Art Aquarium

I don’t often go to art museums or exhibitions, but once in a while there is something that catches my attention. My first year in JET I went to one of my favorite art exhibits to this day which was the temporary exhibit of Japanese ghosts, monsters, etc. It’s now long gone, but I still have the book of art that I bought there. I’m so glad I did!

The next thing that caught my eye was a goldfish art exhibition called “Art Aquarium.” I found out about it through my friend. Apparently it takes place every summer in the Nakanoshima area of Osaka. However, it was my first time to hear of it. I think it was around ¥1,200 give or take a few. Basically, it’s an art show displaying the beauty of different kinds of goldfish through using live fish, lights, interestingly shaped tanks, and music. Instead of me describing it, how about checking out these pictures?

My only complaint is how busy and full of people it was. Everyone I talked to who went said that it doesn’t matter the time of day, it’s always busy. The exhibit itself isn’t that big, so I guess it’s to be expected. However, I do recommend checking it out because it really was cool and beautiful.

A Little Trip to Arima Onsen

Money has been tight lately, so traveling during my summer vacation was not an option, but a little day trip to Arima Onsen in Hyogo Prefecture was doable. It’s a famous little onsen (hot spring) town. People who go there usually stay the night at a Japanese style hotel with its own private hot spring, but for those on a budget, it’s perfectly fine day trip in my opinion.

It was my first time going here despite there often being group trips there put on by the Osaka JET council. I just prefer to go to onsen on my own because I can relax more and do things at my own pace. I also prefer not to be naked if front of people I know lol.

From where I live, it only took about two hours to get to despite being secluded up in the mountains. When I arrived, I noticed the slight temperature difference which I appreciated. In all honestly, going to an onsen in winter is nicer, but going in the summer can be nice too in its own way.

The train ride up the mountain was pretty and so was the town itself. I stopped by the tourist center to get a walking/attractions map. I walked around the town a little and stopped in a café for a parfait which included Arima Onsen’s famous soda crackers. It’s weird to say, but Arima Onsen’s famous food is…carbonation? Lol! The springs themselves are naturally carbonated. I also tried their original cider which was like a clear, sweet soda. I can 100% for sure say, it was THE most carbonated thing I’ve ever drank in my life! It was almost painful to drink…but in a fun way. I had to burp after every sip.

Parfait.

Most carbonated soda EVER.

So I’m gona be honest, the town itself was super small. I walked the main course around the whole town that the tourist info center recommended, and it took about only 30 minutes. There are some temples to look at, but they are quite small, and since I’ve lived in Japan for so long, temples aren’t something that excite me as much anymore. The thing I liked seeing the most was something I don’t even know the name of. I guess it was like a structure in the ground where steam spews out of and perhaps pumps water to all of the hot springs? Idk, but it was cool. I was intrigued by how the iron in the natural spring water turned the streets and gutters a red color.

I don't even know, but it was cool.

Rusty gutters,

There are two main public bath houses you can go to if you are just coming for the day: Kin no Yu and Gin no Yu (Gold Water and Silver Water). The Gold Water bathhouse gets its name for the iron-rich, carbonated water I previously mentioned. It’s supposed to be good for your skin. The other place, Silver Water, is just regular colored water. You can get a discount if you plan on going to both, but I thought it would be a pain and take too long to take a bath, get cleaned up and redressed, walk over to a different place and do it all over again. So, I just got the one ticket for Kin no Yu, the red water place.

Kin no Yu,

Gin no Yu.

When I go to an onsen, I usually take my sweet time and spend around two hours there. When I went into the changing room, I was really surprised at first at how small it was. After I got naked, I walked into the bath room and was surprised again to see only two baths! However, the red water was really awesome looking, and I was excited to get in. After soaking about 10 minutes, I got out and was excited to see if the outdoor baths would be big and nice. I looked around for the door, and after about 10 seconds, I realized there was no door… There were no outdoor baths. Then I felt really disappointed. Outdoor baths are my favorite. I mean, the town is famous for its onsen, so I thought it’d be better. The onsen 5 minutes from my apartment is nicer and more spacious with about 10 styles of baths! I did realize, though, that this water at Arima Onsen was special, so I went back into the same bath for about 10 more minutes and enjoyed it as much as I could. I was out of the onsen within an hour. Walking around beforehand and eating my parfait only took about an hour. I was finished with everything wayyyy earlier than I expected. It was like 3pm. I spent about 20 minutes after my bath in a coin operated massage chair lol.

