Japan - Arashiyama, Kyoto, Mount Fuji

After Hiroshima I took the bullet train to Kyoto. Kyoto was my second favorite place in Japan... well, it might tie for second with Mount Fuji. Kyoto is the cultural center of Japan and is jam-packed with shrines and everything you imagine when you picture stereotypical Japan. 

When I first arrived in Kyoto, I checked into my hostel and then immediately hared off to Arashiyama, home of an amazing bamboo forest and one of my "must sees." It was great to see the forest and then walk around the gardens at one of the temples there... I can't even remember the name though. Whoops. Whatever, the garden was great. When I got back to my hostel, I met a French girl staying in my dorm and we went to dinner with two French guys and an American guy, which was a lot of fun. Side story: when I was checking into my hostel that day, an older Dutch guy struck up a conversation which went a little something like this. 

Dutch guy: somethingsomethingsomething...

Me: Awesome.

Dutch guy: Ah, so you're a New Zealander then!

Me: No, I'm American.

Dutch guy: Really? But New Zealanders always say awesome. I've been to America. Americans don't say it.

Me: (Politely) Oh really? *thinks to self... who's the American here anyway?*

Too funny. Also while in Tokyo I was mistaken for an English girl whereas my friend Chris, an English guy, was mistaken for an American. Hilarious. 

So the next day in Kyoto I went around to see the shrines, then I had some extra time and was all shrined-out, so I decided to hop a JR train bound for Nara, the original capital of Japan. I barely had any time in Nara because it was so late, but I was glad that I took a quick trip there anyway. Then I went back to Kyoto and met up with my roommate and another girl we picked up from our dorm. We got some dinner, then I suggested walking over to the Gion district of Kyoto because it's the geisha area, so we walked around for awhile but didn't find any, which was unsurprising because it was really late by that time. 

The next day I headed to Mount Fuji. It took way longer than I had expected and was a fairly traumatic journey. Basically, I didn't book a hostel because the website I used claimed the hostel I wanted was all booked, which I knew couldn't possibly be true because Chris had just stayed there the week before and said it was nearly empty. The other hostels were about $20 more than that one, so I decided I would just show up and see if they had any availability and if not, then I'd go elsewhere. I was feeling confident in that plan, though a little less because the hostel offered a pickup service from the train station, which meant I couldn't find walking directions. This meant that I had to get to the tourist information office by 6:30pm when they closed so I could get them to help me call around for a hostel. Cue my long journey to Mount Fuji. I had to take the bullet train from Kyoto to some place and then this local bus from that place to Lake Kawaguchi. There are five lakes at the base of Mount Fuji, and I was headed to Lake Kawaguchi. You can't actually go up the mountain in the winter because it's too dangerous, not that I'd have time for it anyway. 

The bus took absolutely forever, and it was getting extremely ominous. It kept winding up and up into the mountains and the sky was getting darker, it was getting later, it was snowing, and to top it off, I was eventually the only person left on the bus. I kept anxiously checking my watch hoping to make it to the tourist information office. I ended up getting there by 6, they called the hostel, and within 15 minutes they showed up to pick me up, so things ended up working out, but I'll be honest - I was getting freaked out on the ride there because I was worried about getting stuck at the base of Mount Fuji with nowhere to stay. Anyway, it was cool because I met some other foreigners at the hostel. One was a Swiss girl whose first language was French, so we chatted French for awhile, then met up with some English people to watch fireworks at the base of Mount Fuji. Then we went back to the hostel and chatted some more, then the next day the English people and I met up to walk around Lake Kawaguchi (the Swiss girl had already been) and take pictures of Mount Fuji. We were all extremely nervous about visibility since visibility had been horrendous that day. While on the bus I hadn't even been able to find the volcano, which is enormous. This was to be my only shot at seeing it as well since I had to fly out of Tokyo the next day.

Additionally, I had the problem of money. I was dead set against withdrawing any more money, but I was perilously close to going over my budget. I was literally counting my coins when I met the Swiss girl at my hostel. The slow train (which was not operated by Japan Railways and thus not covered by my Rail Pass) was going to 1,100 yen, so I carefully set that aside. $10 is about 800 yen by the way. Everything else would be covered by the JR Pass, so no sweat on transportation. After that money, I had exactly 800 yen to get me through the day. I was nervous and couldn't afford any mistakes (if you'll pardon the pun). I was determined to make it through my Japan trip on my budget.

Lo and behold, clear skies abounded the next day! We had a terrific time walking around the lake photographing ourselves and the volcano, which was a truly spectacular sight. We split up when they decided to take a cable car ride up to a viewing platform, but I literally could not spare the money and thought I'd better head back to the hostel to begin my long trip back to the airport. It was a seriously long journey.

