Japan Vacation: Hiroshima

     My last stop in my vacation in Japan was the city of Hiroshima. As all of us know, the city was bombed by the U.S. on August 6, 1945 as World War II was coming to a close. The main opinion I have about the event is that its sad that things were bad enough for an atomic bomb to be developed and then used on a country. However, I do find truth in two of the reasons the museum I am about to discuss mentions: 1. The U.S. wanted to end the war quickly before Russia entered, and establish themselves as the biggest world power. 2. The U.S. wanted to justify the billions of dollars it had spent developing the atomic bomb. I wasn't sure what the reaction would be by the Japanese in Hiroshima when they saw that I, an American, was visiting their city. I was happy to find that their only concern was peace. Instead of holding a grudge and hate because of the past, their focus, and the whole focus of the city itself, is to prevent such an event from taking place in the future. The abolition of nuclear weapons is the solution that the city is striving for. There are many anti-nuclear movements happening due the government and all the citizens of Hiroshima.

     The only place I went to in the city was the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The Park houses many monuments dedicated to the memory of lives lost during the atomic bombing, and is most famous for the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It was in this Museum that I spent about 3 hours. It was definitely an intense experience throughout. In the states we discuss the bombing of the city in history classes and the like, but naturally we aren't exposed to the real damage that it did to the city and its people. That is the whole purpose of the museum, to stress how devastating the atomic bomb really was to the city and the people who were living in the city. I took a lot of video and pictures of the museum and the park itself. Unlike my other videos, there is no music in these (to allow more focus on what the videos are showing). Below I have videos for viewing. 

Japan Vacation: Kyoto Day 2

     On my second day in Kyoto, the first place I headed to was the Kiyomizu temple. There is a popular expression centered around the main building and its stage, "to jump off the stage at Kiyomizu". It is similar to when we say "take a leap of faith" in the states. There was an Edo period tradition that if one were to survive the 13m jump from the stage, one's wish would be granted. Two hundred thirty-four jumps were recorded in the Edo period and, of those, 85.4% survived (O_O). The practice is now prohibited.

Also at the temple is the Otowa waterfall, where three channels of water fall into a pond. Visitors are allowed to catch and drink the water, which is said to have wish-granting powers.

There are these two labeled rocks at a distance from one another that hold are said to hold powers of their own. It is said that if a person can walk from one rock to the other with their eyes closed, they will find their true love.

     Next, I headed to Ginkaku-ji, the "Temple of the Silver Pavilion".  It and its brother temple Kinkaku-ji, the "Temple of the Golden Pavilion", are two of the most popular Zen temples in Kyoto. Both were meant to serve as places of rest and solitude for the Shogun, or military dictator. They also were meant to be covered in Gold and Silver respectively, but it only happened with the Kinkaku-ji temple due to delays with the Ginkaku-ji temple. Even more popular than those two temples however is the Ryoan-ji temple, the "Temple of the Dragon at Peace". It houses the most famous Zen garden in all of Japan. 

Garden historian Gunter Nitschke wrote: "The garden at Ryoan-ji does not symbolize anything, or more precisely, to avoid any misunderstanding, the garden of Ryoan-ji does not symbolize, nor does it have the value of reproducing a natural beauty that one can find in the real or mythical world. I consider it to b an abstract composition of "natural" objects in a space, a composition whose function is to incite meditation."

     When night rolled around I headed to an evening show featuring Geisha. The show consisted of 7 different parts: Chado (Tea Ceremony), Koto (Japanese Harp), Kado (Flower Arrangement), Gagaku (Court Music), Kyogen (Ancient Comic Play), Kyomai (Kyoto Style Dance), and Bunraku (Puppet Play). It was an interesting show, with my favorite part being the Kyogen. The story was about a lord tying up his servants to prevent them from stealing his sake while he was away from home. The servants then engage in creative ways to steal the sake anyway, and are caught when the lord returns home. I caught on to this after I turned off the camera. :/ Below is a video with pictures and video clips from the different parts of the show. 

That was the last event of the day. 

After I was back at my hostel, I prepared for my day trip to Hiroshima!

