They may have stopped making the sundaes...



But the hideous Gremlin still lives on! In my room!

(Albeit in an alcove by the door, so that I can't see it when I'm trying to sleep at night, but it still managed to get from the cafeteria to my room...)

Mwahaha!

Bow down and worship me...



For I am VENDOR!!! Lord of the Vending Machine!!!

Today I went for a long walk around the nearby Yamagoe area, and ended up momiji* viewing with my camera.























... And finally, a view of the city.

* Momiji means autumn leaf, by the way.

Today, some more local shots. These are all in the area near the gigantic LIFE supermarket, which, ironically, shares its grounds with a cemetery.











Maybe someone forgot to water the plants...

Procrastination.







I have a pile of work to do. Suddenly, I have the urge to show the world what my Japanese mobile phone looks like. Well, it is very cute. And it lives in its own little sock. Yet it won't help me write this stupid speech, sigh...

Today, I ate Natto. I had to try it at some point, and since it is supposed to be quite nutritious, it would be a good thing to eat on the off-chance that I actually liked it. It was very cheap, about 30p for a 3-pack. It didn't smell of anything, but it was like a giant spiderweb. To be honest, contrary to the article, I thought that it tasted like strong, bitter coffee. It might have tasted better with sugar on it, if I'd had some. But I don't like strong coffee, so I didn't finish it, although I tried it with a bit of mustard too. So if anyone wants the other two packs, they're up for grabs...

Since Natto sounds like Nut, here are some cute nuts that I found today.



Enjoy your weekend all!

Where's Santa? Ooh, ooh, he's hiding in the giant xmas tree at Kyoto Eki!





It was a big tree, but I had heard wonderful things about the way they decorated the station at xmas, so I'm kind of hoping that isn't it.

On an unrelated note, Once on a mountain, a lonely Straight-Goat...

PS3, released in Japan today, and here's me still looking for a second-hand Japanese PS1. Because old technology is still cool, the PS1 games are the best, and anyway, you wait until the second wave to buy, because the first will always have their glitches.

Technology, old and new.

Today I got my first 100 in grammar class. So, to celebrate, here is a happy scene from the Sky Garden on Kyoto Station.



I know I just seem to be posting random pictures at the moment, but apart form me acing school, nothing much else is happening. And I'm not really acing school, I'm just highlighting the good parts.

Last night I got my first '100' in calligraphy class (normally I score 75-80). I got a special stamp. So, to celebrate, here is a penguin in a wetsuit.

That is all.

My room as of yesterday.



I know it's just a tiny bit early but when your room is as 'standard issue' as mine you have to do something to liven it up. So yesterday, when the hyaku-en shop started selling xmas stuff, I went and bought two small trees, four tinsels and two sets of decorations. It all cost about a fiver in total, and my room is a lot nicer now. And yes, I do have fairy lights up, but I put them up last week around my floor-to-ceiling bookshelf.

In other news, on Tuesday night a bunch of us went to the cinema, turns out Japanese cinemas are just the same but the adverts are hilarious. And there are hardly any actual trailers, and when there are they are very short. We saw "Flags of our Fathers", the new Clint Eastwood movie. It felt a bit weird at first sitting in Japan watching Americans killing Japanese, but then at the end there was a trailer for the next movie, "Letters from Iwo Jima" which tells the story from the Japanese perspective. So that about evens it out, although we know how it ended. On the way back we were stopped by police who wanted to check our bikes, ooh maybe because we were foreigners perhaps, and one of our group misunderstood and started cycling away from them and had a policeman chase after him, so we made a good impression I'm sure. But they were friendly enough, I'm sure it could have been worse.

This morning I was up early to go to the Tabehoudai breakfast with some friends, all you can eat for 294 yen, (£1.30) but the catch is it's at 8am. But we sat and ate for an hour solid, then chatted for the rest (and signed up for gym inductions together, nothing to do with how much we ate) until class at 10.40am. And that was my day.