korinsu-t-blog

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Final project for the summer study abroad, 15 minutes on the best unexpected signs I found while in Japan. Shoutouts to the restaurant in Kyoto at 8:30, that one was the best of them all.

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June 11 // Arashiyama Bamboo Forest

Final day of excursions. Tomorrow is a free day and I’ll be taking a bus back to Tokyo that night, so this was really the last major planned thing I’ll have done in Japan. It’s bittersweet, knowing that the trip is coming to an end so soon. On the one hand, I’m ready to return to the states pretty soon; but on the other there’s a lot of really cool stuff in Japan that I’m going to miss. No complaints or regrets though- we really have gotten to experience a lot of stuff on this trip, and there’s not a single thing I feel like I’ve missed out on. We’ve seen castles and shrines and kabuki, learned a lot about the culture and the micro-level parts of society that are really inspiring and chock-full of ideas, and experienced a lot of things that other people never get the chance to; like sadou. 

Today’s conclusion to our scheduled outings was as average as usual, but it had plenty of great views. We went and visited a little bamboo forest (pretty packed, but also famous and remarkably small?), then bounced over to check out some monkeys on a nearby mountain. Not all that crazy, but it was a neat little diversion to go check them out, and it came with some nice views of the Kyoto region as well.

One of the shrines in the bamboo forest was called Nonomiya, a place where imperial princesses would wait for years to be purified before moving on to sacred duties at another temple. It was pretty small and not all that notable tho.

[The last two were views from the top of the monkey mountain.]

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June 10 // Nara Deer Park + Super Big Buddha

Usual morning stuff, nothing special there. We did get the courtesy of a lecture on thinking twice before doing dumb stuff and how lucky the group’s itinerant zombies are to have not been arrested for some stuff they did earlier in the week, but after that we were off to Nara bright and early. Nara is another town in much the same vein as Kyoto/Osaka: civilized and modern, with more natural touches and less infinite skyline like Tokyo. Lots of parks, some big forests and hills- nothing too out of the ordinary until you get to the deer, which are sort of the calling card of the city. The deer are everywhere. They’re protected like cows are in India, so the little buggers have become very well adjusted to living around humans (and taking food from them). They travel in packs and you can feed them with special crackers sold basically anywhere in the city. Usually, they’re chill to take a picture or two; only rarely will you find an aggressive deer that starts chewing on your stuff or nipping at you after you feed it.

I didn’t feed them (they were a little dirty from living outside), but I did take plenty of pictures.

The main feature of today’s trip wasn’t the deer, but actually a giant Buddha statue located inside an absolutely massive temple. This statue was the largest pre-modern statue of the Buddha (and arguably statue in general), built somewhere around the twelfth century by an emperor after famines and droughts ravaged his land. It took up basically all of Japan’s budget and then-current bronze to make the statue, but it did have the somewhat noble (if superstitious) purpose of protecting the people from complete devastation. The temple the statue is housed in was the coolest one I’ve seen so far, it was ridiculously large and had a killer design. There was a pillar in the back with a hole in it at floor level- rumor has it that the hole was the size of the Buddha’s nostril, and if you can crawl through it you’ll find enlightenment in the next reincarnation. A surprisingly large number of our group were able to fit through it, but I couldn’t stop thinking of the Enigma of Amigara Fault while people were crawling through. Luckily only one of them got stuck.

[Lookit ‘em go.]

[Humans for scale at the bottom btw. These were just the gates.]

[Temple from the outside. Definitely the coolest (and biggest) so far.]

[The big statue. It’s kinda hard to get a sense of scale, but it was pretty massive.]

[Some of the natural hills on the outskirts of Nara. Definitely not something you’d see in Tokyo.]

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Reading reflection:

More readings on Buddhism this time, nothing crazy. Lots of history on “The Buddha”, the historical Buddha that everyone attributes the statues and teachings to. According to some religious texts, he was the reincarnation of several other monks who repeatedly returned to Earth as avatars of a more powerful being, something I can only guess would be considered the source of enlightenment. After he finished his teachings as The Buddha, I can only imagine that he peaced out to the next plane of existence. Very in accordance with Mahayana Buddhism tho, which teaches that one who reaches quasi-enlightenment should instead hold off on breaking the cycle of rebirth to try and bring as many people as possible to enlightenment. Mahayana Buddhism isn’t about self-enlightenment, but rather, a denial of the self to bring others up.

[korinsu-t-blog]

June 9 // Ice Caves 2: Electric Boogaloo (Osaka Free Day)

Just kidding. Kinda. It was a free day today so I tagged along with a group of people going to Osaka. Our objective: see the Osaka Castle, some really big statue, do some shopping, and eat some street food. Other people still had to knock out their media / academic reflections but I did all of mine back in Tokyo, so I was just cruising along and did eventually end up dipping out early.

Osaka Castle was pretty much what we’d been expecting from the Tokyo Imperial Palace and not experienced there. Same big gates, huge moats and massive walls, only this time with a castle we could go see for ourselves instead of walking up to the gates and not being able to go through. We didn’t go into Osaka castle itself (the center “castle” was within two layers of moats deep within the fort) due to the price it would have cost to get in there, but we did get to roam around the rest of what I would loosely call the “fort”. Much like the Imperial Palace there were gatehouses with gun slits, old barracks, and even a temple to some kami that we couldn’t read. What really got us though was something we saw on the castle map: mixed right in there with things like “Osaka Castle”, “Gardens”, and etc. was “The Pine Tree on which the Monk Shinyo Hung His Robe”. Wow. Name like that, you really just gotta swing out of your way to see it. Gotta be legendary, right?

Yep.

L E G E N D A R Y    T R E E.

We all pretty much died at that point. It was the ice caves all over again, just with less torture going on in the to-and-from. It killed what little excitement was left for the castle, so we nipped on over to the street food areas pretty quick after that. Street food was just more of the same too- it was basically a clone of the Teramachi’s ultra-crowded E->W street with a little more seafood and a bunch of small 100yenner shops. Nothing really special about it, so I split off and headed home on my own while the others went and checked out one last statue. Fortunately the train fair today was only on the order of $10, but with $20 required tomorrow I really wonder why the ~6K class didn’t budget at least a little more than the meager $125 for transportation for the entire thing. Especially since we’re required to go out on our own excursions (not a single yen of which is covered by the program despite being a required assignment, btw), it begs the question as to why a little more of that cash wasn’t put towards travel fare. I can guarantee no one has used their Passmo cards for food once and we’ve all been paying travel fare out of pocket for the past week and a half, even the people who kept their excursion days in Tokyo really close to home. That and some of the stuff that’s repeatedly reflecting poorly on everyone because of select individuals (there’s a decent amount of it, too) are honestly my biggest beef with the program. I think we all might be getting a little tired of social interaction though.

