ダンスサークル (Dance circle)

It feels like the previous week lasted only for two or three days. There is so much to do now that I really don't need to think how to spend my time. School work keeps me busy but I still have some extra time to enjoy my life here otherwise too. A week ago on the weekend I went to a park nearby for a picnic with two friends of mine. It was a warm and sunny spring day (or actually like a summer day for me) and we took even our homework and such to study outside after eating. At some point there was a big group of people coming to the peaceful park to comb the dropped leaves from the roads. There were both adults and children and one of my friends had a thought they would be from the school nearby. Who ever they were and for which reason, I think it is quite amazing people do such thing here to keep the area looking good. And once again there were some children who wanted to greet the foreigners in English. Well, I guess it is cool for them to be able to say even 'hello' and 'bye' when there actually are non-Japanese to talk to.

One exciting thing for me during the past week was getting in contact with the university's dance circle. The circle had an information event for the new students last Monday evening and another event on Thursday when all the different kind of dance style groups had shows so that the new-comers can decide which kind of dance they would like to start there. Today the new students were finally able to try dancing also themselves if they had decided which kind of group they want to join. I had known my choice since the last semester when I had seen some locking (check here which kind of dance it is) performances at the school festival. The trainings will be twice a week from now on and Google Translate told me other rules of the circle that were written on the paper we got. I am so excited!!

The circle is training outdoors

Last weekend felt like summer holiday for me. It was really warm during day time and I hardly did any school work. Today I joined one of my friends to go to Nagayama for a flower festival. It took quite a while to get there with different trains. It took some extra time because one of our trains stopped suddenly before reaching the next station. They announced that an accident had happened and we have to wait for a while. We waited for quite a while and almost went to the front of the train to check if we could see from the front window what had happened on the rails. But on the same time we were wondering why so many people were standing at the back of the train watching out of the back window. Finally then also we got up from the seats to take a look on what we could see behind our train. And surprisingly we came to realize that the scene really was behind us and not in front of us. There were many policemen swarming around a lying man who was covered with a blanket. Our train had hit someone. Without even knowing if it was a pure accident or if the person really was dead (as it seemed), it was a little bit scary... After our train had stood on one spot for 45 minutes we decided to kill some time and go to check also the front of the train and we saw that the first car of the train had basically reached the next station so we could get off and change to another train line.

Our destination was a quite flat town surrounded by mountains (kind of like Fukuoka actually but much smaller). We walked through empty streets and figured out the reason for the quietness at the festival place. Everyone was there under the roof of the purple wisteria flowers.

On top of the flower roof

This curvy tree is 300 years old and provides a huge area of the flower roof

After walking through the area we took a festival shuttle bus to the mountains. We walked the ways and stairs up to a temple and a pagoda and it was so beautiful and peaceful in the middle of the forest there. In many places we could hear only the sound of the small forest rivers and the birds, no people and no cars. I felt I could stay there for hours and hours, even days...

The statues of 500 disciples of Buddha in the forest

Some trees had red leaves. Early autumn?

Interesting flowers

A baby bamboo

This house in a quite area in the forest reminded us of the movie Spirit away. We felt like if we crossed the bridge, we might end up to another world and see all the strange workers of the house.

春学期の初め (Beginning of the spring semester)

Ensimmäinen viikko toisesta lukukaudestani täällä on takana ja vanhat ja uudet kurssit yliopistolla ovat alkaneet. Neljä uutta korealaista liittyi tunneillemme meidän viiden eurooppalaisen lisäksi. Osa ryhmästämme kun palasi jo takaisin kotimaihinsa. Toisaalta tunnit tuntuivat melko helpoilta, koska kulutimme paljon aikaa esittelyihin (uusien opiskelijoiden vuoksi) sekä kertomuksiin kevätlomistamme. Mutta toisaalta saimme jo vähön maistiaisia siitä, kun opettajamme varoittivat, että loman jälkeen opinnot käyvät haastavammiksi. Voin kuvitella, että tuntimme tuntuvat vaikeilta uusille opiskelijoille, koska työtä ne teettävät meillekin, jotka olemme täällä jo puoli vuotta opiskelleet.

