Kyle's Japan Blog » Uncategorized

Nightlights.

chris — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:24:44 +0000

Tonight I got a surprise call from one of my friends, Ceili (Kay-lee). She lives right next to me, and we often visit each other. Today she popped up at my door with a last minute invitation and I got ready in two minutes flat. We joined five other people and headed downtown, to a light up at one of the temples. Kiyomizu is a pretty famous temple, and is known for being built on a waterfall. I’d been there twice, but this was the first time I went the whole way through. It was pretty amazing. It wasn’t lit by lanterns or anything as romantic as that, just normal lamps. However, the light bouncing off of the buildings and the autumn leaves created a stunning effect. It was also raining (as it seems to almost every day here in Kyoto), and that seemed to caste a slight fuzzy glow to everything. Or that may have just been the blur of my camera. Nevertheless, it was pretty nice, and I hope to maybe go again before they stop the light up.

Light up night!

(sorry for the sideways picture…)

After the temple, we walked for a bit and found a restaurant. I wasn’t very hungry, so I tried something from and oden. Oden is kind of a weird soup that has chunks of vegetables or meat in it. I ended up getting this:

It’s kind of a tofu bag filled with something that has the consistency of melted mochi. Very… strange. I still don’t know whether I like it or not. My stomach is also unsure… Maybe it just doesn’t know how to digest traditional Japanese foods. I don’t really blame it, though. Sometimes it’s kind of hard to judge what exactly a food is. But that’s really part of the fun. I love not knowing what I’m ordering half the time, and when I do recognize something, I’m almost tempted to get a different mystery food, even if I know what I want. It bothers me all of the people who come to Japan and don’t want to try new things. Or they get tired of this one dish, but aren’t brave enough to try another (as I write this, I know that karma may come and I may have to eat my words… pun not intended). However, I am kind of biased. I love most Japanese food, and have found few dishes that I outright dislike. If I were traveling to a place like India, I may be less adventurous because while I like their food, I do not like all of it. Japanese food in general is simple, most times mushy, and has meat with slabs of fat still attached.

And he succeeds!

chris — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:26:36 +0000

Well, this morning was our first typhoon in Kyoto, which is worthy enough for me to break my blogging fast. Since I’m a desert woman, any more than an inch of rain makes me worry. So I had no idea what to expect from a typhoon. I was relieved in the morning (most of it passed throughout the night) to find that my apartment was unscathed. Actually… everything was fine. A few branches fell off trees, and there are leaves everywhere.

The worst of the damage.

Though during the night it seemed pretty dramatic. I woke up once to find my whole apartment lightly shaking and another time to the wind. The city sirens went off around 2-3am, but apparently I’m the only one who heard them. So now I can stand proudly and say I’ve lived through a typhoon! I’m sure my grandchildren will be amazed.

Quick Update Post

Kyle — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:46:52 +0000

Sorry for the lack of updates but I’ve decided to do something quite different this time around in Japan. Instead of just doing a weekly update that says what I did for the week, I’m going to do a series of more informative posts. I mean, I’m going to be in school mostly, that’s just boring.
Instead, I’m going to being doing posts on Japanese culture from my perspective. My first post (which I’m working on) will be on food and all its glory here. I’ll even have a seperate post on all the vending machines. Its amazing! I know it will be amazing.
My first post will be up sometime this week. It will have amazing pictures for you to look at as well as a story or two. I might even see if Christina will write something. Who knows.

-Kyle

5 days to go!

chris — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 01:47:16 +0000

Well, it’s five days till we go to Japan. I’ve been spending most of my time with family and friends, which has grown almost exponentially these last few weeks. When I left for my road trip in the middle of August, there were only our two new roommates, Melanie and Stalin, and my mom. Now we are temporarily housing Will, a longtime friend, and Yvonne, one of Melanie’s close friends. In addition to that, our pet population has more than doubled. We now have three dogs, two cats, a turtle, and a snake. We are the free equivalent of a hostel.
It’s been a pleasant surprise, however. Everyone gets together remarkably well, and the pets are doing just fine. Instead of having strangers stay in our house, it just feels like our family has expanded.

On the other hand, the fact that I’m going to Japan has finally hit me. To steady my nerves I’ve envisioned every single detail of landing in Japan. Then to make sure I’m not one of those passive-aggressive anal types, I run it over and over in my head. Each time I visualize it, landing in Japan and doing simple things like walking to the grocery store become less surreal and more manageable. More than anything, I’m excited for the challenge of everyday life in a country where I don’t know the language. Although, the thought of being a blue eyed, blonde haired “icon” there still scares me…

-Chris.

First Week of School

Kyle — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:53:40 +0000

Hey everyone! I hope that everyones wonderful summer is going wonderfully. I know mine has so far. My first week of summer classes has ended. Quite boring if I do say so my self but alas, I need the class. It doesn’t look that hard.

So Chris and I have been talking a lot about Japan and the up and coming trip to said place. Should be fun. I hope so. We are both worried about the expense. Hopefully we will be getting some schalarships to offset the cost of living in such a wonderful place. If we don’t, we will just be eating rice…a lot.

As for anything wrong on the site, sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong so just send me an email. I’ll try to fix it.

-Kyle

Disney World Pictures

Kyle — Fri, 29 May 2009 02:12:07 +0000

Just a quick note: the pictures of Disney World are up! I know it’s exciting. I mean I could hardly keep my self from screaming in joy when they were posted.

So if you just take a gander at the galleries to the right, you’ll have pictures.

-Kyle

School Year Is Ending

Kyle — Mon, 04 May 2009 21:21:30 +0000

The year is almost over for me! I have two weeks left then I’m off to Disney World. I really can’t wait for this to be over with. I’m rather worried about most of my classes as I’m taking some pretty hard ones this semester. Currently I’m studying for my finals that are next week. Most of my teachers thought it nice to give us one last set of homework this week instead of just reviewing. They are ever so kind.

So for now, I’m off to read about physics.

-Kyle

It’s a tardis, t-a-r-d-i-s.

chris — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 03:34:07 +0000

So, I came down to join Kyle in the partaking of dinner. We have both been procrastinating on our homework. I have been doing quizzes and playing games. He? He has been photoshopping both he and the TARDIS into a picture.

What happens when Kyle procrastinates.

I thought it was very cool.

Still… isn’t productive procrastination in a way… counterproductive?

- Chris.

This is a test.

chris — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:40:46 +0000

Testing, one, two. Testing.

(Edit: This is a post from Christina. What she didn’t mention was that her and I are going to be using this blog together. I just added her to this so she can write posts. Of course this is what she wrote. -Kyle)

Hello All

Kyle — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 05:36:04 +0000

Not much to say. I’ve been working hard at school. I’m studying hard. I have a Japanese presentation to do on Wednesday so I hope that goes well.

On the left side of the page you’ll notice something new ^-^. That little guy is my avatar from Xbox Live. What’s so cool about that you ask? Not everyone has those yet. I was lucky, and I got a new update for the Xbox 360 early! I’m special I guess. So I got to make my little avatar guy. It makes me happy. He seems happy as well.

~Kyle