Blaby Travels!

Bridge in Tennoji Park with the Tsutenkaku Tower in the background Our Third Trip to Osaka It's our last trip of the year! From Osaka Station we walked to Shitennoji (四天王寺). Originally constructed in the year 593, it's one of Japan's oldest temples. It has been reconstructed several times and its original design has been maintained. You can walk around the outer area for free, while the inside area requires you to pay a small fee. While exploring the inner area, we were able to go inside a pagoda for the first time. It was five stories tall and we had to remove our shoes to go inside. From Shitennoji Temple we walked towards Tennoji Park. Tennnoji Park has restaurants, shops, a zoo, and the Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts. There was even a temporary ice skating rink set up for the winter season.                                            Heading west from the park, we came to Shinsekai (新世界), an district modeled  partly after New York City and Paris. The area ha

  Our first Christmas as a married couple was spent in Japan, sadly it was also our first Christmas away from our families. Technology today does make it easier to be able to call back home via video chat, especially during the holidays. Although we were not in the U.S. we were able to to celebrate the day with the other English teachers in the building complex. We set up Christmas decorations and had a traditional Japanese Christmas meal: fried chicken. KFC had a very successful Christmas chicken campaign in 1974 and now most Japanese eat fried chicken at this time of the year. It's so popular that you have to make an order of chicken in advance, otherwise places either run out of chicken the day of or there are huge lines. After eating our chicken, we had chocolate Christmas cake and we played some trivia games for the evening.   

Saturday: Otokoyama Haisuiike Park From our apartment balcony we can see a hill in the distance. We wanted to have a more relaxing weekend in Himeji and take a break from traveling. We decided to check out the hill we've been looking at for four months now. It is called Otokayama Haisuiike Park. In order to reach the top you have to climb about 200 steps. Blake likes to take me to places with lots of stairs. Once you reach the top you get a nice view of the city and Himeji Castle. There weren't a lot of people at the top but there were some areas to have a picnic up there when the weather is much better. Sunday: Motchitsuki (餅つき)   Mochitsuki (餅つき) is a Japanese New Year's tradition to make mochi (rice cake). Mochi is made by pounding sweet rice. One person swings the wooden mallet while the other person keeps turning the rice until the mochi is smooth. Once the rice has been pounded it is made into smaller bun-shaped pieces. It can be eaten once it has cooled

Picture with the cast of the Christmas Cantata We were invited to a Christmas play. We went in not knowing much about the event other that it was free and that is was going to be in English. It turned out to be a Christmas Cantata. There were two acts. The first one depicted the Nativity scene and the second was a modern Christmas story. The Christmas Cantata was performed by local university students and they had wonderful voices. Japan is not a highly Christian country, less than one percent of Japanese are Christian, so there was a smaller audience than you would expect compared to back home. The Christmas Cantata is originally from the U.S., although when it is performed there it includes three acts rather than two. You can request tickets online through their website for free. There was even one in Tucson earlier this year. The performances and stage sets were amazing and I would like to see a Christmas Cantata back in the U.S. if there is an opportunity to attend one when

Day 1: Okayama We started our weekend trip going to Okayama. Okayama Castle (岡山城) is also known as "Crow Castle" because it has a black exterior quite opposite that of the "Egret Castle," Himeji Castle. Okayama Castle was destroyed in World War II and has since been reconstructed. Inside the castle there is a pottery class, a souvenir shop, and a small restaurant where we ate lunch. Right next to the garden is the Okayama Korakuen Japanese Garden. It is considered one of the three great gardens of Japan. The garden was built about 300 years ago. It was one of the biggest gardens we have visited, and we enjoyed taking a nice stroll around it. It would be even more beautiful to visit during the springtime.    Day 2: Kurashiki The next day we caught a train to Kurashiki. Usually, we use Google Maps to figure out what train we need to take. This time Google recommended a train at a certain platform and listed the normal ticket price. The train looked diffe

