This is a shot of some really amazing calligraphy carved into a rock on Mt. Shosha in Himeji. The fog was an inevitable part of the day, but I think it added to the photograph nonetheless, as long as you can get past the ultra-pretension of snooty, artsy fog shots. It means "The life of language is love." Andrew R. could probably furnish me with a more accurate and preferably less alliterative translation, and I hope he will.
Today in English class I taught the Japanese how to talk like a Valley Girl from the mid-nineties by teaching them the mannerisms I use. I swear that when I say "totally," I do so without sounding like I preceded it with "like" and am about to chase it with "Er my Gawwwwd!" but the difficulties of its proper usage are a little difficult to explain. I think I'll have them watch "Clueless" and act like that is a perfect portrayal of current speech habits. It would just be too great to here Valley Girl mangled through a Japanese accent. My extremely overpriced Aiwa stereo that I bought about a month ago has begun to break already, which aggravates me to no end. Japanese gadgety electronics may be ahead of America's, but its daily-use ones are pretty much all vastly more expensive and often inferior. I guess I should give them some credit as they had to spend a great deal of their time rebuilding Tokyo each time various rampaging monsters and space aliens destroyed it, but that's still no excuse for $70 boomboxes.
I have a poker night tomorrow with a bunch of Chinese guys from one of my classes, so this should be a good opportunity for international diplomacy as I take them for everything they're worth. Most of the people at the poker night have't played before, so I see fields of gold all over the horizon. Of course, watch me get spanked by these total newbies and be forced to teach English on the street clothed in a torn paper bag to pay my debts.
- Gyaa! I'm give up
