Email #8: The End Draws Ever Nearer...

11/5/05

In a fantastic combination of business and laziness, recent days have flown by without me sitting down to write one of these heart-wrenching emails. I can now count my final days in Kyoto on my fingers and toes, am I so inclined. The days after that will be spent in Toyama-ken, a cold mountain village, and Chichijima, a tropical island in the Ogasawara chain that is a 26-hour boat ride from Tokyo (there is no airport). At this point, I can only use the nothing word "interesting" to describe what the rest of the trip probably holds. The last couple weeks have been jam-packed, so let's see what I can remember of them.

My chronology may be lacking this time, but there is one place that we went a couple weeks that was absolutely mind-blowing - and that was the Miho Museum. I am not sure how many of you may have heard of it. In fact, most Japanese people don't recognize the name either. It's a 15-minute train ride out of Kyoto to Ishiyama, and then a 50-minute bus ride up a narrow, curvy, mountain road to the museum. So what makes it special? Let me beginning by announcing the name of the architect: I. M. Pei. Yep, the same I. M. Pei who designed the controversial glass pyramid in front of the Louvre. Why did Pei design this little museum with a small collection that's practically in the middle of nowhere? That's actually a pretty interesting story.

The mountain that the museum is on has been the property of a family of Japanese nobles for centuries. In recent centuries, the family "went into decline", as seems to be the common phrase among traditional Japanese nobility falling to modernity, and decided to put their massive wealth into collecting art. They collected ancient Egyptian art, Greek art, Buddhist art from China and Japan, and a variety of other types of art. With this collection developed an interesting philosophy - that what separates humans from other living beings is the ability to create art. And also that through art, mortals can achieve immortality. Following this philosophy, a cult came into creation. The word cult generally has a negative connotation, but The Hud (as many of us now call Professor Hudson) and I somewhat seriously considered attempting to join this cult, small and secretive though it is. I have forgotten the name of the cult, but the translation was "Divine Light Organization". A little creepy, yes, but the museum they brought into creation was outstanding.

A few years ago, they asked I. M. Pei to consider building a museum for them, along with a temple for their cult. Pei was reluctant at first, but upon seeing the would-be site, changed his mind. There is a famous Chinese folk tale about a fisherman who lost his way and wound up in a grove of blossoming peach trees in front of a cave in the mountainside. When he went through the cave to the other side, he found himself in a heavenly land akin to Shangri-la. When Pei visited the mountain, the beautiful peach trees blossoming and sprawling natural landscape reminded him of this story, and upon hearing that the name of the place was Peach Valley, just like in the story, he realized that he had no choice but to build the museum and temple.

He built the museum to resemble the story - at the entrance to the grounds is a simple building he designed as a restaurant and souvenir shop, with a path engulfed in peach trees leading to a tunnel in the mountainside. Rather than build on top of the mountain, he excavated and replaced everything in the mountainside so as not to destroy the view of the landscape. The tunnel goes through the middle of the mountain, and in an eerie way makes you think you are inside when you clearly are not. Upon coming through the tunnel, you see a series of metal bars coming down from above which were a really cool architecturally element, but I cannot clearly explain how. Then you see ahead of you, across a small bridge, the main building of the museum, designed in typical Pei style - with lots of glass paneling and black and silver steel. Architecture buffs apparently go to the museum and sit in awe of Pei's work for hours on end. Entering the museum, there is a large glass panel visible facing out the other side of the museum. Looking through this glass, one can see the huge alien-like temple and bell tower that Pei built for the cult in the distance. It's a huge tease - no one outside of the cult is allowed back there, and very little is known about many cult activities, or so I hear. The temple and bell tower seriously looked like something out of an alien world. I felt like a loser for making the comparison, but the tunnel and these two buildings made me feel as though I was on Halo (video game reference). The visual connection was uncanny.

The museum's collection was small, but impeccable (I think I just stole that sentence straight from The Hud). I've never been much of an art history guy, but the Egyptian and Buddhist art were excellent. There was a large Gandhara Buddha that was especially cool. There was a special section on Chinese art when we went, and more art was on display there. The collection and setup of pieces at Miho was head and shoulders above any other museum I've ever been to. I moved through the collection very slowly, and read all of the plentiful explanations of pieces, the English of which was much better than that of other Japanese sightseeing destinations. Lunch at the cafe was the only negative point - tiny dishes that were horribly expensive, though I suppose I should have expected as much, given the architecture. That aside, pretty much everywhere else we've been has been surrounded by some form of modern technology, but this place, aside from the obligatory power lines in the distance (it IS Japan, after all), was very natural. Pei's buildings blended in an odd way with the mountainside. It was somewhat surreal.

A couple members of our group never made it to the meeting point at the end of the day, so they got left at the museum. We laughed about that for a little while and didn't really worry too much, since the bus only went to one place. It turns out that Scott and Max had been sitting in the cafe reflecting on the museum all afternoon and kept getting served free green tea by the employees, so they didn't get up to leave until late in the afternoon.

