ANY LOVE

last day to play~

2008-07-31T05:45:00.002+09:00

Today (technically yesterday) was my last day to play around before my family gets here. They should be here in less than 12 hours!! I'm super excited about that, but let me tell you what's went on today.

I met up with Vinodh, his girlfriend (いい人だね〜、よかった！), Jeff, and a couple other people from his old dorm. We went to this yummy Indian buffet in Shinjuku for lunch. Surprisingly cheap too. 850 yen with free lassi! Hahaha, anyway, it was nice. We all got to catch up and chat about experiences and everything. They told me about climbing Mt. Fuji...crazy jealous, but I definitely don't have time left to do that. =( Nobuko was running late and didn't make it for lunch, but we met with her in Shinjuku and then said goodbye to half the group. Nobuko, Vinodh, his girlfriend, and I made our way to Shibuya (although we were all going for different reasons). Said goodbye to Vinodh. Sad sad sad. I've gotten to know him pretty well this year since I've seen him since day 1 of the program.

Once we all split up, I went to Monique's birthday celebration. I had missed lunch at Sweets Paradise, but made it in time for the arcade (she's kind of a purikura addict) and karaoke. There were a few of her friends from her dorm (I think), So-ky, Jen, Roddy, and a few other exchange students. A few people left early, so we kept having these 'goodbye moments' that weren't too emotional, but sad. None of us feel like we're really not going to see each other, I think. When it was all over Monique, Jen, and I had time to burn so we did some extra karaoke and went to HMV to look around. We had another 'goodbye moment' and I came home and knocked out, I was soo sleepy.

I have to do a little extra cleaning and such today, before my family gets here. This is going to be a lot of traveling around. Ah, the beginning of the end~~~

already one year

2008-07-27T15:15:00.001+09:00

It's been exactly one year since I got here. Crazy.

...too bad I'm spending all of my time working on my final papers. =(

cereal and...foot massager?!

2008-07-25T10:29:00.003+09:00

So I woke up this morning and was craving cereal, so I walk over to the grocery store to buy some corn flakes. I bring the cereal back home, open up the box and find out that every box has a foot massage thing inside. You know, like one of those toys that they usually come with, except this one was for foot massaging and had a little paper of instructions on how to use it.

Japanese people are unbelievable.

Mobile:さようなら〜

2008-07-24T19:14:00.002+09:00

日本語期末テストが終わってから渋谷に行った。ハナと彩恵とももとの最後の遊びだった。みんな帰って寂しい！アメリカでも会おう！

After my Japanese final I went to Shibuya. It was the last time to go out with Hannah, Ayae, and Monique. It's sad everyone is going home. Let's meet in America!

Mobile:六本木からのＨＥＬＬＯ

2008-07-23T09:27:00.002+09:00

今六本木にいる！午前9時半！宮崎監督の新作を見に来たんだ〜崖の上のボニョっていう。イェア〜！

HELLO from Roppongi

I'm in Roppongi right now! 9:30AM! I came to see Miyazaki's new film~ It's called Gake no Ue no Ponyo. Yeah~!

6:53AM

2008-07-22T06:53:00.002+09:00

Hello.

By normal standards, I should be waking up in seven minutes, but seeing as I didn't actually go to sleep, I'm a little early. I don't know why, but I couldn't get to sleep, so I just stayed up. Luckily today shouldn't be a difficult day.

This past weekend I got together with Yuhki, Roy, Sylvia, Craig, Craig's brother, Yuhki's friend, and Sylvia's friend. It was kind of cool to have 4 other Jodaiko people around. It's been a while since I've been in such a big group with other Americans. We went to Shibuya on Friday and Saturday. Friday I didn't actually go home since I missed my last train. I went to Craig's hotel and basically stayed up until my first train (are we seeing a pattern here? T_T) Not healthy! ...Anyway, that was fun. Then the next night we got together again and went to Daibutsu koro koro, which is an izakaya in, again, Shibuya. It has a sort of cool atmosphere.

I also slaved over a Japanese essay...and started reading an article for my final, but there's still a long way to go before I sleep...

Time to run downstairs and buy some coffee before I head to the station.

Have a good day!

