Flea Market and Shuhei Endo

This morning, we went to a big flea market. Some of the stuff was just junk but some of it was pretty cool. It was sprinkling a bit on the way back to the hotel from the temple grounds where they hold the flea market. Then, when we were meeting to go to Osaka at 1230, it was pouring. We went to Osaka Castle, to see some small buildings designed by Endo Shuhei. They were restrooms. One was also a small cafe. They were basically roof structures with the programmatic boxes slid underneath. The roof forms were created using gravity. In both cases, the end pieces were erected, then the top was craned into place and allowed to slump into form before being attached at the ends. The one with the roof that looks totally curved was craned in as a flat piece. The one with the cafe in it is two non concentric circles. Instead of thick columns, Shuhei used a set of three very delicate columns that are leaning around one another. This way, they also create lateral stability and do not effect the view as harshly. We also visited Shuhei Endo's office. It was pretty cool, although the whole event happened in Japanese, with Don and Norio acting as translators.

Sake brewery museum ni ikimashita

Today, after class, Zach, Dan, John, and I went to a sake brewery museum not far from our hotel. It is one of the oldest and was pretty cool. Unfortunately, the tour wasn't a tour so much as just admission to see the displays. The text was only partially translated into english, with what seemed to be a lot less information than in japanese. It was cool to see some of the implements used to make sake, and the process. We also got to taste three different sakes at the end. We ended up buying a bottle to share on Friday to celebrate our last night in Kyoto. We also each got a small collectible can of sake with our ticket. On the way back, I fell asleep on the train but so did everyone else, so no pictures this time. You will all just have to wait for later in the week and next week when we are traveling. I'm sure good sleeping pictures will ensue. I also saw a van with a keirin bike sticker on it that I thought was pretty cool.

New Art

I put up some new collages on my deviantart. I did these last week when I had no computer.

http://unseennapper.deviantart.com/

also here they are.

Lake Biwa

Today, about 7 of us went to Lake Biwa. It was about 45 minutes away by JR. If you search lake biwa japan on google maps you will see that the lake is enormous. The water was freezing but it was nice to relax in the sun for a while and dive in once. It was all locals there and some of them were really nice. We tried to find the place a stop or so away from where we got off that there is a tori gate in the water. It ended up being between the stops and too far to walk back to. Oh well. Miajima will have one anyway. We also got to see a guy and his daughter dragging a boogie board with their little dog on it. On the way back, the girl and the dog were on the makeshift sled. haha. Enjoy these beach pictures. Once I get some with me in them from someone else's camera I will add them.

Sanjusangendo and Kiyomizudera

Today, a handful of us went with Don to Sanjusangendo temple. It might give that other temple a run for largest wooden building. It's not very tall but it is 33 bays long. The main deity of the temple is Sahasrabhuja-arya-avalokitesvara, which is the thousand armed Kannon. There are 1,001 of the statues inside. In front of the statues, there are guardian statues, which each represent a different guardian. The space was really long, and they have held archery tournaments there for hundreds of years. Some of the beams that were replaced were kept to show how stray arrows had split the wood until it looked like thatch. One archer once fired over 13,000 times during a competition in which archers would fire for 24 hours straight. Over 8,000 of the arrows struck the target. Imagine drawing and firing a longbow for 24 hours straight.

After that, we went to Kiyomizudera. It was packed with people. There was a special opening of the main image hall and that was cool.Zach and I spotted some sweet drawings in the window of this tiny place and figured it was an architecture office since the name on the door was WORKAHOLIC. The guy was really nice and did all his drawings by hand. We talked for a bit then after exhausting pretty much all of our Japanese we left.

A horse is a horse

of course of course...it's delicious. Tonight, we went out and had some raw horse. They always say you should eat the flesh of the enemy to gain their strength. I figure, the horse wasn't my enemy but he was probably pretty strong. So even if I only get some of his strength, that's pretty good. The horse was very tender and lean. They served it with horseradish of course. They also tossed some green onion on the plate. It was pretty tasty. I give horse sashimi my seal of approval. haha. After that a few of us bought in together and tried our hand at pachinko. I will say, who knows how that works. It is a mystery still. haha.

p.s. If you have a problem with the horse thing, I don't want to hear about it.

