It’s the end of “Golden Week,” a five day weekend with two national holidays plus an extra free day for almost everyone in Japan… sort of. Actually, I don’t know any Japanese people who are taking a holiday: the teachers at my school and anyone with kids can’t travel because all the students are having normal club practice every day, and friends my age who work at shops or restaurants are of course working this weekend. I don’t know enough salarymen or old people, perhaps. Anyway, everyplace is busy this long weekend.
I took some small trips.
Foreigner houses in Kobe
Europeans built houses in the style of their home countries in Kobe when the country was first opened to international trade, and these curiosities remain a pride of Kobe to this day. I expected to be Not Interested in Quaint but Artificial buildings, but we tried to enjoy ourselves and we did. This little neighborhood is on a steep hill north of Sannomiya. The actual foreign houses are in a tight cluster surrounded by faux-foreign houses, souvenir shops, faux-foreign businesses, normal Japanese houses built in a somewhat foreign style, and many cafes and restuarants, a few of which are actually pretty genuinely cosmopolitan. Anyway, when you’re in the middle of all this, it’s really fun walking through tiny winding streets on steep hills and looking around and judging how Fake and how Real the houses are. It actually reminded me of some of our day trips to little castle villages when I studied abroad in France. Up on these hills surrounded by walls are normal people who live in a nice old place that is also a tourist attraction. I would rather live in a walled village on a mountain in France than in Kitano, Kobe.
Asuka, Nara
It’s famous for historical reasons but the place is great to visit just for its beauty. It’s less than an hour from Osaka by train, you can rent bicycles all day for only 1000 yen, and you can see everything in this little town very easily. Here is the map: literally you could ride your bike on every single street, but the great thing is that it is beautiful everywhere, in the grasses, in the mountains, in the clear bubbling water running alongside small streets. Unfortunately, the least of my memories of this place (like most famous places I go to) are of the Real Famous Things, like the Ishibutai (a pile of rocks) and Asuka Daibatsu (a temple with a large Buddha statue), which were good but did not define the trip. One amazing sight was one of those killer Japanese hornets buzzing around our picnic. The thing was a big as a golf ball and bright orange and we moved our picnic immediately after it flew by.
Horie shopping
I rode my bike into Osaka and spent a nice day thoroughly exploring Minamihorie. There are a lot of fashionable young and artsy people, as well as lots of fixed gear bikes in this neighborhood. I went into some REALLY NICE bike shops, vintage clothes shops, handmade jewelry shops, shoe stores, suit stores, and even an art gallery run by some kids my age, including one who studied at RISD. This neighborhood is so nice to spend time in. I don’t know about any good restaurants there but I know a really good cafe or two.
Tomorrow I’m going to draw at Naruo. By the way, I haven’t blogged even though I always mean to. Something always stops me when I get to the computer. Haven’t been too productive lately, feel bad about that, gotta get back into the swing of things.