In Japan (part VI)
15th of February
This day we attended to a chopsticks workshop from 10-15 o’clock. Katri had bought a return ticket for that day and she left early to the railway station, although she said she would try to change the ticket for the next day. Me, Iina and Otto went to the workshop where we first learned to carve lacquered piece of wood with the traditional tools. It was incredibly interesting and quite a hard work even though the masters in a video made it look easy :) We traced a picture to the lacquered wood and then carved it the way we wanted. The teacher said that my working seemed to be skilful (but I really think he was just being polite :D). After lunch break we started working with the chopsticks (I had quick lunch at our room and found Katri there, yay!). The chopsticks were really hard to carve. The wood in them was apparently harder and also the stick is of course smaller and doesn’t really have a smooth surface. So… the chopsticks I made didn’t really turn out as pretty as I had hoped… bummer :/ But it was a great experience nonetheless. :)
Working...
Finished lacquer work... no need to put picture of those chopsticks :D
The gilding masters.
Soon after finishing with the workshop, the three of us left for the centre and Ninjadera. We walked from Kohrinbo and over the bridge to the temple district of Kanazawa. There we wandered around awhile not sure which place was the Ninjadera. I just hope we didn’t disturb anybody while peeping to the grounds of several temples :D (I guess they’re used to tourist there by now, so…) When we found the place and went in, we learned that a tour in Japanese was about to start. But we figured that we wouldn’t understand most of the tour anyway, so we skipped it and just went straight for the souvenir shop :P I bought omamori since I’ve always wanted one. They are quite expensive but then again it must be hard work to put all those wishes in to every omamori (I’m sure it has nothing to do with cleaning out the stupid tourists ^___^).
Some random house before finding the Ninjadera. It's pretty, though. :)
Proof of me visiting Ninjadera, hehe.
A piece of garden on Ninjadera grounds.
A courtyard at the temple district.
After exploring the temple district well enough, we came back the same way and also stopped to investigate the Saigawa-Ohashi Bridge. It was build already in 1594 (back then of course out of wood). The current form was built in 1924. I haven’t really taken interest in bridge architecture before but this bridge was beautiful. From the bridge we went to the “mystery shopping centre” or-what-ever. There were several clothes shops full with more weird clothes than in a normal fashionable shop. Now those were my kind of places! <3 I found a pretty skirt half price and Iina found a blouse (70 % off… so jealous :D). At some point I got tired of walking and sat down to take pictures of Yoshikitty and hide-advert instead.
The bridge.
More info about the bridge for those who are interested.
Yoshikitty!!
hide-sama!! <3
The clothes shops. I think I bought my skirt from the shop on the right.
Shopping took more time than we had thought and we had to hurry back to the campus because we were to attend to the common room party that night! So far I hadn’t really met new people so I was really exited to meet especially Japanese people. It turned out that we weren’t late at all and didn’t miss anything. There were lots to eat and drink and nice music was played. And after a few drinks everyone started to relax and get more curious to know us strange new people too. I was even able to get to know some Japanese people and had the courage to say some words in Japanese also. I should’ve spoken more but there were some who spoke good English so I didn’t need to bother to make up awkward sentences in Japanese. Later in the evening Hiro, who spent the previous year in Jyväskylä, came to the party, yay! I hadn’t seen him almost for a year so it was really nice to talk to him again. I can’t even find words to describe how much fun I had that night. I hope I made new friends during that evening and hope that I get to see at least some of them again someday. :)
This day we attended to a chopsticks workshop from 10-15 o’clock. Katri had bought a return ticket for that day and she left early to the railway station, although she said she would try to change the ticket for the next day. Me, Iina and Otto went to the workshop where we first learned to carve lacquered piece of wood with the traditional tools. It was incredibly interesting and quite a hard work even though the masters in a video made it look easy :) We traced a picture to the lacquered wood and then carved it the way we wanted. The teacher said that my working seemed to be skilful (but I really think he was just being polite :D). After lunch break we started working with the chopsticks (I had quick lunch at our room and found Katri there, yay!). The chopsticks were really hard to carve. The wood in them was apparently harder and also the stick is of course smaller and doesn’t really have a smooth surface. So… the chopsticks I made didn’t really turn out as pretty as I had hoped… bummer :/ But it was a great experience nonetheless. :)
Working...
Finished lacquer work... no need to put picture of those chopsticks :D
The gilding masters.
Soon after finishing with the workshop, the three of us left for the centre and Ninjadera. We walked from Kohrinbo and over the bridge to the temple district of Kanazawa. There we wandered around awhile not sure which place was the Ninjadera. I just hope we didn’t disturb anybody while peeping to the grounds of several temples :D (I guess they’re used to tourist there by now, so…) When we found the place and went in, we learned that a tour in Japanese was about to start. But we figured that we wouldn’t understand most of the tour anyway, so we skipped it and just went straight for the souvenir shop :P I bought omamori since I’ve always wanted one. They are quite expensive but then again it must be hard work to put all those wishes in to every omamori (I’m sure it has nothing to do with cleaning out the stupid tourists ^___^).
Some random house before finding the Ninjadera. It's pretty, though. :)
Proof of me visiting Ninjadera, hehe.
A piece of garden on Ninjadera grounds.
A courtyard at the temple district.
After exploring the temple district well enough, we came back the same way and also stopped to investigate the Saigawa-Ohashi Bridge. It was build already in 1594 (back then of course out of wood). The current form was built in 1924. I haven’t really taken interest in bridge architecture before but this bridge was beautiful. From the bridge we went to the “mystery shopping centre” or-what-ever. There were several clothes shops full with more weird clothes than in a normal fashionable shop. Now those were my kind of places! <3 I found a pretty skirt half price and Iina found a blouse (70 % off… so jealous :D). At some point I got tired of walking and sat down to take pictures of Yoshikitty and hide-advert instead.
The bridge.
More info about the bridge for those who are interested.
Yoshikitty!!
hide-sama!! <3
The clothes shops. I think I bought my skirt from the shop on the right.
Shopping took more time than we had thought and we had to hurry back to the campus because we were to attend to the common room party that night! So far I hadn’t really met new people so I was really exited to meet especially Japanese people. It turned out that we weren’t late at all and didn’t miss anything. There were lots to eat and drink and nice music was played. And after a few drinks everyone started to relax and get more curious to know us strange new people too. I was even able to get to know some Japanese people and had the courage to say some words in Japanese also. I should’ve spoken more but there were some who spoke good English so I didn’t need to bother to make up awkward sentences in Japanese. Later in the evening Hiro, who spent the previous year in Jyväskylä, came to the party, yay! I hadn’t seen him almost for a year so it was really nice to talk to him again. I can’t even find words to describe how much fun I had that night. I hope I made new friends during that evening and hope that I get to see at least some of them again someday. :)