Pictures (part seven): Kamakura, Yokohama, and Tokyo

Well, this is it, you guys.

This is the last post.

You must be heartbroken, I know.

I recommend filling the void by going outside and doing something exceedingly awesome. Like hang-gliding. Or singing odes to semicolons.

You can, as always, read the correspond posts here (for Kamakura and Yokohama), here and here (for Tokyo), and here (for pictures).

Because people asked for a bigger version of the class picture from before, here it is.

Note that my male sensei (all the way on the right) looked like that approximately all the time. This would be why we loved him to death.

Okay, here're the pictures from Kamakura and Yokohama.

Here's the big Buddha.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand that's all you need to see of that.

Remember how I said that there was a crazy story associated with the shrine I visited? Well, since TWO whole people asked for it, you get to hear it. If you don't want to read my spazzing, you can just skip ahead.

Okay, so basically this shrine was built by the wife of Minamoto Yoshitomo. Yes, THAT Minamoto Yoshitomo.* While he was off fighting the Heike, she was wanting babies. So apparently she decided to build a shrine so that she could GET babies. In addition, she built the shrine so that it would help defeat the Heike.

How did she do this?

Well, there's an extensive garden associated with the shrine. This garden has two huuuuuge ponds with a bridge going over them. One of them is the Genji pond because it has white flowers, and the other pond is the Heike pond, because it has red flowers.** The Genji's pond has three islands, because the word for three in Japanese (三, san) sounds the same as the word for childbirth (産, san). The Heike's pond has four islands, because the word for four in Japanese (四, shi) sounds the same as the word for death (死, shi).

And that is the short version of the cool story associated with the shrine.

*The leader of the Genji, who overthrew the Heike. Also, he became the first shogun.

**The Genji's color was white, and the Heike's color was red.

Here's the bridge leading to the shrine.

Here's part of the Heike's pond, with the red flowers.

Here's the bridge from the side.

Here's the hand-washing place.

Kind of flashy, don't you think?

That's a stage which important ceremonies are performed on.

These are the steps up to the main shrine building.

This sign says to please not tie fortunes to the trees. I guess they must have had a problem with that.

Here's the Genji pond. It's kind of hard to see, but the flowers are white.

This was just awkward.

These were some really strange mannequins we ran across on our way back from dinner that night.

(There was also a mannequin that looked like it was seducing another mannequin. I started laughing hysterically, and no one else could understand why.)

THE CROSSWALK THAT TRAIN MAN WALKS DOWN AT THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE. (It's the one under the overpass thing. AAAAHHHH!)

Here's the gate into Asakusa, a district of Tokyo that's supposed to be like Edo-era Tokyo (or Edo, as it was known at that point).

Inside a mall at Asakusa...

A street in Asakusa...

We couldn't figure out what all these guys were doing.

Then we realized that they all had some sort of portable gaming device and were having a tournament of some kind.

Akihabara at night!

I figured this would be a somewhat appropriate picture to end the blog with.

In any case, it's been fun, guys. Hopefully, it's been at least fractionally as enjoyable to read as it has been for me to write.

Overall, this entire trip was an awesome experience, and I feel like I learned a lot, thanks to my senseis and my host family and my language partner and all the random people who weren't afraid to talk to me.

If I wind up in Japan after I graduate (which I most likely will), I'll probably wind up writing a blog again, but until then,

This is Squid, signing off.

じゃ、またね。

Pictures (part six): Miyajima and Hiroshima

Well, this is going to be a shorter post today. Relatively shorter, anyway.

This post corresponds to this post for Miyajima, this post for Hiroshima, and this post for pictures.

If you don't know what this is by now, I haven't been fangirling enough.

Even the deer wanted to eat momiji manjuu.

You have no idea how much I wish I could be on that boat. Because SERIOUSLY. SO COOL.

This was right by the shrine which the huge sea torii belonged to. I have no idea what it was, except that it was sacred for some reason.

It's kind of creepy, in my opinion.

This's the back of the shrine. Notice that the water's already receded.

Also, there were tiny crabs all over the place.