Since the only thing I had eaten the whole day was just that parfait, I decided an early dinner would be fine. The only thing is that dinner places didn’t open till around 4 or 5. I walked around the whole town again checking out the kinds of restaurant there were, and I also spent time just sitting and staring at the nature.

At about 4pm I went into a kamameshi restaurant. Kamameshi is rice cooked in a metal pot over an open flame that can include different ingredients like vegetables or seafood. Since I was on a budget, I stuck to one of the cheap ones, and got a mixed mushroom and vegetable kamameshi set. There were all sorts of food served on the side, and it was incredibly delicious. Since it was so early, there were hardly any people there, and at one point, I had the whole Japanese-style, tamtami room to myself. It was so beautiful and relaxing inside. I sat on a cushion facing a window that looked out to trees and mountains. While eating all the little delicacies, I had a fleeting moment I hadn’t had in a long time…that feeling of wow, I’m in Japan, and it’s amazing. I felt like a tourist again. I love that feeling. Of course after leaving the restaurant, reality hit me again.

Some of the side dishes...sooo delicious. The little piece of
salmon had this somewhat familiar flavor I can't even describe,
and it was perhaps my favorite part of the meal.

Mushroom kamameshi.

Such a peaceful place to eat.

With a full belly, I began the train journey home. I guess I would say that if you want to go to Arima Onsen, either stay the night in a nice ryokan or at least go to both of the public baths. It was a nice change of pace and seeing somewhere new in itself gave me a clear head and made the trip worth it. I don’t think I will feel the urge to go back though. Once is enough. This was the start of my month and a half month long vacation.

Two Years Together

Have you ever had a date so perfect and romantic that just thinking about it makes your heart beat and gives you butterflies in your belly? I contemplated not sharing this story with you all because it’s personal, but I decided to anyway for a few reasons. For one, I thought you’d enjoy reading it. I’m gona keep some of the details to myself though. Also, my two main reasons for writing this blog are so I can go back and read my memories and thoughts, see how I’ve changed, reference dates and place names, etc., and to keep my friends and family back home updated on what’s going on with me. Since you can’t all meet my boyfriend, I want to do my best to show you him through my words. So let me tell you about our two year anniversary date.

Our anniversary is actually May 18^th, but for a few reasons, we had to put the date off a couple weeks. That actually worked out nicely because I had a terrible cold on our anniversary anyway! On May 28^th, a Saturday, I had Shinya meet me at Kyobashi station after he got off of work. I think it was about 6:30. The first stop on our agenda was a nearby game center. Once a year we take purikura together. Our first time was when we first started dating. The second time was on our first anniversary. So this was the third time. We’ve made it into a little tradition!

Oh, I forgot to mention, I went all out getting ready for our date. As a girl, getting ready is all part of the fun! I picked nice outfit, chose my jewelry and perfume carefully, shaved, did my nails and eyebrows, took time on my hair and makeup (I even wore half-sized, fake lashes), and did a hair treatment the day before. I felt purdy.

After purikura, we went to do karaoke together. It was only our second time to go together! So, we felt the itch to go again. Since it’s not something we normally do, it felt special. I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit this, but I spent a good few weeks before the date preparing and picking the songs I wanted to sing. Shinya is really good at karaoke, so I wanted to make sure I picked songs I could sing. Plus, I wanted to do my best to sing some songs completely in Japanese for him. I never sing Japanese songs. It took me a while to learn the lyrics perfectly. I was embarrassed about my crappy voice, but we had a lot of fun. Shinya was super impressed by my singing of “Chop Suey” by System of a Down LOL!

After going to karaoke, we headed to the restaurant we had reserved. We actually chose the place together a few weeks in advance and made an 8:30 reservation. The place is called Salavatore Cuomo & Bar. It’s an Italian restaurant and wine bar that does brick oven pizzas. I had wanted to try the place for a while, and the atmosphere was very nice.

When we arrived, we were escorted to the second floor to a two person table near the window. After getting our drinks and ordering our appetizers, Shinya said he had to use the restroom. When he came back, he had a bag which confused me. From the bag, he pulled out a big bouquet of pink flowers; daisies, roses, and carnations. I was so surprised! Apparently, he had actually gotten off work earlier than he told me. He went to buy my flowers and give them to the restaurant for safe keeping. How romantic!

