Kurama

Yesterday Hannah and I hiked from Kurama to Kibune. Just a 15 minute train ride from my dorm to a beautiful peaceful town in the mountains. I can not believe it has taken me 3 months to get over here. It was so beautiful. It reminds me of Mill Valley after it rains and when mom and I go on walks through the canyon. It didn't have the same smells as MV but it had the same wet feeling. It was so humid though.. definitely does not get humid like this in california. We thought that there was a Onsen at the end of the hike but turns out we did the hike backwards.. you start in Kibune and hike to Kurama and then there is an Onsen.. Luckily it was too humid for Onsen anyway.

Kino train station in Iwakura. It was not foggy... that fog is from the humidity on camera lens... crazy!

Kurama!

Hungry?



Haha sucks to be this guy

Entrance to Kurama


I love moss!

Beautiful little stream!

One view
Cute town through the trees!


Nature is so nuts! These roots were so beautiful!

Me being cool in front of a temple.

So amazing

This was just kind of funny

Too Much Food

On wednesday night my friends from Tokyo who I went to Okinawa with (Steph, Sophie, and Tory) came to Kyoto for the weekend. Pretty much the whole weekend it is safe to say that we ate the whole time. Followed by drinking and sleeping. Not my favorite life style but it was worth it.
On Thursday Hannah and I showed them around our school. We showed them the whole campus, both our classrooms, the sweet secret pathways in the forest and of course the birds and the deer park... thats right... my school has a huge closed off area and prob like 20 deer in it. There was also an area with about 10 different types of birds and a little bunny.. the bunny made me sad though cause it was WAY too hot out and he didn't have enough shade or even a frozen water bottle in his cage to keep him cool.. ANYWHO. The reason we have animals at my school is that the president of my school thought that too much studying will make people go crazy. So he wanted to have animals just walking around in the library but for some weird reason that did not fly. So instead there is a stuffed deer in the library, a peacock cage in the middle of campus and the deer not far from the center of campus. So rad.
After that I had class... we have been drawing fruits/veggies for the whole week and I want to kill my self. (SIDENOTE: we also just started a new technique called Rozome (wax technique) and one of my senseis is the scariest man ever. When he calls roll if you do not say "hai" loud enough he shouts your name out louder untill you say it loud enough... I always scream it cause I am scared of him...)
After class I met up with my friends and we went to the store got alcohol and snacks and then hung out at my school and partied until 7 when there was a big dance performance in this SMALL room crammed with people. There was a stage set up with a bar selling expensive disgusting drinks. After there was a beat boxer (SO SICK) and then there were a few djs who played. This was so fun. everyone was on the stage dancing and it was crazy. Some of the people were so talented. It made me feel like a loser cause I do not know how to dance but I had fun anyways.. and it did not stop me from shaking it.
At some point during the night I went to the bathroom and the only toilet available were the Japanese style toilets. I go to use the toilet and notice when i am done my cute little giraffe cell phone charm is IN THE TOILET! yes.. my phone fell in the toilet and yes i had to fish it out. not very fun.
The weird thing about being in japan is that everything starts really early so they end really early too. Everything started to end around 10 or 10:30.. and after all my friends and I had the munchies. We ended up going to Mcdonalds and ordering disgusting amounts of food (Two ebi (shrimp) (SO GOOD) burgers, french fries, and a mcflurry..don't judge) and ate them outside. During our feast two police on motor bikes drove up and asked us for our alien cards .. basically for no reason.. these guys were SO funny. The whole time we were laughing and making fun of them and we started taking pictures with them.. they didn't think it was as funny but they were young and did not do anything about it.
It was almost about it was a little after 12 so it was June 25 (sophies birthday) so Hannah and I biked real fast to the Conbini close to us and bought sophie a really gross magazine (porn) and ice creams cause we obviously didn't eat enough at Mcdonalds. We sang happy birthday and it was great. on my bike ride home I fell REAL hard of my bike and busted my knee..
Rest of the weekend can be summed up by: food, sleep, shopping, food, movies, good times.

Band that preformed at school


Deer park at school



Hannah and I. Always eating.

Walking around my magical campus.

One of the dance groups.

Another dance group. Mecha Kawaii Desu.

Best dancers ever

Chilling with the police at Mcdonalds.


Hannah and Neal with our new friend

Looking at Sophie's birthday present

Best Okonomiyaki ever.

Lovely Ladies

Last weekend my friend Aoi invited me over to her house in Osaka to have a Takoyaki Party. Takoyaki is Octopus mixed with some batter and some ginger and whatever you want to make it amazing. The original ones normally just have ginger, onion, octopus and batter topped with Okonomiyaki sauce and Mayo but Aois mom put cheese in some, and corn! It was so good. I had prob 200 little Takoyaki little balls. (fatty)

A little market in Aois neighborhood.

Cool house

Aoi!


Cute little streets with an old limpy man.

Little meow almost got away!

Cool apartment building

Aoi, her sister, and mom

Toppings for Takoyaki. Octopus, Ginger, Onion and Corn. SO GOOD

Batter cooking the the takoyaki machine. I wish I could get one of these! Mom.. Christmas?


Cooking time



The finished product.

Me trying to flip the little buggers

This doesn't look good at all... but it is!


I bought this little cake for Aois mom. Aoi said it was her favorite. Melon flavor I think? oh... that cute little guy in the back? Thats Zoro. At first when I walked in the house Aoi told me not to touch him cause he might bite me... in my head I was thinking "this is fucking great" cause all I have wanted to do for the past 3 months is play with a cute little dog.. But as the night went on and Zoro smelled me out.. we became BFF and I got to play with him. He was a cute little guy. Also... according to Japanese people.. Dogs do not say "woof woof" they say "wan wan"... yea. i know. its fucked up.

Aoi and fam.

After I ate 500 takoyakis they brought out dessert... these things are called shoe creams or shu creams.. filled with chocolate or custard or whatever flavor. I had 3.

Aoi And I

Cool shop

Last week with my weaving class and I went to a Textile factory. They make really really really big weavings and design interiors of cars..(among other things. thats all i saw though.)
Really cool to see large scale weavings being produced.





Also at the factory there was a museum of everything cool and interesting (...) that the company has made.
This was the coolest thing I saw. Before world war 2 dye was only produced in Germany so during the war dye could not be sent from Germany to Japan. After the war when shipments continued to be sent to Japan the colors were not the same. This weaving took about 2 months to do and the president of the textile company's wife was not satisfied with the color. side note: the weaving was already behind schedule with being finished. But one cold and rainy night the Wife went in and took matters into her own hands and cut the weaving... i repeat cut the already behind/two month old/not finished/a lot of hard work but into it weaving! What a jerk!



Pictures of Ichihara, the place where the factory was.





Classmate who fell asleep. Everyone thought this was really funny. someone should have drawn on his face!



Here are pictures from my Critique. The crit went well. I told my teacher what I wanted to say and she told me how to say it in Japanese. My classmates were really impressed. I almost peed my pants because I was so nervous and embarrassed. It sucked cause I didnt understand anything that was going on. I just sat there for 3 hours and played drop 7 on my phone. So it wasn't a complete waste of time!


This is my weaving. . not that exciting.


My friend taped this to the table... said it was bad lucky. I didn't understand why. I just thought it was funny.


Woman's legs. They looked so funny and plump. Good thing I brought my iphone with me that day. There is no way to turn off the sound of japanese cell phones (pretty sure almost all of them..) so that creepy men (or women) cant take pictures of girls.. ( or plump stub legs)