3 days!

And I will be here:

Sakura, sakura, sakura!

Japan is world renowned for the beauty of its blooming cherry trees (sakura). Something would definitely be missing if I didn’t include a post about them in my blog. While I didn’t attend any official hanami, or flower viewing parties, the usual threesome of Jamie, Allison and I did our best to take advantage of the season with long lunches in the parking lot of the Board of Education, as well as a whole afternoon spent biking to three different parks to view the trees in all of their glory. Picture-wise, nothing else too exciting has happened this month. In the folder April 2008, there is nothing but pictures of cherry blossoms.

One of the long lunches. Looking good while looking at the trees.

Kirei deshoo?

Park #1

Park #2. Beautiful, minus the troll hiding behind the tree.

Park #3. The lovely Narita-san.

Other “Kindy” Adventures

Kim and I returned to Kurume late on Thursday night, leaving her with three more days to go in her Japan adventure. We started out kind of slowly on Friday, taking the train to Dazaifu in the afternoon. We enjoyed soft cream (sakura for me, wasabi for brave Kim) and manju along the road with all the shops; Kim bought some more presents to take home and I purchased a spring scarf. Friday night, we had a special appointment with my calligraphy teacher, Naoko-sensei to come over for a lesson and dinner with her and her husband. Kim got to try her hand at shuji, and I got some good pointers on improving my technique for the monthly test. Dinner was as always, delicious. We had cabbage rolls and the usual assortment of yummy sides all washed down with root beer floats left over from last week’s pot luck. A very enjoyable evening, and a good chance to experience something different from what most people do during their trips to Japan. Friday night was also our chance to catch up on season 4 of LOST, watching six episodes back to back, just the way I like them, into the wee hours of the morning.

The characters don't look that hard, but...

Saturday was spent enjoying local offerings such as West Coast, Daruma restaurant and strawberry picking. Since we had stayed up so late the night before, Kim and I didn’t have a whole lot of time to comb the racks at West Coast, but it was a still a good way to start the day. After, Jamie and Allison joined us on the bus downtown for a lunch of okonomiyaki at Daruma before boarding the local train out into the strawberry fields for an hour of fruit eating frenzy. I vaguely remember picking strawberries with my family when I was younger, and most of that memory is of baby Andrew, sitting under an umbrella, making a mess. This reminded me not to wear white. I vaguely remember having to crouch or sit in the dirt between the rows of plants and searching for the tasty fruits, and was expecting a similar experience here.

Mmmmmm. Lunch time!! Okonomiyaki (egg pancake with cabbage and pork,) Hiroshima style with noodles inside. Delicious!

After walking a good distance from the station, we arrived at “Berry House,” a strawberry tabehodai operation located in a large, peaked-roof green house. We paid our 1150 yen, received small plastic bags for the stems and watched a brief picking demonstration before heading out on our own into the rows of ingeniously arranged plants. No crouching on the ground here. The plants were grown on “shelves” that had mesh “counters” hanging off of them, which made the strawberries ridiculously easy to find and pluck from the vine. So easy in fact, that after a mad 20 minutes of eating, we all had to take a break and wash the strawberries down with some water. After a good rest, we were ready to head out again, this time each of us armed with our complimentary cup of sweetened condensed milk to dip the strawberries in. The addition of a new flavor made it much easier to eat more. When our hour was up, we wiped the stickyness from our hands and slowly waddled back to the train station (in the most round about manner.) Uff! After the strawberry indulgence, everyone was a bit out of commission for the evening. Kim and I planned out our day in Fukuoka and went to bed.

Welcome to "Be-ri--Ha-u-su!"

Rows and rows of easily accessible ichigo for the picking (and eating!)

Enjoying the fruits of our (very marginal) labor.

Sunday dawned grey and rainy…a perfect day for shopping and art viewing in Fukuoka! We took an early-ish train and arrived just as things were opening. Our first stop of the day was the “Pieces of Peace” exhibit, a traveling exhibit of World Heritage sites built out of Lego. Very cool. Some of them I’d even been to, like Kinkakuji, Itsukajima??? Shrine in Hiroshima, but most of them I have just seen in pictures, or now, as Lego replicas. All of the “pieces” (ha ha) were very well done. There were even Legos you could play with, so Kim and I sat at the wee child sized tables and constructed some things to leave our mark.

