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!