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The Allure and Awe of Travel

Published on by Hannah AdamsLeave a comment

As an international person in Japan, I try to be incredibly conscious of my behaviors and actions so that I do not fit the stereotype of ‘gaijin’, or foreigner. My dorm is even in a heavily residential area of Kyoto, so I feel as though most of my time here so far has been less tourist and more resident. However, sometimes even the most devoted nationals want to encounter some popular tourist sites for a while. 

Since I haven’t been in class for about a month, my friends and I have been doing touristy trips alongside fun events for school, such as the club fair.

I have a few more days until classes start, so I thought I would share a recap of all of the adventures we have had so far since we will not have as much come school. Be warned, there’s a lot, so this post may be pretty long. I hope you still read, though!

Nanzenji, Heian, Nishiki

The first big trip/adventure my friends and I endeavored to was the Zen Buddhist Temple Nanzenji Shrine (南禅寺). We first arrived at around 3 p.m., luckily beating the big crowds. 

Immediately at arrival, there were already large temples surrounding us on both sides. As we walked through the shrine, temples and some of the prettiest sights I had ever encountered engulfed us from all directions. We eventually end up on a small bridge that overlooked the city and mountains. In the vast opening, a singular red Tori gate emerged through the concrete towers, existing as a small time capsule in very advanced infrastructure. 

We also paid for a ticket to see the Hojo Garden, which was probably the highlight of the trip. The admission ticket was ￥600, which is around $4, and we walked around the prepossessing Buddhist garden. Picture a small zen garden you may get at store, and that is essentially what it looked like. It was breathtaking. 

There were also incredibly interesting rooms and structures, but I was not allowed to take a picture of them, so you will have to use your imagination (so sorry!). 

And, funnily enough, we ended up stumbling on another famous temple. The Tori gate I mentioned earlier was actually the Heian-jingu (平安神宮), a famous Shinto shrine. We did not go inside, but we walked around the park and stopped at some of the booths at the small flea market that was happening in the greens. My friend Sophie even got some udon, a Japanese noodle dish, from a food stand. 

The end the day, we made our way to the Nishiki market, a collection of streets that have shops, restaurants, and very large crowds. We tried a bunch of new foods and treats, such as taiyaki (which is fish cake that is only shaped like a fish, filled with custard or another type of filling), sakura sake (which was actually pretty good!) and some other foods and treats like tempura, sushi, a yakitori (chicken skewers).

Fushimi Inari 

The next place we went to was the Fushimi Inari, which is arguably one of the more famous temples in Japan. Over 1300 years old, Fushimi Inari is known for its hundreds of Tori gates that don the mountainside. Not only are there hundreds of gates, but there are also 12,000 steps! Quite an amazing build, I think.

We made our way up the steps, stopping every few feet or so to get some pictures, take in the view, or just rest. I am definitely not the first person to say how breathtaking the views are from the mountainside, and I for sure won’t be the last. It was a bit cloudy on the day we went, but you could still see the city area of the region we had traveled to, along with the red line of gates traveling alongside the hills. 

As I am sure you could guess, there was a decently sized crowd at the shrines. As we first started walking, there was not a lot of room to walk due to the sheer amount of people going through. The further we got up to the top, though, the less crowded it became, making it easier to stop and take pictures. We did not make it all the way up, but we still made it a significant amount of the way. 

On our way down, we saw three different stray cats!! And, for everyone who knows me, they know that I am a huge fan of cats, so this was very exciting for me. We also saw some cherry blossoms blooming towards the bottom of the shrine, which was a beautiful end to the hike. 

Philosopher’s Path 

Philosopher’s Path, or sometimes called Philosopher’s Walk, is a well-known tourist spot for sakura viewing. My friends and I had tried to go a while back, but the flowers were not quite in bloom, so we went back again at peak sakura season for a 花見, or flower viewing. 

We got there around 2pm, and there were quite a bit of foreign tourists there, but we did not let that stop us from actively enjoying the flowers regardless. 

The path is a long trail alongside a river, surrounded by small cafes, restaurants, and souvenir shops for the tourists who come visit. The blossoming sakura engulfed my camera lens, for I just couldn’t get enough of the almost mythical beauty that embraced me. 

We walked up and down the path a few times and then decided to go get dinner. We took a long walk, almost 30 minutes, down to the other side of town, only to see beautiful sights of the Kyoto mountains through this back-alley walkway. As the Robert Frost poem says, paraphrased of course, “the road less travelled makes all the difference”. We discovered a new trail, new sights, and a new shrine.

