Tales of the Traveling K

The end!

Posted by K. Raila at 12:26 PM Comments

Today I biked all the way to Hirakatashi for the first time. I went with my speaking partner, Asa, and our friends Kon, Kristin, and Allie. We all had bikes with us except for Kon, so he wrote Asa's and had her sit on the back. I hadn't ridden in to Hirakatashi before because it requires descending (and thus eventually ascending) a giant hill, and my legs haven't been up to the task of biking a hill that size in years.

This evening, though, we all wanted to eat out without spending too much money. So, instead of taking the bus (¥220), we biked to town and went to a cheap Italian restaurant.

When I say cheap, I mean really cheap. Allie and I split 3 small pizzas, garlic bread, desserts, plus all you can drink sodas and coffee/tea, for only ¥1043 each. That's about $11. Best cheap restaurant ever!

On the way back home, we took a shortcut, which made the hill somewhat less severe. I didn't bike the whole thing, but I made a good half of it before getting off to walk. My health--it improves!

I am seriously going to miss Asa when I go home. We always do the most fun things together.

Posted by K. Raila at 9:56 AM Comments

One of the most popular places for hanami is Kyoto. Within Kyoto, Maruyama park is one of the most popular hanami sites. Last weekend, some friends and I went to Kyoto for a day of cherry blossom viewing, and ended up at a night festival in Yasaka shrine and Maruyama park.

I began the day with Kristin and Kelly near Nanzen-ji. We walked down an out-of-use railroad, to a new pond with a waterfall.



Next up was the Philosopher's Path, which I walked with my mom 2 years ago, but when we came it was not the spring, so I had never seen it with the sakura in bloom. The entire walk is lined with sakura trees.


We then took the train back to Yasaka shrine, where we discovered a festival we didn't know would be happening. We got a whole lot of food, including candied strawberries, which were amazingly delicious. We followed the festivities into Maruyama park.

There we saw the lit-up cherry trees, found a few other Kansai Gaidai students, and had even more food! On our way home, we were lucky and saw two maiko dancing under the trees.

Posted by K. Raila at 4:58 AM Comments

We are more than half way through term here at Kansai Gaidai, which means that I had spring break not too long ago! I stayed in two different places over spring break. This was my first college spring break ever, since Bennington doesn't have one, so I was very excited!

First I went to Tottori with Scott and Kelly. We stayed in a wonderful ryokan with a very nice woman who brought us tea, served us breakfast, and prepared a bath for us every night. We were there for 3 nights.

Tottori is by no means a big tourist location. Locals asked us a few times why on earth we would be visiting such an out of the way place, but it was quite fun! It is known for only four things: crab, pears, sand dunes, and being the site of the Beach of the White Rabbit, a location told of in Japan's creation myth. Thus, all the souveniers had something to to with crabs, pears, sand, or white rabbits.

We explored the sand dunes first. Scott was very excited that he might get to ride a camel. I was very excited for sand. You can tell how large the dunes are by looking at the tiny black dots on top. Those are people.

The photo above is from the top of the biggest dune. Some people were flying remote controlled airplanes. Other people were using sleds and cardboard to ride down the sand. Once we had climbed the dunes, it was time for Scott to ride a camel.


Later in the day we climbed a mountain in the middle of town. Near the mountain there was a temple that our host at the ryokan said was built when whe emperor came to stay in Tottori for just 3 days.

At the base of the mountain, there were castle ruins. Legend says the ghosts of soldiers who died in a siege on the castle still haunt the mountain, but we were there in the daytime, so we didn't meet any ghosts.


At the top of the mountain, we could see all the way to the sand dunes.


A man who we met at the top took our picture for us. He talked to us for a while about our study abroad, and gave us a restaurant guide to the area.

The next day, we were planning to go to a volcano, but left so late in the day that we realized we would pretty much have to turn around and come back as soon as we got there. So, instead we stopped in Kuroyoshi to see the 20th Century Pear Museum.

On the way to the museum, we saw a lot of interesting signs in English, including Purple Town.

It doesn't really look all that purple, does it?

We also found Libido, a flower store.

I don't think they know what the name of their store really means.

Sadly, the 20th Century Pear Museum was closed for repairs, so we just peeked in the windows and kept going.

We found a gigantic playground. I wish I could have played on that as a kid!

Next stop was a park and zoo. The zoo was free and not very well cared for, but we did see a pretty white peacock.

We found a bus going to Misasa, which our guide told us had a very pretty temple on a cliff, and a famous hot spring.

Unfortuately for us again, the path to the temple was closed because it's too dangerous in winter. We took a picture of the model of the temple instead. Then we tried to find the hot spring, but it turned out to be out in the open under a bridge! People were walking along and looking at the bathers. We decided being naked right there in the open was not our cup of tea.

