(no longer) LOST IN JAPAN: My Awesome Weekend

2005-11-13

My Awesome Weekend

Well this weekend certainly made up for the crappy one last week. It started off Friday. I had the day off because I worked Open Campus on Saturday. I spent Thursday night at the Moritanis. They made me dinner and then I watched Miss Congeniality 2 with Kimiyo and then went to sleep on the most comfortable futon ever... Unfortunately, I had to wake up at 5:30 the next morning because Kimiyo and her sister were taking me to a public market.
The market is in Osaka near Namba Station. Apparently, it's where all the restaurants in Osaka get their food. It was certainly pretty cool. I saw some of the strangest food. And I watched some guy take an electric saw to a tuna fish. I had no idea how big a tuna fish was... We wandered around the market from 6:30-8AM. Finally, we headed back and I got to take a short nap. ^^
I spent the rest of the day with the Moritanis. They made me lunch, I gave the twins their French lesson in the afternoon, Kimiyo helped me study Japanese and then for dinner we had nabe. I love nabe. But you already new that.
Saturday I was supposed to go to Kyoto on my own but Kimiyo asked me if I wanted company, so I said of course. So I went to Arashiyama with Kimiyo and her mom. My Japanese is getting better. I can feel it. I don't know if it's good enough to pass the exam but I'm certainly working on it. So I spent 6 hours with Kimiyo and her mom, checking out the temples and the fall colours. It was a perfect day! Not too warm, not too cold, sunny, blue skies. It was gorgeous. I had a great time.
I got home around 6PM but I wasn't there for long because I was off to Oji to meet up with people for Jamie's birthday. Started off at an izakaya and then we took a late train into Osaka. Spent the night at a fun little club called "Rock Rock", where, surprise surprise, they only play rock music. We left the club around 3AM with quite a few drinks in our system then crashed at a friend of a friend's. Got back to my place around 3:30PM and slept...
And now it is Monday. Back to the grind. I'm working this Saturday so it's another 6-day work week for me. yay... can't even contain my enthusiasm.

And now the pictures.... DRUM ROLL PLEASE...

Nabe dinner on Friday night...

Arashiyama... First stop. Crossing the Moon Bridge (渡月橋)

Maiko (Geisha in training) outside a silk dying (yuzen) workshop. It was my cultural activity for the day. Watching traditional methods of kimono making.

This is me in the most expensive thing I will ever wear. The people at the workshop seemed so happy to get a foreigner that they gave me the grand tour of their kimono workshop. This is an unfinished kimono and obi. The 2 pieces together are worth 3,100,000 yen (soit environs $40,000 CAD)... It takes 15 different skilled craftsmen and up to 6 months to make one of these babies!

A few autumn scenes...

This is the temple where I got my fortune. When you choose a fortune at the temple, you put 100 yen in the money box, then you shake another long box until a stick comes out. The stick has a number on it (I got #9) and then you pick up the fortune that matches that number. Each fortune is rated from worst to best. I got 大吉 (daikicchi) which is supposed to be the best fortune you can possibly get. YAY FOR ME!!!^^