Scavenger Hunt! (Victor)

Given the clue “Find the temple where Hideyoshi’s wife Onene spent her final years”. It didn’t take long to find out that my assigned sight was Kodai-ji Temple. A relatively unknown temple when compared to its neighbors, Yasaka Shrine and Kiyomizu-Dera, Kodai-ji is a beautiful site that I personally enjoyed more than Kiyomizu-Dera, the go-to temple in the Gion area. My temple is more toned down and elegant than the other two places I mentioned above, its structures are more simplistic and fewer in number, but each of them are considered historical treasures.

Trying to find the entrance on a narrow residential street.

When I visited Kodai-ji the first time, I knew nothing about it other the fact that is where Hideyoshi’s wife died, and that she had it built to honor his memory after he died. My main focus during this exploratory first visit was to learn my way around the complex, take pictures, and make sure that I could remember the path again when we returned together in October.

Kaisan-do with view of a pond

I absolutely loved Kodai-ji. The more simplistic layout of the buildings lends itself to a quiet space in nature very well. Due to the article I read by William H. Samonides and more of my own research in preparation for touring around again, I learned that it wasn’t supposed to be that way. The complex used to have many more buildings, but due to several fires only six main structures remain. One of my favourites is the Kaisan-Do; it has many paintings from the Tosa and Kano schools.

Famous picture of Kodai-ji maki-e

The Otama-ya, however, is a very special building as it contains much of what Kodai-ji is known for; Momoyama period maki-e, also known as Kodai-ji maki-e. Maki-e is a Japanese style of lacquer where gold or silver dust is sprinkled on the lacquer while it is still wet.

Match and mochi

By far, my favorite part of visiting Kodai-ji was getting a cup of matcha tea while sitting in a tea room. Near the end of the walking through Kodai-ji, you can pay 500 yen to get a cup of tea and a small mochi snack. The perfect way to end a walk around centuries old Japanese buildings surrounded by nature.

Say What? (Victor)

I don’t get to hear a lot of the dialect from my area, Osaka, partially because of my bad habit of staying inside my room when I’m not in class, but also because many of the Japanese students in the seminar house, and around campus always try to use English when speaking to me.

Eat and eavesdrop to learn Japanese.

I tend to hear the most of Kansai-ben when I go out to a cafe or restaurant alone, and I have nothing to do but eavesdrop on neighboring tables.

The two most common phrases I hear are ええで which is equivalent to いいよ, and おおきに, the equivalent to ありがとう. This makes sense considering I hear it at restaurants where phrases like “No problem/okay’’ and “Thank you” are commonplace. I was also specifically taught the phrase おおきに at a small basement restaurant in Kyoto called Teppan Tavern Tenamonya, which I highly recommend. At the end of the meal, they gave us a thank you card that says おおきに on it, and the owner, and chef, of the restaurant made sure we knew what it meant and had us repeat it out loud after him.

Let the bourbon flow! Even though I only got cocktails.

Kansai-ben speakers will probably despise me for saying this but another reason I don’t pick up on the dialect a lot is because most of the time it’s not different enough from Tokyo-ben/standard Japanese that I get confused. If I said that out loud to someone from the Kansai area I’d probably get yelled at. I’ve been told by my Japanese professor here that the people who use Kansai-ben are not only very proud of how they speak, but also specifically have a special hatred and sense of superiority towards people from Tokyo and how they talk. I may be misremembering, but the first time I really noticed Kansai-ben was when I went to a bourbon bar called Rogin’s Tavern in the middle of Osaka where an old man was having a conversation with the bartender that I felt I should’ve been able to understand but was having a strangely hard time. Also, it was my first bar experience so that was pretty fun and funky.

Mapping My Way (Victor)

Being as timid as I am, and that my friends were far away from me, living on the college campus while I lived in a building thirty minutes away, I explored as little as possible at first. I only went to the small grocery store five minutes away the next day out of necessity for food, and after it was acquired, I didn’t leave the building again until orientation a couple of days later. I was absolutely terrified of going anywhere by myself. Despite there being a bus stop right outside my building that took me straight to campus, I opted to walk my first several trips because I was too nervous to take the bus alone and I didn’t get a bus pass for almost two weeks because the thought of getting to, and navigating a train station alone was also scary. I didn’t go anywhere I didn’t absolutely have to, and I tried to rope in my roommate or friends for every trip I went on.

My understanding of the world around me represented by sticky notes.

This fear of exploration, particularly by myself, meant that I didn’t have any understanding of my surroundings and even though I walked to campus several times, I was so glued to Google Maps that I didn’t absorb any landmarks.

My small world

Even now that I’ve been in Japan for a few weeks, I still haven’t done much exploring, which I regret because I now have less and less time to go out as the semester ramps up. I have my major landmarks, like Himawari, the very bright and bold pachinko parlor that signals where I need to turn right to get to campus from where I’m living. The Top World Market is where I do more extensive grocery shopping trips, and it signals that I’m getting closer to home but my bubble is still so small. For example, I’ve never turned left at Himawari, I take the bus whenever I can, blocking me from taking in information from my environment, and I’m still not comfortable taking the train alone.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to take some bigger steps on my own soon.

My First Big Trip Alone (Victor)

As I set out on this journey I hope to push myself further outside of my comfort zone than ever before. I’ve never been away from home for so long without so much as a weekend back with my family but this time I won’t see my house again for four months. 

Final Look

Of course furthering my language skills is always my goal for studying abroad but I also want to learn to communicate with people that grew up in a completely different environment than I did. It will be challenging to adapt to Japanese culture, as much as I research ahead of time, I can never truly understand what it will feel like to be there until several days or weeks after I’ve gotten off the plane with no reasonable way to change my mind and go home.

Being so far from my friends and family, I expect to be challenged with loneliness and isolation greater than I’ve ever experienced. I won’t be able to text my parents during the day and get a snappy reply, I’ll have to plan calls ahead of time, I’ve never had to do that before. Years ago, I went on a trip to China with my 8th grade Chinese class and I didn’t have much communication back home then either, but I was surrounded by my English speaking classmates and a nice teacher that was constantly checking in on us. I’m mostly alone on this journey, and that’s scary.

Mt. Fuji from the air

But I also hope to learn how to overcome fears like this and be able to go on more adventures after this one.

Welcome to Kansai Airport, Osaka