Now that my schedule has mellowed out a bit, this past week I finally found the time to get the most important things for living in Tottori, and probably for living in Japan. I got a bike and a rice cooker!
After searching through a few different shops, I finally lucked out in finding this used bike, which is in pretty good shape, has straight handlebars, and came with the added benefit of 6 gears. Most of these cruiser bikes are single speed, which can end up either being taxing on the rider, or just slow.
I also went to the IKEA of electronic stores to pick up a rice cooker. Apparently an everyday appliance that everyone in Japan uses is substantially more expensive than in America. I was half tempted to have someone mail me my rice cooker in the US. After searching through the shelves I found a personal rice cooker with a steamer (also apparently a rare thing) at a reasonable price of around $90. I say reasonable because the high end rice cookers encroached $700, and the midline ones sat at $300. Oddly enough, the capacity did not greatly increase with the rising price. Apparently they just have fancy features like automatically factoring your room's temperature and humidity to ensure consistently perfect rice. But I am happy with my little steamer purchase, although that means I cannot prep food in advance the way I would like to.
Also, a few of the teachers decided to show me the school farm. Since the school has an food industry focused class, they actually have a plot of land by the school where students get to practice for their professions. They have a lot of greenhouses, as well as some plots for growing both crops and decorative plants. The gardening focused class also has land there, where they learn to build gardens like Japanese style gardens as well as European style arrangements. It was impressed to see such amenities available for students to use.
They also just installed fancy projectors in every room which allow you to draw digitally using digital pens synced to the projector, and also have the added feature of being positioned in a way were you are not blinded while standing in front of it. So it sounds like I have the tools to do my job, now all that is left is to teach well.
After coming back from Kyoto, I went to my prefecture orientation. This orientation outlined more specifics about my contract and job, but also gave me the opportunity to meet many of the other JETs in the prefecture. The first evening we went to am all you can eat/drink beer garden, was then followed by very rambunctious karaoke. While I didn't sing myself, I was impressed by the playlist selection. They had songs by Dream Theater, Kamelot, and I even found a song by Protest the Hero.
The second day was a fun day, where the prefecture board of education set aside to show us some touristy sites around Tottori. It started with a boat tour around the cliffs near Tottori, which was a fascinating site to see.
Then we went to the sand dunes, Tottori`s main tourist attraction. It is just a random, massive sand dune right next to town. There were lots of people wandering around, a paragliders, and some more adventurous people running down the dune. So after 3 weeks of not training at all, I figured I would throw something I have never landed, and did a very poor kart side down the hill. (Parkour people, I am sorry for the disappointing execution).
Tottori is well known for growing pears, so as we left I grabbed some pear ice cream, which I liked a lot more than actual pears. We didn't spend too much time at the sand dune, so I think I will go back there again sometime.
That evening was Shan Shan matsuri, Tottori's big festival. Historically this festival is based on a monk who danced with an umbrella for rain, so the whole city does this for hours on end. It was very fun, the main street in the city gets turned into a parade of parasols where 4 songs are played on repeat and groups dance as they proceed down. It ends up being somewhat repetitive after a certain point, but each group had different routines for two of the 4 songs. So at a certain point we began to look for the "best" team of performers. The most impressive group we saw was the "All Blacks" who added a shuffle to their dance. It was a lot of fun and the city really came to life with tons of people along the main street. The next evening the festival drew to a close with a fireworks display. While fireworks are equally impressive in scale in the US, the length of the shows is much longer in Japan. There was an hour of fireworks, which was broken up by songs played over speakers along the riverbank. Much like the main street the day before, the whole city seemed to gather at the riverbank to watch the fireworks, which were a ton of fun to watch.
The next day I joined in on plans to go to the beach. Erika, a Tottori native I met at the beer garden, was visiting town during Obon and organized the event. I joined her and her friend and went to a beach in Iwami, close to where I was earlier. This beach however, had cliff diving! I am glad I took the time to go to the beach again.
Also, here are all the photos from the trip, including meals and friends if you'd like to see things in more detail.
Forewarning, this is one heck of a post. And I took even more photos this trip than I am managing to upload into the blog, so here's a photo album if you just want to see cool stuff and ignore my ramblings.
Since I worked the English camp over the weekend of the 8th, I was given Tuesday and Wednesday off from work. I decided to make the most of my free time and travel to Kyoto for two days. So I decided to go to Kyoto and check out some of the sights.
I went to a bunch of different shrines after arriving. I first headed over to Arashiyama and went to the Tenryu-ji Temple. This is a rather tranquil spot, with the shrine having a garden in the back.
Right next to this spot is both the bamboo forest and the Okochi-Sanso Villa. The villa was owned by a famous movie star who built his property into a garden which overlooks Kyoto. While the Tenryu-ji Temple had a relaxing atmosphere, the amount of tourists kept it from being truly relaxed, whereas the villa's entrance fee deters many people, so it was truly quiet and peaceful. There is also a small cafe there which serves guests green tea, which Kyoto is known for.
The next stop on my list was in the northern part of the city, the famous Kinkaku-ji Temple. I have been consistently impressed with these shrines since even though they have a ton of people going through them, they still remain rather calm and spacious. But this temple deserves the crowds it gathers, it is shiny and pristine.
Also, there's a little coin statue there.
