Thursday June 4

Today is our last day in Tokyo. It has been such an amazing adventure and a life changing experience. I never thought that I could learn so much and make so many friends in a month’s time. I enjoyed everything about the country, people, and culture. I went into the program with the expectation that we would be helped by some students from Meiji University but I did not know how big of a role they would play in our experience. They definitely made the experience very special and so awesome. I can’t believe that a month has gone by already. Tokyo was starting to feel like home for myself and the rest of the group. It is such a great place and very unique. Even strangers were nice and they would go out of their way to help you find whatever location you were looking for. There were many differences such as opposite direction of traffic, using chopsticks 24-7, having really tiny water glasses, and the numerous jingles around the city from the subway to convenience stores and the 5 pm end of the work day song. I will always remember the trip for the awesome people that we became good friends with.
For lunch we went to the Hawaiian restaurant where we had Mahi Mahi burgers and were with a few of the Meiji students. When we got back to the hotel most of the students we had met were there and many of the professors. As the bus pulled up we started saying our goodbyes. Everyone started crying and it was a very emotional goodbye. It is strange that a month ago we were all strangers but now we felt like we were saying goodbye to lifelong friends. I gave a Red Sox t-shirt to one of the students named Benny who found it really funny when I talked like Arnold Schwarzenegger. We had fun talking to each other like terminators. He is a really cool guy and I hope he makes it to Boston soon. As we went on the bus the students lined up on each side to wave goodbye to us. The bus ride to the airport was pretty quiet as we were all recovering from our goodbyes and thinking about all of the memories we had developed. I am happy to think that some of the students will be coming to Boston this August and September. I will miss all of the Meiji students and I hope I will see them again someday.
It has been fun keeping this blog. I know I will miss Tokyo. But it has been a good way for me to keep my thoughts about my experiences and I never thought that Japan was going to be as an incredible journey as it was. I did start to miss my friends and family but Tokyo was starting to feel like a second home to me. I never thought I could learn so much, see so many things and make connections with so many great people and it will be an experience that I will treasure forever. Sayonara

Wednesday June 3

Today we had a quiz on all of the lectures that we had throughout our stay in Japan. We were able to use the notes we took during the lectures on the quiz. We were done by 11:00 and had the rest of the day free. I arranged a lunch with Akiko Takahashi and Akiko Arai, two employees of Wellington Management that I communicated with during my last co-op. I met them at their office and we went out for Chinese food. It was nice to see Akiko T. again as I had met her in Boston during my co-op. I had a very good time talking to them about my travels around Japan and the things that I have learned about their country. They found it interesting that I would choose Japan as a foreign country to study in. I told them I wanted to learn more about the people, culture, and see the sites of Tokyo and other places. I enjoyed our lunch and was glad I was able to meet them during my trip.
The afternoon when I returned from lunch I went exploring the many guitar stores that are around the university. I have never seen so many guitars in one area and there were shops that were dedicated to only Gibson guitars. I was tempted to buy one but decided against it. The area of Jinbocho is very neat and it is known for all of their used book stores. I am glad we stayed in this area because it was pretty centrally located to take the trains.
That night we had a few events planned with the Meiji University students and professors. They had a farewell dinner on the top floor of the university tower with all the students and some of the faculty. Everyone was dressed up and there was an excellent buffet of food. Some of the students from Northeastern and Meiji gave speeches about their thoughts on the trip. This was the first point where people started to get somewhat emotional as we heard what the Meiji students had to say about spending time with us. After this dinner we went to an Izakaya which is basically a Japanese bar. We went with most of the 3rd year students and had a great time drinking, eating, and singing karaoke. The professor from Meiji is such a character, always joking around with us, and he sung a few American songs. After this even was over we were outside the izakaya and the students surprised us with a gift for each of us. They gave us these book bags that had Meiji University written on them. It was so nice of them to do that. It was funny that earlier in the day I was at their bookstore buying a t-shirt and saw one of the students and she looked really surprised to see me. I found out later that she was there to buy our gifts and didn’t want me to notice what she was doing. That night we went to karaoke and took over a whole floor of the place because we had about 30 people in the group. It was fun singing songs with the Meiji students and was a good way to end our trip. We had the rooms reserved until 5 am but some of us left around 2 am. It was such an amazing night and it was so nice of the university and students to do all of this for us.

