Tokyo Autumn

The leaves are changing colours. As the leaves begin to die and fall from the tree, they stop producing chlorophyll as the are no longer capable of photosynthesis. As the chlorophyll slowly dissipates, the remaining pigments in the leaf begin to become vibrant; cartenoids, and anthocyanins, the other pigments in the leaf, appear. This makes leaves turn yellow, red, brown and purple. In Japan people visit Kyoto to see the leaves change colour. In Kyoto, there are many maple trees, yes maple trees, that turn red in fall, which really add to the atmosphere of the old buildings and temples. I'm not going to Kyoto, but there are parks, and gardens, and even my campus that have many deciduous trees.

On a whim, I decided to visit the imperial palace, which was a bad idea because it costs 5$ to get there by train, and it was closed to public. So I didn't take any pictures because I thought it would be lame if all you saw was the front door. But I did take pictures of this statue:

This is Kusunoki Masashige, a samurai general from the 14th century. He fought for Emperor Go-Daigo, against the Kamakura shogunate. And in what is considered the ultimate act of samurai loyalty (thank you Wikipedia), entered a battle, at the Emperor's request, that would ensure the deaths of himself and his men. Now he is a figure for loyalty, courage, and devotion to the Emperor, and during World War II was a symbol for sacrifice to kamikaze pilots. Anyway a pretty badass dude. It really made me think about the first guy to be butchered by this guy in any given battler. I mean it's like: SCREAM run run run... run run SCREAM run run, see a guy in front of you, scream, run run run, get your head cut of after 35 seconds... That sucked.

After the imperial palace, I saw Tokyo Tower of in the distance so I decided to walk towards it.


Tokyo Tower was built in the 1950s to symbolize Japan's emergence as global power-house after world war 2. It's design is based on the Eiffel Tower, and succeeds in being 9 meters taller and 6000 ton's lighter. It can be fully lit, and is a fixture of the Tokyo sky-line at night. When you get there, you can see many attractions and there are things to do... but they are over priced and crappy. Like Center Island crappy, but without all the goose poo. I would have went to the top but it was 8 bucks. 8 bucks! You can climb the stairs on a clear day, so I'm going to do that some day and take some photos from the top. I tried to do that once but the stairs are closed on rainy days because they become slippery. So all in all I didn't to much in a day. I kind of just walked by some places.

FCTokyo

I went to a soccer game one weekend. The team was FCTokyo, which is a major league team, but pretty weak. The stadium was in biking distance of ICU, and the tickets were not expensive, so we went. I went with several Europeans and one Japanese. The Europeans were Saku, and Risto (the Fins), Jonathan, and Ully (the Germans), and Dan (well... He has duel citizenship). They have become my core group of friends including some-others, and we do categorize one another by our nationalities. I, of course, am the Canadian. So I am starting to become what I intended not to be when coming here; A foreigner who sticks out like a sore thumb. Integration into Japanese culture is really hard, but that is another story.
The stadium was pretty expansive and could probably seat 50000 people. That day, there were just over 23000, and each teams supporters separated themselves according to whom they chose to support. During the NBA playoffs Heat fans who attended games, all wore white t-shirts to create a sea of white, which would intimidate the opponent. They called themselves the 'White Heat'. Apparently that was effective and the Heat ended up winning the championship. It is the same thing that is done at competitive NCAA events by the home and away supporters. Anyway the soccer team supporters did the same thing. The opponent's (Kawasaki) fans all wore light blue and held up bright blue sheets of paper creating a small tropical sea to the far end of the stadium, while the FCTokyo fans all wore dark blue and red creating a more menacing sea towards the other end and along the side. It was raining that day so the UN delegation had no difficulty finding seats close to the pitch. The game was pretty exciting. I am not really clear on the rules of soccer, but my European friends informed me. Japanese goalies are not very strong, so any real attack on net led to a goal. Soon into the second half FCTokyo was down 4-1, and it seemed over, but two red cards by the opposing team (one for a Brazilian, another for a European. You see? You can't be lazy! No matter how good you think you are!), led to a strong advantage for FCTokyo, who scored four goals in the second half, three of which were in the last 20 minutes, with two in injury time. The final score was 5-4. Everyone cheering for FCTokyo was put in a good mood, and were happy to exchange high fives.











It is fall break now, and I plan to do some traveling, just as soon as a I get some cash, and some place to stay.

Sorry

Well I accidently deleted my blog. Sorry. I tried something in Japanese, but I failed miserable. Wait a little while and I am going to write an intresting entry on a soccer game.