3.9.2013 Rowan here! Sorry it took Haru a year to finish posting - time and school really got the better of her... But now it's Spring Break. Since our semester in Japan, she has gone to Taiwan, then America, then England-Scotland-Ireland, then back again to America where she's been working hard on her last year at University. She'll be posting more photos and little stories (hopefully), and would like to continue blogging whenever she can. Hang tight, and stay cool!
After this post, there is just one left for our stay in Japan.
But before Haru gets all weepy over her keyboard and short circuits her computer, I’m gonna tell you all about our happy memories from the rest of the Kansai trip.
It was another early start for us the next day, so it was hard getting out of bed to go explore Kyoto one last time. But we did manage to drag ourselves out of our warm, plush futons and leave the temple/hotel.
Here’s another photo, to prove that yes, we stayed overnight at a temple.
Next up, Haru and friends went to see Sanjuusangen-do (三十三間堂), famous for being the temple that houses 1000 Kannon statues and 28 guardian deities. For those of you who don’t know much about Japanese Buddhism, Kannon is a bodhitsattva, one who is about to reach enlightenment, but holds back for the sake of others. Kannon is associated to compassion for this reason. Originally a masculine entity, Kannon’s masculine image in the East has long since evolved into a feminine one.
Photography isn’t allowed inside, so here are two photos from Google for the curious eyes. And as you can see, every single statue is unique with different faces and different decor. If you think about it, it’s kind of like those terracotta soldiers in China, huh?
Before we left to go see other Kyoto hotspots, here are some photos of the gorgeous gardens surrounding the area.
Have any idea where we went next? I’ll give you a hint – check out one of the main gates and one of the shrines behind it.
And here’s a hint.
For those of you who have seen Memoirs of a Geisha, you’ll definitely remember the scene where a young Sayuri tears through the stone path between the gates on her way up the mountain to pray for luck. Here’s another image courtesy of Google.
This shrine is the Fushimi Inari-Taisha (伏見稲荷大社), or the main shrine of the Inari. Not only is the mountain named Inari, but Inari-Ookami (稲荷大神) is also the Japanese kami, or god, of worldly success and agriculture. Back in the old days, rice was the main business. If you had no gold, you paid in rice. It is also said that the kami’s messengers take the form of white foxes, or kitsune (狐). Therefore, they are highly revered and seen throughout the shrine grounds.
This kami is so popular in the Japanese culture that there are well over 30,000 smaller shrines dedicated to this same kami throughout Japan. However, Fushimi-ku’s is especially popular, being the main shrine. It has the most torii gates to date, and sum up to the main attraction of the site. The torii gates seen here were all donated by businesses hoping to reap some luck and garner the favor of the Inari-Ookami. So if any of you are ever down on luck or something, here’s a place to make your pilgrimage!
Here are our friends wondering which path they should take. Hard choice, don’t you think? They both look the same!
And here’s an extra photo of Haru walking under the gates, courtesy of Yuan who caught her unawares.
Wrapping up our trip in Kyoto with the Fushimi Inari shrine was awesome, but after going to see sacred foxes, we went to see sacred deer.
And no, we did not photoshop the photo and place those wild deer so close to people!
These deer are so used to people, they’ll let you pet them. They’re called Shika (鹿), meaning “deer” in Japanese.
However, the deer weren’t there for no reason. According to religious stories, the historical buddha made his first sermon at Sarnath, or “deer park” in Hindi. Also, These deer are considered sacred messengers to the Shinto religion here in Nara.
And “here” is the Toudai-ji (東大寺), a HUMONGOUS buddhist temple. In fact, that temple is the largest wooden building created by man – IN THE WORLD! See how tiny people are compared to it?
So what do we find inside? Treasure? Other giant wooden buildings nestled inside it like Russian nesting dolls?
Close enough. Inside was a giant buddha, a Daibutsu (大仏) that was even bigger than the one we saw in Kamakura. To be fair, it is the statue of the Vairocana buddha, the celestial/omnipresent body of buddha, so it had the right to be as large as life.
And there WERE other buildings inside the temple – only they were too small for people to walk inside and look around in.
Next up, we traveled over to Osaka where we we ate okonomiyaki (お好み焼き) at Dohtonbori (道頓堀) in a very flashy shopping area near Namba station. It used to be a red light district, but now it’s just a really lively part of town.
Talk about some good food here! Everyone was stuffed by the time they were done eating.
The following day, we started with Osaka castle. If there was anything more famous here than the okonomiyaki, it was definitely the castle.
And to our good fortune, all the sakura were in bloom!
The last place we went to see was the HEP Five ferris wheel just a few minutes walk from Umeda station. The view was great, and we couldn’t stop taking photos. You would think that it would take forever to ride a a ferris wheel as big as that, but it was over all too soon.
To commemorate our visit to Osaka, we headed into HEP Five, which is a massive shopping mall complex all on its own. But we didn’t buy anything there – we just went to check out the Purikura (プリクラ), short of “print club.” They’re these popular photo booths developed by two very famous Japanese video-gaming companies, Atlus and Sega.
The end result?
Four starry-eyed girls floating among pink clouds and candied hearts. But did you know that at some Purikura places, boys can only go in if they are accompanied by girls? While I’m not sure if this was one of those places, I declined taking part in the shoot. Being virtually smothered to death in a sea of pink hearts was not what I called manly!
After scarfing down our final okonomiyaki dinner at Dohtonbori (again), we raced back to the international hostel where we were staying at to rendezvous with the rest of the group. Then it was a Shinkansen ride straight back to Tokyo.
As fulfilling as it all was, we were completely exhausted when we got back home in Yokohama. What an adventure.
But our adventures in Japan are still not quite over! However, in case Haru and I run out of time to post the rest of our adventures up here, feel free to keep up with us in her personal blog: Sincerely, Nobody.
The next post will be our last…
So here’s a sneak peak at our next story!
And if there’s anywhere Komame will show up at, it will probably be there. I hope.
Later gators,
Rowan
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