I apologize for going so long between entries. I am now safely back in Himachal Pradesh and working again, though my re-entry has been a bit chaotic. Before, I go into that, however, I'll give you a short summary of the remainder of my travels.
It has been a few weeks since I wrote this, but I didn't get a chance to post it until now. Since that time, my family has come to visit and gone again, and I have resumed my classes once more.
After Biwako, I had some adventures around Kyoto itself. At my host mother's recommendation, I checked out Ryouanji, a temple in western Kyoto famous for its zen rock garden. (Though my host father would say, “It's only rocks.”) Aside from the peaceful rocks, it is situated around a lovely little pond, which, at that time, was surrounded by flowering sakura trees. That day, I also investigated the Nishijin Textile Center. I happened to walk in just before a kimono fashion show was beginning, so I managed to get front row standing room. The rest of the center largely consisted of vendors, a few weaving demonstrations, a small museum on kimono production, and a place where you could get yourself dressed up in kimono for a hefty fee. Following those two stops, I finally accomplished my goal of walking the Tetsugaku-no-Michi, the Philosopher's Path, during hanami. The path runs along a small stream in eastern Kyoto, starting from Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavillion. Overhanging the stream are hundreds of beautiful sakura trees. So, getting myself some sakura flavored ice cream, I strolled under fully-bloomed cherry trees for a good half hour.
I finished up my time in Kansai with Easter. The small church I attended, Agape Christian Fellowship, had a very nice Easter service, and invited me to sing two solo pieces as special music for the day. Even though I had only been with them for three weeks, before the service was over, they laid on hands and prayed for me. Being able to be with my old church for those three weeks was one of the highlights of my trip.
From there, I took a night bus up to Tokyo. I was stunned at just how much easier it is to sleep on a Japanese bus than an Indian one. No crazy, curving roads, no compulsive and constant honking. Well, go figure. In Tokyo, I stayed with the Shansi Fellows who work at Obirin University, out in Machida. I arrived very early in the morning, and only knowing how to get as far as the university campus, I crossed my fingers and hoped I wouldn't get lost. Fortunately, I ran into Ben, the senior fellow there, at the bus stand in Machida. We had never met before, but figured out pretty quickly that, as the only two foreigners at the station, we were both associated with Shansi.
During my week in Tokyo, I mostly took it easy. I went shopping in Akihabara, Asakusa, and Harajuku. I saw the Ghibli Museum, all about those creative people who brought us movies like “Spirited Away” and “Howl's Moving Castle.” It was very charming and I completely recommend it to anyone who loves Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. I went to some botanical gardens near Machida (famed from the Sailor Moon R movie). Unfortunately, the roses were not in season, though the sakura were still beautiful. I also went out to the man-made island, Odaiba, in southern Tokyo. The monorail out to it was a blast in and of it self. I had intended to go to the Museum of Future Technology, but it was closed the day I went. Instead, I made my way to a famous mall called Venus Fort. The second and third floors are made to look like some ritzy street out of Italy, with a projected sky on the ceiling that changes over the course of the day. Also in my Tokyo wanderings were three graduate school visits. One even included an informational interview entirely in Japanese. Although I was a little panicked at first when the put me in a conference room with a cup of coffee and a pile of information, it really proved to me that my Japanese is still very strong by the end of it.
From Tokyo, I flew to Seoul for a week in South Korea. My friend Jenny, who I studied abroad with at Kansai Gaidai, is currently attending grad school in Seoul, so she helped me find a hostel and met me on my way in.
On my first full day in Seoul, I did quite a bit of getting lost, but I eventually found Tokiko and her cousin, both of whom really love Korean dramas. With them, I visited a number of famous sites from their favorite TV shows, including an old castle and a cake shop. The next day, I went and saw sakura again, which were just at their peak in Seoul at the time. The following day was spent window shopping with Jenny. We met her friend for Korean Barbeque for dinner and some impassioned karaoke afterward.
From there, I bussed farther south to the small city of Gyeong-ju. It is famous as the capital of the Silla Empire, the first empire to unify the entire Korean peninsula. The fascinating thing about Gyeong-ju is that you would turn a corner on a busy street and come across a series of huge royal burial mounds. Sights like that were everywhere. Near to the city there are countless other old structures and artifacts. Only there for three days, I saw only a handful of them.
