写真ジャーナル・photo post!

So, I haven't written here at all since I arrived in Japan! It's just hard sometimes finding words that will make my experiences relevant for people back home. I really am a world away.

In these past 3 weeks I've experienced the “nightingale” floors of Nijo Castle, the glow of Kinkakuji, the primeval atmosphere of shrines deep in the forest. I've been welcomed into a church and shooed out of a donut shop; snapped photos of mikoshi (portable shrine) and maiko (apprentice geisha) at a Shinto festival one day and walked the dazzlingly modern streets of Osaka the next. I've managed not to hit anyone with my bicycle and not to lose my extremities to monstrous Kyoto mosquitoes. I've tried out karaoke, squatty potties, and takoyaki (fried octopus—delicious!). I've been told my Japanese is “jouzu” (very good) when it isn't. I'm taking Japanese classes so difficult my head hurts and classes so easy I want to scream. In my dorm I've made friends with German, French, British, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Korean students. Fascinated I’ve watched monks riding autobikes, unbelievably slender women shuffling in kimono, glitzy bleach-blonde couples striding hand-in-hand past dusty brown construction workers on break, a salaryman snogging a pretty young thing under a streetlamp, children crouched around a giant caterpillar under a hot sun. The strangest thing is that they all have more in common with each other than I will ever have with any of them.

It is my secret goal to make a few Japanese friends by the end of the year, we will see! Though Kyoto is beautiful and I've had so many fun days, it is very hard to live here as a foreigner. I came prepared for Japanese culture and attitudes towards foreigners but it's another thing to experience it!

Well, that's all for now, I'll let photos tell the rest.

Kyoto Station.

Hazel, Morgan, Jamie, and Stacey at karaoke. Jamie is singing the Doraemon theme song.

The Kamo River (Kamogawa) that runs in two forks through this area of Kyoto.



The washroom in our dorm.

Fudo-do, Kinkakuji Temple

Kinkakuji!



Doshisha: everyone rides bikes! Mine has been a life-saver.



Nijo Palace.

Torii at Imamiya-jinja.



Ancient and modern live side-by-side in Kyoto!

Kakikori: a yummy shaved-ice treat.

The outer moat at Nijo.

Osaka fashion.

More Osaka fashion:)

Pachinko!

Maiko-san serves tea at the Seimei-jinja autumnal equinox festival.



Takoyaki!

"Sounds like puberty."

Osaka restaurant. Great okonomiyaki, yakisoba, and takoyaki for cheap. Apparently the beer was not so good.

Near Osaka shopping center.

Carina and I went to the Raku Museum!

I make a bento for lunch almost every day. This one is not the best but it has pork, rice, bean sprouts, edamame, matcha daifuku, and banana chips. Yummy^^