Aaaaand that's all the pictures you get of awesome views, 'cause my camera is pretty terrible.

That enshrined piece of driftwood. SO COOL. (I actually took a bunch of pictures of this, but I figured that most people wouldn't want to look at more than one.)

Because I cannot post enough pictures of this torii.

Here's a pagoda that was on top of a hill that I climbed and nearly fell down. (The nearly falling down was my fault, for the record. Mostly.)

That tanuki is smoking.

Also, robots.

I don't think this needs any further explanation.

So as we were walking around as the sun was setting, we came across these deer, who apparently thought that the sign at this shop was tasty.

Then a little foreigner kid showed up to scold them loudly in English.

Kid: No! Bad deer! Don't eat paper!

Deer: [IGNORE]

Then they started fighting over who got to eat the paper.

This is a guardian lion wearing someone's glasses. No further explanation necessary.

Tiny shrine! (You can't see particularly well from this picture, but it was in a little pond, so you had to cross over a stone bridge to get to it.)

And here are some close-ups.

And here's the back of it. (You can see a little bit of the pond in this picture.)

Futons! We slept on futons. I really like futons. So much easier to make than normal beds. Also, they're pretty ridiculously comfortable.

Yes, that is a jellyfish. At my feet. Because the tide went out which allowed me to...

...walk down to the giant torii. Have I mentioned how much I love this torii? I love this torii so much. I would undoubtedly marry this torii, if I didn't think that Itsukushima Shrine would probably object.

As I mentioned before, people stuck coins in between the barnacles for luck.

When they couldn't find spots in the barnacles, they just stuck the coins in breaks in the wood of the torii.

A stepping stone path which you can only use when the tide's out.

Itsukushima Shrine, when the tide's out.

And here's the Atomic Dome again, 'cause that's the only picture I have from Hiroshima.

Today's the 65th anniversary of the atom bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, if you weren't aware. This was the first year that the U.S. sent a representative to the annual memorial ceremony in Hiroshima. Small steps, I suppose.

In any case, I don't have many photos left, so my guess is that I'll only have one post left, maybe two. They'll go up...at some point. Yeah. See how good I am with schedules when I don't have to keep notifying my parents that I haven't died in a ditch somewhere?

Pictures (part five): Gion Matsuri and Kyoto tiny shrine adventure

Okay, guys, this post is going to be so long that you might have to take a bathroom break in the middle. There will also be gratuitous amounts of fangirling over tiny shrines, and by the end you will probably be staring blankly at your screen, wondering why the heck I'm so obsessed. Why AM I so obsessed anyway? Oh, wait, 'cause they're awesome.

Anyway, now that all those warnings are out of the way, here we go.

This post corresponds to this post, this post, and this post, just FYI.

This is Gion Matsuri on Friday, the street fair part of it. It was large. Very large. It shut down an entire district of Kyoto, that's how large it was.

You'll see this street again down below.

More streets...

The third stand from the end is selling fried squid, for the record.

Oh, look, a GIANT FLOAT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET!

(Please note how tall it is in relation to the buildings. Then realize that it has to be pushed along the parade route.)

Another float!

There are men who ride floats. And then there are men who play the flute. And then there are MEN WHO PLAY THE FLUTE WHILE RIDING ON FLOATS.

(Just in case it's too small for you to tell what they're doing.)

Shrine maidens selling charms in a stand right next to the float.

These things are FRIGGIN' TALL.

And another, smaller float.

Remember that street from before? This is the same one at night.

Can you spot the foreigners?

And here's the same street again.

That's a ramen burger. It kind of scares me. And by "kind of" I mean "really."

(The bun is made of ramen and the burger is made of egg.)

Okay, next day! Parade time!

This is the river that runs by my host family's house, except this is the section in Shijo. I was standing on the bridge while taking this picture.

HOLY SMOKES, THIS PLACE IS CROWDED. CAN'T. BREATHE.

Here's a float. Or what I could see of it.

Then I left.

Here's a Yakushi (a specific bodhisattva) temple I ran into while wandering around Kyoto.

The path along the river! (I wound up walking along this path all the way home at the end of the day.)

