Spring Break

March 13th was the last day of school before going onto spring break.  I finished classes around 1:00 with ceramics, and not having much else to do, I rode my bicycle back to the seminar house and fixed some ramen noodles for lunch.  I was nervous and extremely excited, because on Saturday I would be meeting my parents at the Kansai International Airport, and we would be spending the better part of the week together in Kyoto.

At this point I hadn’t seen my parents in two months, nor anyone, and I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like.  I was so used to being alone here–fending for myself, taking care of only me–that having my parents in Japan might mean a readjustment.  I expected that this was my chance to test my Japanese skills as their interpreter and tourguide, but I also imagined that this was my chance to take care of them for once.  I knew the ropes in Japan.  We were on a completely different playing field than in America.

Day 1

Saturday I woke up early to pack.  Knowing we’d be traveling by train I had every intention of traveling as light as possible, and I fit a week’s worth of clothing, my two cameras, homework, journal, and Nintendo DS into my single backpack.  I fixed myself a large breakfast of rice, fried egg and any left over vegetables I had in the fridge.  I’m still impressed how well a bowl of rice can fill me up.  Around noon I headed out, wearing my favorite Japanese clothing and feeling my back strain from the amount of weight in my baggage.

A twenty minute walk to the train station and an aching back later, I hopped on the express train to the Kyobashi station in Osaka.  From there I had to switch to another train line on the Osaka Loop Line, and then another train from Tennoji to the Kansai International Airport.  Altogether it’s about a two hour trip and costs around $17.  I arrived around 2:30, an hour before my parent’s train was supposed to arrive.  I bought some onigiri from a nearby Lawson, and sat to wait.

I was so excited.  What would they think when they got here?  I’d never spent so much time with just my parents before…normally my two brothers are always along.  I wondered what it would be like.  I imagined all the fun things we could do, all the weird things I could get my parents to eat…but in the back of my mind I also had this horrible dread that they would hate all of it.  I was afraid that two steps off the plane they’d realize what a horrible mistake they made in coming here.  Japan is so different.

My parents came out of the gate an hour late, but I was ready for them.  I pounced on them so fast they barely had time to recognize me before we were hugging.  I meant to video tape them, but I just could not help running up to them and grabbing them.  Solid hugs.  Real hugs.  This was more than a phone call or an instant message on the internet.  This was my first physical human contact in two months. I hadn’t touched anyone since leaving America.  No hands.  No pats on the shoulder.  No hugs.  I could have held onto them forever.

We maneuvered our baggage (nimotsu にもつ) through the crowd of people to the hotel connected to the airport.  We’d stay there for the night, and I could already guess how tired my parents had to be.  Over ten hours on a plane is a painful and tiring experience, and the time difference is a true killer.  It took me two weeks to get used to the time difference here…my poor parents are much older than I am, and were only here for a few days.  We found a restaurant by the hotel for dinner (which was more for me than it was for them…I was starving) where they sold noodles and other sets of food.  My parents went to bed around 8:00 that evening…needless to say, 8:00 is much too early to go to sleep.  I forced myself to sleep around 10.

Day 2

The next morning we had a breakfast buffet at the hotel.  Normally I fix a very American breakfast in the seminar house…some cereal or some eggs and toast.  This buffet had everything.  From American to European to a traditional Japanese menu.  I was delighted to have a Japanese breakfast–rice and miso soup.  Mom and Dad weren’t too keen on the miso soup.  They went with a more familiar breakfast.  I hoped they’d try the Japanese food eventually…I was realizing how difficult it was going to be to feed them if they didn’t like it.

We checked out of the hotel before 9:00 and caught the train back to Osaka.  From Osaka we headed for Hirakata, my dear home city.  We intended to arrive on time for mass at the church I’ve come to establish myself in…and I would introduce my parents to my adopted mom, Chieko.

[singlepic=258,320,240,,right]We climbed the long stairs up to the church, ducking our heads and bowing to the greeters at the door.  Inside, we tucked our luggage into the back corner and found a bench near the back.  Some familiar faces started to ask me about the new people with me, and I struggled through a few lines of Japanese, explaining they were my parents and they were here until Thursday.  We were going to Kyoto after lunch.  Much more than that and I hung my head, murmuring an embarrassed, “wakarimasen.”  I don’t understand. They always talk too fast for me to pick apart their words.

