Whilst driving to Essaouira we were on a road that went through what looked like a racetrack. In fact, all the seats were facing us, or the highway/road, as though we were on the track itself. Turns out we were! When it’s not in use for a car race, the track itself is just the regular highway or road out of town. Apparently it’s closed off and becomes part of the racetrack when there is a race going on. Here’s what Wiki says about it:

‘The Marrakech Street Circuit (also known as Marrakech Racetrack) is a 4.624 kilometres (2.87 mi) temporary street circuit in Agdal district, Marrakech, Morocco. The circuit is venturing by MGP. MGP’s partner in Morocco, D3 Motorsport Development has been given the responsibility of the design of the street circuit. It is the same architect company that designed the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit in Australia. Groupe Menara was supervising the construction in Route de l’Ourika and along Boulevard Mohammed.The paddock had been paved along the walls of the Royal Garden and more than 2500 concrete impact blocks and many debris fence panels had been put in place to bound the track. The 2009 World Touring Car Championship season’s third round at the street circuit was held on 3 May 2009. It was the first international car race in Morocco since the 1958 Moroccan Grand Prix at the Ain-Diab Circuit in Casablanca.’

This has nothing directly to do with Morocco. I read this on the Washington Post Reader this morning and it touched me. Take a look at what I saw this morning…

Thousands of Hindus celebrate the spring festival of Holi by throwing tinted powder and perfume on each other — creating a breathtaking hypercolor frenzy. Filmmakers at the production company Variable decided to capture the event with a Phantom Flex, a high-speed camera that can record upwards of 10,000 frames per second. Suspending these moments in time, they want viewers to realize that “the fast paced lifestyles of our generation result in many not taking the necessary step back to soak in the existing world around us.” Their goal, they say, “is to help viewers further appreciate and take notice of the beauty in life and culture.”

Gion is a district in Kyoto.  It is beautiful but touristy and is now a shopping area. But I was able to overlook that due to its architecture, beauty and vibrancy.  Cars are not allowed in most of Gion which adds to the quaintness of the place. Here are some photos from the surrounding area.

Since I haven’t written for a while I will endeavor to catch up on what’s been going on in the most basic of ways.  When I last wrote we were planning to take a cooking class and dress as geisha on the same day.  Due to Susan feeling sick we postponed maiko-hensen, geiko or maiko makeover, but continued with our plan for the cooking class.  Whilst Susan slept in  I was able to complete blogging.  Around lunchtime we found the ubiquitous but hard-to-actually-spot Starbuck’s and both of us became actually giddy with excitement for a holiday latte of some sort.  Ordering a ‘grande mocha latte, please’ made me feel a bit at home.  Not that I’m homesick or anything but it’s just nice to be understood: the universal language of Starbucks!  I ordered a BLT sandwich (like a regular sandwich on wheat bread) and we talked and listened to Christmas music.  Not a bad way to spend the morning!  And now here I sit in Grand Forks, ND writing in the blog, drinking a grande eggnog latte listening to the same Christmas music track I heard two weeks ago in Japan!  Isn’t the world amazing!?  The parallels and ironies of life continue to strike me and make me happy.

Having figured out the bus system pretty well, we hopped on the #5 and rode to the NE side of town where we were to meet Emi at the Kyoto Art & Design University.  A beautiful area, a beautiful day!  It was sunny and warm and we sunned ourselves on the steps whilst waiting for Emi, our instructor, to pick us up.  Another woman was sitting on the steps as well and we wondered if she might be part of our class since we knew we most probably would be joined by someone else (she was).  Spotting us from a ways away, Emi approached us calling my name.  I liked her immediately!  She is enthusiastic, kind, and self-effacing in that typically Japanese way – – or what I call typically Japanese!  We introduced ourselves to Emi, then to Petra, the woman sitting near us, and then spotted Gerald crossing the cross walk, the fourth person in our class.  I suppose it’s easy to spot one another since we are all Western and all have that look on our face that tells us we are looking for someone.  It was nice to meet everyone and then we were on our way to Emi’s house up the hill.  That’s where we were to do our cooking.  It was a good opportunity to see residential areas of Kyoto and I enjoyed looking at the architecture and the plants around each home.  What a beautiful way of life in a beautiful city!

