Giant update dump of DOOM

Okay, let's try to go for a real update this time.

First off, in case you thought I was kidding about Dutch licorice, the internet has once again proven me right.  I especially like the Japanese guy's reaction.

Anyway, dang, so much to write about.  This is going to be kind of brief because I have a lot of catch up on, and I've already visited basically everywhere in this post a bunch of times, so you can go back to previous posts to find pictures.

Let's see...

So last week on Wednesday I went with Kim and Louki to Ise, because they wanted to see Ise and I am always okay with visiting Ise.  It was pretty exciting, but since it was my fourth time at Ise I will not really write much here.
...also, Kim and Louki got a bunch of my friends from the dorm to make a little book for me with pictures (INCLUDING A PICTURE HALI DREW OF ALL OF US AS OUR RESPECTIVE PONIES IT IS NOW CANON) and little letters and I might have cried a little but you can't prove it and Kim definitely doesn't have photographic evidence shhhhh.  It was basically one of the nicest things anyone has ever done from me and oh my gosh yes.  I will treasure it forever.

On Thursday morning I helped out at the tsukinamisai at Susanoo Shrine, at which there was much excitement that I shall not write about but it involved someone nearly passing out, and then afterwards I got FREE LUNCH and also got to listen to a long and complicated discussion about the shrine's finances and their relationship with a couple of important neighborhood organizations.  Basically, it was good stuff all around.
Thursday evening I went to pick up my dad from the airport, and managed to get him food without killing him* and got him to his hotel.

On Friday morning I met up with my dad, showed him around some sites near my dorm, like Koushouji and Gosha Shrine and the super awesome bakery in the Valor.  I also filled out some paperwork so that he could come up into my room and look around, and I am sure he will tell you how COMPLETELY SPOTLESS and NOT DISORGANIZED my room is.  Right, Dad?  Anyway, he also got to meet Louki and Grace, which was cool.
...aaaaand then I had to run away to class.
But after class we met up with Itou-san, who came by in her car to pick us up!  We were going to go to Nagoya Castle, but the traffic was really bad, so we wound up getting there right before they closed.  We decided to save the castle for another day, and we walked around Meijo Park and the castle moat instead.  I would just like to note that the koi in the castle moat are INCREDIBLY CREEPY and I am pretty sure I am going to have nightmares about their creepy mouths.
ANYWAY, after that we drove past the City Archives, which are housed in this building that looks like it belongs on the Harvard campus. Not even kidding.
And then we went to Kawahara Shrine to see adorable baby turtles and definitely not to show my dad the shrine or anything.
And then we went to dinner at a really good Chinese restaurant, and Itou-san made endless fun of my dad for eating less than me.  And then Itou-san totally stole the check and SOMEDAY I WILL WIN AND PAY FOR A MEAL.  I am planning.  PLANNING, I SAY.
Anyway, it was all around a very nice day!

Saturday, Dad and I went to Inuyama to see the castle and the other stuff in Inuyama.  The castle was much warmer than it was when I went with Nick, but the stairs were still as terrifying.  We also went to this cool little puppet museum that is just outside of the castle grounds.  And then I introduced my dad to soft cream (it's like the much better version of American soft serve), which may have been a mistake because he might be mildly addicted to it now oops.  Anyway, after that we went to the temples on the mountain, and met this Buddhist priest who showed us around a tiny recreation of the Shikoku pilgrimage.  The Shikoku pilgrimage is a route of 88 temples located around the entire island of Shikoku, which takes approximately a month to complete on foot.  There are hundreds of recreations of the pilgrimage, usually which employ sand or dirt from each site and some sort of sacred object from each site.  This particular recreation had little pots of sand below the floor and a scroll from each temple.  Anyway, I got a pretty long explanation from the priest, because he was pretty excited that I understood what he was talking about.  So that was cool.
After that we were going to go over and check out the Monkey Park, except it turned out to be an amusement park?  A really expensive amusement park?  I dunno.  So instead we headed back to Nagoya, bummed around Osu Kannon and bought AMAZING MEAT BUNS, and then went over to Kanayama to grab curry for dinner.
So that was Saturday!