Japan Vacation: Kyoto Day 1

     By the time I made it to Kyoto, my vacation was coming to a close. Therefore, I didn't explore Kyoto as much as I could have. I would of had to sacrifice a trip to Hiroshima, and that was a city I wanted to make sure I visited. Even so, I saw a lot for the time I did have in the city. Right off the bat, you can notice a drastic difference in landscape between Tokyo and Kyoto. Tokyo has all the tall, modern buildings and uses a complex train system throughout the city. Kyoto has the old fashioned, smaller buildings and still uses buses for the most part throughout the city. It definitely is slower paced than Tokyo also.
     The first place I stopped at was the Kyoto Handicrafts Center. Internet sources described it as a great place for souvenirs, so I wanted to check it out. The place featured a lot of nice souvenirs ranging from dolls,  jewelry, table decorations, wall decorations, hats, shirts, and so forth. It was definitely worth having a good look around. I also found an advertisement for a burger place called 58 Diner (that the Japanese woman working there recommended to me).
     After leaving the center, I headed to 58 Diner (which turned out to be western themed). The burgers there were ridiculously good! They definitely tasted better than Five Guys and maybe David's Burgers back in the states. Since it was after 7 p.m., and shrines and temples close at 4 p.m., I headed back to the hostel. At the hostel, I found an advertisement for a light show event going on in the city. One of the owners of the hostel gave me directions to the place where the show was held, and I headed out with my camcorder in hand. The light show was creative and had great music! The show was the end of my traveling for the day, and I headed back to the hostel to rest.

Japan Vacation: Hakone

     On my 4th day in Japan, I made a day trip from Tokyo to the city of Hakone. The city is most famous for its proximity to Mt. Fuji and its hot spring onsen, bathhouses. The city is also famous for its Open-Air Museum. These were the three reasons I wanted to make a visit to Hakone. I packed very light, so climbing Mt. Fuji was not in my plans. Still, I hoped to explore around it.
     First, I head to the Open-Air Museum. The museum featured various types of art, most in the form on  bronze statues. Others included a Picasso exhibit, and another exhibit with artwork based on the human form. From the video that I will show you, you will see that Japan has no problems with nudity. Most of the men and women are nude in their statues. It's all a part of the culture! My favorite statues were the Grande statues. They are bigger than life size, and just nice to look upon. My favorite artwork may have been in the Picasso exhibit. My focus was visual art up until college when I switched to business, so I'm familiar with the artist Picasso. It was great to see a lot of his artwork in person. After spending 2+ hours at the museum, I was pretty tired so I decided to relax in a hot spring bath at an onsen.
     For those that don't know, in Asian countries bathhouses work a bit differently than in America, lol. In the bath houses here, everyone is completely nude. The men have no problem seeing each other naked, especially in South Korea where homosexuality taboo. Actually, these bathhouses are usually where a lot of people socialize with each other. Families bring their sons and daughters with them (to separate sex parts of the bathhouse) and co-workers come together. What I heard about the onsen was true in that it was very relaxing. It was also an outdoors onsen (surrounded on the sides by walls), so nice sunlight came in and there was just a great environment overall. You have your options of which bath to sit in, and the one I happeend to choose was scorching hot. I would have gotten out immediately, but there was a Japanese guy sitting in there like it was nothing. I stayed as long as I could, but I had to make the switch to a cooler bath. There are suppose to be special things that they put in the water, but I just know that the water felt great (especially to my flat footed feet).
    By the time I finished there, it was too late to go explore Mt. Fuji (it's suppose to be hard enough to see during the day depending on the weather). :/ I then wrapped up my time in Hakone and headed back to Tokyo. The next day, I headed to Kyoto!

Japan Vacation: Tokyo Day 2

     In the morning on my second day in Tokyo, I headed to Ueno Park. The park is home to many museums, restaurants, a zoo, and cherry blossoms during the Spring season. I planned on seeing multiple museums, but the Tokyo National Museum ended up taking up most of my day. It was not a surprise though since it is the largest museum in Japan. After going here, I realized that out of shrines, temples, and museums, I enjoy museums the most and spend the most time in them. I was in the Tokyo National Museum for at least 2.5 hours!

