Down the Coast to Wakayama: Temples 2 and 3

To make the timeline clear: I left the area of Kyoto on August 22nd and made my way down the peninsula toward Wakayama. I stopped in to Soji-ji and Fujii-dera along the way, because they are kind of south of Osaka anyway. I spent the night with my wonderful host family, who saw me off at the train station the next morning (August 23rd) so I could go to two nearby temples, Kokawa-dera and Kimii-dera, numbers 3 and 2 respectively.

The impressive front gate is made entirely of zelkova!

The kawa in the name of the place, a nice place to stroll if it's not August and the sun is not blazing.

I saw 16 Arhats at one of the temples inside Kyoto city, so I liked this set too.

This tiger is famous. You can definitely read about it here. 

I love trees, and this camphor is thought to be over a thousand years old.

The most cluttered rock garden in Japan. Unique, definitely. 

I really liked the lotus-blossom purifying fountain. I didn't see one quite like this anywhere else.

Kokawa-dera was really nice, and it was a gorgeous, sunny day. There was holy-sounding music drifting around, and I sat for a little while in the hondo. But since my second temple of the day was to be Kimii-dera, I was also eager to get on my way and see that temple.

Kimii-dera is named for three wells or springs that are found on the grounds. But it was going to be meaningful for me because of the Maigo no Tegami monument and letterbox. I'm a pretty avid writer of letters most days, and while a statue of a letter was definitely going to be on my visit list anyway, this one as "maigo" or lost-children letters monument had special significance.

In June of the previous year, we lost Shannon Lawrence. A bit later on I was advised by a friend/counselor to write her a letter. He added that I should then actually do something with the letter, either burn it or bury it or put it in the mail and 'the post has a system for dealing with things like this.' But right after that, I was looking at the particulars of this pilgrimage and stumbled upon the fact that Kimii-dera actually has a ceremony periodically wherein they are (I think) charged with burning the lost-child letters given to them by Japan Post in a special Buddhist ceremony. It all sounded really nice and I knew as soon as I read it that my pilgrimage would require my putting that letter into the letterbox at the temple.

So the night before I went to this temple, while at the host-family house, I sat upstairs and write a second letter to go with the first one, which remained unsealed but unopened since I had penned it the year before. I wanted to put both letters in the keeping of this particular temple.

I knew the thing was on the grounds, though, so I took my sweet time exploring the rest of the area, as it was really beautiful. First came the stairs, for which there is a story (here) about how they are the stairs of fate or good fortune or something [edit: The Slope of Karmic Bonding!]. I took it to mean, remember that we are all traveling together.

I checked out a couple of the springs, and they seemed to flow cool air and a kindly cosmic energy along with providing a good excuse to stop climbing stairs for a bit.

And just look at that green.

Pretty sure that is a small statue of the goddess of good fortune there too.

From the upper stories of the mausoleum (a sort of surreally modern and ginormous Kannon statue found inside) there was a nice view of the Bay of Poetry.

Also some nice folks took my picture!

I saw this little trail and asked a guy walking nearby where it went. He said he didn't know and wasn't sure it was worth the climb. I decided to climb it anyway.

It led to a deserted and fairly uninteresting little shrine building where I sat on the steps and read over my two letters and cried for a while before resolving myself to go down and find that letterbox.

Instead I found this cool tree that looks to have been struck by lightning or something and half burned.

I wandered around and around and could not for the life of me find a letterbox, so I went back to the counter where the guy who did my calligraphy and stamp was so nice, and asked him in broken Japanese about it, and he and the other priests held out their hands and took my letters.

After that, I was pretty much done. I walked slowly back through the temple, taking pictures, and stopped at the third spring, which I had avoided on the way up so as to keep from the appearance of following around this guy who stopped to sit by it.

