Kamakura

Two weeks ago we went to Kamakura, a small town on the coast to the south of Tokyo. We intended to go to a festival, but someone (named Gen) misread the website so we went to the wrong temple. No matter, it was super cool. This is the Great Buddha of Kamakura. He is giant (about 37 feet tall).

He was built (?sculpted?) in 1252 and was originally housed inside a temple, but the temple washed away in a tsunami. It really is an incredible sight.

There's Gen! This was one of the nicest days (weather-wise) we've had here. April has been very pleasant overall. I'm dreading the summer. My hair isn't going to like the rainy season. Apparently it rains almost every day and it's sweltering. Fun.

Some pretty flowers on the temple ground.

This is the inside of the Buddha. It costs 20 yen to go inside (about 20 cents). It's made of bronze and (obviously) hollow inside. There have been some restorations, such as reinforcing the neck and shoring up the foundation, but overall it's intact. How amazing that it has been standing for nearly 800 years.

Buddha's sandals.

In other news, people are freaking out about the swine flu and there aren't even any cases here. Apparently there was a scare yesterday. A Japanese woman came back from LA with the flu, but it was just regular flu. The airports have thermal sensors to detect fever. Gen's company has stopped all international travel. I hope everyone at home is happy and healthy.

Parade in Asakusa

There are a lot of pictures this week. These are from the parade we went to in Asakusa 2 weeks ago. I don't really know the story behind the parade, but I heard that this is the way high-dollar prostitutes came into town in the old days. Asakusa was the entertainment district then. Look at how elaborate the hairstyles are.

This was a pretty day. I bet these girls were hot. There are a lot of layers going on here.

Before the parade started we had our favorite thing- festival food! This time it was sushi, curry, and (don't laugh) French fries. Everything was served by older local women. They loved Gen, of course. He got some free curry.

She was the main (maybe) prostitute. Check out her shoes below:

How insane is that? They were walking reeeallly slow, but I still would have broken my ankle. She had this way of walking where she would kind of scrape the sides of the shoe against the pavement.

Here are some of the more normal shoes. People still wear these occasionally.

The hair was incredible. I assume it was a wig.

Making Mochi

Last weekend we went to a parade in Asakusa, the old section of Tokyo. On our way, we passed this storefront selling fresh mochi. Mochi is rice that has been pounded. It has the consistency of bread dough, but a little less sticky. It can be used in sweet or savory dishes.

I like the sweet mochi (big surprise!). The most traditional sweet is mochi filled with sweet red bean paste. It's best when it's warm, but good all the time. The mochi can also be flavored with green tea and in Kyoto we had cinnamon flavored mochi.

Nowadays most mochi is machine-made, but these guys are old school. First the rice has to cool off a little, then they make a few preliminary hammers just to get it a little sticky.

Then one guy pounds while the other reaches into the wooden bowl to knead the rice so it's even. It would be nerve-wracking to be the kneader. His fingers were in serious danger.

Some more cherry blossoms. Each type of cherry tree has a slightly different flowering time, so you get blooms for about a month. These are double-blossoms cherry trees and they are one of the later blooming variety.

We're totally planting cherry trees when we come home. Actually, we found a temple this weekend with the most amazing garden and I think Gen wants to spend our retirement funds recreating it.

Kakogawa Hanami

These are pictures from our second hanami, with Gen's aunt and uncle in Kakogawa. We originally planned to go on Saturday, but it rained all day and was really chilly. Sunday, however, was perfect. I even got a little sunburned.

The cherry trees were in full bloom. It looked so gorgeous. It's like you're walking through a snowfall, but not cold.

In Tokyo it's illegal to have open grills (although some people do it anyway) but here it's okay. Tons of people were grilling, everything from sliced beef to shrimp and clams. It smelled fantastic.

This kid was hilarious. He had on his paratrooper uniform and Power Trooper mask and just ran around for what seemed like hours. He found some sticks for swords, of course. Good entertainment for a Sunday afternoon.

At night all the lanterns are lit and it looks really pretty. Each park has a different kind of lantern.

So pretty.

Gen with his aunt and uncle.

Our hanami spread. Gen's aunt is a great cook. A lot of Sunday's meal came from the grocery store, but everything on Saturday was home cooked. We had a living room hanami on Saturday with giant fried shrimp, almost like little lobsters. On Sunday we had inari sushi (sweet boiled tofu wrapped around rice), onigiri (rice balls), kushi age (fried things on sticks), grilled beef, sandwiches, pastries, and my favorite, strawberries. It was all great!

Hanami

During cherry blossom season, the whole country of Japan participates in hanami. Hanami is a cherry blossom viewing party. You spread out a tarp under the best cherry tree, eat and drink to your heart's content. The rowdier parties also include karaoke and I'm pretty sure we saw a game of strip poker. It takes place at all hours- night, morning, you name it. Basically it's tailgating without the football.

