13th November 2012

Diwali decorations in hostel

Diwali Celebration in Tokyo

Diwali preparations started one day before Diwali.  Dr. Naandakumar sawant, Saurabhi P. Budkule and Soniya  Dessai  decorated hostel common room with diwali latterns ( Akash dive). Diwali celebration started with a lovely breakfast of Poha, laddus, chakri, bibinka, bhakavadi, farsan, juice and tea.  We offered breakfast to the hostel staff and also to Waseda staff and students who had come to take us to Meiji and Harajuku.

Poha

Meiji Shrine

We took a train from Iidabashi station to Meiji. Meiji Jingu is a Shinto shrine locates in the center of Tokyo. This shrine is dedicated to divine souls of Emperor Meiji and his consort Empress Shoken. This shrine was established on November 1, 1920. The pathway to the shrine resembles Goa’s scenic beauty in many ways.

Entrance of the Meiji Jingu shrine

Wishes written on wooden blocks

The ambience in the shrine was very calm and pleasant.  The entire vicinity is surrounded by huge trees.  Before entering the shrine we had to follow some cleansing rituals such as cleansing hands and mouth.  They pray to the Kami (God) by throwing a coin in the offertory box, they then bow and slowly clap twice  (they believe if the claps are fast then their prayers won’t be answered  by the Kami) ,  they then bow again. Once they are done praying, some of them buy wooden blocks and write their wishes on it and hang it to sacred tree.

Harajuku

Harajuku is one of the popular fashion and shopping area in Tokyo. We saw many Japanese young people and tourists from all over the world.  In Harajuku there is a variety of food items such as crape, takoyaki, candies and ice cream, etc.

entrance of shopping area in Harajuku

After shopping in Harajuku, we returned back to Waseda university.  We attended two lectures. First lecture was on ‘Movements in Japanese Intellectual History’ by professor Adrian Pinnington. He discusses about the main intellectual movements in modern Japan. Since the Meiji period Japanese intellectuals have devoted themselves both to introducing the thought of the West and to creating a Japanese identity in response to this thought. He emphasized in his course about the complicated interplay between Japanese traditions and modern Western thought.

Second lecture was ‘Introduction to business class’ by Professor Christopher Pokarier. This course first examined the basic nature of market systems, firms and their governance. The foundations of business entrepreneurship and creativity were then explored; followed by an examination of uncertainty, risk and information asymmetry as pervasive features of all economies. Key functional and strategic challenges in business were studied. It was a very interactive and interesting lecture and we managed to learn and understand a lot about business.

Altogether it was a very enjoyable, interesting and informative day.