Friday, November 14, 2003
Yamagata
11/13/03
Ok, the reason this update is so late is that a lot of stuff happened on the weekend, which meant that it would take a long time to write and thus I put off writing it until I had time. Putting it off just made things worse, because more stuff has happened since then.
Last Friday I ended up staying in the lab until 6:07 PM (I didn't go to the Bible Reading Club because the week before no one had been there and I hadn't been able to find out if it was still meeting). I'd heard that Nick, Haesung, and possibly some others were going to watch the first two Matrix movies and then go see the third one in the theater, and I thought that since everyone else seemed to be seeing the movie and talking about it I'd like to see it so that I could join in the conversations. Anyway, I didn't know what time they were going to go, so I didn't want to stay at the lab too long. On my way back I managed to catch the bus going down, and then rode my bicycle quickly back and arrived at the dorm at 6:27 PM. I figure 20 minutes from my desk at the lab to the bicycle shelter at the Int. House is probably the best time I'll even be able to make. Anyway, I wasn't able to find Nick, Haesung, or anyone else who knew about the movie. There was a group that left at 6:30 to go play billiards, but I stayed behind to look for the Matrix group. After a while I gave up, played DDR until a blister on my big toe popped, and then went to bed.
Saturday morning I got up at 7:00 AM, since I'd signed up to go on a trip that was leaving at 8:30. This trip was sponsored by the university, and was only open to international students. They had 45 spots, and most of the people I know went. We had a bus for the 45 students and 4 university people who organized the trip. It was a really big bus (the tallest bus I've ever seen). I sat right behind the driver, and my feet were higher than his head. We passed several other busses, and I could see the top of the roof of several of them from where I was sitting. They also had seats that folded into the aisle, something which would probably be illegal in the US.
The bus took us to Yamagata Prefecture, which was about an hour away. There we stopped at a pottery school, and were given a quick pottery lesson in Japanese (Mitsu translated it for us). The woman who gave the lesson had great presentation skills (it felt sort of like a good infomercial), and was very good at forming stuff from clay in only a few seconds. She made it look quite easy. The most amusing thing about this part of the trip, however, was that we all had to wear aprons to keep our clothes clean, and most of the aprons were very feminine. Everyone was taking pictures of the guys in aprons.
After the lesson they gave us each a lump of clay to make something out of. I ended up using the whole thing to make a bowl, but most people cut it in half and made two things. Most people were also much more artistic than I was. Pontus made a really impressive cup that was shaped like a T-Rex (with the spout as the mouth and the handle as the tail). Once we were finished making our masterpieces we gave them to the lady and told her what color scheme we wanted it to be painted. They will color our work, fire it, and then get it to us in about a month.
After the pottery place we took the bus a short way to the Basho Memorial Museum (or something like that). Basho was evidently the most famous Haiku writer. The museum contained some of his works, as well as paintings from his travels. If I had been able to read the works or the descriptions I'm sure it would have been somewhat interesting, but as it was it wasn't all that exciting. I'm glad we only had half an hour there, because most of the people gave up on trying to read stuff after a few minutes and just stood around talking to each other.
By the time we left the museum we were all fairly hungry. In a nearby store, we climbed up to the third floor and went into a big, traditional Japanese room. There they had the low tables, and pillows for you to kneel on. They served us a traditional Japanese meal, which included tea, a rice dish, a soup, a noodle dish, a salad, a fish, some vegetables, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. It tasted pretty good, and I ate everything except for the fish (which I didn't have time to eat more than a few bites of). I was amazed at how much food they gave us, since everywhere else in Japan there's always been too little food. Since this was going to be a traditional Japanese meal I expected it to be good but not filling.
Toward the end of the meal they announced that we would have free time until 2:50 PM, at which time we would need to return to the bus to go home. What everyone did during free time, of course, was go visit Yamadera (Yamadera literally means "mountain temple") since that was what was billed as the main attraction for the trip. I think the reason that they gave us "free time" instead of having this be part of the planned trip was because there was a 300¥ entrance fee to climb up to the temple that they didn't pay for us. We had to pay 2,000¥ to go on the trip, which they said would cover "transportation, meals, drink, snack, class fees, entrance fees, insurance, etc." We got 1 meal, no drinks, no snacks, and had to pay the entrance fee to the temple ourselves, even though the temple was on the itinerary.