We entered Emi’s home, promptly removed our shoes, and were sat around her kitchen table like the students we were.  We chatted and got to know each other better.  Petra, a professional violinist from Amsterdam, was visiting Kyoto for a performance and decided to stay on and explore.  And cook.  Gerald, a health food store owner from Ireland, just plain loves Japan.  Kyoto, specifically.  He is visiting for about one month and will return again!  Both were a lot of fun!  We a multi-national group and had a lot of fun whilst learning and cooking together!

Emi is delightful!  She does what Susan and I call the “Japanese hand giggle” – – a lot.  I caught it on video and plan to post it here when I get around to uploading my photos (no light task).  It’s something we noticed a lot of women do in Japan in general.  You’ve seen it, too, I’m sure.  It’s one of those “typically Japanese” things that really happens.  But back to Emi.  Her kitchen was warm and inviting and we were all eager to learn.  She had us each perform some tasks pertaining to the courses we were cooking.  I was lucky enough to be sitting on the end (due to my left-handedness!) so was assigned some fun tasks like cutting and de-boning fish (love to use a knife!), grinding ginger (I love ginger!), and chopping a lemon-like fruit called yuzu (smells yummy!).  And until Gerald performed one of his tasks perfectly, I was the teacher’s pet and loved every second of it!  That Gerald.   🙂  All in good fun.  Petra was the expert sesame-seed-roaster, among other things, and Susan kept time for all the dishes AND watched the rice for steam (to indicated its doneness) AND performed her other assigned tasks with aplomb!  All together we created the most wonderful meal that we all decided, unanimously, to eat as we went rather than waiting until the end to eat the full meal.  What a great decision that was!  Not sure I could’ve refrained from taking some samples along the way…

We slipped our shoes back on, bowed deeply and often to our guest, said our goodbyes many times over and all walked down the hill to the bus stop.  Petra headed onward but Gerald, Susan and I all took the same #5 bus the 30 minutes or so to our stop where we said our goodbyes to Gerald.  An end to a perfect day!

Kyoto is beautiful:  Large and bustling yet quiet and serene all at once.  It’s the stuff my thoughts of old Japan are made of!  Many streets are narrow and quaint with restaurants and shops tucked in here and there in the most obscure places, making a surprise out of every turn of a corner.  Flowers and plants at the entrances of nearly every building with people sweeping outside their homes or shops to keep the place spotless.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that we are visiting during autumn and the leaves are beautiful and the weather perfect but I have a feeling it is like this pretty much all year: beautiful and clean.

There is a precise slowness about Japan that I really enjoy.  A deliberate movement of the people, understated beauty, and simplicity.  Saying this sounds like I am stereotyping, making a sweeping judgment, but in this town right now it seems that most of what people think of Japan might be true.  Lots of friendliness but it often seems it should be described more as politeness because it’s not like people pay extra attention to you (tourists) or go out of their way to talk to you but there is an overall courtesy amongst everyone toward everyone.

In Japan there is a utensil or bowl or dish for everything!  If there’s a tool needed to do a specific task and it doesn’t exist it will be designed and created!  Often for one single meal (of 5 courses) we were served on 15 or more plates/dishes – – each with a specific use.  One thing that especially caught my eye is a suribachi, a pottery bowl used as the mortar when using a pestle.  It is a regular pottery bowl that has been scratched along the bottom with a fork to create roughness, then fired.  We used one in our cooking class in Kyoto…but more on that in another post.

