Almost school! Part II of summer pictures!

Hey~!

This week was the last week before school starts. To be honest, I am SOOO excited for school (this is pretty rare for me since I'm not a big fan of school in general)! I'm leaving Monday afternoon, reaching Kyoto before 4pm. From Kyoto, I'm getting picked up and then going straight to the Kansai Gaidai University campus! I'm still deciding if I should go to Kyoto early so I can tour around the city for a bit before getting picked up. :P

Anyway, before going to Kansai Gaidai, I'll be posting a picture blog once again! This is part II! :D

This is the picture of Seiji-san at the restaurant Gomitori during early summer after teaching a few dance lessons in the Aichi Prefecture. We ate with a group of friends as well.

I took this photo at a udon restaurant when going towards Kirishima, Kyushu with a friend of mine. This says, "Since you only have one life, you gotta laugh when you're living." I thought this was a very nice quote! :3

This is at the Kirishima-Jingu in Kyushu. It is a shinto shrine and before praying, my mother, friend, and I all washed our hands. This is the etiquette for all shrines!

This is picture at Yufuin, Oita Prefecture in Kyushu. I saw this little doll near Donguri no Mori hanging from a tree.

This is the temple my mother and I visited in Oita Prefecture. It is called Rakan-ji and it stands on the side of the mountain like this! It's pretty cool and the view was excellent!
















Back in Nagoya, this is when I visited the Nagoya Castle. Inside there were many historical context about the castle. This is called the kinshachi ("Golden Dolphin"). There are two on top of the Nagoya Castle (which I actually saw) and they are platted or made with real gold. The one inside the castle is not real (but I'm not too sure...).

I took this photo when I went to the top of the Higashiyama Sky Tower with a friend of mine. It was right when the sun was setting and I was able to see the whole city of Nagoya! I highly recommend people to go to this tower when they have a chance to. It's great for couples and there's also a restaurant on the highest level. ;D













Can you guys tell what this is? You guessed it! It a towel of breasts! I saw this at Atami while my mother, grandmother, and I was shopping for souvenirs. It's kind funny, but weird.

I took this photo at Asakusa, Tokyo. This is inside Senso-ji. It was really big and very beautiful especially at night!

















Anyway, that is it for this week's post! Next week will be the first blog about being in school. I hope you guys are as excited as I am!

Until next week, sayonara~!

School in about a week! Photos from the summer!

Hey~!

This week, I have been hanging out in Nagoya mostly by myself. Since it's so hot, I've been inside the house most of the time except during the night, where I go to the gym. Anyway, this week's post, I decided to post pictures I either like or didn't get a chance to post from over the summer. Here's some of them!


I took this photo in Kijimadaira, Nagano Prefecture right near the Ski Resort. I don't know, but I like it. What do you guys think?











This was taken at Yufuin, Oita Prefecture. My mother and I visited many stores there and one of the them was Donguri no Mori. In front of the store, Ghibli items were lined up and I couldn't resist and I had to go inside! However, most of the items were expensive and I went out the store empty-handed. -.-''

This is also in Yufuin. I was waiting for my mother and since I had a cold, I decided to dip my feet in the onsen  right in front of one of the souvenir shop. Honestly, the water was SOOO hot that my foot was red when I pulled it out of the water. -.-''

I took this picture at Atami, Shizouka Prefecture when me and my family went to a rose/herb garden near the hotel. This was one of the Japanese gardens!  I love the way the ocean is in the background of the garden. It think it just beautiful!







When leaving Atami, my mother, my grandmother, and I stopped at a shotengai (Similar to an outside mall, but on the streets). We were shopping for souvenirs when we passed by this women and her monkey entertaining little children. It was very cute! :]

Can you guess what fruit this is on the right??? It is actually a watermelon! I had this over at my mother's friend's house when we visited her and her newborn baby. I never seen an orange watermelon before, so I thought it was quite cool. However, the taster was no different than the regular red ones.

This is the picture of the famous Tekeshita Dori in Harajuku! I was debating whether or not to post this last week because I don't think I took this very well. However, I like the expression the guy in the front made in the picture (he looks really mad, but I find it quite funny). Do you guys think it's funny or is it just me?














Anyway, that's it for now! Next week, I'm going to prepare to go to Kansai Gaidai University. I'll be packing mostly and sending my luggage to the campus. Then on Monday, August 26th, I'll be heading towards Hirakata City! So excited! So, I'll be writing one last post for the summer next week before the semester starts. It might be blog full of extra pictures (like this!).