I hadn't mentioned the weather yet, but the entire day it had been really cold and foggy. It was raining a bit when we left the store it also raining a bit. The temple proper is situated part way up the mountain (they say that there are about 1,100 steps up to it). You get there by climbing up stone stairs through the forest. Along the way there are various statues, grave stones, and other religious things, as well as souvenir shops and food stands. It struck me as a strange mix of religion and materialism. Most of the people there (including the Japanese people) seemed to be there for the first time. Since the temple was built in 860 AD. and legend has it that the religious fires there have never gone out it is somewhat of a tourist attraction. At the top the people went into the temple building, burned incense, and prayed. Most of us internationals went in to watch, but I saw two of us (I can't remember exactly who) go up and "pray" like the Japanese were doing. From what I know, I think they were "doing as the Romans do," and not actually Buddhist. I discussed this with my mom, and she said that perhaps they were trying to be respectful to the religion. In my mind it was disrespectful. To me, if someone is just playing along like that it seems like they don't really take it serious. I think that by not joining in you show that you respect what the people of that religion are doing. You are saying "I understand that this has religious significance for you, and I will not profane that by pretending that it does for me."
11/14/03
Anyway, the temple area was fairly beautiful, and I did take some pictures with my camera. On the way back down I stopped at an overlook they'd built, from which you could see the whole valley. At that point the fog was lifting, so it was really beautiful. I overheard some people saying it's the best view they've ever seen. Some of the stuff I've seen in the Colorado Rockies seemed more beautiful to me, but this was pretty good.
At this point I also discovered that my camera is horrible at adjusting the brightness of a picture. If I stood there to let it focus on the scenery it would make it too dark to see. If I pointed it at the ground it and then swung it up it would go from too bright to too dark in about 2 seconds. In between it looked fairly good, so ever since then I've been pointing the camera at the ground, then swinging it up to what I want in the picture and quickly taking the picture before it gets too dark.
During the trip I asked Nick if they'd gone, and he said no, but they were thinking about going that night. Shortly after getting back to the Int. House we ended up leaving for the movie theater. We had a group of about 8 or 9 people, some of who had already seen the movie or had no desire to see it. The reason they came was that in addition to the movie we were talking about going to either a Mediterranean restaurant or a Mexican restaurant that people knew about. Since we didn't know when the movie was playing we were going to go to the theater to find out, and then eat first if there was time. When we got there we discovered that the next showing was going to be in 30 minutes, so we decided to watch the movie first.
Nick, Haesung, and I were fairly hungry, so we stopped briefly in the café next to the theater to grab something to eat. I got a bun that turned out to be filled with bean-paste, Nick got a coffee, and Haesung got some sort of pastry with chocolate bits in it. Nick also got a piece of cheesecake for us to share, and Haesung insisted on paying for it all.
We went back to the theater and paid the 1,000¥ to get in. That's the discount price for foreign students. Normal students have to pay 1,500¥. I wonder if we have anything like that in the US? If we do I haven't heard about it.
We got there about 10 minutes before the previews started. One of the guys who came with us is Christian, a German guy I hadn't met before. I talked with him for a while, and then the previews started. They were quite interesting to watch. There was one that looked fairly cool, and I thought "I may want to go see that movie. I wonder what it's called," as the preview was playing. At the end of the preview they showed what the movie is called: Zebraman. Zebra as in the animal. All of us foreign students laughed out loud when we saw that, but none of the Japanese thought it was funny, which made it even better. Some of the other previews also had weird English, but that was the best of the lot.
The movie itself would have been disappointing if I had expected anything from it. Since I'd heard bad things about it, and since I hadn't seen the second one I didn't really expect too much. As such, it was still mediocre. It felt like a really long special effects demo that someone made to demonstrate how well they can do special effects if they had a big budget. There were lots of things where I said, "Why is that there? It doesn't make sense, and would have been better done this way. Oh yeah, they wouldn't have been able to use THAT special effect if they did it the better way." Also, lots of the designs were really stupid and illogical. The mechs were open on front. That's like designing a tank where the crew sits on top instead of inside. Anyway, the movie seemed to be poorly done. I can't comment too much on the plot, since it's supposed to be a continuation of the second movie which I didn't see.
Haesung, Nick, and I ended up being the only ones to go to the Mediterranean restaurant. The rest of them went to the Mexican restaurant. The place was fairly small, and the menu was in Japanese. Some of the stuff was written in Katakana (which is how the Japanese write foreign words), and we managed to figure out that there were 3 kinds of pizza on the menu, but the names were all Italian so even though we could pronounce them we didn't know what they actually were. Haesung ended up getting the special at the top of the menu, which turned out to be sort of a Spanish rice with all sorts of seafood bits mixed in. Nick got a Margarita Pizza, and I got some other kind of pizza (it turned out to be cheese). Nick also got Blood Orange juice, which he was amazed to be able to find in Japan. It smelled fairly good. We all shared each others dishes, which were fairly good. I would have been disappointed with my cheese pizza (it had the thinnest crust I've ever seen on a pizza) except that it's been so long since I've had cheese. If we go back I think I'd get the Margarita Pizza, since it had tomatoes on it as well.