Perhaps most impressive were the massive Bulguksa temple complex and Seokguram Grotto just up the mountain behind it. After visiting the temple, I took a shuttle bus up to the grotto. It was so high up the mountain that the entire path to it was shrouded in clouds, making for a mystical experience. Inside a small cave, there are stunning stone carvings of the Buddha and other guardians, in a style very much like what I saw in the Ajunta Caves in central India. Also interesting was the Sea Tomb of King Munmu, the first Silla unifier himself. He had his tomb built at sea, just off the shore, in the hopes that he would become a dragon after his death to protect the country from Japanese pirates. There wasn't much to see, more than a few rocks poking out of the surf, but the idea intrigued me. A short walk away were the remains of a temple that his son built, with the hope of housing the dragon when he wanted to come ashore. Closer to Gyeong-ju proper, I also went to see East Asia's oldest standing astrological observatory. It was a tall bottle-shaped tower, not at all what I would have imagined.
From there, I returned to Seoul for the night and had dinner with Jenny again, before flying back to Delhi via Kuala Lampur. I had originally planned to fly through Bangkok and spend the night in that airport, but with the escalating political tensions in Thailand, I decided to change my ticket at the last minute. This added to a bit of departure chaos, but worked out fine in the end.
Re-entering India was a shock. Coming from East Asia, Japan and Korea in particular, where everything is orderly, quiet, and clean, Delhi was overwhelming. Thankfully, Anya was in town to meet her friend Margaret as she flew in as well. Otherwise, I don't know if I would have been able to handle the chaos, noise, and smells of Delhi with as much calm as I did. We saw a not-particularly-enjoyable Hindi film, but it was in an air-conditioned theater, and had dinner before I hopped on yet another night bus back up to Himachal.
I appreciate the relative peace of where I am here. People are far friendlier up here in the village, and there is just so much less going on. You can hardly call the village quiet though, with the cows, roosters, dogs, and other animals, not to mention the occasional car horns going up and down the road and the sunrise and sunset temple music that blares across the village. That is a kind of noise I can handle though.
I am teaching again. So far, I have two classes of beginning English, one after the other in the afternoons. Although I have only had two class sessions so far, I am already loving my students. This round, both classes are almost entirely girls, and the girls in my classes are largely those that are very involved in the Jagori Youth Groups. They have a confidence about them that I haven't seen in other village girls. It's that sort of thing that tells me Jagori really is doing good work.
TARA Center also has a new puppy named Sasha. She's cute and energetic, but really doesn't know her manners. I'm making it a small project of mine to try and teach her how to behave better around people.
Getting registered at the Foreigner Registration Office is also a story that should be told. It's a good example of how things tend to work here.
On my visa, it says that I need to register with the local FRO within 14 days of arriving in India if I intend to stay longer than 180 days. Trying to find a time that worked well for Anya to come along with me wound up taking me to day twelve of fourteen. The afternoon I went, there was a scheduled power outage for that entire area of Dharmshala. While there were plenty of people there waiting to register, the FRO officer refused to sign anything until the power came back. I waited until the office closed, but the power never came back.
The next day I got up early and headed straight for the office with Anya, hoping to get the process over with before my afternoon classes. We arrived just as it opened, filled out four copies of the registration form and took them up to the desk, only to be told that I wasn't supposed to re-register all over again. I just needed to bring him my registration papers from last time and he would sign them again. Of course, those registration papers were back in my house in Rakkar. We took the bus back, and I retrieved my papers. Alone this time, I turned around right away and caught the bus back into Dharmshala again. This time, when I arrived at the FRO office, there were about fifty Tibetans waiting to register before me. I began to wonder if I would make it back in time for my classes. Someone finally told me that there was a shorter line just for women, and so I waited there instead. When I reached the counter at last, the FRO officer signed my paper and gave me three more months of permitted residency, instead of the six I was hoping for. He told me to come back in August, and he'd give me six more then.
Had something like this happened to me even nine months ago, I would have been upset, angry, and ready to give up. This short time that I have been in India so far certainly has taught me a lot of patience.
