The Summary Goes On...

After settling into my apartment we started off bright and early the next morning with free donuts and juice for the first days breakfast!  It was yummy... donuts taste like pocky here.  My professor, Marc Thomas, doesn't really think that we should be sitting in a classroom the entire time we're here, so he did minimal classroom time and a lot of field trip type stuff and free time to explore on our own.

So far I've been to Hiroshima and Miyajima once, Kyoto a few times, Otsu a couple times, Tokyo twice and I currently live in Hikone.  Hiroshima is beautiful and obviously has a lot of history and emotion there.  Hiroshima's message as of today is peace and they want the world to be full of peace and love.  Everyone there and at Miyajima was really nice.  You can pet deer and see the Torii gate in the water at Miyajima.  Miyajima is a sacred island with many beautiful things on it, I suggest that anyone who gets the chance visit it.
Kyoto is a place of cultural and academic status.  It's very beautiful there and you will see many women in kimono walking down the busy streets.  Kyoto is a somewhat short train ride from Hikone, but when I move to Otsu it's a train stop or two away, so even closer.
Tokyo... is, well, Tokyo.  It is different.  It's a big city full of homeless people and crime, but it is FAR nicer than any big city you will visit while in America.  Just avoid the love hotels and red light districts and you'll be just fine.  People are still pretty nice there and are more likely to acknowledge or point at you because you're a foreigner... and in my case wearing a lolita dress and have blonde hair.  Shibuya in Tokyo is the place to go for general fashion and clubbing at night, but if you want Lolita or anything specialty like that, you have to go to Harajuku to get it, which is technically part of Shibuya, but about a 5 minute train ride away (160 yen).  Tokyo is HUGE and is easy to get lost in, but there's maps everywhere and it's much more common that people know English, so you'll be fine no matter what... just don't jay walk, you'll get hit by a taxi most likely.

Otsu and Hikone are quite close to eachother and less heard of.  Otsu is the capitol of Shiga Prefecture.  Hikone is a smaller city that has a lot of farming and such, but also shopping and stuff along with an old castle from back when samurai and such were around.  I have yet to go to the actual castle, but I've seen it in passing several times, and you can see it on the mountain from where I'm currently living. I'll be moving to Otsu for my second program in a couple days.  Just to give you an idea of how far Otsu and Hikone are from eachother, it costs about 900 yen to get from one to another, so it's kinda far, but not by much.  It might take 20-30 minutes by local train to get from one to another.  It takes around two or two and a half hours to get to Tokyo by Shinkansen.  I want to make it very clear that that is by the Shinkansen... that's like a plane, but it's a train... the fastest train.  Scary fast.

I'm not sure what else to write while I'm on right now... it looks like Erika has FINALLY returned from her excursion of the day and we have a project to write a proposal paper for that's due before we go out for Karaoke fun times! 

If anyone has questions go ahead and ask, it'll make it easier to know what to write on here.  I don't care whether I know you or not, this is a public blog for a reason.