Hello! I’ve officially surpassed the halfway mark for my time in Japan. Since my last post, I’ve had some more pretty interesting experiences as well as seen a few really neat landmarks along the way. Last Tuesday was our visit to Himeji castle. This structure was destroyed and rebuilt numerous times, but its history dates back to the 1300’s. I loved seeing the defense structures there, like the different shaped holes for the muskets and cross bows, as well as the maze design to challenge intruders.
Himeji Castle
The next day was our first free day. I had many ambitions for this day, but unfortunately it was raining and all of those ambitions involved being outdoors. Instead I took the day to relax and go shopping because I’m already tired of the clothes that I packed. The following day we began our trip to Nara! This was a short getaway but a very fun one. The first day was another business visit, this time to the Sharp museum. Sharp was the first for many innovations, such as the mechanical pencil, certain types of TVs, calculators, basically any type of technology you can think of. That evening was spent with a night tour of Nara where we got to see the eerie five-tiered pagoda at night. We stayed in a quaint hotel called the Seikanso, where we got to sleep on tatami mats. The hotel was about as Japanese as it gets. That Friday was our “death march” as Stapp described it. We started out with a walk through Nara park, also known as the deer park! It was so much fun but I will tell you, hungry deer are ruthless and feeding them was a little scary for a moment. The walk led us to Todaiji, the largest wooden structure in the world which holds one of the world’s largest statues of Buddha. We also visited Kasuga shrine on our death march, which is home to the famous 5,000 lanterns. At the end of the day we came across an Oktoberfest celebration in the park! It was two cultures for one type of deal.
The next morning, we headed back to Kameoka and had half of the day to explore. In case you couldn’t tell from the deer pictures, interacting with wild animals is SO fun to me and I was dying to hike the monkey mountain about 20 minutes away. The journey was definitely a hike but SO worth it! It’s crazy to see how human-like they really are- some of the monkeys even peeled the bananas and cracked the peanuts we gave them (the hungrier ones would just eat them whole).
The next day was another free one. The morning we did an organized raft ride which I have zero pictures from and that evening we visited a major attraction in Kyoto, the Fushimi Inari Shrine. It is famous for its thousands of torii gates leading up the mountain. If you ever get the chance to go, I recommend going about an hour or two before sunset. Hopefully this will give you enough time to walk to the top and watch the sun go down! That was our plan but the shrine wasn’t facing west and we got their too late to make the walk up….
Fushimi InariMonday was another business visit, this time to an incense manufacturer and a beverage company. Both drastically different and exciting in their own way. Asahi has the fastest canning process in the world. Something about watching how things are made is so fascinating to me! This leads me in to this week’s main event- Toyota city. We arrived on Tuesday and participated in a few cultural activities- trying on kimonos, the Japanese tea ceremony, and even flower arranging! Wednesday was dedicated to Toyota Motor Company. We got to learn about the new technologies they are working on as well as the history behind the world’s largest auto manufacturer. Seeing their assembly line definitely helped me understand why their processes have been duplicated by so many- they have quality control and efficiency down to a science. I think much of that comes from the Japanese spirit and deep rooted values. That evening I got to meet some local women who were students of my host mother’s. She was an English teacher and one of the sweetest people I have ever met! It was very sad to leave so soon.
Thursday was our trip back to Kameoka, and that evening we attended a Hanshin Tigers baseball game! I’ll go into more detail in my next post, but lets just say the Japanese really know how to do baseball. Today was spent in transit to Sapporo, I’m so excited to spend the weekend here and I promise catch up again very soon!
Till next time
XOXOXOXOXO
Kass
--
International Business major Kassandra Salazar is spending the summer 2018 in Japan with our U of A Faculty-Led: International Business Seminar in Japan.
Read more from Kassandra at https://kassandrasalazar.wordpress.com/blog/
Don't miss your opportunity to study or intern abroad! Start your search at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search/
International Business major Kassandra Salazar is spending the summer 2018 in Japan with our U of A Faculty-Led: International Business Seminar in Japan.
Read more from Kassandra at https://kassandrasalazar.wordpress.com/blog/
Don't miss your opportunity to study or intern abroad! Start your search at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search/