[The first week of my second semester in behind now and all the old and new courses at the university have started. We had four new Korean students to join our classes in addition to the five European who were left after some of us returned to home countries already. On one hand the lessons felt quite easy because of several self introductions (due to the new students) and stories about our spring vacation. But on the other hand we got to see already a little bit what it meant when the teachers told us it will be more challenging during the spring semester. I can imagine that it feels very difficult for the new students to join our lessons because the classes seem to cause a lot to work also for us who have studied here for half a year already.]

Meillä on kaikki samat japaninkielen kurssit kuin syyslukukaudellakin, mutta lisäkurssit ovat jotakin uutta. Otin kaksi kurssia, joilla kummallakin on sekä vaihto-opiskelijoita että japanilaisia opiskelijoita. Toisen kurssin nimi on Crosscultural literacy ja siellä syvennymme japanilaiseen kulttuurin monilla kielillä. Kurssilla on kaksi opettajaa: japanilainen opettaja, joka opettaa ranskaa sekä saksalainen opettaja. Oikeastaan kaikilla japanilaisilla opiskelijoilla on yliopistolla pääaineenaan joko ranska tai saksa ja heidät haastettiin käyttämään luokassa niitä. Joten puhumme tunneilla japania, ranskaa, saksaa ja englantia. Siitä tulee varmasti mielenkiintoista. Toinen extra kurssi, jonka valitsin, on vietnamin kurssi. Opimme sekä kieltä että faktaa kyseisestä maasta. Olin hieman huolissani etukäteen, sillä kurssi pidetään kokonaan japaniksi, mutta ensimmäisen oppitunnin jälkeen minulla on rohkeutta jatkaa yrittämistä. Ainakin minulla on kurssilla vierelläni vietnamilainen ystäväni, joka voi auttaa sekä vietnamin että japanin kanssa.

[We have all the same Japanese classes as during the fall semester but the additional courses are something new. I took two courses where there are both exchange students and Japanese students. One is named Cross-cultural literacy and we get deeper into the Japanese culture in a class that uses many languages. The course has two teachers: one is a Japanese teacher who teaches French and one is a German teacher. Actually all the Japanese students have either French or German as their major at the university and they were challenged to use those at the class too. So we speak there Japanese, French, German and English. It will be interesting for sure. The other extra course I took is a Vietnamese course. We will learn both the language and about the country otherwise. I was a little bit worried beforehand because it is all in Japanese but after the first lesson I have confidence to keep trying. At least I have my Vietnamese friend there sitting next to me who can help me with both Vietnamese and Japanese.]

Tyypillinen tapa kuivattaa sateenvarjot asuntolallamme.
[A typical way to dry the umbrellas at our dormitory.]

Kirsikkapuut pudottelevat terälehtiään kukittuaan nätisti viikon verran. Valitettavasti viime aikoina on ollut sateista niin, ettemme päässeet kunnolliselle hanamille ennen koulun alkua. Mutta kuluneella viikolla on ollut muutamia todella lämpimiä ja aurinkoisia päiviä ja päätinkin torstaina oppituntien jälkeen mennä puistoon nauttimaan ihanasta säästä. Löysin mukavat penkit suoraan kirsikkapuiden alta ja istuskelin siinä pari tuntia tehden läksyjä ja lukien pieniin testeihin, joita meillä on nyt useita kertoja viikossa. Kun aurinko alkoi hellittää lämmöstään ja päätin palata takaisin, niin puistoon saapui vanha pariskunta jääden lähelle penkkejä, joilla olin istunut. Mies soitti erilaisia huiluja, joten päätin jäädä vielä hetkeksi kuuntelemaan musiikkia. Tunne, kun istuin kirsikkapuiden alla laskevan auringon lämmössä kuunnellen kauniita aasialaisia melodioita oli upea ja rentouttava! Kun vihdoin aloin tuntea viileyttä ilmassa ja nälän vatsassa, niin nousin ylös ja menin tervehtimään vanhaa pariskuntaa ja kiittämään musiikista. Aloitin japaniksi, mutta mies ei vastannut japaniksi, vaan kumartui alas ja kirjoitti maahan kanjit 中国 tarkoittaen, että he tulevat Kiinasta. No, enpä oikein voinut heidän kanssaan keskusteluja käydä, mutta ainakin muistin, miten sanoa 'kiitos' kiinaksi.

