It's Saturday!

Yay! I'm not in school! I had been planning a really really productive day today, but have yet to make it out of my apartment. Instead I've been busy searching the web for ideas for a present for Thomas's birthday, and am making some progress. I've also cleaned, and had some toast. I desperately need to go grocery shopping, maybe I'll head out and do that next... hmm. I keep meaning to make it to Nara, but eh, I'm tired. I need to make plans with someone else so I'm being depended on. I've had a pretty much packed schedule for at least the last week- I've had one or two activities every night after work, and have even been really busy at work (shocking!)
Last Monday I had off from school (as compensation for working saturday) and hiked up Mt. Shosha with our "Resident Dude," Julian, and the fall colors were fantastic. I didn't manage to get too many great fall leaves pictures, but here are a few shots we did get. The first one is just a little garden area, the second pic is me in front of a belltower, the third is a shot of the main temple building from below. Monday was just a beautiful day, sun shining, not too cold. We got on our bikes to head over to the mountain, but having only a vague idea of which mountain we wanted, it took a bit of wandering around, searching the tops of mountains for the little gondola that runs people up the mountain. Dialogue:
J- I think it's this way.
A- Wait wait, this is that baseball field you can see from the top, we should go that way.
J- dude, that's a golf range.
A- oh. I still think it's this way.
J- Dude, it's probably on the other side of one of these mountain ranges.
A- Should we ask directions?
J- Uh, no.
A- Hey! there's the lift!
J- That way!
This was then followed by a bikeride across town, a search for the footpath, and a beautiful hike up the mountain, which only took about 30 minutes once we actually got to the mountain. So we got up there, paid our 300 yen admission, and wandered around awhile. The walk in is up a long path lined with about 50 different Bodhisattva statues, which are pretty cool.
After getting below the main complex (pic 3) we sat down at these adorable little tables outside and had great great kitusne udon for ~$5. These are thick egg noodles with a bit of sweet fried tofu on top and is one of my favorite noodly dishes here. We went up to the main area, realized it was getting dark and that we still had to make it down the mountain to our bikes, dashed back down to the restaurant area, and got some great chocolate icecream in waffle cones. In Japan, you're really not supposed to walk around and eat at the same time, but we were at a big tourist complex, so we figured we could get away with it. Especially since by this time the place was pretty empty anyway. There was however, this hilarious Japanese couple up there. The girl was walking around these dirt pathes in big high heels and dressed a little like it was the 1970's, all brown tones and such. I think they were there just to take pictures of her with the leaves in the background. It was really fabulous. Ok, I'm going to go do something productive now. Just you watch and see. Crap. looks like my laundry is done.
Oh hey, everyone write Josh and congratualte him on his aikido ikkyu test, which is happening in about five hours and he has been working real hard towards.

Oh yeah, here's a great pic from the Nada fighting festival that was about mid October...