Recap: The last of the Kyoto adventures and the S-As face my Japanese class

I would have posted this yesterday, but I was busy writing an article for The Fulbrighter and then finding out that it's getting published in the next edition, despite the fact that it includes the phrase "giant, wooden phalluses."  WHOO.

But now it is time to leap* back in time to Sunday, January 8, 2012, also known as our last full day in Kyoto.

As it turned out, my host brothers' Boy Scout troop was having a special beginning-of-the-year ceremony (with the local Girl Scout troop as well) at Shimogamo Shrine, the shrine where they normally meet, and my host mom invited me to come observe.  (Apparently she's actually involved in the troop now, which is pretty cool.)  ANYWAY, we got up early, took a train up to the shrine, and met with the rest of the troop there.  I should mention that it was approximately VERY COLD and Moto, my little host brother, was in short sleeves and shorts.  SHORTS!  He seemed perfectly fine.  I, on the other hand, was freezing to death while wearing two jackets.**  I feel so weak.

In any case, there were two Korean Boy Scouts (one boy and one girl)*** visiting, so we weren't the only outsiders to the troop.  We lined up with the troop and paraded inside the shrine, where we sat for a while and waited for the ceremony before ours to end.  The second in command of the troop (who I found out is Mr. Takabayashi's eldest son) gave a bunch of directions about what to do in the ceremony: how to pray, when to pray, what to do if you couldn't see what was going on, etc.  

After that we all filed into the honden and squished together like crazy because there seriously was not enough room.  I was squished over in a corner, so I couldn't really see much of what was going on, unfortunately.  There was the standard purification and norito and the head of the Boy Scouts and the head of the Girl Scouts both offered tamagushi and a blessing by the miko with bells.  Then the second in command priest came out to talk to the Boy Scouts and tell them that they should try their hardest this year, especially because of the earthquake and tsunami last year.  He mentioned a bunch of events that the Boy Scouts were doing with the shrine over the coming year, including a "Shinto contest" of some kind and a field trip to Ise in June, and urged them to get involved in other activities at the shrine, including a photography contest and a waka (a kind of poetry) contest, which were accepting applicants of all ages.  He also said that this year is the 1300 anniversary of the writing of the Kojiki, and then added, "But I can't really tell you to go out and read it, because it's too hard to read.  But go out and read a version of it this year!"

After that we stuck around for their opening ceremony (which mostly involved raising the Japanese flag and reciting the Boy Scout pledge and greeting the Korean Boy Scouts and giving a special prize to one of the Boy Scouts) and then headed out.

We walked over the Imperial Palace, which happens to be in the area, but, unfortunately, you can only get inside if you schedule a tour in advance, and the gardens were pretty dead, what with it being winter and all, so we decided to head toward Nijo Castle instead.

If you want to see pictures of Nijo Castle, you can head over to either my blog or Mary's blog from last time we were there.

So after that we hopped on a train and rode to Arashiyama, which is a district in the western mountains of Kyoto.  I'd been before, and you can find my previous blog posts about it here and here.

We stopped by Tenryuuji, which is a temple known for a GIGANTIC painting of a dragon on the ceiling.  And then we headed over to another one of Arashiyama's famous sites: a huge bamboo forest.

...where Miranda started randomly knocking on bamboo?

I dunno.

Miranda continues doing things!

slkhjlksarhekahre WHAT HAVE I SAID ABOUT GRAFFITI lksjlktajrkehaere

So then we wandered around a bit and found...potentially my favorite shrine in the world.

It is called 御髪神社.  Yes, the first two characters are read "mikami."****  BUT WAIT IT GETS BETTER.

As you can probably guess (if you speak Japanese), it's a shrine to a kami of hair (or, if you want to be really punny, a kami of kami).

It had the tiniest hand-washing basin ever.

Okay, looks pretty normal, right?

"I will win against DNA!!"

Here's an ema from someone who wants to pass the national examination to become a hair stylist.

"May Dad not worry about not having much hair."
and written under that
"May Dad grow lots of hair."

Here's the back of an ema from the shrine.

"May I continue to have abundant and flowing hair until I am 60."

P.S. This shrine is ALL ABOUT HAIR.

