Fushimi Inari Taisha 伏見稲荷大社

one year ago

2010.Nov.30

 

 Fushimi Inari impressions: orange.  foxes.  stone.  stairs.  endless.  mystery.

round and round and round it goes/where it ends, nobody knows..

(except maybe the shopkeepers and other regular visitors)

 

quietude

after a hike around the Fushimi Inari mountain (for cultural background, WIKI), there was mind-boggling tofu-based ice cream (豆腐ソフトクリーム tofu sofuto kuriimu)

delicious kitsune udon dinner, amazing kinako ice cream (more ice cream!) and parfaits, and finally...

高台寺 Koudaiji Light-up! (紅葉 kouyou "fall foliage"/temple viewing at night)

Fushimi Inari is easily accessed by taking the 京阪 Keihan line towards Kyoto and getting off at the 伏見稲荷 Fushimi Inari station.

 

It'll be pretty obvious you're at the right station. :)

Take Exit 2 (出入り口２), walk down towards the bigger street, and then head east down that street.

Less than a block down, among the small shops on either side of you, there'll be the tofu ice cream shop (if you're headed east, it's on your right side, I think...doing this from google maps by searching "fushimi inari taisha, japan", not from memory haha).

Sadly, I can't help you get to any of the other places; it would take too much text and frankly, I don't remember.  This entry is, after all, a year after the fact. :P

Of course, the key to a good trip is not so much location (though that certainly matters)...

but good company. :)

 

"Strange" is a bonus.

国内／海外

国内 kokunai ：internal, domestic
海外 kaigai ：overseas, abroad, foreign

exactly three months since I've come back to the USA from Japan.

I was only in Japan for about four months, so the time since my return is steadily growing closer to exceeding the time I actually spent there.  (Which is sort of negligible, considering that my previous twenty years of life were all spent outside of Japan.  anyway.)  I'm pretty used to being back at Berkeley now...not totally, but much closer to before-study-abroad than where I was in my last post. 

Lately, a couple people have said to me things like, "good thing you went to Japan last semester, eh?" or "aren't you glad you came back for spring?" 

Who could've foreseen the enormous earthquake that hit on March 11?

It's Japan, so earthquakes are kind of a given...and I'm from California, where earthquakes are also not-so-surprising...but a 9.0?  With aftershocks ranging from 5.0 - 7.5?

from the news sources I've read through, though...in spite of all the terrible things--nuclear threat; inhospitable climate (ex: snow); lack of gas, food, and shelter; people stranded far from home and loved ones; death; suffering; too much to list...--Japan has been prepared for disaster, and that has saved lives.  Buildings that have been earthquake-proofed; alert systems; improvements in government response compared to the last huge earthquake (Kobe); a culture that seriously respects and values community; stories of individual and team heroism, narratives of hope spread through social media like Twitter/Facebook/etc and also through traditional news outlets. 

Japan's people have suffered and many are still suffering, ten days later.  It's the greatest national crisis since World War II; recovery is going to take a while...a lot longer than ten days, or even ten months.  And what defines "full recovery" anyhow?  I don't know...

Honestly, and for reasons beyond physical safety, I am glad to be home.
My heart flies back to the people in Japan, though, especially those in the Tohoku region, but definitely to all affected by this quake.  And I wonder, a bit, at how different my study abroad experience might have been if I'd gone this semester, or stayed over from fall.  How is everything different because I am seeing it from the outside, from overseas?  What is it like being there, seeing from within?  I cannot really know, and I'm not sure exactly how much I should try...

All sorts of distances and divisions separate me from Japan.
But these are all overcome by shock at the enormous loss of life, sympathy for those who suffer, our shared humanity, and hope.  Hope that is inspired by great examples, large and small, of those contributing to relief efforts and recovery; hope that is inspired by how the Japanese government has adapted its strategies and learned lessons from past disasters; hope that, through this difficult time, people will emerge with greater love and value for one another.

~*~*~*~

Recommended donation sites: Global Giving, Red Cross
other people have already made the persuasive arguments for why giving money is an effective way of helping.  These links are just here as an option.  In my opinion, they are a good option.