The next trip Professor Hudson took us on was a short one. We took a 5-minute bus ride from school to Shinnyodo Temple. Shinnyodo is a Zen temple, but more specific than that I actually can't remember. The first building we walked to had a Buddha enshrined in the typical Zen fashion - with brighter colors than other Japanese Buddhist shrines, and also some offerings at the Buddha's foot, I believe. We walked past some stone Jizos and a beautiful graveyard that was hit hard by an earthquake. Gravestones were broken and had fallen over here and there, but they had been left in this way, which I found interesting. At the back of the graveyard was a large pagoda. We passed some Buddhist statues on our way out of the graveyard area, one of which we joked was my friend Dave as a Buddha due to what appeared to be a giant afro. At the end of this nice little walk was another series of buildings, from where you could hear the monks chanting. In one building was an incredible looking Buddha of which I remember very little (other than that it was incredible). In the larger building there was another Buddha enshrined, and people came in to pray. There were also some famous wall scrolls there, including one of the Buddha passing into nirvana and all forms of living beings echoing the event in their own way.

That Friday was the date of our overnight with Ritsumeikan University, where the students had arranged an entirely too organized series of activities for us to join them in. After having dinner at the cafeteria with them, we went to the visitor's hotel, where we sat down for a drinking party with about 50 members of the English Speaking Society. Each of us was given a group of 5 or so Ritsumeikan students to sit with and chat in a combination of English and Japanese. When I envisioned a college drinking party, this was not exactly what I had in mind. There were roughly two cans of drink to a person, most of which were some strange fruit spritzer concoction and the remainder of which were beer. Not only do Japanese people get drunk very quickly, you know it immediately by the shade of bright red that their faces turn. This only happened to a few people at the party, who became hilarious as the night wore on. One activity they had us take part in was a combination of charades and telephone, where people stand in a line and wordlessly relay an action to each other. At one point, an action started out as volleyball and ended as Hadouken (video game reference). It was pretty comical. At the end of the party, a member of my group ran around cleaning up the garbage and drinking any remaining drinks. My friend Max ran around as well, asking for any unopened cans in a last ditch effort to turn a Japanese drinking party into an American one. The sleeping arrangements that night were........interesting. The guys, all 30-something of us, had one tatami room to sleep in. It was a rather large room and we took up the entire space with our futons. It was pretty ridiculous. The girls, all 15 or so that didn't go home rather than sleeping over, had three rooms, I believe. Before getting the futons out, some of the students were having an arm wrestling contest, which made my belligerent friend Max jump with joy. Of course, his arm and chest muscles are too broad for him to actually be effective in arm wrestling, so it eventually turned into an all-out wrestling match. Even big Max was bested in the end by a smaller Japanese guy who had been studying Judo for seven years. His name was Takeshi and he was an excellent grappler. After some more ridiculous escapades, we hit the collective sack.

The next day, we had a a normal schedule, which included kickball, and a rainy day schedule, which included, of course, a cross-dressing competition. A cross-dressing competition?! Yeah, OK. A cross-dressing competition. They're not actually going to go through with that, are they? Oh, you crazy Japanese...

Before this impending destruction of civilized discourse, we were again organized into groups to chat officially about this and that. I actually enjoyed this part a lot, which I attribute to having a cool group. Satoshi "Itosato" Ito, sat to my left. He seemed to be the most average, organized member of the group. To his left was a guy who I knew only as "Chicken" - he was the crazy one. He had cut his hair himself and it all clumped to one side. He also wore emo glasses and liked Green Day and Sum 41 (...). His goals in life were to live in Edo Castle (equivalent of wanting to live in the White House) and find a wife who's views were exactly the same as his: patriotic. He was interesting character. To his left was our group leader, Kazu "Kaz" Yoshida. Kaz was the cool character of the three. He had heard of a bunch of bands that I enjoy and was generally laid back about everything. I think he said he had gone to America at one point - his English was pretty good. To his left were two girls, a Chinese girl named Liu and another who left early whose name I forget. They both seemed to be pretty average, quiet girls. They did bring up one interesting point though. In short, they asked me why American girls are so, for lack of a better word (but many worse ones), "catty". Apparently Japanese girls don't generally get in fights with each other the same way Americans do. Just an interesting little tidbit I found out.

The group's major official topic of conversation was, true to the rest of our stay at Ritsumeikan, "Love and Gender". I can't really explain how, but the Japanese psyche on topics like this is completely different from the American one. They just think differently. The group and I had lunch at a cool little alternative cafeteria where i had the coopa (?), a Korean dish I had never heard of before that was pretty good. The cross-dressing competition turned out to be far too comical for its own good. I won't go into details, other than that Max donned a skirt and made some hilarious gestures that had our hosts on the floor. There were 4 other cross-dressing couples, one of whom was very good, but not as good as Max and his girl-dressed-as-a-man boyfriend. Max was the only person from our Colgate group who took part in the contest, as one couple in every group was voted in. All of the Rits students spoke in English for this portion, while we spoke in Japanese, which made everything even funnier. At the end of our stay, Makoto Mito, whom I had made friends with at our first meeting, and I exchanged emails so he could invite us to another get-together (but not like this one). Mister Mito, as they called him, was among the coolest of the bunch, along with Chicken, Kaz (who is apparently the club president), and Sei-chan (from the first meeting). It was good times.

