I think I missed a couple of days on here. Today was my last shakuhachi lesson. I certainly would like to continue with Kurahashi sensei in the future. He will try to visit Washington state and I would like to live in Kyoto again to take lessons. This week is mostly going to be for wrapping up all my class work. Man, time flys when your having fun. I wish I could stay longer, but my visa runs out and so would my money eventually. I still have enough saved up to come back, so I'll keep that in the bank. Hey next time I won't also have to pay tuition so I can stay that much longer (visa depending). Well thats all for now I guess. Until next time.
Chris

Figured I should write something before I leave for Osaka so I don't forget to write later. Well not much to say, looking forward to the concert should be fun. Today was pretty much just spent sitting about and tooting on my flute. Its still early, but I won't be back until probably 10 or so tonight. Tomorrow I'll probably rest, I went all over the place this weekend and today even more. Next weekend will be very busy too. I have to finish all my school work also. Wednesday I think I'll go to Fushimi Inari. Hopefully I can get some new pictures, its been awhile, rain makes me hesitant to take my camera outside. Well thats all I guess.

I think I missed another day, I'm getting alittle lazy or something. Anyway, things are going well here. I finally start piling up a busy schedule and I have to leave in two weeks. bah. Well such is life. Yesterday I spent the day with Naomi san. We walked here and there and had a good day. She invited me to go to Ohara next weekend which sounds like fun. Today I went to Uji and met with Masami. She is good fun to be around, pretty too, which certainly doesn't hurt. I left here at 9:30am and got back at 10:30pm. A long day, but went so very quickly. It rained almost the entire time. We went to Byoudoin first and then walked to some other shrines and so forth and some bridges. Then decided it would be good to eat something. Couldn't really find anything so we decided to head back to Kyoto and find someplace to eat. We walked down Shijo and found a small Italian resturant. We had pizza and salad, oishikatta da yo. Talked for a bit and then decided to go to Kyomizudera. It is lit up at night to show of the momiji (fall leaves). Oh my goodness was it busy, mechya hito ga ookatta da yo. We took the bus from near the resturant and had to wait for the next bus because no one else could fit on the first one. The second on was crammed too. When we got there we had to walk up the hill to get there and it was sooo busy, we even had to stop, because the temple was full. We finally got there
and walked through the mass of people around and out again. Beautiful, but hard to enjoy with so many people. After that we walked around and looked for some jinja we never ended up finding, got back to the main street and went to starbucks, hehe. Talked for a while and finally walked toward the train station. We parted ways about 10 I suspect. Then I had to go back to the subway station and make my way home. Whew, I can't believe how fast the day went, crazy. Time flies when your having fun though. She is great, easy to smile and laugh, thats my kind of person. Tomorrow I may forget to write here again, I'm going to Osaka for a honkyoku concert. I just have to figure out where I'm going. I have a map drawn by my sensei and what trains I need to take to get there. Shouldn't be too hard, only one transfer. Jya, oyasumi.

Yup.....anyway. Today I had my lesson, it was good. I got a new song to learn, choshi. I now have about a million songs to work on, hehe. Lets see, choshi, daiwagaku, sanya sugagaki, kyorei, yoshi yojishi, kurokami, rokudan no shirabe, nagara no haru, Iyo rembo, kumoijishi. 10 songs! Well I have pretty much got the hang of most of them, so no worries, just practice keeps the songs coming together. What else.. I ran into Naomi, gonna call her tomorrow see what she is doing. She even had some english sentences to test on me. Mugi(the dog) is well and was going to get together with a border collie, Naomi's friends dog. Jya...Did some more translating from the manga. I'm certainly enjoying that. I guess thats about it. Mine time here is getting close to an end. I will certainly miss it, but would like to spend Christmas with my family before I come back. Finished my TEFL class. All done. Hurray. That was a long class. Helpful in the long run for sure though. I can list my certificate on applications and my resume. Speaking of which I need to finish writing my essay and get that application tied up and sent off. ...... mata ne,
Chris

Today I practiced my shakuhachi and wrote alittle poetry. I worked on translating the Mushishi manga I bought, that is keeping me busy and I'm learning lots of new words at the same time. This seems to be a good way for me to learn new vocab. Some things I will have to have help on, but for the most part I think it is going well. Here is alittle bit I did today; if anyone can comment on if it is correct or not that would be helpful : )
山の様子がおかしいんでお役に立てるかとおもいましてね。
The mountains strange state is due to the role in erecting something I'm thinking. (something like that anyway)
長。。。ああ。。。ならば　ぜひ。
Chief... like that... in that case certainly. (the village people talking to the chief)
お頼みしたい事がある。
There is a favour I want to ask. (directed toward Ginko san (main character).)
この山深くに住む
In this mountains depths lives--
ムジカという蟲師を捜してはもらえまいか。
We must search for Mujika the mushishi. (?)