Time is tickin’, T-Time is tickin’ away…

"One (feat. Ji-Sun)" by Epik High is a prettttty cool song.  I just looked up the lyrics, conveniently found a translation, and ummm, gosh, I think I'm going to need to re-read this a few more times before I understand...

BUT the point is:

4 days left.

no way.

no way.

no way.

...

I always knew the end would be difficult, but...oh, this is ridiculous. ;-;

♥ Our Christmas/Holiday/Goodbye/Final Family Dinner ♥

I won't say that there's nothing good about good-byes (ha, just look at the name!)...but [no words left to properly express how I feel]...

~*~*~*~

it suddenly got suuuper cold these past few days (single digits, in celsius, admittedly still positive numbers), but according to tenki.jp, will warm up again next week...very slightly.

Everything I Want to Say and More

Ohohohoho...I didn't update at all during November, did I..

:P

Doesn't mean I didn't want to update, though!  REALLY.

For your anticipatory pleasure, here are various drafts I have in progress (some have been sitting for almost 2 months now, haahahahaha):

• Hiroshima trip
• Tokyo trip
• Being Christian in Japan
• Analog Fish live (concert) in Osaka
• Things I like to complain about
• my 枚方市 (Hirakata-shi, the town I've been living in these past few months..) family ♥
• etc.

by the way, this post was a draft for about a week.  haha...

Other things, not yet drafts, but definitely worth mentioning:

• 紅葉 (kouyou, autumn leaves turning colors) trips
• my participation in 華道部 (kadoubu, flower arrangement club), where we do 生け花 (ikebana, flower arrangement)
• super-long-awaited home visit in Wakayama
• seeing Merry live
• final update on how the "study" in study abroad actually happens in reality
• living in Seminar House 4
• food-related nonsense
• etc.

Hmmmmmmm hopefully I'll have time during winter break to compose some of this stuff....hopefully. 8D

Entries will probably also pop up as I procrastinate on final papers~☆

楽しみにしてね～ (tanoshimi ni shite ne~)
Look forward to it! :)

time goes by...

FAR TOO QUICKLY.

"so slowly"?!  Madonna is so wrong.

(by the way, just for context, I'm supposed to be writing a paper for my Japan-China class right now... maybe we can say this is warm-up?  I've discovered this excellent trick with coffee for people, like myself, with low caffeine tolerance: drink a little coffee at a time and then a lot of water; sure, you end up going to the restroom quite a bit, but this way the caffeine gives you a boost while the water keeps you hydrated and refreshed☆)

Just for masochistic pleasure and general procrastination, I've put a little countdown-thingy on the right-hand side of my main blog page, underneath the little "about me" blurb.  Shouldn't be too easy to miss.  Those awaiting my glorious return to the Bay (SF Bay, the only one that matters of couuuuurse) can clap in delight as the number spirals down.  For me, I shall be mildly panicked every time I see it and how much more reduced it is compared to the last time I looked.

In other news, I've booked a rather last-minute trip to Tokyo for the next weekend (Nov. 5-8).  And yes, I will be skipping a couple days of class, hahahahahaha~   As for how much money I'll be spending............we can address that later, when I've taken some pretty pictures to prove that it was worth however-much-it-is. 8D

Okay, there are lots of topics I want to write about here, but first, that midterm paper.....

Ah, priorities...

Life in Japan II

a pretty spot around campus, on a pretty nice day

snacktime!...happens every night, not always this crazy.

separating garbage is important! (though, it varies from city to city.)  my roomie and I divide between plastics and burnables.

our room in an unusually neat (yeah, this counts as neat) state.

my new keitai strap (phone charm) ♥
it's a momiji (maple) leaf~ to commemorate this fall semester.

Thursday, October 14, 2010 @ 3:05 AM

GO TO 金沢!

Vacation #1!

Destination: 金沢 Kanazawa, Ishikawa-ken (prefecture)
Date: Sep. 18-20 (Sat-Mon)
Cost: ￥22,000 - ￥24,000

Highlights:
5-hour train ride!

