Friends!

I forgot to tell you that SP is well and that he has some new friends. One is Japanese (the yellow chicken) and the other one is American, from Kentucky ;)

It's quite easy to make new friends here in Japan, and that's very nice! I hope I will get many many new friends during these 5 months!

Tsuwano part 1

Last Monday we made a daytrip to Tsuwano. It was really an incredible day! We took the train in the morning at about 10 and arrived to our destination an hour later. The train was so full that some of us had to stand... a school class was going to pick apples so we had many little kids to keep us company during the trip to Tsuwano. The children here are so outgoing and they always wear a wiiide smile. They are so nice!

We saw so many things and I took so many pictures that I have to devide this post into more than one part... I'm afraid that internet starts to complain again if I download too many pictures at the same time..

Waiting for the train

Still waiting...

Yeaah! Finally in the train! Here we come, Tsuwano!

In Tsuwano

We were so lucky to have the Japanese students with us!

I hope the ducks and fish were not the next dinner....

So cute!

We fed the fish :P

We were very lucky because there happened to be a festival that day. We saw a traditional performance!!

See you in Part 2!

Shopping and more shopping!

A few days ago I went to the city center which is quite far away from Miyano where I live. Yamaguchi is not a very big city but the shopping possibilities are much better than in Rovaniemi. The main shopping street however is not that full of shops that I would need. For example the shops for clothes and electronics are even further away... But there are a couple of very nice shops that sell notebooks, pens etc. I love them!

(by the way, at this very moment my table is full of tiny little ants.... it's so nice!)



The shopping street in Yamaguchi.

This shop is maybe for girls? ;)

He is so happy!

I like these dresses so much! And they are also very takai!

 

Here the traffic lights are red, yellow and blue. Even though the blue is green... I try to understand that! Apparently they just call the green "blue".. though it's green....

Traditional cakes from Yamaguchi

This is a hyaku-en shop (100 yen shop). All the things they sell in this shop cost 100 yen, which is about 1 euro! I love these shops so much!! So good for students! :)

 Wait a minute, what's there on the roof?

It's a huge bird! You see this animal in the old, traditional Japanese paintings etc. So beautiful! Now I don't know its English name, but I will look for this information!

Imperials ahead!

Last weekend some police officers came suddenly to our door. No, we have not done anything wrong! They just came to tell us that the Emperor of Japan is going to drive by the main road and asked if we want to see him. Of course we did!

He has not visited Yamaguchi in a long time so I imagined there to be more people there waiting to see him. But no, there were only a few families, mostly grannies with their grandchildren. The police officers gave each of us little Japanese flags that we could wave....

Getting the flags

The police officers counted the minutes to his arrival.... three minutes left!

Locals or exchange students?

They are coming!

And there he is! I'm sorry, the picture is so bad..... You can see his wife better at the back seat. She waved at us and smiled........ and looked a lot like Queen Elizabeth..... she was like an Asian copy of her ;)

We didn't really see the Emperor and Empress more than a few seconds but it's alright! We had a good time!

Ruriko-ji temple

Yamaguchi City is known as the Kyoto of the West. And there really are many beautiful historical places here. One day we went to see the Ruriko-ji temple with Monami and Henna.

Going towards the temple...

If you clap your hands down here....

...you will hear a strange noise up there.. it really works!

This pagoda at Ruriko-ji temple in Yamaguchi City is one of the three most important 5-storied pagodas in Japan, the other two being at Horyu-ji in Nara, and Daigo-ji in Kyoto. It is also considered one of the most beautiful temples in Japan. It was built in 1442, which makes it the tenth oldest in Japan. I think it's very old!

 

There is a beautiful garden next to the temple.

This machine tells your future ;) (omikuji)

Wishes

Henna and Monami

Once a couple lost their child. They decided to put this statue here, so that people can come and pray that nothing bad would happen to children anymore.

Graveyard

This is the house where very important people used to have their meetings. It's a little museum now.

 It was a very nice day!! We went to have soft cream after our tour and I can say that it was delicious! Usually ice cream here is a bit different than in Europe and people actually call it soft cream instead of ice cream. As you can imagine, the ice cream is very soft. It's almost the same as the Finnish pehmis. Here you can find very funny flavours, heh heh. You can have soft cream that tastes like for example green tea, black beans or rice! Just to mention a few flavours... ;)

 Next time I will write about a very famous person that I saw this weekend... can you guess who the person is? :P