Japan Society Educator's Tour - Day 3 (Nara)
Okay, enough with the half day entries! XD I'll never finish that way. We spent the entire day in Nara. Our tour guide, Ms. Yoko Matsumura, spoke a bit of English, so she was able to tell us about the city. First, we headed away from the station and down a tunnel passageway on our way towards the Nara National Park 
Now I don't know if you know anything about Nara, but apparently they consider the deer to be sacred so they roam freely about the city. You can even pet and feed them! So they were everywhere!
One of our tour directors, Kazuko, was in charge of purchasing the deer crackers which we could then feed to the deer. But because she had whole packages of them, they kept following her around and she would give these little shrieks when they got too close, running around to try and avoid them. Even our teachers got spooked by the deer coming up to them. I wanted to say "It's just Bambi."
Of course, you had to be careful with these guys - they had a tendancy to swarm if there were too many of them in the same place and they all wanted a cracker.
This Japanese girl allowed them to crowd her towards the edge of a gutter area, and she kept saying, "Kowaii! Kowaii!" (scary) Eventually her boyfriend had to "pull" her out. Near the entrance of the temple, we caught sight of a monk panhandling. Apparently, if you gave him money, he would give you a blessing, like he did for the elderly woman.
Our first major stop was Todai-ji Temple. At the entrance, were (what I though) two enormous statues, one on each side.
We were supposed to get a guided tour by one of the abbots, but he'd forgotten that the day we were meeting was some kind of important holiday for the Buddhist monks, so someone else did the tour. Todai-ji is the largest wooden structure in the world. It's basically a HUGE temple which houses an equally HUGE Buddha statue.
The pictures don't do it justice to be honest. The sheer scale of this thing was amazing. I tried to capture it with Gabriella, but I don't quite think I succeeded.
We were up on the upper dais, which was the actual platform where the Buddha statue was seated. We were a special group, because no one else was allowed to be up there. So we were able to see many aspects of the statue that could not necessarily be seen on the lower level. At one point there was an interesting pillar - it had a hole in the bottom of it that was rather small.
If you could fit inside it and go through the hole to the other side, you were assured a place in heaven. So apparently only skinny people get to go to heaven.
(in actuality, it's children who are able to make it... but still!) While we were still inside the temple, we were greeted by a literal throng of Junior high school kids. they were all approaching us because they had an assignment to ask questions of English speaking people in English. It was quite adorable.
After we left the temple, we went to a curry place for lunch. But it was a cute cafe because the main theme was a huge train set in the middle of the cafe. The eating area was a band around the outside of the train set.
All of this was in the morning! Now it was afternoon, and we had 2 events to attend to. And both of them ended up cab rides. The first one was to a calligraphy brush shop where we made our own brushes. The entire process is actually quite long, and it's detailed on their website found HERE. It turned out that we only did the last step. Still, it was very interesting! Gabriella and Valerie were doing the final touches on their brushes, which involved dipping the newly made brush into glue (which you could eat!) multiple times. Then, taking a string, you wrapped it around the bristles and gently twisted it to wring the excess glue out of the hairs. I am holding the final product.
Once again, we cabbed it, but this time, we went to the train station. We went to an indigo dying shop! There, we learned about the Japanese dying process. Apparently the blue color most people associate with Japanese art has origins in a specific plant that grows here and is used as part of the dying process.
We all ended up making handkerchiefs. Basically, we had a bunch of items in front of us, including clothespins, paperclips, rocks, beans, rubber bands, etc. By clipping or wrapping these items, into the handkerchief, we made interesting designs that would be dyed onto the cloth. We had to put on this heavy duty apron, rubber gloves that went up our arms, and big rubber boots. It was to protect us from the dye. The whole process was as follows:1) Make our designs with the various implements provided. 2) Change into protective cloting 3) Wash the cloth with water and wring it COMPLETELY free of any excess water. 4) Dip it into a dye bucket and gently swish it back and forth for 1 minute. 5) Go back to water and rinse the handkerchief again 6) Repeat steps 4 and 5 two more times 7) At the last time, after rinsing it again, we had to seal the dying process with a vinegar solution. This would be for 3 minutes 8) Wring out all the excess liquid again and then have them iron it. I love my handkerchief... but I forgot to take a picture of it.
Eventually we made our way back to Kyoto once more and had dinner at the top of the Kyoto Eki (Station).
They use this wonderful green tea salt for their tempura instead of dipping it into a sauce. Hopefully, I'll get some to take home with me before leaving Japan. So while we were eating, suddenly, we could feel the building gently swaying back and forth. You guessed it - earthquake. But it wasn't at our location - it actually hit Wagayama, but thankfully it was relatively mild (only 5.5 on the Richter Scale). Thus ended my third day in Japan.