[The cherry trees are dropping the flowers after blooming beautifully for one week. Unfortunately it has been quite rainy lately so that we couldn't enjoy a proper hanami before the school started. But this week has had also some very warm and sunny days and I decided on Thursday to go to a park to enjoy the nice weather after classes. I found nice benches right under cherry trees and sat there for a couple of hours doing my home work and reading for the small tests we have many times a week now. When the sun started setting and I was just about to leave the place, there was an old couple coming to the park and they stayed nearby the benches I had been sitting. The man played different kind of flutes so I decided to stay for a while longer to listen to the music. The feeling sitting under the cherry trees in the warmth of the setting sun and listening to beautiful Asian melodies was so amazing and relaxing! When I finally started to feel cold and hungry, I stood up and went to greet the old couple and thank for the great music. I started in Japanese but the man didn't reply in Japanese but got down and drew to the ground the kanjis 中国 meaning that they came from China. Well, I couldn't then really speak with them but at least I remembered how to say 'thank you' in Chinese.]

糸島の花見 (Flower viewing in Itoshima)

When my family was on their way back to Finland, I went to Itoshima with my friend, her teacher in the volunteer Japanese class and the grandson of the teacher. The teacher had asked us to join her for hanami to see to cherry blossoms in Itoshima, a beautiful place west from Fukuoka. Even though I was a bit tired after the travelling week with my family, I was more than happy to join them because I got to do two things I had wanted to do: go for hanami and go to Itoshima. It took about one hour by car to go to a place where we bought bentos (Japanese lunch boxes with different ingredients) and saw a field of rape blossoms and when we happened to see a local train passing by it too, it reminded me of Ghibli movies.

From the bento bying place we continued a little bit more by car and ended up to an amazing nature area located uphills so that we could see the sea too. The place was so in the middle of the nature and we could walk in the forest of the hills, see some waterfalls and lots of flowers. I felt like I could just stay there the whole day or even move there. It surely was a movie scenery! After walking a bit around we relaxed under some cherry trees to enjoy our bentos and other food we had brought with us. The teacher was very nice and talkative and her grandson so cute and nice company too after he got used to the presence of new people. That place in Itoshima became my favorite place in Japan!

After Itoshima my week has been more peaceful when I have stayed mostly at the dormitory. On Friday we had an orientation at the dorm but it was basically just telling about the house rules again (after living over half a year here already). And after the orientation we had a welcoming party for the new students of our dorm and we got so delicious food again: onigiri, sushi, kara'age, fried potatoes, fresh fruits, cakes...

On Saturday I got a flashback to the time we came to Japan. After the winter and unexpectedly cold spring, it was not only warm outside but also the air moisture level was high. At least the cherry trees looks now very pretty. Yesterday evening I gave some salmiakki to two of my Asian friends. One of them had told me before that she doesn't dislike any food. Well, now she does.

家族と福岡で (With family in Fukuoka, vol. 2)

The plans for Sunday were quite open for me and my family. We decided to not to travel anywhere further after the previous days so Nokonoshima island in Fukuoka seemed to be a suitable attraction. We took a subway to Muromi and walked to the windy beach. From there we went to buy ferry tickets to the island and enjoyed filled baguettes, something non-typical Japanese food. When we reached the island after a 10-minute ferry ride, we stopped by at the restaurant area before heading to the Nokonoshima Island Park, the flower park in the Northern part of the island. When we walked to the bus stop and checked the timetable, we noticed that the previous bus had left quite soon after the ferry arrived to the island and the next bus would come after 45 minutes. It was about 3,5 kilometers to the other side of the island but we decided to reach at least the top of the hill by foot to see the view from there. It didn't take much time to realize that the buses actually drove more often than once in an hour so we could have just waited for the next one at the bus stop. But in fact we agreed later that it was good that we had missed the bus. We saw much of the nature and the living on the island and got some nice exercise when walking uphills and downhills all the way to the park. Even a short rain shower didn't dispirit us.