A lot of the people who donated to the shrine were actually hair salons.

Also, they had a cat which apparently was using the hand washing basin as a drinking bowl.

So then we wandered around a bunch more, picked up some omiyage for various people, snitched ate various food samples, and somehow wound up at the river as the sun was setting.

GORGEOUS.

Then we found a little shrine up in the hills by the monkey park:

They had these ema for getting married, where one person (in a relationship) would write one half and the other person would write the other half.

The request written here has absolutely nothing to do with the aliens from Toy Story.  I dunno.

(It says, "May my family and friends and everyone pass their days laughing.")

Also, I have no idea why these are paddle-shaped.

Once you'd written the two halves of your wish, you tie them together!  Ha ha, you've been enmusubi'd.*****

Soooooooooo then we headed back to Kyoto to pack up and get ready to head out the next morning.

The next day!

I had plans to meet Hidemi, my language partner while I was on CLS, in the morning, but something came up and she had to cancel at the last minute.  It was just as well, because I was feeling pretty awful and sick.  Still, we weren't going to waste our last morning in Kyoto, so we decided to hit Touji, a temple near the station.

This is what Touji is famous for--a giant pagoda. Unfortunately, this was the closest we could get to it without paying money.  Bah.

CRANE.

So then we hopped on the Shinkansen, which was exciting because there were no seats so we stood for 35 minutes.  After that we headed our separate ways, I wrote a very short blog post, and then I collapsed every which way.

Tuesday!

I had class in the afternoon, but after that I met up with Nick and Miranda and we played Bananagrams (because I totally brought my copy with me) in my dorm's community room (the only room they're allowed in in my dorm).  Nick slaughtered us.  It was not pretty.

After that we all went to my Tuesday Japanese class, where the S-As were IMMEDIATELY ACCOSTED BY SO MANY EXCITED GIRLS.  And also Tuesday sensei.  And we discovered that Tuesday sensei speaks English.  CRAZY.
Also, one of the girls in my class randomly turned to me and said, "Yep, he's a bijin (美人; beautiful person), as I expected" and I started laughing hysterically and Nick had no idea what was going on.  Oh dear.
Oh, and then there was a moment of EXTREME EXCITEMENT when the Chinese-speakers discovered that Nick can speak Chinese.
Basically, it was a normal Japanese class with Tuesday sensei.

Afterwards, O-san asked me how long we had been dating.
Me: Seventeen [her eyes got really wide at this point] months.
O-san: Oh!  I thought you were going to say seventeen years.
Me: No, seventeen MONTHS!
O-san: You would have had to start dating at three or something!
Me: SEVENTEEN MONTHS.

And then after that one of my classmates remarked on how super duper rabu rabu we were****** and O-san said, "Well, they HAVE been dating for seventeen years."

Oh, and then we found out that Kocchan speaks English too.

It was an exciting day.

So, yeah, that was our Tuesday!

*Oh no, I've been in Japan too long.  PUNS ARE STARTING TO BE FUNNY.  QUICK, SOMEONE SAVE ME.

**It probably didn't help that the water at the shrine's hand washing place was FREEZING.

***In Japan, the Boy Scouts are unisex whereas the Girl Scouts are for girls only.

****In Japanese, the honorific used for many kami is 御神 (mikami), which is the combination of an honorific (御) and the character for kami (神). 御髪 (also read "mikami"), on the other hand, is the combination of an honorific (御) and the character for "hair" (髪, read "kami").

*****Enmusubi (縁結び) means "marriage" but its literal meaning is "knot of fate."  Ahahahaha, puns.

******WHAT HAVE I SAID ABOUT THAT WORD.

Recap: Nara and Saturday adventures

First off, I would like to announce that I AM DONE WITH GRADUATE SCHOOL APPLICATIONS.  WHOO.  Results won't start coming in until late February at the earliest, so I've still got a while to wait, but I can wait IN AN APPLICATION-FREE WORLD.  Man, it is beautiful.

Also, super intense thanks go to Fish (that's her nickname, for anyone who doesn't know her) and Nick for reading things at the last minute (and for generally being beautiful human beings) and Mary for reading things until she concussed herself.  She claims her concussion wasn't related to my writing, but WE ALL KNOW THE TRUTH.  Also, I have promised to make Fish a cake if I get into Harvard, and now that it is written on the internet, IT IS A BINDING PROMISE.

