The long, cold of winter

Kendra here. Sorry for the long absence we've been very busy...Ahh who am I kidding. We've been bored. SO BORED! It's too cold to go out and do something, and it's too cold inside to do anything other than sit around the heated table. Plus we are trying to save up some money for all the up coming madness; Mid-year conference in Tokyo at the end of February, Mom and Jason coming to visit at the end of April, and trips to all over once it gets warm again.

We haven't done anything too crazy but here are some pictures.

Can you see the tiny little snow flakes? Yah, this was the "snowstorm"we had here in Kobe a week or two ago. Needless to say,nothing stayed on the ground. We've still had no snow. And of course, I am very happy about that.

This is a picture for Kate Binder. Look! I found a bakery especially for you! I'm sure you could have something from here...(just messing k8, miss you! have some corn chips for me...god I miss corn chips...)

AND I missed sub sandwiches...until! we went to the Subway on Rokko Island for the first time last week. I got a simple turkey on wheat while Aaron went for the slightly exotic Cajun Chicken. They actually had a lot of "normal" subway stuff on the menu, but they also had some really unique to Japan things, like shrimp, egg, and hot dog...yah...hot dog on a sub sandwich.

Here is Aaron getting all Samurai'd up in a traditional men's kimono. The nice lady putting it on it Tanigawa-san, the lady whose house we stayed at for a few days. She is such a cool lady.

Here we both are in our kimono at Tanigawa-san's house. My kimono that she let me borrow was soooo gorgeous. Mine all paled in comparison to this one of she had.

Here is Katherine's turn to put a kimono on. She had a pretty black and butterfly motiff. The lady in the picture is of course Tanaigawa-san.

Katherine looking....looking at something more interesting than me taking the picture.


Tomorrow I am going to go get a MRI of my brain to make sure nothing is wrong in there. The ringing in my ear has been going on 24/7 since August 2007. I really don't think it will ever stop now. I would really like to know why it happened even if they can't fix it. There is about a >1% chance that it will be something brain related but with the great insurance I have over here (back home and MRI easily would cost upwards of $1,000, here it is only about 10,000 yen-about $100) I have to take advantage of it. So yay! for insurance.

This weekend we are heading to Nara again to hang out, play some video games, lots of cool stuff. Really nothing too exciting coming up until the Mid-year conference. More on that later!

Peace, take it easy, KENDRA

Bumming around

Hey all. Sorry we haven't posted in a while. We've taken a bit of a break since the holidays ended. But, we brought it back into full swing this past weekend, taking a 2 day trip to the cities of Kyoto and Nara, which are basically the two older, "more cultural" cities in this part of Japan. On Sunday, we got off to an early start and made it to Kyoto around noon to watch a Japanese archery competition! I was thinking about Robin Hood constantly, with all the banners, bows and old-style attire. It was very interesting because this style of archery is very different from any other I've seen. These types of bows are much longer above the handle than below, and the archers have a very specific way of drawing and firing the bows.

Here are some of the bystanders, taking a rest along this buddhist temple. Nearby, there were many food venders. Kendra got a baked potato and I got a okinomiaki. I'm not sure if I'm spelling that right, but most of you wouldn't know anyway. It's basically a savory cabbage pancake with various meats and vegetables in it, covered in a brown tangy sauce, tuna flakes and seaweed. Trust me, it's actually quite good, despite the description.

Here are some of the women archers preparing to fire. They position the arrow, then lift the bow wall above their heads, hold it out in front of them and pull back the string as they lower it. When they fire, their arms snap straight backward. Katherine, our local fulbright friend, who has actually learned to do this style of archery, said that if they don't snap their arm back, the arrow won't go anywhere. You can't tell from this photo, but the targets are quite far away. I'd say at least a 100 yards. As I said, it reminded me of Robin Hood. Aren't their outfits beautiful?

Some of the women with bows, in costume.

