Sunlight - nikkou - 日光

Another backpost.

During my second time in Tokyo my boyfriend parents, A family, decided to take me to Nikkou in Fukushima ken which is one of Japan's UNESCO World Heritage sites.

Like Koyasan, Nikkou is an actual town as well as a tourist site. It is apparently easy to get to from Tokyo but wouldn't know because A family drove me there. We woke up early to go to Nikkou. So I mainly slept during the ride there. When I finally woke up, I saw some pretty stunning scenery outside the car window. The fun part was the car ride up the mountain. I never thought roads could curve so much. It was dangerous but a lot of fun. I have a video of that somewhere.

When we got to Nikkou, on of the first things we passed was the picture below...

One of the most iconic symbols of Japan; a red bridge (which you could not go on,) the mountains in the back, and a flowing river. Very beautiful.

Nikkou is also considered another sacred spot of Japan. At one point in Japanese history, Nikkou was more important than Kyoto. A family told me that one main difference between Nikkou architecture than Kyoto's was color. Nikkou's building have more vibrant colors like this building above.


One thing I noticed about Japanese shrines is the money making aspect of it. I have been to a lot of shrines in Japan and I noticed a lot of monetary transactions that goes on. If you want to make a wish pay 500 yen to write you name on a wooden placard to hang. You can also buy charms and talisman to give your business good luck, pass your exams, and to protect yourself and your car from traffic harm. All under 1000 yen.

I met a guy who was Buddhist and was disgusted by this aspect of religion in Japan. I'm not particularly bothered by it because these places cannot survive by donations alone but every time I'm about to enter a 'sacred' part of a building I feel like I'm a market. The monks will be waiting inside waiting to sell you something.

At Nikkou, I found this interesting because I took a tour of a shrine. At the end of each segment, the monk tour guide told us what we could buy. The last part of the tour consisted of me listening with a group of people to a priestess telling us the wonders of prayer beads and the different kinds (all of course on sale.)

Sake is an important part of Japanese religion. They are offerings to the gods. Usually, there are a lot of barrels of alcohol at shrines. My boyfriend joked that Japanese gods are drunkards and alcoholics.

(One of the strangest statues I saw...looks like its pooping.)

So Nikkou is more colorful than Kyoto.

For lunch, I had something called yuba and it is basically somehow related to tofu (pictured on the upper right.) A family warned me that it is a taste that most foreigners don't like. I thought it tasted fine. I would not mind eating it again. The soba was delicious though.

After exploring most of Nikkou, we went to a neighboring town which is famous for a its scenery. Driving to the town we passed through a giant torii and after than was a spectacular view. It looked like something out of a nature calender...green mountains and a huge blue lake.

After we parked the car, A family pulled a surprise. They paid for a rental boat and made my boyfriend row me around the lake. It was funny and slightly romantic. Although it was a bit cold, the view from the middle of the lake was beautiful. My boyfriend didn't really know how to control the boat and we when farther from the shore than expected so we ended up returning late. We originally went to see the waterfall but it was too late to go at the time.


I wanted to see the waterfall because I have never been to one up close but oh well. The boat ride was a sweet surprise:)

Sweet red bean paste - anko (餡子）

Backpost。

When I was at my boyfriend's house, I mention to his mom that I liked anko which is sweet bean paste. Anko is an essential ingredient of Japanese desserts. The taste is very, very sweet. I heard that I lot of people actually don't like it.

So my boyfriend's mom tried to teach me to how to make different kinds of Japanese desserts. The first is a dessert that is pretty much a ball of anko covered by red beans with a shiny coating of something. To make it we just made balls of anko and rolled half of the ball in red beans. Then coated with this liquid mix that made it shiny.

Basically it was....TOO SWEET. Amasugiru! It tasted good with tea though.

(Not the finished product...)

The second dessert I like a lot more. I had it before. It is called Sakura mochi. We had to use a special kind of rice (name I forgot but begins with a d) and color it pink. The rice is really sticky and we had to coat the anko ball evenly with it. My boyfriend's mom made it look easy but it wasn't. After that you had to put this slightly bitter tasting leaf over it. I like this dessert because the taste is not overwhelmingly sweet like the first dessert.

(This was the trickiest part because coating had to be thin yet able to cover the entire ball.)

This was a fun activity. The real challenge is to see how much can I do on my own.

Karate Match - Karate Shiai (空手試合）

A backpost.

Awhile back when I was really busy, I forgot to mention that I went to my ototo's karate match. The competition was in Kyoto.


