so damn cute

OK, so I want to talk about this whole cute thing.

From what I have experienced so far I can completely agree with anyone who says that the Japanese are completely obsessed the image of cuteness or "kawaii."

Every aspect of life here is cute.

I mean everything.

From the way girls dress as school girls with a twist- short skirts, high socks and heels, to the government issued warnings. Things that, as a Westerner, I could never have fathomed as adorable are just so: telephones and accessories, menus, beer cans, songs in the grocery store, game shows, the announcer on the subway, cigarette packs, kitchen utensils, parking attendants, tour guides, temple signage, etc. 

Specifically, though, I want to point out the peace signs.  After Ani's response to my last post questioning the peace signs I went back through my photos and saw that in almost every picture I have taken of a Japanese person they are giving me the peace sign. Always, the hands come up in an outward facing peace sign as soon as a camera is pulled, giving every pose in every situation a cute twist. So here it is, a small selection of the cuteness all around me...

bdays, octopus balls and rock n' roll

a few shots from around KSU

the textile dept (4 floors, each being about the size of our textile dept at cca) 

crazy architecture
KSU is massive- here is just the textile dept (on the left) and the manga and printmaking depts (on the right)
behind the school are a whole bunch of caged animals (birds, rabbits, and deer mostly)

one of the many random forts in the woods behind the school
deer, they have about 8 of them in a large caged area (pictured below)

went to a few flea markets this weeks to get cloth for a project and ate takoyaki (hot balls of goodness with chewy chunks of octopus)

the girls on the way to a bowling ally for chelsey's bday
susan lookin' sharp
love the signs

squid flakes dancing on our okonomiyaki- "japanese pizza" a
relative of takoyaki but with many more types of seafood and meat inside which is kept hot on a grill built into the table

smallest rock n' roll club in one of the many apartment bars that line the pontocho district.  We met a bunch of japanese guys who were in the bands The Bawdies and Harris- music videos below (my camera died after the pic below- shitty!)
the bawdies

cheese please

It threatened to pour all day Friday and after the storms we had all last week I believed it.  They say this isn't the rainy season yet, but it has poured harder and longer then I have ever seen (as much as people want to claim it rains in Oakland they are just fooling themselves) 

I am worried.

A Buddhist temple right down the road from our dorm, Myomanji

Inside the Pagoda
Tiffany, a girl I met randomly who has been teaching english in China for the past three years.  Talk about an intense cultural experience.  She wanted me to pass on the word to boycott the Olympics this year to help show China that people are paying attention to the atrocities that they have committed... she can't post anything herself about it because all information on the internet, tv and the radio is censored and anything negative about China is banned...

bike taxi- she was pedaling damn hard and going no where fast
odd little character outside of a restaurant in Gion, the Geisha district
a shrine dedicated to getting down, also in Gion

chelsey getting ready for her bday tuesday
yes, please can i have a cheese pizza "american style"- no fish, egg, potato, corn, or mayo.  especially no mayo. just cheese. thats all i want.  cheese.

impending doom
surprisingly refreshing

and finally a droopy nippled monkey for pooty because i promised and never delivered
oh and here is a video I had forgotten to post of the feeding frenzy at the monkey park

makin' paper

here is a little taste of my paper making class

our sensei
susan and chelsey cleaning out the pulp
This is a little film of a girl in my class making one sheet of Kozo, a traditional Japanese paper

mooonkies

my daze

sake in a box
geisha

monkey park- 150 monkies chillin' on top of a mountain

cant feed them outside of the "rest room" 




ooops... random temple we stumble upon...

mmmm... sushi on a conveyor belt...

british pub in kyoto
drunkeness
papa, the dart champion of the pig n' whistle, beating sam, the arm wrestling champion of kyoto
okaasan givin ben a little lovin
sam's angry face
today was the first day of classes.  we made paper.  it was wonderful.