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Sunday, September 23, 2007
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Monday, September 3, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Patrick: Fire festival and a lonely stroll through Osaka
Last week on Thursday the DESA students invited us to watch the Gozan no Okuribi (五山の送り火) from a rooftop in the middle of Kyoto city. Given the restriction on building heights in this beloved historical city, anything above the 7th floor would suffice to provide a good view of the illuminated symbols. Here's a quick sketch of the surrounding geography. The old capital city was laid out in a grid pattern with the main axis of symmetry running from the North to South as deemed appropriate by Chinese geomancy theory. The city was and still is surrounded by mountains to the West, North, and East resulting in a horseshoe cap. It is on these foothills that the 6 symbols- (from East to West) 大、法、妙、boat image、(左) 大、tori image - are arranged and illuminated by torches on the day of this festival. The famous 大 that can be seen during the day from the Demachiyanagi Bridge gives the mountain it sits on the name Daimonji-yama (大文字山). The festival that night marked the culmination of the Obon festivities which lasted for about a week and is a period when the Japanese people across the nation take vacations to pay respect to their ancestors' spirits. To tell the truth, I was slightly disappointed by this festival. All the Japanese people I met had hyped up the excitement, and the prospect of seeing these giant symbols lit by torchlight seemed fascinating. Yet a difficult choice must be made to view this festival: 1) choose one symbol and see it close up or 2) head for a rooftop and see all 6 from afar. I'm not sure what it would have been like to see it closer up from, for example, the Demachiyanagi Bridge but the rooftop gave an unobstructed view of 6 specks of light in the distance amidst incessant chattering. Maybe it was just my hunger complaining, though, because getting to see all the symbols at once is a rare opportunity and I'm quite thankful to the DESA students who invited us to enjoy such a great view.
After bumming around at home the entire day on Saturday I decided to put my free time to good use by exploring Osaka on Sunday. Everyone else seemed to have family visiting this weekend and Megan went off to see her host family so I had to go about it alone.
First stop was Namba in downtown Osaka. I had been here with Hiroki and Mariko before so I still had some landmarks in memory. I ate a quick lunch at a stand-up ramen shop (金龍) along the way to Dotonbori. I had read a recommendation for this shop on some travel site online so I was so excited to see it that I immediately ordered a bowl. Little did I know I would see no less than 5 more of these shops (3 on the same street) as I walked around the area. I headed over to the famous bridge leading to the Shinsaibashi shopping arcade where random guys wait like predators picking up girls as they walk past. This is also the site watched over by the Glico-man in his silly pose, the futuristic Kirin building, and where a snaking line of people lead like a trail of bread crumbs to what has to be the best tako-yaki stand in the area (judging by the everlasting line of people patiently waiting in the smoldering heat to get a plate of 6 that costs 200 yen more than a plate of 8 sold by the stand across the intersection where the cook glared with eyes of envy).
Moving along, I strolled north through Shinsaibashi and headed off East along the way to a district known as American Village or more affectionately, Amemura (アメ村). Here tourists can find McD, American record shops, used American clothing stores, various strangely/fashionably (your choice) dressed young people, American brands, American culture, and Japanese take on American styles. Interesting place. Although the gangsta style was the prevailing trend as none of the stores sold board shorts so typical of Hawaii or SoCal's surfing culture. I asked a store clerk where I could find some and he just laughed and pointed out some overly baggy shorts with glinting silver chains.
After that, I walked a good 20 minutes in the sweltering heat towards Nihonbashi to the East where, according to a website, was located Den Den Town, Osaka's version of Tokyo's Akihabara. It turns out that website was seriously mistaken because after a good hour or so of being lost, I finally managed to find the place right next to Namba station (after a lengthy consultation with a station attendant). Unlike Akihabara where one must weave in and out of alleys, small streets, shops, and street-side vendors, Den Den Town was not so much a town but one major street lined with electronic parts stores, computer stores, adult video stores, manga/maid cafes, model shops, and toy stores. I had had enough of electronics shopping in Tokyo and this day I came on a mission: to return with one of those traditional Gundam models that so characterizes Japan's otaku culture for my brother. And I found just what I was looking for at Osaka Gundam's, a building dedicated to all things Gundams. Luckily it was also the last day of a promotion making everything in the store 20% off.
Lugging the Gundam model around with me and exhausted from a whole day of walking, I headed to Osaka Peace Park to find somewhere to sit and wait for the illumination of the grounds at night. At the park, three bands gave live performances up until sunset and I sat around in the shade watching their groupies. The guy with the Jimmy Neutron hair was cheered on by a small group of guys yelling and dancing along with the music. All the girls were attracted , like iron filings to a magnet, to the center group of four guys who looked the most professional but were drowned out by the ruckus created by the other two bands. The last band had, in my opinion, the best songs but hardly anyone bothered to stop and listen to them. It was a nice day and my exhausted self was grateful for the brief rest but the mosquitoes came out in full force and I suffered bites all over my arms and legs. If only I was with someone with blood more delicious than mine...
When dusk fell, the festival's staff began to light the candles set up lining the streets and the main fountain. They had quite a difficult time because the wind picked up and kept blowing out the candles that were already lit. It wasn't until around 7:30 pm that most of the candles were lit and the skies were dark enough for the illumination to really stand out. I followed the guys with professional cameras and tripods as they made their way along the path leading up to the castle. I'm glad I went to see the castle at night. The candle-lit paths and the illuminated castle was a welcome change to the typical castle sight-seeing that can be done all over Japan.
So by the end of the day, I had thoroughly explored downtown Osaka, managed to find Den Den Town and can finally say that I've been there, and convinced myself to visit Osaka castle with the convenient excuse of wanting to see what the grounds looked like illuminated at night. Now if I had only had some company...
From the picture below, you can see that I've upgraded to stir-fried vegetables. I had actually wanted to make a salad but realized when I got home that I had bought cabbage and not lettuce. I dunno... cabbage and iceberg lettuce look similar don't they? Besides, I think cabbage is more nutritious. Although, I don't recall ever eating cabbage uncooked..
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| 08162007 |
After bumming around at home the entire day on Saturday I decided to put my free time to good use by exploring Osaka on Sunday. Everyone else seemed to have family visiting this weekend and Megan went off to see her host family so I had to go about it alone.
First stop was Namba in downtown Osaka. I had been here with Hiroki and Mariko before so I still had some landmarks in memory. I ate a quick lunch at a stand-up ramen shop (金龍) along the way to Dotonbori. I had read a recommendation for this shop on some travel site online so I was so excited to see it that I immediately ordered a bowl. Little did I know I would see no less than 5 more of these shops (3 on the same street) as I walked around the area. I headed over to the famous bridge leading to the Shinsaibashi shopping arcade where random guys wait like predators picking up girls as they walk past. This is also the site watched over by the Glico-man in his silly pose, the futuristic Kirin building, and where a snaking line of people lead like a trail of bread crumbs to what has to be the best tako-yaki stand in the area (judging by the everlasting line of people patiently waiting in the smoldering heat to get a plate of 6 that costs 200 yen more than a plate of 8 sold by the stand across the intersection where the cook glared with eyes of envy).
Moving along, I strolled north through Shinsaibashi and headed off East along the way to a district known as American Village or more affectionately, Amemura (アメ村). Here tourists can find McD, American record shops, used American clothing stores, various strangely/fashionably (your choice) dressed young people, American brands, American culture, and Japanese take on American styles. Interesting place. Although the gangsta style was the prevailing trend as none of the stores sold board shorts so typical of Hawaii or SoCal's surfing culture. I asked a store clerk where I could find some and he just laughed and pointed out some overly baggy shorts with glinting silver chains.
After that, I walked a good 20 minutes in the sweltering heat towards Nihonbashi to the East where, according to a website, was located Den Den Town, Osaka's version of Tokyo's Akihabara. It turns out that website was seriously mistaken because after a good hour or so of being lost, I finally managed to find the place right next to Namba station (after a lengthy consultation with a station attendant). Unlike Akihabara where one must weave in and out of alleys, small streets, shops, and street-side vendors, Den Den Town was not so much a town but one major street lined with electronic parts stores, computer stores, adult video stores, manga/maid cafes, model shops, and toy stores. I had had enough of electronics shopping in Tokyo and this day I came on a mission: to return with one of those traditional Gundam models that so characterizes Japan's otaku culture for my brother. And I found just what I was looking for at Osaka Gundam's, a building dedicated to all things Gundams. Luckily it was also the last day of a promotion making everything in the store 20% off.
Lugging the Gundam model around with me and exhausted from a whole day of walking, I headed to Osaka Peace Park to find somewhere to sit and wait for the illumination of the grounds at night. At the park, three bands gave live performances up until sunset and I sat around in the shade watching their groupies. The guy with the Jimmy Neutron hair was cheered on by a small group of guys yelling and dancing along with the music. All the girls were attracted , like iron filings to a magnet, to the center group of four guys who looked the most professional but were drowned out by the ruckus created by the other two bands. The last band had, in my opinion, the best songs but hardly anyone bothered to stop and listen to them. It was a nice day and my exhausted self was grateful for the brief rest but the mosquitoes came out in full force and I suffered bites all over my arms and legs. If only I was with someone with blood more delicious than mine...
When dusk fell, the festival's staff began to light the candles set up lining the streets and the main fountain. They had quite a difficult time because the wind picked up and kept blowing out the candles that were already lit. It wasn't until around 7:30 pm that most of the candles were lit and the skies were dark enough for the illumination to really stand out. I followed the guys with professional cameras and tripods as they made their way along the path leading up to the castle. I'm glad I went to see the castle at night. The candle-lit paths and the illuminated castle was a welcome change to the typical castle sight-seeing that can be done all over Japan.
