Skip to main content

And... I'm off!

Hey!

Writing this from San Francisco's airport! Camped out at the terminal, have access to Wi-Fi (for free) for only 45 minutes. But thought I'd say hello, before the 11 hour flight to Osaka.

We're scheduled to land at about 2:00pm Saturday, Japanese time. And from there, it'll be about an hour and a half drive to Himeji and the Shirasagi Residence.

The weather is currently cloudy, foggy, and a brisk 59 degree Fahrenheit here, but it was a lot of fun to fly into the clouds. The public art in the terminals ranges from painfully unoriginal to semi-inspiring.

Everything is finally starting to feel real. But we'll see how real it feels after we land in Japan!


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shinzaike Honcho Festival, Friendship Festival, and the Countryside!

Lots of photos and a few videos incoming! The Shinzaike Honcho Festival was the local neighborhood festival. The shrine was just down the street from Shirasagi, and all of us ALT's walked to it. It was a lot of fun! Three other neighborhoods were also having their festivals at the same time, which meant that we ran into their portable shrines along the way now and then. Everything culminated at the park on top of the hill next to Shirasagi, with performances by the kids and some portable shrine "dancing." The portable shrine was alternately carried and pushed/pulled along the route we took, which circled through most of the area around the Shinzaike Honcho main street. We marched in lines behind the portable shrine, chanting "Yo Ya Sa" along the way (the equivalent of "heave ho!").  The entrance to the shrine.  (^ Some detailed photos of the portable shrine. ^) (A lion dance performance at the start of the festival.) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Scarecrows and Swordsmen Make for an Exciting Weekend!

This weekend I had two consecutive day trips! On Saturday, November 9th, I went to Aioi to watch a swordsmith make a katana and viewed the Scarecrow Festival; I also went on a bit of a hike, and visited an art museum! Aioi was about an hour away from Shirasagi by car. It was at a higher altitude, so it was a bit chilly in the morning. Once the sun came out, though, it got much more comfortable! The autumn leaves were absolutely stunning; there's nothing quite like seeing mountainsides dotted with colorful trees! The entrance to a main area of Aioi.  The view from the window of the smithy.  The swordsmith at work! He was a junior apprentice, which meant he had to do all the work himself, using this machine to pound the steel. Apparently the grand masters are allowed to have apprentices pound the steel manually for them.  A pond outside the smithy! A watermill fed into it.  An ivy-covered house!  Starting a hike to view a shrine in ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Autumn 2014: Kyoto

I spent all day on the 22nd in Kyoto. I went to so many places that I cannot honestly remember the names of them all. I will try my best to be accurate, but it was pretty overwhelming. I also was able to en joy a performance by a Maiko , or apprentice Geisha.  She was very beautiful! The weather was great, in fact is got pretty toasty in the afternoon. The crowds, though, were a bit obnoxious. I've come to expect big crowds in Kyoto, but it still comes as an unpleasant surprise every time I visit. Be warned, I took a lot of photographs! Fushimi Inari Shrine Our first stop was the Fushimi Inari Shrine . This was actually many shrines, all along a gorgeous mountain trail that I did not have the time to enjoy fully (perhaps again, during a non-peak tourist season). Inari is the Shinto god of rice, and the messenger for this spirit is the fox. Thus, there were foxes everywhere, as well as the red coloring that goes with this god. You will see many Inari shrines throughout Japa...
Post a Comment
Read more