In the past three weeks, I've gone to two videogame events, Nanba twice, and seen various other things. The frequency with which I have maintained this blog has been sorely lacking, and as a result, I have a backlog of hundreds of photos. I shall attempt to rectify this shortcoming in short order. [View Full Entry]

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This festival, one of the three main ones in Kyoto, was rather interesting. However, I think that the Japanese people enjoyed it quite a bit more than I did. I only stayed for the beginning. I think that it's more enjoyable for Japanese people, in part, because their culture is related to the festival. I couldn't figure out what was so exciting about carrying torches, personally. They were chanting what sounded to me like "sai reyo, sai ryo," and I don't know what that means. It was still rather enjoyable. I went to a temple beforehand and, of course, took some [View Full Entry]

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I think that \"Land of the Rising Cloud\" is more suitable than \"Land of the Rising Sun,\" considering the sheer amount of rain and the large number of typhoons inflicting their wet and windy rage upon this country. I have made a few observations about Japan that I think are somewhat amusing. 1) Japan is one giant cartoon. (Disclaimer to the easily offended: That is a joke.) But really -- it is. From the Final Fantasy characters advertising cell phones, to the giant bunny which predicts the weather on TV, this country is filled with cute...things. 2) TV Some stations play [View Full Entry]

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Better late than never, I suppose. I took some 150 or so pictures on my Tokyo Trip, so I'm only uploading a few for now. Tokyo, I think, lives up to the hype. It's a huge city with plenty of attractions. The Tokyo Game Show itself, for me, was everything that I expected and quite enjoyable. Being completely surrounded by videogames is quite enjoyable for me. I also got quite a bit of free memorabillia. After the Tokyo Game Show, we went to "Electric Town," an are of Tokyo full of, it seems nothing but electronics stores. We were basically looking [View Full Entry]

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After 2 weeks, I've finally found a moment to upload some pictures from my Kyoto trip. Kyoto is beautiful. Hirakata City isn't exactly the most beautiful area of Japan, but Kyoto is a much nicer place. Eventually, I'll post some pictures from Tokyo and the Tokyo Game Show. [View Full Entry]

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CDRWs are notoriously unreliable, and that's one of the reasons my Kyoto pictures aren't up yet. I'm going to have to get a USB flash drive. Tonight, though, I'm going to Tokyo -- by bus -- to the Tokyo Game Show, which means that, by the next time I make an entry, I'll have an obscene number of pictures. [View Full Entry]

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Last weekend was a three-day one, so I went to Kyoto with a friend. Another person was supposed to join us, but she couldn't come. Despite that, it was an incredible experience. I love Kyoto. Unfortunately, I left the pictures on my computer, which I don't have at the moment, but I'll uplod them tomorrow. Additionally, my friend has some more pictures that he's going to share with me. (I actually took quite a few with his camera after my picture card ran out of space.) suffice it to say that Kyoto is beautiful. This is my second trip, but [View Full Entry]

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"I'm studying Japanese." To anyone who is reading this, I must apologize for the mundane entries as of late. Fortunately, some fairly interesting events are approaching. Sometime this week -- whether tomorrow, Thursday, or Friday I cannot recall -- about 10,000 Japanese students will be returning from their summer vacation. Additionally, next Friday I shall travel to Tokyo. I've been so tired lately. Yesterday, I had no meat during the entire day. For dinner, my host family cooked chaahan, because I said that I liked it. Chaahan is fried rice; it's actually from China, apparent [View Full Entry]

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Fortunately, my placement test score doubled in two weeks, so I'm now in Japanese II. This came with a lot of hard studying, and I'm still trying to learn hundreds of words per week. This language is so hard for a brain accustomed to communicating in English. Last Thursday, I ate breakfast at makudonarudo (McDonald's). The extent to which they have mangled that word is amazing. The food there, however, is exactly the same as in America. Friday, I actually went out and did something! Mike and I walked to downtown Hirakatishi (Hirikata City) to buy our bus tickets to [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday, classes were canceled again, because the second typhoon (taifuu) came through. I took some pictures on the way as I walked home, as well as some pictures from various angles from my room. The clouds can be seen approaching. As a direct result of this, instead of taking the placement test yesterday, I will take it tomorrow, which, fortunately for me, gives me more time to study. (As I typed the previous sentence, it occurred to me that a speaker of Japanese would probably have enormous difficulty with it, because of the subclauses, and the use of which, which, [View Full Entry]

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