pics

i uploaded some new pics to the flickr site - here's the text version....

carrie(coworker) called me last night to see if I wanted to go do more touristy stuff around shinjuku, so we walked around the city again to take pics.

we started out in shinjuku, and there's a massive scyscraper there, so we went to take pics of the city and attempt to wrap our minds around the size of tokyo. It's very large. I found out that the metro area is only a few million people bigger than NYC, though, so it's not quite as big as I thought. Still pretty large. about 12 million I think(not counting yokohama).
we then walked down to yoyogi park and visited the imperial shrine. It was pretty down there. Lots of tourists though(of course, myself included). We then went down to yoyogi park and sat on a bench to rest for a moment. I saw all these crows bathing themselves, which was kind of weird. I didn't know crows were into water......
I then decided we should take a shortcut to shibuya through the park in order to bypass walking back to the main entrance that was already behind us. Instead, I ended up walking us deep into the homeless villages. More backtracking ensued.
In shibuya, we ate at this weird okinawan restaurant - the food was OK. I had some sort of celery looking thing(like celery with spikes on it), some tofu, some pickled mushroom salad, some rice, and some soup. Not bad for around 8 bucks.
I think we walked about 5 or 6 miles, so my aching back decided I should head home. here I am. this is not the most interesting blog.

still waiting for suggestions on the architecture books

i'm going to start reading bertrand russel's "history of western philosophy" in an attempt to fill in some of the rather massive gaps in my philosophical base. i have to order it first, though. i think I'm going to buy a greek history book as well. Any fiction recommendations? I finished murakami's new book last night(which I recommend).