Pachinko!

Gambling is illegal in Japan, but that doesn't stop people from doing it. The most common form of gambling is with pachinko, a game kind of like pinball, minus the skill. Pachinko parlors are common throughout Japan, and usually have rows and rows of little machines with a stool in front of each, and are particularly notable for their constant roar of noise and flashing lights. It seems that most people in pachinko parlors are middle-aged housewives and salary men, although people of all age (provided they are over 18) take part. Pachinko parlors maintain their legality by returning paying out with prizes instead of actual money, and then there buyback stores next to the parlor where you can sell your prize for around 80-90% of its actual value. I believe prizes are usually things like small snacks, letter openers, cigarettes, etc.

I had seen pachinko parlors all over the place but had not dared to venture into one because of the din that erupted from the building anytime someone went out the door. Also, if you know me, you may know how little interest I have in gambling, especially in games like that--if I wanted to get rid of money, I'm sure I could find a slower and more fun way of doing it, like burning it or cutting it up with scissors or something. Quoth Wilson Mizner, gambling is the sure way of getting nothing from something. Anyway, I thought I'd try tossing out a thousand yen (around $10) to see what pachinko is like, because at least I'd gain the experience.



The pachinko parlor that I went into

A couple of weeks ago I went into a pachinko parlor in Hirakata City, and in spite of initially being somewhat taken aback by the blast of noise in spite of the earplugs I had bought in preparation, I forged ahead. There are a few different kinds of pachinko machines, all with different odds, but I didn't really know what to look for, and anyway it was hard just to find an empty machine. The one I sat down at had a screen in the background, and in front of it was a case that had several prongs in it and a few openings for balls to go into. I put my thousand yen bill into the machine, and it immediately dispensed hundreds of little silver balls (a little smaller than a marble) into a feeder that went straight back into the machine. That way, it could take them one by one without my having to feed them in every time.

The next step was the only place where I actually had any control over anything, and that was to turn a little lever to make the balls fly into the machine. If you turn the lever too far, the ball will just shoot straight past any of the openings that allow you to win anything, and if you don't turn it far enough, it will not make it out of the chute (although I think you get the ball back if that happens). Later I discovered that you can just hold the lever in place, and the machine will constantly shoot the balls out of the chute with the strength that you have in place. If any ball makes it into one of the 2 top openings, I think you get 3 or 4 balls as a prize, and then if little cartoon characters jumped out on the screen, you could press a button and then a wheel (like in a slot machine) popped up. I imagine that if you get the right combination of pictures from the slots then the machine will pay out, but I was not conscious of actually winning anything from that.

It was a little embarrassing because I had a hard time with figuring out what to do, and the people at the machines next to me, and eventually one of the parlor attendants, kept trying to help me and give me tips along the way. I played until I had no more of the I still didn't really know what I was doing by the end, but I was left with a vague feeling of confusion and lack of fulfillment.

I saw some people at the parlor with huge baskets full of the balls behind their chairs, and periodically the parlor attendants came by to check on them and count the balls by pouring them into a machine. I'm not sure how they came to win so much. Some people are real pachinko enthusiasts, and they even have periodic magazines that talk about what machines give the best odds and how to take advantage of them.

Since pachinko is obviously a form of gambling, police keep a close eye on them, but they don't seem to have a problem with leaving them alone as long as they aren't too blatant. I heard that the buyback stores are sometimes run by yakuza, or Japanese gangsters, which adds an element of sketchiness to the whole establishment, but a lot of people participate so I guess it's not too bad.

The whole experience did not convince me of why anyone would ever want to play such a game. I mean, if you want to gamble, why not at least play a game where you have control over the outcome, like with cards? I lost my thousand yen over a course of about 15 minutes, which probably would have been faster if I had known what I was doing from the start, but even in that short period of time, I think I probably would have gone partially deaf if not for the earplugs. But then, I suppose that when people are stuck with repetitive office jobs or in the house for the rest of their adult lives, it helps to be able to hope in something, even if it just lies in the path of a little tumbling ball.

Leaving Soon

I'll be leaving Japan in just 2 and a half more days--this is hard to believe! I am excited to go home, but as I get closer and closer to the day (Wednesday, June 2), I am feeling kind of nervous. Japan is so nice and clean, and everyone is so polite, that I am worried it will be a nasty shock when I get home. Also, I feel at least to some degree that I should have done more while I was here and that I should have worked harder to get better at Japanese, because I'm still not as good as I had imagined I would be after 5 months of living in Japan. Sigh...

