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| From Japan: Day 013 |
Argh... why didn't I bring my real camera >_<
Yeah, I know I'm late... I'll be doing updates when I can get to it :P. Alright, here's the story. I was originally told by my host mom about a week ago that she wanted to take me to a Taiko Drum/Flute concert with her English speaking friend. Then a couple of days before today she tells me that it's going to be a piano concert. So I thought it was just going to be a boring piano concert and thought there would be no reason to bring my camera... Err... I was wrong... We first go have dinner at a restaurant at the top floor of Daimaru (a largeish shopping store in the main shopping area of central Kyoto) with her younger sister (not her friend, which I thought she said) and the student she is hosting, Marilyn, from Another Kyoto Program, AKP (ok... it's actually Associated Kyoto Program). The program apparently started in August and is now ending. It takes students from various universities, Marilyn is from Smith. Both Marilyn and her host mom (my host mom's younger sister) speak English, which made conversations a little easier. After dinner we then went to the Heianjingu (the same Heian shrine I went to the first week) for the "piano concert". This was actually a special "20th Anniversary Benishidare Concert in Heianjingu". What we did was walk around the sakura filled gardens in the pouring rain at night with the lights lighting up the sakura (it was also extremely crowded). At this point I was kicking myself for not bringing my camera, it was really beautiful (you can kinda tell from the pictures). We then walked around a path that encircled a lake/pond where the piano was being played in a lit up building at one end of the pond (again... you can kinda tell from the pictures). We then stood on the bridge and listened to the music for a while before heading back. Oh, and we discovered that Daimaru has a huge bakery/breads/foods area in the basement... I'll go back one of these days and get more food... I mean pictures...
Monday:
More kicking-myself-for-not-bringing-my-camera today. Nothing exciting at school today. We were told we would be having a dinner with Mrs. Bing, THE Mrs. Bing, as in the Stanford BOSP (Bing Overseas Studies Program) tonight at the fancy French restaurant on the 7th floor of the "kanbaikan" (one of the Doshisha library buildings), so we had to dress up nice and everything. Since I didn't know if would be rude or not to be taking pictures, I left my camera at home. Well... it seems everyone else brought theirs (I'm carrying mine everywhere from now on). We had a 4 or 5 course meal with wine and everything (this of course made many students happy). So sadly I didn't get any pictures (I'll try to find other people's pictures when they post them).
Tuesday:
Nothing exciting today... more schoolwork and junk.
Edit: Forgot to add that we went to go get cell phones today. I ended up deciding to get a prepaid one. Thankfully another student let me use his. He didn't need it because he ended up getting a calling plan and had no use for a prepaid one. Yay free phone!
Wednesday:
Again... no actual classes today but went to school anyway to socialize/work on schoolwork.
Thursday:
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| From Japan: Day 017 |
So pretty...
Yay, another trip, and lots of pictures (almost 150). First stop: The Costume Museum (yay, a museum that lets you take pictures inside), which is apparently on the 5th floor of some random building (how anyone would actually find the place without knowing about it before hand, I have no idea). This was kinda a quick stop (just enough time to walk around the miniature model and take pictures (and two people to try on the costumes). From there we went to the Sumiya (a fancy restaurant/entertainment building from 1641. "It is the finest extant example of Edo Period (1603-1868) ageya architecture." (more on that some other time...) Basically it's one of the few places that has survived Kyoto's many burnings/destructions from that period. After that I had to head back home to change to go to the welcome party welcome party hosted by Doshisha University at the Kyoto Tower hotel (bah... more rain... thankfully my host dad let me borrow one of his large umbrellas so my suit wouldn't get wet). Brought my camera this time :P. This was kinda boring since everything was in Japanese... so none of us understood what was being said... so it was pretty noisy while people were talking. First each of the programs that were attending had their director speak (zzz... want food...), then we finally got to eat (lots of stuff to eat, but they were kinda slow with refilling the food, making it hard to get what you want). After eating for a bit, a student from each of the programs spoke, there were about 5 different programs including Stanford and AKP (this was a farewell party for them). It was pretty noisy while people were doing their speeches, one person tried to get more attention by yelling (didn't really help). We went with the visual approach to liven up the speech. Then the Germans tried to copy us (ok... they escorted her onto the stage, then just stood there like bodyguards, and then carried her off). I say ours was better :P. After the party some of us went to Karaoke... Took us a bit to actually find the place... which wasn't that great... no new songs... everything was from 2005... I tried to sing a Japanese song I thought I might know and failed miserably. It's also annoying when people pick lame songs like the theme from Titanic or N'sync songs >_<. Oh well, we still had fun.
Friday:
It's Friday! Yay! Ok... nothing actually interesting to talk about...
Saturday:
Slept till 10... walked around the central kyoto shopping area... felt embarrassed/lazy to be taking any pictures, so didn't...
4/26 NOTE: I'll try to update tomorrow since I leave on Monday for my trip to Kyushu for Golden Week with a bunch of people. Also, be sure to check out the links on the right side for other Japan blogs from people in the program.
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