While I think I’ll have more to say about Wikileaks in the future, for now let’s get back to the purpose of this blog, which is my time here in Japan.

I guess I don’t have much to say today, I’ve just forgotten to catalog some of the stuff I’ve done recently.  For instance, around the end of Novermber, the most beautiful temples in Kyoto will light up their grounds at night, and some of them are spectacular.  I only went to two, but they were amazingly beautiful.  I got some of the best pictures I’ve taken in Japan so far.  It’s mostly a mixture of parts of the temple/shrine being lit up alongside the trees and the fall foliage.  It’s hard to describe, because you really have to see it, but it’s truly amazing.  I went to two of these light-ups, one at Kiyomizudera, which had some amazing foliage, and the other was Kodaiji, which has a very beautiful garden, and a bamboo forest which looked amazing at night.

Then, yesterday I went to Kobe, about an hour and a half ride by train if you only take express trains, for the luminarie, or at least that’s what they call it.  I must say it was worth it.  There were a lot of people there, but Kobe is a big enough city that it was manageable, unlike the friggin’ himatsuri.  We got out of the station and started walking the direction everyone else was and eventually say the gigantic line which wound through the streets of Kobe, taking up two or three lanes.  We got in the line and walked for a while, not really seeing anything, then we turned a corner and saw a giant corridor of lit up arches in the street ahead of us.  The arches continued for about two blocks, and the lead out into a courtyard, or square of sorts, where a giant…castle kind of thing stood.  It was constructed out of larger arches and formed a octagon and was amazing.  There was so much light you could see everything in the square pretty clearly.  Best of all were all the stalls selling food.

If you’ve ever watched anime that has matsuri in it, you know that there are those stalls with games and stalls selling food like takoyaki and yakisoba and stuff.  There were a ton of those stalls selling those things, as well as skewers of beef, gigantic hot dogs, and desserty things, like fruit with candy coating (so good), and tiny little cake things called baby castellas, or something like that, I’m not sure.  It was a lot of fun, and it kind of made up for the fact that all the matsuri I’ve been to have been lacking those stalls.

Other than that, things are ok.  The Wikileaks thing kind of grabbed my attention and had me in a bad mood, until my facebook link to the article turned into something of a forum, where I got to talk about it with some friends.  I think that let me talk with someone and just debate it out.  Things are up and down with my host family.  I talk to them with some frequency, and I figure as long as I keep trying things will turn out alright.  So yeah, that’s more or less where I stand for now.

~Shimon