Last Friday we went to Kyoto for the last time. It was really nice to just go and relax. We really only had one goal while we were there - to go out and see the bamboo forest out in Sagano.

We took the Shinkansen to Kyoto, and met my friend from Osaka. We hung out with her for an hour or so and just talked outside of Kyoto Station. She had to work, though, so we parted company and hopped on the local train to Saga-Arashiyama.

Sagano is outside of the city center of Kyoto, and is quite rural by Japanese standards (and maybe even by Western ones). Not so exciting, really, but very pretty with all of its greenery and quaint houses. The bamboo forest is about 10 minutes from the train station on foot. Unfortunately, Friday was a National Holiday so it was much busier and more crowded than usual - but the trains were on a less-frequent holiday schedule. We made our way to the bamboo forest and in to look around.

The Bamboo Forest is very beautiful and very quiet. It's very different from anywhere else I've seen in Japan. Though like most Japanese parks/natural areas, the actual "nature" is fenced off and your only option is to walk on the path with all of the other sightseers. So unfortunately, I didn't get to actually walk among the trees. But still, I enjoyed the forest a lot.

Also in this area was Nonomiya shrine.

The rest of the Kyoto pics from this trip are here.

Packing up the apartment took the vast majority of the remainder of our time at home. It's amazing how much we accumulated, and also amazing how much we ended up being able to fit in our leetle suitcases.

First, I should write about Tokyo. To start, on the advice of my friend Miwa, we logged into the wesbsite for the Toyoko Inns. Toyoko Inns are an affiliation of business hotels across Japan. They have a reputation of being cheaper but still clean and quiet. We booked a night's stay at the Haneda Inn, which is about 15 minutes by train from Shinagawa and 30 minutes from Shinjuku. All set, we hopped on the Shinkansen [Bullet Train] and headed for Tokyo.

Tokyo is about the same distance from Nagoya as Rochester is from Buffalo. Normally, driving to NYC would take me about 6 1/2 hours depending on traffic. Taking the Nozomi (which is the fastest of the Shinkansen on account of the speed and the fact that they don't make very many stops), it took 1 hour and 40 minutes to get to Tokyo. Pretty darn cool.

Upon arriving in Tokyo, we were met with a unique problem. We had no idea how to get to our hotel. I knew the line we were supposed to be taking, but no matter what map we looked on, we were unable to find the Keikyu Kuko line. I think the single most frustrating thing about Tokyo is that their mass transit is owned by several different subway and train companies. In Nagoya, all of the subway lines are owned by Meitetsu. This is nice because when you look at the subway map, you can see every subway line. In Tokyo, I think there were 3 or four different subway companies and several overground train companies. This in itself was annoying, since you had to buy a new ticket everytime you switched companies. But the most difficult thing was that there was nowhere to find a map that showed all of the subway and train lines in one place.

After about an hour and a half of futilely running around and trying to find our train line, we found an English speaker at JR Lines information office. She was so nice! She told us that we had to go to Shinagawa, then transfer to a privately owned line. So anyway, it was a relief to find our hotel... and we decided to stay an extra night.

The first day, we went to Akihabara. Akihabara is a nerd's paradise. There are electronics shops with all sorts of new and exciting things... anime and manga shops, gachapon and figure shops... wonderful stuff. It was really fun to wander through the area and see all of the interesting things. But it was a little disheartening because everywhere we went, the prices were the same (and higher than in Nagoya). To someone who couldn't barter in Japanese, it didn't look like there were many deals to be had. Still, very fun. We went to a restaruant called the Rose and Crown for lunch. It was on the second floor in a building of restaurants stacked on top of each other, done up to look like a Victorian pub. I'll admit it - I got Western food. :) I got fish and chips and it was sooooo good.

