More pics on the tour around Kagawa prefecture.

Takamatsu is the main city in the prefecture, and differs a lot from Tokyo in that it has lots of open spaces, stores are much bigger and people use bikes and cars to travel around instead of using the train.

The Sea of Seto.

Some lighthouse maybe.

This looks like a scene of an old movie.

Some castle/fortress/whatever that was nearby.

A few weeks ago I went with Kazumi to Kagawa prefecture in Shikoku. During our trip, we visited the Konpira Shrine, the most famous one in the region.

In front of the station…

Don’t know who this is.

If you give like 5 million yen or more to the shrine, you can get your name carved in one of these as well.

More stuff…

Hachiko…?

A huge propeller donated by some ship company.

I had no idea there were elephants in Japan…

Advertising… inside of the shrine.

As would be expected… there is a café conveniently placed inside the shrine grounds.

Once you get to the shrine, you can appreciate sceneries like these.

To get to the top of the shrine, we had to climb over 1000 steps.

More steps…

This was at the very top of the place.

The view from the top.

On the way back now…

I bet there’s millions of yen inside that thing.

Back down near the entrance…

Is this a plum tree?

Some huge dirty pond… The guy in charge must have been on vacation or something.

Some library on Buddhist books.

Inside the library.

Some strange looking shrine next to the train station.

Back on February, we held some sort of cultist gathering to call forth spirits from the next realm. The result was something extremely bizarre that hopefully won’t be repeated ever again.

One of many foul spirits that were released on that fateful night…

Introducing you to her majesty… the queen of the underworld. (?)

To cope up with the changing times, our cult allows their members to participate in our rituals online…

A circle of power with the crest of the almighty ruler of all cosmos.

The wandering spirit of a deceased cat… holding a balloon in its hand.

All our spiritual gatherings always end up with a huge feast.

Baska casting a magical spell…

Xena the warrior princess?!?!?!…

These are pics from back in January when we celebrated Akira’s birthday at his place in Odaiba.

Thiago scolding Baska for stealing his party hat…

The guy in question.

These girls are lovely.

So true…

• Back: Joe, Janaina, Roberto, Carolina, friend #1, Morteza, Sarah, Felipe and Kazumi.
• Front: Friend #2, Baska, Akira, Anna, Fernando (me) and Thiago.

These are some pictures from four months ago. I didn’t really have the time to upload them until now, so please forgive me.

In any case, for Christmas Eve we decided to go see Christmas decorations around Shinjuku. The place was nicely decorated, but it was pretty much the same as the previous year.

For some reason, there was a huge queue of couples trying to get into that thing.

After that, we had some really nice dinner at an Indian restaurant nearby.

From left to right: Son, Zoltan, Hui, Sarah, Baska and Fernando (me).

Last week, we could finally take a break and find some time to have some fun, so we decided to go to karaoke. Well… there’s really nothing much to say about this night, except that it was a lot of fun. Enjoy the pics.

Ton, Fernando (me) and Nam.

Ben and Takeshi here.

Sophia and Shi.

Iris and Tina.

Yesterday, me and the rest of the kids went to have lots of fun and celebrate Baska’s birthday at Balloon Playland in Odaiba (Akira’s room at Tokyo International Exchange Center). The place, which looks like the presidential suite of a five star hotel (you damn Odaiba bastards!! ), was very nice and balloons gradually filled the entire room during the next three hours.

Little Nam was sad because the other kids were teasing her too much.

The birthday girl displaying her artistic balloon bending skills.

There was homemade pizza over there as well.

Baska: “Look at my dog!!!!”

Akira: “I would say it’s a giraffe”

Baska: *crying* “NO!! YOU LIE!!!”

Akira, Janaina, Felipe and Rene doing some advertising for the nearby pizza shop.

Fernando (me), Baska and Nam. Nam was holding our beloved little fox… which would die at her hands one hour later.

The Mega Traditional Brazilian-like Balloon Hat, Nam Version…

Baska version…

Fernando (me) version…

Janaina version…

Kiwi version…

Creepy version…

Eliza version…

Rainbow-peacock-tail-like enhanced version.

Ton’s… something hat. (original design by Rene)

Akira giving all kids a special biology class on the human intestinal organs…

Eliza and Baska: “OK kids, now we are gonna show you how to use the toilet!!! Don’t be afraid, the toilet is our friend…”

(seriously, why do they have those toilets surrounded by glass? I guess some people really like giving some very “special” shows to their guests and stuff… )

Panama is here too!!

Baska together with Mama Baska and Papa Baska.

Fernando: “Give me all of your snacks right now or I won’t let you go!!!”

