Hey everyone!

Thanks for being patient with me here...I know it's been a bit since the last update, but when you get to the pictures and videos for this entry you'll understand why [speaking of videos, if there aren't any posted on this when you read it, check back in a week or so...youtube can be a pain...oh, and if there's less than 68 pictures on this entry, come back in a week as well, because that's how many I have to upload and if my internet decides to fail me while doing this, it might be uploaded in a few tries.]

So Thursday of last week I headed up to Kamakura, which is 45 minutes by train to the north of here [I think]. Originally the intent was to go and visit shrines and temples and the like....but then I realized that Kamakura is home to one of the giant Buddha statues, and that's where I ended up. I really don't have anything to say about this other than it is truly a breathtaking sight, this giant, jade colored statue of Buddha. He's hollow inside, I went in. The pictures do it more justice.

Saturday was the school trip to Yokohama. There were approximately fifteen of us on bikes, heading around the city sightseeing. We rode past the Rainbow Bridge, the bay, lots of street performers and the giant ferris wheel in Yokohama. We also visited some shopping areas, Chinatown and a migrant worker neighborhood which has an interesting story....riding into the area, we passed a koban [police station], which was directly next to the Yakuza [or Japanese mafia] headquarters. Apparently every morning at 6:15 migrant workers line up at the Yakuza HQ to get assigned to a working crew down at the docks. The Yakuza are involved in some shady stuff, but at the same time they've helped out the people of Japan. When the giant Kanto earthquake hit and leveled entire cities, they responded faster than the government in setting up shelters, and they provide jobs for people [legit jobs, not hits and shady stuff like that].

Continuing on, we went for dinner at this lil' Korean place. The food wasn't all that great, but then again our tour guides ordered for us [never again].....on the way there we passed some really interesting spots....for example, there was a restaurant with a fishtank outside containing squid, and another with actual fishes....it was the freshest sushi you'll find in the city, apparently.

Sunday me and my dormmate Bernadette went to this place in Ikebukuro called "Sunshine City", which has a bunch of shops, an observation deck, an aquarium and a planetarium. Before we found the aquarium, however, we checked out the Toyota showroom across the street, and accidentally stumbled into a doujinshi [Doh-gin-she] convention. Doujinshi is basically fan-made comics that they're allowed to sell a certain amount of without getting in trouble with copyright laws because the comic companies realize that their fans are the reason they're making money to begin with, and they want to keep the fans happy. It was interesting.

Tuesday night Bernadette and myself went out again to a school-organized Taiko drum concert that was absolutely fabulous and comes highly recommended. I was fail and forgot my camera, but Bernadette got some pictures that I plan on stealing from her once she posts them...For the time being, here's a link to their website>> http://members3.jcom.home.ne.jp/musa_entertainment/

I do have more stuff going on, but I feel that I should use that for another entry because it wasn't part of last week.....