last of japan

So this is going to be a very brief recap of the past two weeks or so, although as one single blog post it'll probably still be one of the longest ones I've written. I still wanted to write one final one, though, before returning to Finland, because I know I won't have time or energy to go through all the photos from the last weeks after I return - I'll just be recovering from the flight and eating a fuckton of smoothies. I MISS MY BLENDER. But I still wanna show you all the exciting stuff I've been up to after the final exams, so here we go! I was actually thinking of choosing just a single photo for each day of the week, but I don't think I'll be able to do that... Too much cool stuff was seen. Gotta share.

Right after handing in my last essays, I made a date with Miho to go and see Ginkakuji. The name refers to a silver temple, although whereas the golden temple Kinkakuji is actually golden, this one is made of wood. But it was beautiful, nevertheless - especially the sand gardens around it. In Buddhist temples they quite often have these sand sculptures and patterns all around the building, so compared to Shinto shrines, they look pretty ascetic. But that's the whole purpose of it - it's supposed to be an ideal scenery for meditation since there are no distractions around.

So sad we only got to hang out this once before I leave though!

Sand.

Also, rock. Obviously fun-loving people, those Buddhist monks.

The next day we went on a day trip to Uji, which is a town right next to Kyoto (or just a village in Kyoto? I don't know). Uji's very famous for tea, and since I definitely wanted to buy some matcha powder to bring back home with me, why not go and buy it in one of the most significant tea production areas in Japan.

Uji's also very picturesque, so it's a nice destination if you're content with just walking around and taking a bunch of photos. But if you're looking for more action and things to do, you'll probably be bored to death. But for me it was worth seeing, if just for all the matcha stuff and a change to climb Mt. Buttoku. Need I say more?

This is where I bought my matcha - apparently a very old and established shop.

There's no visit to Uji without having some matcha parfait.

Byodoin Temple - probably the biggest tourist attraction around Uji.

And then we visited some other shrines and temples.

Pretty neighborhoods with tanuki (Japanese equivalent for garden gnomes) in basically every garden.

Conquered Mt. Buttoku!

I've also been wanting to go and see Omi Jingu, which is the shrine where they hold the annual karuta tournaments. Also famous from the anime Chihayafuru, which I might've also mentioned earlier. It's only a 10-minute train ride from Kyoto station towards Lake Biwa, located in a small town called Otsu. We accidentally took the wrong train and ended up on the opposite side of the town, so we had a proper walk through Otsu - which, I must say, looked like a pretty shitty place! In a way that's almost fascinating. The architecture was really weird, and clearly influenced by both Japanese and Russian traditions. In addition to that, there were streets with German names and stuff. And it was so quiet, almost like a ghost town.

But Omi Jingu was just as pretty as it had been depicted in the anime. That's where Tenji Tenno is enshrined - he's the guy who wrote the first one of the hyakunin isshu - the tanka poems that are written on karuta cards. There was a tiny museum with a clock related exhibition downstairs, and upstairs all kinds of random stuff, including some of the original rolls for hyakunin isshu! That was probably one of the coolest things for me, personally, since I've been studying the poems for quite a while now.

Otsu.

Of course I also had to go and pray for good karuta skills...

The following day, it was time to take a dip in the onsen in Arashiyama for the last time! Now just so there's no misunderstanding, this was definitely not my last time in an onsen, only this specific one... I counted three times going to Arashiyama onsen, three times to Kurama onsen, once to Arima onsen in Kobe, hopefully still Spa World in Osaka, and countless of times to a nearby sento (public bath). What can I say, I love bathing! And the Japanese sure know how to make it enjoyable.

Also, about the picture below... I'm drinking coffee milk, which is a cold drink that tastes pretty much like really sweet café au lait, and I was told that's something that the Japanese traditionally drink after a bath. And that's probably why there are always vending machines full of the stuff in every onsen or sento I've been to. And this is how you're supposed to drink it, with your hand on your hip, looking as genki as possible. I don't know where that pose originates from, but I would guess a commercial or something.

