ho’s posterous

Today was nice. Ugly D got kicked out and sent over to Shunko-in. Thats what making too much noise at night and getting caught watching a movie with a girl in your bed and waking up the head professor does. Especially when you're MARRIED. SHAME ON YOU NICK whatever your last name is. Once I bother to find out your last name, I'll stick it on here so your poor wife will figure out you were pretty much cheating on her while you were here in Kyoto. Ass.

By the way, no one liked you.

I'm usually not one to hat on people, but This guy had a vendetta against 3/4 of the people there. We thought he was cool at first, but as he got more comfortable, he got worse. How does a person get worse like that? What a shame, such a smart guy, such an asshole.

Anyways, today we went back out to Shijo-Omiya to interview people because we felt that we needed a better understanding of the area. One of our biggest fears was that we would be another set of those western designers who get pulled in to put a new 'twist' to the city. Those projects usually come out to be quite horrible, distasteful, and a few of them even offend any culture left in the area. We wanted to respect the people as much as possible and learn what THEY wanted out of our design to the area. And we had the perfect team to do it with.

Amy and I, Quin and Daisuke went out to interview locals around the block, to about a 2 block radius from the 'hub.' Emma and Aaron circled the site to document anything we had missed in our first time few adventures around the city. Peter, had issues getting money out of the ATM. More on that later, or maybe I'll have Peter put a guest entry on here. It was quite the story.

Amy and my interviewing started with the director of busses at the core of Shijo-Omiya. Let me explain, at Shijo-Omiya there is a bus/taxi lot that our professor Ron Lovinger says is the core of Kyoto's issues that lacks life. This open lot features two entries into the subway, a place for taxies to wait, and the same for buses. Buses have to drive in and back in, so they need a guy to direct buses to tell them where to turn before running over the small mass of parked bikes and pedestrians moving quickly through the area. This bus director had been here for say 20 years, and lived in the area all his life. He told us the place had died once the subway had moved the express stop two blocks down and totally skipped them. The area used to be lively and shops sprang up everywhere, now it's nothing but a barren land where people just move by. The lot that we speak of used to be a park with grass and a small grove of trees. The two trees remaining in the area are from the old park, they stand alone now sad and lonely, only to be greeted once in a while by a flock of pigeon and the few pedestrians resting underneath their shade waiting for the light to turn green.

At first the guy wouldn't talk, then once we got him talking and Amy turned her charm on for old Japanese men (hehe, joking Amy!) the guy wouldn't stop talking. I guess his job gets lonely sitting there for a bus to come every half hour, no real reason to have anyone to talk to.

Our second interviewees were the Koban, the mini police stations that sat at every major intersection of every city in Japan. These stations are usually manned by two officers in heavy gear. Bullet proof vests, handgun, mace, and beating stick, all while sitting in their office. Hehe. They talked about pretty much the same thing in fewer words, they were cut short because they had to respond to a small fight at Sanjo Market. It was pretty sweet to see them run off to respond.

That night we went to RakuRaku again, this time with a thumbdrive with about 3 gigs of music as a present and thankyou for being awesome to Oregon. Lot of mainstream and underground rap hiphop and r&b. A-N musics, that was all we could fit onto the drive. Another night of amazing food for our ¥1500 each. I love that place, and I'll never forget it.

After dinner, Quin and I went for a walk around the temple grounds and the neighborhood around talking about the project and what we saw around us that could influence our concepts. Little things like the sounds coming out from the houses when we stood at a small intersection, one house had laughing and a Japanese drama, another had a groun of friends singing K, another had arguing, and the last was a child practicing piano. The vibrations and noise just coming from all sides, just intersecting on one point and making such a symphony of 'noise.' A controled chaos to be appreciated if one can orchestrate it. Oh, we all live on a single heart beat, we just have different ways of expressing it.

                     

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Hey guys,
I apologize for not uploading my blogs online like I promised. After
Nara I got lazy, but I have been keeping a blog on my computer. So
fear not. Those who are still interested in reading about my
adventures, over the next two weeks I will be uploading the blog with
photos. Currently I am in the process of editing, and turning some of
the note form entries into story entries. Over the next two weeks, my
process will hopefully be as so:

 1. Finish editing all entries.
2. Go through all my photos to see which one are presentable.
3. Choose which ones to upload. Unless people want to see a mass
amount of photos, but I don't know where online would allow me for
31gigs of photos/videos.
4. Upload and publish blogs in order.

