Japan Day 2... work through the pain
Hi all!!
So today started out kinda bad. I had to force myself to eat a little bit of breakfast. It was so bad I almost opted out of going to Yasukuni Shrine. But I knew this was a one in a life time opportunity and I had to go. Three stops and a little walk later we were at the HUGE tori that led to the shrine.
(Tori/gate) from far away.
(kind of dark... but once again you get an idea of how tall it is.) The guy who gave us the tour was pretty cool. The girls who translated for him were funny, sometimes they didn't know how to translate what he said, or don't remember what he said and kind of looked at one another and giggled then looked at our professor who helped them out. One of the first things we saw were a pair of Fuu dogs who guarded the shrine. Which were taken as spoils of war.
Fuu dog #1
Fuu Dog #2
A little way up we passed through another Tori/gate, this time it was a little bit smaller and made out of bronze.
There were many interesting things in this shrine, but what I noticed the most was how everything was so put together and revered. Like the Cherry/Sakura trees. They are being held up by logs, carefully keeping them from falling over.
And here is the shrine itself-
After we toured the shrine we went into the Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan to eat lunch. I had Yokohama curry and it was delicious!
Then we toured the museum. It was very interesting, however it was interesting to see how they put a Japanese spin on everything, or putting it in their favor. The thing that I remembered the most was the wall of pictures, of people who had died fighting for their country. Another thing that struck me was towards the end of the there was a picture of a man holding a baby then below it there was a hand written letter. Luckily they had translated that letter in English. It talked about how he loved his daughter, and she shouldn't feel like an orphan that he would always be with her. I wont lie, I started to tear up.
All in all today was an interesting day, that ended better than it started. Tomorrow is the tour of the diet building and a lecture at Tokyo University. =) Stay tuned for day 3 =)
So today started out kinda bad. I had to force myself to eat a little bit of breakfast. It was so bad I almost opted out of going to Yasukuni Shrine. But I knew this was a one in a life time opportunity and I had to go. Three stops and a little walk later we were at the HUGE tori that led to the shrine.
(Tori/gate) from far away.
(kind of dark... but once again you get an idea of how tall it is.) The guy who gave us the tour was pretty cool. The girls who translated for him were funny, sometimes they didn't know how to translate what he said, or don't remember what he said and kind of looked at one another and giggled then looked at our professor who helped them out. One of the first things we saw were a pair of Fuu dogs who guarded the shrine. Which were taken as spoils of war.
Fuu dog #1
Fuu Dog #2
A little way up we passed through another Tori/gate, this time it was a little bit smaller and made out of bronze.
There were many interesting things in this shrine, but what I noticed the most was how everything was so put together and revered. Like the Cherry/Sakura trees. They are being held up by logs, carefully keeping them from falling over.
And here is the shrine itself-
After we toured the shrine we went into the Yasukuni Jinja Yushukan to eat lunch. I had Yokohama curry and it was delicious!
Then we toured the museum. It was very interesting, however it was interesting to see how they put a Japanese spin on everything, or putting it in their favor. The thing that I remembered the most was the wall of pictures, of people who had died fighting for their country. Another thing that struck me was towards the end of the there was a picture of a man holding a baby then below it there was a hand written letter. Luckily they had translated that letter in English. It talked about how he loved his daughter, and she shouldn't feel like an orphan that he would always be with her. I wont lie, I started to tear up.
All in all today was an interesting day, that ended better than it started. Tomorrow is the tour of the diet building and a lecture at Tokyo University. =) Stay tuned for day 3 =)