And then I walked down the steps, marveling at the beauty, at life, and everything, walked sweatily back through town, and got on a train bound for Kyoto. In retrospect, I probably kind of knew this was the end of my pilgrimage line, at least for the time being. I definitely was bent on getting to Kimii-dera before I left Japan, but by the time I did it, I was pretty burned out on my two temples a day travel style. I was exhausted from travel and emotionally drained from my day at Kimii-dera, and I knew the best thing to do was probably just to go home. I would crash with Miriam again, which was close as I could come to home at that point in my itinerant life.

On the way, there was a rainbow.

That evening, because I hadn't walked enough that day (good God, Lemmon), I took a walk along the river down in Kyoto, while waiting for Miriam and dinner time.

I was well aware that this was coming close to the end of my time, and might be my last, or at least close to my last visit to Kyoto for some time, so I tried to soak it all in.

The next day, August 24th, Miriam had responsibilities of her own, so I walked down to Shimogamo Shrine, not all that far from her apartment. It was overcast and actually rather chilly for August, but I walked around again trying to soak up and bask in the energy of the place. For all that I had been on a pilgrimage of temples, I'm not sure I don't still love shrines a little more. Shimogamo is also a shrine that reminds me of Nami, my Kyoto big-sister. I wrote her a letter from a bench in the long wooded approach to the shrine.

The love-tree at Shimogamo.

Where Nami took us to soak our feet last year.

Surfing

In case you’ve never heard of CouchSurfing, I’ll give a quick summary.

You use the website to connect with potential hosts (if you are traveling) or guests (if you are hosting), offer them a place to sleep at night, and ideally you both gain something from the encounter such as a fresh perspective or perhaps a new friend. If the idea of contacting someone you’ve never met with an aim to crash at their place sounds like a positively terrible idea, then you’re probably from the net generation that was raised to recall the possibility that whoever you are talking to may in fact be an overweight balding 40-year-old in his parents’ basement rather than the hip 24-year-old musician he says he is. You probably also think hitchhiking/picking up hitchhikers is a terrible idea.

I tend to agree with you. As a young lone-traveling female, couchsurfing seems on the surface to be the opposite of something I should try.

However, there is appeal. My favorite type of tourism, if you recall, was what I termed “tomodachi tourism,” or the kind where you go somewhere that you know someone, because then not only do you have a free place to stay, you also have someone to hang out with, and even better, someone who knows something about the area, even if it’s not a great deal. At the very least, someone to explore with (and if they don’t have time to explore with you, then hopefully they can leave you a copy of the bus schedule and tell you which corners to avoid after dark).

And as sketchy as the idea itself may sound, the website for CouchSurfing does a lot to make sure the people you are talking to are what they say they are (or at least to provide you with information regarding how much they check out). People get vetted and approved in various ways through their system, which sets some people on a level of being much more trustworthy, in theory.

Now, as a cheapskate, and a traveler, and at times a pilgrim on the trail, I liked the idea of finding a cool Japanese lady (or girl, some of them were college aged) to crash with. Bangarang ryokan like the one I stayed in for Hasedera are really nice, but especially post-contract I was living on savings. I signed myself up as a host just as an afterthought, and so as not to appear to be a total deadbeat. (Actually, when I think about it, some people don’t have the time to travel like I did then, so although at the time I thought surfing was ‘where it’s at’ and hosting was just the chore you did to pay it forward, many hosts really enjoy getting to know their worldly visitors and learning about their experiences!) I figured no one would ever want to stay in my middle of nowhere living room in no-trainsville, Japan.

Welp, wrong there too.

I actually got a request just in the short time I was signed up before leaving, and proceeded to host a Japanese guy for two nights. Hosting, I realized on the precipice of doing it, is safer than surfing because you are where you are, with your community around you, which is not the same as venturing forth and disappearing into the wild blue. I notified all the JETs in town that I had a surfer coming because I wanted us to all have dinner together, and because I wanted everyone to know I was about to have a stranger in my house. Again, this was all fine. He was pretty cool, and we got lost together going up the mountain on our way to Chikusa for dinner on day two. Since this was during July, I was already pretty busy all the time, but taking a moment out to just spend a moment with this guy was a nice reminder of how to enjoy Shiso. He spoke enthusiastically about how great of a town it was, and it was nice for me to see it, right there at the end, through the eyes of a first-time comer.

