Cardcaptor Sakura - my first manga

I cooked some no-bake cookies over the weekend for the first time and they came out perfectly! I had to do a bit of guess work in the recipe and added less sugar because I had to replace peanut butter with peanut crème. Peanut crème is what’s sold here. It’s really sweet and is closer to peanut frosting. I also had to use a whole bag of oats and a packet of cocoa powder so it wasn’t very cheap to make ha. I gave one to Ichigo-sensei and she loved it. She will bring peanut butter back from her Costco trip for me!

Got to leave school early today for a meeting at the Kencho in Maebashi. K took the train with me and we caught up. His school experience sounds quite a bit different than mine. I bought a Suica pass in Takasaki station because I was sick of having to wait in lines to buy tickets everywhere. Instead you can just load money on this card. Although it’s not very useful to me where I live on the private train line, any time I travel anywhere it’ll come in handy.

*drools*

We basically shared our lesson plans and talked about school in groups spilt by school level. I finally got to meet S with whom I’ve been talking a lot on facebook. We decided to hang out a bit after. My first plan was to go to the mall and buy some sneakers, but the bus schedule wasn’t really feasible. Instead we went to Animate in Takasaki. It’s a big anime/manga merchandise store. Very interesting to see what is offered over here and currently popular. I want to try to buy some posters and folders at some point. On the train there, we ran into some of S’s students and chatted with them. There were also some elementary kids and one really talkative one. He knew some crazy words like Humpty-Dumpty and octopus. He had fun talking to me. So cute. For dinner we walked to Tin’z Burger Market, an American themed burger place where the owner speaks English. The burger was amazing! Delicious. I ended up with an avocado burger and fries. Nothing like satisfying that craving. 

Nice weather this morning!

I woke up early, had to catch train at 6:50 am to Takasaki, for a practice debate competition in Isesaki. T-sensei picked me up in Takasaki and drove me there. It was cool to chat with her and get to know her a bit better. This was the English club’s first time participating. I wrote all the pros and cons out about the topic: whether Japan should relax its restrictions on the SDF. I got to see some familiar ALT faces and was a feedback judge for this round. Next time, it’s for real! I thought my students did a good job. They were much more understandable than some of the other teams. One poor girl mumbled her whole speech, it was a struggle to understand her. They are all so brave for doing this though! I would find it hard to debate this topic even in my native tongue.

We went out for lunch afterward in Takasaki. I had told her that I want to go to Nitori to buy some flannel sheets and she kindly offered to drive me there. So first we ate a Japanese family restaurant – yummy tempura and cold udon where she paid for me. Just so nice. And after shopping, she drove me back to the train station. Made the whole shopping trip much easier!

Some junior high school marching band through town

Apparently I got more sleep than I thought, because the day wasn’t complete torture. I could actually function pretty well.

I’m so comfortable and happy to be home. I didn’t choose Tomioka, but it’s been growing its own place in my heart. Silver Week was a lot of fun, but it reminded me how much I’m not a city person. I do like the quiet life and nature. I’m glad to be in such a friendly, peaceful, lovely town.

I woke up at a decent hour. A quiet, good night’s sleep at the hostel, but my legs and shins hurt so much! I’m really wishing I hadn’t left my sneakers in the US. Walking in Chucks all day is hurting. I left my stuff in a locker there as it was a flexible check out time. Saved me 300 yen for a train station locker ha. I then headed off to my first stop, Tenryu-ji and the Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. Got some breakfast from a conbini and ate outside near a stream. The train station was right nearby. This was the first time I’d encountered JR machines that were only in Japanese. They had some English instructions printed out, but googled only showed me the romaji, not the kanji of my destination, eee. I decided to trust Google’s price estimate and just bought the ticket for that. Luckily when I disembarked, I got through the gates no problem with the big herd of tourists.