Whilst at a bus stop the other day we were warmly greeted by a woman who knew me and couldn’t believe she was seeing me.  It took me a split second to recognize her as the woman I had helped on the computer in Tokyo!  We stood staring at one another and then she shouted my name and we both squealed with excitement – – including her husband who reached out for me as I was hugging her!  It was a loud and warm greeting as though we had known each other for years!!  They introduced themselves to Susan and we chatted about what we were doing and where we were headed next.  I had no idea they were going to be in Kyoto, nor did she know I was going to be so it was a huge random surprise!  “Now the third time we see each other in Bangkok!” she said!  Our bus was arriving and they were on their way to the next temple so we parted ways, hugging again and laughing at this random meeting.  She turned around to yell goodbye and to wave some more and they were off as quickly as they had come.  It was so much fun to see them!  And I hope to see them in Thailand!

Due to the fact that I cannot upload my photos from my iPad and haven’t figured out another way to do it easily, I am unable to load photos in this blog until I return.  I have uploaded some to Flickr and will link them to the blog so that will have to do for now.

Traveling with just my iPhone and my iPad (but no MacBook) sounded like such a great idea: lightweight, compact, easy to use and connect to.  What could go wrong!?  Well, by using the remote keyboard along with the iPad and then carrying both in my backpack caused the keyboard to continually push numbers in to the iPad making it think someone was trying to hack my info.  So it closed down the whole kit and caboodle giving the message: iPad is deactivated, connect to iTunes.  iTunes!?  I only have iTunes on my MacBook so knew pretty much right away that I was sunk.  Blogging is the main reason I wanted the iPad as I am able to check email and VM on the iPhone.  But geez it put a crimp in my attitude and my blogging!  And it took me awhile to come to terms that there is nothing I can do about the whole mess.  But after a long day and then to find that out I was bummed.  Now I am using the computer provided by the hotel with all of its Japanese-ness.

Ryokan are traditional Japanese lodgings. They are interesting wooden buildings with traditional tatmi-mat rooms and futons for bedding. Ryokan range from ultra-exclusive establishments to reasonable priced places with a homey atmosphere. Ours is expensive and homey, with the option for a breakfast in the morning and a dinner made in your room at night. We will most likely plan for a dinner in our room for one night as it is not inexpensive – – about US$85. But still, it’s the experience of it all makes it seem worthwhile and it will be Thanksgiving, so why not?

Upon arrival at our ryokan, Watazan Ryokan, near the ever elusive Starbuck’s that we have yet to see, we were greeted with a deep bow and an even deeper bow after we bowed back. We were told to select a stick from a container that had a certain color on the bottom of it. Mine was black and so I received a special gift of blotting paper. Susan’s was black and so she received a special gift of a writing pen, much to her excitement because she collects such pens from all over the world – – she has them from every hotel room she has stayed in on this journey and carries them with her. Considering how economically packed she is – – and how organized and pared-down – – it made me laugh when she pulled out fistfuls of pens from all over the world!

We were taken to our room on the 2nd floor by a Western-looking woman fluent in Japanese and dressed in kimono. It was an odd juxtaposition until you heard her speak Japanese! She showed us our ~800 square foot room (!) and described which slippers are worn for which situation: the green ones are to be worn around the hotel only but not in the room, the gray ones with the man/woman figures on them are for the water closet only (and ours is literally a closet). There are other slippers on a shelf for use in our room. She then asked if she could make us tea and describe the hotel to us. We sat at the small table on the floor and watched whilst she made tea! What a delightful room and situation with it’s shoji screens all around, mat flooring, and small table!

We enjoyed our tea and took a look around. Then made a plan for the rest of our evening while Susan “skated” around the room on the smooth mat floor! We decided to take a walk and see what’s around us and then grab a bite to eat. We are a few blocks from the night market, as luck would have it! It’s a wonderful place filled with people dressed-up for the evening, including men in traditional Japanesee gowns and women in traditional garb including the socks with thongs! It’s colorful and beautiful and full of good smells. I plan to go back tonight for more photos. We meandered around and took photos, looked at such things as octopus on a stick, bins of slippers made from beautiful silk, piles of fish, marzipan made from bean curd, etc. It was a lot of fun as I loves me a good night market!

