Kyoto.

Yes. The Kyoto post is started.

[It's still under construction, as I decide which pictures to post, actually upload them, and then write blurbs. However, I really need to work on a Christmas presentation for tomorrow, so I'm going to put it on pause today. I might work on it later tonight, or just work on it over the week as I get time.]




Kyoto Tower! Wooo!



And our nom nom breakfast! :D


I had to take a picture of that. Just had to. *now has images of coporate Dartek in a suit hounding her brain *

Oh? You want to see places where we went? Goooot iiiiiit.
So, Dana and I went to Kyoto. And the big thing we saw there was Fushimi Inari Shrine. If you want to read a nifty little article about Inari Shrines, you can read Dana's post here.  Fishimi Inari is known for having soooo many torii, or these big red gates:


This is the entrance gate. Inari also has something to do with foxes, so there are lots of images of foxes, like this one:



Yep, it's a fox. Foxes are either Inari's messanger animal, or perhaps a form of Inari itself, or maybe something else, no one really knows.

But, at Fushimi Inari there were SO MANY PEOPLE.


    
I guess you could get more people in there.

BUT THERE WERE ALSO SO MANY TORII.

 
You'd be hard pressed to get more torii in there.







So many torii!


And sometimes there are trees growing where there should be torii. Cool!

There were also fox-shaped ema (ema are placards that you can write prayers/wishes on.)







Some of them made me giggle.


 
There were also a lot of places with candles, and I thought they were all rather pretty.

 
Also, there was a bunch of nature, and I found that pretty, too.


 
Also, more torii.
 
And more nature.

 
And more nature and torii! :D
 
Also, Dana was rather amused I was so captivated with nature mixing with the torii/statues.

 
More foxes, too, since it's an Inari Shrine. And sooo many torii.

 

Also, one smaller shrine had these two horses on either side, and I thought they were really cool. I really like mixed-media art, like stone statues with cloth additions: 



I also really like big worms.




And this foxes face reminded me of my puppy, and made me grin:



This was probably my favorite part. Fushimi Inari Shrine, like most shrines, has a lot of little shrines and holy things inside of it. There was one such place that was down a little staircase covered with ferns...


 
And there was a bridge! I love the spaces under bridges! :D Dana was amused with how captivated I was.



So many pretty ferns and little torii-- I love the color combo.



 
It also had a little waterfall thing, that was probably for purification purposes.

 
And a sprouting seed that I couldn't get as good picture of as I wanted.

 
And gorgeous roots.
I am likely to be just as captivated by the nature in shrines as I am the shrine itself.

Like, so many cool spidery roots!

 
And geology!


And then we got to the top, and I needed a drink, and this cider was amazing. The most cider-y cider I've had in Japan, so I wanted to remember it. And, also, little fern!

 
Also, a freaking huge spider. I wanted to put my hand down near it so you could see how big it was, but Dana thought that was a bad idea, and I didn't really want to get bitten either.

 
Oh my gosh, foreigners! Don't do this! D:



...pretty stairs... I like stairs...


 
And a gorgeous snail! :D

 
Oh! Oh! And a praying mantis! Can I get a picture of it before it flies away/attacks us?

 
Why, yes, I can! :D






I liked seeing the lion dogs next to the foxes.





CATS! Cats at the shrine! Squeeee! I wanted to pet them. :3



Chikan ni chui. Apparently there are perverts about, and we need to be careful of them.

Then we left Fushimi Inari, and went to the castle that has the Nightengale boards, that make awesome bird-like noises when you walk on them.

At the front were a bunch of pretty flowers, which I thought mommy would like to see.




We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but outside was also very pretty.

And here's the front gate:

And the building itself had gorgeous architecture.



And while the weather was a little overcast, but I still found the clouds beautiful and soothing.







 
And one of the reasons I went to Kyoto at this time was to see the leaves changing color. We got to see some!







 
Also, there was a reeeeeally big moat.




Then we left the castle and went shopping. While we were walking around, we saw this really big animatronic crab on one of the buildings. I'd seen an animatronic crab in anime before, but never in person, and I was captivated.







And that's it for Kyoto! I really enjoyed my third visit to Kyoto, and I'm looking forward to visiting again. :3

End of the Semester Letter

The last month has gone very well for me. The whole past five months have gone well with me, with a few ups and downs, which is to be expected for moving to a new country and living alone for the first time.

The middle of autumn was difficult. I was building my social network, and settling into a flow that wasn't just surviving, but actually nurturing and thriving. I lost about 15 pounds the first three months of my stay in Japan from a combination of stress, stomach issues that came with the diet change, and not always being good at remembering to go to the grocery or cook a meal.

