New Year in Kobe, kabuki in Osaka

New year in Japan. I was going to say that just as with Christmas, this was my first New Year away from home, but nope, there was that one time I spent it far away in the exotic Sweden. (Does Swden even count as a foreign country? ^^)

Anyway, this was a wonderful new year, spent in Kobe with few friends. I guess I haven't mentioned my new salsa hobby here before? Marina (who yesterday left back to Brazil... ;_; ) took me to those classes first a couple of months ago. I've tried to go at least once a week, but it varies a bit. I'm not particularly good, but it's an awful lot of fun, and also gives some language practice. Anyway, there was a Countdown Latin party at Kobe, arrange by one of our teachers, and there we went.

Spent a while first walking around in Kobe. Walked through the Chinatown to the port... but first things first. These cheese tarts.

Oh god. They are so delicious I'm glad I don't live in Kobe. I would eat nothing else. Note to self: bought them at the Santica shopping center, bottom floor, where they also sold the best onigiri I've so far tasted. (And very many other tasty-looking things.)

So, onward. First the Chinatown. A small place, but with very many tempting things that I mainly managed to resist.

Also resisted these stairs (not in Chinatown anymore) though they were calling me..

It was a supermoon night.

Advertising pic for Kiss FM? xD

We almost went to skate, but didn't really have enough time...

You should have steak in Kobe, right? Though I admit this wasn't Kobe steak. Very good, nevertheless.

And one more view of the Kobe Tower and the moon.

Then we headed to the party. Got to dance quite a lot, a bit salsa and bachata, but also just, you know, to move to the music. A lot easier than pair dances, if you ask me. ^^;

There was also a samba show. (A poor quality video, I know. Sorry.)

One interesting experience of the trip was sleeping at an internet cafe. It was better than I thought, but few observations:

1) not good for tall people. I (at 170cm) was ok, but if you are at all taller than me, you'd find it cramped. Even I was sleeping kind of diagonally.

2) the pillow is meant for sitting, not sleeping.

3) a light sleeper (like me) will wake up many, many times, because everybody gets up at different times, and so there are alarms going off every half an hour. Yes, I had earplugs. Luckily I'm quite good in falling asleep again.

But overall I liked it. It wasn't as cheap as one would have imagined - maybe the new year made the price higher? But it was a 3 min walk from our party place, which was quite nice. Also, all drinks are free in these places. ^^ (And there's manga to read - in Japanese of course - and naturally the computers, but we were there to sleep.)

 You can get your feet underneath the table, so it's not quite as small as it might seem in that pic..

Next day we still stopped at the Ikuta shrine. Had a bit trouble finding each other thought, as two of us stayed in the internet cafe and two elsewhere. 

 I got myself a prediction. Haven't (still) yet quite deciphered all of it, but at least it's not an unlucky one. "Future good luck"? Well, fine enough. Studies is 困難, though. Difficulty, hardship. (I think it's about this January. It will be horrible. Let's see if I survive. There is that future good luck, though, I'm counting on it.....)

So, that's it for New Year. If I had made this update right away a week ago, as I planned, this would end here, but I'll just move onto the next thing now, I guess. The Noh theater I saw last year reminded me that I want to see kabuki too, and as we had one week's vacation for new year, I went and bought a kabuki ticket for Jan 3. For Shochikusa theater in Osaka. There is a kabuki theater in Kyoto too, of course, but they have only  two runs of three weeks per year, and none in the time I've left here. Shochikusa is a bit better in that sense, with three to five runs per year, each lasting between three to four weeks.

So I headed to Osaka. I walked to the theather from the Yodoyabashi station, stopping at some shrines on the way. But again, to begin with essential things (food), I went to eat in a place called Chibo. This was first time I had okonomiyaki, and it was delicious.

The first shrine on my way was Goryo. It was also my favorite. Quite small, and not overly popular. But somehow very... I don't know. Charming place, for some reason? 

 Nanba shrine had fun dog pictures. (Once Chinese New Year comes, the year of the dog will start.)

And Nambayasaka shrine was clearly the most popular place - and but on the third place on my list, sorry. The "awe-inspiring Ema-den" was, uh, mainly a bit funny, if you ask me...

