Author: Chloe Kirk

One of my coworkers yesterday asked me “what will you miss from Japan?” I gave a completely blank stare. Even though I have less than two weeks left of my internship, I had not thought about this question at all. The coworker rephrased, “what are you excited to do when you get back to America?” I was equally at a loss for words.

It’s so hard to think in the moment what you will miss about a culture and country you have grown to think as home. Sure there’s the obvious like Japanese food or the ability to travel so often, but there’s also the smaller things that make Japan Japan, such as politely bowing to everyone, saying good morning to everyone as you pass or not talking on your phone in public. But if I thought it was hard to explain what I would miss from Japan, it was near impossible for me to think how to articulate what I am excited for when I get back to America. I am definitely excited to head home, but I also want to express how grateful I am for this opportunity and that a part of me doesn’t want to leave. Of course I miss my family, my friends, pizza and other American food, but if I say that then am I saying I just want to head home and wish I was home already? Because that’s also not the case; I want to be in both countries at once.

I always expected to just know what I would miss, like I assumed I would have always been thinking about it, but in truth I just adapted what is normal to me without analyzing all the minute differences. I suppose thinking about this early on might prepare me better for reverse culture shock when I arrive back in the States and seeing no one using chopsticks for every meal. It’s such a normal question “what will you miss” and yet such a difficult question to answer. Should I focus on the traveling, the food, the people? Or maybe all of it, but then I could go on forever. If you were leaving your home country, how would you answer the question “what will you miss from here?”

Now I’ve been thinking about the question though, I thought the best way to break it down would be by city and by food. Out of all the cities I visited, this is how I would rank them by places I would want to visit again. I would visit them all again, so it isn’t completely fair to rank them this way, but some (like Kyoto or Osaka) I would live in if I had the chance.

1. Kyoto (especially Fushimi-inari)
2. Kamakura
3. Osaka
4. Mount Koya
5. Fukuoka
6. Tokyo
7. Hakone
8. Hiroshima
9. Nara
10. Kobe
11. Asuka
12. Yokohama

For food, these are some of my Japanese favorites (It is too difficult to rank these so they are in no particular order):

1. Udon (kitsune udon)
2. Gyoza (Japanese Dumplings)
3. Ramen
4. Kobe Beef
5. Mochi
6. Manju (favorite is Fukuoka manju)
7. Nabe
8. Pork cutlet
9. Sushi
10. Takoyaki
11. Okinomiyaki (the original Osaka version)

As for all the smaller bits of what I will miss from Japan, it is too hard to articulate. I think one of the things I will miss the most are the people I have met, but I can’t find it in me to write about them yet. I feel like writing about leaving my coworkers and friends in Japan finalizes that I am leaving, and I don’t want to have to completely admit that to myself now.

Can you guess what I did this weekend in Kyoto? If you haven’t already pieced it together from the title, I got to finally try a kimono!! I can’t express how excited I have been for this day. I was a little nervous because I didn’t want to culturally insensitive, but the female coworker in my lab assured me it’s common to do so I continued to plan for this day!

I went with the other intern and Katie, the female coworker in my lab to the Gion area of Kyoto. Katie has worn kimonos many times before (you wear them in the summer for festivals like watching fireworks or when you graduate) so this was nothing too new for her, but for me I couldn’t decide what to wear! We had so many options for the kimono itself and obi (the part that wraps around the waist) I thought I would never decide!

Once I had chosen, we waited to be dressed by two women who had this art down to a tee! They just motioned how they wanted my hands as they wrapped layer after layer of clothes around me, tightening belts and sashes as they went. When it was done I could hardly move or breathe, but it was just so beautiful.

The company we used, kyokagami, also did you hair for us! And I got the most lovely updo. Then they gave us the geta (shoes) and tabi (socks with the big toe separated). We shuffled our way out the door, down the stairs, and into the stifling 27C (~90F) air in our many many layers of the kimono.

The first pit stop was Marayuma Park, nearby in Gion by also we knew it would have lots of shade and ice cream so we could cool down!

After cooling down, we shuffled over to Kodai-ji temple. I have passed the entrance to this temple so many times in my way to other places but never knew how amazing it was inside.

I think most people don’t realize to go in because it looks small, but it is massive and even has its own small bamboo garden! We spent a while here taking pictures in our kimonos.

