¤_¤ in Japan

Well, today was kind or uneventful. We traveled about threehours by shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo and then Sam, Sean, Alex, and I all headed to the Studio Ghibli museum for a little bit of fun. Studio Ghibli is the studio responsible for such movies as My Neighbor Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies, Howl's Moving Castle, and Spirited Away to name a few. I expeced it to be a bright place full of cool little things and some insight into what Miazaki was doing or thinking when he created some of his greatest films. The brightest part of the museum was actually the specialized bus that brought us to the museum. The inside while it did have cool little bit of movie memorabilia strewn about was actually very conservative when it came to colors and spacing. There were a lot of earth tones, like browns and greens, and the rooms were well spread out with a definate sense of direction even though none was specified. It all took me by surprise until I thought more about the movies and how most of them are based around how nature is lashing back at the humans because of things like deforestation, or the use of fire arms to over hunt, or over industrializtion. It all came into perspective.

After we met our sensei back at the train station, we headed back to Shinjuku for dinner at an incredibly nice hotel. It was 47+ stories tall with a viewing window on the 47th floor that looks out onto the rest of Tokyo and the view was absolutely breath taking. Up that high I'm usually a little apprehensive about standing right next to the window to look out and down, but I wanted to actually be able to walk out past the window and look at the view of Tokyo it's just that amazing. The dinner was a cool buffet full of interesting Japanese/French food that consisted mainly of seafood and I was happy. Since I've come to Japan I've acclimated more to the taste of seafood then I ever would have in the states. Dinner was a mix of conversation in English and Japanese about everything that we've done in Japan and things we want to do, tomorrow, in Japan, and in the future. Yuri's aunt kept most of talking in Japanese for the entirety of the meal and it was great to hear some people that just started learning the language realize how they have to start thinking when speaking the language. Devin said it best, "You have to train your mind to start thinking about how you want to form your sentences as you are speaking and think of the verb you want to use ahead of time, in the cases you do want to use one." You really don't have time to sit around and think about what you want to say before you say it, everything is all on the fly.

Moving along, after dinner every one that wasn't Sean, Sam, and I went to the hotel and the three of us went back to Akihabara for another round of beating in Guilty Gear. They were glorious beatings let me tell you. When it comes to that game, the kids here just have skills that can rock your socks off from across the room. I gave one guy a "run for his money" when I had to step up and defend the honor of Sam and Sean and took a first to 3 match to round 4 and lost the next one... but hey, it's just a game and this is just the greatest learning experience I've ever had the ability to take part in.

Peace!

５月２４日　木曜日　
京都から東京まで新幹線に乗りました。お茶の水のホテルへ帰りました。つぎにションさんとサムさんと「パンちゃん」とＧｈｉｂｌｉの博物館へ行きました。この博物館はとてもきれいでした。とてもくらかったです。たくさん茶色と白とオレンジのいろがありました。たくさんの映画の電磁を見ました。特にたくさんトトロとナウシカのてんじがありました。後できれいな新宿のホテルへ行きました。皆さんとゆりさんのおばさんと晩御飯を食べました。