Anyway, sorry for not posting more often. I think the idea of having to format putting photos in deters me, so this one is sans photos. Sorry y'all.
Quite a bit has happened, let's see if I can't remember it all.
So we had Thanksgiving off. It wasn't for Thanksgiving, but that's alright. Wednesday, the first day of our break, Jen and I met up with Hide in Kobe (神戸). We didn't eat any Kobe beef... at least not yet.
We started off our day a little bit late, but we still had fun. We moseyed over to China Town where we took some awesome photos. Right near there was a good unagi place. I ate my first Unagi-don. It was pretty delicious. Unagi has an interesting texture. The only part that took some grit was eating the unagi organ they put in the miso soup... it was weirdly rubbery, but not terrible. After that we went on a tour of some old houses in Kobe.
Kobe was an old settlement colony, so there were a lot of foreign-style houses. They were all really fascinating.
After that, we took a boat ride. Hide arranged for a boat tour of the harbor. The sun had kind of started to set, but it was really cool. I was worried about getting sea sick, but we stayed on deck the whole time so it was alright. I got to see a tanker. They're HUGE!
After eating at this cool pod-food-place, Jen and I hitched a ride back home on the Hankyu. It was a good day. Hide is a great tour guide!
Thursday I made Thanksgiving happen. It was Sam, Jen, Noah, Crystal, Nao, Lily, Maz, Kevin, Henry, Maki, and myself. Some came and went, but it was a really good group. We had Thanksgiving seasoned chicken breast, stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, green beans, sweet potatoes, asparagus, gravy, and rolls. It was so awesomely delicious. A meal to rival any American Thanksgiving. For the pie I had bought a Costco pumpkin pie. We decided to just all dig in at once... it was gone in literally 4 minutes. No joke.
The rest of the weekend was kind of just lounging and cleaning until Sunday. I did go to Doshisha's school festival on Saturday though. That was the real reason for the holiday. We watched some intense double dutch clubs perform and ate various kinds of food. It was pretty entertaining.
On Sunday, after a little shopping, Lily, Jen, Nao, Toru, and I went to Kiyomizudera for some Momiji. It was spectacularly beautiful. The trees looked like they were on fire. I got some amazing photos. They're all up on Facebook, if you'd like to see. That was a fun night.
A good break, for sure. Not much has happened except for school and the viewing of New Moon until this weekend. New Moon was fun, but these last couple of days have been even better!
Thursday night my Uncle Randy invited me to a party set up by his host from Kyo-Dai. It was at a home. We had Nabe and sushi and some beer. It was really laid back. There were quite a few people there. They all seemed surprised by my Japanese, which is always an ego-booster, even if it's not true. We ate and chatted. I met a fellow who was born and raised in Kyoto. We had an awesome discussion on Kansai-ben and cool places in the area. He gave me his business card (名刺). As I was trying to leave with my family, they caught me at the sushi station. They kept asking me if I'd tried certain things and when I said I hadn't, they'd make it for me. I was so ridiculously full by the end, but it was all awesomely delicious! I got dropped of at my place by a taxi (which I didn't have to pay for!) and hit the hay.
Then today after classes, Jen, Jeremy, and I hopped on the Hankyu down to Kobe for Luminarie (ルミナリエ). It's this huge light display that looks like Christmas, but it's actually a memorial event for the huge earthquake in Kobe that claimed many lives. It was really beautiful. The lights were amazing and the music they played as you walked was perfect. It set the entire mood. We met up with Hide and Jen's new friend Ryosuke. They were loads of fun. We ate some yatai food--I tried Hiroshima Okonomiyaki. It's made a little bit different from normal Okonomiyaki, but the same basic ingredients. It was delicious!
On the way back, we set out a bit late. We hopped on the Local that we thought would connect us to Juso where we have to transfer. As it turns out it took us some weird way. We ended up near the Kyotanabe campus of Doshisha. I asked the back conductor if there was a train going to Karasuma station and he said that there was, but that we would have to wait on the train we were on so it could take us back to Awaji, then we'd have about 2-3 minutes to get to tracks 2 and 3 for last train.
It was a little nerve-wracking, unsure if we could really make it in time. While we waited, though, we had an entire car to ourselves. We did all the things we'd ever wanted to do on an empty train car at that time-- pull ups, somersaults, splay out on a whole bench seat, run the length of the car. It was super fun and a rare opportunity.
We made it home safe, thank goodness. I really didn't want to have to spend a buttload on a taxi from Awaji.
As Jen and I split to go to our rooms I mentioned how I wanted to go to Tokyo with her again. She'd offered before and hinted at my maybe coming, but I hadn't wanted to do it before. After thinking for a while, I figured why not. It's a relatively cheap venture, and getting to Tokyo isn't that hard. I'll miss one, maybe two days of school, but that can be taken care of. I hear the swine flu has been going around..... I think I feel a little feverish ~_^
Then, as I was looking into electronic dictionary prices to potential buy one in Akiba, I stumbled across an awesome deal on Amazon. It's ¥16442 for a Casio XD SF6300! Amazon recorded it as 41% off the list price. It's getting shipped to Lawson right down the street from me, and I can also pay the bill there. That means that I don't have to fuss with the post office and I can pay in yen! Otherwise I would have had to use my American account, thus incurring charges and having to deal with the exchange rate (which is pretty crap right now if you weren't aware).
Amazingness. I hope this streak of fun lasts until March. May the fun never end.
...
I just realized that I'll be traveling on the Ides of March from Kyoto to Tokyo. Does that not apply if I'm in Japan? ^__^
Love you all and I can't wait to see you in March!
Love until later,
Caitlin D.
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