My birthday in Japan

I didn't have particular plans for my birthday, but a friend of mine had been planning to show me a cool airsoft shop in Osaka, and the day we could go happened to land on my birthday.

Other than with school groups, I hadn't done any traveling outside of Kyoto so I really looked forward to this...plus...airsoft shop!

I wish I had pictures, but though both of us planned to bring cameras, neither of us remembered.

We rode two regular trains and two subway trains to get there. Public transportation is generally nice here in Japan. I enjoy the trains, particularly, and use the buses occasionally, also, though they are a bit more of a pain, and a bit more expensive.

The airsoft shop has a testing area and we fired a variety of airsoft guns. My friend's favorite was a Tokyo Marui USP AEG (here is a link to a picture of one: http://www.redwolfairsoft.com/redwolf/airsoft/ProductDetail?prodID=22325 . I really liked that one, but I also liked the Tokyo Marui P90 http://steelhawkairsoft.com/p90tr.html.

I also discovered that I have a high liking for tactical vests for some bizarre reason, but now I really want one. They had some green ones I really liked there.

Since I don't have photos, here is a link to a video that shows some pictures of the inside of the store. Our trip to the store was a bit milder than this. http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=Fjf2QF5k2sA

Was a pretty fun thing to do on my birthday!!!


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Pictures of me with Monkeys

Family have been asking for some pictures of me on this blog so here are a few taken by my friend, Will, when he and Jesimee and I were on our monkey park expedition.

Himeji Castle

Spent a fabulous day touring a castle with Jesimee and our friend, Will. I recommend this to any of my castle-loving friends, or to any of my camera/photo-loving friends. Well, the upload on photos is being SUPER slow, so I will add more later.

Size perspective of the entry gate door:

Kinkakuji

Kinkakuji, one of Kyoto's very famous temples, is very near my apartment here in Japan. Jesimee and I visited it today.

After that, we met with our friend, Will, and spent some time at a shrine in Arashiyama, as well as doing some various shopping and eating (of such things as mitarashi dango in the picture). Also, today marked the first snowfall of the season in Kyoto...a delightful surprise this morning!

Monkeys!!!

This last Saturday was one of my top two most amazing days in Japan so far! I had a fabulous time biking to Arashiyama and visiting the monkey park there. I loved everything about going there...well, okay, monkey poo smells a little weird and there was plenty of that around, but hey, what do you expect?

Walking around outside, we were right with the monkeys, lots of them! Inside the building we could purchase small bags of apples, peanuts, or chestnuts and feed monkeys through the fence. They would take the items right from my hands and I could feel their soft palms and see the finger-print style lines on their hands. I bought about 7 small bags of food as it was so delightful to feed them. I'll add more photos later, but here are a few favorites for now. (Edited with some more photos now.)

St. Nicholas Day

Someone here celebrates St. Nicholas Day. This day always makes me think of my aunt, who is the one who first told me about this day when I was young.

Anyway, for those unfamiliar with it, it is a day celebrated in various parts of Europe, in particular, but is considered an international celebration. In Germany, where my aunt and uncle and cousins lived for a few years, the tradition is that children leave their shoes by the door and they will awaken to find their shoes filled with candy if they were good.

Apparently, I was good this year :)
My shoes, and those of other students living here, are candy-filled this morning. It is a delightful surprise!

Thanks for the encouragement for educational goals and for dreams!

Though there have been some tough things about being in school here in Japan, I want to especially thank those who encouraged me to go for it, both as an important addition to my education and in encouraging me to go for my dreams.

Especially important in both of those, all my children...who I encourage in their goals and dreams, also! Especially, however, Bryen and Jesimee both really encouraged me a lot and cheered me on through the process and have been quite excited with me and for me. I also appreciate the encouragement and thoughts of my mom and my dad and my grandpa. My advisers, who encouraged me and wrote letters for me, and believed in my ability to successfully accomplish this goal, and the people at the study abroad office who helped me with the details. I have many other family members and friends who encouraged me and were excited for me to do this, also.

Thanks to all!
Roxanne

Chiiori

I haven't had much time to write, but as I was asked to write something for the school website, I will post the same thing here in reference to part of the amazing field trip we took. Chiiori is a 300 year old farm house that has been turned into a place where people can come visit and stay there and experience the life there by joining in with the work and life at Chiiori and in Iya Village on Shikoku Island.

