Kagoshima aquarium

Soba and udon lunch

High fashion

Fushimiinari-taisha shrine

Ryokuon-ji temple

While Yuuki was attending her friend's wedding I took an 8 kilometer hike to The Golden Pavililion (Kinkaku), a famous villa that was built back in 1220 and eventually turned into a temple (Ryokuon-ji tera) in the 1400s. In 1987 the lacquer was redone as well as the real gold-leaf coating, and the roof was restored about 5 years ago. The shape, detail, and strength of these Japanese historical buildings amazes me. The building contains 3 types of architecture. The 1st floor of the building is palace style, the 2nd is samurai house style, and the 3rd is Zen temple style. On the upper roof sits a Chinese golden phoenix.

Kyoto night

We arrived in Kyoto in the late afternoon and were unable to see any historical shrines or temples up close because they all close around 5pm. So Yuuki and I decided to just wander around the city near our hotel and here are a few random pictures of what we saw. The temple that is lit up is called Toji temple and is 5 stories tall and has quite impressive architecture. I'm not sure about the meaning or significance of the white lanterns but I always see them hanging outside of restaurants and find them beautiful. Behind the red shrine gate were some food and souvenir stands from a festival that took place earlier in the day. The lady bug I'm sitting on looked very sad and lonely so I decided to sit on it and say hello.

Dinner in Kobe

Before venturing off to Kyoto, Yuuki and I made a stop in Kobe to visit her sister and aunt. Her aunt cooked us a delicious dinner and I did not even capture everything in this picture because I took it before all of the food was served. Eventually we had to get another table because we ran out of space for the beers, rice and soup and also needed a little elbow room when we started eating.

Nixon sighting

I had no idea, but as it turns out, Richard Nixon is cool here. He even has his own billboard and kanji. Not fair!

Kokubu sunset

This is the sunset view from Shiroyama park in Kokubu, my new town as of 3 weeks ago. I really love it here. The people are super nice, my students are great, and the town is a perfect size, not too countryside or too urban. There's a train station really close to my apartment, which makes traveling easy and fast. I've had nothing but good experiences here so far and I look forward to many more in the future. I have no idea how long I'll be living here but I'm in no rush to leave.

Shiroyama park

Some of my students, coworkers and I celebrated spring time by having a hanami party. We first had a potluck lunch at our school since it was raining, but later in the day the rain stopped so we visited Shiroyama park. It's such a beautiful park and provides an amazing view of the town I live in. It also has a ferris wheel, which lights up at night and can been seen from my apartment, an old steam train, a children's playground, beautiful landscaping, cherry blossoms, and numerous public grass areas to play FRISBEE! Yes, I taught my coworkers and students to play frisbee and I couldn't have been happier. It was exactly what I had been needing to do. All of the stress from moving and starting over again in a new place vanished out the door once we started playing. They all had so much fun that we're planning an ultimate frisbee event in the future.

Hanami

...is the Japanese traditional custom of enjoying the beauty of flowers. Flowers, in this case means cherry blossoms, or "sakura" in Japanese. The flowers on these trees bloom for only 2 or 3 weeks in the spring time and signify the change in season. Japanese people take a lot of pride in the fact that they have 4 very distinct seasons and have holidays or events to celebrate each one. The cherry blossoms I saw were already starting to fall to the ground, but that actually made the experience even better since the ground was littered with fresh, pinkish white flower petals. I also ran across an interesting bush that was covered in bright pink flowers while on my stroll through Shiroyama park in my new town, Kokubu.

Sea of bikes

There are a lot of bikes in Japan, so parking lots like this are very common. This was taken at the train station near my apartment which is considered small. Luckily, when I returned home later that night I remembered where I parked my bike, but otherwise I would have been in serious trouble since there are no direct lights for this area. As you can see, there are no places to lock your bike to. In Japan people use tire locks, which basically means someone can't ride your bike when it's locked, but if they want to pick it up and throw it into a truck they can do it with ease. Fortunately, theft in general is quite rare here.

More fun at the park

Yuuki and I both felt that this was the coolest little kid park we've ever seen. If they were like this in America I'd be at the park all the time. There are so many interesting and creative things at parks in Japan, but they just wouldn't work in America. One reason is they're not safe enough and people would sue like crazy if their kid got hurt. Second, too many young people in America would vandalize and steal things and the unique qualities of the park would deteriorate quickly. It's sad but true, so I'm just going to enjoy it while I have it.

Competetive karaoke

Karaoke is so popular in Japan that there are competitions on TV every day. I always enjoy watching the old ladies sing for some reason. They get really serious and put a lot of heart and soul into their performances. Plus, the expressions on their faces are classic.

Power lines and cash

Japan in an interesting mix of new and old technology and ideas. For example, despite all of the super computers and fancy cell phones and cars, almost everyone here pays with cash, not cards, many advertisements in front of stores are handwritten, not printed, and power lines are almost always above ground. I've been meaning to take a picture of them since the spider web look they create always fascinates me, so I decided to finally do it... here they are in all of their glory. I kind of like the atmosphere they create but it sure seems like it would be a pain to be an electrician here.

Farewell party

Another eruption

There's nothing like playing frisbee at the park with a volcano erupting in the background and seeing nothing but smiling, happy, curious people.

Fashion show

This weekend I went to a fashion show in Kagoshima city with Yuuki and mostly whispered the whole time, making fun of and critiquing the outfits we saw. Some were actually really good, but overall it was more entertaining due to the amount of painfully bad/strange fashion designs. Here are a handful designs up close, but sadly I didn't get any pictures of the really bad ones.

Samurai clowns

Clowns in America make balloon animals. Clowns in Japan make... samurai swords!!!

Rose Garden playground

The town I live in is known for an amazing rose garden... but what I think is more impressive is the children's playground at the rose garden! It is seriously the coolest playground ever, fully equipped with awesome tubes, ladders, zip lines, and one of the longest slides ever. Yuuki and I spent a good hour or two just playing around on the zip lines, riding the $1 go-carts, and wandering through the deserted maze since it was a week day and all the kids were at school... yesss!

Yay...volcanoes

The volcano, Sakurajima, near where I live, decided to say hello last weekend. Luckily it was just ash. The poor people of the town of Tarumizu got a little dirty though.

Purple is all the rage

Even elderly ladies in Japan like a little color in their hair. Why not purple?

Volcano snow

Since I'm in the southern tip of mainland Japan, it's pretty rare to have any snow, let alone have snow that stays. The last few weeks have been really cold and luckily the famous volcano in the distance got a little temporary decoration.

Long overdue

Here's a picture of me and my amazing girlfriend, Yuuki. We've been together since October but I keep forgetting to post a picture of us. We decided the weather was too nice on this weekend so we stopped at a random park on the side of the highway and threw the frisbee around. The second picture is a Christmas picture we took in a Japanese photo booth. They're called "purikura" here.