You would not believe how excited I was when I found out I was going to have the option to study abroad at Temple’s new Kyoto campus. I’ve been interested in Japanese culture ever since I was in middle school, and the fact that I was going to be in Kyoto (the cultural capital of Japan), felt like it was going to be a match made in heaven.
And so far, Kyoto has been an excellent place to be. I live in Higashiyama Ward, which is on the eastern side of Kyoto. I am only about a five-minute walk from a nearby train station, and this has allowed me to go and travel around Kyoto fairly easily. Although I don’t even need to leave my local ward to see some amazing sites.
My area of town is dotted with temples and shrines that range from large, touristy places to other, smaller places. One place that has stood out to me the most is Taiko shrine. It’s a smaller shrine that I happened to stumble upon on my way to a shopping trip. I remember at the time there was maybe one other Japanese guy there, and since it wasn’t crowded, I thought it would be a good time to check the place out.
A few thousand yen later, I walked out with some nice souvenirs and some nice pictures of the interior of the main shrine. It was a nice glimpse of the culture that I was surprised I got to see so early. I got to use some of my broken Japanese with the man working the shrine and he was pretty patient with understanding with me. It was an amazing stop to get distracted by.
After leaving the Shrine I went to the center of town to visit the Kyoto Pokémon Center. If you don’t know what a Pokémon Center is, it is a massive store for Pokémon merchandise. The Pokémon Center was my initial destination when I headed into town because I have been a fan of Pokémon video games for a long time. The store itself was a polar opposite Taiko Shrine. Here there were crowds and crowds of people from all over the world.
It was interesting to see the contrast between these two places. While Taiko shrine was a good place to see the more authentic side of Kyoto, there was something fun about going to the Pokémon Center. It was a communal kind of feeling to see Pokémon fans from all over the world in one place.
In the future, I want to share these kinds of experiences with all of you who read my blogs. I hope to share with you the variety of experiences that Japan can offer. I look forward to sharing stories that make Japan more accessible to people from all walks of life. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, check out Temple Study Abroad for more information. Or you can check out more stories from other students on the Global Storytellers website. For now, bye all!