Oh my goodness! Where has the time gone!

I completely forgot about the blog! Gosh, just goes to show what bouncing around from place to place in another country will do to a person. :) Well, anyways I will return to this project with all due respect (I have been keeping my daily journal, of course!) and resume with a brief account of my exploits in Osaka!

There really isn't much to do (without traveling an hour at least) in mid-town Osaka as far as Shintoism or painting is required. There's one major shrine that I've been to, Sumiyoshi-taisha, which is the head shrine dedicated to the Shinto god of war, and subsequent gods as well, including the god who watches over those out at sea. So, yea, I've been reading a lot, wandering through the shopping mecha that is the Namba area, including Namba Parks and mall, America-mura, and Ebisu/Shinsaibashi-shopping arcade. Whew! After walking all day to various places one's feet do tire quite a bit. I think my left ankle today decided it has had enough. Tomorrow I'll stay in then, do some painting and finish my internship presentation/slideshow so that I can move on to beginning the rough draft of my Shinto paper.

I am officially....three weeks into "My" fall term! Which began on September 24th, and ends on December 7th! It's nice to work on one's own, but still, it takes a lot to stay focused! I'll admit, these past few days I've been wandering into town instead of slaving away on the keyboard, which I do need to figure out how to balance, it seems I'm ever only out walking around or shut up in the guesthouse common room foodling away on the computer or with a book. Hm. I'll work that one out later. It's only 8:30pm now, and I've been sleeping in lately, (partially due, I suspect, to the rather thin bedding.) The good news is that there's a monthly apartment complex in Kyoto that I might be able to rent! The highest room goes for about 40,000 yen. (about $400) per month, which is at least a third less than what I would be paying to stay at a guesthouse for 2500 yen nightly. (yesh..) Which is great because that will put me into the perfect time to go down to Kumano and spend a week hiking before taking a break back in Nara and then taking the train or bus all the way back to Tokyo and spend a week at my friend Nao's place! Woo! Now to just get all of this organized on paper and not in my mind where it will most likely delude me to the point of procrastination disaster, and we don't want that. No indeed.

Well then! Gosh, I haven't been taking any pictures at all! That will have to be remedied. I'll be working tomorrow morning, and then I'll go out and about taking pictures and whatnot since tomorrow is my last day in Osaka before I pack out for Kyoto! (which is only like, what, an hour away? I'll probably take another day trip back in sometime later.)

 So until my next post, which will be sooner rather than weeks later! (I apologize! There will be pictures too. I can promise you that.)

Take care, :)
~Kira