It's Katie Again!

Alright, after a rather long hiatus, I'm back to blog some more! So, I left off on Monday last time; now for Tuesday!

We woke up, and for breakfast went to this neat little bakery (we frequented it a lot during our stay in Tokyo), called, I believe Kobari Bakery, where I had a delicious almond pastry. It was a nice, overcast day, and after breakfast, we took the subway to Ueno Park. Once there, we first visited a few temples (we accidentally entered through one the wrong way...Katya and I can't read ALL forms of Japanese. Actually, that brings up something I don't think we've blogged about before. In Japan, there are three forms of writing: hiragana, the phonetic transcription of the language, katakana, the same as hiragana, but used only for foreign words, and kanji, Chinese characters. Katya and I can read both hiragana and katakana without any trouble, but we only know about thirty of the 2500+ kanji, which is much more pervasive than we had previously thought. So, in essence, reading Japanese is our biggest problem (on street signs, price tags, labels, names, etc.), because it is ALL IN KANJI.).

An example of Kanji...Significant because we actually knew all three

 of them!

Anyway, we saw some neat temples, then walked around a lake, where we saw some adorable kindergardeners (all in their yellow hats) on a field trip to the zoo. After that, we set off for a museum in the park (called, I believe, Tokyo Museum). The museum was both interesting and informative, with exhibits on old Japanese culture, and paintings, kabuki/noh theater, old coins, etc on display. 

After browsing the gift shop, Katya and I headed off toward the Ueno Zoo, while Sherri went in search of another museum. On the way to the zoo (or so we thought...We ended up completely circling the park trying to find it), we saw some kind of Christian hymn event, which was a nice display of diversity in the perceived homogenous nature of Japan.

Feeling a bit hungry, Katya and I stopped to eat some ice cream and fried chicken. There were a lot of schools at the park on field trips (all ages, from kindergarden to high school. Katya alleges that she saw 13 different schools, but I'm not sure...), and this one middle-school boy left his wallet in the room next to us. I tried to call him back, but he didn't hear me, so I talked to the employees in my most successful Japanese conversation up to that point. Eventually, the boy realized he was missing something, and ran back, retrieved the wallet from the employee, thanked me, and ran back to his friends.

After our snack, we entered the zoo, where we saw some adorable penguins, a strange polar bear (it looked like it was having a seizure), some slug-like seals, something called a "Dhole," an energetic tiger, etc. We also saw a pair of lions who, right in front of us, started to mate before the female called it quits.

After that, it started to rain fairly hard, so Katya and I sat on a little rock located beneath an impenetrable bunch of leaves as we waited for Sherri. With nothing better to do, I made Katya model for me while I took pictures, then she braided my hair.

We finished the day eating bentou (courtesy of 7-11) in our hotel room.

Katya in cyanotype by the lake (I had just discovered new features on my camera)

I guess monkeys can sometimes be cute...

Love penguins.

Making Katya walk through the shrine,












Anyway, that's all I have pictures uploaded for. I've already composed most of my blogs for the next installments; I'll probably post more tomorrow (in Kyoto)!