高岡市、富山県 (Takaoka-shi, Toyama-ken)

I spent this weekend in Takaoka, in the Toyama prefecture, where I participated in a so called Monitor Tour. Simply speaking: people speaking the most popular languages amongst tourists (English, French, Korean, mainland Chinese and Taiwanese) were invited to take part in order to help improve tourism in Takaoka. The trip was entirely free, including accommodation, food and transport (and they weren’t trying to save, everything was top notch!), we simply had to “work” for it by doing a questionnaire about what’s good, what isn’t and how to improve it.

Seeing as me complaining isn’t really interesting to anyone but a very small handful of people, and most of them are the trip’s organisers, who are now probably considering all the feedback they got, I’ll only focus on the good stuff. Besides, my complaints were mostly referring to things which a regular tourist (whose perspective we had to look from) wouldn’t get to because they’re not really within typical tourist’s interests; only sometimes the complaining was due to lack of information about a certain place in languages other than Japanese. And I did come back happy, so there’s honestly no point talking about the bad stuff.

In Takaoka there are three main things worth noting: Takaoka Daibutsu (高岡大仏), park Takaoka Kōjō Kōen (高岡古城公園) and Zuiryū-ji temple (瑞龍寺).

Takaoka Daibutsu is the third biggest Buddha statue in Japan, right after the ones in Nara and Kamakura. This one is over 15 metres tall and weighs about 65 tons – definitely impressive when it emerges from between the buildings, since the poor guy was unlucky enough to be in the area with slightly more taller buildings.

Unfortunately, the statue that you can see here isn’t the original one. That one, carved in wood and covered in gold leaf, was destroyed in a fire – the one that remains today was finished in 1933 and is made out of copper. On the plus side the entry to the tiny temple area inside is completely free, unless somebody wants to donate something. I hear that you need to pay to see the Buddha statue in Nara, so it’s good that Takaoka City kept this one free. Though seeing how it’s outside and is, well, big, they’d probably have some troubles in making people pay.

Statue guarding the entrance.

Statue guardian on the other side.

Plan of the statue.

From the Buddha statue there’s only a short walk to the park and if someone isn’t interested in the history of Japan, they should go at least for the pretty views. Now the park was dominated by autumn foliage, but apparently in spring, when the cherry blossoms are blooming, the view is just as gorgeous.

This was one of the places where at least a leaflet in English would come in handy. Even if someone doesn’t have an interest in Japanese history or in the particular bits of the park, it’d be nice to at least know what they’re called, to be able to tell where one is. Though from the leaflet in Japanese, which includes a map, one can get enough of a sense of direction, and if one is a thinking tourist who doesn’t just blindly go to the “pretty pictures spots”, they can guess a fair bit about the castle. The fact that there’s a moat and quite a few small bridges joining the “islands” of the park and the castle grounds, is enough of a clue that this wasn’t anyone’s summer house, but that it was an actual defensive castle. The castle itself isn’t there anymore, I think it was destroyed, but there are some temples, a museum and quite a lot of statues, mainly of the feudal lord Toshinaga Maeda, in the park, beside the scenery.

Statue of the feudal lord Toshinaga Maeda

On top of that we were lucky enough to witness a traditional Japanese wedding ceremony while walking through the park, just when the newlyweds were posing for pictures. Beautiful!

Best wishes to the newlyweds!

Zuiryū-ji temple was, actually, the first place we visited during this trip, but since to me all temples/shrines in Japan are very much the same and one needs to have a very serious interest in the topic to be able to pick up on the differences, I’m talking about it last.

Zuiryū-ji was built around the XVII^th century. Some parts of the original temple – namely the first front gate and some two buildings on the side before the main site – burnt down, but they managed to save a fair bit of it and a lot was rebuilt in the first half of the XIX^th century. Like you’d expect from a Buddhist temple, it has an aura of tranquillity (if you ignore the other tourists), very good for meditating. I know because on top of the visit the monk who was showing us around taught us how to do zazen (座禅), the Buddhist praying/meditating position. And then we put the theory into practice. I think I’m not suited for Buddhism though: the moment my legs started to hurt (which was quite early, as was the itchy nose and other earthly uncomfortable things), instead of meditating and not thinking, I kept thinking quite intensely about how my legs hurt and how uncomfortable I am. Well, there’s something for everyone…

Statue at the entrance.

Buddha's altar.

The prayer room where we performed zazen.

Other than this the only really interesting things were the practical experiences of Takaoka’s traditional crafts that we got to have. Namely they were metal casting and painting lacquer ware.

The bell straight after taking out of the cast.

Lacquer pendant with the designs outline.

Finished pendant.

