Skip to main content

June 1st Adventure to Himeji castle and Koraku-en

The day started like any other on this trip. The sun with its deadly heat raising upon the land nicknamed after the solar star, land of the raising sun, had given me a sight as I awoke from my bed. From my room I look to the ground and see many faces as they rush to work in a timely yet chaotic manner. This was to be the day I adventure to the White Harmon Castle and the gardens of Korakuen. The Shinkansen reside was enjoyable as I was able to zig zag my way through the country side of southern Japan. As I was heading to my destination, I had time to take in the beauty of Japans landscape and reflected about my stay here. Japan is not like the United Sates, the landscape here shows much more greenery in comparison to a place like Arizona. Getting a different vibe from places that are new or outside of the normal day to day can really help in calming the mind. Soon however, I was broken from this trance as my station was announced and started to pack up my personal belongings. I first traveled to Korakuen and the Castle that was adjacent to it. The garden was beautiful, I was able to further more relax and gain an understanding of the difference between western style gardens to the ones here in Japan. The gardens I’m use to have a more practical reasoning like growing food however the Korakuen was more of a indulgence rather than a practical use. Strolling along, I was able to get a sense of peace from those around me. The vibes were right and the weather was great. Later in the day I made my way to Himeji castle. As I exited from the station and started my journey towards the castle entrance I could tell this was an impressive peace of architecture and only could imagine when it was first constructed. During the time of Japans Tokugawa period I could only think how demanding its presence is to its surroundings. The size and height of this structure is crazy. The main purpose of this castle was for the local lords to oversee their region and give them a grand place to live. Before that it was a place for lords to house military and was a symbol for that regions capital. If another war lord wanted to take the neighboring provence, they would lay siege on that Provence's castle. I was walking around this behemoth of a house getting new information and learning about the past. The day ended with me going home with two new places that have been inspirational to me and gave me a new perspective on the history of Japan.








Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to COM 221: Technical Report Writing!

  Welcome to our class blog for Technical Report Writing! We are one of the classes in the study abroad Japan program, a partnership between Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and Osaka Metropolitan University. During our summer course, we will collaboratively author this class blog to document our adventures in Osaka and across Japan.  Blogging Schedule May 12: Dr. Rea May 13: Makani May 14: Luke May 15: Joseph May 16: Adin May 17: Victoria May 18: Catherine May 19: Samantha May 20: Matheus May 21: Ihan May 22:  Makani May 23:  Luke May 24:  Dylan May 25:  Joseph May 26:  Adin May 27:  Victoria May 28:  Catherine May 29:  Samantha May 30:  Matheus May 31:  Ihan June 1: M akani June 2: Luke June 3: Dylan June 4: Joseph June 5: Adin June 6: Victoria June 7: Catherine June 8: Samantha June 9: Matheus June 10: Ihan June 11: Dr. Rea

May 21st: OMU, Dinner, Hockey

  As per usual every morning I wake up and start to get ready to  make our way to campus. As usual my roommate and I headed to  the train station, walked to our usual platform, and boarded the  first train that arrived.  However, today, in our morning haze, we failed to notice the train's route display. Instead of boarding the  train bound for Nakamozu, which would take us directly to  campus, we ended up on a train that only goes until station M26  four stops short of our destination at M30. Once at M26 we got off the train and waited for the next one that was headed to Nakamozu, once the train arrived we hoped in and we were on our way.  For class time it was no different than normal days. We started with COM 221, we  work on Some class activities as also our proposal for our second assignment. After COM 221 we went to get lunch I don't remember the name of what I had but it tasted very similar to Pechuga a la Milanesa(Chicken Milanese).   After lunch me went back to take o

May 13th: First day at OMU

  May 13 th , with the first day down at Osaka Metropolitan University lets recap what we did from my perspective. The day started at 8:50 am leaving our lodging (the Fraser Residence Inn Nankai) and traveled on the Namba metro system officially for the first time (as a group.) I found navigating the metro stations interesting as you only need to scan a card or insert a ticket and get to your platform while dodging the sea of people heading in the opposite direction; in America people don’t really use the same type of train systems as they do in Japan besides big cities like New York.   As we reached OMU and entered our new reality, the group got ushered into a classroom and started our introduction with the professors and students. After the OMU faculty got to know us, we left to another classroom to begin our first lecture SS314. This first lecture we were introduced to our month long project the Kikocho. After the class we got to eat lunch at the university. Later in the day we sta