Last Saturday - Back to Kyoto

Last Saturday we went back to Kyoto for the day. We only went two places - Arashiyama (Arashi Mountain) and Toei Kyoto Studio Park. At Arashiyama we looked at a cool bridge and hiked through a bamboo forest. It was really hot, and I wished that I brought a fan or a sun umbrella. I still haven't bought either, even though I keep telling myself that I should. I guess I should find some time to stop by the mall this next week. Oh! That reminds me...The mall I go to when I need to shop is called Bayside Mall. Until this last week I didn't put two and two together to realize that it literally meant it looks out on the bay. *sigh* Why didn't I realize that earlier? I probably would have gone there a lot more. I love looking out at the water and the bridges. How could I not realize that the bay was so close?

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Bamboo forest. After hiking through the bamboo forest, we were really hot, so we bought shaved ice. I bought strawberry with sweet milk on top. It was amazing. Unfortunately, mine was a little too tall, so the top (with the sweet milk) fell on the ground. Sad.
We walked around and went shopping for a while after that. I ended up buying myself japanese pajamas (blue, of course) and a Japanese curtain for Austin (also blue). We went back to the cars (and I desperately wanted to go jump in the cold river), and went to get lunch.

We ate lunch at a place called Big Boy (I think...). I don't remember what I ate, except for corn soup as an appetizer. It was way good. It might be my new favorite soup.

After lunch we went to the Studio Park. It was basically an old style town with samurai and ninjas. I have some pictures of me with samurai, but I don't think I have any pictures of ninjas - they ran away any time I tried to take a picture. There were a bunch of different shows that we went to. One of the Kobe interns got to participate and practice swinging a sword around. She got to participate after playing rock, paper, scissors with James. I think James still regrets not going for two out of three. He really wanted to do it. One of the other participants was this adorable little girl. She even posed after swinging the sword to "kill" the bad guy. I don't have a picture, but one of the other interns has it on video. I need to get that video.

Another show involved a fake movie filming with a ninja and samurai. They were both really funny and kept "messing up" their scenes during the rehearsal. During the actual performance, they completely reversed the ending with the ninja winning. It was way funny. I think my favorite parts of that were watching the samurai crack up any time he tried to make a "kakkoi" (cool) face and seeing the ninja dancing as everyone left. I caught a few seconds on video before he noticed me and stopped. Haha - dancing ninja (stops writing to die laughing).

The last show was awesome. It was a mini play. I didn't catch any of the plot except that everyone wanted this scroll for some reason. That wasn't important though. It basically involved a lot of sparring between ninjas. Including dying scenes off of balconies, flips all over the place, and other cool stuff. I was really surprised to find out that one of the ninjas was a woman after the show. I have bits and pieces on video, but I was too busy staring with my mouth open to care much about taping it. I thing one of the other interns has a more complete video. I can't even describe how cool it was. Especially the balcony work. That was awesome.

I slept for most of the car ride back to Sakai. I woke up when the car stopped, but Taylor said he was hoping James would have to wake me up. I guess I can be a little jumpy when I'm startled. (As I write this I can just picture the other interns' reactions. Hey, stop laughing now, I mean it!)

We had to wait about 30-45 minutes for dinner, so Taylor and I wandered around the mall a bit. We only found clothes stores, so we ended up going into one of the stores and trying on hats and sunglasses. It was really funny, especially since neither of us usually wear hats or sunglasses. They actually had hats small enough for me, but I am still not a hat person. It was a lot of fun. Wearing huge sunglasses and hats that I would I would never wear otherwise. Part of me wishes that I had brought me camera and taken pictures, and part of me is glad that there is no record of me wearing those things.

Dinner was the best. We ate at a buffet where you fry your own food. Hmm...that doesn't do it justice. Let me try again. We sat around a table with hot oil containers (can't think how to describe them) in the middle. We got a bunch of skewers with different foods on them, rolled them in batter and bread crumbs, and deep fried them. There were also a lot of sauces, but I really liked the cheese sauce, so I basically just put everything in the cheese sauce. I tried beef, "part of the chicken next to the breast" (yes, that was the label), shrimp, smoked cheese, sausage, pumpkin, potato, mushroom, mini taiyaki (fish-shaped pancake with red bean paste inside), a cheese doughnut, and more. It was amazing. I had melon soda with my dinner. Just imaging a poisonous fizzing green liquid that looks like acid - it is one one of the best drinks I have tasted. The desserts were also good. I had ice cream with blueberry sauce and several watermelon cake rolls. I have decided that I really enjoy types of cooking where you cook the food and everyone eats out of a communal dish, or oil pot, as may be the case. It is such a friendly way to eat. I think I cared more about sharing food in the US. Here it is kind of like "Hey, can I have a bite?" "Here, try some of this". It just doesn't seem to matter to me when I'm here.