FruitsPunchoSamurai

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Good afternoon! I know, I've been slacking off when it comes to blogging but I have a perfectly good excuse! I've been lazy.
Last weekend I finally found the BAL building, after first going a kilometre in the wrong direction. And after exiting the building I found that it was right opposite the Soba/Ramen/Tsukemen restaurant that I had visited a month earlier. My ego took a serious hit in the nuts upon learning this, but it was soon cured with a delicious bowl of ramen from said restaurant. Another thing that also made my day a little brighter was the fact that I had finally "found" the BAL building, in which the biggest foreign books department in Kyoto is located. I also discovered a really fancy tea-shop where I spent, from a student's perspective, too much money.

During the week I have been doing my best to learn the other part of the kana alphabet, katakana, and the other courses are progressing without too much trouble. For my english seminar presentation, which is to be completed at the end of this semester, I'm researching the subject of tattoo art in Japan. A part of this includes actually getting a tattoo done here, but that in itself requires some planning on my part. Nonetheless I shall plunge into this adventure with only a moderate amount of fear! Huzzah!

This friday I also made my way to the karaoke bar with 3 other friends and finally achieved my goal of actually getting drunk in this country, something I have been struggling with for a few weekends. Needless to say, I was godlike. Never have the songs of the Backstreet boys been sung with so much passion and, at the same time, self-contempt! In my defense they were the only songs that Mirva, our finnish companion, could actually sing along to. To the eternal annoyance of the others I also managed a few metal-screams that would've made Ronnie James Dio cry with happiness in his grave. I was on such a roll that I repeated that performance around 10 times during the evening, accompanied by the insertion of fingers into ears by my fellow exchange students. Nothing boosts my ego like karaoke, something that Mirva pointed out a few times.

The next day, saturday, David dragged me, a hung-over shell of a man, and Will, a sleep-deprived zombie, into Kyoto in order to visit a seminar about international relations theory at Ritsumeikan university. It was our professor in this very subject that had tipped us off about the event but in hindsight it might have been good to have written down his phone number and some other directions. It was raining and the air was more humid than a closed bathroom after a hot shower. This did not improve the throbbing headache that plagued me all through the day and the evening. In the end we did not find the seminar since nobody seemed to know where it was being held. But I did manage to eat a great katsu curry at a nearby restaurant, which made things slightly better.

That's all I have for now. I would've taken pictures but my camera's batteries are dead and need recharging so I promise to have some for my next entry. Until then, may you always notice big obvious signs that say "BAL" when they're right across the street! Ittekimasu!

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