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.

Monday June 1

Today we had a lecture about Local Government in Japan: Structures, Features and Management from a professor from the school of business administration. He talked to us about how many different local governments are in Japan and the people’s views of changing policy and the role the central government has on local government. He showed us two videos during his lecture to try to get his point across. One of the videos was about a protest against combining two towns into one. There were a bunch of old men, in their 70’s that rode their motorcycles around and staged protests so that their hometown would not be combined with another town. The video was in Japanese but we could understand what was going on. The other video he showed us was about a bureaucrat from the central government who goes to a small town to learn from a supermarket. It is showing how he thinks he is better than everyone else because he is a bureaucrat. The agencies from Tokyo do send bureaucrats to work at certain towns or other cities for a few years and then reassign them to a different location. They might not be totally familiar with the locals or local process.
Our cultural site for that day was to see the Sensoji Temple in the Asakura area. The temple had two gates and a huge lantern was hung from the first gate. The area had many tourist shops that sold similar items. The shrine was housed in a huge temple that was undergoing repairs so we could not see the outside.
Later that day we went to a Japanese bar or Izakaya to meet with the professor who had given us a lecture earlier and about 8 of his students from the college of business. We had not met these students before but they were really cool and I had fun talking to them. We talked about school, our favorite types of music and other things that we had in common. We knew a lot of the same music and had a good time getting to know each other.

Sunday May 31

Today was one of our few free days on the trip that we did not have any lectures or sights that we had to go see. I left the club earlier that night around 2 am so I didn’t waste our last free day. Around noon that day there were six of us who headed off to visit Tokyo Disney Sea. It was pretty close and took less than an hour to get to on the train. When we got there we were so excited to be at Disney. The monorail we took had windows and handles that were shaped like Mickey’s face. We decided to go to Disney Sea because it is different from the parks in the U.S. They did have a Disneyland but it had similar attractions to Disneyworld. When we got to the park there is a huge globe in the entrance that looks like it is suspended in the air by a fountain under it. There were many of the characters at the entrance to greet everyone. The first section we walked through was the Mediterranean area which has a hotel and an area where you can take gondola rides. They have many different area of the park such as an old fashion New York area, Cape Cod, Future land, a Mayan pyramid, Middle Eastern buildings, and a huge volcano in the middle of the park that steams. We went on the Tower of Terror, some weather controlling flight simulator, Indiana Jones ride, Journey to the Center of the Earth, a roller coaster and a few other rides. The park is pretty new and it is so clean, I don’t think I saw one piece of trash the entire time I was there. There were also very few foreigners and all of the rides were in Japanese but we could pretty much understand what they were saying. I am so glad I went because it was such a fun experience.

Saturday May 30

Today we went to Odaiba which is a very new business and entertainment development in Tokyo. It is one of a few islands that were built in the mid 1800’s to protect the city of Tokyo from naval attacks. When the economy was booming in the late 80’s development of office building occurred and the area started to grow. When the recession hit the area was desolate until the late 90’s when construction started again. The island is known for the futuristic architecture of the buildings. Fuji TV has their headquarters on the island and has a pretty modern looking building. Our first stop on the island was to the National Museum of Emerging Science which was like the Boston Museum of Science but way cooler. They had an area on robotics, where they had a show with the Honda robot Asimo; however we didn’t get to see it. They also have areas about space flight and have a space capsule, the human body, and communications and exploration. The museum was in a very modern looking building. After the museum we were free to explore so we went to a shopping center called Decks Tokyo Beach which has a huge boardwalk overlooking the harbor. They also have the top two floors modeled after the street of Hong Kong. We ate at a Chinese restaurant inside this area. After this mall we went to another mall where the inside is modeled after an 18th century Italian town. They had a huge fountain and the ceiling of the mall would change colors from dawn to dusk. Walking through was like walking through a small village. They also had the façade of a church where you could eat at a restaurant in the “courtyard”. The island was pretty cool and I was amazed at effort that went into developing this area and each of the buildings.
That night we went to a club in Ropponggi. We got there by 11:00 so it was not too busy. I don’t like the fact that people can smoke in the club because it gets to be a lot of smoke after awhile. It was a pretty good club but I left early so I would not be up all night.