So by the end of the day, I had thoroughly explored downtown Osaka, managed to find Den Den Town and can finally say that I've been there, and convinced myself to visit Osaka castle with the convenient excuse of wanting to see what the grounds looked like illuminated at night. Now if I had only had some company...
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| 08192007 |
From the picture below, you can see that I've upgraded to stir-fried vegetables. I had actually wanted to make a salad but realized when I got home that I had bought cabbage and not lettuce. I dunno... cabbage and iceberg lettuce look similar don't they? Besides, I think cabbage is more nutritious. Although, I don't recall ever eating cabbage uncooked..
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| 08202007 |
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Patrick: Midweek update
I've decided that I should write these posts as soon as I get the chance before I lose motivation, making way for writer's block and procrastination to settle in. (yes, those Tokyo posts are still blatantly in progress...) Here are some pictures of what I had to eat at home this week:
First up is homemade Oyako-don (chicken and egg rice bowl). The rice is layered with shredded nori and I bought some cherry tomatoes to give the dish some color. Naturally the chicken was bought as well; crispy on the outside, juicy and tender on the inside.. so not like KFC affair in Japan.
The next one is Yasai-reimen (cold noodles with vegetables). For this one, I was too lazy to go and buy some meat. You'll notice that all my eggs so far have been boiled. I confess that I have not yet mastered the art of eggs-over-easy. Yes, I've watched Alton Brown's wonderful treatment on Youtube about making the perfect eggs but so many unexpected problems arose: the heat was too high so the egg white cooked too fast, the pan's really cheap, didn't coat the pan evenly with enough oil so things got stuck, the pan sucks, the egg yolks broke too early, did I mention the pan isn't all that high-quality...? I think I also had the eggs for too long. Even though they haven't expired yet, according to Alton Brown, grade AA eggs will degrade over time to grade A eggs due to the loss of rigidity in the egg white's protein scaffold as the eggs lose freshness. It looks so easy though when he does it on TV! You'll also notice that the cucumbers are all different sizes and shapes. I experimented with the different ways to cut them as described in my 料理の教科書. My cutting skills are definitely no good. How do they make all the pieces so straight and evenly thin?
Tonight I had dinner with my co-workers at the lab. Professor Kanehisa, my supervisor, brought us a vacuum-sealed roasted Peking Duck that he bought on his business trip a couple days ago in Beijing. My co-workers had me read the label describing how to reheat it since it was written in Chinese:
1) soak in hot oil for 10 minutes
2) cut into small pieces and stir fry
3) microwave for 3 to 4 minutes
Since we ate it at the lab, where cooking supplies and ingredients were rather limited, we opted for method #3. Also written on the label was the length of time until expiration... 90 days. I don't know if it would have been better to eat it as soon as possible after it was put in that vacuum-sealed bag or wait until the 90th day and after it had been thoroughly checked for the absence of maggots and decay. There must have been ridic preservatives in that thing... maybe now I'll get to preserve some of my youth as well. My co-workers joked that the essence of the roast duck truly comes out only after it's been properly aged. I don't buy that. In any case, we ordered some pizza from Pizza Hut. Oh the delights of finally biting into some cheesy goodness! Though the mayonnaise and pitiful size was a constant reminder that we were alas, still in Japan...
First up is homemade Oyako-don (chicken and egg rice bowl). The rice is layered with shredded nori and I bought some cherry tomatoes to give the dish some color. Naturally the chicken was bought as well; crispy on the outside, juicy and tender on the inside.. so not like KFC affair in Japan.
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| 08122007 |
The next one is Yasai-reimen (cold noodles with vegetables). For this one, I was too lazy to go and buy some meat. You'll notice that all my eggs so far have been boiled. I confess that I have not yet mastered the art of eggs-over-easy. Yes, I've watched Alton Brown's wonderful treatment on Youtube about making the perfect eggs but so many unexpected problems arose: the heat was too high so the egg white cooked too fast, the pan's really cheap, didn't coat the pan evenly with enough oil so things got stuck, the pan sucks, the egg yolks broke too early, did I mention the pan isn't all that high-quality...? I think I also had the eggs for too long. Even though they haven't expired yet, according to Alton Brown, grade AA eggs will degrade over time to grade A eggs due to the loss of rigidity in the egg white's protein scaffold as the eggs lose freshness. It looks so easy though when he does it on TV! You'll also notice that the cucumbers are all different sizes and shapes. I experimented with the different ways to cut them as described in my 料理の教科書. My cutting skills are definitely no good. How do they make all the pieces so straight and evenly thin?
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| 08142007 |
Tonight I had dinner with my co-workers at the lab. Professor Kanehisa, my supervisor, brought us a vacuum-sealed roasted Peking Duck that he bought on his business trip a couple days ago in Beijing. My co-workers had me read the label describing how to reheat it since it was written in Chinese:
1) soak in hot oil for 10 minutes
2) cut into small pieces and stir fry
3) microwave for 3 to 4 minutes
Since we ate it at the lab, where cooking supplies and ingredients were rather limited, we opted for method #3. Also written on the label was the length of time until expiration... 90 days. I don't know if it would have been better to eat it as soon as possible after it was put in that vacuum-sealed bag or wait until the 90th day and after it had been thoroughly checked for the absence of maggots and decay. There must have been ridic preservatives in that thing... maybe now I'll get to preserve some of my youth as well. My co-workers joked that the essence of the roast duck truly comes out only after it's been properly aged. I don't buy that. In any case, we ordered some pizza from Pizza Hut. Oh the delights of finally biting into some cheesy goodness! Though the mayonnaise and pitiful size was a constant reminder that we were alas, still in Japan...
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| 08152007 |
Monday, August 13, 2007
Patrick: Enough! I think I've had enough
Another week and another fireworks show later, I think I've finally seen enough fireworks this summer. Beginning with the Tenjin Matsuri(Osaka) a little more than two weeks ago, continuing with the Sumida River Festival(Tokyo) last, last weekend, and then the Hamaotsu Fireworks Festival(Lake Biwa) last Wednesday, followed quickly by the Uji Fireworks Festival(Uji) on Friday, my impression of fireworks in Japan has reached a more or less stable plateau on the amazement scale. I have since ceased to be amazed by the packed trains and hordes of people caught up in feverish festival excitement. The sight of girls or guys in yukatas have long ago stopped being a novelty. The absurdly expensive yet tasty street food has become less enticing. And the variation in fireworks are on the verge of being exhausted.
With that having been said, I thoroughly enjoyed the Uji Fireworks Festival. Seeing how I lived with my host family in Uji for the entire SCTI academic quarter, I've developed a penchant for the Town of Genji. The young people were out in droves, the stall managers never ceased their friendliness, the bustling festivities contrasted nicely with the usual calmness of the river currents. And the experience was unlike any other precisely because the location was not as urban, nor was the show as eminent, as the previous fireworks I attended. My viewing location was much closer, allowing me to watch almost directly underneath the thundering explosions. Yet I had two complaints, the first being the loneliness. I lost my coworkers as we wandered around the stalls looking for things to eat. It's not like I was lost but watching fireworks alone is really not all that much fun.. especially watching fireworks alone amidst a sea of couples. The second grievance is the utter chaos that I found upon arrival at the train station. Both the Keihan the JR lines were completely filled to capacity with long lines directed by the police starting from far outside of the stations. I had to wait a little over an hour for 5 or 6 full trains to clear away the mob in front of me. See the excitement for yourself below...
After I got back to Kyoto city, I went over to Megan's to see Cara who was visiting from Okayama on her way to climbing Mt. Fuji and partying in Tokyo. We went out for some cheap (but rather weak even by my standards) drinks at one of the Moonlight Bars on Kiyamachi.
Sorry the post is a little out of order but now that that's out of the way, I wanted to put in a few details regarding the nomikai (drinking party) with the people in my lab on Thursday. My coworkers and I, along with a few visiting German researchers from Berlin, went to a yakitori (bbq chicken) izakaya (pub) in Fushimi-Momoyama. This was not the usual all-you-can-eat-and-drink affair that we of the SCTI program typically favored for our outings. The restaurant itself was situated in a quiet neighborhood surrounded by traditional wooden abodes very much like the facades you see lining the streets around historical preservation sites like Kiyomizu Temple. The food, various chicken dishes, were scrumptious and the portions sparing. And seeing how the Germans could really drink, the pitchers and nihon-shu kept coming; only this time each drink came with its very own price tag. And the final bill was, unlike the food, far from paltry. Embarrassing as it was, I had to borrow some cash from a coworker since I hadn't gone to the bank for quite a few days. I suppose as an experience.. an outing with coworkers, sampling various uniquely Japanese dishes and drinks, it was rather nice. Although any more of these and I'm going to go broke fast.
With that having been said, I thoroughly enjoyed the Uji Fireworks Festival. Seeing how I lived with my host family in Uji for the entire SCTI academic quarter, I've developed a penchant for the Town of Genji. The young people were out in droves, the stall managers never ceased their friendliness, the bustling festivities contrasted nicely with the usual calmness of the river currents. And the experience was unlike any other precisely because the location was not as urban, nor was the show as eminent, as the previous fireworks I attended. My viewing location was much closer, allowing me to watch almost directly underneath the thundering explosions. Yet I had two complaints, the first being the loneliness. I lost my coworkers as we wandered around the stalls looking for things to eat. It's not like I was lost but watching fireworks alone is really not all that much fun.. especially watching fireworks alone amidst a sea of couples. The second grievance is the utter chaos that I found upon arrival at the train station. Both the Keihan the JR lines were completely filled to capacity with long lines directed by the police starting from far outside of the stations. I had to wait a little over an hour for 5 or 6 full trains to clear away the mob in front of me. See the excitement for yourself below...
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| 08102007 |
After I got back to Kyoto city, I went over to Megan's to see Cara who was visiting from Okayama on her way to climbing Mt. Fuji and partying in Tokyo. We went out for some cheap (but rather weak even by my standards) drinks at one of the Moonlight Bars on Kiyamachi.
