the CUTEST thing...

there's always a certain type of energy in the air right before you go on a new traveling adventure. this coming up week is our travel week. there is a school festival happening so the whole school shuts down, and we "can't" have classes. dude when does something like that happen in la? yeah, things shut down, but for a week? and there's a festival too? that almost never happens in california, that i know of. it's really cool that the school and the surrounding community are really a "community."

anyways so the last thing that anybody wants to do before a big party or traveling is to head to school or work, but today we had a brief lecture from our instructor about the history of tokyo and some possible sights to see. he also talked about our trip to ise happening on saturday. after the lecture, he busted out all of his maps from japan and we just had a rap session about other places that we could go. I kinda psyched to see hiroshima and there is this other shrine too. it's supposed to be really cool. anyways so, i'm headed to the kyoto station and i meet up with two other classmates. to our surprise there are all of these little kids in their matching hats lining up in the station and they go on our subway train! obviously this was a great photo opportunity. my friend started taking pictures, and the fact that she was a girl made it less pedophilic. but my other friend who was a guy started taking pictures too. the troop leader was looking at us with the same curiousity as the kids so i figured, what the hell, i'll start taking pictures of them.


these kids were SOOO CUTE!!! what i thought would be cool pictures of kids playing unbeknownst to a camera, but once they saw the camera they would just ham it up and do the little "v" for victory symbol. some of them even pushed others out of the pictures so they could be in it. CUTE!! we had a couple of kids even go up to ask (in their best english accent) "nice to meet you" and then stick out their had for a handshake. and then they would laugh and run away!!! it was really funny to see them do that b/c in japanese culture there is no touching at all. you never see a pat on the back, a handshake, or hugs (well i've seen a couple of those, but not a lot). i thought it was me, but my hands weren't sweaty or anything, although it got really hot b/c they started surrounding us. but it was really cool to be like the center of their fascination. kinda creepy, but cool.



and even when i left, the whole crowd of them were waving "bye" and so was i. and even when i turned around they were all by the window waving and i could see them mouthing "BYE!!" too cute!!!

the rest of the day couldn't compare with this little event on the train.