Hristos Anesti!

Kalo Pascha, Happy Easter!

Normally, I go with my family to the local Greek Orthodox church (we have our pick of um, 4 within a 10 block radius) for midnight mass. We stand outside, freeze our butts off when the weather decides to be evil (as it was the case this year for them) and then go over to one of our family friends houses to play the egg game and eat mayiritsa. This year, Greek Orthodox easter falls on the same day as the "Everyone Else Easter," so everyone in the NYC area that celebrates Easter froze their butts together.

When I was in London, I found a Greek Orthodox church - since I was on my own, I didn't go to midnight mass. Instead, I went to the Easter Sunday mass, lit a candle and sat down for a bit.

One would think that living in Japan - especially Kyoto which is not really considered a "major" city for international stuff - I wouldn't be able to celebrate Easter in one form or another. However, the people back in the 19th century had other things in mind - a Russian Orthodox church (pretty much the same thing except for the language and the architecture to a degree) was built in Kyoto and actually considered to be architecturally significant. I found it in a Japanese book about significant architectural sites in Kyoto.

Unfortunately, the church was locked and I couldn't go inside to light a candle. I saw a sign outside and turns out that they had mass the night before from 11:30pm to 3:30am and no mass the following day. Oh well. maybe I will go some other Sunday, if only to belatedly light a candle and check out the inside and see whether or not the service is done in Russian, Japanese or a mix of both. Back home, depending on the priest, everything is either in Greek, or a little English is included for the crucial parts. Kind of helps the Sunday school kids, especially when most of the stuff is in Byzantine Greek.

Afterwards, I was riding my bike along Marutamachi to head back towards the river, thinking that I was going to go chill out at Starbucks. To be quite honest, I am quite tired of Starbucks and there are so many cafes in Kyoto that I want to try, but never really have enough money for it since I can get a helluva lot more coffee (Tall regular in a Venti cup - I figured out how to say that in Japanese) for my money. I think when I want to do my schoolwork I will go there, but for "hanging out" I will go to the actual cafes.

Today was such a nice day, and there is a cafe that has outdoor seating right along the river and on Marutamachi. After perusing the menu, which was in Japanese for a bit, I decided to check it out and see how their coffee was. I ordered a Brunch Set which was a snadhwich and coffee, but I paid a little extra for the strong blend. The sandwhich was a tuna nicoise, and DELICIOUS. It was quite big, and well worth the money, even though I am flat broke. That with the ambiance of sitting outside (62 today, 64 on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday and 68 on Thursday! Woot!) it was a very nice experience. I read my book, brushed off crumbs occasionally and enjoyed the quiet afternoon. Then I went to the Kamo River, read a bit more, then came back, did some grocery shopping and the $1 supermarket (aka "QQ") and then went to the gym, did laundry and cleaned my apartment. All in all, a rather mundane, yet gorgeous day.

Tomorrow is the first day of class. I am kinda excited in a way - tomorrow is also the Miyako Odori.