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Towada jinja (shrine)

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A Torii gate leading to the temple grounds.

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So, I’m by no means an expert on Shinto customs, but it seems to me that this is part of the ritual of cleansing before you go to a shrine. I know the picture isn’t that great, but it’s a metal dragon with water coming out of its mouth. Sitting on the side is a metal cup on a stick that you first rinse off twice with the water coming out, and then on the thrid you take a drink. Also, you can see little glass containers on the back there, it’s a sake offering.

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The front of the main temple at Towada, I dunno what it’s called. The area has this nice quiet peaceful feel.

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A couple getting their fortunes. I’m not entirely sure on the ritual, but you go up the step, spread your arms to your side, bring them together and clap, do that twice, then bow with your hands together, then you put in your offering (there was a box with a sign on it for 100 yen), ring the bell twice, and then take a paper out of another box with your fortune on it. After you read it you tie it to a fence that they have in front of the temple.

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Little shrines next to the temple.

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A shrine in the middle of the town.

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A shrine on a little island in the lake.

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Kabuki

On Saturday we went on a tour to see a Kabuki show. It was a lot of fun, and a lot different then I thought it was gonna be. I thought I was going to be all traditional and serious, but in fact they kept with the original theme of the show, that it was for the masses more then a show for nobility. Before and after there was a drum and variety show that was so much fun. Since it’s just guys that play all the roles in traditional Kabuki they played on that by having a funny dance number with a dude in a woman’s ball gown did this funny dance number. Then this other guy came out in a dress but had giant red lips on and did a parody of the first guys dance XD Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures during the show.

The story we watched was about this guy who had been arrested before and just got out of prison and was heading to visit his sister. When he shows up the sister is now married and has a daughter (his niece). He gives his niece some money to go buy some pretty cloth for a new kimono and she runs off. Then the sister’s husband shows up and wants nothing to do with the man because of his bad reputation and kicks the guy out. The daughter shows back up at this point and is so happy because of the gift she got, so she shows it to her father and he takes it and throws it on the ground. That starts a fight between the two men, and it was a pretty nifty fight scene, then the father gets his butt handed to him, so he runs in the house and grabs a knife and they start fighting again. But the daughter tries to stop them and gets knocked into the fight and accidentally gets stabbed. Both the father and brother stop fighting and are so upset at the girl getting hurt. It’s a very dramatic scene while she is dying, but the men manage to reconcile their anger, but then the police show up and the brother offers himself up to them for killing the girl, and they take him away.

The theater that we went to is the oldest wooden working Kabuki Theater in Japan. We got to go on a tour after the show, they took us back stage. It was pretty cool, they showed us the trap door called the snapping turtle door because it resembles a snapping turtles head, and the rotating stage that is human powered, and the dressing room. The dressing room’s walls are signed by all the actors that had/have worked there. I got some pictures, some didn’t come out so well but others came out nice.

Here’s some history on Kabuki. It was originally performed by women who after the shows were prostitutes. So then the government banned women from performing in the plays because it wasn’t “conducive to good morale”, whatever that meant XD So then young males played the roles, and then prostituted themselves out afterwards, and then they were banned, and only older males were allowed by the government to act in the plays.

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The front of the Korukan Theater, it was built in 1910. The front is western style, but the inside is all Japanese style.

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The driveway up to the theater, very festive.

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The dressing room, it’s bigger then the picture shows, but all the walls are covered with the signatures of all the people who have acted here. There are some famous ones that they put a sheet of glass in front of so that they won’t get diminished.

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A little sign they posted about the rotating stage.

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One of the poles used to push the rotating stage by hand.

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A wider picture of under the stage, it’s really big, I was really surprised.

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One of the metal wheels that the stage moves on, it’s big.

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kawaii_ninja@hellokitty.com

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Wheh, been a while. Lot’s ‘o school and work >< The Terms this year are blah, this Sunday the term I’m currently in ends, and Monday the new one begins. >< This last term I took and interesting class called The Psychology of Persuasion, and this coming term I’m taking one called India: The weight of tradition on the modern world. I’m excited but also afraid there will be quite a bit of writing involved. Work has been extremely busy lately and that cuts down my homework time. I’ve also been playing Hello Kitty Online (HKO) and helping out on the wiki when I have the time, my characters name is Chihiro. ^^

In October K and I went on a hiking trip through the Oirase gorge. It’s on the way to Lake Towada and we’ve wanted to walk it since we got here and finally had the chance. It’s supposed to be one of the nicer places in Japan to hike during the fall and see all the pretty foliage, but unfortunately when we went the leaves hadn’t changed yet. I think they would be now though because the leaves are turning here around where we live now. It’s been a later fall than it usually is here, staying pretty warm until nearly November. Just recently we’ve had our first cold spell and had to turn on the heat. But I heard some states have gotten snow already, which is unusual for those states.