After Akihabara, we trucked out to Ueno Park. Ueno Park is a rather famous park in Tokyo; it has a zoo, several museums and shrines either in it or around it. Unfortunately, we got there after most of these things had closed. A little bit of a bummer, since Ueno Park is known for its penguins. And as we all know, I love penguins. Anyway, the park itself is very beautiful, with wide walkways that are shaded by overarching trees. In twilight it was really pretty and amost magic feeling. We passed by several smaller shrines, one of which was being serenaded by a man with a flute. Nice ambience. The whole park was rife with cats, probably mostly shrine cats. To our extreme distress, a smaller just-past-kitten one was stuck up on one of the high fences around one of the shrines. We stood and deliberated if there was anything we could climb up to get it down, but eventually had to give up since there were no trees with branches strong enough to support either one of us. (And during our thinking pause, Mandy was descended upon by mosquitos.)

It was starting to get dark, and most things close early in Japan (by 6 or 7). With our options becoming more and more limited, we decided to go to Tokyo Tower. Tokyo Tower is a very famous Tokyo landmark. It was built in 1958 and modelled after the Eiffel Tower. It's actually taller by 13 meters [~42 feet] though, being about 333 meters tall [1092 feet]. You can go to the main observatory at 150 meters [~492 feet], or you can pay more and go to the special observatory at 250 meters [~820 feet]. We only went to main observatory, on account that it was another $8 to go up to the higher one... and more importantly, the line looked like it was about an hour long. Anyway, the view was beautiful. With all the lights, it looked sort of like looking down on a jeweler's gem case - with the highways looking like diamond bracelets of headlights.

We headed to the hotel and say our little room. The room itself was small but cozy... but we were once again disappointed by the rock-like quality of the mattresses. I can only imagine that love hotels have softer beds, otherwise I can't IMAGINE paying money to have a romantic getaway at one of these places. Maybe Japanese mattresses are just harder. Who knows? The room was also full of bizarre Engrish warnings and placards. Some of them were more important to read than others. For example:

I didn't read this one. When I sat down on the SuperToilet, the water loudly began to fill the bowl. I'm wary of these super technological toilets as it is, and I was startled by it. REALLY startled. My first thought being that the bidet must be soon after, I yelped and lept to my feet. Obviously, the bidet function didn't go on, and the toilet innocently continued to fill until the water was at a serviceable letter. As I came out of the bathroom after, cursing the toilet, Mandy informed me that she thought I'd accidentally found the "spray your ass with water" function. Isn't she sweet?

That evening, we ended up watching some of the Japanese sections entries in the Birdman competition. Pretty cool stuff. Different teams design and build (usually one man) gliders, and then they jump off a boat and see who can travel the furthest before crashing into the water. That makes it sound sort of stupid and neanderthal, but it's really interesting to see how they build these to be light and collapseable so that they just great away around the pilot when they hit. Some of them were just little gliders, but another division some had propellers! Those ones were really cool - they were usually powered by bicycle. The one that went the furthest went something like 22 km.

Day 2. We got up early and headed out to Harajuku, the "younger" shopping area in Toyko. Harajuku is known for its goths who come out on Sunday, and also the abundance of goth/loli clothing shops. We wandered around Harajuku, just sort of window shopping, for several hours. To my annoyance, I am a great target for panhandlers and charity solicitors. So when we were walking down the street toward an intersection, an Indian man came up to me and asked for my signature on a petition for aid to help hunger in some third world country. He was pretty adamant that I sign, and I didn't feel like fighting it... so I made up a fake name and address and put that down. Then he started with asking for donations! I gave him 50 yen (about $.50) and we went off on our way. I'm not big on giving money to solicitors unless they can prove they're actually associated with a charity... especially with targetting foreigners that way, the whole thing seemed kinda dodgy. Anyway, we continued our window shopping and just generally enjoying the nicely tree-lined neighborhood for awhile. Then we headed looped around and headed back to the station. The same man tried to solicit from me again, and I gave him a pointed "NO" and pretty much ignored him.

