Mobile: イケメン！？

(・_・)エッ......?

バイトの後…びっくりした！

なんか韓国語のクラスを教えている留学生はカッコいい！上智で男を探していたのに…そこでイケメンが…有り得ない！

Mobile: コンビニ

Convenience store

コンビニで買った美味しい苺パルフェ！
少し甘すぎのにね…

The yummy strawberry parfait I bought at the convenience store!
But it's a little too sweet...

Mobile: 期末テスト

Finals

漢字覚えられない！もうやだよ…
ε=ε= 。。(ノT-T)ノ
逃げろっ！

I can't remember kanji! I don't wanna do it...
Run away!

Mobile: Cidre

私の好きなスパークリングワインです！木曜日のピンク美味さ！
The sparkling wine I like! Thursday's pink deliciousness!

Mobile: 初雪？

First snow?

雪が降った！
It snowed!

日本民藝館 & 韓国！

It's already Monday morning at a ridiculously early hour, but I can't sleep. So here I am.

On Saturday, I went to another museum. Yup, another one. This has to be some kind of record for me. Anyway, it was for my Korean art class as part of our final. We went to Nihon Mingeikan, which is a museum for Japanese folk art. I know, why would we go there for a Korean art class? I think it's mostly because our teacher is sick of giving lectures (she's been showing a lot of videos lately), but also because it has some Chinese and Korean pieces in it. I was not a big fan of the museum, but I think that might just be because I wasn't in the mood to look at art. I did like the one mae-byeong vase in there though and the Ming-wha calligraphy paintings. I just wish I'd been in a more artsy mood.

After that, Ayae and I met in Ikebukuro. She's on exchange at Keio University and we hadn't seen each other since summer, so that was nice. We were planning to go to Korea together, but our schedules didn't work out. We'll be meeting up again though; she's going to show me around Yokohama since she lives in the area. Speaking of which...

I booked my flight to Korea for spring break! I'll be going with my friend, Monique, from March 5th to the 12th. We're planning on going to Seoul and Kyeongju. (See? Taking Korean art wasn't a waste.) We haven't figured it all out yet, but I'm so excited! I hope I know enough Korean to get myself around alright. Monique doesn't know any, so...it'll be a fun challenge. I think between my knowledge of Korean, a dictionary, and Japanese and English I should be alright. We'll see. Whoo! Adventures!

...gotta get through the end of the semester first though. T_T

I finally got around to adding pictures. Go look!

Vietnam: Part 3

Ah, finally, the last part of what I did in Vietnam. Sorry this has been so painfully slow...

For our last day in Hue, Thinh took me to the citadel (Ve Tham Quan Dai Noi), basically where the old capital is. It was very pretty, but also very unfortunate and sad to see how much of it has been destroyed because of natural disasters and war. There was a model of how many buildings there used to be and what they were for, but after I saw the model and walked out of the building, it was sad to see how many of the buildings didn't exist anymore. They're actually rebuilding them now in the same fashion that they were in before they were destroyed. I'm really hoping that one day I'll be able to go back and see them all done, that would really be amazing. There were still some other buildings and temples standing, and those still had great mosaic work on them. I'm actually still a little surprised at the Chinese influence of everything, especially things like poems that they had on display (that I obviously couldn't read, but still).


After that, we went to another great veggie restaurant. This one was a lot better than the one we'd gone to before. I should have expected it to be good since we saw some monks eating there too. =D My favorite thing was the lotus seed dessert porrige-like soup. Hahaha. I can't remember the name of it, but it was probably one of my favorite things I tried in Vietnam (which is saying a lot because each time I ate something new I proclaimed it my new favorite XD).


