Saturday, May 17, 2014

All-A-Dollar, Japanese Style

So I'd been told, weeks before I got out here, that there were places like All-a-Dollar, called Daiso, or Hyaku-en Shops. For the first few weeks I would search google maps to see if I could find some close ones.  But the whole you're-in-japan-so-type-japanese issue popped up, and with my limited skills I could only find one that was....quite far.

Anywho I decided to give it another whack today.  Google mapped again, and this time, long story short, I found 2 by sheer dumb luck. I've been out here long enough now that I'm not a mess of anxiety every time I venture somewhere new.  My Kyoto trip pretty much killed that obstacle.  :-)        I also discovered a subway station a block away from Daiso.  So if I don't want to use the bus to get to Akaike, I can bike to Tokushige station.

Biking around isn't as scary anymore either.  A big reason is that I'm getting used to the opposite direction the cars drive over here, and it's very quiet so you can hear cars coming your way.  My area is a beautiful place to bike around. I will take photos next time and I'll do a little post on Japanese Suburbia. I really just need to carry my camera around all the time. Some of the English phrases you see around town or in stores makes me laugh my head off. 


The dollar stores here are sooooooo much better than the ones in America.  By....a lot.  I'm tempted to buy a bunch of dishware there.  It's all so pretty, and really nicely made!  They had so much stuff, and for the most part it was all really nice. They didn't sell clothes like shirts, coats & pants.  They sold socks and stuff. I had an agenda there, so I tried not to be reckless. But I did end up spending like $5 on stuff I'm mailing to nieces & nephews.

Oh, and I've realized that if I notice something made with green tea, and I haven't tried it, I end up buying it.  I LOVE green tea.  I liked it before I moved out here, but now I lurv it ha ha.  My favorite treat out here  are Green Tea flavored Kit Kats. Soooooo good.  Honestly everything green tea flavored has been delicious.  At Daiso I found some green tea oreos, so I tried those out.  Good, but the kit kats are better.

 Oh, the fries are from....a long story.  They ended up with me. They are like chips but in fry  form.  Not oily at all.  It's strange only because I'm used to hot fries from a drive through window.  I was told these are healthier than America chips.

The section that has things like chips (chips that few Americans have ever seen. I'm not into trying them) also has....what do they call them....ok well they are dried, "fish chips".  Imagine a little silver fish half the size of your pinky, dried, and stuffed into a little bag with 50 others.  That adventurous side of me thought about trying some, but honestly, I have limits ha ha.  I'll stick with the octopus.

My agenda at the store was to find 3 things.  Shower curtain, drain bucket, and acrylic paint. I found all of them!  I have been taking baths in a half-size tub for 2 months, so trust me I am THRILLED to get to stand up now!  And my artsy side was itching for more than just crayons to illustrate some stuff out here.

I also bought a few things that had me going, "What the crap is this?"
"Zukan Children" Magnet Collection Gum.  It gets weirder.


I laughed so hard when I opened this. WTF?



And the last surprise I got was after I paid.  They gave me a plastic bag.  I was not expecting this, because (unless it's a small little convenience store) you have to bring your own bags when you go shopping.  So this was a shock!

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Still reading Bill Bryson

Ok I will first reaffirm that for a person who gets bored with science, I love this book....of science.  But CH 13 was chilling.  It thoroughly freaked me out.  As in, I still have the shivers.  Asteroids are scary scary things. And statistics only make them scarier.  But I'm finished with the chapter, so no more being freaked out right?  On to CH 14: The Fire Below.


.....Book, please let me sleep tonight.

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Traditional Summer-wear: Yukatas

I took some photos of some of the outfits people wear on a daily basis in Japan.  You see people wear these kinds of things in Kyoto, Nagoya...everywhere.












Here are a few shots of other outfits.  She seems like a cosplayer or "baby doll" type dress up.

And then I kid you not, I see school outfits everyday, EVERYWHERE.  Nagoya too.  ALL THE TIME.  





Kyoto: Day 3

 I've had a funny thought that kept popping in my head over my whole vacation.  It was me saying to Sarah, "You want Japanese?  Well you GOT IT." When I first moved here, Sarah was bummed because she thought that the area I lived in wouldn't look so "normal".



