Wednesday I had the day off so Nichola and I decided to go on a fieldtrip to Takefu. Despite being only 20 minutes away by train I have yet to visit the small town. First we went to a small section of the town that has really old houses. It was really pretty but felt like a ghost town (only a few shops open and 3 other people wandering around). We went to a fabulous restaurant near a shrine that gave us Katsu (fried breaded chicken cutlets) on om-rice (an omlet wrapped around fried rice). Yummy! We also wandered into a small shop where the woman insisted that we sample lots of sake, hee hee hee. No Japanese field trip would be complete without a sake stop.
After that we found our way to the Chrysanthemum Festival. There were all sorts of rummage sales outside and Nic and I had a good time digging through stuff and bargaining the prices down. The festival was 1000yen to get in (which I thought was fairly high). There were a million Chrysanthemums inside and some of them were larger than my head (which is pretty big). The Chrysanthemum is the crest of the royal family of Japan (which also makes it the crest for the Shinto religion). I have also heard that it is related to death somehow. At any rate, the Japanese people take their Chrysanthemums very seriously. I was amused (but not 1000yen worth) until I found that I could take a ride on .... GINGER! Go here for more info: http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/12/03/scooter.unveiling/
I remember reading about the Segeway when it first came out, so I thought it was terribly exciting to get to ride on one! To go forward you lean forward and to stop you stand up and to go backwards you lean backwards. The steering is a little hard because you do it by twisting the left handle. It is very sensitive though so I kept accidently making really sharp turns all over the place (I even did some of them backwards, which amused all the Japanese people watching).
After the Festival we went to Murasaki Shikibu Park. Murasaki Shikibu was an 11th century author who wrote the Tale of Genji. It is considered to be the world's first novel and was written by... a woman! I have read parts of the book and it is really good. It turns out that Murasaki Shikibu lived in Takefu, Fukui for 1 year to 18 months (perhaps even writing parts of the Tale of Genji....), so they dedicated a park to her.
After the park (we were busy busy busy) we went to a beautiful onsen in the mountains. It was raining outside and we sat in the outside onsen for a long time. There were 12 different onsen tubs and we tried almost all of them (the hottest one was too hot and Nic wimped out on the ice cold one). Some of them have water massagers, one had some sort of green herb in it, plus the outdoor pools and the jacuzzi and the sauna...absolute heaven. I always get to hot and water-logged long before I want to leave. Something that amused me were all the naked kids (everyone at an onsen is naked, no swimsuits or towels allowed). Boys up to a certain age (maybe 6ish) are allowed to go into the woman's onsen, and yesterday there was a huge crowd of children (boys and girls) running around naked. It was like they were at the beach, playing with buckets, splashing, climbing on things. It was really cute, but made me realize how different it is from America. In America 6 year old boys and girls would never run around naked together, but here no one batted an eye-lash. They really don't stare at eachother in onsens
(although they do stare at the foreigners, it isn't every day you see a naked foreigner in a town that small). It is nice that everyone is so comfortable with their bodies though. We eventually were forced to get out of the tubs (or we might have passed out). We asked at the front desk about buses and were told they had all stopped running (it was only 5:30!). We were getting a little worried, a taxi would have been expensive, when the man who worked there offered to give us a lift to the station because he was leaving in a few minutes to go home anyways. If we had been Japanese he wouldn't have offered, and if we had been in America no one would have offered. It is sometimes very nice to be different. When we got back to Fukui Nic and I went to Swing and Bass, a jazz bar near the station. I have never talked to the Master (bar owner) a lot before, but we had a great conversation about jazz. He recommended a bunch of artists for me to listen to! I finally returned home and studied Japanese (the Japanese I was supposed to be studying all week and put off until the last night). A perfectly lovely day!
After that we found our way to the Chrysanthemum Festival. There were all sorts of rummage sales outside and Nic and I had a good time digging through stuff and bargaining the prices down. The festival was 1000yen to get in (which I thought was fairly high). There were a million Chrysanthemums inside and some of them were larger than my head (which is pretty big). The Chrysanthemum is the crest of the royal family of Japan (which also makes it the crest for the Shinto religion). I have also heard that it is related to death somehow. At any rate, the Japanese people take their Chrysanthemums very seriously. I was amused (but not 1000yen worth) until I found that I could take a ride on .... GINGER! Go here for more info: http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/ptech/12/03/scooter.unveiling/
I remember reading about the Segeway when it first came out, so I thought it was terribly exciting to get to ride on one! To go forward you lean forward and to stop you stand up and to go backwards you lean backwards. The steering is a little hard because you do it by twisting the left handle. It is very sensitive though so I kept accidently making really sharp turns all over the place (I even did some of them backwards, which amused all the Japanese people watching).
After the Festival we went to Murasaki Shikibu Park. Murasaki Shikibu was an 11th century author who wrote the Tale of Genji. It is considered to be the world's first novel and was written by... a woman! I have read parts of the book and it is really good. It turns out that Murasaki Shikibu lived in Takefu, Fukui for 1 year to 18 months (perhaps even writing parts of the Tale of Genji....), so they dedicated a park to her.
After the park (we were busy busy busy) we went to a beautiful onsen in the mountains. It was raining outside and we sat in the outside onsen for a long time. There were 12 different onsen tubs and we tried almost all of them (the hottest one was too hot and Nic wimped out on the ice cold one). Some of them have water massagers, one had some sort of green herb in it, plus the outdoor pools and the jacuzzi and the sauna...absolute heaven. I always get to hot and water-logged long before I want to leave. Something that amused me were all the naked kids (everyone at an onsen is naked, no swimsuits or towels allowed). Boys up to a certain age (maybe 6ish) are allowed to go into the woman's onsen, and yesterday there was a huge crowd of children (boys and girls) running around naked. It was like they were at the beach, playing with buckets, splashing, climbing on things. It was really cute, but made me realize how different it is from America. In America 6 year old boys and girls would never run around naked together, but here no one batted an eye-lash. They really don't stare at eachother in onsens
(although they do stare at the foreigners, it isn't every day you see a naked foreigner in a town that small). It is nice that everyone is so comfortable with their bodies though. We eventually were forced to get out of the tubs (or we might have passed out). We asked at the front desk about buses and were told they had all stopped running (it was only 5:30!). We were getting a little worried, a taxi would have been expensive, when the man who worked there offered to give us a lift to the station because he was leaving in a few minutes to go home anyways. If we had been Japanese he wouldn't have offered, and if we had been in America no one would have offered. It is sometimes very nice to be different. When we got back to Fukui Nic and I went to Swing and Bass, a jazz bar near the station. I have never talked to the Master (bar owner) a lot before, but we had a great conversation about jazz. He recommended a bunch of artists for me to listen to! I finally returned home and studied Japanese (the Japanese I was supposed to be studying all week and put off until the last night). A perfectly lovely day!
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home