I needed to see Tofukuji temple before leaving Japan and that was one of my must sees for the day. We took the train down but even from the train station it was a 15 minute walk! Normally I wouldn’t have minded (and it probably wouldn’t have normally been 15 minutes) but in the tight, hot kimonos with the geta slipping with the tabi, my feet were hurting in no time and soon Katie recommended I take off the tabi so I could walk better.

Tofukuji was another temple that doesn’t seem to be recognized for how beautiful it is. We spent so long on the bridge in the temple area we were actually the last people there before it shut! We also met a Taiwanese photographer who offered to take our picture for us and edit it for free (See top picture)!

Finally we headed back to the rental shop, and along the way stopped at the five story pagoda in the center of Gion for a last photoshoot before taking off the kimonos.

The experience was amazing and I would definitely do it again, but they are so hot and difficult to move in I don’t know how people in the old days used to do it! I probably just would not do very much with my day if doing anything required all the effort. I did stand out though like a sore thumb being the only white person wearing a kimono. I would catch many people taking photos of me (I assume they thought they were doing subtly). But overall I am very happy I did this, and didn’t let the nerves get the best of me. Wearing kimonos in Japan, especially in Kyoto when you are sight seeing, is seen as like a fun thing for especially women to do with each other. You get all dolled up, walk around some famous temples and take great photos. I am very grateful to the female coworker, Katie, who took me out to experience this!

This was my most spontaneous trip during my time in Japan. I had originally planned to celebrate the week of my birthday by going to Wakayama Adventure world which has five pandas! However, as the week approached, I felt like I wanted to do something more than a day trip, and just two days before the weekend I decided and booked a trip to Kamakura!

Kamakura is a coastal city about an hour away from Tokyo. To get to Kamakura, the best way from Osaka is to take the Shinkansen to Yokohama, and then take a local train 20-30 minutes into Kamakura. I arrived in Yokohama bright and early at 9AM so I could spend the morning exploring Yokohama. Yokohama is the second biggest city in Japan (practically just a suburb of Tokyo with many people commuting between the two every day) and is famous for having Japan’s largest China town!

Besides the China town, Yokohama is a port city with a long park full of flowers on one side and the sea on the other.

After spending a few hours here and seeing all the big sights, I traveled the half an hour by local train to Kamakura and even though it is only 30 minutes south, when you step out everything feels different. It’s warmer, you can smell the salty breeze, people are dressed like they are on vacation with flip flops and sun hats. With everything I need for the weekend on my back I headed straight for the beach where a long, quiet stretch of white sand preceded a clean, shallow beach.

Nearby, was the hasadera temple and famous kotoku-in temple (big Buddha temple). Kotoku-in’s Buddha isn’t nearly as big as the one in Nara, but it is the biggest outdoor one in Japan, and I think because it is outside with natural light shining on it you are able to appreciate it much more.

Finally I decided to try some of famous hiking trails in Kamakura! A tourist guide gave me instructions and a map of where to go. There are three different trails, all going between the different temples: one hour long, two hours long and 30 minutes. I chose to start off with the one hour one with its beginning near the big Buddha, and complete the other two the next day. However a one hour hike turned into 3 as the trail kept disappearing, branching into three trails without any indication which one to follow. Eventually I gave up and just followed the main road with cars to make it to the next two temples I wanted to see just as they closed!! So much for good hiking trails, but the parts I did hike were phenomenal with great views and I even ran into a bamboo forest at one point (one of the many dead ends).

The next day headed out bright and early to try the 30 minute hiking trail to hokoku-ji temple, famous for its bamboo forest. However, as you can guess, the hiking trail disappeared and left me in the middle of a forest, so I had to head back and get there by bus.the temple was on the outskirts of the city, but it was so worth it! I got there right as it opens and it was almost empty so I could take tons of pictures with the bamboo.

I think it was prettier here than in Kyotos more famous bamboo forest because there are less people and it is more packed if bamboo, even if it is smaller. As more people arrived, I went to go get traditional matcha at the tea shop right in the center of the bamboo forest.

An hour into the temple opening, it was packed and so I headed out. Pro tip is to get there early.

I spent the entire rest of the morning just relaxing on the beach with a healthy smoothie drink (Kamakura is a very small city), then early afternoon I went souvenirs shopping around the main train station before heading to visit the two temples I missed the day before, both lovely gardens: jochi-ji and engaku-ji temples.

I spent a few hours here before I had to head back to Yokohama for the Shinkansen, but I couldn’t have asked for a better way to end the weekend by relaxing in nature.