STRESS and RELIEF

2008-07-18T02:35:00.002+09:00

It's all ending so fast, so fast.

Today was my last day of work. But let me back up.
So Sylvia and Craig (and Kasey, but she's in Osaka) have made it over to Japan and I must hang out with them while they're here because that's pretty amazing. Roy is here and Yuhki is planning on coming out, so the plan is for all of the Jodaiko people that are here to unite. Hahaha. Pretty cool.

Finals are coming up and it's just been a bit stressful trying to figure out when I'm going to see everyone for the last time, when I'm going to actually do my schoolwork and study, and when I'm going to start packing. Two weeks to clean it all up and pack it all away. I was going to cancel my health insurance today, but a suicide on the Seibu line stopped me from getting to the office on time. Boo.

Also because of the suicide, I ended up going to a bookstore to look for an easier book to read because, let's be honest, Higashino Keigo's book "Himitsu" is long and difficult. And the plot sounds confusing since it's a mystery. I'm planning to tackle it again after all my finals are over, probably when I'm back in the states and have nothing to do. I need focus for that one. So in it's place (for train rides and randomly sitting in cafes and waiting time) I bought a book I found while browsing. It's called "GO" by Kaneshiro Kazuki. I picked it by reading the back, then reading the first page. I just looked it up online to see what people said about it. Apparently Kaneshiro is a Zainichi Korean and "GO" was his first novel. He also wrote "Fly, Daddy, Fly" which is the book the Korean movie by the same name is based on. I read on to around the 3rd page and got a better idea about the identity of the character in the novel. Leave it to me to randomly find a novel about a culturally-confused protagonist in love. The new goal is to read this one quickly and get "Fly, Daddy, Fly" because I liked the movie and want to see where it came from.

So after buying the book, I went to my last day of work. My 3 main students were there and Aoki-san gave me kasutera. That's so like her. Hahaha. Afterwards, we went to Echigo Soba for dinner, where one of the older students who had to stop met with us. All in all a good night, and a good job. I'm glad they seemed to have enjoyed the year.

So tomorrow is my Japanese debate on abortion. 2 essays, 1 sakubun, 2 final tests, 1 oral exam, and 1 translation to go. So much work and play to be done.

STINGRAY!

2008-07-08T00:25:00.002+09:00

So a lot of stuff is going on...

- Because of the G8 Summit, subway security is kind of crazy right now.
- Grandma sent me a big box of American cherries. (yum~!)
- Mark gave me another mugen mame, but this time the outside is pink! (I got Mr.Mame face!)
- I met Ets' family and we went to this delicious restaurant called Taruhei in Ueno.
- We ate stingray! (It was really sweet!)
- Shiina Ringo is amazing. Her new album is awesome!
- Ets' relatives gave me really cute omiyage. Edo candies!
- I watched Blue Man Group x SMAP on TV today. (Yuhki told me they were on.) It was pretty cool, but Kimu Taku needs to fix that hair.
- There's this show called 'ainori' that I really like. I just found out about it today. If you wikipedia it, it'll come up. It's just so...emotional and hilarious at the same time. Japanese captions KILL ME.

I can't believe it's all coming to an end~

Mobile:靴！

2008-07-06T00:12:00.002+09:00

えつことマークと会った！吉祥寺で買ってくれたNIKEなんだ！うれしくて、感謝します！

Shoes!
I met up with Etsuko and Mark today! These are the Nikes they Ets bought for me at Kichijoji! Woo hoo~

テンション！

2008-07-05T00:05:00.003+09:00

Things have been crazy this week. It was a pretty hard week at school. Papers all over the place and a lot of reading. Besides that...here's the list of things that happened.

- Met with Yoko for the first time in a looong time. We went to Mumbai. =D (Indian restaurant.)
- Changed my status to 'temporary visitor'. (JR Pass here I come~~!)
- Saw Hana Yori Dango F (Final) at Toho Theatre in Roppongi (where they filmed the movie scene in the drama!)
- Had the entire Yurakucho line delayed and took forever to get home.
- Started watching "School of Rock" with the English class I teach. XD
- Wrote 3 essays. (Literature, Japanese, and Philosophy)
- Bought Daishi Dance's new album, 「the ジブリ set」 "the Ghibli set" as motivation. (It's an amazing album, plus it came with an unreleased extra version of one of the songs!)
- Read 「神さまの子どもたちはみな踊る」("all god's children can dance"). (I don't like it as much as 「アイロンのある風景」"landscape with flatiron")
- Bought 東野圭吾's 「秘密」(Literally "Secret", but the English title is "Naoko" by Keigo Higashino. Yoko recommended it to me. It's a little over 400 pages so I'm a little intimidated, but excited to start reading it.)