Last Sunday, The Hud took those willing to Arashiyama ("Stormy Mountain"), a beautiful area in Western Kyoto renowned for its bamboo groves and shops, among other things. I unintentionally got there about an hour and a half early, since I wasn't sure what time we were meeting, and hung out by myself in front of the station. When everyone finally arrived, we walked to the river, where cormorant fishing is popular. I don't remember exactly how it works, but the fisherman capture some cormorants, and have them catch fish for them. They stick a ring of some kind in the bird's beak so it can't swallow the fish and grab it straight from the bird's mouth. Cormorants are apparently excellent at catching fish. First, we went to a Buddhist temple complex where there were tons of tourists. I don't remember its name, but its renowned for its vegetarian cuisine, which is very expensive. Next, we went to a small shrine/graveyard where graves that had been scattered and broken throughout the area had been arranged around a Buddhist sculpture as though they were listening to the Buddha preach. The identities attached to the graves have long been forgotten and any sign of individuality has faded from their designs. An actual stupa was built on one side of the graveyard, which surprised me greatly as I didn't know they existed in Japan. In the back of the area was a small shrine to the Bodhisattva Jizo. This one was specifically meant to protect unborn fetuses in their path to the afterlife. What made it even more depressing was that baby's toys had been put beside Jizo from families who had had miscarriages in order to protect their unborn children on the path to the afterlife. Beyond this sad sight, we moved to see Rakushisha ("house of fallen persimmons"), the old house of Mukai Kyorai, one of the ten disciples of famed haiku poet Matsuo Basho. The Hud is a big time Basho enthusiast, so there was no way we were going to Arashiyama without going there. It is a small house with a straw roof surrounded by persimmon trees. Small, but pretty. There were stones with famous haiku on them in the garden. Next, we wandered through some really beautiful bamboo groves to a small circular shrine with six Buddhist figures. People walked around it pouring water from the shrine on each of the figures in an area on their own body that they wished to have healed. I tried to pour water on my stomach and missed. Figures. Next, we went into some really cool shops, mostly specializing in bamboo, where I decided I would have to come back when I got a more permanent house or apartment. There were tons of cool little things, but they were mostly things that you would get to decorate a house. And they were kinda expensive. We walked beyond the shops and through a tunnel and found ourselves at the same place at which we had ended our hike up Mount Atago, called Kiyotaki. It was a beautiful area and I plan on going back soon when autumn colors are in full effect.

This past week, the art school at which I take Japanese classes had a small festival. They decorated the front of the school in bright colors and streamers. Casual musical acts performed, small food stands were set up, and students had little shops where they sold clothes and small goods they had made outside the lobby. Exhibitions were up throughout the main building, some of which were pretty interesting. Of course, my camera has not been behaving lately so I haven't been able to take any pictures.

This past Thursday we went around Kyoto to see three famous places: Ninna-ji (Temple), Ryoan-ji (Temple), and Nijo-jo (Castle). The first place we went was Ninna-ji, a residence of a former emperor during the Heian period, I think. It was made for the emperor to get him out of the real Imperial Palace so that a younger, more malleable emperor could take his place. This was the way the Fujiwara clan controlled Japan in the Heian Period - by turning emperors into monks before they have the ability to make their own decisions. Thus, there would be 22-year-old retired emperors who lived the rest of their lives as monks. Ninna-ji is a major temple in the Shingon Buddhist sect, and is also the base of a sect of a Flower Arrangement. Tons of buildings and objects from there have been listed as National Treasures.

That last paragraph was me summarizing the pamphlet I took home from Ninna-ji and throwing in a few historical things that may or may not actually be correct. The truth is that I have seen enough temples at this point in a short enough time that they are starting to mix together in my head a little. Ninna-ji had a pretty nice pagoda, I remember, and also some low-branched cherry trees for which it is apparently famous. Another reason I wasn't incredibly impressed by Ninna-ji was because the next two places we went were far more interesting. The first of the two was Ryoan-ji, home of the world-famous, enigmatic Zen garden known by that name, which is composed of 15 rocks and a lot of raked white gravel. Sitting in front of the garden may very well have led to some good meditation, had there not been so many tourists huddled around it. A lot of people think the garden is overrated, seeing as it is really pretty desolate and there isn't much to it, but I had the feeling that under the right conditions, sitting by the garden may have been a very, very Zen experience. Aside from the actual garden, Ryoan-ji had some very cool buildings and a big, beautiful pond with large clumps of lilies and a small island in the middle (it was prettier than the language I'm using right now makes it sound).

