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elwen[This is copied from a plaintext log I kept while I was in Japan, so there's no formatting. For reference, Caroline was a fellow intern and Parita was a postdoc.]
Been in a rut lately, haven't felt like writing nor doing anything at all after getting home. And I only have two weeks left...
Anyway, went on an awesome trip to Himeji on Saturday. Although I was the one who originally thought to go to Himeji, Caroline ended up planning it all. I went with her and her friends Bernice and Allen.
The train there was long and mostly boring. There were some nice forests, and part of the time we were right by the water -- though there were no beaches -- but it just wasn't very interesting to look at. We saw the Akashi Bridge on the way there, which Caroline wanted to stop and see on the way back. (It's the world's longest single-span bridge, and she /is/ a civil engineer, after all.)
When we got to Himeji, we discovered that it was Oshiro Matsuri, and we began to hope that we could get in for free, as Parita had said she'd done once during a festival. Sure enough, when we got to the castle, it said admission was waived. AND there were free guided English tours. We four went with Yoshida-san, a volunteer guide. He was incredibly nice, and very knowledgeable. His English was impeccable, although his accent was a bit difficult at times. As we entered the castle grounds, we told him we were Chinese, and he said, "So you must understand Chinese," in Mandarin. When we got to the first map, he started explaining it in Mandarin, but we quickly said that Bernice only spoke Cantonese, and my Chinese was horrid.
The tour lasted about two hours, and we went through all of the castle. We started in the hall inside the castle walls. It was quite long, and there were sections with different kinds of rooms. It kind of reminded me of a South House, actually. They really were servants' quarters, so each door led to a bedroom. And there were all these holes for archers and places to drop stones and all. If it weren't for Yoshida-san, we wouldn't have gotten anything out of it, though. It was his explanations that brought the place to life. He told us how the rooms were connected, and the one at the end belonged to the highest-ranked servant, who commanded the exit. He explained how noble women asked men to buy things for them by dropping money out the window because they weren't allowed to go about unescorted. He told us the story of Princess Sen (the same character as in "Sen to Chihiro") and how her husband was later attacked by her father and grandfather.
After the living quarters, we headed up towards the main tower. There were lots of battlements, and the paths and stairways were always built to be difficult to invaders: the stairs were of different heights and widths, forcing soldiers to watch their feet instead of the enemy while rushing up; entrances were hidden around narrow corners, while walls would seem to lead elsewhere. Each gate opened to a small lowered area, which then went up to the next level by stairs. The gates could be closed and the small depressions flooded or filled with rocks and sand to barricade the doors. There was also one path that led underneath a hallway above. It was too low for enemies below to use their long spears, but people above could easily thrust down and kill them. And the passage was lined with rocks supported by a single keystone that would collapse the entire tunnel. But the hall above was supported on an outer wall of rocks, which would remain standing. There were lots of things like that, that showed all the incredible foresight and strategy of the builders. And Yoshida-san told us about it all.
The main tower was only used in times of battle, which never happened. Although from the outside it appeared to have five floors, there were actually six. There were two huge support posts that ran through the entire castle. Over time they had rotted and been "patched" or entirely replaced. Yoshida-san told us how they searched for five years (?) to find a suitable tree to replace one, and then on the way to the castle, it was dropped into a canyon and split in two. It was still used, however, and we could see the crack.
The castle had little interesting things, too, like pegs high overhead that were easily broken, from which they hung gun fuses. There were little closets where soldiers could hide away, and reverse gunholes in case the tower was taken. These, of course, were not meant to reverse the tide of battle, but to buy the lord enough time to commit harakiri.
So Himeji Castle was definitely the best castle I've seen. The only thing Nijou has over it is that Nijou had many paintings, while Himeji was bare. The roofs of Himeji had lots of different familial crests, though, that represented the many different families that had, over time, held the castle.
After the castle, we had lunch at a "Chinese soba" place, which is apparently a synonym for ramen. Then we headed back toward the castle grounds to see the garden that I kept fixating on. Its short name is Koko-en, and it turns out that it was planted in 1992 (?) as a memorial of Himeji Castle or something like that. Either way, it was absolutely gorgeous, and I was so happy we went, even if the others seemed less interested, and we had to pay admission. There were many different areas, planted in different styles, some with buildings and bridges. There was a series of gardens that all contained the same stream flowing through them, ending with a pine garden and a bamboo garden. I took lots of gorgeous pictures full of greenery, but nothing can capture the beauty and serenity. It was definitely better than Kenroku-en.
