Kamakura

Last week I went to a tea ceremony. It is a 1200 thousand year old Japanese tradition, that is strongly influenced by Zen Buddhism. Now it is held in the oldest part of Tokyo (Kamakura) once every year. Or something like that. I couldn't really focus on it, because of the intense knee pain I got from kneeling for two hours. I almost fell through one of those paper screens when I tried to stand up, my legs were so numb. Kamakura is a real cool place. At one time it was the capital of Japan, and has some of the oldest architecture. After the tea ceremony, we we walked to the Diabutsu, which means giant Buddha. And man was is it big! Ulli the German said it's possibly the biggest Buddha he will ever see in his life. And you know what? I think I will probably only see a bigger Buddha once in my life. Maybe! Another great thing about Kamakura, is that it is on the Pacific, and as you walk towards the ocean, you kind of sense the city turning into a surf town. We caught the sunset as we made it to the beach.



Now it is Christmas Eve. 11:30 p.m. I am going to welcome Christmas day with Rocky, and tomorrow I am not going to do anything really special, except talk to my family, and pack for my upcoming trip to Hokkaido. Insanely enough I don't mind spending Christmas by myself.

The Monkeys

A really good friend of mine went to Kyoto, and when she returned she told me she saw monkeys in the wild. I thought this was interesting and decided that I too wanted to see some wild Japanese monkeys. I have a friend, the German named Ully, who is fascinated with apes, and he has a Japanese friend who speaks fluent German, and she told us of a foothill outside Tokyo that has wild monkeys. So we decided we would go. We didn't see any monkeys in the wild but there was a zoo filled with them, so that was pretty good. But other then the monkeys the mountain was a perfect place for photographs. From the top you could partially see downtown Tokyo way of in the distance. We where in the middle of the forest, and Shinjuku must have been 20 kilometers away, yet we where still in Tokyo. This is a incredibly enormous city.


Since then I have started school again, and am now focusing on the next two week break, which interestingly enough is three weeks after the last one. I really want to do something memorable, and hopefully will see some decent snowfall. I'm going North where it's minus 15, like any decent Christmas spot, but I don't care, as long as I have some fun.