The final place we went to that day was Nijo-jo, the castle of the Tokugawas. It was a really cool place. The planks had a mechanism, known as nightingale floor, that made them squeak when someone walked on them, so as to protect the castle from a ninja invasion. The castle's interior was gorgeous. The paintings on the walls everywhere were excellent - many, done in gold, had been left the same as they were when originally painted. On the other hand, a lot of ceiling painting had been redone a few decades ago and is already fading. There were paintings in some chambers of fierce tigers, though there were none in Japan so the artists worked off of domestic cats to make the paintings. There was no furniture anywhere, which was not much different from when it was actually lived in. When people were to sit down, they were brought cushions. Futons were brought out at night to sleep on. Everything was kept in compartments in the wall. One of the rooms had mannequins situated the way the shogun, his page boy and the ministers would have been sitting during a meeting. In the wall next to the emperor was a hidden room from which soldiers would be armed and ready in case the emperor was attacked. In the innermost chamber of the castle were the emperor's private chambers, where only women attendants were allowed. The women brought him food, kept house, and provided other services to the emperor. Outside the castle were really nice gardens with a pond and stones designed by famous artists.

I know this email seems rushed, and that's because it is. Please take it upon your imaginations to throw in segue sentences and other examples of basic writing skills. These last couple weeks are going to be a bit tougher, as I no longer have time to put off the things that I told myself I would do before leaving. There is far too much to see around Kyoto - I still feel as though I have barely seen any of it at all. Some of the other students went mountain climbing on Hira-san, a difficult climb by Lake Biwa, today, and others still went to roam around Osaka. But I needed a day to get my life in order so here I am - in front of the computer, but not connected to the internet. I will probably send one more email before I leave for Toyama-ken, but I leave no promises that it will be any better put-together than this one. Hope all is well with all.

Love and peace,
Jess

Email #6 (out of order): Adventures Over Mid-term Break

I forgot to post this one, so it's a bit out of order. eh.


10/15/2005

Hi everyone,

Thanks to all who wished me a happy birthday - it made me feel like I was still back home. I'm a week behind on these emails, but right now it can't be helped. This last week back in class was pretty rough on me. So in this email I'll talk about my trip over mid-term break, and in the next one I'll talk about my birthday and this past week. The mid-term trip consisted of one full week traveling to four cities: HIroshima, Nagasaki, Matsuyama and Himeji. Thus, this email is jam-packed with adventure! Yes!

On Saturday morning, I met with Professor Hudson, his son Taro, and the other nine students to depart for Nagasaki. It was a long five-hour train ride, over which I did a good amount of reading (mostly of Japanese comics, of course). We passed some interesting looking places. Crossing over from Honshu, the biggest island of Japan, to Kyushu, the island that Nagasaki is on. One was a stretch of sea that was dry for miles out. There were boats tied to docks that didn't need to be because there was no water. This area of sea also had thousands upon thousands of arrays of tall wooden stakes stuck into the seabed. We had a tough time figuring out what these were - spots to tie boats to? There couldn't possibly be that many boats. Markers for clamming? Possible, though I'm no expert on clamming. Tide markers? A strange-looking method, but also possible. It was quite a sight - there were so, so many stakes. They went on for miles. Around that area, there were a series of tunnels that the train went under, which made our ears pop over and over again to a painful point. We arrived in sunny Nagasaki in the early afternoon.

Our hotel was across the street from the train station, which was convenient. It lay in "downtown Nagasaki", which didn't seem to be much of a downtown area. Our hotel was nice - and had internet service, so all of us could get our fix. Nagasaki is a small, but interesting city - it was situated on either side of a bay, both side of which are mountainous. A few of us wandered the city a bit, seeing jumping fish, which were apparently different from flying fish, but jumped out of the water just as well. I also chased after some cool looking sea hawks at one point and try to wall run, but failed. Alas. At one point, a large school of tiny fish jumped out of the water all at once right at where we were sitting on the dock. That night, most of the students went together to an izakaya, a loud place that serves a wide variety of food and seats a lot of people. This particular izakaya was not very noisy. They seated the eight of us in a nice, private little side room where we sat Japanese style; no shoes, on small cushions on the floor, around a low table. The room also had a little karaoke area. We had little cubbies outside the room in which we locked our shoes, and some of the others had decided to wear the sandals that were in the shoe change area into the dining room. We later learned that these happened to be bathroom sandals, and were not to be worn into the dining room. What's more, no one else had been able to go to the bathroom because all the sandals were gone. Of course, we didn't learn any of this until our waiter realized what had happened and came in to explain the situation. We had a good laugh over it and ordered our food. I can't remember what I had, but the izakaya had a lot of interesting dishes, some of which would have made for quite an adventurous order. After dinner, we all relaxed in the hotel doing this and that. The hotel supplied an interesting set of pajamas: they came in light purple and "puke green" (a variant of lime green). They had a design on the border and were made in the same style as a martial arts uniform. I had meant to get a picture of us wearing them, but completely forgot.