View of (not the ocean, but) Lake Biwako
it's humongous O_O

Kanazawa JR (Japan Railways) Station

Local streets

random art :)

cool building in the shopping district~

Kenroku-en

Shirakawa-go 

Late Summer in Shirakawa~

Light Festival & other special events

we watched dance performances by local college groups at this festival.. めっちゃ楽しかった~ (meccha tanoshikatta, very enjoyable)

Accommodations:
(all reserved through Hostelworld.com, all heartily recommended, especially Pongyi and Namaste~)
Guest House Pongyi
Guesthouse Namaste
Ryokan Shibaya

Summary:
I wouldn't consider Kanazawa an "essential" stop if your time in Japan is short, but for a last-minute planned trip (don't wanna waste those 3-day weekends...), it was nice~  Shirakawa-go (about an hour-long bus ride from Kanazawa, round trip￥3200) is definitely worth a visit if you're in the area!  The sights can be seen, in a fairly relaxed manner, in about 3-4 hours...but if you want to spend longer there (which you might, it's really lovely~), it's not hard at all. :)

shrinkage

I have much pleasanter things to record later, when there is time to spare, but right now....

the USD-JPY ($ /￥) exchange rate is deeply saddening to me.

US$1 = ￥83.5 (thank you google.)

That's market price....so if I go exchange my traveler's checks at a local bank, the rate I receive will be 1 or  points(? don't know this terminology..) lower.  ￥82 or ￥81 per US$1.  It's pretty close for the post office's international ATM, too....

should I try and wait it out for a better rate, or just get some money?  The highest it's been this month is about ￥86, I think.  Bahhh..... my wallet's going to be emptied tomorrow (paying for insurance), and I'm going to Osaka for a field trip on Saturday, so I'll probably just suck it up and do that ATM-thang.  Cash disappears so quickly...really forces me into consciousness of how much I'm spending and how constantly I'm buying.

*sigh*

Life in Japan

A picture's worth a thousand words, so let's say this entry is ...a little over five thousand? :)

Rilakkuma slippers.  Worn all around the seminar house (dorm), except on the tatami mats in rooms.

Futon.  They're arranged a little differently now (this was taken during orientation week), but you get the idea.  Rolling out of "bed" is easy and painless.

Bicycle.  In Japanese, 自転車(jitensha).  In Kansai-ben, チャリ(chari).  Not utterly essential, but pretty darn amazingly helpful.  If the USA is a car culture, Japan (at least in Hirakata?) is a bicycle culture.

Cell phone.  In Japanese, 携帯電話 (keitaidenwa), or just keitai for short.  Again, not absolutely essential for life, but exceedingly useful and advantageous for one's social life.  Almost every other 留学生(ryuugakusei, exchange student) has this same, exact phone (in either black of white), but I've finally distinguished mine by adding Kanazawa gold lacquer シール(shiiru, stickers).

Pudding.  プリン (purin) is my favorite dessert here in Japan; it has a flavor and consistency similar to flan and/or creme brulee.  This particular pudding has a special point: 焼きプリン (yakipurin) is browned on top...not sure how much it actually affects the flavor, but I like it a lot.  A lot. ♥

Tuesday, September 21, 2010 @ 9:40 PM

Classes

Monday, Monday, Monday....it always comes again so quickly...
...and now Tuesday is already over (I started this post yesterday, hahaa...).

Here at KGU, all of the exchange students attend classes in the Center for International Education (CIE, also technically building 3).  Morning classes are Japanese language (taught in Japanese, with occasional uses of English vocabulary), and afternoon classes are lectures (in English) that can all go under the topic of "Asian Studies" in some way or another (they're actually divided between Business classes and Social Science/Humanities).  Most of the students are internationals, but in (most of the?) afternoon lectures, there are several local regular KGU students, either preparing or just back from study abroad.
All students are required to take, at minimum, 14 credits, and allowed, at maximum, 17 credits.  This translates to 4 - 5 classes (regular classes are 3 credits each, spoken Japanese is 5 credits).  Spoken Japanese meets five times a week (50 minutes a day), Reading/Writing Japanese meets 3 times a week (also 50 minutes/day), and the afternoon classes meet twice a week (90 minutes/lecture).  Japanese classes are typically less than fifteen people, and Asian Studies classes hit capacity at about 30 - 35 people.