[singlepic=259,320,240,,left]Chieko found us fast, thrusting into my hands a bag of English maps of Kyoto and countless brochures.  I chuckled a bit, showing it to my parents.  Mass began and we sat through the usual routine–just in Japanese, instead of English.  They learned all the different variations, including how we say peace to each other during the pass.  At home we shake hands with the people around us and say, “peace be with you,” but in Japan you bow to each other and say, “shu no heiwa.”  Also, going up for the Eucharist, at home we accept the Eucharist (the body of Christ) and eat it, then drink out of the cup of wine.  In Japan, you accept the Eucharist and then dunk it into the cup and eat it then.  A little different–but not too difficult.  Chieko took photos of us during and after mass.

After mass, Chieko helped us with our luggage.  We hid them inside the confessional in the back so we could go eat lunch.  We all laughed when she told us our luggage was confessing…later when we went to retrieve our bags there were two ladies waiting outside the confessional, rather confused.  They’d thought someone was in there confessing, too.  They would knock and no one would reply, but the confessional light was on, so they stood and waited, wondering.  Whoops?

Chieko bought each of us lunch at the church’s cafeteria.  We had udon soup and my parents also had coffee.  Dad ended up talking with my painter friend–an older man who I see at church every weekend and usually have a short conversation with.  He speaks a little English and I speak a little Japanese, so we usually piece together an “Are you well?” “What are you up to?” “I sure do like eating udon!”[singlepic=261,320,240,,right]

Meanwhile, my mom and I chatted with Chieko and my “adopted sister,” Christine.  She is from China, and speaks Chinese, Japanese, and English very well.  Everyone likes to joke that we have the same name and that Chieko is our mom.  One of the priests, the one from Mexico, also came over to say hello.  We got the usual, “We’re from Ohio,” “Ohio! Ohayou gozaimasu!” laugh at where we are from (Ohio sounds like the greeting for ‘good morning’ in Japanese) and Chieko took another photo of us before sending us on our way.  We left after giving a gift of chocolate to her from America.  We wheeled our luggage back to the train station, bound for Kyoto.[singlepic=203,320,240,,right]

[singlepic=202,320,240,,right] Looking at the map of Kyoto, we decided we would take the train to Sanjo and then switch from there to the subway.  Unfortunately, we didn’t realize there was a subway station much closer to the hotel than the one we decided to exit from.  We walked down the long street with our luggage in tow, finally pulling them up the long ramp to the Westin Miyako Hotel.

Mom checked us in while I nondiscreetly took photos of the lobby, pretending not to know them because she only booked the room for two people…and then I nondiscreetly followed them to the room as the daughter who “doesn’t exist while we’re at the hotel.” Hehe.  I thought it was really fun, even when Mom told me they wouldn’t notice or even remember anyway…but it’s always fun to imagine you’re some sort of secret identity hiding from the authorities. [singlepic=208,320,240,,left]

The room itself was big and comfortable, with two fully padded beds, a couch, desk, and a bathroom complete with individual toilet and shower stalls and a large bathtub.  The view out the window was of a traditional Japanese house and a garden.  At night we could see into their windows at their dining table and the tatami mats…which…is kinda creepy.  We weren’t sure if people really lived there or if it was part of the hotel itself.  In any case, we were very impressed with the hotel itself.  We even got little vanity boxes filled with ear cotton swabs.

I was eager to get moving, not wanting to waste even one moment we could be exploring the city.  I wanted to take them to the Kiyomizu-dera temple–the same place I went my first time in Kyoto.  Looking at the map it didn’t seem like such a long walk, so with a little persuasion I had them out the door around 4 or 5:00, heading for the temple and hoping we made it before it closed for the night.

Of course, walking straight for anything without stopping is a paradox in Kyoto.  There are too many interesting things every which way.  Not two blocks from the hotel did we find the Shoren-in Temple.  We had to stop to take a look.  There was a garden int he front that my mom and I started to take photos of, and inthe meantime I’d given my video camera to my dad.  He was going crazy with it, filming everything and anything, adding his own commentary (which I have yet to listen to, but am interested to hear).    [singlepic=217,320,240,,right]

It was funny to me how my dad could be so excited about what he was seeing.  It reminded me of myself the first few weeks of being here.  I wanted to film everything, too.  It was refreshing to see that again–I’d lost some of that excitement, and my parents were both doing a good job of bringing it back.  I was playing the part of the tourist inside of the ryuugakusei (international student).  Part of me was fighting that, the part of me that sees foreigners in Kyoto and thinks, “A foreigner!  How weird.”  I’ve become so accustomed to living here that outside people look strange to me.  Like many of the Japanese, I find myself staring at them, waiting to see what they’ll do.

