This was the first view of our school, Keio University:
This is the main gate of Keio. Its seal and motto are written above the archway.The campus is very nice, very green. For being in such an urban setting, it's surprisingly secluded inside. There are a lot of trees on the campus; my experiences so far tell me that places with a lot of trees are of great significance.
Keio is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year; it is the oldest university in Japan, even older than Tokyo University. Of course, 150 years isn't very old for us Americans or Europeans, but it wasn't until the mid-1800s that Japan went through a large educational reform and formal institutions of higher learning were introduced. Keio's founder, Yukichi Fukuzawa, is featured on the 10,000yen (roughly $100) bill. In the school's vice president's orientation speech, he compared Fukuzawa to Ben Franklin; both were educated civilians who made a huge impact on their societies (and both are on the $100 bill).
After visiting our school-to-be, we decided to walk over to Tokyo Tower; there is an amazing view of it from the street in front of Keio, and we had no idea it was so close.
Built in 1958, Tokyo Tower is the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world; it is 8.6 meters taller than the Eiffel Tower. It symbolizes Japan's emergence as an economic power on the world stage.
You can pay a small fee to up to the mid-level observation deck, but we did one better and paid extra for the small special observation deck near the top of the tower. We had an amazing view in every direction! On a clear day (it was too cloudy on ours), you can see Mount Fuji to the west.
It wasn't until we were standing up on the top deck, surveying the city spread out below, that I was finally able to believe that Tokyo really is the largest city in the world.
There was literally no end in sight.
No comments:
Post a Comment