This.. this is the end of the road, right here.

Back on the right track; I brake for misty mountains.

He showed me a little drum circle and I showed him the mountains, and brought him to my adult English class (which confused them to no end because—he’s not your boyfriend? But he’s..staying.. in your house..?!), and I also felt like I was not at all a deadbeat in the world of CouchSurfing.

So anyway, fast forward to my own travel period, in August. I sent out a lot of requests to various people in areas near temples on my route, trying to get together a sort of schedule or setup to build travel around. I only ended up staying with one family, down in Wakayama. They appealed to me partly because of location, just a few stops from one of the temples I’d been looking forward to visiting since I began, and also because it was a family, not one person as a host. They had two kids, one in middle school and one in late elementary, and were very foreigner friendly. The 4th grader, their daughter, seemed to think my proper duty at their home was to play Doraemon games with her. She was not fully wrong in this.

They also had the coolest house, and were delighted that I could speak some Japanese (this made it possible for me to talk with the lady of the house, not just her husband all the time). They cooked for me; we talked about all kinds of things. I tried to show them pictures of my house, but we had to settle for google earth. They invited me to go with them to Shirahama, one of the best beaches in Wakayama later in the summer and I had to decline because my schedule by that late in August was getting pretty tight. In the morning, after father (school teacher and soccer coach) and big brother (JHS students have to report all the time, even in summer, for club activities, just like dad) had gone, mom and daughter walked me to the train station to send me off on my temple visits for the day. I was just delighted that these people I didn’t know at all and who had no need to take me in and be so good to me had done so, and all I could pay them with was conversation (which was all they wanted, I suppose).

Forgot to take this photo before brother was gone to basketball practice.

I only have limited experience with CouchSurfing, but they’ve always been positive. It isn’t something I’m sure I’m comfy with in the US (nor is it perhaps something I need here, as I tend to only go where I have people, these days), but it is something I recommend looking into, if you’re into that. 

Osaka Temples: Soji-ji and Fujii-dera

August 22nd and undaunted by the previous day's trials, I rolled out to make my way from Kyoto down south to Wakayama, stopping at two Osaka-area temples along the way. There were two in particular that were reported to be very convenient to get to by public transportation (and from non-JR stations, thus I could use the heck out of my Kansai Thru-Pass), so I planned my route around them.

First stop, Soji-ji, Temple 22 of the Pilgrimage and the one from which the walking trail still leads to Katsuo-ji (visited the day before). Soji-ji is the size of an unassuming city temple.

There were some old ladies chatting in the shade of the garden near the pond, and I could feel them watching me.

I was proud that I was able to read the sign. It said you were permitted to ring the bell, but to please do so gently, as it's really freakin' old. I did.

Not all temples offer prayers, services, or amulets for pets, but Soji-ji does. It's principal image is a thousand-armed eleven-faced Kannon riding on the back of a turtle. The legend about this is that a nobleman was going about his daily business and saw some kids tormenting a turtle. He made them stop, and released the turtle into the sea. Later on, Kannon sent the same turtle saved this nobleman's son from drowning.

So I took a photo of a poster.

This turtle tale, combined with the story of the sandalwood of which the Kannon image is carved (said to have been dedicated to Kannon, ordered for the carving of the statue, then lost into the water along the way, but it washed up again in Japan), gave me the impression that this temple has something to do with being in the right place at the right time. The message is that things go where they are supposed to be.

Since it also had to do with pets, I had been looking forward to getting a couple of charms for the family's dogs along the way.

Buddhist Pet Cemetery.

Soji-ji is also famous for a dedication of knives that takes place on April 18th of each year. There is a fish-slicing ceremony related perhaps to a tradition that . There's also a statue of the Bokefuji Kannon we saw at temple fifteen. I said a prayer but didn't take a photo of her.

