Saturday, August 11, 2007

Harajuku

This weekend, I went to Meiji-jingu temple near Harajuku in Tokyo with my language partner, Kaori. A typhoon came this weekend, so of course we were battling through the way. It was raining so hard that the umbrellas weren't much helped. We still ended up soaked by the end of the day. However, it was an adventure and we had a great time!
Kaori taught me a lot about the little charms they sell at the temples all the time. I had seen them before, but never really understood the idea behind them. They are basically little good luck charms for things such as doing well on a test, having good health, and one for new relationships. There is even one for safety to protect you while you are driving! I bought one for good fortune and love life of course. :)

The architecture was beautiful and the roof bracketing technique they use, extremely complex. Meiji-jingu was made almost entirely of wood and even though it is hundreds of years old, it looked brand new! There was also a huge drum inside the the temple that was impressively large!

Those good luck charms we bought must have started working immediately, because we were lucky enough to watch a wedding ceremony that was taking place at the temple. The bride wears white clothing and a large hat. I asked Kaori if it is more expensive to have a wedding in a church or at a temple and was surprised to learn that having a wedding at a temple, is not too expensive. But she did say that they spend tremendous amounts of money on the wedding reception afterwards.



Later this day, we walked around Harajuku and had lunch and a cute restaurant. We talked about lots of things; friends, family, school, guys. This was my second meeting with Kaori. I felt much more relaxed, fluent, and natural with my Japanese, because I had been here for a month. The first day when I met Kaori at the beginning of the summer, I struggled with expressing my ideas and what I wanted to say in Japanese. Also, my listening was horrible so she had to explain things multiple times to me. But this day, it was no different than having girl talk with one of my girlfriends back in America! :)

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