7 April 2009

I got up at 8am this morning to hopefully get going by 9am. Trudy, Scot, Zach, and I planned to go photograph the Times Building in Kyoto, which was designed by Tadao Ando. We walk by the building every day, but it is usually at night when it isn’t ideal to photograph it. The sky was a clear beautiful blue today, and it is definitely getting warmer. I didn’t even have to wear a jacket this morning. It was such a change from what I have gotten used to. I guess I don’t have to buy another warm jacket anymore. After that, we came back to the hotel to work on our final projects for studio which are due tomorrow.
Our appointment to tour Katsura Detached Palace in Kyoto was scheduled for 2:30pm, so we decided to leave at 1pm to be safe. The directions on the subway were very straight forward, but walking from the subway station to the actual palace was definitely going to be a challenge. I studied the route very carefully on google maps and also discussed it with my classmate Jeff. It is surprising how poor many people are with directions and finding their way in new environments. I’m not great at it, but I am definitely confident that I can get around decently. I just wanted to make sure I knew the directions very well so I wouldn’t have to rely on anyone else.
Luckily, we found it without encountering any problems. The Katsura Detached Palace was really great, and the garden we toured was very beautiful. The Katsura garden is specifically known for its beautiful landscape and the views it frames with its the greenery and structures. Since the entire tour was in Japanese, we had to look like silly American tourists with the audio headsets to translate. It was pretty hilarious.
After visiting Katsura, we headed straight back to the hotel. I stopped to by my favorite dango on a stick for 120 yen on my way back, since I will be moving away from here in a couple days. Our final project is due tomorrow, plus we have a lot of Japanese homework to complete. We had a very busy night ahead of us. For dinner, we tried sushi in Japan for the very first time. Trudy and I went with Norio and Blake to a sushi bar. It was the kind where the sushi passes by you on plates on a conveyer belt, and you are charged by the number of plates that you eat. This place was only 105 yen per plate of two nigiri, and Norio chose it, so I figured it was a deal. The sushi was very good, and it cost me less than 900 yen for eight plates. I thought it seemed like a pretty good deal for sushi, even though it wasn’t a 200 yen bowl of udon from Nakau! Haha. Trudy and I finished all of our project and homework by 2am, so we were at least able to get about five hours of sleep. I guess we are not exempt from the architecture lifestyle, even while traveling in Japan!