ripped off the Buddhists

These small statues, called 地蔵 (じぞう, jizou) are laid in memory of
miscarried and aborted children, or children who die very young

Now, I found out that my camera can take panorama shots and actually stitches them together for me - here are a couple that I took of views from the temple.  Unfortunately, they won't look amazing in the blog, so I suggest clicking on them to get a better view.

The day's final stop was the 大仏 (だいぶつ, daibutsu), or Great Buddha.  It was actually built in 1252, and was put together with over 30 different moulds.  A pretty impressive feat, I would say...

Gate leading up to the 大仏

People posing for pictures

It's actually really big.

This statue has survived countless earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis...  The priests at the temple tried time and time again to build a roof over the statue, but it would always get destroyed.  The statue, however, has remained largely unharmed...

It's customary to make sandals for statues of divinities, allowing them
to go out for a stroll, if they should so desire...

One of the "cool story bros" about the 大仏 is that the currently US president, Barack Obama, actually visited the statue as a child.  He returned there in 2009, and is quoted as saying 

"I looked up at that centuries-old symbol of peace and tranquility — the great bronze Amida Buddha. And as a child, I was more focused on the 'matcha' ice cream ..."

Since then, a myriad of shops have opened up selling Obama-cha, green-tea flavoured ice cream like he had as a child.  Here is a sample, though this one was swirled with sweet potato:

Obama-cha (green tea) and sweet potato ice cream
I had this for about 30 seconds, and you can already see it melting...

Finally, it was time to head home.  On our way back to the station, we happened upon a 100Y Shop, like the dollar stores back home.  Here are a few gems:

"A soft towel with the feeling that the touch is very sufficient"
Nice.

Promenades dans Paris:
On nous demande toujours quelle race est ce chat-là.
Eh bien nous disons: on ne sait pas... on ne sait pas,
nous-mêmes, qu'est-ce que c'est comme race..."

And then!  In one of the stations, outside the bathroom...

Who the heck needs a map of the bathroom?!

Finally, it was time for the long train ride home.  A few of us were more tired than others...

Poor Tanaka-san...

That's it for the Kamakura trip!

Kamakura Trip! (Day 1 - Part 2)

Okay!  Let's finish up this trip.  On our way down from the observation tower, we found a gift shop:

For reference, here's a picture of said tower.  Not a great shot, sorry...

Our next stop was a Buddhist temple on the same island.  It's customary for such temples to have statues of 神 (かみ, kami), or gods, at the entrance.  They are typically red, have absurd muscles, and are there to scare away any evil spirits that may wish to trouble those approaching the temple.  Here are the two at the entrance to this temple:

I MUNNA EAT CHYOU!

Really absurd abs.

After visiting this temple, we went to another Shinto shrine in Enoshima.  Here are some pictures, with captions as I deem necessary. Why?  Because it's my blog.  That's why.

This is an "all-seeing" turtle; it's believed that, no matter what angle
you look at it from, it can see you - kinda like Uncle Sam
After visiting, I can attest that that's a pretty accurate description

Just a picture up someone's driveway on Enoshima...

What a great name for a Lego store!

 After leaving Enoshima, we headed for Zushi, a small town outside of Kamakura, where we would be spending the night.  On our way to the 旅館 (りょかん, ryoukan), a traditional Japanese-style inn, I saw the following sign.  I thought I should share it with you.

Clearly someone took the time to translate this - couldn't they
have found ONE English speaker to give them a hand?

Finally, before going to the 旅館, we stopped at the local beach:

We would come back here later at night, to set off 花火 (はなび, hanabi), or fireworks!  I love that in Japanese, the kanji for fireworks is literally "flower-fire".  Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of said fireworks, for good reason.  As the only engineer on the site, I was responsible for maintaining the cinder to light the fireworks.  One of the teachers kept calling me 父さん (とうさん, tousan), which means "daddy".  XD


Finally, here's a picture of part of the supper we had that night at the 旅館.  There was also steak, and tempura, and soup, and rice, and...  Needless to say, we ate very well.

One of the other reasons I was called 父さん was because of the following story: one of the girls at the table where I was eating wasn't touching her sushi.  Curious, I asked why, and she told me that she'd had bad experience with sushi back home.  So, I tried to convince her for the next thirty minutes that she should try sushi.  I coaxed her with the tuna sushi, then convinced her to try the eel sushi.  I cannot remember what kind the third piece was, but the teacher at our table was laughing so hard at my encouragement and decided I was 父さん.

素晴らしい話兄貴。

Kamakura Trip! (Day 1)

Hey again everyone!  This will be the first of two posts about the last Culture Class event, an overnight, weekend-long trip to the Japanese historical town of Kamakura!

First, through, a little background information.  The trip was this past weekend, 08/13-14, but Friday was the day of our midterm exam.  For students in the short summer program, however, it was their final, and most of them were leaving the very next day.  As such, a celebration was in order - here is the aftermath.

Unfortunately, a few people - myself excluded - drank more than they should have.  Directly resulting from this, a few students who were supposed to come on the trip ended up not making it, or were hung over.  Sigh.


