Still Playing Catch-Up, and I am Caught Up!

Okay, where was I? Kiyomizu-dera on the 18th of July. It was rough getting there because it was uphill the whole time, and Jamie, Meghan, and Scott were in yukata that were particularly warm. Not a good combination. Stopping at a multitude of fairly pleasant shops, we finally made it up to the temple. And it was fairly awe-inspiring just from the entrance gate. It overlooked the whole city, and the view just kept getting better as we went in. Inside, there were three tools made of iron. One was a pair of sandals, the next a walking stick, and the last was a prayer staff (jingly staff that priests carry in anime). If you could lift them in succession, you were considered a superman (choujin). Or so the story goes, that the guy who founded the temple carried them around. The first two were fine, but the third must have weighed 400 pounds. Elmer and I decided to be han-bun (half) choujin and shouldered the load together. After that, we wandered through the complex, wondering at all the green and the trees around us. It was amazing. After seeing the sights and enjoying the views, we went down to the spring from which the temple gets its name (Kiyomizu-dera means clear water temple). We had to stand in line, and use these long poles to fill the little cup from three streams of water falling down, but it was good. Nice, cool, clean, fresh water helped so much. Even if I poured it into an Aquarius bottle (sports drink). Supposedly, they give you luck in romance, work, or money depending on which you drink from, though they all come from the same stream. So I don't know how they are different. Afterthe Kiyomizu-dera experience, we hit a few shops on the way down, and decided to head home. Just a little more walking and we were at the train station. The girls and Scott changed out of yukata and we hopped a train home. We did have to sit and wait for a transfer train at one point, and after a few minutes, Elmer looks at all of us and then pokes me and there, on the train across the platform, is a swarm of middle schoolers waving frantically at us. They were inordinately excited to have someone wave to them. But they headed off, and I got a picture, and then we were off ourselves. An hour later we were back at JCMU. That Tuesday we had our koto lesson. A koto is a 13 stringed (some have 16 or 18) floor harp. We played it a bit, and I personally really enjoy the sound it makes. I didn't do so badly on it, really. But it was really nice, getting to sit in the tatami room and listen to good music. For the weekend of the 24th, we had no real plans. I went to the Ohmi-Hachiman Mall with Becca, Rob, Allan, Jamie, Meghan, and Scott. This was a two building mall that was pretty impressive actually, but it really had nothing that I wanted to buy. I blew some money on a game that could have won me a Game Boy Advance SP. But I didn't get it, so I left it alone. After the mall, we barbequed. It was a nice, lazy barbeque. Besides, we had to make up for the lack of one after the Gion Matsuri trip! That was pretty much all of the weekend, besides the studying. Following Tuesday: Final Cultural Activity! Shoudou, Japanese Calligraphy. It was interesting to see how it was done, and it just felt really odd to me to be doing it. I write properly, but not holding the pen vertically. That was odd. I made 6 or 7 sheets of paper. They said things that ranged to 'Gibb' 'Vicious Circle' 'Shinbashi' 'Love' and more. We submitted our best to be displayed in the lobby, and the sensei told me to submit love over vicious circle. I wonder why.... That Thursday, the 29th, everyone was flipping out, including myself. We had presentations the next morning and nobody was ready. I rewrote mine, and it took 6 pages, wrote notecards, got my props (Coke, Fanta, Aquarius, and Georgia Coffee, since I wrote about bringing Japanese Vending Machines to America), and reread it many, many times. In the morning, I was first, and I think I rocked it out. I had my speech fairly well down and it rolled out pretty well. I got a good grade on it. After, Elmer talked about Street Dancing, Bednar-san (Daniel) talked about Japanese Fender Stratocasters, and Megan talked about clothing of the Heisei period. Then we had an hour of class that nobody prepared for. After that, I found Allan, and we ran away to Tokyo. Final on Tuesday be damned, we wanted to go to Tokyo!! Allan and I bolted to the station, and on the way I ran into Matt Sullivan, with whom I went to JCMU three years ago. It turns out that he is living in Hikone these two years with his girlfriend. Small world, eh? Anyways, I had to keep moving. Allan and I got the train to Maibara, had a half hour of a wait, so we went and got some Katsu Curry from the local Heiwado (grocery store) and ate it on the platform. The next train came, we hopped it, rode it for a few hours, transferred, rode another train, and thought we were making good time. At one point we were an hour and a half ahead of projected time. Then we missed a transfer, buggered things up, and then got to Tokyo on time. Tokyo station is just as I remembered it, and just as busy. We went to Shin-Koiwa where I thought our ryokan was, but I was a stop off. Koiwa was the destination, and we got there, walked our 10 minutes to the ryokan, and checked in. Ryokan Toki has changed since coming to Tokyo three years ago. They completely renovated it so the check-in building has a little kitchenette, three big tables, a computer that is online, and so on. Much different than the cramped little entry of before. Allan and I dropped our bags off and went into Tokyo proper. We went to Ikebukuro where there were supposedly some amazing game centers. Personally, I thought they just had a lot of the crane games and fighting games. But they had Taiko no Tatsujin 6 (the drumming game), and I got to play the theme from Kenshin on it. It made me happy. Dinner was a Yoshinoya, which I remember having some delicious beefbowl, but they only had pork this time. Stupid beef ban. In any case, we were getting tired from our long day of sitting, and decided to head back in lieu of going to another game center. It was a good idea we did so. We got the last train, where they had to pack people in like sardines. Oh, in Japan it is called Sushi-zume (packed like sushi). I couldn't exhale without pushing someone, so it was an interesting experience to say the least. Back at the ryokan, with a bit of chu-hi and sake, Allan and I relaxed while watching some tv of a group of Gaijin at a matsuri (festival). Sleep came easily on the comfortable futon on the floor.... In the morning, we got ready for our full day in Tokyo. First on the list was Tokyo Tower, and if we were going to get sucked into an alternate dimension, this was the place it was going to happen. Allan and I took a nice walk through a temple called Zozouji to get to the Tower, which has a bunch of trees around it. It was very nice, actually. At the Tower, we got a surprise. A guy with a trained monkey was performing! The monkey would jump over a hurdle, walk on stilts, climb stairs on its hands, and do backflips. Also, he walked like a man! Man Monkey!! We were entertained for a while with this, then headed up the tower ourselves. It is not really anything i can descreibe with words, being 160m in the air and looking out over a city that DOES NOT END. You will see the pictures soon enough. After the Tower, we went to go find Anna Miller's in Akasaka. Anna Miller's is a restaurant known for their pie and there, uhm, waitresses. At least that's what they say in MegaTokyo. I got to have a monterey-jack, crispy bacon burger with a toasted sesame seed bun, lettuce, tomato, onion, and ketchup with fat french fries, and a slice of Black Cherry pie afterwards. It was heavenly, if a bit expensive. With our bellies full of food it had been missing for months, we struck out again on to the city of Tokyo. Shinjuku was the next stop, to find the big Times Square like place. Instead of finding that, we found a Kinokuniya, which is a huge (7 story) book store, that didn't even have the book I was looking for. Sheesh. On another note, if we didn't come to Shinjuku, we would not have found the Okinawan Festival. Okinawa is a southern island in a chain of islands off of Japan, and they did a bunch of fun dances with drums. And ghosts. I think they were ghosts. Guys would leap around playing the drums, girls would dance around in really, really short yukata, and some other guys with their faces painted white would be the ghosts... or something. It was fun to watch though. After the third group soing similar stuff, we decided to head out to Akihabara, the electronics district. In Akihabara, we found Gamers almost immediately, though we took the wrong exit from the station. Gamers had expanded from their one story from three years ago, to 8 now. They had different floors dedicated to different things. It was amazing. 8 floors of anime goodness, and all I got was the first Slayer's novel. I am getting good at this not-impulse-buying thing. It appeared that Akihabara was starting to close down, so we headed back home, stopping for bento at 7-11 (no Lawson's for us, unfortunately) as well as a bit o sake to celebrate our conquering of Tokyo. More random tv was in order, and we enjoyed our night, and got ready for another travel day the next day. In the morning we checked out of Ryokan Toki, and meandered our way to the train station. We headed out a little earlier than we expected, and caught a couple good trains. One of them was non stop for three hours, which was good, but we didn't get to sit down until almost two hours had passed, which was bad. At that transfer, in Toyohashi, we decided to get some food. The next train left in either 15 minutes or 45 minutes. We figured the 45 minute one would be us, so we went up and found a really fast ramen place that served us ramen of lesser quality than Chanpon (but lesser price too, so it all works out), and we were back on the platform in 10 minutes. How's that for fast food? We did make it home in time for the fireworks, which made the streets crowded with yukata-clad people of all ages. It was almost difficult getting home. Quickly, I got into my yukata, and then got some beer to watch the fireworks with, as they shot up over the lake. The fireworks were impressive, and may have overshadowed the Detroit fireworks. They were pretty awesome. Not a bad trip to Tokyo at all, finishing up with fireworks and friends. Next, was our last Monday of class. Our last real day of class. It went well, actually, and then we spent the day studying for the exam. Of course we had katsudon for lunch at Shirumon, that's tradition! Study, study, study. For the final exam the next day! It actually wasn't as bad as the others, it seemed, and either I had given up or I started to get it. I prefer to think the latter over the former. After the exam, Karen organized a trip to an onsen (hot springs public bath). Elmer, Allan, Kevin Balint, and I were the guys involved, and Jamie, Meghan, Karen, Claire, Amanda, and Lauren were the women involved. We had a train to catch at 2:15, and it was about 1:55, so we hauled ass to the station, bought our tickets, and got on the train. The doors started closing, and a couple more were coming down the stairs, so I stood in the path of the doors, and bodily held them open. Twice. We had hoped that Karen and Claire were on the train, but they weren't. So when we got to our transfer point, we had to wait for them. It was fun though. The train station we ended up at was so small, it had no train ticket machine. You just got on it and bought your ticket later. Or that's what we did on the way home. From the station, a bus picked us up and took us to the onsen. Of course it was segregated. We went to our separate baths, scrubbed up on the little seats, and hopped into the water. The water was kind of reddish with minerals in it. It felt nice, but got really hot. And it's not easy to just get up when you're in a giant bath with a bunch of other naked guys. At least I didn't have my glasses on. We soaked in those two indoor tubs for a while, then went and found an outdoor bath. The girls were on the other side of the fence, and Allan tried peeking. Well, not really. He just put his hand through a hole in the fence to scare them. It was gratifying. All done with soaking, we eventually got back to the station, where we had to wait for the train. We passed the time by playing a game where a group of people stand in a circle, then everyone reaches out their left hand and takes someone else's (not the person next to you) and then you do the same with the right, and try to untangle yourselves. We tried twice and lost both times by the time the train came. Oh well. Later on, we had a barbeque, our last one. It was sad, but we enjoyed ourselves. Not a bad way to spend a day after taking a final exam. The next morning, Rob showed up and wanted to do something immediately. So he and I went to Osho, which was a Chinese place his host family took him a lot. We had Charshu-men (ramen with pork in it. A LOT OF PORK), gyoza, and Anindofu (almond jelly), and it only cost 1008Y. Cheap, really. After that, we went to McDonald's for a giant coke. It was a Jumbo Coke served in a carton. I was pleased with it. Coming back to JCMU, I had to start on my cleaning, and then everyone kinda took off their own separate ways, and I went to catch up to people out on Castle Road an hour or so later. We came back and organized a trip to Shougestsu for a final okonomiyaki. Yes, you have seen this before if you read my journal. I am not explaining it again. There were seven of us who went. Karen, Bednar-san, Scott, Meghan, Jamie, Allan, and me. We gorged ourselves and had a good time, then came back here, watched some anime, and then trundled off to bed. And then we woke up for the graduation ceremony! The ceremony was not bad at all. There were some good speeches by the students of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year. 4th year was lazy and didn't do one... But Dr. Johnson, who is the resident director at JCMU is not a public speaker. It seems my Japanese is better than his, he couldn't pronounce names properly, and just wasn't into it. His speech in English didn't talk about us, he talked about Japanese humility, and then insulted us at the end by saying the teachers have done everything for us, even if we didn't put forth the effort. But I graduated, with a B- just like last time. I spoke with Rob's host mom after the ceremony, and she seemed like a really cool host mom. I wish I had gotten a higher grade, but I will survive. I tried my best. Then it was a mad flurry of cleaning so that rooms could be inspected, which was easy. The plans for the night were laid out as follows: go to Shirumon for dinner, then go to Viva City for game center. That was about it. Dinner was with Kevin, Jamie, Meghan, Scott, and Allan, since Rob had to go to his host family's place for dinner. Then we walked to the station, which took about 45 minutes. Ugh. Hopped a train one stop to Viva City, went to the game center and promptly picked up a shotgun and started destroying zombies. I was playing Time Crisis 3, by the way. I also went and tried to get some slimes from Dragon Quest, since everyone loved them so much. It was fun, and I made the machine tilt by hip checking it. It actually yelled at me and told me not to do that. Ha! We met up with Bednar-san and Karen there, who were going to see a movie, and got Purikura with them (photo stickers) After game center madness, we did some karaoke upstairs. Yes, I did karaoke. It was fun with the other people, in our own room. Rob pretty much took over and was doing a bunch of songs at the beginning, because he had to leave early. It was fun. We ended with Bohemian Rhapsody, which seems to be a standard for them, or something. It was good times. We got a taxi home from the Hikone station, by the way, no more silly walking for us! In the morning, everyone left. It was really sad to me, watching everyone except for Karen leave. It is not something that made me feel good, but empty, thinking that all of these people will probably never be in the same place again, and everything that we made this summer might live on in our minds, but never in action again. I know I'll see the people I hung out with, but everyone else is just on the outside. ::sigh:: Karen and I hung out a bit, and didn't do much else that day. I bummed around feeling sorry for myself. The next day, I slept all day, took a nap, then Karen and I went to Castle Road to look at the shops (she had two bikes still!), and we were going to go to Osho, but we ran into a Tanabata festival on Ginza Road, so we inspected it instead. We ate there instead, at the little stalls and stands. I had some Karaake (fried chicken breat chunks on a stick), a banana-chocolate crepe, and yakisoba. I was pleased. After getting home, we sat and talked until about 4am, and I told her the drama that was David's love life. Mainly because she had some questions come up that she had never dealt with and wanted advice. I woke up in time to wish her well as she went off to Kyoto, then home to Taiwan, and I really was alone. Sure, Ross is still here, but I never really talked to him. So pretty much, alone. I slept most of yesterday, and read when I was awake. I wasted the day. Now today I have a lot to do, since I have to be out of here by 9am. I can do it. And when I leave, I go to Osaka, then the next day, dad and Kevin show up and it's wacky fun time in Japan for us! My pictures from the last week or so should be public very soon, so I will have them posted when I have internet access again.

