whats the word on the street?

allison's car is expensive to fill up with gas, that's the word on the street!!! although in other news, i went up to tappi (northern part of the tsugaru peninsula in which i live) with becky. unfortunately it was kind of cloudy so the view that we would have had wasnt quite as spectacular. but all in all, it was still really pretty. we were able to see hokkaido very clearly ... man im ready to visit sapporo! i think im gonna go next month!

after tappi, i headed down to hirosaki to see some other friends. we hung out in an izakaya (pub like place but nothing like that, hee) then headed off to bowling. so bowling shoes in japan are so not as cool as bowling shoes in america, let me tell ya! after that, a couple of us were pooped so we headed back and went to bed. then i gave kevin (hirosaki jet) a tour of my neck of the woods and in that i discovered a place i never knew existed, well kind of. on my way to one of my schools i always see this old castle and in the backround some make shift castle that is pink and purple (supposedly characterized after european castles, didnt know that preferred that color palat over there, but hey, it works!). well the area turned out to be some really strange back of the woods place. there is a huge hotel that looks like a cross between some weird hospital and the shining. then on the side of it there was a decent size shrine. on the other side, on top of the hills, there were what looked like missile (?), i dont know. and in some field there was a goat that wouldnt stop crying, oh yeah, and that was next to a church in the shape of a castle painted purple and pink! give u the heebie geebies? us too! the name of the complex was odogawa independence. hmm, sound like some strange cultish community if u ask me! we ended up talking to a guy that works there, i think, and he was nice. told us that the boss of hte place was off trying to tell people not to vote for koizumi (elections were that day), then headed off into conversation that i wasnt quite prepared to talk to a stranger about. we took a look inside the hotel and it seems nice. may go back for the onsen some time as its not too expensive. but still, kind of strange yeah?

so today i had an excellent elementary school visit. the kids were cute as heck and just had a good time in all the classes. the school is really small so i think it will be a lot of fun there.

alright, im exhausted (yeah whats knew right?). good night all!