Saturday, October 25, 2008

Kurashiki and Small Update...

I know I made promises to post some pictures of my house, but I keep forgetting so you'll have to settle for some pictures from my trip to Kurashiki instead. Let me say, if you ever come to Japan, you absolutely MUST go to Kurashiki, it's one of the most peaceful cities I've ever been to, and thats even with the tourists and on an overcast day. The historical district is filled with some great galleries with Bizen pottery work and some nice museums ( at least from what I read in my book ). I was too captivated with my surroundings to spend the day in museums, so I roamed around the historic district, walked up to a beautiful temple that overlooked the city, and roamed around the ghetto. It's a lot of fun just wandering around with no destination, especially because its so easy to just ask somebody where the station is. Even with my terrible Japanese, I can still figure out where something is no problem. On my way back, I asked this one woman where the station was and she ended up noticing I was going the wrong way and caught up to me on her bicycle and walked me right up to the gate. Pretty tight.

Anyway, the historic district is lined with some amazing trees and has a canal that runs all the way through it, complete with gigantic white carp and swans. The stonework on the canal is great, and the end result is a place that you could just sit and do nothing for hours on end. I'll definitely go back there to take in the sights when its sunny out, and for 10 bucks there and back, its not pricey at all. Even the train ride is fun because you can actually draw on a train and there a lot of crazy people that ride it. It gets even crazier when you can buy sake and beer at the train station, where I've noticed a lot of older men swarming.

About the pictures, some of them aren't the greatest but I thought I'd upload them anyway just to share. Also I want to say that I taught my first kids class today and had to wear a frankenstein mask and have a Halloween party. I was sweating so bad, and by the end of class I really started to smell because the deodorant here doesn't work at all. It just smells like hairspray and leaves a nasty taste in your mouth. I asked Hiromi about it the first day I got here since I forgot mine at home, and she said that men here don't use deodorant. Not only are they geniuses, but they never smell bad either. Oh, to be Japanese.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Would you like me to send you some deodorant?