Two Weeks of Pictures

I have here many a picture for you! Week 6 Hikone - 91 pictures of Kyoto and other things. Includes Gion Matsuri, Kiyomizu-dera, people in yukata, and Allan doing some Capoeira. Alas, I didn't get any good shots of him rolling around, stupid batteries dying. Week 7 Hikone - 104 pictures of the Naginata lesson and the beautiful Hikone Castle and the Genkyuuen Garden around it. Awesome place. Okay, I have a 15 minute speech in one hour, and I should go pretend to memorize it. After that, I run away to Tokyo for the weekend. Whee!!!

Two Weeks Gone

Yeah, I'm a bad person. Deal with it. I've been really, really busy lately, and I am sorry. Let me start off by saying that this will not (I hope) turn out to be a gynormous post. I have a speech tomorrow, and it's about 10 minutes long and I need to begin to memorize it. I went to Kyoto on the 16th-18th for the Gion Matsuri, one of the largest festivals in Kyoto. It was started when the plague ended many, many years ago. They carry huge "floats" which are like huge wagons down the roads over a few miles. It's a big to-do, and it was crowded beyond belief. Elmer, Allan, Rob, Jamie, Meghan, and Scott went with me. We got there after class Friday, which was after our second mid-term. We didn't particularly want to think of anything class-related, so we went to a huge festival! That night, we went to Sanjo-Keihan to go to Shakey's Pizza, an all-you-can-eat pizza place. I won a pin-badge there, because I am cool. I was a pig and ate about 23 slices of pizza (roughly equivalent to 10 American slices of pizza, these are paper thin!). After pizza gorging, Elmer and I went to go find our little ryokan (inn). It was the cheapest (and therefore shadiest) place we could possibly find. So Elmer and I trot off, and end up going the wrong way for a while, and then backtrack, and hit the place about an hour and a half after we started walking. It seems to have been designed by taking the alleyways behind buildings and putting a roof over it and boards on the ground. Shady. But for 1650Y a night ($15) I would go there again. We slept dorm-style in a room. Read: 6 of us on a floor. But I am getting ahead of myself. Elmer and I rejoined the group at a Game Center (arcade) which wasn't very good. So we went to another one, but it turns out you need a membership to get into it. So we went on. We wandered around, and all the people were having their massive festivities, selling beer on the streets. We walked down a street that seems to scream red-light district with empty rooms plastered with girlie pictures and a door at the back guarded by a Japanese guy in a suit with an earpiece, or the places called "Pink Office," "Pink Tomato," and so on. Pink is the color of eroticism. Guess why. Eventually, a convenience store or two later, we get tired and get back to the Uno House, where we have to cross through two rooms, the place with the sink for brushing teeth, turn left, go down a 3 foot step, walk on the boards down a hallway that I had to turn sideways in (crazy American shoulders), ignore the urinals on the wall (they're fakes, apparently), go to the end of that hall, turn left and go through a cubby hole about 4 feet high (watch your head!) and then on the left is a sliding door to a little room with 6 futon mattresses on the floor. On the right is a mysterious stairway to nowhere, and it's open to the sky also. Lovely place. We slept just fine though, got up, showered, and Rob, Allan, and I wore our jimbe. Scott, Meghan, and Jamie wore yukata. Elmer just wore shorts and a tank top, because he's cool like that. Heading out, we watched the floats. They are amazing, but it was hot and sweaty, and crazy gross being pushed around like that. Meghan and I almost made it all the way to the front of the crowd. The best picture I got was when I picked Meghan up and she took a picture for me. She only weighs 95 pounds! Tiny!! After the parade, we wandered for a while, split up while Elmer, Jamie, and Rob went one way, and we went another. We (Scott, Meghan, Allan, and myself) went to sit by the river on the Kawamachi bridge area and look at the fun little river. We waded into it (the river is about 10 inches deep here, man made), and it was nice and cool. Up the river, I saw some Ronin (masterless samurai). Going up the river a bit, a Shinsengumi (all of you who know Kenshin know who this is) member comes up, and they enact a fight scene!! It was great! One Shinsengumi guy versus three Ronin (one was female). After the demonstration, they had some people come and try a combination. They wouldn't let me though. I kept raising my hand, and he (Shinsengumi guy) says 'Who are you?' I respond with 'I'm me,' to which his reply is, 'Oh, never heard of you. Next?' But it was in Japanese. Oh well. After the fighting is done, we walk a year and a half to Kiyomizudera (the shrine of the pure water), which has the most amazing view, which it should, since it is on top of Kyoto. Uphill the whole way. But it was gorgeous. To be continued. I am only on the 18th right now as a matter of fact. Lots of catching up to do. And miles to go before I sleep. I mean, many things to read before I sleep.

More Pictures!

Week 5 Hikone - 128 Pictures for your viewing pleasure. I also left something out of the entry yesterday. At the Tanabata Festival, I was interviewed by a guy from the Yomiuri Shinbun, one of the biggest newspapers in Japan. He said when the article runs in August, he is going to send it to JCMU. So I might be in a Japanese newspaper!