Rene and his personal masterpiece. The product of a twisted mind…

Fernando (me) in the kid’s playground. A bit lonely it seems…

Baska got love letters as a birthday present… sadly, they were for some damn Julie…

Eliza: (Oh God… one of them farted…)

Birthday cake time!!!

OK… someone in there looks like he needs some cake real badly…

More balloon time…

It’s a bear!! I guess…

*Pet Shop Boys singing on the background*

“…Go weeeeeest!! where the skies are blueeee!! Go weeeest!!….”

Well… don’t know… but that looks sorta… dangerous…

Something’s stalking Baska from behind!!

Remember Star Trek?…

Ton in Winnie the Pooh mode…

All of the kids together…

Nam: “Please come over to have fun here at Balloon Playland Odaiba!!! we are waiting for you!!!”

After eating lots of really nice pizza and cakes, and about a hundred of exploded balloons too, we finally left with tears in our eyes… The kids didn’t want to leave, but that would’ve been a problem for Mom and Dad.

No, it’s not misspelled… and no, it has nothing to do with food. This weekend we went to Zushi beach to celebrate Sourav’s, Vikram’s and Caroline’s birthdays, the end of summer and any other excuses we had to just go to the beach.

I had a bit of a cold and was sort of dizzy due to side effects of cold medication (please forgive me if I said or did anything too weird), but I still managed to enjoy the trip a lot.

Well, anyway, thanks a lot for the invitation guys!!

Most of my pics turned out pretty dark like this, so please bear with it.

I guess my flash was too strong for Sourav or something…

Takeshi and Vikram enjoying some hopefully cold beer.

Vikram and Caroline. So… to whom did you guys say I should send this pic to?

Ahn was freezing cold so… that’s why you see Sourav executing some professional anti-hypothermic shock treatment. (yeah, right…)

And well… at last, I had to finally appear to ruin the collection of nice pictures we already had.

This weekend was this year’s Brazilian festival at Yoyogi Park. Despite the rain and everything, it was still very enjoyable and I managed to eat some nice pastel and coxinha so I was sort of satisfied. I was kind of missing the Latin American atmosphere already, so it was good for a change I guess.

These are whole bunch of old guys wearing leather clothing we found in the park…

Then suddenly… they start dancing music from the 50’s / 60’s.

Felipe, Akira and Janaina when we were leaving the festival (couldn’t take more pictures because of the rain ).

I was completely soaked in there. Even my underwear was completely wet.

Some suspicious figure in a green jacket just kept stalking us all around. So scary…

Well… It’s 7:30 am and I’ve been just writing reports and stuff non-stop since yesterday. It’s not like I’m being enslaved by the reports or anything. Actually I could’ve finished the reports several days ago already, is just that these reports are particularly… fun (yeah… call me weird ), and I feel like making them as good as possible. Anyway, no matter how much I like my reports, it’s also important to take a break every once in a while. So I’m taking this chance to get some stuff that has been bugging me for a while out of my head.

I’m in Japan as you know already, and life is great here; got lots of good friends, got a nice apartment near the university, have enough money to survive, etc… In other words, so far so good. If you were to ask me, I would say that this country is just awesome. Some stuff could be better of course, but… it’s awesome still. Yet, even though life is so much fun… there are a couple of things that make me regret the fact I ever came here.

One of the things I regret… are weddings. No, I’m not getting married or anything, and there’re no plans for that… at least not for now that is (don’t worry mom, I’m just teasing you a bit ). But, since I came here, I’ve already missed five weddings of friends/relatives. It’s like… everybody was just waiting for me to leave, so that they could get married once and for all or something. It’s not like it’s such a big deal or anything to miss 5 or 10 weddings while I’m here, but it would’ve been nice to share those moments with family and friends on such unique occasions you know? Those moments will never come back… and I just missed them.

There are many other things I regret… failing the entrance exam the first time, not being able to see or talk with my family and friends in my country, etc… But probably the one I regret the most is not having been able to be at my grandpa’s funeral. It’s been almost one year since that day… and I still haven’t paid my respects. With all that was going on with the entrance exams and the high price of the plane tickets, I just couldn’t afford to go… and still can’t. My grandpa was a very special person to me… He would often complain about things, like most old men do, but would always help you if you asked him. Harsh… but gentle, that’s probably the best way to describe him. Yet, for such a person who helped me and taught me so much, I still haven’t gone to his grave even once… as if I was being oblivious to his death.

There are so many words I wish I had said… so many things I wish I had done… so many moments I wish I could’ve shared… and I just couldn’t… Will God ever forgive such impotence?

Even so… after one whole year… I still remember you grandpa… in every single day… and every single smile. Even though you are no longer around… I’ll make sure I make it up to you somehow… someday… I promise.