Continually asking one another what we should do next, Susan asked where I was with hunger on a scale from 1-10. Maybe a 5, I said. She wasn’t that hungry either, so we continued to walk. And then suddenly, our hunger o’ meter shot up to 10 when we smelled the most delicious smell coming from a beautiful little door. Looking at the fake food display in the window and smelling the food-smells wafting toward us, we abandoned all other thoughts of doing anything else and slid open the shoji screen and stpped in. Stepped in to paradise! It was a tapenyaki place where the food is cooked on the hot grill on our table. And actually, after receiving a brief lesson about how to cook the food, are instructed to cook it ourselves. I ordered the pancake with shrimp and beef, Susan the vegetable w shrimp, oyster, cuddle fish, and squid. Yum to both! We immediately decided to share whatever we ordered and ordered ourselves each a big bottle of Kirin beer. Heaven, we thought, and snuggled in for a wonderful night cooking, posing for photos, and talking! It was a lot of fun and the food was delicious.

It was important, we learned, to make sure to cook and eat the food appropriately because other the soup-Nazi waiter would say, “No!” or ‘More! More!” when I was too frugal with the sauce (I’m not a sauce person but had no choice but to become one with her around!)

We reminisced about the Antarctic and some of the people we met there and generally re-lived how we met. Through Susan’s blogging I have learned a lot about her and have come to know her friends through Facebook and through comments made on her blog so it seems quite normal to discuss our lives with one anther even though we have never stepped foot into each others’ real lives or homes.

Not feeling the greatest and extremely tired, we headed back to the ryokan where we were greeted with our newly-made up beds on the floor! Tatami are futon mattresses on the ground with duvets on top. We were also given kimono dressing gowns so after the shower of my life (hot water, great pressure and yummy-smelling soaps) I donned the kimono and relaxed in my tatami for the night. Susan stayed up later working on her blog (I blog in the morning, she blogs at night) and then went to bed a bit later. Noticing her stirring in the night I found out that she has come down with an ear ache and is not feeling well at all – – she slept about 3 hours the entire night. So we are postponing our geisha dress-up date for this morning until tomorrow to allow her to sleep in.

I have taken a walk, talked to friends from home, and blogged this morning. It seems as though North Korea has attacked South Korea but I don’t know any details except there were a couple of deaths. Anxious to find out about that since I am only 2 hours’ flight away from Seoul…

Ohio means good morning. And I am in Kyoto, so good morning from Kyoto!

Yesterday we had hoped to go to the Tokyo fish market, the Tsukiji Fish Market. Turns out Tuesday was a national holiday so we scrapped that idea and had breakfast at the Hard Rock Cafe instead. It’s there that they serve the American breakfast: an egg, ham, hash browns, and toast (or rice), or a hotdog! Susan had the latter, I the former, with rice. And I am here to tell you the hash browns were the best I’ve ever had! Crispy and brown, just how I like them.

Then back we went to the hotel to gather our belongings to head back to the train station for our shinkansen ride to Kyoto. We had planned (and prepared for) the 11:03, the non-smoking train to Kyoto on the Hakari line. But after a snafu with our own realization of where on earth we were, we were made late by our frantic running around figuring things out. We were departing from Ueno, intended to get on the shinkansen. But one can only embark the shinkansen at Tokyo station – – not Ueno. But having asked the attendant which platform we were to stand on for shinkansen, we transposed that to the Ueno station and therefore were hugely confused. Finally realizing our error (at almost exactly the same time) we rushed to the correct gate to head to Tokyo. And all this with a huge pack on our back and a smaller but heavy pack on our front. And about 70 extra pounds because of the packs. But we pressed on.

Two Americans approached us and talked about how we were carrying our packs. Seems that one of the girls (from LA) is traveling around the world via ship and ther other friend (from Chicago) decided to meet her at her port of call in Japan. Not unlike Susan and I! We happily chatted for awhile and shared experiences and got some advice about Kyoto (it’s hard to navigate, we should get a bus pass, and we should visit the Golden Temple if we do nothing else) then parted ways. It was fun to run in to them and to talk a bit about home (the one from LA goes to Ohio State and mused that “they” had played “us” recently…).