 I would have never been able to see the city in that perspective and gain a newfound appreciation for the city I am in if it wasn’t for going in blind. And for that I am incredibly thankful. 

OSAKA

The day after the philosopher’s path, we headed out to Osaka for a few days. 

Our first day was chiller than the rest. As we walked around downtown Osaka while we waited for our hotel check in time to arrive, we stumbled upon a small shrine, called the Tusyuno Tenjinja, which was the sight of a tragic love story. It is known as the ‘Lover’s Sanctuary’, for it is said to provide good luck in love and hosts a variety of love fortunes people can use to pray with. 

The name of Lover’s Sanctuary fit the shrine almost perfectly, for it had hearts and flowers adorned all around it. It was hidden in between big buildings, causing us to have almost missed it if we did not see the bright colored decorations peeking out behind the concrete. It was small, but it was definitely a shrine I am glad I didn’t miss. 

Later, we walked around our hotel for a bit and discovered a Lion Head shrine, which was called the Namba Yasaka Jinja. It stood out in front of the other architecture that surrounded it, which I thought was an enthralling sight. 

Osaka Castle, Takoyaki, and a Ferris Wheel

The next day was one of our busier, more touristy days. We started the day going to Osaka Castle 大阪城 and the museum. It was, again, surrounded by beautiful flower trees and provided us with an idyllic scene of the Springtime. And our admission price was not too bad either. Since we bought an Osaka day pass, we had a discount on our ticket, which was greatly appreciated. 

The moat around the castle alone was of an unfathomable size, for I hadn’t seen a historical monument quite that big before. But the castle itself was even bigger! I am a huge history nerd, so I enjoyed walking through the museum on the floors inside of the castle and learning about the history of the building I was standing in.

When we got up to the top of the 8 floors, there was an observatory deck we could look through. The park of the castle that had been preserved for centuries sat in the middle of tall, modern buildings, a green pond in an ocean of gray. I kept imagining myself walking around as a servant of some kind back in Sengoku period Japan and how it would have felt to live in somewhere so large without any of the current technology we have. 

Afterwards, we made our way to Dotonbori, which is like the Times Sqaure of Osaka. It has food, shopping, bars, and everything you could think of for a large red-light district. We went looking around for some street food and snacks. I ate a handmade stewed beef onigiri, a rice ball with stuffing and seaweed, and it was delicious. We got some sweet treats for cheaper prices, such as candied strawberries (tanghulu) for only ￥300 yen. 

Dotonbori can be overwhelming, especially if you go at a time where a lot of people are there, but it is definitely worth the visit if you want to experience Osaka’s speciality street food of takoyaki, small balls of minced octopus meat and vegetables cooked in a small pan, or want to go to karaoke at 3 am. 

We then left Dotonbori to go to the port where the Tempozan Ferris Wheel was located. This is the tallest Ferris wheel in Japan, and we could see most of the Umeda district and the bridges of Osaka from 112 meters (367 feet) up in the air. We got there a little late and were the last customers of the day, but they still let us up and we had a great time (so sorry to the workers!) 

New Worlds and New Plants

Our last full day in Osaka was equally just as fun. We went to a town called Shinsekai 新世界, or New World. It is made to represent post-war Osaka in the 1950s. We walked down the vintage streets, and I was in awe at the differences in architecture and decorations. It felt like I was a character in an old movie somehow. There is also a large tower in the middle of the area that we did not go into, but I did take a picture of it. 

Then we made our way to the Nagai Botanical Gardens 長居植物園, which was also a cheap trip due to our status as students. Our passes were only ￥200 with our student discount, and we could do both the gardens and the Natural History Museum. We were only interested in the gardens at that moment, though. 

The acclimation of Japanese and foreign plants made the gardens an intricate maze of nature I had ever seen. I have been to the botanic gardens in Denver before, but I enjoyed comparing the differences in plants available and the different types of experiences I had at both. We saw more sakura, as well as different flowers and trees that I hadn’t seen yet while in Japan, such as Baby Blue Eyes, a North American flower. It was a small taste of home in a brand new place I was starting to yearn for. 

Conclusion

There are still some things I left out of this post for the sake of length, but I have had the best time in Japan so far. Whether I am playing tourist, student, or gaijin, I have learned to appreciate the new culture around me. I will be living here until August, so I must make the most of it and embrace Japan the way it has embraced me.

