Photos by Huiting Lian (Maryland Institute College of Art), Student Correspondent for AICAD in Japan, Spring 2023
Winter is the season for hotpot! My housemate, Tomoko, works part-time at a hotpot restaurant. She invited us to the restaurant for a warm hotpot dinner.
After I started my semester in Osaka, I go to live houses once every two weeks. You can easily find music performances of almost any genre here. This is a photo I took during the performance of Roth Bart Baron. It’s usually not allowed to take pictures during the shows in Japan, but it’s allowed in this one.
This is the first scene I saw when I stepped into a CET-shared house for the evening Takoyaki party. Both CET students and OGU students came to the party!
I had a field trip to Sumiyoshi Taisha with my classmates and the instructor of the Minzokugaku (folklore studies) class. We enjoyed the nice weather and learned more about the procedure of praying at a temple.
I also got the chance to visit the Tower of the Sun by myself on a nice weather day after class. There is a huge park around the tower, and it would be wonderful to have a picnic under the sakura (Cherry Blossoms) trees in spring.
Last week, I took the Shinkansen to travel to Tokyo. It was my first time riding a Shinkansen, and I was super excited about it! I got this delicious bento from Shin-Osaka station and enjoyed it on the train ride. It only costs about 2 hours and a half to travel from Osaka to Tokyo.
One of the reasons for me to choose AICAD in Japan is to have a look at the art schools in Japan. The main purpose of my trip to Tokyo is to visit the graduation show of Tama Art University. This is a photo taken in front of the exhibition hall. It’s also a great chance for me to get to know Japanese students’ design works.
I also explored various places in Tokyo after seeing the graduation show. Here is the G8 design gallery in Ginza exhibiting works of Nakajo Seigi.
During a CET field trip, we visited the TeamLab Botanical Garden in Osaka. It only opens after 6 pm with illuminating installations in a botanical park. We had a great time interacting with the installations.
On my way home from the botanical garden, I ran into some early bloomed sakura trees. The sakura season is coming!