Susan and I were off on a foot race to make it to our platform – – or what we thought was our platform. Turns out we were wrong. Our train had “departure” the guy told us and we must wait for the 11:33 (a smoking train) or the non-smoking one that left after noon. That gave us some time to get reserved seats on the new train and to have a few minutes to relax, take our packs off, and have a Royal Milk Tea – – or in this case, a Georgia Milk Coffee (they were out of milk tea). We continue to ooh and ahh over these warm coffee/teas in a bottle from a vending machine. Absolutely amazing and delicious!

We boarded our shinkansen with glee and immediately settled in comfortably for the 2+ hour ride to Kyoto, stopping in between at a few towns to gather more riders. We rode along the countryside often with the ocean on our left and some low mountains (Mt. Fujis all, we assume) on our right. Absolutely beautiful!

Our train station woes did not end when we left Tokyo. No, they continued to Kyoto. So we arrived in Kyoto and figured out where we had to go in order to make it to our ryokan in the city. But that train and its platform did not look like a JR platform so we worried we might not be able to use our JR passes. With no attendant at the post of our entry, we squeezed passed the closed gates – – this is probably never a good idea but what was done was done. Therefore, when we arrived at our stop and were faced with a decision to go to the exit to the left that was staffed w an attendant, according to the sign, or go to the right, where it was unstaffed, we chose (slyly) the one that was unstaffed. Again, we had to squeeze through the exit as it had no attendant. But when we got through and I realized that I had to climb a vast staircase in order to leave the station, I was like ‘no way!’ I was overly heavy-laden, exhausted, and couldn’t face so many stairs – – especially when Susan spotted an elevator! Of course I went toward it like a moth to a flame, ignoring all reason and logic. Seeing that the lift was only accessible through the other side, we found orselves suqueezing back through the unmanned gate again and severely pressing our luck. Coming back through was where things went wrong. Realizing we couldn’t use the elevator after all, we attempted to go back through the closed gate again. Oh no we didn’t! ‘NO’ yelled the loudspeaker. Yikes! We jumped back and looked all around: up, back, left, right as if wondering where this harsh yelling was coming from. Susan was halfway through and stood still for a few moments before just coming back through again. We were not on a JR line and had not bought a ticket and therefore had no right to exit the station. We were now in conflict with The Law. Deciding to just act stupid (not difficult for us after this day!) we proudly showed our JR pass at the next exit only to be halted again. The look on our faces was as innocent as we could muster as if we were really saying we’re-just-two-Western-girls-trying-to-make-our-way-through-a-strange-land. We finally understood that we had to pay 210Y each for the ride we had just taken. We coughed it up and headed on our way out of the train station – – and up a huge flight of stairs. My bad.

Out of the station we headed one direction hoping we were headed the right way. After seemingly going upstream for quite a ways on a busy street, I started feeling like we were going awry. I do have a strong sense of direction and when I rely on it, it generally steers me right. This time was no exception because it turns out we were heading the wrong way. So we trudged back to the station and turned a different way and proceeded again down a path unknown. Tiring quickly in energy and patience, I asked to stop and figure things out before proceeding. I’m all about taking walks and exploring but not with huge packs on my back whilst trying to reach a specific destination – – after an already long day of running around crazily. Plus, we are each armed with more electronics than NASA that we were not tapping into. We Google-mapped our location and found we were about 8 blocks away so continued our hike. I had originally wanted to hop in a taxi and let them figure it out but knowing we were now within reach of our destination and that we knew where we were going, I was willing to rally on.

We walked down quintessentially-Japan streets and I was in awe of the world we had stepped into! It was beautiful and quaint and bustling! We finally found our ryokan and got settled in our room. I will continue with the story in the next entry…