Kamakura competes with Kyoto in how many temples per area it has. Even though it is smaller, I loved that there was both beach and forest, temples and shopping all while being less busy than Kyoto! 10/10 would recommend.

I began my last day trip to Kyoto back in Arashiyama Bamboo Park. We arrived at 8 in the morning, before the tour crowds came, specifically so we could enjoy the natural beauty before the road turned into chaos.

The next stop was Roikoin temple which you actually need to get tickets for in advance! It has become quite famous because of its reflective table and gorgeous garden.

Inside, I was able to practice my Kanji, a Japanese writing system.

After this temple, we stopped by my co-workers favorite place for mochi by her old university, Kyoto University.

We followed it up by another walk in a temple where I was able to find local sake.

We stopped for lunch at a traditional Japanese omelet restaurant. This is an omelet outside, filled with rice and other food like onions and meat, and topped by a sauce similar to ketchup.

Lastly, my coworker brought me to one of her favorite places to get traditional Kyoto cookies that I could bring back as souvenirs. They are a hard cookie which tastes just like a waffle cone and different fillings inside, like strawberry or macha.

This might be the hardest blog to write of them all. I have tried to deny to myself that I am leaving Japan, but with my final presentation done and the last two days winding down I can no longer refuse to admit the inevitable. I have an open suitcase with a few bits of clothing thrown in, but I am by no means close to packed. I can’t bring myself to take apart my room because then that means leaving is final.

I’ve given myself a lot more me time than normal this week so I can just think. Think about everything I have accomplished, all the things I have learned, people I have met, places I have experienced, trying to give myself some closure so leaving might be marginally easier. While I’ve been thinking, everything comes back to how lucky I have been this past year. I was lucky enough to be chosen by Osaka Gas to intern for them, and then was lucky enough to get the best project to work on in the best lab with amazing co-workers and an entire company that is so welcoming. This internship is anything beyond what I could’ve hoped for. Even if I was working on the same project but in a different company, it wouldn’t have been the same because I wouldn’t have had the chance to work with and get to know the coworkers that are in my lab.

I have the best job with the best coworkers. Sure I work long hours, but who is doing a normal study abroad who can say that the people they are with bring them out for work dinners and parties like Kareoke and a barbecue and cherry blossom viewing parties, or who bring them for day trips to other cities like Kyoto or Nara? Through an online class I have taken where I have been able to communicate with other UW internship students, I can confidently say that my internship was unique with how everyone welcomed me with open arms, always suggesting new places to travel and food to try. I thought it couldn’t get any better, but this week (as my final week) one of my coworkers gifted me with an entire matcha set including a bamboo spoon and chasen (whisk to make matcha) that are actually originated from his hometown in Nara.

My coworkers made this internship what it was. I didn’t know what to expect coming into this internship and all I was hoping for was that I would get to travel and learn new laboratory techniques. But never could I have ever have hoped for as wonderful an internship as I got. Anyone who is on the fence about doing an internship: do it. You won’t regret it. I threw myself into an internship on the other side of the world in a culture and language I did not know, but I have nothing but amazing things to say as it is coming to an end. I don’t think I will ever get to experience anything like this again; this truly has been a once in a lifetime experience. I just hope I can come back to see all these people that have made my internship what it has been. I don’t want to disclose everyone’s names, but thank you to everyone in Osaka Gas who helped make me feel at home.

900 meters high, two and a half hours from Osaka, 2 trains a bus and a cable car away resides Mount Koya (in Japanese it is called Koya-san with the “san” referring to mountain). I had planned to explore Koya-san after my supervisor recommended it; in fact my supervisor loves Koya-san so much he has travelled there on three separate occasions! I wasn’t expecting much other than a mountain top that would look pretty and some nice views of the surrounding valley, but little did I know it was like a smaller Kyoto!

I set off at 9, expecting to make a morning of the mountain, but didn’t arrive at the base of Koya-san until 11:30AM! From there, everyone piled in an old fashioned (and a little rickety) cable car.

The ride up was very steep, but we arrived in one piece and no one else seemed to be worried!

Once we arrived at the top, it was still another 10 minutes bus ride until everyone offloaded at okunoin, a famous mausoleum where many graves date back to the feudal system built inside a gigantic forest with trees up to 600 years old.

