Miyagi trip

It all started so bad, that I figured that things would only get better from that point. Luckily, I wasn't wrong.
At the beginning of our trip we all gathered near Kyoto Station (in the evening of the 25th of November)and everybody was ready to get on a night bus and be in Sendai at about 6 o'clock the next day. But the person responsible for booking our bus tickets made one little mistake. He booked the tickets not for November 25th, but December 25th. In the end, we had to take the earliest Shinkansen train in the morning, and arrived at Sendai at noon. Everything would be OK except for the fact that the train is two times more expensive than the bus. I shall be dieting for the rest of the month now.
Of course, it was my first time riding the Shinkansen, and I must admit, the train is amazing. The trip to Sendai took us only 4 hours, while our trip back to Kyoto with a bus took 12 hours.
In between trying to surpress anger and tears at my lost money (of the Dark Side those emotions are) I noticed two salarymen (typical Japanese white-collar gyus) sitting next to me take out 6 cans of beer, which were emptied quite fast (please note that it was about 10 A.M.) Indeed, the Japanese-Alcohol relationship is quite strange. Picture below: Shinkansen arriving at Kyoto Station.

After we arrived at Sendai we were picked up by the AIESEC gyus from Tohoku University and led to a conference room, in which people from the City Hall talked about their experiences during the earthquake and tsunami.
After the meetings we went for "nomikai" (again, lots of alcohol involved). Not only "nomikai" ("drinking meeting"), but "nomihodai" ("all-you-can-drink"). It cost 3000 yen and the drinks were about 500 yen each, so, wanting to get just a little bit of my money back, I drank 6. As it was a nomihodai, there really wasn't too much alcohol in those drinks, but still everybody was shocked that I could still stand after that amount (some guys who drank less had trouble going back home. To my great surprise, me knees just got a little wobbly.) We also had mountains of food (nabe, sashimi, rice with eggs, lots of seafood that I can't name...) and my mood brightened.

The next day we went to a small town near the coastline called Watari and did some volounteer work. We managed to clean two houses (pictures below). I was really happy that I could accually do something. I'd like to stay longer and help more, but I couldn't leave work for such a long period. Pictures below: me at work and during lunch break.

After work we went around the area for a bit and saw the effects of the tsunami with our own eyes. They guy who showed us around told us that this area was famous for it's strawberries, but now there is too much salt in the soil, so everything looks like that:

In the evening we went to Matsushima, one of the three greatest views in Japan, which, thankfully, was not so damaged. Matsushima area is surrounded by small islands that were a natural barrier for the tsunami. We stayed in a ryokan and I think I had the most delicious dinner of my life. Sashimi, crab, konnyaku, macrell, eel, miso soup, rice, tuna and, of course, stuff that I can't name and I barely managed to eat it all. There was so much food that it was falling off the table. After the meal we went to the onsen and changed into yukata (everybody asked me to tie their obi for them - quite strange, a gaijin dressing a bunch of Japanese in their own traditional clothes). Picture below: our group in Matsushima. The weather wasn't that nice, so I have no good photos. At least it wasn't cold...
In the morning of the 3rd day I had natto for the first time. It smells bad and tastes bad, so I guess I'm not going to be a big fan of it. After leaving the ryokan we walked around Matsushima, and visited two shrines there. Local speciality is a cow's tongue ("gyutan"), so everybody except me wanted to try it, and I ended up trying my best to look satisfied with my lunch. Oh, well. I managed to get rid of the taste with some green beans ice-cream (also, local speciality)
In the evening we walked around Sendai for a little bit and got on the bus at 8 P.M., starting our journey back to Kyoto. I don't know if the Japanese buses are so comfortable (they are five times more comfortble than Polish ones, I think) or I was very tired, because I slept for the whole journey, and I usually can't fall asleep in any mode of transportation.

Overall, it was a very fruitful trip and I'm happy that I went. On the other hand, it was also the most expensive 3-day trip of my life, but you can't really help it in Japan...

Ramblings

Nothing particular happened today, so I figured I'd just ramble for a bit.

First, the food. I mostly cook at home (cheap and healthy), but I had to learn how to make a few things, since the ingredients here are so different. Bread is basically inedible - it smells funny and tastes like cardboard. Dairy products - cheese, yoghurt, sour cream - are expensive and the taste also can't live up to my expectations. Back home my diet consisted mostly of the products listed above, so I had to think of something to replace them. Now I usually make onigiri (rice balls with different filling), miso soup, sushi, many types of udon and soba noodles, and, of course, I'm slowly learning 101 ways to prepare tofu. Tofu really is a life-saver and it's especially good here in Kyoto. And last but not least - my favorite thing to eat as of late - stimmed kabocha (Japanese pumpkin). It's quick and easy, and it tastes heavenly. You only have to mix some water, sake (though I use mirin) and sugar and stimmer it till it gets soft.

