Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	ON/OFF - Futatsu No Kodou To Akai Tsumi

23th of december, or the Tennô's birthday
Finally HOLIDAAAAYS!~♥

And boy did I wait for that to happen. I guess it wasn't that much physical exhaustion but more of inner stress, but I have felt so totally worn out for the last couple of weeks. Always sleepy, drained, you name it. But now I have three weeks to sleep as much as I want and try to find new sources of energy, and I am so looking forward to that.

Well, guess what I did today, on my first holiday? Sleeping in? Not exactly. Actually, I did wake up at 6 (like usual), forced myself out of the house at about 7:45 (like usual...) and went to university (...).
No really, I was aware that I don't have any classes today. But as our campus happens to be about five to ten minutes walking distance to the imperial palace and today is the Tennô's birthday, also known as the only(?) day where the "common" folk (included every single gaijin that happens to be in Japan, it seemed) is allowed inside of the enclosure...

As a warning: I don't claim any artistic value for these pictures, as most of them have been shot while walking and a bunch of people pressing around me. Not exactly the best conditions for taking perfect pictures, but I want to show them anyway for you to have a clue about what it was like.

I... don't think it's that surprising if I tell that there a lot of people. And an amazing amount of foreigners, in fact I have never seen that many foreigners in one place in Japan before! (And almost everybody was talking American English. I feel slightly silly now to pretend that not every cheesy white person in Japan is American.~_~




I didn't catch the perfect angle for that gate, but oh well, I couldn't go back with all those people pushing behind me. I just wanted to show this picture anyway because that gate is usually closed to the public.




There were always people moving in front of my camera, but I really liked that view anyway. I was in front of the gate as I was shooting the pic, and the crowd had to move behind the wall and cross that bridge, then enter that second gate in the background.
Two of the guys you can see on that pic belonged to a group by the way, every one of them dressed in very fine suits and I think I remember that they had a slightly bigger flag as well. Just that both Bakumyna and me agreed that they were looking quite strange... I don't want to accuse anyone wrongly, but we both secretly suspected this group to be Yakuza.




Again, I don't claim my pictures taken today to have any great artistic value, but I still sort of like this picture, even though it was taken while walking.:)




The view from said bridge.




Again, this picture doesn't have any value at all, but I wanted to give you an idea about what the reception hall we were waiting before looked like, although I would have liked to have a better shot than this one. Basically it was just long. Very very long. That's all.




And here be His Imperial Majesty, the Tennô and his family, speaking a few words of wisdom (or so I assume) on occasion of his 75th birthday!
(Well, for the family, I recognize his wife, empress Michiko on his left, I suppose crown prince Naruhito and crown princess Masako on his right, as well as his other son Akishino/Fumihito and his wife Kiko on Michiko's left.
Funny tidbit: While the Tennô's speech would have been quite understandable in my humble opinion if only I had paid more attention to his words than to taking pictures, the announcement of his coming clearly was not. After an endless list of titles, they used so many honorifics I have probably never ever even heard of before that I finally just stuck with the basic information: He's coming in ten minutes/He's about to make his appearance now. Which is the only information I really cared for anyway in the end.
Also: My zoom sucks. I clearly need a better lens. And there were so many people moving their little flags (everyone got one before entering the palace grounds, us included :D) while shouting "Tennô Heika" (which translates to His Imperial Majesty the Emperor) that this was about the only picture from about thirty or forty were no one was in the way of my camera, but the quality is still crappy.




The building of the Imperial Household Agency.




This pic isn't perfect either (and I have no clue about what this building is supposed to represent, except that all the windows seemed to be bricked up), but I'm not too unhappy with it considering that I had basically no time at all to choose the right angle etc.




Not the right light conditions, yadda yadda yadda, but yeah, that's in front of the palace. And we're still in the middle of the middle of Tôkyô by the way.;)




Basically, I took this picture just because of the three clowns that cosplayed as Santa Clauses (without the beard) while cheering for the Tennô. Yay, sometimes it feels funny to be a foreigner like them, am I overreacting when I want to shout out loud that not every foreigner is tactless like that? Or am I the only one who finds this sort of tactless at all???


So much for the pictures. Other than that, we had fantastic weather for today. Freezing cold, my fingers went totally numb with my camera still in hands in the end, but all in all sunny and none of the clouds the announced in the weather forecast in view at all.

Bakumyna and I ended our morning with a quick lunch at Loteria (one of the japanese concurrents of MacDonalds) before we proceeded to burn all those calories with an overly enthusiastic match of Taiko drums in our local Arcade Game center, our new guilty pleasure of choice.:D AND I WON!!!:DDD

Also, when you go to the restroom and suddenly hear someone talking to you in the cabin although you know that you are all alone, it may just be the toilet that is speaking to you. Oh Japa~an... *facepalm*


Next task: Post a short entry about the koto club, the training in case of a fire/earthquake including simulators, find an affordable onsen for our holiday with chochajin beginning of january :D ...and figure out what I want to cook/eat for christmas tomorrow. Which is surprisingly difficult, I still have no clue at all except that I don't want this to be instant ramen. *facepalm*