After this stop I checked the bus schedule and realized it would be just as quick time wise for me to walk to the Nijo Castle. So I did just that. I am glad I wandered through the city because I got a much better vibe for the actual feel of Kyoto.
Anyways, apparently the castle, like a bunch of random things in Japan, is closed on Tuesdays. So I wandered onto the Imperial Palace grounds, which has been turned into a large recreation park in the middle of the city. It felt very similar to Washington Park, however the grounds were much larger.
I found a Mexican restaurant for dinner based on my phone`s recommendation of good restaurants nearby. I was surprised to see this, so I wandered over to LaJolla. It was some of the best Mexican food I have had. Speaking to the owner, who was also the chef, I learned how he came to cook such great food. Many years ago he left his job as a cook in Japan to be a beach bum and surf in Orange County. He fell into a ritual of surfing all day, and eating Mexican food for dinner. Over time, he learned to cook the food he was eating every day by talking to the chefs who made his meals. When he moved back to Japan, he missed his usual dinner routine. So he opened up a Mexican restaurant in Kyoto. The business has been going for 20 years strong now. I am glad I stopped in to try it out.
After dinner I ended up wandering the riverbank towards the hostel. Thankfully I made this detour and found a rather impressive street performer. He was a fire dancer who used a variety of items throughout his performance. I compiled some highlights here.
After this I wandered Pontocho Alley, which is a narrow street with a variety of restaurants. Next time I might actually stop into one of these. This did lead me to a random street that I really appreciated aesthetically. As far as I could gather it was just a residential street, but the shops on one side with the row of streetlamps next to a creek was very much to my liking.
The hostel I stayed in was nicer than many hotels I have been in. It had a very modern aesthetic, comfy beds, and a full kitchen with free breakfast in the morning. All for around the equivalent of $25.
The next day I went to the East side of the city to see the famous sites on that end of town. I started at Yasaka Shrine which is known to be on of the biggest spiritual centers in Kyoto. Unlike many of the other shrines which feel more repurposed as historical sites, this place actually had shrine maidens working on the grounds.
I walked through a stone ground section of town on my way to the next site, which was very interesting. What I presume to be incredibly nice houses lined the streets, yet there were also a variety of Buddha statues around the ward. There was even a map on where they all were if a traveler wanted to find them all. In this section of town I also found the really tall pagoda, which just sits by itself fenced off from the rest of the residential area.
I arrived Kiyomizu-dera Temple next, which is the most toursity of the sites in Kyoto. The entire street up to the shrine is filled with souvenir shops and people. The shrine grounds themselves are large though, so much like the other areas I visited, the crowds were not much of a bother. On the grounds I went to Tainai Meguri. A small section of the area many tourists pass over. It is a pitch black tunnel with an illuminated stone in the middle. According to the official website description and google translate, it is described as “Return to the womb of great merciful mother. When you find a light in the dark you will realize you are newborn again. There is a Sanskrit character that symbolized Daizuigu Bosatsu on the stone. Turn around around the stone and make wish.” It was one of the most interesting experiences I had the whole trip. Would recommend.
After that I trekked over to the Sanjusangen-do Temple. This temple does not allow photography, but has over 1000 identical statues of Kannon, a Buddhist goddess of mercy and statues of other deities. So I hopped online and googled an image for you. Here's HALF of the statues, not including the big one in the middle. Also included is my favorite of the deities, the Nio.
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!!! So after this I proceeded to the Fushimi-Inari-Taisha Shrine. This is the big one. A whole mountainside of gates along paths to various shrines and burial grounds. It is massive. The base is incredibly crowded, but most tourists seem to give up a 3rd of the way up the path. I managed to lap the whole thing, and I am glad I did. As the crowds thinned, it became much more scenic and stayed continuously impressive the whole time.
After nearly getting lost in the mountains, I bused back to the train station, which is a gigantic building/mall and went to the Ramen Street, which is a floor of ramen restaurants in the station and had a good meal before catching my train. While there it was notable that they had a Lego build of the building, I thought this was really cool and I kind of wish all tourist sites had Lego versions of the place at the locations.
Kyoto is a very interesting city because you have the main roads which are large and feel very modern with hustle and bustle, the historic sites which while filled with tourists, are still very much maintained in their original states, and then the rest of the city consists of tiny little side streets with local storefronts. It is odd to see such radical differences just by turning a corner.
The city is quite "small" geographically speaking. I managed to walk from the north end of the city to the center over the course of an afternoon. It took a few hours and was definitely a few miles, but it was quite interesting to see both the historic and modern parts of town.
After searching through a few different shops, I finally lucked out in finding this used bike, which is in pretty good shape, has straight handlebars, and came with the added benefit of 6 gears. Most of these cruiser bikes are single speed, which can end up either being taxing on the rider, or just slow. 
I also went to the IKEA of electronic stores to pick up a rice cooker. Apparently an everyday appliance that everyone in Japan uses is substantially more expensive than in America. I was half tempted to have someone mail me my rice cooker in the US. After searching through the shelves I found a personal rice cooker with a steamer (also apparently a rare thing) at a reasonable price of around $90. I say reasonable because the high end rice cookers encroached $700, and the midline ones sat at $300. Oddly enough, the capacity did not greatly increase with the rising price. Apparently they just have fancy features like automatically factoring your room's temperature and humidity to ensure consistently perfect rice. But I am happy with my little steamer purchase, although that means I cannot prep food in advance the way I would like to.
