Japan 2015 - Kashihara Shrine and Mount Yoshino

Today I left my hosts in the morning to embark on my own on the Japanese train system! My mission was to make my way to Mount Yoshino, which is a nice climb with beautiful views of the sakura which are in blossom this week and probably only this week for the whole year (good timing, eh?). On the way to Yoshino I would be passing through Kashiharajingu (Kashihara Shrine) which is my Japanese teacher's local shrine so I wanted to stop there too and look around. The trains were super easy to use, once you'd figured out the ticket buying machines. You have to know the fare amount in advance, and then you just hit the button for that amount and the machine accepts any denomination of money and gives you the change. Your ticket just gets scanned on entry and then when you get off, no matter how many transfers you do on the way. Every station works the same, and the names are written in English as well as Japanese so it's really easy.

My first stop was Kashiharajingu, the shrine my Japanese teacher visits from her home. Nara (the region I'm in right now) was like the original capital of Japan or something, so it has a lot of ancient history and is just completely littered with shrines and temples of all sizes. Like literally every street and path has little wooden shrines of varying grandiosity. But Kashiharajingu was a big shrine, if not on the same order as Nara Park where I went yesterday. It had grounds with various areas, and as I entered I noticed some strangely dressed people doing some sort of ceremony. I thought it might be a wedding or something, but I'm not sure. It was interesting to watch, anyway, and a stroke of luck that it was all going on just as I sauntered in at 10am.

To be honest it would probably have been a bit of a boring stop (though it's a nice place and it was interesting to see where my Japanese teacher lives) if not for seeing that ceremony and a kendo competition being held right in the middle of the grounds! Kendo is a Japanese martial art with swords, a bit like fencing but with heavy wooden swords. There was a large crowd of kids and teenagers all dressed up in their gear, and parents hovering around cheering them on.

After spending an hour wandering around Kashiharajingu, I headed back to the train station to take the 1-hour journey to Mount Yoshino. The journey there on the train was interesting as we passed through increasingly rural Japan. There was all sorts to see out of the window, tree-covered hills, settlements of different sizes with their many shrines, people tending to allotments, houses amongst all the hodgepodge of different building styles that looked more like miniature ancient temples with elaborate gardens, and inside the train I was amused to watch the operator bowing every time he entered or left the carriage on his way up and down. Eventually I reached Yoshino, which had been recommended by my hosts as being a nice trip worth it for the views of the cherry blossoms. I forewent (is that a word?) the convenient cable car in favour of slogging up the initial steep walk to reach Yoshino town from the station. The views were indeed beautiful.

There were lots of tourists around and the town, which is sort of clinging to the mountain side along various paths, was full of vendors peddling their wares. Everything seemed to be crazy expensive, so I mostly just looked, except to buy a couple of cheap wooden spinning toy things for Ryuusei and Taku. There was all sorts of food for sale, and I mostly either had no idea what it was or knew what it was and had no intention of eating it - like the stall that was selling whole fish, grilled and skewered and on display next to a tank of their happily swimming brothers.

There were lots of little shrine areas of historic significance up there, and I took a lot of photos before it started to rain pretty heavily in the afternoon. It was very zen wandering around on my own, visiting all these quiet areas all set up to be peaceful and enlightening or whatever.

I was getting pretty hungry by this point, but all the cafes and restaurants were intimidating with their foreign menus and what looked like traditional Japanese seating with short tables and cushions to sit on and a porch where you leave your shoes. Eventually I walked beyond the crowded area and found a restaurant with no customers and thought, hell, they're probably desperate enough to humour a gaijin. I approached the lady at the entrance (every store and stall has someone politely greeting and nodding to everyone who walks past) and declared "Sumimasen! Sen yen ga arimasu!" which means "Excuse me! I have 1000 yen!". I didn't want to get fleeced with some insanely priced, unnecessarily fancy dish after all. She was very happy to suggest something she thought I'd like and explained in a little English that it would have chicken and egg in it. I had to take off my shoes and sit on the tatami flooring like a proper Japanese person, and she served me tea and brought me a very lovely lunch.