Anyway, I thought I'd write some of my overall impressions of the country before I leave. Some of these things I expected, although it was different to actually experience them firsthand, and some things just surprised me.


Things I liked

Vending machines and convenience stores are everywhere. It is really easy to find food or beverages at any time or place, and on top of that, food from convenience stores is actually really good. (I will miss their rice balls!)

The Japanese attitude toward alcohol is much healthier than America's. Well, the attitude of any country toward alcohol is probably a lot healthier than America's. Drinking is certainly a big part of Japan's culture, but I think people here are more likely to have a few drinks to have a good time, and know when to stop before they are wasted. The drinking age is 20, but no one checks cards, and in fact beer is often sold in vending machines, so it is not some taboo mystery like in the US. Looking at alcohol commercials is also interesting; here, they tend to focus on the taste of the drinks, where as in the US, I find that they usually only talk about its sex appeal or "manliness."

Cute kids and cute commercials. Japanese kids are so cute. Why are they so cute? I don't know. They don't seem to cry that much, and their clothes are really cute, and they do cute things all the time. They are frequently featured on cute commercials where they sing in an endearingly out-of-tune chorus. I will miss those commercials.

Good public transportation. The trains run very often and are really quiet and clean, and they get you pretty much everywhere you want to go. I will miss the Keihan line...

A general mastery of aesthetics. People's houses and gardens, as well as shops and restaurants or anywhere else that design comes in, tend to be really beautiful.


Things I didn't like

Things are closed all the time. Quite a lot of shops and sightseeing places are closed on Sundays, and also, things in general tend to close/stop running really early. It is hard to find things to do (unless you're looking for a bar or club) after 6 pm.

Excessive smoking. I already talked about this in a previous post, but anyway, smoking is still very accepted in Japan, and a lot of people smoke everywhere. It smells so bad. This is probably the thing I like least about Japan.

Ditzy girls. I already talked about this one also. Girls here seem excessively obsessed with clothing and makeup. Particularly noticeable on TV shows (but also present in real life) is their tendency to scream a lot but not actually do anything, while their male counterparts calmly move in and take care of the problem. It drives me crazy.

Fish are often served with their head still attached. Creepy.


Things that just surprised me

Japan is still affected by World War II much more than you'd think. I never realized how many temples and historic sites had been destroyed, and just in general there seems to be a national consciousness of its effects. Anyone who was alive at that time (so, anyone in their 70's or older, which is a lot of people) was directly affected by it, whereas I feel like in America, few people are even really aware of WWII anymore.

Japan was not the land of technology as stereotyped. Certainly with youths in big cities like Tokyo and Osaka they have really futuristic computers and cell phones and everything, but in general, people aren't much different from at home. For example, my host family owned one TV, a VCR (no DVD player), and one cell phone, and that was it for electronics. No digital camera or computer, no CD player or anything. Granted they are an elderly couple, and they get along fine without those things. Still, you can't believe everything you hear when it comes to stereotypes.

Temples and shrines are everywhere. They were really interesting. No matter where you go, they have some kind of unobtrusive presence.


I may add to this when I think of more items. I hope the weather stays nice for the rest of my time here--I just came back to Kyoto after 5 days in Tokyo. I have decided that I much prefer Kyoto to Tokyo, although maybe that's just because I'm more used to it. Anyway, there is a slight chance of rain for the next 2 days and a chance of lightning on Wednesday when my flight is scheduled, so I'm crossing my fingers.

Kansai Gaidai Completion

This past Saturday was Kansai Gaidai's completion ceremony. It seems a little funny to me to have a big ceremony just for one or two semesters' worth of work, but I guess a lot of Japan is centered around ceremony. A lot of women in the program choose to wear kimonos to the ceremony since we're in Japan, so I decided to do the same. I don't think I'll have many other chances to wear a kimono, and I thought it would be a good experience.

I had my host mother help me with the whole process. Kimonos are pretty expensive, so she borrowed a kimono and obi (the part that wraps around your waist) from her friend, lending me the necessary accessories herself, and then asked one of her long-time friends to help me put it on and do my hair.