The next day we set out with Professor Hudson to see the sights. First, we went to the Dejima Museum. Dejima was a small man-made island off the coast of Nagasaki, brought into creation by the shogunate to keep the Portuguese out of Nagasaki, but keep trade with them alive. At the time of the Shimabara Rebellion, which occurred in response to the outlawing of Christianity in Japan in 1637, the Portuguese were kicked out of Dejima. The Dutch were also kicked out of their factory in Hirado, and moved to Dejima, where they stayed for the next two hundred years. So Dejima was Japan's only connection to the West for those two hundred years. The museum consisted of old artifacts from the Dutch and recreations of buildings that used to be on Dejima. It had a cool little garden with a fountain and also a recreation of a ship's mast. I'm generally an honest guy, however, so I'll get straight to the point and say that Dejima was pretty boring. It's not that I don't enjoy learning history, as I have occasionally been known to partake in it, but if I wanted to learn about Europe I wouldn't have come to Japan.

Next, we wandered around Chinatown, a tiny two-street area where there were restaurants and shops. All of the restaurants were the same, however, and the shops came in two or three varieties, among which they too were exactly the same. I opted for a delicious meat bun from a street vendor. From there we tried to take a shortcut through the residential area to our next destination: Glover Garden. However, this shortcut didn't work out so we walked back through the city to get there.

Glover Garden was beautiful. It's situated on the mountainside in a terraced formation. We took funny, little outdoor escalators up to the top of the estate and walked down. There was a great view of the bay, the city and the surrounded area. At the top, there was a goldfish pond. There were so many gold fish, and one giant one - more than twice as big as the others, who I named Fatty. I should have known better than to do something like that, however, as Taro, who I believe is 11, would not shut up about Fatty for the next couple hours. A little further down was Glover's actual house, which was really cool looking from the outside. It's difficult for me to describe, but a simple Google image search of "Glover Garden" should turn up some good pictures. The other option is that you can wait a little while for me to finish uploading my gloriously mediocre photos, which could take between one day and a month, but will probably happen this coming week. The inside of Glover's house had all the old furniture and paintings still left in tact, which was less interesting for me than the architecture. The next building in Glover Garden was the Performing Arts museum, which had displays of the large ships and dragons carried around during the Autumn Festival and the Kunchi Festival dragon dance. You will have to wait for the pictures for adequate descriptions of those, I'm afraid. There were also shops coming down the slope, and my friend Max had a field day in a weapons shop (the guns were actually plastic). I got a couple of gifts there.

Thomas Glover was interesting guy. He was one of the original founders of Kirin Beer and he married a Japanese woman who was said to be the original model for Madame Butterfly. He helped bring modern science and technology into Japan. His son made an atlas of Japanese fish. He also helped the beginnings of Mitsubishi. After wandering his estate and seeing his house, we all generally decided we wouldn't have minded having his life. Professor Hudson and I especially wanted to live in his house.

The next day was to be a time for much more serious sightseeing; that of the atomic bomb variety. First, we headed to the Nagasaki Peace Park, where there is a gigantic statue made in an interesting East-meets-West style. It had a toned Greek-style body, face and hair, but sat in a similar position to the Bodhisattva Maitreya, if I remember correctly, with one leg in lotus pose and the other hanging down. His hand gestures were also Buddha-like, but I don't think they were actual mudras. One hand pointed up to the sky, in regards to the nuclear threat, and the other is held straight out to the side, palm down, in a motion to stop the nuclear arms race, I believe. On either side of this huge statue were hangings of thousands of paper cranes. Some of you may know the story of the girl who was dying (I want to say of leukemia?) and was told that if she made 1000 paper cranes, she would get better. Of course, she didn't get better, but she made 1000s of cranes and her story was heard by many, so today school children still make paper cranes and leave them at the Peace Parks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

After the Peace Park, we made a quick stop at a famous church in Nagasaki. The history of the city is filled with a sense of irony. Think about the decision to drop the bomb on Nagasaki. Did we know that it had the largest Christian population of any city in Japan? Or that Christianity and Japan's connection to Western culture had a long history with the Nagasaki? I'm not sure, but when the atomic bomb hit the old church, I doubt any of the victims had time to consider the irony. Our next stop was ground zero, which was marked by a radial design that, ironically enough to me, looked like the Japanese rising sun design. A few remnants of old buildings are around the hypocenter (the place on the ground under which Fat Man exploded). There was a brick wall from the old church on which parts of the bricks have disintegrated in a strange way; it was really surreal. There was also an interesting statue of a mother, with a design like golden leaves on her dress, holding a child.