Sunday, Dad came to my dorm to drop off his bags for the day, and then we went to Nagoya Castle and actually managed to get inside this time.  We also visited the Tokugawa Art Museum later that day, which had a big collection of popular books from the 18th century, including, weirdly enough, a bunch of guides to the red light district.  I don't even know.  There was also a new exhibit on the possessions of the merchant class, which was pretty cool, although I don't know why I would want a tea bowl that cost that much if I were a merchant.
Then we went to the Tokugawa Gardens, which were significantly greener than they were last time I visited, but also had fewer flowers, weirdly enough.
We grabbed dinner at Pastel, aka that weird restaurant that only sells cake and pasta, and then I took my dad to Nagoya Station and said bye.
Upon returning to the dormitory, I discovered that Abbie had spent the entire semester saving one yen coins so she could go to the Lawson (convenience store) and buy a teriyaki burger using only one yen coins (one hundred five of them, to be exact).  It was potentially the most epic and trollish thing to ever occur in a convenience store.  The cashier at our register managed to get through the entire thing with a perfectly straight face, although the other cashier looked like he was going to die from holding in his laughter.  He was turning bright red, not even kidding.
ALSO, Ashley bought cell phone charms for all the pony girls and THEY ARE THE COLORS OF OUR PONIES AND WHY IS THIS SO GREAT.  Anyway, I have a tiny bell with a ribbon hanging from my cell phone now, and it is in Twilight Sparkle's colors and it is great.

Monday morning I woke up at an ungodly early hour to say goodbye to Meredith and Hali and Ashley, all of whom were leaving for the airport.  Then I saw an annullar eclipse, or, really, I tried to take pictures of it, failed, and then spotted the people across the street who actually had sun filters, and asked them politely if I could share.  Thank you, nice people across the street!  Anyway, it was amazing cool and I will be incredibly disappointed if I don't develop super powers.  And then after that I collapsed into bed and slept for a while, because I was running on four hours of sleep.

Tuesday was Kim and Louki's last day in the dorm, and due to a long and complicated blood pact, Kim had to watch an episode of Sherlock with me, so we (Abbie and Kim and Louki and I) did that.  And apparently I spent the entire episode grinning like an idiot, but, HEY, IT'S SHERLOCK AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME.
Then we went to Mountain, which is a sort of infamous restaurant by the dorm.  It is infamous because A. it has the largest serving sizes you have ever seen and B. it has the weirdest pasta you have ever seen, like green tea and red bean.  Yeah.  But I got a parfait so all was well!  Although my chocolate parfait had a prune in it, which was...odd.
And then we had a Roommate Dinner, which turned out to be more like a Roommate Plus a Whole Other Chunk of the Dorm Dinner, which was fine, because it meant that we got to hear about why not to be a politician in India and how the Netherlands doesn't have a government right now and other exciting things.

Today I woke up at an ungodly early hour to take Kim and Louki to Nagoya Station with Dheeraj and Grace, which was exciting even though all of us were sort of falling asleep.  (Okay, Grace was literally falling asleep.)  Once we saw them off, we fought through the sea of people who decided to ride the subway at rush hour (IT WAS AWFUL I THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE AUGH) and somehow managed to get back to the dorm without being crushed to death.
Also, I apologize if this post is more incoherent than usual 'cause I think I'm running on roughly three or four hours of sleep.  I'm coming down with something, which means that it feels like someone's been sandpapering my throat, so I kept waking up in the middle of the night and thus got lousy sleep.  Ugh.
Anyway, yeah, that's what I've been up to, basically.  I'm gonna go collapse and drink some more tea now.  Oh, and eat more of these crazy plum cough drops, which are the greatest thing I have ever found.

*My dad is allergic to shellfish, which is...problematic, if you live in a port town like Nagoya.

