A Troy in Tokyo

Hi all again folks - getting towards the end of my backlog of material, and as promised this one is more of a photo heavy one, being more examples of my work from the various gardens I've been to over the past few weeks! Less to write about here, and more a showcase of the photos I've been taking lately! First of all however, a couple of museums - first of all the National Museum, which has an exhibition on Arabian artefacts, sponsored by Saudi Arabia. Initially one of my dorm-mates Julia and I wanted to go to another exhibition, but we were not disappointed by this! This was a very cool exhibit, with examples of artworks that are several thousand years old, demonstrating (to my surprise) some exquisite craftmanship and elegance. The exhibit was less on the Arabian story (though there was of course some mention of this), but rather a showcase of the evolution of their crafts, from pre-Islam to early, middle and 20th Century Islamic art. The calligraphy and metalwork was rea...

Alrighty, another bit of spare time, another blog - easily got another one in the pipes! This one will be a little shorter than the others, but thematically it's mostly relevant. Viktor's birthday peered around the horizon this month, and with that he wanted a couple of things - sushi (preferably all you can eat), and some drinks. David Viktor and myself have styled ourselves somewhat as the Three Mustketeers, and so it was only fitting that we made this happen. A sushi academy was located in Shinjuku, one that does 90 minute sessions of all you can eat sushi, both to give the students an opportunity to practice in a high speed environment without sacrificing quality, and also to give people good quality sushi at a-not-too-dear price. Seating ourselves (and undoing our belts), we started ordering sushi with wild abandon, at best 50% sure of what we were getting. All number of varieties came our way, from mackerel and tuna to sea urchin and octopus. All of it was super...

It's not normal when you are actively trying to part with your money but failing, and yet a few weeks ago David Viktor and myself had just that - not that we were complaining! The first chapter of this weekend took us to the National Film Centre Museum, to see the Film History in Posters Part 3: Science Fiction and Monster Films exhibit. This had been advertised around the dorm, and we figured it would be kind of cool - there was a discount for university students as well which was all good! However when we got there, we learnt Tokyo University students get in for free (!), so that was even better! The exhibit showcased Japanese movie posters for Japanese and foreign sci fi films, from Godzilla to Star Wars - unfortunately most of the exhibit was off limits for photography, though I did sneak one of the full Star Wars ensemble (excluding the new trilogy and stand alone films) A highlight was the (legitimately taken) photo of a poster of the first anniversary of the original Sta...