Friday May 29

Today we had a lecture on the Japanese economy and financial system. The professor formally worked at the bank of Japan. She taught us about the history of the Japanese economy since WWII and how it is experience a significant decrease in growth this year due to the global recession. The government is trying to stimulate the economy just like the U.S. government is currently doing. The Japanese government is issuing over $1 trillion in bonds this year to make up for their deficit. I am not sure how Japan will come out of this because they are spending almost as much as the U.S. yet their population is much smaller and is only getting older. She also talked about the booming economy of the 80’s and how the bubble burst and sent land prices way down and created a credit crunch. The post office which has about $2 trillion in assets was recently privatized to help reduce the cost to the government. It is much more than a mail delivery system; they have a bank and insurance group.
In the afternoon we went to visit the Bank of Japan (pictured). I did not really know exactly what their role was before I came here but we learned all about it on our visit. They are the only group in the country that can produce and distribute new currency. They make sure there is financial stability at banks and is an intermediary to send funds to different banks. They also create a monetary policy to keep the yen’s exchange rate within a target zone. They are not affiliated with the government which surprised me. They do work with the government but they have their own board that decides certain policies to implement. We saw the old vault where they used to keep money and other valuables. The door was over three feet thick, it was huge. After our tour we were given a lecture by one of the directors there about their policies.
After visiting the bank I was told by one of the students who went last year that I should check out the Mandarin hotel in the area. A group of us went to see it and it was pretty impressive. It was on the 37th and other upper floors of a building and had a very modern design. We decided to get drinks and I got a Lychee Saketini which was pretty good and had a very different flavor. We had a good time but it was very expensive so we only got a drink each.

Thursday May 28

Today is our last day in Kyoto. We had the morning off to do whatever we wanted so a group of about six of us went to visit a monkey park. We really did not know what to expect but we took the train about 20 minutes out side of Kyoto and asked some locals where the monkey park was. They kind of laughed when we asked them about it so we were not sure if we were going to a place where there wouldn’t be any monkeys. We had to walk up a fairly large hill and as we got about half way I saw a monkey run across the field in front of us. We kept walking up and got to the top where there was a house. We were told not to make eye contact or touch the monkeys or they could become aggressive. At the house there were probably 30 monkeys. The house was surrounded with fencing so the monkeys could grab on to the fence and we could put our hand out and they would grab the food from our hand. There were some baby monkeys that were really tiny. We fed them apples and peanuts and when we started feeding them more and more came out of the forest. There were probably about 60 of them around the house and there are about 150 of them in the entire area. We went out of the house to try to get some pictures but we had to be careful not to stare at the monkeys or approach them too close. Two of the people in our group were caught in a monkey fight with monkeys yelling and chasing each other. It was so much fun to see the monkeys and feed them.
We took the Senkansan back to Tokyo and arrived at the Sakura Hotel. I was glad to be back in Tokyo because I missed hanging out with the Meiji students and there is more to do in Tokyo than Kyoto. I loved Kyoto; it was a very nice city and had many great historical aspects.

