"Jeff"

There's a prof at 京都外国語大学 (my school) who has, as far as anybody can tell, entirely too much cash. Whether or not that's the case, I have no idea. Maybe he's just very frugal.
In any case, he invited all of the foreigners to his place for an end-of-semester party that was pretty cool. We had nice company, good food, and I think everybody had a good time.

House is huge, 180 tatami mats, if memory serves. And beautiful: old-style paper doors, some of which have sumi-e on them. It dates from the Edo period, I think he said.

Oh, and it has its own alley.

It's kind of designed for... Japanese people, so the stairs are a little dangerous if you're over 5'6", but he has a nice view of the river and Gion. We did the whole party out on his veranda that's on the Kamogawa river (the main river in Kyoto), where the wind kept us nicely cool. As it would turn out, they take down the outer veranda every year at the end of summer, then put it back up at the beginning. This somehow makes it slighlty less illegal, I guess. In any case, it's the norm for the houses along the river, if I got what he said right.

As an added bonus, there was another party going on next door, and we got to see some maiko (apprentice geisha), which was pretty cool. They even posed for me! It's hard to get them to let you take their picture, but as you can see, three posed in this one! And they look kind of cute, even, which rare among geisha.
The teacher managed to accidentally make some new contacts, and by "some new contacts", I mean three Japanese men who all looked pretty well-to-do themselves. This happening was what confirmed my suspicions: diplomacy.

That's his secret, as far as I can tell. He's probably the most diplomatic person I have ever met. When people talk to him, they always walk away smiling or laughing, and he does a very good job of playing up his foreign-ness when it will help, and downplaying it at other times. It's... impressive, to say the least.

As a note, I toted a Japanese girl for a picture, but someone else took it, so I don't have the shot.
Here's an example of how to completely miss your focus, though.

Also, I got my first shot of a Japanese policeman. Normally, they get flustered and run away when I try to take a picture, but this guy was really excited. I took a couple, but his vest combined with me using onboard flash kind of completely blew out, as you can see.
Notice the glow on his vest?