The hypocenter is right next to the Peace Memorial Museum, where we headed next. The museum turned out to be fascinating - definitely designed by an excellent artist, or a few. Outside of the ticketed area was an unbelievable piece of art in black, red and white ink, if I remember correctly, done on a three-part Japanese style panel. I tried to snap a picture of it, but it didn't come out. Upon entering the ticketed area, the first thing I noticed was the sound of a clock ticking. This was only the first example of the sense of impending doom that the exhibit brought on. "How long until nuclear weapons are used again and tragedy once again occurs?" - that was the question the sound was supposed to beg. There was a small, dark passage with some artifacts in it, the most prominent of which were broken clocks. The hands of all of the clocks were stuck at 11:04, the time the bomb struck. At the end of the passage was a video of the mushroom cloud on several screens, at the end of which was a large, dark room with the twisted remains of foundations and various wrecked objects. There were large TV screens showing the desecration of the city and descriptions of the general horror and affect on the city's buildings. This room reminded me more of a haunted house than anything; an interesting job they had done on it. The next room was a little lighter, but in actuality the content was much, much darker. In the center was a circular, three-dimensional map of the city that showed the area of effect of the bomb after .1 seconds, 1 second, a few seconds later, and so on, up until the radiation effect days later. This room also contained a lot of artifacts; bottles fused together, old partially burnt kimonos, and other oddities that barely survived the bomb. It was the latter half of this room that was the most depressing part of the museum, and of my entire stay in Japan thus far. There were video accounts of survivors, which I watched, but what most caught my attention were accounts written by children, soon after the bomb hit, describing their experiences. One child's brother was stuck under a building and watched her mother, burning alive, try to lift it off him, but have her skin worn away in the process, and then fall down dead. Stories like this one abounded, and left us all mind-blown, such that the remainder of the museum was a bit of a blur to me. There were accounts of Americans in Southwestern states who had radiation from nuclear testing, but the government refused to recognize them. It was not the kind of thing they make you read in your high school textbook.

That night was spent exploring the wonders of $5 convenience store bought sake in a carton and watching old Simpsons episodes in our crazy pajamas. The next day we headed back up into Honshu to Hiroshima for some more atomic fun. Hiroshima is a much bigger, more business oriented city than Nagasaki, and it is situated in a valley. Like Nagasaki, it has old style street cars for public transportation, which seemed a bit more out of place in such a bustling, business-like city. The hotel also seemed more business-like. In fact, I would say that Hiroshima seemed to be more eighties-style business glam than other parts of Japan to which I've traveled. We could see the a large part of the cityscape from our hotel room, where we once again had working internet. That night I went with my friends Dave and Alex to a kaiten-zushi place around the corner. Kaiten-zushi is a style of sushi restaurant in which small dishes of a couple pieces of sashimi or rolls pass in front of everyone on a conveyor belt and you take whatever you'd like. It was a little expensive, but not quite as much as some American sushi restaurants; and it definitely tasted better. Other than that, much of my meal time in Hiroshima, as well as Nagasaki, was spent conserving funds by buying pre-made meals at convenience stores, which was not great, but much better than the state-side equivalent.

The next day was overcast, and rightfully so as we returned to our tour of the bomb. First, we headed to Little Boy's hypocenter. The building under which the bomb hit is called the Genbaku (Atomic Bomb) Dome. The foundations of the building are miraculously still standing due to an interesting phenomenon. When the bomb hit, it blew out the horizontal floors of the building, but left the vertical walls in tact due to the angle at which it hit. The mere pressure would have made these walls eventually crumble, however, so they were fixed up a bit in order to stand as a memorial to the atomic bomb. Little Boy's accuracy was impressive - it hit only 500 feet from the bridge at which it was aimed. Fat Man, on the other hand, had to be dropped over a secondary target (Nagasaki) due to fog and even then hit much farther up the bay than it was meant to due to low visibility there as well. There was a group of stray cats living inside the Genbaku Dome, but people were not allowed on the premises.

We then wandered across the bridge at which Little Boy was aimed to the Peace Park in front of the Memorial Museum. It was in this area that we passed hundreds of high school students on field trips. The Hiroshima museum is a strangely designed, gray horizontal building that looks like something out of Star Wars. It was less interesting and effective to me than that of Nagasaki. The lay out did not hit me in the same way; it didn't seem as personal. Part of this may have had to do with the fact that it was bigger and there were many more people around, thus making it louder, but the actual museum did not appeal to me much either for some reason. The first room had a smattering of videos, written histories, artifacts and timelines. The next couple areas had more artifacts and histories. The final large area had stone strewn around to make it look as though it were hit by the bomb, but it looked half-assed to me. This area had burnt objects and some more personal histories, but it was not quite the same. The final area had personal video accounts. It may just be due to the fact that I saw the Nagasaki museum first, but I breezed through the Hiroshima museum without being drawn in by much of anything. After the museum, Professor Hudson offered to take us to Miyajima, but I wasn't feeling up to the task. Apparently, however, Miyajima is the name of the giant torii arch in the middle of the sea, one of Japan's three landmarks I have been wanting to see. Of course, I didn't know this at the time, so I missed out. Apparently the deer there were very friendly. For lunch, a bunch of us discovered the glory that is Mos Burger - "fine gourmet Japanese burger and coffee". Sounds laughable, right? Well let me tell you - the teriyaki chicken burger was no joke.

