Golden Week and Afterwards

Last weekend being a four-day weekend, I did what any typical college student would have done--slept in and avoided homework like the plague. Saturday I didn't wake up until 1, though I'm not sure why because I seem to have lost the ability to sleep in that late, and I spent what was left of the day doing absolutely nothing special. Such as, play chess against the computer, because I is a bit of a nerd.

Sunday, I was invited/coerced into going to my host family's cookout in their front "yard." Seriously, this thing is not a yard by any stretch of the imagination. It is maybe three feet from the house to the street, and about as wide as the house, and filled with plants so there is almost no walking space. I was also told we were having bbq. What we actually had was more like pieces of meat and vegetables cooked over a mini gas burner. I was expecting something resembling the types of bbq we make in the US, so I was vastly disappointed. When I figured out what Japanese bbq actually was, I was also vastly disappointed that there was no octopus. As strange as I’m sure it sounds to some Americans who actually read this blog, I do like octopus. And to top it all off, the only available drink was cheap, nasty beer. I personally would have preferred water, but alas…

Fortunately, the evening got better as it progressed because I went to Yawatashi's shrine for the lantern festival with Heather and two of her obaasans, who, by the way, are absolutely freaking awesome! I will have photos of the shrine up later when I'm not busy procrastinating. It was really beautiful, but I like fire so of course I would think so. The festival is actually the only time in the year that the shrine is open to the public. You can come on the grounds any time, but you can’t go past the main gate but one night a year. Inside this gate they had a place where you could write wishes and wrap them around a candle to create a sort of lantern. And then, because the main shrine building itself was under construction, we were allowed to actually go in the main shrine building and see all the architecture. Yawatashi shrine is definitely not a poor shrine. I was fascinated by the wood carvings (I want to learn to do that!) and they even had a support to the shrine that was made of “pure gold.” Considering how big the support was, I doubt it was all pure gold. But even if it were just covered in plates of gold, that still gives you an idea of how elaborate and wealthy this shrine actually is.

Two more random facts about Yawatashi Shrine before I move on; first, on the grounds of the shrine, there is a second minor shrine to… Thomas Edison! Yes, Thomas Edison is now a Japanese kami. Of light and electricity. Straaaaaaaaange. Second, pigeons are considered the messengers of the shrine, thus, I was not allowed to punt them. Made me sad.

On Monday, I woke up late again (probably because I was getting used to waking up late over the weekend), and then went to Osaka to go to a concert for a band I’ve never heard of before. Since the concert was in Nanba, there was definitely Mexican food involved. So my four day weekend was a success just based on the fact that I had Mexican food. And it was good. That’s one thing I can’t wait for when I get home—real Mexican food. The shop in shinsaibashi is as close as it gets in Japan, but still… I miss being able to get cheap Mexican food any time of the week. The concert, by the way, was fantastic.

So when I got home from the concert somewhere between 11 and 11:30, my ears were ringing so I had to stay up to wait until they stopped. So, I played a game of chess until the ringing went away and then went to bed feeling like I had cotton balls in my ears. That’s my only complaint about the concert. My hearing was back and mostly normal on Tuesday, but because of the concert, I got very very very little sleep. This is bad, because I had to wake up early in the morning to be at Osaka Station by 11 to go to Kobe.

Kobe was… Interesting to say the least. First off, I was in this half-asleep state for most of the morning, thus I did not object when we got on the wrong train and, in fact, did not realize that we were even on the wrong train until we got all the way out to Sanda. It’s gorgeous out there and I have pictures, but… This meant we didn’t actually make it to Kobe until 2pm. Sanda, by the way, looks like Ise from the train. I have decided that if/when I come back on the JET program, I want to live in a place like Sanda or Ise, etc. Somewhere that’s in the country but close enough to the cities that I can go there over the weekend. Since most people want to be actually inside the cities, I think it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to get what I want.

So, when we got to Kobe, we were starving. We went to the Mosaic building in Harborland, which is a shopping district near the tower on the harbor, incase you haven’t guessed. There, we had lunch. We thought about Brazilian because it smelled absolutely delicious, but it was 23$ a plate and we both said no to that. The next option was a shop that sold REAL hamburgers. Not the Makudo kind, I mean real meat, real cheese, real everything. The trouble was that the waiter didn’t understand us. So, we ASKED for a “Hamburger” and got a “Hamburg.” Now, the difference between the two is this: a Hamburger is exactly what we think of when we think of a Hamburger, with a bun, cheese, vegetables, and meat. A Hamburg is just the meat, usually with some sort of sauce, and for our particular hamburg, we got a cooked egg on top. Needless to say we were very disappointed. But since we didn’t have time to send it back (we were meeting a friend who was already on her way), we ate the hamburg. If taken out of context, the hamburg was actually rather good, but since what we had WANTED was a hamburger…

The rest of the day was spent wandering around in search of cake, since Kobe is famous for its cake shops. It took us pretty much the rest of the day to find one. We went to the tower in hopes of finding one at the little rotating café at the top, and they had cake… ONE plain cheesecake. So we decided to wait and find another shop. The shop we found on the map was no longer in existence, so we walked all the way to Sannomiya station in search of cake. And finally found a cake shop in the Motomachi-suji (a suji is a covered street), where, after much deliberation, we decided that instead of cake we would have parfaits. Because, you know, everyone likes parfaits. And these were really really good parfaits. I will be making some for myself over the summer.

Then we took the CORRECT train home, and I slept most of the way. I did NOT study for my vocabulary quiz on Wednesday, and then Wednesday night because I was so tired, I did not study for my lesson test on Thursday. And now I sit today, having actually finished my Japanese homework (I’m so proud!) and with a little bit of sunburn on my nose just from having eaten lunch outside yesterday. I now have the Japanese word for sunburn memorized.

Well, that’s about it kids. I have less than two more weeks of class and then something like five days of travel time before I go back to the US. Can you believe it? Personally, I’m ready to go home, but I’m also already ready to go back. Weird sensation, this is.