The food was delicious. We started off with assorted olives, smoked salmon slices, and bagna càuda. He drank beer, and I drank wine. We had an agreement not to drink too much though. We didn’t want the date to revolve around drinking like it usually does. Plus we had a long night planned and didn’t want to get tired. After finishing our appetizers, we ordered a pizza to share. We were gona order pasta too but felt like it’d be too much. It was nice not to eat until we were uncomfortably full like we did on his bday…omg. The pizza was some of the best pizza I’ve ever had! I was so impressed! It was Italian, brick oven style with fresh basil, mozzarella, anchovies, garlic, and capers on it. I’m drooling just thinking about it!! Since we only had two drinks each, dinner was quite reasonable! It was a little over ¥6000 for the two of us. I’m glad it wasn’t too expensive because the main event of the night would cost a bit of money…

Since we’ve been too poor to travel or do anything big together recently, we decided we could afford to splurge just a little for this occasion, and we decided to stay in a hotel! This way, we could enjoy being in a nice, spacious place together, just the two of us, and we wouldn’t have to worry about time or catching the last train. It was nice to stay somewhere romantic and different from my home. Since Shinya started his new job, he only has Wednesdays off which means we don’t really get to sleep together anymore. It was a really nice treat.

We checked into the hotel, dropped off our bags, and rested a little bit before heading out to our bar that we only go to for special occasions. There was a massage chair in the hotel room which was amusing, along with a light up, jet bath and Play Station 2.

We went to Wisteria. I know I’ve mentioned this place before. It’s a super classy sherry bar with a highly skilled bar master. We ordered our usual at this place, Moscow mules. It’s not something we usually drink, but they are out of this world here. We also go some chocolate. I thought this would be the perfect time to take out the photo album I prepared. It was an album of all our 2^nd year memories. We spent time looking at all the pages and remembering all the fun times together. I did this for our last anniversary, too. After two drinks, we decided to head back to the hotel. Since we’d only had 4 drinks over the course of like 4 hours, we decided a little champagne wouldn’t hurt to bring back to the hotel. We picked some up with some smoked cheese and salami. The salami for him and the cheese for me. We didn’t drink it right away, though.

After getting cleaned up and changed into our pajamas, we opened the bottle and had a blast just sitting on the couch drinking, snacking, and talking. I felt so happy! I think we ended up going to bed around 4am. We had to check out by 10, I believe. It wasn’t the longest sleep, but it was peaceful. Of course, we checked out last minute, and on our way home, we stopped by a café for a light breakfast and coffee. Really, this date was just perfect. I’m so happy to have met such a sweet and wonderful guy who I can spend time pleasantly with, who likes me as I am with my chubby body and childish sense of humor. I can’t wait to see what our third year has in store! 

Japanese Funeral

I had the unfortunate experience of attending a funeral recently. A few weeks have passed since the day, so I feel comfortable enough writing about it now. A funeral is a personal and private thing, so I won’t share specific details with you, nor will I tell you who I attended the funeral for. All you need to know is that it was someone I cared for, and I am very saddened. However, since there are some differences between Japanese and American style funerals, I thought it might be useful to explain for my readers who may at some point have to attend a funeral here in Japan.

First of all, I want to point out that I am a novice. I have only attended one funeral here and listened to my boyfriend’s stories when his grandmother passed. I haven’t done any research, I didn’t understand a lot of what was going on, and this particular funeral may have been different from others in some ways. I don’t know because I have nothing to compare it to. I just want to tell you what I experienced.

So first, I did not attend the wake. I’m assuming there was one the night before, but wakes, I believe, are for family only. In Japanese, wakes are called, “otsuya.” From what my boyfriend told me, it’s a time where the family gets together and reminisces and tells stories of the deceased. This is the same as America, however, a big difference is that someone must stay awake with the body all night without sleeping. Family members will take shifts. They must keep the incense lit. Since I’ve never been to this, I can’t provide any other information.

The funeral (or “osoushiki”) takes place the next day. This is what I attended. It’s a formal ceremony. Anyone who knew the deceased is welcome. Same as in America, you must wear all black, formal clothes. There are also funeral kimono that people wear. In my case, the funeral was at a formal funeral hall from 1pm. It lasted 1-2 hours. When you arrive, you fill out a slip with your name, address, phone number, and relation to the deceased.