Wednesday May 27

Today we went to Nara which is outside of Kyoto. It is a complex of temples and shrines that many people visit. The interesting thing about this area is that there are about 1200 deer that just graze around the park and get fed by people. They are considered sacred to the area and at one point if you killed one you would be sentenced to death. The first temple we went to was called Daibutsu-den. Basically the site has one of the largest wooden structures in the world and the largest brass Buddha in Japan. When I walked into the complex my mouth dropped. The temple is massive and is surrounded by a large lawn divided by a pathway. I walked into the temple and saw the giant Buddha. It was amazing and probably one of my favorite sights I have seen on the trip. The Buddha, when it was first constructed almost bankrupt the country and later in its history its head fell off. The current Buddha sits on a lotus flower and is surrounded by smaller statues.
The other temple we went to was called Todai-ji and had thousands of stone and paper lanterns in and around the temple. At two times of the year all of the lanterns are lit. The temple had a tree that was really old, I think close to 1000 years old. There were many lanterns hung around the temple and through the hallways.
We had dinner at a restaurant where we got our own private room and sat on tatami mats. It was kind of like a tapas place but was pretty good. We did get a table charge in our bill that we didn’t know about. We knew that there is no tipping in Japan but we were not aware that some places had table charges.
That night we went to a four story tall arcade and played all different types of games. I tried playing a game like guitar hero but it only had three buttons. It was really difficult but I saw some people playing it perfectly. I also played a Rambo game that was pretty fun. The place also had slot machines and other video game betting but we didn’t play those things.

Tuesday May 26

In the morning we went to Kinkaku-ji, a golden pavilion temple that was originally built in 1397 for a Shogun as his retirement home. When he died it was converted to a Zen temple by his son. It has been burned down three times in its history, the latest being in 1950. It was rebuilt in 1955. The temple is amazing because the top two floors are covered in gold leaf. It is set in front of a pond where you can see a clear reflection of the building on the water.
The next temple we visited was called Kiyomizu, a Buddhist temple, which means clear water. The temple is high above the city and its buildings are built on the hill. It was originally built in 798 and the current buildings date from 1633. There was an old tradition that if one jumped off the 13 m high stage an survived then their wish would be granted. There is also a stream that flows through the area where drinking from each of the three streams confers wisdom, health, and longevity. It is said to be bad to drink from all three because it shows that you are greedy and misfortune would happen to you. So I only drank from two. The area had great views of the city and really cool pagoda.
Finally the last temple we went to was called the Fushimi Inari Shrine. This shrine is based at the foot of a mountain and the paths are lined with Torii or large orange gates. Each of these gates are donated by businesses in hopes that their business will be prosperous. There are also many statue of foxes around the shrine because it was thought to be the messenger of the god. The place was amazing. We hiked about 30 minutes up the mountain on paths that were covered with orange gates, one after the other. It was very neat to see these bright orange gates run through the forest. At the top we took another path back down and ended up in a neighborhood where we had no idea where we were. We had a certain time to get back and the people we asked did not know English. Eventually we started running through the maze of streets trying to find a main street. We found the street and asked a shopkeeper where the shrine or train station was and we got in a cab which brought us all the way back to Kyoto.
It is amazing that these sites have been maintained for centuries and are still a place or worship after all these years.

Monday May 25

Today we visited the Nijo castle, a large complex that housed the Tokugawa Shogunate built in 1626. There were two sets of walls that were surrounded by moats to defend the castle from intruders. The outer wall was immense and was made using huge blocks of stone. The castle itself was made out of wood and was pretty large. It burnt down in 1788 by a city wide fire but was rebuilt in 1893. We were able to walk through the castle and see the wall paintings. The floors made squeaking noises every time you took a step and they called it the nightingale floor. This would alert guards if anyone was trying to sneak into the castle. There was also supposed to be many small hiding spots around the castle that they could stay in waiting for intruders but I did not find any of these hiding places. The grounds were incredible, with many different types of trees and beautifully landscaped ponds. The whole place was very impressive and peaceful.
For lunch we went to a place near the hotel that was one of the best meals I had through a ticket place. Some restaurants have these ticket machines that you put money in to choose what food you want to get and then you hand the ticket to the waiter. They are usually noodle and rice places. This was similar to the other places but a little more expensive but there were larger portions. My meal had some teriyaki, sesame beef, two beef patties, potato, green beans, salad, rice and miso soup. It was really good and was only about 860 yen.
That afternoon we had a lecture from a professor at Kyoto University. Kyoto University is one of the top ranking schools in Japan . When we arrived at the school there were just hundreds of bikes parked all over the school. Many people ride bikes in Kyoto and Tokyo, and most of the ride on the sidewalk so you always have to be on the lookout for them. The University had a very nice campus and our lecture was about immigrant communities in Japan. Japan has reformed their policy in the past 20 years to allow some foreigners with Japanese ancestry to work in Japan. These are mostly Brazilian Japanese and in total Japan has about 5% of their total population as immigrants. However, Japan needs to open up to more immigrants if they are to stabilize their declining population and loss of work force. They do not have the right to vote in national elections and some people are concerned that they will become the issue if they get the right to vote. The professor had some good stories about when he had studied in America when he was younger.

