Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Main characters:
Me: Still the same exchange student in Japan.
Bart: The wonderful man who paid for the shabu-shabu.
Nika: The girl with the camera.
The maiko: A maiko is an apprentice geisha.

I want to begin this wonderful new year by emphasizing the fact that the last entry was not written by my fingers, nor was my computer anywhere near the spot where it came to be. One of the actual fried dorks of the DorkSquad has already confessed in the comments, but the other one has yet to come forward. After a blog like that, I am not so surprised...

Ok, but on to the news, because a lot has happened since I last logged on. Whenever that was. First of all, as you can see from my comment to the DorkSquad's blog, I spent Christmas in Kyoto, the city of Japanese culture and tourists. The trip started with a little boat trip from Beppu International Port with the Sunflower, over the Sea That I Can't Remember The Name Of, and aaall the way to Osaka. It only took twelve hours, so there's not much to tell from that trip. Except we got some fried chicken and french fries from a vending machine there.
In Osaka, also a great city, we went to the Russian consulate so that Nika could sign some papers and stuff.
How is it, what is the difference between a consul and his consulate, and an ambassador and his embassy? Embassies are on their own national ground, no matter where in the world they are, does the same apply to consulates? Because I didn't have my passport...
Anyway, the people at the consulate were very nice and courteous and after waiting only a short time *cough* they politely told us that the papers Nika had weren't good enough and good bye.
That's when we left for Kyoto by train, which turned out to take just as long, and cost exactly as much as going from APU to down town Beppu by bus. Gosh. Papers still unsigned.
In Kyoto we met people! Ingvar-kun, Bragi-san, and Gústaf-san from our Japanese course in Iceland, and Heather, and the Germans, and the French, and, and some Japanese people too. Together we had a great Christmas meal. Hangikjöt og niðursoðnar grænar baunir, brúnaðar kartöflur og laufabrauð. Some rice pudding with almonds. Hmm, what was there more? There was a whole lot more, because everyone one brought something, and we were almost twenty people I think. And I just remember the Icelandic food :P And the rice pudding, that was not ours.
We had a most wonderful time there, the atmosphere was festive and everyone was happy. We had candles, and a Christmas tree with presents underneath... aah :D It made me so happy! I had so much fun, thank you guys for letting us partake in you're Chrismas festival!

The next few days we spent sightseeing in Kyoto. We found about one million Starbucks, and, going to Fushimi Inari Shrine, a billion fox statues and kazillion red torii gates. If I ever manage to get my pictures out of my new cell phone, you might see some. Or if I get pictures from Nika and/or Bart. O, what am I saying, I'll just link to Bart's blog when he puts them up. Right Bart? ;) And then we went to see the 1001 statues of Kannon the bodhisattva. His name is not Kannon in English, but who cares, you're not going to know him anyway. Ingvar came with us to see that one, then wandering about Kyoto in search for food. We met Bragi and his girlfriend at Fushimi Inari where we got lost between the torii gates and wandered about the mountain for hours! We saw the Golden Pavilion and it's golden phoenix, we saw the most famous Japanese Zen rock garden there is, where there are 15 rocks, but you can never see more than 14, no matter your viewpoint. We saw International House, one of the Kyoto Sangyo dorms.
Oh, we saw a geisha! On Christmas Day, we walked around Gion, the part of Kyoto where there just might possibly be a geisha on her way to a party. The neighbourhood is big, with one small part of it built in old style, with expensive restaurants and an interesting air about itself. We entered one of the restaurants and ordered some shabu-shabu, a very Japanese meal that consists of fresh vegetables and thin slices of meat, this time lettuce, mushrooms, spring onions, noodles, tofu, and beef. The vegetables were all in one big bowl, but each of us got a big dish of meat slices of our own. On the middle of the table was a pot, with boiling water. We said itadakimas, cheered for Christmas, and selected some vegies to be put into the boiling water, then picked up a slice of meat with our chopsticks and dipped them into the water, just long enough for it to be cooked, which was only a couple of seconds. Then we ate. And we ate, and we ate. Nika and I had some Japanese plum wine with the meal, which turned out to be a verry good choice. They served it in wine glasses with ice cubes, but it tastes like liqueur. Sweet, but so good.
When we had finished our meal, and had some mandarin sorbet afterwards, we left the restaurant fully sated and happy. That's when Nika shouted "geisha!!" and began to fumble with her camera. I didn't really think that we would ever ever see one, so I didn't realize what she was doing right away, but when I looked up, there was this maiko dressed in a colorful kimono, with a big, long cushion on her back and white make up, red red lips and her hair done up in the traditional fashion. My mouth dropped as she smiled at us, knowing exactly what effect she had on us, hurrying past us, and before we knew it, she was gone. Where to, I have no idea, it all felt like a dream, and we have only a couple of fuzzy pictures from the back to remind us that we really did see a maiko.

Next: I did a homestay with a Japanese family over the new year. If I haven't blogged about it in two-three days, send me an email!