Since then, things have settled down. I have daily feeling awe that I'm living in Japan, thankfulness for new friends I have made and old friends who help support me, and joy in the little things in life, like a good chocolate or a hot bath. I have had several excellent trips out into Japan (I'll hopefully get those Kyoto pictures up soon O.o). I have been called a hard worker by my co-workers, and developed and excellent joking friendship with two and a warm camaraderie with the others.

I don't plan to take much paid leave this Christmas Break. We get December 23rd off as a national holiday, the 24th and 25th are on the weekend, and then there is the New Years Holdays December 28th until January 3rd. My goal is to have a complete semester of lesson plans scheduled for next semester. (A syllabus? What's that?! (So far I've been planning my lessons week-to-week, without an idea of what I'd be doing the next week or the week after, and that is very nerve-wracking for me.)) There would be 6 half days from Dec 23rd until January 9th, and I think that's a good amount of time to clean out my desk, reflect on the past semester, and build up a syllabus for next year. It's nice to have a semester under my belt and to have done well at it. I hope the next semester is enjoyable and good and perhaps more relaxed than this one, though I know the new year will bring new challenges as well.

Karatsu Kunchi

So, way back on October 3rd I went to Karatsu Kunchi, which means in English OH MY GOSH SO MANY PEOPLE!!!!!!


This is the gate to Karatsu Shrine. Karatsu is a city on the northern part of Saga, on the sea of Japan. I'm not 100% sure what Karatsu Kunchi is about, but I do know it is a massive three-day festival where people bring out 13 massive, ancient floats and parade them around the city of Karatsu. There are also portions of the festival where the people of the city open their doors and bring people in off the street for food and drinking. But, the most important thing to know is it's in Karatsu, it's on October 3rd, and there are A WHOLE BUNCH OF PEOPLE.

And food stands, too. Gotta feed all those people. So Angela and I snagged our own num nums.

OMG! LITTLE TURTLES!!! 8D SOOOO CUUUUUUUTE!!!! (And this is the point when Mary finds she is irrisitably attracted to turtles. She also thinks it's a really sad fate for a baby turtle to be put in a plastic tank with nothing but water.)

BUT, OMG, THEY ARE SO CUTE, AND ON THE ROCK THEY LOOK LIKE <3

Anyway, this is what Karatsu Kunchi is known for: it's really old, really gorgeous floats. There are 13 of them, and they each represent one district of Karatsu. And the newest one is, I believe, 300 years old. Yyyyeaaaaah. They're cool.

And there's the other bunch.

Did I mention there were a lot of people there?


Well... there were a lot of people there.

This is the most famous float of them all-- the Koi. It's the one you see on all the posters for Karatsu-Kunchi, and apparently it's going for a tour of Good Will through China. It's pretty pretty, in my opinion.

So Angela and I decided to go have a look-see at my favorite float, the Dragon Fish.

Here it is.

It's getting closer.

Ba-dum. Ba dum. Ba dum ba dum ba dum! It's going to eat me!

AAAAAUGHAAAAHHHHHH! THE HORROR! THE PAIN! IT'S GOING TO EAT THAT WOMAN'S HAND!!!!!!!!!

It was a pretty awesome day.

Here's the back of one of the Lion Dog floats. Oh my gosh, the hair! It looked pretty fantastic, like Yubaba from Spirited Away-- my favorite character. And, Look! It keeps children tucked away in it's hair! Fantastic.

More secret shots of the float's behinds and underparts.

They keep drums hidden under there.

More Dragon Fish. Good golly, I love it.

This is our group. We kind of met each other, wandered through the festival, got lost, bumped into each other again, wandered off, and so on and so forth. It was pretty fun.

Then me and the girls went to find a nice hide-y place to get away from the crowds and relax.

And watch the fish float swim over the roof tops.

Swim, swim, swim in the sea!

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming!

Overall, it was a pretty fantastic festival. Lots of walking, lots of crowds, lots of festival food, and my favorite, hanging out on an old stone wall watching the floats float over the rooves. Excellent time, girls.

Cheers!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year, and I'm in charge of the pies. I did an extra pecan pie last night (but it's nibbled on because I wanted to make sure I actually remembered how to make pie dough. Turns out I did, and it's delicious.)
My pecan pie is over baked and my apple pie is under-baked. XD But still, not bad for being a year rusty with pies and using completely different measurements (metric instead of American whatever-that-stuff-is).

Here's a picture of the haul Penny made from Cost-Co for us:


I'll post pictures of the feast here after I've eaten it!

Clay and Rice Pudding?

Okay, so I woke up super early today so I could go to a ceramics class. It was awesome.

I love making messes with clay.

Sometimes they even turn out pretty.

