A Picnic

This post's random personality: British guy (not exactly a personality, but still)...

Hello!  Earlier on I had a truly smashing picnic.  Apparently, several friends were rather chuffed to bits by Grammy's arrival, so they decided to throw a party (and by several I  mean several dozen).  At some point, a girl who didn't speak much English seemed not to know the difference between "I love you" and "How do you do?"

"Me; friend.  I love you."
Me: ... ',:^\

After we'd gotten all that sorted out...

There I learned a game that many high schoolers are very interested in in Japan: being clever with pictures in terms of faking martial arts.

One person goes in a position where it would appear they've just landed, and the rest of us jump back as though blasted back.  Here's how it would appear:

I also managed to be in the centre for a picture:

Then we decided to take a picture of me and four girls looking like we were going to shoot energy out of our hands:

Finally, we decided to conclude by just looking cool or otherwise narcissistonic:

Itsukushima Shrine

This post's random personality: vocabulocity

Good evening.  During my trip we arrived at Miyajima, the designation of the island where the famed Istukushima Shrine is located.  The shrine itself was, to say to least, interesting; but was by great extent not the most entertaining.

By far, the greatest activity in my opinion was that which was not recommended...

Although this would appear at first glance to be quite standard countryside, upon closer investigation of the location it is noted that I am standing on part of a mountain.

The red and circled area is where I was.  It was rather like that throughout the entire area.  I attracted the attention of several people, one of which commented that he initially thought me a deer.

Speaking of which, I believe I am missing one other addition that modified my experience in a positive manner: close-up experiences with Pecora Cervidae.

 Japanese deer appear to be rather different from American deer; their external ears appear slightly larger and they appear slightly smaller--adding a bit of "mule" to the classic depiction of this species.

(We were not actually permitted to touch the deer; I was putting up my hand to show how close I was.  The only problem was that the deer wanted to touch us).




Overall, I must conclude that this was a most satisfactory visit, not to mention my favorite so far.

Hiroshima Castle

This post's random personality: Hercules (he uses litotes!)

I went to the Hiroshima Castle in--you guessed it--Hiroshima!  The original castle wasn't in perfect condition after the bombing, but they managed to rebuild it.  Inside the castle, the staff weren't exactly crazy about pictures, but there were certain places which were allowed.  Here's a view from the castle roof:

Not as low as Death Valley...

They also had a few features I hadn't expected--they weren't terrible...

The scenery outside wasn't bad, either--nor were the birds.

Overall, it wasn't the worst place I've ever been...

A 5-Hour Drive

This post's random personality: quiet*

Most of the view was a little like this:

I didn't know Japan had many mountains.

Overall, I liked it.

*as in, mostly quiet who is very interested in scenery, tends to speak in understatement, prefers pictures to words anyway, and uses very very very short sentences.

The Kaleidoscope Museum

This post's random personality: jerk

I --  POW!  BANG!  WHACK!  CRASH! "#*&%!!"

Sorry, we are currently experiencing technical difficulties. 

This post's random personality: Tomathyn (me)

Ah, hello.

Earlier we ended up driving for five hours in a car, but first we stopped by Japan's kaleidoscope museum.  This had a rather large collection of ones--as well as a rather large one, as I'll get to later.

Some are really rather odd--for the Moai and Tutankhamen, you have to look directly into their nose.

A zoom-in of the Moai's nose.

One of the best ones there in my opinion was the kaleidoscope you can stick your head into.  Here are Grammy and I:

Last but not least, we went into the largest wax kaleidoscope in the world!  As they say, a picture's worth a thousand words, so here you go!

Mount Fuji

This post's random personality: unflappable

(say in Eyore's voice for full effect).

While driving, we saw Mt. Fuji.  I had not been informed that we would be seeing this location.  It was unexpected and rather interesting.

The Ghibli Studio

This post's random personality: eccentric

On our first day in Japan, we went to the Ghibli Museum!  We saw all sorts of really neat things there that didn't allow pictures, but a few things outside the building did.  Here's my favorite:

Me standing next to a Laputan guardian from Castle in the Sky!

I also got to see an exclusive movie at the museum's theater!  On that day they were showing めいとねこバス、a mini-sequel to My Neighbor Totoro!  It was only in Japanese, but that's still okay, because it had subtitles!  Except the subtitles were in Japanese, too...   but I knew enough Japanese to figure it out (the fact that it had almost no dialogue helped, too).

The movie itself was very, very over-the-top.  But anyway, I had a simply smashing time!  And that was only the first day!