Addendum. Because I can.

Yeah, I`m still here, and today was interesting enough to warrant an entry. I`m in Kyoto, hanging out with my tour guide and just enjoying the city. Today we went on a tour of Kyoto university, the streets of Gion, and the real live Geisha Avenue.

Highlights:

-A really good lunch at a place Yuka used to work, with good noodles, great Tenpura, and AMAZING Yuba sashimi. It had amazing flavor, melted in your mouth, and was served with real wasabi. Mmm.

-Green tea parfaits at the `best place in Kyoto to get them.` In addition to the parfaits, the store sold cups for Matcha that were over 100 dollars. Yow. Also, in talking at the place, it was revealed that these stores are frequented by women mostly, because the men are always working. It was basically said to me that women are the ones keeping the economy going, which makes sense. I`ll think more about that later and get to it in the postmortem.

-Kyoto University has the dingiest dorm I have ever seen. It looked worse than the worst part of Animal House. Run down, broken windows/roof, it was ridiculous. 500 yen a month. Amazing.

-Yes, I saw Geishas. The real ones. Walking Yuka to her teaching gig, she showed me the real steet where all of that takes place. Off the beaten trail, where no tourists know about it. And it was definately real. We saw limos with Geishas in them, really nice cars, Geisha walking all over the place, and a creepy guy running around with a telephoto lens. So it must have been real. Cool, because we got lucky to see such a rare sight. We walked up and down the street three times killing 30 minutes, and on the third walk-through, there were none around anymore. So very unique.

-Sushi. 100 yen per piece. I had 24 pieces, including seared Fugu. This was less than an hour ago, so if I drop dead, you will all know what happened. The whole tingling of the mouth thing is right. I feel like I lost feeling in my cheeks right now (I think), but it could be psychosomatic. The whole not really tasting like anything bit, also true. It was chewy, but not really flavorful at all. Oh well, at least that`s done with.

That`s all for now. I`m not saying goodbye, because things continue to happen in this country, even if I`m not trying very hard.

Aw shucks.