Kitano Tenmangu, Staff Dinner and Kobe Beef

This weekend was pretty chill. On Friday there was a festival and market at Kitano Tenmangu and I went over there to check out the goods and plum blossoms.

Since there was a festival going on too, I also got to see maiko and geisha. Sadly my camera died before I could get any good pictures..

the only picture I got is ruined by old people and salarymen :(

Thank you cellphone camera

Also, Friday night most of AKP got together at an Izakaiya near school and had tabehodai (all you can eat) dinner with the staff. Afterwards we went out to a bar and did purikura (!):

Saturday I went to Martin's house and ate KOBE BEEF. It's some of the most expensive meat ever and comes from Kobe, a city right near Kyoto. It was sooo good. I ate way too much..

..including these crabs that you eat like chips..

Afterwards, we went to karaoke at "Gatcha," a place near his house. They have themed rooms there with varying degrees of sketch. Like, there's a leopard print room and a heart room and there's also a ball pit room. They gave us a space room, which I think was just a normal room. It had, like, glow in the dark stars stuck the the walls.

Sunday the weather was beautiful and so I chilled with Martin and Kate D on the river all day. It felt like spring.

Antiquities Day Trip to Tenri

Last Saturday my Japanese Antiquities class took a trip to Nara to visit 5 kofun, or tombs. In the old days the Japanese used to bury their famous dead in mounds that they built up from rocks and dirt. Around the corpse they placed various valuables including bronze mirrors and pots.

We learned in class a few things about the kofun. First, the bodies aren't mummified like in Egypt and also the Japanese climate is moist, causing the bodies to decompose quickly.

Second, a lot of the spots have already been hit by grave robbers who uncovered the dead man's swag while managing to ruin some of the tomb's preservation.

Third, the government wont allow the public access into many of the tombs, including the a famous one called "Chopstick Grave," where supposedly maybe Himiko, a supposed Japanese queen, might have been buried.

The first tomb we visited was still a mound since it hasn't been excavated yet. It had been hit by grave robbers in the past but nobody's disturbed it since. We climbed up the side and got a nice view of Tenri.

The next tomb was one that had been excavated so it was just a hole in the ground surrounded by rocks. Hannah and Martin and I did a hipster photo shoot:

We had rented bikes to get around the town and so the next stop was in the middle of some fields. Check out my bike: THE "EX-LADY."

Strawberries :)

The entrance to the third tomb we visited

Inside the tomb. Kate and Irene are demons and Becky's just trying to get out.

So the third tomb was exciting because we actually got to crawl down into a hole and check out the insides. Within was a fairly large space and an empty sarcophagus, which Martin R. crawled into. There was also an EXTREMELY large spider.

With the "Ex-Lady"

Friendship

Museum replica display of kofun

We ended the day with a small side-trip to a museum near the site. We didn't stay long, maybe ten minutes and then we were off to see two more tombs in the area. One was huge and surrounded by a pond and we could walk up stairs to get on top of it. The other one we couldn't even go inside because it was government prohibited. We looked on from afar~

At the end of the day we all ate lunch and then headed home. It took about an hour and a half to get back by train, it was so far away. Since I had only gotten one hour of sleep the previous night, I crashed into bed as soon as I got back. Also met some of my host brother's friends who were over at the house.

Clubbing, Taylor Swift, and Valentine's Day

Friday night I arrived back in Kyoto and the next day bummed around the downtown shops and Starbucks. It was really relaxing and later on I met up with Carla and Marion, who I had met at the hostel in Sapporo. They left to sightsee in Kyoto before I left Sapporo and so they had already been around the temples and traditional stuff. I decided to show them my most fav spots downtown and so we went to Mr. Young Man and had okonomiyaki for dinner, followed by giant parfaits at Karafuneya, and then puri kura, karaoke and finally clubbing at World. I had never been to World before I didn't really know where it was or how things worked there. All I knew is that it was midnight and things wouldn't pick up until 2AM most likely. When we got there, we found out that they were checking IDs and slightly panicked because Marion's under 20 and not at drinking age in Japan yet. Using my stellar Japanese and feminine skillz, I convinced the bouncer to let us in and since it was a Ladies' Night, we went up free of charge.

The place was pretty tiny and there weren't many people around. There were about five dudes and a girl on the dance floor. At first we sat down for a few minutes and looked around but then got up to dance and were soon followed by a group of Japanese dudes and some girls. Carla and Marion have boogie skills which helped make of for my middle-aged mom dancing and so we all had a good time.

I got home a little before 3AM and collapsed into bed. The next day I bummed around some more and waited until the afternoon when I made my way to Osaka for the Taylor Swift concert. Right now, she's doing a world tour and I guess she's in Asia now.

Here's some video I took at the concert:

Later, I had my second parfait in two days with Mayuka, who fabulously got the concert tickets.