Anyway, it's time for our daily dose of TIME TRAVEL.

Let's go back to Friday, January 6, 2012, also known as the day we decided to go to Nara.  I'd been to Nara before (and you can read about it here and here), but it was really cool to see it again.

If you don't know about Nara, it was the capital of Japan from 710 to 794, at which point there were some Serious Problems (read: Buddhism was taking over everything) and they relocated the capital to Kyoto.

Needless to say, Nara is chock full of HISTORY and IMPORTANT CULTURAL ARTIFACTS and

...DEER.  The deer are believed to be messengers of the kami of Kasuga Taisha, which means that they are sacred, which means that you're not allowed to harm them.*

This means that the deer aren't scared of humans.  Humans, on the other hand, should be utterly terrified of deer.  Nara deer are VICIOUS and will EAT YOUR ARMS and STOMP ON BABIES.  (Okay, maybe the arm eating part is a bit of an exaggeration, but everything else is true.)

Our first stop of the day was Koufukuji, which has a gigantic pagoda.

Although we didn't go inside the actual temple (didn't want to pay the entrance fee), we did wander over to the octogonal side-building in the other direction.

After that we decided to head further into the park** toward Toudaiji.

On the way we stopped at this little shrine, which was dedicated to an ice kami.

...thus the giant block of ice which people could stick coins to.

There were a surprising number of anime ema there.

This one says, "May this year's summer be cool."

...I have no idea what this one is about.  Does anyone have any ideas?  NEET means No Employment, Education, Training, but I'm pretty sure that's not what they were talking about...

WHOO!

IT'S A DEER EVERYBODY DOWN

"May Kirin Beer become No 1."

Here's the box they had for depositing old ofuda and omamori.

So then we headed over to Toudaji.  But on the way we got enticed into a building that was built using an earthquake negating technology, so that it barely moves at all.  They had a simulator comparing the Kobe earthquake with and without the earthquake negating technology (Nick and Miranda tried it) and also really good free tea.  Also, the guy at the reception desk was kind of thrilled out of his mind that I could speak Japanese.  It was exciting.

And then we went to Toudaiji for real.

Toudaiji is a temple which has the distinction of being the largest wooden building in the world.***

Also, this deer was totally harassing that poor guy.

Here are the guardians at the gate.  Their abdominal muscles kind of make me cross-eyed.

Tiny shrine in the middle of a lake!

There's a really long approach to the temple; you have to go through two or three gates before you actually get there.

And this is it, the largest wooden building in the world!

Keep in mind that it used to be even bigger, but then it burned down, as wooden buildings are wont to do.

There is a HUGE Buddha statue inside.

To give you a sense of scale, this is a replica of one of the lotus pedals the Buddha is sitting on.

Did I mention that this is the largest wooden building in the world?

Of course, the Buddha is flanked by some bodhisattvas, who, while not quite as huge, are still pretty big.

And there are some temple guardians.

This is a replica of the ORIGINAL Toudaiji (before it burned down).  Somewhat difficult to tell the size from this angle, but it was BIG.

Here's another guardian.

This is a pillar with a hole in it called "the Buddha's nostril."  The hole is supposed to be as large as the nostril of the large Buddha statue, and being able to crawl through it is supposed to give you really good luck.

I didn't get to do it last time I visited, so Nick and Miranda URGED (and by that I mean FORCED) me to do it this time.

It should be noted that just about everyone else going through was under the age of 10.

[insert some excessively awkward pictures of me trying to fit my hips through a tiny hole]

I made it, though!

Then Nick decided to try it, because if I can do it, he can too, right????

[insert some pictures that I will be keeping solely for blackmail purposes]

He didn't fit.

Oh, hey, it's Kannon!

This is a (super duper) famous statue outside the temple.  Supposedly rubbing it will cure you of ailments?

The grounds were kind of dead (what with it being winter and all).

So after that we headed toward a Hachiman shrine in the park, but first we made a detour to some of Toudaiji's subordinate temples.

BELL.

So as it turns out, the deer in Nara will bow to you if you bow to them.