Sunday May 24

Today we left for Kyoto. We took the subway to Tokyo station and while waiting for our train we saw many different kinds of trains that run out of Tokyo. They look a lot different from the trains that we have in America. The fronts of their trains are very sleek and aerodynamic. The trip took about three hours to reach Kyoto. When we reached Kyoto I was surprised by how the city looked. I thought that it was going to be like Shinjuku or Harajuku but just smaller. The city was nothing like that, it was more calm that these sections of Tokyo, even though there were still a lot of people. There weren’t any skyscrapers and most buildings were under 15 stories. We were staying on the main street that included many different restaurants, shops, and the district of Gion which is known for their Geishas.
Our hotel was very nice. It was called Hotel Mystays and it was located on a main street full of different businesses. It was pretty spacious and we each got our own double bed, tempurpedic pillows and flat screen tv. We actually have floor space to move around in our room. We were on the 11th floor and had a good view of the mountains in the distance.
We went to visit the Geisha District and learned how they were popular many years ago as entertainers and their largest numbers were around the beginning of the 20th century. Now there are fewer Geishas and it was very hard to find one. We did see one for a few seconds on one of the side streets before she went into a house. There are also many women who are dressed in traditional Japanese clothing but they are not Geishas, I am not sure why they dress that way. The traditional houses were very neat looking and the area was full of shops, many of them selling Japanese candy and treats. I like Kyoto, it has a very different feeling from Tokyo but still seems like it has a lot to offer.

Saturday May 24

This morning we went to the Tsujiki Fish Market. It is the largest fish market in Tokyo that has 200,000 pounds of seafood move through it each day. It was started in 1935 and had a large indoor area where vendors sell their seafood. We had a tour from one of the former students of one of the professors of Meiji University. We were all very tired from the club but we made it through the tour. There are a lot of small vehicles that go through the market that you have to watch out for. One of the guys almost got his foot run over. We saw the tuna that had been auctioned off that morning. It is about $30 per kilo for a tuna fish. After the tour we went to a sushi restaurant where they had prepared a platter of sushi for each of us. There was tuna, eel, fish roe, sea urchin, and other fish on the plate. It was not very appetizing to have sushi after a whole night out and especially for breakfast. It was probably the freshest sushi that I will ever have and the tuna was really good.
On the subway ride home every one was falling asleep but we made it back to the hotel. I slept from 8:30 to 4:30 and then got up and went to get some dumplings and vegetables and liver. It was really good and inexpensive. After this I went to Harajuku. I went to some stores and checked out the Japanese fashion which is really different from our clothes. I also went to a really good Mexican place that was probably some of the best Mexican food that I have ever tasted. They had a Mariachi band and a really cool ambiance.