The next day we left for Matsuyama, which lies on the island of Shikoku. Matsuyama is a much more average Japanese city. People were generally surprised to see foreigners, and the city had no real distinguishing characteristics. Matsuyama also had a streetcar system. In fact, the cars were given to the city by Kyoto when it stopped using street cars. Shikoku is directly South of Kyoto, Takatsuki and Osaka, whereas Kyushuu, the island which Nagasaki is on, is at the South-westernmost point of Japan. It was hot there, a bit like Nagasaki, and we had no internet connection.

We arrived early in the day and went out in the afternoon to see Matsuyama castle. It was a pretty interesting place, decked out with a fine example of sixteenth century scaffolding and...construction workers? Yeah, they were doing construction on the castle, which made it less attractive than it would have otherwise been and also blocked the view from the top of the castle (the bit about the scaffolding was a joke, in case I didn't quite get that across). I still enjoyed it, but I'll save my bit on castles for now, as we explored a much more grandiose one later in the trip with much of the same material on the inside. After roaming the castle, we sat down outside and had some green tea ice cream with some kind of bean (red bean?) on the side of the cone, which turned out to be absolutely delicious. I've developed a taste for mochi and certain kinds of beans here. Sitting outside, we listened to a bunch of stories from Professor Hudson's past. The man is a fountain of experience and information, and he could probably tell stories for years on end if you keep asking questions. He told us an interesting story about his friend in Matsuyama who let him fly his plane around Southern Japan, and another about someone who gave him a painting in Matsuyama for identifying its meaning. He told us about Dogo, a hot spring resort in Matsuyama that had been in use for 3000 years! Hearing this, a few of us had to try it out.

We made our way to Dogo via streetcar that evening with our hotel towels over our shoulders. The building was very cool looking; one could almost picture it hundreds of years ago with none of the other city buildings around it. It had the stock black Japanese roof tiles that curve up at the ends and Japanese paneling. It still had a weeping willow next to it from olden times. We went inside, took our shoes off and put them in cubbies. Then we made our way to the men's changing room, where we were welcomed by the cleaning lady and a bunch of naked Japanese men. It was odd to me that a woman could be in the men's changing room, but no one seemed to care so I paid it no mind either. We put our clothes in lockers and headed into the bath. There were two identical indoor men's baths, in which there wasn't much special other than the cool looking lion spout from which the water came. Being stupid Americans, we all forgot to take a bar of soap on the way in. A friendly Japanese man offered us his and we shrugged off any germaphobia and passed it from one to another before washing ourselves off and entering the bath. It was big enough to fit about fifteen people. I was not entirely impressed by that bath, but the water apparently comes from a spring in the nearby mountains. Also, it being 3000 years old, going there is definitely a story to tell. The building was also very cool. We wandered the neighboring area a bit afterwards, and I almost bought a few presents at a 1000 yen (roughly $10) store.

That night, a bunch of us went to an udon (thick, soft white noodle) shop, in the hopes of sampling the local sannuki (Japanese version of al dente) flavor. Kyoto udon is very soft and slimy, so I was looking forward to this. Of course, we happened to choose an udon shop that didn't serve sannuki udon. Nonetheless, the meat udon there was delicious - especially the broth. The udon wasn't too soft either. Later, we roamed the town in search of nightlife, but didn't find much. I think it was a Thursday night, which in Japan means most people are at work or asleep (unlike Colgate). We did happen to be in Matsuyama for a special occasion, however. The end of September (the night is different for different places) is a time when the town's men stay out all night drinking, yelling and carrying a large....well, I don't know how to describe it. I believe it's called a hakobo, but I could be totally off-base. I took pictures of something similar in the Glover Garden Performing Arts Museum. Anyway, they carry it around the city all night in ceremonial outfits.

The next morning, some people decided to hang around the hotel, but I opted to join Professor Hudson and a few others in going to Iyo Kasuri, home of a 200-year old indigo dyeing and weaving factory, which is still in use now, though antiquated, but is more of a museum than anything else. Seeing the place where the dyeing and weaving occurred was interesting, but the best part of Iyo Kasuri was the shop. The materials were very high quality, and the colors were deep and fresh looking. I bought a bunch of presents here. There were a lot of things I wanted to buy, but due to their quality they were pretty expensive. Thus, I took a few pictures of things in the shop I wanted to buy. Taro dyed his own piece of cloth, as they allow you to do for a small fee.

After Iyo Kasuri, we met at the train station early for our ride to our final destination, Himeji. I went to a ramen shop by the station and got some kinoko (mushroom) ramen, which was absolutely delicious, and then boarded the train. Himeji is back on Honshuu, so we were not far from home, though Matsuyama was not far either. Himeji is also a city, though not as big as Nagasaki. I didn't actually see much of the city, however, as the place we stayed at was out in the countryside - roughly a 45-minute bus ride (more?) from the train station. Yumenori (the love of dreams), it was called, and upon arriving there, it was not difficult to see why. Yumenori was a large, expensive onsen (hot spring) resort with lots of beautiful views - in and out of the hotel. In fact, I probably took as many photos inside the actual hotel as I did anywhere else. It was that fancy. Japanese businessmen usually go to resorts like Yumenori for a one night outing, because it's so expensive. We had a beautiful view of the countryside from our hotel room; mountains, fog, small villages and farms - this was much closer to the old Japan than we had previously been. Except for being in an exclusive hotel, of course. Unlike the other hotels, this one was four people to a room (for the guys), with old style futon beds on the floor like in the ryokan back in Tokyo. We didn't mind, however, as the place was incredible. We had our own little patio with a great view, where five of us sipped drinks from the hotel store and discussed cinema that night.