[Osaka castle. Pretty cool, even if the juxtaposition between it and the ultra-modern city surrounding it on all sides was interesting.]

[One of the gardens inside the castle.]

[Found this in the street markets, thought it was funny.]

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June 8 // Kyoto History Museum

Free day tomorrow, but for now, we visited the Kyoto history museum. There was only one major exhibit going on when we visited, focusing on a particular sect of Buddhism (the Time Sect), their founder Ippen, and the origins/lore of this sect. Apparently the Kyoto musem has a primary building built during the Meiji Restoration (meaning western architecture), but it’s been under maintenance for years and isn’t looking to open soon. Kinda unfortunate that we only got to see one exhibit, but the one we did was pretty big and very in depth. Contained inside was a long history of the sect and its founder, including a scroll called the Ippe Hijiri-e, or “An Illustrated Biography of the Priest Ippen” that spanned some five rooms on every single wall. 12 or so scrolls with lots of narration and some honestly really good illustrations considering they were made in the 1300s.

It’s hard to really talk about the contents of the exhibit without going too in depth. There were several awesome statues of Buddhavista like Amida, the scrolls and hanging wall paintings, and some general implements of that the monks used at their temples. The whole place took about 30-40 minutes to get through, but it was a good introduction to this particular sect of Buddhism, which eschews traditional paths towards enlightenment in favor of the nenbutsu, a ritual recitation of Amida’s name.

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[The big building we couldn’t get in to -___-]

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Reading Review

Ippen’s philosophy of Buddhism is summarized in the idea of the “White Path Between Two Rivers”. There one one particular hanging image of it in the museum that I took a special interest in due to the good artistry and history of the piece as a keystone in Ippen’s Buddhism. Ippen used the White Path as a metaphor during his travels and teachings, and the White Path Buddhism has actually become quite popular recently. The rivers represent things like attachment and immorality, while the path is a narrow way of nenbutsu that leads to the “Pure Land” after death. Remember that in Buddhism the end goal is enlightenment, and rebirth is oftentimes the means by which people eventually reach enlightenment. In Ippen’s flavor of Buddhism, death following a life of nenbutsu leads to rebirth in the so-called Pure Land, a paradise in which people can meditate for as long as they wish before reaching true enlightenment. For many though, the Pure Land itself is the goal, and enlightenment is merely an afterthought.

Pretty interesting all around. You can tell by reading into Buddhism that the Jedi from Star Wars were heavily based on it. Rejecting attachments (including family) and eschewing the ideals of Confucianism (in which attachment to family is the utmost priority), things like children being given up to temples as children and being raised as monks, etc. etc. There’s a lot of neat stuff you can see that was used as inspiration for modern fantasy/religious concepts such as the Jedi.

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June 7 // Kyoto Manga Museum

A quick half day today, legitimately just two train stops away (we probably could have walked to the location in twenty minutes or so). The manga museum was pretty neat, if a little small. The exhibits were basically famous manga series ordered by year of release, going from 1960 up through 2010. Lots of cool stuff there: old series like Ashta No Joe (the inspiration for 2018′s Megalobox), the first chapter (and everything else) of big series like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure and Yu-Gi-Oh, all of which were available to read. Some of the most popular or notable stuff had obviously been read hundreds or thousands of times; but I think that was part of the appeal. Manga, far more so than anime, is a massive part of Japanese culture that pervades every level of society. Being able to interact with it is something I think is critical to the medium, and boy was there a lot to interact.

We also got to see an example of pre-manga, pre-TV entertainment called kamishibai. It’s basically a physical slideshow of pictures with dramatic narration, telling a story much like flipping the pages of a manga. Our story that we got to see was called Golden Bat Appears!, a kamishinbai written in the 30′s-40′s that tells the story of Golden Bat, the number one hero in Japan (and the first comic-book superhero story to ever be written, even predating Superman) who is knows as an “ally of justice”. Golden Bat isn’t actually a bat- he’s a gold-skinned man with a very skeletal appearance and a booming laugh, which was personified very well by the actor doing the show. The triumphant laugh is Golden Bat’s calling card when he arrives on the scene to save the day, accompanied by his first words of “I am here.” Sound familiar yet?

There’s no doubt that the pop-culture superhero from 2018′s My Hero Academia was, at least in part, inspired by the retro legend that is Golden Bat.

[Quite a bit different from All-Might, no? The scary figure in the background is the arcano-scientist Nazo, the villain who is locked in eternal conflict with the Golden Bat.]

[A panel from Ashta no Joe - the guy on the left would eventually become Nabuna in Megalobox.]

[Debuting about five years before Jojo’s, I’m pretty sure that whoever this guy was, he had the yare yare down long before Jotaro.]

[It was very rainy in Kyoto today, so here’s a picture of the clouds.]

[Does this even need a caption?]

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Reading review:

I was honestly surprised to learn how huge of a deal manga is in Japanese culture. Compared to anime, which is relegated to tiny parts of society both in the real and virtual world, manga is prolific and it is everywhere. Everyone reads it, and it’s a common trap for people native to the west to see mediums like manga and anime and say “I don’t watch anime / I don’t read manga”, believing it to be it’s own singular thing- when in reality, there are hundreds of genre and subgenre within these mediums (and it would be very much like saying “I don’t read books” or “I don’t watch television”, in terms of blanketing). There is manga for every audience; old or young or male or female. There is manga for every genre, from sports to science fiction to politics and romance and philosophy. What separates it from Western literature is that manga is both viewed and read- there is an equal balance of imagery, dialogue, and descriptions; compare that to Western literature which must rely only on words to express its ideas. The medium makes in-depth discourse and lengthy narration more difficult to be sure, and it is a notable conflict in the literature community as to whether or not manga is truly capable of providing discourse on deep topics.

The surface similarity between manga and comics (or graphic novels) makes them easily dismissable by foreign readers, especially in America where “comics” are only a single genre; that being superheroes. Webcomics trend a much closer line to manga in that they typically encompass a much wider variety of topics, but their scale of consumption relative to America’s size is still insurmountable dwarfed by the pervasiveness of manga in Japanese society. For some strange reason, the mere presence of pictures in and augmenting a written work is often seen as infantalizing by western readers, making manga prone to being relegated to the same realm as children’s books and superhero comics that are simplistic and aimed at a young demographic incapable of digesting deeper or more philosophically-laden topics. It’s honestly a shame that this sort of attitude exists towards the medium that is manga: there is an entire second world of ideas, stories, and discourse just waiting to be read and experienced that many people will dismiss out of hand without a second thought simply because it is different.

