Anyway, going back to yesterday! To start off the day, we met the people from CUPS (Chubu University Peer Support), a group of Japanese students who help us crazy gaijin out with daily life on and around campus. They met us outside the dorm at 9:00am, and after that we walked to the school bus stop, paid our 200￥, and rode to the train station. From there, we got on the train at Jinryou Station and rode to Chikusa. This cost another 230￥. We then switched over to the subway from Chikusa to Kakuouzan, which cost ANOTHER 200￥. From the Kakuouzan subway station, we walked maybe ten minutes to get to the Yookiso Villa, where this multi-cultural event was happening.

Once we’d checked in and gotten out name tags, things started off with a guided tour around the villa. It was rather interesting. We learned about the history of the villa, established by some guy named Jirozaemon-Suketami Ito, a descendant of the founder of the Matsuzakaya department store. Before World War II, the villa served as a dormitory for Asian students in Japan. To the right is just one of the many buildings on the grounds of the villa… but I don’t remember which one it is. Oh well.

During the tour it started raining really hard, so we were actually stuck under shelter for a little bit. In the picture to the left, my camera’s flash reflected off all the rain, so it kinda looks like snow… but it isn’t. As you can see, everyone is walking around with their umbrellas. Soon after that picture, we made it inside to the tour of one of the bigger buildings in Yookiso.

The building was decently large, and it was really cool. Of course, it was a traditional Japanese building; the stairs were extremely steep, the ceilings were a little bit low, the doors were all sliding paper doors, etc. To the right is a picture of the tea room in the building. The little door you see through the bigger door is the entrance. No, that’s not me messing with you, misremembering, or making an error. That tiny little door is the entrance to the room. The tour guide’s English was okay at best, but what I gathered was that entering through that door is a sign of respect because you have to crawl through… also, it may have had something to do with not being able to carry swords and still get through. If that’s the entrance, I’m not sure why there were not one, but TWO sets of normally-sized doors, but whatever.

Ohagi

The last two events were both performances on the bridge shown to the right. First they had a Kimono dresser, who showed how to put on a kimono on both men and women. It was interesting, kinda boring. And holy crap is it way more complex for women. But they looked extremely good when it was all said and done. (Picture below to the left)

The last event was an ocarina performance, which was good, but actually put me to sleep. One thing I’ve found since I’ve been here is that interacting in a culture and language that you know very little about is extremely exhausting. There’s a picture of me dead asleep that Shannon took, but I haven’t gotten it from her yet. Oh well…

After the event at Yookiso was over, we had about an hour of free time to walk around the area. Right nearby was a huge buddhist temple, the name of which I never quite caught. It was very beautiful. The building to the right is just one small part of the entire complex. When we got there, there were vendors, but they were pretty much closing up shop. I don’t know if they’re there every week, but I may go back sometime to find out.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Next time, I’ve been asked to talk more about the food I’ve been talking about when we go out to eat (i.e. gyouza, shouyu ramen, etc.), so I’m going to attempt to do this. I’m not 100% sure that I’ll be able to though, so it might have to wait a little bit. XD Bye~

Yookiso Trip60 picturesSep 20, 2008

As a side note, there’s a nice, small ramen shop which isn’t too far away called Dosan-hime. Me and Mike ate there tonight, and it was quite good. I had shouyu ramen, and Mike had miso ramen, then afterward we shared a plate of (rather freaking good) gyoza. Suffice it to say, it’s the kind of place we could get used to going to.