Ok, I have uploaded a buttload of pictures I took from tokyo university.
So if you have ever wondered what is it like the place where keitarou wanders about after the end of Love Hina… well, you don’t need to wonder anymore!
So, it has rained for the WHOLE day today, after a cloudy weekend. The weather forecast if of cloudy/rainy days until friday, though I could certainly use some sun to dry my laundry.
Sigh…
Anyway, I’ll take the chance to publish a few more of my pictures… and to add injury to insult, today I put online the pics of Komaba in the summer that I took to compare it to springtime.
So now you can see how my living place DOES NOT look like right now 
Stay tuned for a few more pictures during the week.
Ok, as said in the last post, I began posting more pictures in the photo album. This time with comments :-). Today you’ll have some pics of my birthday party, from earlier this month. Stay tuned for some more tomorrow:
Now keep on for your usual daily rant 
There are some days where everything just seem to go wrong - not really, but anyway. This morning was hotter than usual, and I didn’t really feel up like leaving my bed until 10… I finished hacking photopress (see last post), then got ready for the special Jikishin Training (for the “proper” welcome party for Hanada-kun).
I didn’t feel like going, due to the heat, but I had already skipped yesterday’s training due to some businesses in my japanese class, and I wanted to will myself out of home anyway. Also, heat is not an excuse to skip a training supposed to test your limits anyway. 1×0
When I get there, I found out that we would be running today. Of course we would, we always run before any training. It is just that my japanese classes always make me arrive later for the jogging, so I kinda forgot about it. I forgot to bring jogging clothes too, so I had to run on budogi. At least Hanada was the same as me, so I was not alone in that. 2×0
Due to time constraints, we would run a shorter course than usual. But since I have not ran for a few months, I couldn’t manage even that, and almost stopped after 3 quarters of it (the budogi and heat helped, of course). 3×0
When we went to train they asked me if I bought my keikogi in Brazil. My blue, normal one was too dirty, so I decided to take the one I used back when I trained at the Institute Niten, in Brazil. It turns out that the pattern they use for keikogi in Niten (white with black X’es), is usually used by children who practice kendo in Japan. 4×0
Of course, since I was using a strange budogi, the park was way more crowded than usual. Thanks Murphy. Our usual spot was taken by a group playing soccer, and we had to settle for a small one in another side of the park. 5×0
And during the furibo training, while I aimed at 30 suburis, I was only able to make 23, losing to both Ogawa and Hanada. 6×0.
After that, the day started to get better (as it always does after training), and I had a great time with the “old timers” of the club, Tsumori-san - who is taking a fireman test tomorrow - Ito-sensei, Irie-san and two others whom I can’t really remember the name (because I didn’t know them very well - sorry m(__)m). I’ve taken some pictures, and I’ll post them eventually.
See you folks,
Ok, I have many new things to blog about… but as always, I couldn’t organize myself. So I’m just catching up with a little of my backlog. (HunterGatherer Syndrome anyone?).
Anyway, the Kanda Matsuri. For those who do not know it, matsuri is the japanese word for Festival, and is one of the nicest aspects of japanese culture in my opinion.
Of course, matsuri by itself is a very broad definition. In all of japan, there are many kinds of matsuris, during all four seasons (specially in Fall and Spring), small and big. Most of them, however, have their roots in the shinto religion. The things I like the most about the matsuris are their happy atmosphere, and the colorful stands… the pics below are common scenes you would see in any matsuri in Japan:
Actually, these are not that different from the traditional “quermesse” in Brazil.
However, the Kanda Matsuri is kinda special. It happens once every two years in Tokyo, and it seems to be quite big, compared to others I’ve been to. This is a “omikoshi” matsuri, which means that portable shrines are carried through a circuit in the neighbourhood, which can last an entire day. Omikoshi Matsuri usually features only one portable shrine, but many could be seen in Kanda Matsuri. (unfortunately, I couldn’t take any acceptable picture of the omikushi themselves. Yeah, I’m that pathetic).
Besides the omikushis, this matsuris (as many other “parade”-kind
matsuris), featured also many other groups, bringing interesting
pushcarts or sporting costumes. Those groups usually represented
local associations, like schools, companies, businesses, politicians,
etc.
As a funny side note, one of the front groups in the parade were
a bunch of folks dressed up as samurai, and mounted on horses.
Well, one of the horses, as all such animals do, left its dropping
int the middle of the street. It wouldn’t be a big deal, if the group
after this one wasn’t the elementary school’s group, whose
children made quite a fuss of getting out of the way of the
horse’s droppings (it was much more amusing to see than
this pitiful description of mine)
Well, See you guys later…
So, a few weeks ago, I went with David and Ratnesh, two friends from the same dorm as me, to the observatory at Shinjuku Metropolitan Building. (the building in the above picture). For those not in the known, Tokyo metropolis is divided in many wards (ku). The administrative center for tokyo is this building, in shinjuku-ku. However, this was a relatively recent change. I don’t have exact dates on my head, but not long ago the executive center of tokyo metropolis was in marunouchi.
Well, anyway. Normal people usually don’t have any business here, except that, in the metropolitan building, you are allowed to take an elevator that will take you to the 45th floor, where you can have a broad view of most of tokyo metropolis.
Of course, since this is japan, this floor is filled with small presents and cute robotic things to be sold. Most people pay these no attention, but that doesn’t stop the toys from making all sorts of annoying noise. Also, the window with the best view to the center of the city is blocked by a rather expensive restaurand… you have to cough the dought in order to enjoy that part of the tower… bummer.
And before any of you guys get any adventurous ideas, no, you cant go up and down from the observatory by stairs. I have tried… the only way in and out of that place is the elevator. :-(. BORING.
Actually, after spending like 5 minutes at each of the public windows, I grew quite bored of the experience. If you can recognize the landmarks, you realize that tokyo is really not that big of a city (in terms of area). When I got tired of playing “where is this, where is that”, I decided taking some pictures of other people’s reaction to the views.
Talking about pictures, this are the “last” pictures of my pre-computer backlog. Now I just need to download my recently taken pics from Kanda festival, and I’m all set to go