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!