Until next week, sayonara~!

Fun in Tokyo

Hey~!

So early this week, I went to Tokyo to meet with my family and to hang out with my friend. I went from Thursday night and left on Sunday night. Although it was short period of time, it was very tiring!!! >.<

Anyway, I went to Tokyo on Thursday night with my mom because she was leaving Japan the next morning. While my mom stayed until 4:30am to catch her flight, I stayed over until 10am. Around 11:30am, I met up with my cousin at an area called Ginza in front of the Kabuki Theatre. The theatre looked BEAUTIFUL on the outside! I wish I could of gone inside, but for some reason it was closed that day. :/ After meeting up, my cousin and I went to a sushi restaurant nearby, which a family member recommended to us. I did not catch the name of the restaurant, but it was delicious! My cousin and I had a kaidendon, which is a just various sashimi topped of rice.

After eating, we went shopping around Ginza. We first went to a clothing store called G.U., which is affiliated with Uniqlo. However, it is much cheaper! I bought a shirt for ¥990 (approximately ~$9.90). I wanted to buy a dress as well, but it didn't look good on me. -.-'' After, we went to Uniqlo and I bought a camisole, which supposedly very cooling during the summer. My cousin and I went shopping a little more, however, we didn't buy anything else.

That evening, I parted ways with my cousin and slept over at my younger cousin's house. The next day (Friday), I went to a hotel called Villa Motosu located in Yamanashi Prefecture. My family and I always go there when we all get together. Usually we go there for a few days, but this time we only stayed for two days and one night. On the first day, my younger cousin and I played tennis for about an hour. It was my first time so I was really bad at it, but by the end, I was able to serve (kind of)! Later that night, my family and I went in a bath, played table tennis, and then ate dinner (which was a course!).

The next day, we didn't do much besides eat breakfast and go in a bath. We had to leave to Tokyo early the next day since my cousin had work. While my cousin was off to work in Tokyo, I went to see the Sky Tree with my cousin's mother and my great aunt. The Sky Tree was HUGE! We went up to one of the observation deck, which was at around 350 meters. I was able to look out at the whole city and it was really beautiful! However, it was a bit foggy and I wasn't able to look out at the distance. If it was a clear day, I would of seen Mt. Fuji! >.<

After going to the Sky Tree, we went to Asakusa. We went inside the Senso-ji, which is a buddhist temple. I didn't pray, but I did look around the shops nearby. After looking around Tokyo, I went to have dinner with more family members at a restaurant near Asakusa. I had some really good kamameshi (rice in kettle pots). We had various kinds of kamameshi, but I liked chicken kamameshi the most.

On the last day, I went to Shibuya around noon saying goodbye to my family. For about 3 hours, I walked around Shibuya by myself, shopping at various stores. I mainly went to Shibuya 109, which is a gigantic shopping mall. It had several floors with various clothing stores. To me, the clothes were all flashy gyaru style, which is fine, but not really for me. Also, many of the clothes were very expensive. It was just nice looking at it.

After looking around Shibuya, I met up with one of my best friend from NYC. We went shopping in Harajuku at Tekeshita Dori. I've been there several times already so I know some stores in the area. We went to several clothing stores, but I only bought two things. I bought a brownish-orange shirt for ¥1050 (approximately ~$10.50) from a store called Sango. I also bought a cute cat eye mask for ~¥290 (approximately ~$2.90). I went back to Nagoya at night by bullet train. It was all so fun and I was so glad I got to spend time with family and friends.

Back in Nagoya, I spent time mostly by myself, relaxing at home. During the next week, I went to the movie theatre with a friend of mine on Thursday night. We watched the new Miyazaki movie called Kaze Tachinu. It was about a young man name Jiro Hirokoshi who chases his dream to make airplanes. The movie spans about 10 years and although the story line was slow, it nice lighthearted, summer movie, which I didn't expect. I expected the movie to be more depressing, but that wasn't the case at all. I recommend this movie for anyone who doesn't want to see anything heavy.

I also made some new dish! I made mentaiko cream pasta with sausage and onions. It tasted delicious and I got the recipe from the website http://justonecookbook.com/blog/. It has various Japanese recipes and they are all so simple! :] Anyway, until next week, sayonara~!