Kyoto

After Miyajima, the group spent 2 days in Kyoto. We took a shinkansen late at night from Hiroshima to Kyoto, so we didn't get to our hotel rooms until about 9 p.m. We didn't know of anything to do in Kyoto, so us 6 guys decided to walk around and play "The 7-11 Game." We invented this game on the spot. The rule of the game is that, when you see a convenient store (preferably a 7-11), you had to go inside and buy a tall can of beer or a cup of Japanese sake. Then, you had to finish that drink before you reached the next convenient store, in which you have to buy more booze. We didn't realize that there are so many convenient stores in that area. We made it back in one piece, but I felt quite terrible the next morning.

The next day we met up with students from a local university, and they gave us a tour of the most famous shrine in all of Japan, let alone the city. All the guys had a tough morning because we drank too much sake the night before.

That day was the start of Golden Week. Golden Week is a national holiday in Japan where people close down their businesses and do a lot of traveling. Have you ever been to Disneyland during memorial day weekend or a water-park in the middle of summer? Those places are not even half as crowded as Kyoto was during Golden Week.

In order to reach the famous, giant shrine, you had to walk through the "old-city" of Kyoto. My guide claimed that this is what the city was like during the Edo period (fuedal era), except that I know that this area was bombed to the ground during WWII. The area was still quite astonishing, and yes, very crowded. I even saw an authentic Geisha gracefully walking down the street. Here is a picture or two:




Standing in front of the entrance to the shrine there was a monk-in-training. I asked my guide, and he said that part of a monk's training is that he has to stand and beg for money, and he has to use all the money he makes in one day to buy food and shelter. He may not keep money for the next day. I thought this was very interesting. I saw him before going into the shrine, and then he was standing in the exact same place and exact same pose when I came out hours later.



The giant shrine, like most other shrines in Japan, was beautiful. However, at this point in the trip, especially this week, I'm pretty tired of looking at shrines and temples. Anyway, here are some pictures:





There was an attraction in the shrine that I was particularly fascinated with. There was a fountain, and the fountain had running water from the mountain (who knows if it actually came from the mountain). The water was separated into three streams, and drinking out of each one gave you different perks. One was long life, one was super intelligence, and the other was a successful love life. I waited in line for 20 minutes to drink from the fountain of infinite wisdom.




That night I went to bed early to recover from the night before. The next day we had free time. A group of 7 of us decided to rent bikes and tour the city, hoping to see more than by just walking. The bikes were extremely cheap and a great help. We first visited the famous Imperial Palace.

The Imperial Palace is the place where the current emperor resides (supposedly, but he's actually in Tokyo and has no real significance anymore). Before, it was used as the headquarters and home of the Shogun, or military leader of Japan (this is all pre-1900's). The Palace is hardly a palace, but can be better described as an intense stronghold. The moat was wide and the walls were steep and high with tightly-packed stones. I would not want to siege that castle.
However, my favorite part of the castle was the main building. The architect knew of Japan's long history of assassinations, so he constructed special floors called "Nightingale floors." Whenever you take a step, the floor makes a creaking noise. Sadly, they do not allow pictures, but I found the image online of how the nightingale floor works:



The rest of the palace was very pretty. The garden was especially gorgeous. Here are pictures:





We then biked to the next temple on our site-seeing list, and decided to get lunch before going in. The two girls in our group split up and went to an expensive restaurant, while the 5 guys went searching for somewhere to eat. It was already 3pm, so almost everything was closed. We then walked down a side ally and into a dingy little shop at the front of someones house. The "restaurant" consisted of 5 seats at the counter and 2 seats at a tiny table against the wall. The "chef" and owner was an old guy and his wife was there cleaning dishes. There were two patrons seated at the counter, and by the way that they were slurring their words and smiling a lot, I figured that they were drunk. I sit next to them and they immediately strike up conversation. They were quite interesting, and the food was surprisingly delicious and cheap.




After lunch, we saw more shrines and etc. That night we took the Shinkansen back to Yokohama and made it home by 9:30pm. That was the end of the planned field trip, but I was leaving for Nikko the next day...