Dinner was quite an experience. Kaiseki, as it is called, is also a very expensive, exclusive affair. We had a small plate of sashimi, some rice, a small pot of sukiyaki, some vegetables, seafood broth with shrimp in a kettle, and a couple other things which I have no doubt forgotten since there were so many facets to the meal. Enjoyable though dinner was, the piece de resistance of the hotel was, of course, the onsen. I had thought there was only one large men's bath, but I made a pleasant discovery: there were two. So, when I went down to meet everyone else, I found an entire spa to myself. It was incredible. The bath that I went to was completely done in black marble. It had a bunch of fancy looking stalls and a large indoor bath. I got in the indoor bath, which was nice, but I was really just biding my time until I couldn't stand it anymore and had to move to another spot my eye had alighted upon: the Goemon onsen. The Goemon onsen, at least I believe that's what it was called, was a one-person, circular outdoor bath. It was entirely made of bamboo, including the spout. Sitting in the Goemon onsen may have been the most wonderful part of the trip. I started smiling after sitting in it for a little while, and eventually broke into spontaneous laughter at the situation. I'm still not entirely sure why, but it felt good. There was also another outdoor bath that was of the rectangular bamboo variety, and may have fit two people. After dinner, I decided to go back with the others to the bath they had gone to. It was also very nice - a larger bath for about 10 people with a rock garden motif and a nice view of the countryside.

Yumenori also provided us with excellent blue-green yukata robes with a red and blue obi (sash) to wear to the bath and a purple overcoat to wear over it to dinner. I really liked the outfit. The next morning, the guys were given the chance to experience yet another spot called the panoramic bath. It was pretty foggy, however, so though the view was still nice it was not entirely panoramic. This bath was bigger than the other and also had a rock garden motif. It also had an outdoor bath next to it which was nice as well. Breakfast was a buffet affair, with tasty little shrimp dumplings. After breakfast we said goodbye to the love of dreams and headed back into the city to see Himeji castle, possibly the most famous of its kind in all of Japan. It was larger and more beautiful, in my opinion, than Matsuyama castle, and also didn't have any scaffolding blocking the view. Japanese castles have a series of terraced roofs that usually arch up at the edges. The castle was white with black roof tiles, and interesting designs on the end tiles, which I believe corresponded to different clans. The bottom of the castle was made out of rock wall. There were several different buildings surrounded the castle, including a basement specifically used for committing seppuku (suicide by stabbing oneself with a sword first in the stomach and then sliding it up into the heart). Inside the castle, we of course took off our shoes. The stairways were very steep and narrow, and a few people hurt themselves on the way down. The castle collection consisted of similar things to that of Matsuyama: samurai armor, swords, spears, scrolls, histories, and other artifacts. Himeji also had a collection of artwork done by its inhabitants that was quite interesting. From the top of the castle, you could see much of the surrounding area, though it was foggy. It was also possible, when looking out from there, to get an idea of how big the castle property used to be, since the former moat was a good ways off.

After the castle, we returned to the train station to get our bags out of lockers we had left them in, and returned home. Seeing as we were now coming from Southeast of Kyoto, Takatsuki would be on the way there. Thus, I was able to get off earlier than everyone else. I enjoyed the trip on the whole - I now have a fuller idea of Japan as a country, having been to several different places. It was nice to travel and then relax, but speaking so much English amongst the group made our Japanese deteriorate a bit. Now we're back in class, taking off where we left off. Hope everyone is well!


Love and peace,
Jess


PS - I apologize to anyone who was confused in another email when I said that Hurricane Katrina hit Japan. That would be quite an astonishment - a hurricane so powerful it plowed right through the Southern states and tore up the entire Pacific Ocean before randomly hitting the South and North tips of Japan. In actuality, it was a typhoon (#14? I don't know, there have been a damn lot) that hit Japan, and it was around the same time as Katrina. Apparently the language I used was a bit unclear originally. That probably happens a lot, but I don't have a proofreader, so I can't tell if some things that make sense to me won't make sense to anyone else...though I should probably assume that in most cases. Anyhow, I'm sure you all caught my meaning / glazed over that part because they didn't think it was important.

Also, I realize that these emails, especially this one, are almost as much a memory exercise for me as they are a reading one for you, so if it bothers anyone that I write in a lot of detail and have a tendency to be a bit long-winded.........then that sucks for you. I'm having a blast.

What? Did you think I was going to apologize again?