Afterwords, we took the trains to Nara, which was about an hour's trip away. Nara is actually older than Kyoto and was the capital city of Japan before Kyoto and before Tokyo way way back in the day. Anyway, Sunday night, they had their annual burning of the mountain. There is a mountain that is covered in grass that they burn every year. According to our friend Andrea, who has a hell of a memory and is addicted to guide books, they do this to honor the end of a territorial dispute between monks back in the day. I believe it. Anyway, we watched the mountain from a large platform near a famous temple and pagoda in Nara. There were quite a lot of other spectators, but it wasn't cramped. They started the show with a fireworks display, which they began 10 minutes before schedule, so we actually missed a bit of it, but that's alright.

You can see the pagoda on the right. It was very impressive--huge and lit up. After the fireworks, they lit the mountain, and you could see a long line of fire slowly moving across the blackness of the mountain. It was interesting, though we were a little far away, and we couldn't get any pictures to turn out. We spent the rest of the night at a local soba house, and then at our friend Abel's apartment. We met his French, Australian, and New Zealander friends and played some nintendo with them. It was fun. Monday, we returned to Kyoto for some site seeing with some other fulbrighters. We went to see the golden pavilion, a famous structure in Kyoto. It is coated in gold, though it is a replica of the original building, which a crazy monk burned down back in the day. Those crazy monks. The gardens were marvelous. Here are some pics.





Beyond the fence, you could toss little coins, trying to get them into the cup in the middle. It's for good luck, and is also a way to give alms. I took video of all of us trying to get a coin in. Amazingly, Andrea got a coin in the cup, but right after I stopped taking video. So there's no proof.

At the shrine, Mana and her friend Ryan partook in a religious ceremony. They lit incense and rung the bell.

In Japan, there is a holiday, which was this past monday, in which everyone who is going to turn 20 years old dresses up and goes to the shrine. It doens't have the most religious significance anymore, but it is an excuse for Japanese girls to get all gussied up in expensive kimono. So we went around Kyoto to see them.


At night, we went to an izakaiya, which is like a bar that you can buy various snacks at. We got a set meal, which came with all you can drink for an hour and a half. It was fun. We stopped to take a picture of this ridiculous window front. Oh Japan. What fun. Until next time.

Happy New Year 2008

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2008

the year of the Rat

(aaron is a rat)

For New Years, which is one of the biggest holidays here in Japan, Aaron and I went with some friends to stay with another Fulbright fellow, Andrea, in Kyoto. Kyoto has hundreds of temples so we had lots to do that night. We started out by having some soba (buckwheat) noodles. Eating these on New Years eve is supose to give you luck in the New year. All these traditions really focus on bringing luck in the new year. People are very careful not to do anything that woukd bring bad luck on this night. After the noodles, we got some famous Kyoto green tea sofuto aisu, soft serve icecream, but way better.

From the left Katherine, Aaron, Ben S., Andrea, and Hannah
At the Shinto shrine, you get paper fortunes and you tie them onto special posts or trees. This one was covered witht them.

Ben is going back to America soon for a while to do his medical college interviews, so he was really trying to get a lot of luck on his side. This rope thingy on fire is like a lucky fire that you bring from the temple and use to light your house's hearth fire with...but not many people heat their houses with a blazing fire anymore, but it is stil a lucky thing to do.

Katherine is interested in Andrea's rope it seems.

After a stop back at Andrea's to refuel on junk food, we went to a Buddhist temple where we had to remove our shoes (it was freezing out, but shoes must come off), then sit till all our legs where numb.But the service is beautiful and I found it peaceful. Oh, then we shook a giant prayer bead that went all the way around the room. The picture above shows us all sitting around passing and and shaking this giant prayer bead.

Then we went back outside to wait to ring the GIANT bell. Huge bell. Everytime it rang my camera went out of focus. Weird. The bell is suppose to ring 108 times, to rinse away the 108 sins of humanity, or that was what we kind of figured out from the monk's explanation. But since there was more than 108 people there, it rang way more than that. You had to get a kind of ticket in order to ring the bell and it had a number on it. We were 123, and 124 in line... we waited in the freezing cold for about 1 hour 30 min to ring it, but it was so cool when we did.