Stop two was Fujii-dera, in the town of the same name, another city temple (as opposed to sprawling mountain complex) filled with the wisteria (fuji) plants that would make it absolutely gorgeous (and crowded, I'm sure) come early May. Fujii-dera is temple number 5 of the 33, and was the first for me of that opening sequence of temples that wraps around the peninsula of Wakayama Prefecture.

It was a nice little oasis of space, mostly empty when I was there at the end of the afternoon, with gates on all sides leading into the city's streets.

Can you imagine this fuji in May?

The Kannon image at Fujii-dera (I didn't happen to pass a poster with the image printed) is another thousand-armed Kannon, but this one actually has a thousand arms. Most of the representations of senju-Kannon have a good many arms, but most of them don't actually bear the full thousand.

A few blossoms persist through the August heat!

The image is put on display on the 18th of each month, and on August 9th for sen-nichi mairi, which conveys the benefits in one day of prayer that you would expect of a thousand (normal) days of prayer.

I love the fabric in this portrayal of the wind.

Fujii-dera was beautiful, but I didn't have a lot of time there, as it was getting on toward closing time. What made it peaceful also made it kind of lonely. Plus I'd seen a lot of temples in a few days, two per day for as long as I could walk it.
I was headed for Wakayama City and the end of my Pilgrim Trail....

Helpful Shit: Getting to the City (and beyond)

I'm amazed at the amount of stuff I now treat as common enough knowledge in my life that I simply did not know upon arrival.


Like that the main station of Kobe is Sannomiya station, not Kobe station, although there IS a Kobe station, it probably isn't where you want to get off the train (unless you're going to Motomachi I guess)...

And I've gotten to a place in my life where I just kind of know how to get to the helpful information I want to use by either google searching key words in Japanese or linking through a series of steps that are natural to me. But it's high time I gathered these transportation links into one place for easier access (both for my own benefit, and anyone preparing to or continuing to live in Shiso).

Searching up directions to Shiso on a google map will give you some alarming results, based mostly on our lack of trains. It'll say something like, train as far as Shingu, then walk forever to get to Shiso.

But around here, the word to know is Shinki Bus, and that sucker will get you most places that you need to go. Unfortunately, their website is still Japanese only, but if you can operate in Japanese (or make your way though a google translate version), you are good to go.

Most especially the navi feature, which like hyperdia does for trains, allows you to put in your departure and arrival locations to search bus times. It'll give you several of the upcoming buses as well as the cost of travel. I have used this basically just to figure out bus times from Himeji to Yamasaki and back, but I'm sure it can be even more useful than that so long as you know the name of the bus stops you want to use. This is a local bus so it doesn't have luggage space underneath like the highway buses do.

Then, there are the highway buses, most often used by me being the Osaka and Kyoto buses. The line goes from Tsuyama to Osaka and Kyoto but their uses are different.

The Osaka bus is way more frequent any way easier to use. It goes by almost every half hour or so, and to get on you just.. get on. Take a little ticket showing that you got on at stop like 9 or so, and keep it til you get to the end. The bus terminates at Osaka station, but pro tip if you are going down to Namba or Shinsaibashi areas, it's easier and a tiny bit cheaper (not enough to really matter.. the best thing about doing it this way is more the avoiding of the massive entity that is Osaka Station City) to get off at Shin-Osaka rather than Osaka Station and take the red line subway downtown.  On this bus it usually takes about two hours to get to Osaka.

The Kyoto bus only runs four times a day in each direction, and you have to buy the tickets in advance (I've gotten away without doing so, but it always seemed like a big deal to the driver). The easiest way I've found to do this is to roll up to Lawson and use the machine, because reserving online and then paying for them seemed to be a bitch. If you do this, though, you have to select the bus line first, so make sure you say you are going from Tsuyama (which is in the Chugoku region, not Kansai!) to Kyoto first, then later you can specify that you are getting on the bus in Yamasaki. The machines can be a little confusing and I mostly navigate it as I go each time on sight.

There is also a Tottori bus, which runs from Himeji to Tottori with a stop at Yamasaki inter. I don't know anything about this other than that it exists and some people I know have taken it before.


