Saturday, February 27, 2010

NIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNJJJJJJJJJJJJAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!






Happy Valentine's Day, NINJA~!


So on Valentine's Day, the IES students took a bus trip to Mie prefecture about a 1hr drive from Nagoya.
We went strawberry picking at Mokumoku Farms. We got to pick strawberries straight off the plants and eat them. Then we got to pick some for an omiyage (souvenior). The strawberries were really tasty and sweet and I really enjoyed picking out my own. There were all sorts of paths to wander off on and there was a Pig show there. The pigs were not very good at doing tricks, not very good at all, but they did have heart... So after the strawberry picking, we ate at Mokumoku farm's BBQ, pork BBQ. I guess those pigs didn't put enough hear into their performance, but they did put it into their flavor! Yum yum! We got to cook the food ourselves on a gas grill in the middle of the tables. Twas a very good bonding experience for us :). Oh Buta-san... so tasty

So after we left the strawberry farm, we went to the Ninja House. Where we met Tomo-chan. That's what he told us to call him. The most adorable ninja/(real ninja descendant) that I've ever met and took a picture with. Apparently, he also had a crazy pack (crazy pack = 10+ pack) But his face is so adorable! He spoke English for us and gave us a little bit of a tour. When we were walking towards the house, there was a kid dressed in a red ninja suit. Apparently, you can rent them for the day and wear them around the place. This kid just saw us ready to take pictures and his inner ninja/model came out. Every pose in the book. This kid knew it. Thank you, Juurangaa (Power Rangers)! Back to Tomo-chan, adorable.
So there was a ninja show with ninja fights and confetti guts! It was great. Tomo even showed us how to roll 500yen on a parasol. Adorable! He also showed us how to slice open our opponents! I took a video of the whole thing. It's in Japanese, so it will be hard to understand. But I'll try to explain it later. *Eji, pay attention to this video* We go demonstrations of different weapons like throwing stars, sickles, and samurai swords. I got a piece of bamboo that was cut bu the sword I'm holding in that picture. I kinda was geeking out the whole time. I played the throwing star game. I kinda sucked at it, sadly, but Adam did well! darn him! and he got another prize! We then had a tour of a Ninja house, showing us all the secret passages and hidey-holes. I got to go into a secret room! We then went through 2 more ninja museums and I bought some omiyage there. My new coin purse is a lil red ninja. Wonderful. Actually, I had to ask Tomo-chan for my piece of Bamboo, cause lucky Adam, got the first piece, but he was so happy to oblige. I'll link our pictures!

I took pictures and recorded everything I could of the Ninja Show and museum. I hope you like them.

Oh, and I know you were wondering. I did indeed have a Valentine. Her name was Tana and we're tight! We were dubbed "best valentines ever" thanks to our synchronized dance moves. We exchanged chocolates as girls in Japan do on Valentine's Day (boys give chocolate and presents on White day 3/14) and had a great time being cool together.

Tis all for now,

Love,

~Ama

Thursday, February 25, 2010

7 Days of Adventure!

So my friend Liz and I planned a trip for a group of 10+ ppl to go to Osaka(16ppl) and Tokyo (12ppl). We actually pulled it off w/o missing any of our buses and we all got rooms in the same hotels!
So much happened on this trip that I really can't give you a good recollection of it. But I did go to a lot of shrines and temples, including the oldest shrine and the famous Asakusa shine in Tokyo and some great temples in Osaka (where we got to go to the top of the pagoda!)
I got a fortune at the Asakusa shrine. It was bad :( It told me that "the person I was waiting for would not come!" In addition to that, "I'm too impatient and my boat wouldn't come and if I got on a boat, that boat would sink" (my words) "also it was a bad time to build or take down a house". Pretty bad. It was the second to worst fortune one could get. When you get a bad fortune you tie it to a string in the shrine so it won't follow you home. That's what I did. I really didn't want my boats to sink.

I also went to my first night club in Osaka. Very interesting scene, night clubs....

Anyhooo!

We stayed in a separate room in Osaka. The Mikado hotel had an onsen bath. Onsens in Japan are hot springs, but there also large bathtubs where this water can go. At an onsen you wash first before getting in. With a bunch of other strangers, who also happen to be completely naked. Or maybe wrapped in a towel(occasionally).

In Tokyo, we stayed in the Shinjuku area in two different types of rooms. Some of my friends stayed in the Hotel's Mix-dorm room, while the rest of us stayed on a wooden capsule floor. Capsule hotels are hotels where you rent basically the bed space which is a large box w/ your bed and a light. These hotels are usually cheap and only open to business men, but we got a cool hotel called Acc Inn Shinjuku. Yay!!! 20-31 bucks a night!!Ace Inn was pretty nice and the ppl were quite cool. I personally recommend it for a cheap night sleep. It was quite clean also! and there were coin showers and laundry. I actually did some trip laundry there!

