BEHOLD! THE MOST HORRIFYING IMAGE EVER! I'll post soon with more pictures (not all this horrifying) and also an explanation for this.
Friday, May 23, 2008
OH GOD.
BEHOLD! THE MOST HORRIFYING IMAGE EVER! I'll post soon with more pictures (not all this horrifying) and also an explanation for this.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Man, I suck!
OH MAN GUYS SO I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO UPDATE FOR ONCE! LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED! I haven't posted in forever so I've actually got a backlog of stuff to post about, because hey, I wanna show you guys all the sweet pictures I've taken.
SO LET'S JUMP IN THE TIME MACHINE! IT'S NOW MID-MARCH! SPRING BREAK!
LET'S GO TO TOKYO!
So a lot of people believe that you can get anything out of vending machines in Japan. Well, it's mostly true. It's common to see cigarette and beer vending machines-- here's an example of a vending machine full of beer. (One of those is beer mixed with grape juice.. I haven't tried it but it sounds pretty gross.) I just thought I'd get this out of the way.
So, we decided to head over to one of the most scandalous places in Tokyo, Yasukuni Shrine. The reason for the controversy is that it's a shrine dedicated to all who died for Imperial Japan--particularly soldiers and others killed in war. Why would this be controversial? Well, first it's important to understand what Shrines are. They're a Shinto place of worship-- the basic belief is that certain deities are "enshrined" at each of these shrines. These deities are referred to, as a whole, as "kami" which can be loosely translated as "god". So, being enshrined is no short of a great honor.
Again, why is this controversial? Well, of the ~2.5 million enshrined, more than a thousand are considered war criminals-- about 15 are considered to be Class-A war criminals. There have been many attempts to remove these kami from enshrinement, but they've always been ignored. The fact that there's an adjacent war museum which highly glorifies Japan's aggressively militant past only reaffirms that the shrine is stubbornly refusing to apologize for any wrongdoings during war.
Additionally, many of the people 'enshrined' are also NOT Japanese, but Korean and Taiwanese soldiers whose families don't hold the same beliefs.
Anyway, we thought it would be a good idea to check out a scandalous place. The "Peace Museum" (which was really only about war) was indeed pretty inaccurate-- it's sad that Japan's leaders still refuse to admit any fault in ANY war.
Read more about Yasukuni here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni
A big ole' gate near the Meiji Shrine. The shrine itself wasn't really that impressive or anything, but I thought this was a nice picture.
Okay, now it's time to go to the city! Here's a picture taken of me with Japan's most famous dog! This statue is in Shibuya-- and although the statue is tiny, it's INCREDBLY famous. Everybody meets up here when they're looking to gather. Anyway, the story of this dog, Hachiko, is quite amazing.
Hachiko was an akita (japanese breed of dog) who belonged to a professor of the University of Tokyo waaay back in 19324 Every day, the professor and the dog would walk to the train station together. The professor would say goodbye to his dog there and go to work. The dog usually went home or went walking around the town, but he always came back at the same time every day to meet his owner at the train station. They'd walk home together. They continued this routine every day, and the whole city (which was small, then) knew them for their great bond. Until one day, while the professor was at work, he got terribly ill and died without ever making it home.
Hachiko came to the station and waited every single day. He would stay at the station for days at a time, even. He waited for ten years before dying right at that very station. The people of Shibuya were so touched that they had a statue built to commemorate Hachiko's undying loyalty.
Aww, nice story, isn't it?
Here's a picture I threw in for dad. I know he likes pictures of flowers and food-- since I don't have a food picture right now, I thought I'd show some flowers. These are some Cherry blossoms! They just started blooming around spring break, so it was hard to get a nice picture. but I found these!
This is right next to the Hachiko station-- the immense crosswalk of Shibuya. The crosswalk is a giant octagon (I think..) and all sides are given a green light at the same time. The result is incredibly chaotic. You've never seen such a sea of people cross a street at the same time! I got some more shots of the crowd but it would be boring to just see a bunch of heads.
These pictures are totally out of order, but it doesn't really matter that much. This picture was taken in Akihabara! This is the infamous "Otaku District" of Tokyo-- pretty much every building is an arcade, collectibles shop, computer store-- all of the coolest, geekiest stuff you can find! This is a great place to look for electronics, as well as video games, figurines-- whatever else you could imagine. This particular building was a 7-story arcade. I think I enjoyed Akihabara the most in Tokyo-- everything here was just so completely bizarre, you couldn't help but get excited.
Time for the Tokyo Tower! Not many people know about the Tokyo Tower, but it's a rather neat place. Obviously based off of the Eiffel Tower-- except for the fact that it's painted orange and white. This, nearby, is a small temple.. I can't remember the name at the moment. Anyway, you can ride an elevator up to 2 different observation decks. The first one, which is quite spacious, is about 150 meters (490 feet) up, and the second deck is about 250 meters (820 feet) up. I went to both, of course.
This is the main observation deck-- the lower one. It seems to always have a good amount of tourists. I took some nice shots of the city from here, too.
LET'S GO TO ODAIBA! Alright, so Odaiba is called the "futuristic city" in Tokyo. It's all on an artificial island, which you have to get to by means of a subway called the TOKYO TELEPORT. Sounds really futuristic, huh? This is the most famous building in Odaiba, Fuji Television. It was a pretty crappy day out, as you can tell by the picture, but I was still happy to see it.
Odaiba also has a neat museam called the Miraikan (literally, FUTURE BUILDING!). Here you can see tons of neat robots and strange devices. We messed around in here all day, it was so much fun. Here's a real Asimo robot! Apparently they let him out to play from time to time, but I didn't catch it. I'm going to try to go back to the Miraikan and see if I can't see him.
