The last stretch

I can't believe I'm almost done! Again I'm faced with the prospect of not wanting to leave Japan, but also wanting to return to Maine with friends and family. This time, however, I believe the idea of going home far outweighs the desire to remain in so hospitably beautiful a country, no matter how much work awaits me at school. ><

Thus, I have good news, and bad news. The good news is that I'm finally leaving Kyoto as my 1 month apartment stint is up, so It's off to Nara for one night, and then to Ise and Kumano from there.
The bad news...is...well, I sent a large package (about 10kg) home two days ago, but because of it's weight and girth did not comply with airmail regulation standards for packages to America. So I had to send it by sea/ground mail, which is going to take about 2 months which places it's arrival around the end of January 2011. I'm worried because the particular post office could only give me the lowest insurance amount, but I gave them Jake's company address in Japan to send the package to in the event of a mistake or rebound.  Still, I'm glad I had sent another package previously perhaps half the size and weight of this one before, and it did arrive home safe and intact, so there is hope. I just have to stop worrying about it! ><

Anyways, I promised my sis I'd post a few pictures and such here, though I'm saving most of the good one's for my final collection. I must have over a thousand by now! Man it's going to be hard to sort them through.

 Atop Ginkakuji ground walk.

 Kitano Tenmangu small shrine. I think it's an Ise subshrine judging from the design. Will check.

 Umm...Arashi-yama, walk to bamboo forest.

Located in some important dead guy's garden legacy. The droppings are amusing, but I don't think this one works anymore.

So there you have it! The past week or so I've been ranging around Kyoto, mostly finishing up loose ends. My favorite things in Kyoto that I've discovered would have to be.....

Inari, always.:)
Zen, a vegitarian Korean/Japanese health food restaurant near Kitano. Their like, 15 grain/seed/nut mix rice is AMAZING.
Atlas Club, organic brown rice restaurant in Nishiki food market area. Fantastic food. Good price.
Uhhh....it's a fairtrade shop on one side of the main Kyoto Uni. Campus. Nice place.
Gojo Guesthouse, cute place to stay. Though the showers are a bit....fungly....
Kitano is quite beautiful, probably my second favorite after Inari.

Aaaand that's all I can think of right now! I just wanted to add that...list of things I like. Helps the memory. Well then! Iiiit's...about 10:30am right now, gotta get out to Nara! Sad though, I just learned that the Imperial Palace is open for viewing today! Ah screw it, I'm getting tired of all this sightseeing and historical place visiting. (same thing really, but it sounds better, maybe.) Time for a smidgen of good old Nara R&R!! Really, when it comes down to it, I love Nara so much more than Kyoto. :)


Cheers!
~Kira

The good and bad of the weekend

What a rollercoaster weekend!! I can't really get into the nitty gritty details here, but I'll give you the synopsis.

Basically, the lady, Ivon, who lives in the same apartment rental, is a bit.....unstable, to my observations so far. Friday night I accidentally ended up walking with her to Fresco as she related to me (albeit reluctantly) her life's story, though she held a lot back from what I could tell. She can't really trust anyone. She also believes she's being stalked by a dirty fat Japanese man in a helicopter that she sees hovering up in the sky over the house or over nearby somewhere frequently, though for the past few days I haven't seen any of it. Her phone was also being tracked she says, combined with her violent past and spending the past decade or so circling the globe three times or something, she has got a lot of issues. Possibly bi-polar or slightly mad I think. (keeps apolagizing for her rude behavior from previous conversations, calling me young and naive and in denial of the realities of the world, which is partly true for most people, but the way she used the term..) She seems nice sometimes but then explodes in a mess of anxiety or frustration. Never quite normal though, her Japanese accent is ATROCIOUS. Whiny to the point of me wanting to rip my ears off, and completely wrong intonation. Her English isn't far from the same mark. Anyways, fact of the matter is that she is horrible at communication and shows manipulative tendencies whether she's conscious of it or not. Better exemplified perhaps, by the following:

