Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Hello again everyone!

These are also pictures from Izu, day 2. The was one of the most entertaining museums I've ever been to. It was fully of random weird stuff. The picture above is the mascot?symbol? of the museum. As you can see it is a penguin with the head of what looks like the phantom of the opera.



This museum was full of random toys and figures. This particular one seems to be operating on himself.
One section of the museum was dedicated to traditional Japanese horror stories. Here's a room that i assume the monsters have torn apart. And also a two headed calf...

This is a creepy cat.
A woman with no face.
Behind her is a cyclops.
They also had an umbrella with and eye and a foot.


They also had random shrines in the museum. One was a shrines to foxes, one was a shrine to paper dolls, and one was a shrine to poop.

No comment.

This guy was on the second story of the museum. It looked like he was just looking down on stuff at the museum.



But he wasn't.


Some more random toys and....



These. Which are actually for sale. The ones below are also for sale (and no I didn't buy any).

What an interesting museum!



I have also provided some engrish for you to mull over.

Hope you liked the pictures. More will come soon.

-Ana

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Izu part one

Hi everyone,

For Golden Week me and some friends decided to go to Izu. It is about three hours away from Tokyo by train (if you don't get lost) and we stayed for three days and two nights. I'm going to post my pictures from the trip in the three different posts. This first post is mostly pictures of the Teddy bear museum. We also walked to the coast where I got this great shot of the ocean. Izu is so pretty even amateur photographers like me can get a great shot.

The teddy bear museum was really...interesting. It wasn't as cutesy as I thought it would be. Many of the pictures speak for themselves.


This giant bear guards the entrance to the museum. He talks and moves too.

The teddy bear museum was two stories high. The first floor is full of teddy bears and the second one is dedicated to the movie "My neighbor Totoro"

Ahhhh! He's eating me!

not sure what they are supposed to bedoing here, but I can certainly imagine.


Bears, sewing other bears...or operating on them?


Corona, the preferred beer of bears.




I also spotted these in the museum...bears? I think not.

These next two pictures you must see for yourselves.





As for next time, get ready for THE BEST MUSEUM EVER! and some more pretty pictures of the Izu landscape.

-Ana

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Kamakura and others


Hey everyone,

sorry for not posting regularly, but here's some new pictures for you guys to look at. These are all from my trip to kamakura. I went on Sunday. Kamakura is famous for having the second largest Buddha statue in the world. I think the best part about going to Kamakura was just getting out of Tokyo. Kamakura is about two and a half hours away. It was totally worth the trip though. The first thing I noticed when I got there was that there were a lot of trees.


Above is a monk in front of the daibutsu. i think we were supposed to put money in his dish.

the daibutsu

I just liked the way this lion's face looked.
This is what kamakura is famous. The second largest buddha statue in the world. I went with Luis and Claudia.


People drying their money at the money temple.


a cat sleeping at a temple. it was friendly so i got to pet it.



The outside of the money shrine. I'm not sure what its actually called. I really liked this shrine because it was in the middle of the forest and on the outside it looks really small and quiet and then you go through a tunnel and see all of the hustle and bustle.
This is a money washing ritual. Apparently you have to douse you're money to wash and it will give you good luck. I totally did it, but accidentally spent the money I was supposed to wash. I hope that's not bad luck.


I'm not sure what I'm staring at here...



Just a cool looking Japanese house at one of the shrines. This was at one of the last shrines we went to that day.

I will post again soon,

-Ana

Sunday, April 11, 2010

harajuku

I went to Harajuku today and it was totally awesome. I took all these pictures and more in Harakjuku. These are the best ones though.

THere was some sort of body building contest going on in front of a store. I wish I had more pictures of the girl. She was so buff!!!
I love how this guy is wearing sparkly blue bracelets and headband.






This dog was very popular in Harajuku. That's supposed to be a heart on its back. All the girls were like "kawaiiiii~~~" Im pretty sure it also had a paint job which is hard to see in these photos.





I also went to a park in Harajuku. There was ltos of cool stuff there.




This was my favorite ikebana display. I just love the way the branches arch into the sky.







Some ikebana displays in the park.







The park in Harajuku was enormous.

















Some more really cool ikebana displays.














I was lucky enough to run into a Japanese wedding in action. I took a million pictures but these are the best ones. I was right behind the real camera man, so I got a pretty good shot. There was like three weddings going on at the same time. This couple was the handsomest though. The guy was totally cute :]
















Another one of the couples getting married, I think. She was not wearing the same white outfit as the other brides. She had an intricate red kimono on.







This is the entrance to the park. This gate was HUGE.
I am starting school tomorow finally. I've had all this time to myself basically. I am interested to see what the classes will be like.
I will post again soon
-Ana