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| 08112007 |
Sorry the post is a little out of order but now that that's out of the way, I wanted to put in a few details regarding the nomikai (drinking party) with the people in my lab on Thursday. My coworkers and I, along with a few visiting German researchers from Berlin, went to a yakitori (bbq chicken) izakaya (pub) in Fushimi-Momoyama. This was not the usual all-you-can-eat-and-drink affair that we of the SCTI program typically favored for our outings. The restaurant itself was situated in a quiet neighborhood surrounded by traditional wooden abodes very much like the facades you see lining the streets around historical preservation sites like Kiyomizu Temple. The food, various chicken dishes, were scrumptious and the portions sparing. And seeing how the Germans could really drink, the pitchers and nihon-shu kept coming; only this time each drink came with its very own price tag. And the final bill was, unlike the food, far from paltry. Embarrassing as it was, I had to borrow some cash from a coworker since I hadn't gone to the bank for quite a few days. I suppose as an experience.. an outing with coworkers, sampling various uniquely Japanese dishes and drinks, it was rather nice. Although any more of these and I'm going to go broke fast.
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| 08092007 |
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Patrick: I love fireworks..
Yesterday I attended a fireworks show at Hamaotsu off of Lake Biwa with Mary and her boyfriend, Isaac. Isaac graduated from Caltech and was visiting from Spain where he studies musical instruments on a fellowship. We joined a much larger group organized by the DESA club consisting of other foreign exchange students from Taiwan and Italy. In all, there were around 70 or so foreigners and about 30 hosts from DESA. In order to ensure the quality of our viewing location, the committee members had already staked out a piece of land and laid out a tarp since 10 am. Given the Japanese enthusiasm for fireworks, I'm actually quite grateful because before yesterday my impression of Japanese fireworks have not been great; the past two times (Tenjin Festival and Sumida River Fireworks Festival) we had to settle for watching fireworks behind obstructive trees or buildings. This time there was a clearing and the fireworks were launched a fair distance off on the lake. Still, the explosions were so big that they felt much closer. The only clue to their distance was the noticeable 2 sec. lag between the sounds we heard and the explosions we saw.
We got to Hamaotsu around 5:30 pm and the show started at 7:30 pm giving us enough time to mix and mingle and catch up with some of the people we haven't seen in a while. Some things never change... Shigeo still gets picked on and talked about how he wants to go back and visit Stanford, Kosuke still towered over the others and drank a fair amount of alcohol, Tsura one of the Korean exchange students who we met during the Wakayama retreat still had amazing Japanese skillz, Ken and Yuzo still joke around and made hilarious facial expressions (although I think Yuzo brought his girlfriend instead of Daniel Radcliffe's Japanese counterpart), Mariko and Kanako were as cute as ever... sure brings back great memories (makes me want to flip through the pages of the blog ;). The Taiwanese folks were also interesting to converse with but they refused to use Japanese or English. I found myself switching back and forth from Chinese to English to Japanese but somehow we were all able to get our points across. The Taiwanese students are here for a month of study at Kyoto Zoukei University 京都造形大学; most of them from Taipei. I found it interesting that they didn't know each other and had signed up for the program by chance on the internet. The girls were especially cliquey and you could hear them gushing and screaming during the entire fireworks show...
The fireworks themselves were fantastic. So much variety, so many colors... definitely the best fireworks I have ever seen. I was especially impressed by the width of the launch site which stretched from the far left to the far right on the distant horizon. The explosions were huge and especially dazzling were the ones which seemed to explode right on the surface of the lake resulting in giant semi-circles that looked like glowing hills... it's kind of hard to describe but take a look at the pictures and videos below:
We got to Hamaotsu around 5:30 pm and the show started at 7:30 pm giving us enough time to mix and mingle and catch up with some of the people we haven't seen in a while. Some things never change... Shigeo still gets picked on and talked about how he wants to go back and visit Stanford, Kosuke still towered over the others and drank a fair amount of alcohol, Tsura one of the Korean exchange students who we met during the Wakayama retreat still had amazing Japanese skillz, Ken and Yuzo still joke around and made hilarious facial expressions (although I think Yuzo brought his girlfriend instead of Daniel Radcliffe's Japanese counterpart), Mariko and Kanako were as cute as ever... sure brings back great memories (makes me want to flip through the pages of the blog ;). The Taiwanese folks were also interesting to converse with but they refused to use Japanese or English. I found myself switching back and forth from Chinese to English to Japanese but somehow we were all able to get our points across. The Taiwanese students are here for a month of study at Kyoto Zoukei University 京都造形大学; most of them from Taipei. I found it interesting that they didn't know each other and had signed up for the program by chance on the internet. The girls were especially cliquey and you could hear them gushing and screaming during the entire fireworks show...
The fireworks themselves were fantastic. So much variety, so many colors... definitely the best fireworks I have ever seen. I was especially impressed by the width of the launch site which stretched from the far left to the far right on the distant horizon. The explosions were huge and especially dazzling were the ones which seemed to explode right on the surface of the lake resulting in giant semi-circles that looked like glowing hills... it's kind of hard to describe but take a look at the pictures and videos below:
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| 08082007 |
Monday, August 6, 2007
Patrick: Fireworks, conference, shopping, and sight-seeing in Tokyo
So last week was a blast. I went on a 'business trip' to Tokyo since everyone in my lab was going to the IBSB 2007 bioinformatics conference hosted by Tokyo University. The conference was held from Tuesday to Thursday so naturally I took Monday and Friday off to complete the week. Thanks to Brian, I had a place to stay and on the weekends I got to see pretty much the entire Tokyo crew.. fun times. Here are some pictures before I left for Tokyo, involving a homemade katsu curry meal and a lecture at Kyoto University by nobel laureate and Stanford Medical School Professor Arthur Kornberg. The esteemed old fellow talked a lot about polyphosphate kinase (PPK) among other things.. I then proceeded to have some excellent sushi with Megan, Raunaq, and Nick.
I arrived in Yokohama on Saturday. The original plan was to stay with Daryl in Yokohama and explore the city (second largest city by population in Japan) on the weekend but there was the Sumida River Fireworks Festival in Tokyo that day so I ended up going into the capital anyways. Daryl and I had some delicious ramen at the Yokohama Ramen Museum near Shin-Yokohama station. The museum was quite small but featured various types of ramen from across Japan. The interior was also designed to resemble the streets of Japan in the 1970s (I think..).
in progress....
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| 07262007 |
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| 07272007 |
I arrived in Yokohama on Saturday. The original plan was to stay with Daryl in Yokohama and explore the city (second largest city by population in Japan) on the weekend but there was the Sumida River Fireworks Festival in Tokyo that day so I ended up going into the capital anyways. Daryl and I had some delicious ramen at the Yokohama Ramen Museum near Shin-Yokohama station. The museum was quite small but featured various types of ramen from across Japan. The interior was also designed to resemble the streets of Japan in the 1970s (I think..).
in progress....
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| 07282007 |
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Friday, July 27, 2007
Patrick: Recovering from the festivities with more festivals..
I've been hit by a spout of writer's block these days and so this post has taken second priority to a lot things, like Harry Potter for instance..
In any case, last week, my co-workers invited me to play soccer for the Bioinformatics Center team. I haven't played soccer since the 4th grade but they ensured me that it would be fine since, unlike most of the other guys in the lab, I actually play sports. It was actually not fine. Japanese people are quite enthusiastic when it comes to soccer and those pick-up games were intense. I was so embarrassed with my horrid trapping skills and easy-to-read and slow-as-hell dribbling. Yet, it was fun, even though we lost all our games.. We ended up forfeiting the last one because our goalie had fearlessly received the ball in the face and his glasses scattered into pieces.
This is a little random, but check out my first self-made meal.. all right so I bought the sashimi at the supermarket but I made the noodles myself!
On Saturday, I played badminton as usual at Doshisha. The session was extended to 1 pm now that summer's approaching. A lot of people didn't show presumably studying hard for their final exams. Apparently the entire grade for college classes here is determined by the score on these end-of-the-year exams and Kawabata-san said the failure rate is around 60%. Anyways, most of the better players still came so the games were just as exhilarating. It was extremely hot and humid though. By the end of the session I was sweating from every pore on me. My shorts and shirt were completely soaked and I was feeling utterly ikky and disgusting.
After that, I rushed home to take a shower and then headed to Hikone in Shiga Prefecture with Kawabata-san. He lives there (about an hour and a half commute) and he offered to show me around Hikone Castle and Lake Biwa (the largest lake in Japan). Unlike Kumamoto Castle which we went to during Golden Week, Hikone Castle is not a reconstruction. It's one of the few that predate Ieyasu's ban on castle construction during the Edo period. Although according to the WikiTravel site, Kumamoto Castle is one of Japan's Top3 castles (the other two being Himeji and Matsumoto which I definitely still need to see). Hikone was nice though. The weather was nice, the castle itself is pretty typical of Japanese castles, but the view of Lake Biwa was gorgeous. I'll let the pictures say the rest...
The next day, I went to the bookstore (Junkudou) near Megan's apartment to read the newly published Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Along the way, I saw people fishing on the Kamo River and photographers with their fancy and distinctive white Canon lenses. I wonder what kind of fish swim in that shallow canal they call a river... hope they're tasty.
Nick, Raunaq, and Megan came to interrupt me for lunch around noon. We had some delicious fried pork at Katsukura and then proceeded to walk off the immensely satisfying meal with a stroll along the temple district at Higashiyama. We stopped by Raunaq's favorite shrine, Yasaka Jinja, where we ended up not praying because no one had a 5 yen coin. Apparently the Japanese pronunciation, go-en, is a pun that supposedly helps make your wish come true. Raunaq said this place was great for enjoying Sakura blossoms with sake during the spring. In any case, we convinced Megan to hike with us some more and we got all the way south to Kiyomizu-dera before we decided to turn back. Along the way, we stopped by a woodblock print shop that sold a famous set of 50 odd paintings of scenes along the tokkaido road connecting Tokyo to Kyoto.
