Saturday, July 17, 2010

Bad at crowds but good at walking

This's gonna be a long post, so prepare yourselves now.

So this morning I woke up too early for living (6:30-ish) because it was HOT. VERY HOT. But that was okay, 'cause my host family was awake super early, 'cause it's a three day weekend (Monday's Umi no Hi (Ocean Day)). (The boys are at a boy scout camp right now, so they had to get up super early to get ready.) Anyway, I ate breakfast, packed a bunch of maps into my bag because I was actually smart and prepared today, and then asked my host mom the best way to get to Gion Matsuri. She said to take the Keihan railway, so I did, and she was right, it took me exactly to where I wanted to go.

Here's where the bad part starts.

I had heard that the parade would be crowded.* I did not expect that "crowded" meant "you are most likely to get crushed to death." I managed to find my group, fortunately, but we were all the way in the back of a mob of people, so even when the parade started I could barely see anything.

Then the pushing started.

All the people behind us wanted to see what was going on, so they started pushing forward, and of course the people in front of us couldn't move forward, 'cause they were already jammed in tight, so all that happened was that everyone was squished together like sardines.

If you know anything about me, you know that I really dislike crowds. Intensely. I also am really not okay with most people touching me. So there I was, squished up against a wall, and thinking, "Oh gods, I am going to be crushed to death here, and it's going to be like that football incident all over again, and what the heck are they going to tell my parents?"

Fortunately, two of my classmates noticed that I was curled up against a wall, hands up in a guard, and hyperventilating, and they asked if I was okay. I couldn't manage to get words out, so they dragged me between them through the crowd (seriously, they were the best body guards ever) and managed to make it into the nearest subway station where I literally leaned against a wall and made whimpering noises for five minutes.

Apparently I am really not good at crowds. It would have been nice to know this beforehand.

In any case, my classmates were super nice and waited until I was calm enough to not feel an intense need to punch everything in sight, and then they made sure that I was able to get on a train and get out of there. (They also fled the parade, because they were pretty freaked out by all the crushing and pushing going on there. In the words of one of them, "If something happens and you go down, you're going to be trampled to death.")

So I got on the train, rode one stop, got off, and then picked the direction that seemed the farthest from Gion Matsuri and started walking. And that actually worked out really well, 'cause I wound up wandering through a bunch of random side streets and ran into tiny, awesome shrines and temples! And it turns out that my sense of direction is actually pretty good, 'cause I managed to make it to a shrine that I had wanted to visit for a while (Heian Jingu) without using a map. WHOO. And after that I found this hole-in-the-wall shrine (seriously, I have no better way of describing it) which was AMAZING. (It was such a hole-in-the-wall shrine that it didn't have anything for purification. NOTHING.) It was, according to the sign, a shrine devoted to a certain fox god of music. However, you could tell that this was neither a terribly popular shrine nor a terribly popular god, because the protective charms were RIDICULOUSLY CHEAP. (100 yen? At Heian Jingu some of the charms were 800 yen. The ema at tiny shrine were 300 yen. At most shrines they're 1000 yen or more.) Also, there were a bunch of articles posted on the side of the honden (main building of the shrine) advertising the efficacy of the god that the shrine was devoted to. And in front of the shrine main office was a poster advertising a particular candidate in the recent Kyoto municipal elections.

I love tiny shrines. So much. So, so much.

Also, along the way I stopped at a vending machine ('cause it was a million degrees and I was afraid I was going to get dehydrated) and bought a thing that said it was "Pink Ginger Sparkling." And it was, surprisingly, super good! Like ginger beer, but minus the kind of weird aftertaste you sometimes get. And pinker.

Anyway, I had texted one of my classmates earlier to see if he wanted to watch the new Ghibli movie this afternoon, and he texted me back at this point saying sure, so I walked a bunch more and then took a train and met up with him. And we went and grabbed lunch at First Kitchen**, which despite being fast food (or "convenience food" as they called it) was actually pretty good. Then we went to the movie theatre...only to discover that it was pretty much the only movie theatre in Kyoto NOT running the new Ghibli movie. UGH. (So we've got plans to go tomorrow, now that I've looked up places that are running it. And we have two other classmates who will probably join us, 'cause they had other plans today.)

So then I walked home, which was about an hour walk. (Giving a rough estimate, I think I walked about 15 miles today. That might be a little bit low. Given my regular walking speed (about 3.5 miles per hour), though, and the fact that I walked pretty much continuously from about 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and then I walked a bunch in Teramachi and also all the way home and then to the restaurant, that seems like a safe bet.) And I sat for about an hour, and then went out to dinner with my host mum at a super good hole-in-the-wall restaurant, where she proceeded to once again test what I'm willing to eat.

Today I ate fried bird bones. Which sounds utterly disgusting, but they were SO GOOD. (I have a sneaky suspicion, however, that despite my host mom saying that they were bones, they were actually cartilage, 'cause they were way too chewy to be normal bones. Then again, bird bones aren't exactly normal...) Also, some kind of sashimi and daikon salad (I have a growing appreciation for daikon) and stir fry and some kind of super tasty fried chicken thing with amazing sauce and champloo (which was really good). YUM. Also, water. Best thing ever on a hot day.

Also, during dinner, my host mom asked the fateful, "Is it true that all Americans have guns?" question. I THOUGHT I WOULD MAKE IT THROUGH THE PROGRAM WITHOUT FACING THAT, BUT I WAS WRONG.

So then I came home where it is currently 11 p.m. and 87 degrees Fahrenheit. WHOO.

Also, despite walking in the shade and carrying an umbrella (it covers more than just my hat), I have a sunburn across both shoulders and my right forearm and the right side of my collarbone. I am pretty sure it's going to be super painful in the morning.

In any case, tomorrow I have to do laundry and I am going to see that Ghibli movie if it kills me and I am also going to try to see Kitanoutenmanguu, because I mentioned it in my awe-inspiring presentation but have never actually been there.

Okay, I'm going to try to sleep now. G'night!

*Because I probably failed at explaining it yesterday, lemme explain a bit more:

Gion Matsuri is a big festival in Kyoto. One of the things it's most famous for is its huuuuuge floats. Go type "Gion Matsuri" into Google, and you'll be able to see pictures of them.

In any case, yesterday they were having the actual matsuri (festival), which is to say that there were stands lining the streets, and you could wander around Shijo (a section of Kyoto) and look at all the different floats (the roads had been closed for cars). Imagine a street fair, but instead of taking up a street, taking up 15-20 blocks. Most of the stands were selling food (so much good food!), but there were others selling various handicrafts/souvenirs/other random objects.

Today was the parade in which all the floats go through the streets of Shijo.

**Okay, so we totally went because of the name and because neither of us had been there before. What do I mean by the name? Well, in Japanese, lots of long names/words/phrases are shortened. For example:
Starbucks ---> sutaba
Personal computer ---> pasokon
Air conditioner ---> eakon
Sexual harassment ---> sekuhara
Family Mart ---> famima

And First Kitchen?

Fuakin.

Pronounced like...well, I'm pretty sure you can figure it out.

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