Even though one big work still waited for me on
Wednesday, I couldn’t resist going out as the weather was too beautiful.
I saw Yoko – san, my host family mother on
Saturday and went to Sasuguri with her. At the beginning, she said we would go
to Dazaifu but I have been there several times so I asked her to take me to Nanzoin
temple in Sasaguri. We hit there up after strolling a bit in Forever 21 and
having lunch at a sushi restaurant in Tenjin.
Sasaguri is a small town not far away from
Fukuoka, where a plenty of temples are located, one of which is Nanzoin with
the sleeping Buddha. We walked around the temple, enjoyed the view and some
praying spots. One of the most interesting things there is you can see dozens
of Buddha statues with many sizes and expressions, some of which are even
decorated nicely and cutely with visitors’ caps, wool hats and even scarves. Another
one is the bamboo path which could lead you to somewhere. While we were wandering
around the temple, we saw a small path leading to the bamboo grove with a sign
saying if we walk to the forest for 20 minutes, we could see something. Then we
did as I couldn’t resist my curiosity to discover what is hidden in the forest.
The path was small and steepy which make visitors a bit difficult to walk. After
a few steps, you can feel you are in the middle of nowhere, but if you keep
going you can find yourself in a mysterious but beautiful bamboo forest. However,
we couldn’t go to the end of the path as Yoko – san felt tired and even kept
saying “kowai” (means dangerous in English) so we got back to the temple
although we were half way through. I think the forest may lead to some temples
and if we had kept walking, we could have seen some more breathtaking
views. After the bamboo forest, we went to see the giant sleeping Buddha and
one more small temple that I forget the name.
Sasaguri is home to 88 temples and there are
many pilgrims that make it to this place and walk the 88 temple route every
year. I was thinking of getting back here someday and do my own pilgrimage to
88 temples. It would be a hard word, I know, as I have done some pilgrimages with my
grandma who is a Buddhist to some pagodas in Vietnam, but still want to try as it’s
worth trying.
I took a lot of photos of the bamboo grove as well
as the Buddha thing but most of them are gone due to my carelessness (I
probably pressed some button on my camera, which removed almost photos).
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| The giant sleeping Buddha ( I took a paronama of him but sadly it's gone) |
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| Me with the buddha |
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| I do love this photo although it's not the one I tended to take |
On the way back to the dorm, I got a message
from Huong asking me to go see flowers with her and other people on Sunday. I
replied with a nod immediately as the weather was just so beautiful. It’s not
the cherry blossom season yet but there are bunches of plum flowers blooming
already actually, and one of the places covered by plum flowers is Maizuru Park
around Fukuoka Castle Ruins. We were speechless when we got there as the plum
trees were super stunning. The lovely weather made them even more and more gorgeous.
They were extremely awesome, even too awesome for words. Sang, a Vietnamese girl
working in a language school in Fukuoka, and her husband came after us with
some traditional clothes. She wanted to take photos wearing our costume with
the flowers. I didn’t have any preparation for that but I also wore (with a bit
hesitation though) since all the girls did. It’s kind of weird because the
traditional clothes often go with very fancy makeup, high heels and other
accessories, and I didn’t have anything. Moreover, if you ask me what is one of
the most difficult things for me, the answer would probably be wearing dress
and being something girly. I do love our costume but wearing it, taking photo with
it and especially trying to be girly could break my heart. Anyway, I still wore
it and took photos so accordingly I looked very awkward while other girls looked
so pretty. I’m not low self-esteem, it’s just being girly is not what I choose
to be.
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| the plum flowers - no more upset of not being able to see plum flowers at home as we can enjoy them here |
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| A big plum tree |
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| selfie with Huong |
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| We got this stunning photo after lots of attempts and failures :D |
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| Huong looked gorgeous in ao dai. |
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| The lovely couple - Sang and her husband |
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| Three of us in ao dai. It's the one I looked least weird |
The day of individual study project presentation came. Being the second last along with waiting for 7 hours almost killed me. After the presentation, I was exhausted, all of my energy ran out. I had thought of cooking something yum or dining
out with other students but I couldn't do that. I ended up going back to my room and taking a rest! But the spring semester is officially over, which makes me
feel better.
Had a skype talk with the girls home this evening as they dined out (so sad, i wasn't there!). It
has been a long time I didn’t have a group talk with them. We talked lots of things,
they kept me updated loads of news at home which shocked me (in both positive and
negative way). The talk with the parents came after. I enjoyed both of them
immensely. I realized how badly I miss them. Sometimes, you need only some
people to talk with even though you have a bunch of people around you!
Now, all I need to do is taking a rest and getting ready for my coming trip. My own vacation is not long away!
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