The bus ride home was not as squished as the ride to Hue, but it was equally terrifying. My dad told me before I left to not ride any motorbikes, but to be entirely honest, it's not the motorbikes that are scary. Since I was always riding with Thinh or one of his relatives, I trusted them a lot, but those bus drivers...I just don't trust them as much and they probably don't drive as safely either. The buses are definitely scarier. But, a lady jumped on the bus at some point to sell some shrimp/rice snacks wrapped in leaves. Thinh bought some for me to try, and those were pretty tasty, too. That lady had a great sales idea, riding buses back and forth. After resting for a bit back in Da Nang, we went to a restaurant called Apsara for dinner. It was a tourist-y restaurant with live music and a mix of different kinds of foods. One thing I thought was interesting was the salmon sashimi because we ate it with lettuce, wrapped in spring roll paper. Kind of strange for sashimi, but still very good. And oh, coconut juice. Delicious!


The next day, we went to Thinh's little cousin's kindergarten fundraiser. It was sort of like a mini-festival, but I must say, they do festivals and fundraisers WAY better than anything I ever did in any grade level, or even college for that matter. Each of the classes set up a mini restaurant where they served different dishes like noodles, meat, desserts, or drinks. Then we went to buy tickets that they used as 'money'. I was already full from having pho for breakfast, but I was amazed at how colorful and well decorated everything was. Everything was really bright and there were decorations hanging everywhere. Little kids were lining the walkways with baskets of fruits and veggies, selling them like street vendors. Each and every kid was dressed in some kind of colorful Vietnamese outfit and they were all so adorable! There were class performances on a stage in the back, and the parents (because I know the kids could never do it) had table decoration contests done by class. (I could definitely tell how competitive they were. There were cakes, carved fruits, veggies sculptures, flowers, pretty drinks...really pretty.)


After that, we were supposed to go to a wedding with Thinh's aunts and cousin, but somewhere along the way they found out that the wedding had been the previous day, so they had to go and apologize to the couple. (Awkward!) I'm not sure exactly how everything went down with that, but we ended up going to a restaurant famous for its meats where we had soup and rare beef meat wraps. (This was not one of my favorite meals in Vietnam, but at the same time I can't say I disliked it.) Later, I picked up the dress I had tailored from the material that Thinh's aunt had given me. It turned out great! It fits perfectly. I'm not exactly sure where I'll wear it, but for $7, it's very impressive. When I got back to the material shop, I tried another weird fruit that I've never heard of or seen before. This one was round and green. About the size of a softball, maybe a little bigger. The inside was white and the juice was milky. The seed in the middle had this transparent flesh around it that you eat. It was sweet and a little creamy, but I still can't figure out what it's called. Vietnam has some of the best fruit. Ahhhh.

On my last day, it was raining pretty hard, but Thinh and I braved the rain in our ponchos and took the motorbike out to a restaurant called Kim Do for breakfast. It was dim sum. We ate way too much. Gluttony. Definitely gluttony, but happy, enjoyable gluttony. =) After that I had to get ready to go back to Ho Chi Minh, but not before seeing one of Thinh's spoiled little cousins (he said it, not me) do her really cute and funny evil laugh. She has the best natural evil laugh I've ever heard in my life. I don't know what that says about her, but she was waaay too cute. The rest of the day was spent traveling. Thinh's cousin picked me up in Ho Chi Minh City, and after that it was just hours and hours of traveling.


Vietnam was such an unbelievable experience. I've never felt like such a foreigner before, and I'm so glad Thinh was there or else I'd never even consider visiting. I wish I could share all the pictures, but there are too many to upload to Flickr (my account is limited). It's definitely different than the U.S. and may not be as advanced in technology and things like that, but it's such a beautiful country.

Recap

Since I've been really, really out of it lately, here goes a recap...

