And Somehow, it's Wednesday Already

My week is going by really fast again. Our project is due in a couple hours, so I was up until 1 last night finishing it. We also have a paper due Friday, we're moving tomorrow, we have Japanese homework and a travel journal that I haven't started. They're keeping us pretty busy over here. We're actually going to talk to our teacher today about cutting back the work a little bit so we can go experience Japan a little more because everyone feels like we've just been working and touring all the time.

Yesterday we had small group tours of Katsura Ryoji (the Katsura Detached Palace) and it was beautiful. The gardens are so scenic and the little tea houses strategically placed throughout them are so thoughtfully designed. The experience has been controlled and designed from moment to moment, so that as you move through the garden your understanding of it changes and develops. Each bend in the path brings something new; some new and uniquely designed building or a picturesque scene. In fact, the way the garden is designed seems to relate to the Picturesque movement in architecture, in which a scene is designed to be viewed from a specific vantage point. However, it seems that the gardens are designed a little more thouroughly because there are obvious framed view, but also the experience and feeling within the garden changes as you stroll through it. And, unlike many Picturesque scenes, there doesn't seem to be a poor vantage point. As far as photography goes, you can't seem to go wrong within the walls of the Katsura Ryoji gardens.

Fortunately for us, simply because we had so much work to do, yesterday was a half day trip, so the rest of the day was spent finishing up our project (which I will definitely post pictures of) and Japanese homework. On our way home from the subway station, we stopped near one of the streams and looked at the cherry blossoms, which will be gone soon. I picked some up off the ground to press them in my sketchbook, but only one turned out well, so I will have to get some more today after class. Jeff and I also went to dinner at this semi-American food place. I got a pizza, which was good, but totally different than most pizzas you could expect to get in the states. It had chicken and a lot of onion on it, and cheese, but a thinner sauce that definitely did not have any tomatoes in it. Like I said, different, but really good.

This morning I had Japanese class and this afternoon I have studio class where we will all present our projects. We're going to try to convince D. Choi to hold off until Friday on assigning our next project, so I'll let you know how that goes. Tonight I need to pack for our move in the morning and I want to go see the cherry blossoms lit up and maybe pick up a few more to press before they're all gone. After we move into our new appartments, we are going on a half day trip to Uji, to see the dry gardens there. I'm really excited about it because the rock gardens are supposed to be beautiful, and this is another site that we learned about in Architectural History, so it should be amazing.

That's all for now. I'm going to try to put up some pictures of Katsura and the Cherry Blossom Festival that is going on in Kyoto, and I'll be back tomorrow.