On Sunday, a week ago, I embarked on my last proper mountain climb, or hike, whatever you wanna call it. I'm gonna go with climb, since that's what it definitely feels like. They do not kid around with the trails here, they just lead pretty much straight to the mountain top, so it's steep uphill most of the time!

This time we conquered Mt. Hiei, which is the second tallest mountain in Kyoto. According to Wikipedia, it's 848.1 meters tall, which is actually less than I imagined it would be... Oh well. It was snowing up there and freezing cold, but so pretty! On top of the mountain, there are a few different temples that together make up a temple complex called Enryaku-ji. This is the home for the Marathon Monks, who wander around the slopes of Hiei in attempt to achieve enlightenment. I didn't see any monks, but the temples sure were impressive. Also because there were no tourists! So that's your prize for sweating for two hours to get to the top - to see grand temples without having to fight your way through the crowds.

Kyoto's down there somewhere...

Alright, so the day after that, it was finally time for our great adventure in Kobe. It's only a one-hour train ride away from Kyoto, but this was the first time I was visiting the town - and I really liked it! It's not nearly as touristy as Kyoto, but had more of a big city feeling to it. Kind of reminded me of Tokyo or Osaka. The downtown area seemed to be excellent for shopping, with huge malls right next to Shinnomiya station. A short walk away from the busiest area, there was a quaint old town kind of area, with narrow streets and this funny European style museum house we also visited. Oh, and a Chinatown, where they were having a fashion show kind of thing going on, with models dressing up in traditional Chinese costumes - I think they were actually introducing some historical characters or something.

Wait... this Louis Vuitton model looks familiar!

Hello, Kobe!

And this random bunny. What are you doing there, dude?

One of our teachers at school was from Kobe, and she was always telling us how Kobe has the best cakes in Japan. So of course I kindly asked my host, Miki, to take me to a bakery café of her recommendation, and it was damn delicious! I had pecan tarte, which I've never actually tried before, I don't know why... So good. Then we took a train a bit farther away from the central area, to Harborland, to see the famous night view that's displayed on every Kobe postcard. That was actually the only thing I knew there was to see in Kobe, so I'm really glad we had Miki to show us around and take us to the best spots - I think it's thanks to her, actually, that I liked Kobe so much, since I didn't have to spend hours and hours getting lost and wondering where I could get a decent meal and stuff.

Just had to include a picture of this - one of the best tonkatsu I've had here, with all those different sauces - one of them you actually got to prepare yourself!

Thanks so much, Miki!

For the last two days it was just me and Maija, and the next day we spent soaking in an onsen called Taiko no Yu in the famous onsen town Arima. It took about an hour to get there by train from our hostel, but it was so worth the travel time. And the train ride was pretty scenic as well! I don't have too many pictures from Arima, though - the main purpose of the trip was to go to the onsen, and for obvious reasons you're not allowed to take photos in there, so you'll just have to rely on my description here. There's this one though, that I took when we were walking from the station to the onsen resort - I think this is where they used to bathe way, way back... This is basically downtown Arima.

So about Taiko no Yu... Simply. Amazing. Arima is famous for that they have two kinds of onsen water; "golden" water, which is actually brown from the iron deposits, and "silver" water, which just looks like normal, clear water, and is actually slightly radioactive! But it's all supposedly very good for various muscle and joint ailments, and they claim that drinking the silver water is good for your stomach. So of course, after all the bathing stuff, we went ahead and got ourselfs these fizzy drinks they were selling at the souvenir shop in the lobby. I don't know about the health benefits, but the taste was pretty nice!

Back to bathing matters, though. So at the reception we got ourselves a pajama kind of thing to wear around the place, since after entering the building, you were pretty much free to roam around, enter the bathing area and come back to the lobby for refreshments (or sleep - they even had a sleeping room!), or go to the food court downstairs for an actual meal. You paid for everything with the bar code on your wristband, and then they billed you at the exit.

The bathing area was huge. They had a couple of these gold and silver baths inside, and a couple more outside. There were all sorts of different saunas, some of them so weird - for example, this one where you laid flat on your back, with only your feet dipped into a gutter kind of pool with hot water. Or this one outside, that was just a stone bench with water streaming down the smooth surface of the stone, so that when you sat on it, your back and ass were all warm with hot water trickling down on it, while all the other parts of your body were freezing since it wasn't a very warm day.