Thanks for reading, and I will see you all with a new post next week!

Morocco- an in depth cultural experience

Published on by AdriLeave a comment

After a mildly turbulent landing, I departed the Royal Air Maroc plane at the Mohammed V international airport in Casa Blanca. It was mid day, with spotty rainstorms, the sun dancing across the flat, patchy land. With signs in English and Arabic I managed my way to security. After an intense Arab man scrutinized my passport and information for a solid 5 minutes, he stamped it and I passed through customs. My first impression of Morocco was how strict and intense they were. There were so many checkpoints for passports, boarding pass, and stamps. As well as so many rules in the airport, and guards. It was a bit intimidating and not something I’m necessarily used to. 

My service wasn’t working, but I made my way to the train station below the airport. This is where I was meeting with a stranger who I would be living with for the weekend. Stranger sounds dramatic, but it was someone I had never even met, had only texted with, and had no idea what they looked like. The stranger, who would later become a dear friend, was Zineb, a Casa Blanca local who was a few years older than me, who I would be staying with for 5 days. But let me give some background, as to how I got here.

In high school I was a member of a non profit called Flourish Foundation, in their Compassionate Leader program. A program in which we all had a weekly meeting sitting and discussing altruism, ethics, mindfulness, cultural exchanges and meditation. We participated in meditations, activities and deeply immersive conversations. We would participate in service work throughout the year, with everything culminating in a trip abroad. These trips abroad were immersed with local communities, and we lived and worked with locals. Two trips were ran, one to India, and one to Casa Blanca. We fundraised all year for these trips, but the year I was going to travel abroad, Covid hit. I had wanted to go to Morocco so badly, and was so sad I wasn’t able to travel there, engage in a cultural exchange, and have meaningful travel of giving back. My favorite kind of travel, the non tourism kind. Since then, I haven’t stopped thinking about it, and Morocco, for many reasons, was still the top of my travel list.

So finally, after 5 years, the long wait was over. My friend Ashley, was also a compassionate leader member, and she was also studying in Spain. We immediately started dreaming about going to Morocco together and connecting with the same locals. We both wanted to do a homestay and meet locals, even if that meant skipping out on some classic Morocco tourist experiences like camel rides, seeing the dessert or Marakesh. So we facetimed our friend Noah, the leader of the Flourish Foundation, and asked him if he knew anyone we could stay with. He had a few connections who were around our age who lived in Casa Blanca, and they responded with immediate hospitality. One of them had moved to the UE and another we didn’t have the contact of, but Zineb responded instantaneously and welcomed us into her home. It was set, we would be hosted with her, and her family. 

Now, back to the airport. I had no idea who to look for. So after I passed the guards, and entered into the dim, small train terminal, all I knew is that I was looking around for a 20-something Moroccan girl. There weren’t too many people down there, but I couldn’t see the whole room. A girl was looking at me from a bench and I stared at her questioningly and intently. She stood up and hurriedly shuffled over to me. I began to start walking and knew it was Zineb! After our introduction and bisse bisse (which I awkwardly didn’t know was a thing in Morocco, thanks to the French colonization) we went and sat on the bench, and got to chatting. We had to wait another three hours for my friend Ashley to get in. So what I expected to be a short travel day, from Spain to Morocco, turned into an all day affair. We burned time by talking, sharing stories, getting to know each other, and her teaching me some Arabic words.

Finally my friend Ashley arrived, and we took the old, regional train into Casa Blanca. Looking out the rumbling, rattling train window, watching the clouds, I knew we would be greeted with a stunning sunset. Sure enough, when we got off the train in the large, modern central train station, the sky was showing the most stunning colors. Such a great welcome sunset in Casa. Then we had our first wild taxi experience. Which resulted in Zineb making the taxi driver stop, she told us to get out, so we got out, and went to find another taxi. The taxi drivers are very controlling and intense, and they even try to scam locals on taxi prices.

The city of Casa Blanca is so very dense. At first, while driving through the city, I just told myself it was the culture shock of a new city, and that it seemed so dense to me because it’s the capital city. However these feelings never subsided, only grew as I explored the city more. So I did some research, as I was so blown away (and overwhelmed) at the endless tall, weathered buildings. Sure enough the statistics were shocking! Casablanca is nearly three times as dense as Los Angeles, with about 25,000 people per square mile compared to LA’s 7,600 people per square mile. Pretty intense, I was constantly grateful to be staying with kind locals who were helping us navigate our experience there.

