Shimokitazawa, concert, and ink painting

The next stop was the Shimokitazawa area in western Tokyo. This is where the ink painting artist had his studio, where I was taking lessons, and also happened to be the location of a concert I wanted to see.

When I was looking for a place to stay there on booking.com, there wasn't much available, or it was really expensive, so I found an apartment-hotel near Sasazuka station, about a 20 minute walk away.

Saturday, June 27, I took the train from Osaka to Tokyo and made my way to the accommdation. It turned out to be a private apartment, like a Japanese version of AirBnB. It was in the middle of a residential area so I kind of felt like a local.

The first evening I walked around the trendy, artsy Shimokitazawa area, with its cool cafes and vintage shops.

Sunday, June 28, from 10am to 2pm, I had the first ink painting lesson. The artist is Shukou. He exhibits his work and seems well known.  I had studied with him last year as well, which I had found using VAWAA (Vacation With An Artist), and he remembered me. I think I was the first VAWAA student to come a second time.

We quickly reviewed the basics, and he said that I seemed to remember a lot, which I was relieved to hear. We went on to do some more difficult versions of what I had done last year.

That evening was the concert. Its a bit of a story: last year when I was in Fukuoka I saw a street performer and thought she was really good, so I followed her on Instagram. I posted about it in the blog last year. She goes by the name JUN and is based in Sapporo.

Anyway, through Instagram I found out she was having a concert in Shimokitazawa around this time. I tried to buy a ticket online but it wouldn't ship overseas, so I sent her an email. She responded saying she could reserve a ticket for me, but in the meantime I bought a ticket and had it set to my friend Kanako in Tokyo.

The concert was in a very small venue. I showed up a bit before the doors opened, and saw some people waiting. I asked if the line was for the concert and they said "Oh you must be the guy from Canada". JUN has a very solid fan base and many of them know each other, so I guess the word got around. 

We entered the venue, and JUN greeted me at the door. She's very friendly, and I think it was the first time someone from as far as Canada had come to a concert.

The concert was amazing, in such an intimate venue full of devoted fans. She had a couple of back-up guitarists who were also very good.

After the concert JUN approached me to thank me for coming, and she took a picture.

Monday and Tuesday I had the painting lessons. We continued working on paintings that used different kinds of brush strokes, and more complicated scenes.

After the lessons I just explored Shimokitazawa some more.

Osaka JaLS last week

 Amazing how fast the time has flown. This was the last week at the school. At the end of the week on Saturday was the train back to Tokyo.

Tuesday afternoon was free so I went Fujita Museum, which was recommended by one of the teachers. It was about a 30 minute walk along the river from the apartment, and the weather was cloudy but not raining and not too hot. The museum is small, containing artifacts that were collected by a Meiji era businessman named Fujita. There were bowls, incense containers imported from China in the 1300s, and vases and small cabinets imported from Holland in the 1700s. There was also a beautiful scroll from the 1200s describing interaction between Buddhism and Taosim in early China.

Before the entrance to the exhibition there was a nice Japanese style room where you could order tea.

There was also a large garden but it closed before the museum and I got there too late to see it.

On Thursday afternoon there was a school trip to Nakanoshima Art Museum. I'd been there before but we were going to the other exhibition. This exhibition was contemporary, featuring three artists: Yanobe Kenji, Morimura Yasumasa, and Yanagi Miwa. There was a room devoted to each one.

Yanobe Kenji did the sculptures of the Ships Cat, and several other sculptures that seemed to evoke a kind of post-apocalyptic feeling.

Morimura Yasumasa did large paintings in  the style of mid-1900s posters and were a kind of political commentary. Yanagi Miwa did paintings and sculptures that seemed to come from Japanese mythology.

After the museum we all went to a cafe.

Friday was 'graduation'. Every week some students finish their time at the school, and this week there were 14 of us. Here is a picture of Yushan and Jack from my class, with a couple of the teachers.

There were lots of good-byes. Some people went out for a bit. I had my last private lesson in the afternoon.

When it was all done I went for something to eat near the apartment, and the took the subway downtown to the craft beer place for a last visit.

