pause/still

Happy New Year!
明けましておめでとうございます。
午年に幸運があなたに向かって実行されます。

I hope the year is going rad so far. it's been less than a week and I already did some fun stuff like hiking and watching the sunset at the beach. thought I'd post a seasonally appropriate section of my ebook no time for love: Stories From Japanabout living in Japan.

January 2013: Pure Whrite

With the longest term finished, I knew the next few months would fly by. I hadn’t totally decided what I would do next. I just wanted to get through winter alive.

I read your email while at a little temple nearby for the bell ringing and it made me laugh. It was one of the only cool things so far in Kyoto. Is there a temple near your place? You should have gone! I know it's super awkward trying to have any traditional holiday alone. Tomorrow I'm going to go for about three temples then call it done. I'm now thinking about coming back Thursday. It's a long time on the train and I need to do laundry and recover. It's a long story. Mostly the weather has been shitty as you could expect plus everything is closed.

琵琶湖/Lake Biwa

Today was actually nice. I hope it's a good sign that this year will be better. I went for my first shrine visit of the year and then over to Hikone castle and Biwako. I really wanted to go to see naruto (huge whirlpools) because it's scary and awesome but also totally far away and not near a train station. Did you see the crazy whirlpools when you lived over there?
The awesome couple I stayed with in Osaka went to junior high together then met again through Facebook recently and ended up getting engaged a month later. It's super disgusting cute.

Hope you like it. It always makes me miss my time living in Japan and my students when I read about it again.
I've heard good things about Amazon Prime (like free shipping) and they have a free trial going on now. If you get the free trial, you can also borrow ebooks (like mine) for free. I downloaded the simple Kindle reader application for free on my phone, but if you have a fancy pants Kindleyou can read my ebook on there. If you don't, I promise I'm going to make the PDF version any day now. I'll let you know when I do.

disclaimer: the fancy links will earn me some pennies if you buy anything on Amazon or sign up for the free trial through them. an experiment in making enough from art to live by. but life is a big experiment.