Week 3

Hello again. Classes have gotten well under way, which has made for even less time in my dorm room. This was a good week. As planned, I went to the taiko festival in Narita. We ate eel for lunch (pictured right) as soon as we got there and then walked around the temple at which the festival was centered around. We also attended a Buddhist ceremony, in which the monks lit a fire, chanted, and then collected people's bags to be held near the fire for good luck. Pictures were not allowed, so I don't have anything to show in that area. After a tour of the temple and some more free time, they had a performance in front of the temple. I recorded a couple songs. Sorry about the one I uploaded, I was at the back of the crowd and there was a lot of movement behind me. I had a hard time keeping it steady.

I was also planning on going to view the cherry blossoms in the park on Sunday, but they were all gone by Saturday evening. Instead, we just hung out in the park for a few hours and were bitten by many mosquitoes.

Then, I had my second full week of classes. I'm taking History of Tokyo, Pop Culture of Japan, History of Japanese International Relations, and of course Japanese Language. I have two or three research papers and about the same number of presentations. With the exception of Japanese, the classes only meet once a week for two hours and forty minutes. This usually makes for a large reading that I forget until the night before, which works when the classes and readings are shorter. Here, however, it's been costing me in sleep. But, I am adjusting to the schedule, slowly but surely.

Last night, I went to a costume party in Harajuku (a ward in Tokyo). It was pretty much everything you'd expect from a costume party in Japan. It made for a highly entertaining evening. For those who have seen the Calamari Wrestler, the man with the bottle on his head below may look familiar. The man who stuck a can to his head was at this party, sticking a can to his head. After the can, he upgraded to a bottle, the contents of which he poured into a cup provided by one of the other people he was up there with. Whipeout was playing in the background the entire time they were on stage. It was quite an experience.