Miyajima

After Hiroshima, and before heading to Kyoto, the professors took us to the island of Miyajima. The island is just off the coast of Hiroshima and is known as "One of the 5 most beautiful places in Japan." To be honest, I thought that it was just another tourist trap, albeit a pretty one.
The most interesting, yet depressing, sight on the island is right when I stepped off the ferry. The island imported deer to the island, and lets them roam free around the tourists. So, there are countless deer just walking around the island, begging for food from the tourists; you can even pet them if you want. However, I mentioned that it's depressing because the deer are all mangy looking (probably from eating human food) and the ugly ones that no one wanted to feed were eating scraps of paper off the ground. Also, if you didn't feed them, they would chase you around the island and sometimes even bite:





There were some pretty shrines and temples on the island. The most famous attraction of the island is a giant, red doorway in the middle of the bay (it's not actually called a "doorway," and does have some religious significance). My favorite part of the island was the Buddhist temple in the hills. It was huge! One part of the temple had miniature statues of almost every form of Buddha. I had a few extra minutes, so I was able to meditate in the temple, on tatami mats and in front of a shrine. I have always wanted to do that.

Hiroshima

When I signed up for this study-abroad program, one of the requirements is that you take a week-long field trip to Hiroshima and Kyoto. Of course, that sounds awesome, so I accepted that condition with no questions; I still have no regrets about this entire abroad experience.
In the group we had all 20 UC students, 3 professors, 2 program coordinators, and about 15 Japanese Meiji Gakuin Students. Our first stop, as I mentioned above, was Hiroshima. The excursion was very regimented, so I was not given much free time to explore the area. Getting to Hiroshima was a whole adventure in itself.
As a group, we took a Shinkansen from Yokohama to Hiroshima. A Shinkansen is a Japanese bullet train (the one the cruises at about 110 mph). The train was surprisingly comfortable, with plenty of leg room and clean bathrooms. Although it is the same cost as a domestic plane flight, there is much less hassle because you can skip the airport and just walk through the train station and jump on your train at the appointed time (however, the train only stops for 1 minute at each station, so you have to hustle to make it on in time).
After dropping our bags off, we explored the Peace Museum, the museum was installed to remember the dropping of the Atomic Bomb. The museum started off fairly neutral, giving a background to the war and the dropping of the bomb. However, as I started walking through the building, it became more and more somber and gruesome. Some of the pictures were truly horrifying and disgusting. After leaving the museum, I had to sit by myself on a park bench to contemplate what I just saw and read. I came to the conclusion that nuclear warheads need to be disarmed and abolished (of course, this is not some crazy new idea, and it's kind of sad that it took a graphic museum tour for me to come to this conclusion).
That night we were lucky enough that a Hibakusha came to give us a lecture. Hibakusha is the Japanese term given to those people who survived the dropping of the Atomic Bomb. He told a detailed story of where he was when the bomb was dropped, how he escaped the destroyed building he was in, and what the scene was like afterward. His words were 5 times more moving than the entire museum. Everyone went to bed that night tired and depressed.
The next day we continued the theme of military and destruction, but on a lighter note; we went on a tour of the Edajima Marine Self-Defense Forces School. The MSDF is on an island just off of the Hiroshima coast-line, so we took a twenty minute ferry to get there. Once on the island we took a gruelingly long tour of the self-defense school and a Japanese military museum. to be honest, the sites were pretty boring and ordinary: the buildings looked like UCLA and I couldn't read one thing in the museum. Nevertheless, here are a few pictures:





After touring the school and eating lunch, the group headed on a charter bus to a the naval base in the same bay. Apparently, 2/5 of all of Japan's navy resides in that one bay, and there weren't many ships that I saw. Our guide explained to us that Japan is taking a very... defensive... standpoint in their military endeavors (hence the name "self-defense school" instead of "Marine officers training"). Regardless, the submarines looked pretty cool:





During the war, Japan knew that America would start bombing the Hiroshima coastline since it had so many military resources. So, to prepare for these bombings, Japan had migrant workers build deep tunnels into the surrounding mountains where production could continue should such bombings occur. Our next stop was to tour one of these tunnels.
The tunnel ran fairly deep, probably about 100 yards in total length. It smelled dank and had heaps of garbage piled around the front. Being deep in the tunnel, I could imagine what the immigrant workers were feeling as the land around the mountain was being bombed daily. Here are some pictures from inside:





That night we had a little bit of free time. Some of the guys and I decided to go try Okonomiyaki, a famous dish indigenous to Hiroshima. The dish is hard to describe; it was cabbage, with soba noodles on top of it, with egg and meat on top of that, and with a weird, tangy sauce still on top of that. Then, the whole thing was cooked on a big hot-plate. Oishikatta! (Delicious!). Here is a picture I found online:



The next day we toured the Peace Memorial Park. In addition to installing the peace museum, the city of Hiroshima decided to make most of the bombed-out area into a large peace park commemorating the dropping of the bomb. In the park are countless memorials to the victims of Little Boy. One that caught my interest was a giant flame that will continue to burn until all nuclear missiles are disarmed:



One of the kids that survived the dropping of the bomb, but was infected with radiation poisoning, hand-made 1000 paper cranes while she was sitting in the hospital, hoping the cranes will cure her sickness. She was a symbol of hope for all Hibakushas. Although she didn't survive, there is a monument dedicated to her and her cranes. Behind the statue are about 10 glass cases FULL of paper cranes. Anyone can donate cranes that they make to the monument. I was lucky, because while I was there, a group of elementary school children were donating the hundreds of cranes they had made the week before. I was able to watch them sing a few practiced songs and then hang up their long string of cranes in one of the glass cases. The event was both heartwarming and saddening at the same time.






After touring the park, we again had another Hibakusha speaker. Once again the story was very depressing, yet incredible. I was tired of hearing these heart-wrenching stories, and ready for something more uplifting...
That night I attended a professional baseball game! The night was quite an experience. I want to first point out a few differences between MLB and the Japanese League. 1. The crowd does not "Boo," no matter how bad the ref's call 2. The pitchers are much worse; there were so many Balls and very few strike-outs 3. The crowd cheers in a much more organized format. Almost every fan has some sticks or bats to bang together to make noise. Apparently, clapping their hands is not sufficient. Then, when a favorite batter is at the plate, the entire crowd, in unison, bangs their bats together to the same beat, periodically calling out the batters name. It was nothing short of amazing. 5. The food stands serve completely different items (as can be expected). I had to try the hot dog and the Squid-on-a-stick. The hot dog was no dodger-dog; it was small, not filling, and expensive. However, the squid was cooked to delicious perfection. 6. Women walk around with kegs on their back to refill you're beer. No more spilling your beer on the crowded walk back to your seats.





Another difference was that, during 7th inning stretch, they don't sing "Take me out to the Ball Game." Instead, people buy these special balloons for a fair price, then blow them up during the 7th inning stretch. They then sing a song (I don't know what was said) and release the balloons all at once. It is quite a spectacle to see. I attached a video that I captured of the whole event:



It was quite a long three days in Hiroshima. I have to go to class now (yes, that school thing), but I will continue writing about the rest of my trip when I have some spare time tonight.

A day in Shibuya

A few of us were bored the other Sunday, so we decided to take a trip into the Shibuya area of Tokyo to find a famous sword museum. We took an hour train into Tokyo, then another 20 minute subway train into some suburb of the area. Then, we walked around for 20 minutes trying to find the damn place that every person said was "just around the corner." Eventually, we gave up on finding the sword museum, but happened to stumble upon a Square-Enix store.
If you don't know, Square-Enix is the company that makes the Final Fantasy franchise. Me and the few buddies with me were in heaven. Here are a couple pictures from the store:





We didn't pay $10 each way to just go to a Square-Enix store, so we decided to walk around Shibuya. Shibuya is famous for being the shopping district of Tokyo. The area is filled with huge buildings and bright signs. My favorite part of the area is the crosswalk just outside the station. Shibuya is the home of the super busy crosswalk that most of you have seen in movies or on TV. It is the busiest crosswalk in all of Tokyo, and probably the world (although I can't confirm that). What is so interesting about the crosswalk is that people not only cross in the normal "Square" pattern, but also diagonally across the intersection. I took a picture or two and caught an overwhelming video of the scene that occurs every couple minutes.







After walking around for a couple hours, we decided to head back and maybe do some school work. After all, I'm still a student at a university with a full course-load.....