I met a couple traveling from Hong Kong around Japan. I didn't know they were foreign at first, so I approached them and asked where they were going, figuring they were from the mainland of Japan or something. Ha! They spoke better English than they did Japanese, and so we chatted in English for a bit, and I showed them a nice restaurant in Takeo for them to stop and eat at.

I went to Mo's and picked up enough ingredients for approximately 8 pies:


Luckily, I only have to make three for Thanksgiving.
The hard part about making pies? Japan is a country where almost no one makes pies, so there are no pie pans. O_O Poor deprived Japan...

Anyway, dinner!



Mary's attempt at Rice Pudding: bizarre but satisfying.

This is the recipe I eyeballed, except I didn't really use the ingredients. (I used 1/2 a cup rice, 1 cup milk, 1 egg, 1 heaping teaspoons of sugar, and a splash of vanilla.) I followed their cooking directions, except it went MUCH FASTER.

It came out more like rice in a weird super soaked breading, not a nice smooth pudding.

Tapioca Pudding Recipe

Look at the instructions on the package of tapioca that you buy. Some small pearl tapioca requires overnight soaking in water. If your package has that requirement, reduce the milk in the recipe to 2 1/2 cups from 3 cups.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup small pearl tapioca (you can usually find it in the baking section of the grocery store, do not use instant tapioca)
• 3 cups whole milk (or skim milk with cream added)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

Method

1 Combine tapioca, milk, and salt in 1 1/2 quart pan on medium high heat. Stir until boiling. Simmer 5 minutes, uncovered at the lowest possible heat, adding sugar gradually.
2 Beat eggs in a separate bowl. Mix in some of the hot tapioca very slowly to equalize the temperature of the two mixtures (to avoid curdling).
3 Return eggs to pan with tapioca. Slowly bring mixture barely to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and stir several minutes at a low simmer, stirring constantly until you get a nice thick pudding consistency. Cool 15 minutes. Add vanilla. Serve either warm or chilled.
Note: If you want to make a more light and fluffy, but still rich, tapioca pudding, separate the eggs. Use the egg yolks to stir in first to the pan with the tapioca. Once the pudding has become nice and thick, beat the egg whites in a separate bowl to soft peaks. Remove the pan of tapioca pudding from the stove, fold in the beaten egg whites into the pudding.
Serves 4-6.
link here: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/tapioca_pudding/

茶道

茶道　Sado Tea Ceremony

Today I had my first Tea Ceremony lesson!
Well, it wasn't a lesson so much as a "Meet the teacher and see if we get along," but I got to watch a woman make tea and I got to eat delicious sweets and it was wonderful and calming and I loved it muchly. I will be starting lessons in December, on the first, second, and third Saturdays of the month.




(*Image found on the internet)

Here's a good explaination of Tea Ceremony for all of those who do not know what it is.
The reasons I like it are: 1.) It's quiet and peaceful, and the meditative aspects help soothe me after a difficult weak, 2.) the sweets are delicious! 8D I know not everyone would think sugary mashed up beans wrapped up in soft pounded rice stuff (it's almost the consistency of a really thick soft noodle? Minus the slime) is delicious, but it's my cup of tea. *ba-bum cha* 3.) The old ladies are generally retired and well to do, so they are excited to talk to a young interested foreign person, and 4.) they don't speak any English, so it's really good practice for my Japanese. Also, 5.) they're often really relaxed and full of laughter.

6.) I also like how it has awesome ceramics (I'm a ceramist and love Japanese tea bowls, for any of you who didn't know), and it has water, and fire, and wood, and yummy food, and the joining of all those elements is really beautiful.

Anyway, it was a nice, calm thing to do on a rainy Saturday afternoon when I have a cold. Despite blowing gallons of junk out of my nose and having a sore throat (sore throats are awful when you have to conduct through three lessons back to back), today seems to be shaping up wonderfully. This morning I took it slow and had my family and three of my best friends battling each other for Skype time. It was really rewarding having so many awesome people wanting to talk to me. Thank you, guys.


I took this picture on the walk to the lessons-- it was raining all day yesterday, and drizzling today, so the river that cuts through town was SUPER swollen. And there was a walkway, and a bridge, and so of course I walked that way! :D

When I got to my friend's house, we waited for the Tea Ceremony lady to come with her car to carry us to the lessons. They have a little white poodle named Kamo-chan, and she is all barky and fluffy and fun. I picked her up and kept her in my lap for a while, and... she fell asleep! XD It was adorable, and her owners kept taking pictures of it because apparently Komo-chan never sleeps on people's laps. XD I'm just that comfortable.



Aaaand my awesome JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) is coming to pick me up for dinner today. We joke all over everywhere and have great fun, and I'm really really really looking forward to it.

All in all, it's been an excellent day. :)

Next post will be pictures of Kyotooooo! <3

peace,
Meab