Sunday I went to see the 48 Waterfalls of Akame with my boss from work. You'd think that'd be really awkward, but he's a chill guy who, unlike most CS geeks, actually enjoys the outdoors. He's also an aspiring amateur photographer, so he brought his camera. He took so many pictures of me in front of waterfalls it was starting to creep me out. But a few of them, like this one, turned out really well, and he brought me prints and a little CD on Monday. As for the falls, they were beautiful, although swarming with tourists. As my boss said, "The only complaint people have about the 48 Falls of Akame is that there aren't really 48 waterfalls." I didn't count (okay, okay, I lost count), but I don't think I saw 48. Heck, this picture's probably #19, #20 and #21...

Wednesday night I went to a jazz club in Kyoto with Tim, Audrey, and (my language partner) Ritsuko. It was my first jazz club... and definitely my first one in Japan. The music was great: Hiro from Kyoto University and a frequent visitor at the Stanford Center was playing with his band, which was quite good. On the drums was this guy from California who came over and chatted with us about his 3-year stint in Japan.

Afterwards Ritsuko and I had to catch an early train so we could transfer to our little backwaters stops. As we were running along Sanjo I guess this cluster of Japanese girls caught on to the impending last train to anywhere-besides-Osaka because when they saw us they started running too. It was amusing: Japanese people seem to be quite used to running to trains. When I got off at Tambabashi, everyone else making the transfer ran to the other side of the station even though we had like seven minutes to transfer. It's very unnerving to be walking towards a train while everyone else around you is running. It makes you wonder if they know something you don't. Then again, I've also seen Japanese women running out of stations late at night, long after the last bus has left. Maybe it's ingrained habit, or maybe they're just afraid of the gaijin man.