KCJS goes to Okayama for the weekend

KCJS is mainly a city program. For that reason they feel obligated to set us up with a homestay in the countryside on a long weekend in the first semester. The longtime destination is Okayama prefecture, down the Inland Sea coast halfway between Kobe and Hiroshima. By Japanese standards it is certainly not the city, but I`ve been more remote places in Japan.
 
What surprised me was how un-Japanese my Japanese host family was. They live in the big, new house pictured here. They have 3 kids, don't drink, like to barbecue at home, and don't like to eat raw fish. These are very rare (but certainly not bad!) things in this country.

Compared to the apartments and houses in the city or suburbs their house is positively massive by Japanese standards. My host family was the wonderful Miyake family. They have three cute children: Ai is 4, Junpei is 2, and Nao is less than a year old. They`re here with my host mom Kayoko.
 

It was their first time hosting, so they were incredibly relieved that I spoke fine Japanese. Still, there were a few `quirks` that most Japanese hosts would never let occur. For example, they showed me where my futon was stored in my room rather than lay it out for me. Most Japanese host families would never allow such a calamity to occur; I was perfectly happy to make up my own bed. That should illustrate the type of hospitality one gets staying with a host family here.
 

My host mom picked out a bunch of pamphlets of the surrounding area and the whole prefecture (like a province or state, but usually a bit larger than Rhode Island). Wanting to keep with the experience of the countryside, I picked out all local sites. My host mom said those were all fine, and that we would go see them on the final day before they dropped me off for the bus ride home. The beach shot here is on that final Sunday.
 
Meanwhile, on Saturday they wanted to take me to more famous places than their hometown. In an ironic turn, my visit to the country took us to Okayama City and Kurashiki City. Okayama the black Okayama Castle as its main attraction. Like so many other things the original castle was destroyed during the war, so this one was rebuilt on the old foundations in the 1960s.
 




















Okayama was a classic castle town of the Tokugawa period, but it also boasts one of the top three gardens in Japan: Korakuen.

 




















The layout was designed for a big shot daimyo (top samurai of a feudal domain) and is painstakingly maintained.

Even more interesting was our visit to Kurashiki. Kurashiki is a great example of a high end traditional tourist site for rich Japanese. The historical Tokugawa (1600s on) town has been preserved on the waterfront and is a pleasure to look at.
 

The traditional shops are expensive, chintzy, and not really worth looking at to me.












Still, I was shocked to find the town has a really legitimate art museum. We`re standing across from it in this shot.
 
The Ohara art museum boasts paintings by El Greco, Picasso, Degas, Cezanne, Renior, etc... Interestingly, it also displays the works of Japanese who studied with the Impressionists in Paris.

After starting out on the beach that Sunday, we finally made it to a few of the neighborhood sites. At a traditional garden and machiya in the neighboring town we ran into a friend from KCJS
 
Running into KCJS friends was common both in Okayama and Kurashiki; clearly no one was proud enough of their oceanside town. My friend was dressed up in Kimono for the afternoon.




Finally, we took a trip up a mountain (by car) to Asakuchi town's real claim to fame: the largest observatory in Japan.
 
It turns out that Okayama has exceedingly clear skies on days I am not visiting.

Class field trips

My Japanese class has been reading two articles on historical preservation in Kyoto, so our teachers arranged for us to take a field trip to a Kyoto Machiya.
 
Machiya are two floor Tokugawa era merchant homes that are built with a long hallway that seems like a tunnel on one side. The rooms all connect to that hallway as well as to each other. My friend Yesul is about to enter the place.

A little piece of the hallway looks something like this.
 
The hallway houses the kitchen near the back (pictured). It was considered `outside the house` so you still have to wear shoes out there.








Machiya also have two different gardens inside. One is for the low end customers to see year the shop room (of course the one closest to the street).
 
This shot is from the second floor looking down towards that first garden. Still, the better garden is in the back and for the regular customers and the shopowner`s use.






Finally, here`s a shot of one of my Japanese professors and two friends in one of the traditional rooms. The painting above us is very old and likely worth serious money.

 

Architecturally boring in modern buildings, but never culturally

If you`ve seen pictures of my apartment building then you`ve seen about what most post 1970s apartment buildings look like in Japanese cities. They`re pretty drab and not very interesting. Nonetheless, Kyoto does have a few modern buildings worth looking at.
 
Surprisingly, the Kyoto City hall is one of them. I was walking home after going to karaoke one afternoon and shot this picture from the crosswalk at Oike Boulevard.

Checking out the side of the City hall is also pretty interesting too. It certainly beats the ugly as sin Boston City Hall.
 






















I also went out with Mrs. Kanari and her English speaking group. Mrs. Kanari and I are here in a cafe (excellent but expensive coffee floats).
 
We ended up going to see one of my peers perform at a venue not too far from my apartment, came back to my apartment so we could exchange Omiyage(also to assure them my living situation was fine), and went out to the Hankyu Department store's Tabehodai (as much as you can eat) Chinese restaurant.
 
My economics professor swears by it as the best deal in town. One can also get nomihodai (as much as you can drink) added on to the tab if you wish. The food ranged from the General Gau's chicken level to some excellent dim sum, but we all found things we liked to eat.
 

Imperial Palace and a walk to school

It seems like an age since I`ve posted here, so I do have a number of things to catch up on.

One day before I bought my bike I spent an hour or two walking to school rather than taking the bus. The walk takes one through the Imperial Palace Park and around today`s Kyoto Imperial Palace.
 
The place is massive: it takes a good chunk of the north center of modern Kyoto, and the wide gravel boulevards and massive palace are meant to impress.

This shot is of the inner walls around the inner palace. There is another wall around the whole compound.
 
The inner wall is about 15 feet tall and in typical Japanese fashion surrounded by motion sensors. If you cross the band about 1 foot from the wall, an alarm starts beeping and you are very, very, very, politely asked to step back by the recording. I watched a Japanese guy turn beat red in front of his girlfriend as he did it.

You`ll also find it interesting to see the ornate architecture on this building: these are the tiles that are on the top edge of the wall.
 
Can you imagine the effort in making these by hand?

Much of the walk to Kyodai Kaikan is east to west, so that means you have to cross the Kamo Gawa (Duck River).
 

I cannot say I`ve ever seen a duck on the river, but it does have some picturesque views of the mountains and of Kyoto.












On my way home one night I found this scene at a well known sweets shop in the neighborhood. It`s a classic piece of Japan in my eyes. I call it Icons of an Age.

 

Cars parked in traditional “garages” (houses) like this are certainly not a rarity in Kyoto, but I find this quite amusing. The Meiji looking dwelling and a VW bus seem to represent their eras quite well.

These final few shots are for Steve and Sherry Schwartz.
 

Last time I was in Kyoto they were here for meeting and dined on a Kaiseki meal. We picked them up from Shiran Kaikan near Kyoto University.

 

I knew nothing about the neighborhood at the time, but it turns out it`s on my 5 minute walking route between KCJS in Kyodai Kaikan and the main campus of Kyoto University.

 

I pass by every day and remember how much we enjoyed that meal and trip to Osaka for Bunraku. My host parents still talk about it with me.