The sauna that I liked the most was, not surprisingly, the Finnish type of a sauna. At first we thought it was just one of those "Finnish" saunas where it's just hot but you don't actually get to throw water on the rocks to get a good steam/heat wave going on. There was just this peculiar cone sticking down from the roof, right on top of the sauna stove, and I was certain it would dispense water at some point, but then we got tired of waiting... But then we went again, and sat on the other side, and I saw that there was something written on the cone. It said ロウリュー, which in romaji is rouryuu, which, I soon realized must be löyly written in Japanese. And for all of you non-Finnish readers, that describes the action of throwing water on the hot rocks, and the consequent steam and heat that follow. Then I went ahead and read the description on the wall, and yes, that's exactly what it was! So this time we waited for the löyly to come. Oh, and next to the sauna, there was also a cold water bath, so that was just a genuine Finnish experience!

I'm sorry for rambling off like that, but that was probably one of the most amazing, if not actually the most amazing place that I've been to in Japan.

On the last day, we took the cable car up to the top of Mt. Rokko, and were planning to look around all the museums and stuff they had up there - but the buses that were running between the different sights around the mountain top ran so poorly and were packed with people, that we pretty soon just gave up and went back down to town to get ourselves some Kobe beef. Before that, though, had another way too delicious piece of cake in this nice restaurant café with a great view.

Is this the Naniwa port where the flower bloomed?

The sensei sure wasn't lying about the cake. Sweet Jesus.

They even brought the trophy to the table when I started taking pictures. Lol.

Phew! That's one hell of a long post. Sorry. I spent an entire day writing that. Well, half the day choosing and editing the photos, but anyway. Also, these are not really the best photos that I have from these adventures, and I'll be sure to post more on Flickr when I get the chance to properly look them through and adjust them to my liking, so that I can present them in a way that I'm actually happy with. But that'll have to wait for a couple of weeks, I think.

I was also thinking of maybe writing one last post after I get back home, just to have a sense of closure - I started this while I was still in Finland, after all, so it would only be fitting to end it there, too. So, until then!

have i learned japanese?

You might think that's a stupid question to ask, and that unless I've lived in complete isolation and dropped out of all the courses I took, which of course I didn't, there's no way I haven't been learning a lot.

And yes, without a doubt, I have learned some Japanese. When I first came here, although I did attempt to use Japanese in everyday situations, such as going to the store, bank, post office, etc., I would always have to prepare a sentence or two beforehand in order to succeed in delivering whatever it was that I wanted to say. And then, when I thought that I had presented my issue clearly enough, the person I was talking to would of course reply. And I would have no idea what they just said to me.

Now, although I might still have to check some key vocabulary if I need to sort out a problem with, for example, a SIM card or a similar type of technical or bureaucratic issue, I'm always able to pull through the conversation and leave the store with exactly what I came there for.

And when I'm talking with friends, the contrast to before is even greater. At my arrival, I was far from being able to carry out a casual conversation in Japanese. It would take me ages to build up a sentence in my head, and when I finally got it out of my mouth, in a few seconds the other person had replied and, again, I had got none of it.

Now, I just speak without thinking about it too much, and what has really gotten a lot better is understanding. This, I think, is thanks to all courses at school being conducted in Japanese, so that now I don't have to struggle to understand every word; it's pretty much automatic.

Still, if someone asks me if I speak Japanese, I say 'a little bit'. Why? Clearly I speak more than just a little bit, don't I?

I'm guessing that feeling has a lot to do with my previous experiences with language learning and speaking in foreign languages. Although, in addition to English and Japanese, I've been learning Swedish, French, and even a little bit of Italian along the way, the only foreign language I've actually been using in real communicative situations before the exchange, is English. And the thing with English is that before having to use it in real life, I had studied it for 10 years; so I was an advanced-level learner already. I was hearing it on TV every day, reading books and stuff...

