Journeys for Knowledge

I woke up extremely early to see my friend off to the train station, so after moving hotels and settling in, it was only 9am. Unsure what else to do, I decided to finally visit the one place in Tokyo I had to go alone to, Gundam Front. This center of all things Gundam resides in Odaiba, an artifial island home to many telecom companies and amusement parks. Gundam Front itself is at the top floor of a mall, but its impossible to miss the 1:1 scale Gundam in front.

Upstairs, there are various small exhibits about Gundam and Gundam models, along with an overpriced souvenir store. What struck me the most was the Gunpla exhibit, which showcased every model ever released by Bandai, along with the finalists of the Gunpla Artistic Grand Prix. I’m still building models with their default color schemes and designs, but these people have used the model as a base for some truly amazing art. I may not ever reach their level, but just seeing what is possible inspires me to keep working towards it.

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As our train back to Tokyo was leaving in the afternoon, we decided to spend the morning in the nearby town of Uji, the center of all this tea in Japan. Although the municipal tea house (which performs Japanese tea ceremonies for visitors) was closed, we made up for it by walking along the river and looking around the rest of town. We even found a smaller tea house open, so at least we were able to taste the wonderful tea Uji has to offer.

The shinkansen trip back to Tokyo was as relaxing as before, but this time we were able to get a fantastic view of Mt. Fuji as well. In retrospect I find my time in Kyoto and Uji was far more enjoyable than my time in Tokyo. While Tokyo is indeed a fascinating city with lots to see, Kyoto will be the region I come back to when I want to just relax away from OIST.

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This day was fairly short, since my friend was leaving early the next day and needed to pack. Thus, we decided to make a short trip to Shinjuku and its gardens before meeting another friend from OIST. Although he didn’t have any plan in mind, we decided to spend an hour at a cat cafe. For those unfamiliar with the concept, we spent an hour sitting in the cafe while cats were freely roaming (or sleeping). You could buy drinks and food for yourself, or small amounts of cat food to attract their attention. It was really amusing just to see people try and fail to play with the cats, who only responded to someone with food. I hear similar places are starting to appear in the US, but in Japan there are many types of themed cafes, including cat cafes, dog cafes, rabbit cafes, and of course the various types of maid cafes.

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After that rather eye opening experience at the robot restaurant, my friend and I set off for Kyoto for a few days. Naturally, we took the bullet train (or shinkansen) to make the trip in less than 3 hours. Still we were tired after reaching the hotel, so we decided to relax at an onsen (hot springs) up in the mountains near Kyoto. Even though it was raining and cold, the warm water was soothing and relaxing. The best part was the quiet outdoor setting, since many popular onsens are packed with people.

The next day, we set off early to explore the various Buddhist temples in Kyoto. This endeavour brought us to Tenryu-ji Temple, where we had an authentic vegetarian meal prepared by the temple staff. Kyoto is considered the capital of tofu cuisine, and indeed this meal did not disappoint. In general the vegetarian food here was amazing, unlike Tokyo where it was a bit of a struggle to find proper vegetarian food each night.

After exploring the temple gardens, we decided to head towards a more popular site, Fushimi Inari. Some may recognize it as the site with the 1000 Shinto gates (called torii), and yes there are in fact 1000. Unfortunately, there are also over 1000 steps, far too many to climb with the sun setting fast. Instead, we spent our time exploring side paths along the mountain trail, finding small gems such as a small lake, and a peaceful cemetery. Having worn our feet out walking and busing all over Kyoto, we had a nice dinner in the downtown district of Gion. A relaxing way to end a busy day.

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So this post is going to focus on one event in particular that happened this day. Most of the day had been spent following my friends from OIST as they showed us around Akihabara and more of Shinjuku. However in the evening we had arranged to go to the Robot Restaurant to see the show they put on. Despite the name, the food is not really the focus. Instead you get a show like this:

While we had some expectations of a bizarre show going in. those were all shattered by the end of the 2 hour performance. From neon taiko to robot costumed bands to animatronic boxing, there was just so much going on it was hard to take it all in. I won’t say much more about it, I will leave it to my photos and videos, but it was certainly a worthwhile and unique experience.

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For the next several posts, I will recount my two week trip to Tokyo and Kyoto over the winter break. For part of this journey, I was accompanied by my friend who came to visit me on her way to India. This post however will focus on my first day in Tokyo, where I simply immersed myself in the city by exploring various districts. Much like my previous exploits in London, the goal was just feel comfortable getting around the dense and busy city, before focusing on particular sights.

