Been a Long Time Comin'

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So. It's been about two months since I last updated. Oops. Good thing that I talk to most of the people who read this on a regular enough basis that a blog really isn't necessary anyway. Suppose this is mostly a place to dump photos. I do however have some interesting stories.

I went to Osaka and Kyoto over Winter Break with Rory and two of his Aussie friends that came to see us and travel in Japan, travelled around that area for about a week then came back to the good ol' Kumamoto. Osaka was alright. It's a big city, and whenever you go to a big city you can't expect people to be very helpful or polite, which is exactly what we found out. We took a day trip to Himeji to see the castle. It's the most famous castle in Japan, and for good reason: it's right massive. Beautiful place, but would be better in the Spring or Summer when the trees still had leaves. Kyoto was much better than Osaka, and we were there for New Years. The first night we went out and had a few drinks in the Gion district, which is where the partying goes down, and where - if you're very lucky - you can catch a glimpse of geisha. We weren't that lucky, but our friends snapped a pic or two of one through a fence. We were lucky enough, however, to meet the yakuza, the organized crime gangsters of Japan. They bought us kebabs and offered to take us to whorehouses. We declined the second offer respectfully.

Kyoto is called The Walking City, but we rented bikes one day and went about the outskirts of the main drag, looking for whatever small temples and shrines we could find - and we found quite a few of them. We made sure to visit the Golden Pavilion, but that was the only major tourist spot we hit. Thankfully. I've figured out I don't like doing touristy stuff...going to big, famous places where everyone has already gone and already taken pictures in the exact same spots. We'll see if the opposite is better - that is, travelling alone, seeing what I can find - when I go out on my own for one to two months during Spring break.

Classes are almost done for this semester. My last class is next Monday, the 19th. I have fears that after two months outside of the classroom my Japanese - at least my written Japanese - is going to suck horribly. My spoken Japanese should get better, considering I'll be travelling alone for such a long time, relying on my skills in the language to survive, meet new people and have fun. Thankfully my teachers have given me quite a bit of homework to do over the break, all of which is written stuff, not listening comprehension. That should save me from total oblivion at least. I hope.

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Photos

Osaka
Rory, my dorm-mate, and myself in Osaka, wandering about.

Osaka II
An example of Osakan architecture. This building is for pachinko (a quasi-legal way of gambling), billiards and drinking.

Osaka Castle
A pretty cool place.

Prayers on the Wind
Japanese people will write prayers on pieces of paper and tie them to branches of trees/bushes near temples, so when the wind blows, the prayers might be heard by the gods.

Osaka III
Downtown Osaka, the Dotomboori area especially, is very neon-infused.

Kyoto I
An entrance to one of the many large temples in Kyoto.

Golden Pavilion
My travelling companions (left to right) Rory, Cooper and Rupert, at the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto.

Kyoto II
The river (forgot its name) running through Kyoto, near the Gion district.

New Years
Partying in Kyoto with Japandoms (random Japanese people you meet and will never see again)

Trains
We took regular trains back to Kumamoto from Kyoto...took 16 hours. This was about half-way there at some shite town filled with factories, though it did have a nice view of Shikoku and the sea.

Coming of Age Day...
...or seijinshiki. Here I'm pictured in hakama, the male version of kimono, and the girl next to me is Akane Anai, a Kumamoto-ite who studied at my high school for a year.
I got interviewed twice and had my picture taken for three different magazines on this day, mostly because I'm foreign. Cool.