Despite the general exhaustion the entire group has been feeling, the past couple days have been indescribable. But even though this is contradicting the previous sentence, I’m going to try to describe them anyway! So Monday we ventured to Nara, which is a town (city?) known
for the freewheeling deer roaming the park looking for sucker tourists who pay 150 yen to feed them food. Well, by the way, we are
included in the group of sucker tourists (who doesn’t want to feed them?!). Nara is about a 40 min Shinkansen (bullet train) ride away from Kyoto. Monday was one of our more packed days (we fit a lot of sightseei
ng in…but I would have to say that it was one of my favorite days so far). W
e had a total of 4 places we traveled to that day.
The first shrine we visited was one of my favorites of the whole trip thus far. It was called Hasuga Shrine and it is known for th
e thousands of stone and metal lanterns they have lining the walkways and dispersed throughout the area. A family belonging to the shrine can purchase a lantern and they serve to help ancestors find their way home when they are lit. It used to be a long time ago the lanterns would be lit daily, but more recently they are only lit twice a year for special occasions. Because it is a Shinto shrine, as a practice it used to be that they would burn down the entire building every 20 years and rebuild as a way to purify the are, but they stopped doing that practice recently as well. The entire area is be
autiful and serene with pine trees and moss covering everything, including some of the older lanterns.
And like I said previously, because we were in Nara, there were deer everywhere. It was really entertaining watching them try t
o eat a couple of people’s t-shirts while we were walking, and watching them follow people everywhere. Under the shade of trees there were a few babies too!! J Way cute.
The next place we ventured was Ben’s research assignment, which was Todaiji Temple. This mega structure is the largest wooden structure in th
e entire world! And just saying, they weren’t lying. It was truly mind blowing
how ginormous this building is. In order to fit the whole thing in a picture you need to be standing at least 500 ft away or more. The Buddha inside is (I’m guesstimating) about 50 ft tall and weighs over 3 tons. On either side of the Buddha there are two Kannon statues that are about ¾ the size of the Buddha. Around the back side of the temple there is a hole in a support beam that is lucky to crawl through that i
s (supposedly) the size of one of the Buddha’s nostrils. It was fun to crawl through!! Most everybody went through, including Jeff!! (It was funny watching him getting pulled through by Colton).
Byodoin was the third place we visited. However, this temple wasn’t in Nara, so we left and traveled to Uji, which was in between Nara and Kyoto. This temple was originally built as a show-off-y palace by Fugiwara who was a lord in the royal family and pretty much became emperor by marrying off his eight daughters to powerful families (he wasn’t actually emperor, but he had more power than the emperor at the time…the actual emperor was more like a puppet government). Later on the palace
was made into a Buddhist temple. The original colors have faded both on the inside and outside, but with computer reproductions, they figured out that the main palace area was overwhelmingly colorful. At this point in the day (mid-afternoon) I hit my afternoon slump…so I walked through the area pretty fast because I just wanted to find a comfy bench somewhere, but from what I saw, it was really prett
y. There also was a rare collection of a set of wooden Buddha wall statues that were on display in the museum (they were originally in the main palace room).
The next (and last) place we traveled to
was Fushimi Inari Taisha Temple. By this point we had traveled to the outskirts of Kyoto (and go
t a second wind after green tea ice cream!). This place and Ginkakuji were two of my favor
ite places we visited while on our week
of travel. Fushimi Inari Taisha is known for the 10,000 Torii gates that line the miles of pathways. The emperor named it one of the most important temples for imperial messengers (which it was a popular meeting place for imperial messengers to stop at). The Torii gates are purchased by local businesses and they are engraved with the name of the donator and the
date. Fushimi is known for the Kitsune statues as well. Kitsune are foxes that are shape shifters who are witty tricksters. They are the temple’s symbol and are important to the are because they are the holders of the key to the rice grain and the Rice God is enshrined at Fushimi. Everybody (ex. For Colton and Tara) stayed within about the first half mile. Colton and Tara ended up walking a couple miles in and they said they found an amazing (but creepy) old graveyard full of Kitsune statues and
got freaked out by a crow. Sensei had me run
with her camera through the first row of the gates and take video, and I did it again with my own camera. Even before
I arrived to Japan it had always been a g
oal of mine to run through them, so I’m glad I had the opportunity on this trip! On our way out we saw a black little kitty and petted her (she was really friendly, apparently she lives in the temple). We were joking that the kitty was probably actually a kitsune in disguise.