Exhibit from above. I really liked the posters for it.

Recognize this? It's Kinkakuji in Kyoto.

I really hope you know what this is.

Next we started shopping with a stop at Spinns, where I bought two used dresses and started a point card. If I spend $500 at Spinns in the next 18 months, I will get a whopping $30 off! At orientation, veteran JETs recommended collecting point cards from everywhere—they were your tickets to saving money. Yeah right! I have yet to have one pay off. After Spinns, we walked across the street to Solaria Plaza, started at the top of the building and worked our way down. We stopped for lunch at a very popular doria café, steaming rice covered with sauce and your choice of toppings was an excellent pick-me up on a rainy day. After lunch we finished our tour of Solaria Plaza, went to the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, searched unsuccessfully for a shichirin, or table top grill for Kim’s mom and ended our day at Loft, department store extraordinaire, where two of its seven floors are dedicated entirely to stationary, photo albums and desk supplies. (Although it was not something we wrote on our roommate housing forms five years ago, a fondness for pens, colored paperclips and the like is just one of many things Kim and I have in common.) I was thinking Loft would take about 40 minutes, allowing us to catch the train back to Kurume and meet Jamie for dinner at the ramen shop down the street from my apartment. Loft took about twice that long, (Kim and I are also unable to make decisions, another common trait) and we didn’t eat dinner until almost 9. But on the bright side, we worked up quite the appetite, and for the first time ever, I didn’t feel overly full upon leaving Tatsunoya.

Monday morning, I took Kim to the train station and put her on the bus for the airport. After seeing her off, I went home, changed and headed into the office for the rest of the day, thus concluding the first week of spring break and my vacation time. The second week was much less remarkable, or at least seems that way since most of it was spent in a food coma. When we are in the office, we eat lunch out everyday, and there were various functions that prevented me from eating dinner at home in my apartment until the next Saturday!

“Kindy” Does Kyoto—Parts II & III

This post is very long. When I realized how long it was going to be, I thought maybe I could break it up, but since the draft had been saved for a while, and I have posted since, it would have been all out of order. ごめん。

Day 2

With many places to visit on our itinerary, we started early-ish and grabbed breakfast at a café on a corner with many other tourists. Places that serve breakfast in Japan are few and far between, limited mostly to fancy hotels and coffee shops. After indulging in some waffles, we hopped on the bus to Nijo Castle. During my last visit to Kyoto in January, the castle was closed in observance of the New Year, so I was very eager to see it.

Nijo from the outside...
...and looking down from the inside.

Nijo-castle isn’t really a castle in the traditional sense—it isn’t a multistoried fortress, but rather a residence of the Imperial family. The main building is impressively large though, especially considering it was built in the 1600’s. The most notable feature of the castle is its “nightingale floors,” a security feature installed by a paranoid shogun to alert him to the presence of ninja attackers. The squeaky floors still work, and during one’s tour of the castle, it sounds like there are many peeping birds under the building. The main building also houses impressive screen paintings in each room, which are now starting to be restored. All the screens around the exterior of the castle are closed now to protect the screen paintings, keeping the castle in the dark, but with all the gold leaf, the screens must have been quite impressive in their day. The main “castle” building is surrounded by a moat and nice Japanese style gardens, which we took in before hoping on another bus to our next destination.

Stop 2 was Kinkakuji, which was just as crowded, if not more so than the last time I was there. It is quite impressive to see the glowing, gold pavilion on the lake, but it would also be much nicer with fewer people. We did a brief tour along the garden path (mostly because you have to in order to find the exit) and stopped for a snack before heading back to the bus stop.

Snack Time!!! ソフトークリム　for me, and chocolate covered mochi, or だんご for Kim-chan.


The next place we intended to visit was Toji Temple, the highest pagoda in all of Japan. We eventually got there, taking the long way around on the loop bus (whoops!) Like so many old structures built of wood in Kyoto, Toji Temple has been reconstructed several times due to fire. Toji differs in that four of these fires were caused when the pagoda was struck by lightening. How smart do you have to be to build the tallest structure for miles around out of wood? Over and over and over and over again? I trust that now they have taken special precautions (i.e. a lightening rod) to prevent it from happening again. Toji is quite impressive, and is a symbol of Kyoto. The actual site is made even more lovely due to the fact that it is in a rather shabby, industrial looking part of the city.