So I've never been in a situation where I would be acquiring a language simultaneously as I go about my daily life trying to cope in the said language. In a situation like this, you just have to come to terms with the fact that you're probably fucking up every sentence that comes out of your mouth - because if you start spending time trying to come up with grammatically flawless sentences, the conversation's pretty much dead. Instead, you just got to keep talking in hopes that one day all these mistakes will have made you a fluent speaker.

So the reason why I don't feel like I speak Japanese that much is that I'm comparing it with English. Which is just absurd. Although my English is far from being perfect or native-like, it doesn't even feel like a foreign language anymore. Of course I'm not going to reach the same level with Japanese (which is also much more difficult to learn than English, in my humble opinion) with just a few years of studies plus half a year spent in Japan. So here's also a lesson in life - do try your best, but don't have unrealistic expectations based on your language learner history, or worse, how other people around you learn and use the same language. Chances are you're not gonna reach native speaker level ever, but the important thing is to be able to communicate, isn't it? And that's certainly something I have achieved now!

久しぶり！

That's 'long time no see' in Japanese, except that there's no verb that refers to seeing or meeting specifically, so it can be used for writing as well! Quite clever, isn't it. Anyway, I stopped writing for a while since I was preoccupied with the final exams and surviving the final school weeks, so I wasn't really feeling like going anywhere or doing anything interesting or worth writing about.

And then I thought that since there's only like a month or so left for me here, there's really no point in writing anymore... but then I got a sudden boost of inspiration - I guess it was the great day that I had today with Miho, thanks again! I wish we'd had more chances to hang out together, though!

I'm not going to write about today today, though (haha). I'm saving that for later, and instead I'll give you a brief recap on these few weeks when I was neglecting the blog.

The first snowfall came right after the first plum blossoms. Winter in Japan, you so weird.

In mid-January, there was a New Year's party at my friend's dorm. I know, a bit late for a New Year's party, right? Well, New Year here is like Christmas in Finland - people start preparing for it a long time ahead, buying or making decorations, preparing traditional New Year's dishes; and then you keep on wishing everybody Happy New Year until the 16th of January. I don't know why that exact date, but that's what our senseis were telling us.

So a few days before the 16th there was a party where we made rice cakes, had ozouni (a traditional New Year's soup), got wrapped in kimonos and were given a chance to participate in traditional New Year's activities, such as my new favorite card game, karuta! And the real version this time, where you actually have to know the poems and shit. I'd only learned around 10 poems by that time, but I managed to snatch a few cards, to everyone's surprise - it was obvious that the Japanese were not expecting a Westerner to recognize any of the poems by just their first verses. Haha.

Well, this is what I've been up to recently...

Making some rice cakes!

Not sure what to think of these fun and games...

A couple of weeks ago, there was an archery event at Sanjusangendo, which is a pretty cool temple where, if you go inside, there's a long hall with thousand statues of this deity called Kannon. Pretty impressive. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, photography was prohibited inside, so if you wanna see what it's like, google it!

Well, at least I've got photos of the archery event... Oh, wait.

Nope, the best views I got was through a smartphone screen that someone in the front row was shooting a video with. I was too impatient to stay there and wait until I got to the front, but my friend Dave, who arrived a bit later with his camera, got pretty amazing shots, so please, do go and see his blog post about it!

However, it was still a nice event, with amazing street foods and beautiful kimonos everywhere you looked.

Waiting.

And then it's time for a complete change of topic. Now, I was taking a walk around the Imperial Palace Gardens, which is where I usually go for a walk or a run, since it's right next to my dorm. I was just chilling and enjoying the cold winter's day, which really wasn't that cold for a winter's day, but anyway... And I saw this.

And it just made me so unbelievably mad! I also felt like throwing up, because I instantly recalled the pictures online in which you can see the stomach contents of dead birds - in case you haven't seen them, they're full of plastic and other shit since people are fucking retards and don't know how to properly dispose of their litter. I've got a piece of advice for you - whatever you do with it, don't leave it lying around where these idiot birds with brains the size of a peanut (if that) can get to it and mistake it for food. I mean, I hate birds more than anybody I know, and quite often find myself wishing them all dead, but I don't want it to happen like this - that's just wrong.

