Kiyomizu dera

Since all anime seems to gravitate towards Kiyomizu-dera whenever they go on Kyoto trips; me and Joe went as well.  And also, to beat the crowds, we left the hostel at ... oh 6am.  Well, we did beat the crowds -- by a lot. And it was pretty awesome.  What they don't really show in the shows, is where the name comes from : kiyomizu, clear/pure water.  Which you can drink.  And that we did... and it tasted clean.

Pictures will maybe come, they might not until I get home to America. Yeah...

Ok, it rained today, so I came back to change socks...

arrival

  So this is written sittin’ at Haneda airport with no wi-fi. I’ve still got that bobbing feeling in my head from yesterday’s long plane ride. Strange how that happens isn’t it? It’s like that ghost feeling you get at night after you’ve been at the amusement park riding roller coasters for a day. Or is that just me?... Anyway, check-in for my domestic flight to Fukuoka doesn’t start for another two hours…

  So the flight to Japan was a pretty interesting one, to say the least. Well, the beginning of the flight from LA to Narita was. Here’s what went down.

  I had bought the airplane ticket pretty early – early enough to get a nice isle and bulkhead seat. Good legroom + aisle access. Anywho, of course these seats usually accommodate those with little children. And a few minutes after getting situated, I was approached by an attendant who asked if I wanted to exchange seats to accommodate a parent with a child. It would be in exchange for an aisle seat. Who am I to refuse that without looking inconsiderate.

  Anyway, walking back to the other seat revealed a sticky situation – the seat was occupied and the people there were in the process of swapping people around so that families could sit together. I thought, whatever, I just needed a seat to sleep in. So I sat in the seat next to the isle seat, no biggie.

  So later, the attendant who offered the swap came back and was like, why aren’t you In an isle seat? This isn’t good, I feel bad. After more searching, and not being able to find an isle seat, she said she would continue to see what she could do. Flight takes off.

  After climbing to altitute, she comes back and says “We’re going to move you to 10D” and then she whispers “business class”. Hiding smiles, I gracefully accept. And so! My first business class experience was on a plane from LA to Japan. Unfortunately, I was too modest to take full advantage of the services – I dunno, something feels off about requesting a ton of food/drinks after being upgraded for free. What would you do? Hey, I did get a complimentary travel kit and slippers though…

  Still, the reclining chair and fancier meals were fantastic – couldn’t have asked for much more. Though, the people next to me had at least eight glasses of wine… But then again, they paid for it, I suppose. No pictures from the flight though – I might have had I been in economy section, but I got more self-conscious from the fact that I was upgraded for free. You’ll just have to believe me on this one.

  Since I arrived yesterday, and my flight to Fukuoka is today, I stayed at a hotel near Haneda airport. And you know what the first thing I did when I got in? Checked out the toilet. Heard stories and seen pictures of fancy toilets with water that shoots up your butt. This one wasn’t too fancy, but it certainly filled the water shower requirement… Yes, I tested it out. And yes, I was surprised at the velocity of the water stream. [SHOWER] is a bit misleading… It’s a… different feeling… unless you’ve been shot in the butt with a supersoaker before.

  On another note, I already knew I was bad at speaking Japanese, but coming here further reinforces the fact. (Yeah, it’s a little bit harsh assessemtn – being my first time in a Japanese environment – but that doesn’t change the fact that I suck). So yesterday at the airport bus stop, after getting the courage to ask the bus driver whether or not it was the correct bus to my hotel, I went up to him and asked something along the lines of, 「これは「おとりいしんかん」行きのバスですか」And he replied, 「Yes」. I was like, man, my Japanese must’ve been really bad if he had to reply in English. And then today, I thought at least my listening comprehension was OK. But nope, the lady at the check-in desk talked too fast for me to catch everything. *Sigh. We’ll see how this goes over the course of the summer.

Until next time!

japan!

  So! I've probably already let a lot of you know about this, but I'm going to Japan this summer!  Well, to be more accurate, my flight leaves Monday morning.  That's... less than four days away!  It's been quite the rush recently as well.  People keep asking me if I'm excited about the trip.  And honestly, I think I've been too busy to have built excitement in my mind.  Though, if I sit down to think about it, yes, I've been looking forward to this study abroad for quite some time now.

  Anyway, I proposed to keep a blog about the experience for one of the scholarships I received, and that's what took all of yesterday to create.  At first I was toying around with my own design. 

But I was never truly artistic, and halfway through, I decided it looked too amateur. That and I also thought about having to create the entire CSS for it and gave up. Instead I went around looking for templates to modify.

  Oh but before that, I wanted to try out Wordpress.com instead of blogger.  It looked more professional and I thought it would be a good feel for the blog.  Unfortunately, I didn't know about how limiting Wordpress.com is in regards to javascript and extensions.  I really like Lightbox (that image viewer that comes up when you click an image), but there just wasn't a good way of doing it at wp.com.  I spent some time searching and found a workaround, but it required an advertisement module to be placed on the sidebar.  Looked pretty ugly to me.  But I really really liked the theme I found on there.

  So, it was back to blogger, where I could use link external scripts.  Luckily I found an adapted version of the same layout and modified it a bit.  Right now, though, it has a random banner from my own picture collection, but I will be sure to update it with a pertinent image once I get to the host university (Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University) in Japan.  Since it's basically on a mountain overlooking the shore-side city of Beppu, I'm hoping I can get a nice shot of the sea and city.  Oh, here's the link to the LBAT Japan 2010 blogspot.

  My guess is most of my updates over the summer will be on that blog, but since it's associated with my university, there might be some posts here that might not be appropriate for the other blog.  No, no naughty stuff; but maybe more personal thoughts and observations.