Meadow on the Ledge

It is time for another post. I have been busy with life things in the past week or so, so I haven't had much time to finish my story about my trip around Japan. This week has been filled with excitement, effort, a lot and a lot of thinking, and a lot of missing my other half.

I'm at at a crossroad. Going to Japan was a quick and lovely detour, but here I am standing at this crossroad again. In the past several days, several paths have appeared before me on this journey called life, with some paths not quite made and others that are more clear than others. But, there are so many that I do not know which path to take. What happens if I take one path, but not the other? Will I regret going down one path while knowing what the other path could have lead to?

Anyway, while I figure out what to do and where to go, let me tell you the rest of my story of Japan! When I think of Kyoto, I think of the song "Rather Be" by Clean Bandit. Noah introduced me to this song by well, just playing it every once in a while. The lyrics, and this song, is a perfect reflection of the theme for our time in Japan.

"Rather Be" - Clean Bandit (feat. Jess Glynne)

We're a thousand miles from comfort, we have traveled land and sea

But as long as you are with me, there's no place I'd rather be

I would wait forever, exalted in the scene

As long as I am with you, my heart continues to beat

With every step we take, Kyoto to The Bay
Strolling so casually
We're different and the same, get you another name
Switch up the batteries

If you gave me a chance I would take it
It's a shot in the dark but I'll make it
Know with all of your heart, you can't shake me
When I am with you, there's no place I'd rather be
N-n-n-no, no, no, no place I'd rather be [3x]

We staked out on a mission to find our inner peace
Make it everlasting so nothing's incomplete
It's easy being with you, sacred simplicity
As long as we're together, there's no place I'd rather be

When I am with you, there's no place I'd rather be

Hmmmmmmmmmm, hoooooooooo
Be
Yeah-e-yeah-e-yeah-e-yeah-e-yeah, yeah, yeah

When I am with you, there's no place I'd rather be

Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to experience Kyoto with Noah, but I did get to explore it with my mom. In my last post, we last left of being in Hiroshima.

Day 4: Kyoto

Kyoto is a beautiful and unique city with so much to do! It is unbelievable how many temples, shrines, castles, and other sights are around the city. Much of the sights were spread out in the city, and due to our limited time in Kyoto, my mom and I got to experience only a small sample of the many sights and adventures in Kyoto. On top of that, it was also rainy, so that cut our days a little bit short as well.

Upon arriving in Kyoto, the first adventure on our agenda was to visit Nijo Castle, which is on the World Heritage List as a Historic Monument of Ancient Kyoto. The castle was built by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603 to act as a defense of the Kyoto Imperial Palace and to serve as a housing facility for visiting shoguns. The castle isn't what you would think of as a typical castle in Europe. This type of castle is one story and is basically a giant square divided into many, many simple rooms with sliding or thin painted wooden walls and covered with floor mats. Something interesting was the the floors squeaked when you walked on them, so that people inside would be alerted of visitors.

The gardens of Nijo Castle.

Entrance to Nijo Castle.

The grounds of Nijo Castle.

Ume (plum) blossoms along a walkway on the Nijo Castle grounds covered with plum trees.

After visiting Nijo Castle, I really wanted to walk the "Philosopher's Path" in Kyoto, which is a path that is lined with cherry trees along a canal. This path got its name because an influential 20th century Japanese philosopher and professor used to walk the path to meditate. My mom and I walked the path while the sun was setting on the left (west), so the path caught the glowing orange light from the sun, and it was simply beautiful. I cannot even imagine what the path would look like when all the cherry blossoms are actually in bloom.

The Philosopher's Path follows the stones on the right of the photo.

Flowers I captured along the Philosopher's Path.

At the end of the Philosopher's Path, we were blessed with this gorgeous view of Kyoto City.

Thus concludes Day 4.

Day 5: Kyoto and Nara

Oh, what a fun day this was. My mom and I had an appointment at 1PM with the Yumekoubou-Maiko Makeover studio, so we raced the clock to visit Nara and be back before the appointment began. Nara is another quaint city about 45 minutes via train away from Kyoto. Nara is known for its temples, the largest bronze statue of buddha, and its many, many deer!!

One of the temples in Nara.

Just some of the many, many deer in Nara. You can buy food to give to the deer, so that is why they are conglomerating next to the person on the left.

Todai-ji Temple, quite a treasure in Nara. This temple contains the largest bronze statue of buddha in Japan.

A doe. It was so cute, and you could even see its little white spots!

We didn't have much time in Nara, so that was the end of our adventures there. Next stop: Yumekoubou Maiko Makeover Studio! This was a really neat experience. We had a lot of translation problems and the studio was busy, so it was a little bit of a struggle. However, the experience as a whole was fun! Who doesn't love to dress up? It is amazing how much of a process the makeover is, from putting on the face mask to drawing in my eyebrows to putting on the kimono to putting on the little sandals. When the photos came out, it's quite strange seeing yourself, but not quite seeing yourself. Here are the best photos that came out!!

After changing and spending a lot of time trying to take off our make-up, we headed over to Ariyashima to see the bamboo grove. Being the nature lover that I am, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to walk through the bamboo grove and attempt to capture some photos. Unfortunately, the lighting was not great because we got to the grove in the evening and the photos never capture how majestic it feels to be in the grove itself, but these will have to do.

That's all for now! In the next post, I will post pictures of our adventures to Ito and Jigokudani to see the snow monkeys!

Ahh, this post is long overdue. There is so much that I want to talk about that it is overwhelming, and it has been daunting to just start. Once I start typing, it will never end! Anyway, I think that I will document my journey across Japan with my mama in multiple blog posts, just so that it will be easier to read. I also have a ton of pictures to post, so just beware - these posts are going to be long ones!