11 Days already? Where Did the Time Go? Read and Find Out!!

This entry has waited about 11 days. I apologize for my sloth. I have done piles of studying mainly, so I'll spare you all my whining. Cut to the chase, David! Last Sunday, the day after Nara, Allan, Jamie, Scott, Meghan, Eric and I all went out in search of the elusive import grocery store and to go to UniQlo, the supposed used clothes store. UniQlo ended up being a veritable Gap of Japan, but with amazing prices and yukata. Yukata are the summery, cotton robe-like-kimono things that men and women wear. So I acquired one. In fact, Allan, that copycat, bought the same one as me! To be fair, there were three patterns for guys. Women get birds, flowers, and floopy things like that in all ranges of colors. Guys get geometric patterns, and subdued, earthy dark colors. It's really soft and comfy also. I am pleased. The import store, however, did not impress me. It had no great import selection. If anything, it was like a Gordon Food Service place. Tiny fridge equals no big foods. During the week, there were a couple runs to the Yuu Store and AL Plaza, but nothing other than groceries came to me. Tuesdsay was the Aikido cultural doodad (yes, doodad. Deal with it.), which was fun. They came from Shiga Daigaku (University) and demonstrated, then showed us a bit, then answered questions. One of the guys spoke no English, so Aizawa-sensei turned me into a translator, which I surprised myself in being able to do!! Last Friday, we Barbequed our hearts out. Rob, Allan, and I got meat and supplies from the Yuu Store, and returned to get Eric and Elmer joining in. This was also the weekend of the optional weekend homestay, so nobody was around. First, we made Grill Gyoza by cooking them backwards. We were supposed to fry then steam, but we had it set for a boil, then a crisping on the grill. Of course, we boiled in a pan... Next, we had Kalbi Pork Chops (Sweet, Korean BBQ Style), Teriyaki Chicken breast chunks, scallions, over rice. Also, we grilled up some dessert pineapple, which was beyond delicious. An ear of sweet corn, and two dry sweet potatoes round out the meal. We were beyond pleased. Saturday was Harry Potter day. Eric, Allan, and I hit Viva City by way of Toys 'R' Us. Toys 'R' Us actually sells Rold Gold and Snyder pretzels. Also, the video game selection was gorgeous. After drooling, we went to waste the half hour before buying our tickets. I played a fun Shooter Game, Allan played Tekken TAG and then some DDR, which he is pretty good at. I would somehow damage everyone around me... Then it was finally time to get tickets. We stood in line for a bit, then got our tickets to see the new Harry Potter movie, finally. I, at least, was really happy, being the huge nerd that I am. While waiting in line for the theater to open, I noticed one middle schooler's handbag. It had a big Playboy bunny logo on it and said something like "Don't ring if you don't swing!" And that just disturbed me. I tried to get a picture of it, but it just didn't work. I just ended up feeling dirty with the results. It's long gone. They opened the theater, and it's about 1/4 of the size of a small Laurel Park Mall theater. I mean, maybe, maybe 100 seats. But it was enjoyable. The opening thing that told us to throw our trash away and be quiet in the theater was an animated Godzilla that we three Americans laughed uproariously at. At the end of the little animation, Godzilla was sitting in his seat asleep while all the other Godzilla monsters around him glared at him. The movie was great though, if you read the book and could fill in the gaps on your own. The whole shrunken head Jamaican things were a little odd, also. We laughed at the jokes that the Japanese people didn't get, and the movie was subtitled. Fun! After the movie, we decided to try to head to the nearby Book Off, another used book store for some more manga. It was close by, so we walked the less-than-1km to get there. Not like we had a choice, our bikes were left on the other side of the train tracks, at the train station. The Book Off was more expensive than Bandai in terms of used manga, but we still got some pretty good deals. I bought the three Trigun manga as well as another GTO. Lotsa manga for David for cheap! It was time to head off after that, and we were getting really hungry, having not really eaten that day. We stopped at what I thought was a 24 hour beefbowl place called Suikya, but it turned out to be (duh) a Sukiyaki place. I should have known from the name. We ordered our food and within 3 minutes, it was at our table, and it was absolutely delicious. Also, it was really cheap. For less than $6 we all filled our bellies with delicious thinly sliced beef over rice in some form or another. Upon returning home, we started watching the GTO drama. GTO is short for Great Teacher Onizuka, who never went to college, was always a problem student, and even led a biker gang (bosozoku in Japanese), but has a good heart. he has wanted to be a teacher so he can make a difference in the kids' lives, unlike the majority of the teachers who just worry about their image, bow to the kid's demands, and placate the parents. He passed the interview by impressing the director of the school (Prinicpal) by doing a jumping roundhouse kick into the neck of the Head Teacher (Vice Principal) when the Head Teacher wouldn't do anything about a problem in the school. Good interview. I really like this drama, and it's funny. Last Sunday was pretty much all homework, with a little bit of GTO and Azumanga Daioh mixed in for good measure. Good way to celebrate the birth of the country, instead of hanging out with loud, obnoxious drunk people, it was a quiet night laughing our asses off. I was pleased with it. Monday brought the studies. Monday night I studied in the AC Study Room, which was wonderful, and it was more wonderful, because it is the day that the PDA I bought came in. It is a Hitachi NPD-20JWL, which runs Windows CE 4.1, and has a brilliantly clear color screen. Since it is a Japanese PDA, it has excellent Kanji recognition, and can double as an mp3 player, as well as go on the internet using WiFi. Oh, and I put dictionaries on it, so I was going to sell my electronic dictionary to Allan on Tuesday. Monday night I went and tried to get the drivers for the PDA on to the computer (not in the study room), and got caught up synching it up... I got really tired, gathered my computer and went to bed. I didn't even think about the stuff in the study room, stacked in its nice little pile. In the morning, I went to reclaim my stuff, but it was no longer in a nice little pile. It was scattered about the table, and my electronic dictionary was gone. It was the biggest boneheaded mistake I have made; leaving my electronics out. But this is Japan, no theft here, and I live with all the Americans here, and I would like to think that they're honest. Well, looks like I have been proved wrong twice now. One other girl had her 40GB iPod (worth $500) nicked from a room they were partying in. It was last seen by Fumiaki at 2:30 in the morning, and I got into the room at 8am. So somewhere in there, someone took it. It could have been any of the students. And I have no way to get it back. The Resident Director here said he would try to do what he could, but he doesn't know if he can just go searching rooms or not. So I get to wait, but I am not very optimistic. I was out of it all day on Tuesday, and even skipped the Tea Ceremony to sleep a bit. I was really pissed off. It was not a good day, and it still hasn't shown up; I am not harboring any thoughts that it will. Wednesday and Thursday were spent studying and trying to get the PDA to accept other programs, but it's tough to get the American programs to work on the Japanese OS. I have yet to succeed with putting the Adobe Acrobat reader on to it. Thursday night was the Tanabata Festival at Shiga Daigaku with Allan, Eric, Scott, Jamie, and Meghan, which was amazing. We all wore our yukata, and caught the bus (since it would have been impossible to ride our bikes in them) to the university. It was a tiny campus, so a small festival. They had stalls with shaved ice, draft beer, curry, fries, sake, fried chicken chunks, grilled fish, grilled squid, fruit, and candy. They also had cold noodles, ice cream, and games to play. It was a really cool atmosphere, especially when it got dark, but I'm getting ahead of myself. We grabbed some shaved ice since it was so unbearably hot (melon flavored, of course), and wandered about. Then they started the pounding of the mochi. Mochi is the glutenous rice powder that is pretty sweet, but has a really odd, smooth, soft, sticky texture. After the first two older guys pounded some, they pulled me up on stage to pound the mochi. The first couple guys went for a minute or two, and then I was pounding it for over three minutes. Believe me, it felt longer than that. Using a 20 pound wooden sledge continuously for three minutes (very quickly) turned my arms into jelly. When I was done, I was applauded, and I felt like a rock star again. I mean, we were Americans in the traditional dress, and I was up on stage in front of them. Then some kids tried their hand, and another guy from JCMU tried it. He didn't have his heart in it though. I was better, hehe. When it was done, they rolled it in roasted rice flour, and gave it out to the people in line. I noticed it too late, and wasn't going to get any, but they saw me, and since I pounded it, they gave me the last bits of it. It was warm and delicious, and I shared it with my fellow gaijin. It turns out they took a picture of me and printed it out, so I have that. Yay! Wandering around, talking to random Japanese people was fun, and the little kids in their yukata were adorable. I munched on some fried chicken breast also, which made my belly happy. Then I hit the sake booth. They were generous enough to give me a taste tour at no charge. I tried three sake, the first was pretty heavy and sweet. Almost cloying and thick on the tongue. The second was a little drier, with good green