one day at a time

i left the house without a clear idea of where i wanted to go.
i ended up at the kamogawa (river).
sitting by the banks, i journaled for a long time.
unfortunately, i only had enough in me to write about heart matters.
i was too exhausted to begin thinking about everything else at that point.

i called alex after and invited her to hike through the senbon torii with me.
we met up at kyoto eki and arrived at fushimi inari after just two JR stops.
it was a great day for walking and hiking ^_^
the temperature had cooled down by later afternoon.

i didn't know alex too well at all,
and i figured a long walk/hike would be a good way to become better friends. we have a lot more in common than i realized,
and i guess there will be lots of opportunities next year to chill =]

i just realized that i hadn't taken any pictures at all.
oh well, the memory lives on in my mind XD
google image search "fushimi inari".
no combination of pictures will do its beauty justice,
but it's the next best thing =P

i called my host mom from the train platform,
asking if i could have dinner at home & then go to the river afterwards.
she said it was fine, just don't stay out too late.
then i got home.
and it was the most awkward dinner ever.
i don't want to go into the details.

long story short, i'm still sitting at home.
and won't be leaving the house tonight.
i wasn't forbidden from going,
but i might as well been =(

alice just left for school.
friends in america are still sleeping.
friends in japan are at the river.
wonderful.

going to bed at 10pm.

someone set me free from this country.......

fukui <3

going to fukui with mia for the second half of spring break was one of the best experiences i've ever had in japan =)

i don't have the energy to write the long post those four days warrant, so i'll be even more lazy and just echo mia for now XD
http://miamonnier.blogspot.com/2009/03/fukui.html

i'll get my pictures up soon, but mia's pictures are better anyway =]
http://picasaweb.google.com/mgnm9195/HoyaHoya#

adventures with ashley

because i've been up since 5am, and because i don't feel like writing much right now, i'm going to pull one of my in a nutshell's.

in a nutshell:
sunday. met up in saiin. starbucks. hankyu back to katsura. took a walk to katsura bridge. decided to keep walking. saw a lot of kyoto. found ourselves back in saiin over an hour (almost two?) later. took the hankyu back to katsura again. stole wireless internet from my own house from outside the gate at 10pm.

monday. imadegawa. ate lunch leisurely. watched how to lose a guy in 10 days. mos burger. ashley's forgotten purse. different saiin starbucks where i "managed" to get onto a wireless network. stayed there until its midnight closing.

so this post doesn't tell anyone much about anything. but at least it means something to me---so that maybe one day i'll come back to this and elaborate. [let's be honest, probably not. lololol]

slow, short strides

it was a good day overall :)
nothing too out of the ordinary.
i skyped with matt (several times actually!) and hung out with friends.
then there was the religion field trip to senbon something or other temple.
(maybe i'll talk about that in another post...)

anyway, i got home in pretty high spirits.
then during dinner, the way my host mom was (repeatedly) telling me to travel over spring break really rubbed me the wrong way. i don't know why. i know she had good intentions, but i felt like there was some slight passive aggressiveness that came along with it.

long story short--- i'm recovering from a cold and intensive exercise would not be a smart idea, but i needed to cancel my gym membership starting the month of april. and i had to take care of that today. so i went to renaissance and had it figured out within ten minutes. there was no miscommunication due to the language barrier :) i understood her japanese, and she understood mine. i also filled out a questionnaire (about the cancellation) in japanese with ease. so that made me feel better.

but not to the point where i was ready to head back home. so i decided to take a walk. i went straight and accidentally found myself where i wanted to be---katsura bridge (knew it existed, but didn't know where it was). i took my time looking over the water and across the river at the city lights. the sad part is, i'm sure many people thought i was about to commit suicide. (i'll blog about that later.) anyway, an hour later and i still didn't want to go home. i could've easily walked for another three hours, but i knew i had to go home v_v

and i hated that feeling. the feeling of NEEDING to "report" to someone after two years of independence and freedom at midd. my strides became slower and shorter as i got closer and closer to my host family's house. i was within 100 meters, and then i decided to take a detour to delay returning to my (spacious) jail cell even later.

no motivation to do hw as of this moment.
taking a nap for a couple hours.
and i'll see where i am then.

