Christmas

About Christmas - Japanese do not celebrate it. Or at least, not in the way Europeans do it. Now, for us Christmas is merely a tradition, but we should remember that this celebration comes from Christian church. In Japan, almost nobody is Christian - about 7% are Catholic, baptized by the first missioners in late 19th - 20th century. The rest belong to Shintoism or Buddism, or even both. Still, as Japanese people say themselves - there is no national religion in Japan. They are keeping some of the "religious" traditions, but they are not perceived as being religious. Therefore, for Japan Christmas doesn't mean the same, as for other Christian cultures. It is a commercialized event, mostly for friends and couples to enjoy, and for businesses to earn some money. The idea of decorating the Christmas tree was also overtaken by Japan, but in a more global way. By almost every bigger train station there are illuminations - areas, which are practically covered by small Christmas lights. So, many people travel to biggest stations to see the illuminations:

This could be seen by Shinjuku stattion - Shinjuku Northern Lights.

Yebisu atation

Shimbashi

Japanese fact sheet No. 1

Sorry for not writing for some time, all of the exchange students here are burried under piles of work - most of the lecturers prefer to see a group presentation instead of correcting lots and lots of final exams.

So, anyways, there is a thing I wanted to tell about for some time. Do you know that Japan recycles literally everything? Well, every country recycles at least a bit, but here, when moving in, we got a whole pamphlet with information what can be thrown out together. It's ok, as far as you consider that Japan is one of the most technically developed countries, and most probably, pollutes a lot; therefore they have to compensate this somewhere. But you would never expect this:

As you can see, this is a fast food restaurant. Let me give you a hint - this is one of the biggest fast food chains in the world. McDonald's. Even here you have to recycle. As well as in Strabucks, Burger King, and in any other Japanese and non-Japanese fast food chain. Makes me think that Danes, which consider themselves very "green", are not trying good enough :D

The zoo

So, Wednesday afternoon we went to Ueno Zoo. It was realy cold - in the moist country as Japan +9 degrees Celsius feels like at least 10 degrees less than it actually is. But we enjoyed it a lot. This is the main entrance:

As you can see, somewhere in the background are the ticket machines. Actually, in Japan the ticket machines are pretty popular, even in restaurants, especially at the eat-all-you-can types. So, the visitors/customers choose a needed type of a ticket, and then it will be controlled and checked by the staff.

Probably it would be boring to show you all the animals in the zoo, most of them you all can find in any European zoo, therefore, here's the main attraction:

They are even cuter in real life!! Anyways, the panda is a national symbol, and you'll be able to find something panda-like in every souvenir shop. Which there were tens of around the zoo:

Tea ceremony

I'm sure you have been waiting for this moment, when I finally will write about this famous Japanese tradition. Tea ceremony - 茶道, pronounced as Sadoo. The event was organized by one of the clubs at university, so I went there with 30 other students from Rikkyo Univesity. The ceremony was held in Mejiro Garden,  just 15-20 minutes walk from Ikebukuro. Realy beautiful place, surrounded by modern buldings (you won't see those in the pictures, but believe me, each "piece" of nature in Tokyo is surrounded by some modern buildings):

So, let's start from the beginning - the most important attribute for the ceremony is a pair of white socks, everybody must wear ones.

You must bow before you enter the room (it's not a slight Western bow, but a Japanese one - you have to kneel down, put your hands in front of you, and bow your head towards the hands) and then you may enter and take a seat. The laidies (hostesses) were so nice and told us that we don't have to sit on our feet all the time, we could place them to the side, so it's easier for us to sit. Afterwards, the hostesses enter the room:

This is how the room looked like from the place I was sitting. There is a "hole" in the floor, which has some glowing coal in the bottom and a ceramic jar on top with water. Before preparing the tea, hostesses enter the room with some treats:

The pink one is a sweet potato ball covered with sweet rice paste, and another one is a simple sugar/green tea candy.

Afterwards, while one hostess prepares the tea, another brings the drinking bowls from another room - enters the room with a bowl in her hands, kneels down in front of another hostess, and leaves a bowl in fron of herself. If the tea is ready, she takes it to the guest, leaves the bowl in fornt of him/her and bows. The guest must bow at the same time, too, in order to show the gratitude. A ありがとうございます - (arigatoo gozaimasu) thank you very much - said when bowing is a common courtesy. The hostesses were entertaining us by telling the stories about their previous guests, and about how they do ceremonies. It was very interesting, though I understood maybe around 5% of what they said. Well, it's good that other students did speak in English, so if something was realy not understandable, I could ask them for a translation. 

This is the tea:

I must assure you - the tea tastes better than it looks; the taste reminds me a bit of a seaweed powder diluted by water. 

The bowls are taken away the same way - a hostess kneels in front of you, bows (you must bow too, and say thank you) and takes away the bowl.

After the ceremony we went to another room to do some ikebana (いけばな). We should kneel and bow in front of the basket with flowers, then choose a vase, and afterwards do the ikebana - choose flowers and arrange them.

The point is not to choose as many flowers, as possible, usually it's only 1 or 2 different ones you have to choose, but to choose the flowers that would look good in the vase you chose and enjoy the whole arranging process. When you're finished with arranging, kneel and bow in front of the flower basket again, and take your place.

These are our "masterpieces". Guess, which one's mine? ;)

All-in-all the ceremony was realy enjoyable, you feel afterwards like you did a deed of the week. 
 

Ghibli

Everybody's writing about Ghibli. And I will do it as well :D For all you, anime fans there! If the names Spirited away, Howl's moving castle or My neighbour Tottoro tell you anything, then you're in the right place. The world-famous animator drew this place; it was built 10 years ago, and still frequently visited both by Japanese and foreigners. This is what it looks like:

Exibits are inspired by the works of Ghibli studios, showing work-in-progress, tools, etc. There is a large Cat-bus to sit in, and it's not the only thing to see in the museum. Scenes and places are "revived" to a real life - Soffie's room at the Hatter's Store, Yubabas office with large porcelan vases, Japanese diner where Chiro's parents got turned into pigs... makes you fell like you are in a fairytale. All these exhibitions divided by a large fairytale-like "hall":

On the first floor there's a room full of eye-deceiving motion figures, which simply amazes you by showing, how unperfect our vision could be. Like this:

In reality this looks better, but well, the staff does not allow the visitors to take pictures, either :D

And if you'll look at the top of the bulding, you will see real grass!

A true story house, indeed! On the roof "lives" the giant robot from anime "Castle in the sky".

The last stop of our visit was Staw cafe, which served caffe latte with Sofie's hat drawn in chocolate:

Winter

So, Winter finally came. I guess, it's what Japanese call the ever changing weather here :) If one day the temperature is around +17 Celcius, on the next day there's only +5 degrees Celcius, as today :D Everybody's freezing, everybody has a cold :S I had one, too. Luckily, it's almost over, I wouldn't like to be sick, when there are so many midterms.
I guess, the only one who doesn't care about the weather are these:

I'm simply amazed that something can bloom in Winter.