Kyoto!

We went on a field trip to Kyoto this weekend. It was amazing! For those not so familiar with Japanese history, Kyoto is the old capitol of Japan. It was the capital from around 800 A.D until the late 1800s when the capital was moved to Tokyo. The city was a fascinating mixture of old and new because of this. While in the city went to Kiyomizu Temple, which was this huge old temple. This large wooden structure was originally built with all wood, no nails. I thought this was amazing considering how large the building was! In the temple there was a water fall that people would stick out long poles with cups on the end and drink the water from the waterfall because it was supposed to give you good health and luck. On the way out of the temple, we actually got to drink from the waterfall which I thought was very cool.
Next up was the Heian Shrine. Like the Atsuta Shrine I visited in Nagoya, it was a place of Shinto worship. This time our guide from JCMU, Kitamura-san, showed us the proper way to worship at these shrines. I don't know too much about Shintoism but I would like to know more about it and compare it to Christianity. Also, Buddhism is big here so it would be nice to learn more about that too. After praying at the shrine, we went to the shrines gardens. Kitamura-san was telling us that these gardens took over 20 years to make and they were pretty much the hang out for the noblemen of Kyoto. They would come to the gardens and listen to music and float around on their boats in the ponds. It was a very humbling experience to sit in the same place as the noblemen and to see the very scenic gardens.
After we found our way out of the garden we were going to try to go to Gion and try to see Geisha, which I was very excited for after reading the ethnography about them in the Cultural Anthropology class. Unfortunately , we did not see any Geisha or even a Maiko. We did how ever find our way to one of the shopping districts. We found some pretty interesting stuff while exploring the shopping district, including Purikura machines. Purikura machines are kind of like the photobooth machines you see in malls and stuff but they do way more stuff than ours. These machines could make your skin clearer, magnify your eyes and even add makeup if you so desired. One of the girls in our group was very excited about Purikura so we decided to stop and try it. Hopefully I can find some way to scan and upload the pictures because they were pretty amusing.
After we shopped as much as we could we met up with some people in our groups Japanese friends and went out to dinner in a large group! It was very neat that we got to meet some Japanese students our age and interact with them. I even ended up adding some of them on Facebook so we could keep in touch. I can remember where exactly we went for dinner but it was a restaurant that served these almost omelette like dishes. They had eggs, cabbage, shrimp and some other veggies and some kind of dark sauce. I can't remember what they were called but they were pretty good. Although the highlight of dinner was when Hannah (the other health care student) had to jump into action because some woman at the bar was having what Hannah and I deduced was a Grand Mal seizure. Hannah got her turned on her side before she vomited and when she came to Hannah and I had Ayaka translate questions for her to answer. EMS arrived not too long after and took over for us. It was just a crazy coincidence because right before it happened Hannah was talking about working for her school EMS squad and I was showing Erika and Takuma my DS surgery game (Trauma Center: Under the Knife 2). After the excitement settled down we went back out on the town and found this amazing crepe store called Ninja Crepes. I haven't had too many crepes in my life but this was by far one of the best things I have eaten. It was a black crepe with some kind of creme, ice cream, berry sauce, chocolate covered bananas, and an edible shuriken (throwing star) on top. It was fantasic!
All in all, Kyoto was an amazing city and I figured out that where my internship is, is only like 3 train stops away from Kyoto. Needless to say I will probably find my way back there at least once or twice more before I head back to America.