hmm has it really been three days since i updated?  time sure flies.  today was the first chance in a while i had to spend a day at home and relax.  i did a bit of gaming, which involved passing what i THOUGHT to be the last level of children of mana, only to find out there was another -.-.  the levels are just getting so long that i can’t get through them in one sitting.  there are saves ever four floors of the dungeon, but it takes about 20-30minutes of gameplay between saves.  i guess its mostly fun >.>.  i also managed to knock up a small amount of study *cough* and visited the Crown car dealer, as my host father reversed into a fence earlier today (lol).  the back light’s plastic cover broke, and including the complimentary cakes and orange juice while we waited for it to be repaired, it cost 13000yen ($150).  ouch.

okay i found an article in the paper the other day about the success of ds/dslite.  their monthly output is 2,000,000 units yet they still have nationwide shortages.  not so surprising.  what i was surprised at is the fact that nintendo has KANJI! 任天堂.  would’ve never thought of that…

yeah i got a bit bored in class so started taking random pictures on thursday.  funfun.  tonight is going to be a lot of dvd burning and sorting through my things and trying to pack a box to send back via sea mail.  /me looks for “you get to burning” for some bgm.

today we got to quiz some random school kids in something called 「トライやるウィーク」 or translated with lots of lost meaning “trial week”. i have no idea what this is for, but it involves these kids going all over the place and doing seemingly random stuff. they were at my host mothers gym too… and apparently have been to my host sister’s bank in the past. fun fun fun.

so as you can see, i got a bit pissed off at the boat lvl in hitman. its just such a maze to get around, and i have trouble keeping my disguise :/. so i loaded myself with guns and went for it.

i killed all 109 people in the level, and left with no suspicion (well i guess they were all dead). quite a fun way to play the game for a bit of a change. i still haven’t figured out who the witness was… unless he swam away when i wasn’t looking.

as an interesting side note, engadget japanese seems to be in a full operating state now .  nice alternative way to get ur daily engadget and study and the same time i guess.

lack of sleep mmm. updating takes effort at times :p so i’ll be brief today.

this weekend was well planned to make the most of every minute. saturday morning was the day of the visit to the mogu shop! being about a one hour drive from himeji on the tollways, the trip took about 4 hours total, including a lunch at a cafe which was built on top of a pond :d. what to say; there were lots of mogus, and daniel was happy. i bought my fair share as well.

sunday was a trip to nara which began at 0800. early, yes. and i went to sleep at around 3 the night before, so the two hour trip there consisted mainly of sleep.

nevertheless, it was a nice day weather wise, so quite enjoyable. we visited the usual places in nara (the fourth time for me ^^;) as well as a few i hadn’t seen up until today. 特に, we strolled down a old-style street… i guess. it had old houses that looked like they should’ve already fallen down, and lots of houses turn shops monopolizing on the small flow of tourism down the street.

as it was only 1400 after we finished our nara outing, including a tasty mushroom noodle dish for lunch, it was decided we’d also visit rokko mountain in kobe. just like any other mountain it had a nice view, although the rendering distance was a bit low today, meaning we couldn’t see the ocean or islands off the coast. oh well. there were a couple of nice stores selling english foods and cool glass statue things (teruteru!).

end of day was topped off with a drink bar restaurant and cake when i got home. i feel like i don’t need to eat for a few days :s.

for anyone wondering what my host family looks like, i finally got a nice picture with everyone. the two younger kids are actually from over the road, but they pretend they are part of our family quite a lot. i just realised the sister isnt in the picture. failed?

i haven’t been using my laptop on battery much lately, but since i was planning on taking it with me to nara i had a play around to see how many hours i could push out of it. not a bad result imo. then again that was with no wireless and just word processing.

updated galleries: 060603, 060604