Tales of the Traveling K

Today I went with Yuko to meet her friends for hanami. Hanami is a Japanese event where people get together to see cherry blossoms and usually eat picnics under the cherry trees. It's still early in sakura season, so the trees were only about half covered in blossoms. I will hopefully be going again next weekend and will see the trees in full bloom.

We each brought some food. I made tuna sandwiches, Yuko and her sister Haruna brought chicken and salad, Yuka brought yaki soba, Haruka brought a dish she invented that involved konyaku and spice, and another girl (forgot her name, sadly) brought a rice, egg, and fish combination. Everything was really tasty!

When we were finished eating, we played cards, or as it's called in Japan, toronpu (from trump). I had a fun time talking about musicians and English pronunciation with Haruka. She said she wants to learn how to pronounce English properly, because it's usually hard for Japanese people. Her pronunciation was actually very good, though.

Posted by K. Raila at 6:29 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