- My sleeping schedule is a bit off. Quite a bit off.
- We're losing EAP kids because they're have to or are opting to go home. We've already lost two, and two more are looking like they'll be making a flight back before the next semester.
- I'm going on a field trip for my Korean Art class to a museum...on a Saturday. >.<
- I got to talk to James via video chat and he might come to UCI!
- I also realized that Jodaiko is just not in the cards for me anymore.
- Began pirating tv shows and movies on Bittorrent. (Grey's Anatomy, Project Runway, Double Indemnity, Across the Universe, Atonement...so much stuff I've been missing out on.)
- I will try to make it to at least two of three trips this spring break: Travel Club's trip, Korea, and/or domestic travel somewhere fairly out of the way in Japan.
- I have a feeling I will be getting quite a few B's. I'm hoping for A's and I know I have one in the bag, but we'll see how it goes. I'm wearing out. Quarters are so short compared to this semester thing.
- I really want to read some new books in English (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Freakonomics, ect.), or some good ones I never finished or want to reread (Nausea, The Naked Tree, The First and Last Freedom, ect.).
- It's very cold. And it snowed! (Not where I live, a little bit in Shibuya though.) Crazy. Brr...

Off to shower, hope you are all doing well. Stay warm!

森美術館: Roppongi Crossing ＆ Tokyo City View

Before I talk about what I did today, let me just say, winter sales in Japan are awesome. Deals, deals, deals. New boots and purse for under $80. Deals!


Okay, so today was the last day of the exhibit "Roppongi Crossing 2007: Future Beats in Japanese Contemporary Art" (which happens once every three years) at the Mori Art Museum, so I forced myself to get up at a decent hour and make it over to Roppongi (and thank God I did, I'd be kicking myself if I knew what I missed). I wasn't expecting it to be that big since its on the 53rd floor of the Mori Tower, but it was actually a lot bigger than I expected. This exhibit and "Space for your Future" kind of have the same themes going on, but "Roppongi Crossing" is less interactive and (obviously) space oriented, much more visual.

There were 36 artists on display. Deki Yayoi's neon paintings struck me as very interesting, especially because on top of already being a bit bizarre, the more you look at it, you see little details. Like using balloons to make up the body of the person and then faces of other people to make up the face. Very crazy. Tanaka Iichiro won the people's choice award, and I can see why. His stuff is kind of funny because he takes traditional things and messes them up. He did a daruma whose eyes fell out and a fish rubbing of a piece of sashimi. (hehehe.) I also spotted our family mon on Hara Shinichi's sculpture, I forgot what it was called. And Enoki Chu made this amazing city view using bolts and metal that looked stunning witht he lighting going on in the gallery. It was kind of like a mini-Tokyo City View made out of metal. My favorite thing though was, and this is going to sound extremely weird coming from me (who hates math), the Arithmetik Garden. Yup. My favorite thing was a math thing. Sato Masahiko and Kiriyama Takashi made these sensor things that look like white doorways/metal detectors that have math on the top. (ex. "x7" or "+3") Then people take these cards that have sensors on them and walk through the gates in order to try and make their number equal 7. When you leave the area, the scanner tells you with an 'X' or 'O' whether you ended up with 7 in the end. I didn't get a chance to try it since all the cards were being used, but it was hilarious to watch people walk around trying to do math in their heads. It was like a physical depiction of how I feel about math. (Hahahah~!)


After buying the exhibit book, I went to the Tokyo City View section of the Mori Tower, which was on the same floor. You can basically see all the way around Tokyo, and they give you a map that points out places like Asakusa, Tokyo Tower (which looked amazing), Harajuku, Shinjuku, etc. It was very cool to see such an enormous panoramic view of the city. I'm thinking that in summer I should go back to see fireworks from there, that would be amazing too.


All in all, it was really great. I didn't get to look around the rest of Roppongi, but I'll probably be going back, if for nothing else than to visit the museum again. I think the next exhibit is called "Art is for the Spirit". <3

(Sorry, I'll put the city view pictures up when I get the chance...)

Vietnam: Part 2

Sorry I haven't updated in so long!

The next day, Thinh's aunt let us borrow her car and driver, so we went to Hoi An. Hoi An, according to Thinh is one of the best places to shop because there are a lot of handmade things there. (Carvings, clothing, lanters, paintings etc.) I got a lot of presents for people in Hoi An. We had meat on lemongrass stalks, pork stew, pork wrapped in leaves, and other things for lunch. Mmm. We also took a boat out on the water, which gave us a neat view of Hoi An and gave us a chance to watch this random fisherman that was there. Before we left we got this meat-filled mochi sweet ginger soup dish from a street vendor. Yum! I think it was one of my favorite foods.