During the meal Lane called Nick and said that when they arrived at the Mexican restaurant they discovered that it had a live band and thus there was a 1,500¥ cover fee to get in. They decided to go to a Spanish restaurant instead.
After the meal I visited the bathroom, which was the most ornate bathroom I've ever seen in a restaurant. There was even a gilded box with Q-tips and toothpicks on the counter, and it had a bunch of little one-use towels for you to dry your hands on. They were cloth, and when you were done drying your hands you dropped them in a little basket under the sink. This is one of the very few places in Japan where the bathroom has something for you to dry your hands with.
As we were about to leave Lane called Nick again and said that they'd just ordered their food at the Spanish restaurant, and was wondering if we would like to come join them. Nick declined for several reasons:
1. It was getting late, and we wanted to get back home.
2. The restaurant was in Kokubunchou, which is the red light district.
3. If we joined them the restaurant would probably want us to order something.
When we were paying for the bill (we split it evenly) Nick paid for Haesung's portion, and it took her a while to figure out what he was doing. She'd put her money down first, so the guy at the counter thought Nick was paying for me, but I assured him that Nick was paying for her and not me. Nick has been spending quite a lot of time with her. I think that outside of classes I've never seen her when Nick wasn't also present.
Sunday morning after the Bible study I made pancakes. I followed as much of the directions on the box as I could read, and they turned out really well (except for the first one which I burnt horribly). They were all a golden brown, just like in the picture (although I think I undercooked them just a tiny bit, since the inside of some was still a bit gooey). The pancake mix box had a pouch of maple syrup in it, which I hadn't expected. I used that, and a fair amount of the syrup I bought, and saved some of the pancakes for later.
After cleaning all my dishes, I did homework until it was time to go to church again. This time Fransisco didn't show up again, but Lars brought Christian along. If I understood correctly Christian goes to church in Germany but isn't a Christian. I think he enjoyed the service.
That's all I have time to write for this entry, I'll try to finish catching up on my blog this weekend.
Ok, the reason this update is so late is that a lot of stuff happened on the weekend, which meant that it would take a long time to write and thus I put off writing it until I had time. Putting it off just made things worse, because more stuff has happened since then.
Last Friday I ended up staying in the lab until 6:07 PM (I didn't go to the Bible Reading Club because the week before no one had been there and I hadn't been able to find out if it was still meeting). I'd heard that Nick, Haesung, and possibly some others were going to watch the first two Matrix movies and then go see the third one in the theater, and I thought that since everyone else seemed to be seeing the movie and talking about it I'd like to see it so that I could join in the conversations. Anyway, I didn't know what time they were going to go, so I didn't want to stay at the lab too long. On my way back I managed to catch the bus going down, and then rode my bicycle quickly back and arrived at the dorm at 6:27 PM. I figure 20 minutes from my desk at the lab to the bicycle shelter at the Int. House is probably the best time I'll even be able to make. Anyway, I wasn't able to find Nick, Haesung, or anyone else who knew about the movie. There was a group that left at 6:30 to go play billiards, but I stayed behind to look for the Matrix group. After a while I gave up, played DDR until a blister on my big toe popped, and then went to bed.
Saturday morning I got up at 7:00 AM, since I'd signed up to go on a trip that was leaving at 8:30. This trip was sponsored by the university, and was only open to international students. They had 45 spots, and most of the people I know went. We had a bus for the 45 students and 4 university people who organized the trip. It was a really big bus (the tallest bus I've ever seen). I sat right behind the driver, and my feet were higher than his head. We passed several other busses, and I could see the top of the roof of several of them from where I was sitting. They also had seats that folded into the aisle, something which would probably be illegal in the US.
The bus took us to Yamagata Prefecture, which was about an hour away. There we stopped at a pottery school, and were given a quick pottery lesson in Japanese (Mitsu translated it for us). The woman who gave the lesson had great presentation skills (it felt sort of like a good infomercial), and was very good at forming stuff from clay in only a few seconds. She made it look quite easy. The most amusing thing about this part of the trip, however, was that we all had to wear aprons to keep our clothes clean, and most of the aprons were very feminine. Everyone was taking pictures of the guys in aprons.
