色んな出来事

I've been keeping pretty busy between school and my brother being here so I haven't had much time at all to write any of it down. 2 weekends ago we went a bit west to Himeji Castle and Kobe. After seeing Himeji we came back to Kobe and had some of the world famous Kobe Beef. Quite pricey, but this beef was like butter. We also managed to get a gorgeous shot of Kobe from the train platform and it's one of my favourite Japan pictures yet. The next day we went to Osaka and wandered around a bit. Ended up at Osaka Castle in the afternoon. Great views of the city from the park there, but unfortunately my brother didn't take any really good shots of the city.









Last weekend we went to Tokyo via the 11:40 JR Dream Night Bus. I had heard some horror stories from Aaron and Andy about the night bus, but these stories, while maybe true when pertaining to the cheap crap-ass buses these guys rode, were completely false concerning our bus. The seats were huge, reclined about 140 degrees and had mini-leg rests. I slept like a baby, although the ride itself only takes about 6 and a half hours so you're still a little tired when you get to Tokyo anyway. Friday night we met up with Andy and Aki who had taken the Shinkansen and hung out together for the weekend. I realized on this trip that Tokyo, well at least the core city area isn't really that big. We walked basically the entire core city part from east to west in about 2 hours on Friday. The suburbs and all the outlying areas where it's still ridiculously built up is what gives everyone the image of this endless city. For example, the area where we were staying was a good 20-25 minute train ride from the city core, but the area itself was still just as crazily packed with buildings as Tokyo proper. Saturday it was pissing rain all day which didn't make for much good sightseeing, but it was still decent. Only really bad thing is that the areas we were visiting (Shinjuku, Shibuya) are busy enough as it is, but you give everyone an umbrella and you've got a recipe for disaster. The area in front of Shibuya station was particularly brutal. Sunday was a nicer day, but we were pretty wiped and didn't really do too much when compared with the other days. Then we took the night bus back Sunday night and got back into Kyoto at 6 am Monday morning.




















Yesterday we went and got my brother his new guitar. He played a couple different models including the cheaper version of the new Dir En Grey model but ultimately settled on an ESP Edwards E-FR-120GT. This baby oozes rock. Jet black, fantastic lines, double humbucker pickups. It's just plain old sexy. He also picked up a Japanese National Team Samurai Blue World Cup jersey. Number 5, Miyamoto Tsuneyasu.








Today we went down to the south end of Kyoto with Keiko and her friend from Kobe, Noriko, to the Fushimi Inari Taisha. Hands down this has been my favourite shrine in Japan so far. Konpira is very close, but Fushimi is just so amazing. There are hundreds of torii gates everywhere from business all across Japan who donated money to the shrine (it's famous as a shrine for prosperous business, go figure) and the shrine area itself is massive. Gotta be at least 15 acres or so. If you ever come to Kyoto this should be on your top three places to go along with Kiyomizu-dera and Kinkakuji.























And last but certainly not least.



July 31st, 2005-2006 It Withers and Withers Tour Final, Nippon Budokan, DIR EN GREY! Gonna be a wild show!

Nice Cut

I'm reminded of my childhood days in baseball. Our coach didn't care if we struck out. Just as long as we went down swinging and when we did he would always say "Nice cut". Sometimes when you're up at the plate you think you've got the pitcher figured out. You've been studying from the bench the whole game and are just ready to hit a dinger, but for some reason you get thrown some crazy ass curve or silder you had no idea was coming. If you're going to strike out you might as well go down swinging. Before you know it you'll be back up at the plate ready to hit that dinger.

Amazing Party...I Think...

Last Saturday we held our 3rd res party and it was a big hit. Quite easily our strongest party yet. It was great to have my brother here for it all as well. I didn't count the number of people but I'd estimate it at 30 plus. A lot of Japanese had their first introduction to the beer funnel that night and the cops showed up for a bit around 3 I think. Times like that I feel like a true cultural ambassador. As far a detailed report goes forget it. It's not that I don't remember, although I was way past gone, it's just too much effort and time is something I'm running short on these days. I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.

And on a completely unrelated note, did you see the season finale for Prison Break? COME ON! How can the people running that show do that to us?













































I have no idea when how they got me to take this picture and the only reason I'm putting it up is because I promised I would and I am a man of my word.