I did quite a bit more, but will certainly need someone to see if the translation is correct at all.

Hello,
I think I posted in a different one yesterday instead of this one. My bad. Anyway not much going on. I finished my TEFL class. I turned in the last worksheet and my final essay. I got everything for my JET application, just waiting on things to come in the mail. Time is running out, I hope everything makes it on time. I bought some manga to try and read. I figured it would help with my Japanese. I am trying to translate it myself which is proving difficult. The conversation parts won't be that hard, but the long explanitory sentences will be difficult. Well I posted some poems on my poem blog thingy. Then I forgot to post on this one. Hopefully I will be able to get together with Masami again this weekend, she is fun to hang out with. I must say I'm rather bored. I want to go some places, but I'm kinda tired of going by myself. Everyone is getting more busy these days though. Oh well, I'll have to go to the places by my lonesome then. Jya
Chris

Today nothing much is gonna happen for the rest of the day so I figured that I'd write this now since I seem to be forgetting before I go to bed. Well I tried to to my practice but only got about 20-30 minutes in. It was just too rainy. After yesterdays fun, today seems to very dull. I went to Naomi san's house, but no one was home, next time then. I met with Yamamoto san and we discussed what to write for the website, I guess he never got my e-mail. He commissioned me to do several drawings, one of a shakuhachi and one of the front of Yurakuso. In exchange he took off about $100 from my last months rent. Seems like a nice trade to me. This will also give me something to look forward to drawing. I've already gotten started on both drawings. The shakuhachi one I will do several and see what he likes.
It is interesting how the rain changes depending on how you feel. Yesterday the rain was very welcome and made my day with Masami that much more enjoyable. Today the rain makes me feel alittle lonely. Walking in the rain last night holding the umbrella for Masami so she would not get wet, laughing, talking forgetting the cold. Today the cold rain seemed to beat down on me, staying outside in the rain just didn't feel right. There is a difference between the rain in the forest and the rain in a city. In the forest rain makes everything come alive, the sound, the dance of the greenery and the chitter of birds. In the city unless you have someone to share the rain with, or to complain how cold it is, it just feels dead. I need to hike in the forest rain here in Japan. Normally I love the rain, but I have never lived in such a big city before, the feeling is different. I still do love to open my window and listen to the rain, but a city street is certainly not the best place to feel the real essence of rain. Dark sky, blowing leaves, the falling rain are what fall is about, but the concrete and noise of the traffic defeat any real wonder of the season that is fall. Sometimes I wonder if people who dwell in the thick life of the city truly have a place to quiet their souls. Many escape to the forests, but still many more nary enter a forest, it had become foriegn to them.
Another thought while I'm at it. Is chivelry truly dead? I feel it is left to a slowly dying breed. Do we not expect certain behavior from a man towards a woman? It shouldn't only be shown towards a lover. A stranger, friend, girl-friend, wife, mother, grandmother. I was raised to respect women. Open a door for a woman, shield her from the rain, use respectable language and manners, give her your coat is she is cold. To make sure a woman feels loved and respected is important or just to show kindness to a stranger, it is fleeting these days and will be something a person will remember. Without women the human race would literally cease to exist. I would make sure a woman is comfortable over my own comfort. It is not that women are incapable, certainly they are much more capable than any man is willing to let on (hehe). It is a showing of respect for the gender that has had it difficult all through time. Being treated as second class citizens even in many places today. They should always feel like queens, they do so much work with little credit. I like that nowadays many places have given women more freedom to work or do what they wish with their lives, but chivelry should not die with this, but work to fit with the new times. I will pass these values to my children in the future and I would only hope they do the same.