apple crisp sweetness at the finish. It cut through the humidity really well. The last was the ultra premium, and was exceptionally smooth. I was really pleased with it, but it was too expensive, so I bought a tiny bottle of the second one for 250 yen, and had a little bit of a drink. It was only about 12 ounces, but we all got to taste it well enough. Also at the festival were some other JCMU people. Becky and Kevin, both from EMU, as well as Tom (from New York) hung out a bit. The stall that had grilled sausages and spare ribs gave me a free rib because I pounded the mochi! Not as good as ribs back home, but great in its simplicity. Meghan played a game to get a "yo-yo" which was a ballon with a bit of water in it on a rubber band. It amused her. Then they were doing the Orihime contest, which was getting the kids in yukata on to the stage area and picking the crowd favorite. They picked two boys and two girls, and they were filmed for something, whether for tv or for Shiga University stuff, I don't know. But they were damn cute. From 3-7, I would say. Around this time, the festival was drawing to a slow close. They were doing a raffle in the cafeteria, and since I had a ticket, I went. They were giving away watermelons, sake, entrance to Hikone castle, and some green tea gift sets. I didn't win anything, but it was a lot of fun with how high-energy it was in there. After that, we got a taxi back to JCMU. We did a bad thing, we put 5 people in a 4 person taxi, but Meghan's so tiny, she doesn't count as another whole person... The taxi driver told us no, but I apologized profusely. I think he was mad at me. We all went and (separately) got out of our yukata, showered, and then met up in the tv room to watch some more anime and a half an episode of GTO. It was a great night, leading up to our field trip in Kyoto yesterday. Well, we went to Kyoto for free yesterday. It was really cool, and we got to ride the ghetto-fabulous pimp buses again. They had the lighting system that was designed to look like fancy chandeliers, but were instead pretty tacky. It was funny. The bus ride was uneventful, so I'll gloss over it to when the buses drove through Kyoto proper. On the one road we drove down, I counted 5 Lawson's. A good sign. We stopped at a light, and there was a dog grooming school, and the women in there waved at us, and I waved back, so more of them waved, and one picked up the daschund that she was grooming, and had him wave at us. That was pretty damn funny. A few minutes later, we arrived at Ritsumeikan Daigaku (Ritsumeikan University, you should all know that word by now), where we were grouped into groups of four and given two Japanese student guide. My group had Allan, Becca (from Beloit University in Wisconsin), and Kevin (from EMU). Our tour guides were Take, who was a pretty tall Japanese guy, and pretty tanned, and Yochi (Yoshie actually, but she went by Yochi), who was pretty tiny. I am sure that if they tried, they could have gotten into modelling. We went from the Ritsumeikan campus to walk to Kinkakuji. Kinkakuji is the Golden Pavillion, built in the 1500s, and is absolutely amazing. Let me take a minute to describe to you how unbearably hot it was. On the bus at 10am, it was 90 degrees. It just got hotter. In fact, today, I heard the number that yesterday, in Japan, 3 people died from heat stroke, and 85 were hospitalized. We now continue with the day of walking outside in Kyoto. Oh, and it was horribly humid also. Yochi, Becca, and I were talking about Japanese movies and other things like Harleys on the way to Kinkakuji. Turning that corner and having that gleaming, golden building come into view was as breathtaking as the last two times I had been there. In fact, this year, they had paid special attention to cleaning and taking care of the gold on the temple. We got our pictures, and talked about when it was built. Walking up the paths, they still have the same Success in Studies charm I bought three years ago. We talked about the waterfalls there, which was where the guy who built Kinkakuji (Yoshimitsu, I think?) took water to make his tea... et cetera. Kind of mythical now, since one of the statues denotes a place where he napped and was inspired to build the temple by a white snake from the heavens. Pretty cool, actually. The Kinkakuji shop had AC, so we stood there for a few, Becca got a fortune, and it was the best one, so she kept it. There was a little stand a bit further on, by the exit, which had Frozen Coke. I think it was the only place in Japan that has them, and I don't plan on being stopped by it. Allan and I have been tossing the idea around of bringing Slurpees to Japan and Japanese vending machines to America. It would be a smash hit. From there, transposing some other cultural differences; American pizza to Japan, Japanese convenience store food and breads to America. We'd be millionaires. Back to the present, we decided to head back to campus for lunch. The cafeteria was really busy right then, so we wandered around, melting, and stopped in the air conditioned library for a few before going to get food. I can't get over how cheap and delicious these cafeterias can be. I got Kalbi-donburi (Korean style barbeque pork over rice), a side of Kinpira (lightly pickled julienne carrots and burdock), some yogurt with fruit in it, and a ginger ale for 700 yen. After this, it was time to bid adieu to our newly met Japanese friends, so we got back on the bus, and headed out towards Arashiyama, our next stop. Arashiyama was really close, and had a multitude of choices of things to see. Alas, we only had two hours to see them. There were three or four temples, a music box museum, bamboo forest, and Monkey Mountain. This place is also famous for the Shinsengumi (the Way of the New Order) who helped bring about the Meiji Reformation in the 1840s. If you have seen any Rurouni Kenshin, you should know them. Saitou Hajime was in them. This time, Allan, Rob, Jamie, Scott, Meghan, and I wandered around. We hit the shops to see if there were any ATMs around. No, there weren't. But I saw a fan I wanted, and decided to get it on the way back. It's a Shinsengumi fan, heck yeah! So we decided to go to the bamboo forest first, since it was closer. It was pretty cool, and only a few blocks away, but we couldn't practice our ninja running in the forest, it was blocked off. I got a few cool pictures though. We headed back, and Rob and Jamie both bought really cool fans. Let me remind you, it is over 95 at this point in the day. What do we decide to do? We want to see Monkey Mountain. It can't be that bad, right? Wrong. We pay 500 yen for the privilege to climb a mountain on the day that 3 people die from heat stroke, and 85 hospitalized. I know I have said it before, but emphasis is the key. Emphasis is the key. I thought that the first staircase was bad, then we took another half hour of constant trudging up the switchbacks on the mountain, and it was over a mile, pretty steeply uphill. By the time we were three quarters the way up it, I was starting to feel light-headed and see spots. But I survived. I felt re-energized when we came across the first monkeys in our path. There was one monkey, grooming the second, who had a baby clinging to it. Three for one! And they are free-range monkeys, so you have to keep out of their way. A bit further on , there was one just sprawled in the path. He looked at us as we passed, but that's about it. Then we inexplicably ended up in a playground. Bring your kids here, maybe? Let them play with monkeys? Never in America, I could almost feel the lawsuits from that one. But there was a big Monkey Slide (but the Americans were using it. I wouldn't fit, so I didn't. There were baby monkeys wrestling in trees, and falling down, there were mama monkeys feeding babies, there was an old monkey just hanging out in the crook of a tree. They were everywhere! Up at the top, there was the view of Kyoto. You could see the whole city from there, and it was worth the hellish climb itself. It was pretty breathtaking, monkeys and a view. Not like I had any breath to spare anyways. The way down was much easier, but the path was just steep enough that you wanted to run instead of walk, and I had to try hard to not roll down the mountain. Once down, we headed back towards the bus, since it was time to head home. We stopped and drained some Dakara Life Partner (sports like drink) and went and I bought my fan. It is really cool. And cooling. The ride back was accompanied by sleeping. Apparently I have a "cool" sleeping breathing pattern. I start to snorer lightly then I catch myself, and stop. But I do it at fairly regular intervals apparently. We turned the bus seats so we had a giant U shape in the back of the bus, 4 seats on each side, and 6 across the back. It was nice for napping. When reaching the dorms again, we headed off to the Yuu store for food for this week's minimalist BBQ. We got pork for teriyaki pork, pineapple, and I bought a little mochi. I also got 3 2-liters of Life Partner. The grill was a pain to light this week, from the humidity, and Rob almost set himself on fire three times. A record for him. But we eventually got it started, and the grill cooked chicken wings for Jamie and Meghan first, then our pork, pineapples, Scotts chicken-thing skewers, then finally some calamari for the girls. It was a pretty good Pineapple Teriyaki pork donburi night. I was pleased. We were all exhausted also, so when Rob headed out back to his homestay, we adjourned to the tv room for one episode of Azumanga Daioh, and one of Jungle wa Itsumo Hale Nochi Guu, which I just found out got licensed, so no more downloading that, I guess... Then it was sleepy time. I woke up this morning to the sound of huge rolling thunder, which I had not heard in Japan at all until now. It was reassuring. I slept in until 11, and got out here at 1130, to the Air Conditioned room. It was pretty nice out, if not really muggy. I plan on getting a head start on some studying today and maybe watching some GTO. I am uploading pictures now, so keep yer pants on, kids.

