Above: Kiyomizu-dera temple lit up for Hanatouro.

Sometimes, Japan is just magical.

Last month, I went to the Higashiyama district of Kyoto for its Hanatouro light-up. The Higashiyama Hanatouro is an annual light-up of several famous temples and winding streets in Higashiyama, a district in eastern Kyoto. It starts at dusk and ends at 9:30PM each night for one week in March.

I went to the Hanatouro on a Friday night, after work. It was a clear, cold night, with a new moon, and it wasn't as crowded as I had heard it can get.

Hanatouro means, literally, “flower and light road,” and it consists of lantern displays and elaborate, lit-up flower arrangements along the streets of Higashiyama, as well as the light-up of temples in the area.

There are about 2400 lanterns displayed (yes, here they either go big or go home), in seven different styles, ranging from wood to stone, all made from local Kyoto materials.

That night, I walked from Higashiyama train station through Jingu-michi and other winding streets towards Kiyomizu-dera, which is perched on a hillside and is the most famous of the temples in Higashiyama.

The walk to Kiyomizu-dera was fun and lively, with couples and families strolling together, and warmly lit shops still open and selling delicious-things-on-sticks. With the warm lighting, crisp night, and family atmosphere, it felt a bit like walking around Disneyland at night.

I loved this cheery group of cooks, who kept yelling, “Hot wine! Hot wine!” and ladling it out to customers.

By the time I reached Kiyomizu-dera, it was almost 9 o’clock, with not too many crowds. I had heard that the light-up of Kiyomizu-dera is not to be missed, and it’s true! The lit-up trees and pagodas were simply stunning.

Being there at night felt entirely different from my past daytime visit. Although there were a decent number of people there, there were also many hidden spots and shadowy places where I walked alone, and I was overwhelmed by the sense of history of the temple.

In the dark, alone, the usual busy-ness of one of the most popular tourist spots in Kyoto melts away, and it’s just you in a place with a 1200-year history.

Towards the end of my walk around Kiyomizu-dera, I came upon a tree that was lit-up with spotlights and had these gorgeous white flowers in bloom. They were huge flowers—practically the size of a pair of cupped hands—and looked exactly like the flowers from a book I used to read when I was a child.*

I have since found out from my reliable coworkers and Wikipedia that those flowers are called kobushi, and they are a species of magnolia that is native to Japan.

When I saw them, they reminded me so much of that story from my childhood, that my brain went, “A-Ha!” and I realized that seeing those beautiful flowers--which I had last seen in a picture book when I was about eight-years-old--blooming before my eyes is yet another reason I came here.

(*Note: The book was about a young squirrel whose mother always warns him not to eat the flowers of a certain tree, but the flowers captivate the little squirrel so much that he, of course, ends up eating some and gets very sick. Not that I'm accusing Kiyomizu-dera of growing poisonous flowers.)

                           

Okay, I’ll admit it. The Japanese winter is getting to me. Even though the traditionally coldest time of year, Daikan, has officially ended, it is still friggin’ cold. Cold, grey, and quiet.

I’d been warned about this—winter is the hardest time in Japan for us English teachers. It’s bitterly cold, the euphoria of being in a new country—however charming it may be—has worn away, and you’re left with navigating between your apartment and school, and between classrooms and the staff room, in a country that doesn’t have central heating.

It really bites.

The funny thing is, though, that I don’t really miss America, in that I don’t find myself wishing I were there. I just wish I was more comfortable here, in Japan.

I miss people in America. I miss my dogs, I miss my car, and of course I miss being fluent and literate in the local language (also, I could really use an In ’n’ Out Burger one of these days), but America also feels very far away. It’s hard to imagine living there right now—and I don’t mean this in a superior, anti-America way, but in a mental way; I’ve been away for long enough in such a different and, at times, bewildering place that it really is hard for me to picture how my life was like in the United States.

I’ve lived abroad before—a year in Oxford, as a university student. That was different, though. It wasn’t as big of a break from how I lived my life (also, it helps that people speak English in England). It felt like less of a shift, since I knew I’d be returning to California after one tidy year. I wasn’t quite an adult yet, with all the messiness and freedom that comes with adulthood.

This time, the shift is bigger. I left a corporate career in Silicon Valley for travel, exploring, passion—the cynic in me cringes when I use the word “passion,” but that is, yes, the right word. All of this has been a huge change for historically overachieving, straight-and-narrow me (fine, I’m still overachieving, but not, I hope, so straight-and-narrow).

Often, I get frustrated with myself for not feeling 100% adjusted yet. And then I remind myself that I've only been here six months so far, which isn't really that long—although, good god, it feels much longer—and there are so many subtle and not-so-subtle strains to living here as an expat. It all adds up.

