The crunch and a ray of light

I'm back!  After what seems like ages, my sickness has abated and I've finally gotten enough free time to post for a bit.  Life has been hectic here at Kansai Gaidai.  Finals are creeping up on us, in fact my first one is in a week, and large papers loom overhead.  Granted this means I don't need to be in class as much, as it's usually review or just not taking place because of scheduling conflicts, but in Japan, tests are always more extreme and the crunch is starting to wear on me.  It's been wearing on my friends too, who often wonder why they'd have such a nightmarish period right before Christmas.  I have to agree.  It seems foolish to me and against the spirit of the season.

I've also started up facebook...while I personally have been against social networking sites, it will be necessary to keep up with my overseas friends.  I don't want to lose them, so I need to keep up with what they're doing.  More on that later.

Before the final crunch, I had hoped to go to Fushimi Inari, a famous temple near Kansai.  However, time has been against me and fatigue as well.  I didn't get to go to an onsen either, which makes me sad.  I probably won't go this time during my trip to Japan.  And, I went to Kabuki.  It was terrible.  Nothing like what people think.  The makeup was there, but it was a large number of dull, uninteresting stage plays...none of the wild dancing or rapid action that was supposed to set it apart from Noh.  There was a scene where Goemon, a master thief, was attacked by two guards and the entire stage rose to reveal the mastermind behind his attack, that was cool, but that was all in the first fifteen minutes.  The Kabuki plays lasted SIX HOURS!  By the end of it, I was done with Japanese theater and ready to go home.

Here's the theater where the nightmare began.  I was there with friends and even so, it was an unbearable experience, contrary to all my expectations.  A terrible disappointment.  I fell asleep twice during the plays and really...without an english translation, of which there was none, it's utterly unwatchable.  For those morbirdly curious, the first play was about Goemon, the master thief, enjoying the sakura blossoms while his nemesis plans to capture him.  The next was about Sanemori, a samurai who was sent to kill a newborn child and mother but really just ended up TALKING for a good hour and a half, to a child.  Then we had the tale of the 47 retainers, who killed a man to avenge their lord.  Sound interesting?  Oh you poor deluded fools...it was two hours of them explaining what they'd done to a judge, just sitting and talking for a good two hours.  The final two plays were alright, but by then I'd given up on Kabuki.  There was a dance romanticizing the love between a set of poets and a humorous story about making a corpse dance to make money to bury it.  None of them was worth the almost 6000 yen I paid for the trip.

Newcomers to Japan, I'd recommend skipping Kabuki...unless Goemon is in it.  His stories are always riveting.

In spite of all this crap, all the lost opportunities, all the work, all the...kabuki, there was one trip I recently took that has made me smile everytime I think about it.  It started when a friend of mine was left behind by her traveling companions for a Kyoto trip and she knocked on my door because she needed someone to complain to.  So, I agreed to take her to Kyoto myself, having been almost five times previously.

That trip was absolutely perfect.  My companion on her own, again, not spoilers on who she is here, is wonderful to be around, but we got to visit a number of temples for leaf viewing and dozens of great shops which we both giddily squeed at, as there were amazing things for sale.

For starters, we headed to an old okonomiyaki shop, the one with a statue of a boy getting his pants pulled down by a dog in a previous post.  I had my doubts about the shop, but she loved it, so I had a good time overall.  Then we went to the Yasaka shrine to view leaves changing colors, which was fantastic.  From there we kind of wandered around until we found the temple of Kannon on top of a hill.  It had a massive statue of Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion, atop it nearly as big as the Daibutsu of Nara.  While that was fantastical enough, there was a peace memorial here to all the unknown soldiers who died on Japanese soil, with sand and dirt from graveyards the world over and a repository of all the fallen soldier's names.  It was a very somber, but awefelt experience for both my companion and myself.  We both appreciated the majesty of the peace museum and its tribute to the future.  So we never forget.

Following that, we stumbled over to Kyo Mizudera again, I seem to go there alot these days, and into its shopping district.  We both went crazy in a Studio Ghibli store and bought too many souveniers.  Still, it was fun.  We saw Kyo Mizu up close, did some more shopping, met up with her friends who had left her behind because of a misunderstanding, and all went home together.  It was a grand tour.  If only all my travels had been like it.

 These are just some of the multi colored leaves we saw on our oddyssey

 A surprising statue of a Buddhist monk.  Very elegant.

 Lady Kannon, up close

 The memorial

 The graveyard soil and my friend getting pictures of a stained glass window in the peace memorial.

 Rosters of all the soldiers who died on Japanese soil

 More gorgeous leaves.

 The Ghibli store had everything any fan could possibly want and more...sadly, it was also far too expensive for regular people to buy.  I stuck with a plushy and key chain while my friend got a mug with Jiji the cat from Kiki's Delivery Service on it.

Kyo Mizudera lit up at night.  It's pretty, trust me.

Before I return to studying and the crunch, I'd like to take a moment to step back and say this.  One thing I never realized when coming here was how much I would change, but also how much the people around me would come to mean to me.  I've actually gotten physically ill when I think about leaving them behind.  That's part of the reason I got facebook.  I wasn't prepared to just forget about them.  And I won't.  But, since coming here I've been exposed to all sorts of people.  People who want to change me for their own interests.  People who are just mean spirited, no matter how kind I acted towards them.  People who are nice, but tend to ignore me, even when we're alone...but I've also met wonderful people here too.  People who love being around me and go out of their way to be with me...those people are the friends I don't want to forget.  Some of them are feisty, some of them are cute, some of them are timid, but all of them are wonderful.

I suppose my point is, prospective travelers, to be careful.  If you stay in any place too long, you'll build bonds like this and be loath to leave.  And, if you really care about the people you've met, you'll want to see them again.  That will cost A LOT of money, since most of them probably won't be in your own backyard.  But, despite the costs, emotional and financial, I'd say it's worth it.  I've never been happier than having a quiet dinner with my good friends here in Japan.  It truly makes me smile.  Though I may have to leave that behind for a time, I'm going to see them again.  I care too much about them to say goodbye forever, even if we've only been together a few months.

That's just my perspective on all this.  I'll be back soon with talks about the finals, my final thoughts on Japan, preperations to leave, and readjusting to the states.  Be looking for them, okay?

Till then, be well, dear viewers.  And pray for all the men and women in finals week.  They could use the support.