Feb. 19: Nagasaki and Kwassui University

Finally a day of relative restfulness after our sightseeing in Osaka and Kyoto.  We woke early enough for a long train ride from Osaka to Hakata, again enjoying "konbini" convenience store onigiri (rice balls) along the way.

At Hakata, we found an udon stall that would sell us steaming bowls of udon on the cold platform -- we bought tickets from the vending machine next to the stand, handed the tickets to the women working in it, and they handed us a bowl of udon noodles in hot soup.  Since there were no seats, we ate next to the Japanese salarymen, standing at the counter around the stall.

After another long train ride from Hakata to Nagasaki, we arrived around 2:00 PM.  At the station was Sergio Mazzarelli, an English instructor at Kwassui University.  Hurley Sensei and Dr. Mazzarelli had run an online video and messaging exchange program, in which these Wilcox students and the Kwassui University students described aspects of their hometown or Santa Clara culture.  You can see Dr. Mazzarelli's webpage for this project here.  After this exchange, we were excited to meet our online foreign exchange friends in person.

By this time rain was falling through the cold Nagasaki air, so we brought out our umbrellas and sprinted from the train station to the Kwassui University bus waiting a block or so away.

The trip up to Kwassui University showed Nagasaki to be another Japanese modern, vibrant city.  Kwassui was founded 130 years ago by an American Protestant woman who wanted to provide Japanese women with an opportunity to receive an education.  Thus, the school looks similar to a university that might be on the east coast of the United States -- lovely, decorated cream-colored exterior walls with lots of old trees around it.  The students were all fashionable young Japanese women, who turned to look at this big group of American kids as we hung out in their common room.

Dr. Mazzarelli took us on a tour around the Kwassui University campus, a beautiful place with the highlight a lovely wooden chapel with an organ from Europe and an elegant, dark-wood lecturn carved by students a hundred years ago.

Our tour ended in Dr. Mazzarelli's classroom, where his college-level English students had set out some hospitable refreshments and were playing soft, lively pop music from a small stereo.

We spent some time speaking with these students, whose English was quite good, talking about the Nagasaki area and getting recommendations for restaurants and site-seeing locations.



You can view Kwassui University's news page about our meeting here.  Around 6:00, we said goodbye to our new friends and headed across town to Kwassui High School, where we would meet our homestay families.  When we arrived, Hirao Sensei, the Kwassui High School teacher managing the homestays on the Japanese side, called out lists of paired names.  With some squeals of delight, the students excitedly introduced themselves to their homestay families, and headed off for the evening.

Feb. 18: Kyoto and Teramachi

Another day of early rising again saw us rushing to the train station to catch a JR line to Kyoto.  We stopped in the Kyoto train station to admire the arching architecture and the endless flights of escalators which ran all the way to the top.

Our first stop was Sanjusan Gendo, an old wooden temple housing a thousand statues of bodhisatva, or beings who had nearly reached enlightenment but who chose to remain just short of it in order to teach their fellow beings.  These bodhisatva were carved from wood and painted in gold, and although they seemed identical, closer inspection revealed that each one had an individual face and drape of clothing.  The central bodhisatva was Kannon, and the thousand golden statues stood alongside several large, dark wooden statues of characters in Hindu-Japanese mythology, such as the gods of thunder and the wind.

Sanjusan Gendo temple is also the site of the national archery contests, and Hurley Sensei described how archers would shoot down the length of the building, the arrows arching beneath the eaves of the temple porches to hit the target on the far side.  One archery event was seeing how many hits an archer could achieve in the space of 24 hours, and the reigning champion of this event, an unknown commoner in the sixteenth century, shot a total of 13,000 arrows in that amount of time (8,000 of which hit the target).

After buying some trinkets and fortunes at the Sanjusan Gendo temple gift shop, we headed for Kiyomizudera, the "Pure Water" temple in Kyoto.  The temple sits on the top of a large hill, on which sits many traditional wooden Japanese-style buildings; we passed these small, busy, beautiful buildings with delight and headed towards the temple.

Kiyomizudera is actually several buildings large with pathways connecting them together.  In the first building, we gawked at the fashionable Japanese young people with their super-hip J-Pop outfits and hair, standing around a giant bowl of incense.

Then we noticed that other Japanese young women were in full kimono dress, beautiful vibrantly colored floral prints with their hair elegantly styled, walking on the traditional Japanese wooden tori.  Mrs. Shiokawa, a friend of Hurley Sensei's who accompanied us on our tour of Kyoto, explained that Kyoto is a kimono fabric manufacturing district, and young women can rent kimono to feel lovely and advertise wares.

In the Buddhist temple was also a Shinto shrine, which Hurley Sensei said is fairly common.  This shrine was dedicated to love, so many young people -- including our students -- entered enthusiastically.

Stands lining the walkways sold charms to bring good luck in finding love or strengthening a relationship.  One of our students bowed and shook a long red banner to ring a golden bell in front of a shrine to bring luck in love.  Other students walked, eyes closed, from one "love rock" to the other, with some help and directions from their friends.  When they managed to reach the other rock, the crowd of people around them clapped.

Sitting near the temple's central attraction, a structure where the "pure waters" spouted from the mountain over the roof of the structure and into a pond.  We ate steaming bowls of udon with sweet fried tofu and watched as the Japanese people collected this water in cups, washed their fingertips, and drank a sip to bring the granting of a wish.

Leaving the temple, we walked through the curving streets of old Kyoto, through the old-style Japanese buildings.  Busy shops lined the streets selling ice cream, crepes, mochi, or souveniers.

Reaching the bottom of the hill was like walking out of a time warp: the old fashioned wooden buildings again became a modern Japanese city bus stop.  Worried about spending too much money, we decided to forego bus fare and instead walk to the manga museum, our next stop.  About three miles of brisk walking and sightseeing through Kyoto's modern streets brought us panting and tired to the steps of the manga museum, but we were disappointed to see that it was closed on Wednesdays.  We hopped on a subway and headed for Teramachi, the shopping district.

One of the students pointed out that all of the streets in Teramachi were labeled "Shopping Street," and we were not disappointed.  Wide pedestrian walkways were crowded on both sides with shops and cafe's selling everything and anything.  Hurley Sensei gave us a few hours to walk around, so we set off in different directions.  Some of us sat in a coffee or donut shop, resting after our long, brisk walk through Kyoto.  Some of us headed for karaoke singing and were thrilled to find musical theater selections.  Others of us shopped for clothing yet again.

Once again tired from our adventures, we met at our appointed place and time and headed from Teramachi back to the Kyoto station.  We spent some time eating and exploring the architecture once more, then hopped on a train back to the Shin-Osaka Youth Hostel.  Once again exhausted, we all quickly fell asleep.