So she offered me a ticket to a tea ceremony at Kinato Tennmangu (big shrine in Kyoto) this Sunday (also Shichi-go, celebration of children 7 years old) and gave me the ticket last night explaining that she might not make it. I never concretely stated that I would stick myself to our arranged time of between 12-1pm meeting at the shrine, because I was no longer meeting her. Plus I had no idea where this shrine was, though a map quickly sorted that out. (Though I still got lost and ended up one block too soon off the bus.) So I finally find it and wander around the shrine for a bit looking for the tea ceremony entrance and when I find it, I see Ivon sitting with a blond haired lady in the waiting area! I tap her on the shoulder and plop down besides all smiles and stating I'm glad she made it, but she doesn't say anything. I introduce myself to the woman next to her, who is from Germany and lives across the hall from Ivon (been in Japan only three weeks or so working as a bio-chemist. Coool.) and as I'm about to skip from introducing and add Ivon in the conversation, she gets up and leaves. I ask Kristian (the German lady) why she left and she said maybe she has to use the toilet. So we continue chatting and when Ivon comes back, she sits a few benches up turned away from us. I call her name after a bit but she ignores me. Later she calls Kristian out of the pavilion and covers the side of her face when she's talking to her, everything about her body language now is aggressive and closed to me. I'm still trying to be friendly, so I just pass it off as her being moody again or something. So we're called soon to go in, and everyone files into a tiny sitting room where everyone is zaseki (sitting on feet) and mostly quiet, two people behind us kept chatting. When I finally work up the courage to ask Ivon if she's ok, because she hasn't said a word to me the whole while, she has a mini-explosion and explains that I wasn't SUPPOSED to arrive at the same time as she, that she PLANNED on then going to the ceremony at a later time to avoid me with her friend. I was frankly baffled, and asked her why she didn't just say so the night before when all she said was that she might not make it. She then made very rude gestures with her face and hands and said wasn't it OBVIOUS by her behavior the night before? Uh, not really since you're like that ALL the time. Un-trusting and withheld, like a reflex. I made a point to ignore her for the rest of the ceremony. She said something about being pretty physically fit, but I can tell that there is something terribly wrong with her head, and she should probably see a psyco-therapist or something along those lines instead of keeping running from country to country from her own misfortune. After I'm done writing this I can tell you I am never going to mention or speak to this women beyond a fleeting greeting or polite excuse to be somewhere else because I have HAD it with her manipulative behavior and poor social skills, and I don't mean that in a kind way.

Well, that felt good to get off one's chest. Because of all this nonsense I'm behind in my schedule! I'm staying up later than usual tonight for sure and getting a chunk of my paper done tonight for sure. Perhaps watching a movie in between as break. :) Though my Saturday anxiety-fueled run-around has inspired me to draw up a plan for visiting Ise sometime this next week. An overnight too so that I'll get to see the whole complex the following day. It's farther away than I thought!
God, I feel like a need to go to the sento tonight and scrub away the madness of the past few days. >< Perhaps a good mental scrubbing and a touch of yoga will provide similar benefits.

Good photos will be up soon! The fall foliage is just about at it's peak, and my is it lovely...

Alrighty then! Take care!
~Kira

On work and, well, more work

It never ends really, there's so much to do. I'm planning a day trip to Ise tomorrow, the first of a few I'll be likely to take before I leave Kyoto. I'm thinking my hiking trip in Kumano will be much shorter than I had originally anticipated, it's just finding lodging down there that worries me. Still, I've got plenty of time to check things out and make arrangements. Gotta call Atsuko-sensei too! Though I believe she's back in the states by now.
I've been working on filling most if not all of my gift list as well, since I'm going to be sending a final package back home (airmail this time, it's been over a month since my sea-faring package was sent though I won't start despairing until I get back to find it isn't there yet.) full of gifts I can't carry around with me everywhere and extra stuffs. Goodness I miss having a proper kitchen. But, I think I've found the fine line between staying in touch with people back home and enthusiasm for my work and adventures in another country. Only recently had I realized this is the longest I've been away from home in a foreign country! It really isn't that hard when you've been studying the country in question for a while, connections are also very helpful. But I digress. Work. Right.

After the rains last week the days have been increasingly sunny and crisp. Things are indeed warming up a smidgen again, but that's because we're expecting more rains next week of course. There isn't much going on in November in Japan really, besides gearing up for the holiday season, New Years that is. I forget when Golden Week is again...should look that up.
Well, I should get back to typing away. I'm almost at the end of my last book on Shintoism and today is my marker for getting a final rough rough draft of my paper done, and finishing my second portrait. I couldn't paint anywhere outside last month because of the effing mosquitoes! I almost got eaten alive in Arashi-yama that day, yeesh! Still, it's only recently been chilly so I think I'll wait a few more days before I venture into the hillside shrine regions to paint again. I really want to go back to Inari and paint some tori or statues. It really is a beautiful mountainside, especially the back-side paths that I did not stray too far down since a kindly tourist hiker informed me that he had been hiking for hours already from the beginning of that trail, and It was already beginning to get dark. But that's for another day, today is e-mail updating, checking lists, finishing small projects, and a bit of planning.
For consolation's sake, here are a few picture teasers of Jidai Matsuri, the last big festival in fall in Kyoto, basically called "Festival of the Ages" which involves a very long procession of people in historical Japanese costume! Fantastic stuff. And here you are, for viewing pleasure. :)

                                                   Where the parade ended, Heian Jingu.

 I'm pretty sure he wasn't sleeping, but maybe he nodded off for a split second when I shot this. ;)

                                                      Beautiful horse...<3 Meiji era, no doubt.

And that's all for now! I've got lots of organizing mailboxes and sending of mail today. I'm off!
Take care,
~Kira