Thursday, January 05, 2006
Dylan...Out!!
It was fun while it lasted.
As I write this Dylan is hopefully sitting comfortably on his flight back to the United States. I'm very glad he came to visit and judging by his experiences here, I think he's very glad to have come. More than once I heard him exclaim "I love Japan" in one form or another. I can only hope that my presence at least factored into that declaration.
Yesterday we met in Kyoto for one last day of sightseeing before his departure. Since Dylan was eager to see some older buildings (he often lamented the dullness of post-war Japanese architecture) we went over to Kiyomizudera, one of the first sights I went to see back in August. I already had plenty of pictures of the buildings so I focused my camera on Dylan instead.
Why don't you purify yourself in the waters of Kiyomizudera?
Waiting in line to worship...something.
Touch your new God. Touch him! LOVE HIM!
Call me a spoil sport, a sour puss, or just an asshole if you must, but I declined to participate in any of the above rituals. I'm not comfortable with pretending to worship in front of people who really believe this stuff. Isn't that kind of patronizing them and their religion(s)? When I go to churches I never eat the host so why should I bow my head in prayer here?
Irregardless, temples and shrines are cool to visit so we walked down the hill to nearby Kôdaiji. Unlike Kiyomizudera I had not been to this temple before, although the quickly setting sun and dropping temperatures made me a little reluctant to snap quite so many pictures.
"So do you come here often?"
Probably looks nicer in Autumn. Or Spring. Or anytime other than Winter!
Big statue, didn't catch the name of the model.
We started to walk towards the bus stop after the temple closed (the sun had completely set by now) but Dylan wanted some tea. In the neighborhoods surrounding these temples there's no shortage of small businesses offering tea and other traditional snacks, sweets, whatever. We picked one that just looked nice (the trio of kimono-clad customers made it look more "authentic") and I picked something that, well, I was going to say "sounded good" but that's not true. I merely saw something that I had heard of so I ordered it. Eating in Japan lends itself a lot to these kinds of experiments, although I wouldn't say I enjoyed the results as much as I usually do.
From left to right, amazake, tea and warabimochi.
Interestingly enough, eating these treats only served to make us more hungry. As soon as we got back to Osaka we met up with Scott and ate okonomiyaki. I felt it was important that Dylan try it at least once on his trip as the dish is closely associated with the Kansai area. He definitely enjoyed it and I was pleasantly surprised by the availability of ichimi, ground chili pepper. I had never had spicy okonomiyaki before and I really dug it.
Our dinner finished, we had a proper farewell party in a karaoke box. We only went for about two hours and a slight technical difficulty (I didn't plan ahead) prevented me from singing New York, New York in its entirety, but everyone had fun and drank enough. I took a brief video clip to give you a sense of our surroundings.
I ended up staying with Scott so I didn't home last night to blog, sorry. On that note, there won't be any entry tomorrow either as Mako and I are off on (what I hope will be) a romantic getaway to a northern ryokan at an onsen. I'm expecting a lot of snow and even more food; the brochure promises copious amounts of crabmeat! I'm just happy we've finally got a chance to be alone together for the first time in months. She's so busy at work I hardly get to see her these days. As you all know, I'm not good at being alone. It hurts too much.
As I write this Dylan is hopefully sitting comfortably on his flight back to the United States. I'm very glad he came to visit and judging by his experiences here, I think he's very glad to have come. More than once I heard him exclaim "I love Japan" in one form or another. I can only hope that my presence at least factored into that declaration.
Yesterday we met in Kyoto for one last day of sightseeing before his departure. Since Dylan was eager to see some older buildings (he often lamented the dullness of post-war Japanese architecture) we went over to Kiyomizudera, one of the first sights I went to see back in August. I already had plenty of pictures of the buildings so I focused my camera on Dylan instead.
Why don't you purify yourself in the waters of Kiyomizudera?
Waiting in line to worship...something.
Touch your new God. Touch him! LOVE HIM!
Call me a spoil sport, a sour puss, or just an asshole if you must, but I declined to participate in any of the above rituals. I'm not comfortable with pretending to worship in front of people who really believe this stuff. Isn't that kind of patronizing them and their religion(s)? When I go to churches I never eat the host so why should I bow my head in prayer here?
Irregardless, temples and shrines are cool to visit so we walked down the hill to nearby Kôdaiji. Unlike Kiyomizudera I had not been to this temple before, although the quickly setting sun and dropping temperatures made me a little reluctant to snap quite so many pictures.
"So do you come here often?"
Probably looks nicer in Autumn. Or Spring. Or anytime other than Winter!
Big statue, didn't catch the name of the model.
We started to walk towards the bus stop after the temple closed (the sun had completely set by now) but Dylan wanted some tea. In the neighborhoods surrounding these temples there's no shortage of small businesses offering tea and other traditional snacks, sweets, whatever. We picked one that just looked nice (the trio of kimono-clad customers made it look more "authentic") and I picked something that, well, I was going to say "sounded good" but that's not true. I merely saw something that I had heard of so I ordered it. Eating in Japan lends itself a lot to these kinds of experiments, although I wouldn't say I enjoyed the results as much as I usually do.
From left to right, amazake, tea and warabimochi.
Interestingly enough, eating these treats only served to make us more hungry. As soon as we got back to Osaka we met up with Scott and ate okonomiyaki. I felt it was important that Dylan try it at least once on his trip as the dish is closely associated with the Kansai area. He definitely enjoyed it and I was pleasantly surprised by the availability of ichimi, ground chili pepper. I had never had spicy okonomiyaki before and I really dug it.
Our dinner finished, we had a proper farewell party in a karaoke box. We only went for about two hours and a slight technical difficulty (I didn't plan ahead) prevented me from singing New York, New York in its entirety, but everyone had fun and drank enough. I took a brief video clip to give you a sense of our surroundings.
I ended up staying with Scott so I didn't home last night to blog, sorry. On that note, there won't be any entry tomorrow either as Mako and I are off on (what I hope will be) a romantic getaway to a northern ryokan at an onsen. I'm expecting a lot of snow and even more food; the brochure promises copious amounts of crabmeat! I'm just happy we've finally got a chance to be alone together for the first time in months. She's so busy at work I hardly get to see her these days. As you all know, I'm not good at being alone. It hurts too much.
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