During my spring break, I took a trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima with my fellow IES students. I compiled all the video clips I took there and put it together here, enjoy.

I just registered for classes last week and classes will be starting tomorrow. I know it seems really late doesn't it? I really don't know why they give us so much time off. I am going to have three week long breaks this semester as well, one in February for entrance exams, one in March for Spring Break, and one in May for Golden Week. One reason though is that last semester was only 4 months long and this semester is 5 months long, so I think all those breaks help cut it down to about the same length of time. Interestingly enough though even though Nanzan University focuses heavily on their international students, the Japanese students that go there are still on the Japanese schedule which means that their last semester will end the beginning of February. They will then have a two month break and then their first semester will start in April. So it is a bit different than in America. That means that for two months there will hardly be any Japanese students on campus which makes up the majority of students there, it will probably seem like a ghost town or something and then in April a whole bunch of new freshman will be coming on campus. It should be interesting. Oh, I don't think I mentioned this as well, but it seems that the amount of classes that the Japanese students take is different as well. You see usually 4 classes is the norm in America with them being anywhere between 1 and a half hours a week for three days or 3 hours a week for two days, but in Japan they take about 10 classes each meeting only once a week. All my non-Japanese language classes at Nanzan are the same way, meeting only once a week. Honestly I find it a little counter-productive, I mean having a whole week between each class is just asking for procrastination as well as forgetting everything you learned the previous week, but I only have to take 4 classes here though since Japanese class meets every single day so it counts like 3 or 4 classes combined. I couldn't imagine taking 10 of those hour long classes. It would be too much to keep straight each week, but I guess you could get used to it.

I hope everyone had a very wonderful Christmas, and I wish everyone a Happy New Year! This year was the year of the dog, and 2007 will be the year of the boar. There are painting, ornaments, stuffed animals, etc. of boar all over Japan now, as you can tell by the attached photo:) The boar is associated with fertility and virility, so I believe that this year that if we all try new things they will sprout and grow into the fruits of happiness. If there is at least one resolution that everybody should add to their list, I believe it would have to be to make sure that every morning we wake up, we realize how lucky we are to have a whole new day ahead of us, a whole new day to start over, to keep going, to look back, to look forward, to laugh, to cry, and to live.

As the cold air began to set in, and still the leaves had not begin to change, I began to wonder if anything would happen at all. I was quickly surprised however as suddenly the trees began to explode with color and just like anything that spontaneously explodes, it quickly disappears as well....however, we truly appreciate and savor the beauty that only lasts for a short time. If trees always had a bright array of colors all year around, we would probably never give them half a glance, but when all of sudden they change from drab green to bright red, orange, and yellow then we truly take notice and are filled with an inescapable sense of awe. This happened to me just last weekend when I just happened to walk by this building I had not been to a while, and I couldn't believe my eyes, rows upon rows of color. It just seemed to truly come out of nowhere. Now when I walk around the city I see color everywhere. I guess it just took a lot longer here than it did in Ohio. It has been getting cold here lately but still it is at a point where I can not believe it is almost December. I hope the cool stays at the same level for at least a few more weeks....

Time keeps marching on, and we all know after traveling for so long, we come to find out we have ended up where we had begun. That happened to me this past weekend, when I found myself in a place I did not think I would ever return to, the old capital Kyoto. It was for an IES trip. It has been over a year since I had last step foot in Kyoto, at that time I thought that would be my only chance to go there and see the famous sites. When you think you are only going to be at a certain place once in your entire life I think you take on a different mentality than if you know you will someday return. That is why it was a bit strange going back. At that first and presumably only time, you want to absorb everything so you can always return in your mind. That place will forever remain the same within the confines of your mind, just think how it is to have to return to that special place and find it is not exactly as you had kept it so. This was compounded by the fact that on this trip we revisited several of the places that I had went to before. I tried to take similar pictures to the ones I took before, and I have attached them below. You can see how both I and the surrounding have changed. The most notable is the changing of colors, and the rainy atmosphere which continued throughout most of the trip. I think by looking at the pictures I took this time, you can literally feel the cold air emitting from them. I have to admit though that the rain helped to create a peaceful and complete different atmosphere than to the one before. I came in summer last time, so of course it provided a stark contrast. When you see the pictures beside the change of leaves, may favorite difference had to be at the Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion). The pond that surrounds it is called the mirror pond. I heard they put a lot of algae in the water to give it that green color which so well reflects the surroundings. Even though it is called such though, last time I could not see it being true to its name. I suppose it was very windy that day and many ripples distorted the image, but this time it truly was a mirror pond. It was very still and peaceful. As you can see from the picture, the image of the Golden Pavilion is reflected perfectly in the water below. If I reversed the picture, it would probably take you a second to figure out which one was the real one. I found the surrounding area to be much more beautiful than I remember. It was almost something out of a dream, a dreamscape if you will. Maybe it was just the rainy atmosphere that had something to do with it, but there was differently something different than before. Last time, I was more impressed with the Silver Pavilion which isn't actually Silver than the Golden Pavilion, because the Silver Pavilion had a much more beautiful surrounding atmosphere, but now I am not sure which I am more fond of. While the Golden Pavilion itself is quite a sight, I have never been found of such blatant use of gold though. I am much more an earthy rocf structure kind of guy. It is the same for statues, I find the stone statues just to be much more real than those made out of gold. If you worship a gold statue, what are you really worshipping, the god or the gold with all its dark connotations.....