Then the party! Back to Andrea's for junk food and, no joke, Moet E Chardon Champagne with real gold flakes in our cups. Felt rather posh. Here Hannah is demonstrating how one drinks such a posh drink...two at a time.

Junk food round 2...chocolate explosion.

I am pretty sure she is pointing at Aaron for doing something silly.

Here is 0ur video of our Kanpai toast and Happy New Year.

Hope everyone had a safe and hangover free New Years.

Cheers.

メリークリスマス

Merry Christmas everyone! The holiday season was indeed a joyous one over here. We had lots of fun, plenty of friends over, and way, way too many cookies.
Katherine, our buddy here in Kobe, is a master baker. She decided to make about 1,000 cookies for Christmas. In total she made almond crescents, snickeroodles (the majority of which was consumed in batter form), apricot jam chocolate chip, gingerbread men, and pumpkin chocolate chips...which made Anna cry. Lots of things made Anna cry this season, but mostly it was anything with pumpkin and chocolate chips in them,
We exchanged gag gifts and we also did a more serious gift exchange; lots of fun and everyone got something cool. People stated for a few days and we went shopping and ate out at lots of places. All in all it was a great time. Here are some pictures!

This was Christmas eve day. We are enjoying a nice stroll through a really crowded mall.
From left to right this is Hannah, Andrea, me, Anna, and Mana. They are all Fulbright Fellows as well. Hannah and Anna live on Kyuushuu, Mana lives in the Osaka area, and Andrea lives in Kyoto.
Here I am with my ugly Christmas sweater and my Christmas moustache.
This is the bounty of Christmas cookies that Katherine Made. We ate most of them Christmas Eve night around 11 pm...we all had a major sugar rush. We then ate the rest of them for breakfast Christmas morning.
Here is Mana with her Christmas ensemble, complete with Panda fanny pack (gag gift).
This is Hannah intently watching Charles at his turn of "Black Jenga," which is a Japanese version of Jenga where the pieces tell you to do or say funny and embarrassing things. He knocked it over that turn and had to eat this sugar Santa from the top of the Christmas cake.
Here we are the day after Christmas on our way to shop and eat giant Sasebo burgers at the cafe.From the left, Anna, Charles, Aaron, Ben S., Andrea, and Hannah. Charles doesn't always look like that I swear.

Aaron got me a beautiful kimono set and I got him an acoustic guitar.
Hope everyone had a great Christmas day. We missed you all. New years over here is pretty serious so we have even more events to celebrate before this year is done. I'll be sure to post some more pictures soon.
Happy Holidays!

神戸ルミナリエ Kobe Luminarie

Kendra here again. So, we are back from our trip to see the Luminaire festival and WOW it was worth it. But here are some older photos to show first.


I found this pretty little spot at my University while wandering around and killing time after a class was canceled.
Here is Aaron by a very, very large Asahi Beer can at Koshien Stadium, home of the Hanshin Tigers! Go Tigers!!!
Isn't this so cute! Aaron got it for me for Christmas, but, since it is a plant and all (see the tiny cactus in there) he didn't want to wrap it up for fear that it might die or something.
Okay, onto the Luminaire Festival. This festival started in 1995 to commemorate the many weeks people had to go without lights during the aftermath of the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. The towering light sculptures were a donation from the Italian government and each bulb is individually hand painted. The lights go on for a few hours every night for about 2 weeks.
Needless to say, we weren't the only ones who turned out to see the lights. They didn't come on until about 5:30...we got there at 4:15 to get a good spot.
Here is Katherine and Aaron crammed in with hundreds of other people waiting to "ooh" and "ahh" at the lights. Anyone else notice the creepy, blurry baby in the background?
After a good long wait, Shazam! The lights go on, all while loud speakers blare out epic music with lots of church bells and chanting and such. Pretty sweet.
Looks like a painting or something, doesn't it?!
So basically, you could walk down this road with a million other people jostling for elbow room and see the pretty lights. But, they were really pretty and I recommend going to see it, even with all the crowds.
On the way back, we saw this kimono...what a mess! Hearts and leopard print. It's so modern it hurts. And it was a wedding kimono too! Ugh!

