It's Snow Time! [Part 1]

The Snow Festival was probably the last big trip I took, and I think it will take me a couple posts to, so here's part one!

The Snow Festival, or Yuki Matsuri, is a pretty old festival in Sapporo. By pretty old I mean it's old in a modern sense, starting in 1950 when some high school students decided to be inventive and built snow sculptures in the local park. Now snow sculptures of ridiculous proportions adorn seven districts, or chome, of Sapporo and festivities extend throughout the area.

This is a 1:1 scale snow house

When I arrived I was surprised they let us land at all.

I got to Sapporo, or at the very least, Hokkaido, on Peach, a Low-Cost Carrier flight service. Had I done the smart thing and booked two separate tickets it would have cost me about fourty-dollars to get there. It ended up being a bit more than that, but combined with a cheap hotel the trip didn't cost me all that much. In fact, transportation ended up costing more, partly because I lost my one day pass my first day in Sapporo (probably from falling so much), and partly because where I was staying was about an hour and a half by train away. I was just happy to be in Hokkaido, though, as my flight was nearly canceled and we landed in the middle of a snow typhoon. That's right, a typhoon made out of snow.



Because I had arrived on delay, I was left baffled and confused as to how to get to the town I needed, as the only train system that crosses Hokkaido is JR, and JR Hokkaido has some pretty confusing maps and schedules because of all the snow. I had meant to take a local train, but instead ended up on a limited express train, which annoyed me somewhat as I had already ridden one that day to get to the airport. These trains can cost an extra ten dollars to ride, but I did not have too much of a choice if I wanted to get checked in before eleven. Incidentally, the platform numbers and symbols (triangle, circle) aren't painted on the ground like they are in Kansai and Tohoku, but hung on wire lines above it so that snow does not obscure them.

I was also surprised the trains were running still...

When I did get to town, it seemed like it would be a short walk but that short walk from the station turned into a twenty minute one with the blizzard going. The sidewalks and roads weren't plowed or shoveled, and never were, because they're so used to it with such a long winter season.I found out that not only was I staying in a college town, but at a business hotel, which meant I both fit in on the streets and was an odd sight without a thick down jacket (I ended up layering underneath a wool coat which was fine with all the walking). I was also surprised to see it was the ice hockey capital of Japan, as the sport is not really all that popular, except, apparently, in Hokkaido.

It was this. But at night.

Because I had to get up early to head to Sapporo, I went to bed as soon as I finished up dinner from the nearby 7-11.

The next day I was less lucky about falling on the streets, but that's for another post!
~Zenko~

Ain't no party like a JASO party because JASO parties are nice and sometimes invite nonmembers

I'm not a member of JASO, but they do on occassion send out invites to students that are studying abroad in the area. There's usually a limit to the number in each university, but I don't like passing up opportunities to attend important events, because there's always that opportunity to network.

JASO is an organization that hopes to strengthen relationships between American and Osaka specifically, but let's be honest, Osaka is a pretty great place so there's no reason people shouldn't be interested. Sadly, they usually are because Tokyo offers more of what people expect Japan to be like, while being slightly more foreigner friendly. It's about as close as you can get to America while staying in Japan, but Osaka has a lot more of Japan-Japan to offer I guess. Either way they have a neat mission and if I had thought about it more at the beginning of my time in Japan I would have tried to join.

In any case, I was able to attend their New Year's party, and was really fortunate to be healthy for..that one day before getting sick again. I think what made me really want to go in the invite were the words "delicious food" and "mochi pounding." I had missed out on mochi pounding because of sports day, and it's something done traditionally at New Years. When we did it there it was in a team, with volunteers changing out for pounding. I probably could have done it for a while but there was a set time for each person. They were actually a little surprised that I kept up with their counting with how heavy the wooden hammer is.

I was also really afraid of hitting their hands.

Of course before all this could begin, the equally important start to the New Years had to happen: breaking open a casket of ceremonial sake. It was a little hard for me to understand, but I think it was done to help purify yourself for the New Year. Usually it's done at shrine festivals for that reason, so I can only guess it's the same. I was equally lucky to be keeping super important company, and I still have the list they gave us as we entered to let us know what companies we were dealing with. I was a little intimidated by the crowds and that I might mess up somehow because I was a guest at the event and not an actual member, so I spent the night drinking with the company president of Asahi in Osaka. I was also invited to tour the factory, though I never received the opportunity to do so.

