Trips and some pictures!

Hey everyone!

I know it's been awhile but I've been busy and have a lot to talk about. I've been on several trips recently and have another one coming up soon. I think the easiest thing is to talk about each one and have a few pictures to go with it. And since I'm lazy and rarely remember to bring a camera places, I'm stealing other people's pictures off of Facebook.



Kyoto:
A few weeks ago the whole international division took a trip to Kyoto/Nara/Osaka (Japan's small enough that many cities are close together, especially in that area). We got out of class on Friday so we could leave early in the morning to take the shinkansen (bullet train) from Hakata station in Fukuoka to Kyoto station. From there we took a bus to Nara and went to two temples, Todaiji and Kofukuji.

Kofukuji

Todaiji

I've been to both of those temples before, and while it was neat seeing them again, it wasn't anything new. That night we all went to a shabu-shabu restaurant that was all you can eat and drink. Shabu-shabu involves boiling water to broiling veges and noodles in it and boiling soy sauce to broil meats in it.

Shabu Shabu

It was a lot of fun and we were up late exploring Kyoto. The next day we got up early to go to several places in Kyoto, including two temples (Sanjusangendo and Kinkakuji), a castle (Nijojo), and Kyoto's manga museum.

Sanjusangendo

Kyoto Manga Museum

Nijo-jo: The castle's floors are made out of wood and designed so that they whistle like nightingales when you walk down the halls. This served as a security system to warn the Shogun if there were intruders. 

Kinkakuji: The temple is literally gold plated and glows on a sunny day. That's about as awesome as temples get.

We went on a similar tour through Kyoto both times that I went on the Kobe trip, but I hadn't been to the manga museum before. That night, we went to Osaka to hang out. The next day, a few of us went to another temple, Higashi Honganshi.

Higashi Honganshi

The pigeons there will land anywhere on you if it means they can eat.

After that, we returned to Fukuoka.

Tim visits: The next little adventure involved a visit from a good friend of mine from Delaware who went to work in Australia after graduating last January. On his way home, he thought he'd come hang out in Fukuoka with me. We had a pretty sweet weekend and he got to see what it's like to live in Japan. 

Food and drinks at an Izakaya! 

Nokonoshima: Last weekend we had our first field trip for our Natural World of Japan class. We went to a little island in the middle of Hakata Bay called Nokonoshima and saw how the scientists of Kyushu University catch samples of fish and seaweed and record their measurements. We took a ferry over to the island and spent the afternoon there.

Adventurer's pose on the ferry 

Checking the net to see what we caught.

Okinawa: Finally, this Thursday nine of us are taking a weekend trip to Okinawa. We're flying to Naha airport on Thursday night and will be in a hostel that night. We plan to take a ferry to one of the islands with lots of beaches and stay there Friday and Saturday, then return to the main island on Sunday. Our flight back to Fukuoka is on Monday morning. It should be a lot of fun!