If they weren't so expensive, I would definitely buy them for decorations or presents. But I guess they're for hardcore collectors; each one had over a hundred years of history...
Upon turning back, we went to see the great Sanmon of Chion Temple which is one of the three largest Divine Gates in Japan. The one we went up during our first week in Kyoto at Nanzenji was pretty big already but still much smaller than Chion Temple's gate. After that, exhausted from the humidity more than anything else, we decided to head back to Gion and try our luck at the famous matcha dessert cafe Tsujiri. We were able to enter the cafe after waiting in line for 40 minutes or so. They were nice enough to hand out iced towels and paper fans. The desserts were without question deliciously pleasing. Check them out in the pictures. After that, Megan, Raunaq, and Nick went off to watch some Office and I went back in search of a bookstore to read some more Harry Potter...
On Wednesday, Megan and I went to Osaka where we met Raunaq, Keeley, and Obina to attend the Tenjin Festival (天神祭), another one of Japan's Top3 festivals. The festival is held every year on 7/24 and 7/25. Unfortunately these dates are weekdays which meant we couldn't attend the festivities due to work. But on 7/25 we decided to go in the evening to see the end of the festival and the fireworks.
Unlike the Gion festival in Kyoto, this one featured portable shrines being moved on floating barges on the Yodogawa River. Yaten (屋店), food stalls, lined the river banks and the number of people in attendance was mind-blogging. There were definitely more people at the Tenjin Matsuri than those who went to Gion. This made things difficult when the fireworks started to go off. The crowds of people rushed to and fro to catch a glimpse of the fireworks. Unfortunately they were launched from the same side of the river as the food stalls so we caught great glances of fireworks... behind trees or buildings. Unfortunately, there is no height restriction on buildings in Osaka (unlike in Kyoto) so it was impossible to get any clear view of the night sky from where we were. And the people were so dumbfounded by the fireworks (as if they haven't seen any before) that they would stand content behind these trees and buildings to hear the explosions while oohing and gushing at the flashing night sky. Thus all the roads and alleys to the river ended up being clogged by human plaque and we soon lost Keeley and Obina somewhere in the crowd. Raunaq, Megan, and I valiantly fought our way, squeezing through the mass of people, old and young, trying to get to an open clearing to better see the fireworks. There were moments when I would lose hope and allow myself to drown in sea of hands, hair, feet, and tunneling children thinking this must be what my food feels like brushed by the tiny microvilli in the intestines. I don't mind being squashed in the middle of groups of girls wearing yukatas with hair smelling of white lilies but I definitely don't care for the skinny Japanese guys stinking of BO. With significant effort, we finally made our way onto a large bridge where people gathered to enjoy the fireworks on both sides and see the floating barges pass by underneath. I think the best place to enjoy the festival would definitely be on one of those barges. I wonder when and where you could actually get on one... The bridge, nonetheless, gave us a great view of the fireworks until a foreigner who must've been at least 7 ft tall came by and obscured the skies. Megan tried to get a picture with him without him realizing but we were met with much difficulty. We even met some other Japanese guys trying to do the same thing. Check out the pictures to see Megan's antics. All in all, it was a great festival, awesome atmosphere, the fireworks were pretty standard (if not a little disappointing), great food, the crowd was an experience in itself, and best of all, we've hit up 2 of the top3 festivals in Japan! Only one more to go.. though I think we're gone before it's celebrated.
In any case, last week, my co-workers invited me to play soccer for the Bioinformatics Center team. I haven't played soccer since the 4th grade but they ensured me that it would be fine since, unlike most of the other guys in the lab, I actually play sports. It was actually not fine. Japanese people are quite enthusiastic when it comes to soccer and those pick-up games were intense. I was so embarrassed with my horrid trapping skills and easy-to-read and slow-as-hell dribbling. Yet, it was fun, even though we lost all our games.. We ended up forfeiting the last one because our goalie had fearlessly received the ball in the face and his glasses scattered into pieces.
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| 07182007 |
This is a little random, but check out my first self-made meal.. all right so I bought the sashimi at the supermarket but I made the noodles myself!
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| 07192007 |
On Saturday, I played badminton as usual at Doshisha. The session was extended to 1 pm now that summer's approaching. A lot of people didn't show presumably studying hard for their final exams. Apparently the entire grade for college classes here is determined by the score on these end-of-the-year exams and Kawabata-san said the failure rate is around 60%. Anyways, most of the better players still came so the games were just as exhilarating. It was extremely hot and humid though. By the end of the session I was sweating from every pore on me. My shorts and shirt were completely soaked and I was feeling utterly ikky and disgusting.
After that, I rushed home to take a shower and then headed to Hikone in Shiga Prefecture with Kawabata-san. He lives there (about an hour and a half commute) and he offered to show me around Hikone Castle and Lake Biwa (the largest lake in Japan). Unlike Kumamoto Castle which we went to during Golden Week, Hikone Castle is not a reconstruction. It's one of the few that predate Ieyasu's ban on castle construction during the Edo period. Although according to the WikiTravel site, Kumamoto Castle is one of Japan's Top3 castles (the other two being Himeji and Matsumoto which I definitely still need to see). Hikone was nice though. The weather was nice, the castle itself is pretty typical of Japanese castles, but the view of Lake Biwa was gorgeous. I'll let the pictures say the rest...
 |
| 07212007 |
The next day, I went to the bookstore (Junkudou) near Megan's apartment to read the newly published Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Along the way, I saw people fishing on the Kamo River and photographers with their fancy and distinctive white Canon lenses. I wonder what kind of fish swim in that shallow canal they call a river... hope they're tasty.
Nick, Raunaq, and Megan came to interrupt me for lunch around noon. We had some delicious fried pork at Katsukura and then proceeded to walk off the immensely satisfying meal with a stroll along the temple district at Higashiyama. We stopped by Raunaq's favorite shrine, Yasaka Jinja, where we ended up not praying because no one had a 5 yen coin. Apparently the Japanese pronunciation, go-en, is a pun that supposedly helps make your wish come true. Raunaq said this place was great for enjoying Sakura blossoms with sake during the spring. In any case, we convinced Megan to hike with us some more and we got all the way south to Kiyomizu-dera before we decided to turn back. Along the way, we stopped by a woodblock print shop that sold a famous set of 50 odd paintings of scenes along the tokkaido road connecting Tokyo to Kyoto.
If they weren't so expensive, I would definitely buy them for decorations or presents. But I guess they're for hardcore collectors; each one had over a hundred years of history...
Upon turning back, we went to see the great Sanmon of Chion Temple which is one of the three largest Divine Gates in Japan. The one we went up during our first week in Kyoto at Nanzenji was pretty big already but still much smaller than Chion Temple's gate. After that, exhausted from the humidity more than anything else, we decided to head back to Gion and try our luck at the famous matcha dessert cafe Tsujiri. We were able to enter the cafe after waiting in line for 40 minutes or so. They were nice enough to hand out iced towels and paper fans. The desserts were without question deliciously pleasing. Check them out in the pictures. After that, Megan, Raunaq, and Nick went off to watch some Office and I went back in search of a bookstore to read some more Harry Potter...
 |
| 07222007 |
On Wednesday, Megan and I went to Osaka where we met Raunaq, Keeley, and Obina to attend the Tenjin Festival (天神祭), another one of Japan's Top3 festivals. The festival is held every year on 7/24 and 7/25. Unfortunately these dates are weekdays which meant we couldn't attend the festivities due to work. But on 7/25 we decided to go in the evening to see the end of the festival and the fireworks.
Unlike the Gion festival in Kyoto, this one featured portable shrines being moved on floating barges on the Yodogawa River. Yaten (屋店), food stalls, lined the river banks and the number of people in attendance was mind-blogging. There were definitely more people at the Tenjin Matsuri than those who went to Gion. This made things difficult when the fireworks started to go off. The crowds of people rushed to and fro to catch a glimpse of the fireworks. Unfortunately they were launched from the same side of the river as the food stalls so we caught great glances of fireworks... behind trees or buildings. Unfortunately, there is no height restriction on buildings in Osaka (unlike in Kyoto) so it was impossible to get any clear view of the night sky from where we were. And the people were so dumbfounded by the fireworks (as if they haven't seen any before) that they would stand content behind these trees and buildings to hear the explosions while oohing and gushing at the flashing night sky. Thus all the roads and alleys to the river ended up being clogged by human plaque and we soon lost Keeley and Obina somewhere in the crowd. Raunaq, Megan, and I valiantly fought our way, squeezing through the mass of people, old and young, trying to get to an open clearing to better see the fireworks. There were moments when I would lose hope and allow myself to drown in sea of hands, hair, feet, and tunneling children thinking this must be what my food feels like brushed by the tiny microvilli in the intestines. I don't mind being squashed in the middle of groups of girls wearing yukatas with hair smelling of white lilies but I definitely don't care for the skinny Japanese guys stinking of BO. With significant effort, we finally made our way onto a large bridge where people gathered to enjoy the fireworks on both sides and see the floating barges pass by underneath. I think the best place to enjoy the festival would definitely be on one of those barges. I wonder when and where you could actually get on one... The bridge, nonetheless, gave us a great view of the fireworks until a foreigner who must've been at least 7 ft tall came by and obscured the skies. Megan tried to get a picture with him without him realizing but we were met with much difficulty. We even met some other Japanese guys trying to do the same thing. Check out the pictures to see Megan's antics. All in all, it was a great festival, awesome atmosphere, the fireworks were pretty standard (if not a little disappointing), great food, the crowd was an experience in itself, and best of all, we've hit up 2 of the top3 festivals in Japan! Only one more to go.. though I think we're gone before it's celebrated.
