Tales of the Traveling K

Since finals were cancelled, I have had a lot of free time. Part of what I did with that time was go to Kaiyukan, Osaka's aquarium. My real camera broke recently, so I all I had with me for taking pictures was my cell phone. The pictures are very small and not of high quality, but I will share them because some of the animals are interesting and cute.

The requitsite picture of Kaiyukan from the outside.


The first thing you encounter inside is a tunnel of fish. The above is one of the walls of fish.


The fish are on all sides in the tunnel, including above! This ray swam over my head.


After the fish tunnel, there were otters. These guys were sunning themselves on some logs. A few would chase each other around and play fight. my favorite was the one on the high branch in the middle; no matter what happened, it just kept lying there using the branch as a pillow.


It's sort of hard to see through the water splashes, but above is a sea lion that was engaged in a game of king-of-the-rock with another sea lion. Judging from their size compared to the other sea lions, they must have been pretty young. They would jump onto the rock, and stay there until the other pushed them off.


I found Nemo and Bubbles! :)


I liked the Great Barrier Reef exhibit because it was very colorful.


Above are a bunch of fish that were staring at the ceiling. All of them were just floating there, looking at the same spot, not moving. I stuck my head close to the glass to find out what was so interesting. Turns out they were looking at a rainbow that was formed by the light above their tank refracting in the water! Those fish are just like Kansai Gaidai students on the day there was a rainbow ring around the sun. :D


This giant school of fish was swimming in circles to pick up food (I'm guessing plankton) that had been tossed into their tank. The little guys could open their jaws very wide, so that their mouths were twice as wide as the rest of their bodies.


These crabs were really impressive. They live off the coast of Japan, and are called Giant Spider Crabs. You can see why; they really did look like spiders. They reminded me of the legs of the guards in MirrorMask. I wonder if Dave McKean gets inspiration from sea creatures.


Jellyfish exhibit! The jellyfish tanks were lit up with colored lights so that the jellies glowed.


I wish my cell phone's camera had picked up the color on the jellies above a bit better. They had tiny specks of purple and pink. They made me think of ballroom gowns.


There was one tank with a big cluster of jellies like the ones in Boston Harbor. The lights on this tank changed color every few seconds, so the jellies went from white to purple to red, etc.


That was a big jelly!


These two were in the very final tank. Their long strands were eerie and beautiful.


After I left the aquarium, I rode on a giant ferris wheel from which I could see the whole port area of Osaka. That was the last trip I'll be taking into Osaka proper. Just two more full days in Japan before I head home!

Posted by K. Raila at 3:36 AM Comments

On February 28 I went to stay with the Kimuras again. Yuko and I got in very late because we went after her meeting at school. Her grandmother made sukiyaki for us. Then, on March 1, we went with Yuko's parents to Kitano Tenmangu, Kinkakuji, and a bike trail with a big bridge.

Kitano Tenmangu is a temple where people go when they want good luck with school or exams, because it is for the god of studies. Yuko's mother went to pray for good luck for Haruna, Yuko's sister, who is going to take high school entrance exams soon. While we were there, we looked at the plum blossoms which have just come out recently.







The picture above shows the main part of the temple, where there was a long line of people going to pray. I am sure it gets very busy around this time of year because there are so many entrance exams.



Yuko and I posed for her dad to take pictures a lot. He really likes taking pictures, so every time he saw something interesting he would have us stop and pose. I had him take this one for me also.



The plum blossoms are very beautiful.






Our second stop was Kinkakuji, a temple covered in gold leaf. It is very pretty, especially when the sun is out and it sparkles.





We were lucky and the clouds cleared up while we were still there. Then I got to take the picture of Kinkakuji shining.



We had traditional tea with a small dessert. It was very delicious!



I think those might be real flakes of gold. The dessert cost enough that I would believe it!

Our final stop before I went home was a bike bath that is over 40km long. It has a very large bridge at the part where we went to walk. The wind over the bridge was very strong! Yuko's father took pictures of us there, but our hair kept covering our faces. I wish I had a copy of some of those pictures; I bet they look pretty funny.



I'd like to go back there for a picnic some day. I'd really like to ride my bike there, but it is pretty far from Hirakata, and I can't take my bike on any of the trains.



