time for a new story.
currently there is a typhoon approaching... rock on. as i hear it, the pacific isnt the nightmarish cesspool of weather and hate that the atlantic is, so maybe its nothing to worry about.
but i have lived the majority of my life in florida, so maybe im just jaded.
lots of wind so far. rained earlier, around lunch time. that didnt stop us from walking back to the lab eating icecream cones under our umbrellas. banana chocolate chip. win.
so, i finally got started with an electron microscope today. there was one particular sample that was very very interesting. and the rest... well, im getting paid to be here, so it must be worth it. round about 5 i decided to call it a day. brain was fried.
was able to borrow a bike from a fellow high priest at church. its not in the best shape, but it got me home. needs some work. work that i would be happy to do... if i could turn the rusted nuts. i need to find out how to ask for WD40 in japanese.

another couple of days...
so. much. walking. tho my sleep schedule is beginning to normalize, im still waking up at sunrise. ->5am
today, we got amanda packed up and off to the airport so she can make it home.

yesterday: Osaka Castle. freakin' awesome. the grounds we beautiful. the castle itself was smaller than i imagined, at least on the inside. but within there is a museum. with some old samurai armor and swords. i got a little concerned when i saw a man walking the grounds in red samurai armor. SR4 anyone?
lunch on the way home, and dinner at a cafe on campus. nothing amazing. also hit the campus book store.

wednesday. umeda sky building. a ferris wheel on top of an 9 story building. yodabashi umeda, a crazy electronics store. pics to come of all these things.

tuesday? crap. what even happened on tuesday? grocery shopping? recovery from soreness and being a bad tourist? sounds good.
i know on monday i officially got checked in. and we met up with my professor for a quick tour of campus and the surrounding area.
all in all, it seems that breakfast isnt a big deal around here.

so, sunday in osaka.
woke up too early. with nothing else to do, we decided to leave early. good thing we did because tho we thought we were on the right train. we happened to get on an express, which totally skipped the small stop we needed and went straight to the next major station... then, we got on a wrong train trying to get back. fortunately this gave us enough information that we were definitely able to sort out where we needed to be.
was very nice to run into some english speaking people at church and we even had one fellow, dan who offered to translate for us.
there were a set of sisters and a set of elders. 3 of the 4 were from the states. i had even served in elder wilde's stake in santa clara.
anyhow. we really had learned what we needed to about teh trains. because we made it back just fine. had a lazy sunday afternoon.
unfortunately, when the sun rises, i wake up. and it rises very early here, mostly because they dont use a daylight savings time, so good for them.

720am 7june2012
welcome to the ATL. land of "free internet"
so free im writing this up in notepad and will post it later.
got here without incident. back is okay. got an inflight movie on the next leg of the trip.
leaving for seatle in 50 minutes.
this probably wont be as interesting as it could be.
anticicpation led to a lack of sleep. the 'sunrise' from above the cloud level was pretty cool.
2 50 pound bags and a chock full carry on... hopefully enough for the 17.5 hours of air time and 2 months in a foreign land where i dont speak the language.

some other time. some other place. 

ive lost track completely. im in japan. the flight was crazy long. then on a train. then on foot in the rain. 

but im here. with my wife. 

and now that i am not in a vehicle, im going to crash.

more later.