Yesterday I had a great time. I had a normal morning doing what I always do. Around noon I left to meet Masami a girl whom sent me an e-mail about a week ago saying she wanted to get together. I have never met someone through the internet before so it was kind of odd for me. It was the same situation for her also. We were to meet at Marutamachi station and then hit the town. She lives near Osaka but came to visit Kyoto to meet with me. We met around 1 o' clock at the station and wandered out onto the street. I figured we would just talk for awhile and then be on our way. She just wanted to practice her English with me. I was right and wrong. We walked here and there and went to several resturants throughout the day. We ended up spending almost 9 hours together walking and talking. We talked about this and that and the other thing. I found out she likes art, but hasn't done any recently. Maybe next time we get together we can draw, she needs to re-ignite that passion for art. I can see she truly likes to paint and draw make ceramics and so forth. Her job makes it difficult to do that though. I hope she wasn't put off by my eternally aimless wandering. As I mentioned early on in the day I generally don't make detailed plans, just general ones. For example the activities for our day together were 1. Meet her 2. Go someplace 3. Get some coffee or something. That was the depth of my plans. I think in order to create a memorable day something needs to go alittle awry. First off I couldn't find the shop I was thinking of going to. Then it started to rain, we got alittle lost on the way back to the subway station. If everything had gone according to plan it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. Her English skills are pretty good, as she mentioned she doesn't like to sit and study the grammar, but she does need to work on that some. She is very understandable and has a good vocabulary. When there were words she couldn't think of Japanese worked well to fill it in, but I wanted to stick to English mostly because thats why she came in the first place, not for me to practice on her. Certainly a day to remember. She wants to get together again. We are going to try to go to Byoudoin. That should be fun.

Today was a very slow day. I woke up at my usualy time, sat, watched a couple of shows and then went to practice shakuhachi by the river. I returned, sat watched some shows ate lunch, wrote more in my paper and translated the cover to my shakuhachi notation book. That was fun. It says: 尺八楽譜 shakuhachi notation 邦楽社発行Japanese music association publication 米谷和男民謡選集Yoneya Iwao folk song selection. I tried to translate some of the song titles but many are old names and words I couldn't seem to find. I'll have to ask someone to tell me what they are. I added the new kanji to my 'to learn kanji' list. I drew an ink picture with a brush pen I bought a couple of days ago. My camera ran out of batteries so I will post the pictures when I get that back up and running. These cold fall days are making me lazy I think. I wander less, but get more writing and so forth done, I guess thats good and bad at the same time. Tomorrow I meet Masami san the woman I met on the internet to practice her English with. That will be fun. I need to take more pictures. Still have to go to Kyomizudera, Tofukuji, Fushimi Inari and the Arashiyama area. Well I guess that is all for now. Jya mata ne,
Chris

Seems I missed a day or something. Well not much happened, I have been writing my various papers. I have one for an application, one for my TEFL class and the main one for Evergreen. I think I've made an important decision here; although I always thought to keep studying during my whole life, I think I will make it more of a full-time pursuit. There are so many things I want to learn that I can't just stop and settle down. I need to keep moving and learning, language, art, music, etc.. Easier said than done though. I think one way to keep myself going is to create small research projects which someone will be expecting to recieve that way I will actually finish them. As far a language goes I will probably need to take classes. There are 4 languages I want to eventually be proficient in: Japanese, Sanskrit, Spanish and Arabic. Japanese mostly because I plan on spending more time here and my study of the shakuhachi and woodblock printing. Sanskrit so I can study the scriptures in their original form. Spanish because next to English seems to be very wide spread. Arabic because it seems to be an important language in our century, and I like the writing. These languages will also allow me to travel and understand people in different places. Of course art is my main focus of study, but doesn't really feel like study because I enjoy is so much, same goes for the shakuhachi. These are things I would do anyway. I enjoy language and history also, but they take more prompting to get completed for me. Well thats all for today. Tonight I'm going back to that nice little cafe with Sybill to study more kanji, she is the one who really motivated me to study language more. She knows German, French, English, and Latin. Quite impressive I do say. In the meantime I need to figure out what to do with the day. I can't write all day that would..well ..be tedious I need to do some wandering, at least alittle. Jya ne
Chris

Sorry forgot last night to post. Yesterday I just worked on some class stuff in the morning, playing shakuhachi, nihongo study, added alittle to my paper so forth. In the afternoon I got together with Sybill (sp?) to study with her. We used a book she got of kanji listed by radical. We went through and got down about 50 I think to study for the week. After she ate we went to the @ cafe; a small cafe we had gone to before with Olivie. We brought our study stuff and got something to drink and studied kanji and various things related to Japanese until about 9 something. Got to talk to the part owner. They have people come in and the other owner lady teaches English or just does conversation in English with her guests. The fellow we were talking to also speaks some English. We talked in Japanese and English for awhile before we headed on our way. I think we are going to make this a regular spot to go and study. Nice atmosphere, small, a friendly dog and generally not very many people, but not empty. Well now I've got my work cut out for me as far as memorizing new kanji. I like the idea of learning by radicals but it is not always practical. I think some of the kanji aren't used very often. Eventually it will be good for me though to know these. Thats pretty much it, went to bed pretty soon after I got back.