Putting on kimonos is a lot of work. There are many layers, and on top of that, kimonos are designed so that one size fits all, meaning that it takes a lot of adjusting to make it the right length. In total it took about an hour to do the hair and kimono, and I thought she did a really nice job. Here are some pictures:



The first layer


Obi and everything outside the kimono


Wearing the kimono, minus the obi and other outside parts


Front view of the kimono


Back view of the kimono

Unfortunately it was a pretty hot and humid day, and I had to walk/run to the train station and then from the train station to campus, so I was sweating like crazy by the time I got to Kansai Gaidai. Luckily there was enough hair spray in my hair that it could probably withstand a tornado, so it still looked fine. (Also, the traditional flip flops that go with kimonos: SUPER UNCOMFORTABLE. I don't know why they make them so painful.) Here are some more pictures from the day:



With the host family


With my host mother's friend, the lady who did my kimono and hair


The graduation ceremony hall


With my ceramics teacher, Inomata-sensei


With my cute written Japanese professor, Yuki-sensei


With my funny spoken Japanese professor, Shikaura-sensei

I am kind of sad that my time here is over. It's weird to think that right now as I write this post, this is probably my last time being on the Kansai Gaidai campus, at least for a long time. I'm really glad that I came here. Maybe I will write more of a reflection post later.

Anyway, my mom has arrived in Japan now, and we'll be here in Kyoto until tomorrow at which time we'll go to Tokyo and I will have internet again from the hostel. Then Sunday is back to Kyoto, where I'll be until I finally go home on June 2. Time flies.

Aoi Matsuri and Byodo-in

Classes ended this Wednesday, leaving with me time to explore some of the remaining things that I still wanted to see around Kansai. It's hard to believe they're over already, since I kind of feel like I just got here a few weeks ago. I can still remember the orientation week so clearly. Anyway, I will write about that more later.

Last Saturday the 15th was Aoi Matsuri, one of Kyoto's 3 great yearly festivals. Aoi Matsuri, or the Hollyhock Festival, originated in the Heian Era in the mid-sixth century as a prayer from the emperor to the gods for a bountiful harvest. It begins at the old Imperial Palace in Kyoto, passes through the Shimogamo shrine, and ends at the Kamigamo shrine, and includes 2 oxcarts, 4 cows, 36 horses, and 600 people, all dressed in traditional Heian-style clothes. The feature of the procession is the Saio-Dai, traditionally supposed to be a sister or daughter of the Emperor, but now is just an unmarried woman living in Kyoto (I wonder how they select her?), who supposedly wears 12 layers of Heian-style clothes. There were also people dressed as archers, women in colorful kimonos, and people carrying big containers of I don't know what. The reason for the hollyhock leaves tucked into their hats is that they were once thought to protect from natural disaster.

I thought the festival was somewhat interesting. Since it fell on a sunny Saturday this year, it was incredibly crowded when we got there at 11:45 along the entire street that we went to, so there were about 2 layers of people in front of me, and I couldn't see that much. After awhile I got more aggressive about holding my camera high up into the air so I could actually see what was going on. Also my shoulders got sunburnt. Seeing the fancy robes and oxcarts and things was quite interesting, although there was not actually a lot going on since they were just walking silently (there were no drums or flutes or anything like you might expect). Still I'm glad I got to see it.



The woman representing the emperor--the most important person of the procession






People from the procession


Yesterday, I went to the city of Uji with my friend Mieko to see the famous Byodo-in temple. Byodo-in is one of Japan's national treasures and is featured on the 10 yen coin, and was one of the last famous spots around Kyoto that I hadn't gotten to visit yet.

Byodo-in is located in the city of Uji, a 10-minute train ride from the main Keihan line that runs between Osaka and Kyoto. It sits along the Uji River, and is particularly famous for its green tea. (I read on Wikipedia that the Tsuen tea shop, Japan's oldest tea shop, is located there. Who knew.) It was mostly a really nice, green, traditional-looking town with far too many shops that attracted me to spend money. (I got a new umbrella!) I want to go back there again.


Picture from one of the world's oldest surviving bridges in Uji

The Tale of Genji, written by Shikibu Murasaki in the early 11th century and considered to be the world's first novel, has its final chapters in Uji, thus the statue of Lady Murasaki.