Second, the people. I imagined they'd be more reserved and they'd keep their distance from me, but when they realize that I speak japanese they starting to be more open. I'm amazed by the number of questions I've been asked since I came here, from quite simple ones like "what's th e weather like in Poland" to quite strange like "is Polish the official language of Poland". But I have to answer all of them patiently because most of them don't understand sarcasm. They are just so polite that they can't imagine answering a question in any other way than helpful, I guess. I'm afraid that my sarcastic sense of humor may disappear if I stay here longer.

The other day there was a group of people from Italy in Tondaya, and we have a very small entrance, so taller people usually bump their heads. There's at least one such preson in every group, so of course one lady bumped her head while entering. When they were leaving I reminded them to watch their heads, and then one girl said "no, thank you, I think I'd rather smash my head" and my first reaction was "...huh?", and my sarcasm detector kicked in only a few moments later. Scary...

So, most Japanese don't get sarcasm. And I'm afraid that I don't understand their sense of humor yet. Whenever I crack a joke they tell me I'm mean. That's one more thing - you can't be completely straightforward with them, or they'll think you're mean, or crude. Sometimes I think you have to have some Jedi patience to get your point across. And if they had some bad news for you they will a)not tell you at all or b)say it so don't think it's actually that bad. But overall they try really hard to be helpful and hospitable, it's just that our cultures are so different, that there are situations when we stare at eachother not sure what to do, even if we speak the same language.

Enough of my ramblings for today. For the end is a photo of the maple leaves light-up at the Zenrinji temple (I went there yesterday)

Kyoto University Festival

Lately work's been quite hectic, so I didn't have much time to write. And since I had so much work, I didn't have time to do anything worth writing about...
But! I had some free time this Sunday and Monday, so on Sunday I went to the Kanze Theater. Kanze is the most famous Noh family (and Noh is an old Japanese theater - something like our opera; if you don't know what it is about, you won't understand a thing). My boss gave me ticekts to see her friend's performance, but it turned out that it was some amateour group performing that day and they were basically only singing the score. For seven hours.
So me and Mindy (a girl from the US that I met recently) decided to retreat pretty fast and went to the Heian Jingu for a walk in the gardens. The maple leaves are nearing their finest now, so it was very nice to just stroll through the temple's gardens, gossping. (Pictures below: me at the Heain Jingu garden)
On Monday I went to Nara with my fellow KyoDai (Kyoto Daigaku) students. I was supposed to teach a high school class, which basically ended with me tormenting a group of poor 16 year-olds. I told them a bit about myself, about Poland (lifestyle, history, famous things, etc.) and my internship at Tondaya. I guess I almost gave one boy a heart attack when I asked for a volounteer to show a traditional Polish greeting (3 times kiss plus hug - you can imagine how a Japanese person would react to that. But I DID warn him.)
Later the students asked me all kinds of questions (what's my favorite manga, how many languages can I speak, do I often fight with my boyfriend and so on).
And today evening I went to the KyoDai Bunka Sai - "culture festival". I wish we had something like that on our universities. Every club organizes some activities; some people sell food (made by themselves) and everybody's drinking. So I was selling baby-castella (a kind of cake, originally from Portugal) today with other students, amazing everybody with my drinking abilities (??), sitting in a kotatsu and watching the performances. I guess the most bizzare thing of all was the performance of the cheering club (I can't find a better name for that). It's something like cheerleaders, but there are also guys and an orchestra. They were very serious about it, but I couldn't stop laughing (at first I didn't know what was it and asked Natsuki if it's a kind of comedy... turns out that it wasn't. You can check out this link to see what is it about, more or less:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7feO8KCS1n8&feature=related). This kind of thing is called Oendan and, I suppose, it's only practiced in Japan.

Time goes by...

Sometimes I wish that time would slow down. It has alreday been a month since I came to Japan, and I'm still feeling like it was a week ago. But so much happened since then that I couldn't possibly do it all in one week...