"Happiness Can Be Bought, and it Costs 100 Yen."

I have a long long long entry to type here kids, so be patient. First off, I have two picture galleries which coincide with this. It totals a bout 190 pictures... I like pictures. Week 4 Hikone Part 1 Week 4 Hikone Part 2 Okay, let's start at the beginning of the week. Monday: First off, it meant back to class. Oh well, no week is perfect, I guess. I mainly just hung out with Rob and Allan since Rob was supposed to be starting his homestay, but the rain left over from the typhoon held them back another day. By the evening, we were all trying to get into Study Mode for our midterm on Thursday. It was a pretty uneventful day, except when the Nihonjin started to have a water balloon fight. I went out and took pictures, because it was fun. Besides, hey, study break. Later that night, all the Japanese girls came down in yukata. They looked very nice, as you can see in my photo gallery. Allan and I decided to join in on the action in our Jimbe, as Akihito and Seiichiro had them on also. Not much other than that. Tuesday: One less hour of class, plus a cultural activity. We went to Shiga Daigaku, (Shiga University) to hang out with some Japanese people and tour their campus as well as eat at their cafeteria. So we all hopped on our bikes as the mass Gaijin Bosozoku (Foreigner Biker Gang) and rode to Shiga Dai led by Aizawa-sensei. Upon arrival, we invaded the tiny campus. Separated into groups of three, we were each assigned two Nihonjin. We all first went to the cafeteria since we were all hungry after class and a bike ride. I enjoyed some Katsudon, fried pork cutlet and egg over rice in anticipation of our exam. It is good luck to eat Katsudon before an exam. Allan and Seth were in my group, and we were grouped with Hiroyuki who had to run to classes (Chinese class actually) and Shiba. Shiba was an interesting individual. He wore the huge jeans and a way-too-big bright yellow shirt. He and his two friends (Shun and Taka) were all part of the American Football Club and were pretty cool. After food, which was surprisingly cheap for the quality and quantity, we toured the campus. We more or less walked in a circle around the campus, stopping to peek at the Aikido or Judo club (not sure which). Shiba then proclaimed that it was his fourth choice of a school, but he kept failing the entrance exams to get into the schools he wanted (Japanese colleges and sometimes high schools require the prospective students to take entrance exams and not just apply and look at your previous grades) and that it is a tiny school. It was. We met up with Hiroyuki at the little coffee shop and Taka and Shun were there also. The three JCMU students talked with the four Japanese students for a while, until about 3:30 or so, and then we had to part ways. It was really fun though. I got all their names and gave Hiroyuki my email, and maybe we'll hang out before I run away back to America. Who knows. Upon leaving Shiga Dai, we swung by a book shop called Miyazaki Books and I got a few more manga to fill out my collection. I got the Kenshin manga I was missing and the next two Negima. Yay, up to 40 manga. The rest of the day was spent homeworking, and by the time we got back, Rob was gone on his homestay. Too bad, don't get to hang out with him much now. Wednesday: Everyone was loopy and crazy today, the day before midterms. We were planning on getting katsudon before the exam (I was going to double up from the day before) at Shirumon, but we waited till dinnertime. The meantime was spent studying, studying, and, let's see, studying. When dinnertime came about, we went to Shirumon, with me, Elmer, Allan, Eric, Meghan (not just Megan I typed before. She insisted I put the h in there. So Mhehghahan. That's got to have an h where it's supposed to go), Scott, and Jamie. Alas, to the detriment of our test grades, Shirumon was closed for the day! No katsudon for us, we were doomed!!!!!!! Meghan, Jamie, and Scott decided to make curry at home, while the rest of us got Chanpon. Then back to studying until about 1 in the morning. Ugh. Thursday: Exam Day. Oh well, I prepared to the best of my ability. I got up around 7-730 to work it into my head a little more strongly, but it was really tough to prepare for it. I mean, we learned hundreds of vocabulary in the past couple weeks, and had to pick and choose which ones we thought were important, and try to guess if Satoh-sensei thought they were also important. A very stressing ordeal. When the test came about, it was actually three tests wrapped up in one. We had a kanji test (damned Chinese squigglies, go home!!) which was the easiest one of the lot, a test on 4 of the readings we had (we did know which ones in advance), and a test on the drama we watched, which was the hardest one because of the sheer amount of information and vocabulary that we had to soak up. We had two hours for the test, and at the 1:50 mark, I still had a composition to write and the wicked vocab box of doom to fill out. We all kind of fell on our faces on this exam, but if we all fall together, we can't all fail, right? Right? In any case, after the exam we went in search of Katsudon. Again. We decided that as long as we got it in to our systems before we get it back, the 7 of us go back to Shirumon which as miraculously open this time. After Shirumon, we went downtown for the others to get some cash on hand. After a while, we hit the 100 yen store in the Ginza shopping district. We found lots of cool stuff. I am going to get a full dish set from there before I leave. I got a wind chime, and a few other things, like a No Smoking sign for my apartment when I get back. They also had a little pack of two condoms (from a 100Y store?!) that had a picture of two monkeys on it and said "Mamotte Kudasaru?" Saru means monkey. Mamotte Kudasaru? means "Will you protect me?" I thought that was hilarious, but I did not end up buying them. I will have to go back for pictures later. Allan and I were planning on doing a little anime marathon of "Aishiteru ze, Baby" (I luv ya, Baby) which was supposed to be absolutely hilarious, but the other three, Scott, Meghan, and Jamie were already planning on finishing their drama. So we hung out downstairs. Allan and I got some sake and warmed and drank it, and it went down beautifully. It was a great little relaxer after stresses of exams. Granted, most people were getting trashed at Sugimoto's, but that's not my style. But you know what? I am really missing Killian's and Leinenkugel beers. They have a few honey browns here also, but they suck compared to US and UK beers. Shortly thereafter, the drama was done (because I could hear the sniffling downstairs, and the tv room is upstairs) so we invaded and watched some anime. It turned out to be sickeningly cute, not funny. There is still no plot to speak of, but the little 5 year old in it is absolutely adorable. But soon enough, it was sleepy time, so I slept. Friday: First time sleeping in after my alarm, and on a day that we are chartered to schools by taxi. I woke up my roommate, showered and shaved, and sprinted to the Academic building. Eric, Akane, and I went to Joshi Elementary School in downtown Hikone. It's close by, and I had even passed it a few times on bike rides. We hung out with second graders for the few hours we were there, but first we went to have tea at the principal's office. He told us about Tanabata, the Festival of the Stars. The main character is like a cowboy he says, a Japanese one. He was tending his cattle one day when he found a woman's kimono in a tree near a hot spring. He picks it up and it turns out that it belings to the woman bathing there, who happens to be absolutely gorgeous. She wants it back, but he fell in love with her at first sight. They end up getting married, and having kids. But she is actually a star come to earth, and she has to one day return to her heavenly home. She also works on a loom making kimono, but I am not sure where that fits in. But kids make little paper things tied to bamboo trees and they have their own wishes in them to come true. So we went to the class, introduced ourselves, and sat with them to make things. I sat with 4 girls and a guy. Miko, Miyu, Ai, Kouhei, and Misato. Kouhei is the guy. He's my buddy. He led me around everywhere when we left the room and he's just a cool kid. I wanted to steal him. But in this time, all the kids asked me to hang their tanabata things up. A lot of them made lanterns, some made monsters, some made monsters that they proclaimed to be the Prisoner of Azkaban, because that movie came out on the same day as the visit. And I will so see it. Kenchi kept coming up to me, and he reminded me a lot of how David Carter was when he was 7. Shou came and he put a tanabata thing over my neck. It was cool. I felt like a rock star. Soon enough, it was recess, and dodgeball time. Japanese dodgeball is very different than US dodgeball. Each team has two lines. The back line on a team hits a person in the front line to move forward, then the front line hits the people in the other team, and the hit people go to the back row of the thrower's teams. If the person who the ball was thrown at catches it, then the thrower goes to the back line of the catcher's team. Make sense? I hope so. So we played that a bit, and then a kid came up and poked me in the butt! Then I turn and chase him, then another one did it. I made sure to keep them all in front of me from then on in. It soon degraded into me wrestling four or five of them at once, using a mild form of the Dad Move on them to keep 8-10 little arms from poking me in the belly. They thought it was great fun. I was very tired after a half hour of this. We then went up to a music room, where the teacher read us a story that I only caught about half of (the old lady in the story spoke in Kansai-ben, the local awesome dialect!!), and then they sang songs, and we tried to join in. They had obviously practiced, they even had hand motions to a few of them. Then we did one that I knew, Bingo. But the lyrics translated differently. "I have a dog, and Bingo is his name, B-I-N-G-O, and what a cute dog he is." Then the teacher sprung a new one on them. We did Head and Shoulders; Knees and Toes in English. And the kids were able to do it! I am impressed with them for that. I remember learning it in Japanese in 10th grade. Oh, memories... After that, we formed a conga line and did London Bridge is Falling Down where there were a few kids who would trap a person going through their bridge at the "My fair lady" line. Then that person would switch with one of the bridge holders. And it continued. The best part is that the principal played it with us all. But that was about all the time we had. We got a few more pictures, and they thanked us all in unison, and I shook a million tiny hands, and was once more the rock star I am in my mind. Back to the principal's office, we were to sit and have coffee, but the taxi was there and waiting so we had a sip or three and headed home. I left a thank you note to the class on their desk, but I may go back and visit again. Back at JCMU, we went and grabbed a Lawson Lunch and just kinda hung out for a while before the big barbeque. This isn't a David with his little hibachi barbeque, but a full-fledged BBQ with burgers, brats (BRATS IN JAPAN!!!! JOHNSONVILLE!!!!), yakitori, and grilled veggies. It was amazing, with 4 big grills. Once they got them lit, I went and grilled. I didn't realize I should set my own food aside first, and the yakitori disappeared in moments. I learned when I started grilling the brats, the vultures started to hover. Jay, Ross, Elmer, Rob, and I all made sure to set our stuff aside first. I got to grill for about 4 hours straight, it was great, except for the shifting winds blowing smoke in my eyes. I grilled yakitori, brats, cheddar brats, smoked brats, polish sausage, burgers, and pitiful excuses for chicken wings. I am a GrillMasta! Later on, I saw an old guy in a green Jimbe playing ping pong. He was awesome at it! Wicked crazy spin!! The BBQ died down and we went upstairs to watch some anime, but Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was on, dubbed in Japanese! All of the voices were awesome, except for Snape's. Snape had a booming, deep narrator voice. Not quite what I expect when I hear Snape, but it was acceptable, I guess. When that ended, we watched another episode of Azumanga Daioh which was crazy and random. Fun. Then we watched some Aishiteru ze, baby, and then a Zero Gravity video. Zero Gravity is a group of people who make martial arts shorts and seem to want to break into stunt work. Great job for amateurs. In fact, Allan had trained in Capoiera with one of the guys. That was Friday night. Sleep came soon after. You thought that was a long day? Saturday should be a big one also! Saturday: I woke up about 9:30ish, showered and got out to the common area to use the internet. It hated us, just like it was trying to do the night before. But I was sitting talking to Scott when Meghan and Jamie came downstairs and said "Let's go to Nara now!" This was about an hour and a half ahead the schedule we had agreed on last night. They bugged Allan and softshoed in front of his door (stomped around in slippers) until he was ready. Granted, little Meghan, under 100 pounds, didn't make that much noise, but it was enough. We headed out to the Hikone-eki, then caught a train to Kyoto to transfer to Nara. At Kyoto station, we stopped at a bakery, and I got a delicious Neufchatel cheese tart and a Croqeutte sandwich. It had horseradish on it, so it was a bit odd, but still edible. The train to Nara was local, so it took about 50 minutes. While on the train, a random guy asked if we spoke English and then told us how he lived in Sao Paolo, Brazil for three years. Apparently he wanted to share that he lived abroad also. We talked till he and the older woman near us got off the train. We got off the train shortly after. We were in Nara, the capital of Japan before Kyoto, which was the capital before Tokyo. Didn't make up their mind for a while, did they? Upon exiting the station, we saw a public official being interviewed for a tv appearance, and hordes of little kids with their matching yellow hats. We consulted the signposts which told us we had 1.7km to get to Kasuga Taisha, our first stop. We started our walk, and found some interesting things in short order. First was a sign about the deer. Deer? In a big city? You bet! They're short deer (like the Japanese people) who wander around and are protected by law here. Population over 1200 I hear. The sign had funny pictures on it warning to not get too close to the babies or the parents will get angry. The one right next to it said, in huge type, "Chikan ni Chuui!" which means "BEWARE OF PERVERTS!!!" I found that hilarious that they would have a sign with that on it in the middle of town. Another block produced deer for us to pet. They wanted treats, but everyone else was feeding them deer treats, so we just pet them. Continuing on our way, we saw rickshaw pullers, and came to the turn off to Kasuga Taisha. Kasuga Taisha is famous for their profusion of stone lanterns. Over 200 of them if I remember correctly. We took many pics of lanterns, of the girls pointing to pillars, and then found an opportune shop. Scott bought some plushie deer antlers to wear, and I bought a little knock off of a Boss Coffee washcloth to give to Becca, since she has an unholy fascination with Boss Coffee. Further along the path, we actually got to the real Kasuga Taisha. It was a beautiful red shrine, with priests and priestesses in it. Also, a rock garden, dvd player, and really cool tree. DVD PLAYER?! Apparently they like DVDs also. On the way out of the shrine, I noticed an irregularity. There was a car that just drove up the stairs of the shrine. How very odd. In order to appreciate this place, you have to take a look at the pictures I took. They explain it better than I could type here. We got directions on how to get to Todai-ji from a bus driver, and made it there safely. On the way, we saw a cool park with, what else, deer. There was also a really nice pond with some trees, and then an old guy sitting under some trained trees. Closer to Todai-ji, we found a little stream going over rocks in the middle of trees, and that ate up some more memory on my card. A couple fox spirits guarded another small shrine, and we got to the first entrance of Todai-ji. It was guarded by more deer!!! Before getting in, Scott was stopped by some middle schoolers who had some English homework. He answered their questions about how he liked the movie Bambie and we were on our way. Once inside the first gate, there was another one along the way, but the first gate had two 45 foot tall wooden statues of protector kings of the east and west. They looked like they could do the job, too. The way to the second gate yeilded another little shrine, showing how well Shintoism and Buddhism work together. The second gate had the admission bit, but the 500 yen was well worth it. Then we had our final approach to the building which holds the Daibutsu, the giant bronze statue that is one of the biggest, if not the biggest Buddha statue in Japan. To the right is a golden spire where a 7 story pagoda stood until a big earthquake hit a few hundred (maybe less) years ago. I would have loved to see that. We got a group shot right about where I had my group shot when I was here with 50 people three years ago. Only 5 of us now. The Daibutsu is still giant and peaceful as he was three years ago, and probably will be for many, many years to come, I hope. Of course, my flash sucks and I couldn't get a decent picture of him. On either side of him are brightly shining Bodhisattvas, who are Buddhas in Training. Further around was a statue of another protector king, then a scale model of the original Todai-ji complex, with the 7 story pagoda. Keep walking, and we found the pillar with a hole in it. Buddha's Nostril! A random Japanese woman went through it, and then Allan slid through. Meghan was next, followed by Scott, and then some Japanese people. Jamie and I couldn't fit. I guess I will have to deal with being enlightened once. I picked up a couple postcards at the shop and we were ready to head out. I did get a picture of Scott messing with his footbag outside of Todai-ji, and Allan doing a headstand. Showoffs. It was time to walk through the Touristy strip which was starting to close as we walked. Meghan got her Pepsi Blue, which is very disgusting, but just introduced to Japan. Poor people. I found an ashtray that said "Shika no Fun Fun Fun Odoridayo!" which means "Deer's Fun Fun Fun Dance!" and a washcloth that had a couple people going at it and said "No F**king" without the asterisks. They alswo had really cool door hangings that looked cool and a bunch of katana that were more than likely crap, and things like that. The 5 of us went back to the station, and checked out an arcade where we got Purikura, the sticker club thing, which was more fun than should have been allowed for taking pictures in a tiny booth. Hey now, it's all G-Rated. We had to get back home though. So we went and hopped the train, which happened to be the more expensive one. It cost 500Y extra, but was faster and more comfortable. Back at Kyoto, we transfered to our train home, which was a pretty busy train, but Allan and I got a Rush Hour seat. We got off the train and had to eat, having only had the small baked goods hours before, and McDonald's was open for 10 minutes more, so Allan and I went there. Scott, Meghan, and Jamie went to Chanpon. We ate quickly and rode home, sitting in the computer lab to upload and share pictures. We whored out our memory cards to each other and got the best pics. I have uploaded all of mine, but the rest will be up in a few days. And now today I typed this, then I plan on going to an import food store momentarily, going to get a used yukata, and then doing homework until my eyes bleed. It was a great week, really. Besides that stupid midterm, at least...

