6/7 Kashiwa Temples and Shodou

Hey guys!

So this post is going to play a little catch-up from yesterday and today. After our language class yesterday, we headed to Akebono park - a gorgeous park in Kashiwa that is a short walk away from a buddhist temple. To get to the park itself, you had to walk through this little gift shop that sold snacks and trinkets. Me and some other people got a cone of ice cream, which was very おいしい. I then proceeded to go on a photography rampage of the park. There was a small pool which had koi fish that you could feed, a small playground for kids, and a really pretty field. Here are some pictures from it -

Yes, I'm 19 years old. Yes, I will play in the playground.

There was plenty to see on the way to the temple. There was this field of red flowers that was absolutely stunning. The garden before the temple was also really great. I'm having trouble finding good adjectives to describe this place and not sounds completely cheesy. My pictures don't do it justice. 

And finally -  Tokaiji Temple. This place was amazing. If this is what a temple in a lesser known area is like, I can't even imagine what the temples in Kyoto or Nara will be like. Tokaiji was founded by the order of Emperor Saga , and completed by Lord Honda and 98 Feudal Lords in 1717. The temple itself is painted red with three large ropes hanging in front that is used to bang on these cymbals (I don't actually know the term for these) up above. Apparently you're only supposed to hit them once, but I hit them 3 times. But you're also supposed to hit them loudly and all 3 of my hits were weak, so all together they make one hit. At least, that's my logic right now. The picture from that is from the post I did yesterday. There was also a tall pagoda on the right side of the temple and a little building where people sold good luck charms off on the left. Gravestones and statues of what I think are bodhisattvas were behind. 

Again, I went crazy with taking pictures. Also with having people take pictures of me.

I wasn't really able to get a good picture of the temple itself, but here's a group picture that our sensei had - 

I was dissappointed when we had to leave. Once the group got back to Kashiwa, we all got ramen and I managed to get this really cool shot of the city - 

So I'm finally caught up to today! Today was a little bit more of a chill day. Our morning class was a shodou class, which was both relaxing and nerve wracking. Shodou is a form of calligraphy (our teacher doesn't like us using the word "calligraphy" to describe it, but I don't have a better word for it). There were certain ways that you had to hold the shodou brush, a strict stroke order to the kanji, and different pressures that you had to write the kanji with. The ones that I made and that I like the best were unfortunately smeared with ink from other papers, so here's one that I got a picture of before ruining it - 

This is the kanji for "soil". On the left is my name, pronounced "sa-ma-n-sa"

The teacher would grade our shodou pieces, and unfortunately he would always grade the ones that I feel I did the best in. Nothing about his grading was mean, but he would put orange circles on where he thought that you did good in and fix parts where you need to work on. So the ones I really liked ended up with big orange circles on top of the kanji. Oh well. Here's a group photo of everyone - 

Afterwards we completed our scavenger hunt and met up with some of the students from the university to sing more karaoke. And then we all played Uno. 'Twas a good time. Here's a picture from that - 

And that was all! まったあした！