Monday, March 23, 2009

Pictures from Kansai GaiDai

This is "basashi", or raw horse sushi.
I am standing in the middle wearing the grey sweater and khaki pants. This is the Kamo River in Kyoto, and at intervals there are rocks like these which you can cross the river on. A lot of children were running across when we were there.
A group of Kansai GaiDai graduates.
Megumi, myself and Yui at the graduation.
The campus of Kansai GaiDai
The two girls who wanted to have their picture taken with foreigners.



A Japanese Graduation and More Raw Horse

This past Saturday, the 21st, I went to the graduation ceremony for my friend Yui with Adam and Kevin, my roommate and Yui’s boyfriend. Yui majored in Spanish at Kansai Foreign Language University, or Kansai GaiDai in the Japanese. Although my friends and I could not sit in on the ceremony (neither could the parents of the graduates), I was able to see Yui afterwards wearing a very expensive kimono.

The trip to Kansai GaiDai from Hikone took over an hour and three different train lines. Once we got out of Shiga Prefecture and into Kyoto Prefecture the trains and the stations uniformly improved. The difference in affluence is striking, and several of our friends who are not natives of Shiga Prefecture bring up the disparity when I gripe about Shiga. However, the suburban sprawl extends all the way between Kyoto and Osaka to for a colossal urban area whereas Shiga has plenty of nature. Kansai GaiDai is located south of Kyoto, and we went to the Nakamiya campus, which is in the city of Hirakata.

I arrived with Kevin and Adam a little after noon, and the bus and train station were crowded with young ladies in kimonos. The campus was full of students, and unlike my graduation in America, there was a distinct lack of families. The kimono were strikingly unique and after spending the week in drab Hikone seeing all the bright clothing was a real treat. About five minutes onto the campus a pair of girls approached our trio and asked to take a photograph with us. I think I speak for Kevin and Adam when I say the two girls totally won us over to Kansai GaiDai.

After walking around and texting, Kevin found Yui along with her cousin, Megumi, and a few others of their classmates. Once we had taken droves of pictures, Yui pushed us off on the free food offered in one of the cafeterias so that we would not meet Yui’s mother. At first, the food looked picked over, but with the help of Megumi, we located food at the back of the cafeteria and staked out a place near some tempura (fried) chicken and shrimp, along with assorted deserts.

Afterwards we left the girls to change into less constricting clothing while we grabbed a train to Kyoto. The weather on Saturday was clear and warm, and with a few beers in hand, we trekked along the riverbanks of the Kamo River until Megumi and then Yui showed up. For dinner we at an izakaya, a restaurant where everyone at the table shares appetizer-sized plates assorted Asian and Western food. I had raw horse sushi again, and I maintain that raw horse is the best tasting red meat ever.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Spring Pictures

A Korean depiction of the Buddha from the 11th century; considered to be the image which originated every modern image of the Buddha.
The collector, Morimoto-san.
Me holding an ancient shamanistic talisman from Pre-Han China.
Easily over thousands of years old.
Early Pre-Han animistic idols.
A decorative sword with early Chinese letters on the blade. This piece is an example of the origins of the characters used in Chinese and Japanese.
A tomb ornament with an example of the origins of Chinese characters, kanji, on the head.
A Tibetan thangka, a painted or embroidered Buddhist banner which was hung in a monastery or a family altar and occasionally carried by monks in ceremonial processions. This thangka is the largest outside of Tibet.
Another 11th century Korean depiction of the Buddha.
An old picture of me from the summer;
portraying the landing part of the Admiral Perry expedition to Japan.
A canal in Kyoto on a street that I enjoy walking on.
A view of Kyoto from the eastern hills, with the Kiyomizu Temple on the right.
A mobile phone charging machine on the grounds of the Kiyomizu Temple,
a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Plum blossoms blooming at the Kiyomizu Temple.
A view of the street leading up to Kiyomizu Temple on the eastern hills of Kyoto.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

A Day of Hiking Up a Hill and Listening to Celtic Music

This past Saturday, I visited the Kiyomizu temple on the eastern mountains of Kyoto. I have actually seen the temple in a few movies about Japan, so I was looking forward to going. A few of my Japanese friends, and my sensei, were surprised that I had not seen Kiyomizu temple yet; the temple is widely popular. Once I arrived at the base of the hill and began the slow walk up the ever-thinning streets towards the temple the crowd became noticeably denser. The street leading to the temple was full of colorful tourist shops selling stereotypical Japanese wares and other assorted junk. Adam came across a rug with a motorcycle, an eagle, and a Confederate flag as the design. One store was selling a mask of Obama and a statue of Colonel Sanders with the title ‘Uncle Sam’ on the base.

The Kiyomizu temple is a complex of buildings with the showpiece being a temple on stilts on the side of the hill with a promenade offering a view of Kyoto. On a clearer day, Osaka is visible to the south. The multitude of people moving around, and taking pictures, was astounding. There is an old tradition that if a person jumped off the promenade, a thirteen-meter fall, and lived, their wish would come true. Apparently, over eighty-five percent of the jumpers survived, and today the practice is prohibited.

After leaving Kiyomizu temple, we ended up walking north our current favorite bar, the Gnome. The bartender remembers us, and usually tells us when the weather in Shiga prefecture will be like when we are leaving. On Saturday, the Gnome had a band start playing right after we arrived. The Gnome is usually nearly vacant when we arrive, and having the bar to ourselves is certainly part of the draw for us. However, on Saturday the place was almost full for the concert. ‘Shanachie’ is a quartet of Japanese women playing the fiddle, harp, among an assortment of percussion instruments and a melodica thrown for good measure, accomplice by a singing in Japanese, English and Gaelic. I ended up buying a CD, and the band was happy that some foreigners had been at the gig; although I think at first, the band thought we were Europeans.