Category: Life

Sometimes, I feel the need to talk about me (imagine that).

Today, we hit 3 temples over in the Kamakura region. And since I’m feeling lazy, I’m just going to post some bullet points about them for now:

    Hasudera: MASSIVE Buddha

  • Great pictures thanks to cooperative sky
  • HOT, HOT walk to Buddha
    Temple 2: Japanese shrine (maybe Tsurugaoka Hachiman Shrine?)

  • BLOODY MISERABLE HEAT and stairs on walk up to temple
  • Gorgeous scenary
  • Rest area near top with excellent apple juice
  • Rest area overlooks the city area and the ocean
  • saw some hawks/falcons/eagles flying from rest area, very cool
  • Got a picture of a couple of ladies wearing kimonos outside temple, really like the design of the white one with blue flowers
    Temple 3: Japanese shrine 2 (maybe Hasedera?)

  • Massive and beautiful
  • heat started to go down a bit
  • saw shrine maidens wearing traditional grab, but didn’t get a chance to ask them for a picture
  • had a small museum area with various things of interest: sword, arrows, bows, scrolls, vases, kimonos
    Shopping on way back to hotel

  • bought small something for Mom, K and Grandma D.
  • helped pick out omiyage for K-san.
  • ate dinner with AWelkin and Bryon again, this time also with Y, an old friend of AWelkin’s
  • nice itlian place, had salomn cream penne, very nice
  • got back to hotel late, tried calling Ariesna but got no answer
    UPDATE

  • This morning had e-mail from Ariesna that she’s been having a rough time (smashed her hand) but other than that she’s ok.
  • Also, I had some bizarre dream last night. Don’t remember much, but it seemed like I’d had it before and it seems there was some odd ball drug use going on in the dream. As I said, it was bizarre.

This morning was another sweltering day and after a short hop on the train; we walked up to Osamu Tezuka Productions. When you first step off the street towards their door; there’s a marble (maybe granite) status of Astro Boy. Then you walk inside and immediately you’re surrounded by merchandise, mostly from Astro Boy but also from some of Tezuka’s other series, such as Princess Knight. Then it was up the stairs and we split up with half of us touring of the offices while the other half watched a video. I went on the tour and the wonderful people there let me video tape it; so I won’t talk about it here. Then we went back to the waiting area and watched some of Tezuka’s animation work while the other group go the tour. It was a very nice environmental work with no words set to one of Tchaikovsky’s operas. Then they brought in one of Tezuka’s former assistants and he gave a short presentation about what it was like to be an assistant. I was still suffering from the heat, so my fried brains couldn’t think of a question before the presentation was over. On the other hand, at least I wasn’t sleeping with my head on the table through the presentation.
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Homestay Day 2
We slept fairly late and then R & M made us brunch. A massive salad with tomatoes and onion, eggs, sausage, fatty ham patties and fresh fruit. After we lazily ate breakfast, they took us to a nearby beach. M-san warned us first that the water was very dirty but we had no better ideas on where we would have liked to go, so it was off to the beach. The whole area was filthy; actually, it was the first time I’d seen so much litter laying on the ground. And water level was really low, so there was something like a 100 yards of mud between the normal beach and the water line. Still, there was a strong breeze coming off the water and the smell of the sea was much like I remember from visiting the ocean back when I lived in North Carolina. So it was very pleasant. Then as we were leaving, R-san bought us some Japanese style ice-cream. Basically it like a slushie, shaved ice topped with flavored syrup but they also added in some cream. It was delicious!
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Homestay, day 1
We got ourselves checked out of the hotel this morning and I found that calls to the US must be around $1/minute, as I’d called Ariesna a couple of times and hadn’t spoken all that long but the bill was rather high. After we were all checked out, we walked down to the language school. It was extremely hot out and there wasn’t a lot of shade. I noticed K was having problems, so I carried her bag for her to the school. Once we were there, one of the teachers brought us some drinks and snacks, but the A/C wasn’t working all that well and we were still frying.
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Today, we went to see the animation exhibit at Museum of Contempary Art Tokyo (MOT). It was a good exhibit but our translator was using a quiet voice while there were animated bits blasting out their music and voices, making her hard to hear. The exhibit covered Japanese animation from it’s very beginnings1 to the present day. Again for the most part, cameras were forbidden but towards the end of the exhibit they had a mock up of Lupin’s car from Castle of Cagliostro which they did allow you to take pictures of (but no flash allowed). In that same area, they also had some of the pre-production art and key-frame art from Porco Rosso, which was so damn cool! 😀
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