Sunday- October 7, 2007

Lab trip to Mie-ken

Like the shirt says, some people were “up for it” and others weren’t. Mochizuki-san sleeping, and Yamano-san sporting the nonsense English shirt.

Because of the three day weekend our lab planned a trip to Mie, the prefecture west of Aichi. We gathered in the morning and had the freedom to go wherever we wanted to as long as we met up at the hotel in the evening. So our car and another car first went to eat the famous Japanese Matsuzaka-gyu (beef). In America Kobe beef is well known, but in Japan, I hear Matsuzaka beef is just as high up there. Well we didn’t eat at a super expensive restaurant that usually cost over $100 but it was still pretty good. Matsuzaka-gyu (the red stuff) with vegetables! The restaurant was all you can eat and pretty good. I tried horumon, intestines, for the first time and it was, just like many might think, pretty disgusting.

After a nice lunch we went to Ise-jingu shrine, part of the Shinto religion. This is supposedly the most famous “shrine” (not to be confused with temple- Buddhism) in Japan because it is where the god of the first emperor resides. During the Edo period, people were supposed to make the trip to the shrine at least once in their life. It was really crowded, and though it really isn’t a touristy spot with lots of foreigners it was packed with lots of Japanese people. Isejingu- after about a 25 minute wait in line, we came to the place to offer money and pray. The shrine is behind this and you can’t enter it. Tofu ice cream- oishikatta yo!


At night we met up at the hotel for a traditional Japanese dinner. It was okay, I couldn’t eat the sazae- turban shell, yeah I still don’t know what it is in English and it was pretty gross. After dinner there were skits and games. I dressed up like Billy, from Taeboe, and did a work out skit. The other students were pretty funny too! Dinner at the hotel with all the lab members!