Exhausted, we went home on the train, back to our nice comfy ryokan.


Not the most successful day ever, but at least we saw some interesting English.

Tottori is very proud of its mention in the creation myth. On our way home that night, we found this display illustrating the tale of The Beach of the White Rabbit.

For dinner, we ate the famous pears.

And on our final day, we found another flower shop with a name the owners probably don't really understand.

What do you expect to find at a store called "Pimp?" Hmm... well, it was filled with cactuses and flowers, actually.

Then it was time for Scott and Kelly to head back to Osaka, and for me to go to Hiroshima.

We stopped one last time at Portugal, which had become our favorite bakery, and then I was on my way, riding the shinkansen.

I got to Hiroshima a few hours before Allie, so I went exploring on my own.


When Allie arrived, we rushed to the ferry for Miyajima, so we wouldn't be late for our ryokan check-in. We managed to arrive just before the ferry pulled out of the port. Good timing!

Our ryokan on Miyajima was really not of a good quality. I won't get into the details, but let's just say at least we had a fine room to sleep in.

The next morning, Allie and I went out exploring Miyajima.

We found the stairway to heaven.

Our first stop was Daisho-in temple. There was a giant bell that visitors would ring. The sound lasted for a very long time before eventually fading away.


The photo above is evidence that Anpanman is a follower of Zen Buddhism. (^_^)

We walked all over the island.


We even found the rice spatula of the gods!

And of course, food!




On our second day, we went in to Hiroshima. I went before, two years ago, so I did not go into the atomic bomb memorial muesum this time, but I did revisit the Genbaku Dome.


Allie and I met a Hibakusha, a survivor of the bombing. He showed us his survivor papers and told us about his family's experience. He is a class 4 survivor, meaning that he was in utero at the time of the bombing, and thus experienced the radiation through his mother. He said he was very lucky because he has had few ill effects from the bombing. He has gotten cancer recently, which is probably related, but had no birth defects or other problems. His parents both miraculaously survived and his mother even lived to be in her 90s. He was able to talk about the stories he heard in his childhood quite openly, but he said that people who had witnessed the bombing almost never were willing to talk about it. Having not yet been born, of course, he did not see the bombing himself, but he grew up as the city was being rebuilt.

After Allie was done in the museum, we went to the Shukkeien gardens.


We tried to go to the Hiroshima Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), but it was closed by the time we arrived. Instead, we just walked around the city a bit more, and then met up with Kristin, who arrived that evening, and had tempura at my favorite restaurant.

The next day, all three of us went up the ropeway on Miyajima.


It was very windy at the top of the mountain.


From the top, you could see pretty far. There were some metal tubes that pointed in the direction of certain areas, so that you knew what you were looking at. The one below is looking at Hiroshima.

Allie left us that afternoon to return to Osaka for her taiko concert. Kristin and I spent the day on Miyajima.

We saw a festival taking place, but never found out what it was for.



I went back to Daisho-in with Kristin, since Allie and I had only spent a short while there. We saw a monk carrying a bucket of burning oil, trailing smoke through the temple grounds. He poured the flaming oil into the shrine of a fire god.

We also walked through a room filled with statues and lanterns.



We went into town for dinner, where we found...

...an A-Bomb dome train set. I suppose it makes sense, because that's Hiroshima's most famous landmark, but somehow it seems out of place next to a little plastic train.

That night, Kristin and I took some pictures of the Torii lit up after dark.


For our final day in Hiroshima, Kristin went to the atomic bomb memorial, and I went back to Hiroshima MOCA so that I could actually go inside this time! They had a temporary exhibit called "Dorodoro Doron: The Uncanny World in Contemporary and Folk Art in Asia." It was a really excellent exhibit. The museum forbids taking pictures in the temporary exhibit halls, so I can't share what I saw with you, but I'll describe it some.

The focus of the show was, as the title implies, uncanny and otherworldly art. There was a short film called Homicavallo, showing a woman riding a horse, but filmed in a way that they seemed to be one animal. Another piece was a tank of what appeared to be water. If you looked in the tank directly, there was nothing to see but swirls of blue. If you looked in the tank through a mirror, though, there was a mermaid! She would swim around, and in the mirror it seemed as though the tank was the window of a submarine, looking out at this beautiful creature.

Kristin and I met up again after lunch to see Hiroshima castle.

From the top, we had a pretty good view.



After that, it was time to come home! Kristin and I ate a delicious parfait at the Hiroshima station (see the Kansai Parfait Quest Club blog for details), and then boarded our shinkansen back to Osaka.

Posted by K. Raila at 8:36 AM Comments