drupagliassotti @ May 31, 2010 # No Comment Yet
Day 13 (Monday): Miyajima album here. One of the “three most scenic spots of Japan,” Miyajima’s Itsukushima Shinto Shrine is a World Cultural Heritage site and the Mt. Misen Primeval Forest a national treasure. (The other three spots, according to 1643 Confucian scholar Shunsai Hayashi, are Matsushima and Amanohashidate, just in case you were wondering.) [...]
drupagliassotti @ May 30, 2010 # No Comment Yet
Day 12 (Sunday): New photos added to the Kyoto album here. As is only fitting for a Sunday, today was the Day of Temples and Shrines. And, oddly, maiko — that is, geishas-in-training. We started out visiting Sanjyusangendo (Buddhist), an immense long hall famed for its 1,001 gold-painted statues of Kannon. I had flashbacks to [...]
drupagliassotti @ May 29, 2010 # No Comment Yet
Day 11 (Saturday): More new photos added here. I’ve often said I’ll try anything once, but when it came down to trying yakitori chicken ovaries for dinner, I decided that some things I’ll only try once with considerably more alcohol in me than I had. So, no chicken ovaries for dinner, and we also chose [...]
drupagliassotti @ May 28, 2010 # No Comment Yet
Day 10 (Friday): (More photos added to the Kyoto album here.) The emperor of Japan no longer lives in the Kyoto Imperial Palace, but visitors still need to make reservations and turn in a copy of their passport to see it. We went on the 10 a.m. tour. In 784, Emperor Kanmu moved the capital [...]
drupagliassotti @ May 27, 2010 # No Comment Yet
Day 9 (Thursday): Check out the photos here. Nara was fabulous; I took 200 photos, but I’ve limited the online gallery to just a handful of the most interesting. It’s an expensive trip from Kyoto to Nara — about $10 each way — but I’d certainly recommend it to visitors. The Nara park is extensive [...]
drupagliassotti @ May 26, 2010 # No Comment Yet
Day 8 (Wednesday): More photos here. Of course my hotel room’s internet line isn’t working, whereas everyone else who didn’t bring a laptop is in a room where it works great. I begged one of the students to use her line while she’s downstairs…. One week in Japan, and I’ve spent about $300 on meals [...]
drupagliassotti @ May 25, 2010 # No Comment Yet
Day 6-7 (Monday & Tuesday): Monday morning was early, rousting us all up and out at 6 a.m. to catch the bus to Takayama (photos here). What should have been a five-hour drive stretched to seven due to the rain, which closed the usual road into the mountain-locked town and sent us on a more [...]
drupagliassotti @ May 23, 2010 # No Comment Yet
Day 5 (Sunday): I was very eager to get to the famous Harajuku to see the cosplayers, so it was with considerable disappointment that I woke up to heavy rain. We went outside the Imperial Palace to take a few photos, then to Meiji Shrine, all in the rain. At the shrine, we learned the [...]
drupagliassotti @ May 22, 2010 # One Comment
Day 4 (Saturday): One out of 57 people in Japan is a registered foreign resident; they tend to congregate in Tokyo, where 1 out of 31 is foreign. In order, Koreans and Chinese are the most numerous foreign groups, followed by citizens of Brazil, the Philippines, Peru, and Other. Children born to foreign residents, whether [...]
drupagliassotti @ May 21, 2010 # 2 Comments
Day 3 (Friday): (New photos added here.) On the way out of the train station to the Edo-Tokyo Museum we spotted several sumo wrestlers in their topknots and bright yukata heading off to a sumo championship; they were the beginning-level wrestlers, as the higher-ranking wrestlers compete later in the day. I love the fact that [...]