The walk from the train station to the temple was quite pretty! We crossed over a big river filled with birds. Saw a heron type one and several egrets. So common here. I’ve seen more in the two months here than in my whole US life, ha. While crossing the bridge, I saw some photographers with a geisha and snuck a photo. This temple is known for its gardens and their design that date back to the 1400s. I wandered the gardens first, some gorgeous landscaping with a pond.

I actually got to go inside this temple as well! You had to remove your shoes at the entrance. It was cool to see the large wooden beams, and paintings inside. I can’t imagine how people stayed warm though. Afterward, I headed to the bamboo grove. A fantastic atmosphere again: calming, with a bit of wind rustling. Bamboo grows freely around here, but I’ve never seen so much in one spot.

With a train ride, I was off to take a bus to Kingaku-ji, the golden temple. I had to wait for a second bus because the first one was so full! Luckily, I managed to by a day bus pass from the driver. You only go in the back doors so I wasn’t sure how to buy it from the driver. Asking him if he had any from outside the bus worked, and then I just walked to the front to buy one from him. I don’t know if you normally buy it at the end, but I hate holding up everyone disembarking. By the time we got there, I was pretty hungry. I ended up finding a pizza stand by the temple and had some flatbread pizza that was quite yummy. No English required, point and pay XD

There were a lot more tourists here than at Gingaku-ji. The temple itself was quite stunning. Two levels of the building wrapped in gold leaf with a gold phoenix on top. The gardens weren’t as nice though, so really it was an expensive entrance fee for just the temple. I was still on the hunt for omiyage for my co-workers and ended up buying something outside the temple from a tourist stand. But dumbly enough, I later realized I hadn’t bought enough so I had to find some more before I left that night.

I then took a bus to Nijo Castle! One of my absolute favorite parts of my trip. I really enjoy historical sites. It was interesting to compare the Japanese style castle to those I’ve visited in Europe. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside. They kept everything pretty dark and dim to preserve the paintings. Most of the original wall screens had been moved to a gallery. Almost no décor besides tatami mats, wood floors, some wall alcoves that used to hold relics, and beautiful paintings (with gold) reaching two stories. Very high ceilings. The floors made an interesting sound when you walked across them. It’s called nightingale floors: “Dry boards naturally creak under pressure, but these floors were designed so that the flooring nails rubbed against a jacket or clamp, causing chirping noises. The squeaking floors were used as a security device, assuring that none could sneak through the corridors undetected.” I love walking among places where major events in history have occurred. The rest of the gardens and adjoining buildings were interesting to see too. The castle has two moats.

Itinerary completed! I headed back to my hostel to pick up my backpack. I stopped by McD’s for early dinner as I had some time to kill before catching my bus and my feet and legs were not up for more sightseeing. They even spoke some English! I can’t get over how different big city life is ha. My cheeseburger tasted quite different than those from the US. Much less greasy, and the bun was made of better bread. Got to charge my dying phone too. Afterward, I decided to brave a French styled café for dessert. No English this time, but I got enough of what was being said. After a brief wait, I got a table with a menu all in katakana so I knew at least it was English names. I planned on just ordering in accented English, but the waitress brought me an English menu! I ended up with a cake set with lemon tea and a lemon tarte. The cake was delicious, and had a blackberry glaze. A nice dessert for me! I hung out by the banks of the river again once I was finished and did some reading.

I caught the bus to the train station and wandered around inside. Bought some more omiyage, ha, and then checked out the whole department store they had for food omiyage. The gift giving culture here is so strong! I then went to the rooftop gardens on the top floor and passed a cool light show built into the stairs. The escalators for me though. There was a pretty awesome night view and some benches amongst bamboo. So many young people making out in the dark shadows haha. No PDA here. I hung out here next before it got too cold and I descended into the station to sit on the lit stairs. Finally I decided it was time to find my bus home. I stopped by a bakery for a late dinner cutlet sandwich snack and milk tea. My bus was already there and I managed to board without problems. The ride back was rough again. I was exhausted but I’m not sure how much sleep I got. I walked the twenty minutes home at 4:30 am and fell into bed. The walk woke me up in the brisk air, but I got about an hour of sleep before I had to wake up and go to Shimonita.