From Harajuku, Shinjuku was about 10 or 15 minutes by train on the Yamanote line. While we were there, we checked out some hobby shops, and also looked around in a big goth shop. it was 4 floors, I think! Some of the clothes and shoes were really beautiful. There's a clothing brand called Atiliere Boz (I'm slaughtering the spelling) that I just love. I think they make the most elegant, beautiful clothing for women. Unfortunately, their prices are prohibitively high for me. a relatively simple (though beautifully cut) white cotton button down can be as much as $120. Eeek. So needless to say, I didn't buy any. There was a great shop with very reasonably priced shoes and boots... Mandy got an awesome pair of shoes. I wanted to get a pair, but I liked the ones that mandy got, and didn't want to match. Other than those, there were a beautiful pair of boots that I really liked... except that they had skulls on the buckles. Ugh! So I left Shinjuku shoeless. Well, without NEW shoes, anyway. :) By the time we left Shinjuku, it was getting dark and had started to rain.

We had supper at a lovely litle restaurant called the Cheesecake Factory. I had some kind of pasta with a creamy sauce, Mandy had an omrice [a sort of omlette filled with rice). And then cheesecake! The cheesecake was very very good.

Then we headed back to Akihabara to check out some shops that we'd missed the previous day. We found this one FANTASTIC shop that seemed to have all of the things we collected in one place. We wandered through there for about an hour and a half, until they closed. It was several floors so there were a ton of things to see.

Back at the hotel, we watched Catwoman. I can't imagine it was a good movie in English, but it must have been even worse in Japanese.

The next day we got up early and headed back to Nagoya on Shinkansen. Some foreigners charmingly call the Shinkansen "the shink." They also sometimes make it into a verb. Like for example, "Yeah, I'm going to Tokyo. I'm shinking it." Before we left, we stopped and bought a horde of Tokyo Banana. In Japan, when you travel to another city, it's customary to bring "omiyage" back for your friends. Omiyage is basically just souvenirs. The most common, popular souvenir is to bring back a special local sweet. For example, bringing back candy or yatsuhashi from Kyoto, or Tokyo Banana from Tokyo. Tokyo Banana is... great. I've never had anything like it, though I feel the bizarre desire to try to reproduce it at home. It's simple enough - it's a very light and fluffy cake that's filled with pureed banana paste. They're very fresh and light. REALLY good.

The Tokyo pictures are here.

That day, when we got back we hung out with James. We had planned to go shopping (he says he has no ability to recognise the difference between good and bad fashion, so we've kinda become his fashion advisors) and then go see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We did go wandering through many clothing shops for James to get some new additions to his wardrobe... and that was fun. He was looking for a new pair of slacks and a velvet jacket. Fun stuff. We went to a yummy cake shop in Osu. It was fun to go with James because he'll actually go whole hog and get two tiny pieces of cake. So I could too! YAY! I've found that I really love the Japanese take on Mont Blanc. about two weeks before we left, it became my goal to eat as much of it as possible before leaving the country. Unfortunately, by the time we finished cake and went shopping, we didn't have time to see a movie.

Man, I'm so out of it. I'm debating if I want to sleep for an hour or so and continue this later, or try to handle being awake the rest of the day. Hmm. There's no one online to chat with, so I think that maybe attempting to get some more sleep is in order. As long as it's during semi-normal North American "sleep" hours, I think it's okay that I sleep again... of course, in the time I've been writing this, I've also been eating the leftovers of my nachos from our arrival dinner at Zebb's... mmm. I was starving! Maybe being fed will help me sleep. And I'll write about Kyoto when I get up... wish me luck!

Have a great couple of days, everyone!

YAY!