On the way home, we stopped at Marble Mountain (Ve Tham Quan Ngu Hanh Son...sorry, I don't know how to do the accent marks). The mountain isn't actually that high, but there's a lot of walking around and climbing to do in order to see the different statues and temples there. A lot of them are hidden in caves. We had a great view of the surrounding area from the top, but my favorite thing was the temple inside one of the caves. We had to climb through this little crack in the antechamber of the cave in order to get to the main area. (It's supposed to be something like going to heaven. There's also a cave where you climb down and it's like going to hell, but that one was closed off.) My pictures, unfortunately, didn't turn out that well because of the lack of lighting. In another cave (that we didn't even know existed until two old ladies told us), there was a huge Buddha statue in the regular sitting position, but the old ladies told us to climb up next to it and look behind it, and right directly behind it was a reclining Buddha. Thinh and I both though it was really odd that they'd put a new sculpture of the sitting Buddha right in front of the reclining one. That was definitely tiring, but worth it.


That night, I was measured for my dress. Thinh's aunt gave me white and lavender silk to make it from, so we took that to the tailor. For dinner, we had pan fried noodles and things, but the kicker was the fruit and the frog. The fruit was this potato shaped thing that was about the size of my fist and looked like a kiwi without fuzz, but the inside was an orange-yellow color and had a honey-like aftertaste. I tried to look it up online, but I couldn't find it since I don't know its name. I also ate frog...which actually does taste like chicken but has an almost fish-like texture. I couldn't eat very much of it because, well frankly, it still looked like frog and it was kind of creeping me out.


On the 27th, we made our trip to Hue. I'd been warned about the dangers of motorbikes and things, but honestly, the bus is way more terrifying than the motorbikes. I trust Thinh and his cousins, so the motorbikes felt safe, but the buses are usually overfilled with people, and because there aren't as many rules of the road in Vietnam, it's pretty scary. Anyway, after that horrible bus ride, we had lunch with Thinh's cousin. Hue is known for its vegetarian food, and it was really good. Afterwards, we went to the Tomb of Tu Duc, who was an emperor of Vietnam. It was gigantic. I don't think we got around to seeing all of it. According to Thinh, the emperor wanted to make it really big, but it would have taken around seven years to complete, so in order to save money, he made the builders finish it in three years. He was the last emperor of Vietnam, and (again according to Thinh) he wrote his own history on a stone monument that is usually reserved for the heir to write. Anyway, it was really amazing stone work and there was also a lot of mosaic work.


We hurried off to another tomb after that. (Thinh rented a motorbike, so it was a lot easier to get around. ) This one was Ve Tham Quan Lang Khai Dinh (the Tomb of Khai Dinh). It was built on a hill, and had really amazing stone work. It's not an old tomb, so everything is very intact and fairly new, but even so, this was my favorite place to look at. I was amazed enough at the intricate relief and sculpture stone work, but inside the tomb the mosaics were absolutely stunning. The entire room was covered in mosaic work and the ceiling was painted with dragons. We weren't supposed to take pictures, but everyone did anyway. Too amazing to not capture on film.


Lastly, we went to a temple. I don't remember the name of the temple, but the person who built it built it in the memory of his mother. After all of the sightseeing we did, it was a nice way to finish it all off. The sunset was great. =D


We ate at an excellent Indian restaurant for dinner. After that I just relaxed in our hotel room (which only costed $15!). We didn't get a chance to go to the citadel, so we had to leave that for the next day...

Vietnam: Part 1

So I'm going to do a series of blogs about my trip to Vietnam. I won't be able to match up all the pictures on Flickr with what I write, but you'll get a general idea since the pictures on Flickr (linked in the sidebar) are in order from most recent to oldest.

