Changing impressions of Japan

These past four months here in Japan have helped me come to have a better understanding of my Japanese heritage.  When I first got here and met Japanese students, I would tell them my last name.  They would give me a weird look and then I would follow up and say I'm a quarter Japanese in Japanese.  They would then ask me all these different questions about where my Japanese family came from and all that.  And in these four months, I was fortunatley able to travel down to where my family actually came from, which is Hiroshima. 

Going to Hiroshima, was more of a pilgramge to me, and I felt very humbled when I saw the Genbaku Dome.  It puts my whole time and experiences in Japan into perspective.  Seeing Hiroshima for me sums up my impressions of Japan.  Japan continues to take steps into the future, but hangs onto it's past by leaving reminders like the Genbaku Dome or it's castles.

Fortunatley for me, I get to spend some more time in Japan next semester.  And hopefully I will further my knoweldge of Japanese traditions.

Nara, the attack of the deers

This past weekend, I finally made it to Nara with some friends.  And the biggest draw to Nara are all the friendly deer and the giant daibutsu.  The deer at Nara are some of the more friendliest animals, but have a more evil side.  In other parts of Japan, monkeys are the culprits and do other menacing things.  If someone has food, more than likely the deer would surround you and try to eat the food.  That is what happened to two of my friends that I went with.

This is what happened to my friend Joe.  He had a sweet potato and the deer just swarmed him because they could smell the food.  Little by little, Joe parceled out the potato to the deer who nudged him certain areas to try and get an advantage over the other deer.  He was also stalked for a little bit by one deer.

My friend Mizue on the other hand, fortunatley, just had one deer follow her because of her potato.

We all had a good laugh after these events passed.