Sightseeing in Kanazawa

For the rest of last night -

Robyn and I couldn't find anyone so we went to look for a meal ourselves. Luckily, we found some other 外人 (foreigners) that are also in the program standing outside a restaurant thinking about going in. We joined these students, who are from Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. We had fun deciphering the menu as a group and finally ordered after a bit. They said that it was a favorite restaurant of the local students, and I could see why. For 600 yen (a little less than 6 dollars), I got miso soup, rice, some cold soba, and a large piece of breaded chicken (katsu). It was excellently delicious, and I'll be sure to visit there again.

Somewhere after dinner, we went back to the dorm to check and see if the classes are up. I made it into the most advanced class!!! So I guess I didn't do too badly on the placement test. This of course means that I'll have the biggest challenge possible, but I'm up for it. I kind of miss being busy (Rose syndrome), so it'll be a welcomed change. I'll be in the class with Phil and some other Rose peeps, but sadly, Robyn was put into class 2. I think she should go talk to the teachers since she has had 5 years of Japanese as well, but she's going to wait it out a bit first.

After checking the class lists, Robyn and I randomly walked around Kanazawa, just looking around and not being duds. After remembering that I needed an alarm clock store, the search was on. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find an alarm clock in Japan. After a drug store and 2 supermarkets, we finally found one in a convenience store - for over 1000 yen!! So, I ended up paying about 10 dollars for a cheap alarm clock, but hey, I'll live.

We found our way back to the dorms and headed to bed kind of early.

Today we had completely off from school, and the SGE group organized sight-seeing for us. Now, just so everyone understands, in my 5 years of taking Japanese, I have done 2 reports on Kanazawa - one in high school and one in college. Because of this, I'm pretty knowledgeable of the sights around it, and I really wanted to go see everything. Because it's impossible to see everything in one day, we went to see Kenroku-en (Kenroku garden), a wagashi making store. and one other venue. I chose to see Ninja-dera (dera=temple even though its not really a temple).

First we went to Ninja-dera. It was a house made by an enemy of the lord of the time to allow for many secrets and quick exits. It reminded me a lot of the Haunted Castle for all of the Fort Wayne peeps out there. At the time when it was built, there was a law saying that no house could be above 3 stories, but in this house, there are 29 stair cases connecting 7 different "half" stories. It's really old, being moved to its current location in 1643. It has trap stairs, hidden stairs, an inside bridge for the tea ceremony, a lookout, a well that also served as a tunnel, a trick offertory box, and the light stairs. It was completely awesome!!

Next, we went to a supermarket to buy obento (boxed lunches). I grabbed some yakitori (grilled chicken with sauce on a skewer) and something that we like to call waffle balls (They were shaped like balls a little smaller than golfballs and they tasted like waffles.) I also got a pastry that looked like cinamon raisin with some icing on top.

We then went to the remains of the Kanazawa Castle. Not much really, only the gate is left, but its pretty magnificent itself. When I say gate, I don't mean a little gate. It has a name by itself - its the Ishikawa gate. We had our obento near a nice little garden with a pond.

Afterwards, we did a little shopping before heading to the wagashi making shop. Wagashi are Japanese sweats made from bean paste. In Japan, they are prized sweets that are normally particular to thea area. We went to the third floor of the shop, where they had demonstrations on how to make wagashi. It was fun cause it was like playing with play-doh that you could eat after you were done. We made 3 different designs of wagashi, and although mine didn't look like the teachers exactly, I think I still did pretty well.

After a little bit of time of buying stuff at the store under where we made the wigashi, we headed up to Kenrokuen Garden. Now, I've written two reports on Kanazawa and each of them were mostly on Kenrokuen Garden, so I'll give a little history. Kenrokuen is one of the three most beautiful man-made gardens in Japan. It's name is from a garden combining six themes of beauty. It's a 27-acre garden of green. It has waterfalls, fountains, bridges, streams, ponds, areas of different types of trees, and anything else you think of when you think green.

We walked around and took hundreds of pictures. Phil, Robyn, and I had lots of fun. After an hour or so, it was time to meet to leave. We met up with the rest of the group and headed off back to campus. We were all exhausted by this point from the heat and all the walking so we were ready to head back.

After a long wait for a bus and getting back to campus, we headed to a ramen store. I had ramen with rice, but there was so much ramen that I could barely finish all the rice or ramen broth. It was excellent and only 315 yen! Afterwards, I went and got some Jushi na Furutsu (Juicy Fruits) at the convenience store. They are like little balls of icy fruit. They were really yummy.

Well, that's about it. Then I came back here to write to you all.

Tomorrow's my first day of class. Hopefully, it'll go well, and I'll be able to understand the teacher adequately enough to learn. It seems like at times here, I feel like I know a lot more than most people, but then most of the time, I feel like everyone else knows far and above what I do. Hmm, we'll see. . . I'm sure I'll make it through. I always do!