as it was the first day of the famous yamakasa festival yesterday, numerous butts greeted us when we stepped out of our apartments.

some were pretty hairy haha. magnificient sight to behold, really.

despite the initial jaw-dropping and curious ogling, we managed to proceed to the jin jya (shinto shrine) at gion.

sam, hajar and manyi at the entrance of the jin jya.

this looks like some sorta christmas tree, doesn't it? but very much more interesting as it tells a story of ancient warriors and demons.

amongst these handwritten wishes for the new year, i spotted the following:

this guy's desperate! period.

his pee's sacred i tell ya!

mischevious yamakasa boy with his kawaii antics.

the very salty holy water from the crane well which i spat out after drinking! woops.

the apple of my eye - adorable lil' boy fascinated by the koi haha.

japanese ice kachang on a hot hot summer's day. the stall vendor's really friendly by the way.

i couldn't resist putting this one up - my oishii bento lunch :)

doraemon fans, you're in for a treat!

teddy bear dressed in temple clothes.

alright, as yiting requested...here's me with my super short fringe hence the need for a cover-up haha. the frog was given to me as a meeting gift by a kind old lady i chatted up in the shrine :)

and that's derelict kyushu university. so nus is not all that bad after all i guess heh.

alice, manyi and mike fooling around in japanese class hoho.

yes, minaqua girl and i were plain restless in class! (ugly fringe alert!)

the welcome party - there're students from america, england, korea, taiwan, singapore, malaysia, philippines and of course japan. very international i must say. am glad to be making new friends from different parts of the globe.

our japanese buddies - hiroki, jo and mariko!

the three of them very kindly prepared the okonomiyake for us singaporeans on our first day to fukuoka.

erps, we returned the favour by whipping up some singaporean dishes with the likes of instant nasi goreng and laksa noodles brought over from our own hometown hahaha.

our valiant efforts didn't go to waste - our japanese friends finished up everything! (out of courtesy i presume.)

my apartment has world cup live! rather cosy and self-sufficient lil' hole, so im starting to like it alot.

on the way to school.

at the school bus stop on a rainy day. the school teachers lent me a starry umbrella!

saw some really cute japanese kids at the playground on my way home from school :)

lovely night view by the river near my apartment.

so far fukuoka's been great, save for the large fluctuations is temperature which caused me to be down with a flu :/ and there's a history test coming up tomorrow! after just one week of studying here can you guys believe it? haha. wells, more updates will be up IF the internet connection's working well. missing all of you back at home! muacks.