By the time we got back to the hostel it was late, so we didn’t have much time to do anything that evening except get a quick dinner from the Conbini across the street and pack up for departure the next day! Kyoto was a beautiful city and the combination of big city and the incorporation of nature in the area made me want to live there!! (if not, then definitely go back in the future)
Tuesday June 29th, 2010
esterday. Off to Hiroshima!! We took the shinkansen for an hour and a half to Hiroshima. Sensei brought a bag of cranes that she had collected from the time between now and the previous Japan trip, but they weren’t strung and we needed more, so the whole train ride we folded and sewed them to make our “1000” paper cranes (more or less….(actually, its less…))We got a lot done though!So we left Higashiyama Hostel f
When we arrived in Hiroshima we went to the Peace Park, and the first thing we saw was the A-bomb sor good y
still standing, as an example of the bombs power. What is most surprising is that is stayed up, even though the bomb went off almost directly aboite. It was originally built as public works building in 1913 (that date might be wrong…sorry). But for WWII, the building changed to a war efforts/ human resources building. When the bomb went off of August 6th, 1945, all around the building was flattened instantly, but the shell remained (because it was built to withstand earthquakes). Today it stands as a symbol of peace and displays the tragedy that occurred
at Hiroshima. The building and the rubble around it remains unchanged since the bomb happened
, (except they had to add on reinforcement on the inside to protect it from weathering) to show how it looked 70+ years ago. It was a powerful si
ght to see the actual building that was
ve
it (about 1600m away and 600 m in the air).
After the A-bomb site we went to give our paper cranes. We tagged them with our name and date and a message of peace:
“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…give peace a chance.”
-John Lennon
“For all of those who died and suffered, you will be remembered.”
The other paper cranes that we
re on display were really pretty…and SO colorful!!
We then walked through the museum. It took a couple hours to go through because of how good it was, and everybody wanted to take their time viewing the artifacts. I’m not a big museum person, but this museum was really good, especially with the audio accompaniment. All the information was really interesting and worthwhile. The most moving parts I saw were the personal accounts of the survivors and the horror of what they lived through, as well as the pictures of the actual rubble and people who were f
atally injured. Now that I have been to Hiroshima, I feel more connected to WWII history than every before because I have actually been to a site that was (probably) the most affected area by the War in the entire world.
After the museum our group was waiting for the others to come out of the museum. We were waiting on the benches in the park and we got approached by elementary school students (probably 4th or 5th grade) and got asked what our names were and where we were from. Lauren and Jeff went up to them later and talked to a part of the group about how everybody in America has a cat in their bag and how they are
delicious for dinner, but Lauren didn’t eat the
m, but sensei did and she though they were yummy. It was really funny because all of the group responded with the same “EHHHH?!” and priceless facial expressions. I’m pretty sure that we made their day…they are going to go home to their parents and tell them all about the crazy Americans they met. J Once everybody was with us we went and rung the peace bell and hopped on the shinkansen once again, but this time on to Miyajima!
Unfortunately while on the shinkansen, I was caught up looking through my previous couple day’s photos and we, as a group, never went over what stop to get off on or how long the ride was going to be. So I was off minding my own business and then I hear a loud tapping to my left. There was the entire group frantically motioning to get off the train on the train platform. After I processed this, my facial expression quickly became a mixture of laughter, surprise and utter horror. The train started to move that instant, and I was off on my own. I wasn’t that concerned though, I knew I just needed to get off at the next stop and turn around. I felt really bad about it though that I was holding up the group. (sorry!!) Luckily it was short ride between the two stops, and right as I got off the train, the one going the opposite way arrived and I was back with the group
within ten minutes. Sooooo I’m never going to get any slack about i
t now, which I don’t mind, because I thought it was funny too (esp. my facial expression; I saw it in the train window
when I was on the train). Not a problem, just a small set back!
So before the ferry for Miyajima, we ate at a YUMMY Soba shop. Best soba I’ve ever had (and good sweet potato tempura). J
We took the ferry round 6:30 across to the island. It is a beautiful island that has tall hill cliffs covered with pine tress (my fav!) stretching up into the coulds and mist with a pretty Torii gate in the bay. When we arrived it happened to be the last part of low tide, so we dropped our stuff off at the hotel and walked out to the Torii gate and put coins in between the barnacles on the sides of the wood. We wen
t back to the hotel, took a shower and put on our yukatas (
comfy kimonos J). Lauren, Carrena, Katharine, and I all walked around the town for the evening after relaxing for a bit. I loved sitting and looking out at the Torii gate (by t
his time it was high tide and the entire area we had walked before was under 10 feet of water)
and the peacefulness of walking around and enjoying the evening in the sleepy town. By the time we came back to the hotel it was close to 11 o’clock. We had our daily meeting and all went to bed soon after.