So....day 3.  By now my feet have begun to need more than a night's rest in order to fully recover from all that walking.  But I can't wait for them to feel their fittest, so off I go. My plan, which I know I'll wander in and out of, is to check out the Gion and Higashiyama districts. I knew I'd be pooped at this point in my trip, so I saved those two sights for day 3 because they're incredibly close.  I'd had other places I'd wanted to see, but I'd forgotten where to find them, or I figured they'd be too faraway.

My hotel is right across the street from a small shrine called Togenji.  This size of shrine is common anywhere in Kyoto.  Even on that Teramachi street, full of stalls, there would be random stalls that turned out to be shrines.

Here's the view south on the street of my hotel.

The Kamo River AKA Kamogawa.  Crossed this everyday to get to the Higashi Mountains AKA Higashiyama

Looking down every street was fun.

Some of my favorite places to peek my head in were the entrances to restaurants.  The nice ones had beautiful stairways or pathways leading away from the streets where you could eat in peace.

This is a close up of the restaurant entrance above.

Gion!  Gion is actually pretty dead during the day. And this is gonna suck to say, but I was always too exhausted to go there at 9-10, when everything opens up.  Here's the low-down on Gion.  It's a BEAUTIFUL part of Kyoto.  It's very quiet, and I loved walking through it.  But if you want to see Geisha, there are 2 ways to do it.  And only one of them is the right way.  Wait til night, and then go to one of the tea-houses that geisha are known for entertaining at, and then make a reservation.  But even that is hard to do.  Apart from a few foreign friendly tea houses, you have to have connections to be entertained by geisha.
The other way to see geisha is the crappy way.  You wait outside their humble abodes until they are ready to leave for whichever tea houses they planned on entertaining at that night.  As I was walking back to my hotel one night, through Gion, it was embarrassing to see the crowds of tourists waiting outside those doorways.  I don't know if this makes me sound snooty.  But I figure that there is a huge difference between a geisha, and a guy dressed up as Mickey Mouse at Disneyland.  Geisha have jobs, and it's not to walk around Gion all night posing for pictures.  They make a lot of money entertaining, so it must really suck to have people barging all over their personal space.
So I couldn't afford to do the tea house experience, and I found it beneath me to hover next to a geisha house with my camera ready.  Wouldn't do it. 

ANYWHO.  I was walking through Gion, checking out the roads, just walking down whichever ones looked cool, when I decided to walk down this one here.  Quite narrow, and very quiet.

It surprisingly took me to Kyoto's tallest Pagoda.  It was a complete surprise to me, because There aren't really any skyscrapers in Kyoto, and yet I hadn't really been at a location where I could spot this Pagoda yet. It's a part of the Hokanji Temple, known as the Yasaka-no-to Pagoda. This structure is put on lots of tourist stuff, since it's the tallest pagoda in Kyoto.

Still wandering, I found a little one of those wells that you could drink at.  The water tastes great.
And here's where something incredible happened.  In the middle of the DAY no less.  I was wandering about and I walked past a geisha!!!  Like, full costumed, make-up, hair, everything, GEISHA!  There are lots of people who walk around in Kimono and Yukata, with special shoes and hair pinned up, but they still look like they're just out for a walk.  This woman was definitely a geisha.  I don't know why she was all decked out at 11AM, but it was so exciting to see her! I tried to be as respectful as possible and stayed out of her way.  But I am still excited at the thought of having seen a geisha. She was so beautiful and graceful.  She didn't have a "POW!" factor, it was more like a jaw dropping "............wow." 

Ok...so I'm still wandering.  And I know I'm out of Gion by now.  I have no idea where the Higashiyama district begins, but I figure meh, if I find it cool, if I don't, this wandering thing seems to work great.  For instance, I start seeing these guys running past me. I hadn't seen them anywhere else in the city.  So I figure I must be entering an interesting part of Kyoto.

And....one street later I found myself in the Higashiyama district.
It's been preserved to look as it used to...in the Heian period I think? I'm not sure.  But it had TONS of shopping stalls.  Which was very fun.