During the last couple of days of the week  a couple of typhoons hit Japan and headed toward Osaka and Tokyo. For a while there was the possibility that my train to Tokyo on Saturday would be disrupted. Fortunately by Saturday the weather had calmed and I caught the train with no problem.

Osaka JaLS 3rd week

 Monday, June 15, my 4 weeks at JaLS were half over already. The time was going by very fast. This week I was tired a lot. I'd sleep well, but then wake up too early to get enough sleep, but too late to fall asleep again. No particular reason. Or maybe my brain was getting full already. 

Tuesday after class I walked around the area around the train stations, venturing a bit further out. I found the Hankyu bus station and bought tickets for the  Saturday trip to Arima Onsen. 

I also went to the Tsuyu-no-Tenjinja shrine. It is now in the middle of the city but is very old and dates back when Osaka was still marsh-land. There is a story from a few hundred years ago about lovers that committed suicide on the temple grounds, so it seems to have a kind of romantic theme.

Wednesday was a long day, with the class and the private lesson. Wednesday evening the fire alarm went off in the apartment where I'm staying. Very loud and right inside every unit. About 20 or so people gathered outside and waited. It was taking a long time so I went to one of the quiet bars nearby. About an hour later I went back to the apartment and everything was back to normal.

Thursday after class I went to the Karahori shopping street I heard about. It's supposed to be popular but when I was there it was quite quiet. There was a calligraphy supply store, a tea place, several stores selling fresh seafood or vegetables.

Afterward I went to an art supply store near the school that a teacher recommended. I bought a small notebook. Across the way was a bookstore, where I bought a small book in Japanese, called This is How You Think, which contains quotes from a famous Japanese philosopher.

Friday evening there was an activity with the school. Apparently there is a  neighbourhood of Osaka that has a lot of people of Okinawa descent, and we went to an Okinawan restaurant there. We tried all kinds of Okinawan specialties, and there was entertainment. Customers, including students from the school, were invited to go on stage and sing or play the drum. Here is a photo with my classmate Yushan playing the drum.

On Saturday, June 20, I did a day trip to Arima Onsen, near Kobe, about an hour by bus from Osaka. Its a small, touristy, onsen town on the slope of a hill. It was raining but there were still quite a lot of tourists. When I arrived I first walked around the shopping streets.

At several places around the town there are sources of hotspring water. They are covered but have steam coming out. A couple have small shrines beside them. 

There are several temples as well, and a park that goes up the hill from the top of the town.

Many of the onsen are inside ryokan, but there are 2 public ones: Kin no yu (gold water) and Gin no yu ( silver water). The gold water is actually kind of muddy in colour, and there is a foot bath outside with the same water.

I went to both of them and then walked around the town some more before getting the bus back to Osaka. There are shops selling local treats, like a thin wafer, and a toasted mochi with red bean filling.

Sunday was variably sunny and cloudy, but not raining. I went to a park on the northern edge of Osaka called Minoh, where there is about a 3km hike to a waterfall. 

I can't help but compare to Canada. Canadian cities are small compared to most big cities in the world, and are surrounded by nature. But the infrastruture is so inadequate and so badly designed that if you want to go for a hike you have to drive 2 to 3 hours in traffic just to get there. In contrast, Japanese cities are many times larger, but hop on a train and in 30 to 45 minutes you're on a hiking trail.

The trail followed the river to the falls, and was quite straight forward. There were some restaurants along the way, and a temple. Before the falls, there was one spot with a detour around a part that was damaged by a landslide a few years ago, and that had some steep steps.

There was a nice view of the falls at the top.

 Also, about half way down, across from Ryuanji temple, there was a fairly steep, 300 step climb to a look-out with a great view of the city.

On the way down I bought the local specialty: tempura maple leaf.

At the train station there was a craft beer place run by the same brewery as the one I like downtown, so I stopped for a beer before heading back.

Osaka JaLS 2nd week

After one week I already feel like my Japanese is improving. I'm learning new grammar and vocabulary, between N3 and N2 level, and spending most of the day speaking Japanese. Monday, June 8, was the start of my second week. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are long days with the private lesson after class, so I'm pretty tired by the end of the day. A great thing about Japanese convenience stores is that you can pick up a decent dinner quickly and cheaply. I did that and went to bed early.