After that, you take a seat. Seats closest to the body (and maybe in some cases, ashes?) are reserved for family. Everyone must bring their own juzu. Juzu are like a braclet of beads with a tassle that you hold in your hands while you pray/reflect. You hold them the whole time. I guess they are kind of like a rosary. Luckily, one of the people I went with had a spare one to lend me. I asked if we needed to bring any gifts or money. I feel like I heard before that sometimes money is given. I’m not sure what the rules are on that, but the people I went with told me I didn’t need to bring anything. I noticed that they didn’t bring anything either. Maybe there is some guidelines to who is supposed to bring money.

While sitting, up front by the body, there are several (about 5 or so) Buddhist priests chanting prayers, playing gongs and drums, and I singing. I have no idea what they were saying at all. The chants were hard to comprehend, but I feel at some points they were repeating “Amida Buddha” over and over. I should also mention that the inside of the hall was pretty similar to ones I’ve seen in America, except for where the body is placed up front. The flower arrangements were styled differently, all white in like paths. Sorry, it’s hard to explain. Also, there was like a mini, carved, wooden temple-looking structure where the body was placed.

The most different part for me was what happened next. One by one, starting with the family, then close friends, colleagues, acquaintances, etc., we went to a long table up front. On the table there were four incense settings. Four people would stand at the table, take little incense leaves, and sprinkle them into the burning embers. You would bow to the body and then to the family sitting by the table, then go back and take your seat.

Once everyone has gone, there is a short break. The staff hands out what seems to be like gift bags which I’ll explain in a second. Then, they wheel the open casket into the middle of room. Next, they bring huge baskets of flowers. This is the final goodbye. The staff will hand you a big handful of flowers to put inside the casket. This is when you can get one last look at the person, and for me, this is the hardest, most heart wrenching part. You can also give you thoughts and prayers to the family, which I did.

After the flowers are gone, the casket is closed, and the pallbearers walk the casket out to the hearse. The attending people form a path from the hall to the hearse. The Buddhist priests exit first. There is a lot of bowing. You basically bow, and don’t stop bowing until the hearse is out of sight. That’s when you can put away your juzu and leave.

When I got home, I opened the bag to find a message that basically said, “Thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to attend the funeral,” and there was a small gift of appreciation. In this case, it was a white dish towel with blue rabbits. There was also a little packet of salt which I had learned from my boyfriend that you are supposed to sprinkle outside your door before entering your home. I’m not Buddhist, and I didn’t know the salt was in there when I went home, so I didn’t do it. That’s basically all I can say about this topic. One more important thing, it is custom not to send New Year’s cards to any family who has had someone pass away that year. So if you know someone who has passed away, don’t send their family a card at the end of the year. My boyfriend also taught me this. I hope this explanation will prove useful to someone. Thank you.

Music Circus 2016

As most of you know, I’m an avid concert go-er. I usually go to about 3 or so big ones a year. I kind of went to this one on a whim. This was actually my second time to go to Music Circus festival. I also went to the 2014 one. Steve Aoki headlined that time, too. To be honest, since I had already seen Steve Aoki, there wasn’t anyone in particular I really wanted to see, but it had been a while since I went to a concert, and I was getting the itch. Plus, this year it was on a beach which excited me because I had never been to a beach concert before, and since a few of my friends were going, I knew it would be a blast to drink, dance, and enjoy the music with them. I love EDM music.

The concert started at 11 am and went until 9 pm. Since going there all day would be exhausting, I decided to get there at about 4pm. Plus, I’m super prone to sunburn, so I thought it’d be better to go later. All the DJ’s I am interested in didn’t start until 5 pm anyway.

The great thing about this concert was how cheap it was! It was ¥9,000 for the whole day which may seem like a lot, but there were two stages with DJ’s playing the whole time. Also, FOUR DRINKS were included in the ticket price! You get little drink tickets at the entrance. Since a drink was like ¥700, a good third of the ticket price went to drinks which is awesome in my opinion because I would drink nonetheless at an EDM concert.

The concert was sponsored by Red Bull and Jose Cuervo, so all the drink stands were either tequila or Red Bull vodka. I haven’t been into tequila lately because of too many bad experiences with it, but drinking Red Bull vodkas is too filling, so I sucked it up and drank tequila after one Red Bull vodka. The shots were vile, but they had different flavored frozen margaritas which were awesome! I just ended up dumping most my shots into my margaritas lol. Did I mention this concert was on a Sunday and I had work the next day? :P

Despite drinking a good amount, the dancing and sweating made the alcohol wear off quicker than usual, and since I didn’t want to miss any of Steve Aoki’s set, I stopped drinking at like 7:30 when he went on. Also, the venue was far away and I didn’t get home until like 11:30 pm. By that time I was sober and ready for work the next day.