Statue of Lady Murasaki, author of The Tale of Genji

Byodo-in, as previously mentioned, is a very famous Pure Land Buddhist temple. It was built in the mid-11th century by Fujiwara Yorimichi, advisor to the Emperor, in the year that was believed to be the beginning of humanity's decline (Mappo). Its main building is the Phoenix Hall (named for the 2 phoenixes on the roof), housing a statue of the Amida, the Buddha who leads people to the Pure Land after their death. That statue on its own is also considered a national treasure, meaning I couldn't photograph it, but it was really impressive, all covered in gold leaf, and when I saw it I recognized from a picture I had to write about in Japanese history. Around the Phoenix Hall was a really beautiful garden, and a museum about the temple that showed what it looked like when it was newer.



Entrance to Byodo-in's garden

Byodo-in is notable not only for the one big statue of Amida, but also for the 52 wood carvings of Worshiping Bodhisattvas on Clouds. They are carvings of humans who have reached enlightenment and are now helping others to do the same, and they ride on floating clouds, dancing or playing instruments.

We decided to pay extra to visit the inside of the Phoenix Hall and see the Amida statue. Since it is so old, even though it's been restored, it's still in pretty bad shape. Mieko told me that part of the problem is that during the war, a lot of homeless people came and lived inside of the hall, leading to a lot of wear and graffiti, on top of the regular fading that would naturally occur over time.



The Phoenix Hall


Tomorrow is the program's graduation ceremony. Since most people have only been here for a semester, it seems a little silly to me to have such a formal ceremony, but on the other hand it does give me my one chance to wear a kimono. I asked my host mother to help me, and so she borrowed a pink kimono from a friend for me to wear, and tomorrow morning I'm going to go have a professional woman help me put it on. The stereotype is of Japanese women wearing kimonos all the time, but putting them on is actually really difficult. There are a ton of pieces, and kimonos are designed so that one kimono will fit pretty much everyone, but unfortunately that means that it takes a long time to put them on and adjust them so that they fit just right. I will make sure to take pictures!

12 days left in Japan!

Ceramics Photo Dump

I have a lot of things that I could post about here, but I will start with a photo dump of my ceramics. Everyone in the class made a ton of stuff this semester, so Inomata-sensei had us choose around 10 of our better pieces to put on a display from Wednesday to Friday for everyone to look at. I had a lot of other pieces that I liked, but here are pictures of the pieces I chose and the rest of the exhibition. Kansai Gaidai has 2 different types of art classes, ceramics and sumi-e (traditional brush painting). I am glad that I took ceramics (if just so that I could have a class with Inomata-sensei), but sumi-e looks really fun, and I hope someday I will have a chance to try it.

Enjoy! (As always, click on pictures for a larger view.)



Me with Inomata-sensei, cutest sensei ever


My display at the art exhibition


Bowl (part of a 5-piece set) - red clay with wax resist decoration and Sekkai


Bowl (part of a 5-piece set) - red clay with wax resist decoration and Oribe


Vase - red clay with Shirohagi sprayed on


Tea set - white clay with underglaze painting and Sekkai glaze


Lidded pot - red clay with Irabo


Vase - red clay dipped in Black, then Shirohagi


Tea set - red clay with Oribe sprayed on


Large vase - red clay with Oribe sprayed on


Striped bowl - white clay with underglaze stripes and Sekkai glaze


The student art exhibition


Someone's amazing sumi-e hand at the art exhibition


Someone's sumi-e bamboo

Japanese is Hard

Japanese is hard

To the English speaker, there are a variety of challenges in learning the Japanese language, starting from the basic ones, including mastering the writing system and learning the 2,000+ kanji (Chinese characters) necessary to read the newspaper, through the complicated grammar, and then up to the regional and societal subtleties that will truly show whether you’re a foreigner or a true Japanese.

For example, the pronoun “I.” (That also includes “me”—they’re the same in Japanese.) There are so many different words that have the same literal meaning, but whose connotations communicate a great deal about perceived status differences between the speakers. Let’s run through them:

Gender-neutral
私 Watashi – the most general form, and doesn’t really communicate anything. Women use this one the most frequently.
私 Watakushi – similar to watashi, but shows more deference to the listener.
我 Ware – actually I’m not really clear about ware’s meaning, although I believe it is more formal. (I think this one has the coolest kanji.)