Tuesday afternoon there was a school trip to Shitennoji, south of the central Namba area. It is one of Japans oldest temples, dating back to the 500s. It is actually a Buddhist temple, but is looks like  a shrine with the tori gate and the vermillion colour. We went up the central pagoda and walked around the inner courtyard.

After everyone else left, Yushan from my class and I went for ice cream. Afterward he left to go shopping and I stayed at the temple to start on a sketch.

After that I walked to the Namba area and went to schwa2, the craft beer place, and finished the sketch.

On the way home, in the shopping street near the apartment, I found one of those conveyor belt sushi places and had dinner there.

The next couple of days were not too eventful, just doing laundry, buying groceries, etc.

On Friday I went shopping in the department stores near the station for more clothes. I bought a bunch at Uniqlo. On one of the walkways connecting the department stores, it seems there is always some kind of J-pop entertainment going on.

Afterward I stopped at the craft beer place called umbrella RiB, and the guy there told me about a craft beer event that was happening the next day, at a place near the station.

Saturday, June 13, was a school trip to the  Ishikiri shopping street and shrine. It is about half an hour by train from Osaka station. We walked the kilometer long shopping street full of restaurants and fortune-tellers.

 It is on a hill, and it was quite hot that day. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant that served a kind of stew called oden.

Then we explored the shrine area. In front of the shrine are two stone markers about 20 meters apart. The thing is to walked around the pair of markers 100 times, and then pray at the shrine. I managed about 10 times before we moved on.

We walked back up the hill to the train station and went back into town.

Aterward I went to the craft beer event I had heard about. About half a dozen breweries had stalls in an open area.

I stood at a table and ended up talking to the people there in Japanese. It was really fun.

On Sunday, June 14, I went to Kyoto. I wasn't planning a trip to Kyoto, but one of the teachers at the school had a bunch of tickets to an exhibition at the Ryokoku museum there, and she gave me one. I figured I would make use of that, and spend time in Kyoto.

The exhibition had painted scrolls and wooden statues from the Shinnyodo temple in Kyoto. Some were quite old, dating back to the 9th century.

Next I made my way to Nanzenji temple, since I heard that is a big temple complex but it is off the beaten track, so it doesn't get the crowds of tourists.

What I heard was correct. Its a nice quiet corner of Kyoto near the green surrounding hills. On the way I stopped at Konchi-in temple with its beautiful zen garden.

From there I went to Nanzenji temple.

Surprisingly, and kind of out-of-place, just beyond the temple is a red brick aqueduct that was built in the Meiji era.

After that, I caught the train back to Osaka.

Osaka JaLS 1st week

Sunday, May 31 I took the train from Tokyo to Osaka. I got another view of Mt. Fuji.

I was going to Osaka to do 4 weeks at a Japanese Language School called JaLS. I first attended JaLS in 2016 in Sapporo, and at that time, Sapporo was the only location. They have since expanded to locations in Kyoto, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Tokyo, and now Osaka. I attended the one in Fukuoka last year. 

It is a highly rated school, and the only problem I ever had was with the accommodations they found for me. This year I found my own accommodation. Nowadays that's quite easy to do, even for long stays, with things like booking.com.

On Sunday I arrived in Osaka with quite a bit of time before I could check-in at the apartment, so I spent the time finding the location of the school. It's in a new development called Grand Green, just outside the Osaka Station.

The area around the Osaka station and the neighboring Umeda station is a bewildering complex of various ticket gates and passageways on several levels, all buried under an array of skyscraper department stores and hotels. I dragged my luggage around for a couple of hours in the heat and humidity before I finally found the Grand Green area, and the particular tower in which the school is located. 

The Grand Green area is very new and nice looking, with the buildings surrounding a green space with a wading pool. I stopped there for a while to eat lunch. The school is on the 8th floor with a view of the park.

After lunch in the park, I started searching for the apartment, which turned to be relatively easy. It's at the end of a long shopping street. The street is full of loud restaurants and bars, but the apartment itself is about a block passed all that, so it is actually quite quiet.

I got an email with the code to the lock box with key, and let myself in. Its a new building, and the apartment has everything: stove, fridge, microwave, dishes, towels, etc.