There are a lot of people I will miss from NOVA, but by and large I am relieved to be finished. NOVA was just a terrible company to work for, and I've never experienced such mental fatigue before in my life. Really, the workplace was devoid of intellectual stimulation... and the company really loved to jerk us around (either our schedules or training or whatever) and make us feel paranoid. The funny thing was, they were so critical and nasty until they found out that we were leaving. And then it was "Do you want to be an AT [supervisor]? What can we do to make you stay? Is there anything we can offer you to make you stay?" But the truth is, if they'd been nicer all along, they might have been able to seduce us into another contact. When I came originally, I had thought that I would stay 1-2 years. After the first 3 months, it became very very apparent that it would be hard for me to stick with NOVA for a whole year, much less more than one. I don't understand the people who continue to stick it out - I can't handle so much contact time.

But anyway, yesterday was pretty nice. :) I got to see several of my favorite students, and it was really nice. I'm really going to miss some of my students. They're so sweet and really interesting. I've exchanged some contact information with various students, and I have pictures... but it doesn't change how much I'll miss them. It's strange to think about the way things work, you know? Like on Monday, I was at my language exchange and I was thinking about going home. Papa's coffeeshop is a part of my life; I go there every Monday with Naoki, and we study together. Every week, the waitress brings us our little hand towels before we order, and every week I dread when Naoki will start lighting up his cigarettes. The hardwood tables and the semi-soft leather benches, as well as the pseudo-American decor are part of my Monday mornings... and it's strange to think that it won't be a part of my life anymore. There are so many things like that: seeing all of the signs in Japanese and trying to pick out the kanji/kana that I know to scrabble together some kind of meaning, grabbing my cold bottle of Kodakaden Royal Milk Tea every morning...

Anyway! I'm digressing a little toward the depressing. I'm done with work! YAY! Mandy and I went out to dinner with two fo my favorite students last night. Nami organized it, and Miwa surprised me by showing up! Miwa was a student at my school about six months ago, but her husband got transferred to Kagoshima (which is really far away, about 8 hours by train I think?) so she had to move. She's been staying in Osaka recently, which is about an hour away by train... it's so sweet that she came! It was a really awesome restaurant! One that Mandy and I, unfortunately, wouldn't be able to go to on our own because they don't have a picture menu. Well, they sort of do, but it's really limited. Everything was really beautifully presented and very tasty. Pictures and descriptions are in the extended entry. The conversationw as fun, too. It was mostly english, with them wanting me to speak some Japanese... which I did. They also liked correcting my little Japanese study notebook. :) At one point we were talking about Miwa's trip to Niagara Falls, and she was showing pictures from Turtle Point. And Mandy was explaining about it, and Hiroko didn't get what the name was. I was like "Turtle... kame." And then I was like "Turtle Point, Kame no Pointo. Turtle no Pointo." And Nami was just in hysterics over this. I say dorky sort of half-assed Japanese/English stuff all the time, but I don't say it in front of Japanese people usually. I guess mixing languages is as funny to them as it is to me... I love saying things with my bad accent. :D

My students also gave me a few gifts, like letters or postcards... and Nami gave me a pack of doll shoes! :D It's really sweet, because I know that my students really listened to me, and cared about my interests. Miwa got me a little mermaid pendant... since I love mermaids. It was so sweet of them, I found myself getting a little teary-eyed. I'll really miss them. Well, some of them. Some students I won't miss at all, but others I'll really miss terribly!

We were there till about 10 till midnight... and then we realized we had to RUN to make the last train home! EEEK! We just barely made it! It was crazy because we did literally have the very LAST train. The other side of the subway had already finished for the night, so the lights were out! Kowaii ja nai ka! (Scary, huh?!)

Oh. And it's payday! *dances*

This was the veggie plate to begin the whole affair. On the left, there's some kind of veggie shredding in mayo and dressing (sort of tasted like potatoe salad, but it wasn't potato), in the middle was a roe and veggie concoction, and on the right were these seasoned little beans. They were very good! But I made my one faux-pas of the evening by thinking they were like the kind of beans we have at home where we eat the casing as well. So I'm biting into it and Nami is going, "No no no! Inside only!"

This was an assortment of Hokkaido cheeses. They were soooooooooooo good.