I was initially worried about landing in Vietnam because I absolutely had to find Thinh or else I'd be lost and unable to communicate. He landed back in Vietnam from Thailand and Cambodia just a couple of hours before my flight landed, so it all worked out well. I stayed with him and his cousins in Ho Chi Minh City the first night and we flew out to Da Nang the next morning. It was a little unfortunate I wasn't able to explore Ho Chi Minh City, but that's okay, I had a lot of fun anyway. =)


Since my first day in Da Nang was Christmas Eve, Thinh and I decided we'd get into the Christmas spirit a little and buy a tree to decorate. This is where I learned how much VND are worth, which made me thoroughly confused since I had USD, VND, and Yen in my wallet all at the same time. (1 USD = 16,000VND). Thinh's family, like most of Vietnam, is Buddhist, so there was no real point to the tree except to have some fun. We also stopped to get sugar cane juice from a street vendor, which was yummy. Street vendors have some amazing food. Afterwards, I went to meet his aunt, who I think my mom would have gotten along with perfectly if they were able to speak the same language. She owns a fabric store on a busy street that's full of all kinds of great material. She's also very generous, which I learned when she brought out grapefruit, bananas, coconut, baos, tea, and guava for us to eat while she talked with Thinh. That also made me fall in love with fruit in Vietnam. It's delicious!


Since it was Christmas Eve, we went to a restaurant called Viet Nam by the beach. That was my first experience riding a motorbike, even though my dad told me not to. (It's actually not as scary as the bus, but that will come later.) We had a great dinner with Thinh, his cousin Quan, and Quan's friends. Afterwards, we tried to go clubbing, but it didn't really work out to well, but it was fun figuring out what to do while we were actually in the process. XD


The next day, I had my first bowl of Pho, which was a little disappointing because it's so similar to what they make in the U.S. Haha, so moving on...I went to My Son with Thinh and his cousins. My Son is a collection of ancient ruins. There are the remains of statues and temples everywhere. The funny square structure with the pole sticking out of it is, go figure, a fertility symbol. There was also a very pretty column engraved with sanskrit that I loved. It rained a lot while we were there, but I really enjoyed looking at all the Buddhist art and sculptures that were around. Japan doesn't have anything like that, and definitely nowhere near as much work done in stone. Absolutely stunning.We ended the day with a meal of Thinh's favorite (chicken and pan fried noodles) and then went to a cafe called Googol with his cousin and her friend. (Cafes are the hangouts in Vietnam.) The cafe was great. I don't have any shots of it, but Thinh does, so hopefully I'll be able to get them from him. (He also has a brand new beautiful Canon camera that made everything look amazing.)

More to come, but I'm getting tired. Don't worry, I"ll add in pictures when I have the time...

So busy...

On the 2nd, I was able to meet up with Yuhki, who was in Tokyo visiting his girlfriend. It's nice to be able to see him every once in a while since he helps me out a lot. We went to eat at an Indian restaurant in Ebisu (after we found out the Singaporean one we wanted to go to was closed) and then made our way to Shibuya. Shopping in Shibuya was insane, so we tried to stay away from that. We ended up looking around Tsutaya (cd and dvd store), having coffee, going to Uniqlo to buy clothes, and GAP so I could get a hat, muffler, and gloves for my trip to Gunma. Yuhki's so chill. ^^


I went on a trip to Gunma with the Yohan Waseda Christian Church because Rie, Min Jeong, and Maki-sensei invited me. (I had to wake up at 5am in order to make it there on time!) Even though the bus ride was ridiculously long, the scenery was beautiful. There was snow, and from the bus we could even see Mt. Fuji, which was entirely white because of the snow. Walking down the street towards the onsen, little shops would stop us and give us tea and onsen manju (kind of like pastry sweets). It was kind of amazing how many they gave away. I must have eaten at least four...I wonder how they make any money. The onsen was amazing! After you get over yourself, it's really comfortable. The sauna was nice too. There was an indoor and outdoor onsen, plus a cold one, so we kept going back and forth between the different parts of the onsen. It was probably the most relaxing thing I've done in Japan so far. I'm jealous of Kris, who's moving out to Gunma to teach English...he'll be having some nice relaxing weekends (for cheap too!).