After finally reaching the park we felt like being in the Netherlands because of all the flowers. The view to the sea was amazing and the whole place with different kind of outdoor games and restaurants seemed like a nice place to come to spend one or two entire days. But we only had a quick visit there and then took a bus back to the ferry.

We wanted to have a dinner in an izakaya (an informal Japanese gastropub) in the evening when we got back to Hakata but one of the near-by izakaya restaurants was too difficult to find and the other one was closed. We ended to to go to a restaurant that served different kind of small dishes too (like in an izakaya). They didn't have an English menu and I could understand maybe one third of the Japanese one but we managed to order different kind of good (and interesting) dishes. The chef didn't seem to enjoy the way we ordered food and I realized the reason afterwards when other customers started to come about one hour after us. Everybody else ordered a bowl of ramen and maybe one side dish. Then I understood that the place was actually a ramen restaurant where the staff is prepared to serve bowls of ramen for the customers but we ordered only one ramen for all of us and many different kind of side dishes the izakaya way. No wonder the chef didn't give us smiles because he had to work super hard to make all the dishes for us early in the evening when the were still only a couple of employers working that time...

Pig legs

On Monday we I had the last day with my family in Japan. We started it with one of the traditional Japanese art, ikebana. I had got free tickets for us all from my teacher of the volunteer Japanese class. We saw many arrangements and a demonstration when two Japanese women did ikebana. After that some people from the audience (including me and two of my friends) got to try to make their own arrangements too. Everyone had the same plants to use but the outcomes were quite different. That was my first ikebana experience ever.

After a very Western style lunch (hamburger steak and oven potatoes) I showed my family the Ohori Park that was very nice place to be on a sunny spring day. Even I saw a new area there when we went to see to ruins of the Fukuoka Castle. Because the cherry trees had started blooming, the park was full of people having picnic under the blossoms. And adding some food-selling stands to that it reminded me of Finnish vappu.

Finally I had to show my visitors my every-day places, the university and the dormitory. At the university we went to meet also the lovely person in charge of the international students and she seemed really happily surprised to meet my family too. When we got to my dormitory, I asked to house lady if I could show my visitors around. (Normally all the visitors are allowed to come only to the lobby, not to the floors.) She came to us and asked if the visitors were my friends and when I answered that they are my family, her face changed from suspicious to happy and she said I surely can show them my room and the places.

Since we were in my neighborhoods, I needed to take my family to have the cheap ramen close by and then we continued to play some darts and drumming game and the have free ice cream with soft drinks in the book store next to the ramen restaurant. Something different to experience for my visitors before they had to return to the hotel to sleep early for the next day's flight.

It was a nice vacation week also for me, I felt like an excited tourist too when visiting all the new places. Once again I got to realize that I have learned some Japanese here because it was mostly me who dealt with everything during that week and I always spoke in Japanese. As far as I understood, also my family felt relieved when they had someone to speak for them when the local people didn't feel comfortable with English. It is actually cool how I have learned to manage with Japanese in half a year even though I still often don't understand written or spoken Japanese I face. Soon I will learn more again since the second semester will start in two days!

家族と広島で (With family in Hiroshima)

After the second night in the Japanese style hotel in Kyoto, we took our bags, walked next to a nice small river to the metro station and took metros to the train station.  It was time to head back towards Fukuoka but with one extra stop on the way. After a couple of hours in shinkansen we got to smell the air of Hiroshima. It took quite a long time to find a place where we could leave our bags at the station but finally we managed to go and explore the city without too much to carry.

The weather was sunny which was more than fine for us after the rainy Kyoto. Most of the places we wanted to see were on a walking distance from the station which made it easier to go around. First we checked the garden of Hiroshima castle that itself looked very nice with the combination of white and wooden colors. It is one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. In front of the castle we met a couple of persons from a samurai clan and they taught us to pose with "three arrows". There were only few cherry blossoms in the park but we saw some people who had got there for hanami, the blossom viewing which is very popular in Japan during the cherry blossoming. In the garden we also saw two players playing traditional Japanese music on live. So nice atmosphere!