On Monday morning I walked to the school. I knew the apartment would be about a half hour walk to the school, and I didn't think anything of it. However I didn't count on the heat and humidity, and I arrived at the school drenched in sweat. So embarassing.

The class itself was great, at just the right level, with only 5 students. A lot of the students were from Taiwan. I had the class in the morning and on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I had a private lesson that is mostly conversation practice.

In the evening on Monday I found a grocery store about a block from the apartment and bought some fruit and vegetables.

Tuesday afternoon, after class, was a school trip on an area in Osaka called Shinsekai, or New World. It dates to 1903, and there are cartoon-like statues every of a character called Billy-ken, which is actually modeled on the US president at the time.

Shinsekai is known for a food called kuchikatsu, which is battered, deep fried meat or veggies on a skewer. It is also full of arcade-type games. 

We went as a group in a restaurant to eat kuchikatsu. Unfortunately it was raining that day so we didn't walk around very much.

On Wednesday morning I found a route to the school that used air-conditioned underground passages for about half of it, which helped somewhat with the heat.

In the evening I did laundry. There is a washing machine in the apartment, but no dryer. Instead there is something called a drying panel on the wall outside the door to the shower cubicle. I looked it up, and essentially you just hang your clothes in the shower cubicle, close the door, select 'dry' and a time on the panel, and the shower cubicle becomes a dryer. Very cool.

Thursday evening I found a craft beer place between the apartment and the school, called Craft Beer Market. 

Friday evening I went to the craft beer place called schwa2, that Celene and I went to before, downtown near Dotonburi. I like that place as it is always very friendly.

Saturday, June 6, I did a day trip on my own to a temple complex about an hour from Osaka, south of Nara, called Hasedera. It dates to the 600's and it is mainly devoted to the Kannon Bodisattva. It is main temple for Shingon Buddhism.

From the Hasedera train station it is a 20 minute walk through a small town to the entrance to the temple area. Being Saturday, it was fairly busy with mostly Japanese tourists, and I just followed the crowd.

The temple complex is on the side of a steep hill, so there is a long staircase up to the Main Hall.

 The main hall has an alter with a huge statue of Kannon. Walking around  I found a side door that you had to pay to go into, and I did. It took you an inner room where the statue was, so you were right next to it. I didn't expect that, and it was kind of cool.

Hasedera is known for flowers according to the season, and in June there is a huge display of hydrangea.

After visiting the temple I walked back through the town, which was now in full swing with all the vendors selling local specialties.

 I stood in a long line to buy a kind of mochi stuffed with red bean. The mochi was green because a plant called mugwort is added (at first I thought it was matcha but I asked someone and found out otherwise.)

I also bought a special kind of sushi, called kakinohasusi, which is wrapped in a persimmon leaf.

Sunday, June 7, was lightly raining and refreshingly cool. I decided it would be a good day to go to a museum, and I had heard about the Nakanoshima Art Museum that was within walking distance.

From the apartment I went straight south, stopping at a cool cafe called Omo and Coffee. I reached the Tosahori River that flows through Osaka and the Nakanoshima Island in the middle of it. At one end of the island is a beautiful park with a rose garden. 

Despite the rain there were many people out jogging this Sunday morning, and under the cover of an overpass there was what looked like a yoga class happening.

I walked along the river until I reached the art museum. There were two exhibitions, but you could only buy a ticket to one of them at a time, so I went to 'Takashima Yajuro: 50 years after his passing'. He was a solitary artist who did oil paintings in a mostly Western style, and had traveled extensively in Europe. He was unknown during his lifetime. His details of landscapes are very striking, and apparently his approach to realism is influenced by his  Buddhist ideals.

After the museum I walked further south to another park called Utsubo Park. There was some kind of demonstration going on, and by reading the banners I could tell it was against nuclear power.

I headed back to the river and along Nakanoshima island again in the direction of the apartment.

After eating something at the apartment I went to another nearby craft beer place, called 'umbrella RiB'. The guy there recommended an area further east of the apartment, called Tenmangu. Since it was still kind of early, I headed over there. It's a shopping street that is several kilometers long, and the view of it seemed endless.

It will take a while to explore. After walking a bit I went back to the apartment.