japan 4.11

I slept in today and did a whole lot of nothing until dinner time. In the evening, I met up with 2 friends (T and Y) who came to Berkeley for study abroad 2 years ago. It was nice seeing old friends again! They took me to an Izakaya for dinner, and then we went to a nearby arcade.


After the arcade, we went to T's friend's bar because I wanted to play guitar (his friend had an electric and an acoustic guitar at his bar). The bartender guy introduced himself as "Thomas" to me (he was quiet, but amusing lol). haha weird guy..
I forgot his real name. (he's the guy on the left)

T played guitar so well that I didn't want to play after him! It would've been too embarrassing :P

japan 4.10

We went to Kiyomizudera, one of the famous temples in Kyoto on 4.10. It was so crowded that day! It was a beautiful place (great view from the top!), but I have to admit that Arashiyama was prettier! We walked up a narrow path to get to Kiyomizudera.



I got to ring the bell thingy and make a prayer :3 (I don't know the kid..)


Us UC peeps :3


On the way down, we passed by a pond covered with cherry blossom petals <3 br="br" pretty="pretty" so="so">
And there were 2 fat turtles there too!

Group pic~

japan 4.8

In between class, I walked over to the Imperial Palace (it's right across from Doshisha University) to look around. A lot of cherry blossom trees were in full bloom, so I decided to take some sakura pictures (a lot of other people were there taking pictures too).




My friend N who studied abroad in Berkeley 2 years ago took me to a cool night-viewing spot later that day. The path going up to the place was so narrow and dark! But it was really pretty at the top. Cherry blossoms at night <

japan 4.7

It was such a beautiful day! Meimei, R, M and I went to buy bikes at a bike store near our school. The seat was too high when I first rode it and I wasn't used to riding a bike yet (it's been a while since the last time I rode one!) so I kind of crashed into this signboard that was leaning against the store next to the bike shop!

I love how there is a lock on the front wheel of Japanese bikes. You use a key to unlock/lock it rather than a combination lock or the locks you use to chain it to a post.
We rode our bikes down Kamogawa (river)..It was a sunny, blue skies, feel-good kind of day.


Cherry blossoms were in full bloom on the path along the river and the petals were falling gently on us as we rode our bikes~ It made me think, "Ah, so this is Japan!"

Japan 4.4

I don't quite remember what I did that day, but I think I went shopping for some more clothes (I should have brought more winter clothes with me!). At night, my apartment mates and I ate the delicious roll cake our Doshisha friend bought for us from Arashiyama.
Umma and Oppa
K, meimei, R

Japan 4.3 - trip to Arashiyama （嵐山）

Arashiyama is one of the most beautiful places I've seen so far in my life.

On Sunday 4/3, two of the Doshisha girls took us to Arashiyama by train (it didn't take super long) to see the cherry blossoms in bloom. It was the first beautiful day after a period of bad weather and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, so it was really crowded at Arashiyama that day. We first went to Monkey Park, but we passed by that body of water on the way (picture above). The place was gorgeous!

It was a long hike up to Monkey Park, but the trail was surrounded by a lot of tall trees. Once we got to the top, we saw a lot of monkeys (the ones in the monkey house were kind of aggressive!) and an amazing view of Kyoto :)



We also went through the bamboo forest.. it felt really nice and cool walking along that path. The pictures in my guide book look better though :/

We got to this place with the temple and pond. All the sakura trees were in full bloom around the temple.. the place itself was amazingly picturesque!


So, so beautiful! I don't know what else to say. :D

Japan 4/2

This is probably the only building that looks different than the others on campus!
This morning, we went to school again to turn in our registration form for classes (it's Saturday and we still had to go to school T_T).
Two building buddies and I went to a nearby cafe called Papa Jons. It was very small and quaint! I had a vegetable pot pie and split a blueberry cheesecake with my friend.

I ate half of my pie already o.o It tasted okay.. too small though!

The blueberry cheesecake was really rich and delicious! Again, too small. Maybe I just eat a lot.

Afterward, we head back to our apartment. I woke up from a long nap not too long ago, and now I have to go separate my trash (we have to separate them into 3 bags: 1) wet stuff..like food scraps etc. 2) pet bottles..which are the bottles that say ペット 3) plastics and metals). So time-consuming!

Japan 4/1

All the buildings on campus look the same...haha
We had to go to school in the morning again. Doshisha's campus is rather small! At least our campus (Imadegawa campus) is, but it seems that the other campus (Kyotonabe campus) is waaay bigger.

Later in the day, we had our entrance ceremony, which was held at the school chapel (Doshisha's a Christian school). It was such a serious ceremony o_o We had to sing the school song...there was an old man playing the organ, and the boys acapella group sang some songs. They introduced all the Japanese teachers.
We were supposed to dress formally, but I didn't bring any formal clothes (same with other students :P). This was inside the chapel:

We had a big group picture taken after the ceremony, but this one is a group picture of just the EAP students (UC students).

At night, my building mates and I went to Fresco, a supermarket right next to our buildling (we didn't know it was so close to us!!). We bought groceries and stopped by a cafe (also very very close to our apt). I had a matcha au lait..it was soo good! We plan to go there again Sunday morning for breakfast!

Japan 3/31

More orientations at school... -_-
I got placed in level 5 (out of 8). Maybe I can try to get into level 6! This morning I met the other students in level 5. People were from all over the world! :)
Now that I have my cell phone, I've been exchanging contact info with people. Japanese cell phones can use infrared to exchange numbers/cell phone address, so we've been "beaming" each other with our phones (we turn on infrared on our phones and put our phones together where the infrared spot is). I wish American phones had that too!

This was one of the signs we saw inside the international office building :P No English, EVER! haha

For lunch, we ate at a different restaurant near campus. The food was sooo good! It was cheap too XD I had the set, which cost about $5 I think. It's pork + egg over rice and a bowl of udon. Good deal!

Today I took it easy because I kind of caught a cold, so at the apartment I took a nap and straightened everything out.

Japan 3/30

In the morning, my building mates and I went to school by bus. All of the international students were split up into small groups, each with their own Doshisha student volunteers. Our 2 volunteers were Ryosuke and Kazuya, who showed us around the campus and took us to a restaurant near school for lunch. Some of us went to eat gyuudon (pork over rice). It was so good and so cheap! Japanese pork tastes different somehow..perhaps it's more lean?

Later, we went to Kyoto station and walked to the ward office from there. It took a long time to register for our alien card! Even though the workers there had to deal with foreigners, none of them spoke English! Luckily, the two Doshisha volunteers helped us talk and walked us through how to fill out the Japanese forms.


Another building mate and I went to Softbank to buy our cell phones afterward, but that took a long time too because a lot of people were getting their phones that day. While we waited for our phone registration to process, we shopped inside Kyoto station. There were so many cute and cheap clothes!! A lot of them were my style too :D

The guy clothes were kind of girly...haha

Group picture at Kyoto Station: with my building buddies and the 2 volunteers R and K