Tired again Listening to: CHE.R.RY by YUI
First off, I failed to mention that yesterday, I got to hang out with Isabelle a lot. I saw her in the lobby like an hour after I arrived at Co-Op Inn, and we went out to eat and explore! Also when we came back she was super nice and helped me with my giganto luggages. I shouldnt've brought so many bags. But how else am I gonna be able to buy tons and tons and tons of cute Japanese souvenirs to bring back??
In any case, we ate delicious ramen for lunch yesterday. :D
It was really fun and we walked around so many stores in Kyoto...I think the whole area was a tourist trap of shops. Which is why I ended up spending so much monies :(. But I haz gifts so that's ok XD.
We found so many bunny things (hehe for Matthew <3)
Then went and ate at this small cafe Isabelle found. It was really delicious! I had udon and she had a tofu hamburger kinda salad thing.
I guess they don't use meat or eggs or milk or sugar! How healthy :D
This was my udon. Sooo delicious. The soup was kinda sticky and definitely not the normal soup you get with udon, but it was still really good and tasted wonderful. I guess this is what happens when you don't use meat and stuff.
We also looked at kimono shops--some kimonos are on sale, but we didn't really know what kind of accessories to buy for those (obi and stuff...)
I woke up again this morning before 6AM. I don't know why this keeps happening. I was SUPER TIRED last night and kept falling asleep in the shower and at the desk, and so I went to sleep at like 11:15 but then didn't get a full 8 hours. And then it was hard for me to fall asleep. Weird...I wonder if I'm still jetlagged after all. We have orientation starting today! Going to Doshisha in like less than 2 hours or something :D. I'm excited--I heard the cafeteria in the basement has delicious トンカツ (tonkatsu--fried pork cutlets! one of my favorites). I don't know if we get to eat there today but we get to see our little Stanford center at Doshisha campus :D yayyyy
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I forgot to take a picture of the tonkatsu. I'll have more chances though. It was delicious. And I have to say that I'm totally pooped again today. I had better be losing weight; I've been walking for so many hours these past few days. I mean, today, we went out at 9AM and then walked to the station and stood riding the subway, walked to Doshisha and toured the Stanford Center in Japan a little bit. I mean, we sat for presentations and for lunch, but I think I'm so tired from all this walking that I can barely stay awake. blahhhh
Doshisha looks totally like an east coast school. They also had cherry blossoms! This is only the 今出川 campus though, so it's pretty small.
I thought it was a nice campus, and very walkable, unlike Stanford campus. I heard that for clubs and other activities, we have to go to the bigger campus on the other side of town, and that one is gigantic like Stanford campus.
We went to the Stanford Center that's located in one of their buildings and saw the classrooms that we will be using. We also went to the basement to eat in the cafeteria--it has such delicious food! For a really good price, too. My friends all got things for about 350 yen; I went all out and got lots of stuff for about 535 yen instead :P. In the future though, I think I'll stick with smaller portions, haha.
Trying to get my computer connected to the Doshisha network was a total pain in the butt. We finally got it working at the end though, so that's good. Apparently they've had a lot of problems with viruses in the past, so they make it really hard to access the system. Also, the wireless at Doshisha is really weird--some people had great signal and others had really crappy signal and we were all in the same room. I heard it's also hard to get consistent internet at the campus :(. I guess we're all spoiled by Stanford's amazing internet capabilities....
We went to the Stanford Center that's located in one of their buildings and saw the classrooms that we will be using. We also went to the basement to eat in the cafeteria--it has such delicious food! For a really good price, too. My friends all got things for about 350 yen; I went all out and got lots of stuff for about 535 yen instead :P. In the future though, I think I'll stick with smaller portions, haha.
Trying to get my computer connected to the Doshisha network was a total pain in the butt. We finally got it working at the end though, so that's good. Apparently they've had a lot of problems with viruses in the past, so they make it really hard to access the system. Also, the wireless at Doshisha is really weird--some people had great signal and others had really crappy signal and we were all in the same room. I heard it's also hard to get consistent internet at the campus :(. I guess we're all spoiled by Stanford's amazing internet capabilities....
Afterward, we were sent on a kind of scavenger hunt of Kyoto (but not exactly). We got split up into groups and I was with Isabelle, Jason, Anya, Allister, and Benz. Our assignment was to find lots of shrines and temples in Kyoto--in particular 八阪人じゃ (Yasaka jinja--Yasaka Shinto Shrine) and 清水寺 (Kiyomizudera--a temple). We found Yasaka!
We saw tons of food stands near the temple, as well as tons of cherry blossoms. It was like a photographer's heaven! Here's Allister and Isabelle taking pictures/videos:
See how there's tons of booths lining the street?
The food at the booths are delicious! I got a bag of fortune cookie-tasting little cake buns at first. Then we walked around and saw sooo many pretty sights including this pond.
Don't ask about my expression. I'm not sure what I was doing, x_x
There was also a gigantic "weeping willow" cherry blossom tree.
More cherry blossoms.
This particular picture was taken after we got lost, which I'll get to in a moment.
We walked forward assuming we'd eventually hit Kiyomizudera, but instead we walked for 20-30 minutes up a mountain and then ran into houses. And then we thought that this probably wasn't right, asked a Japanese person directions, and she laughed before stopping herself, and said that we were 30 minutes away from Kiyomizudera--if we walked quickly. I'm guessing that means if we were going at the pace we were at, we'dve made it in 40-50 minutes =__=. Hahaha...so yeah, we totally failed at finding Kiyomizudera. I want to go and find it later, though, since it's apparently one of the must-sees in Kyoto.
We gave up since we were tired and we started walking back from where we came from. I decided to eat a crepe as a reward for traipsing for so long in the rain :P.
And then I also ate 焼き肉 (yakiniku--fried meat). It was reallyyyyy good. I had only one at first but found it so delicious I went back for two more.
The guy first takes the meat he cooked halfway and puts it back on the grill.
and then grills it some more on the other grill.
Soooo good.
Anyway, afterward, we walked for a super, super super long time to try to get back to our hotel, because we were only given passes that we could use on buses and on subways (not normal trains). We eventually ended up just walking back to our hotel, because when we were heading toward the subway station, we found ourselves on the same street where Isabelle and I had just eaten the night before. We decided to eat at the same restaurant and then I got udon again :D
All in all a long but also exciting day :).
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