There was also a raffle at the end of the event, with some awesome prizes, like tickets to San Francisco and overnight stays at local hotels. I didn't win any of them, nor did anyone else I know, but we were all given thank you bags for attending on our way our. Apparently at business parties, this is customary in Japan, your ticket price going to buying what's inside.They were entirely randomized by the color ticket you drew before entering, and mine contained snacks donated by some of the attending companies and a gift certificate to Hankyu Mall. I was never able to use it, simply because walking into the building gave me the sense that I had just entered a Hollywood big-shots house and sent me beelining back for the nearest exit. When I say it was fancy, I mean chandeliers and crystal everywhere fancy. Before I left Japan, though, I gave it to our Seminar House's 'mom' for looking after us and putting up with the dirty kitchen.

Unfortunately, I'm so far behind that I'm actually back in America writing this, but I'll be sure to keep up my retelling.

Until next time~

~Zenko~

New Years Shrine Visits [Part 2]

The second shrine I decided to visit was the most important one in Japan (right after Kamigamo, which is the second most important). When I was describing it to my parents I described it as the Vatican of Japan, if only because it's just as important to the shinto faith. That shrine is actually two but are jointly known as Ise Jingu [Ise Grand Shrine].

The journey there from Osaka actually isn't too bad. It's pretty easy to get there if you take the Kintetsu Limited Express Train to Ujiyamada Station [an old name for Ise] for about twenty five dollars. I was using a five-day JR pass that I bought for, you guessed it, five times that price but it's worth it for unlimited rides on all JR trains for five days and if it weren't for the New Year's holiday I would have made it out to Tokyo and back that way too. Instead I made it to just outside of Yokohama, but learned my train schedules pretty well because of it, which made this trip a whole lot easier.

There are actually two ways to get to JR Ise Station from Osaka. For a faster way I recommend taking the Biwako Express [no extra ticket charge on nonreserved] to Maebara, transferring to a train to Otsu/Gifu, hopping a new express to Nagoya and then waiting for the New Mie Rapid to come along and riding it down to the station you need. It's a pretty nice view, actually.

Somewhere outside of Taki...

If you want to be anymore scenic than that, then from Osaka you would take the loop line out to Kyoboshi and transfer to the JR Gakkentoshi line towards Nara, hop off at Kizu and take the train one stop to Kamo, then it's mountain train ride to Kameyama, where you can transfer to...the New Mie Rapid or a train heading towards Taki where you transfer again to Ise. If you've ever seen Spirited Away, then you can understand what the train to Kameyama is like. At night you can't see anything through the windows, and if you look at the front of the train you can only see what the train's light illuminates. It's pretty cool actually.

Yes, that is a truck. Yes it's driving under a stone torii.

Once you make it to Ise, if you do it early enough, then I recommend buying a Can Bus pass for six hundred yen, which gives you an all day pass on the Can Bus and includes a museum ticket. I got there around 3 PM and there were only a few more loops that day so I ended up just paying the fare for both ways. Because it was winter and I was short on time, I also decided to head straight to Naiku, the inner shrine and the one where the Sun Goddess Amaterasu is enshrined. It's also highly important considering the emperor is decided from Amaterasu, and as you can imagine...it's a pretty big deal. Just how big? It's so big it gets its own torii gate on the road there.

 Of course when I got there it was almost sunset, but because Ise is a coastal town, the sun takes a while to set. That's pretty awesome considering how late I got there. After passing through several more torii gates, one leading across a stone bridge, I made my way to the first sacred site in Naiku: the river. It has a specific name, but the way kanji work in shinto sites means it could be anything, but was written with the characters for "God River." Much like the Trevi fountain in Rome (if the Trevi fountain were full of Holy Water), you toss your money in, make a wish or prayer, and go on your way.

Sacred River...Sacred River...

Once you make your way to the inner most part of the shrine, you can no longer take photographs. I mean, you could, but I imagine it would be a pretty silly way to get deported. I don't recommend it, as it would be the same as taking a picture of the face of God. It's just not something you do. Because the kami (gods) of shinto carry power naturally, and need to be appeased or their power contained, Ise Jingu is rebuilt every 11 years and has been doing since around the 1200's, using the same building technique each time. 2013 is a rebuild year, and when I got there they were already building the new shrine on the northern site. Hopefully I can go before it opens, because both will be open at that point and Amaterasu just moved to her new home.

Another added benefit of the shrine being so old is that the trees and forest surrounding it haven't been encroached upon apart from modern improvements to certain areas (bathrooms installed or rest areas built). That means that there are some massive trees growing, and some areas that are roped off and marked with paper tags that show it as being sacred.