Hostel van to train station

Slow train from Lake Kawaguchi to another station (can't remember the name)

Bullet train to Tokyo

Metro to Tokyo Station

Airport express line to airport

Fly to Seoul

Bus from Seoul to my city

Four metro stops

Local bus from the metro to my apartment

I ate my leftover food from the night before (you guessed it... bread) and breathed a sigh of relief when I got to the Tokyo airport with my 800 yen. This meant I had successfully completed my trip with just enough money to buy some dinner before my flight. Sadly, the cheapest Japanese meal was 1,200 yen, which meant I found myself in the McDonald's line where I purchased a meal for yep, 800 yen! I was the budget master. The budget sensei. Bow down! 

Fireworks on Lake Kawaguchi

Arashiyama

Arashiyama bamboo forest

Arashiyama bamboo forest

Arashiyama

Arashiyama

Arashiyama

Golden Pavilion, Kyoto

Gardens at Heian-jingu Shrine, Kyoto

Heian-jingu Shrine, Kyoto

Gardens at Heian-jingu Shrine, Kyoto

Gardens at Heian-jingu Shrine, Kyoto

Kiyomizudera Temple, Kyoto 

Kiyomizudera Temple, Kyoto. At this point I was shrined/templed-out, so I just walked to the top then sacked off actually paying the entrance fee and going in, then walked to the train station and went to Nara.

Geisha? Or tourists dressing up like geisha? I'm going to pretend these are traditional Japanese women in traditional outfits.

My brief stint in Nara. It's possible I spent more time getting there and away than actually there. 

Beware the watchdeer of Nara.

The French girls and I went to dinner and we got actual cheese. Lovely surprise.

Sashimi in Kyoto

My Kyoto hostel had a free kimono you could dress up in. My French friend and I took full advantage.

Mount Fuji!

Whooooaaaa Mount Fuji/Lake Kawaguchi

Walking around Lake Kawaguchi

Mount Fuji

Japan - Tokyo, Hiroshima

This is a bit delayed, but over the lunar New Year I spent nine days in Japan. I went to Tokyo, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Kyoto, Arashiyama, Nara, and Mount Fuji. This first entry is all about Tokyo and Hiroshima. I flew in on a Saturday and met my friend Chris in Tokyo. We went out in Roppongi, which is supposed to be the happenin' nightlife area, but we were shocked by how few people there were. Tokyo is supposed to be this huge, thriving city, but I was frankly astonished by how empty the metro and streets were. I think Seoul is far more crowded. If you go to the Seoul version of Roppongi, you can barely exit the metro because it's so jammed with people. 

Anyway, let me start over. First of all, Japan is great. It's so cool, modern, visually appealing, the people are really friendly and kind, transportation is a dream, and there's an insane amount of tourism that is also extremely accessible and easy. The downside is that everything is so expensive! Well, to me it's expensive. First of all because I'm cheap, and second because I'm coming from Korea, where things are very inexpensive. If you're used to city living, I doubt you'd find Tokyo/Japan to be excessively expensive, but I definitely did. My family (well, my sister... love you, Anna!) was completely horrified when I emailed them saying I ate a plate of free noodles that had been left in the hostel. They were labeled free! That meant they were available for public consumption, and I was too cheap to pass up a free meal like that. My "meals" in Japan were mostly supermarket croissants and free hostel coffee for breakfast and lunch, then I'd buy myself an actual Japanese dinner. I had previously bought a Japan Railways Pass, which is only available to foreigners who buy said pass outside Korea. Mine was 7 days unlimited rides on any JR lines, including the bullet trains. 

I'll be honest - I was not crazy about Tokyo. I'm just not much of a city tourism kind of person. Chris and I visited the Hima Rikyu gardens, which was nice. Gardens in Japan are very cool. We also went on a walking tour of an older part of Tokyo, the name of which escapes me now. We also visited a war museum/shrine, which we didn't actually go into on account of money. We also visited the Tsujiki Fish Market (I think I spelled that correctly). Check out the pictures below for more descriptions. 

I left Tokyo and split up with Chris (who had to go back to Korea) on Tuesday for Hiroshima by bullet train. Bullet trains are awesome! I'll be honest though, I really thought it would go faster. I had to change trains at Shin-Osaka, and overall travel time was about five hours to Hiroshima. So, Hiroshima was easily my favorite part of my whole trip to Japan. Modern-day Hiroshima is just so cool in itself, then you add in the history of the city and it's just incredible. The night I got there I didn't do very much as it was late and I was tired, so I got a map from the hostel and walked over to a nearby restaurant that the hostel lady recommended to me. Some kind of Hiroshima specialty, a picture of which I have posted below. It was delicious. It probably helped that I was starving (re: supermarket bread for breakfast and lunch), but either way I loved it. 