Then we headed back as the Oshiro Matsuri parade was beginning. We watched a bit of it, and bought some stuff from the stands on the side of the street. The parade had a group of kids practicing kendo, and a huge group of people in interesting costumes (with antennae!) dancing to a rather repetitive song. It looked really tiring to do that all the way down the street, and yet kind of fun, too.
We took the train back to Maiko Koen, which is right underneath the Akashi Bridge. After a bit of wandering and going back and forth, we found some good views of the bridge, and Caroline was satisfied.
Then we decided to go to Kobe's Chinatown for dinner. We were all sleepy on the train, but we managed to get off at the right station, Motomachi. It turned out that there was a fireworks festival, and we saw a lot of people in yukata. We went to Chinatown, which was very crowded at the time. They were selling all sorts of Chinese food that I'd missed, like nikuman and daikon cake and fried bread (they called it "age-pan"). After dinner, Bernice wanted to find a place she could buy a certain Chinese sauce -- her company put her up in a monthly apartment, so she has a kitchen *jealous* -- so we went into a bunch of little shops. Seeing all the Chinese stuff made me wish for all sorts of random foods, like canned eel and grass jelly. But then we kept having to remind ourselves that we have no kitchen and no can opener. *sigh* Finally, we went into this shop that had what Bernice was looking for. The owner spoke Mandarin, and was half-Chinese, as far as I could tell, so Allen chatted with him a bit. I'm not sure because I had bought a daikon cake and waited outside eating it for a while before I went inside to join them.
This doesn't seem to fit anywhere in my narrative, but I saw maccha milk tea. It doesn't sound that strange, I guess, but I was surprised all the same. Bernice had been craving maccha shaved ice in Himeji, although the stand she finally bought from didn't have it.
So that was the full, satisfying day I had on Saturday. Two unplanned festivals in one day!
Oh, and on the way back through Chinatown after dinner, we ran into Mitsui-san. Now /that/ was a huge coincidence, fireworks festival and all.
On Sunday there were fireworks in Ibaraki. I watched a bit of it from the roof of the dorm. I kind of wish I'd stayed up there longer, but I kept telling myself it was going to finish any minute, and there was no point for me to climb those stairs back up. Ah well. I've seen plenty of fireworks this trip to Japan, although it seems I'll never get tired of the colorful bursts and the ones where the individual sparks go swimming around in different directions. I like those even more than the ones that are in fancy shapes, like butterflies or hourglasses, and Hello Kitty faces.
... Hm, I guess I didn't even talk about the Tenjin Matsuri and Yodogawa fireworks in the textblog. Well, the Tenjin Matsuri ones were rather disappointing, though the boats were relatively interesting, I guess. The most notable thing is that I saw a firework that was in the shape of a happy face, but no one else did, and they kept insisting, half-jokingly, that it had been my imagination.
Since we were cheated of the opportunity to wear our yukata, and the Tenjin Matsuri fireworks were less than spectacular, we decided to see the ones at Yodogawa, near Juso Station. (Actually, we had first wanted to see the Art of PL fireworks, which is the largest show in Japan. I don't think it's that far away, but it's a tiny station in the middle of nowhere, and Ishibashi-san kept telling us if we went, we wouldn't be able to get back on the same day. Finally, Parita talked to a lot of people and didn't hear anything good about it, so we decided to go to Yodogawa instead. The day after, I overheard some people at the station saying Yodogawa was better than PL, so.)
The Yodogawa fireworks were on Tuesday, so we planned to bring our yukata and change after work. Apparently this is possibly against regulations, so Ishimaru-san had to clear it with the main gate. We left work a bit early, and Miyagawa-san, who lives just down the hall, came and helped us to put on our yukata. At the last minute -- as in, the day before -- Parita bailed out and didn't bring her yukata to work. At first she said she'd feel strange leaving work like that, but later she said it was because she had a trip to Ehime the next day and would probably have to leave early during the fireworks.
We met up with Nishihara-san and his wife, who was also wearing a yukata. She /was/ really pretty, moreso than in the wedding video, I think. She'd tied a really pretty double bow for her yukata. (Miyagawa-san tied a nice standard one for Caroline -- the one time I tried to tie a normal obi, I couldn't even keep it wrapped around my waist.) We asked how long it'd taken her to tie the obi, and she said an hour. @_@
The Yodogawa fireworks were much more impressive than the Tenjin Matsuri. For one thing, they were continuous. And the area around the river was open so we could see the entire sky; no worrying about our view being blocked by trees or tall buildings. There were a lot of fancy fireworks, and, on the second batch, the others finally saw the happy face. (I guess the happy faces are tricky since they're, at best, properly viewable from only two directions. A lot of them were pointed upwards, or to the wrong side, and just looked like ovals.)
