Tuesday night I went to see the Nara raito-appu (I'm not kidding, that's what they call it) with a coworker. Being only Tuesday night, the crowds weren't that bad. The whole Nara Park (of deer fame) was covered in lanterns and random lit up structures, making for some beautiful scenes, especially on the ponds. The moon was out, but shrouded by clouds, giving me some nice freaky photos of the haunted festival gazebo. There was a small army of festival officals scurrying about relighting lanterns and replacing candles. If this were promoted like the fireworks shows I'd have some figure of how many lanterns there were. I don't know, how about...lots.

Tomorrow night Todaiji is opened up for the peak of the festival, where there'll be even more lanterns inside and a special room opened for one of two days of the year. So I plan to go back, along with every other warm-blooded Kansaijin.

My GRE book arrived from amazon.co.jp today. I was so impressed. Shipping is so efficient here. Two days after ordering I found a little delivery notice in my mailbox asking me to reschedule delivery. (I never get anything from Amazon in two days...) This morning we called to reschedule and they delivered it this afternoon...to the office. Try getting UPS to do that. But now that it's here, I have something else to do at home besides surf, download anime, and watch anime...