Wow, it's already almost Thanksgiving. That happened quick. I suppose that means it's time to update this. Plus a couple people have asked me to... so here goes.

The trip to Mount Shosha a while back with Regan and our friend Mizuto was fun. It's a really beautiful spot not far from Regan's place in Himeji (about 2 hours by train from Kyoto). We took a ropeway up to the top of the mountain and proceeded to tour most of the shrines. The moutain has recently turned into a bigger tourist spot due to the fact scenes from "The Last Samurai" were shot here. The English brochures even have scenes from the movie in them. Anyway, here's some pictures:

View from the top of the mountain of the valley below

View from the bottom of one of the larger shrines

My camera can do some sweet panoramic shots

The next day Regan and I went to the garden in front of Himeji castle. I guess I didn't notice this as much the last time I was in Japan because I was in Tokyo, but autumn here is really beautiful... guess I don't get much of this in Hawaii or LA:

Since then, I haven't been up to too much. Lisa visited last weekend for the Grey's Anatomy marathon. It was rainy the entire time so we didn't feel so guilty about staying in all weekend. We did voyage out and find a really good ramen place however. The staff was super nice to us, but only spoke to Lisa even though I was speaking Japanese to them (Lisa is Japanese-American and looks much less... foreign... than I do). The highlight of the the little conversation when we paid was when he looked at me, then turned to Lisa and said, "She cute. Very tall. Is she from Sweden?" Pardon me? What? I know I'm blond, but really? I like how 5'6" constitutes "very tall" here. Take that, every one of you reading this who has called me short at one point or another. :)

I've also been helping plan the annual Fulbright Thanksgiving dinner. It's one of only two times during the year all 12 of us get together, so I'm definitely looking forward to it. We discovered that the Sheraton Kobe does a deal through the Foreign Buyers' Club, and prepares a turkey with all of the other stuff for about $200. We ordered two. haha. It saved us the trouble of trying to track down an oven big enough to cook the turkey (let alone the very fact that I don't think any of us knew how to prepare the bird properly). Most homes in Japan actually don't have ovens... most Japanese consider going to a nice bakery for pastries and baked goods to be a better experience, I guess.

Rachel gets here on December 2nd and will be here for about five days. I'm super excited! We haven't seen each other since graduation, which we realized is pretty much the longest amount of time we've gone since starting college. We've almost figured out our travel plans to South East Asia in February, which I am also quite excited about.

We decided to call off the trip to Okinawa for now since the high will be around 66... which isn't exactly beach going weather in my book. We'll probably try again in the spring. I definitely still want to go.

Oh, I finally uploaded all the pictures I have taken here, so feel free to check them out at:

http://community.webshots.com/user/haileyinkyoto

I think that's it for now... a little over a month until I'm home!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone - take care! :)

So I have kind of developed a routine for my life in Japan. I guess that's a good mark that I have settled in. My life isn't terribly exciting (which is probably part of why I haven't updated this in a week or so), but I'm comfortable and the time is going by much quicker than I thought it would.

In quick summary, my weekdays are spent in Japanese class for three hours where I proceed to get annihilated (I am slowly discovering why all the Fulbrights before me found these classes to be too rigorous and dropped out), I either go out to lunch with the Oxy junior studying abroad here or people from the grad school, come home and spend several hours online talking to people on Skype and AIM, go for a run around Kyoto Palace (which is about the same distance as running the Rose Bowl), make dinner, watch some Grey's Anatomy, do my homework, and go to bed.

Weekends are far more exciting, since I usually try and meet up with some of the other Fulbrighters who are a short train ride away. I find myself feeling far more comfortable around them than I am with people at my own university. It's nice to talk to people who are sharing some of the experiences, whether they be the downsides, such as challenging classes and feelings of isolation, to the more positive, such as trips to cool site-seeing destinations or the new friend we might have met that week.

Two weeks ago Regan (my friend on JET) came to visit me for the weekend. We grabbed burgers and Starbucks downtown on Friday. Saturday we went to Osaka to meet up with Amy (another FB). We shopped, rode the huge Ferris wheel at Hep5 mall in Umeda, and had some good Korean for dinner. Below are pictures from the Ferris wheel, which runs through the ceiling of the mall and has a great view of Osaka:

I also managed to buy an electronic dictionary that night in the electronics district, so I have finally upgraded from the paperback version I had all through college. Sunday, Regan and I went to Kinkos to have my meishi (Japanese-style business cards) printed, and then we took an absurdly long and bus ride through Gion to go to a temple we'd picked out from Lonely Planet. The funny part is that we ended up going to the wrong place and went to a smaller accompanying temple. This particular one was quite pretty though, as the pictures below can attest. It's called Sho-ren-in and was one of the main lodging facilities for several well-known priests primarily during the Kamakura era:

Last weekend was low key... I just hung out by myself around Kyoto, caught up on my reading, took care of some errands...

Tomorrow I have the day off thanks to another odd Japanese holiday (Culture Day), so I'll be staying with Regan in Himeji tonight. We're supposedly going with a friend that went to the college we studied abroad at two years ago to this ropeway outside of Himeji where scenes from "The Last Samurai" were shot. Bryan is coming to visit on me on Saturday and Sunday so hopefully I'll get some more pictures. The leaves should be changing color soon (a sight Kyoto is famous for), so I should have some postcard worthy shots in the next couple of weeks. Lisa is supposedly visiting me next weekend so I can expose her to the glory that is Grey's. :)

That's it for now.. I have some errands to do - like figuring out a trip to Okinawa next month.

Oh, I changed the settings so anyone can leave a comment - so comment away, faithful readers... comment away.

Take care!