catch up

hey all!!
so i realized its time to catch everyone up on whats new...things at school haven't been to busy, but they are going well.. i have had a few lessons go over really well.. and am looking forward to the work that i get to do after midterms which start at the end of this week.
I just got back from a long weekend spent in Kyoto City. It was supremely awesome!! I went with about 18 other JETs from Toyama. On friday night we meet and headed off in two tiny vans, and one car.. it was tight but fun. We didn't get to Kyoto till after midnight, but the van ride down was great. We stayed at a hostel in the south part of the city. And I was so psyched to explore. Kyoto is the old capital of japan, and its got great temples, shrines, castles, and tons of stuff to see. Saturday I headed out with a small group and did a huge amount of sight seeing, we wandered temples, saw a famous rock garden and best of all for me was going to Nijo castle. This castle is cool because all the corridors have wooden floors that we intentionally built to squeek as a person walks over them. so image 100s of people walking around on this floor, they call it the Nightengale floor cause it sounds like hundreds of chirping birds. you don't even notice it at first.. but all of a sudden you are like woo thats cool. It was neat. We ended the nigth by eating at a great Irish Pub recommended in my guide book... nope it wasn't traditional Japanese but it was really good fish n' chips and guiness and cider... Then we wandered into Gion- this is the part of the city thats still has many traditional houses and where all the geisha's come out at. We were really lucky and saw 3 geishas walking around with their escorts.. it was neat, but odd cause it felt like we were just staring at them.. but i guess we were lucky to see them.
I was so tired when we got back to the hostel.. just a note city transportation ends at 11:30.. so the last bus you get on, may not actually be going all the way to the stop you want... so we ended up walking a lot and finally hailing a taxi.

So Sunday, I decided to do a little less cause I was beat, but I went off with a friend and we went to this mountain area, which has thousands of orange gates going up a mountain and you walk up it.. its some sort of shrine.. i don't really know what its called but it was neat.. I walked part way up the mountain under the gates.. and then headed back down. I saw a pomagranet tree!!
after that I wandered off and saw some more temples, and did some shopping... i was so tired at this point that I just found a place to chill and hang out.. meet up with another JET for dinner and had a semi-early night at the hostel.
We had to leave at like 10 on monday morning so I didn't do anymore sight seeing, but of course it was pouring the whole ride home.. and i had to bike back from the station in the rain.. i got so soaked..
anyway it was really fun, and I can't wait to go back to Kyoto.. there are so many things to do. i didn't even make it to half of the things i would have liked. But hey... I live here.. I can go back anytime I want.

I took a bunch of pictures which I will post soon on flickr, I have an interesting rest of the week coming up, tomorrow and wednesday are normal classes, and wednesday night the english teachers at my school are having my welcome enkai (pary) so that should be fun.. and thursday afternoon I have no classes... friday mid-terms start and then all of next week are midterms so it should be a quite next week or so.. I will work on posting my pics when I am work with nothing to do.

Anyway it was fun, meet some new JETs in my area that I hadn't seen before and had fun.. It was the start of a crazy month for me though.. i have something going on for the next 5 weekends in a row so it should be fun.

I can't believe that I've been here 2 months already!!
okay enough rambling, hope everyone is doing well.

Love
Lissie