The next day I went to the Peace Park, which was really amazing. I spent the first half of my day walking around it. There are lots of statues and monuments as well as a memorial and a museum. It was also very empty, which was nice. A very cool part of the museum showcased these letters that the past and present mayors of Hiroshima had written. Basically, since Hiroshima was rebuilt, the mayor of Hiroshima personally writes a letter to the representative of any country performing nuclear testing of any kind. They were very powerful letters that essentially said, Dear so-and-so (i.e. US presidents, French prime ministers, etc), I'm the current mayor of Hiroshima. Our city has personally felt the effects of nuclear bombs and as such we are devoted to the eradication of all nuclear weapons. Despite many letters that we have sent to your government over the years, I am dismayed to hear that you recently performed a nuclear test despite agreeing to attempt to downsize nuclear weapons stockpiles. I look forward to the day I no longer have to write these letters. 

The second half of the day I went out to the nearby island of Miyajima, which was fantastic. Check out the pictures below because I'll write captions. 

Hiroshima tram. Adorable.

Fountain at the Peace Park

A-bomb dome. This was at ground zero where the bomb was dropped, but it didn't collapse, so the city of Hiroshima decided to preserve it as a memorial. Usually it doesn't have all that scaffolding, but they were conducting tests of some kind on it. 

Statue at the Peace Park

Paper cranes

Children's Peace Memorial statue. Do you know the story "Sadako and the 1,000 Cranes?" Maybe that's not the exact name. I read it in elementary school but I thought it was fictional... definitely not. Sadako was a baby when the bomb was dropped, and at age 11 she developed cancer from radiation poisoning. The crane is a symbol of long life, and she thought if she could fold 1,000 paper cranes she could cure herself. She died before finishing them. The statue has a girl at the top holding a crane. 

Bell of Peace

Inside the museum

Possibly one of the saddest things in the museum. Read the picture below for a description. 

The two Japanese words I learned to read while there: entrance and exit.

The ferry to Miyajima

The shrine gates at Miyajima. During high tide you can't walk out there and they appear like they're floating.

Bullet train

Tokyo metro map. This is my friend Chris. We both disliked the Tokyo Metro for being too expensive and kind of dingy. I know I said earlier that the transportation is great in Japan, and it is, but the Seoul metro is just much newer and cheaper. 

We went to a Japanese arcade and took anime-style pictures, then got to decorate them. 

A Japanese arcade game

Shibuya

The Shibuya crossing - you've probably heard of it, there's like a thousand people that cross at one time or something ridiculous like that. 

Japan really is the future. We didn't have a waiter - instead, we had a touch screen menu and a waiter would appear to give us our food. 

Warning comics at the Tsujiki Fish Market

Hama Rikyu Gardens. This is a 300 year old pine tree.

Japanese lunch! It was delicious. 

Tokyo Government Offices. It was free to go up to the top to view the city. You know how I feel about free stuff in Japan... essential.

Helpful bathroom sign in the Tokyo Government Offices.

Then it snowed. A lot.

Hiroshima pancake!

Japanese man making the Hiroshima pancakes. When I got back to the hostel, the woman asked me if I enjoyed the restaurant. I told her I had to learn Japanese so I could marry the pancake man and we could live happily ever after in Hiroshima eating pancakes all the time. She thought that was hilarious.

Miyajima

Leg room on the bullet train. I was such a VIP.

Bullet train. I felt like I was flying first class.

My Japan Rail Pass. Other than my diploma, the most expensive piece of paper ever made out with my name on it. 

NEAT-o

Last winter break my coteachers began teaching a test prep class during camp. It's called NEAT (National English Ability Test) and the kids will take it when they're going from high school to university. This semester we're teaching NEAT prep classes to the advanced students, and so once a week I teach speaking or writing. I'll do five weeks with the third grade, five with second, and five with first. It's only 45 minutes a week, and let me tell you, that is not enough. This stuff is incredibly difficult, and there's just too much to do. Honestly, I'm pretty sure this is close to the stuff that I was actually learning in middle school as a native English speaker. In the writing unit we just covered, it was all about recommending and suggesting things. The kids were learning the target phrases, "I'd recommend... I'd recommend you... If I were you, I would... I'd suggest..." They had to unscramble sentences like, "If I were you, I would apologize to my friend right away." "Why don't you drop by the party later?" Because they'll be taking this test as ESL students, they might not know the meaning of all the sentences and words, so I'm trying to teach them test-taking strategies, like identifying parts of speech and putting them in the appropriate order. For example, they had to fill in the blanks of this sentence:

I _______________________. They will help you _______ what you should do with your _______.