After doing our tour, we got on the last bus of the day and headed east towards Tofuku-ji. Like the hostel, it proved a tad difficult to locate. Just when we had gone under the big gate, we were kindly asked to leave because they were closing. Rather disappointed, we asked how long the walk was to our last stop of the day, Fushimi Inari and set out.



Fushimi Inari is a shrine located on the south eastern edge of Kyoto city. It is dedicated to the fox, considered to be the messenger of the gods. Fushimi Inari is best known for its miles and miles of red torii gates of all sizes, lined up through the forest. It would have taken hours to hike through all of them, and Kim, Karl and I agreed that our 40 minute foray among them in the dwindling daylight was sufficient. Back to Kyoto proper for dinner and an early night.

Front entrance of Fushimi Inari. Can you see the fox statutes standing guard on either side of the gate?

They go on and on!!

Day 3

Another full agenda for Kim and me; the first item was to check out of the hostel and accompany Karl to the station to see him off and put our bags in a locker for the day. That accomplished, we got some nourishment at Starbucks, and got on a bus headed towards the eastern side of Kyoto.

The four-bite sandwich I ate for breakfast.

The first official stop was Sanjusangendo Temple. The name refers to the 33 columns that hold up the roof of a very loooooooong building which houses 1,000 statues in the image of Buddha. This was another stop my family didn’t get to during our trip—we arrived just minutes after the last entry of the day, which is why Kim and I thought we should hit it first. In addition to the seemingly never-ending collection of statues, highlights at Sanjusangendo include mentally trying to recreate the annual archery competition held there, and omikuji (paper fortunes)written in English. We deposited our 100 yen into the box and chose a folded up strip of paper from the bin. We both drew “good” fortunes, which we decided to keep instead of tying them to the strings and leaving behind at the temple. A good start to the day.

The loooooooong building. Unfortunately, no photos of the statues inside. :-(

From Sanjusangendo, we walked up the hill to Kyomizudera. While it was impressive when I saw it with my family, bright sunshine and the first cherry blossoms of the season made it more lovely the second time. It was also just as crowded, but not so crowded as to discourage Kim and me from waiting in line to drink some of the “holy water” thought to fulfill wishes. We also disposed of our “relationship challenges” by writing them on a special piece of paper and watching them dissolve in a bucket of water. So interactive!!


Kyomizudera's pagoda building through some budding sakura trees.


The station where Kim and I watched our troubles disappear!

Getting them out on paper.

Watching them disolve. Quite therapeutic actually.


Waterfall where we sipped magic water.

From Kyomizudera, it was more walking, this time in a northerly direction to get to Heian Shrine. The entrance to Heian Shrine is the largest red torii gate I have ever seen…it spans four lanes of traffic and is visible from very far away. The shrine itself differs from the many others I have seen and confuse in my mind because it was built in a very Chinese style, with a huge, bare gravel expanse in front. Behind the shrine is an extensive and beautiful Japanese garden, which took a good half an hour to meander through.


Big gate. We must be getting close.



There it is! Heian Shrine.
A picturesque sakura tree in the garden.

Heian was our last major stop of the day. We started the trek back to Kyoto Station by way of Gion, the geisha district. Gion was a bit like Hollywood, very romanticized, yet when you get there it’s full of ugly tourists. As we walked down the main street, groups of people with cameras were just standing around on the corners, looking as though they were waiting for something to happen. We did happen upon a very pretty street near Gion which had cherry trees starting to bloom on one side and willows on the other…pink and green together. Along another quieter street, we did get to see a geisha on her way to work, which was pretty exciting, but also had the effect of turning us in to paparazzi-ish stalkers.

With the sun setting on our time in Kyoto, Kim and I returned to the station, got our bags from the locker and after spending about 20 minutes walking around in circles in the underground shopping area, found some suitable souvenirs and some dinner. We got on the train, relieved to be off our feet. Yes, I am getting old.

