Yes, I am alive.

Sorry its been a while since I updated. Not for a lack of interesting things. Turns out Im just lazy (who knew??)!
So, what has happened in the last month?
I took a kickass trip to Hiroshima and Miya-jima (Hiroshima is where the first nuclear bomb struck and its now famous for its peace park, miya-jima is famous for its temple - the gate-thing in the water when the tide is in). Not many pictures because while I was there, somehow my camera got sand in it and now it doesnt work 100%. I think it's better now, though. sorry. Rob wants to visit Hiroshima the next time he comes to Japan, so we might do that, and then there will be pictures. Miyajima was awesome because the place is just beautiful. There are deer everywhere that come up to you, expecting food. I got nipped a few times :(

Last weekend I went to Ibaraki prefecture to hang out with my friend, Zac. His place is really cool, and despite being rural, its not THAT rural. But he's got a great placement and has a good situation. It was fun! We ate waaay too much though :P On sunday we went to Mito and went to a mall. It was just a really big mall! In Japan! It was interesting. There is this place he always goes to, where the owner gives him free stuff. We went there afterward. The owner guy wound up giving us a lot to drink and gave Zac's friend a bottle of really nice Sake! The monday I had off, but Zac had to go to school, so I just went shopping and bought some very necessary things for my place. Later I met up with Zac and we wound up making nachos.

The next day I toured around the school for a while. Went to a small temple, walked around the area a litte, then went to pick up Rob. After some pretty terrible food, we walked around Narita, not knowing the area at all, pretty much wasting time until we met Hitomi at 9:20. That night was basically resting.
The next day we toured the main sights of Ibaraki. We found ourselves at an apple picking orchard. The owner (I think?) was superexcited to have foreigners there! This place was really interesting. First they sat us down to taste apples, and we chose which ones we wanted. So we did that and after I paid for myself and Jonny Depp-San (who is Rob, apparently - in Japan he is the spitting image of Jonny Depp!) we said hi to this lady and her child who just wanted to say hello to the 'gaijin san'. Then we saw the ibaraki waterfall and...some wierd mall thing because we ran out of time.

The past few days Rob was on the island with me. He has the pictures. I might steal them from him and post them if I get a chance. Im past my tourist phase, so taking pictures of the island is kinda silly. I didnt have my camera for the first few weeks I was here, so I didnt take any of those 'IM IN JAPAN!' pictures of the island. Unfortunately there isnt much to do on the island when its too cold to swim. So I showed him Miyake's tourism points (all like, 5 of them), and that was it. We didnt go to the Onsen, probably because its a little nerve-wracking to go somewhere like that when you're all alone (its not co-ed) and dont speak the language.
We are hoping to take the plane to Tokyo on friday, but the plane hasnt been running for the past fortnight so I don't know what the winds will be like. Here's hoping for the plane, because otherwise there will be no time to travel around Tokyo...poor Rob.
Anyway, that's all for now, sorry, I should have updated like, 2 weeks ago! oops! I will try better.
I also have to apply for grad school....