Imperial Palace and Kobe

**Note: I'm gonna post pictures in the following post**

I'm sitting in Florista writing this, I do think it's one of the cutest cafes ever. It's a nice and serene place in the middle of the city, and being right next to Kansai and offering discounts on already cheap food sure does help too. I thnk it'll be fun to show everyone the places I'm normally going to when you all come here in a month and a half or so.

Okay, so backlog... I'm thinking I need to start bringing my lappy to school again because when I haven't been the blogging has gotten delayed. But take the blogging being delayed as a good thing too! It means I'm outside eating lunch, relaxing with friends, walking around town with my friends over sitting in the computer lab. But I know you all also trust it as a primary link to me, for for the third time(?) I promise to be more dilligant about it.

Life has been pretty normal really. The weather has been all messed up lately, one day it's 76, the next it's 50. But other than that things have been nice, one rainy day once in awhile, but nothing major. Life is "normal" with the extroidnary splattered through. (I just got my orange Juce and donut, mmmm OJ...)

So, Sunday Margo got word about something in Kyoto that wasn't open very often that her friend said we should go to. After multiple train issues, we made it to the palace. And by train issues I mean I was a half hour early, so I went ahead and had the pleasure of being the ginney pig for getting lost so that by the time they got there I knew the way.

The palace was quite amazing. Kyoto really is the cultural center of Japan. It was the second capital city after Nara. Emperor Meiji himself stayed in this palace as a child. I don't know why they don't open it very often, likely to decrease the liability of something happening by only having limited days. The garden was likely my favorite part of everything, it was so beautiful. My house can be any style of the world, I love too many, but I definately want my landscaping to be Japanese. I really challenge to find another culture with better scenery in the yard. Which is ironic, considering most Japanese don't have yards...

After the Palace we walked around awhile, we got off the main roads and went to some smaller temples. Kyoto is like the vennice of Japan, you just wander around, find a Temple and some really important monk is just entombed there, just on this little back road.

Margo had her first taste of Mos Burger for dinner, of course she loved it, because everyone loves mos burger.

As we were leaving Mos Burger these asian people walked up to us asking if we spoke English. Confused, we said yes, and they explained... Apparentally they were Thai, and were comming to meet another forein exchange student in Kyoto, their daughter/sister. For some reason at the station they never met up, and the daughter didn't have a cell phone. So we asked around, found out where the seminar house for her school was and walked them there to be safe. They were very thankful, we were in no hurry, and after all, it's all about the Karma.

On Tuesday I woke a bit miserable. Congested, tightness in my chest, phlem, aches all the normal cold things. But I wasn't fevered. I went to school, came home and slept five hours, tuesday is one of my light days. Still no fever...

Wednesday, yesterday, was a school Holiday, the founding of Kansai Gaidai. So logically we celebrate the founding of a school by not going to it. A lot of people went to Kobe and stayed the night before, but since I couldn't get a room at the same Hostel and wasn't feeling well I decided just to make it a day trip. Wednesday was rainy, but not too cold, so it wasn't entirely miserable. I woke up still feeling a bit sick, but still no fever. I debated about going outside, I didn't want to get sicker, but I also wasn't feeling THAT sick, and the alternative was sitting alone all day because everyone I know was out doing things. So a bit dizzy I went to the eki and met up with Joanna, one of the Brits. Joanna took good care of me until I was more awake and alive, got me warm yuzu tea and everything. (Yuzu is a Japanese fruit, it's kind of like a cross between a lemon and an orange, really good.)

When we got to Kobe we met up with Margo and company. We went to an Art Museum and walked around. Some of it was really cool, some really beautiful, and of course some modern art just, odd... But it was fun.

It was 800 yen for students, that included admission to the Museum and a ferry ride to the park on the other side of town. The ferry was fun, there were these performance art people, maybe just entertainment, I've got no idea, but they got everyone acting silly. I got another hot tea on the ferry, it was a bit expensive, but drinking warm things was keeping me alive.

When we got to the park we were were all starving so we ate in a cafe installed in three crates of art... (explination -->) The art was SO cool. They took like 63 big metal shipping crates used on ferries and gave each artist one and essencally said that they could do anything they wanted with their interiors. One was a big mirrored room with a ball of light, it looked like the inside of a disco ball. Some were just silly, some very cool. One was a white room with fans, and the artist took like millions of strips of paper to fill it up to about a half foot deep. The point was to throw the paper into the fans, interactive art, of some kind... But we all got in there and had Paper War 2009. I took pictures, and video from the outside. I was laughing until my sides hurt. I've not had that much just silly stupid fun in awhile. Japanese people were outside taking pictures and video of the crazy foreginers.

Following that we went to chinatown nearby. Everyone split dinner, I was cautious about it being under the weather. It was quite delicious and made the belly happy. Chinatown was exactlly what you'd expect from a Chinatown, though it had a bit more of an authentic feel than other Chinatowns I've been to, maybe because of the closer proximity to actual China here.

After that everyone else went off to get their stuff from the hostel, have a drink, and head home. I had one more thing to do... SEE GIGANTOR!! (Or Tetsujin 28 as it's called in Japan)

I found it entirely on my own asking directions in Japanese and listening to the answers in Japanese. And I found it in record time really. It was only about 3 stops down on the train. It was very cool.

Then I headed home, it takes about 1.5 hours to get to Kobe from Hirakata, which isn't bad all things considered. The train fair is about 2000 yen round trip. A bit expensive to make it an all the time trip, but I think I'll go back once more. Heewon wants to go, and we both want to eat kobe beef. We've heard of this restraunt that has a lunch special of kobe beef for 3500 yen, which is expensive for lunch, but cheap for kobe beef, that's like half the normal price. Heewon and I ran into each other on the way home, so we were talking about it.

I was exhausted last night, and essentally collapsed.

Today was okay, normal. I'm becoming a pro in ceramics, I can make some big stuff now. I'll have pictures tomorrow, so please people tell me stuff you want from me!! One guy said a large plate/shallow bowl I made would be perfect for the best nachos ever... I had to agree... and then lamented about Nachos... My body though is feeling the strain from the excess clay for the bigger pieces, as melodramatic as that sounds. My right shoulder hurts from being the primary pushing arm, all the tables are low set, and wedging and then throwing 10kg of clay isn't as easy on the body as it sounds. I'm okay, just a bit surprised I can really feel it in my body.

And that's been life up until now really. I'm still under the weather, but no fever, so I figure it's just a crummy run of the mill cold. I'm using my heater though right now, it feels good, normally I'd just put on a sweater, but when I don't feel well, the heater feels really nice. I crack my door just a tiny bit so that if someone needs me when they come down they see it's okay to poke their nose in, but not enough that all the heat escapes. The heater is pretty powerful, I only need to run it a few minutes and the chill is out of the room, it's no sauna, but it's comftorable, and when you feel crummy it's good. Plus, I always feel worse at night, I feel like I could collapse right now. I'm likely going to shower then crawl into bed.

I love you all, I'll try to always be on skype if I'm by the computer!