Shortly after that I made my slow and winding way back down to the bottom of the mountain and back to civilization. I walked from my final station stop to my host's house without any trouble, and with a "Tadaima!" I was back to entertaining three lively kids. I spent my last evening with them playing games and eating a nice dinner of chicken curry and broccoli salad, and helped Ryuusei beat world 2 on his Mario game which he'd been stuck on.

Tomorrow I'm off to Osaka to spend the day in the big city, and will be all by myself trying to find my various destinations and overnight accommodations! Ganbatte!

Japan 2015 - Nara Park

First full day in Japan is over and it's been very fun! I woke up this morning and met my host's three boys, aged 2, 6 and 10. Their English is amazingly good - it turns out that Ryuusei reads Animorph books on his kindle! I used to love those.

After a nice breakfast we set off for Nara Park, a large park famous for its deer and many temples and shrines dotted about the place. We spent all day there, walking around and visiting different temples. It was full of tourists, mostly Chinese, and the cherry blossoms (sakura) were all in full bloom.

My host family took me into a little restaurant/bar for lunch, and thankfully knew what they were doing because I would have had to resort to smiling, nodding, and hoping that a konnichiwa and an arigatou would get me something edible. We had shrimp tempura and udon noodles (which we saw the man making from scratch behind the counter) and it was oishii.

One of the highlights was Todaiji Temple. It was an absolutely enormous traditional Japanese temple, and inside it housed a crazy-big Buddha statue. I'd heard about that from my research before coming and I highly recommend going to see it. I don't know what it was made of, but it looked like the green of patinated copper or bronze. One of the giant wooden pillars inside the building had a little tunnel cut through the bottom of it which you could crawl through, which was supposed to be the size of one of the statue's nostrils.

There were also some angry-looking samurai statues, defeating various little demon creatures.

The deer were just meandering around everywhere, hoping to be fed like pigeons. You could buy 'deer biscuits' and the boys had fun feeding them, although there was also some screaming and fleeing involved too. They make for nice pictures, but really once you've stroked a couple and spent the rest of the day walking around them everywhere you go they lose their magical appeal :P

Finally we had some ice cream and headed home, only to go straight back out again to a local sushi place! We sat at our little booth and picked things off a conveyor, like Yo Sushi!, but there was also a little screen where you could choose anything from the full menu and it would be whipped along on a high-speed conveyor right to your table. Neat! And everything was 100 yen, which is just 60p. We all ate till we were stuffed, getting through 30-odd plates, and it came to just £24. You poked your empty plates down a little slide and every five plates you had a chance of winning a little plastic ball with a toy in it. The kids were well into that :P

It was a very tiring day with lots of walking and entertaining children, and even though it's only 20 past 9 everyone has gone to bed and I'm well ready for it too. Oyasumi!

Japan 2015 - Journey to Osaka

Well apparently April is holiday time for William - this year I've embarked on a trip to Japan! I'm writing this in bed on my first night, having had a bit of a crazy journey. That is the subject of this blog post.

So the plan was that I'd train to Heathrow, catch a plane to Osaka via Doha in Qatar, and then jump on the next bus from the airport to Sakurai station, where my homestay family would pick me up. I'd planned everything out, looked up all the details - I thought I'd maybe manage to catch the 6 o'clock bus, half an hour after landing - and I felt pretty confident.

The first annoyance was that my train tickets only got me so far King's Cross, from where I'd have to take the underground. But I let Google tell me the way and had to pay £21(!) for a ticket on the Heathrow Express. I could have avoided it by going back on the underground, if I'd have 50 more minutes to spare (from Paddington to Heathrow!?), which I didn't.

Everything would still have gone fine if not for two further unforeseen hiccups.

Firstly, I was delayed at Doha for an hour and a quarter. I'm not sure why; the plane was just delayed. So I spent an unsettling hour in the middle of the night in an airport in Qatar with this thing:

Thankfully I was super prepared and could keep my phone charged with a battery pack thingy I'd bought for the trip. The wifi was extremely spotty, but I managed to get an email through to my homestay host to let her know I was delayed. I thought I might still make it in time for the 7 o'clock bus, if the flight went a bit quicker than scheduled, but would most likely be on the 8 o'clock one.

