Japan: Language and Cultural Traditions

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Tomakomai, a ferry, and Kyoto!
Apologies for the spotty blog posts. Wifi has been a rare commodity the past week and a half and so much has happened that we wanted to be able to devote a good post to everything. To start off, our home stays were amazing! We were so fortunate to spend time with such a wonderful community. We went to elementary schools, saw the Mir space station, made glass buttons (called shippoyaki), made tempura and mochi (rice paste), threw a thank you party, played games, saw a famous Kendama (Japanese Ball in cup toy) show, wore kimono and hapi, learned how to play the Koto and Shamisen, and went to a town festival! We had a lovely experience and many tears were shed when we left.
After leaving Tomakomai, we spent the day in Sapporo before leaving to board our ferry to Kyoto. Our lovely college interns Shun and Jin came to see us off, which definitely made our departure harder, but it’s nice to know we have such great friends around the world.
22 hours and some rocky seas later, we arrived in Kyoto, the city where, according to our guide book, “even the Japanese come to learn about Japanese culture.” The ancient city lived up to all our expectations. We saw 1000 year old temples, holy shrines, giant Buddhas, fed deer and monkeys, saw lovely festivals and walked through thousands of Shinto gates! While we are tired, we had a great time and only wished we could’ve seen more! Now it’s back to Tokyo on the bullet train and then time to get ready to return home! One more post tomorrow, then you will be able to hear about our adventures in person! None of us can believe how fast the time has gone.