The Wheels on the Bus Go 'Round and 'Round...

As a part of the course that I am a CA (course assistant, I don't teach, so I am not a TA, teacher's assistant) for, there are a lot of field trips - of a sort. They are meant for the students (and myself, because I do the homework too) to get out and about in Kyoto because the course is about Kyoto.

One assignment called us to go to explore nature in the city; I being a city girl myself and pretty much can't tell the difference between a maple and an oak tree (though I do know what a Japanese maple looks like) I figured the best bet was to go to the Kyoto Botanical Garden. One part of the assignment was to identify what the bug or the plant was and to see what kigo is assigned to it. I have my new nifty denshi jisho and could easily figure that out. The plus side of going to a botanical garden?

SIGNS. There are signs in front of the trees. And plus, it was an interesting take to see how nature was under a controlled environment.

So I went with one of my students/classmates (henceforth known as s/c) and my camera died shortly after we arrived. My s/c took take photos with her camera while I did denshi-jisho duty, and she let me keep my own copies of the photos. My favorite part of the garden was the greenhouse: the combination of the greenhouse, flowers and the small pond in front reminded me of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, with the Palm House and the lily ponds in the front.

Today, I went with 3 other s/c's to the Tale of Genji Museum since on Monday the class tackles the question of where is the Tale of Genji is in Kyoto today. Simply put: nothing from circa 1000C.E. (the period where the story takes place and where it was written) survives in the city, save for one Buddhist temple called Byodo-in and some other few small sites here and there. Everything was made of wood and paper. Nothing survives.

So, people down in Uji (city south of Kyoto and the place where the last 10 chapters of the book take place) decided to make a museum dedicated to the story and make it also a center for research. The issue was to see how museums tell history and how it fulfills its purpose. Even though it's not so much as a Tale of Genji Museum as a Tale of Genji - Last 10 Chapters of the Book Museum it was very nicely done, fancy yet subtle at the same time (it's designed to look like a Heian mansion but more modern of course).

Boring, geeky academic stuff aside, it was nice to go see the museum. I have three versions of the story (2 translations, an abridged version of the translation) and added another - an abridged, children's version in Japanese. One of my favorite parts of the museum was this techo-modern take on the traditional Japanese arched bridge. I'm thinking it was put there because the final chapter of the book is called "The Floating Bridge of Dreams." I tried to jump in the air when this photo was taken, but the effect of it is still pretty cool.