Hotels and Sightseeing/Baseball

I'll be in hotels for the next few weeks with my family. We've been sightseeing, and plan to do plenty more. So far I've taken them to Nijo Castle, Gion Corner, Kaitenzushi (sushi on a conveyor belt), Okonomiyaki, Takoyaki, Mr. Donut, and numerous breads, coffees, and mochas.
The first thing we did that I had never done before was go out to Osaka and watch a Hanshin Tigers baseball game! It was really fun, very different than baseball in America. Fans have organized cheers and chants, and every player on the Tigers has his own chant for when he is up to bat. Because of this lively atmosphere, it was very easy to stay interested in the game the entire time, though it was unfortunate our Tigers lost. The three of us swore our allegiance to the Tigers before the game, so we're willing to stick out a few losses. There is also a more friendly atmosphere than in American baseball. Both teams' mascots were friends, and when a player on one team got hurt, even a player on the other team would check to see if he was okay, which I feel like I rarely see in American baseball. There was a little bit more of a Disney-type of feeling with the whole fans/mascots thing, but that's somehow justified by the fans' diehard attitude in supporting their team. Most people were chanting, most were wearing some kind of awesome combination of jersey or hat or towel. They either wear the towels around their necks or around their heads as bandanas, which I think are really cool. Having fans so into it made it a lot easier to have fun, maybe I can bring some of that atmosphere back to America!

Finishing Up/Smileburger

So things are finishing up here at my apartment. I don't know if I'll be completely done moving out by Saturday, which is when my dad and cousin arrive, but Sunday is the official move out day, so definitely by then. I bought a cardboard box to mail winter clothing and a few other things home in advance, to free up space in my luggage for gifts, etc. I'm also figuring out a way to send my bike home, since the bike shops here will buy it for virtually nothing, and in actuality I probably wouldn't get anything in return that comes close to this bike's value to me. My bike and I had a bit of fall the other day, and though there are only a few more scratches on each of us, I'm sure it has made it that much harder to get anything for the bike.
These last days have just started to be filled with various good-byes, with some leaving right after the last day of school, others starting vacations with families, and one friend of mine on a mission to Tokyo to look for a job. This afternoon my friends and I had hamburgers at the best burger place any of us have ever been to, and we're a rainbow coalition of America, Scotland, Britain, and Japan. The place is called Smileburger, and they serve huge, delicious hamburgers for about $10 each, which is reasonable considering how big and good they are. In fact, half the fun in going is my Scottish friend's enthusiasm for the place. While we all agreed it wouldn't be our last trips to Smileburger, it might have been the last one with all of us together. It's a place I plan on taking any guests that come visit Kyoto.
It's gonna be tough packing everything up and moving out, but it'll happen one way or another. Going through everything will bring back memories, and probably also remind of things I forgot to do. The plus in all of this is that I get to see all kinds of family members, and then eventually go home and see everyone there too. It'll be nice to be home, but it'll also be sad to leave this great city :)

Photos from my film camera

These were all taken with my plastic white camera throughout the semester, and I finally got them developed. This first photo is from Kiyomizu Temple.

The view from my building.

These next few are from our bike adventure we had a few months back.




This restaurant is somewhat near place, I like the sign. It says the day's special on the board.




This was this crazy band we saw in Osaka, they were loads of fun.




The Kamo River, which I had an epic fall into yesterday...