After that, there is the fairly new but apparently popular direct bus from Yamasaki to Kobe's Sannomiya Station, affectionately known to us as just "the Kobe bus." Unlike the other highway buses, this one leaves directly from the in town bus station, so you don't have to meet it at the highway gate unless you want to.

If you are driving, and planning to take the highway, and want to know how much that will cost you, check out this page, which can help you figure out your toll cost based on where you are going and what type of car you drive.

Flying? There are a bunch of small airports in the area, but I've only ever used Kobe, Itami, and of course KIX (kankuu) myself. I've heard good things about Okayama, and I know Tajima has an airport, but I don't know what it's used for. There is no longer a direct bus along the Tsuyama-KIX line, sadly, but from Himeji station you can get buses to both Itami and KIX. Kobe airport is accesses by the Port Liner, which runs from Sannomiya, which you can get to by direct bus.

Domestic flying in Japan is a breeze compared to doing it in the US, especially out of one of the smaller airports. There is security and paperwork, but it's nothing like the clusterfuck I'd learned to expect from flying. You can even bring your water bottle so long as you let them open it and check the contents (by machine but sometimes by smelling!). Skymark (Kobe) has some cheap fares, but the new carrier Peach (KIX) is even lower. There's always ANA and JAL, which you can sometimes get deals on too (I think we used someone's "birthday fare" once?). Sometimes it is cheaper and faster to fly to a place than to take a shinkansen (king of trains), sometimes not. If comfort and flexibility are a priority, shink is the way to go. If you need to save money, check out flights but also remember the cost of getting to and from the airport in your figuring!

International flights are predictably a bit more painful, and depending on where you are going, will cost a pretty penny more. Going international from Japan is almost always a flight, though there are some boats. To Korea, boat is a good option, but that's the only one I know. For Southeast Asia, I've had good experiences with the bare-bones low-cost style of AirAsia, though you may have to fly through Malaysia or something to get where you want to go. It's super cheap, but just know that the fare you are browsing does not include your baggage, food, or any other perks: those you have to add on as you go. Once you do, it's still pretty dern cheap.

My final confession on this topic will be that I've spent way too much of my life checking out the different options for how much it costs to get where by what different forms of transportation. 

Emily, it’s been so long since you updated! What have you been doing that is so absorbing?

A whole lot of not much to write home about.

Well. Let me tell you what. At work, as things continue apace, rocketing toward graduation, I finally took all my marbles in hand and chucked them in the river (so you can’t call them ‘lost,’ exactly..). Idecided it was high time I tried the old ‘cooking class’ with middle schoolers. I also decided that, instead of some kind of culminating lesson with the younger elementary students, we’re just going to do a ‘cultural’ lesson for the end of the year instead (see: play foursquare and HORSE in the gym). This is essentially my way of giving up on teaching 4^th graders anything but the alphabet, God love ‘em.

As for the cooking, I have chosen my favorite recipe perhaps of all time, the delicious cookies I have been making since perhaps I myself was in middle school, recipe received from childhood friend Cindy. I thought of them because once, in high school, a few friends and I made a huge mess of them (like the way you might make a ‘mess of biscuits’ with Pappy O’Daniel flour) in lieu of other Valentine’s Day activity, then went about the school dispensing them in decorative baggies to our favorite people.

The problem with them is they require special ingredients not found in Japan, specifically instant pudding mix and chocolate chips. And I know certain Japan-familiar friends are going to give me shit about chocolate chips, because you can get them at Jusco, so let me qualify that by saying I went to Jusco and the chocolate chips there are MINI chips and they come in MINI bags, and are not appropriate for this LARGER THAN LIFE recipe of deliciousness.

So I sent away for some chips from Foreign Buyer’s Club (along with some oatmeal, taco mix, and other wonderful things, although I yesterday rediscovered a box of Reese’s cereal in my pantry I had forgotten I hid there.. basically I mean to say, I’m hitting the food jackpot)and found myself wondering why I haven’t ordered anything from them ever before, or in fact why I go to the grocery store at all, excepting the fact that I don’t think it’s a good idea to ship eggs to me, and also that bread comes in packs of about 3 slices, so you run out of that pretty fast (which is actually a good thing, because it goes bad just as fast), when ordering stuff online is so very easy.

