Forget the degradation of my English. At dinner I had an uncalled for amount of trouble eating salad with a fork. I couldn't stab lettuce in an efficient manner, but I can southpaw my chopsticks. What is this neon hell?

After getting back from Ginza the other night my host family had a good laugh at my textbook. I missed most what they were saying because they weren't talking to me except when Hideki pointed at something on my homework and told me "We don't say that. That's not what that means ( Read more... )

Yasukuni-jinju is a big deal for anyone of a few reasons. The first reason I was given is that controversy stems from the shrine being dedicated to soldiers who've died in wars. When Japan lost the the Pacific end of WWII (the first actual world war) they "decided" that they should be pacifists, and hence, anything that smacks of the glory of war ( Read more... )

I'd post them directly in here as well, but I'm sick and don't feel like editing the size.

Rush hour sucked. A lot. I don't really like being that close to people and I really don't enjoy being that close to 80 of them. There was guy who pressed his way in and was barely missed by the doors (which have pictures of a cat getting it's tail caught) only to the doors open again in a few seconds and get pushed back out train by the swell ( Read more... )

My host family took me a Buddhist temple down the street [it might actually be next door to a 7/11 (セビン イレビン)] to see the sakura in all their glory before it's too late. I took a couple pictures and will post them later. As it turns out, Obaasan (the grandmother) is fine but lives across the street, while Andei-inu-chan (the dog) is still dead. ( Read more... )

Twelve+ hours is too long to sit on a plane in one go. I watched the Fantastic Four twice and most of a Harry Potter movie more times than I probably should have (though the octopus people were cool.) A lot of the charm of long flights can be summed with the co-pilot saying: "At this time the captain would like to request that flight attendants ( Read more... )