This was the absolutely beautiful salad. It was garnished with all manner of raw seafood - raw shrimp with their little heads and tail-tips still on, raw scallops, raw salmon... it was SO pretty. I ate some of the raw scallop and I actually tried the raw shrimp. This is only exciting because I don't like shrimp... but it was actually really good. I think I like raw shrimp more than cooked shrimp.

These were chips in an edible bowl. It occurs to me now that I never actually tried these.

This looks yucky in pictures, but it was really good. It was fried rice wrapped in egg, topped with very finely shredded crab meat.

Sashimi. :) Raw fish. The dark red is tuna [maguro], the light pink is salmon [salmon], and the white meat... we don't know the name of in english. In Japanese, it's hamachi (or some similar spelling). Hamachi is also Miwa's last name, so Miwa collects fish goods. :) The sashimi was goooood.

This was a crocquette. It was full of potato and finely shredded meat.

This was expensive sushi. Miwa said that since it was expensive sushi you eat it with your fingers, in one bite. It was really good. Mandy actually sampled it too, even though she doesn't do the raw fish groove.

This was a sort of tempura scallops and salmon. Mandy had some and she said the salmon and scallops were raw before they'd been tempured, so they were only very slightly cooked. I also somehow missed on trying this one... I don't remember how.

It's very strange... Mandy and I both had two drinks. The first was an alcoholic drink, but I didn't feel the alcohol at all. The second... I didn't taste the alcohol at all. It was a Ringo Sour [Apple Sour] and it tasted like club soda and slightly bitter apple flavoring. I have NO idea what the alcohol was, but I felt SO drunk SO quickly! I've never been drunk like that before! Not even on my 21st birthday have I felt that way! It was crazy... just one cocktail-type drink! It was a little scary, too. I felt very dizzy and off-balanced. I actually sort of wonder if maybe I'm slightly allergic to that alcohol, because this morning I still feel a little dizzy. Strange. Mandy had the same reaction.

This was dessert. It was gorgeous... I actually almost didn't want to eat it. I haven't been in Japan so long yet that I'm not still moved by the beautiful presentation of food. I can't just bolt it down, I have to look at it and notice how pretty it is. Anyway, this was vanilla ice cream and a little chocolate cake with melted semi-sweet chocolate inside. It was soooo good. Mandy got one too.

And this was the dessert that the other girls got. It's sweet red beans and vanilla ice cream. :)

It was a LOT of food!

Meiji Mura
Nagoya Port Aquarium
Our usual izakaya dinner...

Lately Mandy and I have been trying to go to all of the places in or around Nagoya worth going to. In that spirit, we've recently trekked to the Nagoya Port Aquarium, the Higashiyama Zoo, and Meiji Mura. I need to upload all of my pictures yet.

Nagoya Port Aquarium is something like the third largest aquarium in Japan. It's rather large and open, one of the largest buildings I've had the pleasure of being inside during my stay in Japan. It has very high ceilings and the whole interior is painted pale blue. There are little sloshy water things with lights to project rippling water effects on the floor and ceiling. In general, the whole atmosphere would have been delightfully relaxing if it hadn't been packed with children and old women with large, pointy-cornered purses. We wound our way through the aquarium, enjoying the very large tanks of dolphins and balugas. My main complaint about the aquarium itself was that there was a little too much museum and not enough fish to the place. While it was very beautiful and I did enjoy seeing the displays, I would have prefered to watch animals. The penguin enclosure was great. Most people don't know it, but I am a great lover of penguins. The penguin enclosure was very deep and quite pretty - it would occasionally snow inside. The penguins really seemed to be really enjoying themselves. The other part that I really liked were the sea turtles. There was a big tank of sea turtles. They were really big and gorgeous. They came right up to the glass so you could really see them all. So that was very fun. I enjoyed it a lot.