Because, why leave your house at all? Well, actually I’ve not spent as much time there as I had expected to. I’ve been writing, actually. That novel I keep going on about (do I?), I’ve actually started working on it again and have completed a lot more words. But before you say “send me the first bit,” halt, you who are ignorant in the ways of “NaNoWriMo” and other such ‘just-write-that-shit’ techniques, because the first bit is total tripe right now, because I’m just trying to push through to get any possible amount of the plot barfed through the keyboard into word documents, so it calls for massive revision, especially because on some days, I didn’t feel like writing ‘description’ of any kind, and those happened to be the days that certain scenes were set specifically so that I could describe the setting of the fantasy world as seen through the eyes of a visitor. So that section goes kind of like “There was a parade. It was colorful.” The end.

I got the best comment EVER from a first grader yesterday at go-home-kai. I’ve been swimming a few times a week, just to stay moving, and especially on the Thursdays where I have to skip kempo for evening English class (I just bring a bag and my car and spend the entire day up near work because the pool is right next to work, actually). So it was Thursday, and the week before, I’d been at the pool, so this little first grader said “You’ll be at the pool today, won’t you.” And I said, noooo, actually today I have shorinji kempo instead.

And that cute little kid’s eyes bugged out of his head and he cried out "Suge~ onna!" And I laughed right out loud, because “sugoi” is a word that means .. “awesome” or “incredible, terrific, impressive.” But sugei is the Kansai version, and truncating it is a way of intensifying the word to sort of import shock into that impression. Onna means woman, but is not the politest thing to say.. normally you say onna no hito, meaning female person, for woman. So overall it was pretty much an intense, very Kansai, rather rude, very flattering interpretation of me. The kid then went on to tell the kid next to him that I was scary and one should not mess with me. 

It was pretty much the highlight of the month.

Otherwise, things just keep on keeping on. Lots of changes on that horizon, lots to come. Keep feeling like the end is nigh (and it is, with graduation upon us as of the 9th), the end is nigh, but there's a lot to go between here and there. And beyond!

And Now For Something Completely Different

Hi there everyone. My name's EmLem. When I'm not shaping today's youth, or out being a scholarly pilgrim at the Kansai temples of Japan, I'm attending Kpop concerts in Osaka.

Okay so that's not entirely true. But it's not entirely false, either.

The other weekend, I attended my first Kpop concert, because ELove invited NeoShiso's ladies and a handful of us said, sure, why the hell not?

Permit me to put the brakes on for a moment; I can hear some of you wondering just what on earth is "Kpop"?!

An excellent question. In the vein of Jpop and Jrock (being Japanese pop and rock respectively), Kpop is Korean pop music!

I went to see Super Junior, which appeared to me about the equivalent of a Korean large (about 13-member?) boy band. The first concert I ever went to was Backstreet Boys, so I figured this was about up my alley.

And of course I love to experience new things, right?

Although my boy-band U.S. concert experience is far enough in the past that a comparison between that and this is meaningless, I will nonetheless use that middle-school attended concert more than ten years ago as a background for describing this one (it was, after all, my background for experiencing it).

First off is the prep and priming. Backstreet Boys are easier for me to understand, being American first of all (and therefore, producing songs in English). I heard them on the popular radio very often and knew most of their songs to the point that I could sing along.

As for Super Junior, they are Korean (but release songs in several languages). The exposure to their songs has been limited to YouTube videos at ELove's, and her varied attempts to educate me on their names, styles, special skills, and likability. I don't really listen to the radio in Japan (surprise surprise) and even if I did, I don't think Super Junior is mainstream enough to be on the radio. And even if they were, it would probably be the Japanese versions of whatever songs have been released with Japanese versions, which aren't all of them, or aren't all the best songs, or isn't the best version of the song.