 Steps 2-4 might happen together, like on a entry by entry basis.

  
Anyways. Here are two absolutly normal pictures of a few of us in
Tokyo... Sticker photos, keep in mind this was most of our first
times.
"Normal"

 Keep in mind we're not this weird when we're in motion. Well, from my
point of view.

 Thats all for now.Hope you come back. Thank you very much for bearing with me.

 -Adrian

   

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<Not Yet> Famous


Going to Nara, no internet. No updates for a few days. See you guys when i get back this weekend.

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-Yu Hin Adrian Ho
University of Oregon '11 - B.Arch

                                                                         

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Today was another adventure on its own. I went for a run by myself, went out on about a five mile loop on accident, walked about 1 miles worth, running the rest. I went up to Kinkakuji Temple, which was the Golden Pavilion. I didn't enter it because by the time i made it up there, i wanted ot get back home ASAP. Taking one too many wrong turns because I couldn't align myself, I slowly moseyed my way back and luckily running into a few intersections that I recognized.
No Zen breakfast today, so I ate cereal with regular milk, which is still cheaper than the standard milk here which is 4.7%. Going to have to try that someday.
Today's trip was to visit Kyoto's other edge, the Kamo River. It was a much calmer river with a million and one man made water falls. We painted for about two hours before riding down to where the river intecepted Marutamachi-dori. Riding that took us back to Myoshinji and thus Daishin-in. Ate lunch there making some food with Joanna. AFter that, I just passed out in my room, that was around 3pm. I woke up at 7, which was great because that was when a small group was going out to Rakuraku. The oh so infamous bar that I had heard so much about.

The group consisted of Ron and his brother Jeff and Pam his sister in Law, Datske the prof, and then a few students including myself, Quin, Peter, Amy, and Emma. Then later on Daka the monk and his wife Hilary joined us for a few drinks We dropped ¥1500 as a set amount and Akira, the chef, cooked us an amazing 3 course meal of such a variety of food that we just couldn't even describe. The place itself was a place of such homey and felt so eugene. We got to stay after hours because we were having such a great time chatting it up with Akira. The man is an amazing cook, and just as amazing in dropping a dope beat, rapping, and dancing. One of his employees who's name happens to escape me, had a friend who with them have done an independent movie and still in progress. Just really amazing cinimatography. No idea how they did it. So a beer later, a really full cup of sake, and the playing of the piano by Emma and Amy, we set home through a few loops through the town and ending back at the temple with plenty of time before curfew.

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Today started like any other day so far. running in the morning. We went up to Ryoanji Garden, which was underconstruction and closed, but the pond was open from 5am to 8am for the elders around the area to exercise. My legs have never been so tired. The run went out and we just toured the city as usual. My legs just got sore about 15 minutes before reaching point, so I slowed down and took my time getting back letting the other guys shower first before I did.
Making it back, had another sit down breakfast, wonderful meal. Two things changed, different pickled vegetables, and a different fruit. We discussed the new project and then we were off for our new site visit.
But first we had to get bikes. I got a shiny silver bike, number Jam6. Has a basket and all too. Haha. Their locking system is really great, just a little ring that slides into the spokes, and you take the keys out. No losing the keys while riding. With our bikes, we rode through town down east towards DT. Our first stop was parking the bike at the local abandoned school on Oike Dori. A short walk took us to a local noodle house that sold yakisobe. Three generation that the shop has been in the family. We all squeezed in and had a short interview with the owner to learn more about the surrounding residential area of the site. Learning that the economy has been effecting them big time, lot of the younger folks have moved out into the city for bigger money. That was why the school we parked at was abandoned, the government had decided to shut it down due to the high decrease in students from 544 to 88 in one year. The owner's son had gone to Tokyo U to study culinary, but was coming back after graduation to carry on the tradition of the family shop. Unfortunetly with this economy, it's unknown how many more generations this part of the city could survive. After a few more good questions and some better words, we set off once again.
Our next stop was Sanjo Market, a covered street/arcade with a good fifty plus street shops, mostly selling food food and more food. Rolling through there, we reached the center of our site, the intersection of Koin-dori, Omiya-dori, and Shijo-dori. This intersection was a major hub of Kyoto, where two train lines run and pass each other, two of the three streets listed above is ridiciously major to the area. We have the freedom to tear apart everything and rebuild. There really wasn't a given program, and we don't have to think about the fesability of our project or the ability of making it happen. We can tear down everything in a 1/2 mile radius if we wanted. Not that we will. But the place is so sad and depressing, not positive at all.
We broke before looking at the site again, got Ramen with Satoko, one of our professors. Delicious delicious, and really really fast. Makes fast food look slow. I have yet to try out fast food here in Japan.
We regrouped and disbaned after a half an hour later of sitting and waiting for our professors to decide what was going on. We booked it back to the temple and packed up for the Katsura River. We went with Datske, the 'local' professor and it was wonderful. A half hour bike ride, and up a crazy hill, we were at the swimming hole. About 50' wide, and really gentle current. Swimming back and forth with frisbees being thrown around. It was a great way to end the day.