So in Osaka we went to the aquarium. That was a lot of fun. I used my telepathic powers to get a turtle to pose w/ me but my friend didn't take the picture in time. So you just have to take my word for it. We also went to this wicked awesome placed called Den-den town. Den = electricity. So double the den = double the awesome.
There were shops of all sorts lining the streets. There are shops called Maid shops where girls dressed in maid costumes serve you food. You actually don't have to buy anything, but you have to pay a cover fee to stay there! And you're charged hourly! Crazyyyyy.
In one store in Den-Den town, which I actually went to twice, there was a PS3 game called Bayonetta! I loved it!! I couldn't understand the story so much, but the main character was really cool and had the craziest moves and attacks. I think if my PS2 dies again, I'll upgrade to the PS3 and after KH3, this will be the next game I buy.

Osaka was a really fun place with its variety and World's Largest Ferris Wheel. I wound up in the Valentine's day cart with 4 boys! Oh me, oh my. After that I found some ninjas to pose with and a shuriken (throwing star) game to play (300en/a round). I wasn't very good for the beginning but my friend Adam went twice and won a Dragonball pillow. I was very jealous.

On our first day in Osaka, we saw this dance performance on the street. Needless to say, it was weird. Nothing like Nagoya. Naked man painted white dressed like a bunny, woman dressed like a cat weird. I still don't understand it.

After going to the shrines and castles of Osaka we took an overnight bus to Tokyo. Not the most comfortable and restful ride we ever had, but it was the cheapest overnight bus, I've ever bought tickets for.

Tiredly, we arrived at Ace Inn and put our stuff down. We couldn't check in at the 6am that we reached there, but we were able to use the lounge and computers, which made everyone a bit less cranky.

Some of us then set out to explore Tokyo. We bought day passes for the subway (in Osaka we bought an Osaka 2-day visitor's pass, which was good for all the trains and had discounts to all the big things in Osaka. It was a lot more helpful in helping us plan than our Tokyo train only tickets). We hit the town in Tokyo in much smaller groups, 3-5 ppl instead of 7-10 we had done before. Shrines, castle, bus tours, Disneyland, everyone had a different experience. We all made it back to the hotel in one piece and we usually saw each other or ate together at least once a day. It was a good time.

Tokyo was a bit more unorganized than Osaka, but it allowed for self-planning.
We went to the famous Meijii Shrine. We thought about going to the fish market, but it was hard enough waking up at 9am, much less 4 to get to the 5am show!

My friends Tana and Doro went with me to meet with my penpal, Yoshiko, who I hadn't seen in about 4 years! It was very nice to go to Tokyo Tower with her and catch up. The four of us had dinner at the Curry Lab in the bottom of the tower. It had been raining and foggy, so we didn't spend a lot of time in the observatory of the tower. But on clear days, you can see in all directions. That night Tana, Doro, and I found 3000yen! Some guy just threw it down outside of the tower. When we looked for him, he was gone and we were left with about 10bucks each!

I went to Disneyland on the last day, but as time was short, my friend and I only go to ride 3 rides. We did have an interesting conversation with a high school couple on an 1 hr wait for Thunder Mountain. The guy was a self-proclaimed soccer superstar. We went through our list of talents. After I said no to a couple of talent questions, I was asked if I could cook. When I gave the affirmative, it seemed like his nod meant that I was satisfactory as a human being/female.

The bus ride back to Nagoya was quite relaxing. The chairs could recline and had a leg rest! There was aisle space between every chair! I actually slept!! It was great. I also got to read my friend Tana's notebook, which was the most hilarious thing I've read in a long time. I'm still sad I didn't get to finish it. We've made an agreement that I can do voice acting her future cartoons. Getting the bus was a bit stressful for me. As we all know, I'm pretty bad at directions. If you have ever received driving directions in a car from me you'll know I still mix up Left and Right. So when 11 ppl are asking you where to go and you don't know (because you've never been there before either), you get stressed out. Luckily we made it to the bus terminal before the bus arrived and got in our seats. The ride back was a bit long, but very nice and I recommend Tokai Super buses to everyone!

Well, that seems like enough for now. Ninja House and Strawberry picking are next.

Love,
~Ama

Monday, February 22, 2010

Hisashiburi!!







That mean's "It's been a while". And I think it has! A month has it. Are you doing well Oh internet patrons? I'm am quite "genki" (lively/energetic) myself!
So where was I....