From the castle we continued to the Atomic Bomb Dome, a must see attraction in Hiroshima. A former industrial promotion hall had surely suffered badly but it was still strong enough to be one of the few buildings that left standing after the explosion even though it had been close to the epicenter. Since the bomb dome was close to the city center and many restaurants, I had hoped to find a good place to taste okonomiyaki which is the specialty of Hiroshima. Unfortunately one place had a huge line outside the restaurant and others had closed after the busiest lunch time. Nevertheless, we found a nice restaurant where we spent about 1,5 hours.

After the lunch there was not too much time left before our train so we just quickly checked the Peace Memorial Park and the Peace Memorial Museum. In the park there were the Flame of Peace, a torch that is set to burn until all the world's nuclear weapons are destroyed and a cenotaph that has the names of the atomic bomb victims inside it. All these monument form a straight line together so one can fit them in a one photograph. The museum was very crowded and unfortunately the main building was under renovation but still we got a picture of the horror of the atomic bomb, I had wished to visit also Miyajima island in Hiroshima but I had to leave it for some other time since we took the six o'clock shinkansen back to Fukuoka.

家族と京都で (With family in Kyoto)

We had one full day time to spend only in Kyoto and unfortunately it was raining almost the whole day. Nevertheless, we decided to go around and enjoy different places with my family while my friend continued his way up to Tokyo and the north. The first place of the day to see was Kinkaku-ji, the golden pavilion which is probably the most well-known attraction in Kyoto. It surely was an amazing building with the golden (not yellow as in some photos I had seen) walls and in the middle of the beautiful nature but the atmosphere suffered due to a huge amount of visitors.

From Kinkaku-ji we took two buses to reach the bamboo grove and we realized how cold Southern Japan's spring can feel when it is raining and we have to wait for a bus... Still we could also enjoy walking in the middle of a large bamboo area which kind of an experience none of us had had before. And it was exactly what the guide book said: hard to capture in a photo. Through the bamboo forest we reached a park which lead to a river. It was like from China or somewhere else in Asia with small mountains next to the river and boats sailing on it.

Our next destination was on top of the hills where there was a place called Monkey Park. One can walk among wild monkeys and even though the monkeys were used to people, there are certain rules one should obey, such as 'keep always distance of at least 2 meters to a monkey'. It seemed that the monkeys didn't know about this rule since they walked and jumped close to us even when we started to get back down from the hill. The only place where people had a cage between them and the monkeys was the feeding place when the humans had to go inside while the animals hang on the cage to reach some nuts and fruits from the visitors.

"Watch out for the monkeys", "Don't touch the monkeys"...

On the way back to the hotel we stopped by at the Imperial Palace Garden. It was quite simple with the straight roads and the trees as the only decoration, very suitable for Japanese style. We could see only the roof of the palace over the wall but at least some of the cherry and peach trees had started blooming to delight us.

Since the day had been tiring after walking in the rain, only three of us decided to live the hotel in the evening to go to see Kyomizu-dera which is maybe the second best known place in Kyoto. And it really was good idea to visit it after sun set because the red buildings lightened in the dark night were an amazing view! The cherry blossoms under the famous balcony were not remarkable yet but Kyomizu-dera became the best memory from Kyoto for me.

Kyoto is known also for its delicious fish dishes so as the last interesting experience there we decided to go for a puffer fish dinner. I don't think there will be too many chances to easily try puffer fish in my life so why not to do it when there are plenty of those kind of restaurants nearby. We entered a small but nice looking restaurant and ordered fried puffer fish and a hotpot to cook puffer fish, some cabbage and noodles. These two dishes would have been enough to fill only one person's stomach but since the price was quite different from normal restaurants we decided to continue eating elsewhere. The two dishes cost almost 5000 yens together and the taste was quite similar to coalfish. But it was an experience and we all are still alive!