Finals Done

~~~, I am actually done with finals. I didn't think they would ever end. We had tests everyday for the past week, every morning, and sometimes again in the afternoons too. I finished writing my paper for my writing class, and after I have my friend look over it, I'll email it to my teacher, and then well, officially done! I guess the finals can explain the recent lack of posting. Not only was there not time to post and write, there really wasn't a lot to post or write about. Studying is studying, and figured I shouldn't post about that.
I have a week until family members arrive, so I'll be doing some last minute preparations for them and packing up stuff so I can move out of my apartment and into hotel after hotel after hotel with the family. It'll be great to see all of them, and I'm excited to introduce them to all kinds of things here. I know a few non-touristy places that I think are great, and I'll only search for more since they won't always have a local to show them around :)
Well, this next week should be filled with plenty of adventures, so expect many posts!

Lake Biwa

One of my cultural classes had a fun field trip a town next to Lake Biwa, which is the biggest lake in Japan. During out lunch break, a bunch of us decided to go up to the top of the big mountain in the city for a good view of the lake.

There was a gondola lift, but some of us more adventurous types decided to just hike up to the top of the mountain. It took about 30 minutes, so it wasn't that big of a deal.
In the picture is Frederik from Sweden. We usually chat a little about hockey, he's a St. Louis Blues fan. He says it's because they used to have Brett Hull and Al MacInnis, but I think it's because their colors are the same as Sweden's. Behind him is the beginning of the trail up the mountain.

Albert and Kevin are even more adventurous and opted for a very different trail.

These are wishes.

You can see the lake in the top half of this picture, and this sign says the name of the lake "Biwako".

This is the gondola lift that only those willing to pay ~$4 one way rode up and down.

And here is the biggest lake in Japan, Lake Biwa (Biwako in Japanese).

Some things are self-explanatory.

New Pepsi

This new flavor of Pepsi is delicious! Yes, it's green. Yes, it's named after a root. But I assure you it's the real deal, not just some fad. It might be my Japanese version of Mountain Dew: Code Red. Unfortunately, I doubt they'll sell this in America, or atleast at American stores.

Gion Matsuri

The Gion Matsuri consisted of 3 nights of walking the streets of downtown Kyoto, viewing platform like floats, tasting some of the treats from the hundreds of vendors, and dressing up in yukatas. This festival is older than many countries, and about five times older than my own, which probably doesn't even begin to put things into perspective.







It all ended on the fourth day, in which all of the floats got paraded along the streets starting at about 11 a.m., with people leaving behind work, school, plenty of other obligations to go watch. Luckily our school had long expected the Gion Matsuri, and cancelled all classes after 10:30.

You will notice, these floats aren't motor-powered, but pulled by a huge group of people. Some friends from my program signed up and got into one of the group, but unfortunately this video isn't of any of them.


Most of us foreign students wanted to get in on the act of wearing yukatas, so we all found some pretty cheap ones on the backstreets of Kyoto. This yukata, the belt, and the fan cost me a total of $20, and if you don't know those sunglasses, you don't me either.


This festival was an eye opener to a lot of things I've seen over and over here but didn't give much thought to. They are things I'd rather devote entire entries to, so next time or the time after that, or even the time after that one. Who knows....

Eggie The Eggplant

A package arrived from friends Ilya & Rosie, and this package was filled with a number of treasures. One of the treasures was the new issue of their zine, which had comics, movie and book reviews, stories, and some recipes. I recognized the Eggie The Eggplant recipe right away, recalling the delicious Italian dinner they made for me in my last few weeks in northern California. I was craving it the next few days, and finally got around to making it.

Dip those things above into this thing below...

Toss them into something that looks like this...

And they are even more delicious with tomatoes!

If you're lucky, you'll have left over eggs to scramble. If you're like me, you'll manage to screw up the eggs 9 times out of 10.

Ki

Ki = tree in Japanese (木）Doesn't the character kind of look like a tree?

More Pictures! Pt. 3 (Tea)

Tea is a big deal, not only in Kyoto but all over Japan. There seem to be a lot more coffee cafes around Kyoto, but I get the impression that tea is more of the daily regular drink, and coffee is the treat to go out and get, which is why it's usually $3-$5 a cup. Either way, everytime I have bought tea there have been great directions on how to prepare it. A famous tea company even has some directions in English! These are directions for sencha, one of the more common kinds of green tea, the kind you probably drink at a Japanese restaurant in the US.

A bag of cheap tea even comes with wonderful directions! This was a $2 bag of 52 packets of Oolong Tea.

For those of you that don't know, Kyoto is the heart of Japanese Tea Ceremony, so there are also many shops around the city selling tools and goods for tea ceremony, as well as tea ceremony snacks and matcha flavored anything. If there's something that matcha can be used for, it seems to happen pretty easily. There's a store that sells very thin papers that you use to blot off the oil from your face, and they even have matcha flavored ones, even though I don't think you're supposed to eat them.

More Pictures! Pt. 2 (One Way To Spend Saturday)

Some friends came down from Akita (way up north on west coast of Honshu, the main island, the same one I'm on). They studied abroad to UCSC last year and came to hang out with my friend Jake (also from UCSC) and me for a few days. These parfaits are from a really popular matcha dessert restaurant, and are pretty good if you're a fan of matcha and parfaits, as well as waiting in a long line to get one. It was so crowded that we had to split our group into threes, so here are Noriko, Jake, and me terrorizing the restaurant with photography.






There are some geishas in this tinted cab!