Saturday, April 19, 2008

Birthday and Sakura


Sorry again for the long delay.Kendra here. We've been doing nothing for a while now...we ran out of money. For reals. Like, no money. We had enough for some food and we managed to scrape by with some help from some friends, but thank goodness I get paid tomorrow!

A while back, we got to celebrate our friend Mana's birthday at a park in Kyoto while doing some Hanami, sakura flower viewing. It was a delightful time. Here are some highlights.
This is the view from Shijo bridge overlooking the famous Kamogawa river in Kyoto. It's lined with all kinds of Sakura all the way down both banks. Brilliant.

Here is Aaraon and I (check out that crooked smile I am rocking...bah!)

This is one of the more famous trees in the park where we went. It is a variety of Sakura that resembles a weeping willow. They get very big and live a long time. This one has been around for quite a while. It is roped off so no one can hurt it. It's always surrounded with tons of people taking it's picture. They even light it up at night (see picture below)

So, the basic set up of one of these hanami trips is kind of like a pic-nic. Only, drinking is encouraged. Really encouraged. It's a big tradition to sit under the Sakura and write poetry and drink sake and lament about the beauty and impermanence of human existence. Or, do like we did and be noisy, blow bubbles, and drink . Although Aaron did compose some Haiku for Mana's birthday. (see video below)

Here is the Birthday girl Mana with Aaron at the start of the day. Nice shades!

Here is Mana and Karen starting with the bubble blowing madness. We figured we spread the love and blow bubbles all over the park. We've been drinking for a while by now.

Yah, you're reading that bag right...Sandpie Assort. It translates to Assorted Cream Pie Sandwich cookies. See. Sandpie Assort is soo much easier to say!

Not sure what is going on,but Andrea has a bottle of wine in her lap and looks really embarrassed or amused by something.

So, people started leaving by 8 pm, but a bunch of us stuck it out for a few more hours (bad idea!) and stayed until it started raining. Well, once it was really coming down, we decided to leave. On the way out, we passed the weeping Sakura with its night lights on. Ohh...aahhh.

The journey home was tough. I had on flip flops and the side walk was wet and I basically slip'n'slided my way to the train station. Once there we bought tickets then realized we missed the last train we could ride. So, we got our money back then called Andrea and begged to stay at her place. Of course, being the awesome person she is, she took us in. We were all wet and all kind of drunk (minus Katherine who doesn't drink) so we were a bunch of soggy yahoos and all ended up borrowing some of Andrea's socks...

This is on the train ride home next morning...nice. But before we left, we went to the Falafel garden and pigged out on falafels....the only place you can get them properly is in Kyoto, and myself being hung-over needed some good food. It was one of those great meals you eat after a hang over and feel 100% better. Amazing.

Before we got all the way home, we had to stop at a famous theatre in Gion (an entertainment district in Kyoto...not that kind of entertainment...this street is famous for traditional Japanese arts and Geisha tea houses). Every Spring they host the Miyako Odori, which a public performance of the geisha of Gion's dancing. I'm a huge fan of geisha art so I've been wanting to go since I was about 14. So, I spent the last bit of our money on the most expensive tickets >_< butttt....you get tea ceremony and a commemorative plate! We ended up with great tickets. I'd do a post about the show but no camera allowed in. I'll try and find some official pictures online or something.

Here is our attempt at poetry under the Sakura. It starts nice...the ends with shouting. Typical!

Our next post will be about out climb of Mt. Maya, Mt. Rokko's next door neighbor. Also, Mom and Jason are coming to visit in under a week! Oh boy!
Peace and love,
Kendra

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Cherry Trees at my University

Hello everyone, Kendra here. School is back in session at my University, Kwansei Gakuin. in Nishinomiya city, about 1 hour by train from where we live in Kobe. I have started back up attending my adivsor's zemi which is just Japanese for seminar...semi...zemi; see it makes sense!
Anyways, the road leading up to my school is really famous for its Sakura. The whole area is just lined with row after row of beautiful, old cheery trees.


The Sakura just keep going! Like a whole row of pretty pink clouds all along the road.


