Looks like I've caught a cold. Gonna take a nice shower and go to bed early tonight!

It rained here last Tuesday. I don't know if I ever seen so much rain fall in such a short period of time. This is a picture of the stream by my house, which the rain turned into a raging river. Gotta prepare for that rainy season!

Final Destination for Study Abroad: Nagasaki!

Sooooo finally in the city I will be studying in, Nagasaki. So far, I have taken a liking to my host living area, and the city itself. It is really pretty, and the view from my host family's house is amazing.

 I've already had the chance to do a bunch of fun things. Like try on my first casual kimono for my kimono class. FYI there are men kimonos too, they aren't just for women!

Went to a Cat Cafe, which is basically a little cozy house like shop where you just go and hang out with cats. They happen to be a great stress reliever, unless they are pissed off and don't want to be petted.

And a few quick picture of the University I will be studying at. We came at a great time, as the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, only to last a few more days after our arrival. 

My room at my host family's house! 

These are the carvings in the wall between my room and the one next to me, above the sliding doors. 

And the International Students took a field trip together to Mount Unzen, an active volcano (last eruption in the 1990's)! And where there is hot burning sulfur, there are hot springs. Yes it was awesome. Smell... not so much.  Don't worry, we were on a mountain a bit away from the actual volcano, so no real danger just in case the volcano lost it's cool XD

Nagasaki is of course a port city! And with that come many fantastic looking ships, boats, and bridges!

From here on out I will be doing smaller posts as things come to mind. This is the last really big post lol

Kyoto!

So our time in Kyoto was a blast! We got very lucky and stayed in an awesome hostel called the Khaosan Kyoto Guest House. I highly recommend if anyone reading this is going to visit Kyoto.

We didn't get to do all that we wanted in Kyoto, because it was very cold and we really didn't want to freeze our buns off. However, one of the things we did was visit the Inari Shrine. Inari is a Shinto Spirit/God of agriculture, and used foxes (kitsune) as messengers, which is why you see many statues of them throughout the shrine.

Another thing we got to do just outside of Kyoto, was visit Nara. In Nara there are wild deer who live in the town parks and are quite comfortable and a little too friendly with visitors.

Also in Nara is the Todaiji Temple, inside which is one of the largest wooden statues of Buddha in the World.

Kyoto was fantastic and we got to meet a lot of awesome people who became awesome good friends!