After the lesson they gave us each a lump of clay to make something out of. I ended up using the whole thing to make a bowl, but most people cut it in half and made two things. Most people were also much more artistic than I was. Pontus made a really impressive cup that was shaped like a T-Rex (with the spout as the mouth and the handle as the tail). Once we were finished making our masterpieces we gave them to the lady and told her what color scheme we wanted it to be painted. They will color our work, fire it, and then get it to us in about a month.
After the pottery place we took the bus a short way to the Basho Memorial Museum (or something like that). Basho was evidently the most famous Haiku writer. The museum contained some of his works, as well as paintings from his travels. If I had been able to read the works or the descriptions I'm sure it would have been somewhat interesting, but as it was it wasn't all that exciting. I'm glad we only had half an hour there, because most of the people gave up on trying to read stuff after a few minutes and just stood around talking to each other.
By the time we left the museum we were all fairly hungry. In a nearby store, we climbed up to the third floor and went into a big, traditional Japanese room. There they had the low tables, and pillows for you to kneel on. They served us a traditional Japanese meal, which included tea, a rice dish, a soup, a noodle dish, a salad, a fish, some vegetables, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. It tasted pretty good, and I ate everything except for the fish (which I didn't have time to eat more than a few bites of). I was amazed at how much food they gave us, since everywhere else in Japan there's always been too little food. Since this was going to be a traditional Japanese meal I expected it to be good but not filling.
Toward the end of the meal they announced that we would have free time until 2:50 PM, at which time we would need to return to the bus to go home. What everyone did during free time, of course, was go visit Yamadera (Yamadera literally means "mountain temple") since that was what was billed as the main attraction for the trip. I think the reason that they gave us "free time" instead of having this be part of the planned trip was because there was a 300¥ entrance fee to climb up to the temple that they didn't pay for us. We had to pay 2,000¥ to go on the trip, which they said would cover "transportation, meals, drink, snack, class fees, entrance fees, insurance, etc." We got 1 meal, no drinks, no snacks, and had to pay the entrance fee to the temple ourselves, even though the temple was on the itinerary.
I hadn't mentioned the weather yet, but the entire day it had been really cold and foggy. It was raining a bit when we left the store it also raining a bit. The temple proper is situated part way up the mountain (they say that there are about 1,100 steps up to it). You get there by climbing up stone stairs through the forest. Along the way there are various statues, grave stones, and other religious things, as well as souvenir shops and food stands. It struck me as a strange mix of religion and materialism. Most of the people there (including the Japanese people) seemed to be there for the first time. Since the temple was built in 860 AD. and legend has it that the religious fires there have never gone out it is somewhat of a tourist attraction. At the top the people went into the temple building, burned incense, and prayed. Most of us internationals went in to watch, but I saw two of us (I can't remember exactly who) go up and "pray" like the Japanese were doing. From what I know, I think they were "doing as the Romans do," and not actually Buddhist. I discussed this with my mom, and she said that perhaps they were trying to be respectful to the religion. In my mind it was disrespectful. To me, if someone is just playing along like that it seems like they don't really take it serious. I think that by not joining in you show that you respect what the people of that religion are doing. You are saying "I understand that this has religious significance for you, and I will not profane that by pretending that it does for me."
11/14/03
Anyway, the temple area was fairly beautiful, and I did take some pictures with my camera. On the way back down I stopped at an overlook they'd built, from which you could see the whole valley. At that point the fog was lifting, so it was really beautiful. I overheard some people saying it's the best view they've ever seen. Some of the stuff I've seen in the Colorado Rockies seemed more beautiful to me, but this was pretty good.
At this point I also discovered that my camera is horrible at adjusting the brightness of a picture. If I stood there to let it focus on the scenery it would make it too dark to see. If I pointed it at the ground it and then swung it up it would go from too bright to too dark in about 2 seconds. In between it looked fairly good, so ever since then I've been pointing the camera at the ground, then swinging it up to what I want in the picture and quickly taking the picture before it gets too dark.
During the trip I asked Nick if they'd gone, and he said no, but they were thinking about going that night. Shortly after getting back to the Int. House we ended up leaving for the movie theater. We had a group of about 8 or 9 people, some of who had already seen the movie or had no desire to see it. The reason they came was that in addition to the movie we were talking about going to either a Mediterranean restaurant or a Mexican restaurant that people knew about. Since we didn't know when the movie was playing we were going to go to the theater to find out, and then eat first if there was time. When we got there we discovered that the next showing was going to be in 30 minutes, so we decided to watch the movie first.
