Ubud, Bali

One of my main aims while living in Japan is to travel, both around Japan and other parts of Asia as much as I can. Therefore, this winter break I decided to go to Indonesia and I would like to tell you about my trip.

The first place we went was Ubud in Bali which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We stayed in Ubud for two days and found it to be an interesting mix of art, religion and Balinese culture. Bali is known as the ‘island of the gods’ and everywhere in Bali there are offering like this one.

On the first day we went to the Monkey Forest which was a little scary as when we arrived we seen a monkey climb on a visitor and she couldn’t get it off! We decided not to buy banana’s to feed them but others did. It was funny seeing the monkeys steal item from people and try to open them.

In the center of the forest was a temple and this meant that there were a lot of interesting statues like the ones below.

Then we went to the The Threads of Life, a textile gallery dedicated to the promoting Indonesian textiles and providing support to weavers in small communities. Please have a look at their website http://www.threadsoflife.com/ the textiles they had were beautiful and they had videos showing how the communities make the fabrics.

Later that day it started to rain so we went for a massage which was very relaxing. That night went for dinner and my friend recommended Gado Gado an Indonesian dish of vegetables, fried tofu and peanut sauce. I had not tried peanut sauce before but it was delicious, now a favourite of mine!

On the second day we decided to take a walk through the rice fields which was beautiful. We stopped and had lunch at an amazing organic food restaurant in the middle of the fields and the view was perfect. I was so excited that they served middle-eastern food which I loved as I used to work in a middle-eastern cafe, so I had hummus and salad.

We then went to the a small temple in the center of Ubud and the market next to the temple. It was difficult to shop at the market as everyone was shouting at you to look at their stall and it was hard to leave it without buying anything if you did stop.

That evening we went to a traditional Balinese fire dance, which was amazing. I was particularly in awe of the costumes that they wore. Unfortunately I couldn’t get these photos from my camera and I think they are lost, but my friend let me use some of her’s.

The next morning we traveled to Gili Air near Lombok and I will tell you about that in my next post.

Christmas and New Year

I wanted to write about Christmas because it is my favourite time of year and I think it is a very big cultural difference between Japan and Ireland.

One of my favourite things about Christmas is the tree, putting up the Christmas tree is a marking point to begin Christmas celebration and usually happens the first week of December.

In Manchester (and in most big cities) they have a Christmas market or the German Market. At this market they usually sell Christmas presents, winter clothes and accessories as well as hot drinks like mulled wine. They usually sell different types of German sausages that are cooked on a huge fire and everything is decorated with lights.

Every family has their own Christmas morning tradition and I think its very interesting to hear what people like to do on Christmas morning. In my house I always wake up very early and make my brothers get up with me to open presents. They always complain but we have fun and it makes Christmas morning exciting. The house usually smells lovely as my mother usually has the turkey cooking in the oven already. We open our presents together and then brave the snowy roads to go to mass (catholic church).

I get to see my extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents) at the chapel and afterwards we go to my grandparents house for a breakfast of tea and toast.

Christmas dinner is the best meal of the year! My mother usually invites a lot of my relatives to have dinner with us so we all squeeze around the table and have a lot of fun pulling crackers and eating dinner. We eat turkey, ham, stuffing, vegetables, potatoes and pigs in blankets (small sausages wrapped in bacon) with lots of gravy. Makes me very hungry just talking about it! Everyone is always too full after dinner so we watch a Christmas movie and relax.

My tree in Japan...

This is year is my first year not being at home for Christmas, it is very strange! I have a tree in my house though and my family have sent me a lot of presents so it feels a little better. I am also going away for Christmas break so I won’t feel too sad on Christmas morning not being with my family.

In class, some of my first years made Christmas cards and we sent them to the students in Hawaii that they will visit next year.

Christmas isn’t really celebrated as much here in Japan but New Year is a very big celebration and it sounds similar to Christmas as it is spent with family. I would love to hear what you are did for New Year? What did you like to eat? Who did you spending it with?

Beautiful Hakone!

I went on a trip to Hakone a few weeks ago, which was really lovely. I was hoping to see the autumn leaves but I think we were a little late in season. I still had a great time as Hakone is so beautiful. I am sure I will go again as there is so much to see there and we only seen a little bit.

First, we went on the rope-way and the view over the lake were beautiful. This first stop on the rope-way was the Volcanic Sulphur Park, which smells horrible but was interesting to see. We tried the eggs that had been boiled in the hot volcanic water and the minerals turn the shell black. They were good but didn't taste much different to normal eggs, apparently they add 7 years to your life but we will have to wait and see!This is the man lifting a huge basket of eggs from the volcanic water.

The views were great and Fuji-san popped out between the clouds.

Then we continued on along the rope-way to the end were we took a cable tram to the Hakone Art Museum. This had a lovely moss garden and the trees here were beautiful, I was very happy to see some autumnal colours.

The museum was good but was mainly about pottery which isn't something I am very interested in. There was a room set up like this showing Japanese calligraphy which is something I would love to learn while living here.

We headed back towards the lake as we wanted to get the Pirate ship to the other side. This was very exciting! The boats were so beautiful and it was great sailing across Lake Ashinoko (芦ノ湖) as we had amazing views of Mount Fuji.

I hope to go back soon, I really want to visit the Hakone Open Air Museum. If there are parts of Hakone you liked please let me know as I would like to try and visit them.

Marathons...

Our school marathon was a week ago and everyone who took part did so well. Well done to everyone in first and second years! It was a lovely day but very cold and Fuji-san looked so pretty with a little bit of snow. I did my own marathon the weekend before in Tokyo, it was called the Yamathon. It is a walking marathon that follows the Yamanote line and unfortunately we didn't get good weather, it rained the whole day!! This made it so difficult and I was so happy when we reached the end.

We were all smiles at the beginning!

Ito, Kimono and Shamisen

One of my favoutie things about Japan is Japanese traditional dress, especially the Kimono, so you can understand how excited I was when I was invited to go to Ito and take part in a festival wearing a Kimono. ALT’s in the area were invited to Ito by Ito International Home-stay and I would like to thank them for the wonderful experience we had. Even though it rained a lot, we had a great time taking part in the festival.

My friends and I were very excited to get to dress in Kimono.

The boys got to dress in Kimono too.

This little boy was dancing beside me, I think seeing a western girl in a Kimono confused him!

This is everyone we danced with.

We all had amazing food afterwards at one of the members house, its was very busy around the table but we had so much fun. Then went to an Onsen.

Then next day we had a lesson on the Shamisen, I wasn’t very good but had fun learning. The lesson was about two hours and kneeling for that long meant that I lost all the feeling in my feet, it was very painful! I now have a high respect for anyone who sits for long periods of time in the traditional Japanese way.

We also got a tour around the Tokaikan, a historic three-storied wooden Japanese inn that was constructed in constructed in 1928.

There were three Geisha in training getting their picture taken and we were allowed to watch. They were very beautiful and so elegant.

Then we all then went and had amazing Tempura at the small little hidden restaurant that really looked like someones house. It was delicious!

This was an amazing experience and I hope to be able to take part again next year, I also hope that I will have many more opportunities to wear kimono while I am here in Japan. Kimono really is the most beautiful item of clothing and I plan to buy one in Japan.I hope to visit Ito again soon because it is such a beautiful place.