[korinsu-t-blog]

June 6 // Fushimi Inari, The Mountain of Ten Thousand Gates

((Reading review also happens in here))

Got some good sleep yesterday in preparation for today’s grueling experience. Admittedly it was only grueling because my little group chose to make it so, because the actual excursion itself only lasted about thirty minutes. It was supposed to be a day long thing just like yesterday, but Prof. Smith made the second half of the day (an hour hike up to the top of a mountain) optional, so a lot of people bailed because they couldn’t do it. Kinda disappointing for them, honestly. The Fushimi Inari’s entire complex is built onto the side of a little mountain that boasts a good view of Kyoto and contains within its boundaries dozens of shrines and over thirty thousand tori-style gates. Dedicated to the goddess of rice harvests (and later, business success), Inari, the Fushimi Inari is probably the most famous site of the important kami in Japan. Around a third of the total shrines in Japan are dedicated to Inari; she’s quite popular because of those aforementioned blessings for business success.

Inari is always represented by foxes (kitsune in Japanese), mainly using them as messengers and such. The imagery has become irrevocably tied to her legacy, and as such, pretty much everything in the Fushimi Inari was related to foxes in some way. Fox statues at the gates, holding jewels, keys, or rice wheat. Fox engravings and paintings in the architecture. Fox merchandise, plushies, and masks in the markets. Fox message-cards to tie at the temple. And most of all, the fox carvings- thousands of them were all over the mountain. Supposedly there’s been a lot of discussion as to the true nature of Inari- male/female, is fox/ is not fox, etc. but the only concrete thing that have been nailed down by the chief priests (according to our reading) is that “Inari is not a fox”.

The temple itself wasn’t all that notable besides the gates (it feels a little dirty to say that so much these days, but we’ve seen a lot of shrines in a short period of time and you get used to the song and dance of them after a while), but the hike up to the top was pretty nice. I was able to snap some good pictures of Kyoto on our way up and ring the bell at the shrine on top of the mountain. There’s a lot of little things you do when you pray at a shrine. The offering you give (which goes back to the temple to help with maintenance) is always a five-yen coin, due to the hole in the center of it being more lucky than the others. You’re also supposed to clap to get the attention of the gods, and when you finish, you ring a bell using a big rope to do it again. Do it enough though and it starts to get a little old -____-

The hike down I split off with Ian while the others took the long route back. We metro’d back on our own and now I’m just chilling at home. Tonight we’re going to be celebrating Seth’s birthday by going to a little all-you-can-eat pizza chain in the Teramachi. I’m also going to swing by a bookstore to try and pick up some stuff for Ryan and Alex.

Also, there’s this little bakery just across the river that sells the most bombing cinnamon twirly things ever.

[That’s Kyoto.]

[Shrine near the top of the mountain.]

[Another shrine. Notice the fox statues on the left.]

[The bell at the top of the mountain shrine.]

[Random cat me and Ian saw on our way back.]

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June 5 // Kyoto Imperial Palace

Japan burns.

That’s 90% of their history summed up in a two-word sentence. The cities have burned down dozens of times each and everything just keeps getting rebuilt again and again and again. Combine wood and paper buildings with a constant battle for supremacy plus just a smidgen of no fire codes and you’ve got a recipe for the history books. The Imperial Palace we went to in Kyoto today was the original home of the emperor before everything moved up to Tokyo. It was big, but sparse. Lots of flat rock expanses, some walls, and a few large buildings- not really all that lavish compared to the Tokyo Imperial Palace. We didn’t spend much time there beyond a one-hour tour but it was absolutely blazing hot. Somehow despite the weather being complete cloud cover it was ridiculously hot with zero wind which made things absolutely awful while we were moseying about the gravel lot that was the interior of the palace.

After that, we were done with excursions for the day so I nipped on over to a Coco Curry and got a meal solo, then metro’d back to the apartments. Me and Austin met up to go shopping for tabi (special Japanese toe-shoes) and launched into the adventure of the week. A half hour of shopping in the market district yielded nothing but women’s designer tabi, so we did some more googling and found a small chain store that specialized in workman’s clothing. Our destination was set- spurned three times by the shops of downtown Kyoto, we hopped a semi-express to what we would later realize was the equivalent of those highway turnoffs that just have a gas station, Mcdonalds, and farms.

Twenty minutes of walking from the station took us through suburbs, rice fields, under the highway for the Shinkansen, past Pachinko casinos, and almost getting hit by cars on the no-sidewalk roads before we found our little store. We were seriously in the boonies at this point... or at least, as boonies as Japan can get. There was also a Coco Curry next to it; very ironic even though we didn’t eat there. I got my tabi, Austin ended up just getting a hat, and then we navigated all the way back to Kyoto for a night in watching Lord of the Rings.

[Gardens in the Imperial Palace.]

No reading review today.

[korinsu-t-blog]

June 4th // Temple of Purifying Water & Gion Market

Kyoto is steeped in history- on a single given street you might find dozens of houses that have been around for longer than the United States. We’ve visited plenty of temples that have been traditional travel sites for the Japanese people for centuries, and Kiyomizudera (The Temple of Purifying Water) as well as its attached shrines, Sannen-zaka and Ninen-zaka, are no different. Pilgrims have come to visit these places since time immemorial, and there’s a massive amount of lore and worldbuilding that temples like these have been a part of and even created in their own right. Kiyomizudera especially is an incredibly famous temple among its peers- it’s one of the places to go.

Unfortunately, big parts of the temple were under maintenance during our trip so a lot of the great views were sullied by bamboo scaffolding. Kiyomizudera has a wide deck five to seven stories above the surrounding forest that normally gives an incredible view of the city, so it was really unfortunate that we couldn’t get the full experience there. Still, there were a lot of neat things inside beyond the main feature of the temple. The staff of the legendary warrior Benkei (who you might remember being one of the stars of the kabuki play I saw a week or two ago) was there, and you could try to lift both it and its smaller sized replica to test your strength. The smaller one weighed something like 20-30 lbs so it wasn’t that bad, but the full-size staff of Benkei was about eight feet tall and pure metal. It’s said that only those who possess superhuman strength can lift and wield Benkei’s true weapon- a myth that might as well be true because I’m ninety percent sure the thing was bolted to the floor. It really would take superhuman strength to break through the screws and bolts.

