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It was great being back in Tokyo, seeing friends, hitting the town, and staying at Jasmine's swanky Akasaka apartment. These six days definitely renewed my interest in Japan, or at least the non-rice fields portion. I fly out after five, so I just need to mail off a package, cancel my phone contract, and head to Narita. Time to fly.

The all night cleaning session was a success, even with a nice long dinner with some friends in Yuzawa, and now it's morning and time to depart. Goodbye, Akita. I'll be back to visit some day.

As much as I complained and wanted to leave before, now that I've seen my Takase kids for the last time and said my goodbyes to the people who really meant something, I don't know if I'm really ready to leave. I'll be washing some plates or putting some clothes in a box, and I'll have to stop for a second as my memories catch up with me. Even the ( Read more... )

I just have two more months left here in Ugo, and it's a strange feeling. I've already made my last visit to two of the elementary schools, and I only have two weeks left at each of my three junior highs. I've been looking back through some of the notes that students wrote to me as I pack them away, and I can't help but get the feeling that I ( Read more... )

I have no classes at school today, and after catching up on slashdot, appleinsider, engadget, ars technica, TUAW, gizmodo, the Economist, and yahoo news, I decided to play around with photoshop and stitch together some panoramic shots I had taken. The white balance is particularly bad on the first shot, and the stitching is less than perfect in ( Read more... )

Much to my surprise, I had already uploaded a gallery of a kyudo tournament from way back in September. I'll blame the LJ Scrapbook's poor UI design for making me miss the tiny "next" text button on the galleries list. I also added a few more pictures to a new gallery, but none yet of my new gear. Jenny also took a lot of good shots when she ( Read more... )

Last week was Golden Week, a series of national holidays that translated into seven of nine days (book end weekends included) completely free. Activities included ( Read more... )

me: How did I end up here?

Matt: you signed up, and went through a rigorous screening process....
Matt: much like NASA, except you got to go to a rice farm....

One of my third years made some cookies and gave them to me as an early Valentine's Day gift. It was sweet.