Let me give you an example of this. One video that ELove showed me was Tai Wan Mei ("Perfection"), which is a really fun song that I enjoy a great deal. The version she showed me is the Chinese version of the song, which according to her sounds cooler than the Korean (while the Japanese version sounds stupid).

That brings up an interesting comparison between western boy groups and those here near the eastern edge: these groups are releasing songs in several languages, because their audience is spread over several countries, which have different languages. Western groups can, in their native tongue, reach a much wider audience with the same version of the same song. Super Junior is, by necessity, more versatile. They don't necessarily speak the languages in which they sing or record songs, but they do know many of their songs in several languages.

 But those several languages do not frequently include English. So this leads to another aspect of the difference of intelligibility. Not understanding the lyrics does not always mean a song is less enjoyable. Although I personally appreciate lyrics very much, it also means that a good sound can be ruined forever for me if the lyrics are (and they frequently are, in popular music) totally stupid (I won't get started on this because it'll go on for paragraphs). Kpop songs may be totally inane, but I don't know that just by hearing it, and this prevents me from hating on the songs. I can just have fun with them!

Something else fun: the level of ridiculousness at the Super Junior show is much higher than I remember it being with American boy bands. SJ doesn't seem to take itself that seriously. Their entrance was, naturally, epic, but by the end they had charged out onstage dressed as a random assortment of characters (seriously, ranging from Steve Jobs [too soon?], to Gollum, to Marilyn Monroe, to Hulk Hogan, to Britney Spears), and later on, they pranced around dressed as the cast of The Sound of Music. They were clearly having fun being ridiculous, so it was hard not to laugh along with them.

There are a lot of members of this group, which is its own way kind of ridiculous, but I'll attempt really quickly to give an overview of what I know of the members*. To be fair, I'll look up the spelling of their names, and also include a picture. Then I'll tell you what I know about them, which in some cases is jack.

*The matter of members is a bit confusing for me sometimes, as members are part of SJ in different capacities, and also some members are absent because they are serving in the Korean army as per the requirement of their country.

I'll go in SuperShow poster order. Also, I've pillaged the internet for these pictures because I thought visual aids would help. For this reckless usage I apologize to the internet. Find more with google!

 Kyuhyun sang "Isn't She Lovely" as his solo and is totally charming. He's officially one of my favorites. There's also something about his face (his mouth) I really like (since you wanted to know that). His costume was Steve Jobs, and apparently he is also a bit of a video game nerd? He's adorable.

Sungmin is a cutie, and is most memorable to me for the fantastic figure he cut as Marilyn Monroe during the costume bit. His solo was a Korean song I don't know, so it was pretty but I wasn't as engaged. Yeah, mostly all I remember is that he's a babe, and made an excellent Marilyn.

 Shindong is really fun. In some of the older videos ELove showed me, he is chubby and has a terrible haircut, but in the concert itself he looked great. He's possibly the least girly of the members (so this may be why he's always the one in a dress... or that could be because he is one of the most comical), and his solo was, I shit you not, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (remixed of course). His costume was Britney Spears, and he also played the Julie Andrews part in their Sound of Music skit. He's a pretty badass dancer, though to me his face tends to look worried or concerned/confused.

 Eunhyuk, known also as Hyukee, sang a song we're calling "What's My Name?" because it required the crowd to scream his name back at him at regular intervals. The actual title roughly translates to something along the lines of "I am radiant gem handsome man Lee Hyukjae." His costume was a big white chicken. Eunhyuk does a lot of the writing and rapping and is apparently very talented.

Siwon, famous for his eyebrows,  his abs, and his love for Jesus, is not one of ELove's favorites. He does come off as a bit arrogant, but then again, he's a pop star! I personally found him delightful. Did I mention the abs? His costume was Superman, and his solo at the show was a church song, I kid you not. And while "Moves Like Jagger" might fly with Japanese audiences because, though it's in English, those into popular music would recognize the tune, church songs do not enjoy the same kind of fame in Japan. They didn't get it, but us gaijin girls sure did. Also, have you heard about this guy's abs?