This week my boss took me to a banquet in one of the hotels in Kyoto. She was a panelist and gave a lecture about traditional Japanese culture, and I assisted in a chakai. When I was handing out tea bowls people would stare at me, and sometimes I was stuck talking to some ojisan and explaining my existence - I guess that besides one guy from the USA, I was the only gaijin there, and I was wearing a kimono, too. (The picture below: me and my boss.)
After the chakais and lectures, there was food (my mouth still waters at the thought of those cakes...) and performances - first two maiko and one geiko, and than a jazzband. I was able to talk to a maiko for the first time in my life, so I was quite nervous... (Below: the photo of the two maiko and a geiko during their performance.)
But the next day I had an even better occasion. The guests can book a "Japanese wedding ceremony" here at Tondaya, and a couple from Spain came. Only the girl didn't know it's a wedding ceremony - we dressed her in a fantastic kimono, and her partner in a kimono and hakama, and he proposed to her that way!
She said yes, and they had san san ku do ritual later (It's a traditinal Japanese wedding ceremony, when the couple drinks sake from 3 cups, and after that they are married). Not only he booked the ceremony, but he also ordered kaiseki ryori (a very expensive Japanese meal) and a maiko. She performed a couple of dances and talked with them. I was there taking photos and translating a little bit, so I had a chance to see how it looks like.
I admit, I was amazed. From now on I shall hunt down every idiot that says a geisha equals prostitute.


Yesterday we had a TV crew over - they were making a program about kimonos, and decided to ask me how does it feel to be a gaijin wearing a kimono. Everything would be nice and easy, but they asked me to talk in Japanese about "how my heart and soul changes when I wear a kimono" while performing a temae (tea ceremony).
So you can imagine how it feels like to talk in a foreign language about something very complex and going through some complicated moves with your body.
Basically, it was a failure... I only hope there will be only a little of me in the show...
And the recording of all this took all day - I had to do the same thing on and on again, and at the end of the day I was a corpse. Luckily, I went to see the momiji to the Tofukuji temple with Mindy and the atmosphere was so relaxing that the stress just disapeared. This year is especially warm, so the leaves are not changing their color yet - but it was fun just to sit on the engawa, listen to nice music and gossip for a bit. And the temple's garden itself is beautiful.

Kurama

It was my first day off when it wasn't raining! I decided to go to Kagome, a small mountain town near Kyoto. I was beginning to miss nature, and a short hike in the mountains seemed quite nice. And indeed it was - Mount Kurama is a very important place in Japan. Here young hero Ushiwakamaru was trained by Tengu (weird creatures with enormous noses, picture below), Kurama temple is a well-known place since the Heian period, and the guy who invented Reiki lived here in the beginning of the 20th century (I dedicate that last thing to my future mother-in-law, who has creeped me out numerous times with her talks about Reiki).The momiji (maple leaves) are not yet at their best, but I managed to get a few glimpses of really beautiful trees. I guess I have to wait about two more weeks to see the famous moyo (red-colored leaves), and than I will go to Arashiyama and get killed by wild tourists.
And for the sake of comic relief, I also post a picture of me after the matcha incident. I was sifting a container of tea for tomorrow's chakai (Of witch, by the way, I'm terrified of. Just a bunch of very important people in the most expensive hotel in Kyoto and ME serving them tea. I just hope I can survive.) when it blew up in my face. How's that for a good luck charm. I spent a lot of time cleaning the office, my kimono, myself and the carpet. I pray to whatever kami who is willing to listen that nothing like that will happen tomorrow...

Kamigamo Kimono Fair

Lots of photos today!
We went to the Kamigamo Kimono Fair - Tondaya had one booth and we sold lots of obijime (a silk string), obiage (silk scarf-like thing, but you use it to tie your obi), and even one silk obi (kimono sash). I felt weird at first - a gaijin selling kimonos is not something you see everyday - but it turned out that I became a living advertisement. Everybody wanted to see that freak who speaks Japanese and sells kimonos ;).
The first photo is a view of the shrine:

There was a stage set up before the entrance and lots of things were going on. I caught two geiko (geisha) walking off the stage after their performance.

Today was also Shichigosan - a festival for 7, 5 and 3 year-olds, so there were many children dressed in cute kimonos running around. The thing that I noticed about Japanese kids is that they can run freely everywhere, pick up sand, bugs, climb trees and even roll on the ground and nobody says a word about it. I can't count how many times I heard in Poland "don't do that, you'll get dirty", or "don't run around, you'll sweat". Everything I hear that I want to throw something at a person who says it - how can you be a kid and NOT get dirty? So, even in quite expensive and ceremonial clothes these kids seemed to have fun.


And, at last, I have the promised purikura. It's me and my friend from the Kyoto University - Mai. You can see I was a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing, because I'm making a weird face yet again...