Photography -my new found interest and decided hobby.

So recently, it's only been editing and finalizing my favorite photos from months ago. Hey, still in the year right? Think of it as a backlog that I'm working off. But now I am resolved to go out and find new shots. To use my awesome novice skills and awesome novice camera to wow you all. Rock on.

So, for those who didn't see my photos on Facebook I present my favorite, again, now with super special finalized finish. I want to print this one, and all of my other favorites. . . I have no dough.

See my other stuff at here. :)






Moral of the story: don't count on Renae to update her blog on a frequent basis.

Misadventures in Kyoto

Previous capital of Japan, located near the center of Honshu. Temperatures nearly that of Utah Valley and about twenty times more humid. Let me begin by saying, I have never seen so many foreigners in the four months that I've been in Japan. It's insanity. Funny thing is, most of these tourists can't speak a lick of Japanese. How inconvenient, not to mention difficult. . . not everything is translated here. :d I digress.

I took a walk to the north, following the largest river that runs through Kyoto on Sunday. It's a rather wide river, cemented like every other river in Japan that runs through a city. This one has a lot of growth though. Grasses of various kinds, and many animals reside in these waters. On my walk I discovered many things. Being in the middle of the suburbs, there are many bridges for the convince of motor vehicles as well as bikes, pedestrians, stray cats, etc. Under these bridges reside many homeless people? I don't know if these people qualify as homeless. They have quite the set up. Many large boxes, shacks made of wooden planks, you name it, all covered with tarps to increase insulation and provide weather protection. Radios, racks built to hold potted vegetables and flowers, bicycles for transportation. . . like a very very small community under each bridge.

On the flip side, about forty minutes later, I came across a very wealthy part of time. Huge houses (by Japan's standards) all custom made. Each had an "artistic" feel to it. That's not to say I liked each one of them, but they all had a distinctly unique design. Bizarre neighborhood. I was in awe. I eventually made it to the Botanical Garden of Kyoto where I collected various photos of all kinds of plants. I even got to see a Rafflesia Arnoldii. . . a REAL one! Nasty. I also had the pleasure of accumulating about fifty fantastic bug bites. I should consider becoming a regular collector.

Monday, I decided to take a jaunt through a more major part of the city, within close proximity of the train station. I forgot my camera. So I made a short stop at Kyoto Tower and got lunch at Starbucks. A fantastic cinnamon roll and some iced-cocoa. Making my way back to pick up my camera, I want along the river again. I came across an elderly man feeding birds. Sitting near the water's edge, he was surrounded whole army of pigeons. Pigeons weren't the only taking part in this great feast of free bread. There were carp, a heron, some small birds, ducks, and hawks that would swoop down occasionally to which Ojiisan would throw bread to, having them catch it mid-air. Kinda like in Dejima Park, only with more success.

Yesterday, I met up with Kaiti and Stephanie. Hooray for having friends to do things with. c: We went to three main attractions. Sanjusangendo, Toji Temple, and Inarisan. Inarisan being my favorite. Sanjusangendo was also very impressive, but photo taking wasn't allowed. . . getting our fortune for 1oo en was one of the best parts. My fortune for yesterday looks like this:

Good!

• Health: Stress and strain tend to build up.
• Work: Trust is one's life-long fortune.
• Money: Managing funds is not going to be easy.
• Exams: Agreeable if you work hard.
• Love: You may seek the southwestern direction.
• Journey: Be careful, and you will be safe.
• Finding your soul mate: Will be late.
• Home: Agreeable.
• Lost item: Will be found later on.

My thoughts on the my fortune: BWAH HA HA HA. That was fun. As far as my:

Health goes, I think that is fair to say that I have a tendency to get stressed sometimes.
Work- I need employment. I don't find any relevance in the prediction.
Money- it couldn't be more accurate. I just got an evaluation on my checking account. I have just enough to get out of this country. When in the world did that happen? I worry that my flight was charged to me twice. . .
Love- let's see, southwestern covers alot of ground. Anymore specific?
Journey- wise words from a wise piece of paper. :d
Soul mate- what exactly qualifies as a soul mate anyway?
Home- yes, thank goodness I have one to go back to.
Lost item- I don't recall having misplaced anything.

So my question is, was that really a good fortune? Silly silly. Silly, but fun. No seriousness in the matter, whatsoever.