I kept walking along the shops, up the mountain (at this point I knew the whole "stay near the hotel" idea was going to pot), and I came across one of the locations I'd given up on trying to find.  KIYOMIZUDERA!!!

This place is huge.  It had lots of construction on it's HUGE pagoda, and some other buildings.  It's most well known structure is a huge veranda.  But after walking around for a bit, I got kinda bummed because I realized it was one of the structures being restored.

...It wasn't until I walked a ways that I realized WHY I hadn't been able to find the building with the veranda.  I'd been standing on it, looking at all the other buildings. Ha.

Found another pagoda in the forest.  My wandering itch is a-callin.

The two things that I can confidently say about this trip, over and over and over again, is that Kyoto is BEAUTIFUL.  And that whenever I randomly decided to take up a chance for a detour, it was ALWAYS worth it.

I was wandering around Kiyomizudera, when I found a cool path leading down to this cool fountain.  But no one was on the path, or down by the fountain. It had the kind of "might be closed" feeling, but it had no signs saying anything like that.  And after having detoured so much, I just said, "Meh" and started down to the fountain.  A few moments later I look behind me and noticed I had all these people following me. I like to pretend they weren't taking the path because nobody else was. 

A big thing in Japan.  You stand still, or sit when you eat.

Saw a temple beggar of some sort?  I don't know exactly.  I'm almost positive they have something to do with Kiyomizudera.  I haven't seen a single "beggar" if you know what I mean.  It has something to do with the temple, I'm sure of it. Cool outfit though.

Ok so something I've learned is that every city in Japan has something they're known for.  Usually a food, and then something else. Nagoya is known for these special chicken wings.  I found that out when we went out a few weeks ago.  Osaka is known for takoyaki, which will be the sole purpose for my stopping there on my way to Takarazuka.
Kyoto is known for at least 2 things that I know of.  One is Nama-Yatsuhashi.  It's a dessert made from a soft thin pastry layer of rice flour filled with crushed red beans, or sometimes other flavors.  I'm not crazy about mochi, but this tasted GREAT!  Like I said, Kyoto is well known for them, so on this street full of shops, there were tons dedicated solely to selling all sorts of varieties of Nama-Yatsuhashi.  They offered samples of every product, and lots of free green tea.  I ended up not even buying lunch because I snacked on this stuff.

They come raw or cooked.  Personally I like them better raw.  When they're cooked they are really hard.  Not so easy to enjoy eating.

I was THIS close to buying a cucumber on a stick.  But I'd already had a green tea/milk/strawberry ice cream cone. Good stuff. Either Kyoto is a genius when it comes to making food with read beans and green tea, or I'm just getting used to the flavors.

Fan, anyone?

Got this shot as I was leaving the Higashiyama area.  I'd spied a strange head sticking out from amongst the trees, so I'd gone to see what it was.


Turned out to be a WWII memorial.  I hadn't read anything about this even existing. It felt....awkward.  It was very specific to mention that it was a memorial for all of the soldiers, foreign or not, that died on Japanese territory. You could actually go up INTO the statue from behind.  There are a bunch of Buddha statues inside that were being prayed to.  As I was walking beside it, I got creeped out.  I had this creepy feeling that the statue was going to pull a "Talos" on me and get up and stomp on me or something.

Something awesome about Japan is that there's this thing called the Beautification Act.  You can only smoke in very small designated areas.  As well as Pachinko halls.  So it never smelled like smoke, anywhere.  It was great.  Apart from the Pachinko halls.  When you walked past those, you definitely smelled smoke.  But it disappeared as soon as you passed the building.  Strange.

Sometimes I see Kanji more as a work of art.

There's a special Japanese Holiday coming up.  It's called Children's Day.  Every family hangs up their "Koinobori"  (carp streamers).  The black fish is the father, the red is the mother, and then there are multiple colors for the rest of the fish, depending on how many children you have.  There are a TON of these flying around where I live right now, and a ton in Kyoto as well. They're so pretty!