“Kindy” does Kyoto--Part I

While there are many perks associated with my job here, one of the best ones is not having to give up the school break schedule I have become accustomed to since starting kindergarten those many years ago. The breaks in Japan are slightly different from the ones in the U.S.—the most noticeable disparity being the length of summer vacation (6 weeks vs. 3 months). Spring break in Japan is two weeks long, and is all the time the students and teachers have in between grades. But two weeks without classes is two weeks without classes, and since I am sort of an auxiliary member of the teaching staff with no clubs to supervise, I am free to take time off.

Spring Break 2008 started off with a brief visit from my friend Monica, a fellow Arizonan who I met at orientation so many months ago. She stayed in my apartment with me for a few days and did her own traveling while I finished up teaching at school. We checked out a few of the sights of Kurume, Narita-san, the Chikugo River and the Ishibashi Art Museum before I sent her on her way. Originally, Kim, my roommate from college, was scheduled to arrive about 40 minutes after Monica’s flight left, so I was going to go hang out at the airport, but instead, Kim’s flight was delayed a whole half a day, and she had to spend the night in Tokyo. So I ended up meeting her on Monday afternoon.


Wendy, Narita and Monica

After the initial set back, the rest of the Kindy adventures were carried out without too many problems. The ones we did encounter (the Shinkansen tickets not working in the station gates, bad directions to our hostel) were pretty easily overcome. Half of Kim’s trip was spent in Kyoto, where we packed more into 2.5 days than I ever thought possible. By the time we boarded the train to return to Kurume, we were both exhausted and I had a couple blisters from our miles of walking.

Day 1


Getting ready to leave Kurume

We left Kurume around 10 AM and arrived in Kyoto a little before 2 PM. We grabbed lunch at Kyoto Station and left the main exit to look for our hostel. I had copied down the directions from the website, and it seemed easy enough to walk there: take big street to Shichijo-dori, turn right, walk past three stoplights and turn left. The hostel would be a large yellow building on the right side of the street. Apparently, since the website was last updated, an additional stoplight was installed. We turned left after the 3rd stoplight and found nothing but private homes. After a few trips around the block, we decided to go one more light, just to see and BAM! There on the right side of the street was a huge, new, yellow building. When we checked in, the clerk at the desk told us that we were some of the first guests in their new addition. Not too shabby. Not that we spent a lot of time there. Later when Karl came in, he also got lost in search of the hostel, so I didn’t feel so bad about the lousy directions.


You know you are in Kyoto when you see this.

Once we finally located the hostel and dropped our bags off, Kim and I caught a bus to Kitano Tenmangu Shrine to partake in the last few hours of the monthly flea market held there. The wares being offered seemed pretty typical; Kim bought the first of what was to be many pairs of no-show socks and I bought a hand towel, since I forgot to bring one and felt very unprepared without it. We did a quick tour of the shrine, and took some pictures of the last few ume blossoms before getting back on the bus and heading toward Shijo-dori and the main shopping area for some dinner and browsing. Most of the stores closed at 8, and then we decided to go back to the hostel for some showers and wait for Karl.


Kitano Tenmangu's impressive gate.


Enjoying some satsuma imo fries at the flea market.

Catching Up

I guess it’s been a while. I don’t can’t remember the last time I updated (graduation sounds about right.) Since I am sitting in the office all alone due to a glitch in the scheduling, I have no internet access that would allow me to check. But I do have seven hours stuck in the same desk without any other pressing business. As soon as I wrote that, I was informed of the office-wide gardening hour! My supervisor told me I didn’t have to participate, and frankly I wasn’t dressed for it, but why sit inside breathing a bunch of recycled air, when I could be outside, up to my elbows in scratchy plants? I couldn’t think of a good reason either. Too bad I didn’t have my camera to capture the ultimate in Japanese office cooperation.

“Spring” is a busy time in Japan. One school year ends, and rather shortly there after, the next one begins. The cherry trees bloom in full force, and there is a frenzy of parties before the blossoms fade a mere week or so after they appear. While many people organize their own parties with a small group of friends, there are some larger ones too, like the one in the park behind my apartment which involved a loud speaker, karaoke and a raffle at some un-godly hour on a Sunday morning. Now, all of the leaves on the cherry trees have come out, obliterating the last few flowers and students are back in school, so the quasi-relaxed state the cherry blossoms inspired has come to an end.