There were a lot of statues, a gong to ward off demons, and various prayer boxes as well. The main feature of the temple is, of course, the purifying waterfalls- before we got to those though, we detoured to the secondary shrines. These little shrines are emblematic of how I’ve been describing the current Japanese view of religion in the modern era: the one we went to was dedicated to the gods of love, and had a variety of ancient things to do that all sort of connected to one’s romantic life and future. The things at the shrine of love and the purifying/blessing water below are physical things that the superstitious believe to really influence their day-to-day life in a meaningful way. Even those who don’t subscribe to religion still go to the temples out of a spirit of fun and the idea of “well, it can’t hurt, can it?”. Religion draws people because of its attachments to the physical world, the current path to enlightenment that is being walked in the moment. Very few people are concerned with the future, the afterlife, or the nebulous things that come after death. It’s a means to provide small blessings and things to smooth the journey of life. Concepts of hell, eternal torture and punishment, violence, etc. aren’t really found in Buddhism at all. At its scariest, Japanese religion is rebirth and redeath and another chance to find enlightenment.

Not many people worry about it beyond that “What could it hurt?” attitude though.

The shrine dedicated to romance had a unique calling card in these two spirit-roped stones that were set a decent distance apart from eachother. You’re supposed to close your eyes and walk from one rock to the other, a trial which is made a lot harder by the sheer amount of people at the shrine. If you make it from rock to rock without looking, supposedly you’ll be able to find love on your own. If you need help to get to the other rock though, you’ll need help to find love in your life as well. I made it without help during a small break in the crowds, but a lot of the other people visiting the shrine weren’t quite as lucky. We’ll see if anything comes of it lol.

Down beneath the Kiyomizudera were the three purifying waterfalls: Love, Health, and Success. Drink from one and receive a blessing from the kami patron of the temple, the luck goddess Kannon. Drinking from more than one is bad juju- the kami will pick up on your greed and curse you instead. Success definitely seemed to be the most popular in our group, but some of the other tourists were dipping from all three like it was nothing which was kinda hilarious. Schoolkids favored the love waterfall more than any other demographic.

== Reading reflection kinda happens here too==

Last up in the day was a short walk to the Gion Market, yet another popular market. This one is notable for the geisha and geisha apprentices that work in high-end tea stores and other shops. Geisha are honestly a pretty interesting topic. Back in the day, they were sort of all-encompassing court entertainment hired by lords. Well versed in literature and the arts, they were expert dancers, linguists, and professionals at entertaining their guests. Many times their services would also turn to prostitution, but they weren’t so much straight prostitutes as they were entertainers who happened to have that kind of work come up naturally during employment. Geisha oftentimes developed deeper relations with long-term clients, oftentimes for the purposes of marrying out of their class and into a higher status. They were more schooled than normal women and set trends/were local celebrities, but their livelyhood entirely depended on how good they were at entertaining.

In the modern era, geisha are something entirely different. They are a reclusive organization that still work as entertainers for the elite of the elite, few beyond their own families are allowed to become geisha, and their clientele are the absolute wealthiest of society. Meeting with a geisha is something that few Japanese can boast of- foreigners will likely never see one in their life. Purportedly, their roles as entertainers still follow the old style of building relationships with extremely wealthy, longstanding clientele. The prostitution doesn’t happen very often except in the line of work. Some would say it’s an unavoidable reality when serving the 1% of the 1%.

I suppose it really is a long shot, but I’d like to interview one sometime. I think a geisha would have many interesting stories to tell and interesting perspectives on life from their work and from observing their clients. It’s virtually impossible for westerners to get an audience though.

[korinsu-t-blog]

June 3rd // Golden Pavilion & Daitokuji Gardens

Today was pretty short, all things considered. We got off around noon and had to bus back from our second location, and in all honesty it was navigating the Kyoto buses + walking that took up the biggest chunk of our day. It was pretty hot which made the walking a little uncomfortable, but the temp is all-around good enough now that as soon as I’m feeling better I’m going to be able to start running on the riverbank trails in morning and night. Kyoto is a pretty cool city, I dig the vibe and overall less verticality they have going on- but the lack of trains is honestly a problem. The buses are a massive hustle to use compared to Tokyo’s intermixing metro and local trains.

As part of today’s adventures we got to visit two neat places, one of which (the Golden Pavilion) is a lot more famous than the second. The Golden Pavilion is a massive tourist trap with what feels like thousands of people walking around the gardens and main central lake, and was pretty tough to navigate with all the crowds. Sometimes you just had to shift and politely push past people on the tiny trails while you saw stuff. The sights themselves were pretty awesome tho- the plant gardens and the namesake golden pagoda in the middle of the shrine’s lake were incredible. The pagoda itself has a lot of history to it, but in short it was a particular pre-Edo shogun’s way of flaunting his wealth even in a time period where philosophy and religion was looking to move beyond worldly desires and possessions (compared to now, where the only sticking power religion has in Japan is in offering things that may affect the day-to-day lives of people). Gold plated and everything, it actually was burned down once by its slightly insane monk of an architect who believed the temple itself and his attachment to it were corrupting himself due to its unmatched beauty. The story goes that he was so enthralled with his creation that even when he kissed a woman, the only thing he could think of was the temple- that and a few other things drove him to the madness that ended with the pagoda being torched. It was rebuilt and renovated to its former glory though, so all’s well that ends well.

Second on the list was the Daitokuji, a singular complex that contains within its walls twenty-two different monasteries of varying sizes. Not a tourist trap at all, the temples within the walls of the Daitokuji are still used by monks today for meditation/meetings and are only open to visitors at certain hours. Each temple is run by a different sect, and each has its own abbot and staff who manage it. Most every one of the temples is ringed by ‘zen gardens’, the traditional rock gardens pioneered by Japanese Buddhists that I was surprised to learn are basically 2D paintings represented as 3D sculptures. The base layer of white rocks (marked with lines) typically represent water and waves, while the interior of the garden can represent a variety of things that the sculptor wished to convey. These were probably my favorite part of the place- I was able to sit for a few minutes at one particular garden by myself and just space out for a little bit, it was really peaceful.

The last interesting part of the Daitokuji was a poem written by one of the ex-head monks, one that I can’t remember the name of. It was featured at the Daisen-in shrine and was a really good poem on self-training, discipline, and if not kindness, the ability to remain out of conflict. I wish I could remember what the name was so I could post a picture.

[Part of the front gate of the Golden Pavilion.]

[Lake view of the pagoda.]

[A series of photos showing something I’ve started to describe as “straight-on aesthetic”. If you like these sorts of pictures, there’s a lot of architecture and opportunities to get photos like this. The geometric alignment and centering of it all is really appealing to me.]

[More shots of the Golden Pavilion’s interior.]

[Some interior shots of the Daitoku-ji’s different architecture.]