Neither of Zineb’s parents spoke English, which I hadn’t expected, because her mom had texted us in English a few times… all google translate I suppose! I learned a few words from Zineb that helped me get by in my interactions with her parents. Such as: Shukran (thank you), Afak (please), Salam (I loved this as a greeting because it translated to hello/peace), and a few others. But I was a bit sad I couldn’t deeply get to know them and their stories!

When we got to Zineb’s apartment, both Ashley and I were so ravenously hungry. We were traveling in Casa Blanca, during Ramadan, so everyone was fasting, and they were about to break their fast with Iftar. When we arrived they had a WONDERFUL Iftar spread laid out on the table. There was SO much food, and naturally, we assumed it was dinner, and filled up. Turns out this was what they considered “breakfast” during Ramadan and we would be eating dinner later, around 11:30 pm. It was so hilarious, because both Ashley and I turned and looked at each other, when they started talking about dinner plans for the night. We were so full and so tired. But we wanted to rally to do something that night. So we drove through the city towards the beach, to this big mall, to get some coffees and walk on the beach. We also drove by the Mosque. It was so grand and illuminated at night.

We walked along a stretch of beach at night. The waves crashing in the stormy sea. Then we got ice cream at the mall. Soon it was time to go back and have dinner. But to get to our taxi, we had to cross the very wide, very busy, very scary highway. Let’s just say pedestrian laws don’t really exist in Casa Blanca. For example, this very night we saw two intense pedestrian accidents. Just adding to my nerves. Every time we crossed the street Zineb insisted on holding our hands and reminded us to look out for cars. Which always made me laugh. She’s like the mother of the group. So we all joined hands and made it across the first part of the highway. One of the three of us was quite hesitant and it almost dragged the rest of us behind. I think holding hands did more harm than good. But we made us to the middle of the highway where cars were speeding by either side and not minding the lines at ALL. I honestly thought my feet were going to be crushed by cars. At this point, we were all laughing hysterically. And giddy. But we made it across the street and into our taxi.

Back at Zineb’s apartment, her parents had prepared a wonderful chicken Tagine. A traditional Moroccan dish cooked in a large traditional clay pot (a tagine). When I say I am so in love with the food culture and cooking in Morocco. I mean it. I loved the aspect of all sharing the main dishes, as well as the artisinal, unique, and efficient cooking pots and tea sets. We all ate with our hands, using bread to get our bitefull. I copied Zineb and swiped my bread and chicken into this black ish oil at the bottom of the pot. Instantly her parents and her started laughing. I was worried I did something wrong or offended them. But laughing, Zineb said, we’re laughing because you are just like a Moroccan! You reached for the best part of the dish, that we all fight over. Instantly I was sheepish and offered it to her. And they said no you should try it! Although it doesn’t sound good describing- it was truly one of the tastiest dishes I’ve had while traveling. The oil that was at the bottom of the pot with all the spices and a so was thick and marinated. We had fruit for dessert, from the fruit stall that was always parked out front of their apartment. And went to bed around 2am. All of my meals in Morocco were so memorable and unique, especially since it was Ramadan, and I partook in fasting (minus water) for two days.

The rest of the days followed a similar schedule, rich with food, culture and exploring. We took two day trips to a town called Rabat. Rabat was so lovely and opposite of Casa. It was trim, tidy, gaurded and much more queit. This is because this is where the King’s main palace was, so Zineb told us it was safer to be. There were these beautiful gardens there called Chellah, which was a Roman Archeogical site, and ancinet moroccon site. It was also filled with giant storks. It was so unique to be able to actually walk around and touch the historic sites. While in Casa Blanca we met and hung out with a lot of Zineb’s friends. They all spoke such good english and were very intelligent on current affairs and politics. I had so many great, intellectual conversations with them over Iftar.

It was heavily raining and storming most of the time in Morocco, but some of my best memories were simply driving around all together, Ashley, me, Zineb (and Zineb’s friend also named Zineb) blasting Moroccan music, with the rain pounding the windshield. Making friends in Morocco was a highlight of the trip, and I hope to go back and road trip with them all as soon as I can.

It was one of the most memorable trips of mine. It is always truly amazing to have a shared local experience while traveling. I cannot wait to return and see my Moroccan friends again one day.

Shukran Morocco!