But enter stumbling block number two.

We landed at Kansai International airport at half 6. Pretty good, I thought. I can maybe catch the 7pm train!

Haha, no.

Apparently when entering Japan you have to go through immigration. Where they take your fingerprints and photo. Which takes 2 hours to queue for.

So a grey-haired Japanese man with INFORMATION written on his armband shouting FOREN PASSENJAH (foreign passenger) hustled everyone into the most gigantic queue I've ever seen. And it moved at a snail's pace. For 2 hours I shuffled along, back and forth, back and forth, with hundreds of other foren passenjahs, watching the minutes tick by. There was no wifi, so I couldn't email my host an update. I just had to watch as the time of the last bus to Sakurai, 9pm, ticked slowly closer.

When I finally reached the front of the queue it was ten to 9. I was through in a jiffy, and I ran out to the front of the airport where I thought the buses should be. I saw it, still there, a little line of people piling on. I dashed over to the automatic ticket machine, a nice man helped me get my ticket (arigatou gozaimasu!) and I was on the bus. Phew!

Now I had an hour and a half to sit on the bus, knowing that my host had no idea where I was. I just had to hope that either a) she'd just turn up when the last bus arrived in case I was on it, or b) I could find some free wi-fi at Sakurai Station.

Thankfully my host's husband was waiting for me, and seemed cheerful enough with his limited English (TYE-ARD? Yes, I'm tired.) Once I finally got to my homestay house it was quarter to eleven and we were all ready for bed. I'll have to work out how to explain properly and apologise in the morning!

Our Middle-Earth Adventure

It's a month since Mum and I were in New Zealand, and I've finally put together an album of our highlights, see below.

We arrived in Auckland, once the capital of the country and situated in the very north of the North Island, and after a couple of nights there embarked on a journey southwards in our rental car.

We would book a hotel, hostel or camping hut thing the night before using the wifi wherever we were staying that night, and rarely stayed in one place for longer than one night. Every day was filled with Lord of the Rings/Hobbit location hunting, sightseeing, and driving. Mum was very brave and drove us over mountains, on dirt roads, along canyons, through forests, and across a lot of narrow scary bridges. She wasn't quite brave enough to let me drive much though :P

I bought a SIM card with 3GB of data at Auckland airport and, boy, was that useful. We had absolutely no trouble finding our way around, and with the help of my guidebook and various websites combined with Google Maps I navigated us from site to site. I wasn't shy about using the data and I ran out bare hours before we left, 3 weeks after arriving.

Thanks to Matthew for lending me his sweet camera, I hope you enjoy the photos!



Bonus video: I recorded little selfies every day so I could make this silly compilation!

Visiting Middle-Earth

I'm busily planning a New Zealand holiday, with one particular aim being to visit a friend who's been there for over a year now doing her PhD, but while I'm there I thought it would be a shame not to see some Lord of the Rings/Hobbit filming locations!

So I've just finished plotting as many points as I could find to help me plan the itinerary. We're tentatively planning to fly to Auckland, hire a car and drive ourselves down to Dunedin where my friend is living, stopping at locations as we go. However, I'm waiting to hear about my application to the JET programme and can't book flights yet because the timing will coincide with possibly having to do some sort of complicated and possibly time-consuming medical examinations for the JET people - the frustrating thing being that they won't give any useful information about the requirements in advance, only that you should 'be available in April'.

Anyway, here's the map I've generated for LotR locations in New Zealand (click the icon in the top right corner to embiggen):

2013 in film

Just like last year I've got a list of every film I watched this year. They can get up to three golden stars (★) if I enjoyed them. On the other hand, if I disliked them, they might earn black stars (★) instead...

Bold titles indicate films with some significance (which means either I was highly anticipating it, it's a well-known classic, it was just especially moving, or had some other significance to me personally).

If it wasn't the first time I'd seen the film, that is also indicated after the title.