Week 3 Hikone Pictures

Here are the promised pics from this past week. Week 3 Hikone Part 1 Week 3 hikone Part 2 There ya go, kids. a good pile of pics for your viewing pleasure. I show off some skin in this one. Oh yeah, Hot Kilted David Action. Well, kilted and barbequeing at least.

Weekend Like Time.

So I ended up riding my bike to the post office, in a kilt. It was definitely an odd experience, having to hold my kilt down with one hand and steer with the other, all the while getting the hardest stares I have ever gotten in my life. I mean, I stand out in a crowd here normally, but when I put on a manskirt that looks like the local schoolgirl skirt..... I am surprised I didn't cause any accidents. After getting a bit of cash for Saturday's foray into the world of used books, we went to the Yuu Store for barbeque ingredients. We ended up outdoing ourselves once again. Allan and I had teriyaki pork chops, Rob somehow made a mix of sauce which ended up tasting exactly like Kalbi, the Korean Barbeque, and Elmer made up some pork with veggies. I grilled it up, all kilted and everything, and we had delicious food. After the grilling was done, we tossed some sweet potatoes and corn into the coals to roast. They were sweet, hot, and wonderful. After the que, not much happened. We made a Lawson's run, and that was the night. Oh yeah, I watched the Zatoichi movie by Beat Takeshi on Friday night. If you have seen and appreciated any of the Zatoichi movies (blind samurai goes around as a masseur and kicking ass; taking names), then you want to avoid this movie like the plague. The original Zatoichi movies were great: amazing swordplay, a plot, and good dialogue. This one was cheesy and ended with a dance sequence. A DANCE SEQUENCE!! On to Saturday. Elmer, Rob, Allan, and I had a plan to go to Bandai, which is a used book, game, cd, album shop about 12-13km away by bike if the weather held. Thankfully it did and it was a beautiful day. We headed out at about 1110am, and rode to the Hikone train station, crossed the tracks, and ventured into, what was for me, foreign territory. We got to Route 8 and rode like hell. Whether there was sidewalk or not, we kept going. Up and down hills, we rode. One time, Allan fell behind and then off his bike partially into a drainage ditch, and we wouldn't have known if an old lady didn't let us know. It was about an hour and fifteen minute ride to get there, and about 10 minutes before we did, I got hit by a car. Yup, I sure did. Elmer led the way, since he knew where we were going, and apparently the person pulling out of the convenience store didn't see that he wasn't alone and had three more Gaijin behind him. He pulled out and scratched the heck out of my bike, but I stayed up. Scared the living daylights out of me though. Bandai made it all better. It is practically a warehouse of cool old toys and stuff. They had all sorts of games for every video game system that was in Japan. They had the Sega Master System, Mega Drive (Genesis), Famicom (NES), Super Famicon (SNES), Nintendo 64, Virtual Boy, Famicom Disk Drive (WOW!!), PC Engine (Turbo Grafx 16), and many more, as well as games to go with it. They had thousands of manga, and many bundles of manga. CDs, LPs, DVDs, and toys lined the walls. Oh, they also had new stuff, like the New Geo Pocket, Wonderswan Color, Gameboy Advance, PS2, XBox, Gamecube, et al. Inexplicably, there was a fishing section too. I am not too sure about that, but if they have Airsoft (pellet guns) then I guess I'll allow it. We all wandered entranced, and I was thinking I went crazy. I got a lot of manga, and here is the pretty list: GTO (Great Teacher Onizuka) volumes 1-13 Rurouni Kenshin volumes 1-9, 11-20 Clover volumes 1-4 Mahou Senshi Negima volume 1 In America, three of those would be over $25US. Since I got them bundled from a used manga store, it all cost me 2300Y, or $22USD. Amazing!!! I have been reading some of the Negima, because it is drawn/written by the same guy who did Love Hina, and has a cool feel to it. It is about a 10 year old who has graduated from the Magician Academy in England, and was sent to be a teacher in Japan. It just so happens that he's teaching a class of 31 girls all who are 15-17, and wackiness ensues. It's pretty funny so far. We got back to Hikone proper in one piece, and Elmer and I stopped for food there. We were the only people in this restaurant, and they had wonderful food. Mainly their attention ws the best, since we were their only customers. Later that night, Allan, Rob and I went for a small bowl of ramen. I deserved it, I rode about 26km that day. We couldn't go to sleep because people were planning on having a bonfire (myself and a few others were watching some Pride Fighting, which is like America's UFC, but with a few more rules), but it rained. So, of course, the party was moved to the apartment next to mine. Infuriating. I never have been a party guy, and this just bugged me a bit. While sitting around, Elmer started asking Allan about some Capoiera moves, since they both go to class every Wednesday. Allan has been taking it for 5 years, and Elmer is learning now. If you don't know what Capoiera is, think Eddy Gordo from Tekken 3. In fact, Allan's teacher is who they flew to Japan to do the motion capture for Eddy Gordo. They kicked, spun, and rolled for an hour, and it was a lot of fun to watch. Then the worst thing that has happened at JCMU in my knowledge happened also. One of the girls lost her 40GB iPod. That's a tiny little mp3 player worth $500US. It disappeared from the party room, and we suspect foul play. Nothing she can do about it, though, it seems. I'd allow them to search our rooms. Heck, I would applaud it. But I eventually got to sleep. Sunday was spent in the office. Allan and I pretty much have the last table claimed as our own, and we printed out a sign proclaiming it such. It reads: David and Allan's Private Offices. Office Hours: Mon-Sun 13:00-23:00. Appropriate, since we both do many hours of studying here. We had the front doors locked this weekend due to the lack of the Resident Director, which meant the heat and humidity would have long since reduced me to a puddle of ooze, if it were not for the boon of lovely, lovely fans. We had 3 of them on us. It was much better. I made up some Tonkatsu Curry (pork cutlet curry) because I had nothing else for dinner. And that was my night, other than what w thought was going to be the last Nightly Ice Cream Lawson's Run since Rob was scheduled to go on his homestay today, but that didn't happen thanks to the typhoon. Typhoon, you ask? Typhoon, indeed. I woke up to the sound of my sliding doors rattling behind my head. The wind was super strong, and I got dressed, showered, and went to class. The rain and wind just picked up from there. At lunch, we walked to Lawson's, in Gor-tex, and were still pretty wet. Well, I was safe under the Gor-tex, but others weren't so lucky. I also noted that I forgot to close my window, so my kilt, cds, luggage, and laptop got soaked. Thankfully, the laptop is working. After class, I wrote this, and I am very good at avoiding homework. Not for much longer. I've uploaded two more sets of photos, 63 or so for the week, and they should be posted in the next two days. Enjoy soon!

Man in a Kilt

Let's start where I left off. The cooking lesson was pretty fun. It was my roommate, two other guys, a Japanese woman, and me. Out of all the Americans, I was the only one who knew at all how to cook. It was pretty sad, but we muddled through it. We made Chinese-style cold Soba noodles with tomato tofu salad and a little spinach side dish. The noodles had thinly sliced Japanese cucumber, omelette/egg, and ham, the salad had tomatoes and tofu (duh) and a sesame dressing, while the spinach was boiled and mixed with some ground sesame seed and sugar. It was interesting. The noodles and spinach tasted really good, but the salad didn't have much taste. After the food settled a bit, Rob, Eric, Alan, and I went to Al Plaza and hit McDonald's (at 5ish, a while after eating at noon...). We didn't really do anything there, but I did get to play one game of Taiko no Tatsujin, the Taiko Drum video game. I'll get pictures of it sometime.. Probably. For the rest of the night I studied, because I slacked off during the day and played. On Wednesday, I passed on the proposed bike ride to Al Plaza for the second day in a row, and just hit the books. I actually pretty much finished all the homework in time to go to Sugimoto's. So, I figured, what the heck, I'll go. I ended up walking there (bad idea) with Scott, Megan, Lauren, and Thad. For once, Thad didn't argue. He usually finds a faulty argument and argues it the whole night through, much to my dismay. It took about a half hour to walk there, it would have taken 15 by bike. We found it with little difficulty, and it was full of people already. There is seating for about 16, and there were about 25 of us. It's a tiny little room on the back of the Sugimoto household. Sugimoto-san is exactly as I remembered him from three years ago, and the business is run the same way: drink first, pay at the end of the night. So I sat, talking nerd-speak mainly with Scott and Megan, but I wandered around to talk to everyone. At one point, I hit the bathroom, and when I came back, all of the tables had bowls of steak fries on them! Lucky day! I had four of the big bottles of beer, around 1 liter each, and I only got a slight buzz. How unfortunate that it takes the equivalent of 10 beers to get me buzzed, and costs the equivalent of $20. Oh well, the smoke got to me, so we left, walking again. This time we stopped at Lawson's on the return and I got an onigiri with something that tasted like cardboard in the middle. Sugimoto's was fun, but I don't know that I'll go again. Who knows. Yesterday was a fairly busy day as well. After class, I kicked some homework's ass and then around 5, we went to get Okonomiyaki at Shogetsu with Alan, Eric, and Rob. Sense a pattern with the people? Okonomiyaki was delicious as ever, and upon getting back, we hung out a bit, then decided to make it an anime night. We watched a random episode of Azumanga Daioh, and I am convinced that the people who make it are on crack. It was just... crazy. Crazier than Hale Nochi Guu. Crazier than pretty much anything I had seen. Then we watched the first two episodes of Samurai 7. Samurai 7 is a show based loosely on Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Very loosely. But the animation is gorgeous, and it takes place in a semi-futuristic feudal world. Giant robot samurai age. I think I'll keep watching it, it has potential. Today, class kicked me in the teeth. I just had the hugest headache and couldn't answer any questions. But, hey, I am wearing my kilt and that makes it all better. I got a bunch of looks, but most people just said it was really cool. had just gave me a look, and I was wishing he said something. I would have torn him apart. Torn him apart. The tentative plan is to go to Al Plaza and get stuff for BBQ later today, but I just don't feel up to it. I just want to sleep. Tomorrow I am planning on going on a huge bike ride, if the weather holds, to a used book store about 6 miles away. Ooh, fun stuff!!!