That person taking a picture is taller than I am.

After I did my looking around I did a quick peek into the shop area and that lead to an adventure in and of itself as I ended up getting lost on my way to the bus stop and walking to the first one I saw...about ten minutes away. I did make it back to the train, and took the Kameyama route back, which meant I made it back late. Unfortunately this was my last major trip over winter break outside of a small takoyaki museum, as the next day I came down with a high fever from a constant early morning-on-the-train-all-day schedule.

Then again, who knows. Maybe it was just the work of the kami.

I did end up going to Geku (the outer/lower shrine) and Naiku again over spring break, which is just a few posts away!

Until Next Time
~Zenko~

New Year's Shrine Visits [Part 1]

Part of the two week long New Year's celebration in Japan involves going to a shinto shrine and drawing your fortune for the year, as well as praying for a beneficial one. Of course, sense Kamigamo Shrine has turned out to be our favorite one, we decided to visit not too long after the New Year started. We didn't know it yet, but it ended up being one of the more important days to go, several of the shirne's artifacts were out and the ceremony for local businessmen was also starting up.

I found out pretty recently that it's not just sumo Kamigamo helped to invent in Japan, but horse racing as well. Which is why horses are also sacred to the shrine and before the main complex is a sacred stable with, you may have guessed it, a sacred horse. I don't think he's usually out, except for sacred occasions, such as this one. And when I say sacred, I mean it's treated as a god, so if you pay to get up close you can feed him a carrot and give him a pat to dispel all evil spirits.

God Horse's House

Oh hey sake.

Beyond this second torii gate was a site we hadn't really seen there yet: all the bad fortunes were tied up. We were lucky enough to draw best luck, so we didn't have to worry about anything too much. To make sure it brought us these fortunes we tucked them inside our wallets for safe keeping and had our friend translate them later. The other pretty common thing at celebrations is sake (nihonshuu), and as each shrine brews its own throughout the year, every shrine you visit will have a different sake, with Fushimi Inari having one of the most important ones (because sake is made from rice, and Inari looks over it). Something pretty cool that they had on display was one of the processes for brewing and an explanation, though I'm not sure what specifically it was as it was entirely in Japanese.

Like I said before, there was a business ceremony going on that day as well, and throughout our time there we saw several priests heading towards a raised platform in a tent where we had previously watched the Karasu Zumo festivities from. We also had the chance to watch a professional sushi chef make quick work of a maguro tuna, utilizing every piece of meat all the way to the head.

Because it was such a nice day, we headed up all the way to the upper part of the shrine, a place we hadn't gone before. We saw a shrine just for a family, a deeper shrine for a god we still haven't figured out the name for but has to do with luck and, of course, a small Inari shrine. What was more surprising, though, was the fact that as we headed down the opposite side of the mountain (where there were no signs warning us of monkies), we found ourselves smack-dab in the middle of the Kamigamo neighborhood. There were houses right next to the torii gates and left us somewhat baffled about how it would feel to live next to a sacred site, and a UNESCO one on top of that.

Apart from that, our visit was rather uneventful. We didn't see any monkies, and were glad for that as Japanese monkies are fairly aggressive.

Happy Year of the Snake!

There was one other shrine I visited within the two week New Year holiday, which will be my next entry!

~Zenko~

Christmas in Japan

I'm slowly catching up, but here we've finally arrived at Christmas! This is going to be a pretty short post, as we did not do too many things to celebrate. Right before I had gone to Nara, our dorm building held a Secret Santa exchange. I made a jellyfish for who I was assigned and in return got a Fox Luigi key charm.

Ho-ho-ho, Merry Chicken

Come Christmas Eve, a couple of us headed out to karaoke. On the way we passed the KFC, and you may remember how I talked about how fried chicken is a traditional thing to eat for Christmas in Japan. Here's just a picture of just how crowded it was, as well as the Colonel dressed up in his Santa suit.

The other tradition is eating cake, and Christmas Cakes can range from being super expensive and nice (up to fifty dollars), to a little one for about ten. We ended up going to the bakery in the station's main shop area as well as a convenience store then heading on up to sing some Christmas songs. Actually we mostly ended up singing the usual song we do, but with Jingle Bells and Last Christmas thrown in.

