My new favorite place in Japan

Hopped on an early morning bus to Shirakawa-go. I went through two camera batteries taking pictures here – this place is absolutely gorgeous, and luckily not swamped with tourists. The town still has many traditional farmhouses (gassho zukuri), which people still live in and some of which you can visit. The gassho have incredible sloped, thatched roofs. It’s a huge communal effort to replace the roof, requiring 200-300 people to build a new roof in 2 days.
I visited three gassho zukuri – they’re gigantic 5-story buildings. Originally, 40-50 people would live in the farmhouse (family + workers), but now only a few people live in each gassho. The houses had a collection of old tools for harvesting crops and raising silkworms, in addition to ceremonial and household items. I also went to the Gassho Heritage Museum, which more really a large open space with farmhouses that have be relocated from surrounding areas.
I spent the night in the Koemon gassho zukuri. As usual, the dinner had tons of little dishes – local vegetables, Hida beef (what the region is famous for), and leaf tempura.

Takayama

I took an early train to Takayama, which went through beautiful countryside and mountainous landscapes. Takayama is a very old and small town that has many traditional buildings preserved. First I went to the Jinya mae morning market and got a discount on some mochi :) I enjoyed walking through the streets and exploring the various shops selling souvenirs and local crafts and food. There were many shops selling cool wood carvings and tons of sarubobo dolls.



I went to the Takayama City Memorial Hall, where they had a variety of local crafts on display – wood carvings, pottery, etc. I really liked Takayama Jinya, a government building used during the Edo period. It was a huge building with various artifacts and documents on display in the different rooms (kitchen, rice storage house, interrogation/torture chamber, etc.) I also visited the Kusakabe and Yoshijima heritage houses. These large houses were once owned by rich families involved in money lending. I love the kitchen area with the traditional fireplace.

I spent the night at the Zenkoji Temple Inn. I only saw one monk and they weren’t having any events going on while I was there. My “room” is pretty much just an area sectioned off with a screen, right next to the main altar. Right outside my room is a stairway leading down into complete darkness, called Kaidan Meguri (“Traversing the Path of Buddha”). You walk through a circular hallway, keeping one hand on the wall, until you reach an ancient lock – the “Key to Paradise” – while in complete darkness the entire time. I was alone, so it was actually kind of scary rather than enlightening.

Tokyo!

After my last day of work, I took the shinkansen up to Tokyo. I spent one night in a ninja-themed hostel in Asakusa. It was kind of like a capsule hotel, where my bed was completely enclosed in a box.

We had our farewell reception in Shinagawa, where I met up with all the other students in my program again. It was cool to hear about all of their experiences in Japan. We spent our last night together going to bars and singing karaoke, of course. At 4am, my friend and I had the brilliant idea of going to the Tsukiji Fish Market at 5am. So after less than 1 hour of sleep, we headed over there…to find out that it was CLOSED! We justified our early morning trip with some sashimi.

After saying bye to the rest of the folks in my program (and a nap), I headed off to explore Tokyo. In Shibuya, I did some shopping at 109 and went to a neko (cat) café. Pretty much, I could just pet a bunch of cats while I drank my mango yogurt drink. The room and the cats were both so cute! But my allergies started kicking in, so 30 minutes was enough :(

In Harajuku, I just walked around, snapping pictures of some of the crazy fashion.

At night, I boarded the train and was off to spend in the night in Nagoya.

Ja mata ATR...

I'm going to miss my labmates...


Just arrived in Tokyo tonight. I've been living in the middle of nowhere for the past couple months, I'm not used to seeing so many people!

Sayonnara to Kansai

Leaving for Tokyo tomorrow already! I've definitely enjoyed my last week here though:

- Karaoke with the labmates
- Ate raw chicken at a yakitori restaurant...and survived!
- Bought a cool a hanko (signature stamp) for "Gibo"
- Went to the Miho Museum (sadly I forgot my camera this day...)
- Wandering around Kyoto and chilling by the Kamagawo River at night

And now, packing and cleaning my apartment...

Busy busy busy

Since it's nearing the end of my program, it's been pretty busy so I haven't been exploring as much as before. A couple highlights from the past few weeks...

Dinner with some people from lab at a small yakitori restaurant in Nara. I ate so many parts of the chicken I didn't think were edible, including raw liver and different types of cartilage...yum (not really).


Went to Osaka for one evening. Visited Amerikamura (America town) and did some shopping. At night I watched a fireworks show - there were lots of cool fireworks in the shape of hearts, planets, smiley faces, and even cats! Lots of girls were dressed up in kimonos.


Yesterday I spent the day in Nara - did some more shopping, wandered around the park, and watched the hungry deer. In the evening, I joined the other thousands of people in a walk around the park for the Nara Toka-e light festival. Thousands of candles are scattered throughout the park. I was also able to enter Todai-ji for free! I had been here last year, but it was really pretty to see the building at night. And the gigantic bronze Buddha is always incredible to see.

"Nara" in Hiragana characters

Girls' weekend in the Japan Alps

This weekend I went to the Japan Alps with two other girls from my program and one girl from USC. It's pretty far away, so on Friday night we first met up in Matsumoto. We didn't have any time to explore the city since we got in so late and left very early in the morning. The hostel we stayed in was very small, but cute. The owner was super nice and even drove us to and from the train station.

On Saturday morning, we hopped on a bus to Kamikochi. This area was surrounded by mountains and very beautiful. Luckily, the weather was much cooler too. The majority of the hikers were Japanese, and we saw very few foreigners here. We hiked up Mount Yakedake, which is an active volcano. The hike got pretty steep and rocky at some parts, and there were lots of ladders we had to climb. I still don't understand how all the older Japanese people do these hikes.


We didn't have time to hike all the way to the summit since we needed to catch a bus to our ryokan. The other two girls turned back early, but Ang and I decided to hike farther. Towards the end, I just left my backpack in the bushes and we ran up the path. We were able to make it to the lookout point where we got an amazing 360 view of the surrounding mountains and valley below.


We spent the night at Hirayukan Ryokan - this ryokan was huge and very fancy. Before dinner, we went to relax in the onsen, which had both indoor and outdoor baths. We went to dinner in our yukatas and enjoyed all the little dishes - shabu shabu, raw fish, etc. Then it was time for karaoke! They only had one main room with a stage, not private rooms like I've gone to before. We sang our favorite Disney songs of course, while an older, drunk Japanese man danced on the stage. It was pretty amusing...


The next morning, after a quick dip in the onsen and a hearty breakfast, we were off to hike Mount Nishihotakadake. The other two girls left early to get back to Tokyo, so again Ang continued hiking. We weren't able to make it to the summit, but we did reach a lodge where there were tons of hikers resting and camping. It was really cold and foggy up here. The food prices brought back memories of Fuji too - 700 yen for a small bowl of soup.

Unfortunately, no onsen to enjoy after this hike. Just a 7 hour journey back home...