Female
あたし Atashi – like watashi, but more feminine.
家 Uchi – usually used by older women, especially around Osaka.

Male
僕 Boku – mainly used by boys and young men, though older men can still use it. I think it shows a degree of innocence.
俺 Ore – mainly used by adult men, and shows authority. (Sometimes I hear little boys use ore with each other.)
儂 Washi – sometimes used by elderly men.

I’m pretty sure that there are a lot more words that I don’t know about, but these are the ones I’ve come across the most. The most complicated ones are for men, since one individual might jump between several of them in the same day, depending on the circumstances of each conversation. Good thing I’m not a boy. Notably, Japanese people also talk in the third person, especially in casual conversation, a lot more than English speakers do, and also often omit the subject of a sentence altogether when speaking about themselves.

Anyway, I hope that was interesting and enlightening for you, unless you already speak Japanese, in which case you probably already knew everything I said here, and hopefully you did not catch too many misinterpretations. What am I doing writing this at 1 in the morning? I need to get back to papers. (Tomorrow/today is the deadline for everything! Aah)

Takarazuka

I just finished my first final! Hurrah! I have one more tomorrow and some essays due on Wednesday, and I will be done. Crazy.

Anyway, I'll write about one of my experiences from last weekend with the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female musical troupe based in the city of Takarazuka in Hyogo Prefecture, near Osaka. My friend Mieko arranged a trip with a group of friends to go see Takarazuka, and although I had not previously known anything about it, it turned out to be really interesting.

The Takarazuka Revue was founded in the early 1900's as a tourist attraction and a response to the old elitist Kabuki Theater that employed strictly men only. Since its founding, another branch has opened in Tokyo, but the one near Osaka is the original. They perform for a mostly female audience, and usually select from Western musicals that they translate into Japanese, and are particularly notable for extremely flamboyant costumes and sets. Within the organization, there are 5 troupes titled Flower, Moon, Snow, Star, and Cosmos (not sure which one I saw).

Apparently they have a really intensive training process of 2 years in the Takarazuka Music School, which is incredibly competitive to get into, and then are signed for 7-year contracts. By the end of their first year of training, they are divided either into otokoyaku, or the male role, or musumeyaku, or the female role. Once their contract ends, at least traditionally, they are expected to get married and become good housewives. (psh.)
More about the Takarazuka Revue here. (It's a pretty interesting read.)



Attempted photograph of a flier for The Scarlet Pimpernel

The musical that we saw was The Scarlet Pimpernel, originally a 1997 Broadway musical based on the book by Baroness Orczy. It is set in the French Revolution during the Reign of Terror, and tells the story of The Scarlet Pimpernel, a mysterious man who tries to save innocent victims before they can be beheaded. It was a little expensive--we payed 3,500 yen for the cheapest tickets, but the better ones ran at well over $100 (although I guess that's the same as for any musical).



The Takarazuka Grand Theater

It probably would have been more useful if I had read up on the plot before I went to the musical since I couldn't understand a lot of the dialogue, particularly when they were singing, but the whole production was really impressive. The women playing male roles had a good kind of masculine presence, and even though their voices weren't that deep, the singing didn't really seem to be a problem. There were a few parts where characters were supposed to kiss, but they always just did a fakey turn away from the audience.



The European-style lobby

All of the actresses were really attractive. Afterward I saw pictures of both the male and female roles without their stage makeup and clothes, and all of them were very beautiful. Of course on stage they had really extravagant makeup and costumes. (The theater was attached to a sort of shopping center, and in one place you could get your picture taken with Takarazuka-style makeup and costume, but it cost upward of $55 for the most basic photo packages.)



The theater itself

Personally, my favorite part came at the end, after the musical had ended. They tacked on a good 15 minutes or so of Las Vegas-style dancing, completely unrelated to The Scarlet Pimpernel, including a section of Rockette-style high kicks. I have to say, the dancing was pretty flawless--I have seen the Rockettes once before, but even they couldn't compete with the perfect synchronization of every last dancer. They had the woman playing the Scarlet Pimpernel come back out a few times in glittering outfits and sing the theme song again. In the end, every cast member walked down a giant staircase in the middle of the stage and sang and danced, culminating in the lead actress coming out with a giant feather thing on her back (I can't even describe it--see the picture below) and a disco ball came down and it was crazy.