It happened to be a holiday that day, celebrating the emperor’s birthday. As such I deemed it appropriate to pay a visit to Meiji-jingu, the famous shrine in the heart of Tokyo dedicated to Emperor Meiji. To those who are unaware, Emperor Meiji was chiefly responsible for spurring Japan into industrialization, helping make it a powerhouse on par with the Western powers back in the early 1900s. As such, he is held is very high regard with the Japanese people, so his shrine is often quite crowded. But inside the main courtyard, you would never guess you were in the middle of a bustling city. The insulating park around the shrine provides a calming atmosphere inside a stressful environment.

The rest of the day had no real target, just aimless wandering through the districts of Shinjuku, Harajuku, and Shibuya. Shinjuku was a bit more dense and full of tight alleys, while Shibuya was covered with multistory departments stores with everything from electronics to clothes to hobby materials. Harajuku however was rather eccentric, with ethnic restaurants, food trucks, and a tight alley full of indie fashion I couldn’t fully comprehend. Yet all these districts coexist in one giant city, and that was only the first day of many.

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Though I didn’t post anything about thanksgiving, I did in fact have a wonderful feast with my fellow students. One would think having a giant turkey would be enough meat for one sitting, but my friend Jeremie decided to go further. For his birthday he summoned a 70kg whole BBQ pig, and invited all his friends to help devour it. Naturally there were other options as well, and I figured it would be a good time to try my luck at pumpkin pie again with proper pie tins.

Needless to say, they turned out perfectly. Not only the texture, but even the surface was perfect. I could not have asked for a better result to share with so many people, all of whom were impressed. To be honest, I enjoyed it far more than the prospect of eating massive amounts of pork. With my pumpkin pie and muffin recipes set, I’m content with my baking skills to indulge myself whenever I choose.

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As you’ve seen from my time in Cambridge, building is quite a popular hobby of mine, particularly Gundam model kits. Since these kits are made in Japan, it only makes sense that I would continue to build them here. In fact, there is a model shop within driving distance that has almost every possible model I could want. Extremely tempting, so I tried to restrain myself to buying 3 kits in the past few months. Unfortunately grad school has kept me really busy, so I’ve only been able to finish one model thus far. This model is a new grade for me, Master Grade. They are bigger than the High and Real Grade models I’ve made before, but with the same complexity as the Real Grades. More importantly, it is a model of my favorite Gundam of all time, Gundam Exia.

Exia has a separate drive unit that powers the entire suit (in the show at least), and focuses mostly on close quarters combat. As such it comes with a lot of swords, seven to be exact. Building this kit was just the beginning though, since there is so much more that can be done after a straight build. This time I decided to keep it simple, only adding on the dry transfer decals that came with the kits. To protect these decals, and give the model a more realistic texture, I coated the parts with a matte top coat. Though this did not go as well as planned, with some foggy areas showing up, overall I’m quite happy with my work, and looking forward to my next kit, where I will attempt additional detailing with lining markers.

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Although this post is coming a month after my last one, it actually takes place the day after. November 5th is Guy Fawkes day, which in England is roughly the equivalent of July 4th. I say roughly because the only similarity is people gather together to set off tons of fireworks. Naturally this works out well for us in Okinawa, where fireworks are cheap and beaches to set them off are plentiful. Compared to my last set of photos, I tried playing around with longer exposures and smearing images. Fireworks are fussy subjects, so you need to quick on your feet and with the shutter to capture the best moments, a stark contrast from the calm and careful shots I usually post here. Whereas the latter is like a well placed sniper shot, the former is erratic and scattered like a shotgun. Although you would think the pros would all take perfectly placed shots, sometimes it’s impossible to predict the perfect moment, so you just have to capture all of them.

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It has been far too long since I last posted here. Unfortunately there was not much time to compose a proper post in the last few weeks due to my involvement organizing a campus wide Diwali event. You can find several official pictures of the various events we organized here and here, though you will not see me because my work was entirely behind the scenes. That said, the events were tremendously successful, but I would rather not go through this again, given how much work this added to my already busy schedule.

Luckily, another three weekend was right around the corner, giving me ample time to catch up on work and even take time off to go hiking with friends in the local area. Starting at a local park, the trail took us up into the hills just north of OIST, with dense tree line sheltering us from the wind and any view of the outside world. Suddenly we made it to the top, and were treated to a wonderful view of the closest town, as well as the ocean on both sides. Although the hill was only 345 meters tall, it was a nice adventure feeling truly lost in the forest, before popping out on a road and slowly making our way back. This hill was the second tallest peak on Okinawa, but when the weather is better in mainland Japan I intend to truly hike by tackling Mt Fuji. Till then, I shall content myself with this little strolls.

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