Well, got that out of my chest. Phew. The rest of the walk was enjoyable, at least, and if there's one place I'm gonna miss in Kyoto (well, of course there are many, but if there was just one), it would be the Imperial Palace Gardens. It's been really good to me, and I'm so lucky that I live right next to it - it's like an oasis in the middle of the city.

So now the exams are over, school's done with, and we even had a farewell party with these amazing people that I spent the past semester with. Thanks guys, it's been a blast! Still a few weeks left to explore Kyoto and surrounding areas, so I'll probs be writing a couple more posts to fill the days when I'm not traveling or meeting up with friends for the last time. Also, if you're a friend and we haven't arranged a date yet, (and if you want to, lol), please contact me! I really wanna see everybody once more and do fun stuff before I leave.

Another place I'm going to miss - Torikizoku! My favorite izakaya in Kyoto.

karuta

So before New Year's holidays, we got to hear a lot about Japanese holiday traditions in different classes, and even got to try a few games and such. One of them was called karuta, which is a card game where there's a bunch of cards with pictures and hiragana characters on them, laid on the floor right side up. Then somebody reads off phrases from separate reading cards, and the fastest one to grab the card with the initial syllable of the phrase gets to keep it. And obviously whoever has the most cards in the end wins.

The cards we used for playing this all had easily distinguishable words on them, so that it wasn't really possible to grab the wrong one, and since all you have to do is to recognize the right hiragana, it would take your brain a few seconds, maximum, to process the sound you hear, and locate the card with the matching word. No big deal, and obviously aimed at children.

Well, this is what I thought, until after the holidays, one of our teachers introduced us the actual cards that are used in competitive karuta. Yes, you read correct, competitive karuta. Anyway... instead of simple words or phrases, these cards have what's called hyakunin isshu written on them, which are 100 tanka poems written by 100 different authors. These poems date back to... oh well, I don't even know when, but they're old as fuck.

To make it more difficult, in addition to having to grab the card with the same poem as the one being read, what you have in front of you are cards with only the lower phrase of the poem. So you actually need to have memorized all one hundred poems in order to play this game, since the reader always starts from the beginning of the poem.

Above you can see what it looks like when you're serious about the sport. Saying that they're fast is an understatement. Like, I don't even... So how come is this a traditional New Year's pastime in Japanese homes? Do everybody spend their childhood memorizing these poems in order to have fun during the holidays?

YES. Well, actually it's something they have to learn at school at some point, and I don't think there are too many grown-ups who still remember them, but still. I'm trying to think of something similar we would do in Finland, but I can come up with nothing. This is one of those "Only in Japan" things that you come across from time to time. But I think it's pretty damn cool. And I wanna play, too! It's just that, at this point, I'm reading hiragana like an elementary school student, and I'm pretty sure it would take me years and years to memorize these poems... But I'm still so fascinated by it that I just had to go and buy myself a set with CDs and all. If only as a souvenir!

But yeah, there's more to the rules but I tried to keep it as simple as possible. If you want to learn more about it, though, without actually having to study about it, I recommend an anime called Chihayafuru - I started watching it a while ago, and it seems like a pretty accurate depiction of the sport!

nanakusa-gayu

Today, as we learned in school yesterday, the entire nation goes on a detox diet. It even has a name - nanakusa no hi, which translates into 'the day of seven greens', or however you wish to translate the word kusa. Usually it refers to leaf veggies. Anyway, on this day, people buy packs of greens like the one shown below, and make an unappetizing porridge out of them in order to recover from New Year's feast. It's so funny that although in Finland people do a lot of detoxing and gym and such after gaining a bit extra around the waist during the Christmas and New Years holidays, it's not a unified, nationwide effort, as it seems to be here. Another perfect example of how important it is to be a part of the group here. Now, I seriously doubt that all Japanese engage in this tradition, but the fact that it is a tradition in the first place must have something to do with the uniformity of the Japanese society.