The feather thing.

In sum, I recommend that anyone go see their performances, if just for the spectacle. I asked my host mother if she had ever gone to see them, but she said that she thought it was too weird, so she didn't want to go, and another girl at Kansai Gaidai that I spoke to felt the same way. Still though. It was good.

Golden Week Travels

Hello! I guess I should write about Golden Week now. I am in my last week of classes at the moment, which means that next week is finals. Thankfully I only actually have exams in my 2 Japanese classes and that's it, since I just have an essay in my literature class, and you can't really test ceramics.

Anyway, Golden Week was pretty relaxing, and it went by quickly. Sadly I got a small cold during that time, which began with a runny nose and sneezing, and culminated in a couple of days in which my throat felt funny in the mornings. It wasn't too much to complain about, but anyway it's pretty much gone now. Anyway, my 2 main trips included visits to Iga and Arima.



A trio of young ninja women

At the beginning of Golden Week, on Saturday May 1st, Alex and I went to Iga, which is a smallish city in Mie Prefecture. We had heard about it because his host family's son lives there and recommended that we visit, and had brought him a flier with a map of the city and a guide to restaurants and shops. Iga is mainly famous for being home to Iga-ryu, which is the Iga school of ninja-ism. As such, its tourist attractions mainly include ninja-themed parks, museums, demonstrations, and shops, as well as the Iga Ueno Castle.

We initially estimated that it would take us about 1.5 to 2 hours to get there by train, but it actually ended up taking about 3 hours, ending with a 20-minute ride on a rickety 2-car local train with worn ninja stickers on the windows.



A cute ninja kid

One of the first noticeable things about Iga was all the people dressed up in ninja costumes. I can only assume that the people in the costumes were tourists from other places in Japan who had come to visit, or else maybe people living there just dress up like that every day. The cutest were the plethora of babies and little kids running around in full ninja outfit, complete with a foam sword tucked across their back. They sold ninja costumes in a variety of colors in all of the shops, although to my dismay I found that all adult ninja costumes cost at least $100--so much for my Halloween costume.



A ninja mannequin preparing to attack sushi restaurant customers

Okay, I admit the city was a little cheesy, but that didn't take away from the experience. In addition to the ninja costumes, they also had mannequins dressed up in ninja costumes hiding around every corner throughout the city, wherever you least expected it. Actually, everything that you could think of was ninja-themed.



Ninja Hello Kitty

Once we got off of the train at Iga, the first thing we did was head to the ninja park. About 5 minutes from the station was kind of a fairground-like deal with a lot of trees and stands selling shaved ice and other snack goods like takoyaki and fried chicken. First we went into the ninja gift shop, selling memorabilia such as a ninja Hello Kitty, ninja key chains, fake shuriken (ninja stars), and local foods. We settled on buying the pack of tickets that would get us into all of the notable museums in the area.



Ninja manhole covers

First we went into a house that was set up to demonstrate special ninja techniques. There was a young woman who presented it to us, "us" meaning Alex and me plus 2 families with cute little kids, and she demonstrated the use of various trap doors, secret passageways, hidden staircases, and secret storage spaces. Once we were done with the tour of the house, we were led underground to a museum that included ninja clothing, tools, and weaponry, with videos showing their uses, and also explained elements of the ninja lifestyle. (Almost everything had explanations in both Japanese and English.)

From there we went to the main ninja museum, whose focus was more on the history and techniques of the ninja. It left the history and origins of ninjas pretty obscure, but it claimed that ninjas no longer exist. (Yeah right! How else do you explain all those cute kids?) It also had some ninja scrolls that I couldn't read, but more amusing were secret ninja techniques for doing things like predicting weather and finding water, and their secret methods of communication using knots of rope and colored grains of rice.



Ninja toilet signs

The rest of Iga was not quite as exciting. We got to visit the Iga Ueno Castle, originally built in the late-1500's, and which now preserves information about the area's history. It seems that there is a pretty active ceramics culture in the area, judging from the number of vases and bowls they had on display. After that we spent a long time looking around for ninja-themed things to buy, and ended up getting a little lost while looking for somewhere to eat. Eventually I got home at around 11:30 pm.