Today was a completely lazy day. I practiced shakuhachi, but couldn't quite wake up. I sauntered home, layed back and watched the minutes slowly pass. Shuffled to the store to buy some food, and slowly padded my way back. I drew a picture in the dim light of the fading day of a beauty clad in an almost equally lovely kimono. Time passed slowly as the gentle rain played its soft melody outside my window. I sat back watching the flickering light of my screen, drifting into thoughts of happy times. The evening came and slide away beneath my feet until a knock came to my door. Knock, knock... chotto mate... Ah, the evenings festivities would soon begin. Thus my time is at an end, and soon I will go and join my friends. Adieu, good bye I say again. Until next time, sleep well and dream of pleasant things.

I had my shakuhachi lesson today. I'm now learning kyorei the oldest shakuhachi piece in the koten honkyoku repertiore. It uses different fingering and breathing techniques than the sankyoku pieces I've been learning up to now with Kurahashi sensei. The komuso used the shakuhachi for meditation. This piece requires full breaths and simplified yet difficult notes. Two schools of though exist the old meri notes played in modern times; one that the notes should be kept the same; two that they should be modernized as the monks might have wanted them to be. My sensei's school follows the first. Thus instead of normal tsu-meri with the shading on the first hole, only a dai-meri position is taken to create an 'impossible' note. This note is the same pitch as tsu-meri, but with a special tone color. This goes for the other meri notes also. The piece overall is very simple but beautiful in its simplicity. This is one of the three first shakuhachi pieces created. Here is the story of Fuke and the creation of the Fuke-shu from as I remember it: In a small village in China there existed a monk by the name of Fuke. He would walk around town ringing his bell and shouting at passerbyers. Most of the town folk thought fuke to be kind of looney. He did have one disciple who was devoted to Fuke's method of showing people the means to enlightenment. Fuke had one peom that completely summed up his philisophy. Goes something like this 'If you encounter someone bright hit him on the head, if you encounter someone dull, hit him on the head, if you encounter anyone at all hit them like a whirlwind, if you encounter emptyness hit it most severly of all'. Well one day Fuke decided his time was at an end and had a coffin built for him. He took it around town asking the villagers to nail him inside while he was still alive. Of course noone was willing to do this. He left the village and came upon a travelling merchant. He asked the man to do his bidding and the man oblidged. When the merchant reached the village he told the story of what had happened. The villagers were horrified and ran to fetch Fuke's disciple. They ran to where the coffin was and pried it open. When they looked inside no trace of Fuke was to be found, only the distant ringing of his bell. That night his disciple had a dream. In that dream he could hear his master's bell ringing. He cut a length of bamboo and made a flute and played along with the ringing of the bell. When he awoke in the morning he remember the songs and wrote them down. Kyorei (empty bell) was one of these three songs.
After my lesson I took the subway back to my side of town and walked along the river to my practice spot to go over what I had just learned. Then I ran into Naomi san and Mugi the dog. She stopped and let me finish my song. As I finshed a man was listening and gave me a piece of sheet music; sakura sakura. I thanked him and he went on his way. Then she bade me to sit and we talked for awhile. She knows alittle English and wanted to practice and I got to practice my Japanese with her. Mugi went nuts everytime another dog walked by, he is a funny little critter. We talked and talked and then it got dark. She walked back to see where I live and then went on her way home. I think she means to invite me over for dinner or something, she kept asking what food I like and where she lives. Well that might be fun. Now I'm sitting and thinking about the day. Well it was a pleasent day.

