Things change, life goes on.

Well, haven't posted much, but I am not much of a talker. A lot of things have changed since I launched this site, I moved to a new house and got some new roommates, bought a Mac Book Pro, and now I am changing jobs from the job I had for nine years to a new one in a new city. If hell hasn't frozen over yet, the denizens must really appreciate the cold snap.

Hopefully my new job will have me burnt out less on web stuff so I can start building this site up more, and start dumping my ideas from my brain.

A new home

Well, I finally got something up on my new domain and got my hosting in place. This will eventually be an area for my thoughts and programming experiments. Occasionally I may have useful information up here as well.

Storming Himeji Castle

Today we went to Himeji, which is about 90km east of Osaka. We traveled there by the Special Rapid Service train which took us about 70 minutes one way. Once in Himeji we met up with Charlie, a work friend of Ari's, and he helped/guided us around Himeji Castle and the nearby Nishi-Oyashiki-Ato Garden ‘Kokoen’. I can tell the trip is starting to wear me down becase I could not make it up to the top of the castle's main keep. I made it up as far as the 3rd floor but could travel no furthur, and I did not get much footage becase I was too tired. The walk through the garden was much easier and I got some footage I think my family will like.

Namba take 2

Once again we wandered around Den-Den Town looking for gifts to bring back. There is too much here. most of which would be difficult to use in the states. Though for 1,357,823 yen they had a really nice big screen T.V. I am sure my dad would like. Today we were going to go to Nara in the afternoon but we spent too much time in Den-Den Town so we went to Shitennoji Temple instead. We went there to see a Buddhist all souls day ceremony, but again we arrived just too late to see the festival, we did walk around the temple grounds a bit. All this walking is tiring us out and makeing it difficult to get to things before they close.

Josh Montee's Photolog

Josh has been uploading pictures of our trip, that he has taken with his camera. I am working out how to best upload the video, but until I do it is the best I can offer for photos.

http://s97.photobucket.com/albums/l236/phubarr/

Laundry and Sumiyoshitaisha

Today we did laundry since we packed light for the trip. After filling up the washers and sitting around for a while, we headed off for a light day to recover from the march. Ari took us to visit the Sumiyoshitaisha which is near his apartment, however by the time we got there the main temple was closed. We then went back to Namba station to visit the Dotonobori section again so I could get footage. On the way we stopped in Namba Parks to eat Udon at Osaka Noodle City. There we had some Nagasaki style noodles. I was not feeling very well so I did not eat much , but Josh and Ari greatly enjoyed the meal. After dinner and the re-visit to Dotonbori, we called it a night.

Namba Death March

Today we took a hike around the Nambia Station area, and also visited the Umeda Sky Building. We left Ari's apartment at around 10:30am and spent till 2:30pm walking around Den Den town. We then headed to Umeda Station via the subway, and visited the Umeda Sky Building. We went to the top of it to get a good visual of the greater Osaka area. The top of the Umeda Sky Building is called The Floating Garden, and is the highest point in the city. After visiting the Sky Building we headed back to Namba station and ate at A hawaian burger joint. Then we walked past ECC, the company Ari works for, and to he grocery store to pick up some drinks. There we visited the "ethnic" isle to see the American food section. It was kinda funny to see our stuff in such a location. After that we headed to OCAT station, since Ari wanted to show us the people who dance in front of the mirrored wall there. We then trudged back to Ari's place and called the night.