Garden of a temple on Otoko yama

The next few days were pretty uneventful. I should have been studying, but it was really hot, so it was hard to get myself to do much. My host mother and I took a visit to a nearby shrine and temple on Otoko yama, which were really nice now that the plants are in bloom.



A nice Kobe neighborhood with Rokko mountains in the background

On Tuesday I went to Mount Rokko with 2 friends and started hiking. We had seen a recommended hiking path in a book that would lead us from an area of Hyogo Prefecture near Kobe through the mountains to Arima, one of Japan's most famous onsen (hot springs). We arrived near the foot of the path at around noon, and it was already quite hot by the time we got there. The book did not have any pictures, but advertised a lot of scenery and wild boars.



A slice of the view from the top of Rokko Mountain

In short, the hike turned out to be a lot harder than we thought. I think that "mountain climb" would be a more apt name, considering that on average, I estimate that 70% of the path was equivalent to a climb up steep stairs. Occasionally there would be climbs over rocky faces so steep that you had to hang onto chains hung from above to pull yourself up, since there were no footholds or anything anywhere. We went on like that for a total of 6 hours, and only for the last half hour or so did we actually get any real downhill. Most of the path was covered with trees, but it was still pretty hot and muggy the whole time, and in the end I must have had to stop and rest every 3 or 4 minutes because it was just so tiring. We did, however, get some really great views over the cities of Kobe and Osaka, and thankfully we passed by a number of chilly and refreshing mountain streams.



Warning not to feed the boars

We must have passed by about 20 signs warning about the wild boars, or Inoshishi. I was really excited to see them. We did not see a single one for a long time, though, and we were starting to wonder if we would actually see any, when we came across...



Little boar

First a little one, and then...



BIG BOAR

A big boar! They were pretty mellow and tame, although we didn't try to touch them or feed them or anything. They mostly seemed to be sitting around and digging for food, and they let people come up pretty close to them to take pictures.



Rokko Mountain scenery

There isn't too much to say about the rest of the hike, except that it was really tiring, which was exacerbated by the fact that we weren't sure how far away Arima was, or whether we'd even be able to make it there in the end. We did in fact get there at around 6 pm, though, thankfully! We were so tired.



A golden water bath at Arima Onsen

Hot springs are pretty popular in Japan as a place to go and soak, and the minerals in the water are thought to have a number of health benefits. We went into a bath house that featured Arima's naturally occurring "golden water" (in fact it was rather rust-colored). That in and of itself was pretty interesting. Public bath houses are a big part of Japanese culture, but I had not experienced one yet, and this was essentially the same thing except for the special water. At the entrance to the bath house you take off your shoes and put them in a little locker, and then you buy a ticket from a machine. From there, you pass by a desk that takes your ticket and gives you a key to a locker, and head up a staircase. At the top were either red or blue curtains to pass through to go to the women's or men's baths. First is the locker room where you leave your clothes, and then you go through a door into the large room with the baths. First you sit down and take a shower at one of the several stations lining the wall to the right, and then there were 3 actual baths that you could get into. In the middle of the room was basically a hot tub with regular tap water in it, and then on the left were 2 "golden water" baths the area of small swimming pools, one at 42 degrees Celsius, and the other at 44 degrees (that's like 111 degrees Fahrenheit). I don't know how anyone could take the 44 degree bath as my skin was already tingling from the heat in the 42 degree one. Then you just soak in the bath for as long as you want, and then you can rinse yourself off in the shower again if you want. I was already really hot and dehydrated from the day's hiking (in spite of the 4 or 5 water bottles' worth of fluids I must have consumed during the day), so I only lasted for about 10 minutes before I decided to get out, before I started feeling too woozy. After the changing room, there was also a room with mirrors and sinks and hair dryers where many women were anxiously re-applying their makeup, and then I went back downstairs. In the lobby were a number of vending machines, not to mention coin-operated foot massages and massage chairs. (Even though we're in Japan, the part of the chair that was supposed to be massaging my neck was still massaging the back of my head...)

We were planning on spending Wednesday exploring the city of Kobe itself, but we found in the morning that our legs were still so sore and tired that spending all day walking around a city was just not going to work, so I ended up spending most of Wednesday afternoon crashed at home.


That's it for Golden Week. A week from now I'll be done with finals. Crazy.