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The Chiiori experience touched my heart and mind in a way that I will remember all my life. I love nature and beauty, anyway, so I expected to like it there, but the whole place feels as if many of the people who have lived or visited there through the years have had a deep and abounding connection with the universe via that amazing vista. The building, itself, with its construction in such a fabulous spot and with such natural materials, speaks of those who love the land, love the mountains, love the mist and sky and do not mind making sacrifices to be in that place to experience it. Certain places draw me to them with the feeling I get from the energy of the universe that exists such as ocean beaches with waves crashing against the rocks and waterfalls raining down in playful joy, whether natural or man-made. Chiiori, to me, had this kind of vibrant energy of the universe that pulls at my heart and makes me want to visit again, bringing family and friends to share in the delight and joy with me.

Korean Festival

Today, as requested by one of my teachers, I attended a Korean Festival with some other classmates. I looked forward to tasting the food, and hearing the music, and was not disappointed.

Korean food tastes fabulous! This was what I ate for lunch. No, I do not know what it is, other than delicious! I think the white stuff may be some kind of pasta thing, but none of us ever really decided what it was other than tasty.




I bought gifts to take back to family, watched some simple judo randori that were just for fun to see who could be the first to take down the other person one time, and then listened to great music, including singing, various instruments, and Taiko drumming. Also, at the end, many people joined in the revelry and dancing together. I quite enjoyed it.

Oh...and the crabs...I have to show pictures of the crabs they were selling. Apparently people keep them as pets, though if you get tired of them I am told you can eat them, but they are way too tiny for that in my opinion!

Silly but Fun

Just for fun I wanted to take something to people at school tomorrow for Halloween, even though it's not a Japanese holiday.

I like doing silly fun stuff whenever I have even a hint of a reason, and tomorrow I will be wearing my cat ears to school and dressing in all black for the rest.

Thank you mom and dad for both being fun-loving people that like to do nice stuff for other people. Thanks for passing that on to me. I love doing stuff like this and I know I get it from both of you! Thanks!

Food failures

Thankfully, in spite of using a lot of unfamiliar foods and ingredients here, I haven't had too many real phenomenal failures with cooking here. I have tried a couple of things that went less than fabulous, but they were still edible and mostly looked that way.

Yesterday, with friends coming over for both role-playing game stuff and some school work stuff, I thought I would have fun making something we made back in my first cooking class here. Tofu balls were quite tasty and fun looking when we cooked them in the class!

Well, first I put some potato, carrot, onion, and seasonings mix in the rice cooker, as I often do, which at least turned out edible, though not as tasty as usual since I added too much water.

The tofu balls did not turn out to be balls at all, but rather a mush of tofu, spices, and bits of green onion. I did taste the stuff and the flavor was decent, but the mess rather looked suspiciously like something that had already been eaten at least once by someone or something...I'm not kidding. Obviously didn't serve that stuff!! I should have made cookies!

I know better than to try new foods on friends...but having cooked this stuff before, I thought it would turn out fine and tasty. Should have made the lotus root instead! I KNOW that works.

At some point, I will try making these again until I can get them right. Quite tasty, really. I have some suspicions of what went wrong this time, and will likely ask the cooking teacher the next time I see her.

I love a lot of foods here. I know there will be some I particularly miss when I go back to the US. Cheese, however, will be my welcome friend. Very little of it here...and expensive when it can be found. I miss sharp cheddar cheese!

Hiking in Japan

I quite enjoyed hiking with some people from school and Oniishisan, the man who owns the other apartments...or manages them, or something. He is an older man, who apparently loves hiking and loves the mountains. He took us to some beautiful areas.

I took 543 pictures that day. I'm not posting them all...imagine that.

However, I want to try linking this to a photo gallery page and see if I can manage it, though my computer skills are kind of lame. We'll see how it goes.

***Awhile later....well, I fail at web albums so far.

Ok, here are a few pictures to give an idea. I still plan on putting some more into an album and linking it here at some point. I could get the ALL in the album, or slowly put in some of the others and I hadn't even tried the linking thing yet, but I figured ALL of them was a bit much, especially since there are some that are lots of random cool twisty tree branches and such...