Japan | Kinkakuji & Kyoto Life.
I have come to accept that everyday I will be waking up around 6am. My body has decided that 6am is when it is re-charge and ready to go. I am not really complaining, when I get up that early it means I can FaceTime with my family for a few minutes.Today started a bit tricky, because I had to cook breakfast and in the apartment in Seed in Horikawa only has two cooking pans, a pot and a pan. So I toasted bread on a pan and scrambled eggs in the pot. (Fun fact: the stove is a gas stove so it takes me a couple tries to get it to turn on).
I am started to love Japanese food more and more every day. The slice of bread was so thick and soft it brought tears of joy when I took my first bite. I love bread, and Japan has ruined all American bread. Flimsy stuff that the States claim as bread is a joke and they should be ashamed of themselves.
After breakfast Michelle and I ran to the bus stop because the rest of the people in our study abroad decided to leave without mentioning it on the group chat. We made it to school with 10 minutes to spare, but one girl got so lost that she missed the exam completely.
The exam was pretty simple and I got placed in the level I wanted to be in (yay). I completely blanked out when the exam asked me to write the Kanji for fall. I remembered it and at the same time I did not. I still do not know the kanji and it will frustrate me to no end. The placement exam finished at 10:20 and twenty minutes after we had our first class.
My first Japanese class went better than expected. We were asked to introduce ourselves and ask questions to other people. Pretty simple, it is when we get to vocabulary and kanji when I will probably be internally crying and screaming.
Lunch began at exactly noon (in japan time is important and running on cuban time is extremely rude). I did not buy lunch this time because I made a small lunch the night prior. (which I forgot to take a picture of). My lunch was minced meat and Japanese salt-less sticky rice, a snack bar that I brought from the States and cute panda cookies!
After lunch we gathered into the A,B,C,D Groups again (I'm group c) and we headed off to Kinkakuji temple also known as The Golden Pavilion. The Kinkakuji is a three story building with a pyramid-shaped roof. It feautres a mythological phoenix, which is considered an auspicious bird, on top of it. The gold leaf covering the surfaces of the lacquered two top stories, which were done by traditional Kyoto craftsmen, represent the holy land "Judo" taught in Buddhism.
I thought the Meiji Shrine was breath-taking, but Kinkakuji is a whole different ball game.
This is a traditional tea house that it no longer in use. I found it pretty cool that they allow dust to accumulate in such a beautiful place. And to a be a Japanese tea house it looked plain, maybe it was beautiful during the height of its career.
Once you finished walking around the temple area you end up in a shrine, one thing you must do when you end the shrine is to smell the incenses. Why you ask? From what I understood it is a form of cleansing before you approach a god. They smelt nice, but the amount of smoke was overwhelming for my smoke free longs. Mayu and I did not stay near it too long because we felt suffocated by the smoke (well at least I did).
When the temple excursion was over with everyone from the program met once again and headed back to Ritsumeikan Welcome Party. This party consisted new professors being introduced, eating Japanese food and drinking the most delicious apple juice in the whole world! and chatting to the buddies.
It might look like a lot of food, but I had seconds and thirds of such and the roll thing. (Free dinners are the best type of dinners!) and to be honestly I had no idea what I was eating. I only knew that the green stuff was tea flavoured.
As soon as the party is over, some of the FIU study abroad kids and I head out to Sanjou dori once again. Some people needed to do groceries and others wanted to walk around and that is exactly what we did.
I bought Melon Bread and some make your own candy...candy thing. When I eat these I will let you guys know it is is.
I know my days have not been super exciting as my days in Tokyo, but I am enjoying myself and I hope that they become a tad bit more fun!
Goodnight, or good morning!
Simply a girl who loves tea, blogs about her ever exciting life and wants to make her dreams come true.
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