So anyway, let me tell you a little about the concert! First, the beach setting was awesome. The fashion and people at this particular event were super different and cool! I got a lot of my enjoyment just out of looking at everyone’s outfits! Dressing up crazy to go to concerts is kind of a thing in Japan.

My clubbing buddy.

The first DJ I watched was O-man on the smaller stage. He is a local Osaka DJ that I had seen at Club Joule before. I like his mixes. Then, on the main stage, I watched the famous, Turkish DJ Ummet Ozcan. This is when the booze really started kicking in, and I started dancing like crazy with my friends. It was incredible to me how fast time was passing. The unfortunate side of drinking is needing to pee. When I don’t drink, I can watch a whole concert uninterrupted, but at this event, I had to pee like 3 or 4 times due to drinking! The toilet lines were super long and annoying. There were no actual bathrooms. It was all porta-potties which was disgusting…but when you have to go, you have to go.

DJ O-man.

Ummet Ozcan.

After Ummet Ozcan, Blasterjaxx went on. That was probably the height of my buzz, and all I can remember is just dancing, dancing, dancing! When Steve Aoki went on, it was dark, and everyone was all lit up with lights and glow in the dark items. So cool! Steve Aoki’s set was awesome, as expected. Half way through, I started to feel the comedown and exhaustion but stuck it out until the end. One of my friends got too tired and left.

Blasterjaxx.

Party crew!

Glow-stick bracelets.

Steve Aoki.

One cool thing about Japanese music festivals is that there are usually fireworks at the end. After watching the fireworks and seeing Steve Aoki up close, we made the long journey home. The trains were crowded with sweaty people. When I got home, I showered, ate something, and went to bed. I would consider it to be a successful night!

Fireworks.

Steve up close.

Taken from Steve's Instagram.

Ise Jingu

Yay!! I got to mark a place of my Japan bucket list for the first time in a long time! My first two years in JET, I was living the life. I didn’t have to pay any taxes in Japan or America, and the exchange rate was in my favor which made loan payments much easier. From my 3^rd year, income and residence taxes began to burden me, and the yen became so weak, that I had to send home almost double the money…aka 1/3 of my paycheck. D: For these reasons, my travel funds have become nonexistent. I’m living from paycheck to paycheck.

However, when my friend told me she was talking a day trip during Golden Week to Ise Jingu (Ise Shrine) in Mie, a place I’ve had on my bucket list since moving to Japan, I felt like I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go with her. I always thought I’d have to go alone. Since Ise is somewhat close and doesn’t require an overnight stay, I just barely fit into my budget.

We woke up early, and met a Tsuruhashi station. From there, we took the Kintetsu line all the way to Mie which took about 1 ½ hours by limited-express train. You can save money by taking a much slower train that takes more like 2 ½ hours. We had three main goals. First, eat all the Ise food, second, see Ise Jingu, the most sacred Shinto shrine in all of Japan, and third, see Meoto Iwa, a famous and scenic spot.

On our way~

I think we made it 5 steps out of the station when I saw a man grilling oysters on the street. Oysters are one of Ise’s specialties. I don’t remember exactly, but I think it was like ¥400 for three oysters, very cheap! The oysters were huge, plump, juicy, and delicious! I was impressed. After eating them together, we took 5 more steps and found a shop selling Ise’s famous rice cake, akafuku mochi. So of course, we went in, sat down, and shared some of the mochi. It was tasty! It was like reverse mochi because the red bean paste was on the outside instead of the inside of the mochi.

Grilled oysters.

We made an agreement to at least see the outer shrine of Ise Jingu before eating more. I’ll get in to more detail later, but Ise Jingu was unlike any other Shrine I’ve ever been to… which I guess was to be expected because it’s famous for its simplicity. Despite it being Golden Week, it surprisingly didn’t seem that crowded to me.

Part of the outer shrine.

Since my friend is awesome, she looked in to money saving details ahead of time. So thanks to her craftiness, we were able to get all-you-can-ride bus passes for ¥1,000. Since we had to ride the bus three times to get around, it saved us some money. After checking out the outer shrine, we took the bus to the inner shrine, but before going in, we popped in to a little café to get Ise’s famous udon noodles. They are special because they are particularly soft with a more flavorful broth. I really enjoyed them! There’s a main street lined with shops that draws a lot of tourists. We started to walk down it but decided to come back to it later after checking out the temple because the street seemed long and daunting.