It is amazing how much of Japan you can see.. just by traveling via public transportation. A couple of weeks ago, I traveled via train, bus, and ferry all around Japan with my mama, who flew in from LA. After arriving at the Tokyo-Narita airport, we took the train to Yokosuka to spend the night. The next morning, we got up early and left for Hiroshima. From Hiroshima, we went to Fukuoka to meet and visit my grandmother's side of the family, who she actually has never met either. We came back to Hiroshima for a day, and then left for Kyoto and Nara. We then went to Ito, back to Yokosuka, to Mt. Fuji, to Tokyo for a couple of days, and back to Yokosuka. What a journey!

Here was our itinerary in short:

Yokosuka -> Hiroshima -> Fukuoka -> Hiroshima -> Kyoto -> Nara -> Kyoto -> Ito -> Yokosuka -> Mt. Fuji -> Tokyo ->Yokosuka and a few days later, Noah and I went from Yokosuka -> Seattle (home!!). And just a little later, Noah went from Seattle -> Honolulu.

Day 1: Hiroshima

After a long day of traveling by train all the way across Japan, we arrived in Hiroshima in the late afternoon, giving us just enough time to walk around the city for a couple of hours before sundown. We decided to talk a walk to see Peace Memorial Park and the A-bomb Dome. The Peace Memorial Park is dedicated to the remembrance of the atomic bombs dropped in Hiroshima in August of 1945. Although the park is well developed, clean, and seems just like any other park, I felt a sense of desperation for peace. It made me think of what it would have been like to be in Japan at the time, or what it would have been like for my relatives. Some of my aunty's family lived in Hiroshima at the time. I understand that many think that the bombing was a necessary evil, that the war wouldn't have ended did we not decide to drop the bombs. However, when I think of my family and I think of all the people affect by this tragedy, it is hard to believe that it needed to happen. Regardless, it happened, and we must move on and ensure, hopefully, that something like that will never happen again. Anyway, the park contains a number of statues, a memorial, a display case of thousands of paper cranes, and a museum. After reading many of the captions for many of the statues, the theme of peace is ever present. It is interesting, now having been to sites in Japan and the United State dedicated to the remembrance of what happened in the war. When visiting Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, I did not read or get much of a sense of the American desire for peace. I am not saying that we did not discount peace, and I am not saying that the Japanese were not at fault during the war, but it is just interesting what each country has chosen to focus on in their memorials.

The A-bomb dome. It is currently under inspection, so that is why it looks like it's under construction. This building served as an exposition site when the atomic bombs hit and incinerated everything and everyone inside. The building stands as a reminder of what happened and is preserved as it was after the bombings.

This is the memorial dedicated to all those who were affected by the bombings. We saw many people stand in front of the memorial and pray.

This box is for donations of 1000 paper cranes by the community. It is said that if you make 1000 paper cranes, then your hopes will come true.

Paper cranes.

This is the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound, where the ashes of tens of thousands of its victims are placed.

Panorama of the Peace Memorial Park.

That night, we had okinomiyaki for dinner, also known as the "Japanese Pancake". Oh, it was so delicious! It consists of cabbage, noodles, pork, egg, and special okinomiyaki sauce (sort of like teriyaki sauce combined with katsu sauce).

Onkinomiyaki in Hiroshima, Japan

Day 2: Fukuoka

Today was the day that we were going to meet the Japanese relatives from my grandmother's side of the family. My mom met the family 2 years ago on a trip to Japan to see my brother at the time, but it was my first time meeting everyone. Fortunately, one of the relatives spoke English, and she served as our translator for the visit. In the morning, we boarded the train from Hiroshima to Hakata, where Yukiko (grandaughter of my grandma's cousin) and one of my grandma's cousins and her husband Mr. Mori.

The first thing on our itinerary for the day was to visit the neighborhood where said cousin and Mr. Mori grew up. This neighborhood also consisted of several Sakimura (my grandma's maiden name) families lived. We also visited one of the shrines in the local neighborhood.

From there, we visited a temple where many of the Sakimura relatives who passed away were honored. Each little memorial is dedicated per family name. For example, anyone under the Sakimura-Other family name #1 would be honored in that space, but if a woman got married and became Sakimura-Other family name #2, she would be placed there instead. I learned that for each dedicated space, a part of a person's bone is stored in the space, with the eldest people's bones at the bottom and the newest people's bones at the top. I also learned that the Sakimura's have a family symbol, pictured below.

After visiting the temple, all the family members who got together met at the Yoshidas (also grandchildren of my grandma's cousins). I learned that they have a local grocery store. Anyway, from here we all piled up in several cars and went to a traditional Japanese restaurant where we had a traditional Japanese lunch. The meal was MORE than enough and consisted with several courses and many interesting foods, including sashimi, seafood custard, sazae, rice cooked by a candle, miso soup, tempura, and more. With the end of the meal came the end of our day.

Collage of my grandma's relatives! She has never met them, but they were excited to hear about her :) I am very lucky to have had the chance to meet all of them, even if we couldn't understand each other.

Mom and my grandma's cousins. They are all about the same age.

Kanji meaning Sakimura. This means that this house belongs to Sakimuras.

Temple dedicated to those who have passed.

This is the family unit I was talking about earlier. Those jars hold the bones of the most recent people who have passed away.

The Sakimura family symbol.

First course of the meal.

Sazae - it was pretty good!

Yum!

Day 3: Hiroshima

We spent our third day in Hiroshima on Miyajima Island, a small island located about 40 minutes away by ferry and at Hiroshima Castle. On Miyajima Island, we spent most of the day walking around, enjoying the nature, and hiking up the island to get amazing views of the surround waters!