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| 07252007 |
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Patrick: Typhoon and festival hit Kyoto
Ok, let's see.. it was quite a weekend this time and I've got a lot of ground to cover. Things began on Thursday night when Rio came back to Kyoto for dinner and a movie. I heard from Yoshiko that there was a restaurant at the top of Takashimaya that was famous for its hamburgers. So Megan, Rio, and I went and indeed those hamburgers were bunless and delicious. Although for the price, I would much rather have those wonderfully thick burgers in Sausalito that are every bit as juicy and satisfying. In any case, Michael would be happy to know that this restaurant that we went to had an all-you-can-eat bread set option.
The next day, Jean came back to Kyoto and I met her and her friend, Lindsay, for dinner after they finished the fourth installment of Die Hard. Lindsay is currently working on her doctoral degree at Stanford which came to me as a huge surprise because she appeared way younger than I would have expected. In fact she looked around Jean's age if not younger (must be the Hawaiian sun). Apparently she took Japanese with Jean, Brian, Jason, Stephanie, Jeff, Nick, etc. back at Stanford. Dinner was originally going to be a well-known ramen restaurant somewhere in Daimaru but I failed to lead us there (probably didn't listen to the directions carefully enough, sigh, I know...). Over dinner, we got to talking about the funny little idiosyncrasies belonging to people in their Japanese class. Good thing I took second-year Japanese the year before. Although I must say, class seems like it would have been a whole lot more interesting with them.
On Saturday, Jean and I went sight-seeing in Kobe. She had never been and I still harbored this dream to see the highly acclaimed Kobe night scape. Our first stop was Nunobiki Falls (布引の滝) a little north of Shin-Kobe station. The rain was unfortunate but I guess inevitable during typhoon season. After a steep climb, we got to an observation platform that overlooked the city. I bet the place would have been beautiful at night. We then continued on to the waterfalls almost getting lost on a trail that led to nowhere we wanted to be. The waterfalls themselves were fascinating. The recent downpour amplified the power and ferocity with which the torrents fell into muddy ponds from which the water continued into rivers flowing down the mountain. It was actually a series of waterfalls, each with its own name. The closeness with which we got to see them and the absence of other tourists (thank you typhoon) allowed for a rather peaceful and rewarding experience.
After the hike, we took the train back to Sannomiya station and had omu-rice, one of my favorite menu items in Japanese cuisine. This was the same store that specialized in omu-rice introduced to me by Shoko and Mariko the last time I was here. Following lunch, I took Jean on a requisite tour of Kobe's shopping arcade that dropped us off in Motomachi where the touristy nanking-town is located. We continued from there to Merikan Park and circled around Kobe's Port Tower to the Mosaic shopping center on the other side. This area, known as Harborland, was a first for me and was where we set about killing time for the next few hours. We shopped around, saw some cute stuff in a store full of expensive Miyazaki items and figurines, stared with glazed eyes at a complex contraption moving balls up and down in a whirl of metal and colors, and sampled sauces and crackers sold by a winery that Jean had coincidentally been to in Nagano. We then enjoyed a fabulous sukiyaki dinner in a quiet restaurant facing the Kobe skyline in anticipation of nightfall. And I would say that the wait was well worth it. Kobe, in my humble opinion, looks better at night than during the day. I guess the rain and the cloudy skies unfairly paint a dismal picture of daytime Kobe in my mind but at night, the place is transformed to an amusement park of light and wonder.
The next morning, Jean and I woke up early to see the floats that had been set up in Kyoto for the prominent Gion Festival (祇園祭). There are 32 of them scattered about the city around Shijo and Karasuma-dori. I wanted to collect each of the individual stamps belonging to the floats but the number of floats and the distances by which they were separated resulted in me giving up in the face of such a daunting task. There are two main types of floats: the mountains (山) which are shorter and have trees on them and the hokos (鉾) which are taller and look like boats with a tall mast jutting skyward from their centers. Along the streets, vendors open up the machiyas (traditional Kyoto merchant shop-residence hybrid houses) for the tourists to tour while selling souvenir items. There was a break in the rain and the bright colors stood out against a cloudy sky. Souvenirs of all types were being sold, from traditional fans, to umbrellas, to yukatas, to miniature float models, etc. Stalls were also setup selling fried chicken, cooked yams, shaved ice, hot dogs, bbq meat, much like the Dontaku affair with the Dontaku prices. Nick, Raunaq, and I have reached the conclusion that the prices are elevated because all the stalls are sponsored by the yakuza stifling the spirit of free market, laissez faire capitalism.
For lunch, we met up with Deni and Megan and had ramen near Nishikikoji market. We then marched through the crowds, in the unbearably humid weather, east across the Kamo River to Gion in search of the famous maccha dessert cafe, Tsujiri. But misfortune befell when we arrived as the line that extended from the end of the block into the shop and up the stairs would set us back at least 4 hours. We ended up buying green tea soft serve (me), floats (Megan and Deni), and a cookie sandwich (Jean) and brought them back to the river to be enjoyed. I'm definitely going back for the real deal some day... when the line is shorter and I find someone willing to go with me. Needless to say, the green tea was genuinely delicious. Although thinking back to the dessert Brian and I had in Uji, this stuff was remarkably similar in quality and taste.
Afterwards, we accompanied Megan and Deni to Teramachi where they shopped for flowers to go with their yukatas. The usually crowded shopping arcade was even more inundated by the influx of foreigners and I was glad to be out of there. Deni headed back with Megan to her apartment to change into yukatas and meet the others who were arriving from out of town. Jean and I took a stroll through the area and ended up by the river where we relaxed in the cool breeze and commented on the various yukatas we saw. Some of the yukatas were quite pretty and the color combinations dazzling to behold while others were too understated or clashed despicably. Actually Jean and I disagreed on some because she felt that the bows (obi, 帯) needed to stand out even if it meant wearing a color that couldn't be found on the yukata itself.
That day was Jean's birthday and for dinner, we had made reservations for shabu-shabu tabenomihodai at 風風亭. For the avid readers of this blog, it should be clear that this would entail a night of all-you-can-eat beef hot pot accompanied by all-you-can-drink alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Needless to say, it was a glorious night of revelry. It was great seeing everyone again... though we dearly missed the Tokyo crew. After dinner, we took the fun down to the river where we played with some short-lasting firework wands. And so ended a totally surreal and eventful day. Happy Birthday Jean!
The next day, after sending Jean off at Kyoto station where she took the shinkansen over to Tokyo, I met up with Raunaq, Deni, Nick, and Megan to see the floats again. This time we went around and bought finger food from the stalls. That day, it was Ocean's Day (海の日) which is apparently a national holiday. Oh I forgot to mention that Tuesday is the main day of the festival with a special parade where the floats are dragged by manpower down the closed off Shijo avenue (as you will see in a moment). The previous night is known as yoiyama (宵山) with an additional yoi added for successive day prior to Tuesday. So Sunday was 宵宵山 and Saturday was 宵宵宵山. The revelry and the people also increase as the main event draws closer.
So we walked around, saw the floats, looked for food, Raunaq bought a coconut, and all in all things were the same as before. A freak rainstorm drenched us through and through and we hastily retreated back to the covered shopping arcade of Teramachi where we ate delicious crepes. Nick and Raunaq left before dinner and Megan, Deni, and I went to see what 宵山 was all about. Shijo was closed off to cars and people walked the streets resulting in a flurry of fast-moving feet, snapping cameras, flowery yukatas, and scrambling children. The floats were lit up by the glow of lanterns and emanated eerie percussion sounds and whistles. It took us a while to walk down to Karasuma on Shijo from Megan's apartment. After that, we called it a night and I sent Deni off as she made her way back to Yokohama from Kyoto station on the shinkansen.
The events of today finally bring an end this absurdly long post. This morning, I headed for Shijo and Karasuma on the subway at 9 am to see the parade. The skies graced us with a slight breeze and no rain. I waited patiently on the corner of the intersection for the big hoko to move past which took a while since it had to wait for clearance in the front and also obey the traffic lights. Fortunately most of the young people were at school so all that was left were foreigners and old people. Thus the people in front of me were for the most part incredibly short, making it easier for me to take pictures. Every once in a while, an annoying foreigner would get in the way but I would always be able to move to a better location.
The floats were definitely more exciting in motion. They seemed rather easy to pull too because the people pulling them didn't appear to strain much. It took me an hour to walk down to the river to get on the Keihan. Along the way, I became a little jealous of all the people strutting expensive DSLRs. Overall, the festival was definitely much more exciting than any that I have experienced in Japan so far, especially the parade during the Aoi Matsuri. The giant floats, the throngs of people, the eerie flute music, the flowery yukatas, and the delicious finger foods all culminated in a spectacular event that really shouldn't be missed.
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| 07122007 |
The next day, Jean came back to Kyoto and I met her and her friend, Lindsay, for dinner after they finished the fourth installment of Die Hard. Lindsay is currently working on her doctoral degree at Stanford which came to me as a huge surprise because she appeared way younger than I would have expected. In fact she looked around Jean's age if not younger (must be the Hawaiian sun). Apparently she took Japanese with Jean, Brian, Jason, Stephanie, Jeff, Nick, etc. back at Stanford. Dinner was originally going to be a well-known ramen restaurant somewhere in Daimaru but I failed to lead us there (probably didn't listen to the directions carefully enough, sigh, I know...). Over dinner, we got to talking about the funny little idiosyncrasies belonging to people in their Japanese class. Good thing I took second-year Japanese the year before. Although I must say, class seems like it would have been a whole lot more interesting with them.
 |
| 07132007 |
On Saturday, Jean and I went sight-seeing in Kobe. She had never been and I still harbored this dream to see the highly acclaimed Kobe night scape. Our first stop was Nunobiki Falls (布引の滝) a little north of Shin-Kobe station. The rain was unfortunate but I guess inevitable during typhoon season. After a steep climb, we got to an observation platform that overlooked the city. I bet the place would have been beautiful at night. We then continued on to the waterfalls almost getting lost on a trail that led to nowhere we wanted to be. The waterfalls themselves were fascinating. The recent downpour amplified the power and ferocity with which the torrents fell into muddy ponds from which the water continued into rivers flowing down the mountain. It was actually a series of waterfalls, each with its own name. The closeness with which we got to see them and the absence of other tourists (thank you typhoon) allowed for a rather peaceful and rewarding experience.
