long time no blog post

sorry about the long absence everyone! it's become ridiculously hard to get ahold of (good) internets for longer than 10 minutes at a time! right now, Sara, Adam, and i are sitting in this ridiculously expensive internet cafe (my iced coffee cost 5 frickin' dollars) because we couldn't get internets anywhere else--it's way out of the way and everything. but the mood/ambience here is really nice...and my iced coffee, while note worth $5, is pretty good...

IN ANY CASE. how have you all been? i've really, really enjoyed reading your comments! it's great to hear from everyone. ^^ i don't have time to reply to everyone individually, but just because you don't hear from me doesn't mean i don't love you! i love you lots.

but...how have things been here? uhm, very very busy. classes started: they're extremely easy; like almost insultingly so. my teachers are all cool though, so that's good. there's been all kinds of drama happening with some people and their randomly hating Williams-sensei. not going into that, but suffice it to say i'm tired of hearing about it. i love all of the people in question, but it's really grating hearing them go on about how much they hate Williams-sensei 24/7. soo...that's put something of a damper (lol) on things. all the drama's also turned me into a complete gossip. that's like all i talk about anymore: what other people in our group say and do. i'm going to come back to America a horrible person. *cries*

anyway, boring stuff aside, i've been having loads of fun! also drama, but mostly fun! today, for example, Sara, Adam and i met at the daigaku (university) early, around 9AM to try and get internet access--we couldn't, so instead i helped Sara buy a phone card and we both called home. (i only have like 30 minutes left on my phone card! eep!) then we headed down to downtown Kyoto for shopping and more karaoke. we got a booth just to ourselves this time and ended up karaoke-ing for like 2 hours--it was so much fun! for lunch, we were wanting to go to the internet cafe, but it was all the way on the other side of town (Izuno-san had drawn me up a map the night before), so instead we had rotate-y sushi again. i took a video of the sushi rotating by. XD when i get the chance, i'm going to upload a whole bunch of the videos i have for you all to download! (especially now that i have video tours of both my room at the Izuno residence and my room at the ryokan.) after lunch, we headed down to Teramachi--the big shopping district in Kyoto. we stopped in a figurine store and i bought some nifty, nifty gifts for Rob and Shawn they'll have to wait till later to see. ;) they had FF8 figurines there too, but not any of Zell! it made me sad a little bit... in any case, next was a giant, giant manga store--it was nothing but manga--two whole floors of it! so i caved and bought some manga (the first thing besides food i've bought for myself--i couldn't resist!) then we wandered on trying to find the internet cafe. it was a lot farther than Izuno-san had made it seem, but here we are now.

ahh...i have, uhm, two kind of interesting events to relate, so i hope you guys won't mind how long this is going to be! at the very least, you'll have reading material for a while.

Tuesday May 15th:

this day was supposed to be a break from classes, but Aoi Matsuri--this huge parade/festival--was that day, so Williams-sensei and the gang gathered to go see it. the street it was going to be on was all the way to the north of Kyoto, so we had a long bus ride ahead of us, but it was nice being with everyone (Izuno-san and Kyoko-san are great, but they pretty much like to watch TV and fall asleep, so i always feel a little, well, not so much bored as like i'm wasting time at home.) at any rate, we arrived around 2PM and started lining up along this street. we had about an hour's wait ahead of us, and we got bored quickly. (Adam and i made shadow animals for a time.) around 3PM, Aoi Matsuri began: lines of people dressed in traditional Heian garb began walking down the street--some were retainers and others were priests/priestesses, and some--on horseback!--were nobles. there were ox-drawn carts and soldiers and princesses carried in...those nice box thingies... it was really cool, regardless, and i took videos of about half of it. (will upload those later.) at one point, a boy dressed up as a retainer (and/or shrine person) stopped in front of us and asked if we liked pokemon (XD). then he posed for the camera--striking the eternal peace pose in Heian garb and everything.

after the parade, we were all going to walk up to this nearby shrine to view some supposedly gorgeous irises, but Ross--who is incredibly allergic, to flowers/grass--got sick (his allergy medicine having been confiscated on the plane for reasons unknown) and had to sit down at one point because he just couldn't breathe. Williams-sensei stopped for a moment, but then continued on after the other people. a few of us stopped with Ross to make sure he was okay, getting him some water and stuff. eventually Williams-sensei came back to check on Ross again, pretty much giving the rest of us the ultimatim that we either go with him or stay behind. all but one of us chose to stay with Ross, and eventually we just left. we stopped by a drugstore so Ross could get some medicine and then grabbed a bus. most of the group was heading to Teramachi to shop, but i needed to be home cuz i hadn't let Izuno-san know i'd be back late. however, i also needed to stop by Sanjyo to buy a bus pass. on the way back, Liz spotted a Sanjo, and we thought it was the right one so i got off the bus alone, making my way to what i thought was the right place. i quickly found out i was completely frickin lost. i walked down some huge shopping street, couldn't find anything, and then started looking for bus stops--thinking that if i could find the right bus (#5) i could make my way back home okay. however, none of the stops had any buses i recognized. i started freaking out a bit, thinking i was completely in some random part of Kyoto that was wonky and completely devoid of 5 buses, which go everywhere, but then i found this nice-looking old woman at a bus stop and asked her where the bus ticket buying place was (cuz i thought i could find my way back from there, and it'd be closer). after some misunderstanding, she pretty much took me by the hand and walked me down to this bus headquarters area--having taken it upon herself to make sure i bought my bus pass. we spoke to this guy there for a while, and eventually she called up a friend who was fluent in English and put me on the phone with him. he helped us out a bit, and the bus people wrote us a map to a place i thought looked close, so i let the woman continue to lead me on. turns out we had to take a frickin' subway to wherever we were going. she even used her own subway pass to pay for me! at this point, i was about to cry because of how sweet she was and how much trouble i was putting her through and how i couldn't tell her to just nevermind about me because this was going way out of her way because my Japanese is so horrible...i tried, though, and she was just like "it's okay, it's okay--we'll buy your ticket!"

so we rode the subway--to God-knows-where--and she led me up to the ticket counter, made sure i knew the right questions to ask and could get myself home okay, told me to take care, and left. i had to do the full bow domo arigato gozaimasu! full bow again thing, but it still didn't express how grateful i was to her! i really wish i had gotten her name at least! but i bought my ticket and exited the subway, only to discover i had no idea where i was. i did find a #5 bus though, after some wandering, and rode it back to Kyoto Station--which was the complete opposite direction of where i needed to go. it was about 7PM then, and i was freaking out about how to get home from there--i figured it out though, and hopped on another #5 bus going back to the Ginkakuji area--near where i live. got there around 8 and walked the rest of the way home. it was really scary and i was freaking out 90% of the time, but like Izuno-san said later after i related the story to her--the experience made me strong. now i don't fear getting lost as much, though i do hate being out late at night now.

ah! but the guys are wanted to leave, and i think we've been here over our allotted internet-use time, so i better get! i'll save the other story for later! take care guys!

[also, last post now has pictures!]