Sometimes, I feel like I’m in a self-imposed socio-psychological experiment—how long can I last in a place where I am scrambling to learn the language, where all the people I interact with are new to me, and where I’m not literate enough to read my own mail? Where the general mindset and manners of people I encounter often seem really different from what I’m used to, and silence often seems to be the preferred mode of communication? (Cue the not-so-subtle sense of strain.)

It will get better. Spring will come, and I’ll meet more people, explore more of Japan and the rest of Asia. It still feels right for me to be here, even when I feel cranky or gloomy or dazed about how, exactly, I ended up living in Japan.

And I will head back to America when the time is right, but for now, it feels far, far away.

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In the meantime, I want to do something outrageously fun. Think salsa, hip hop, gangsta rap. Any suggestions?

Below: I have a huge backlog of pictures that I haven’t posted yet. Here are some from Kyoto in December, during a fun day of Christmas shopping with a friend in the charming, winding streets near Kiyomizu-dera temple. The day included a spontaneous stop at a temple, and a delicious lunch at a hole-in-the-wall vegetarian place off of Shijo-dori in downtown Kyoto. It was so hole-in-the-wall that it was located at the very back of an alley, and the place doubles as the restaurant owner’s house, complete with cat figurines and actual sleeping cats.

Note: The geishas we saw were probably fakes.

             

Leaf-peeping season in Japan is, sadly, over. I thought this would be a good time to post some more pictures I took during my leaf-peeping outings that, for one reason or another, were not up to my (admittedly perfectionistic) standards, and so didn’t go into my original posts.

In addition to visiting Takao, Ishiyama-dera, and Arashiyama, I also visited the Hiyoshi Taisha shrine for leaf-peeping.

Hiyoshi Taisha is at the base of Mt. Hiei, north of Kyoto. Unfortunately, the day that I visited, it was raining and bitterly cold, and my photos ended up being all invariably blurry--which makes for interesting moody-type pictures, but not much clarity. Some of them still struck me, though, so here they are.

In spite of the rain and cold that day, the red maple leaf colors were still stunning. Some of the falling red leaves even ended up sticking to the top of my umbrella--I could see their leafy silhouettes from the underside of the umbrella--which I like to think is a lucky sign.

Below: Pictures from Hiyoshi Taisha, Ishiyama-dera, and the bamboo forest in Arashiyama.

             

I recently visited a monkey park for the first time, in the Arashiyama district of western Kyoto. Japan is, apparently, just brimming full of wild monkeys—I have heard many stories about the run-ins that different English teachers have had with monkeys in the mountains or forests, in the countryside, and even (or especially) in an outhouse.

The monkeys at Iwatayama Monkey Park are all wild and freely roam the park, which is on Mount Arashiyama, near the Togetsukyo Bridge (which is famous, incidentally, for its view of the nearby mountains in leaf-peeping season).

The walk up Mount Arashiyama is somewhat steep, with tall trees lining both sides of the trail. Along the way, before you have actually seen any monkeys, are ominous-looking signs, warning you not to show the monkeys any food, give them any food, or look them in the eye (direct eye contact can be seen by the monkeys as a sign of aggression—they’re very sensitive, just like you and I).

Eventually, you get to a bend in the road and take a smaller path up towards an overlook point, which is where the majority of the monkeys are. On the overlook point, which also offers a generous view of Kyoto, the monkeys freely frolic (pardon the alliteration), and caretakers keep the more aggressive monkeys in line with the help of a broom (I don't think PETA would like this very much). You can also go into a small cabin to feed the monkeys (the humans go inside and feed the monkeys outside, through wire-fence windows).

The monkeys are what I expected monkeys to be like: red-faced, red-bottomed, flea-picking, aggressive. Your typical monkey. The ones at Iwatayama are Japanese macaque monkeys. None of them bothered me, but I did see one baring its teeth at an innocent-looking gentleman who just happened to walk by it.

The most interesting monkey I saw was a younger one, a baby, who kept scraping a small rock against a bigger rock. I’m not sure what it was trying to do—make music? Discover fire? Make a weapon?

My most favorite pictures from my visit were of the expressions on the faces of monkeys who were being groomed by their partners. They looked as blissful as I must look when I step into the soaking tub at an onsen.

Shortly after visiting the monkey park, I lunched at one of the best udon places I’ve visited yet in Japan, called Ozuru.