Now I don't know if you know anything about Nara, but apparently they consider the deer to be sacred so they roam freely about the city. You can even pet and feed them! So they were everywhere!
One of our tour directors, Kazuko, was in charge of purchasing the deer crackers which we could then feed to the deer. But because she had whole packages of them, they kept following her around and she would give these little shrieks when they got too close, running around to try and avoid them. Even our teachers got spooked by the deer coming up to them. I wanted to say "It's just Bambi."
Of course, you had to be careful with these guys - they had a tendancy to swarm if there were too many of them in the same place and they all wanted a cracker.
This Japanese girl allowed them to crowd her towards the edge of a gutter area, and she kept saying, "Kowaii! Kowaii!" (scary) Eventually her boyfriend had to "pull" her out. Near the entrance of the temple, we caught sight of a monk panhandling. Apparently, if you gave him money, he would give you a blessing, like he did for the elderly woman.
Our first major stop was Todai-ji Temple. At the entrance, were (what I though) two enormous statues, one on each side.
We were supposed to get a guided tour by one of the abbots, but he'd forgotten that the day we were meeting was some kind of important holiday for the Buddhist monks, so someone else did the tour. Todai-ji is the largest wooden structure in the world. It's basically a HUGE temple which houses an equally HUGE Buddha statue.
The pictures don't do it justice to be honest. The sheer scale of this thing was amazing. I tried to capture it with Gabriella, but I don't quite think I succeeded.
We were up on the upper dais, which was the actual platform where the Buddha statue was seated. We were a special group, because no one else was allowed to be up there. So we were able to see many aspects of the statue that could not necessarily be seen on the lower level. At one point there was an interesting pillar - it had a hole in the bottom of it that was rather small.
If you could fit inside it and go through the hole to the other side, you were assured a place in heaven. So apparently only skinny people get to go to heaven.
(in actuality, it's children who are able to make it... but still!) While we were still inside the temple, we were greeted by a literal throng of Junior high school kids. they were all approaching us because they had an assignment to ask questions of English speaking people in English. It was quite adorable.
After we left the temple, we went to a curry place for lunch. But it was a cute cafe because the main theme was a huge train set in the middle of the cafe. The eating area was a band around the outside of the train set.
All of this was in the morning! Now it was afternoon, and we had 2 events to attend to. And both of them ended up cab rides. The first one was to a calligraphy brush shop where we made our own brushes. The entire process is actually quite long, and it's detailed on their website found HERE. It turned out that we only did the last step. Still, it was very interesting! Gabriella and Valerie were doing the final touches on their brushes, which involved dipping the newly made brush into glue (which you could eat!) multiple times. Then, taking a string, you wrapped it around the bristles and gently twisted it to wring the excess glue out of the hairs. I am holding the final product.
Once again, we cabbed it, but this time, we went to the train station. We went to an indigo dying shop! There, we learned about the Japanese dying process. Apparently the blue color most people associate with Japanese art has origins in a specific plant that grows here and is used as part of the dying process.
We all ended up making handkerchiefs. Basically, we had a bunch of items in front of us, including clothespins, paperclips, rocks, beans, rubber bands, etc. By clipping or wrapping these items, into the handkerchief, we made interesting designs that would be dyed onto the cloth. We had to put on this heavy duty apron, rubber gloves that went up our arms, and big rubber boots. It was to protect us from the dye. The whole process was as follows:1) Make our designs with the various implements provided. 2) Change into protective cloting 3) Wash the cloth with water and wring it COMPLETELY free of any excess water. 4) Dip it into a dye bucket and gently swish it back and forth for 1 minute. 5) Go back to water and rinse the handkerchief again 6) Repeat steps 4 and 5 two more times 7) At the last time, after rinsing it again, we had to seal the dying process with a vinegar solution. This would be for 3 minutes 8) Wring out all the excess liquid again and then have them iron it. I love my handkerchief... but I forgot to take a picture of it.
Eventually we made our way back to Kyoto once more and had dinner at the top of the Kyoto Eki (Station).
They use this wonderful green tea salt for their tempura instead of dipping it into a sauce. Hopefully, I'll get some to take home with me before leaving Japan. So while we were eating, suddenly, we could feel the building gently swaying back and forth. You guessed it - earthquake. But it wasn't at our location - it actually hit Wagayama, but thankfully it was relatively mild (only 5.5 on the Richter Scale). Thus ended my third day in Japan.