Nick, Haesung, and I were fairly hungry, so we stopped briefly in the café next to the theater to grab something to eat. I got a bun that turned out to be filled with bean-paste, Nick got a coffee, and Haesung got some sort of pastry with chocolate bits in it. Nick also got a piece of cheesecake for us to share, and Haesung insisted on paying for it all.
We went back to the theater and paid the 1,000¥ to get in. That's the discount price for foreign students. Normal students have to pay 1,500¥. I wonder if we have anything like that in the US? If we do I haven't heard about it.
We got there about 10 minutes before the previews started. One of the guys who came with us is Christian, a German guy I hadn't met before. I talked with him for a while, and then the previews started. They were quite interesting to watch. There was one that looked fairly cool, and I thought "I may want to go see that movie. I wonder what it's called," as the preview was playing. At the end of the preview they showed what the movie is called: Zebraman. Zebra as in the animal. All of us foreign students laughed out loud when we saw that, but none of the Japanese thought it was funny, which made it even better. Some of the other previews also had weird English, but that was the best of the lot.
The movie itself would have been disappointing if I had expected anything from it. Since I'd heard bad things about it, and since I hadn't seen the second one I didn't really expect too much. As such, it was still mediocre. It felt like a really long special effects demo that someone made to demonstrate how well they can do special effects if they had a big budget. There were lots of things where I said, "Why is that there? It doesn't make sense, and would have been better done this way. Oh yeah, they wouldn't have been able to use THAT special effect if they did it the better way." Also, lots of the designs were really stupid and illogical. The mechs were open on front. That's like designing a tank where the crew sits on top instead of inside. Anyway, the movie seemed to be poorly done. I can't comment too much on the plot, since it's supposed to be a continuation of the second movie which I didn't see.
Haesung, Nick, and I ended up being the only ones to go to the Mediterranean restaurant. The rest of them went to the Mexican restaurant. The place was fairly small, and the menu was in Japanese. Some of the stuff was written in Katakana (which is how the Japanese write foreign words), and we managed to figure out that there were 3 kinds of pizza on the menu, but the names were all Italian so even though we could pronounce them we didn't know what they actually were. Haesung ended up getting the special at the top of the menu, which turned out to be sort of a Spanish rice with all sorts of seafood bits mixed in. Nick got a Margarita Pizza, and I got some other kind of pizza (it turned out to be cheese). Nick also got Blood Orange juice, which he was amazed to be able to find in Japan. It smelled fairly good. We all shared each others dishes, which were fairly good. I would have been disappointed with my cheese pizza (it had the thinnest crust I've ever seen on a pizza) except that it's been so long since I've had cheese. If we go back I think I'd get the Margarita Pizza, since it had tomatoes on it as well.
During the meal Lane called Nick and said that when they arrived at the Mexican restaurant they discovered that it had a live band and thus there was a 1,500¥ cover fee to get in. They decided to go to a Spanish restaurant instead.
After the meal I visited the bathroom, which was the most ornate bathroom I've ever seen in a restaurant. There was even a gilded box with Q-tips and toothpicks on the counter, and it had a bunch of little one-use towels for you to dry your hands on. They were cloth, and when you were done drying your hands you dropped them in a little basket under the sink. This is one of the very few places in Japan where the bathroom has something for you to dry your hands with.
As we were about to leave Lane called Nick again and said that they'd just ordered their food at the Spanish restaurant, and was wondering if we would like to come join them. Nick declined for several reasons:
1. It was getting late, and we wanted to get back home.
2. The restaurant was in Kokubunchou, which is the red light district.
3. If we joined them the restaurant would probably want us to order something.
When we were paying for the bill (we split it evenly) Nick paid for Haesung's portion, and it took her a while to figure out what he was doing. She'd put her money down first, so the guy at the counter thought Nick was paying for me, but I assured him that Nick was paying for her and not me. Nick has been spending quite a lot of time with her. I think that outside of classes I've never seen her when Nick wasn't also present.
Sunday morning after the Bible study I made pancakes. I followed as much of the directions on the box as I could read, and they turned out really well (except for the first one which I burnt horribly). They were all a golden brown, just like in the picture (although I think I undercooked them just a tiny bit, since the inside of some was still a bit gooey). The pancake mix box had a pouch of maple syrup in it, which I hadn't expected. I used that, and a fair amount of the syrup I bought, and saved some of the pancakes for later.
After cleaning all my dishes, I did homework until it was time to go to church again. This time Fransisco didn't show up again, but Lars brought Christian along. If I understood correctly Christian goes to church in Germany but isn't a Christian. I think he enjoyed the service.
That's all I have time to write for this entry, I'll try to finish catching up on my blog this weekend.
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