Tuesday June 2

Today was our last lecture at Meiji University and it was on a comparative study of Japanese and American models of government. It was a good lecture to end on because the professor talked about the public’s opinion of the government and its policies. Surprising there is an overwhelming disapproval with the government and its policies, much more than other developed nations yet Japan would not want a smaller government. In the U.S. people would rather have a smaller government and do things for themselves if their government was not effective but in Japan the local government is so important that they cannot live without it. We had some examples of some different programs that the local governments run such as bath in a bus. Each local government has at least one van that has a tub in it and it goes to houses of elderly and disabled to allow them to take baths once or twice a week. They also have a program for elderly where they would give them water thermos to make hot water for tea. If the power button is not pressed for a week then a signal is sent from the machine to the local authorities and someone is sent to the house to check up on the person. However public demands of services is growing at a faster rate than the government can provide it so they will run into trouble eventually and might have to cut services.
That afternoon we went to Kamakura. It is a place about 90 minutes outside of Tokyo near the water. It is known as a former capital of Japan and has many temples around the area. We went to look at the beach which has some resorts on it but it was not like a tropical beach. It was pretty similar to our beaches. We went to Kittain Temple which was on the side of a hill and had great views of the ocean. They are known for the gardens with many flowers and one of the largest wooden statues in Japan. It is housed inside a temple and it covered in gold and has 11 faces. It is basically one face and looks like it is wearing a hat with 10 more heads. After this temple we went to see the second largest giant Buddha in Japan. It was at an outdoor location with a pretty awesome view of hills behind it. We were able to go inside it and see all the welding they did to put the brass together.
For dinner we went to a place kind of like a buffet where you went to a cooler and got plates full of raw meat and cooked them on the stoves that were in your table. It was very delicious and we had a variety of meats like chicken, pork, beef, liver, cow’s tong, gizzards and some seafood. We went with some other people from our hotel and some students from Meiji. It was a lot of fun and the food was awesome.