There was a picture of a boy reading a book with the caption "self-help books," and the key vocabulary for the unit included "figure out" and "life." The students weren't familiar with the term "self-help" and couldn't fill in the blanks, so I told them to break down the words. They knew "self" meant me, myself and they know the word "help" so I had them put the words together to realize it meant a book to help yourself do something. Then I had them read "They will help you ____" and told them to ask themselves the question, help you do what? Do is a verb, so you're probably looking for a verb. And then "your" what? It has to be a noun of some kind. Figure out is a verb and life is a noun, and if you're trying to help yourself with these books, you're probably trying to do something with your life. I certainly hope those are correct assumptions, and that I didn't steer them wrong. The kids are really well-behaved and pay attention and take lots of notes, but I'm always worried that I'm making sense to myself but not to them. Naturally, whenever I ask if they understand, they say yes, but I remember being a student... you almost never admit when you don't understand. After class got out I specifically asked some of my girls (whom I know pretty well due to camp) if they could really understand me. They said they understand me, but the subject material is difficult. Then I asked, Do the other students really understand? Yes, Teacher, we all understand. People in this class are very smart! Well, I wasn't doubting you, kids, I was doubting myself, haha.

Dongjun gave me a piece of chocolate before NEAT class started. It looked homemade so I asked if he made it and he said no, his friend did, but he wanted to give one to me. How adorable.

The Korean teacher who sits across from me is very kind and always wants to talk to me, but it's definitely a) all in Korean b) very fast and c) too polite for me to understand. I learned how to say the phrase, "Could you say that one more time, slowly please?" and it definitely worked, but no matter how slowly she said it, I just don't know enough words.

Last night I went out for dinner with two of my foreign friends and one of their coteachers. Her parents are from the area, but she's just moved back here and started teaching at a new school, so she doesn't know a lot of people. She wants us to hang out, which is fine by me. She's 29, single, and apparently the only teacher at the whole school that's unmarried, and now that my friend is leaving (in 10 days), he'll be replaced by a married foreigner, so she will literally be the only unmarried person in the school. That might not be a huge deal in America, but to be a 29 year old unmarried female is a big deal here and I feel especially sympathetic towards her because she's the only one in her school. I was thinking, and I might be out of line here, BUT there is a 30 (or 31 year old? I don't remember exactly) year old informatics teacher at my school whom I'm almost certain is single. He's super nice as well and speaks a little bit of English, which is how I know he's a very nice man. He's recently been put in charge of scheduling, and he knows I can't read the Korean messages he sends, so if it's something important, he'll usually try and send me a little English message to let me know. It's very cute, like "Hello! Today we have a special movie for the students. There is no class in the 5th and 6th periods. Sorry my English is bad. Have a nice day!~~ J.K. Kwak"

I give him coffee (the universal teacher gift) to say thank you sometimes. Regardless, awhile back he told me we should get some kimbap together sometime (my favorite food), but nothing's ever come of it. Now that I have this new Korean friend, I'm considering seeing if the informatics teacher would be interested in getting some dinner or drinks and casually invite her along. Matchmaker? Possibly. To be fair I barely know either of them.

I've recently realized that my school is about 70%-30% boys to girls. It never really occurred to me, but as I was making seating charts, I realized that in six groups of 6-7 students, two were girls and 4-5 were boys. I even have some classes with two groups of 6 boys each. I bring this up because I've tallied the third grade questionnaires, and the results are like this.

1. Movies
I think they think I'll show them movies if they choose this. Wrong.

2. Food
Again, sorry kids. We're not going to just eat food in class.

3. Pop songs
Are you sensing a theme here? Though to be fair it's nothing less than I expected when I gave them these three as options.

4. Sports
Ah, sports. Something I know very little about and care even less about. But in my effort to teach them things they're interested in, I stayed at school on Friday for an extra hour and a half learning about football, cricket, rugby, and baseball. We're going to do a sports unit whether I like it or not. I'm trying to make it cool though. It'll be in several parts.

Part 1: Sports from Around the World
Learn about the previous four sports I listed above, watch some .gifs, get some knowledge.

Part 2: Language and Culture
Learn about how baseball words get worked in American conversations at an alarming rate, i.e. step up to the plate, take a swing at it, out of your league, hit it out of the park, etc.

Part 3: Vocabulary
Learn basic sports vocab; team, league, series, event, professional, etc


Play Jeopardy using parts 1 and 2


Part 4: Reading
Read about the history of baseball, reading comprehension questions, true or false, and writing

Part 5: Movie and Song
Watch High School Musical 2 "I Don't Dance" and fill in the blanks in the lyrics (hint: it's on a baseball field)

I've really only ironed out Parts 1-3 and Jeopardy since I can't fit it all into one class. I'm trying to make it fun and educational, which is why I've stuck in Jeopardy. As for HSM, hopefully that will satisfy them with their desire for movies and pop songs, though to be fair it's not what they're hoping for I'm sure. Anyway, I've certainly learned a lot about cricket! It's actually interesting as well. Don't worry though, I'm not going to start watching it.Also, I can't take most of the credit for the sports lesson... I got a bunch of the info and prep work from foreign teaching websites. Must give credit where credit is due.