How to make a dgibb

Ingredients: 5 parts friendliness 5 parts ambition 1 part joy

Method: Add to a cocktail shaker and mix vigorously. Top it off with a sprinkle of sadness and enjoy!

Username:

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com I think I can leave off the sadness... But it is part of life. Anyways, the day after going to CoCo Curry House, what do we do? Return to CoCo Curry House. We even got to sit in the same table. I felt honored. I think I had deep fried hamburger as the meat on my curry this time, I will stick with the pork cutlet. The main reason we went there was because Eric wanted to see Alan sweat. He eats probably more spicy food than I do, and the curry goes from 0 (normal) to 10. It says don't try anything over 5 without first trying 5. I got a 3, Alan got a 5. There really wasn't any spice difference, really, just a lack of flavor. It was disappointing. All I did after that, and I mean, all I did after that was homework. The assignment that is usually 2 pages was 5, plus the two other assignments. 9 hours of study, yay! Monday went more smoothly. Class was all right, even though they stold our classroom from us. We used to have a classroom that overlooked the lake, but now we got moved into an A/V room, so we get to look only at the street and the hills behind them. Not bad, but the garden/lake/mountain view was better. For lunch I made Hot Dog Croquette Surprise! It was rice with beef croquettes (deep fried mashed potatoes with beef), Japanese hot dogs with yakitori sauce (not quite US dogs, slightly higher quality, and the sauce is teriyaki-like), and that was about it. It was a different meal to say the least, but I sure can make pretty dishes even out of crap in the fridge. In the afternoon, I actually finished my homework. I think the sensei were feeling bad with beating us like red-headed step-children and gave us a light workload. I even went and tossed the frisbee around before it got dark, played some ping pong, made more curry for dinner, and went for a Lawson's run for ice cream later on that seemed to hate us, karmically. We always eat our ice cream on the way home, which is a no-no in Japan. It is bad to eat while walking. Aruki nagara tabecha dame yo! But it seemed that while we walked, the bugs ate us. See, karma was getting back at us. Today is a cooking lesson after three hours of class, then I plan to go to Al Plaza to get more rice (I've gone through 2kg already!!) and other various sundries, eat some McDonald's (157Y for a Bacon Double Cheeseburger I hear, but the Teriyaki McBurger still calls to me....). I am off to study since I have put it off long enough by writing this. I will have moer pics up at the end of the week. I think I will make the pictures a weekly thing, since that seems to be easier for me. So there.

Wearin the Jimbe, Feelin Fat and Happy.

Today was an eventful Saturday. Woke up after about 5 hours of sleep and we all were planning on going to the used clothes store, Uniclo. Becca defected from her group to accompany Eric, Alan, Rob, and me to try to find this place, and we were off. We had to swing by the Post Office which has an International ATM before heading out, but it ended up being closed. Alas. We wound our way through side streets (It's an adventure!) to get there, and navigated our way well through the streets of Hikone. Upon reaching Bell Road, where the lights, they are a-flashy, we looked for Gusto's, and completely missed it. We found a hobby shop first, and it was filled with AirSoft weapons, Gundam and WWII models, model trains, and tons of anime stuff. I think the most amusing things to me were the Santa Yoda figurine for 2500Y ($25US) or the Charles Barkley Dunk Super Famicom game for 9200Y ($92US!!!!!!). After that, we went down a ways, passed a manga shop, then stopped at a Lawson's (what else) to get directions to Gusto's, since we weren't sure where we were going. We ended up turning around, and found our way to the manga shop again, where we saw some affordable used manga, tons and tons of used Super Famicom games, which, of course, are SNES games, and, of course EXPLICIT HENTAI (PORN) MANGA. The covers were just absolute guttertrash porn. Ugh. They also had used GBA games from 480Y ($4.80US). Not bad prices! We foudn Gusto's, but decided to eat at CoCo Curry House another block over. I had my lovely Katsu Curry again, and Rob had the curry he ate whenever he went to when he lived in Hawaii, the ShabuShabu Curry (boiled beef and onion curry), Alan was extremely pleased with his Chicken Katsu Curry (fried chicken curry, said it was the best thing he's eaten this since getting to Japan), Eric had Hayashi Rice (onion curry and rice), and Becca had a [i]salad and rice[/i]. She went to a Curry House and had a [i]salad and rice[/i]. There should be a rule against that. After Curry, we tried in vain to find the Uniclo, but to no avail. We ended up going to the YuuStore to get groceries for tonight's barbeque that I advertised. YuuStore was interesting today. They had two "Timed Service" Events (Timed Sales) where the first one was 99Y hot dogs (10 of them!!) and the next one was 48Y Sunkist apple juice, 1 liter. I was happy to get those deals! I bought a little hibachi grill, some chicken breasts, scallions, and yakitori glaze (like teriyaki glaze) to make Yakitori. I also got another, cheaper, Jimbe. Came home, stole an hour nap, then started up the grill. Now let me tell you something, Japanese charcoal is 100% carbonized wood, and they don't have the lighter fluid we have. They have something that is called Fire Blaze, which is a gel fuel, or, as we call it, Napalm. Japanese charcoal is a lot harder to light than Kingsford briquettes, and we had fun with the Napalm. But we ended up getting the yakitori grilling, then we put on someone else's steaks, restarted the coals, and did another group's chicken, then finished off our yakitori. After that, we put on a packet that had onions, red pepper, garlic, olive oil, and some black pepper and a bit of the yakitori sauce in the coals. It came out very sweet and delicious. I was pleasantly surprised how sweet. But, almost too sweet. Among those at the cookout were Alan, Eric, Rob, Claire, Dave (other one), Sarah, Megan, Jamie, Scott, and me. We grilled to one of Rob's Hawaiian cds and then to my Pat Dailey CD (thank you dad!), which made for the perfect mood setting music. The yakitori was delicious, and there was too much for us to eat, so we shared, and then after cleaning up, went on an ice cream run to Lawson's, minus Claire, Sarah, and Dave, but plus Elmer. It was interesting, and I picked up some beer, thinking we were going to go back and watch Zatoichi, the newest one with Beat Takeshi taking control. You all know Beat Takeshi as the guy who created the game show which is made fun of in America called MXC, or Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. He is also in it, he's "Vic" in the show. I got a Kirin Honey Brown, which is okay, but nothing compared to the Honey Browns back in the states. Imagine a Honey Brown Heineken. I had a normal Asahi, a solid beer, and I am currently working on a Kirin Gokunama, which apparently is a low-malt beer that uses something else to create the lighter flavor. I'm not too impressed. Back to the regularly scheduled typing. It turned out to be fairly late, and I instead changed into Jimbe, untangled the wires of the laptop area to meet my standards of Wire Management (I would be happier with zip ties), and typed this here. It is just about 1am, and there is a little party going on in the room next to mine. So I shall update soon. Yes, that's what I say now, Muaaahahahahhaahahaha......

Week 2 Hikone

Week 2 Hikone These are the pictures that I referenced in the previous journal entry. Please, enjoy. I also just talked to my mom and DC and Diana. They seem to be happy that I called. Yay!

The past week.

Let's see, it's been a while since I have updated. I've been busy doing homework for about 5 hours a day outside of 4 hours of class, so there hasn't been much time for fun and craziness. But I manage in my little ways. I went out to dinner three days ago with Hiroshi, Yoshi, Seiichiro, Jason, and Elmer to get Okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is, well, a Japanese savory omelette. It has an egg-based batter upon which other stuff is added. It is brought to the table essentially cooked, but then it sits on the big ol' steel griddle in the middle of the table, and keeps warm and cooks up more. Mine had soba noodles, some beef, okonomiyaki sauce (which is like a molasses based BBQ sauce actually), parsley, and fish flakes. Yes, fish flakes, but they really don't taste like anything, just add some texture. I also add the spicy sauce to mine. It was extremely delicious, and an excellent experience. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I have to go back with more people some other time. I've enjoyed doing a few different things. Every night, we (three or four of us: Robert, Eric, sometimes Alan, and I) go on our nightly constitutional to Hokano Lawson's to get ice cream. Ice cream time is always fun, and we all enjoy it, as a break from homework. Yes, it's a break from homework that we take at 930pm. How sad is that? I really haven't had the time to do many interesting things. Class is keeping me busy with everything we have to do, but I find time to make some oishii (delicious) food every night, or get out to a restaurant, which happens less now that I found the grocery store that takes VISA. I have made Gyuudon (beef, onions, garlic, sauce, and rice) and Katsu Curry (deep-fried pork cutlet sliced up over Japanese curry [very mild] with rice, and, my favorite pickled things). There are pictures of these both going up in my Photogra account. Within 24 hours or so. Oh, also, on Tuesday, I participated in the cultural activity which was Ikebana, or flower arrangement. They were telling us how they take three things, set them in a triangular form, at different heights, to make a three-dimensional, pleasant arangement. In other words, we got a bunch of flowers, or, in my case, branches, and jammed them into a little square of nails in a vase, and when we think we are done and happy with it, the old Japanese Ikebana lady comes and changes it all around, because it looks better when she does it. So it was kind of pointless, but amusing. At least I got a picture of it before she got to it. My plans for tonight are to watch Tampopo, the Japanese movie about ramen, going to [i]eat[/i] ramen, then playing some ping pong before crashing. Saturday I am going to hold a Bring Your Own Meat Barbeque out front, since it's going to rain like hell here. There is a typhoon coming from Taiwan, and we're going to feel some of the effects of it. Just rain, though. In any case, I have survived this week, and I plan on continuing my survival. If you have any questions, tthen comment or email me. Or suffer consequences. CONSEQUENCES, I TELL YOU!!!!! Oh, and if you watch The Shield at all, JASON and BUD, you had better watch the Season finale. Now. NOW.