★   Looper
2012 action sci-fi time travel film starring Bruce Willis.
★★  Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
2011 sequel to the 2009 film, starring Robert Downey Jr.
    Dredd
2012 Judge Dredd film.
    Glorious 39
2009 WWII drama.
★   The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (III)
2012 first instalment of Peter Jackson's trilogy.
★   Lincoln
2012 Steven Spielberg historical drama.
★★  Inglourious Basterds (II)
2009 Quentin Tarantino WWII drama.
★★  Django Unchained
2012 Quentin Tarantino western.
★★  Meet Joe Black
1998 fantasy/romance thing with Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt.
    I Wish
2011 Japanese sort-of coming-of-age film.
★★  Monsters (II)
2010 sci-fi monster movie, low budget and well-executed.
    True Grit
2010 western, adapted from a book.
★   Grave of the Fireflies
1988 Studio Ghibli anime about WWII.
    Side Effects
2013 psychological thriller with some good actors.
★   Stoker
2013 horror type thing.
★★  Paprika
2006 scifi anime.
★   Safety Not Guaranteed
2012 surreal comedy/drama.
    Argo
2012 Oscar-winning drama based on real events.
★   The Spirit of '45
2013 Ken Loach pro-socialist documentary/propoganda.
★★  Jurassic Park (many)
1993 dinosaur scifi/thriller!
★   Men in Black 3 (II)
2012 addition to the scifi/comedy franchise.
    Brave (II)
2012 Pixar fantasy movie.
★   Wreck-it-Ralph
2012 Disney film.
★★  Planet of the Apes (II)
1968 famous scifi movie.
★★★ Jurassic Park (many)
Watched it in 3D at the IMAX in Universal Studios, Florida!
★★★ Rise of the Planet of the Apes (II)
2011 reboot of the franchise.
    The Odd Life of Timothy Green
2013 fantasy/feel-good about a boy with leaves.
★★  The Borrower Arrietty
2010 Studio Ghibli anime based on the classic book.
    The Cat Returns
2002 Studio Ghibli fantasy anime.
★★  The Hangover (II)
2009 comedy.
    The Hangover Part II
2011 sequel to the aforementioned.
★   No Country for Old Men
2007 western thriller.
★★  Oblivion
2013 big-budget scifi (one of several such flops this year...)
★   Iron Man 3
2013 addition to the franchise.
★   Mud
2012 coming-of-age film.
    Man of Steel
2013 reboot of the franchise.
★   Jin-Roh
1999 alternate-history anime set after WWII.
★   Eve no Jikan
2010 scifi anime, about robots and AI.
★★  Now You See Me
2013 heist film.
    5 Centimetres Per Second
2007 anime.
★   Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (II)
1984 anime that just preceeded Studio Ghibli.
★   One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
1975 adaptation of a novel, with Jack Nicholson.
★   Perfume
2006 adaptation of the novel, which I plan to read.
★   Evolution (II)
2001 scifi/comedy.
    Despicable Me 2
2013 sequel to the 2010 animation, which I did not see.
★★  Casino Royale (V)
2006 Bond 'reboot', I guess.
    Flags of Our Fathers
2006 film set in the WWII, twinned with Letters from Iwo Jima.
★   Letters from Iwo Jima
2006 film set in the WWII, twinned with Letters from Flags of Our Fathers.
★   Silver Linings Playbook
2012 apparently funny quirky romance with Jennifer Lawrence.
    Blue Jasmine
2013 weird drama with Cate Blanchett.
★★  Alien (III)
1979 classic scifi horror.
★   Pacific Rim
2013 CGI scifi action flick (giant mechas vs kaiju).
    The Raid: Redemption
2011 Indonesian martial arts film.
★   Ender's Game
2013 adaptation of the scifi classic.
★   The Thomas Crown Affair
1999 heist film with Pierce Brosnan.
★   The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (IV)
2012 Peter Jackson Hobbit film, first in the trilogy.
★   The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
2013 instalment of the trilogy.
★★  Kill Bill: Volume 1 (IV)
2003 Quentin Tarantino action/martial arts film.
★★  Kill Bill: Volume 2 (IV)
2004 sequel/second part to the above.
★★  Die Hard (III?)
1988 action classic with Bruce Willis.

