Typical Tuesday

Today I went to an art museum! So cultured. I'm taking a Modern Sumi-e painting class every Thursday and my teacher told us about an exhibit that was free for college students at the 上野の森美術館　（うえの　の　もりびじゅつかん). Ueno Park Tree Art Museum is what that roughly translates as. The exhibit was going on over the weekend but we never made it there, so we went this morning since we had classes in the afternoon. We were talking to our Japanese friends about going to the exhibit the night before and asking what the best way to get to the park is, if they wanted to come to, etc. No one really said anything about wanting to come but one of them drew us a map of the major subways that we would pass on the way to Ueno Park and included the station that his house is at, and kept telling us how he lives close to Ueno.. So we asked him again if he wanted to go with us to the museum and he seemed genuinely excited that we would think of inviting him along. Typical Japanese, so polite. Ueno Park is about 30 or 40 minutes from my dorm so we left this morning at around 9am, which isn't the best time to be traveling on the train. We got very cozy with everyone, but I think at this point I'm getting used to all the pushing that happens on crowded trains.  The worst part is when you're in the corner by the door and you have to kind of prance about so you get out of people exiting the trains way, it's either that or you just deal with the fact that you're now getting off at that station.

 We weren't allowed to take photos inside the museum but they let us take a group photo in front of our teachers painting. We were given pamphlet for each painting when we walked into the exhibit, but it was all in Japanese so if we hadn't gone with our Japanese friend we wouldn't have known our teachers work was on display!

After the exhibit, we still had some time before we had to get going to school so we walked around あめよこしょてんがい(Ameyoko Shotengai). A shotengai is basically a street packed with shops and restaurants and vendors. We found one stall that was selling green tea flavored kit kats (not that bad, actually). Not sure how it works but apparently for 1,000yen you can get a bag packed full of snacks. The men just kept pulling candy and chocolate out of nowhere and stuffing it in the sack! I think we walked away with about 6 toblerone bars, a pack of cookies, 2 or 3 boxes of cereal, and lots of individually wrapped things.

Statue of Saigo Takamori... How well do you know your Japanese history?

Tokyo Sky Tree. Not the best view ever but at least I can say I've seen it.