After the hike, we took the train back to Sannomiya station and had omu-rice, one of my favorite menu items in Japanese cuisine. This was the same store that specialized in omu-rice introduced to me by Shoko and Mariko the last time I was here. Following lunch, I took Jean on a requisite tour of Kobe's shopping arcade that dropped us off in Motomachi where the touristy nanking-town is located. We continued from there to Merikan Park and circled around Kobe's Port Tower to the Mosaic shopping center on the other side. This area, known as Harborland, was a first for me and was where we set about killing time for the next few hours. We shopped around, saw some cute stuff in a store full of expensive Miyazaki items and figurines, stared with glazed eyes at a complex contraption moving balls up and down in a whirl of metal and colors, and sampled sauces and crackers sold by a winery that Jean had coincidentally been to in Nagano. We then enjoyed a fabulous sukiyaki dinner in a quiet restaurant facing the Kobe skyline in anticipation of nightfall. And I would say that the wait was well worth it. Kobe, in my humble opinion, looks better at night than during the day. I guess the rain and the cloudy skies unfairly paint a dismal picture of daytime Kobe in my mind but at night, the place is transformed to an amusement park of light and wonder.
 |
| 07142007 |
The next morning, Jean and I woke up early to see the floats that had been set up in Kyoto for the prominent Gion Festival (祇園祭). There are 32 of them scattered about the city around Shijo and Karasuma-dori. I wanted to collect each of the individual stamps belonging to the floats but the number of floats and the distances by which they were separated resulted in me giving up in the face of such a daunting task. There are two main types of floats: the mountains (山) which are shorter and have trees on them and the hokos (鉾) which are taller and look like boats with a tall mast jutting skyward from their centers. Along the streets, vendors open up the machiyas (traditional Kyoto merchant shop-residence hybrid houses) for the tourists to tour while selling souvenir items. There was a break in the rain and the bright colors stood out against a cloudy sky. Souvenirs of all types were being sold, from traditional fans, to umbrellas, to yukatas, to miniature float models, etc. Stalls were also setup selling fried chicken, cooked yams, shaved ice, hot dogs, bbq meat, much like the Dontaku affair with the Dontaku prices. Nick, Raunaq, and I have reached the conclusion that the prices are elevated because all the stalls are sponsored by the yakuza stifling the spirit of free market, laissez faire capitalism.
For lunch, we met up with Deni and Megan and had ramen near Nishikikoji market. We then marched through the crowds, in the unbearably humid weather, east across the Kamo River to Gion in search of the famous maccha dessert cafe, Tsujiri. But misfortune befell when we arrived as the line that extended from the end of the block into the shop and up the stairs would set us back at least 4 hours. We ended up buying green tea soft serve (me), floats (Megan and Deni), and a cookie sandwich (Jean) and brought them back to the river to be enjoyed. I'm definitely going back for the real deal some day... when the line is shorter and I find someone willing to go with me. Needless to say, the green tea was genuinely delicious. Although thinking back to the dessert Brian and I had in Uji, this stuff was remarkably similar in quality and taste.
Afterwards, we accompanied Megan and Deni to Teramachi where they shopped for flowers to go with their yukatas. The usually crowded shopping arcade was even more inundated by the influx of foreigners and I was glad to be out of there. Deni headed back with Megan to her apartment to change into yukatas and meet the others who were arriving from out of town. Jean and I took a stroll through the area and ended up by the river where we relaxed in the cool breeze and commented on the various yukatas we saw. Some of the yukatas were quite pretty and the color combinations dazzling to behold while others were too understated or clashed despicably. Actually Jean and I disagreed on some because she felt that the bows (obi, 帯) needed to stand out even if it meant wearing a color that couldn't be found on the yukata itself.
That day was Jean's birthday and for dinner, we had made reservations for shabu-shabu tabenomihodai at 風風亭. For the avid readers of this blog, it should be clear that this would entail a night of all-you-can-eat beef hot pot accompanied by all-you-can-drink alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Needless to say, it was a glorious night of revelry. It was great seeing everyone again... though we dearly missed the Tokyo crew. After dinner, we took the fun down to the river where we played with some short-lasting firework wands. And so ended a totally surreal and eventful day. Happy Birthday Jean!
 |
| 07152007 |
The next day, after sending Jean off at Kyoto station where she took the shinkansen over to Tokyo, I met up with Raunaq, Deni, Nick, and Megan to see the floats again. This time we went around and bought finger food from the stalls. That day, it was Ocean's Day (海の日) which is apparently a national holiday. Oh I forgot to mention that Tuesday is the main day of the festival with a special parade where the floats are dragged by manpower down the closed off Shijo avenue (as you will see in a moment). The previous night is known as yoiyama (宵山) with an additional yoi added for successive day prior to Tuesday. So Sunday was 宵宵山 and Saturday was 宵宵宵山. The revelry and the people also increase as the main event draws closer.
So we walked around, saw the floats, looked for food, Raunaq bought a coconut, and all in all things were the same as before. A freak rainstorm drenched us through and through and we hastily retreated back to the covered shopping arcade of Teramachi where we ate delicious crepes. Nick and Raunaq left before dinner and Megan, Deni, and I went to see what 宵山 was all about. Shijo was closed off to cars and people walked the streets resulting in a flurry of fast-moving feet, snapping cameras, flowery yukatas, and scrambling children. The floats were lit up by the glow of lanterns and emanated eerie percussion sounds and whistles. It took us a while to walk down to Karasuma on Shijo from Megan's apartment. After that, we called it a night and I sent Deni off as she made her way back to Yokohama from Kyoto station on the shinkansen.
 |
| 07162007 |
The events of today finally bring an end this absurdly long post. This morning, I headed for Shijo and Karasuma on the subway at 9 am to see the parade. The skies graced us with a slight breeze and no rain. I waited patiently on the corner of the intersection for the big hoko to move past which took a while since it had to wait for clearance in the front and also obey the traffic lights. Fortunately most of the young people were at school so all that was left were foreigners and old people. Thus the people in front of me were for the most part incredibly short, making it easier for me to take pictures. Every once in a while, an annoying foreigner would get in the way but I would always be able to move to a better location.
The floats were definitely more exciting in motion. They seemed rather easy to pull too because the people pulling them didn't appear to strain much. It took me an hour to walk down to the river to get on the Keihan. Along the way, I became a little jealous of all the people strutting expensive DSLRs. Overall, the festival was definitely much more exciting than any that I have experienced in Japan so far, especially the parade during the Aoi Matsuri. The giant floats, the throngs of people, the eerie flute music, the flowery yukatas, and the delicious finger foods all culminated in a spectacular event that really shouldn't be missed.
 |
| 07172007 |
Friday, July 13, 2007
Patrick: Newfound freedom
In order to avoid taking the spotlight entirely away from Brian's rare and enlightening post, I will keep mine brief. Here I have some pictures of a trip to Osaka that I took with Hiroki and Mariko from our architecture class. We checked out the Umeda Skybuilding that Brian introduced in class, shopped around at Shinsaibashi, and ate okonomiyaki at Dotonbori. Thanks to Brian's presentation, we were able to better appreciate the Umeda Skybuilding and the various details involving the reflection and transmittance of light used by Hara in the building's design. Shinsaibashi is an immensely popular shopping district with a covered arcade that extended as far as the eye could see and packed to the brim with people out for the summer sales. We took a picture with the famous Glico man and had delicious Teppan ice. We ended the day with okonomiyaki at Dotonbori, a bladerunner-esque shopping district lit up by neon signs of all colors and sizes.
On Monday, I started my first day at Kyoto University. The supervising professor was really busy though so I didn't get a chance to meet him. My colleagues (all graduate students) are all very considerate and helped me find a workstation to customize for my use. I gave the system (3.6 Ghz Xeon 64-bit with 2GB of ram) a clean install of Ubuntu Linux 7.04 but ran into some trouble with unsupported printer driver and necessary plug-ins. It turns out, they don't actually have a project prepared, forcing me to find a topic on my own. I know it's a freedom that I should relish but I also feel too inexperienced to thoroughly formalize a reasonable research topic on my own. Still, based on my past research experience time has a tendency to fly and I should get to work as soon as possible or else I won't have any substantial results by the end of my stay in Japan. As for the school... the Uji campus is much less claustrophobic than the narrow streets at the main Yoshida campus. The buildings are gray and rather depressing compared to the sandstone buildings at Stanford. The Bioinformatics Center that I am working at is actually quite new and the design quite attractive if not for the fact that it sits next to a rather disheveled and aging structure...
 |
| 07082007 |
On Monday, I started my first day at Kyoto University. The supervising professor was really busy though so I didn't get a chance to meet him. My colleagues (all graduate students) are all very considerate and helped me find a workstation to customize for my use. I gave the system (3.6 Ghz Xeon 64-bit with 2GB of ram) a clean install of Ubuntu Linux 7.04 but ran into some trouble with unsupported printer driver and necessary plug-ins. It turns out, they don't actually have a project prepared, forcing me to find a topic on my own. I know it's a freedom that I should relish but I also feel too inexperienced to thoroughly formalize a reasonable research topic on my own. Still, based on my past research experience time has a tendency to fly and I should get to work as soon as possible or else I won't have any substantial results by the end of my stay in Japan. As for the school... the Uji campus is much less claustrophobic than the narrow streets at the main Yoshida campus. The buildings are gray and rather depressing compared to the sandstone buildings at Stanford. The Bioinformatics Center that I am working at is actually quite new and the design quite attractive if not for the fact that it sits next to a rather disheveled and aging structure...
 |
| 07092007 |
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Brian: I'm Back
Hi guys, it's been a long time since you last heard from me. Patrick's been covering for us while we were at SCTI but now that we're separated, we all have to record our individual adventures and travels. I moved to Tokyo on Saturday 7/7/07 to a one-room mansion in Hongo. I will post some pictures of it later, but it is what you'd expect from a room in Tokyo, small and spare but functional. The first night, Jason stayed over because he went to a concert in Tokyo (with Linkin Park and Rihanna among others) . I fit him in the one-person sized space on the floor next to my bed. The following night, Michael stayed over because he had just come back from his brother's wedding in Irvine and I did the same thing for him. It worked out well because I could provide him accommodations and he could tie my tie for me the next day :).