Donghae is a ladies' man, and it's easy to see why. I like his face too! His solo was more of a duo (I won't say duet.. it wasn't a love song) with his biffles Eunhyuk, and we'll call it "The Rise of Oppa," oppa being the Korean term (so I'm taught) that younger females say to older males that means something along the lines of the Japanese sempai... like higher-ranking male person, or big-brother. It's a term of respect and apparently girls yell it at their concerts a lot.

Leeteuk  is the leader of the band, and I think he's a hottie. Some fans are concerned about what will become of the band when he has to go into the army. He's a really hard worker; you know how I feel about that. <3 His solo was "She," and I don't remember as much about it.

Yesung, nicknamed "The Creeper," (but for this we have an affinity)... he was Chuckie for the crazy costumes bit, and his solo was "Kiss Me." I don't really remember it either.

Ryeowook, or "Wookie" is one of the main singers with (in my opinion) the most recognizable voice. His face is really small, and he's a bit too pretty, but his solo "Moves Like Jagger" was super hot so he earned extra points in my book there. He also dressed as Gollum. Nice. [note upon editing: I just realized why his face bothers me. He really resembles one of my students -- a fifth grader who is always calling me Willy Wonka and attempting to learn curse words]

Heechul was not present physically, though he was included in one song ("Oops!") via the giant video screen; everyone saluted him, as he's currently off being in the military. He's one of the most famous members, and several concertgoers were dressed up as "Lady HeeHee" - his rendition of Lady Gaga - in his honor.

 Zhoumi - a member of Super Junior M, the subgroup formed for the business of touring in China, Zhoumi is a Chinese member who is super cute and has shoulder dance moves that no straight man could hope to do. He sang for his solo "Because of You" by Kelly Clarkson and got lots of love from Elove.

 Henry - possibly my favorite, Henry is Canadian and also part of Super Junior M (and not the 'main group'). I know he looks like he thinks he is cool in this photo, but mostly he is adorable. His solo was a sort of Bruno Mars medley in which he sang "Billionaire," "Lazy Song," and "Lighters." I got to see him play the piano and the violin.

The members also vary in their performance styles and talents. Some of them have great voices, and others are better at dancing. One or two of them do a lot more rapping than the others. This has caused them to coalesce into subgroups within the main group.. for example, "KRY" (Kyuhyun, Ryeowook, and Yesung) is known for doing ballads. There are also the groups Super Junior T, Super Junior Happy, and as mentioned, Super Junior M.

If you want more, I'm going to attach below ELove's video suggestions (again with the reckless pilfering.. but I like her commentary!). Enjoy. ^_^

Super Junior Main:

Bonamana: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSOSxwEWFA4

Sorry Sorry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QA3m58DQw&feature=relmfu

Neorago (It's You): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ErgffP0wVw&feature=fvwrel

Sorry Sorry Answer: http://youtu.be/6S4V6Wgwbko

Mr. Simple: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6TwzSGYycM&feature=related

Acha: http://youtu.be/GvTaLTTanJc

Don't Don (ooooold and everyone has Final Fantasy hair. Also Henry might make a cameo!): http://youtu.be/_ESoJwGkCeg

No Other (aka the music video where Heechul is replaced by a pod person): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSOSxwEWFA4

Super Junior M:

Me (everyone is adorable! especially Zhou Mi) (this vid has English subs cause I couldn't find the Chinese version on SM's official channel. I cannot vouch for how good they are): http://youtu.be/42C6vNgYsB4

U (everyone is hot and improves on the original. Also features Henry doing the violimbo ): http://youtu.be/wq0cu1_hoT0

Super Girl (the Super Junior M song.  Zhou Mi makes eyes, you wish you were a gay man): http://youtu.be/wsD4Ra86w4Y

Tai Wan Mei: http://youtu.be/OSqgZMyOiLU

Super Junior T:

Rokugo: http://youtu.be/NIwKHgcIEDU

Super Junior Happy:

Pajama Party: http://youtu.be/Cehi-lCqSX0