Watching Christmas movies in Japan is like watching Christmas movies in June- you can pretend it's Christmas as long as you're inside but the minute you walk out your door, the illusion is broken and you enter the harsh reality of a Christmas-less day. It's okay, I'm not really that bitter. You have Christmas, I have Japan. It's a fair trade.
The only Christmas I am going to have this year began and ended today with a Christmas Party that we threw in one of our classes. I dressed up as Santa Claus (Sean was home sick and John was too big for the costume) and taught Christmas carols, and John brought gingerbread houses (well, the Japanese version anyway which involve no gingerbread at all...). We also taught our classmates about how we celebrate Christmas with our families. I don't know if they understood entirely, all I know is that I enjoyed talking about it. And that's it for my Christmas this year (besides a slew of Christmas movies that I have lined up to watch over the next 2 weeks). I am spending Christmas Day in Hiroshima. I don't know of a more opposite way to how I normally spend Christmas than by visiting the site of one of the most horrific events in world history...
On a lighter note, this weekend I finally went to Kyoto: my dream come true. It completely lived up to my expectations. What a romantic city! We hardly visited anything and I have completely fallen in love. Surrounded by mountains on three sides with a river running through the middle, it is easy to see why Kyoto has traditionally been the main place for geisha- something so beautiful could only exist in a place of equal beauty. Walking through the streets of Gion was almost like walking through the pages of one of my favourite books, Memoirs of a Geisha (Almost- I never did find the bridge that she was sitting on when she met the Chairman even though I looked!). Gion stretches all the way up the side of the East mountain to Kyomizu Temple from which you can look back on all of Kyoto. In the evening we headed to the West mountain- Arashiyama. When we got off the train it was almost as though we had gone to an entirely new town: a quaint, little mountain town. We walked around with the crowds and then headed to the Bamboo Pathway. This was absolutely gorgeous. We walked along the winding path through towering stalks of bamboo that were all lit up in white and blue (it's not a Christmas thing, sorry). It was like being in a Japanese fairytale. I'm not sure if you remember but a few posts back I mentioned the Japanese saying: In Osaka, one goes broke from food. In Kyoto, one goes broke from shopping. Well I can now honestly tell you that this saying is true. Shopping in Kyoto is fantastic! There are so many great stores in Gion and not just souvenir shops- really interesting Japanese things that makes much, much better souvenirs. I even found a Ghibli store! (Ghibli is the studio that produces some of my all-time favourite movies and is almost solely responsible for initiating my interest in and love of Japan. Without Miyazaki's movies, I would not be here. The thing on my shoulder in the picture is a from one of my favourite Ghibli movies, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.)
Did I lose you? No? Okay, let's keep going...
On Monday, instead of my usual pop. culture class, Yamaguchi-sensei took Sean, John and I to the Hatcho Miso factory. Hatcho Miso produces the finest miso in Japan. So fine, in fact, that the Emperor chooses to eat it. Ipso facto, I ate the Emperor's miso. It was delicious. Then he took us around Okazaki to the library where we looked at a fantastic jazz collection owned by a famous Japanese jazz musician (loved it), and then to two shrines. The first shrine was your average Shinto shrine. Gorgeous, you know, whatever. Next was a beautiful Buddhist shrine and possible my favourite shrine so far. It looked like it belonged in Oku-no-in on Koya-san or even in the woods near Vancouver on account of the tall cedar trees and wet, misty fog (it was raining at the time) that made it, once again, feel like is was amidst a Japanese fairytale. Probably my favourite thing about the shrine was the cute little cat that lived inside the temple atop the long flight of stairs that seem to be a common feature of Buddhist shrines. He was adorable and very friendly. (Is the cat thing getting to be too much? Perhaps I'll stop mentioning it..)
So to wrap up, I walked through the streets of Gion like Memoirs' Sayuri, I ate the Emperor of Japan's miso, pet a Buddhist cat and dressed up as Santa Claus. Enough for this week? Maybe. Now I am going to try and stay up until midnight to watch the Geminid Meteor Shower. If you read this in time, it should be visible over Canada around midnight tomorrow.
Happy star gazing!
Britt♥
I miss baking.
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