In this next installment, I’ll go up until
my trip to Kyoto and Osaka.
So first off, it was ‘recovery’ time after
the week of no sleep. And by recovery, I mean next to no sleep because there
were still so many different things to do. It was mostly back to ‘routine life’
of going to my lab every day and reading lots of papers and stuff. Nothing that
exciting except that what started as an event for the Festival now began to
sprout into something that people wanted to continue.
That’s right, 琉球ストンプ became, and has continued, to grow since the festival. It has now
been performed in various different locations that can be seen on my youtube
channel. I won’t go into much detail about it since it’s not really that
interesting other than to say that we’ve been to different festivals and
occasions.
I must say that I worked semi hard on my
costume for once (^_^.)
Up until the beginning of December, there
is nothing that important that happened. So, I’m going to skip it all and go
straight to my trip to Kyoto. It was a personal trip…of sorts, but it was
mostly sponsored by the school as a ‘graduation trip’ (yes, almost a year
before our actual graduation). I don’t know if it’s right to say how much it cost,
but it was insanely cheap! It was 3 day, 2 nights with lots of really good food
for practically nothing.
Anyway, let’s start from day one of this
journey! It started early in the morning and saw me almost missing the bus
because I forgot to wake up my friend in time >.< OOPS!!! But, it all worked
out in the end because we weren’t the last people to arrive!! *phew*
Our flight out from Okinawa was at 8:00 and
after that we had a 1.5 (?) hour bus ride from Osaka to Kyoto. Luckily, the
tour guide (who stayed with us the whole trip) was very nice and entertaining. She
was trying her hardest to teach us things but it was all in Japanese. Maybe
only about 1/4 of the people that went understood her. But, she still tried her
hardest and did a good job (I learned a lot at least!!).
The first day we went to 清水寺 (kiyomizudera) which is my absolute favorite place in Kyoto!! And
then we went to some place in the mountains. I don’t remember the name. Sorry
>.< It was a cool place that we could to walk around.
We then went to our hotel that was in Shiga
Prefecture!! My first time there and we were next to the really big lake!! Our
dinner was a…shabu shabu like meal. Very good and…probably worth more than all
the meals that I eat in a week. Okay…maybe in 3 days…HAHAHA.
After the large meal and some random
activities, we were free to do what we pleased which meant we could sleep or
try and find something to do nearby. Oh google maps how I love you! I had
searched before and found that there was absolutely NOTHING that was really
close the hotel. HEHE. So instead, my friends and I spent a LONG time in the
onsen that was in the hotel! AWESOME!!
The next day, we had to wake up at the
crack of dawn which provided some awesome pictures. Our first stop of the day
was high up in the mountains at a temple. I forget the name. (again…I need to
remember these things…or write them down). For those of you that have seen my
blog, you know that we ended up in the snow up on top of the mountain. It was
fun to be in a ‘winter wonderland’.
Needless to say, it was freaking cold!!!
So, to warm up, we went back into Kyoto proper and went to see 金閣寺 (kinkakuji). Awesome place, but still not as good as 清水寺. This was then followed by a trip to 二条城 (nijoujou). This castle is very interesting in that the floorboards
creak whenever you walk on them. Specially designed to detect ‘silent’
assassins. Very cool, but maybe annoying as you’re walking around.
We then ended up going to a shopping
district in Kyoto where I bought a lot of presents for people (yes, the
touristy place…). Pretty cool.
We followed this with going back to our
hotel that was right next to Kyoto station. Since I knew the area, we were
going to go around and play…but….we got sidetracked and ended up staying in
Yodobashi-camera for a while. After that, we just hung out in Kyoto station
until we were tired enough to go to sleep.
Our final day, we spend a lot of time on
the road. We went to Nara and got to play with the deers there and see the
large Buddha.
This was followed by another long road trip
to Osaka where we went to Osaka castle. We had to rush through the castle
because our next stop was to a LARGE shopping district in Osaka. That’s where
most of the other people bought their Omiyage. My group, on the other hand,
went in search of Osaka’s famous Okonomiyaki and Takoyaki!
Sadly, this was the ending of our trip and
we had to fly back and return to our research back in Okinawa. But it was a fun
filled 3 days!
