Meiji-Jingu, Yokohama and more tales from Japan.

Hello again!

I'd just like to start off by saying I won't be updating this blog every day or every few days, simply because I mostly just go to Uni during the week and do alot of homework so I don't want to bore you with details like that. I like to wait until I have a lot of fun things to show you!

My classes have properly started now - they are very intensive and 毎日、宿題があります！(Every day there is homework!) But honestly it's nice to be busy at Uni for a change, rather than being finished by 1 o'clock everyday like in Edinburgh, if you could actually be bothered getting out of bed to go to class that is. Haha... My classes start from 1 o'clock on Mondays (long lie at least) and Wednesdays. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays I have to be in Uni ready to start class at 9 o'clock (so I have to leave the dorm at 7.45 to be on time!) I am taking a few extra classes in Kanji, Conversation and Listening Comprehension as well as a few extra classes on Japanese culture to aid my dissertation research. A period in a Japanese University = 1 hour and 30 minutes so it is not uncommon that some days I am in until 6 o'clock or even later. 1st period begins at 9am and last period ends around 7.30 so as you can see it is alot more intense here than in the UK.

So that's enough about school for now - onto some fun things i've been doing this week!

So last weekend you guys had September weekend - we had Autumnal Equinox day which is basically the same but with a much cooler name. I spent my Friday off in Harajuku - primarily to visit Meiji-Jingu (meiji shrine.) Here is a handy description from Wikipedia for you (which you could have looked up yourselves but I thought I'd save you some effort!);

"After the emperor's death in 1912, the Japanese Diet passed a resolution to commemorate his role in the Meiji Restoration. An iris garden in an area of Tokyo where Emperor Meiji and Empress Shōken had been known to visit was chosen as the building's location.

Construction began in 1915, and the shrine was built in the traditional Nagarezukuri style and is made up primarily of Japanese cypress and copper. It was formally dedicated in 1920, completed in 1921, and its grounds officially finished by 1926. Until 1946, the Meiji Shrine was officially designated one of the Kanpei-taisha (官幣大社), meaning that it stood in the first rank of government supported shrines.The original building was destroyed during the Tokyo air raids of World War II. The present iteration of the shrine was funded through a public fund raising effort and completed in October, 1958."

The shrine itself is about a 10 minute walk from Harajuku station. After about 5 minutes, you would never believe you were in the heart of Tokyo, as it's so peaceful and quiet. Here are some pictures of the walk into Meiji Jingu.

Some pictures of inside Meiji Jingu;

I saw alot of people wearing traditional dress here, and my friend told me I was lucky enough to witness a wedding there.

At the shrine you can pay 500 yen for a wooden board on which to write your hopes, dreams, promises, wishes, etc. You can hang your board up with everyone else's and they are blessed daily by the priests. I figure there is some rule that if you tell people your wishes they won't come true, so here is a picture where my is board hanging up amongst the others, without you being able to peek ;-)

So then I left Meiji Jingu and got distracted by the shops, but even I got a little frustrated at how busy it was. It's very hard to get anywhere quickly in Japan as it's like this pretty much everywhere, all the time!

On Sunday, I went to Yokohama with my friend Kaoru who I met from the plane trip to Japan! She was an excellent tour guide of Yokohama. I had an amazing day thanks to her! かおさん、ありがとうございます！

We began the day with an extremely yummy Chinese feast in China Town - which is one of the largest China town's in the world! Besides the lack of prawn crackers (haha) it was one of the best chinese meals i've ever had!

Exploring in China town;

Discovered an amazing new drink! Coconut milk with tapioca rice - doesn't sound great but it is sooooo yummy scrummy. (I had two!) I tried cooked chestnuts and bought some Chinese oolong and jasmine tea.

Kaoru showed me some amazing shops which sell international foods - I now know where to get muesli, dairy milk, lindt, digestive biscuits and other home comforts!

We had a walk around basically all of Yokohama, around some shops, saw an aquarium exhibition, a cruise ship docking, and watched the carnival rides while eating some yummy bear-shaped cakes. (It was a brilliant day, but most notably a tasty one!)

We finished off a brilliant day with a trip to the top of the landmark tower! It's quite similar to Sear's Tower in Chicago, and my ears popped on the elevator up to the 69th floor! We got to see a panoramic view of Tokyo all lit up at night which was very beautiful. :)

Before I went home, Kaoru bought me a sweet seasame filled Chinese sweet which I really liked - thank you! Kaoru is starting a new job in Iwate in the north of Japan so I hope everyone reading will wish her well there with me. Good luck! :D

Yokohama was one of the best days i've had in Japan so far!

The weather here in Tokyo is starting to slowly turn to autumn - I now have to carry a light jumper with me, as sometimes it can get a little chilly, especially at night. It's nice to not to be sweating constantly!

Today I met up with Azumi-sempai, a friend of Sora-sensei's (my Japanese tutor in Edinburgh.) Azumi-sempai is a Keio University graduate. We went for iced-coffees and she is helping me with my Japanese conversation and speaking skills, so thank you Azumi-sempai for speaking with me in Japanese and for putting up with all my mistakes! You really helped me out alot! I'm starting to feel more confident about speaking Japanese already so I hope we can meet up again soon :D

On the way home, I stopped by Book Express and bought my first Japanese manga! I'm not one of those Japanese students who is obsessed with manga and anime (I think Simon watches and reads enough for th both of us haha..sorry :P) but I do like a few series. To celebrate one of Simon and I's favourite anime's starting again with series 2 this weekend I bought volume number one of the manga to attempt to read in Japanese! Isn't it brilliant that sometimes reading comics and watching cartoons is actually a valuable method of study?! It's definitely a plus. Also, what I am pleased by is the inclusion of furigana in this manga. Furigana is the reading of a kanji in hiragana written in tiny font above the kanji. It means that even if you can't read the kanji, you can still say it and/or look it up easily in the dictionary. (Kanji has multiple reading depending on how it is used. All kanji can be written in one of the basic alphabets of Japanese which is hiragana, although one must learn the kanji eventually because furigana isn't really included in many things. Then there is also katakana to learn. Katakana is used to convey foreign loan words. And yes, sometimes I even stop and ask myself why I am learning Japanese!!!)

And something funny before I go. What do you think this is for?? It is not the 'flush' button for the toilet.

Any ideas?

No? I'll tell you then! It plays the sound of a toilet flushing. Incase you don't want anybody to be able to hear you doing your business in the bathroom, you can press this and fool people into think you're just flushing the loo! Only in Japan...

Well that's me off to do some homework (reading manga counts here remember!) The parcel my parents sent finally arrived today, yay! So I'm also going to get started on my cereal bars because I now have about 500 alpen bars to get through :P I kid. Thank you very much for sending me all my favourite tasty home treats!! Got to ensure I'm not being too healthy in Japan of course!

I'm also thinking of setting up a mailing list to let people know when my blog is updated - to save you having to come on here and check. I'll e-mail you if you want me to inform you when i've made a new post. Just eave your e-mail in a comment, or if you'd rather keep it private info you can send your e-mail address to nat_b50@hotmail.com

じゃまたね！