Kanazawa

Last weekend I went to Kanazawa, a city on the west coast of Japan that is known as "Little Kyoto." Well I have been to Kyoto not once but twice bc I thought it was so amazing and it looks like I am going to have to do the same with Kanazawa for two reasons. First bc it lives up to its reputation as "Little Kyoto," but also bc it rained about 75% of the time I was there :-(. Even with the rain I got to take a lot of photos and visit such places as Kenrokuen (one of the most famous places in Japan, although every city seems to have "one of the most famous...."), the old samurai district, one of the old geisha districts (they have at least two), and took a bus trip about two hours north to a city called Wajima (a place where I could have spent the most of the weekend).



Anyway, Kenrokuen was in fact extremely beautiful and def my favorite place I got to see. Also the old samurai district was pretty cool. Wajima was nice but due to me not being able to drive in Japan and the bus schedule, I was only able to stay there for about 3 hours. While waiting for my bus in Wajima I went into a coffee shop and had a good conversation with the owner (about 75% of it was in English). Apparently I was only the 3rd foreigner to come to his place so he took my photo with his cell phone, printed it from his computer, had me sign it and then added it to his English Study book where he had photos of the previous foreigners. After that, he gave me some of his homemade origami. Little encounters like this are really not that uncommon while traveling in Japan...



It is kind of hard to see, but the thing that looks like a necklace is all made up of small cranes. Pretty amazing to me since just making a successful paper airplane is not so easy for me.

So anyway, I did all of that on Friday and I spent Saturday and Sunday dodging the rain. :-( So you can see why I feel the need to go back. On Sunday tho, I did get to go to a place called Ninjadera (Ninja Temple). Actually it has nothing to do with Ninjas but just got it's name bc of all the defensive precautions (like pitfalls and secret passages/rooms) of the temple.

On the other hand there are so many other places I wanna go, so I am not sure when or if I will be able to return...

More photos here.

Things are just cooler in Japan...

Sorry America, you lose. Everyone knows it. Japanese people just make the coolest things. I am a sucker for cool stuff so maybe that is one reason why I like it here. Making cool things and taking something that is already good and making it better is just what they do. Like a vending machine. Vending machines are nice, you can buy food or drinks on the go 24 hours a day...I mean yeah they are a little pricy sometimes (but that is just supply and demand) but really, what's not to like about vending machines (besides when your food gets stuck)? Anyway, this weekend I found a touch screen vending machine that even has some nice sound fx. Here is a photo of it and i am going to try and get the video i took of it online somehow. Really it was cool, I promise.

EDIT: I haved added the movie! Click here to see it!

I'm not afraid of spiders,..

I just don't like them. Yeah and if you believe that I got this bridge I wanna sell ya...Yeah so I am a little afraid of spiders. Seriously tho, even though I can appreciate the beauty of their webs, there is nothing I find appealing about them. Lucky for me, spiders (and big ones at that) are everywhere. I do not think most are harmful but I am not getting close enough to find out. Luckily I haven't found any spiders in my house yet, and I feel unlucky for the spider that does find his way in here (Sorry Jenn)!!!

Skype Me!!

so today i talked to about 5 different people from home, which was really nice, so for those of you who don't know about skype, you really should check it out... Especially if you wanna talk to me! we can talk on the computer for free or you can call my NC number for a regular phone and can reach me in Japan...if i am at my computer. also, if you are traveling (especially over seas) it is great bc you can call to a lot of places really cheap (for me to call the US from anywhere in the world is about 2 cents a minute). anyway check it out.

Omoshiroyama Kogen

is the name of the place I went this past weekend. It is possibly one of the most beautiful places I have been to in a long time (if not ever). I followed a hiking trail that was suppose to lead to a road which was suppose to lead to a temple called Yamadera (literally meaning mountain temple). The internet site I read about this on said in all it would take about one hour, but after getting to the road I saw a sign that said it was 4.7 km to Yamadera! For those of you who don't understand km, I use to run cross country in high school and I could run 5 km (3.1 miles) in about 17 minutes. Needless to say, I was not going to run this with all my camera equipment, so it took so long that I made it just in time for it to close. no problem though, it gives me an excuse to back to this area, but this time I will just take the train directly. check out the photos below and in my gallery.