Ozuru is an udon restaurant located on the main street of Arashiyama, close to Tenryu-ji temple and the Bamboo Forest. This was my second visit to Ozuru. Their specialty is tempura udon, which can be ordered a la carte or in a set meal. You can also order the cold tempura udon (i.e. the noodles do not come in a broth) or hot tempura udon (udon with hot broth). I ordered the hot tempura udon set.

Their tempura, especially the shrimp tempura, is the best I have had. Anywhere. The shrimp tempura is huge—really, I don't know where they're getting their shrimp. The tempura batter is so crisp that, when you bite into it, you and the person next to you can both hear the sound of the crunch. This is not an exaggeration.

The shrimp on the inside is tender and fresh, and the batter is so light it makes me want to cry. And the actual udon, oh the udon, has that rare springy quality when you bite into it that is the hallmark of the best kind of noodle. In Cantonese, we call that dahn ngah—which translates into “bounces off your teeth." This means the noodle is so elastic that it slides and bounces off your teeth, as opposed to being a floury mess when you bite into it.

And did I mention that the flavored rice—flavored with shitake mushrooms, pork, and assorted grains--that came with my tempura set was also aromatic and delicious? Perfect for a cold autumn day? I soon forgot about the monkeys.

             

Last weekend, I went to the village of Takao, in the mountains of northwest Kyoto. It’s the start of leaf-peeping season in the Kansai region, so I went with a friend to Takao to visit three temples that are famous for their autumn leaves.

Autumn leaf-peeping, especially of the gorgeous Japanese maple trees—known as momiji in Japanese--is a major past-time in Japan. Temples and parks become crowded at this time of year with hordes of spectators eager to see the vibrant reds and oranges of the momiji. There are even websites with autumn leaf status reports that you can view. My aunt, who is a frequent traveler to Japan, told me that even the local newspapers will feature regular autumn leaf updates. But being currently illiterate, I haven’t checked a newspaper yet to confirm this!

The temples we visited were: Kozan-ji, Jingo-ji, and Saimyo-ji. Kozan-ji is a series of temple buildings spread at multiple levels along a mountainside, with crumbling stone stairways and long stone paths connecting you between the buildings. The trees are so tall and dense there, that it felt more like I was in a forest than that I was visiting a temple in a forest.

The leaves have only just started changing at Kozan-ji, so there was mostly greenery, but what a glorious green they were.

Kozan-ji also happens to feature a set of scrolls that are known as the world’s first manga. (They show happy rabbits, frogs, and monkeys carousing with each other, if you must know. And not carousing in that way.)

The scrolls are housed in a very traditional-looking wooden building (that's my technical term for it) with lovely greenery surrounding it.

Jingo-ji is supposed to be the most famous of the three temples in Takao, but I have to say it was my least favorite in terms of scenery. Its buildings are spread out through a wide, open (i.e. not very tree-filled) area.

The trees around there—at least in the parts that we saw—weren’t dense enough or orange enough for good picture-taking. The climb to Jingo-ji, though, was an excellent way to work off lunch. There are a good few sets of long, steep stone steps that take you up a mountain before you reach the temple.

You do pass by a few udon restaurants on the way, though, which pretty much makes up for everything.

My favorite temple of the three was Saimyo-ji. The scenery there was so beautiful, that I found myself saying over and over again, “This is so beautiful, this is so beautiful” and feeling completely unsatisfied with that word. The greens and oranges and reds there were simply dazzling. And it wasn’t even the height of the fall foliage season yet!

Saimyo-ji also felt the most intimate out of the three temples. All of its temple buildings are close together in a fairly small, park-like area, with a friendly dirt path leading you through the temple grounds.

One of the highlights of the day was our lunch at a traditional restaurant by the river in Takao. We found the restaurant at random on our way to Saimyo-ji—which is really one of my favorite ways to figure out where to eat when traveling, through stumbling. We ate in one of the restaurant’s rustic wooden buildings overlooking the river (the restaurant has a handful of these small buildings by the river; each building is the size of a small room and has one wall of sliding doors that is left open to let in the air). We sat on the tatami floor, by large, open windows, with a view of the maple trees and the rushing water below.

Lunch was a multi-course feast of sweet river trout in a glazed sauce, a small salted fish that kept staring grudgingly at me, small appetizers (preserved veggies, tofu, the usual), and some seasonal small plates, including unagi over rice in a hollowed-out section of bamboo. The food, the river, the tatami, the maple trees—all gave me one of those, “OMFG, I really am in Japan” moments, where I want to laugh and kind of want to weep—in a very joyous way—at the same time.

After lunch, we took pictures around the paths near the restaurant—which was yet another one of my favorite parts of the day.

Below: Pictures from near the restaurant and also more pictures from Saimyo-ji