Recently. From having hiked all day yesterday, and being rather irritable and cranky (maybe due to interrupted REM cycles) I slept in until 10:30-ish. Ate some good fruit and yogurt for breakfast and have been blogging, Facebooking and such for a while now. Hooray for vacation being time to relax and not feeling obligated to do anything in specific!

Alright, now that I've written an epistle, I think I'll wrap it up for now. This is Renae, over and out.






Moral of the story: even half-full backpacks can become heavy in the duration of seven hours. . .

Digestion Issues ~ And Unrelated Ideas

Consigned to a 24 hour period of no solid food stuffs. . . . Can you say boring? Chicken broth, cider, mugicha, and water; three of which, are drinks. At least there is a slight variation to the flavor and options of salty or sweet. No texture to speak of, which is leaving my palette very unsatisfied. I expect that this will be an effective way of restarting my intestinal track. *sigh* It had better be anyway.

The good news is that I have demonstrated self control, and have not eaten anything solid since 10:30 a.m. Tokyo time. FYI. So about 7:30 p.m. at home. More good news, the menu for the next two days (after 10:30, if I'm going to be regulatory) consists of bananas, apples in mulch form (apple sauce), rice, toast, and more mugicha! :D Sounds much more varieties and more appealing if you were to ask me.

Random phone calls from random numbers. Random texts in mostly kanji that I have no understanding of, from random numbers. Random. Supposedly the text that I recently received was a scary chain mail, so my host mother told me. The calls come from unknown senders, and I would get back to them if they felt so inclined to leave me a voice mail; maybe folks in Japan don't utilize 'answering machines' (for lack of a better term.)

In other news, but not really relative to anything stated thus far, the weather has been fabulous lately. Nice, toasty, and clear outside. Still anticipating the rainy season, but for now I am quite enjoying the sunshine. Perfect for going to the park nearby, which is fabulous, might I add. One of the many mountains around here is dedicated to this park. Just covered in trees and bamboo. A couple of steep staircases to get up to the top, and benches scattered about.

Oh, speaking of steep staircases that lead to the top, that is one difference I've noticed in hiking here in Japan as opposed to the U.S. Paths, trails, you name it; Anything that a vehicle doesn't utilize is straight up the mountain. Switchbacks? No way. And here I thought switchbacks were a waste of time. . . I am no longer so opposed to such ideas. They take less stamina, which I have in excess.

Excess, which I have ample access to. . . . Now I am very tempted to begin a word association game. I may fall asleep doing it at this point in the post. That'll have to wait for later. But what a great idea! *high five me*




Moral of the Story: Black licorice is not available in Nagasaki.

Firefly Observation

The coolest little insects ever. I've never seen them until now. Amazing! Very vibrant yellow glow. They're so bright, I could see some in a distant rice field a couple hundred meters away. While flying they create a stream-like effect in the air. Kinda like taking a Fourth of July sparkler and writing your name with it in the air, how the light seems to linger.

Anyway, cool beans.

Cute and/or Optimistic Quotes

"Nothing in this world is worth having if it comes too easy ."

"Don’t dread on the past, enjoy tomorrow, it could be a better day than you think!"

"Choose the one who likes you, not the one whom you like. But if both like each other it's the best."

"A positive attitude may not solve all of your problems but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."

"If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn’t jump with them, I’d be at the bottom to catch them."

"When you know that you have sacrificed something really special for a friend, you know that you have a friend that you would do anything for you."

"The heart feels things the mind does not understand."

"A girl and a guy can be just friends, but at one point or another they will fall for each other. Maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, maybe too late, or maybe forever."

Inconsistency

Dear diary,

I need to whine today about what I need to do rather than doing something about it. No, not really. I do however need to make a better effort to change my eating habits. Sometime over the past two weeks (I assume) I gained 2.1 kilos. Dear diary, don't ask me what the conversion to pounds is, look it up yourself. In case you were wondering I am also 181 cm. Okay, this is going nowhere. . . .

Onto the Quote of the Day! Here you go: "Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it."

and another for good measure: "I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose."

In other news, since I'm not consistently updating my journal either, I am contemplating studying accounting and linguistics when I return to the states. 'Course, police academy sounds like fun too. :) But I don't think that I would be very good at being a cop. . . I'd be too nice. Or wishywashy. Or both.

Can you say scattered thoughts? Okay, so this isn't the first time I haven't been able to collect and organize what's going on inside my head. . .

Okay. I'm done.



Moral of the Story: Update a blog if you have something intelligent to contribute to society.