More Pictorial Goodness!

Here are 21 more pictures for your enjoyment. Week 1 Hikone In the fourth picture, there is a shirt that has a bunch of delicious Engrish on it. Here is the verbatim of what was written there, although I don't have the fun formatting: You went double-platinam lastyear, and core BK scrach doesn't usually do that well, like his first tape, illmatic. Why do yu think that is? Because it goes with what everybody says is negativity. I'd rather hear from some body that's been through it than watch TV and see it fake. I'ts just a lot of people don't agree with it. and it's more to our ghetto people than the commercial kids. That's why a lot of people don't deal with it' cause we say the truth. I got songs for the radio, commercial understanding with a MESSAGE, but I try to still keep it underground. End Engrish. Please comment away.

Just a Quickie

So yesterday I spent doing a variety of things. First off, I began with talking to people online. It was amusing, but then someone suggested lunch. It's never good to study on an empty stomach, is it? So we went to Shiruman (not Shirumon as I had typed before, stupid David). When we got back, it was nice, and people were talking, so I lazed a bit. Did I mention I was wearing my Jimbe all day? Man, oh, man those are comfy!! I eventually got down to business and studied... for about 7 hours. 7 hours of study and toil for little results. Granted, I broke in the middle for about 2 hours to cook up some mediocre curry and then play some ping pong and destress, but it took a long, long time. Other than that, I didn't do all that much. Today was 4 hours of class, and it went pretty quickly. I have 4 more pages of homework today, and they haven't even started hitting us yet. They're just gently slapping us around right now. Back to work.

This Weekend.. Goin All Right

Hey there everyone, yet another update from JapanLand. I had quite the busy day yesterday. First off, it was a beautiful day and I felt restless. I wanted to go to Viva City, which is the mall in Minami Hikone (South Hikone). I gathered a group of 7 people, got to the bikes, and we decided to take the long way. What is that, you ask? Well, we could have just ridden down to the train station, gone one stop south, and we would have been there. Ten to fifteen minute bike ride, sitting on a train for about three minutes. Easy. We opted to ride our bikes all the way there. It takes about 35-45 minutes going there that way. I was up to it even though my directions came from three years ago, they were still really accurate. Go figure, I have a sense of direction here. So we head out, passing the castle, going through Old New Town, then heading down what turns into Bell Road, with lots of cool restaurants, like McDonalds, Mos Burger, KFC, a 24-Hour Beefbowl place, a CoCo Curry House, used book store, and all sorts of other places. Flashy lights abound. We turned too early, and ended up taking the 'back way' to get there. With the assistance of two very helpful Japanese women who gave us directions once, clarified the directions at a stoplight, and then came and told us we were on the wrong side of the bridge another time. I felt like I should have a gift to give them. Anyways, we got to Viva City okay, and had a great lunch. I had a Mini Unadon Teishoku, which is a Mini Broiled Eel bowl (over rice) and some nice fat udon noodles in broth. Eel is surprisingly delicious when prepared correctly. Here in Japan, it's never been messed up like it was the one time I had it at Yotsuba in Ypsilanti. Then we went shopping, and wandering. We found things like Hello Kitty appliances, such as the HK toaster, HK fan, HK griddle, HK mini-tv...... It's craziness. I ended up searching around for Jimbe, which look like pyjamas to us Americans, but are actually summer clothes. They're traditional Japanese clothing, so it looks kind of like a yukata or kimono, but it has a shirt and shorts. They are exceedingly comfortable, as I am wearing them now. I am a happy monkey. After wandering Viva City for hours, we head back the right way, and stopped at Yuu Store to procure some cheap Melon Soda. There are only three of us together when we head back to the center from there, so I led them through the rice paddies, my favorite way to come back. I'm going to try it as a way to get places next time. Oh, the madcap adventures I will have. Last night, I cooked up a little bit of stir fry. It was pork, peppers, green onions, black sesame seeds, and some yakiniku sauce, served over rice. It was good, but I had my meat to rice ration reversed. I should have had twice the rice and half the meat. Oh well, live and learn. I woke up this morning and it was grey skied and rainy. I can deal with that, the rain has since stopped and the sun is trying to burn off the cloud cover, but I have homework to do today. That's my main goal. And therefore, I'm off to study... kinda.

Firdays Good

Since leaving earlier on, I have enjoyed myself constantly. I went for a bike ride to Yuu Store, the new grocery store that also, inexplicably, sells some clothing. I bought snacks and supplies for Yakiniku, grilled meat. I got some charcoal, a pair of tongs, beef, scallions, the appropriate sauce, and, of course, beer. On the way back, I decided to be all kinds of tricky and ride through the rice paddies. Well, it paid off. I got home safely, and had some great views. It was enjoyable. Before Yaki-ing the niku (grilling the meat), I played some ping pong, then marinated the meat in yakiniku sauce (go figure), scallions, and black sesame seeds. Eric, Robert, and I tried valiantly to get the Japanese charcoal to light first off, but it was harder to light than American briquettes. We even used this crazy gel fuel that we assume could be used in flamethrowers and fanned it with ping pong paddles, and that seemed to work. The grill started, tossed the meat on, and it cooked up nicely. People were coming over and wanting to steal it, but we said, no, so sorry, this is my yakiniku. Eric, Robert, and I feasted like kings. Hell-damn-ass kings. Then shortly after we took a walk to Hokano Lawson's (Other Lawson's) about a mile down the road. They have a better selection of ice creams, and it is an absolutely gorgeous night. I am happy, have three beers in me, tasty beef, rice, scallions, and ice cream. Beauty of a night, this Friday.

Yonensei ni Narimashita

So I found out that I am now a 4th year student! I'm amazed. It was great enough to see that I was in it, but there are only 4 people in it. Apparently I am part of the JCMU Elite. Or something like that, but less nerdy. Since I am in 4th year now, Aizawa-sensei told me that I should either look at other programs or go home after the summer program because they will only do independent study programs in the Spring. It's dumb, but that's their policy. I could either come home, apply for Kansai Gaidai in Kyoto, or apply for Nanzan in Nagoya. But I have to research them. So who knows. Do I come home at the end of August with my dad and Kevin? Or should I try to find a way to stick it out? Anyways, I went to Shirumon for lunch yesterday and had Oyakodon, and learned that it will be tradition to go there on Thursday and have Katsudon (fried pork cutlet and eggs and onions over rice) before the Friday test which is supposed to give you good luck on the test. Today, however, we had class. 3 hours of schooling came at us quickly, and didn't drag on, surprisingly. Then we got to have lunch. My roommate made rice to which I added gyoza (potstickers) and croquettes (korokke in Japanese) which are deep-fried disks of mashed potatoes. Then we went for the last hour of class, which also sped by quicker than lightning. Well, maybe not that fast. In any case, it's 2:35pm and I plan on going for a good, long bike ride, getting a bag of charcoal, some meat to grill, and having a good time tonight tossing a frisbee around and drinking some beers. Also, more pictures coming in the next to days. Also, MAKE SURE YOU WRITE YOUR NAME ON THE COMMENTS SO I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!! I think I have figured out who has commented so far, but I can't learn all the time.

Eat Yer Hearts Out.

I am officially in heaven. I just went and looked at the vending machines closely at JCMU. They have Melon Soda, nectar of the gods, here in the dorms. Oh yeah, I am happy. Also, the best improvement at JCMU is the addition of the ping pong table (pictures forthcoming). It has been in constant use for four days. We are all used to the sound of it by now. Well, the placement test went well, I think. I have definitely cemented 3rd year, hopefully I may get the opportunity to try 4th year. Cross your fingers!! I'm probably going to go to lunch at Shirumon soon. If they haven't left yet. So... talk to you later!

And the Days Slowly Pass

I've got some pictures for you guys here, they're from the Hikone area, immediately around JCMU. I took pics of Lawson's, the lake, the front of the center, et cetera. Oh, and of course more vending machines. Down the road and across the bridge, there are a few vending machines and a small yellow shed. Inside the shed are three vending machines that anyone who is not an adult should stay away from. Yes, they are porn vending machines, from all kinds of videos to sex aids and toys. Yeah, pretty crazy stuff. I couldn't put the pics of them up for you guys, sorry. Email me if you want them. 5-31-04 Hikone Well, since the last time I talked to you guys, everyone has shown up, I've been to Chanpon (for delicious ramen noodles) twice, with two separate groups, and thrown the frisbee around a lot. Yesterday was a busy day really. We had orientation, then got our bikes. With our bikes, we whisked ourselves off to Al Plaza and to some crazy madcap grocery shopping. I couldn't do too much since the grocery store only takes cash. Most places around here only take cash. After, we came back and hung out here, I checked my mail for the umpteenth time, then went outside and threw the frisbee around for a solid 45 minutes with 2-5 other people. It was a rotating cast of characters. Later in the evening, I went to dinner (that second time at Chanpon) with Robert, Jenny, Alan, Rebecca, Hiroshi, Seichiro, and Yoshi. It was good to get out with and hang out with the Nihonjin (Japanese people). Oh! I almost forgot! Not last night, but the night before, around 1am, when I am finally feeling suitably sleepy, Jay, one of the guys who has been here for a while, came running out to the lobby and yells, "Somebody just drove their car into Lawsons!!" To which we replied, "NOT LAWSON'S!!!" and we ran out there to inspect the damage. It turns out that someone hauled ass over the curb, crashing into the glass wall of Lawson's. I have pictures. They were still open for business at this time. What troopers. As for me now, I have to go take the placement test to see where I stand. I might have 3rd year again, which would be a great refresher, but I would love to get into the much more challenging 4th year class. Who knows. Wish me luck!

Two Photo Albums Up

First full day at JCMU is going well. Only 2pm, also. I woke up at 7:30am. What? It's like getting up at 6:30pm for you. I unpacked, bummed around, and uploaded two photo albums for your viewing pleasure: Last Day in the USA Nagoya After that, I went for a nice hour-long walk snapping pictures along the lake and the immediate area around JCMU. Now I am back inside, talking online, since it's only 1am in MI, many people are up. I'm going to get going soon though. Enjoy the pics!