My okaasan told me that my ototo is very good at karate. He goes to practices twice a week. Last year when he was six/seven he manage to advance to the semi-finals but lost because his opponent was much bigger than him.

(My ototo is somewhere in here.)

This year he didn't get very far in the competition because his 2nd round opponent was the kid who want the tournament last year. He was really upset. Later in the day, we were able to see his karate teacher compete. He won! All his students were really excited.

I was a little bored on that day because I again didn't know everything or many people but I'm glad I went.

Animoto video 2

This is the second part of my adventures in Japan. It covers the umeboshiyaki party and my first two trips of Spring Break to Osaka and Kobe. Enjoy...I chose the song out of random. I hope its good.

Tokyo National Museum - Toukyou Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan (東京国立博物館)

This is another back post from my weekend in Tokyo. I went to the Tokyo National Museum on the 17th which was my last day in Tokyo. The museum is in Ueno Park. It also has a zoo but also a large homeless population.

The museum itself has many buildings. When I was there they had a special exhibit on Cartier Jewelry. It wasn't very interested so I didn't go in.

(The main buliding)

There were a lot of pottery, kimono, samurai armor, swords, and other artifacts. I wasn't really impressed unfortunately. A museum in Japan felt like every one I have been to before. I just liked walking around with my boyfriend. I thought the gift shop was interesting. I found some good omiyage there.

The picture above is probably what I liked best out of all the things I saw that day. Apparently, they are the zodiac. It took me awhile to guess. I like the way they are arranged it reminded me of broadway.

After the museum my boyfriend took me to the emperor's palace. You can't get into the palace. There are buildings around it. My boyfriends has no idea why people come to this place but a lot of tourists come by to take pictures. He took me there to take tourist pictures too. -_-

(Looks like any other moat to me)

Walking back to the station, we also saw Tokyo tower in the distance.

And that is everything I did on my Tokyo Weekend.

Tokyo Weekend 2 - Toukyou no shuumatsu 2 (東京の週末）

This is a backpost. I went to Tokyo for a weekend on May 16-17th.

After Tsukiji, I wanted to check out Akihabara (秋葉原.） The literal translation of the kanji is the "Field of Autumn Leaves" which sounds really nice but hides the sketchy nature of this part of Japan. This is Otaku central full of figurine, anime, video games, manga, electronics, and porn/hentai shops. We saw a lot of maid cafe and shops too. Here we saw a lot of tourists taking pictures. While walking through the streets of Akihabara, I felt that the male to female ratio was reversed. There were so many similar looking guys walking in packs.

(Random shot of Akihabara. )

Basically floors upon floors of shops. Like the one pictured below.

(A few blocks in and...wow)

This is a random sex shop we ran into. The wares were so blatantly obvious with the mannequins in the front and on the first floor. In Akihabara, they don't allow photos in the shops. My boyfriend and I decided to wander into a figurine shop. The further we got up the building the more x rated it was becoming. It wasn't so bad but my boyfriend was clearly uncomfortable. I was started to become uncomfortable because I realized that I was the only girl in the building. I wondering if I was making the other guys on the floor uncomfortable by being there....

I originally wanted to buy a denki jisho in Akihabara but in the end I didn't. For now my DS will suffice and my Japanese friends are human dictionaries anyway:)

The next place we visited was Asakusa (浅草) or "Shallow Grass." We were really lucky because we got to see Sanja Matsuri! My boyfriend and I had no idea what was going on or what Sanja Matsuri is. There was a crowd outside of the gate. People were carring this carriage thing and making a lot of noise.

(Sucks being short)

Inside the gate where all these booths selling food and snacks. It looked a lot of fun even though it looked rainy. All I needed was a yukata. While eating, we were fortunate enough to see another procession. This time a lot closer. There were three of them and I got a video of at least one.
Asakusa is really nice. It is one of the few places in Tokyo I want to come back to. I wish I knew more about matsuri and the cultural significance of it.

Animoto Video 1

This is a small glimpse of my Spring 2009 semester it Kansai gaidai, Hirakata, Osaka, Japan. Animoto is a site that creates a visually dynamic slide show of your photos paced to music. At Kansai Gaidai, my Prof. Garr Reynolds introduced the class to this site. I thought I give it a shot and the results are pretty good. I think I might be addicted. I have over 2,000 pictures of Japan. I'm going to try to put them in chronological order for the animoto videos. I have no idea how many I will make. It costs $3 for one but I figure the costs are worth it. These are memories I want to share and keep forever. Enjoy the videos:)