Recap: Higashiyama Park and Nagoya Castle

FRIENDS (and random dudes/dudettes in Russia and Latvia who are reading my blog for some reason), LET US TRAVEL INTO THE MISTS OF THE PAST TO A LAND KNOWN ONLY AS

(ominous pause)

MONDAY, JANUARY 2, 2012.

(deedle deedle deedle deedle)

ANYWAY.

We decided to go to 東山動植物公園, known in English as Higashiyama Zoo and Botanical Gardens OR Higashiyama Park.

Where there were rhinoceroses.

And deer.

And this crane (?) which was pretty convinced it was a penguin.

And these real penguins.

And this dude feeding penguins.  (And an adorable baby penguin who followed him everywhere.)

And a giant ferris wheel, because apparently it's an amusement park as well as a zoo and botanical garden?

Oh, and there's also a sky tower.

This is now the Pictures from High Places Blog.

Also wallabies.  Although this is actually a picture of the kangaroos.

Also, they had a bunch of wolves which they had separated into two cages because the girls were in heat.  Needless to say, neither party was particularly happy.

Also, there were other animals but I didn't take pictures of them because sometimes I forget to take pictures, and also it was so cold that my fingers were going numb.  Miranda and Nick took pictures though, so you guys should all pester them for pictures.

As it turned out, it is COLD in winter, and also the dry season, which means that (unlike in California) everything is super dead.  That meant the botanical garden was not all that exciting.

Except for the greenhouses.

These plants kinda freak me out.  SOMETIMES THEY EAT BIRDS.

"Even if you throw coins in [the pond], your love will not be realized."

This is a TALL CACTUS.  Some might even say it is taller than Nick.  And that's pretty tall.

"Even if you throw coins in [the pond], your wish won't come true."

Think they were having problems with people throwing their coins in the pond?

CACTI.

So in Japan you sort your garbage into "burnable garbage" and "not burnable garbage," but apparently they have a different garbage sorting system here...

HUGE tree.

So after that, we stopped by this little temple that's between the park and my place.

It also has a giant Buddha statue out back, 'cause why not?

NEXT DAY!

We decided to go over to Nagoya Castle.

Where New Year's offerings and an offering box had been placed before the fish-dolphin-killer-whale, and people were praying to it.

Also, there was a random stone hut in the back.

Proof that it is impossible to take a picture of me without my making some sort of bizarre face.

(This was in the museum in the castle, which, by the way, is pretty cool.  They had a little palanquin model that you could sit in and discover THE MAJESTY OF EDO-ERA TRAVEL.  There was even a little video screen in the side of the palanquin so you could watch the street go by outside...)

More views from the top of things!

I like high places, if this wasn't already obvious.

So apparently a bunch of deer wandered into Nagoya Castle's moat and were just chilling there?

So I keep seeing these things everywhere, and I THINK they're trees that have been wrapped up in straw mats for some reason.  But I dunno.

And here's a random garden on the Nagoya Castle grounds.

WHOOOOO.

Next post will be ISE and KYOTO.

Okaygottarunbye.

In which Geoff is convinced that I naturally gravitate toward super sketchy things and we visit an awesome castle

I have been in Japan for more than two months now, conducting fieldwork at shrines and talking with priests, and yet absolutely no one has tried to convert me to anything yet.

Until yesterday.

When I met my first Japanese Jehovah's Witness.

This random woman came up to me on the street as I was walking to Gosha Shrine, asked me if I could read Japanese, and then thrust two pamphlets into my hands.

They are entitled "Isn't believing in creation rational?" and "What stance does the Bible take concerning sex?"

So, uh, yeah.  That was exciting.

So then I had penmanship class, where Nakano-san decided that my writing my name in katakana next to my finished pieces just looked awkward, which meant that it was time for me to pick a PENNAME.  And since I didn't have an exceptionally good ideas for a penname, she picked one for me.

Ahahahahahahaha.

For those of you who can't read kanji, the first one means "blue" and the second one means "brilliant, gorgeous" or "flower."

