[working title]

WHY IS IT RAINING?!
It's been thundering since about 3, raining since about 3:30, and thundering, lightening, and raining since about 4:30. great.
I was all enthused thismorning to go do someting fun, but then i just bummed around until about 12, when Danielle came by and we went to the Ueno zoo.
They fed the Panda and he was sooooo cute.
also, red pandas are adorable. they're like teddy bears/kitties/lemurs/foxes. If you take the most cuddly aspects of those animals and put them together, you get a red panda. seriously.
but it rained and the zoo closed at 4:30 so since about 5:30 i've once again been bumming around my room...
i think i might take a nap.
yeah...

-----
[about tuesday]

So, as I was saying yesterday, It was a really long day. My metro.tokyo class went on our first field trip and so i had to be there(at the minato city ward office) by 8:30 when class usually started. So, i left at 7. because I thought I'd get lost despite the fact that I had directions.
I didn't.
But look what was in the subway. Sudoku, but nowhere in the entire thing is it called that. It's called Kazuo. which means umm..number somthing. i'm not sure what the o is there for.

temples everywhere....

little fun gate in the park....

And it's a naked statue right out side of thecity ward office. you wouldn't think it's a big deal, but seriously, there are nude and often times very suggestive statues everywhere in tokyo. this one... not so suggestive. our professor called it "clunky" but wait until you see the statue inside...

yep.. she's just wearing a shirt. yep....

but at least this was a non-person statue...

but

another temple. this one is called zojoji temple. we're going just here for a fieldtrip for my japnese culture class in a week or so.

apparently Frank Lloyd Wright came to japan at some point and designed a building for them. This wall outside the temple inspired it or something... I don't really know what my professor was talking abotu because i know zip about architecture but yeah.... now you sort-of know too. yatta.

Here's a buddha

The theme of today's class was called Minato Ward: Old and New.

He said that in 10 years one of these two buildings won't be here anymore. guess which one? It's tokyo tower. The temple is irriplacable, but the tower is no longer needed. It was built right after wwii and it was a symbol that japan was becoming an industrial force once again. It showed that even though much of japan was still suffering the effects of the war, that it was coming back. Now, japan has taller, nicer buildings. and the land is precious. To the left of the tower, temple, which you can't see in this picture, there used to be a GIANT driving range. at least 10 stories tall. golfer on top of golfer on top of golfer.... but they tore it down and built a Mori buidling. (Mori basically owns tokyo. The company has buildings everywhere. you'll see some snazzy ones later). There are plans now for a nice apartment building/business center to be where the tower is now.

The Bell at the temple.

gates at the temple

temple...

Here is a statue of Jizu, the guardian of travelers and children. Here is an area where people go to pray for their dead (often aborted) children. They put red hats and aprons on them and they slowly turn to white. They also place little toys there too.

Tokyo tower.

and at the base of one.. "foot"(?)...

PUPPIES!

we didn't go up in the tower, instead, we crossed a bridge to take us to Atago Green Hills, a Mori complex...

but look at the bridge...

Atago Green Hills is two identical buildings that are really really tall. I think there's a pic later. Between them, there is a shrine. It's beautiful. Mori likes to keep a part of the "old tokyo" in his designs.

At the temple gate...

our new class motto:

Look at the area in the temple... it said no visitors, but we just went in anyway... there were even security cameras... but obviously nobody cared...

Next we went to this shrine that was on top of "Atago Mountain" which is basically the highest point in tokyo. There is a real one in Kyoto but when the Tokugawa shogunate moved the capital to Edo(Tokyo) from Kyoto, they also copied a lot of the shrines and temples and named the Edo versions the same thing. So, in Kyoto at Atago mountain there is a temple that looks like this one, but grander.

Oh, there are85 steps to get to the top. One of the Shoguns' generals challenged his men to get to the top of the staris on a horse and cut down a branch and bring it back. apparneltly a lot of them tried and a few got killed, but one did it. now, about every 50 years or so, there's a race to see if people can get to the top on horseback.
also, after wwii, when many soldiers came back after losing the war, many went to the top and killed themselves.

so... then we climbed to the top.

At thetop there's a sign that says no training on these stairs... i think it's because if you did you'd ahve a heart attack and die... those were frickn' steep stairs. i was so out of breath. our professor is overweight and at least 50 i don't know how he did it. and one of the people in our class is at least 40- (he was in the army before, but still) i think he was gonna die.

it's a pinful 85 stairs.

but it's reeeallly pretty at the top.

oh, and here's purification for dummies:

the dragon at the purification thing...

Finally, atago green hills. One of the most expensive places to live in Minato Ward. (that's the ward I'm in btw).

That's the end of the pictures. After that, we taxied back to school and then I had Japanese, Japanese Culture, and US and East Asian Relations. Then a about 10:30 i got back and went to sleep.
it was a looong day.


[fin.]