Tag: dinner

Today we had to get up and check out of the hotel by 6:00 AM (or 5:45 AM if you had phone charges to pay for like I did). Then we ran to catch the early morning train and made some exchanges to get over to Takarazuka, where we visited the Osamu Tezuka Museum. The walk to the museum from the train station would not have been so bad; if we weren’t carrying our luggage for the next 3 days with us1. The museum wasn’t as big as say the Ghibli museum had been but it was packed with stuff about Tezuka and his work. Also in the basement level, they ran an hour long “animation course”2. The course ran off a set of computer built into little desks with built-in lightboxes. You were supposed to follow along with what they were saying via your computer, but we didn’t speak enough Japanese and none of us read any Japanese, so that part was hard. Fortunately, some of the museum employees spoke enough English that we were able to participate and make our own little 2 frame animation. Mine was of my CoffeeBear character waving and it received the Astro Boy Seal of Approval3 *grin* Oh and one of the other nice things about the museum was that they allowed you to take pictures inside. So, I’ll see about posting some of those later.
(more…)

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.
(more…)

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.
(more…)

Again I woke up before our alarm phone1 went off. I got up, dressed and enjoyed a breakfast of mizo soup and rice cakes with some strong Japanese coffee. I love the soup, the rice is okay but I’ve gotten used to it.
(more…)