Its Still November, and I am Still in Japan, so What do I Call this Post?

Me at Nanzenji!

I have to take back everything I said about the weather here in my last post.  Real fall weather just touched down like a ton of bricks.  My apartment is so chilly right now that I don't know if I will be able to finish this post without finding a pair of gloves.  I truly don't understand how the people of Tsu City build all of these places without proper insulation and central heat.  Its all fine and dandy in the summer, but this isn't exactly the tropics here!  Sorry about the weather rant, but I was definitely not prepared for this kind of assault on my internal temperature gauge.  


Apart from the weather, its been a great ten days or so since my last post.  My classes are great, except for my last class of the day on Fridays.  The man in that class is about 30 years old, and he was signed up for classes by his mother.  He wants to learn English to start helping his company (owned by his mom) do international business, but he seriously spends half our class buried in his dictionary.  We have a long way to go.  The one plus side to the class is that the guy makes me laugh, both intentionally and not.  The first time I saw him, he definitely looked familiar, but I could remember where or why.  Then, about halfway through that first class, it struck me.  He looked just like Po, the Kung Fu Panda!  If you take Po, and imagine him as a real person instead of a panda, my student is exactly what you would get.  I mean this in the nicest way possible, but it is hilarious.

Aqueduct.  And here I thought these
were only in Rome!

But I digress, yet again.  Sorry.  Today (November 23) was a national holiday here, so I had the day off.  Last night, I went over to my friend Marshall's place, and we started talking about his weekend trip to Kyoto.  I was jealous for a moment, but no less then 20 minutes later, John Stanton walked in and asked if I wanted to go to Kyoto with him and our friend Etsuko tomorrow.  Perfect timing.  Fitting with my status as a 'yes'-man here in Japan, I of course agreed.  We woke up bright and early and hoped in Etsuko's car and drove to Kyoto.  Also fitting with tradition, something went wrong with John the night before we had early morning plans.  Unlike certain other weekends, which shall remain unmentioned, this one was out of his control.  The poor guy spent the night praying to the porcelain goddess, wracked with some sort of food poisoning.   


The drive to Kyoto was relatively uneventful, except I eventually realized that Etsuko's car didn't really go over 120 kph.  That is only about 7o miles per hour or so.  Maybe 75.  Even at that speed, it only took an hour to get to the edge of Kyoto.  Parking is hard to come by, and very expensive in the city itself, so we parked a ways away from anything interesting and took the subway to Nanzenji Temple.  Our walk to the subway was great.  We followed these adorable little soccer boys who kept looking up at me and John, waving and saying "Hello!" in the most timid little voices.  It was great!  After an uneventful subway ride, we made it to the temple.  Nanzenji is a Zen Buddhist Temple, and it is apparently a very, very popular tourist destination.  The place was packed.  Packed, but extremely beautiful.  Nanzenji is comprised of several gardens, the main temple, and several smaller support buildings.  There is also an aqueduct that was built in the late Edo Period to carry water from Biwa Lake to Kyoto.  My favorite parts of Nanzenji were the two main gardens.  One was a traditional garden and was a rock garden.  Both were exceptionally beautiful with their fall colors.  This blog really isn't big enough to post enough pictures to do this place justice, so I highly recommend jumping over to Facebook to check out my album titled "Fall Colors in Kyoto."


After Nanzenji, we took a wonderful walk through Kyoto to Kyomizu Temple.  The walk took us down one of the most densely packed streets I've ever been on.  The street had everything.  Shops selling pretty much anything you could want, both souvenir shops and restaurants, more people per square foot than should be allowed, and to top it all of, it meandered up and down some pretty steep hills.  John's favorite part was the rickshaw drivers.  A bunch of Japanese boys pulling people along in some pretty elaborate carts.  John wants to start moonlighting as a rickshaw driver in his spare time.  The temple was worth the hour long walk through an unending sea of people.  It is situated on a hill over looking the entire city of Kyoto.  The only word I can use to describe it is epic.  Again, I don't have room enough here for all the pictures I want to show you!  So here is a link to the proper album:  Fall Colors in Kyoto.  (the link should open in a new window)  Long story short, everyone should go to Kyoto at some point in their life.  I don't want this post to get too long, so I will end this post with a question.  I bought a ton of post cards.  Who wants one?  If you want one, leave a comment with your address, or email me at ajforkesgud@gmail.com.  Thanks!!