[Rock gardens. The last two were my favorite rock garden, the same one where I got to just chill out on my own for awhile.]

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Reading reflection:

Today’s readings were on zen gardens and a very brief one on medieval fortifications in Japan. The only really major thing besides the history of the Golden Pavilion that I went into earlier was that ‘zen garden’ is basically a misnomer of the entire rock garden thing attributed by Western historians/philosophers. The original purposes of the rock gardens weren’t at all associated with the zen movement (which was really just an attempt to simplify and cater elements of Buddhism to the West), so yeah.

[korinsu-t-blog]

June 2 // Sick Day

[Placeholder]

[korinsu-t-blog]

June 1 // Kyoto Free Day

Still sick :(

Sleeping on tatami and little futon cushions isn’t all that uncomfortable. We have a good AC too, so it’s actually pretty nice up in our rooms; though we’re still packed in there like sardines in a can. Today was a free day, so I got to sleep in as much as I could (not much, there was construction going on across the street) before we left to go tackle some shrines and parks. I didn’t stick around too long because I had plans to get some Japan-style hair stuff done, so I left the group a little early and struck out on my own.

Walking solo is pretty great. You’re not mixed in with a group that’s half conscientious people and half loud americans who don’t know how to stay out of the middle of the road, so it’s a little less conspicuous. Eating solo is pretty great, too- I’ve only ever eaten in groups in Japan and restaurants here are small, so we’re usually packed into tables and sometimes have to not go to places simply because they’re too full. When you’re on your own or with like one other person, you can go right up to the bar stools, sit down and order fast, then eat in silence at your own pace. It’s honestly pretty nice, I might have to start doing sit-down meals alone back in America.

Something else about Japan’s restaurants that are pretty different is that there’s no song and dance about how long it actually takes to make your food. Waiters drop off water with a jug so you can refill your own stuff at the start, take your food/drink orders, then people’s food is brought out as soon as its done- no waiting for anyone else. This leads to some awkwardness when half the table is eating before everyone else, but it’s nice to have all the service value your time. As soon as all the food is out they drop your check off at the table (you can’t split checks, so counting up money from everyone always takes a long time) then pay at the front whenever you’re ready to leave. No waiting twenty minutes for a waiter, three back-and-forth’s to the kitchen to pay for the check, etc.

The hair appointment was for straightening. It took about three hours total and will last until the hair gets cut, so that’s nice. I had a nice guy named Naoki doing mine, he’s apparently a senior person at the place I went to. He also studied abroad and learned a lot of his stuff about coloring and cuts in America, and we got to do some small talk in Japanese about the differences between Tokyo and Kyoto (Kyoto has a lot of rivers that you can run on, Tokyo is very “tall” and buildings all the way up), his favorite american foods (Mac & Cheese, ironically) and the differences between American and Japanese pizza (Japanese is expensive and a little weird, we both agreed that American pizza was better because it was simpler and cheaper). Overall, not a bad way to round out the day. I just chilled out with some of the others after that.

[This is Naoki, he was cool.]

[Two pictures I took out in Kyoto today. It’s a very picturesque city in a lot of places.]

[korinsu-t-blog]

May 31 // Travel to Kyoto

Woke up kinda early after a late night of smash bros. and hopped a train to Tokyo, then transferred to a Shinkansen bullet train for our trip to Kyoto. I’ve been pretty sick today so it’s been rough, but it happens. Tried to keep a low profile and not cough on anyone, even going so far as to wear one of those stereotypical facemasks you see Asian people wearing all the time. I hope it helped, I don’t want to get anyone else sick (caught it from my roommate though, so yeah).

The bullet train was pretty uneventful, and honestly not as exciting as I was expecting. It does go 200mph, but it doesn’t feel like it so the whole trip is just sorta a blur of stuff whizzing by that you don’t really notice. I was sick too, so it crippled my enjoyment a little bit, not gonna lie.

Kyoto station was pretty huge, very grand central-y, and pretty packed with foreigners. Even more than the foreigners tho were the school kids- there were absolutely tons of them, massive groups of a hundred plus and lines that stretched off to the horizon as far as the eye could see. We got our pictures taken a lot by people who were using varying degrees of discretion, but that’s a pretty common occurrence these days; nothing special. After hopping a taxi to some backstreets downtown in Kyoto, we arrived at our traditional Japanese-style lodgings.

They are tiny. Everything is built for people who must have been 4ft tall, the plentiful tatami mats mean you can’t wear shoes (a plus), and it’s so cramped despite the fact that we have four people crammed into each hovel. It’s gonna get a lot more personal in the coming two weeks, that’s for sure. Once again the dorm of our guys is the communal meeting place, but it’s not all that bad. Hanging out with people is way more fun than going solo, and we have a lot of cool people on the trip. This time I’m rooming with Austin, Seth, and Ian; basically everyone I would have wanted to room with. I think we’ll do good.

There’s a river right nearby with a trail where we can start running. As soon as I’m done recovering from being sick I’ll be hitting the trail once in the mornings and once at nights, unless something else is going on. Tomorrow I’m going to get the permanent japanese-style hair straightening done at a place close to the water, so the constant knots in my hair are going to be banished for the foreseeable future.

[A view of some rice paddies by the bullet train.]

[The main bridge over the river we’re close to. It’s not quite anime levels of riverbanks and stuff, but it’s close. Definitely a lot closer to the depictions you see in anime versus what Tokyo’s rivers look like.]

[Kyoto Station’s interior]

[The logo of our old apartment complex. Pretty nice sendoff picture if I say so myself.]

============

Reading review:

Today’s reading hits pretty close to home for you, mom. Our reading was on the Shinkansen and how the government basically steamrolled it into being, seizing land from people in the way and compensating them way too little. Unlike the US tho, there’s no eminent domain to help protect the people, so they’re more or less forced to fold to the gov’t and take what they’re given.

The Shinkansen is awesome and a marvel of modern engineering that connects multiple parts of Japan that would otherwise be far apart, but it’s not without it’s problems. You can imagine it in the exact same vein of problem as a highway built next to a rural town- instead of being being routed through the town to get their destination and potentially stopping to influence the small economy, the highway would dry out the little town by letting people just go on past without stopping. It’s an issue that’s rough because the Shinkansen brings a great number of upsides as well, and not one that can be easily answered in a single night.

[korinsu-t-blog]

May 30 // Mount Takao Hike

Today was our last day in Tokyo and we spent it leaving Tokyo, which was pretty ironic. I’ve already done everything that I wanted to in the city and am excited to see just how Kyoto is different (we’ll be staying in traditional Japanese-style lodges instead of a more modern apartment), so it wasn’t all that bad to take a breather and head outside the city to Mount Takao for a hike. An hour long train ride put us right at the topmost town on the mountain, from where we found the start of the trail and got hiking.