Well, I’m not going to go on about the hotel we stayed at, suffice to say that every student (and probably not just a student) would be impressed when accommodation on a free trip turned out to be a four star hotel. But to end the post with something nicer than that, let me share a photo of my lunch on the first day of the trip (in an expensive restaurant by Zuiryū-ji, let me add).

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In a Japanese high school

One of the subjects I take is a Japanese Education class. But it’s not just lectures, note-making or discussions – every now and then we have an opportunity to visit various schools, and the first one we went to was the Kanazawa Nisui Prefectural Senior High School (石川県立金沢二水高校, Ishikawa-ken-ritsu Kanazawa Nisui Kōkō).

Entrance to Nisui.
http://www.nisui-dousoukai.com/page17/index.html

Although most of the day was organised especially for us, I managed to get a glimpse of the real everyday life of a Japanese senior high student. I won’t mention the uniform; I think everyone already knows enough about Japanese uniforms. But, for example, it was very interesting to be able to observe classes a little bit. I was allowed into a physics class (which I don’t understand even in Polish or English, nevermind Japanese – and judging by the equations, the students were quite advanced!) and advanced English class (it was done all in English and the students engaged in some discussions and were made to share opinions of various subjects). What’s more interesting, the students there can choose a profile, humanities or sciences, and then take only classes from that profile. Does that mean that there goes the stereotype of an Asian high schooler who memorizes quantum physics and advanced maths, and calculates everything in their head with the speed of light?

Classroom without the pupils.

Left from the previous class.

Though just being able to get into a Japanese high school was a great experience. Schools can’t just let anyone in and an average high schooler sees their school every day, never even knowing that there could be a different one, so they’re not going to take pictures just for some potential foreigners to see. Nisui is quite pretty – and surprisingly big, even though we kept to one building only. Although for such a big school I was surprised at how small their library was.

A gallery where pupils can eat lunch or hang out, and where they have assemblies.

But, as one would expect, the most interesting were the students themselves. One hears so much about Japanese students studying hard day and night, taking extra classes and going to cram schools, under pressure and stressed out… yet when you finally face one, not only they don’t look overwhelmed by all this, but they seem to be happy that their daily life looks like this. I tried not to look too shocked when the group of girls who showed me around and talked to me said, that they spent part of their summer holidays at school taking some supplementary classes – more!, they themselves said that they enjoyed it. I cannot imagine that there is anywhere else where a high school student would say that spending some of their holidays can be fun.

Place to study on the corridor.

In the end the time flew by (though we didn’t have much of it in the first place, two, maybe two and a half hours) and I was really sorry when the time to leave came. I’d gladly talk to the students a bit more, observe some more everyday classes or even their lunch time. But it doesn’t look like it’s likely to happen as next we’ll go to a different school.

A picture left on a steamed up window.

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Weathery

There’s a saying in Kanazawa: 弁当忘れても傘忘れるな (bentō wasuretemo, kasa wasureruna), which simply means „even if you forget your lunch, do not forget your umbrella”. And the longer I’m here, the more I observe what’s happening outside, the more I agree with this saying.

On the one hand weather forecasts in Japan are very reliable. I haven’t yet had a day where I’d check the forecast in the morning on the Japanese Meteorological Agency’s website that would not come true. But even the best weather forecast will not warm us when exactly the heavens shall open and a bucketful of rain will fall on our heads.

Though on the other hand, in Japan almost everything is made to be convenient. So at nearly every corner there will be a konbini, where not only we can buy the forgotten lunch from the saying, but also an umbrella. And if there isn’t a konbini, there may be a hyaku-en shoppu. Or a supermarket. Or maybe even an umbrella shop.

That being said, it’s always better to have one’s own umbrella and not get wet in the first place.

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Kenroku-en times two

Taking my friend from Oxford’s visit as an opportunity to get out, yesterday I ended up in Kenroku-en for the second time round. Well, technically it was second and third.

Although I did not manage to get there for the actual moment of suspending tree branches, I had the opportunity to see the effects of this, during the day. As much as I find the idea of suspending branches to protect them from the winter snow’s weight a bit weird, the view is definitely very pretty. It reminds me of Japanese umbrellas, with trees hiding underneath them instead of people. Adorable.

And in the evening of the same day there was a so called light up (ライトアップ, raito appu) at Kenroku-en too. At that moment I really, really regretted not having a better camera or at least a tripod. Otherwise taking good pictures in darkness is near impossible, and so most of mine are out of focus and blurred, and don’t do the justice to all the magic and charm of a lit up Kenroku-en.

On the smooth surface of the pond the reflection was near perfect - which, sadly, my camera doesn't reflect.