...this deer got bored with bowing at Miranda when she didn't feed her.

STEPS.

Here's one of Toudaiji's subordinate temples.

This was a spinning stone wheel thing that supposedly gives you good luck.

Miranda had way too much fun with it.

STAIRS.

Pretty cool hand-washing station.

This edition of views from high places continues!

D'aww, the deer are visiting the tiny shrine!

Have I mentioned that Miranda took great satisfaction from ringing ALL THE BELLS?

Also, we were joking that I should rename my blog "Miranda Doing Things."

Tiny shrine!

Bells are FUN.  I mean, serious work.  Definitely serious work.  NOT FUN.

This was at the Hachiman shrine.  If you have really good eyes, you'll notice that the lantern coverings have two pigeons forming the character 八.  That's because Hachiman's messenger/familiar is a pigeon, and 八 is the first character in 八幡 (Hachiman).

Oh, ENGRISH.

Sometimes deer want to buy things from stores too.

Suddenly, French?

NO, OLD GUY, RUN, RUN BEFORE THE DEER GET YOU.

Here's a cool little stream we crossed over on our way to Kasuga Taisha, the main shrine in the area.

So this is a tree...growing inside a tree.  It is known as "the hugging tree" or something like that?  I forgot to take a picture of the sign, so I don't remember the actual name.  I am a failure, I know.

Sometimes it is nice to be short.  You don't have to worry about banging your head on beams.

So here's Kasuga Taisha!  It was a lot less dead when I was last there.

Here's their omamori and ofuda return box.

...and that's all my pictures.  The inside bit of the shrine was sort of semi-under construction, so we didn't get to go in.  Bummer.

SUDDENLY, PICTURES OF TREES.

Stone lanterns!  Kasuga Taisha (and the approach to it) has a lot of these.

So then we went to a little shrine in the area

where we found SO MANY love ema.

SO MANY.

I don't know about you, but I definitely want to exist in love x 100.

("May we be able to exist forever with good relations and in love x 100.")

SO MANY EMA.

No, seriously, so many.

This was a side shrine devoted to problems with breasts, uteruses (uteri?)****, and ovaries.  Most of the ema were written by women who had breast or ovarian cancer.

And, yes, the ema have breasts on them.

Anyway, after that we wandered around in the woods a bit and then headed back to Kyoto.

The next day!

We decided to head over to Fushimi Inari in the morning.  I didn't take many pictures, but you can check out my pictures from last time or, better yet, you can check out Mary's post from last time.

I did manage to put my business card up this time!

(A gold star to anyone who can identify which one is mine.)

I love the view from Fushimi Inari, and YOU CAN'T STOP ME FROM LOVING IT.

So then we were supposed to meet up with Steven and Michele,***** so we headed over to Yasaka Shrine.

Yasaka is a BIG shrine.

I last visited about 2 1/2 years ago, so it was really cool to see it again now that I have some idea what's going on.

It was also CROWDED, 'cause it was the first weekend of the New Year.

So we met up with Steven and Michele and wound up wandering around the Higashiyama district for a while, until we happened upon this:

Oooh, looks like it might be a temple!

Definitely looks like a temple.

So we wandered in...only to discover that it was a mausoleum.  Heh.  Oops.

After that we grabbed dinner at a pretty good Indian restaurant in Shijo, which had HUGE naan.  So tasty.
It was also pretty cool hanging out with other Fulbrighters. I'm SO EXCITED for our mid-year conference in March.  SO EXCITED.

And then, since Team Dana was pretty pooped, we headed back toward the hostel to crash.

And thus ended the 7th.

And now I am only 10 days behind in blogs.  WHOO.

*Although this one time about two years ago this ramen place suddenly started selling venison ramen...and it turned out that the owner and his wife were hunting the Nara deer.  That didn't go over so well.

**Most of the major attractions in Nara are located in a single park.  It makes sight-seeing very convenient.

***Also, whenever anyone says "Toudaiji" I immediately think of Dai Mahou Touge.  Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

****Dictionary says either is fine, but spell check only accepts uteri.

*****If you want to see Steven's side of events, he has a blog post about it over here!  Also, I generally recommend reading his blog.  He's definitely a better writer than me.