Okay, I guess that's all. "Business trip" to Ehime tomorrow, so I should go to bed.
Been in a rut lately, haven't felt like writing nor doing anything at all after getting home. And I only have two weeks left...
Anyway, went on an awesome trip to Himeji on Saturday. Although I was the one who originally thought to go to Himeji, Caroline ended up planning it all. I went with her and her friends Bernice and Allen.
The train there was long and mostly boring. There were some nice forests, and part of the time we were right by the water -- though there were no beaches -- but it just wasn't very interesting to look at. We saw the Akashi Bridge on the way there, which Caroline wanted to stop and see on the way back. (It's the world's longest single-span bridge, and she /is/ a civil engineer, after all.)
When we got to Himeji, we discovered that it was Oshiro Matsuri, and we began to hope that we could get in for free, as Parita had said she'd done once during a festival. Sure enough, when we got to the castle, it said admission was waived. AND there were free guided English tours. We four went with Yoshida-san, a volunteer guide. He was incredibly nice, and very knowledgeable. His English was impeccable, although his accent was a bit difficult at times. As we entered the castle grounds, we told him we were Chinese, and he said, "So you must understand Chinese," in Mandarin. When we got to the first map, he started explaining it in Mandarin, but we quickly said that Bernice only spoke Cantonese, and my Chinese was horrid.
The tour lasted about two hours, and we went through all of the castle. We started in the hall inside the castle walls. It was quite long, and there were sections with different kinds of rooms. It kind of reminded me of a South House, actually. They really were servants' quarters, so each door led to a bedroom. And there were all these holes for archers and places to drop stones and all. If it weren't for Yoshida-san, we wouldn't have gotten anything out of it, though. It was his explanations that brought the place to life. He told us how the rooms were connected, and the one at the end belonged to the highest-ranked servant, who commanded the exit. He explained how noble women asked men to buy things for them by dropping money out the window because they weren't allowed to go about unescorted. He told us the story of Princess Sen (the same character as in "Sen to Chihiro") and how her husband was later attacked by her father and grandfather.
After the living quarters, we headed up towards the main tower. There were lots of battlements, and the paths and stairways were always built to be difficult to invaders: the stairs were of different heights and widths, forcing soldiers to watch their feet instead of the enemy while rushing up; entrances were hidden around narrow corners, while walls would seem to lead elsewhere. Each gate opened to a small lowered area, which then went up to the next level by stairs. The gates could be closed and the small depressions flooded or filled with rocks and sand to barricade the doors. There was also one path that led underneath a hallway above. It was too low for enemies below to use their long spears, but people above could easily thrust down and kill them. And the passage was lined with rocks supported by a single keystone that would collapse the entire tunnel. But the hall above was supported on an outer wall of rocks, which would remain standing. There were lots of things like that, that showed all the incredible foresight and strategy of the builders. And Yoshida-san told us about it all.
The main tower was only used in times of battle, which never happened. Although from the outside it appeared to have five floors, there were actually six. There were two huge support posts that ran through the entire castle. Over time they had rotted and been "patched" or entirely replaced. Yoshida-san told us how they searched for five years (?) to find a suitable tree to replace one, and then on the way to the castle, it was dropped into a canyon and split in two. It was still used, however, and we could see the crack.
The castle had little interesting things, too, like pegs high overhead that were easily broken, from which they hung gun fuses. There were little closets where soldiers could hide away, and reverse gunholes in case the tower was taken. These, of course, were not meant to reverse the tide of battle, but to buy the lord enough time to commit harakiri.
So Himeji Castle was definitely the best castle I've seen. The only thing Nijou has over it is that Nijou had many paintings, while Himeji was bare. The roofs of Himeji had lots of different familial crests, though, that represented the many different families that had, over time, held the castle.
After the castle, we had lunch at a "Chinese soba" place, which is apparently a synonym for ramen. Then we headed back toward the castle grounds to see the garden that I kept fixating on. Its short name is Koko-en, and it turns out that it was planted in 1992 (?) as a memorial of Himeji Castle or something like that. Either way, it was absolutely gorgeous, and I was so happy we went, even if the others seemed less interested, and we had to pay admission. There were many different areas, planted in different styles, some with buildings and bridges. There was a series of gardens that all contained the same stream flowing through them, ending with a pine garden and a bamboo garden. I took lots of gorgeous pictures full of greenery, but nothing can capture the beauty and serenity. It was definitely better than Kenroku-en.
Then we headed back as the Oshiro Matsuri parade was beginning. We watched a bit of it, and bought some stuff from the stands on the side of the street. The parade had a group of kids practicing kendo, and a huge group of people in interesting costumes (with antennae!) dancing to a rather repetitive song. It looked really tiring to do that all the way down the street, and yet kind of fun, too.