It took half an hour walking down the main path before reaching the main attraction: the temple of Kobo Daishi. Kobo Daishi, legend has it, was a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to Japan to find a new site for monastery training. He arrived at Koya-san and. Upon deciding this would be the place to build, threw a coin to mark the spot for when he came back.years later he came back, found the coin he has thrown at the base of a tree and began building his monastery.

Temples are as beautiful and only slightly less abundant as Kyoto! Obviously there are less temples than Kyoto simple because Koya-san is a smaller area, but by number of temples per area, Kyoto and Koya-san could be equal! What made Koya-san even better was how few tourists there were (unlike Kyoto)!

On the walk back through okunoin, I stumbled upon a room filled and lined with gold lanterns. It was beautiful and I was hesitant to enter, but a monk at the entrance smiled and ushered me in. I was in awe; it is one of the most beautiful places I had ever been.

After okunoin, I took the bus to the other end of town which only took five minutes, where the massive temple Kobo Daishi built, called Konpon Daito, towers.

Five minutes walk beyond that, the Diamon gate rests at the edge of the mountain with a beautiful view of the valley below. However, I am not sure why the gate is so far away from the temple, and not clearly designated for the Konpon Daito temple. It stands at the edge of a clearing in the forest, on a hill facing a different direction than Konpon Daito temple. Some other temples, such as ones in Kyoto or Nara, have gates before their temples, but they are clearly connected as you can see the temple from the gate and there is a clear walkway from the gate to the temple. The Daimon gate had none of this.

After checking out all these pretty cool sights in the middle of this forest, rain started to come and so I quickly headed back to the train station to begin the commute home.

Many people stay overnight at Mount Koya, and you can even stay in a temple! If I had known this sooner, I would’ve definitely done this. Koya-san is also super foreigner friendly, and I would say half the people there when I went were foreigners! Everything is also in English so there was no trouble figuring out where to go. I was not expecting so many temples on a mountain, but I was pleasantly surprised. I perhaps would not recommend Koya-san for short time visitors of Japan just because it is so far out of the way, but if you have a couple days to spare and want to experience a totally different part of Japan, Koya-san is the place to go!

I’ve waited a while to write this because every time I think I’m over culture shock, something strange happens and it hits me all over again. My first indicator that I may be finally getting used to the world around me was when I went out for dinner with some co-workers and, out of the 6 course of various unknown meats, vegetables and other indescribable food offered to me, I did not ask or question any of the food offered to me! I have come a long way from the girl who would question any meat that wasn’t chicken or bacon to eating mussels, octopus, bamboo and fish on the regular (yes I’m serious people love bamboo and octopus in Japan).

So first, for anyone who has not travelled outside the states, culture shock is not a myth and if (when) you experience culture shock, you are not weak or just hangry (combination of hungry and tired). Culture shock is real and culture shock is inevitable. I have travelled before coming to Japan and have felt varying degrees of culture shock before, but I figured I would only experience culture shock in Japan for 2-3 weeks max. Sure it became less pronounced near the end (and it may not be the end yet) of my 14 weeks so far in Japan.

My first week I was overwhelmed by a combination of little to no sleep and a series of highly organized days planned by the company I am interning with left little time to think about anything other than getting home to sleep. The next two weeks or so I was euphoric about being in such a new place and getting the exciting opportunity to research independently! But when the fourth and fifth week came along, the first major negative swing of culture shock blindsided me. While I had had minor downs the first fews weeks, it was mainly “sunny blue skies”, but now I found myself crying for seemingly no reason, cutting myself off from the people at the dormitory and at work and trying to sleep as much as possible. I thought everything was bad from the food to the trains to my long work hours. Then I came to the realization that this was culture shock, and once I was able to label why I was feeling the way I did, I was immediately able to combat my negative feelings with positive ones (that and talking a lot with my family back home about how I was feeling).

The sixth week and on I made myself more of a schedule to follow, which included daily meditation, working out, weekly calls with my family, Netflix time (on the commute home) and making dinners sometimes myself instead of eating the dinners from the dormitory.

I was still feeling minor ebbs and flows of notable cultures shock through my 9th week such as homesickness and making cultural mistakes, but I didn’t have any problems as bad as in the fourth and fifth weeks. My family did come to visit me for a week, and when they left again I felt the downward tug of being alone, but I think I have mostly recovered since. I’m on the home stretch of this internship in Japan and I’m actually starting to feel at home here! I better start bracing myself for reverse culture shock when I get home.