Ramblings

Shooting Shashes

The milky way at the Tanabata festival near Nijojo Castle in Kyoto

The milky way at the Tanabata festival near Nijojo Castle in Kyoto

Let me preface this with an explanation for the title. The Japanese word for picture is shashin. As respectable English speakers living in Japan, we’ve developed slang for some of our favorite Japanglish. Naturally shashin becomes shash. Daijoubu (“it’s OK”) becomes daijoubs. And so on. It always amuses our fellow English-speaking Japanese friends.

I digress.

I like to do this thing where I take pictures on my adventures. And, by “take pictures” I mean that I bring this not-so-cheap piece of equipment and actually put some thought into it. As it is now, photography is mostly a hobby for me, but I’d like to think I’m OK at it. If you’re interested in seeing the rest of my stuff, check out the photography section in my portfolio! I swear, this isn’t a shameless ploy (well, not completely), I just finally got around to creating a place to view the pictures I’ve taken on my travels.

But yea, please stop by if you can!

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Travel

7 Days in Osaka, Nara, and Kyoto for Cheap

A good friend of mine from America, Julie, was scheduled to visit me here in Japan at the start of my summer vacation. As much as I’m sure she would love hanging out with me here in Koga for 18 days, I decided to save that for another visit. So, in an effort to make the best of her time here and I decided to book a trip for her, Becky, Carolyn and I down to Kansai for 7 days. Mind you, we’re all poor, recent graduates/ current students, so we wanted to make sure we could maximize our visit for minimal funds. This is how we did the Kansai region cheaply and efficiently! Continue reading

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