Friday May 22

Our lecture today was on the public finance in an aging society of Japan. The professor spoke about the fiscal condition in Japan. They have the potential to face serious financial difficulties in the future. Currently the central government has $6 billion of debt and total Japan had $10 billion of debt. They also only have 127 million aging people and declining. They spent a lot of money in the 90's to try to stabilize their economy. They have increasing social security and health care costs. The government is going to have to raise taxes such as the consumption tax and income taxes to help make up for their fiscal deficit. However both parties are hesitant to raise taxes in this important election year. They issued 40 trillion yen of new bonds this year to make up for the deficit. In the 90's Japan used public works to try to boost the economy which did not do too much considering all the money they spent.
We went to the American Embassy after class. We met with the head of a group of people who read the news in Japan every day and make reports about current events and opinions in the news. He spoke about how there is less support for the U.S. in Japan than there used to be. However Japan needs the U.S. for trade and protection. After this session myself and a few of the other students went back to Ginza to go shopping.
That night we went to Shibuya to go out to eat. This is the location of the famous crosswalk where more people cross here every day than any other place in the world. We did not know where we were going, as it was a surprise. We ended up at a place called The Lockup. It was a restaurant in the basement of a building that was made into caves. Each dining room had a cell door and there were times when the lights would go out and people would go around trying to scare you. We sat on the floor to eat which is taking some time getting use to it because of my height. It was an all you can eat and drink place that about 30 of us went to including some Japanese students who will be going to Boston this summer.
We went to a club after dinner called Atom. It had three floors with a different theme on each floor. It was crazy that all of the guys and girls got really dressed up in their "fashionable" clothes and had their hair done. They looked a lot different than how people go out in the U.S. We wanted to go to the Tokyo Fish Market in the morning at 6 am so we stayed out until the club closed at 5 am and went to the market.

Thursday May 21

The lecture today was about Japan's foreign policy. The professor spoke about how Japan became a pacifist country after WWII. It was written in their constitution that they are not allowed to have an army but they do have one of the largest military of any country but they call it a self defence force. They have tried to take on an international policy that will help them economically. During the oil crisis of the 70's they started to send aid to Arab countries and denounced the actions of Israel. They had a prime minister that was very favorable of the U.S. a few years ago but the more recent prime ministers do not want to rely on the U.S. as much. People's opinion have changed over the past five years and they think the relations between Japan and the U.S. have gotten worse.
In the afternoon we went to the Ueno park and Tokyo National History museum. The museum was filled with artifacts such as Buddha statues, samurai armor, pottery, paintings and writings. The museum compound was huge and had many buildings. Some people went to the zoo that was there but they were disappointed. We went to shop at a street near the museum that had many vendors and tourist type merchandise.
That night we went to visit Tokyo tower. It is 333 meters tall, looks like the Eiffel tower in France and is a communications tower. We went half way up to look at the city. The city was beautiful at night all lit up. It is going to obsolete soon as they are switching to digital signals and a new, taller tower is going to be built. After the tower some of us went exploring the city and found a cool little street that business people were at drinking after work. They are many small restaurants that cater to these people. It is weird to see people that are still in suits around midnight around the city and on the train.

Wednesday May 20

We had a lecture today about the education policy in Japan. It had gone through many changes over the century and used to have a centralized curriculum but now it has become a more choice based system. Students have the ability to choose some of their classes. There was a fear that students were getting burned out with studying and entrance exams. However, Japan has been falling in the rankings of math, science, reading and problem solving based upon international exams. They are trying to get students to study harder so that their standings will improve.
In the afternoon we went to visit a building that was kind of like a chamber of commerce. We had two speakers, one a writer for a news paper that is like the equivalent of the Wall Street Journal and the other was in one of the largest associations of business men in Japan. They spoke about the economy, government, and the relationship between business and government. We were able to ask them questions after their speech and they were impressed about the quality of the questions we asked. I believe that this was the first time they did this kind of program with college students. They usually have college professors attend this sort of meeting. One thing that I found very interesting from the talks was that there could be trouble in the Japanese government in August after the elections. Right now the opposition party controls the upper house. The lower house has elections this August and if the party called LDP which used to control the upper house wins the lower house but with a little less than 2/3 of the seats then the parliament will not have one controlling party which will make it hard to pass bills.
That night we went out to Shinjuku to a club. It was very quiet in there since it was a week night. That area at night is very busy and full of strange looking people. There are many people of the street that are trying to get you to go to their clubs or restaurants. We saw our first street fight that night with two people punching and slapping each other. No one tried to stop it but it lasted about 30 seconds. The train stops running around 12 am so it was not too late of a night.