Woke up with rather sore muscles. All that mountain climbing yesterday. I knew I should have made my sneakers fit anyway. I need to buy some here. While getting ready, Ayaka had the Japanese news on. It’s quite interesting to see the differences in the crime report. Everything was detailed, mapped, and plotted out. Any witness or person being interviewed never had anything but their upper body shown. Reminded me a lot more of a 60 minutes report. We took the train to Kyoto, about an hour, full ride, and dropped my backpack off at a locker close to my hostel. Afterward, we continued on our schedule to Gingaku-ji, the Silver Temple. We had to take a bus from the station (my first one). The street was covered in vendors, especially many selling yatsuhashi. The hard kind tastes kind of like flavored fortune cookies or waffles. The soft one has a paste filling and a rice flour covering. It comes in many flavors: strawberry, green tea with chocolate, banana with chocolate, sesame, red bean.

Inside the temple, it was rather peaceful. Such a serene atmosphere and there were less tourists. The gardens were covered in moss. A good site to begin with. I definitely want to come back in November though when all the momiji (Japanese maple) are red! We walked a bit along the philosopher’s path, also quite calming before getting lunch on the way back to the bus stop. We ate at an udon place. I had kitsune (fox) udon which had fried pieces of tofu in it, yum. Ayaka pointed out how the broth differs here in Kansai. It’s lighter than in Kanto.

Next stop via train, Fushimi-Inari Taisha (Shrine)! This was on my Japan bucket list! It featured in two of my favorite manga/anime and they actually had posters everywhere for the one. So many people again, but that’s what I get for going during Silver Week. Each tori (gate) can be sponsored, but it’ll cost you about $1500 for the smallest size! I read that turning around at the crossroads point gets you a good view without having to make the whole 2-3 hour hike up. After yesterday, my legs were not ready for anything more. This was already exhausting. The map kinda tricked us in the beginning as it was not too scale at all. Made the distance seem short, but the higher you got the longer it actually was. All the steep stairs up and then back down. Really impressive and amazing to see.

We picked up my luggage from a station and went to check in at my hostel. Ayaka acted as translator again because the family barely spoke any English. Super sweet though! Our reward for the hike today was tea time with matcha (green tea) parfaits! Kyoto is famous for all the matcha parfaits. We first tried to go to Tsujiri tea house which is the most well-known, but it was an hour wait so we went to an imitation café that Ayaka had been to before. The parfaits were amazing. I will continue to dream of it. Sometimes matcha can be too bitter or sweet for me, but this was a perfect blend of tastes and textures. Drooling right now thinking of it.

After tea, we went to Hanami-koji which is old Kyoto where you can find geisha. Really cool to see the old buildings and cobblestones. We didn’t see any Geisha, just a lot of expensive restaurants, $150 meals! Ayaka didn’t feel well so we took a break and sat by the river. Apparently this a big lover’s spot so Ayaka said she had never sat there before. Very pretty and peaceful. We wanted a small dinner since the parfait had filled us up so she recommend a Showa Era chain restaurant. It was super cool! The walls were decorated with posters and flags, and they played the coolest music. It sounded a lot like our WWII and pre-war music, but in Japanese! As ladies, we got free soup and ice cream, yes! Ayaka just ordered some things off the menu as it was huge and of course all in Japanese. My favorite thing was cheese hanpen – deep fried cheese on a stick. Sadly, we had to say our goodbyes with several hugs as she had to catch the train back to Osaka.

I headed off to my hostel which was a close 5 minute walk. I met a Chinese girl who was a Tokyo student and staying in the same room. She spoke great English and Japanese. She was very friendly and shared some peanut brittle snacks from China with me. It was off to bed with me. Two other girls from the Netherlands came in shortly before midnight.