Higashiyama Zoo was a little disheartening. I'm not a huge fan of zoos anyway, but the Higashiyama Zoo seemed like it was imported fdirectly otu of the fifties. The enclosures all looked so archaeic and run down - like the classic "barred cage" look covered in rusty chain link fence. The animals themselves seemed to be as perky as any other zoo animals, and they all looked like they were really well cared for. They had a really huge tiger that just would soak for his little tiger bath and then get out, walk over to the bars and shake off onto the onlookers... and occasionally mark his territory (and anyone else close enough and standing in the right direction). He was pretty impressive. The most impressive exhibit was the koala cage. It had its own building - that building was extremely modern and even air conditioned. It was quiet, and a little boring. Koalas are cute, but not really my top choice. Their penguin exhibit was also pretty cool. They had a good variety of different breeds and sizes. Yay penguins!

Meiji Mura is a very interesting little area in the area of Inuyama. After World War II, much of Japan was being rebuilt. Some people were concerned that Japan would lose its traditional architecture and some of the culture with it. A philanthropist gathered up over sixty buildings from the Meiji Era (Around 1900) from around Japan... and even some internationally! The day we went, there were many people in traditional clothingbecause there was some event. We saw a lot of beautiful old buildings, and many of them were really interesting. Getting there was a bit of a trial... it was first about 40 minutes by local train, then 15 minutes by bus. We got something called a "Bikkuri Coupon" that ended up saving us about half on the whole whole excursion. Half off on admission and I think 40% off on the travel. Really cool. Meiji Mura itself was set in a really lovely place. It was far out and away from everything else, up on the side of the Inuyama [a mountain]. It was very prettily wooded with beautiful afternoon light. The buildings ranged from a Catholic Cathedral (popular now for "Romance Weddings" and featured in a period movie) to the home of two well-known Japanese poets, to an old theatre, to a Frank Lloyd Wright hotel. There are some aspects of traditional Japanese architecture that I just am completely in love with. Someday I want to build my own house and incorporate some of the things I like. In particular, I really like the very thin hallway-porches that have one wall made of little windows. It's just so beautiful.

I have other things to write about, but I'm getting tired and it's getting on toward bedtime for me. I'll try to remember (and make time) to write tomorrow.

Who am I?

I'm Aimee!

Who knows me best?

Mandchu!

How old am I?

The most important thing in my life is...

Something I always carry...

I'm happiest when...

(I love fixing things that are hurt or broken.)

On Monday morning, you can find me....

...At my language exchange, absorbing Japanese like a brick absorbs water.

I'm really bad at...

Dancing.

My eyes are...

(For those who aren't familiar with Masterpiece...)

My favorite material possessions...

My dolls. :)

To relax, I like to...

Sculpt, mod, or paint.

The town I live in is...

My worst habit...

(Mandy hates when I say that.)

My guilty pleasure...

Nintendogs continues to teach me new kanji. I might actually rebuy the game in English when I get home.

When I look at someone, the first thing I see is...

Whatever immediately suggests itself. I'd like to say I always see someone's eyes or posture first, but really... if someone walks like a weirdo, I notice that. If someone has a mohawk, I notice that. If someone has stunning eyes, I notice that.

I think trees are beautiful.

I could lay under a tree and just stare up at the leaves for hours.

One thing I can live without.

I hate my job. 6 more weeks.

Something people don't know about me...

People think I'm a packrat, but really... I see everything as being special. I want to find a way to use everything, or I just want to remember. I have things from all of my friends to remember things about them or pieces of my life.

My life is...

all about the details. It's all of the little things that make me happy. :)

We did go to a bunch of individual country Pavillions, though. We went to Bulgaria, Turkey, Tunisia, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Libya, Ireland, Ukraine, Cuba, USA, Argentina, the Andean Amazons, and Central America. We were there about 7 or 8 hours, I think? It's a lot of walking.

I think the "coolest" Pavillion was the UK Pavillion. They had these interactive exhibits that were pretty fun. I took some short videos of some of them.

