I have about an hour to do nothing, which has pretty much been the theme today (doing nothing, that is), so I figured I'd hog the staff room computer and write up some stuff about the trip. The only other teachers who are here are the three teachers without homerooms. They happen to be some of the best English speakers too, which is nice.

We left for Kyoto on Saturday because Sarah and Victoria were working on Saturday. Unfortunately their schools had their choral contests on the Saturday of a three day weekend. That meant they got Tuesday off, but I didn't so we had to take a shorter trip. In the end, we found out Sarah didn't have all of Tuesday off because they forgot to tell her that she wasn't contractually obligated to go on Saturday. So she still had to go visit her elementary school on Tuesday afternoon, which wasn't the best situation. Victoria got a full day off though. Anyway, we left around 6pm on Saturday evening, and it is about a 2 and a half hour journey there. Unfortunately our train was stuck at a station halfway there for a whole hour. This is pretty serious in Japan, since trains often run on time to the minute. We arrived at Kyoto an hour late, but we were able to call ahead to Victoria's friends to tell them we would be late.

Two of Victoria's friends from college, Alex (female) and Will, met us at the train station and let us stay on their floor (it's Japan, everyone sleeps on the floor). It was nice and quite affordable, of course, to stay with them since they knew their way around town and it was free. That night we dropped off our stuff at their apartment and eventually went to get a late night dinner. We went to Sanjo Keihan (third station on the Keihan train line), which is a big commercial and nightlife district. I think it's basically the center of the city. We went to a small Korean restaurant (seats 9 people) and all squeezed into the only booth in the place. One of the ladies who worked there spoke English pretty well, or at least understood it. If we said something about if we should ask for bowls, ten seconds later she would drop off some bowls, because she had overheard us. The food was very good. I think that was my first time having Korean cuisine, so it was a nice experience. Alex and Will had been to the restaurant several times in the last couple weeks, so the ladies knew them quite well. They promised them an English menu the next time they returned, but they were handy enough with the menu that it wasn't necessary. I don't think I even looked at the menu. We just let the two of them order for us. I had a really spicy cabbage dish that was great, but made my stomach hurt the next morning. The best part was a pancake-like thing. It was very good.

After dinner, we walked around downtown Kyoto, which was quite hopping. Toyama is pretty quiet at night, except in the strip club/red light district. We ran into Nadia, a fellow Toyama JET, wandering around on her own and later, a whole crew of Toyama JETs going to a nightclub. It was pretty late for us, so we went back and collapsed. One disappointing thing was that Alex and Will had to work during Sunday and Monday, even though they were holidays. They work for NOVA, which is a private English conversation school that has branches throughout Japan, including Toyama. I think NOVA has to be open especially on holidays and weekends, because that is when many students can come during the day.

Sunday morning we decided to go on the Philosopher's Walk. One subway station away from the one that we were at is a series of large temples and shrines that form a nice walk by a little river. We were slackers, so we didn't get going until after noon, but we wanted to relax and enjoy things too. The first temple we went to was Nanzen-ji. It had collosal gates (pic of Sarah and pic of Victoria) outside the grounds. There was a brick aquaduct built in part of the temple grounds. I guess it provided water for some of the temple area. I didn't go into the main temple area because it was a little expensive. I did go into the temple garden/pond area though. After awhile, I started getting bored, so Victoria and I went on to Eikan-do, which houses a famous statue of Amita Buddha. Sarah climbed up a trail leading up the mountain away from the temples.

Eikan-do had much prettier trees (and pond) than Nanzen-ji. They had lots of Japanese maples that were bright red. Eikan-do had a walking tour that allowed you to go through the main temple buildings and finally to the famous Buddha statue. The catch was that we had to take off our shoes. It wasn't raining in Kyoto like it did all weekend in Toyama, but it was just as cold. After walking around in my socks through all the buildings, my feet were a little numb. But we did get to see some cool statues, and some screen illustrations. They asked people not to take a picture of anything inside the temple, so I don't have any pictures. Apparently the story behind the famous statue is that a priest was walking around the temple when one of the Buddha statues came to life and started walking in front of him. He stopped to gawk and the statue turned its head to admonish him for being slow. To commemorate this experience, a statue was built of the buddha with its head turned. It was pretty neat, but not all that impressive. Monday would prove to be the day of impressive Buddha statues.

After the tour we climbed up to a hillside shrine that is part of the complex and looked out over the city.

I'll finish telling about the Philosopher's Walk later. I have to go help with more interviews this afternoon.