Quotes for the Day. . . or Longer.

"The next time you’re tempted to groan, you might try to laugh instead. It will extend your life and make the lives of all those around you more enjoyable."

-Elder Wirthlin

"Faith is a gift of God bestowed as a reward for personal righteousness. It is always given when righteousness is present, and the greater the measure of obedience to God's laws the greater will be the endowment of faith."

-Elder Bruce R. McConkie

"From henceforth, let truth and righteousness prevail and abound in you; and in all things be temperate; abstain from drunkeness, and from swearing, and from all profane language, and from everything which is unrighteous."

Concerning Food

Eating food has always been a favorite pastime of mine. Trying new food is also enjoyable. By doing so I have many new edibles that have been added to my list of favorites. Along with trying new food, comes the eventual discovery of non preferences. . . if that makes any sense. Interesting thing I discovered today while eating some new things: never take a bite and look at the "inside" of said object, especially if it is an organ or animal. . . .

I had some oyster today. Sure, I`ve had it in soups plenty of times before, but in soups they`re cut into pieces rather than whole. Sure it had a slightly sea-salty flavor, but the overall flavor and texture was quite delectable. My final oyster was rather large, but just as tender as the previous, as okaasan is a great chef. here`s where I made my mistake. I thought to myself, why is it so soft? It was perfect. So I looked at the remaining half. I should have taken a picture. It was rather difficult to control my gag reflex when promptly finishing the last half. Eee. . . it was a poor decision on my part.

However, food is food. It`s not the animal`s fault that we decided to eat it, nor it`s decision on what it`s insides appear as. . . . That being said, enjoy good clean food, and don`t question the content. As it is said, curiosity killed the cat. . . or almost caused me to vomit.




Moral of the story: mercury poisoning exists, but in small amounts.

Anticipation

Holy guacamole. I leave for the airport in approximately nine hours. On to Nagasaki Japan!

It's so exciting, and at the same time, things are going so well here, that I'm torn. . . Not that things are easily altered at this point. Nor am I certain that I would want to change them if I could. It's the most bizarre thing that I've ever experienced. A good thing, but the timing couldn't be stranger. . . if that isn't vague enough for you.

So, my room is spiffy clean again. The packing is completed, and my baggage is within the accepted weight limits. Phew. This just in: Apparently there is a weather warning for The Salt Lake Valley tonight through tomorrow. I do hope that this does not cause any delays. As I only have one hour layovers in San Fransisco and Tokyo. . . . Nothing worth worrying about though.

My left arm is super warm all of a sudden. Cool beans.



Moral of the Story: You can never be 1oo % sure of what the future may hold.

Let Me Introduce Me to the Concept of Blogging

Hello and welcome to Blogspot? Neat, a place to put down whatever I'd like about experiences, perspectives, random thoughts and such into print. Hmm, I've never blogged before. This blogging thing seems similar to a journal, only less private. Initially made for the convenience of myself, I imagine that this may inadvertently allow others to become more familiar with the way my grey matter processes information. . . be it for good or ill.

Now to create an actual blog entry, full of inspiration, good feelings and the moral of the story.

-
How come the "tab" key never works online?

- Revision
The day after the day made to honor the saint Patrick. Nice day. From what I can tell, it should be close to 6o degrees again today. Maybe I'll return to pulling some more of the dead grass out of the front lawn. It's a good work out really. Back and forth using something that looks like a backscratcher of death. It's rewarding, in the end seeing how my grass has been pulled out of the ground, and neatly heaped. Looking across the lawn, seeing the occassional patch of. . . nothing but dirt? What? Great, dirt. Dirt with the few sad blades of grass barely surviving. Aw come on, they're not that bad. I swear it was all dead grass to begin with, as I don't recall raking that hard.

Fine, moving on to something more note worthy: I need to finish my taxes. I know already that I owe federal taxes. . . what happened to less taxes on the poor college student? Fiddlesticks. I worked hard for a reason. Among those reasons, giving money to other people wasn't one of them.

Fiddlestick(s). I imagine the word means a bow used for a fiddle or violin. So how did the word become a way to express impatience or dissatisfaction? There is no relevance.

That's enough for now. One last note before I wrap this up: I hate commercials that sing excessively or play cheesy music. While the jingle advertising tactic effectively causes the listener to remember the ad, many of them are irritating. I (for one) have no desire to associate myself with a company who presents such jingles that make my ears bleed.



Tip of the day: Don't eat lead.