{"id":230,"date":"2017-05-30T11:35:26","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T11:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/?p=230"},"modified":"2017-05-31T13:14:22","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T13:14:22","slug":"tokyo-walking-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/japan\/tokyo-walking-tour\/","title":{"rendered":"Tokyo Walking Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(I am skipping the travel day because plane rides are one of my least favorite things in the world, especially over 12 hours plane rides.)<\/p>\n<p>With plenty hours of sleep, I gladly started the tour of Tokyo. It has been a long time since I am in a country\/city that I cannot freely communicate in. I can understand, but I cannot respond. Luckily, because of frequent visits to cities in China, I am not *scared* by the fast-paced lifestyle. I do wish that I can better express myself in Japanese. If this trip taught me nothing else, it, at the very least, provided me immense motivation to keep working hard at Japanese this summer.<\/p>\n<p>Back to the tour&#8230; we met Ozaki-san quite early. What a genki\u00a0and sweet lady! It is hard to believe that she leads walking tours daily and can still show us so much positive energy. We started in Tsukiji -&gt; Shiodome -&gt; Ueno Park -&gt; Municipal Building -&gt; Shinjuku. I am very grateful to not only have Ozaki-san explaining but also the dear senseis inserting their historical\/cultural knowledge at certain points. I will now begin with a random assortment of thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tsukiji is famous for fish, but the meticulous representation of fruits and veggies is the most attractive of all to me (along with a number of household items one could purchase). Everyone has a designated role and is dedicated to fulfilling the role.<\/li>\n<li>Gaijin excuse<\/li>\n<li>I am still getting used to walking on the left side of the street.<\/li>\n<li>People extremely adept at dodging the flow of other people.<\/li>\n<li>The attractiveness of viewing the city from above and afar.<\/li>\n<li>Terrible thought: cities are more similar in superficial appearance than not. I know that each place has its distinct history, but it is hard to distinguish at times.<\/li>\n<li>The extensiveness of &#8220;thank you&#8221; culture<\/li>\n<li>Being able to think about the city from an academic POV is very enjoyable compared to one from a popular guide book.<\/li>\n<li>I used to follow a lot of Japanese Tumblrs\/Instagrams and would marvel at the posts. The built and &#8220;natural&#8221; environments are both very aesthetically pleasing, hence the very postcard-worthy photos.<\/li>\n<li>Efficiency\u306f\u6700\u9ad8\u3067\u3059\u3002<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At Bowdoin, we are tricked with the illusion of being carbon neutral by 2020 through using &#8220;reusable&#8221; water bottles, etc. In Japan, a country known for its &#8220;convenience,&#8221; the price of the ease comes at the expense of the environment. Most common\u00a0are the prevalence of plastic bottled drinks and meals packagings with disposable chopsticks. I do feel extremely terrible when I have to use certain things, which is why I tend to carry metal utensils with me. As I always tell myself, 5 minutes of ease for me, but how long for the environment to have to suffer?<\/p>\n<p>I have just finished the readings for tomorrow (<em>kanpo\u00a0<\/em>and Edo-Tokyo Museum) and I am very excited to be meeting professionals and seeing the exhibits. Museums are my favorite places to go in any city\/place and I have always wanted to practice &#8220;East Asian&#8221; medicine (I really don&#8217;t know what to call it&#8230;). I want to focus on looking at the very &#8220;everyday&#8221; practices, sometimes overlooked. What lies outside of the official discourse? For example, in\u00a0<em>kanpo<\/em>, how does the herbal medicine usage directly impact the amount of herbs available and the need for energy to transport the herbs from abroad?<\/p>\n<p>We shall see!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(I am skipping the travel day because plane rides are one of my least favorite things in the world, especially over 12 hours plane rides.) With plenty hours of sleep, I gladly started the tour of Tokyo. It has been a long time since I am in a country\/city that I cannot freely communicate in. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/japan\/tokyo-walking-tour\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Tokyo Walking Tour&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan","category-trip-day-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/478"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/japan-and-the-environment-2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}