This was the spread at our first hanami with some of Gen's work colleagues. There were little snacks like rice crackers and nuts, edamame, fried chicken, and sushi. I also tried a traditional Japanese sausage made of fish, eaten cold. It kind of tastes like a cold hot dog. You can also get food delivered to your hanami party. We had Pizza Hut. Several of the nearby restaurants also delivered. You just tell them where your tarp is and they bring the food right to you.

This is sake especially for cherry blossom season. It's slightly pink and unfiltered. It was really good. We had this party at the very beginning of the season, so it was still pretty cold and not many trees were in bloom. We all went for coffee afterwards to warm up.

My newest fashion observation: Japanese women love being pale. (I'm finally in style!) Now that it's warming up and you can actually see the sun, I've seen a proliferation of opera-length, fingerless gloves. Last weekend it was nearly 80 degrees and I saw one woman in a jacket, gloves, hat, carrying a parasol. It made me hot just to look at her.

Also, check out this link: http://http//www.julieinjapan.com/2009/03/japanese-garbage-day-blues.html This is another Julie's blog. I started following it when we found out we were moving to Tokyo and it gave me the idea to create this one. This post is about the crazy rules the Japanese have for garbage.

Nijo Castle

This is the last set of pictures from Kyoto, I promise. This is the Nijo Castle. We went here on our last day. The picture above is the castle moat. No mortar is used between the stones.

The main building of the castle. We actually got to go inside. The floors are called "nightingale floors" because they chirp when you walk on them. The reason for this was so the castle staff would be alerted if anyone tried to break in to kill the shogun.

Here is a guard tower at the corner of the property.

This is one of the castle gates. It is huge and covered with carvings of birds, dragons, and other animals. The inside walls of the castle are all covered in murals and carved wooden screens. You can't take pictures inside because of the delicacy of the paintings, but we bought a set of postcards that depict the inside.

A close up of one of the carvings.

Another close up.

One of the gardens behind the castle.

This picture is for my mom; she likes pictures with us in them. I thought the flower arrangement was pretty.

Sanjusangendo Temple

This was one of my favorite sites in Kyoto. This temple houses 1001 life-size statues of Buddhist deities. You can't take pictures inside, but it was amazing. The picture above is one of the gates. The temple was originally built in the 1100's, but burned down. The building that stands now dates from 1266.

On the inside, there is a huge statue of Kannon, the Buddhist god of mercy. It is more than 10 feet tall. Flanking it on either side are the 1000 smaller statues, also of Kannon. They are all about 5 feet tall. All of the statues are gold plated. In front of the images of Kannon stand additional Buddhist gods, the 28 guardian deities of Kannon. At least 70 sculptors worked on the statues for this temple.

Some pretty girls on the grounds in kimonos. They have photography studios where you can dress up like a geisha and I thought about it, but then I looked on their website and the white people who did it looked kind of dumb.

Sanjusangendo is the longest wooden building in Japan.

Me in one of the gardens. The red gate behind me was a recent addition. Kyoto doesn't have an extensive subway system, so we had to take buses to get around. Not fun! The buses are so crowded and we went during a busy tourist weekend, so there were a bunch of really pushy people. We ended up taking cabs a few times, but doing a lot of walking as well. I think if you have a larger group of people taxis make more sense. It's about the same price as a bus fare and a lot more comfortable. Kyoto is a pretty small city, so it really doesn't take too long to get places. We're probably going to go back in the fall when my parents visit. Maybe I'll see some geishas then!

Another Traditional Dinner

This was our second dinner at the ryokan, on Saturday night. It was even better than Friday night's dinner, but we had lunch really late so I could barely eat anything. Saturday's dinner was various courses of tai, or red snapper. The top left is sashimi- there was tuna, shrimp, and red snapper. You dip the snapper in ponzu sauce instead of soy. The top right was snapper shabu-shabu. Like with the beef, it comes raw with vegetables and you cook it in boiling broth at the table. Bottom right is just assorted appetizers- shrimp, grilled tofu, mochi, and some other stuff I couldn't identify. The bottom left was really surprising- it's tofu topped with uni (sea urchin). This tofu has a different texture than I'm used to, really creamy almost like cream cheese. And the uni was great, very sweet.

The second course. The top is a piece of grilled marinated snapper. Then there was a soup but I can't remember what was in that. At the bottom is some kind of fish mousse wrapped in more fish. Not my favorite.

This was the best- stewed snapper head. I've been told that I should have eaten the eyeball because it's high in collagen, which is good for the skin. Yeah, I didn't eat the eyeball. Ew. You can kind of see it in the picture- see the dark spot right about in the center? Anyway, I just ate the cheek meat. It was really good, probably the best thing we had in Kyoto. I was kicking myself the whole dinner for eating lunch at 3:00. Then came the rice course. It was a rice porridge made with crab. It was delicious but I only managed to eat about three bites. Gen was a trooper though!