My first cold winter has certainly been an adventure. Since the end of December, it has pretty much snowed or rained almost every day. The once uneventful trip to work (about a 25 min walk) has definitely been exciting. I have been leaving the apt much less on weeknights and weekends and have caught up on TV and reading. Toyama is beautiful and the mountains are amazing to look at on a clear day.
This past weekend, I went to the Toga Soba festival, which is held in Toga National Park about a 2 hour drive from Toyama City. It was my favorite winter experience so far. The National Park is in the middle of the Japanese Alps and the locals built amazing snow sculptures and had booths that were selling traditional winter foods. We sampled almost everything throughout the day including soba, vegetables buns, mochi and more. Nick even tried the bear soup (I obviously passed on this).
School is winding down for the year so things are pretty mellow at school. The students have a couple more weeks of school and then final exams. The school year ends in March and the new term will begin in April and I will get new students! I am looking forward to this, spring weather and spring visitors. Grandma, Grandpa and Auntie Birdie are coming in April and I can`t wait!
Miss all of you and think of you often!
This month, a group of 5 ALTS and I drove to Nagano for the weekend. We explored a National Park, Matsumoto City and a beautiful outdoor onsen. The National Park was really beautiful with all the fall colors and seeing baby monkeys wrestling was amazing.
That same day, we explored Matsumoto and the area around the castle. We all really enjoyed the city which is much bigger than Toyama (we all got Starbucks twice). That night we stayed in a really nice cabin in the mountains.
While driving there, we were running on fumes and were seriously deciding who was going to walk and get gas when we ran out. At this moment, a bear came out of the woods....no one volunteered. Luckily, we made it to the cabin.....
The next day we drove to a famous outdoor onsen (natural hot spring) and hiked and relaxed.
The rest of the pictures are from Halloween. They don't celebrate it in Japan so the train ride to the party was interesting...November pictures coming soon!
Up until now, the photos on this site have been of my exploration of Toyama, my home prefecture. Last weekend, I went on a 3 day trip to Kyoto, which really made me realize how many amazing things there are to see in Japan. In my guidebook, there are about 10 pages dedicated to Kyoto City. In three days, moving relatively quickly, we only covered about one page.
The trip was organized by Toyama AJET which means that you pay a flat fee for transportation to Kyoto and three nights in the hostel, which was really nice. Once we arrived in Kyoto, we mostly split up and spent time with our friends. The girl in most of the photos with me is Chloe, my best friend in Japan. She is also a high school ALT in Toyama and she is from Oregon. We were lucky enough to have perfect weather the entire trip.
Kyoto is an indescribable city. It is much quieter then I had expected (I was picturing a city that resembled Tokyo). It is very modern in in the city center and is famous for shopping and eating. Outside the city center, there is an incredible amount of cultural heritage to be seen in the form of gardens, shrines, temples, and more.
The first day, we rented bikes and toured the city, stopping at a few major tourist sites. Our first stop was Kiyomizu-dera temple. This temple is over 1,000 years old and was extremely beautiful. We drank from the sacred spring (kiyomizu means sacred water) and spent a lot of time wandering through this large area. After, we wandered through the surrounding area and saw the Yasake Pagoda and the WWII tribute to the Unknown Soldier. We then biked through the Imperial Gardens, which is a huge open space in the center of the city. Our last stop of the day was Kinkaku-ji or the the Golden Pavilion. Built in the 1300's, it originally served as a retirement villa for a shogun. The pictures don't really do it justice....
The second day, we went to the Arashiyama district, a beautiful area outside Kyoto City with shops and restaurants right at the base of the mountains. We went to a Unesco World Heritage site Tenryu-ji, an Buddhist temple built in 1339 where the emperor lived. It was an incredible building, with huge tatami rooms with doors that opened completely on every side which allows you to be completely surrounded by the incredible garden. After, we walked the Path of Bamboo, a very serene walk and headed to Monkey Mountain. I was told by a friend that Monkey Mountain was a must-see but we didn't know what to expect. We headed to the mountain, paid out entrance fee and were told that we had a 25 minute hike to the top of the mountain. The pictured will speak for themselves but when we got to the top of the mountain, there were monkeys EVERYWHERE. Apparently, they live in that location full time. They come very close to you and you can feed them from inside. I found the whole experience a little scary as they continually reinforce that you should not look at the monkeys in their eyes and a bunch of other things. They also snatch food from people very aggressively and fight with each other which is terrifying. Feeding them and seeing cute babies was really fun though..
We then met up with two friends I had met at Tokyo orientation who took us to a local festival where 11 "floats" (beautiful decorated wooden carts filled with men and boys playing traditional music) are pulled down the road by men who have been drinking sake all day. They throw good luck items from the carts. Twice, Chloe and I were approached by one of these men and given gifts (a beautiful silk wall hanging and a printed cloth) to "honor" us for attending the festival. It was a really fun experience and I have some great souvenirs.
After the festival we went to dinner in the Gion district, famous for the best known geisha quarter. It was nice to see some familiar faces and catch up. In the morning, we went to the Inari shrine, which is thousands of red torii gates leading to the top of a mountain. It was an incredible sight and walking through the gates gives you a very peaceful feeling.
After this it was homeward bound for the exhausted group! Next weekend is Nagano, Matsumoto!