The friendliest Pavillion was the Tunisian Pavillion. They were really nice. The guys there were so excited to see Westerners (99% of the Expo crowd is Japanese). They gave us little vases with our names on them in arabic... Usually they cost money, but they said they were a "cadeau" (gift). They spoke french and were pretty cool. Unfortunately, my little vase got crushed over the course of the way. And the picture of me and the vase-maker didn't come out. Which is too bad, because when Mandy was taking the picture, he said "I speak English only for you." :)

The American Pavillion was pretty cool, even if it was a bit corny.

Anyway, go look at my pictures!
http://www.another2am.com/japanphotos/thumbnails.php?album=25

And for famiglia and friends, you can see my little videos I took on my camera of different things there. There's some livemusic and dancing fromt he Irish Pavillions, there's a cool giant clock (that we happened to see at noon when it was performing... unfortunately I had a moment of stupid and turned the camera sideways to take the video the long way, forgetting it doesn't do that. Duh), and then some videos of different exhibits at the UK pavillion. There's one where you move the flower and it makes little light bees go after it... and then another where you flip the pages of a virtual book, another where you use this cool wind-sensitive cloth.... and one more wher yeou make a virtual geckoman climb.

They're in this folder.
http://www.another2am.com/japan/bideo/
It's passworded because, well, I don't really want to share with people I don't know. The username is expo and the password is the color of my old van.

First... last week Mandy and I went to Otsu Kaya last week. The Aichi Expo characters, Morizo and Kiccoro, were there to meet children.

Kiccoro was very popular and got lots of love.

....but Morizo mostly got beat on by this little girl.

This week I had to buy toilet paper. The sale brand this week was....

Pity I bought some at another shop, huh? *musical sting* I'm so punny. :)

I always mean to take a picture of this with my real camera... and with my little video camera function. I will at some point before I leave. This is the clock at Nagoya Station. It's actually rather famous... at noon it different parts come up and it plays music and the little parts dance. This is when all the sections are out and everything is in full swing.

And these are my evil Juniors. Well, 5 of the 8. They're so cute. You can tell a lot about their personalities by how they're posed here. On the far left we have Mitsuki, my brilliant little crier. She's cried at least twice in the last three months. Next to her is Naofumi, my smart little badass. He's gotten kinda spacey since he moved up to Juniors... I think he has trouble in a bigger class because he's overwhelmed. Next to him is Hikari. She's not as quick as the other students, usually, but she's one of my favorites because she tries really hard. She's a little whiney though. Next to her is Ren, my semi-bully. Sometimes I get really annoyed with him because he has no volume control, but then he'll do something cute like sing the Days of the Week song to himself while doing his worksheet. Last is Kasumi, my little pervert. When she's good, she's really good. But when she's bad, she's REALLY bad. I alternately love her and just can't stand her (In most of my previous entries about kids classes, she's almost always mentioned specifically).

We've started using the air conditioner sooner than we'd planned to. This is also partly because of the mosquitos. From talking to students, I've pieced together that there are two kinds of mosquitos in Central Japan. The first is like the kind that we have at home - small, annoying, leave little itchy welts. The second is much larger with a striped body. These are the ones that REALLY bother me - they bites leave HUGE welts that last a long time and are very itchy. When they are going away, they leave reddish-brown blothces that look like bruises.

I'm working on writing my entry about Kyoto... it's about time, as it was almost a month ago now! Eeeeeeek. I guess I have to admit that I found Kyoto a little disappointing in some respects. It didn't seem very welcoming or friendly. In some ways, if I had only gone there on that one day trip during Sakura season, I think I would have left Japan with a better view of Kyoto. As it stands, aside from the kick-ass aethetic gorgeousness of Kyoto, I prefer Nagoya.