The museum houses a huge collection of artworks and archaeological finds, with its main focus on Japan. The numbers: "The museum holds over 110,000 objects, which includes 87 Japanese National Treasure holdings and 610 Important Cultural Property holdings (as of July, 2005). The museum also conducts research and organizes educational events related to its collection." Of the Japanese collections, my favorite was the Japanese swords. 

On a side note, there was a very nice exhibit with Chinese paintings. I seriously thought every painting in that exhibit was beautiful. Unfortunately, the exhibit didn't allow photography. -__- That was the case with a lot of artwork in the museum that I really liked.
     Another district that I visited during the second day in Tokyo was Akihabara. The district is known as Electronic city. Up and down the streets, you can find numerous stores with gaming arcades, gaming figurines, anime, and anime dolls. I like video games, manga, and anime, but the way that the Japanese love them is on another level. O_O By the time I left the district, I felt overloaded with games and anime. I had to get out of there, lol.

     Below is Sega arcade that I went into. The way it is setup is how a lot of the arcades are set up in the area. The first floor has vending machines with game prizes, and the upper floors have gaming machines; each floor houses different games.

     There you have my second day-well most of it-in Tokyo. Next up, the city of Hakone! Here is a link to all of my pictures in Tokyo:Japan Trip: Tokyo!

Japan Vacation: Tokyo Day 1

     On August 5, 2012, I headed to Japan for my week long summer vacation. Most of my college friends could tell you how I've wanted to go to Japan for a LONG time. I was always fascinated by the country with its technology, manga/anime, and so forth. I also took Japanese classes for 3 semesters while in college. That only increased my interest in the country, along with my desire to travel overall since it was around that time that I started forming my first friendships with international students. Even though I landed in Osaka, the first city that I actually explored was Japan's most popular city: Tokyo!
     The first "city" that I visited within Tokyo-Tokyo is so big with districts within it so different that they are referred to as cities-was Asakusa. I headed over to the Nakamise market to see what I could find.

The market is huge, vearing off in many directions that have paths filled with small stores. There is a ton of Japanese souvenirs to look at. I looked over small items like keychains, food, drinks, samurai swords, clothes, and wall decorations. There was one souvenir that I knew I wanted in particular before I came to Japan: A samurai sword umbrella. A real samurai sword would be nice, but there is no way I could legally carry it or get it through the airport. Therefore, the umbrella was as close as I was getting. After asking numerous people and searching all over the district, I finally found it!

Behind the market is what the Asakusa district is most famous for, the Senso-ji Temple. It is a temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. I walked inside and saw the display to the bodhisattva, along with many people who would line up and pray before the temple. Photos were not allowed inside, so here is one close to the entrance: 

     Later that day, I headed to the Tokyo Tower with a fellow backpacker from France named Willy that I met at my hostel. This time a Buddhist temple, the Zojo-ji Temple, was the entrance to the main attraction (albeit you walk around the temple).

The tower offered two observatories, one higher than the other, with each offering a citywide view of Tokyo. Willy and I decided to take the lower view (as it was cheaper, lol.). The view of the city was very nice, and we had good timing in that we came near sunset. Because of this, we saw a daytime citywide view and a nighttime citywide view. For those without good timing like us, they offered the following:

     After leaving the tower, Willy and I met up with a friend named Tomoya. We graduated college together last year, both being business students. He took us to a Japanese restaurant, where we had some good food.  We talked about differences in culture between our countries, and how things were going in our lives. I'm glad I had the chance to meet up with him.

     That was most of what I did during my first day in Tokyo. Next day in the following post! 

Song Illustration ESL Summer Camp

     This week, I taught summer camp at my school. For the summer camp, I had the students illustrate the songs "Do You Remember?" by Jack Johnson and "Yellow Submarine" by The Beatles. It wasn't easy to get them to use their imagination, which is why there may be a few similarities to some of the pictures in a video from my friend Sara Allbriton, lol. In the end though, there were some good results. It was an interesting project for the camp, and I enjoyed the time I got to spend with them during the process. Below are the videos for each song.