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I have decided that Kyoto is my heaven.

This morning I woke up at 05:15 to go running, three of the students came with me. Mike, Nick, and Caitlin. We ran for about 45 minutes at a moderate pace up partially the mountain towards the Ryoanji entrance, then back down around towards the main road, name which keeps escaping me. From there we walked back to the temple for 15 minutes. Great run, the temperature was really cool, a little humid which made breathing so much easier. We got back just in time for a quick shower then off to our first Zen Breakfast. Consisted of pickled daikan, bamboo root shoot stuff, a banana, miso, steamed eggs, and of course, rice. It was wonderful, and after running, I had worked up such an appetite. And Daiske kept adding rice to my bowl, so I couldn't turn it down. ;D Ended up eating about three and half bowls of rice, more than I usually eat for dinner. Ridicious.

After that, we had a discussion of manners and rules at the temple, talked about our day plans. We had the great oppurtunity to see one of the core temples in the complex, Samon, which is only open to the public once a year. There were young monks in training there that morning, but we got to go upstairs and watch to chant and it was beautiful. Such a small little temple. It made note to me one of the greatest things about Japanese Traditional Architecture is that you can pop their walls open, and BAM! cross ventilation at the most awesomness.

Afterwards, we packed up at the temple and moseyed on to a short train ride Tenyruji Garden, west of us I believe. Here, I had my first Japanese Cold Sobe, the real deal. Delicious, I got a tempura one. Best, ever. Little overpriced, but for the tourist trap that we were in, pretty decent. Checked out Katsura river which runs right on through there. Got a 'red bean green tea' gelato, oh my gawdness awesome delicious. Thought of Mom when I ate it, combination of two of her favorite deserts into one gelato. Saw a giant river snake slide on out of hte river while eating, the sucker was at least 6 feet long. Then after all that excitement, we went into Tenyruji Garden itself. The place is beautiful, none that my words can describe. I tried watercoloring it, for about 2 hours, got nothing really out of it. I ended up taking my glasses off and tried using the blurriness to paint. Still, definetly something i need to work on. Painting. xD horrible. I'll show you guys in pictures instead. Jojo and I ended up walking around the garden in the end instead, and the place is filled with beauty. My favorite park wasn't until we left, through the bamboo forest.

It started to rain hard, so we stumbled our way back to the temple. And instead of going back there to look for something to eat around there, we walked past it and got food at a Okonomiyaki place. This place is my heaven. The food was amazing. We got an order of jumbo noodles w/ squid, pancake type thing which is the oknonomiyaki i think with squid, and another with steak. Oh my god, and with a little bit of Kirin Lager Beer, it was the pefect meal, and to feed four, only ¥3350, amazing huh?

Got back to the temple full and having some issues walking from sitting cross legged, we sat down for some japanese lessons. Struggled a bit but managed to survive. :P But here I am. Writing this post and hopefully posting some photos. If not I'll get them all up somewhere and come back throug and link each one to their respective post. I've tried sorting out to one picture per even per day, but there's so much going on. like WHOA Yo. WHOA!

In the mean while these pictures are uploading, I'm just going to say, I love these kids. They are a great crowd to hang with. No lie. Really glad the two from Colorado came and joined up with us, neato poeple. got to watch out tho, they're very tricky. ;D

Well, another day tomorrow. More pictures hopefully.

-Ho

                                                     

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