Christmas Day was "treat yourself to pizza day" for me, since it's usually so expensive. It still was, but thankfully they had a small sale going that almost made it worth it. In Japan pizza's are small. A medium is about the same size as an American small and about as expensive as two large pizzas. If your wondering why, you might also wonder why sushi is so expensive in America. It's because it's a foreign food and considered the same we consider sushi (which I can buy for a dollar a plate).

New Year's posts are to come!
~Zenko~

Oh Deer!

While I didn't get to spend a whole lot of time in Nara and plan on visiting again, I thought it would still be a good idea to talk about my first trip there. Living where I do, it's not difficult to get too as it's equidistant from Kobe. My roommate had also wanted to visit to see the deer that Nara is famous for, because you can pet and feed them. Because people feed them though...

Beware the deer! They'll headbutt old ladies!

Look how disappointed he is!

Well if you have food, they will CHASE YOU AND TRY TO GET IT. Luckily we didn't have any food so we mostly just had disappointed deer. It was a bit fun watching them chase around other people though. The deer never had a problem with us, in fact we actually helped one cross the road. It was so sad that it couldn't jump the fence like the others had but he was just soooo old. Before we found any of the deer, though, we made it through a couple of temples and passed by several tea gardens. I was a bit surprised at the tea gardens, because I did not think that they were that popular in Nara.

As I said before, getting there wasn't difficult, it was just a little time consuming as we were not used to the special lines out that way. We actually ended up having to change stations from Keihan to JR by walking a half mile down the road. A lot of local commuters were already doing it and ran all the way down to the JR Line to transfer for their jobs. While we did make it onto JR, we discovered that it's a long enough ride that you have to get off at a terminal station and switch trains, otherwise you'll start heading back the way you came (which is exactly what happened to us). Getting back proved a lot easier, as all the trains were heading back towards Kyobashi terminal in Osaka. If that seems backwards to you, its how most of the trains work in Japan. It's pretty confusing actually.

In the middle of no where, where highschoolers still commute

 Until next post!
~Zenko~

Ro-Ro-Roppongi Hills!

The last day on our trip I actually separated from the group to go meet one of my friends that's been studying abroad here in Japan for a while. So while my friends went to Shinjuku to check out the sites from their favorite shows, I went to meet her in Roppongi. Getting there was an adventure, as instead of taking the normal JR Line I had to take the Tokyo Subway system. Just getting there started a running joke among us that the richer an area was, the nicer their train stations would be. Ikebukuro station, for instance, had no benches or waiting area for commuters. There weren't even any water fountains. When I passed through Roppongi and Ginza, though, there were benches aplenty! It was pretty different from the Keihan stations and Kansai JR stations we were used to, where there's always someplace to sit.

While we waited to head out, I asked the subway attendendant how to reach Roppongi, and she told me...but she told me much too high a fare and forgot to include transfers! I did make it to my stop, but only after changing trains twice. It's also interesting to note that the subways were actually nicer over all then the normal Osaka subway lines I've ridden. There's a lot more put into the display at the very least.
When I reached Roppongi the first thing I noticed was....just how rich it all was. It felt like I had just entered the Japanese version of Beverly Hills, and I really had.

Believe it or not, having a Cheech and Chong's is a sign of being rich.

There were tons of foreign places which meant, apart from being a hub for foreigners, it was a place where people with money were at. Because American food is regarded in the same way Americans regard sushi, the more there is in one place, the more money there generally is. It did mean, though, that I got to have Wendy's with bacon (real bacon!) on it for the first time in months. After I met up with my friend though (and got my mom something to add to her snowman collection at the Christmas store they had set up), I headed out to meet up with my group again in Shibuya, the publishing capital of Japan.

Hachiko: The dog that waited

Shibuya is famous for two reasons apart from that: the first is that it has the Hachiko Memorial set up for the dog that waited for his master until he died (his master had died from illness and taken the train out of Shibuya every morning; if your interested in the story Hachi: A Dog's Story is wrong but has the general idea behind it). The second is the Shibuya Scramble! It's a lot easier to see at night, but even during the day you can see hundreds of people cross about ten different crosswalks at the same time in the same place. You actually have to be really careful not to hit anyone as you do it.

After Shibuya it was time to head home, so we joined rush hour traffic (that resulted in us getting separated again) and headed to Tokyo station. From there it was just a brief walk to get to the night bus station and we were off. As for the night bus...it was actually one of the nicest buses you can get on and considering we paid about $20 it was a good deal. Unfortunately because it was a night bus I still only got about an hours worth of sleep (but made it to the second half of Space Odyssey 2001 before I fell asleep this time!).

See you in the next post!
~Zenko~