The next day, Valentine's Day, was my first day back to classes and was full of too much chocolate. In Japan, Valentine's Day is a day when girls are supposed to make chocolate (always make, never buy) for their crush and then confess to them. The crush has a month, until March 14 (White Day) to reply to the confession. I didn't actually see any confessions in progress, so I don't know how common this practice actually is but it's more exciting than Valentine's Day in the US to be sure.

Besides chocolate for your crush, you're also supposed to give chocolate to your male family members and friends and you can even buy "MY Choco" for yourself. I got a lot of My Choco. Following school, I went to Karafuneya with friends for dinner and my third parfait in three days.

Around 7PM I went to the local Starbucks for a Valentine's Day live. It was fun :D

Sapporo: Final Days

Wednesday, Claire Martin Michael and I went to the 白い恋人チョコ工場、aka the White Lover Chocolate Factory. It's supposed to be a super-romantic date spot and so we decided to go on a fake double date. Here's the factory. It looks like a little town:

Inside they took a picture of us next to a pretty fountain.

The factory wasn't really a CHOCOLATE factory but instead made a lot of white chocolate covered cookies, which was kind of a bummer, but the cookies were good. I bought some for my host family for omiyage. After browsing around a bit we had to rush from the factory to the train station to buy tickets for a ski trip later that night. We ended up missing our train but got to chill out at Mr. Doughnuts. Eventually we made it to the slope:

Skiing was interesting because Martin had never gone before. Ever. I thought skiing would be simple because I take it for granted that I've been doing it forever and it feels natural. I guess for a noob its not intuitive to strap boards to your feet and fling yourself down a mountain. I was too impatient to ski so I only took Martin down twice, showing him the basics. Mike took over for two runs after me and then we left him on his own. Probably we are terrible friends but Martin made it down the mountain, said he loved skiing and he didn't break anything so I think everything was a success >:D

The next day I met Martin down town at Odori and we went to a concert by someone named "Kokia." Martin really likes her and according to him she was really famous back in the day but now her fame is starting to wane. She had a nice voice and the concert was short, only thirty minutes, but outdoors and free. I split my time between listening to her and browsing around the sculptures from the snow carving contest. Countries competed against one another for the prize:

This was my favorite. I think it came in 4th place.

Later in the day, to unwind from our hardcore vacation and ski trip Martin and I ran to catch our bus and arrived at an onsen spa place two hours later. At first we were skeptical because the onsen was the last stop and the bus dropped us off only us two in a dark parking lot, but everything turned out fine. We made our way into the small building and split up. I went to the women's baths and there were a decent number of people there. Everybody enjoyed the outdoor bath, which was a natural hot spring. The place was way up in the mountains and it was completely dark besides the lights illuminating the snow on the side of the slope. Then it began snowing. Completely awesome.

Following that, I met back up with Martin and we checked out what the place had to offer. For example, the electronic foot massager that breaks your bones:

Since it was our last night in Hokkaido we decided to celebrate so we got off the return bus at the party section of town, Susukino. The street was lit up and completely crowded with people and ice sculptures. There was even one with dead fish and crabs (neat idea, but some of the fish were bleeding):

This was my favorite one

They also had a tunnel of lights woo~

So when we got tired of walking around the streets we stopped at a restaurant bar and Claire met up with us later. It was a good time just talking and chilling out until Claire and I had to run for our train at around midnight.

Sapporo: Day 3

On the third day I went to Sudome, home of the dome, for snow festival events taking place there. I was expecting there to be a lot of people but it was pretty low-key.

we went tubing (!!)

And we got pulled behind a snowmobile in a raft. Those are some of the women I met at the hostel. Everybody was super funny and tons of fun to hang out with >:)

There were lots of random snow sculptures.

Eventually I met up with some AKP people and we chilled out in the dome a little bit. The rest of the day was chill. I eventually returned to the hostel, ordered some pizza, and then watched a JUGGLING VIDEO with friends.

While eating dinner, I met a guy whose sister had done AKP in the past and now lives in Tokyo. Small world :O

For some reason the hostel was filled with all this juggling gear for sale. I guess the owner must be a huge fan of juggling. 不思議な〜

Sapporo: Day 2 (Snow Festival Start)

I woke up pretty early Monday but couldn't get my butt out of bed but when I finally did I met some other girls at the hostel and we all decided to go out together. First stop was a local bakery for breakfast:


Afterward, we headed over to Odori (where I went Sunday night) to check out the ice sculptures during the day and go ice skating. The skating was pretty cheap, although the rink was small.

we tried skating with our arms linked but stopped after almost mauling a Japanese girl.

We posed around a bit in front of stuff.

There was a giant statue of Sazae-san and her family, who're like the Japanese version of The Simpsons.

Later my hostel friends and I met up with some AKP people and we went and ate delicious Indian food :) Following that, we walked to the station and went to the Pokemon Center and did PURI KURA.

We finished up the night by trouping back to Shiroishi near the hostel and going to CARAOKE DRAMA. The place was so retro and dumpy and the mikes had WIRES attached to them, like the mikes they used to sing karaoke with in the Stone Age. It was fun though :) Probably the best day of snow festival so far~