Week 52: A series of fortunate events

Wow! I had an eventful week that was actually jam-packed with coincidences (now that I sit down and think about it). 

This week was Golden Week!! Monday-Wednesday was a holiday! I spent Monday and Wednesday pretty quietly, but on Tuesday I went with my friends to climb Mt. Moiwa!!

The weather was perfect for a mountain climb. It was sunny, but not swelteringly hot, and the scenery was great!

The mountain was steep, but we persisted!

We followed a path that led to a road.. and when we followed the road we found.. enlightenment!

It's Buddha!

Actually, this turned out to be a shrine that we saw WAY back when during our trip to the imaginary rose garden, which my extremely helpful blog post naming system tells me was during only my second week here!! At that time, we could see something mysterious in the distance and we really wanted to see what it was, but we couldn't make it through the forest to find it. We were happy to complete our pilgrimage, but unfortunately we created a new imaginary garden situation. As it turns out, you can't climb Mt. Moiwa by simply going to Mt. Moiwa; you need to go around to the far side of the mountain to find a path! Sooo our climb ended with Buddha and we decided to head back down and go to the park instead.

We had intended to head to Nakajima park, where I apparently went almost exactly six months ago! This week was really a trip back in time :P But actually, Odori park, which we needed to pass through to switch subway lines, was so hoppin' that we stayed there!

What really drew our attention was a dude jamming on an electric violin! He was really amazing.

Also, the mysterious bird man (who, ironically, we last saw on Mt. Moiwa!!) was in the park! He kept putting a cockatoo on the violin guy. The bird took a crap on the poor violinist, but the bird dude just wiped the poo off when the song was over and put the bird right back! I also had a visit with the bird but remained unsoiled. 

The other big news is that I moved!! My new place is downtown and it is totally sweet! 

My new digs! I HAVE A WASHING MACHINE!

The subway station is literally across the street (less than a 1 minute walk) and I'm about a 15 minute walk from the main subway and JR station. That's convenient because... this week I am going to Kyoto for a few days!! It should be a pretty good adventure for my Japaniverssary! :)

My Japanese has also been getting a workout because of all of the moving and the paper-signing and official dealings. I was feeling pretty proud of myself until about 5 minutes ago when the NHK man arrived to demand the standard payment for having a tv that is hypothetically capable of watching the national channel. It's a standard procedure, and I couldn't bluff and say that I am just a foreigner who doesn't watch tv because the tv was on when he came by :p But luckily (?) I couldn't understand any of his questions, so after enough "gomen nasai, wakarimassen"s he left. Huzzah! I think an English-speaking technician will be back :p

Finally, I enjoyed this useful item at the dollar store:

Hey, you! Don't cat!