I finally didn't do anything yesterday, which was great since I haven't really had a day to rest since I left for Vietnam. But, today was Nobuko's birthday, so I was out again. Today was my first time ice skating! It's sooo much harder than it looks. By the end of our hour there my ankles were killing me. I definitely want to go back though. (Note in the picture, So-ky and I are not a couple and we're not trying to be ラブラブ either, Nobuko just thought the hearts were really cute. XD) There were 5 of us ice skating, but then we went for Chuka-Chosen food for dinner. (It's the type of food this particular type of Chinese people make that's like a mix between Korean and Chinese.) So yummy. There ended up being about 8 people there. Good food and good conversation. There was one thing particularly interesting about dinner...we ate dog. Yup, dog. As in woof woof. I only ate a little piece, since it kinda freaks me out, but yeah....I was surprised they had it there, but even more surprised they ordered it. Interesting...


I thought 2007 was pretty crazy as far as food goes. I tried horse sashimi (basashi), 2 types of Vietnamese fruits I've never seen in my life, and frog...but I must say, 2008 is starting off pretty crazy with dog. =X

明けましておめでとう！

もう遅れているけど明けましておめでとう！今年もよろしくお願いします！今年、一人でアパートで過ごした。>.< ちょっと淋しかったのにベトナムから帰ったところだったから凄く疲れた。後でベトナムの旅行について書く。その前、今日のしたこと！

のぶこが電話かけたで起きた。ー＿ー
もう１２時だった。遅かった！とにかく、浅草の雷門に行って来た。駅から雷門寺まで、どこに行っても凄く込んでた。私たちは人ごみの中に隠れ、列の途中から割り込んだ。（それは良くないけど列は本当に長かった。もっと早くお寺に入られたのは良かった。）お寺の中でコインを投げてる人が思ったより多かった。込んだからコインを投げるのはちょっと怖かった。祈った後で心願成就のお守りも買った。後、初めての甘酒を飲んだ。甘かった、甘かった、甘かった！アルコールが入ったけど全然味わわなかった。そして、おみくじ！私のはじめてのおみくじなので楽しかった。だからステファニーにおみくじも買ったんだ。二枚のおみくじは吉です〜！（でものぶこのは大吉なのでのぶこの方はもっとラッキ！）お正月のことを終わった後、一緒にカラオケをしたw。やっぱ、新曲の歌詞を覚えなきゃ...いつも同じ曲を歌うし。w


みんなさんのお正月はどうでしたか？健康と幸せをお祈りいたします！良いお年を！


I'm already late, but happy new year! I spent this new year in my apartment by myself. >.< It's kind of sad, but I'd just gotten back from Vietnam so I was really tired. I'll write about Vietnam later. Before that, the things I did today!

I woke up when Nobuko called me. -_-
It was already 12PM. So late! Anyway, we went to Kaminarimon in Asakusa. All the way from the station to Kaminarimon it was craaazy crowded. We cut into the middle of the line by hiding in the crowd. (I know, that's not good, but the line was reallly long. Since we were able to get into the temple faster it was actually good that we did.) There were a lot of people throwing coins in the temple. (You throw coins, then you pray.) It was kinda scary to throw them since it was so crowded. After we prayed, we bought good luck charms. Then, I had my first sweet sake! (It's a little weird since it's grainy with rice. Like rice porrige.) It was soooo sweet. There was alcohol in it, but I couldn't taste it at all. And then, omikuji! (It's this thing where you get a paper that tells your fortune.) It was my first omikuji so it was fun. I bought one for Stephanie too. Both of us got good fortune! (But Nobuko got the best fortune, so she's even luckier!) After finishing all the new year's things, we went to karaoke. Haha. I have to learn some new songs after all...I always sing the same ones over again.


How was everyone's new year? Be healthy and happy! Have a good year!