4 days left!!!

If my blog posting rate continues as it has, this will be my next to last entry.  I am beginning to write this on Thursday and I only have one more day of school here.  I have had a lot of fun here but I am really excited to come back to the states and see you all!

If you are friends with me on facebook then you already know the most eventful thing to happen in the last few days: I participated in Kendo!!  And this time I have photographic evidence.  This happened Tuesday after school and I'm very thankful that it did because the heat finally broke!  It was only in the 80s and the humidity was not nearly as insufferable. 

It was a regular school day and after school I made my way to the gym.  The students were already getting ready so I rushed to put on my wool carpet.

This is me and Nakamura Sensai.  She used to do kendo professionally.

First some warmup exercises.  

Next they are putting on my second layer of armor.

They fought back!!

Time to get down to the serious business.  The third and final piece of armor was the helmet and facemask with a cloth that acts as further protection and is unique to the person wearing it.  It usually has their name and a saying like, "never surrender" on it.  I think mine said, "watch out! I'm a big goofy giant and I don't know what I'm doing!"

Afterwards I was treated to a formal ceremony where they thanked me for coming to learn about kendo and they hoped that I would continue to practice in America.  

After another rather bland day at school on Wednesday, Tara and I decided that we would try to take advantage of every opportunity to do something with our remaining time here.  We decided to go to Tokyo Tower.  Some of you may know that recently Tokyo finished construction on a newer version of the Tokyo Tower called the Sky Tree.  We had originally thought that we would go there but were advised against it by our Japanese friends.  It is more crowded, more expensive, and the views are not as good.  Seemed like our decision was pretty easy at that point. 

After a quick train ride we were there. 

The views did not dissapoint. We could easily find a spot at the window to see the beautiful city.  The sky was clear and dark and the buildings were lit up.  

One of the remarkable things about Tokyo is just how massive the urban sprawl is.  Even in New York City you can see New Jersey and countryside from buildings.  In Tokyo you can go to the top of Tokyo Tower and see nothing but city from horizon to horizon.

Then we moved up another level.

I'm so glad we made it there at night, and a good one at that. 

The next day I came to school and this was on my desk:

Looks kind of like a samurai sword....

Yup.  Checks out.

What you can't see is the super nice janitor sitting just to the left of the frame with an absolutely terrified look on his face.

So just a few more random things before I call it a blog: they have a whole band of recorders.  This is a bass recorder.

The air fresheners are filled with sanity:

The 4th floor has no more sanity left.

I had to go back...  Oh god it's good....

Pikachū fish cakes!!

There isn't too much time left for me to explore and do but I'm going to do as much of it as I can.  Sleep be damned!  If there is anything you think is missing from my Tokyo experience please let me know now for I don't know when I'll be back.