its for happy life

my first few days...

Thursday: 

Lost on a bicycle for most of the day

trying to find a 100 yen store.

Found a temple instead

Friday:

Lost on my bicycle again, 

this time looking for the Imperial Palace 

to see the the Sakura (cherry blossoms)

Face Masks. 

I see them everywhere. 

Does anyone know what they are all about? 

Creepy is all i can say.

People were not only taking insane amounts of pictures of the blossoms

but of everything else as well

Kimono

Nishijin Textile Center. Basically a tourist trap.  

But this girl doing tapestry weaving was pretty cool 

(in that dorky textile way)

Today: 

Decided to ditch the bicycle because it started to rain and so I had my first adventure on the subway, which wasn't so bad because many of the signs were in english.  And the ones that weren't i just had to assume didn't matter...

I went downtown and was swarmed by thousands of overly fashionable people (not pictured below), most of which were wearing skirts shorter then I would care to discuss (sorry Sayab, I was too shy to get you any good pics, next time I promise) and boots that seemed larger then they were.  

Sorry. Maybe this is just my conservative American side coming out.  But I can't say I didn't enjoy it at least a little bit...

Some sort of festival

One of the many walkways of a sprawling inside/ outside/ underground mall.

I had hear rumors that the bottom floors of department stores were huge markets filled with every type of Japanese cuisine, but I still couldn't believe it when I saw it. Everything imaginably Japanese was there.

Outside portion of mall

Best kind of vending machine I have seen thus far.  Put in your money, pick your item, it gives you a ticket and you give it to your waiter when you get sat.  Easy as pie.  Or maybe ramen.

Only a little taste of the great expanse of the Kyoto Station.

More creepy masks.

Kyoto Tower.  Not the best feature of the city.

Tomorrow: Manga Museum... 

yes there is hot coffee in the vending machines.

after 11 hour flight and a two hour bus i am here in my dorm at KSU in Kyoto

craziness

more tomorrow when i can think straight (it is 7am in the bay and 11pm here...ahhh)

from boulder to seattle

love my peeps

brenna and isis

geejie
sasa and his new ride
ok. so i lied.  we rolled through seattle on public transit

im off to oakland tomorrow. pick up my stuff and then direct flight to osaka wednesday... ja nee...

i made it. somehow.

i missed the bus last night and stayed in denver with ani, her lovely beau dustin and their two adorable mini dauchounds. this morning i headed off at 6am to the station again hoping my luck would be better. everything was going smoothly until we hit traffic about 2 hours in due to an avalanche on i-70. i finally made it to paonia around 3 this afternoon, 42 hours behind schedule...

liquor store off colfax

me n' sasha (11 weeks)

ani given some love to arrow

denver greyhound station, 6am

vail (why dont i have my snowboard?)

old sign in alley, glenwood springs

waking up from a nap with my niece zoe

domino tree

family love

and more

big sis

first step: coffee

did you know tuaca and coffee is not that bad? it must be a colorado specialty, or maybe its only people in the middle of the country desperate enough for an adventure to try something as terrible sounding as that.

but here i am in a cafe that prides itself on its ability to cater to 15 years olds and mid-day drinkers waiting for my greyhound bus to take me over the mountains and into the snow

cheers!

tada! sparkln' clean

ok so it's not entirely spotless yet, but to all of you who have seen my room in its glory this is pretty damn impressive.

i hate moving... i hope justin appreciates that i cleaned the floorboards... but that is just to make up for the carpet that was destroyed before i even got to it...

sorry enough of that

tomorrow i am off for the first leg of my trip, seeing the fam in colorado...

oh yeah one last thing, sadie, my personal packing assistant, apron model, and chef extraordinaire who (due to her insubordinate nature) is out of a job at the moment, is now considering taking all but the apron off and cleaning houses and needs our help... so if you know of an open position anywhere that does not require her to strip down to her panties (at least not on a regular basis) please pass it along

ok. so i have one more day and im still not ready

here are some pics from my going away party. and sadie. cause she is wonderful.

by they way i will miss you all