Other than the shrines, Osaka feels like a much more modern city than Kyoto.

Stopped to take a random photo (the one above) and then realized I'm there. The theater is the building on the right side on the photo below.

The streets were getting crowded in the evening, after the theater.

Alright. Finally trying to get to the point. Kabuki.

I went there to see "Kabuki dances by Tamasaburo" - not a single kabuki play, in other words, but four separate little acts.

Loved it, simply put. Bandō Tamasaburō V is the most popular onnagata at the moment, and I can see why. It's amazing to think that the beautiful, graceful lady on the stage would be a 67-year-old man. My favorite of the dances was Sagi Musume (the heron maiden). You can watch the whole thing on youtube - with English commentary so you actually get a clue what's going on. It's altogether ~30 minutes long. If you don't feel like watching it all, at least watch the end of the first part to see the dress change. It was quite dramatic in real life.

Beginning:

Middle:

End:

And I think that finally concludes this update....

This 'n that

I’ve had so many posts on my mind in the past couple of weeks, but somehow I haven’t had time to write them. Life’s been busy. 24 hours of classes/week is quite a lot... There have been some exams, one term paper outline (the deadline for which was today, and I swear it was harder to do that outline than it’ll be to do the essay), presentations and whatnot… but I think I’ll write a post about that stuff some other day. When I feel like it...

The weather has been turning colder. It’s positively chilly. People keep on saying stuff like “but you’re from Finland! You can’t be cold!”… well, yeah. Compared to Finland it’s not that cold here at all. But the Japanese cold is different from Finnish cold. Finnish cold is sharp and crisp, Japanese… this sneaky chillness that literally goes to the bone and marrow. Maybe it’s the humidity? Another thing is that it’s cold inside, too. My apartment is impossible to keep warm… or maybe that could be done if I kept the air-conditioners blowing all time, but I don’t want to see what kind electricity bills I’d get after that. 

Besides, I don’t like aircon. And it’s located right over the table where I have my laptop, so if I’m sitting there, as I’m right now, the air from the aircon is blowing straight at my head, which is unpleasant. (It is on now, by the way. And I’m hiding from it underneath a blanket. Am very warm at the moment. 🙂 )

…I’ve now twice got some random alert that the bath’s plumbing is freezing, or whatever. How? It’s not even below zero out there, and this is inside. >_>

This. It gave me heart attack yesterday morning, when this thing gave a loud alarm when I was right beside it, and suddenly a Japanese voice started talking something I didn’t quite understand. xD

Seriously.

Anyways. I’ve done also some fun stuff during this time, but here’s just a quick summary… 

First there was the Takatori samurai festival, which was an awful lot of fun. It took a couple of hours to go there by train. Went there with a friend, and we were basically the only foreigners there. xD People kept on trying to guess where we are from, but when one is from Finland and the other from Luxembourg, that wasn’t so easy. xD
(You get these tiny v ids full screen from the bottom corner, you know!)

A couple of vids more that I was going to post here but were too big (of the dancers - that adorable little girl in the first row! and of some fighting). I hope these links work...

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qn246MnC_mP6lhmu4Ozcj6ZuOKF0PM0T/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q3UjtesFOPGCIqGuP7j_z-EsZgPTjAo_/view?usp=sharing

Then, the university festival…. Which I mostly missed. I had planned to go there during the weekend, but somehow didn’t have time. So I was there only for Thursday evening when it started. Saw at least the bonfire…

A big part of Saturday I spent at the flea market at Kitano Tenmangu shrine. They hold it every month on the 25^th. Awful place. xD Too much stuff. And places where you can get a plastic bag for 500 yen, and the fill it with used kimonos and stuff…

And then got invited on a river boat ride on Hozugawa. It was awesome.

