It's been about two weeks if I recall correctly and for the most part I have been stuck in midterm hell. It seems TUJ is more in sync when it comes to classes, so nearly every class slammed me with a midterm at the same time. It is moments like that make me miss my unorganized home university.
Ah the Blue Book of Death! My immortal enemy!
Most of my absence was because of my "Japan in Changing World" class, which if you all recall correctly is my political science course. I had the midterm, pictured above, a group project and an 8 page paper all due within about a week and half. Coupled together with 3 other midterms and I am a very stressed college student. Luckily, the midterm, group project and 8 page paper were all completed without much problem (or lost sleep) and I am confident the grades will reflect the work I put into it (which was a fair amount). So most of my grades are where I'd like them to be with me pulling Bs and low As for the most part. Considering I am in Japan and distracted by the sights and sounds, that isn't too bad. If I keep the work and try my best to stay up on top of things, I will do fine. At least I hope so.
On the lighter side, everything else has been pretty fun. My classes have required a few mandatory field trips to museums including the Tokyo National Museum and Nezu Museum. At first, I hated the idea of having to wake up early on a Saturday to go to a museum, but in hindsight both trips were not too bad.
The Main Building of the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno.
The Tokyo National Museum stretches across several buildings in Ueno and is home to make designated "national treasures" of Japanese art, culture and history. Parts of it are owned by private collectors but housed in the museum facilities and other parts are owned by the government. This is a random fun fact but also sadly affects what you can photograph and cannot photograph.
However, I managed to take a few pictures anyway and have uploaded some of my personal favorites above. The Tokyo National Museum organized many parts of their vast collection in different buildings but because of our studies we limited our tour to two buildings. The first building we went to collected many older pieces of art from pre- (recorded) history time periods (the Jomon and Yayoi periods of Japanese history). Also included were various pieces of Buddhist art, primarily statues. It was interesting but considering that class drowned me in Buddhist art, I can't bare to look at another Buddha statue for a long time.
The other building was far larger and had more variety thankfully. It had some older pieces of art such as haniwa (from the Kofun period) and some scrolls from the Heian and Nara periods. Additionally, it had some pieces from the more traditional and well known Medieval Era of Japanese history, which I uploaded above. That is what I consider art at least. At least it is more interesting to look at it. I made my way out of there soon after the tour ended and briefly checked out the rest of the exhibits. Many buildings were closed for renovations and remodeling so there was not much to see. Sadly, the building of Western Art was closed and I was curious what their collection had.
The following trip was to the smaller Nezu Museum. The Nezu was originally more private collection but has since become public and a whole new building was designed to house the art and emphasize the museum experience. While I cannot vouch for the effectiveness of the architecture in making the experience more emotional, I can say it was pretty to look at.
The entrance way is quite amazing.
The Nezu Museum frowns upon picture taking so my library of poorly taken photographs is limited but the Nezu does have a photogenic traditional Japanese garden with tea houses and shrines.
Forgive me father for I hav- Oh wait, wrong religion.
The walk through the garden was relaxing and definitely my favorite part of the Nezu Museum trip. The collection was very small and a bit disappointing considering the vast size of the Tokyo National Museum, however the Nezu had some great pieces including a long scroll that told some story that I forgot about. I couldn't exactly read it after all.
Following the journey to Nezu, I went down to the city of Yokohama which is about a 40 minute train ride from Tokyo to watch a baseball game. Now normally I am not a fan of baseball. I could watch it from time to time, but I never grew to admire the sport on the same level of hockey or basketball, my personal favorite sports.
But wow! The Japanese make baseball fun! If I read my ticket right (which I probably didn't), the game took was a finals match or series or something, but it could easily have been just a playoff game or a regular game. I have no idea to be honest. However, what I do know is: my seats were great, the game was enjoyable and I bought a hat for the memories. This was easily the best baseball game I went to as the crowd was lively, the clashing of America's "favorite" pastime and the Japanese flair for reinventing things was on at full force but was truly amazing to see. Pitchers were driven to the plate! I have never seen that before.
Oh and the cheerleaders were great too.
That is all I got for now. More to come next week. I promise this time.
