#the penguin and the salamander are girlfriends :)

[voidedjuice]

Small Magallan and Asbestos I drew for a friend :)

[eienoah]

May 21 - Free Day 3

Today was the third free day of the trip and I woke to Rich on his way out the door. I took a little bit of time to get ready and ate my conbini breakfast before heading out the door. Today was the second day that I got to see my homie(girlfriend). I met up with her at the station and we started heading over Touji. They were having a monthly market which we walked around and looked at a bunch of stuff. Before getting there though, we stopped in at a second hand clothes store which was just a little to expensive for my taste. There was also a shop called the witch’s house which was just like a bunch of old things and a woman that was speaking in a language that I can assume was maybe Japanese but I really could only understand like every other word she was saying. She might have been casting a spell on me cause according to Uta even she didn’t know half the things that she was saying. All I remember hearing was nacharanancharanancharaBidenancharanachara. The flea market at Touji went by super quick cause most of the stores were kind of just crap nobody would use. We did stop at a couple jewlery places and a knife stand which we got a couple pitches from the salesmen and women but the most interesting was talking to some old guy on a bridge who was throwing fish food and some carp. After that we hit up the Kyoto aquarium on a whim which was an amazing choice. The entry fee was like 15 dollars a person which is incredibly good deal. We got to walk around a bunch of different animal areas including giant salamanders, dolphins, penguins, seals, and manta rays. The lighting that they used for each little area really spruced up the place but I have to say my favorite thing about the whole place was the salamanders. It’s just something you would never see in America. After the aquarium we walked over to a small udon shop for my first Japanese udon and I have to say it was pretty good but I need to have more to know if I’m truly missing out. Of course it was good but in all honesty I like the one my girlfriend makes more back at home. After the udon shop we went over to kawaramachi west so I could learn a bit more about tabi shoes from a store called sou sou. I was very interested in them since seeing my friend had a pair from a while back and so I asked the workers there a whole bunch of questions on the shoes. They even gave me a dvd with a bit better explaining on some history and ways that the shoes can be worn. I will be writing that as my academic blog post so look forward to it coming up soon. After that was about a 40 minute sit on the adjacent river as we talked for a little while and then an immediate trip over to the nearest ice cream place just for a nice late night treat.