Today was pretty simple day. I got up at 7 or so like normal and ate some breakfast which was alittle tastier after my day and a half fast. I studied nihongo alittle and practiced my shakuhachi by the river. Today was really fall like. The wind was blustering and the leaves falling from the trees. Finally it is getting kinda cold here. I still didn't have to wear my jacket though, soon enough I think. I walked to near the giant boat in the hill and back around to home. I'm almost done with my TEFL class probably another week or so should be all the time I need to finish it. I have to finish my unit 19 here tomorrow I think. Mainly waiting for feedback on my term paper so I know how to fix it up and continue to make it a finished product. At about four I got together with Taka and we studied nihongo for a couple of hours. My goodness is she lovely. We went over the new words I'm learning and added some new ones. I'm going to start my nihongo journal again, but on paper so I can take it to her and she will correct it. We also went over the previous lessons main point of naninani ikemasu, or dekimasu, or whatever for I can do such and such. A very simple change of the u sound to e or the ru to re or suru to dekiru. We also went over naninani nai de kudasai, or please don't ---. For example please don't cry; nakanai de kudasai. I'd learned that before but was a good refresher. Up until this last week most of it has been just refreshing my memory and practice. Now I'm starting to learn some new grammar which is exciting. Of couse I'm always learning new words too. Jya mata ne,
Chris

Today I am fasting. I decided I should renew my devotional practices and start a once weekly fast as a symbol of respect and devotion to God. Each Monday I will fast for the entire day, but can drink water.
I hiked a good 7 or 8 miles today to Takagaike. I walked around on the trails and found some very scenic spots overlooking the city. My shakuhachi spot was being manicured today so I had to move down the river aways to play. Hopefully they will have finished and moved on by tomorrow. Besides that not a whole lot happened today. Still kinda early but figured nothing else would happen before I go to sleep. Jya ne.
Chris

I walked to the river to practice shakuhachi like everyday. At the beginning of my practice I ran into Takeshi one of my neighbors here whom I always say hello to but not much more. We talked for a minute or so about the shakuhachi in Japanese before he went on his way. As I was nearing the end of my practice a familiar face walked by. It was a woman whom I had briefly met before when her dog decided he liked the shakuhachi. After I had played through my last piece she was playing with her dog and then walked over to talk to me. I met Mugi as the dog is called. She tried to explain that it means wheat in English. Mugi is a miniature little dog only 7 months old. I also got her name, Naomi. We talked about shakuhachi and Mugi for a little bit in my broken Japanese and the few words of English she knew. Then I asked what time it was and met her husband. We talked abit more about the river and mountains and where Koyasan is located. I showed them the music I'm currently learning and explained best I could the different schools and types of shakuhachi music I had in my binder. She asked if I always come to the same spot. I told her I always come there at 10. She said we'll talk again and we said our goodbyes and parted ways.
That was probably the longest conversation I've had in Japanese thus far. We talked for probably 20 minutes or so. Taka's help certainly has given me more confidence in my speaking. The other day I even had a whole, short, but whole conversation with a passing fellow about the shakuhachi. I understood everything he said which was very nice.

Yesterday was a fun day. I started the day by going to the river to practice shakuhachi for alittle bit. Then I had to leave for my lesson with Kurahashi sensei. I walked to the Kitaoji eki and made my way to Kujo eki. During the lesson we went over all of the songs except Kurokami as we did not have time. No new song this week, now I must work on the pieces at hand until they are played smoothly. I returned home about 1 in the afternoon and worked on various class stuff. Olivie told me about a makeshift dinner party in the evening so I left to get something to bring. I got some cookies and kirin biru. We all got together around 6 something in the evening and had a nice dinner and conversation. Olivie, Taka, Mitsuko, and David were there. We didn't part ways until about 12 or so. Well I guess that is all for the day.

Today was pretty much like any other day. Got up practiced shakuhachi, studied, so forth. At about 3 in the afternoon I was sitting in Takas room and we were talking and suddenly we heard a drum beat. We started to talk about Matsuri and then we heard another drum beat and another getting closer. We nabbed our shoes and ran out the door to the street. Right when we popped out the front of the Matsuri parade was walking by the door. People chanting and playing the drum marching along were walking by. As the parade moved along we got to see the various dieties homes being carried by, some pulled by loads of children and men, others carried on their shoulders. Nearing the end we could hear the shinobue music and reminants of the parade. Last to come were many kids and thier moms walking and chanting. That was fun I said to myself and we walked back indoors.