Tuesday May 19

Today we had a lecture about environmental disaster in Japan and the policies that were created from them. They had many disasters in the 50's an 60's from contaminated water, air and mercury problems that were created from their factories. After many victims developed diseases or disorders the government stepped in to create anti pollution laws that would prevent these disasters in the future. This spawned a huge industry of pollution control companies that would make the products needed to control the pollution output of factories.
In the afternoon we went to the Edo museum (pictured). This museum told the history of the Tokyo area and how it developed into the capital of the country. They had many artifacts and mini city models on how the city looked hundreds of years ago. They showed the development of Tokyo throughout the 1900's with artifacts of things such as tv's, car's, kabuki models, etc.
After this I went to Ginza to explore the area (pictured). It is a massive shopping district that is like many NY times squares put together. They have really nice shops and some nice little stores that sell things from chopsticks to swords. I went to a bakery that sold mini bagels that were stuffed with sweet beans, melon, and cheese. I bought a white bean and black bean stuffed bagel, it was awesome. I also had Subway in Ginza and it was pretty good and very busy. They had some different items on the menu like shrimp subs and they don't put cheese on the subs unless you pay for it.
That night I went to karaoke with two of the people in my group and six of the Japanese students. It was a lot of fun but I had no idea what the Japanese students were singing since the words were all in their language.

Monday May 18

Today we had a lecture about the aging society and social security reform in Japan. Japan is facing a huge increase in people over the age of 65 over the next 50 years and a declining population which will be under 100 million in the same time period. In this time 1 out of ever 2.5 people will be over the age of 65 and their population under 18 will be about 7% of the total. These issues will put a strain on their social security system and labor supply.
In the afternoon we went to Roppongi Hills where the Tokyo tower is located and a major upscale shopping area. There was also a cool sculpture of a spider in the area. We met up with some of the Japanese students and they took us to a sandwich and cake store for lunch. I had a BLT with back that was probably close to a centimeter thick (pictured). It was amazing! They do not have the same type of bacon that we have it is much thicker but from the same type of cut. We went to a contemporary art museum called the Mori art museum
(building pictured). It was on the 52nd floor of the building. It was a pretty nice museum that had many different exhibits. One of my favorites was a large concrete wall that looked like a cannon ball went through it and all of the shards were suspended in the air behind the wall.
After the museum they had an observation area that went a full 360 degrees of the city that we walked around. The city has many interesting buildings and some great architecture (pictured) After this we went back to the hotel and we explored the neighborhood. There are many small restaurants in the area and bookstores.
That night we went to an Italian place near our hotel and I got a pizza with ham, spinach, mushroom, and an egg in the middle of it. I wanted to try it as I probably would never have pizza and egg again, it was surprisingly good.

Sunday May 17

Today was our last day in Lake Yamanaka. We had a anonymous question and answer session with the Meiji students so that we could ask them and they could ask us questions that might be uncomfortable asking. It was hard for some of them to answer our questions because some of them were very complex. We asked questions about if they feel too much pressure and sacrifice themselves for their parents wishes and what things they do not like about America. They were very diplomatic and since we were also their guests they did not say anything in particular about their thoughts on America. We took the bus to Mount Fuji from the house at lake Yamanaka.
It took about an hour to get to the mountain and we went about half way up (pictured, random woman). We stopped at a restaurant and gift shops. It was very cloudy that day and at the place on the mountain we were at it was raining and cloudy and probably 50 to 60 mph winds. Most people stayed inside the store but a few other people and myself made a mad dash outside to try to find some volcanic rock to take with us. the wind was so strong it almost knocked me over.
Along the way home we stopped at a rest stop off the highway. They have so much good food at these rest stops. I got a steamed pork bun and what I thought was going to be bread with cheese on it but when I opened it, it was filled with curry sauce.
I learned a lot from the Japanese students but when their professor asked for any one's opinion no one offered to talk. It seems that they are shy in a classroom type setting but out of the classroom they are very talkative and curious about what America is like.