Shrines, With a Side of Gardens

I still have one post to write about my weekend trip to Nagano and Matsumoto, but as this week coming up will be pretty boring with finals I'm going to take this opportunity to get caught up on everything that happened this past week!

Monday and Tuesday were pretty much just consumed with writing my 6,000 word paper for my NGO Management class. Thankfully I was working in a group -- we had the option to do so, but some people wrote it by themselves. I have no idea how they pulled that off! Tuesday afternoon I really wanted to take a break from my paper and go for a run, and right as I told my groupmate "I need to go run now before it starts raining," it started pouring (of course). But, I decided to go for a short run anyways, and got thoroughly soaked/looked ridiculous but provided substantial amusement for all of the Japanese people making their way home from work. But it was worth it -- runs in the rain are the best!

On Wednesday we had our final CIEE group meeting to talk about our last few weeks of program and departure plans, etc. I can't believe I go home in less than four weeks -- the time has flown by. Talking about all that really stressed me out, but (thankfully?) I also had the paper to deal with. But, we finished it up right after the meeting and emailed it to the professor well before the 5pm deadline! After class my groupmates and I went out to dinner to celebrate -- we had yakiniku, which is delicious.

On Thursday after class I made my way (not uneventfully, I got pretty lost several times) to the Four Seasons Hotel near Ikebukuro to see some fireflies! Japan is really big on firefly viewing and though I missed the prime time earlier in the season, the Four Seasons was advertising firefly viewing up through July 10th, so I decided to check it out. It was worth the adventure -- the garden was beautiful and the fireflies were really cool!

The bridge surrounded by plants where the fireflies like to breed

Part of the garden~

Walking through the waterfall tunnel!

On Friday after class I headed to Meiji Shrine to explore with a friend -- I went here three years ago with my family but hadn't been this trip. Like everything I describe on this blog it was also really beautiful, but interestingly they had this fake facade support around the main shrine building. Apparently it withstood the March 11th earthquake but needed structural reinforcements, so most of the building was going to be covered until at least September.

One of the entrances to Meiji Shrine

The main shrine building, covered by a supportive fake facade (made to look like the real thing)

The main gate

Saturday (yesterday) I had plans laid out to go shopping, but I decided it was too hot to leave the dorm and ended up having a lazy day. I went for a long run once the afternoon's head was past its prime and then went to dinner at this delicious Italian restaurant with a friend. It's close to our dorm but I hadn't been there yet -- oishikatta!

Today I was woken up by a pretty big earthquake -- it was a 7.1 up near Fukushima so they evacuated the plant, but down here it was only a 2 or so. Still, it was the biggest shake we've felt in a while. In the afternoon I headed to Hachimangu Shrine to check out the Tomioka Hachimangu Antique Flea Market that is held a few times a month. The shrine was neat and it had a really pretty garden with my favorite red archway tunnel things (haha, just look at the picture below). The flea market was also really cool -- the vendors had everything from authentic samurai swords to kimono fabric to old rusty bells. I didn't get anything today, but I think it will be held one more time before I leave, so I may try to get something then!

People buy a fortune, read it, then tie it to a fence outside the shrine to make sure it comes true

The main shrine building

In the shrine's garden!

So serene~

After the flea market I headed to the Kiyosumi Gardens which are on my guidebook's list of top 10 gardens in Tokyo. That distinction is well deserved, as the gardens were absolutely spectacular. The family who started the gardens collected ancient rocks from a lot of different places, and a big lake was in the center that reflected all of the trees and flowers back up at you. It's hard to pick but this may be my favorite garden so far -- if you haven't noticed, I'm a big fan of going to shrines and gardens, taking pictures, then calling them beautiful on my blog. There are still so many to see and so little time!

Kiyosumi Gardens aka paradise