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November

November and autumn have caught up with Kanazawa: it’s raining ever more often, and even when it’s not, the sun’s mostly hidden behind clouds, and it’s hard to believe that it’s not even a week since I was walking round the campus in shorts and a light cardigan at worst. It’s not freezing yet, still putting on a T-shirt and a warm hoodie is enough to get me from my dorm to classes without paralysing me with frost, but the time for at least a light jacket is just around the corner.

Mostly naked trees on campus

I’m not complaining, really, after all it is November and summery weather in a moderate climate doesn’t last forever. But at the same time it’s not a reason for being overly joyful – however you look at it, chill and rain don’t encourage leaving the house, be it for food shopping or sightseeing. It’s more of a time for oceans of tea, good books and warm socks. Though on the other hand one cannot just stay inside forever, so if a non-rainy weather manages to meet a free time on my timetable, I will do my best to go and see/do something.

Wet Kanazawa University

But for now it doesn’t look like sightseeing, well, unless we include the nearby second hand shop, which I will dedicate a separate post to, once I finally get there. So I’m catching up on reading, on TV shows and studying, writing essays and doing presentations.

And I finally started my part-time job, or at least one of the two I have. I’m back to teaching a child English and I am really happy about that. Not just because both the boy and his mum are simply lovely and while I teach the boy English, they both help me with my Japanese – I simply like teaching kids. I don’t yet have any experience in teaching adults, this will change on Friday, when I start the second job at the university hospital, but I think that teaching is just generally my thing.

Anyway, I’m gonna go make myself anothe cuppa. Somehow I feel that warming myself up with tea is far more economically sensible and will come out cheaper on my electricity bill than using the air conditioning.

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大学祭 (Daigaku-sai)

From Friday to Tuesday I don’t have any classes thanks to a university festival, daigaku-sai, that’s happening at this time. Well, Friday and Tuesday are for setting up and cleaning up, the festival itself is from Saturday (today) til Monday, but I’m not gonna complain that they’re giving me time off.

If I am to be completely honest, I don’t know what to really think. I went there with two friends and we manage to see it all in a surprisingly short amount of time. In some way the daigaku-sai seems a bit like a Freshers’ Fair: no classes, student societies are advertising and on top of that you have all sorts of events, concerts, performances etc. But unlike a Freshers’ Fair in Kanazawa there are a lot let societies, and during the festival they were more about showing what they’re on about (exhibitions, presentations, game rooms, whatever they could think of) than recruiting and getting some fresh blood to join. Moreover, there was a lot more of all kinds of food stalls and cafes set up especially for the festival, which in turn make the festival look a little bit more like a Sunday fair, while I imagine most Freshers’ Fair are similar to the Oxford one in that you get hardly any food, but when you do, it’s free samples etc (Oxford usually has Dominos Pizza).

Manga cafe - drink and/or eat while reading manga.

TV games (mainly cute Tetris)

What’s even more interesting is that although students definitely fordem the majority, I saw a lot of adults with kids and elderly people. Not sure if they’re in any way associated with the university (dunno, through relatives/friends who study/work here or whatever), some looked like they came to the festival simply because there was one. Quite interesting and I’d say that it made the event seem a bit more family friendly (though I probably wouldn’t go as far as to say that Freshers’ Fairs aren’t family friendly, they’re just not intended for families).

But the main difference were… questionnaires. By the exit of each room, be it an exhibition, a demonstration, or even game rooms, the organisers asked to fill up the questionnaire and share your opinion. Sometimes you could even get something for that, for example for doing the questionnaire about an exhibition of works by members of CASる (Comics, Anime, Science-Fiction) society you got three postcards of your choice, all of which were miniatures of the pictures you just saw at the exhibit. But while I can understand the point of a questionnaire after some performances, like the magicians, for example (he was mainly doing card tricks – still enjoyed it lots though!), I’m not so sure about things like the games room etc. Maybe it’s just another one of those Japanese ways of doing things.

Made entirely out of papier-mâché!

And, to our surprise, that was it. The festival’s supposed to be on from 10am to 5pm every day this weekend, and yet we managed to explore it quite thoroughly within about an hour. According to the schedule it’s supposed to be the same things every day, with some changes as to the concerts, so if someone doesn’t feel the need to go there for lunch coz they can’t be bothered to cook themselves, a one-off seems just fine.

As I said, I am not sure myself what to think about it. Probably the more I compare the daigaku-sai with the Freshers’ Fair, the more I think that the Japanese simply have their own way of doing events like that and have different priorities. I definitely don’t regret going, I had a lovely time viewing all the exhibits or listening to better and worse student/Indie bands from the distance. But at the end of the day I think I still prefer the incredible variety of societies that I can get at a Freshers’ Fair.

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