To start, when we got to Kyoto it was raining. And for some reason, that weekend was just rife with tourists and travellers... so most of the cheap business (western style) hotels were booked, even though June isn't really so popular for vacation in Kyoto. As a result, we ended up in the Palaceside Hotel. In theory, having a hotel that was located right beside Kyoto's Imperial Palace was a great thing. In reality, though, the Imperial Palace is nestled inside a large, walled park that is surrounded by trees. No view at all. The room itself was a decent size, the main problem was that every surface in the room was hard. The small couch was like an upholstered brick, and the beds... well, this is how I picture the composition of my "mattress."

So one of the big exciting things about staying at a hotel ("YAY! A BED!") was thoroughly unenjoyable. Also, I ended up being allergic to something in the room and sneezing non-stop whenever we were in the room. This also mutated into a cold after we left Kyoto.

But... our toilet, the hotel assued us with a lovely little paper ribbon, had been sanitized.

And in the desk drawer, there were side-by-side copies of Gideon's Bible and The Teachings of Buddha.

On our first day, we deposited out things at the hotel and took off for Kiyu Mizu Dera. It was still lightly raining, and quite a walk from the station. Unlike Nagoya, which boasts something like five subway lines, Kyoto has only two subway lines. Most of the popular temples are on the outskirts of Kyoto, outside the city center, so these lines don't really help so much. The best way to travel, really, is to take the tourist buses. But anyway, we were walking. We'd been walking and enjoying the mild rain, and we ended up not quite following our map correctly. So we ended up taking the longer way up to Kiyu Mizu, passing the Higashi Otani Masoleum and then following a path up along and through some fantastically huge and beautiful cemetaries.

Kiyu Mizu was really gorgeous. It's so lush and beautiful around it, with all of the trees and mist and low clouds. I loved it. I think it's been the most strikingly beautiful place I've seen in Japan... and I think the rain actually made it better. Anyway. Kiyu Mizu is one of the most famous temples in Kyoto. One of its most recognisable features is a large, overhanging balcony. The view from there was beautiful, though by then it had started to rain a bit harder again.

Kiyu Mizu is the site of a a fresh water spring (with important religious signifigance). Many people come to catch the water in long-handled ladels and drink. The water is very interesting tasting. It's very refreshing and almost sweet, it leaves a tingling feeling in the back of your mouth that lasts a few hours. I enjoyed it, but the little girl in a pink jacket who we watched didn't seem to. She seemed lost for a polite way to spit it out, and then just let subtely it run down her chin. She's toward the middle in this picture.

On the walk back down the mountain (yeah, it's on a mountain, and a bit of a trek up), we stopped in a bunch of the tourist shops. I bought my first real "Japan" bric-a-brac, the sort of stuff you pull out for guests who want to see what you bought in Japan. I should feel bad about that sort of tokenism, but the Japanese tourists seemed to be buying all of the same things as I was. I found the staff at these shops to be extremely unhelpful and unfriendly. Granted, they do deal with a lot of foreigners, but that doesn't excuse the attitude at all. Oh well. :)

Most places in Japan close early - most shops close around 7 or 8. The temples and other tourist locales all close their gates at around 5. So with the sun starting to set, we trekked back hotel-ward. We stopped to pick up bentos for dinner, which were very good. I enjoyed mine thoroughly, though I didn't take pictures.

At the hotel, I sneezed my little head off and watched a PBS-type fundraising show that was a memorial to this one very popular Japanese singer who had passed on. I really enjoyed watching it - they showed clips of the woman's concerts. She just had so much sparkle and personality, I really enjoyed it. I also watched part of a strange historical drama, and then part of a program about how to wear kimonos.

Anyway! I will continue this another time, I'm sleepy!

I've been wanting to buy a tentacle at the grocery store for AGES to take pictures... and Mandy finally let me! They were on sale for very cheap. *beam* Check out my artistic octopus photos!

I know. Someday I'll post again with content.

"Pee" is a beverage put out by the same company (I think Coca-Cola) that makes another, more popular beverage called "Qoo."

I'm working on an entry about Kyoto - hopefully tomorrow. :)

Sooooo, as I will be in Kyoto for the next few days, I will be incommunicado. If you need me badly, call my cell phone.