My internship is at a robotics group in Tokyo University. My professor is Arai Tamio (last name Arai) and his group is split up between him and 2 associate professors, Yokoi and Ota. I am in Arai's group working in the Robocup project, but unfortunately not directly on the AIBO robots who play soccer for Robocup. I'm currently assigned to the overhead fisheye camera that monitors the field. It's a new camera and the only existing code that has been written simply grabs a frame and stores it. He wants me to use the camera to localize objects on the field in 2D, which sounds relatively straightforward. However, calibrating the distortion caused by the fisheye camera remains a challenge. I'm currently on my 4th day here, where the first day consisted mainly of introductions and a meeting, the 2nd day was software installation and getting familiar with the subject, and the 3rd day was a group meeting and leaving early to meet up with friends. So, I haven't done any real work yet. Contrary to what I believed coming in here, there really aren't high expectations for me despite the fact that I'm the first undergraduate intern and the faculty literally had to change the system to let me in (Arai sensei keeps telling me how surprised he is that they would allow it). He just wants me to be a "powerful support" to my colleagues, so any real work that I do will just be a nice bonus. As for the other people here... they do seem pretty hard working in general. I was really impressed on the first day because they stayed until 12 midnight, but as I realized the following day, it is because they don't get in the office until 12 noon. So, depending on whether I want my job to sound easy or hard, I can say I don't leave until midnight, or alternatively that I don't get in until noon.
Yesterday I met up with my quintet from freshman year. As luck would have it, 4 of the 5 of us are in Tokyo at the moment. Besides me, Guson (piano) is on vacation before he starts med school, Naoya (cello, just admitted to Juilliard) is doing a consulting internship at Bain, and Iris (violin, UCSD med school) is playing in a music festival in Japan. I first met up with Naoya and Guson in Shinjuku and we did some window shopping and chatted before eating a really lame dinner. It sounded good, beef tongue set, but the set was really lame, just 3 pieces of beef tongue, a bowl of rice, some pickled cabbage that tasted disgusting, and a bowl of soup. The tongue was really tough - in fact the only redeeming quality was the soup was good. And it wasn't cheap either, it was Y1450. Afterwards we met up with Iris at about 10:00 because her concert ended at 9:30. We talked for a bit in a cafe and then ate some Hokkaido ramen. Iris kept reverting back to Japanese because she didn't speak anything but Japanese until she was 5 years old. Naoya is also fluent at Japanese despite being Japanese-American. We had a nice time catching up but in the end, we stayed too late. We didn't leave the ramen place until 12, and though everybody else got back OK, I was stranded on a train 2 stops from Shibuya and had to take a taxi back home. It ended up being Y3620 to get back, which I justified as 1) you have to do it at least once to know how much it hurts and 2) it's cheaper than a capsule hotel and I wouldn't have to worry about getting back to Tokyo University the next day.
My internship is at a robotics group in Tokyo University. My professor is Arai Tamio (last name Arai) and his group is split up between him and 2 associate professors, Yokoi and Ota. I am in Arai's group working in the Robocup project, but unfortunately not directly on the AIBO robots who play soccer for Robocup. I'm currently assigned to the overhead fisheye camera that monitors the field. It's a new camera and the only existing code that has been written simply grabs a frame and stores it. He wants me to use the camera to localize objects on the field in 2D, which sounds relatively straightforward. However, calibrating the distortion caused by the fisheye camera remains a challenge. I'm currently on my 4th day here, where the first day consisted mainly of introductions and a meeting, the 2nd day was software installation and getting familiar with the subject, and the 3rd day was a group meeting and leaving early to meet up with friends. So, I haven't done any real work yet. Contrary to what I believed coming in here, there really aren't high expectations for me despite the fact that I'm the first undergraduate intern and the faculty literally had to change the system to let me in (Arai sensei keeps telling me how surprised he is that they would allow it). He just wants me to be a "powerful support" to my colleagues, so any real work that I do will just be a nice bonus. As for the other people here... they do seem pretty hard working in general. I was really impressed on the first day because they stayed until 12 midnight, but as I realized the following day, it is because they don't get in the office until 12 noon. So, depending on whether I want my job to sound easy or hard, I can say I don't leave until midnight, or alternatively that I don't get in until noon.
Yesterday I met up with my quintet from freshman year. As luck would have it, 4 of the 5 of us are in Tokyo at the moment. Besides me, Guson (piano) is on vacation before he starts med school, Naoya (cello, just admitted to Juilliard) is doing a consulting internship at Bain, and Iris (violin, UCSD med school) is playing in a music festival in Japan. I first met up with Naoya and Guson in Shinjuku and we did some window shopping and chatted before eating a really lame dinner. It sounded good, beef tongue set, but the set was really lame, just 3 pieces of beef tongue, a bowl of rice, some pickled cabbage that tasted disgusting, and a bowl of soup. The tongue was really tough - in fact the only redeeming quality was the soup was good. And it wasn't cheap either, it was Y1450. Afterwards we met up with Iris at about 10:00 because her concert ended at 9:30. We talked for a bit in a cafe and then ate some Hokkaido ramen. Iris kept reverting back to Japanese because she didn't speak anything but Japanese until she was 5 years old. Naoya is also fluent at Japanese despite being Japanese-American. We had a nice time catching up but in the end, we stayed too late. We didn't leave the ramen place until 12, and though everybody else got back OK, I was stranded on a train 2 stops from Shibuya and had to take a taxi back home. It ended up being Y3620 to get back, which I justified as 1) you have to do it at least once to know how much it hurts and 2) it's cheaper than a capsule hotel and I wouldn't have to worry about getting back to Tokyo University the next day.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Patrick: Wrapping things up
So it's finally over. The SCTI quarter has officially come to a close. Final papers, presentations, exams have been done away with and the closing ceremonies have concluded. For the rest of the summer, we're on our own spread out across Japan. The independence is a little daunting, I must admit. Here are a few memories of the last week of SCTI:
Below is a gallery of other people's design cubes for the architecture class. We all spent a lot of time on the models, more time than was actually required it seems. I really liked how everyone had such unique ideas and concepts for their ideal living space. And in the end, the efforts put into realizing those ideas really came through , making the individual presentations all the more interesting.
We each took turns explaining our motivations for the design cubes. Each person's presentation was around 10 minutes with an extra 5 to 10 min critique from the architects. The critiques would often run off on tangents and extend into the next person's time. As a result, we ran a little over time.
Here's what my apartment looks like from shichi-jo 七条. I'm on the 5th story facing this street. I just found out last night that the city is a little noisy at night with the random police sirens and roaring engines of street racers interrupting the otherwise standard city static.
On Thursday, Brian, Daryl, Todd, Jean, and I went to Amanohashidate 天橋立 in northern Kyoto. It is one of Japan's three most scenic locations 日本三景; the other two being Miyajima (which we went to already) and Matsushima Bay (in Sendai, north of Tokyo on the Pacific coast). It had been raining for the past week on and off so I was a little worried about the weather. Fortunately the skies held up and the sun even came out later in the afternoon. Transportation was a little expensive since the express trains cost extra hence a lot of people dropped out of the trip last minute. Jean is here on vacation so she had a 3-week long JR pass making the trip much cheaper. However, the location is definitely worth going to and coupled with the great company, I think we came away with an invaluable experience in the end.
As for what we did there... when we arrived, we walked across the isthmus that connected the lips of the bay. It was a 3.2 km walk in a park of pine trees on one side and a stretch of beautiful beach on the other side. I think this was my first time on a beach in Japan. Since it was a weekday, there were very few people there making for some great landscape pictures. Once we crossed to the other side, we decided to hike up the mountain to the vista point up top instead of taking the lift. I think we ended up regretting the choice a little since it was a humid day and the stairs were really really steep. By the end of the 30 minute climb, I was sweating through and through; absolutely drenched from head to toe.
The view on the top was definitely worth it though. The place is known as Amanohashidate, literally a "bridge in the sky" because when you look at it upside-down through your legs, you should see the waters reflect the sky making the sky and water indiscernible. Hence the isthmus sitting in between looks like it is rising into or from the sky. The reflections were not quite that clear but it does look quite amazing upside-down (through Brian's legs). From the side we were on, the sand bar wasn't visible. I've seen postcards, probably taken from the other side, where the sand bar looks like the spines on a rising dragon giving rise to the other nickname the place has which I haven't figured out how to read in Japanese but includes the kanji 飛龍.
