hello, hello

I know it's been awhile.

But, you see, being in love with life takes up a lot of time.

Kinkaku Shrine! Look how shiny.

View of Kyoto from Kiyomizu Temple.

We are ninjas. We are at a ninja restaurant. We go big or go home.

WHALE SHARK!

At the awesome aquarium in Osaka - that's the whale shark behind me!

Epic hike through hundreds of gates/tori in Kyoto.

Pretty picture, right?

My fellow exchange students in front of the gate in the water, enjoying a brief vacation/tour of Japan.

Approaching Miyajima, aka: Jurassic Park. (Not really even where they filmed it, but I swear it could have been.)

The famous Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo.

At the Lock-Up, a prison-themed restaurant.

Crea Mall at night.

The Kawagoe Matsuri (street festival) in all its crowded, float-filled nighttime glory.

(It's been awhile.)

But first, a little bit on

Because it's real, and it happens. And it happens like this:

As you can seen, I am now at the stage at which I am almost totally adapted, comfortable in the culture, and pretty much loving Japan for being Japan. That said,

TIU; walking to school in the morning; karaoke with my new Japanese friends (!!!!!!!); pretty-fying my phone; the 100 Yen Shop (where I bough said cellphone pretties); helping host mom peel and cut pears, because she compliments my knife skills every two seconds (!!); TIU's lunch buddy program - I've made awesome friends; my iPod, for being my calender/mobile Skype device/boredom breaker/host-sibling entertainer; Japanese class and five minutes of cracking up a day; finally settling into the rhythm of things; Skype conversations with much-missed friends; Japanese TV dramas (I am hardcore addicted!!!!!!!!)

And the list goes on and on an on.

Phone Photos

Canned whale. No, I am not kidding. Yes, I was disgusted. No, I did not buy/try it.

Teeny-tiny dried shrimp. They are sold like/as (??) candy. Or so host mom says.

Breakfast. Yummy yummy.

The inside of an anime porn shop. This picture is incredibly tame. I am scarred for life.

We had a contest to find the most insanely bizarre cover in this fan-manga (aka: doujinshi - look at me, whipping out the pop-culture terms left and right!) and this was the winner. Because that is a grey-haired man kissing a kid's chest. Pretty sure that's not even legal in the U.S.

Doujinshi.

My school work. It is in hiragana. I wrote it. Yes, yes, yes. You are impressed.