February 2003

February 28, 2003

I managed to get some shots up from the monkey park in Nagano...these are all Laura's shots with her digital camera, as I can't really afford to get any film developed right now. There are some pretty good shots here, but I think Action Monkey is my favourite: what a star!

February 27, 2003

The plum blossom festival from the day before last was truly spectacular. We visited the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, which is now officially my favourite in Kyoto, and strolled through the vast groves of plum blossom trees there that have just come into bloom.

Luckily we have Laura's digital pictures to put up for now from both Nagano and the plum blossom festival, since we lack the cash to get my film developed. That might, however, have a little something to do with the fact that Laura and I went out and bought a new laptop.

February 25, 2003

We're back! I had an absolutely fabulous time in Nagano, and Sunday was probably one of the best days of my life. There is most definitely plenty to put up about this weekend, not the least of which are reams of awesome monkey pictures, but that will have to wait, as Laura and I are off to see the Plum Blossom Festival in Northern Kyoto. Life's pretty rough.

February 22, 2003

Hey all...it's been a busy couple of days, so not so easy to put a post up, really. Laura and I have decided to stick around in Kyoto, so the move to Tokyo is off. I'll write more about that later.

Tommorrow we're off to Nagano straight from work...we're catching the night train at Kyoto station and then arriving just before six in the morning. It's going to be a blast, methinks.

I'll write more when we return, so until then...

February 18, 2003

Spring is finally here, so I thought it would be the perfect time to put up an Autumn page. How sad. It's a nice page, though. I think I need to change this background as well, no?

February 14, 2003

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. I had a special Valentine's class at NOVA today that no one showed up to...much to my relief, actually. It was my reasoning that anyone that was interested enough in Valentine's to even consider my class would likely have better things to do with their evening than sit around an English school...but that's just my opinion.

Look for tonnes of stuff coming online over the next few days, probably Monday (my time). Laura's been scanning in reams of pictures spanning back to autumn that have been backlogged, so now all that remains is for me to throw it all together. There is a lot of really neat stuff, so keep an eye out.

I'm really looking forward to going to Nagano next weekend, where Laura and I will be staying in a ryokan (traditional Japanese hotel) and bathing in some hot springs in the Japan Alps. As if that wasn't cool enough, there are also hot springs there for monkeys. Yes, monkeys. There goes about twelve rolls of film right there.

February 12, 2003

My constant struggle to keep things going up on this page continues, but I have managed to get the page together for the training camp in Kurama. That leaves only a massive stack of other pages to do, assuming I don't do anything else in the mean time...not likely.

Laura did a bunch of scanning of China pictures and shots from Ice Storm 1998, which should theoretically make it easy for me to get pages up for those within the next couple of days as well. The China page is a work in progress, but I'll update it as I go. Beyond that there are the spectacular photos from Himeji Castle that need to see the light of day, as well as pictures from teh Geisha dance (stunning) which was held at the Setsubun festival.

I've decided on the location for my next 'retreat' which will likely be in May. I'm planning on going to a Vipassana centre to learn meditation and to observe 10 days of total silence and isolation...does that sound great, or what? By the looks of the schedule, there is about eight hours a day of meditation, and communication of any kind is strictly forbidden. I think it will be a great step in my training and a significant personal challenge.

February 10, 2003

I have returned from the mountains, and as I sit here now I think that I've almost fully recovered, as well. The whole thing was really quite an amazing experience, and I'm working right now on putting together a little page telling all about it.

On my way back to civilization yesterday I stopped in at the Kurama Onsen to try and steam out all of the aches and pains from the weekend.

February 8, 2003

Today I'm headed up into the mountains for the training camp at Kurama Temple. Needless to say, I'm pretty excited. I'll probably freeze my butt off, given that there will likely be no heat up there, but then if all goes according to my plan, I'll be able to warm up at the hotsprings tomorrow on my way home. Hopefully I'll be able to take some pictures, which I'll be sure to put up as soon as I can.

February 7, 2003

It's been an eventful week so far, and the night before last I got to feel my first earthquake since coming to Japan. Although it only lasted a few seconds, it really got my attention. It was pretty neat, although I don't think I would have thought so if it lasted much longer.

AMMENDMENT: After a rather worried email from my mother, I thought it might be wise to say that the earthquake was nothing, really, but a small tremor. The doors shook a little. I woke up. No explosions, no falling buildings...my Jenga Tower was even okay.

Note to self: my mother reads my website!

February 2, 2003

February is here and so, apparently, is Spring. Today and tomorrow, a number of events around Kyoto are being held to welcome the new season...much to my surprise. I was just getting used to the idea that February was meant to be the coldest month here, and now everyone tells me it's spring. Hm.

Of course, this also means that my Autumn background is now two seasons behind the times, which is rather embarrassing indeed.

Next weekend I will be going on the trip to Kurama that I mentioned, and I'm already getting really excited. It's evidently going to be focused on sword training, which should be very interesting. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures.

Today I went with our new neighbours to see a Geisha dance in Yasaka Shrine (another major place I have yet to do a page for!). It was really spectacular, and you could tell that it was just as exciting for the Japanese to see real Geisha as it was for us. Despite the fact that today was a celebration of spring, we were treated to a nice sprinkling of snow...leading me to question the timing of the festival somewhat.