Don’t judge me… I’m in Japan, and just trying to experience the Japanese culture thing… And sure, it may have been the second time I’ve done it here, but it’s only because I only got the hang of it recently, so only due to my slight analness I went a second time to try and master the whole “decorating print club stickers with a time limit thing”… It’s not like I’m a huge fan or anything… Honest!
Yay festivals! They’re kinda done to death here, with what seems to be at least one every weekend, but for the unassuming foreigner who has been here for less than 3 months already, it’s not too bad!
Some festivals seem kinda random though – like this Sword festival in Seki, which involved lots of Iron Chef knives (both left & right handed knives, I might add), Iron Chef knives for kids (seriously, like hardcore knives with baby elephant characters on them) and the occasional sword or swordy paraphernalia available.
I also thought they’d be more ye-olde and traditional and stuff – when I heard of the lantern festival, I thought it would be just a village lit up by those traditional red lantern thingies lining the streets – Didn’t really cross my mind that it may involve Godzilla...
or that guy who lives in a pineapple under the sea…
Plus, I think I just found out what would happen if the powerpuff girls decided to make a mediocre Japanese girl band instead.
Festivals – fun for the whole family! Even the sake festival, which included almost-limitless amount of free doburoku sake (think thick white, chunky soup with rice bits, and if the soup was made from rubbing alcohol) was apparently a family event, with parents getting drunk while their kids watched and looked all cute in their little kimonos and stuff.
Another extended period between blog posts, so figured I should write something. What have I been up to? Meh, just the usual, went to Kyoto for the weekend a couple weeks back and last weekend had a water weekend involving rafting and stuff. Meh. no biggie.
But Kyoto was pretty cool, despite already being there before and seeing most of the things I saw last time - I was paranoid that all my photos would look pretty much the same as the ones I took in December since it was overcast and forecast to rain the weekend, so though the only noticeable difference was the clothes I was wearing. But nonetheless, manage to get some cool summer-esque photos more than last time. As our timing would have it, the places we visited this time around that we didn't go to previously, we only reached at the end of the day, so we had a fairly limited viewing/ optimal photo-taking time, which was kinda sucky, but all the more reason to go there again I guess. One of the sights we were planning to see was fushimi inari taisho, which is supposedly not a well known, but nonethless awesome place to visit (my English teachers at school had no idea what it was) - it's essentially just 30,000 red torii gates all lined up in a row, and if you get there at the right time, then it looks awesome. We kinda missed the boat in terms of optimal awesomeness, but there was still interesting to visit the place at night - It's a shrine dedicated to the Shinto god Inari, who apparently is always associated with foxes, so there's heaps of fox statues and fox prayer card things throughout the shrine as well. The other place I have to visit again is Kiyomizu temple, which is allegedly one of the new 7 wonders of the world.
Literally a minute or so after we arrive at the front gate, the heavens opened up and drenched us even before we got to see the clear waterfalls that the temple is known for, along with everything else. So, after an hour or so of running from shelter to shelter, we finally conceded and left before seeing everything there.
So that was a couple weekends ago, and last week I went on a Water weekend. I initially signed up because I read about shower climbing, which apparently involves climbing some waterfalls and going down them in a sled-type thingo (I'm pretty sure that's the technical term for that apparatus) and didn't realise it involved white-water rafting until after I had already said yes. But still, after a big karaoke night out (which I might blog about later if I can be bothered) I was still pretty keen for it despite being slightly sleep deprived.
Rafting turns out to be, not as scary as you'd think it would be. I was a little nervous, considering my lack of physical fitness and after the 10 minute safety training we took before getting in the water, which involved showing us what we should do in the event of falling out during the rapids, or if our raft crashes into a mountain/rock, but it was surprisingly tame - apparently, it was due to the lack of water in the river at the time which made it pretty breezy. It even felt like the raft guides were kinda just making us do stupid things for the sake of making it seem a little more dangerous and adventurous, like making us all sit on the right side of the boat as we go down some rapids, or all stand up, or sit in the back to do what can only be described as a wheelie down some rapids...
Unfortunately, the next day of shower-climbing was not meant to be - Ironically, since it was raining all night, there was a flash flood where the shower climbing would be, so it got cancelled, and the amount of water would have made it an even better time to go rafting that day, which was our original plan. But it wasn't a total loss - instead of doing some physical activity in what could be described as "exercise", we instead went to Gifu city, and ate heaps of food, so it kinda works out to be a fairly similar experience.
Oooh, and probably the most memorable part of the weekend? Mystery Fanta - yep, that's right, this urine-like fanta is mystery flavoured, and you're supposed to guess what two fruit flavours are in it. My guess: Peach & Apple.
So to sum up - went on what could be seen as an adventurous weekend, and a trip to an old ancient capital, and the highlight of my trip? Fanta.
Yep, seems like I've got my priorities straight...