It was a fun weekend! I hope Yuko will come visit me in Boston when she does study abroad in Ottowa, so I can show her around like she has been doing for me here.

Posted by K. Raila at 8:44 AM Comments

This past weekend I went to stay with Yuko, my home visit partner, at her family's house. They live in a part of Kyoto that is not right in the city, but a bit farther out so there are farms and a lot of trees.

On Saturday we went to Nara Koen, which is famous for its deer.



The deer are so used to seeing people that they came right up to us. Of course, they wanted to see if we had food. We didn't buy any deer crackers though, so we had nothing to give them.



The younger deer were a bit more skittish and wouldn't let me get very close for a picture.



From the top of the mountain in the park, we could see all of Nara, and even as far as parts of Kyoto.



I knew Nara Koen was famous for the deer, but it was still amazing to see how many there were.



Yuko told me about a trip she took in elementary school when they came to this park. They sat on the hill in the picture above to eat their lunches, and a deer came up and stole her lunch!



The deer above was standing outside a restaurant and crying for food. It wouldn't move even when cars were trying to get in and out of the restaurant's parking lot.



Yuko's father took this picture of me in front of a little building we passed. I'm not really sure what kind of building it was. He told me that the roof was traditional Japanese style.

On Sunday, Yuko and I went for a walk in the neighborhood around her house. At the local shrine, there were purple cabbage plants.



They looked like flowers. I think they're really pretty; I still find it hard to imagine that these are cabbage.





The shrine had pictures inside of various community events. Yuko said that there is a festival where kids come to the shrine and pretend they are sumo wrestlers.



The area around her house has a lot of rice fields and a few orchards.



It's already the temperature of the beginning of spring here, so some farmers are already out getting ready for planting season, and some of the trees have started to blossom.





I'm going to stay with her again in a couple of weeks. It was a lot of fun, although I will admit that I was a bit nervous that I would do something impolite by accident. I think if I made any mistakes they must have forgiven me, since they invited me back. :)

Posted by K. Raila at 7:11 AM Comments

Today I went to Osaka!



Kelly O. and I traveled together by train. We started our trip at Osaka Castle.




On our way up to the castle, we saw a clown, who would perform for 200 yen. He was quite entertaining.



Kelly had millet cake ice cream, which the shop proclaimed to be an Osaka specialty. It tasted like vanilla with a hint of alcohol. I got a coffee from a Quick! Tasty! Friendly! vending machine.



Perhaps the best part of Osaka Castle was the large number of adorable tiny dogs our for walks in the castle grounds. Weiner dogs are very popular around here.



We also saw a couple of pomeranians, one of which was very friendly and jumped all over us licking our hands. It made me want a pomeranian. :)

Then we attempted to find Denden town, the electronics district, but our map had it listed in the completely wrong part of town. Instead, we found a giant woman on a giant gold fish on the side of a building...



...followed by a crépe stand in a covered arcade. Mmm.



A nice policeman saw us looking at our map in confusion, and pointed us in the right direction for Denden.

Along the way we found the one thing I knew I had to see in Osaka, sooner or later. Yes, that's right, we found Denise's favorite giant crab.




After realizing that our map was entirely incorrect as to the location of Denden, I sent a message to Kristen, who was there, on my fancy new Japanese keitai (cell phone). She told us the subway station, since we knew our map at least had the subway correct, and we finally managed to meet up with her and Owen in Denden. It was all very exciting. We went in more than one manga & DVD store, but they all forbid the use of cameras, so I have no photographic evidence. As it got late, we went out for a delicious and cheap dinner (I had tenpura), followed by a quest to find a not-too-pricey parfait.





After an epic video-camera battle between Kristen and Owen...



...we got to a little road with a light-up blowfish.



Finally, on that tiny road... success!




We had a herd of chocolate parfaits.



In our joy, we formed a new group: the Kansai Parfait Quest Club (KPQC, or ケーピキューシ）
Our mission is to enjoy a parfait from a new shop or restaurant every Saturday. We will be writing reviews and taking photos, with the goal of creating a brochure and/or website for use by current and future Kansai Gaidai students. Coming soon: the face of KPQC--Owen in a fruit hat!

Posted by K. Raila at 8:01 AM Comments