things breaking

Today is Saturday and this week was the mid terms for Japanese class. I think I did a little worse on these tests then I normally do. I studied a lot but definitely not all that I could have. I dunno my Japanese classes are doing some pretty hard stuff I think. I've done some more walking/picture taking in Kobe so there are plenty of pictures of my town uploaded now.

Wednesday me, Jay and Courtney went to Den Den town. It was the first time either of them had gone and they really liked it. Between that and a store I found while walking around I picked up some major parts of my final fantasy collection; I got final fantasy 1 2 3 on the famicom, 4 and 6 with the box on super famicom and x2 and x2 international version. It was all pretty cheap even though I really wanted to get FF7 international (Since I got Dissida I've been playing through all of the final fantasy games, I just beat FF6 then the FF7 prequel game. Also I want to get the Japanese version because I know the story well enough to still follow) but FF7 is still crazy popular and I passed up the chance to buy it for 2200 yen which was cheap compared to other places.

The main thing thats been on my mind though was the fact I dropped my MP3 player and it broke. I didn't use it too much before but not being able to listen to music if I want to makes me really want to get a new one. I've looked all online and I've decided I want a 16gb ipod touch. The problem is that I can get them cheaper in the US, especially if I can use a walmart discount. So I tried to find an alternative with using my DS as an MP3 player and got an 8gb micro sd card ($20) but the software kind of sucks. so I can do it, but its not ipod.

Today we went to Nara for a field trip! Nara is famous for its deer, and I took a bunch of pictures of them. These deer are EVERYWHERE! You walk towards the temple and there are deer mixed in with the crowd. The have stalls that sell deer food and the deer are really pushy and want everyone to keep feeding them. The deer also poop everywhere, which is pretty gross. We first had lunch and of course being a tourist trap was a little more pricey then usual but had a really good katsutamagodon. It was really sweat. We then saw a store making mochi. Mochi is like the sticky clay like ball of rice, they make it by pounding at it with hammers tons of times. I did manage to capture a short video of one of the parts, my camera messed up on the other.

We then walked someways and went to a museum that had an exhibit on o mizutori (the festival we were attending). Our teacher really puts a lot of effort into this class as he came earlier on his own (nara is pretty far from kobe) and made a printout explaining all of the parts. It blows me away to think of how old some of the stuff there is. Like scrolls from 700 ad that lists all of the emperors and not worthy people in history. We also so other exhibits which all looked cool but didn't really know what it was about. I did see some scrolls that were like depictions of hell with oni doing graphic things to people, I was kind of surprised.

After that we went to a giant buhdha temple and inside there was an enormous buhdha statue, its again in the pictures but like it could fight godzilla big. There were several other huge statues but as it got just a little dark my camera kind of crapped out. We waited around for a little bit trying to get our group all together for the other place. We got to the site where the public can view the omizutori ceremony and got pretty close. I brought a tiny folding stool and was really glad that I did. A few of us then left our stuff and tried to get some dinner. It was me leila, pak, courtney and leila's friend from leeds (who was a really cool person). We walked around for a bit but there was only two places to eat and it took a while for our food to come so we got back a little later then we should have as the crowd had goten huge. Somehow, I have no idea how, we got back up to the front with the others who were no longer sitting down as it was too cramped. We still had a good hour plus to wait however so I managed to sit on my stool and play pheonix wright.

By the time the ceremony began at around 7 it was a little cold. We stood down hill to this high building where a giant torch was brought up and shaken over the edge of the railing. It really looks like the temple is going to burn down with how big these torches are (it has happened before) but it looks like they are pretty well prepared for it. The bits of sparks that came showering down was really pretty and looked a lot like fireworks. Even though it probably wouldn't have worked I couldn't use my camera because the stupid thing gave me a memory card error. I took a few with my cell phone but I really can't do the sight justice in word or picture.

We had a little adventure getting back to the train station though because the last express train for either an hour or half an hour was leaving pretty soon so we all pretty much ran. Well Sensei ran, we just tried to keep up with him. We were really moving it and he even had us illegally cross the street to try and make it. I was so tired but we somehow made it with a little bit of time to spare.

I've had problems with my camera before, not remembering settings, not being able to take shots in any sort of low light, not being able to zoom. But with this memory error and the mess up with the mochi making video I wanted to take I'm fed up with it and have to buy a new camera ASAP. Like an MP3 player I can deal with out, I dont need it for Japan. A camera on the other hand is something that I use to make memories and for the last month in Japan all I plan on doing is exploring/taking pictures so I really need it. So I'm going to start doing research on cameras and see what I can find.