So I thought I'd give it a try, as well, as I'm no stranger to healthy foods and detox diets, and quite enjoy them. Although my conception of detox does not involve loading your tummy full of white rice and salt, but again, when in Rome...

According to our teacher, this porridge is not considered delicious by any standards, so I was very eager to see if that was really true. I have a tendency to enjoy healthy foods that others find unappetizing. And this porridge was no exception! I mean, it's pretty bland, but is by no means disgusting. Warm, soft and refreshing, I'd say. A lot like Finnish rice porridge without milk, which is always better for your stomach; and with veggies instead of cinnamon and sugar. I do recommend everybody to try, if only just to observe the tradition. If you're not in Japan, you'll probably have a hard time finding the right ingredients - I actually don't even know what you're supposed to put in it since I just bought the convenient package above. But if you're here, you only need that, plus water, rice and salt. Plus there's a recipe behind the box!

Nanakusa-gayu.

on holiday!

And so begins year 2016 with zero motivation to study, although I prayed my first prayers at the shrine dedicated to gods of study. Dunno, it just feels so dumb to have a holiday just four weeks before the entire semester will end. Two tests tomorrow, and I'm just like... who cares. So instead of grammar and vocab revision, let's just relive the past week, since it was all way more fun.

Now, it's been a busy week for the camera, too, so in order to keep this post short enough to scroll through in less than an hour, I'll keep writing to the minimum and let you guys enjoy the pictures. Also, since Eve won't be getting the entire bunch until Easter, this functions as a sneak peek for her, too, and to anyone she might be wanting to show these.

Arashiyama monkey park!

Tourists were advised to stay a minimum 2 meters away and not to point their camera straight at the monkeys... He looks like a professional though, I guess he knows what he's doing.

A big Totoro thumbs-up for Arashiyama.

Finally a photo of me in Japan, and got photobombed so bad. Don't know what to say. 

So much moss that it inspired us to create a gif.

Coffee and chocolate (she brought me my favorite!) to take us through the New Year celebrations.

Are you ready for the year of the monkey?

Hatsumoode at Kitano Tenmangu Shrine - since it's the shrine for gods of study, it's pretty popular...

Although I'm not a shintoist (is that even a word?), it was pretty cool to engage in the traditional activity of the first prayers of the year, right after midnight.

Even got a fortune - so little luck that we hung them up on the strings for unwanted fortunes.

Kinkakuji on a winter's day - since you've seen the pics from before, here's just a cool (or not) reflection of it.

Why, hello!

Nijojo, the castle with a funny name.

Eve and the fish.

Not impressed.

The Japanese are really good at gardens.

Since Eve loves Japanese sweets, half of our diet for the week consisted of wagashi.

And the other half was just traditional Japanese foods. This was okonomiyaki Osaka-style - they seem to like cheese a lot!

Out with the old, in with the new. 

Sky Garden in Osaka and shining shoes.

Looks like a great day for soaking in an onsen!

Afterwards, unagi (eel) for the first time! 5/5, would eat again. 

Aqueducts, Eve, and generally just a pretty cool scenery in Kurama. Such relax, much wow.

In sum, it was a week full of fun; izakaya, karaoke, onsen (twice, haha), monkeys, and last but not least, moss. Also a big thanks to my friends Miki and Ayame for introducing us the proper manners for visiting a shrine, and for good company in general!

The fact that Kyoto pretty much died after New Year's Eve pooped some of our great plans, though - a lot of the stores were closed for a few days. In fact my coffee shop is still closed... I lived on instant coffee for a while, but now I'm out of that as well and really not going to buy another pack of that shit, so please please please be open tomorrow will you?

Oh, and wanna hear about the time when Kyoto finally woke up? Well, that was when I was seeing my sister off to the airport, and left my bike in front of McDonald's next to the subway station. When I came back, it wasn't there! So during those two hours that I was gone, they'd come and cleaned up the spot, since it was forbidden to park there. To get it back, I need to take a train to the middle of nowhere and pay 2300 yen for the bike, so not really going to do that, seeing that I paid only 5000 for the thing in the first place, and I'd be using it for another 3 weeks. Keep the damn thing, you fuckers.