Okay, so Saturday started with an 8:30 AM LECTURE.  Yeah.  Awful.  Most of it involved a Sensei reading a text she'd written about the history of the Kamakura region, which was rather informative.  In fact, Kamakura was the 4th largest city in the world by 1250 AD with over 200,000 people, and it was founded in...  Just kidding - if you're interested in the history of Kamakura, read about on Wikipedia.  Otherwise, let's get to the trip!

The first thing we did was travel on a series of trains towards our first stop, Enoshima.  The word 島（しま, shima) means "island" in Japanese, so Enoshima literally translates to "the island of the bay", or "the island in the bay".  Here are a few pictures.  Keep in mind that this is only about 1.5 hours south of Tokyo.

Yeah, those are palm trees

I even saw a few Sea-Doos

Artwork on the bridge we used to cross over to Enoshima

Enoshima

Enoshima is famous for, among other things, its Shinto shrine, 江ノ島神社(えのしまじんじゃ, enoshima-jinja).  Here are some pictures of us walking up toward the shrine, and of the shrine itself.

Lots of shops line the street up to the shrine.

Traditional 鳥居 (とりい, torii), a Shinto symbol

Okay, there's a point worth being made here.  Way back when, the Hojo clan was one of the largest and most powerful in Japan, though only for a few generations.  Their symbol is on the gold crest in the picture below.

Look familiar to some of you? While I haven't found any conclusive evidence supporting my theory, there are certain sources which suggest that the Triforce in The Legend of Zelda series is in fact inspired by this ancient clan symbol.  Needless to say, all the nerds in the group thought this was cool.

More pictures, less text?  Gotcha.

One of the main shrine buildings

I think this next one is worth talking about, because I'm sure I'll get tons of questions.  At both Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, it is customary to purchase fortunes, which come on small strips of paper.  If you get a bad fortune, or simply don't like the one you got, then you must tie it to these "scapegoat" strings, leaving the poor fortune behind as you leave.  It's an interesting custom.

More pictures!  From the lower shrine, we walked up, and up...

This particular shrine runs a "cat rescue" operation, wherein they take in strays,
sterilize them, and keep them in a "cat garden"...

This is a larger shrine building

The view from the top

So, the dragon in the picture fills up the little bowl with water from its mouth;
when you pour the water from the bowl onto the rocks below,
the water hits overturned copper pots in the ground,
making a really cool sound effect

We go up the observation tower in this picture later on this day

Time for a "cool story bro" story.  Apparently, Enoshima is known as the "Miami Beach of the East". While there is a beach, and an ocean, I can't say that the two cities look very similar - not that my opinion matters, because the two are officially sister-cities...

View from the top

Miami Beach?  I think not...

Lon Cafe - famous for its... French toast??

Just some of the plants that grow here...

Then we went up the observation tower you saw in one of the earlier pictures.  Here are some shots from the top.

Apparently the kanji on the roof reads "hastily married woman" or something...

Looking back toward the mainland - it was really cloudy that day

Looking off the back of the island

And there are hawks!  They reminded me of Spearow...

Okay - I'm going to stop here for now.  The second part of Day 1 will be posted later!  Enjoy!

Speech Contest

So the speech contest is finally over!  I'll post pictures here as I get them, but for now, you'll have to take my word for it.  The lower levels were split into two groups, 赤チーム (Red Team) and 青チーム (Blue Team).  My team, the Blue team, won!  Our prize: some cool water bottles, pictures to be posted later.  I didn't win any individual awards, though...  Oh well.


Also, for those who are interested, here is the full text (with furigana) to my speech.  In Japanese, of course.  A furigana-less version follows.

助け合いの気持ち

皆さんは、分からないと思いますが、私はカナダ人です。日本ではカナダ人はちょっとエキゾチックだそうです。でも、カナダ人と日本人はあまり違わないと思います。私達はおいしい料理が好きで、素敵な国のスポーツもあります。日本は相撲で、カナダはアイスホッケーです。それに、カナダと日本にはたくさんきれいな女の人がいると思います。

冬になると、カナダにはたくさん雪が降ります。春の時、その雪が解けて、今年の5月に、カナダのマニトバ  と  ケベックで大きい水害がありました。その水はたくさんの物を破壊しました。そして、3月11日に、日本で大震災が起きました。それは悲しいことでした。でも、後で、日本とカナダで素晴しいことが起きました。何が起きましたか。この災害の時、世界をよくするために、皆一緒に働いたり、自分の物を分け合ったり、お互いを助けたりしました。これはいいやり方ですね？

本当に、全ての人は同じです。「どこで生まれたか」が違うだけです。災害の時、   私達は大事なことばを知りました。そのことばは「友達」、「家族」、「期待」と「愛」です。でも、災害がない時、喧嘩と暴力はどこにでもあります。時々、国は戦争を始めます。よく私達はお互いをたすけることを忘れます。どうしてですか？どうして私達のやり方を変えますか。

問題は人間が少し忘れっぽいと思います。ですから、時間が経つと、災害の時の気持ちはちょっと忘れます。でも、その事を考える時、その気持ちを覚えなければなりません。そして、その気持ちを忘れなかったら、世界がもっとよくなるかもしれません。

ですから、毎日、未来を明るくするために、一緒にお互いに助け合いましょう！