There were misses (Man of Steel, Pacific Rim) as well as hits (Iron Man 3, Ender's Game, The Desolation of Smaug), a mix of classics and new films, and not a few Japanese animations.

And 60 films is 4 more than last year! I'm already on 5 this year, but may have a change of lifestyle come August... How will it affect things? Tune in to find out!

What I've read over the 2012/13 academic year

So at the beginning of 2012 I started noting every film I watched, but I have been doing the same with books since 2008. I began while I was at university in York and organised it by academic year, and so I have continued.

Last year (2011/12) I had a good look at my to-read list and realised I had about 10 years of stuff already lined up at the rate I was reading. I made a big effort to maximise how much I read and pulled in nearly 14000 pages over the year. I did not do so well this year, I guess it being my last year teacher training probably explains it, although I also got stuck on On the Origin of Species for like a month and a half.

A reminder of the awards:
 ★   Good!
 ★★  Very good
 ★★★ Amazing!
 ★   Bad...
 ★★  Very bad
 ★★★ Awful!
And, again, these are strictly a descriptor of my personal feeling towards the book.

If it wasn't the first time I'd read the book, that is indicated by its title.

★★  A Game of Thrones
    A Song of Ice and Fire #1, gritty fantasy and popular TV series.
★   What Do You Care What Other People Think?
    Several biographical stories by Richard Feynman.
★   Brutal Harry
    A somewhat dark Harry Potter fanfic. Link.
★   The Magician's Apprentice (attempted)
    Prequel novel to The Black Magician Trilogy, which I love.
    A Study in Magic
    A Harry Potter/Sherlock Holmes crossover fanfic. Link.
★   Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
    The 1886 classic.
★★  On the Origin of Species
    Darwin's treaty on evolution by natural selection.
★   The Illuminatus! Trilogy (attempted)
    A quirky trilogy with the subject of conspiracy theories.
★   The Dark Lord's Equal
    Harry Potter fanfic, a mature Harry goes back in time. Link.
★   The Ego Trick
    A for-the-masses philosophy book about 'identity'.
★★  Harry Potter and the Natural 20 (first 25 chapters)
    Harry Potter/Dungeons and Dragons crossover fanfic. Link.
★   The Colour of Magic (II)
    The first of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.
★   Big Bang
    Popsci book about the Big Bang theory.
★★  The Silmarillion
    Tolkien's prequel epic to The Lord of the Rings.
    Hyperion
    An oft-recommended scifi novel.
★   Misspent Youth
    A sort of very early prequel to The Commonwealth Saga.
★★★ Pride & Prejudice (III)
    200 years since its publication, Jane Austen's best known novel.
★   How to Lie with Statistics
    A short '50s book about the ways statistics can mislead.
★   River Out of Eden
    One of Dawkins' books on evolution, the next one I hadn't read.
    Permutation City
    Hard scifi. May cause headaches and existential nihilism.
    Kil'n People
    A fun scifi book on an interesting theme.
★★  Interview with the Vampire (II or III)
    The book that began Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles.
★★  The Vampire Lestat (II)
    First part of the sequel duology to Interview.
★★  The Queen of the Damned (II)
    The conclusion to the sequel duology to Interview.
★★  Harry Potter and the Natural 20
    As mentioned above, HP/DnD crossover, this time completed.
★   Harry Potter and the Confirmed Critical (first 6 chapters)
    Ongoing sequel to HPN20. Link.
★   Ender's Game
    Another oft-recommended scifi novel, and soon to be a film.
★★  Speaker for the Dead
    Sequel to Ender's Game (and the reason he expanded it).
★   The Lifecycle of Software Objects
    Scifi novella taking AI from a different angle. Link.
    Science Fiction Hall of Fame (first 17 stories)
    A highly recommended compilation of pre-1964 scifi short stories.
★   Hikaru no Go (first 6 volumes)
    A coming-of-age manga centered on a boy who learns to play Go.
★   Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (chapters 86-89)
    Harry Potter fanfic, where Harry is smart. Link.

Book of the year, I guess!

As for films: although I feel like I haven't watched many for ages (I've been busy with anime and, recently, Breaking Bad) I'm on 47 so far in 2013 which is more than I'd have guessed!