We went on a day trip to Ako Castle. Ako Castle was built by Lord Asano taking 13 years to complete it. The Castle grounds have different areas your can walk though. One area is the Ako Oishi Shrine. The castle is associated with the story of the 47 Ronin (masterless samurai). After being left masterless they sought to avenge their master's death. Another Lord, Lord Kira, had publicly humiliated their lord, leading to their lord's suicide. The 47 ronin then spent a year and a half plotting their revenge. After successfully acquiring their revenge by killing Lord Kira, the ronin were sentenced to seppuku (ritual suicide). There are now stone statues of the 47 ronin at the entrance of the Ako Oishi Shrine.                                             On our way back to the station, we saw a well. They had speakers surrounding the well alternating automatically between Japanese and English. The well is where the 47 ronin stopped for a drink and etched a poem on some n

Day 1 We had another three days for a return visit to Osaka. Our main reason for heading back this time was to visit Universal Studios Japan, also known as USJ! Our first stop was the Osaka Pokémon Center. This time there were less people than our last visit, but still full of Pokemon plushies and merchandise. After Blake had his fill at the Pokémon Center we went to the Umeda Sky Building.                                             The Umeda Sky Building is a high rise building with a "Floating Garden Observatory" on the 39th floor. There is an escalator you must take from the 35th floor to reach the observatory. You can see all of Osaka and even nearby Awaji Island on a clear day. It can get quite windy at the top since you are 170 meters (557 ft) off the ground. On the top of Umeda Sky Building Once we got our fill of the views from the observatory, we left the building and went in search of a place to eat. Thanks to google maps we found a M

         Akashi Castle is not too far from Himeji. We found out about its existence when we were on our way to Osaka and saw it from the train on one of the stops along our route. The castle was built in the 17th century. It was built so quickly that a law was passed stating that only one castle was allowed per clan. Then in the late 1800's the castle was demolished by the Meiji government. Today, the ruins left are of two yagura (towers/turrets) and surrounding walls. The castle is located in Akashi Park and has large open areas, gardens, and ponds to walk around. We saw many people in the park playing and making paintings of the autumn leaves with watercolors. Near Akashi Park is Akashi Kaikyo Bridge. It is the world's longest suspension bridge and connects the Japanese mainland to Awaji Island. We walked underneath the bridge in the Maiko Marine Promenade. There's even a private guided tour to climb to the top of the 300-meter towers, although we didn't look

Day 1 Before the year 710, Japan's capital would move to a new location each time there was a new emperor. It wasn't until 710 when Heijo, now known as Nara become the first permanent capital. Nara has some of Japan's oldest temples. On our first day there, we visited Kasuga Taisha. Kasuga Taisha was established at the same time Nara became the capital city. The building we walked through is not the original one as there was a custom to rebuild the shrine every 20 years. This custom has no longer been continued since the Edo Period. There are hundreds of lanterns hanging inside and they are all lit twice a year during two lantern festivals. There were many tourists locals alike visiting the shrine. There is an outer hall that is free to walk around and an inner area that you can walk through for 500 yen.       Day 2 The next day we visited Todai-ji, a Buddhist temple. Its Great Buddha hall has one of the world's largest bronze statue of Buddha. The temple'

   Blake and I found a flyer for a free concert near Himeji castle and thought: Why not check it out? The performance was scheduled during the middle of the week, so we weren't completely sure if we would attend. As the date got closer one of the community members who is a music teacher invited us to go and any doubt we had about attending was erased. It was definitely worth it! I had not heard about Gagaku before attending this concert. Gagaku is a classical Japanese Imperial Court dance and the oldest surviving music in Japan. Gagaku came to Japan from China near the the 7th century. Today Gagaku is performed in the Tokyo Imperial Palace and at other ceremonies such as weddings. Gagaku has two parts: kangen is a musical ensemble with winds, strings and percussion, and bugaku is a classical dance performance with musical accompaniment of wind and percussion instruments.     The video is a Batou dance piece. The dance piece has a solo dancer dressed in red with a mask

              Sunday morning we walked to Otemae Park, located across from Himeji Castle. Himeji's 24th International Friendship Festival was going on. There were international food stands, various performances, and international exchanges like conversational booths with native speakers of different languages. We tried various of the international food booths. Some were good while others were... not what I was expecting.      As we were going to head out an older lady directed us to this table. They were teaching people Shod ō – Japanese calligraphy. You got to choose the word you wanted and they taught you how to to write it. I chose the word 'Himeji' and they wrote it in Hiragana instead of Kanji since it would be simpler to write it in hiragana. Blake chose the word 'Castle' and wrote in it kanji. We may need some more practice to improve our calligraphy skills.