We took the train back to Maiko Koen, which is right underneath the Akashi Bridge. After a bit of wandering and going back and forth, we found some good views of the bridge, and Caroline was satisfied.
Then we decided to go to Kobe's Chinatown for dinner. We were all sleepy on the train, but we managed to get off at the right station, Motomachi. It turned out that there was a fireworks festival, and we saw a lot of people in yukata. We went to Chinatown, which was very crowded at the time. They were selling all sorts of Chinese food that I'd missed, like nikuman and daikon cake and fried bread (they called it "age-pan"). After dinner, Bernice wanted to find a place she could buy a certain Chinese sauce -- her company put her up in a monthly apartment, so she has a kitchen *jealous* -- so we went into a bunch of little shops. Seeing all the Chinese stuff made me wish for all sorts of random foods, like canned eel and grass jelly. But then we kept having to remind ourselves that we have no kitchen and no can opener. *sigh* Finally, we went into this shop that had what Bernice was looking for. The owner spoke Mandarin, and was half-Chinese, as far as I could tell, so Allen chatted with him a bit. I'm not sure because I had bought a daikon cake and waited outside eating it for a while before I went inside to join them.
This doesn't seem to fit anywhere in my narrative, but I saw maccha milk tea. It doesn't sound that strange, I guess, but I was surprised all the same. Bernice had been craving maccha shaved ice in Himeji, although the stand she finally bought from didn't have it.
So that was the full, satisfying day I had on Saturday. Two unplanned festivals in one day!
Oh, and on the way back through Chinatown after dinner, we ran into Mitsui-san. Now /that/ was a huge coincidence, fireworks festival and all.
On Sunday there were fireworks in Ibaraki. I watched a bit of it from the roof of the dorm. I kind of wish I'd stayed up there longer, but I kept telling myself it was going to finish any minute, and there was no point for me to climb those stairs back up. Ah well. I've seen plenty of fireworks this trip to Japan, although it seems I'll never get tired of the colorful bursts and the ones where the individual sparks go swimming around in different directions. I like those even more than the ones that are in fancy shapes, like butterflies or hourglasses, and Hello Kitty faces.
... Hm, I guess I didn't even talk about the Tenjin Matsuri and Yodogawa fireworks in the textblog. Well, the Tenjin Matsuri ones were rather disappointing, though the boats were relatively interesting, I guess. The most notable thing is that I saw a firework that was in the shape of a happy face, but no one else did, and they kept insisting, half-jokingly, that it had been my imagination.
Since we were cheated of the opportunity to wear our yukata, and the Tenjin Matsuri fireworks were less than spectacular, we decided to see the ones at Yodogawa, near Juso Station. (Actually, we had first wanted to see the Art of PL fireworks, which is the largest show in Japan. I don't think it's that far away, but it's a tiny station in the middle of nowhere, and Ishibashi-san kept telling us if we went, we wouldn't be able to get back on the same day. Finally, Parita talked to a lot of people and didn't hear anything good about it, so we decided to go to Yodogawa instead. The day after, I overheard some people at the station saying Yodogawa was better than PL, so.)
The Yodogawa fireworks were on Tuesday, so we planned to bring our yukata and change after work. Apparently this is possibly against regulations, so Ishimaru-san had to clear it with the main gate. We left work a bit early, and Miyagawa-san, who lives just down the hall, came and helped us to put on our yukata. At the last minute -- as in, the day before -- Parita bailed out and didn't bring her yukata to work. At first she said she'd feel strange leaving work like that, but later she said it was because she had a trip to Ehime the next day and would probably have to leave early during the fireworks.
We met up with Nishihara-san and his wife, who was also wearing a yukata. She /was/ really pretty, moreso than in the wedding video, I think. She'd tied a really pretty double bow for her yukata. (Miyagawa-san tied a nice standard one for Caroline -- the one time I tried to tie a normal obi, I couldn't even keep it wrapped around my waist.) We asked how long it'd taken her to tie the obi, and she said an hour. @_@
The Yodogawa fireworks were much more impressive than the Tenjin Matsuri. For one thing, they were continuous. And the area around the river was open so we could see the entire sky; no worrying about our view being blocked by trees or tall buildings. There were a lot of fancy fireworks, and, on the second batch, the others finally saw the happy face. (I guess the happy faces are tricky since they're, at best, properly viewable from only two directions. A lot of them were pointed upwards, or to the wrong side, and just looked like ovals.)
Okay, I guess that's all. "Business trip" to Ehime tomorrow, so I should go to bed.