[singlepic=220,320,240,,left][singlepic=221,320,240,,left][singlepic=222,320,240,,left]I guess more than anything I’ve learned to blend inside Japan, even if I don’t look the part.  I’ve learned to stare blankly at the train station and speak quietly in public.  I respond to conversation differently, constantly nodding and making sounds to support the fact that I am listening.  Murmuring, “sou desu ka…” and “sou, sou, sou, sou,” when a person pauses their story.  Instead of voicing an, “I agree” or a “yes,” I find myself humming an un sound–which my mother heard and couldn’t figure out what it meant.  She thought something was the matter, when all I was trying to do was voice my agreement.  I knew I was changing–or was supposed to be–but in contact with my parents I was starting to realize in what ways I was different. It was frustrating.

By the Shoren-in Temple we looked inside a shrine with paintings up around the ceiling.  I took off my shoes (to my parent’s surprise) and went inside to take photos.  I wish I knew what the shrine was for, exactly, but I’d never seen paintings like these before.  My parents stayed outside–clearly against taking off their shoes.  Understandable.  It is rather annoying when you have to put them back on again.  Darn shoe laces.

[singlepic=264,320,240,,right]Lanterns lined the street, and although they were not yet lit, we followed them through eastern Gion and the Higashiyama (Eastern mountains).  It is one of Kyoto’s most unspoiled areas and is comprised of many stone-paved roads, temples, shrines and cultivated gardens.  Just outside the Shoren-in Temple are five giant camphor trees–each of which are over 700 years old.

[singlepic=271,320,240,,left]Still heading for the Kiyomizu Temple, we paused only briefly at most of the sights along the way.  The Chion-in Temple was closed, but we took some photos of the gate outside of it–of which it is the largest of its style in Japan.  It was originally built to show off Jodo-sect Buddhism, seeing as this was their headquarters sometime around 1175.  It was restored in 1633 by the Tokugawa shogunate.  I will have to go back sometime in the future–maybe for New Year’s Eve, if I ever get the chance.  Every New Year’s they ring a huge bell 108 times (once for every sin humans commit).   There are also supposed to be some really neat Kano School paintings inside the reception halls.  Apparently they also enshrined the spirit of Tokugawa Ieyasu himself.

[singlepic=277,320,240,,right]Past the Chion-in Temple we found Maruyama Park–a site filled with cherry blossom trees still not in bloom.  There were water elements and ducks, but we didn’t explore most of it, seeing a stone path that continued up the mountain.  The crowds were increasing, and while we didn’t think we’d make it to the Kiyomizu-dera Temple before dark, we thought we’d keep heading that way in search of dinner or just curiousity sake.  We continued to see the lanterns along the path, which led us along.

[singlepic=288,320,240,,left]One thing we passed was the Kodai-ji Temple.  We could hear the ringing sound of a gong being struck, but the walk up to the temple seemed too steep–so I just took a photo of the entrance, instead.  The Kodai-ji Temple itself was build in 1605 for the widow of Toyotomi Hideyoshi.  The fact that a widow would get her own temple is pretty cool.  Kind of makes me wonder what sort of woman she was that someone would feel so inclined to build something for her.  Or was it merely becase of the man she married?

[singlepic=293,320,240,,right]We also passed the Ryozen Kannon, which is an 80 ft. high concrete figure dedicated to the Japanese soldiers who died in World War II.

[singlepic=289,320,240,,right]We saw a few rickshaw carriages along the way, which I was tempted to hire–but only seated two people.  I wasn’t even sure how much they cost or if I would be able to communicate efficiently enough to tell them where we wanted to go (not baring the fact that we had no idea).

We also came across two woman dressed up like maiko. Maiko are apprentice geisha–women who are trained in the art of entertainment (NOT prostitution, while that has happened in the past).  At first I thought the two women were real maiko, but after talking to a few people we’ve come to the conclusion that they were just tourists dressed up like that for fun.  Apparently you can go to a place in Kyoto that will dress you up like a maiko for a certain amount of money.  I think I would get tired of people taking my photo. [singlepic=294,320,240,,left]

By this point I was starting to recognize where we were–seeing as I’ve been to the Kiyomizu-dera Temple once before.  It was starting to become cold, but excited that we might actually make it to the temple before it closed, I hurried my parents along.  If nothing else I wanted to see the shops leading up to the temple and have my parents try some of the free samples along the way.  That is my favorite part about going to Kiyomizu-dera: the food.  Kyoto is famous for its yatsuhashi, of which I am a huge fan.  If I can afford (and have room in my luggage) I want to bring home at least four or five boxes of this stuff.  My favorite has to be the sakura flavored ones. Mmmm…

[singlepic=296,320,240,,right]Anyway,  we trekked up the long stairs and stopped in a few stores.  Mom and I tried nikuman, which is a meat-bun type thing and really delicious.  We also stopped to look a few dolls in the stores, but nothing in particular caught my eye.  As we came to the temple itself they were starting to form a line to enter after 6:00 p.m.  As a special spring event they were opening the temple for the night and lighting up the structure–excited to see the temple on this rare event, I pulled my parents into line.  It was starting to get cold as the sun was disappearing, and I wish I had a warmer coat.