Oirase gorge is known for its waterfalls and we did get to see several of those. They were really nice, and everything was such a beautiful green. I had a very fun time of it. ^^ It’s a very well maintained trail too, and the day we were there, there was a group cleaning up the trash along the trail and the road that runs parallel to it. I got an interesting picture of some of their group going up some steps. They look like they’re elves on their way to the boats to leave the world in the Lord of the Rings. XD

I’ll go into some of the waterfalls because the tour people gave us a sheet with the Chinese characters for the names as well as an English description of what the names mean. I unfortunately lost the map that marked which waterfall I had gotten to, so I’m just going to name some of the more interesting ones. There is the Mouth of the Mouse waterfall, the One Thousand Senryo (it’s an old Japanese currency) rock, Ten thousand Senryo stream, Great Bottle of Sake Fall, Nine Step Fall, Elder and Younger Sister Fall, the Un-Aging Fall, White Thread Fall, the Gem Bead Screen Fall, the Long-nosed Flying Goblin Rock, and the Asura (a guardian god of Buddhism) Stream to name a few.

So we walked the trail and ended up at Lake Towada where we caught a ferry to Yasumiya. K and I love going there, especially to the temple. It was a bit of a windy day so that did damper things a little, but otherwise we had a great time!


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I have been travelling from cities to cities for the past 4 years, with the bulk of it due to my work. I have indeed explored many new things within these years and I will share with you the beautiful sights and the best stuffs I have encountered!

~North America~

It was cold in the winter and all of us had ourselves wrapped up, took a ferry from fisherman’s wharf to this Alcatraz island. We had loads of fun trying to pretend as inmates!

NYC is a huge city with BIG fanciful lights, numerous financial institutions, art theatres, and did I mention about the shopping? Its fantastic! Its one of the buziest city I ever been to.

These pictures were taken during my most recent trip to the strates. We drove up to Napa and Sonoma Valley and had our ultimate wine tasting tour.

Next, let us drive a little further…. and end up in Yosemite National Park(you can start driving from San Francisco). It was one of my best road trip when we had alot of laughters and fun throughout the journey. The views of the national park is really breathtaking!!

Other than this, I have also done other road trips to:

And before I forget… I was surprised to find this in America! (I always thought HK is more popular in Asia. haha.) And I have one kitty to accompany me on all my travel trips!

That’s all for Amercia. Next issue will be on EUROPE!!

***

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November 11, 2008 (Tuesday)

We’re back in Universal Studios, this time my 2 nieces came along with us. They don’t have any classes that day because it was Veteran’s Day. Naturally the place is more crowded when we first went there. Lots of tourists and non-tourist roam the theme park. We first headed off to Krustyland. My nieces haven’t been on it yet so they were really looking forward to take that ride. The wait time was about 45 minutes or so. That’s how crowded it was. We then had lunch right after the ride. Next stop is the Studio Tours which Froggy and I weren’t able to do the last time. The queue was really really long. But still we waited patiently for our turn. When the time came for us to take the tour, I was really looking forward to what new changes or non-changes they had. The usuals are there, the flood machine, the broken down bridge, Bate’s Motel, Jaws, Earthquake, and the different studio lots. Missing of course was the big hulking King Kong, the studio where the big guy used to be got burned down and they are in the middle of rebuilding the studio and other sets that got hit by it. New on the tour are Fast and the Furious, The Mummy, Wisteria Lane, War of the Worlds and some sets used in other films. The tour ran for about 45 minutes. When we’re done the kids wants to take the plunge at Jurrasic Park and The Mummy ride. So we went to those rides again. We parted ways for awhile when they wanted to take the Simpsons ride again. And we waited for them in the Universal City Walk. Time flew by and the next thing we know we’re going home.

“Step on the star, that will be your seating arrangement for the Studio Tours.”

“The Tale of Desperaux, will be shown this December. I just finished reading the book the other day. Cute story.”

“The broken down bridge.”

“Fast and the Furious cars did a collision scene. It even danced to the tune of Gasolina.”

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