Ok remember how I said that every time I listened to my urge to explore, I didn't regret it?  Well, there was one time...ONE TIME I didn't listen to that little voice.  I'd just left the WWII memorial, which was a little bit of a bummer, and found that it was right next to a Temple on my "must see" list called Kodaiji Temple. Here I am, having just finished having fun making a Buddha prayer for luck.  You walk around the structure, spinning all those little cylinders once.  It was fun. 
ANYWAY.  There was a temple here that you could go in, check out the gardens and such.  I'd checked out every temple garden I'd come across so far, and I'd loved them all.  But my feet were screaming, I was getting tired, and the front of Kodaiji looked kind of lack-lustered.  So I....skipped it.  It wasn't until later, when I realized that Kodaiji had a very PARTICULARLY special garden that I'd forgotten how much I'd wanted to see, when I screamed "NOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

It had a bamboo pathway inside one of it's gardens.  AAAAARRRRGGGG.  Well.  I guess it's a good thing I was planning on going back in the fall.  Memo to self.  ALWAYS. EXPLORE. THE GARDENS!

Made my way back through Gion.  I was limping now.  One of my feet was giving me lots of pain. Carrying my bags with me the whole trip was taking it's toll. But I wasn't going down without a fight.  I was going to wander through those Gion streets, dang it. And aren't they gorgeous?

Lots of tea houses and restaurants and steak houses.  They are really good at keeping hidden.  All you see of them when you walk past is a tiny door covered with cloth.  When you open the door, it leads up some steps or down some steps.  It was mysterious and aloof.  I loved it.

Anywho. Made my way to Nikishi Market for some grub.


I experienced 2 more new things.  The first was Octopus on a Stick.  I was a big fan of octopus already, but hey.  I'd never had Octo-stick.  The bulbous head is stuffed with a cooked egg.  The idea of eating a whole creature like that seemed weird, but once I got a bite, it wasn't so weird.  For being such a strange looking animal, it's flavor is pretty good.


The second "first" I did around this time was strolling into one of those cool aloof restaurants and getting dinner.  I sat down, ordered it all in Japanese, and it all went smoothly, no hiccups.  It was a scary thing to think about doing, but now that I've done it, I'm not so nervous to order food anymore.

Wandering down Nishiki Market again.


These ones here are fake.  Places that serve meals always have fake versions of their meals displayed in front.  They have them made all special and everything. Incredible.

Tommy Lee Jones has his own Vending Machine or Drink company out here.  I've got one of these Boss vending machines a block away from my house.  Makes me laugh to see him, everytime.

Ah...back to those familiar hotel elevator doors.  I loved sleeping in the pods.  So much fun!

The next day, I go to the subway and navigate my way back to Kyoto train station.  My foot is in too much pain to do any more exploring on this trip, it needs some rest. But hey, I'll be back.
....Saw this cool store on my way to the subway station.

One of those cool restaurants.


I got to see some sights from Kyoto station that I didn't get to see when I first arrived.  For instance, Kyoto tower!  Every city has a tower.

And I didn't walk through the main area of Kyoto station when I arrived either.  Man, I would have missed out!  This is amazing!!!

Oh.  So I wrote that every town has stuff they're known for.  Kyoto is known for that desert I was telling you about, and it's ceramics.  I kept my eye out for some ceramics, but I decided against buying anything because I wanted to wait for the flee market in the fall.
So I'm in Kyoto station, I've bought my Shinkansen train ticket, and I'm about to go up an escalator and get on my train....when I see a shop with this sitting in a window. The cutest little octopus pot ever.  There was a  model that showed what was inside the pot, and it all looked delicious to me, and it was definitely cheap, so I bought one.

It only took me 1/2 an hour to get home, so I waited til then to open it up and chow down on Lunch.  I bought a few cool things on my trip, but funnily enough I think the thing I love the most is this blasted Octopus pot ha ha ha ha! 

Back home.  After a day of rest, my legs are still really stiff, but they're feeling better. I've got a slip notifying me that I missed a package from my Mams and Paps, so I'll hopefully get that sorted out tomorrow.

Back to normal life.

That trip was so. much. fun.