And lastly, kind of off-topic (if there now is any topic), but before I again forget... Someone asked me a while ago about the name of my journal, so I thought I could say a few words about it. I’m awful at naming things. And making decisions. I kept on postponing making this journal because I couldn’t decide on the name. I wanted to have something about Kyoto, or maybe language, or both. At first I thought of something like kyokotoba, which is the term for the Kyoto dialect (kotoba = word, language), but it felt kind of off…  But kotoba actually gave me idea for this name: it consists of two kanji, 言 (say; word) and 葉 (leaf). So I though of words as kind of leaves of language, and as I’m here for autumn term, falling words felt kind of fitting. That name was taken, though, so I had to add something after it. Also the Kalevalan phrase “puheet putoelevat” came to my mind, literally something like “ the talks/words are falling” (from the mouth). So, here we go. What's in a name, anyway?

Autumn & Kurama

Somehow I can't keep track of time here. Technically I know it's November, but it doesn't feel like that. What do you mean it's about one month to Christmas?! Unbelievable. It's the weather, I guess... The autumn foliage has only reached its beautiful peak here, and it's a bit difficult to truly believe that right now home in Finland it's the gloomiest time of the year... rain, sleet, barren trees, leaves turning to mud on the ground... November in Finland is manageable, I think, but it takes some effort. Or, at least it takes candles, good books, warm blankets, tea or hot chocolate, and no need to go out. Some rain is ok, too, gently tapping the window glass, the wet streets glistening in the lamplight, or even sleet and wind, howling behind the said  window, but then it is of utmost importance there is no need to go anywhere...

Well. Yes. Back to Japan. Here it's autumn, and a gorgeous autumn, what comes to that. One area that's famous of its autumn colors is Kurama, and I decided I simply have to go to check what ruska is like in Japan. It was quite easy too, for you can go to Kurama by the Eiden railway, which happens to be my local train. (For once it's easy to go somewhere from Shugakuin!!! xD) I made what should have been a perfect plan: I'd take train to Kibune (the previous stop before Kurama), check out the temple there, and then hike to Kurama, admiring the autumn colors on the way. The usual way is to do this hike the other way round, from Kurama to Kibune, but my goal was at the end of it to get to soak at the Kurama onsen. Perfect, right?

Well, it all started fine. Woke up early, caught the train I'd planned (!), arrived to Kibuneguchi. There's a bus service from the station to the town, operating in schedule with the trains, and though it's a very short walk, I figured I'd soon get to walk quite enough and too the bus. Arriving to Kibune I soon spotted the little red bridge from which I knew the hike would begin. Only, something seemed to be off...

Indeed.

I spent a moment swearing at the kami of nature who seem to be conniving against me (first the Jidai matsuri cancelled because of a typhoon, now this - I'd imagine paths don't just collapse and trees don't fall on their own, it takes rain or such to cause that...) In Kurama there was also a photo of the collapsed part.

できません。(◕︿◕)　(できますよ~！)

Oh well. So, after the useless rant against the powers of nature, I climbed up to see the Kifune temple. It is dedicated to kami of water, and there is water gushing pretty much everywhere around. Also, in the Heian times delegations were sent to this place to pray for rain or good weather. In the latter case, a white horse was offered to the shrine, in the case of rain, a black horse.

And then I ended up walking back to the Kibuneguchi station - which wasn't all bad, as it was a lovely road.

At Kurama you could follow the beginning of the hiking path up to the Kurama temple and the Reihoden museum. The starting point:

This Japanese cedar tree is about 800 years old and 53 meters high. (No wonder I couldn't make it fit in my photos.) If you pray to the tree with all your heart, your wish will come true. Remains to be seen.

 

Zooming in:

Up at Kurama dera:

I wasn't the only one disappointed....

You can ring the bell once to, again, make a wish...

Coming down from the temple I stopped to eat Buddhist vegetarian food at Yoshuji. Loved it (except the soup on the right side that didn't really taste of anything.) I took the first set on the right side of the menu.

And then, to the onsen! This was my first visit ever to a bath like this, and I loved it too. So relaxing, the hot water. At first I thought it's not that hot, really, but after a short moment I was very happy to have the cold wet hand towel to place on my head. A lovely place. Quite small, I think, but then again, I have nothing to compare it to. But that made it just more atmospheric. You couldn't take photos there, of course, but here's a few from the way. It was only a short walk away.

That's more than enough photos, I guess. Imagine how much I'd have if I'd been able to do the hike...  One more, though.

 My face, looking at the sign at Kibune. xD