There's a First Time for Everything...

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konbanwa! it's the end of another exciting day here in japan...haha not really. weekdays are rather boring right now. pretty much all i do is go to class. i'm in the CIE building from the morning until around 3 or 4 everyday. well, except on mondays and wednesdays which are my short days and i'm done at noon...love them. so i usually just come back to my room and do homework, take a nap (if i'm lucky), and make dinner. so the weekdays are pretty low-key, but when the weekend comes i like to do all my travelling and sightseeing and have some fun!!

well last time i said that the building next to my seminar house was the gym...so the other day me, leilani, and bas decided to go check it out. and well, i found that the gyms over here are quite different than the one's back home. for example, you have to bring separate gym shoes to wear. since you have to take your shoes off whenever you enter any building, the same rule applies for the gym. we signed in at the front desk, then took off our shoes and put them in a little cubby. so i had to bring my tennis shoes in a separate bag and put them on once i got in the workout room. it was a bit odd, and seemed a little pointless to me, but i guess it's just part of the culture! well the shoe part was kinda strange, but once i got in the workout room i was surprised to see that the seats and padding on all of the equipment were PINK! it was so cool, i've never been so excited to exercise! and it was pretty funny to watch all the guys working out on the pink equipment lol...real tough huh? well me and leilani did about 5 sit-ups on this ab thing...yeah i know, 5 is pretty sad but that thing really works them! then i wanted to do the treadmill but i couldn't get it to work. so i had to ask a couple of people, and they didn't know either. we pushed every single button on that machine! then finally the girl who used it before showed us that there's a little power button on the bottom side of the machine that i have to turn on first. who puts a button way down there anyway?! weird japanese machines...but i got the treadmill to work so that's all that matters. i walked (fast) for about, oh 10 minutes or so! then we decided that was enough exercise for the day and decided to leave. it was kinda embarassing to be leaving that quick though. this one guy was like "leaving already?" and then this other guy said "boo...is that what you call a workout?" i'm thinking gahh what do you all expect from me? it's not like i was keeping track of their workout! so i just told them this was my warm-up and that next time i'm really going to workout 😉 haha...

so i've decided that i like the gym.

me and leilani have planned to make exercising there a regular thing now. we're going to go to the gym every monday and wednesday afternoon for sure, and then whenever else we can make time for it. but i really do love the fact that it's right next door to me, cause its just so convenient!

oh and guess what? when i was leaving the gym i noticed that ringing sound that i always hear from my balcony! so i stopped and tried to see where it was coming from. well i couldn't see anything, but it sounded like it was coming from somewher among the buildings. so i think it might be some little hanging decoration outside someone's window with a bell on it. that's the most logical explanation right now. but next time i go to the gym i'm going to look for it again...

ok i kinda got sidetracked talking about the wonderful pink gym, but the main reason for this entry is so that i can tell you all about my little adventure after school today...

after i finished with classes at 4, i met leilani and lauren in the CIE and we were trying to figure out something to do...and somehow we got on the subject of the sex shop that's in hirakata city. so leilani said she wanted to see it, lauren's had already been to it, and i was kind of hesitant. cause yeah i've never been to that kind of place before! lol. i wasn't planning to go, but somehow during our walk to the bicycle parking lot they convinced me! so we got on our bikes and started towards hirakata. lauren took us on this back road that goes through a bunch of houses. it was nice because it wasn't as dangerous as riding on the main road and the houses were very pretty! well we came to this little walkway that looked really nice and stopped cause we were all wondering what it was. so we parked our bikes and decided to check it out. we walked under the torii, and there was this path with a bunch of pillars and little statues on each side. at the end of the path was a little covered entrance. so we went through the walkway and came to what looked like a shrine!! it was soooo pretty. there was the chozuya with water and the ladles to clean your hands, and there was a little saisembako (which is a box house where offerings are made), and then the haiden (the main building for worshipping). i was so surprised to find that shrine! who would've thought such an amazing structure was hiding back there among all the houses? and we found it! it was so cool...that's one of the things i love about the area where i live. there's so much history in the area! my history professor said that on the way from the seminar house to campus there about 3 shrines and a couple of temples. and when we talk about some of the historical things that happened in history class, it's so cool that some of the things we're learning about can be seen right outside. like the ancient tomb and burial ground that's right behind seminar house 4. i think it's so cool! but maybe i'm just a nerd like that lol...

well after we finished exploring the shrine, we were back on our bikes and on our way to the sex shop! haha i just realized how ironic it is that we visited a sacred shrine right before going to a sex shop. that's pretty funny! but anyway, it took us about 10 mins to get there. it was right off of the main road, and it was called "handy house" lol. so we park our bikes and go in the store, and go behind the curtains to the 18 and over section (which was basically the entire store). and well, i'll just say that it was an INTERESTING experience! i saw lots of things there, some of it was really funny cause it was so stupid or weird, and some of it was just plain wrong, and some of it was stuff i would be happy never seeing again in my life! lol. we looked through the whole store...the sex toys, the pornographic magazines, and the expansive porno movie section. oh yes, the japanese really love their porn! and it has a lot of weird stuff, like things that just make you say "what kind of person would enjoy that?" it was very disturbing to see videos with girls who were no more than 10 yrs old...they even had these series with different types of girls. one would be from tokyo, and the other one from osaka, and then an international student lol. it was actually pretty funny! but one of the most disturbing ones we saw was in the surprisingly small "american porno" section...it was called "lusty grandmas" haha enough said. i really don't think i need to explain that one any further, and i really don't want to. oh and as we were leaving we saw the most disgusting video i have ever seen in my life! it was so bad, it made us all feel pretty queasy. i'm not even going to say what it was cause it's just so gross! but just know that if you ever decide to go into a sex shop in japan, BE PREPARED FOR SOME CRAZY STUFF! i'm not sure if i'm necessarilly happy that i went...but it was definitely an experience. i guess there's a first time for everything right? lol.

ok well now that i've shared my sex shop adventure with everyone, it's time for me to do some homework! iand 'm really excited about tomorrow because (a) i get done with classes at 12! woohoo! and (2) it's leilani's birthday! so a bunch of us are going out to dinner and maybe try to watch the lunar eclipse, if it's even that night...i don't know, but it should be a fun day!

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Photos

torii
the torii at the entrance to the walkway

the girls
leilani and lauren

other side
looking back at the end of the walkway. you can see all the little pillars and statues on the sides, the second torii at the end, and then the rope tied to the poles on either side.

shrien
here's the beautiful little shrine we found at the end of the walkway

around the shrine
another little place in the shrine compound

bye bye!
leaving the shrine...

handy house
the sex shop we visited in hirakata city...cool place