The entire experience was honestly extremely similar to hiking the Incline in Manitou Springs. Show up in a tiny mountain town loaded down with tourist-trappy stuff, hit a trail with way too many people on it, and hike up to the top of a mountain for a good view. What separated Mount Takao from the Incline was that Takao was a well paved road and was only ultra-steep for about twenty minutes worth of hiking at the start, and everything after that was easy. Some people had to quit early from lack of endurance and one person popped their knee out of its socket on accident just by walking, which was really painful for them :/

Most of us made it up though.

Takao is also different from the Incline in that there’s about three different shrines on the way up, some big gates, the usual charm/ward shops, and even some small restaurants. There were also ice cream vendors at the top so... yeah, that was a thing. It was pretty touristified, and the amount of people on the trail was way too much. Crowds upon crowds upon crowds- had we taken one of the side trails I think things would have gone better, but we went right up the main one so there wasn’t much to do. The temples on the mountain were notable for their statues of Tengu, patron guardian “goblins” of the mountain folk who were said to inhabit and protect the forests. They were depicted as humans with feathered wings; some had beaks for mounts and still others had claws for hands. One statue in particular wielded a fan for a weapon, apparently a type of fan that was said to be able to banish demons. Pretty neat.

After we got done with the mountain we were left to our own devices. My group returned back to Akihabara through Shinjuku, then I split off to go to the Mos Burger for lunch. Got to see some more of Akihabara’s main street solo, though I didn’t go down any side streets or into stores. It’s definitely the anime center of the world, every single building is dedicated to anime, manga, or some combination of the two.

[Takao Station. Japan’s metro lines are really incredible, you can go around the entire country pretty much only using trains. It’s nice to not have to drive for once.]

[The Mt. Takao trail, pretty average. This picture doesn’t really give a good idea of the slope, but it was probably hitting 35*. Definitely The Incline level.]

[A view from the top. Most of it was kinda substandard, as the summit wasn’t a true plateau and there were a lot of trees blocking line-of-sight.]

[Slightly better view from a little further down the mountain.]

[This guy was apparently the monk who brought the Shingon sect of Buddhism to Japan. He’s something of a patron saint of test-takers, hence the golden pencil at his feet. He’s often accompanied by unusual octopus paraphernalia- though you can’t see it, the wooden ball at the bottom of the sphere was actually carved with octopus tentacles too. It’s said that if you hold the octopus aloft when you pray, the monk will guide you to excel in your tests.]

[Tengu guardians of the shrines. They’re very unusual, and these statues are very old.]

[Freebie shot of Akihabara’s main street.]

=============

Reading reflection: Forestry in Japan

Japan is a tiny island with a relatively huge island, so it’s no surprise that their forestry is heavily regulated- especially since rice and timber are the only two things that Japan is fully self-sufficient in. What might surprise you is that the forests have been extremely exploited throughout most of Japan’s lengthy history, and it’s only been a postwar effort of both the government and media to make forests seem like something natural and precious that played a large role as a source of mystery in the lives of ancient Japanese. The truth could not be further from that idea- up until recent, there was nothing sacred about forests- no legends, no mysterious kami, and no reverence. They were owned by the daimyo and exploited to the fullest.

So when you see a forest in modern-day Japan, barring a few specific sites it will almost always be something heavily planned and curated by the postwar government. The wilderness isn’t truly wild, only a fascimile of an idea that has been purported by those in charge.

[korinsu-t-blog]

May 29 // Free Day: Digital Arts Museum + Karaoke

Free day today, got to sleep in a little before me, Austin, Rebecca, Kathryn, and Elizabeth set out via train for the MORI Building digital arts museum. Getting off the train had us right in the middle of a futuristic little city out near the docks. The museums bring a ton of traffic to this area, so a little mall had sprung up with tons of places to eat, a ferris wheel, electric go-karts, and more. Lots of stuff we didn’t check out today (and it would probably have been too expensive anyways), but it was neat regardless. There was even a massive Toyota show-off building where they had a lot of their upcoming models, rally cars, and etc.

We stood in line for about a half hour to get into the digital arts museum, but once we were inside it was really something else. The entire theme of the place is “seamless”, so many exhibits flow through the halls along the walls to go to different places. It’s very dark and there are a lot of mirrored surfaces to create illusions of both brilliance and wide open spaces, and the sheer amount of technical and artistic prowess that went into designing some spaces (such as the LED room) were downright amazing. It’s hard to really get an idea for how cool some of the stuff was by photos alone- everything was constantly moving, and sound design played very heavily into some of the exhibits. I don’t really want to go through and describe the particular exhibits because it’s hard to express how they were in the entirety, but suffice to say that there were a lot of very cool and very innovative exhibits and art pieces.

We’re going out to karaoke tonight, so I’ll be able to do my Media Representation Comparison down below once we finish that tonight.

[A Toyota rallycar from the show floor. It was pretty sweet, and check out that color scheme.]

[One of my favorite exhibits, I took a ~50 second video of it because it moved and flowed around. Might turn it into a gif soon.]

[The waterfall room. The water actually goes around people who stand close to the wall.]

[Random corner of the waterfall room. I thought it looked neat.]

[The animated forest. Flower petals would constantly float around the entire first floor of the museum, and the petals bloomed and withered all over the place.]

[This is one section of another animated piece like the black and blue one up top. Not sure what it represents, but it was extremely cool regardless.]

[I was making a terrible face for this one but this was the LED room. Honestly one of the best in the entire place, but a camera REALLY doesn’t show it off that well. It’s one of those things you’d have to be there to see.]

[The lantern room, probably the best in the entire place. The lanterns would light up if something moved near them, then chain that light to other nearby lanterns in a little reaction.]

[Today’s candid: Elizabeth. She’s a very dopey person but also very honest. She also went to Providence HS in Jacksonville and used to know some people at PEP, so that was a blast from the past. I keep forgetting we all go to the same uni back home, so I don’t expect people to know Jax at all.]

=======

Media Comparison Reflection: Anime Karaoke vs. Real Life Karaoke

In anime, karaoke is usually seen in slice-of-life shows and only appears inside of singular specific scenes as a send-off for arcs of a show- if it isn’t just glossed over entirely. Typically, karaoke buildings in anime feature big rooms, lots of lights, fancy displays and enough room to hold a dozen or more people, and the people using them are almost always depicted as singing one particular song really well. This last part was actually quite a bit closer to the reality of karaoke moreso than anything else. In sum, karaoke is represented as being a generally lighthearted gathering of friend circles, and the locations themselves are usually incredibly photogenic.

