The Move and Uji

It's now Friday night at about 11:30, and it seems like this is becomming an every other day sort of activity.

Yesterday we moved across town into our new appartments in Kyoto. It was kind of a pain in the ass and I'm still not very well settled, but the place is much nicer than our last one and pictures will be up soon. We have our own kitchen and fridge and it's pretty awesome.

After our move...as in half an hour after we reached our new place...we had to meet in the lobby to take a trip to Uji. The Shinto Shrines at Uji are prime examples from the Heian Period in Japan. All the Shinto shrines seem to look very similar, but the smaller shrine we saw yesterday is one of the oldest shrines in existence, so it had some defining qualities. Specifically the roof structure and shape is distinguished from other shrines. The roof has a curved shape that is somewhat unique among the shrines and there are certain structural supports called frog leg supports that are u-shaped. The woodwork was beautiful of course, as it was in all the other shrines.

The most amazing thing we saw in Uji was Byodin. This is a temple, garden and lake complex built by Fujiwara Yorimichi, meant to embody the Pure Land as it was described in the Visualization Sutra. The Pure Land of the West is a sort of heaven where the faithful can be in paradise after they depart. The temple was built as a private place of worship and has a beautiful lake in front of it, making it and extremely beautiful building to photograph.

After the took a brief tour of the inside of the temple, and took a bunch of pictures, we went into the museum on the site which showed many of the original artifacts from the temple. It was really interesting and the museum building itself was also really nice, but we were not allowed to take pictures inside unfortunately.

This morning I had Japanese class and then a few hour break before our studio class. I was late to Japanese class because I got lost in Kyoto Station, but now I know how to get there so it's ok. After class Trudy, Carissa and I walked around and did some shopping and got lunch. I got some gifts for people and a towel, which we apparently need at our new place. Luckily I found one for about $5. I got something really pretty for my Mommy (which I can't really describe here since she reads the blog) and I hope she actually uses it, unlike the pretty scarf I got her from Paris...hear that Mom? The only thing I got for myself was a $10 pair of earings that are really pretty and hand made.

We made it to studio a little late and we went through a few people's design layouts for their travel journals, which I have barely started but will catch up on this weekend. We also talked about our trip down the Philosopher's Path tomorrow where we will see the Silver Pavillion and I'm pretty excited about it. We also got our new project assigned, but we convinced Don to make it a 2 week assignment rather than a 1 week one, since that stressed us out pretty bad last time.

Carisa and I wandered around for a while after class, and I found my towel. I managed to get to the nearest Subway station and to Kyoto Station without a problem. Unfortunately, I got out of the station on the wrong side and had issues figuring out where I was. I ended up having to ask some random guys if they spoke english and if they could help me. They ended up taking me to a hotel across the street since they figured that they would speak English there. They explained that I was lost and told them the name of my apartment complex and the guy behind the counter looked up directions and marked my new route out on a map for me. It was awesome how helpful everyone was, and I'm really glad that I can speak enough Japanese to figure out this sort of stuff, otherwise it could have taken me quite a while to get to my new home.

Jeff, Trudy and I watched a movie called Repo: Genetic Opera, which was a pretty sweet rock opera, but definitely a cult classic sort of thing. Then we went to get dinner with Blake and Derrick. We found an Italian place in the mall that's in the train station. It was pretty good, but the portions were pretty small for the price, even though it wasn't too expensive. They boys all got pizza, which seems like a better deal so I'll keep that in mind for next time. Now we are sitting in our room, with Trudy, Derrick, Blake, Karen and Katie watching Grandma's Boy and drinking a little. I'm pretty tired so I hope people clear out after the movie, but we'll see. Tomorrow we're going on the Philosopher's Path so there will be lots of pretty pictures up soonly.

Love you all and I miss you lots.