After this we went to eat at Pizza Patio! "Nothing Beatsa Patio Pizza," is their slogan and true to word it was the best pizza we have had in Japan. Not only was the menu extensive (and bonus! it had real pizza toppings instead of the regular corn, tuna, and mayonnaise) but it was reasonably priced. The decor was odd but snazzy; playing 50's American tunes but having a log-cabin type feel with random French paintings and-for some reason-pirate guns on the tables. Oh well, they had good food. Aaron was really excited because they claimed to have real pepperoni...alas, it was not to be. It was just ham in a circle shape. Still have yet to find pepperoni on a pizza here. They also had a really awesome looking cheese fondue course that Katherine (a vegetarian cheese-fanatic) was drooling over.

Now we have no more money to spend this weekend so we will spend it playing spider solitaire and doing sudokus. How exciting!

It's beginning to look alot like...it did last month

Hello there, Kendra here. No new amazing pictures yet but tonight we are going to the Kobe Luminaire festival so we should get some nice pictures there. I bet it is snowy back in Michigan. Not here my friends. Not a single flake. It does get cold at night though. I hear rumor that it might snow here sometime, but I doubt this year. Just doesn't seem cold enough.

Nothing really too exciting been going on. Aaron and I are just about out of money for this month so we have been taking it easy and not really doing anything because doing anything in this country cost money.

Oh, I did finally get to go to a doctor about my ear. Yes, it is still ringing. It has been ringing non-stop since August. I really don't think it will ever stop. Sigh. So, the doctor here put me through the same tests a back home. My hearing in the left hear is permanently damaged but it is not that bad. Still within relatively normal limits. What drives me bonkers is the ringing!! I just want it to stop!! So, I am going to get an MRI done just to take a look-see in my brain to check it out. But, as the Japanese doctor said in his broken English, "To tell truth, there isn't much we can do for the ringing of ears. So sorry."

Hope everyone back home is happy and healthy! Enjoy the Holidays!

Mt. Rokko again!

Kendra here. So, since Aaron had to miss the last climbing of Mount Rokko, we decided to go before all the leaves fall off the trees. Before we left we had some tasty Ringo Pan. Ringo being Japanese for apple, and Pan being French for bread. Yah, French...they kind of use random loan words all over the place. Anyway...

Moving on. So, we packed a nice lunch and headed on over to the base of the mountain...the most boring part of the whole trip. Nothing but walking up a paved road. Boring! Give me nature!
So, we climb without any problems. Though we did run across three teenage Japanese boys with their shirts off taking a group picture of themselves. Odd, I know. And they all had kanji characters written in tape on their chests. Very odd. Well, aside from that, everything was awesome. We ate our lunch on the top of the mountain and we had a few mountain kitties to keep us company. We took a side trail to see this cool little lake at the top of the mountain. Neato!
Who is this mountaineer?! Here I am in my advanced adventure gear. WMU hoodies are essential climbing gear. So are big, obnoxious hats.
The mountains in Japan form in the shape of stairs for convenience.
Up close shot of some awesome Japanese Maple leaves.
And here is the tree they fell from.
Take a look at him! Upon walking back, as we passed another giant drainage ditch, I happened to look down into it and lo and behold! A big ol' wild boar! You can't really tell from this picture but he was so big! We were about 20ft up from the ditch so we weren't afraid of him attacking or anything. Then,we looked further up the ditch and there was Mama boar with two little boar babies...so cute. Daddy boar was just walking by not even caring about us or all the cars whizzing by up ahead. What a sight.

So that was our trip up Mt. Rokko, again. It is really getting rather cold so I am not sure if we will climb again till spring. In other news, the country has all gone insane for Christmas and people here are wearing ugly Christmas sweaters and playing some of the most annoying Christmas music I have ever heard. Techno Jingle Bells...

Aaron and I have decorated the house very simply with a few (very cheap) Christmas decorations. We even bought a cheap little Christmas tree. It is a real tree...just only about 1 ft tall. We'll post some pictures later.
Take care.

Oh and there is no snow over here. Repeat, no snow. Kendra is so happy.