Fedex

Today, I went to the fedex station and picked up my computer. It was about a mile walk from the subway station at the end of the Karasuma line. Everything seems to be working well. Now I just have to catch up on about three weeks of travel journals that I lost or haven't been able to do. Once I get a bit of that done, expect more real blog entries.

Sleeping on the bus

So...

I still don't have my computer yet. They tried to deliver it today when I wasn't here so I am going to pick it up from the warehouse tomorrow. It will take a subway and a cab to get there but it's worth it. Once I get my computer I will be updating my blog a bunch. In the meantime, enjoy these photos of me sleeping on the bus on the way home from Shugakuin on Tuesday. Zach and Carisa thought it would be great to shoot some pics so here they are. Also there is a picture by Matt, and a picture of me with a Nara deer.

Scot still doesn't have a computer

Scot still doesn't have a computer. When he does, blog will resume. Until then, choto.

Uji

This morning, we moved to a new hotel. It is called the Good Life Weekly Mansion. It's about ten times better than the other hotel, except that we have one bed and one mat for the floor, and it is a ways from our classes. Fortunately, I have a bike so if it's a nice day and I don't feel like taking the subway I can ride. This morning, after packing all my stuff into my bag, which is more than I had when I left, I struck out on my own. I hopped on my bike and rode from our first hotel to this one. You might ask, doesn't your pack weigh like 60 lbs.? You might also ask, isn't your bike a fixed gear that's too small for you and has shotty breaks? And finally, wasn't it hard to figure out where you were going? The answer to all these questions is yes. It was a very heavy pack. Literally, it weighs about 60 lbs, maybe more. When I weighed the pack at the airport, it was about 45 lbs. This time though, I had all my books and magazines and computer and camera. I had everything strapped to my back. Once I got to where the hotel should be, all I found was a building that had some other random name on it. I asked around and no one had any idea where it was. Well, one place told me exactly where it was, but they said that it was north of the station and gave me a map. When I finally found the rest of the group coming from the station, we ended up at the building right next door to the one that pointed me the opposite direction. In total, I ended up riding about 3.5 miles with my pack on. After we all got settled, we went to Uji, whichis about half an hour ride on the train from Kyoto. We saw a couple small temples, and the Phoenix hall at ByodoIn. The buildings and complex were really pretty, but the real gem was the museum built into the hill behind the phoenix hall in 2001. Unfortunately, they were like hawks on everyone so I couldn't get any pictures of the museum interior, but there are a few pictures online. After that we rode the subway back to Kyoto, where I fell asleep with my head slung over the armrest rail, grabbed some food, and did some homework.

Kyoto Road Rash

Today on a bike outing, some girl stepped off the curb directly in front of me causing me to crash my bike. Luckily, I wasn't going very fast so I only slid along the pavement on my elbow for a short distance. It was enough to give me a nice little raspberry on the elbow. After that, the rest of the ride went very smoothly and was quite enjoyable. I think biking here will be a lot of fun as long as I can avoid the random curb jumpers from here out.

Katsura Detached Palace

Yesterday, we went to Katsura detached palace. It was an amazing garden. There is a pond which has four teahouses around it and a path connecting them all. It also has a pavilion with a moon viewing platform which is quite famous. Unfortunately we could not go in any of the buildings so all the photos are from outside of them. Some of them have developed into a u shaped plan over the years so it is possible to shoot from within, and they all have views onto the garden so sometimes it was possible to capture the view of the garden from inside.

Fuji and Sakura

Today, I met up with Takuya after class. He met me at the Kaze-messengers office. Another messenger there said that his friend was selling a full fuji bike not very old and in good shape for less than half what a new one would be. We rode over to his clothing shop called chickennot and checked out the bike. I bought it and Takuya took me back to his shop where he gave me a lockring and took apart and reassembled the pedals and rear end to make sure everything was well greased and correct. Then I met up with the rest of the class at Marayuma park to see the sakura festival. The trees are in full bloom now and are very beautiful. After the park Takuya met up with us and Zach and I got dinner with him and checked out a pretty cool cafe. On the way back to the hotel I got some sweet night shots of the Sakura.