Osaka, Summer 2005

First home in Japan - JICA Osaka International Center

Added pics rescued from yahoo photos - most were taken during the orientation seminar and nihongo class in JICA-OSIC

Hyogo, Fall 2005

Spent a day at Ieshima, Hyogo. The bus tour was sponsored by JICA-Furea. Most participants are Kobe-JDS 2005 batchmates. They said that this is the furthest province in Hyogo and experiencing economic downturn due to low birthrate and outmigration. Made some japanese rice cakes with other JICA participants in HIC.

Few days after we settled in our own apato, most of the JDS Kobe students joined this cooking class sponsored by JICA volunteers. We learned to cook okonomiyaki....

what i'm reading

Should be doing chapters 5 and 6 of my thesis.  I keep putting it off - the writing part but it hounds me while watching soaps, heating my meals and surfing the net.  I still have 12 days to write them.  It used to be 30 days....

Then I chanced upon the blogs of my former NGO co-workers.  From a comic convention in New York to peacocks in Davao and beaches in La Union, I can just picture them while reading their entries.  Plus at the corner, they have the link of the books that they're reading or have read.  Definitely more interesting than the ones that cram my table, bed and floors.  This is the only one that I can get a picture of from amazon but it can fairly give you an idea why I only have 12 days and am still procrastinating.  Why did I ever work for the tax agency?  Should have stayed with development work....

Okinawa 2006

Kobe University 2006 Study Tour in Okinawa with Ogawa sensei.

Kyoto, Fall 2005

Spent a day with Kikkou-san, my homestay mom, in Kyoto. She took me to see a Noh play, helped me read my fortune from the Heian Shrine and marvelled at the magnificence of the imperial palace.

Kyoto, Summer 2005

First trip to Kyoto, siyempre we stayed at Nova's apato and toured around Rits (didn't take pictures pala in the campus - anyways, marami sa blog niya) and Kinkakuji.

Added earlier pictures from the JICA observation tour of Kiyumizudera. The pics were taken early July 2005, using Janie's camera.

Tokyo, Summer 2006

Took few pictures because unexpected things happen during this trip. We survived the trip to the big city with lots of help from friends....