Well, it's hard to believe, but I'm back in America for good now.

There have been two major upheavals in my life so far. The first was when I moved out of my parents home for the first time and went to college. The second was when I graduated college and moved to Japan. Leaving Japan and returning to the US is the third. These events come with a ( Read more... )

To be honest, the  real reason I wanted to go to Kyoto again was to visit the monkey park. Just to remind you, the monkey park is a place you hike up to in the mountains around Arashiyama (near Kyoto) where troops of Japanese monkeys live. They are wild monkeys,  free to come and go as they please, but they tend to stay around the park because they ( Read more... )

I spent my last weekend in Japan in Kyoto because I guess it just doesn't seem right if I don't go there once a season. Tammy's sister is visiting, and they wanted to show her Kyoto, so I tagged along.

We visited the Fushimi Inari shrine. Inari is the Shinto fox god of the harvest, particularly rice. Not surprisingly, it's very popular in the ( Read more... )

Today was my last day teaching Elementary School. My feelings can be best summed up as ( Read more... )

I have less than two weeks left in Japan now. Time flies, huh?

I'll be writing some "closing thoughts", but for now, a final song of the month! Dang it. Am I really at my last month? I have more songs I wanted to share. How about just two, okay?  They're anime themes, so it's relevant to the discussion, and they're really short.

Before I get to the ( Read more... )

I learned something new today. Riding your bike home with a big thunderstorm almost directly on top of you is quite a thrilling experience. *and my mother begins to panic*

Picture it, riding through light rain that becomes heavier the closer you get to home. Either the storm is approaching you, or you're approaching it. Rather than the occasional ( Read more... )

My new school has their sports festival first semester instead of second semester like my other school, so I got to go to my 3rd Junior High sports festival this Saturday. Unfortunately due to my cameras' lack of will to live, I don't have pictures of that ( Read more... )

It's been a while since we had a song of the month, huh?

Click to view

"Glamorous Sky" by Mika Nakashima (credited to NANA, her character in the movie  that this was the theme for)

Apparently this is an extremely popular song for people to post videos of themselves singing karaoke to, because it took me forever to find a video featuring the original song. I still ( Read more... )

More pictures from the family visit. This time, from Kyoto.


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I have made a discovery. Frozen Mango Pudding is AMAZING ( Read more... )