Visitations

Long time no talk. I would love to tell you all that I've been incredibly busy, and I have barely had a minute to reach the computer, but that would be a bald-faced lie. I have been marginally busy and I would attribute the wait to a combination of TV, Friends, Video Games and Ham Sandwich.
So I will give you an update on an event that passed not a mere three weeks ago and remains sharp (such as the sharpness of a Local TV Program viewed on a standard TV in a passing Bullet Train) in my mind. I just typed "ming" and seriously thought of not changing it to mind, but in the end, clarity won out over hilarity.
This event is the visiting of my parents. They were kind enough to travel all the way over here and stay in a hotel in Nagoya City. Nagoya City is about an hour train ride away from school and my parents were able to master it in only about a day, so it was very nice to have them, and their wallets, so close. (J/K!!!! But seriously I'm poor.)
One of my favorite trips we took was an overnight jaunt out to Kyoto, the old capital of Japan. The city gives you a great taste of what older, more traditional Japan looked like. Here is my parents in our hotel room.
This next picture is of me and my Dad, posing next to one of the billions of shrines around Kyoto. Literally, I think old Japan was just a bunch of shrines dedicated to every local deity people could think of. I can see a bunch of Japanese elders, drinking green tea, puffing on English opiates and exclaiming "Bathroom Sponge Deity!" and "cloud that looks like Noam Chomsky Deity." But I digress. Meiji Era Japanese People also had turtleshells and shot ink when threatened. Fact.
Here is a picture of one of the highlights of our trip. Right outside the gates of the Kinkakuji, or Temple of the Golden Pavilion. It is a 3 story temple covered in gold leaf, sitting on the banks of a very tranquil pond. The original temple was burned down about 200 years ago by a monk, but this new version is an exact replica of the first. We had a gorgeous day to go see it so it was basically the ideal time for us to be there.

In the surrounding grounds of the temple there were small rock bowls set up next to the path, where people were encouraged to throw coins. I think we inwittingly happened upon the birthplace of carnie games, and I've never been more scared in my life. I think the Japanese had it right in the first place, they didn't even beat around the bush when trying to steal your money. Even if you did get your coin to stay in the rock bowl, there were no prizes. Maybe the prize is of a more ethereal nature, like enlightenment, or good luck. Personally, I'd rather have a 5 foot high tweety bird to carry around for 4 hours. Oh well.

Alright I've been trying for 20 minutes to load this picture of the temple but apparently the Deity of small computer parts has not been given enough yen recently and so is thwarting my attempts. I'll try to load it up in my next post.

We made this trip from Tuesday night to Wednesday afternoon, and just hung around Nagoya for the rest of the week while I had classes. On Friday though we made it out to Tokyo for the weekend. We stayed at a great hotel in Ginza and got to go see a small portion of a Kabuki the first night. We woke up early the next day and went out to Tsukiji fish market and had a look around. I couldn't help but think that that place is basically fish hell. There are fish being cut up all over the place, and dead fish covering the entire expanse of the market. There are also live fish in tanks with other fish, as well as with their recently departed buddies. It would be a gruesome scene. But it was still fascinating and great to get back.

We rounded off the weekend with a trip to a bar in Shibuya, one of the hotspots for Tokyo nightlife. It was really great to just sit down and enjoy a drink with my parents and I think that time stands out as one of my fonder memories of the trip.

The next day we spent some time getting packed up and I saw them off. Overall it was a great time, felt really good to see my parents. I realized that I hadn't seen them for about 5 months at the time so it was nice to actually catch up in person. Alright, expect another post here soon and I'll be seeing you guys later.