Golden Week, or That Time I Went to an Anti-Nuclear Power Protest

Sorry for the delay! This week has been really busy, and it's still only Tuesday! There isn't much going on here, really, except homework and room repairs. My water heater broke (again) last week, and right after that got sorted out, my bathroom decided that it would be really cool if it would flood completely after using the shower or sink for only 30 seconds. It's great. I meant to talk to my dorm head today about that, but I was so drained after class that I just came home and crashed, then did homework until 10:00 PM. I'll talk to him after class tomorrow. I'm home earlier, anyway, so there will be more time to take care of it in case it's a major problem. Yaaaaaaay.

Last week was Golden Week, so we had all week off from school. I didn't do much for the first part of GW except for homework and knitting, which was nice and relaxing, but my friend Jenny came to stay with me for the second half of vacation, and that was lots of fun! On Friday we decided to explore Okachimachi, particularly Ameyoko, which used to be the big black market in Tokyo during World War II and the American occupation until around 1953.

Let's go to the Tokyo National Museum -- Again!!

Friday was the first day we had off for the school festival, so I decided to show Eric and Margaret my most favorite place in the world -- the Tokyo National Museum! I love this place so much; it's basically the Metropolitan Museum of Art of Japan, in my opinion, and you definitely can't see it all in one day. Since the pieces on display rotate every few months and admission for college students is only about $5, I plan on coming here quite often!

Tokyo Adventures

On Saturday, Inga and I decided to try to tackle the Ueno Zoo and Tokyo National Museum. Being the ambitious, SMART planners we are, we decided to hit the zoo around noon on the hottest day of the week. But it's okay because we saw a billion animals... including PANDAS!

What, you've never seen a black and white before?

And I know it looks like the panda enclosure is TERRIBLE from the picture, but I promise that that's just the inside part and also only a REALLY small bit of the inside. It was a terribly hot day so they were (understandably) keeping the pandas in the air conditioned spaces -- regardless, they seemed really happy and active!