I thought this was a funny shot. A regular old bench and underneath it a whole mound of sakura petals, it just made me laugh to look at it for some reason.

Here are more blankets of Sakura petals but this time in a garden so it looks quite a bit more magical than under a bench. This is on my campus in the Japanese garden area. The whole ground was carpeted in pink petals, truly an amazing sight.

A big, old sakura tree...kind of looks like a hand, no? A little creepy.



Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Cherry Trees and Martial Arts

Hey all, Aaron here. I'd like to take a moment to speak about a very memorable daytrip I took a couple weeks ago in Osaka. To bring you up to speed, there is a mystical magical tree in Japan that stays in bloom for only a couple weeks in March. It is called the Sakura tree, and it's actually a breed of cherry tree, though it doesn't get fruit like our cherry trees back home. Unfortunately, the blooming season has both come and gone now, but it's not too late to show some great photos and whatnot. You see, the trees have deep significance in Japan because the blooming and falling of the petals of the Sakura trees represent the brief and beautiful nature of life. So, the Japanese coat their streets and parks with these trees mostly for those few brief days of passing glory, during which time they often take off work and just sit and reflect (and drink--a lot--remember, it's legal in public here). Anyway, Kendra will tell you more about that later, but first, I'm going to tell you about my trip to Osaka with our friend Abel.

I was invited to go to an exhibition of a really neat martial art called Capoeira by our French friend Olivier (pronounced O-live-ee-ay) whom we met through Abel. Olivier is part of a club that participates in Capoeira, which is a Brazilian martial art that incorporates dancing into fighting. If you've ever seen Tony Jaa's The Protector, the guy in the temple with "pray" carved into his chest uses it. It was also used by the character Eddie in the Tekken games. Anyway, the exhibition was going on in a massive park that envelopes Osaka Castle. Abel and I ended up going through part of the castle's outer layers. It was my first castle--yay! Here are some photos of the park.


This is a great closeup of a fully bloomed sakura tree. Notice the great pink color and the density of petals. This was probably the best day of the year for these blossoms, and they were constantly flowing in the breeze. It was something.


This is an outpost on the inner walls of the outer moat. I couldn't believe how huge the outer moat of this castle was. I couldn't help but imagine giant armies marching up and facing such a huge ring of water. This is only one of many outposts on the wall.


Here is a different outpost near one of the outer gates. I really like the pine trees as well.


This is where Abel and I stopped for a snack. We had Yakisoba, which is grilled noodles. Most people don't know this, but most street venders are actually affiliated with the Yakuza, which is the Japanese mafia. It's a little strange paying them for food, but you have to remember that the Yakuza is a different kind of organized crime over here. They actually do a lot of good for the society. For instance, they were the first group to respond with aid after the devistating Kobe earthquake of 1995. We ate literally on the edge of the moat. From where I took this picture, we easily could have dropped at least 70 feet down in to the water below. It was pretty epic.


Here is the second moat, which you will notice doesn't have any water in it. Still pretty imposing. Note the line of sakura trees overhanging the walls. The whole park was coated in them.

Here's a pretty decent view of the Osaka skyline. This is from above the moat. In the water below, we could see the hugest koi fish ever, which are the gold-fish-ish carp that dwell everywhere in Japan.

And this is what you were looking for. This is the actual castle, within two sets of walls and moats. It's difficult to tell how big it is. There are windows and railings by the top. We could see visitors walking around up there. It's pretty big, but the complex around it makes it actually a very tiny part of the overall castle area. The architecture is pretty impressive.

Anyway, we checked out the castle and the park and then watched the Capoeira performances for a couple hours. Because of how quickly the performers were working, I couldn't get any good photos. But I do have about 25 videos of them, and I've picked out a couple here for you to watch. One of them is of our friend Olivier. I strongly recommend checking them out. Oh, I almost forgot. There was also a performing monkey in the castle complex. I have a great video of him doing a trick. Check that out as well. I hope you find the videos enjoyable. Oh, and so you know, Olivier is the one in the blue shirt, not the white. See you next time!