With class over I figured last week would have been easy. Unfortunately, that turned out to not quite be true. The little bit of remaining homework I had turned out not to be quite so little. Between an incorrect instruction sheet, an algorithm I realized at the last minute was wrong, and a whole lot of printing errors I managed about 4 hours of sleep a night. All that finished up by Thursday though, just in time for me to give a presentation on Rose and get a flat on my bike. To round it off I managed to put a dent in my camera. It doesn't turn on, so it looks like I'm borrowing Nick's until I get back to the US. Great week!

After sleeping Friday, Nick and I headed out with Hoshi-san on Saturday. Since the barbecue he'd been planing had to be moved (to this weekend) he offered to take us sightseeing instead. First we went cherry-picking at one of the orchards in Aizu. Japanese cherries are actually not nearly as red or as sweet as American, but they were still delicious. We felt a little like giraffes at the orchard. The lower branches were picked clean, so we mostly roamed around grabbing the stuff higher up that no one had been able to reach. From the orchard we grabbed lunch and then headed out to a shrine up in north Aizu. The shrine wasn't anything spectacular, but we got to see a lot of Aizu dialect. I think I've mentioned it before, but the regional dialect here can be pretty wacky sometimes. There was a family shop near the shrine, and the old lady working there spoke with a really, really strong accent. It was half awesome to hear it, but not quite so awesome to not understand anything she was saying. Really interesting either way. The amount of region-specific vocabulary for somewhere as small as Aizu is baffling.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Tokyo with Nick, where we're going to meet up with Nick (Kleeman) and Nobu. The whole plan seemed a little touch and go yesterday when Nick bought his plane ticket, but I think everything is nailed down now. I still have to run laundry and pack, but it's only 9pm. I can probably postpone it a little longer. The bus tomorrow leaves at 6:45, so it should get us to Tokyo with a little bit of time to bum around before meeting Nick at the airport. From there we'll probably stop at the Meiji shrine and then head to Nobu's. I'm really looking forward to the confusion there. With two Nicks and two Kleemans things are bound to be interesting. Nique is pronounced the same as Nick in Japanese, so the standby plan is no good. Oh well... I should have another short update tomorrow from Tokyo. Looking forward to it!