[singlepic=309,320,240,,left][singlepic=305,320,240,,left]Kiyomizu-dera temple itself is very famous in Japan.  It is over a thousand years old and has an incredible view of the city from its main hall–which is reminiscent of a giant stage.  You can also drink from a sacred spring here, which is how the temple gets its name. Kiyomizu means “pure water.”  At this special light-up, they also opened a lot of the shrines.  By paying 100 yen you can pay your respects to some of the symbols that are normally kept shut away.  My parents and I did not pay to see these, but continued through.   Instead we took photos, although with the diminished light it was hard to do this without a tripod (which I unfortunately left in my dorm room).

Cold and tired, we walked the few miles back toward the hotel.  We stopped at a restaurant Dad had seen and continued to mention.  The menu was entirely in Japanese, but enough of it was in katakana that I understood it.  The waiter wanted us to go outside and point at the food in the windows, but with what little I could speak, I told him we were fine and I helped my parents order.  I don’t like people assuming that just because we are foreigners means we know absolutely none of the language…if nothing else I am pretty good at ordering food by this point (out of necessity, really).  I ordered omelet rice, which was really good.

After that we all headed back to the hotel.  Mom and Dad passed out, exhausted and somewhat grumpy.  I sat for a while writing in the lounge.  Darn time differences, huh?  It sure does make traveling around Japan difficult.

Day 3

Monday my parents again woke up very early.  I woke up around 7:00 around the time my parents were calling my grandparents and my youngest brother via Skype.  Justin, my youngest brother, is adorable.  While my parents told him about the food and how they didn’t like it much, Justin was the one explaining to them that they were in a different country, and therefore the food should be different.  He even told them how difficult it would be for me to come home and readjust to American food…gosh, he is such a smart and caring kid.  He sent me a rosary that he made of hemp and beads as a late birthday present, even.  I can’t wait to be home so I can give him a giant hug.

[singlepic=356,320,240,,right]We headed to the Heian Shrine, just north of the hotel.  It was a beautiful site, and its gardens really impressed my mother.  We started a competition to see who could take the prettiest photographs–but I have to admit that I took a lot of Mom’s ideas.  She’s a really artistic woman.  It’s a good thing I have a better camera. =P The Heian Shrine itself is one of Kyoto’s largest and newest shrines, built in 1895 in order to boost the city’s morale and economy after the capital was moved to Tokyo.

[singlepic=412,320,240,,left][singlepic=382,320,240,,left]The gardens were not yet in full bloom, as most of the trees inside where of the cherry blossom variety.  There were a few blooming plum trees and the pond was surrounded by furs and other greenery, but it was a place I wish I could have seen a few weeks later during Hanami.  There were skipping stones across the water in some portions–which I crossed.  There was also a tea house and a Chinese style bridge.  I think it would be so neat to have a similar garden like this one back in America.  It takes a lot of work to trim the trees and weed and rake, etc., but gardens have a magical way of making life simple and at peace.  Japanese gardens also tend to have so much more rocks, dark greens and mosses–which I find I am more attracted to.

Afterward, we walked another short distance to the Kyoto Handicraft Center.  It is a building filled with different hand-crafted Japanese pieces, such as dolls, wood-block prints and jewelry.  Mom bought a ceramic/glass plate from a guy that was super nice and friendly.  Dad rested upstairs in the cafe.  I took a look at all the different dolls and saw a few that I was interested in, but I told Mom I could come back and get it later–just in case we saw anything better.  It might be good to add that I have been looking at getting a doll in Japan to add to the collection my grandmother left me when she died.  She had an enormous collection of porcelin dolls that I now own part of…and in her memory I want to add to it.

That afternoon we headed back to Hirakata and took the bus to my seminar house.  We dropped off a bunch of food my parents brought me from America, and we packed up a lot of my souvineers and random things I didn’t need anymore.  We went to my favorite restaurant, across from my campus, at the New Dehli (the indian curry place).  I could feel some tension that was developing betweent he three of us…I think mainly because my parents were tired.

In addition, I had this strange conflict in myself–it was like two of me were meeting each other for the first time, and figuring out just how different we were.  Kristin-from-home and Kristin-from-Japan,  two and the same.  It was like trying to fall back into being the person they had dropped off at the airport two months ago, but not being able to.

We made it back to the hotel and my parents passed out.  I walked down to a Lawson down the street and bought some wine and sake to share with my parents the next day, wanting to make up for any bad attitude I might have had that evening.

((MORE TO COME))