At the entrance of the inner shrine, I had my first jumping picture taken haha! That was fun. Now about the temple itself… Unfortunately, I was kind of underwhelmed. Maybe confused is a better term. Ise Jingu didn’t really look like what I thought it would. I had seen pictures, but it seemed a lot different. Perhaps this is partly due to it being newly rebuilt. They rebuild it ever twenty years to keep it fresh, and it had just been redone 3 years ago. The wood was pale yellow, not mossy and brown like I had expected. The thing that was most confusing to me was the layout. The inner shrine and outer shrine basically looked the same to me. Maybe to a more trained eye it’s different, but even though I tried to research some of the history and whatnot before going, I just couldn’t grasp what parts were most important.

My first jumping picture.

I’ll try to explain the best I can, but basically, you walk in to the temple grounds under a gate and over the Uji Bridge (which confused me because there is another really important bridge in Uji called the Uji Bridge). Once you get in and walk a bit, you come to a small building that looks like the other small buildings from the outer shrine. Then you walk more and come to another of what looks to be the same thing, but it’s not. Then you walk more, and come upon what is apparently the most sacred and main building, but it looked exactly like the others. Then you end up back at the entrance you came in. When I got back to the entrance, I was confused, and thought to myself, “Wait, did we miss it? Where was the main building?” We figured out that we had already seen it but didn’t realize it as we were seeing it. This is the image I had in mind, but I never saw this angle.

This apparently was the staircase up to the main building.

Like I said, I felt a little underwhelmed, but I will say that the style and architecture of the buildings was unlike any other shrine I’ve seen, and I thought it was really neat, although simplistic. The roofs looked all fluffy, and there were no nails or screws. Everything is made of interlocking wood kind of like Lincoln Logs (for those of you who know what those are).

Fluffy roofs!!

I’ll tell you a couple more things I liked about the shrine. There was this really clear, sparkling river which apparently is considered to be holy, purifying water. Many people touched the water. My friend and I sat by the river and enjoyed the atmosphere. Also, the trees here were incredible. I’ve never seen such huge, thick trees in my life! They were unbelievably wide. The big trees I think are good luck because many people touched them, and the wood was all shiny from being touched so much. I made sure to hug a few trees lol.

Sacred river.

Fat tree. <3

After exploring the inner shrine, we headed back to the street lined with shops. The buildings were all built in the same traditional style, and it was really pretty! Even Family Mart looked like old Japan! We went in and out of little shops in search of more mochi but didn’t find much. Instead, we found THE BEST fried oysters I’ve ever had in my life!! We took a break to sit down, have a couple oysters and some alcohol. During that time, a little boy came up to us and practiced his English greetings on us. He was so cute!

Main shopping street.

Awesome Family Mart!

All the Ise foods: udon, grilled oysters, fried oysters, and
akafuku-mochi.

Once we had our fill of exploring the street (which was pretty crowded), we took the bus to Meoto Iwa. Oh, before that, I was sure to buy some souvenirs for my boyfriend and his family. It’s custom.

We went on Children's Day.

We saw a real tanuki!

...and stray cats. :)

Meoto Iwa, or “the wedded rocks” or “married couple rocks” as they’re called, are two rocks in the ocean that are connected by a one ton rope. These rocks are considered sacred and celebrate marriage. Couples come here to pray for a good marriage or relationship. The big rock represents the male and the smaller one, female. At this shrine, there are also a lot of frog statues. Frog in Japanese is “kaeru” which also means “to go home.” The frogs represent safe travel home. This place was very pretty and my favorite part of Ise. The water was really rough, and waves would crash up on to the walking path and smash against the rocks. It was really exciting. The rocks were beautiful. Be sure to go during high tide.

Meoto Iwa.

Frogs.

My only complaint is that the area this shrine is in is a bit out of the way in a dilapidated area. There was a really small and depressing aquarium that we didn’t go in, but there was an outside exhibit in front with two large seals in it. The exhibit was filthy and tiny for these massive seals. They looked depressed. One was just lying there motionless, and the other was trying to climb out over the wall, screaming. It really hurt to watch and unfortunately left a scar on my image of Ise.

Overall, I’m glad I went to Ise, though. I hadn’t taken any sort of trip in a long long time, and it felt great. I also really enjoyed my friend’s company. There are some places I want to travel to alone, but Ise wasn’t one of them. It was nice to go with my friend. I hope this gives you an idea of what to expect at Ise! I suggest researching before you go to get the best experience.