mt. hiei

the trip to mt. hiei turned out a lot better than i had expected.

i avoided the people i didn't like as much as i could. separation into smaller groups did happen, but i made sure i was with my friends. there were several times when i missed out on what my professor was saying, but staying close to her helped a lot with that. the weather also took a turn for the better. it was even snowing a little on the mountain!
:)

i'll put up some pictures soon, but i already know they won't do much justice to the beauty of the landscapes and the antiquity of the temples.

we went up by cable car for part of the way and hiked everywhere else from there on out. i didn't take notes, so i don't know the names of the places and halls we visited. (i'll ask prof. ludvik for the details of the trip.)

there's no way i can easily explain what i saw and felt yesterday. many buddhist practices are simply mind-blowing. i can't even begin to imagine the pain, exhaustion, and trials that some monks put themselves through. (again, more details on this later.)

i realized a couple things from being on mt. hiei. i love the mountains. i like snow. the cold doesn't really bother me. i only had on a tank top layered with a long-sleeved shirt and a light hoodie all day. my point is, i felt freedom on that mountain. i was away from all the stupid girls on shijo dori, away from the suffocation of the host family system, and (somewhat) away from the smothering of akp. it's not necessarily japan that i dislike. if i had money to travel around the country, i'd be much happier. i'll come back to this later.

i'm still exhausted from last night.
=)

j'adore le français

again, in a nutshell:
[perhaps i'll elaborate later... but maybe not lol]

the oral "exam" went fine. i could've done a lot better (as compared to language school), but i'm satisfied with how i did. ben (wesleyan) and becca (wellesley) are two of my favorite people in the program ~ our oral interviews were one right after the other, so we went out for coffee in shijo afterward.

then i met up with mia at shijo eki and walked to kyoto eki from there. we went to see the robert doisneau gallery at an art museum on the seventh floor of the station. i miss french sooo much. even before the gallery, i've often thought about picking it up again. so i might. senior year :)

for lunch, subway! it was one of the most delicious lunches i've had in a while. first time in nearly six months. since there was nowhere we could go to just sit and do some studying, we settled for the mister donut food court. and we sat there and didn't do much studying lol.

i walked thirty minutes back to shijo eki, where i get on the hankyu to go home. talked to matt (who should've been asleep!) on skype until dinner. put in three endorphin-filled hours at the sports club, came home, shower/ofuro, and now i'm finally finishing this post that i started hours ago XD

sooo much more to say than just this superficial stuff, but i'll forget entirely later on if i don't get something down now :)

oh yeah, placed request for sun tzu's the art of war at the doshisha library.

and i have my japanese reading/writing class midterm tomorrow at 9am.
haven't studied. i might *think* about it tomorrow after breakfast.
....what's the point? i wouldn't do much better with lots of studying anyway.
it won't be a piece of cake, but i don't imagine it being very difficult at all.
:P

the glass is half full :)

(volume needs to go up ~ a lot. i'm really sorry v_v)

...my point exactly.
it always appears to be recording, but then it stops without warning.
i'll try to finish this one tomorrow.

today in a nutshell--- it could've been a "bad day" on so many levels,
but it was still an awesome day (the way i see it =D)

marshes, birds, and getting lost.

much more happened at both the marsh and kitaoji station,
but i'm running late for dinner in shijo with a few friends...
so write more when i get back? maybe... ^_^

[edit]
after dinner:



(....this is what i sound like?? lol)

exploring katsura

it's a four-day week once again :)  i forget what the occasion is today, but i welcome the mini-break. my host parents are out hiking and left me the house, telling me to invite friends over. LOTS of friends. [lol] but my friends are taking it easy, which probably a good idea after last night ^_^  

so i decided to go to the little stationary shop that i pass by on the way home sometimes. [i was in search of a 26-hole puncher <--yes, they exist!] unfortunately, it was closed-- probably because of the holiday. instead of turning back, i walked around katsura for a little bit.

some awesome finds:

• a bath house
• a massage parlor
• a cute corner coffee shop
• an indoor parking lot for bicycles!
• a beauty parlor where one could get a "peam" or a "stright"
• vending machines with "rainbow blend" coffee in a can

...all within a 5-min walk from my house ^_^