Did you know that training wheels are called "stabilizers" in British English?  I found this out because as Cliff and I were casually riding our bikes to the convenience store, a girl riding the pictured stabilized bicycle came slowly towards me and screamed.  I stopped, staring at her in disbelief as she made no attempt to break or turn but instead lightly bumped into my front wheel.  We exchanged sumimasens and continued on our separate ways.  It turns out that girl (who we suspect of being mentally retarded) is also one of the kimono-clad prostitutes who work at the various brothels in my neighborhood!  I can't help but presume that she's being taken advantage of.  Very sad.

Just after crossing the bridge and turning left we then came upon this enormous spider and its web!  It was an adventurous trip to the store.

This is Kayoko, one of my three private students I got from working through 7Act.  She's a student at Kyoto Art University.  Originally from Fukuoka, she came to Kyoto to study film.  I quit 7Act at the end of 2004, so I wanted to get pictures of my two students besides Yosuke.  This is at the cafe where we usually had our lessons, at Gojo-Karasuma (near my house).

And this is Naruyoshi, a grad student studying microbiology at Kyoto University.  His English is fairly fluent and we had a lot of good conversations.  Unfortunately due to his demands at the laboratory he had to cancel about half of our sessions together.  He often slept at the lab or at a restaurant nearby.  Hopefully he's able to relax a bit more these days.

Contrary to American tradition, the decorations went up well before Thanksgiving.