By Vaishnavi Pai Cacode

Day 6

We started our day as always. Coincidentally, we all had the same breakfast that is bread and toast with coffee. Then we went to Waseda.

Before going to the university, we had some time on our hands. Hence our sir suggested, we visit a shrine which was in the vicinity.

The shrine was beautiful. The entrance gate made all of us remember our college entrance gate.

As we walked inside towards the prayer area, we saw statues.

 The prayer area was beautifully decorated in gold colour though I am still sceptical about whether real gold was used. We all prayed. There is a praying procedure. It is a simple one that includes some sort of wishing well without the water ofcourse.  Inside you can put whatever denomination of money you like. First you are supposed to bow twice. Then clap twice. Join your hands and pray and bow again and take leave. This was something new for us. Ad we really enjoyed doing it.

After that we saw the garden that was inside the shrine. We clicked loads of pictures and then from there we went to the university. We were free in the morning so our professor had booked the auditorium for practices. We went there and prepared for our India day’s performances. Todays practice was for a quite longer time. It was tiring but we all enjoyed it.

As it was already 1 o clock we went to have lunch in the university canteen. Today for the first time we girls had food in the canteen. We had chicken fry, salad and tasty cake as a dessert.  It was a good meal. 

“ Tea ceremony” is an important part of Japanese culture. Today we got the opportunity to witness the tea ceremony.  First we saw how the hostess serves the tea to the head of the house or/and guests. After that they served us tea and sweets.

After that we came back to hostel and practiced. Then we decided to go somewhere. We went to Shimbashi. To go to Shimbashi we had to change the train. We were not sure about the train. But with the help of the map we sat into the right train and reached the right place.

Shimbashi is a nice place. It was decorated with Christmas trees and  lights. We were roaming there for an hour. Then we had dinner in McDonalds and returned back to Iidabashi. 

The day was pretty good. We all enjoyed the day. As the days  are passing the bonds between us are getting more stronger.

We are looking for another interesting and full of fun day tomorrow.

Sayonara!