Anime 24/7, do you need any other channel? I think not.

I`ll be buying a prepaid cellphone in a couple of days. I`m really excited about it. The cellphone is from Vodafone, which used to be J-Phone. The phone will have email and a camera on it, so I`m looking forward to the media experience that the cellphone offers.

I went to AU, DoCoMo and Vodafone, all of them offer cellphones with cameras in them, and it is actually difficult to find a phone model without a camera. What kind of surprised me was that they have cellphones with 2 mega-pixel cameras in them and they can send and receive short movies. My camera is 3.2 mega pixels, so seeing a cellphone that could compete with my "new(ish)"camera was slightly depressing.

Anyways, I was thinking about taking pictures with my cellphone when I thought how cool it would be if I could send a picture to my blog from my cellphone. It doesn`t seem like it would be too difficult to have a script check an email address to which cellphone pics could be sent, then have that picture displayed someplace on a web page. The text in the email message could also accompany the pic. Maybe I`m just slow and this has already been talked about someplace else, but I think it is awesome. If such a marvelous thing doesn`t exists, it should be made to.

Last Friday and Saturday the JASIN students and the new Freshmen all went to Unzen for a field trip and for some more orientation lectures. Unzen is a small town located near a currently dormant volcano and hosts some very relaxing hot springs. Unzen was actually the first national park in Japan because of its hot springs.

Hot spring baths are hotter than you might expect, for those who have never experienced one. Much hotter than an american hot tub. Also, the hot spring water is full of minerals, expecially sulfer, which gives the bath an almost pungent aroma that inevitably gets absorbed by the skin. After a few baths you literally become a like a hard boiled egg.

Unzen Trip

After dinner and some borring orientation lecters we, the students, were finally left to our selves. The largest hotel room became the center of drinking and sociallizing that went on until the wee hours of the morning. Some people had a difficult time of things the next morning.

In Japan, a hot springs trip is for relaxation, and almost always involves bathing multiple times and drinking. It is a lot of fun, if you don`t mind smelling like an egg for several days.

I had the opportunity to meet Photographer Kjeld Duits on the densha (street car) last evening. To be honest, I had never heard of him or his web site iKjeld.com, but after seeing the photos on his site I realized that I had indeed seen his work elsewhere. Infact, I realized today that Japan Today is one of the many places that uses his photos. I highly recommend browsing his site iKjeld.com and Japanese Streets if you want a visual tour of Japan and it`s unique people, customs, and culture.

Its been two weeks since classes started, and I suddenly have the Barenaked Ladies song in my head from some reason, eventhough their song is "One Week." Anyways, classes are much as I remember them being 3 years ago, which I`m not sure is a good or bad thing, but it did surprise me a little. This semester there are 6 levels of Japanese classes, 1-6 with 6 being the beginner level class and 1 being the "nearly fluent in written Japanese" level. A written test was taken by all of the international students to determine everyone`s Japanese proficiency level, I tested into Japanese 5. I would prefer to be in the level 5 class but, since I am worried about satisfying requirements for my International Studies Minor, I am taking the level 4 class.

The level 4 class has been very intimidating because of all the kanji used. However, the class is focused more on verbal skills than reading skills, so I should be ok in the Japanese 4 class... I hope. The other 3 classes, in addition to Japanese, are Japanese Culture, Japanese Management in Relation to other Management Styles, and Japanese Modern Literature. That is right, someone who doesn`t read often at all is actually taking a literature class... with books. <span style="Banzai">Place bets now!</span>