The reality of karaoke was almost entirely different. The rooms were tiny and dark, in addition to being extremely cramped. Good sound systems, terrible soundproofing, and the smell of smoke everywhere- the place honestly looked more like a decrepit hotel than... whatever it was that I was expecting. Maybe it was just the location, but it honestly wasn’t all that swell. We had a ton of fun singing and stuff as a group, but it was a good coincidence that Kathryn happened to bring a Japanese friend from Musashi Daigaku, because that was where the most interesting contrast came from.

Compared to what the Americans in our group were doing- loud, outrageous songs sung with a ton of laughing and no degree of seriousness- the Japanese seemed to almost treat the karaoke like a competition. Booting up the scoring system, only selecting songs they knew very well and singing them as perfectly as possible, there was none of the usual hilarity that you’re used to seeing in American karaoke no matter where you go. I guess it does reflect their game-competitive culture, which stretches across everything from arcades to collections. People oftentimes dedicate themselves to a single topic (or in the case of arcade-goers, a specific game) and drive through that outlet in search of perfection rather than a good time.

The inner competitor in me knows that the answer is at least a little more nuanced than that, though I don’t know its solution for sure. For myself, when it comes to one of the dedications of my talents, the pursuit of competition and perfection is a big part of what does make for a good time. Whether that’s the same case for the Japanese though, I couldn’t say. All I know after tonight is that karaoke isn’t much for laughs for them.

[korinsu-t-blog]

May 28 // Ueno Park & Museum + Akihabara

Got to sleep in today, and it was overcast so the awful heat got toned down for a much-needed day. It’s supposed to be typhoon levels of rain tomorrow though, so I guess good things don’t last forever. Overall, today was pretty mellow- nothing crazy explosive, but it wasn’t boring, either.

Today we visited Ueno Park and the national treasure museum (I know) deep inside. Ueno Park is a really big green space with plenty of paths, some shrines/temples, a starbucks, lots of koi ponds, and a big craft sale area with homemade tools and whatnot. Not a ton going on there, but it was another example of how municipal Tokyo goes to great lengths to incorporate greenery in forms both big and small to make sure that the city isn’t an urban hell. We visited a shrine to the goddess Benten (the shrine was called Bentendo), who is of the luck domain. We also visited an extremely opulent shrine that was visited by emperors and the shogunate in the distant past if they couldn’t make the trip to the main temple of opulence about 100 miles north. This temple was extremely different from most that you visit, for reasons detailed below.

There’s two trending ideas in contemporary Japanese design: wabi and sabi. Wabi is the idea of spurning the gaudy, moving away from the China-heavy designs that involved grandiose displays of gold and jewelry in favor of a simplistic, yet evocative design. Sabi is the beauty of imperfection, of a fallen blossom or a stone that the river parts around. Put together, they create a philosophy of design that cherishes the simple things, imperfections, and a natural order that is left to determine its own beauty without the interference of a guiding hand. The Tokugawa temple that we visited was one of the few shrines that does not follow the ideals of wabi-sabi, but it was done so for the purposes of an emperor or warlord showing off their wealth. Rarely done, but sometimes a necessary measure.

The Ueno national treasure museum was also pretty neat. Lots of katanas, samurai armor, paintings, scrolls of Buddhism, and more. The katana were especially notable in that they were almost always mounted without their hilts or crossguards- typically only the craftsmanship of the blade is prized, unless the weapon is exclusively for decorative purposes.

Next up was Akihabara, which is basically weeb central. Stores all over the place, anime and manga merch everywhere, it’s pretty crazy. Anime honestly hasn’t been that widely advertised where I’ve been in Japan, it sorta just congregates into specific spots which is unusual considering most kids even through college keep up with at least a few shows. Besides the SAO advertising you see literally everywhere (ice caves and trains were some of the most out-there), anime honestly isn’t very popular on the public level. It’s weird, like the people enjoy it but don’t really acknowledge it outside the hubs like Akihabara. We live like five minutes from one of the biggest anime-specific stores in the Akihabara district so I’ll probably visit later to pick up something for Ryan.

The last part of today and probably my favorite was going thrift shopping at a clothes store. Thrift stores in Japan actually have good clothes and they have a huge selection of stuff (most of it bland or terrible, but there are some gems) that you’ll never see in a department store like Uniqlo. I was able to pick up like 5 t-shirts here for fifteen dollars, some of which were on the 100 yen rack (shirts for $1, so good). I also picked up a yukata (traditional men’s summer wear) in Ueno, so I’m loaded on all the cool stuff. I’ll have to take a picture of the yukata and some of the hilarious shirts we found.

[A lilypad pond in Ueno Park.]

[Koi pond, they were t h i c c.]

[Need I say more?]

[The ornate shrine. As you can see by the amount of gold plating and decor, it’s very nontraditional and not very wabi.]

[Some gates at a shrine in Ueno park. Typically, this particular arch design signifies that one is entering a sacred site.]

[I had this type of chicken, karaage, for lunch. It’s so so good.]

[Stone pic of the day, but I think we found the source of the bad luck...]

[...though in my defense, the other sign didn’t have a shrine like this.]

[A katana at the museum. Note the elegant carvings close to the hilt.]

[A part of the park behind the museum. So many of these old-style gardens are extremely beautiful.]

[Akihabara street. Surprisingly enough, it’s not the busiest place I’ve been (that honor goes to Shibuya at night)]

[Today’s candid: Seth! He’s 19 and heading into graduate school next year. Super super smart guy, he’s a linguistsics major and knows pretty much everything about anything history related. I didn’t get a picture with his hat off, but if I did you could see that he’s 100% Adam Driver’s twin. Same voice, same face, same everything- it’s scary accurate.]

=======

Reading review:

Today’s reading was on otaku culture, and it was honestly pretty awfully written. Otaku aren’t exactly shut-ins, but the two groups often overlap. Most commonly otaku is referred to as being analogous to a “superfan”, but in the field of psychology, the problem runs much deeper. Otaku are consumers of media and fiction who define themselves by said fiction; to the point of often being unable to sustain relationships with other people (though that is ultimately their end goal). They are obsessed, and their self/culture worth is so often tied into media that they are defined by their ability to recreate and reflect that culture, most commonly through outlets like cosplay, fan fiction, etc. In some small way, these acts are a means for an otaku to “own” the media that dominates their life- but unlike a collector of model trains or legos, there is no way for an otaku to own everything that they let define themselves.

