While visiting fall in Kyoto a few weeks ago, I happened upon this little area that was just jam-packed with all these statues of various men doing and holding various things. It was outside of one of the temples that we visited, forgive me, I can’t remember the name at the moment (I totally blame the pregnancy – I can’t seem to remember anything these days).
Looking through the archives of this little blog, specifically the archives from our first few months here, I am surprised at how much culture-shocking we did. So many things were strange, we missed home so much, and it was difficult to cope, at times, with even simple nuisances in Japan.
This year, I feel that we are so much better adjusted to where we are and what we are doing. We have learned so much language and how to navigate our way through the many cultural differences that we experience. It is rare, now, that either of us have complete and total meltdown, I-hate-Japan days. Which is good, I think.
That is why it surprises me so much when I happen upon something that totally, completely bugs me about Japan. Something that I don’t think I could ever get used to or accept, no matter how long I lived or worked in this country.
And that thing is a little phenomenon that I call the Gargle Hack.
A really interesting phenomenon in Japan is that people take trips, go on outings, specifically to experience a particular seasonal phenomenon, like cherry blossom and fall foliage viewing. Well, when in Japan, I suppose I must do as the Japanese do.
A little while ago, I took a few extra days of vacation to rest and relax. I have quite a few days to burn before I leave my job at the end of February, and so I am trying to take them here and there to make sure that I take time to myself now, rest, relax and recharge.
On one of the vacation days, I went with my friend, Chisako, to Kyoto to see the fall leaves. Peak colors were just a few days before we arrived, but we were still able to see some beautiful trees and enjoy the fall weather.
Ever since our first vacation together as a couple, spending five nights camping on Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay, we have been island hoppers of a sort. We visited many islands around the U.S. (Channel Islands, Sanibel Island, Isle Royale) and then we set off to live in Japan where we have had the great pleasure of visiting so many more.
Well, tomorrow we are off to visit the very last main island of Japan. There are, of course, hundreds (if not thousands) of other smaller islands that we will not have a chance to see, but it was always our goal to at least visit the four main ones.
We will be heading down to Kyushu. The southernmost big island of Japan. We are looking forward to sampling some of the best ramen Japan has to offer (Fukuoka is famous for ramen) and seeing some of the sights in Nagasaki. Aside from that, we don’t really have any plans. We are taking this trip pretty easy, but I am sure that we will find a bunch to do once we are there. We will also, most likely, be spending some of our train time scanning the guide books finding out more about the area.
This week I have been doing one of my favorite lessons with my students, it is all about giving advice to various problems and I always enjoy the creative ways that students use this lesson.
To start, each student is given a piece of paper with either a problem or a piece of advice written on it. Then, they must stand up and find another student in the classroom that has the correct advice for their problem. Once they think they have a match, they come up and ask the teacher if it is ok. The thing I like most about this activity is the way that it forces students to talk, in English, with many different people and they way they must mix with one another. I find that Japanese students spend a good portion of their day sitting, passively, in their desks, so getting them up and moving is really important to me.
Once they have their match they sit down to work with their new partner, pretending to be advice columnists. I rarely collect their work at the end of class because I like them to be able to use it and reference it again, but at the end of this class I always collect their work because it is just so damn hi-la-rious!
I thought I would share some of the advice that they came up with for this particular problem:
Shikoku is most famous, perhaps, for the 88 Sacred Buddhist temples present on the island. Thousands of pilgrims each year visit Shikoku to complete the circuit which is said to help rid an individual of the 88 worldly passions and help them get closer to enlightenment. Despite the fact that there are 88 Sacred Buddhist temples on the relatively small-ish island of Shikoku, we didn’t visit a single one.
Nope, instead we went to a Shinto shrine quite famous for the massive amount of stairs leading you up to the Inner Shrine.
Kotohira is about an hour train ride from Takamatsu, the city we were based in during our stay in Shikoku. We arrived at the station shortly after 10am, making sure we had more than enough time to complete the ascent and descent before evening.
The station, and town, were small and unassuming. It was clear that almost everyone passing through the station was there to do the same thing as us, climb the stairs to the top of the famous shrine. I couldn’t really see any other reason why people would make the trip out to Kotohira.
One of the perks of visiting Shikoku the weekend before last was the chance to cross the Inland Sea. There are a few ways to get to Shikoku overland, all of which involve crossing – via ship or bridge – the large, beautiful inland sea. When we crossed during the day, we were treated to upwards of 20-minutes of admiring the ocean waters simply peppered with small, tiny islands. It is a real treat.
Since the inland sea has so many islands within it, we knew that we wanted to get out to at least one of them during our stay. With so many to choose from, it was almost as though we simply had to pick one from a hat. We ended up picking Naoshima, largely because I was interested in seeing a Monet exhibit at one of the art museums, and I am happy that we did!
Shikoku, the smallest “big” island of Japan, is most well-known for its access to the inland sea of Japan. In order to get to Shikoku, you have to cross this sea by boat or on a bridge and the sea is filled with tiny, beautiful little islands.
One of the most famous of those little islands is Megijima (often nicknamed Onigashima) which is just a short ferry ride from Takamatsu, our base city on Shikoku. Onigashima was made famous by the popular story of Momotaro and is believed to be where the Oni (loosely translated as demon or ogre) lived in a cave.
While we didn’t get a chance to make a trip out to Onigashima, we opted to visit a different island instead, we did enjoy all the little references to the story about town. Including this big statue outside Takamatsu station.
This statue definitely shows the Oni’s softer side, he really doesn’t seem that ferocious at all! I could defeat him!
I have never really understood why some public toilets have cigarette ashtrays inside the stall. Do people really want to sit and relax in a place where the sole purpose is to shit and piss?
But this weekend, during our travels in Shikoku, I found a cigarette ashtray, used, inside the stall of a squatty potty. It is one thing to be able to sit and smoke on a western-style toilet, it is another thing entirely to squat and smoke. Had there not been ashes and butts in the ashtray I would have questioned whether or not people actually do this, perhaps the ashtray had just been installed in all the stalls regardless of toilet-type. But it actually had ashes and butts. So, I am really curious, who can squat, smoke, and pee all at the same time? Who would want to do this?
We are headed off for the weekend to visit one of the two remaining main islands of Japan that we have yet to set foot on. It is a goal of ours to be sure to visit each of the 5 main islands at least once before we leave. So, this weekend, a long 3-day holiday weekend, is the perfect opportunity to hit one of them.
This weekend we will be visiting Shikoku.
We are hoping to visit some famous Japanese gardens, eat some sanuki udon (famous in Kagawa-ken), visit a few of the temples on the famous 88 temple pilgrimage, and see the amazing Naruto whirlpools. It is a lot in one weekend, but it should be a really nice time.
I’m also looking forward to staying in a more upscale hotel for once. Since we did so much traveling last year, we had to do things a bit more on the cheap. This year we have been a little more connected to home and now that we have a chance to travel for a few days we decided to splurge a bit. It’s always nice to have a little treat, even if it is one you have to give yourself!