Her explanation was, "You wear blue a lot, and you're young so you're bright like a flower!"  Better than anything I could come up with.

Also, her handwriting is SO GORGEOUS, I don't even know.  I am overwhelmingly jealous.

Anyway, this is what I spent the whole lesson working on:

I HOPE YOU ARE IMPRESSED BECAUSE IT TOOK ME TWO HOURS TO GET IT LOOKING THAT GOOD.

Anyway, afterward we had an English conversation lunch, which turned out to be more like a Japanglish conversation lunch, because most of the women didn't know enough English to get by on English only.  But it was still fun!  And SO DELICIOUS.  OM NOM NOM NOM.

Also, I sat in seiza* for more than 3 1/2 hours. I think I should win an award.  Afterwards, I was OUTRAGEOUSLY aware of my knees, though. It was kind of creepy.

Anyway, that evening Geoff came in to Nagoya, so I met him at the station, got him to his hotel, and then we decided to go for a walk.  As these things normally go, we wound up walking really, really far, which is to say to Sakae, where I showed him the time-machine-spaceship-dinosaur-topiary-garden-shopping-mall-concert-hall that is Oasis 21, and then we somehow wound up in the sex district, with random sketchy people all around trying to sell us naked girls.  It was...exciting?  It has made Geoff believe that I am completely incapable of leaving the house without somehow stumbling into terrible mischief, which is probably not a good thing but maybe also somewhat accurate.
Note: I don't normally wind up in the sex district at night. In fact, I cannot say I had ever done it before last night.**  It's not something I'm planning on doing again either, since I like my sidewalk with a little less vomit on it.
Anyway, we escaped in one piece with no naked girls and only minimal mental scarring.

So today I met up with Geoff after lunch in Osu Kannon (which is near his hotel), where he had discovered...

...a kofun.

If you don't know what a kofun is, it's an ancient Japanese burial mound.  And there was one in a random park in Osu Kannon.
AWESOME.
(Obviously, time has worn a lot of it away, and unless you know what you're looking at or read the sign, you'll probably just think it's a weirdly shaped hill.)

We also saw a Freshness Burger, which Geoff tells me is actually a pretty decent place to eat.

And also this kind of creepy drawing on a building which reminded both of us of Maromi.

The leaves have finally started changing colors!  FINALLY.

So then we hopped on the subway and rode to Meijo Park.

Where there is a spiral mound thing.

And a windmill.

And a sundial.

And Nagoya Castle.

Nagoya Castle has a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge moat.

We decided to go inside, because, hey, it's a CASTLE.

Here's one of the famous "golden dolphins" from the roof of the castle.  It's called a golden dolphin in English, but in Japanese it's called a "golden killer whale."  It doesn't look like either a dolphin or a killer whale, to be honest.

LOOK AT THOSE WALLS.

And just in case you felt like storming the castle and climbing the walls, there was a lovely line of 30 cm long spear blades to impale you...

Did I mention that it's a mortarless castle?  YEAH.

Anyway, we had fun figuring out what the best way to siege the castle would be (answer: there is no best way; you're screwed no matter how you attack) and then climbed to the top of the castle to check out of the view.

THE VIEW.

MORE VIEW.

EVEN MORE VIEW.

And then the castle was closing so we headed out.

Super tiny dolphin-killer-whale-dragon-lion-fishies!

By the time we left the grounds it had already gotten dark.

Which meant that my camera had gotten super pathetic.

So then we went and got dinner and then I headed back here and now I am TIRED.  GOOD NIGHT.

By the way, if any of you want know what Alex was in Nagoya for (aside from eating turkey and pwning me at taiko), he has a blog post up.  And I am definitely not subtly pressuring him to update more frequently.  Because that would be underhanded and also sneaky.

*Formal sitting position, where you sit on your heels.  Being able to sit in seiza for 30 minutes is considered impressive for a gaijin.  A lot of my classmates in the States could only manage it for about 10-15 minutes.

**I didn't even know that that's where the sex district was!  But now I know.  Oh dear.