LAST TIME ON:
Ama Out of State!!

Matsuri madness!
7-day college student Japan adventure!!
Drama!
Action!
Very Long Bus Rides!!
Ninja!~

So, get down to business.
Setsubun is the Japanese festival on the eve of Spring. Spring in Japan is verrrry Early and starts off, very cold. We were all freezing by the end of it.
I am in a field research class and had the great pleasure of going to a local Jinja "Shinto Shrine" to watch the festivities. We went to the Shiroyama Hachimangu Shrine in Nagoya. We also got an explanation in Japanese from a very important priest at the Shrine. Another perk to being students and gaijin (foreigners) is that we got to watch the ceremony! The ceremony can only been watched by ppl who pay big bucks (7,000 en = <$70). We saw it and got to video tape it for freee!!!!
So the thing about shrines is that they are secluded. In Japanese culture there are many distinctions in space: Ue and shita (high and low), uti and soto (in and out), and ura and omote (back and front). Depending on the distinction in each pair of directions one thing is, the higher its importance and purity. Tatoeba (for example), my head is more important than my feet. Inside is cleaner than outside (the reason why ppl take off their shoes when coming into the house). And the farther back in the office a person is, the longer they've been there and the more power they have.

Shiroyama Hachimangu Jinja is on a mountain! 1st off. Height! In Japanese the world for come is "kuru". Our guide did not talk about coming to to the temple, he said we would raise ourselves "agaru". This made me think of a LOTR (Lord of the Rings) quote, "One does not simple walk into Mordor". "One does not simply "kuru" to Shiroyama~!"
It's also surrounded by some forest! Wrapping it inside and away from the world. After you go up a bunch of steps and through some gates, or up a hill and through some forest you get to the car park. You follow a raised stone path towards the temple, going through the main (and only) door into a higher complex. The buildings here were raised off of the ground and towards the far sides of the complex. There was also an area w/ flowing water where you could wash your hands and mouth to purify yourself before going any farther. The main building which housed the hondana (holiest place in the shrine) was the farthest back. Stone path that began at the main gate, went all the way to the wishing/praying area in front of the shrine. We got to go in and watch the ceremony! There was a lot of bowing, but I learned a lot. I won't describe it here, but I might post a video. The hondana is the place where the kami (god) resides and in there were many little steps leading to a mirror. During the ceremony offerings were giving and blessings were bestowed.
Then came the fun part!!!!
Mame = beans Mamematsuri = bean throwing mayhem!
The special guests who had paid their 70 bucks to get in and the priests starting throwing the lucky on the crowd who gathered outside.
Before I had failed to mention that there was a myraid of ppl waiting outside of the ceremony building with bags, hats, and hands tensed to catch beans. During the festival, people throw baked soybeans from jinja, otera (Buddist temples), and in and out of their houses. While throwing these beans they say "oni wa soto" (demons[or bad things/sickness/misfortune but lit. demons] out!] "fuku wa uti" (good luck in). The priest on the loudspeaker at our Jinja just kept yelling "GYOSHI!" I liked that, I have no translation. Maybe goisho? the sound you make when you do something laborious? Anyhoo I could not catch very well w/ my gloves and my misses were quickly scooped by an agile young miss (and by young I mean probabaly in her 70s).
You could look up the legend behind the beans. I watched a children's show called Chibimaruko-chan that did a great deal towards my understanding, but I'm sure you all know wikipedia.
On Setsubun, you also eat as many beans as you are old. I got my years out of one pack. (They throw packs now, probably for sanitation and easier clean up).
Then you eat a sushi roll called an "eehomaki" (lucky direction maki). Every year there's a new lucky direction. As you face it you eat your whole eehomaki w/o taking it out of your mouth. In one go! Without talking! Twas great fun! Apparently, that tradition started in a bar somewhere and has done wonders for Family Mart's (convience store chain) business.


Picture descrips (out of order):
DBZ Ginyu Force Pose of my partners and Prof. and the main entrance to the shrine
The main gate
Crowd ravenous for beans
Jinja map
Ceremony building with prayer area in front
And a Picture of us w/ the very nice and also Important priest!

Love,

~Ama


Next time on AOS!:
7-day college student Japan adventure!!
Drama!
Action!
Very Long Bus Rides!!
Ninja!~

Friday, February 5, 2010

Lateness! Sorry

So I have a whoooolle bunch to catch you up on, but no time!!!!
This week, I went on a field research trip to a Jinja (Shinto Shrine) to learn about and observe Setsubun, the eve before Spring. I'll explain that when I get back from my 7 day trip to OSAKA AND TOKYO!!
I'm out!
~Ama