Sunday 30 October 2011

University trip!!!

This weekend has worn me out!!!! I've got a little of a sore throat this morning which is not good and now i'm trying to eat as much healthly food that i can so i won't get sick!!!

Friday was the halloween party at the dorm, it was funny how many Japanese guys dressed up as women and how much prettier they were with the makeup on!

I managed to get to bed about 1am as we had to meet up for this university trip at 8:30am! The first thing we did was a city walk around Kanazawa, within 5 minutes of this trip even though i wasn't that hungover or drunk I managed to fall forward onto the ground onto my knee and wrist! OUCH!!! This was added to the muscle pain i was getting of doing Joudo the day before which is a form of Japanese martial arts using a stick. Paracetamol was my best friend that day!!!
The tour took us around most of the central Kanazawa city area.



 This is part of Kanazawa castle grounds, the concrete part there used to be where Kanazawa univeristy was!!! I think they demolished it about 10 years ago.




 This fountain is what they based Kanazawa name from, the city got its name for the gold pieces in the water that they found



 We then proceeded to a musuem of D.T Suzuki, i had no idea who he was :P but he was a Buddhist philosopher and i love this quote he used from a Shakespeare play As You Like It

 This is meant to say 'No entry' beats using a ugly plastic sign to tell us, i hope i remember this rule!
 The last stop of the tour was the 21st Century Contemporary musuem, it was like the Tate Modern, the art was toooo modern for me!!! There was some good pieces like this one above where it was like the people was in the swimming pool

 The party room which i liked the best! It was the only art piece inside that allowed you to take pictures, it was very relaxing sitting on the beanbags and listen to the music played on the decks, very chillax!


After this we went to the mountain lodge where we were going to stay for the night, after lunch we started to make Japanese paper!

 This was pulp which came from the trees which is nearby the place we stayed, the people on my table did not like touching it and refered it to looking like a brain or something!
 We had to hammer the thing

 Then make this mixture of the pulp and this sustance which was like glue/snot hahahaha

 The teacher showing us how to make the paper using the mixture, which first consisted of making a first layer, then add the pictures that we designed from then sandwich them with the rest of the mixture
 This involves shaking the frame with the mixture so that the water would drain into the box but leave the pulp plus the glue thing behind to make the paper.

 Me taking the wet pulp
 After patting it against the towel....
I got my paper which i then had to iron to dry it!
 We then made a nightlight thing with the paper!

In the evening we had a party which consisted of two games which were fun and then more drinking!!! The party stopped before midnight which was a bit of a buzz kill and it involved one silly case of ninja hunting for the alchohol which we failed at :(  I decided to go to bed at 1:30am as we had to be up at 6:30 the next morning!!!!!

After breakfast and tidying our rooms we went to this place where we made soba noodles for our lunch

 My soba making team!!! From the left: Kaisu from Finland and Katherine and Mary from good ol'england!!! They are from Sheffield university

 Our teacher who basically did most of the work for us...
 We would try to do what he said and then when he came to inspect he would then finish off that task and then tell us what to do again and then repeat the whole process, this is probably why the three groups he was supervising were the first to finish and eat the noodles :P
 Cutting the noodles!!!


 Our completed noodles!!!

 The only thing was that it was cold soba noodles which were a little cold for us to eat as it was a bit chilly that day but i think good job on us making it!!!
Across the way from the soba noodle place there is this cultural site where houses from Edo era have been reconstructed or moved from their original location and put together here.






And that was it, we came back to the dorm about 1:30pm and everyone was tired, had to have a nap and after a night's sleep, still tired and now a sore throat....great.
From this Thursday to Monday next week we have no uni as it is the univerisity culture festival! Maybe we are thinking of going to Osaka but not too sure but at least hoping to at least go somewhere in the 5 days we have off!

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Maple leaf watching!

Last tuesday a really nice Japanese guy I have met called Taira decided to go on a random trip during the week to see the Maple trees in the mountain area of Hakusan.  The road is called the Hakusan Super Rindo road which starts in Ishikawa Prefecture and ends in Gifu Prefecture.  The road actually closes in about a week as it starts to snow which would be very dangerous for cars to drive on.


As we drove closer to the road and away from Kanazawa the mountains opens up and it is a beautiful sight!!!!


As we drive further in the views are really spectacular as we are getting higher and higher....


It got colder as the journey went on, i'm really glad that i didn't catch a cold especially the 'KUSEP bug' is going around and a few people have been sick around the dorm! I wasn't wearing that many warm clothes too!

The people i went with! From left, Elisa, me, Claire and Taira the really nice guy who took us to see these beautiful views!
 

It started off really sunny but the higher we went the clouds were decending on us to the point it was really foggy!
We saw wild monkeys!!! This is probably the best picture i could get of them... most of them are blurry pictures of their behinds as they ran away from the car :P

We got to the point where we shouldn't go any further as it was getting dark and ended up eating some nice sweets in the car.  Then we went back to eat... at a conveyor belt sushi!!!! 



yum yum!!!! I miss these places, as you can see at the picture above, i ate 10 dishes :P it only came to about £10 so not bad! Haven't been up to much last weekend, went kareoke last friday, spent Saturday a little hungover :P but the temperture was insane! It was about 26 degrees, WTH! Then Sunday the heavens opened and we had a little brunch! Yummy crepes were made!!! 

And the weather has been really weird, Monday it was hot again about 23 degrees but today the heavens has opened up again, i didn't want to get up as it didn't look like it was light outside! I felt sooo tired in my first lesson, was yawning so much! Anyways this weekend should be going on this Autumn trip thing that the university has organised, should be fun!