From the vista point, we hiked another 40 minutes up to a temple further in the mountains (the bus was really expensive... 1100 yen for two-ways). The temple was nothing too special compared to some of the other temples we've seen back in more central Kyoto. But there was another observation deck which provided another stunning view of the place. Another 1 km up was supposedly the No.1 vista point in Japan. We were too tired to confirm the claim, but I must admit it is great marketing. Who can easily pass up the No.1 of anything?
On the way back, we found out the restaurants were still making preparations for dinner and closed for business. So we headed back to Kyoto and had ramen at one of the Kansai area's most famed ramen-ya. I think I liked the one in Ichijoji better though... The place was called 新福菜館 and located about 5 minutes from my current apartment. Next door is another famous ramen-ya but it was closed on Thursdays. I'll most certainly make my way back to try it out some time next week...
The SCTI farewell party was held from 6 to 8:30 pm on Friday at the Royal Hotel on kawaramachi. It was quite a fancy occasion attended by our professors, our host families, president of Doshisha University, and other prominent figures involved in making the SCTI program possible. The hotel was also pretty classy and the food was delicious. My only qualms are that the timing was too punctual, too perfect. We ended at exactly 8:30. I didn't even have time to eat dessert...
After some speeches given in a mixture of Japanese and English, we had an excellent taiko performance by Rio and Deni. The host families were absolutely stunned how well foreigners were able to perform such a traditional Japanese art form. Following that Jason and MickeyD rapped in English and Japanese recounting some great moments that occurred during this past quarter. Then came the slideshow that Emily prepared by choosing representative pictures from all the ones we took while here in Kyoto. Looking back, we really had quite memorable experiences. The places we went to, the things we ate, the people we saw, the temples and shrines we visited, the friends we made.. I can't even begin to describe how special these memories mean to me now and I'm not even gone from Japan yet. I think that has got to be the most important reason for keeping this blog. Without it, my memories would mix and mingle and things would inevitably sift down into the abyss of forgetfulness.
After the party, a few of us went to karaoke on kawaramachi. It was going to be our last event with each other in a while so we really wanted to make it a night to remember. Of course, alcohol was kept to a minimum since people had early departure times the next day to their internship sites. I think Jason deserves the credit in really substantiating what it means to karaoke with our crowd. We have developed (unconsciously or consciously I don't know) this tradition of ending on Bon Jovi hollering the lyrics at the top of our lungs in a circle connected by arms and shoulders. The camaraderie is... absolutely fabulous.
The next morning, I woke up early to attend an exhibition match between Doshisha and rival Ritsumeikan. The location was a sports facility near Kyoto station. It was quite a big complex and almost looked like a hotel. There were 6 courts in all. I only played 2 matches since I had to leave early to finish packing and prepare for my move, but again I was surprised by the organization and the dedication the players displayed for the match. The Doshisha players were better as a whole but the good players of the other school were indeed very good.
After that, I went home, packed my things, had lunch, and then my host family brought me and my luggage to the apartment. Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better residence. The location is absolutely perfect, being close to Kyoto station where I can take the JR and kintetsu lines as well as to the Kamo River where I can board the keihan. Convenient stores and restaurants are also abundant in the area. The room is much bigger than a Stanford dorm room, with a living room the size of 10 tatamis. It comes furnished with kitchen utensils, a closet, mirrors, a fridge, microwave, rice cooker, water heater, a/c (that's really really important given the imminent heat wave), a tv with a DVD player, and a laundry machine. Overall, it is quite comfortable and all my utilities are paid for so all I have left to worry about is to not lock myself out because there's no friendly RA right down the hall to go to for emergencies...
I've updated my panoramas so here's the link to the gallery again:
Below is a gallery of other people's design cubes for the architecture class. We all spent a lot of time on the models, more time than was actually required it seems. I really liked how everyone had such unique ideas and concepts for their ideal living space. And in the end, the efforts put into realizing those ideas really came through , making the individual presentations all the more interesting.
 |
| Other dCubes |
We each took turns explaining our motivations for the design cubes. Each person's presentation was around 10 minutes with an extra 5 to 10 min critique from the architects. The critiques would often run off on tangents and extend into the next person's time. As a result, we ran a little over time.
 |
| 07032007 |
Here's what my apartment looks like from shichi-jo 七条. I'm on the 5th story facing this street. I just found out last night that the city is a little noisy at night with the random police sirens and roaring engines of street racers interrupting the otherwise standard city static.
 |
| 06292007 |
On Thursday, Brian, Daryl, Todd, Jean, and I went to Amanohashidate 天橋立 in northern Kyoto. It is one of Japan's three most scenic locations 日本三景; the other two being Miyajima (which we went to already) and Matsushima Bay (in Sendai, north of Tokyo on the Pacific coast). It had been raining for the past week on and off so I was a little worried about the weather. Fortunately the skies held up and the sun even came out later in the afternoon. Transportation was a little expensive since the express trains cost extra hence a lot of people dropped out of the trip last minute. Jean is here on vacation so she had a 3-week long JR pass making the trip much cheaper. However, the location is definitely worth going to and coupled with the great company, I think we came away with an invaluable experience in the end.
As for what we did there... when we arrived, we walked across the isthmus that connected the lips of the bay. It was a 3.2 km walk in a park of pine trees on one side and a stretch of beautiful beach on the other side. I think this was my first time on a beach in Japan. Since it was a weekday, there were very few people there making for some great landscape pictures. Once we crossed to the other side, we decided to hike up the mountain to the vista point up top instead of taking the lift. I think we ended up regretting the choice a little since it was a humid day and the stairs were really really steep. By the end of the 30 minute climb, I was sweating through and through; absolutely drenched from head to toe.
The view on the top was definitely worth it though. The place is known as Amanohashidate, literally a "bridge in the sky" because when you look at it upside-down through your legs, you should see the waters reflect the sky making the sky and water indiscernible. Hence the isthmus sitting in between looks like it is rising into or from the sky. The reflections were not quite that clear but it does look quite amazing upside-down (through Brian's legs). From the side we were on, the sand bar wasn't visible. I've seen postcards, probably taken from the other side, where the sand bar looks like the spines on a rising dragon giving rise to the other nickname the place has which I haven't figured out how to read in Japanese but includes the kanji 飛龍.
From the vista point, we hiked another 40 minutes up to a temple further in the mountains (the bus was really expensive... 1100 yen for two-ways). The temple was nothing too special compared to some of the other temples we've seen back in more central Kyoto. But there was another observation deck which provided another stunning view of the place. Another 1 km up was supposedly the No.1 vista point in Japan. We were too tired to confirm the claim, but I must admit it is great marketing. Who can easily pass up the No.1 of anything?
On the way back, we found out the restaurants were still making preparations for dinner and closed for business. So we headed back to Kyoto and had ramen at one of the Kansai area's most famed ramen-ya. I think I liked the one in Ichijoji better though... The place was called 新福菜館 and located about 5 minutes from my current apartment. Next door is another famous ramen-ya but it was closed on Thursdays. I'll most certainly make my way back to try it out some time next week...
 |
| 07052007 |
The SCTI farewell party was held from 6 to 8:30 pm on Friday at the Royal Hotel on kawaramachi. It was quite a fancy occasion attended by our professors, our host families, president of Doshisha University, and other prominent figures involved in making the SCTI program possible. The hotel was also pretty classy and the food was delicious. My only qualms are that the timing was too punctual, too perfect. We ended at exactly 8:30. I didn't even have time to eat dessert...
After some speeches given in a mixture of Japanese and English, we had an excellent taiko performance by Rio and Deni. The host families were absolutely stunned how well foreigners were able to perform such a traditional Japanese art form. Following that Jason and MickeyD rapped in English and Japanese recounting some great moments that occurred during this past quarter. Then came the slideshow that Emily prepared by choosing representative pictures from all the ones we took while here in Kyoto. Looking back, we really had quite memorable experiences. The places we went to, the things we ate, the people we saw, the temples and shrines we visited, the friends we made.. I can't even begin to describe how special these memories mean to me now and I'm not even gone from Japan yet. I think that has got to be the most important reason for keeping this blog. Without it, my memories would mix and mingle and things would inevitably sift down into the abyss of forgetfulness.
After the party, a few of us went to karaoke on kawaramachi. It was going to be our last event with each other in a while so we really wanted to make it a night to remember. Of course, alcohol was kept to a minimum since people had early departure times the next day to their internship sites. I think Jason deserves the credit in really substantiating what it means to karaoke with our crowd. We have developed (unconsciously or consciously I don't know) this tradition of ending on Bon Jovi hollering the lyrics at the top of our lungs in a circle connected by arms and shoulders. The camaraderie is... absolutely fabulous.
 |
| 07062007 |
The next morning, I woke up early to attend an exhibition match between Doshisha and rival Ritsumeikan. The location was a sports facility near Kyoto station. It was quite a big complex and almost looked like a hotel. There were 6 courts in all. I only played 2 matches since I had to leave early to finish packing and prepare for my move, but again I was surprised by the organization and the dedication the players displayed for the match. The Doshisha players were better as a whole but the good players of the other school were indeed very good.
After that, I went home, packed my things, had lunch, and then my host family brought me and my luggage to the apartment. Overall, I couldn't have asked for a better residence. The location is absolutely perfect, being close to Kyoto station where I can take the JR and kintetsu lines as well as to the Kamo River where I can board the keihan. Convenient stores and restaurants are also abundant in the area. The room is much bigger than a Stanford dorm room, with a living room the size of 10 tatamis. It comes furnished with kitchen utensils, a closet, mirrors, a fridge, microwave, rice cooker, water heater, a/c (that's really really important given the imminent heat wave), a tv with a DVD player, and a laundry machine. Overall, it is quite comfortable and all my utilities are paid for so all I have left to worry about is to not lock myself out because there's no friendly RA right down the hall to go to for emergencies...
 |
| 07072007 |
I've updated my panoramas so here's the link to the gallery again:
 |
| Panoramas |
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