HA!

Sensei shows the noobs how knitting is really done:


Otherwise uneventful day of classes.

Ueno

We took a trip down the Ueno. Pretty fun day! First stop we checked out a street market district called Ameyoko (short for Ameyayokocho... that name is serious business).

The sign at the beginning of the street.

Just keeps going forever.

They had frozen octopus!

Evan impersonating the price tag... thing... at this sandwich place.

After a while we regrouped to get to our REAL destinate: the Tokyo National Museum. To get there we had to walk through Ueno Park (which is a fairly large park it turns out...).

Candiece in the park.

Then we saw these street performers with these freaky hats...

And I found Waldo!

Cool kimono lady.

Inside the Museum we saw some pretty amazing stuff. Exhibits ranged from ancient pottery (some of the first pottery ever made in Japan) to fantastic murals. There was some armor and weaponry too :P

Beautiful ink landscape.

This sword was presented to Uesugi Kenshin as a gift from Takeda Shingen's father.

Coolish: ice cream in a pouch...

The Flame of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
(this was in the park as we left the museum)

Like I said. Pretty busy day.

Roppongi

Today we took a class trip to Roppongi to visit an art gallery. Roppongi is roughly in the middle of Tokyo (almost directly between Shinjuku and Shibuya) and I was delighted to find that the museum was at the TOP of one of the tallest buildings around.


From the top floor we were able to see a *fantastic* panorama of the city. Facing south I managed to capture a shot of Tokyo bay:

Tokyo Tower can be seen on the left, and the Rainbow Bridge in the distance to the right.

After our trip through the museum we explored some of the area around the building.

A cool fountain outside the nearby apartments.

A playground!

A bizarre spider creature!

When our exploring was done, Gary sent us off on a bizarre assignment: finding and photographing "life in Akihabara".

Hakone open air museum

Another Wednesday field trip day. This time we took a bus ride to Hakone to visit the open air sculpture museum. This trip we were accompanied by some KAIT students from the International Club. Here are a few of my favorite sculptures from the collection:

Water comes out like tears and keeps the plants alive.

Just plain awesome.

Biggest sculpture around...

You can go up inside it!

Pretty awesome museum. I got pictures of a lot more sculptures these were just my favorites. Anyway, When we were done at the museum we got back on the bus for a short trip to another spot in Hakone. A lake of some sort. We walked around the side of the lake to a temple that was nearby.

There was a long staircase.

Little girl playing with gravel at the top of the stairs.

Dressed up in a kimono.The celebration of Shichi-Go-San
(a holiday for 3, 5, and 7 year old girls and boys)
was just a couple days earlier.

So when we were done with the temple we headed back to the lake. This is when I found out that the whole trip to the temple was just to keep us occupied while we waited for our PIRATE SHIP. Yes, a pirate ship.

Here it comes...

There goes the Cap'n.

Floating gate.

An exciting trip all around!

Another photo walk

Friday again and we went on another photo walk in the town around KAIT. We turned southward and followed the road toward downtown Atsugi this time. As we were walking down the sidewalk we passed a familiar spot. The sidewalk that our bus broke through on our first night in Japan.

Patched over with new concrete.

We kept walking and came across a little neighborhood shrine of some sort. We took a few pictures before heading on our way back down the road. The sun was pretty bright and I played a bunch with the exposure on my new camera. Fun times.

A little farther down the road we stopped by a field.

Found a white koi in the river.

Then back to KAIT for lunch hour. I ate my food on a Lusty Lunch Tray:

Takao-san

Another field trip day! This time our class plan was cooked up by Aya, one of our wonderful hosts from the KAIT International Club. We are heading to Mount Takao, the local large hill (for you Seattle folk, no it didn't have snow on it). So we all piled on board the Bling Bus...

Yeah, this is what all the lights looked like.

We had a nice drive through the country.

We stopped at a kids center partway there and had our lunches. We also got to play on their awesome playground.

Candiece introducing the birds and butterflies.

Climbing equipment.

The awesome playground.

We finished eating/playing and loaded back onto the bus. And as we did I suddenly discovered why the trip was taking so long...

Yup.

Well we finally got there in spite of bus. And while we were waiting in the lobby for the cable car to take us up the mountain, I spotted a curious machine...

Hello Kitty popcorn machine.

As we reached the top and got out of the cable car, there was another school field trip on their way down! They were apparently quite happy to see us.

Peace!

My goal on the trip was to gather some landscape pictures for an assignment. Here are a few I came up with.

Different colored trees.

Blade of grass.

We payed about 400yen to get into the monkey park, where we found (surprise...) monkeys.

One of them iz in mah bucket.

Meanwhile, another monkey is climbing.

Found some butterflies.

Then we ran back to the cable car and headed down. Exciting day.

Harajuku adventure

Sunday means more weekend exploring time. So a group of us headed back to Harajuku (at the request of the ladies). When we got there some of us guys grabbed a quick meal and I got a glass pepsi bottle....

Never seen one of these in my life!

To my delight we found some more awesome signs. One of the funniest parts of being in another country is reading signs that have english text on them. Apparently in Harajuku "smorking" and "tout" are not acceptable activities.

No smorking, no tout.

We did a little bit of people watching from a balcony on a two story building while the girls giggled and did whatever girls do when surrounded by clothes. This girl was wearing a hat which displayed the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch...

Yes, the holy hand grenade.

Some crazy fashion.

As we headed back to the station it started to get busy (yeah it apparently wasn't busy before...). We picked a good time to leave I guess.


We then set off for the Tokyo Pokemon Center. At the time I had never really played Pokemon, so Candiece and I stopped at a cafe nearby instead.

Yummy soup.

Also I learned that in modern Tokyo, samurai fight fires! It's true!

When our Pokemon-catching comrades were done in the Pokemon Center, we headed to our third destination: Tokyo Tower. We had quite a few stops along the way including a little open-air market and a really pretty park.

Grilled Shellfish of some kind at the market.

Big Gatehouse.

The market basically went right up to the shrine at the base of Tokyo Tower.

The Tower itself.

Stairs in the park that stood between us and the tower.

Whats going on behind that sign?

That was the end of our trip, so we headed back to Atsugi. When we got back we were treated to a fashion show. Seems the girls bought some outfits in Harajuku!

Candiece.

The whole posse.

Candiece again.

After the fashion show was done, I headed back to my apartment and crashed.