Photoshop, anyone?

Yeah, didn't have anyone to take the picture so had to do it in two separate shots. Markian said we should photo shop it together. I love cheesy pictures like these. These were taken in front of Dogo Onsen.

So, we've been in Japan for about exactly a year now. In some ways it seems like I've just arrived and in other ways it seems like I've been here forever! I'm looking forward to the journey home in some ways and dreading it in others. Not that's it's permanent. I still have another year of Japanese life to look forward to. There are so many things I love and hate about Japan. I feel like I have a love/hate relationship with it, well the same way I guess I do about America. Everywhere has it's pros and cons. I think Markian likes it better here though than I do somedays. If I get really frustrated at work or irritated about something I can't have here, and start talking about moving home, he's usually all like, "Why would you want to go home?" I think he really likes living in the city. I do too, but he seems very well accustomed to it. Granted, he's had a better work experience here than I have. Hiroshima City seems so huge to me, but to most Japanese people it is small. The population is around the size of Chicago. There are high rises everywhere. It makes downtown Memphis look like a piddly street corner here! Granted, Memphis doesn't have that many high rises, but I always felt like it was mostly urban sprawl. It's nice to be in a city where I can rely on public transport to get almost anywhere.
I've met a lot of new awesome people this year, which I'm really thankful for. Many people have helped me adjust to my new life here. I don't know if I could have done it without them. It's nice to have people you can depend on. I'm often shy around new people, so I'm glad I've made many new friends this year. I'm starting to see some improvement in my Japanese as well. The lessons are really helping. I can read and write (well not many kanji, but katakana and hiragana), and I can form some basic sentences. My vocabulary sucks though, so I need to crack down and study, but I'm usually so tired from work that it doesn't happen.

Speaking of that, it's about 1:30 AM and I had better get some sleep. I was just happy because the internet was working. See some of you very soon, which isn't soon enough! おやすみなさい!