I did get to play with a neat robot that looked like a roach. I got to control it and make it go around an obstacle course.
Alright, I still have about a billion things I want to talk about when it comes to Tokyo, so I think I'll have to stop here and make another post soon. And I DO mean soon! Seriously! I'm going to redeem myself.
SO LET'S JUMP IN THE TIME MACHINE! IT'S NOW MID-MARCH! SPRING BREAK!
LET'S GO TO TOKYO!
So a lot of people believe that you can get anything out of vending machines in Japan. Well, it's mostly true. It's common to see cigarette and beer vending machines-- here's an example of a vending machine full of beer. (One of those is beer mixed with grape juice.. I haven't tried it but it sounds pretty gross.) I just thought I'd get this out of the way.
So, we decided to head over to one of the most scandalous places in Tokyo, Yasukuni Shrine. The reason for the controversy is that it's a shrine dedicated to all who died for Imperial Japan--particularly soldiers and others killed in war. Why would this be controversial? Well, first it's important to understand what Shrines are. They're a Shinto place of worship-- the basic belief is that certain deities are "enshrined" at each of these shrines. These deities are referred to, as a whole, as "kami" which can be loosely translated as "god". So, being enshrined is no short of a great honor.
Again, why is this controversial? Well, of the ~2.5 million enshrined, more than a thousand are considered war criminals-- about 15 are considered to be Class-A war criminals. There have been many attempts to remove these kami from enshrinement, but they've always been ignored. The fact that there's an adjacent war museum which highly glorifies Japan's aggressively militant past only reaffirms that the shrine is stubbornly refusing to apologize for any wrongdoings during war.
Additionally, many of the people 'enshrined' are also NOT Japanese, but Korean and Taiwanese soldiers whose families don't hold the same beliefs.
Anyway, we thought it would be a good idea to check out a scandalous place. The "Peace Museum" (which was really only about war) was indeed pretty inaccurate-- it's sad that Japan's leaders still refuse to admit any fault in ANY war.
Read more about Yasukuni here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni
A big ole' gate near the Meiji Shrine. The shrine itself wasn't really that impressive or anything, but I thought this was a nice picture.
Okay, now it's time to go to the city! Here's a picture taken of me with Japan's most famous dog! This statue is in Shibuya-- and although the statue is tiny, it's INCREDBLY famous. Everybody meets up here when they're looking to gather. Anyway, the story of this dog, Hachiko, is quite amazing.
Hachiko was an akita (japanese breed of dog) who belonged to a professor of the University of Tokyo waaay back in 19324 Every day, the professor and the dog would walk to the train station together. The professor would say goodbye to his dog there and go to work. The dog usually went home or went walking around the town, but he always came back at the same time every day to meet his owner at the train station. They'd walk home together. They continued this routine every day, and the whole city (which was small, then) knew them for their great bond. Until one day, while the professor was at work, he got terribly ill and died without ever making it home.
Hachiko came to the station and waited every single day. He would stay at the station for days at a time, even. He waited for ten years before dying right at that very station. The people of Shibuya were so touched that they had a statue built to commemorate Hachiko's undying loyalty.
Aww, nice story, isn't it?
Here's a picture I threw in for dad. I know he likes pictures of flowers and food-- since I don't have a food picture right now, I thought I'd show some flowers. These are some Cherry blossoms! They just started blooming around spring break, so it was hard to get a nice picture. but I found these!
This is right next to the Hachiko station-- the immense crosswalk of Shibuya. The crosswalk is a giant octagon (I think..) and all sides are given a green light at the same time. The result is incredibly chaotic. You've never seen such a sea of people cross a street at the same time! I got some more shots of the crowd but it would be boring to just see a bunch of heads.
These pictures are totally out of order, but it doesn't really matter that much. This picture was taken in Akihabara! This is the infamous "Otaku District" of Tokyo-- pretty much every building is an arcade, collectibles shop, computer store-- all of the coolest, geekiest stuff you can find! This is a great place to look for electronics, as well as video games, figurines-- whatever else you could imagine. This particular building was a 7-story arcade. I think I enjoyed Akihabara the most in Tokyo-- everything here was just so completely bizarre, you couldn't help but get excited.
Time for the Tokyo Tower! Not many people know about the Tokyo Tower, but it's a rather neat place. Obviously based off of the Eiffel Tower-- except for the fact that it's painted orange and white. This, nearby, is a small temple.. I can't remember the name at the moment. Anyway, you can ride an elevator up to 2 different observation decks. The first one, which is quite spacious, is about 150 meters (490 feet) up, and the second deck is about 250 meters (820 feet) up. I went to both, of course.
This is the main observation deck-- the lower one. It seems to always have a good amount of tourists. I took some nice shots of the city from here, too.
LET'S GO TO ODAIBA! Alright, so Odaiba is called the "futuristic city" in Tokyo. It's all on an artificial island, which you have to get to by means of a subway called the TOKYO TELEPORT. Sounds really futuristic, huh? This is the most famous building in Odaiba, Fuji Television. It was a pretty crappy day out, as you can tell by the picture, but I was still happy to see it.
Odaiba also has a neat museam called the Miraikan (literally, FUTURE BUILDING!). Here you can see tons of neat robots and strange devices. We messed around in here all day, it was so much fun. Here's a real Asimo robot! Apparently they let him out to play from time to time, but I didn't catch it. I'm going to try to go back to the Miraikan and see if I can't see him.
I did get to play with a neat robot that looked like a roach. I got to control it and make it go around an obstacle course.
Alright, I still have about a billion things I want to talk about when it comes to Tokyo, so I think I'll have to stop here and make another post soon. And I DO mean soon! Seriously! I'm going to redeem myself.
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