on the road again...

TODAY: First earthquake that I was like, OK this is for sure an earthquake! Ha ha, I was eating lunch in a newer building but definately felt the shaking! Pete said it woke him up and shook him hard. So Either he lives much closer to the epicenter than Waseda, or the building I have Ainu in is more structurally designed for earthquakes. (Which, lol, "earthquake" and "confidence" are homophones, they're both said 'jishin' although maybe intonation is different?)
YESTERDAY: Got the Xmas presents for the family sent off! Now to start on Xmas cards/letters!

EARLIER:
So I actually managed to take myself out and about the past little while! 2 gold stars for me :)

I  went to Kamakura and Enoshima last Thursday. Started the day early, and bought a return ticket (Kamakura Free Pass from JR East) from 'Baba eki, and got on the Yamanote to Shinjuku, where I was supposed to transfer to the direct line out to Kamakura.... but it wasn't running that morning for some reason. So I had to hop BACK on the Yamanote, and get to Shinagawa, where I then transfered to the local train to Yokosuka, which has a stop at Kamakura. So instead of it taking less than an hour to get there, It took almost 2 and a half :(. But I got there by 11-ish and had a wonderful time just wandering around various temples and shrines. I like shrines better I think. I WAS disappointed that I couldn't take pictures at my favourite place. Its got a bunch of statues that have "ferocious" faces on that are supposed to be the judges at the gates of hell or something. But mostly they just looked pretty funny. I did pay to go inside the big buddha again, but I forgot you can't go up to his head and look out from his eyes, you just walk into his belly. Which sounds cool when I phrase it that way, so I guess it coulda been worse. By no means did I see every temple and shrine there, I think I could've easily spent another day there (I didn't get to the beach either!) but I wanted to take the trolley to Enoshima and watch the sunset there, which is supposed to be fantastic. And Ezster had highly reccommended Enoshima too... which means I will have to go back. Because of clouds, by the time I got there the sunset was blocked. And everything was already shut down more or less at 5pm when I got there. Sort of disappointing. But I had gotten most of my Xmas shopping done!
And Saturday (i think) I went to Rikugien Korakuen, which is a famous garden in tokyo, to see some fall colours. And an illumination (so I was there a loooong time OMG like 6 hours???) But my camera still wasn't charged after Kamakura, so I need to figure out how to get those pics off my cell phone at some point. BTW, tokyo is STILL MOSTLY GREEN and I dont think it's dropped below 10C yet. :D This is CRAZY and AWESOME! And everyone looks at me funny bc I'm still in early fall clothes and they are in like 3 layers and scarves and toques! And Haru keeps our room at like 24-26C at all times, so I'm in tanks and shorts in the dorm... next winter will be painful if I get too used to this.

Starting to research alternate housing options over the last few days. Hopefully I'll have some luck soon!

Miss you (you know who you are)
-J