Today I went for my planned hike to Biwa-ko. I knew I needed an early start so I began my journey at 9:30 in the morning. I had alittle bit to eat and drink, grabbed my camera and set out the door. I knew from my estimated timeframe that this venture would take around 8 hours to complete. Here is a simple breakdown of time; 2 hours for travel time outside of the Daimonjiyama trails, 6 on the trails in the forest. When all was said and done my approximation was pretty close. 7 1/2 hours in total of walking non-stop. Once I made it to the foot of Daimonji the hiking really began. Up and up I climbed at a nice quick pace making it to the top in about 20min. Of course by the time I reached the very top I was rather tired. I knew this to be the peak so I didn't worry about it too much. The trail was quite busy until I reached the peak then I didn't see another person for another 2 1/2 hours. I found signs pointing to a temple so I decided that would be my destination. I was pretty sure that would take me to Otsu city and lake Biwa. I continued on for some time and saw a sign for some sort of koen off to the right. Sometime I will have to go back and see what it is, but for the time being the temple was my destination. I continued alittle bit further and ran into an old shack and what looked like a newer building, but passed them by also. I knew if I wanted to spend anytime in Otsu when I got there I would have to bypass anything of nominal interest. Eventually I got to the top of the hill where the trail began to decend again. It popped out onto a small road with some sort of electricity place at the top and went down the road alittle ways and back into the woods and down down it went. About half way down I ran into my first wild monkey. It looked and me then ran away. I wanted to get a picture, but oh well. Again I ran into another power station place making a loud humming noise. I continued down some more and got to a small clearing with about 4 different options, one in each diretion and another in one of the directions. I was kind of at a loss for which way to go. I first chose forward direction 1 but soon found it overgrown and unpromising. Then I chose forward direction 2 and again found my self at a point in which I didn't want to continue without some sort of sign. I walked back to the clearing and by now had wasted a half and hour going down bad trails. I went to the left this time and what do you know but I found a sign pointing to the temple only alittle ways in. I continued down and down some more and found some signs of people; I several small graveyard areas. As I continued down I started to hear people talking and then saw a couple of houses and people burning something. Hurray I made it, I was now in Otsu. I shortly thereafter made it to the temple I was looking for. This was not just a temple but a big temple complex. I walked around for awhile taking in the sights and found a nice overlook of the city. Not a very big city as far as I could tell, but was built on the shores of Japan's biggest lake, Biwa-ko. The lake didn't really look all that interesting so I didn't actually go down to the water, just took some pictures from my vantage point. I got something to drink and wandered around alittle bit more. Then I figured it would be best to start heading back. I wandered into the forest and returned down the same paths I had travelled to get there. Eventually I made it back to the top of Daimonjiyama. I found there an Italian fellow speaking English with two Japanese fellows. They were talking about food. I butted in and asked about any particularly good vegetarian food in Japan. I've had some, but thought they might know something I had not tried. Not much luck, but good to talk to random people. I left and wandered back into the city. When I had made it back to the Kamogawa I ran into an English fellow playing the shakuhachi. So of course I had to stop and talk to him for alittle bit. I studies under the Tozan school. He was just on vacation and planning to take a lesson while in town. After that I just walked back home with my weary feet and sat down to eat. After almost eight hours of walking on just nomimono and some cereal I was getting hungry. The day was at an end and soon I let myself go to sleep.

Today was a good day all in all. I started the day by going to the river and playing my shakuhachi. For me it felt like the first real day of autumn here. A thin fog lay over the city giving it a nice feeling. The trees are beginning to change colors and the temperature has dropped some. Early in the morning now has the brisk feel of an autumn day back in Spokane. After I returned home I decided to venture out and about. I decided to take a random road to see where it would take me. I went up one bridge from the one going to Kamigamo Jinji and went up a road. It wound around a bit and led me to a college at the edge of the city. Classes must have just been getting out as row after row of mopeds and motorcycles wizzed by on the road. After I passed the school I continued on alittle ways until I got to the end of the city and a road that led to Kurama and Kibune, small towns about 30min drive from there. I will have to visit them before I leave. I walked back around to an area of the city I had previously been and visited a temple I had been meaning to see again. I got a couple pictures of the temple and made my way back home. All in all it only took me about 3 hours of walking to make that loop. I had a strange feeling though, a twinge of lonelyness struck at me for some reason. I came back home and to the store, ate some dinner around 4 and then kinda made up an excuse for myself to go visit Taka. I'm certainly glad I did. We talked until about 7 and then walked under the light of the moon down past the botanical gardens and talked some more. That evaporated any of my lonely feelings from earlier in the day. I have been coming up with many topics for us to discuss. For me she is one in a million, a person I can talk to like this brings a different kind of feeling for me. I can talk to anyone, but this kind of click happens and it brings a new level to the relationship. Well anyway. Now I am tired and thinking to much to get anymore writing done. Oyasumi

Chris