I'm taking four classes this semester (a loooovely break, considering that I took five a semester last year...):

•  Spoken Japanese, level 5 (required) - Japanese classes here are divided between spoken (required) and reading/writing (optional).  This one's every single day, but Naito-sensei is quite sweet and funny, so I don't mind. :)  Also, for some reason, the class's lessons are structured very similarly to J10 classes at Berkeley.. I personally suspect this may be because Naito-sensei studied at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the authors of the J10 book, An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese, are also from that school. who knows~
• Monsters, Ghosts, and the Making of Modern Japan - (Media studies) Umm....the topic is pretty cool, covers how 妖怪 (youkai, spirit-demon-ghost-things?) and other Japanese ideas about supernatural phenomena, plus how those things are treated in Japanese society, help us understand Japan.  There are plenty of interesting ideas and interpretations presented in class and in the readings, and I like it well enough...umm...I just don't have much to say about it yet?  haha..
• Japan-China: The Challenges of Modernization - (International/Area studies) Professor Scott is pretty cool, has plenty of interesting things to say about all sorts of topics relating to China, Japan, Korea, and East Asia/the world in general.  This subject this class covers is one of the key reasons I chose KGU over ICU.  Tons of reading though...feels just like classes back home. :P
• Religion in Japan - (Japanese/Religious studies) I adore Professor Kenney.  This class miiight just be my favorite (which doesn't say thaaat much, because I like all of them).  Subject is interesting, lectures are interesting, looking forward to learning lots~  I would describe the class as...a general survey of religious practice and beliefs in Japan.

In general, all the professors are fairly interactive with the classes (especially Kenney)~  I really love how the subjects we cover in class connect really well with the topics from some of the classes I took last year--Chinese history, the religion class (Faith, Religion, and Religious Experience), Ethnic Studies, and of course, Japanese.

Mmmm....anyway, now it's time to go study/do homework.  Or eat/make dinner.  Or finish planning a trip to Kanazawa.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm, so busy-busy.  いつもそうよ。

Or maybe I should just write a few more entries to actually record life beyond academics, because what I'm learning outside of those classes is super, super interesting (at least to me), too.

♥ドキドキ♥

明日、授業が始まる…
Classes start tomorrow... ((technically today))

I'm simultaneously excited and sleepy.  Only the afternoon, taught-in-English classes will be held.  Japanese language classes (speaking level 5, yay!) don't start until Tuesday.

We finally did official check-in to the seminar house today!  Grocery shopping, yayyy...except I had to borrow money from friends. ^^;; Going to the bank before classes tomorrow to exchange some traveler's checks, yosh~

My 携帯 (keitai, cell phone) has an amaaazing emoticon selection and texting with it has spoiled me for normal writing.  :(  I want to add kitties and weird faces and other random cutesy stuff to everything I write....

Okay, gonna go pack my backpack!  Posts on orientation week to come later, once I've figured out a decently organized/readable way to write them~

((you know what also makes me feel ドキドキ? (dokidoki, onomatopoeia for rapid/throbbing heartbeat, often indicating nervous excitement)  exchanging text messages (メール, meeru, e-mail) with Japanese girls. >o<♥ 友達作ってた～))


Monday, September 5, 2010 @ 1:50 AM

日本に着いた～

It's 9:30 AM on August 29 here~

Melon pan actually tastes like apricot. O_o

The mood?
Think in yen.
Think in GST+9:00.
Think Japan.

(..."think Japanese" will probably come later..."think in Japanese" should be happening now..)

Short timeline of yesterday's (8/28) arrival:
-flight (about 10 hours) arrived on time (maybe slightly early?), 3:30 PM.  Got through customs by 4 PM.
-took KGU's pick-up service-hired bus (comfy~) to Seminar Houses.
-arrived SH4 around 6:30 PM, checked in, received super-informative orientation packet.
-followed tour to supermarket at 8 PM.  bought food! yay.
-ate food and talked to many new people.  will hopefully remember most names.  this is just like freshman year all over again.