Just.

Okay.

This is awesome, you guys.

(Anyone know what kind of bird this is? I'm pretty rubbish at birds. There seemed to be a lot of them around the river, whatever they were.)

Pink Ginger Sparkling. It was tasty.

Here's a little temple I found while wandering around in Sanjo.

This was posted outside the temple.

The best translation I can come up with is "Learning is meeting your new self."

This is Heian Jingu, one of the big, important shrines in Kyoto.

A list of cursed years for men and women.

WHY AM I STILL CURSED!? I WAS CURSED LAST YEAR TOO! (Well, now I'm "after cursed" instead of "actually cursed." WHAT.)

For the record, the really bad cursed years for men and women (according to this sign; it varies from shrine to shrine) are:

Men: 25, 42, 61

Women: 19, 34, 38

Okay, here's the entrance.

And the main building of the shrine.

Some of the charms they were selling. In case you can't tell, THAT'S A LOT.

Looooooooooooooooots of fortunes.

There was a smaller hand-washing place inside of the shrine complex, even though there was a much bigger one outside the gates.

If you can't read Japanese, these are machines that apparently make commemorative medals for the shrine.

Does this seem like something we have in the U.S.?

OH YEAH.

More buildings inside the temple complex.

Ema! Lots of them!

Just in case you guys STILL haven't figured out how to use a toilet correctly, you're not supposed to sit backwards on a Western-style toilet.

Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiant torii in the middle of the road.

This was the worst upkept set of stairs I saw in Japan. I was so shocked I had to take a picture.

I bet you are finding this extremely fascinating.

Here's a street I was walking along after I left Heian Jingu.

Tiny (tiny, tiny) shrine complex!

So here's a tiny shrine. A VERY tiny shrine.

Hey, do these torii remind you of something?

(If you answered Fushimi Inari, it means that you've been paying too much attention or talking to me too much.)

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuper tiny shrine!

This is part of a placard that was up, explaining who the god of the shrine is (apparently it is called Otatsu Inari--which would explain why it looks like an Inari shrine--and is a god of music) and what you could get from praying at the shrine (improvement in the arts, lack of injury, and prosperity in business).

Guys, this is CRAZY. The shrine has a webpage.

Oh, hey, look, a political poster right next to where the head priest is supposed to work.

And just in case you don't believe in the efficacy of the shrine, here are some newspaper articles to convince you.

This is a temple...in a shopping mall.

Here's another temple in a shopping mall.

Yes, that is a torii ON A ROOF.

Only in Japan, folks. Only in Japan.

The river! People wading in it!

(And then I slept. And then I had day two of tiny shrine adventures.)

So here's a shrine for success in sports.

Yes, those are soccer balls in the honden.

Tiny hand-washing place.

And another tiny shrine.

(Note the donation box to the left.)

The main shrine of the complex.

Is this starting to feel surreal yet?

I guess this let's-prove-our-efficacy-through-articles thing must be popular at tiny shrines.

(The ema is asking to please get through a year without the asker injuring him/herself. Asker? Prayer? Patron? I don't know what noun I should use here.)

LOOK AT THOSE EMA.

THEY'RE SPORTS EMA.

These were for sale.

Note the sports charms all the way to the right.

And by "right" I mean "left."

I'll be able to tell my left from my right someday, I swear.

Here you go, Opal. It's for the first movie, unfortunately. And it was the only one I saw. But I saw it and squee'd and did a little dance and then took a picture.

(P.S. JOHNNY.)

Here's a tiny shrine!

And here's where it was located!

Yes, it was a shrine in a park.

There was a tiny temple right next to it.

YOU GUYS, I AM FANGIRLING SO HARD RIGHT NOW. SO HARD.

In any case, I only have the last week of photos left, so expect those...at some point. I have to go write a one-page essay about my experiences doing the program now.

P.S. Have I mentioned that Ludo is my hero? Ludo is my hero. And they have a song about Japan. They mispronounce "sake," but they win points for pronouncing "karaoke" correctly.

Don't misquote me
I'm not disowning my country
We'll come back one day (USA!)