Where can you see lions? Only in Kenya!

Alright, this is just an aloha so you alls know i am still alive. I have been mucho busy in the last little bit, so i havent been able to verbatim reconstruct my lovely adventures for you. We had some test for class, and a kanji test, both of which were stupid. I have another kanji test coming up, which will also be stupid. That kanji class is a waste of my time. We arent actually learning any kanji at all. It is lame.

This weekend we went to Osaka with my host mom for a tea ceremony thing. It wasnt as good as when we went to her tea lesson - there were too many people there. Although it was damn amusing seeing Alex and Scott being the only two guys in a room full of old ladies. Then afterwards we went to Yodabashi Camera, where I bought earphones that i will now have to return. They are half the length of my other headphones, and therefore completely unusable. Cant even get the bloody ipod into my pocket. Grr.

Sunday we spent an exhausting day doing stuff. There was some parade in Kyoto - costumes of japan through the ages, followed by a long seriously squashed train ride into the mountains for a fire festival, that (once it got going) was very very cool. There were a LOT of whiteys there. We were code white-ing all over the place. Also, last night had some of my favourite uses of taihen (terrible) ever. The policeman near our spot at the fire thing is warning everyone to stay back, and literally said "Because its fire, its terribly hot!" and later, by the train, through a megaphone "The train will be terribly crowded!" Boy they were not kidding. Trying to get back to the station from the festival we had to follow an ENORMOUS crowd of people through a tiny tiny pathway -- it was refugee-esque, but taihen amusing. While all packed together, Alex made some joke about flexing your knees, because thats where theyll attack, and several nearby (ie, at my elbow) people started giggling. Its not often there are enough english speakers for that. Two or three times we had people walk up and ask if we spoke english, followed by asking for directions or whatnot. All in all, it was great. Although i wished we could have stayed for the big finale, but we would have missed the last bus home. As it was, we started back through the people at 745, and Host Mom picked me up from the Eki at 11. So.

Anyway, all that being done, i am beat, and now i have to start the whole bloody week over again. Tuesday is Kanji test again, and then Wednesday we are off to some high school to be put on display like trained monkeys. I think next week we have off though.. at any rate, the first and second we are going away to some english overnight practice conference for high school girls.

I would really like to go back to bed. My favourite thing about this whole weekend is that when we get totally tired, we get silly, and then I always end up laughing until my stomach hurts. It is great. But yes, shower and then school.