It’s a bit of a sad state. The otaku have been consumed by the things they enjoyed- and in doing so, they have become unable to move on and grow as a person. They are obsessed for something they can never attain, and the dream of living a fiction more appealing than the real world merely spurns them into a continual downwards spiral.

[korinsu-t-blog]

May 27 // Kabuki

Oh man oh man oh man. To start off, watching kabuki in real life was honestly a ton of fun. It’s like the Japanese analogue to shakespearean plays: very culturally rooted, lots of deep motifs, and the stories are typically history-based. The particulars of how the plays go aren’t at all like what oldern western style productions tend to do, but I think that’s part of the appeal. It’s a uniquely Japanese take on stage productions.

Overall, we got to see three different kabuki shows back-to-back, with short intermissions. The seats were awfully cramped; I kid you not when I was sitting perfectly straight and upright my knees were flush with the seat in front of me. Supremely uncomfortable in the moment, but I think that looking back on this day in the future will entail a lot more appreciation of what I did get to see. Kabuki performance was, somewhat unironically, a lot like real life Jojo’s: there were a lot of random poses being struck, there was a lot of shouting, and a lot of actors menacingly approaching eachother. Asides from the last play (which was not a historical reenactment, but rather a historical slice of life) the actors spoke veeeeeeeeerryyyyyyyy sloooooooooooowwwwwww. There was almost always a shamisen (3-string banjo), drum, or tap-stick playing to accentuate the lines and actions of the actors, so they didn’t have to deliver everything flatly. Lastly, to reinforce the dynamicness of running and to symbolize the actor striking someone else (such as with a weapon), a single attendant on the side of the stage would slap wooden blocks into the stage to make a really loud clapping noise. This person also used the wood slap to mimic footsteps when actors would enter/leave via the runway going into the crowd- yet another unique feature of Japanese theater.

The first kabuki play was a tale of two brothers who, after being orphaned when their father was killed by one of his allies, spent the next eighteen years tracking down said ally so they could kill him. They were invited into the daimyo’s court by the court jester (sympathetic to their cause), and were about to introduce themselves when the daimyo immediately recognized them as the sons of the guy he had killed eighteen years ago. Deciding that the ruse was indeed up, the sons moved to kill him before the daimyo declared that they couldn’t kill him because “the ancient sacred sword of our people’s is still missing after hundreds of years”. This is very reasonable, of course, so the boys sheathe their swords and are about to sit down again when a runner comes in declaring that they’re found the legendary sacred sword. This ignites the fury of the younger brother once again, but before he can move to kill the daimyo for a second time, the daimyo declares that “I was put in charge of a hunt on mount Fuji for the Shogun in a few months, so you can’t kill me yet!”

This, too, was very reasonable. Taking some tickets to the great hunt as a consolation prize and vowing to meet the daimyo on that fated day, the brothers leave the palace and prepare to... fade to black, ‘cause that’s where the play ends with a little blurb on the text screen that says “they got revenge but died in the attempt.” No ending or anything.

The second play was one of the most popular kabuki productions of all time: Kanjinchou, aka “The Subscription Scroll”. It’s honestly the most well written of the bunch we saw, and tells the tale of an adventuring party consisting of the outcast prince Yoshitsune, the strongest monk in the land Benkei, and their three loyal samurai as they journey away from the lands where Yoshitsune is being hunted by his elder brother. To escape further to the north, they must first sneak through a gatehouse guarded by servants of the elder brother- and to do that, they have to disguise themselves as priests, with Benkei taking the lead and Yoshitsune donning the garb and straw hat of a packman. The gate is on the lookout for priests though, and what ensues is a battle of question and improvisation starting with the leader of the gate guards asking Benkei to read the list of people who are donating money to the stated goal of the monks. No such list exists of course, so Benkei draws out a blank scroll (all while concealing it from the gaze of the commander) and proceeds to improvise a long and grandiose speech using his monk upbringing- basically rolling a Nat 20. The commander knows the scroll is blank, but eventually becomes so enamored with Benkei’s improvisation and constant answers to his deeper and deeper philosophical questions that in the end he resigns himself to an early death and passes Yoshitsune’s party through without letting them know he knows- not before Benkei is forced to beat his own master though. When the party is through the gates, the most touching and emotional part of the play occurs in the form of a conversation between the weeping Benkei- an all-powerful warrior who can lift the mightiest weights yet still faltered when lifting a hand against his own master- and Yoshitsune, who forgives him with a kindness begetting the Buddha.

The last play was, quite simply, Firefighters vs. Sumo in a slow burning drama that eventually ends in a thirty man all-out brawl between the two forces. Well over an hour long, it was entirely worth for the amazing fight scenes at the end which struck the perfect balance of flow, comedy, and drama. Much more a contemporary play, people talked at a normal speed and interacted with much less formality- quite a relief after having to sit through the first two. Not much else needs to be said about it besides that opening sentence.

[The kabuki theater from the exterior. Very nice, one of the largest kabuki-only theaters in Japan.]

[Interior, high up on the third floor balcony.]

[I swear half of these scripts are real life Jojo’s.]

[A painting inside the theater, I thought it was pretty dope.]

[The kabuki theater also happened to be in the supercar district, I saw so many expensive ones rolling around the city.]

[Yes, that is indeed James Bowlingsan.]

[Today’s candid: Ian! He’s a pretty quiet dude but every time he talks it’s absolutely hilarious. His hair is nice, too. 100% a good roommate to have on our floor, I wouldn’t want it any other way- he adds a lot to our day-to-day group.]

==========

Literature review:

Today’s literature was on kabuki. Some fun facts about it:

-Women weren’t allowed to act in kabuki, so men acted as women. These men were so good at acting as women that they actually set fashion trends for women who traveled to see popular kabuki performances. Generally speaking, they were akin to modern day drag-queens? Only the male actors who played female characters tho.

-Kabuki actors were extremely wealthy celebrities that technically occupied the commoner class, making them socially lower than samurai but far more influential.

-Kabuki was originally a thing of the common folk and very unsuited for high courts. It was only over time and extended cultivation through a specific effort to enhance Japanese-specific culture to compete with Western plays and opera that it rose to being honorable enough for even the emperor to view. Nowadays, it’s analogous to Shakespearean plays... not so much when it first came out.

-Kabuki scripts often had to go to great lengths to mock the samurai while still maintaining social order, as it was originally an outlet for expressing dissatisfaction with and rebellion against the samurai class. These methods often included a protagonist who was secretly a high-ranking samurai but who dressed as a commoner for some unusual reason, allowing him (a commoner) to outwit and defeat the samurai without having an actual commoner doing it. I swear officer, he’s really a 500 year old demon samurai, not a commoner.