So tired. Life is good, but it definitely never stops.

Mobile:かえるさん

2008-07-03T14:56:00.002+09:00

今日かえるさんが授業に来た！

最近すごく忙しいけど一日を楽しく過ごしてます！

Mr. Frog
Mr. Frog came to class today!
Recently I've been really busy, but I've been having fun each day!

catching up~

2008-06-29T19:27:00.002+09:00

So it's been a while since I've actually wrote about what's been going on.

Etsuko and Mark are in Tokyo right now. I've seen them 3 times or so. We've gone to Nakano, Ikebukuro, Higashi Ikebukuro, Harajuku, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Akihabara and Suidobashi. We've gone to game centers, shopping, Meiji Shrine, Takeshita Street, Omotesando, yakitori (YUM~), curry, Tokyo Dome City, La Qua, Sunshine City, etc. It's soo cool that they're here. I haven't seen anyone in a really long time so it's exciting~! Mark seems to be good at the UFO Catchers. He's won a couple of keychains that are called Mugen Edamame that are SUPER FUNNY. You make the bean pop out of the pod and the middle one has a face! I have zuga---n face! He also won a golden baseball. Pretty entertaining stuff. At La Qua yesterday, there was an anime convention or something because we saw a ton of crazy people dressed up.

In Akihabara, we walked around Yodobashi Camera and I bought an electronic dictionary. I know, I know, I bought it really late, but up until I started reading novels on my own, I didn't really need it. (I used to just ask my friends what things meant.) Ah, but of course, now that I'm into reading novels, I have a lot of school work to catch up with. I have a literature response paper, Japanese essay, and a philosophy commentary all due this week. And on Wednesday I'm off to Shinagawa to get my visa status changed. So much to do before I go. before I go. before I go.

I want to go see a Yomiuri Giants game. Ahh~

Mobile:本虫？

2008-06-27T17:24:00.002+09:00

だるい！アメリカの学校が終わった今、学校に行きたくなくなちゃった。帰国したくて、したくなくて、頭はゴチャゴチャ〜

最近電子辞書を買いたくなった。帰国すると漢字がないので自分で本を読みながら漢字を調べる方法しかない。あと、漫画も小説も買いたい！アメリカに送るってめんどいのに…

村上春樹の「神さまの子供たちみな踊る」を読もうとすべき！やっぱ本を買うのが好き〜本虫かなあ？

(ρ.-)ネムイ

Bookworm?

AUGH. Now that school is over in America, I don't wanna go to school anymore. I wanna go home, I don't wanna go home...I'm all confused.

Lately I've wanted to buy an electronic dictionary. Once I go back there won't be kanji anywhere so I'll just have to read and look up kanji. And I wanna buy more manga and novels! Sending them back to America is gonna be a pain though.

I should finish Haruki Murakami's "after the quake"! I really do like buying books. Maybe I'm a bookworm.

(ρ.-)SLEEPY

Mobile:渋谷での遊び

2008-06-18T18:47:00.002+09:00

今日初めてメトロの副都心線に乗った。平和台から渋谷に直接に行ける！渋谷でハナとモニクと彩恵に会って、食べに行ったり、カラオケをしたり、プリクラを撮ったりした！毎日は今日ぐらい楽しんでたらいいなぁ

ロック感じ〜

Playing in Shibuya

Today I rode the new Metro Fukutoshin Line. I can go from Heiwadai straight to Shibuya! I met up with Hannah, Monique, and Ayae to eat, go karaoke, and take purikura! It'd be great if everyday was this fun~

Rock style!

Oh, and I found a place to fix my heels. Woo hoo!

JAMES!

2008-06-17T23:53:00.002+09:00

James visited me! James visited me!!!

He and Nancy are staying in Shinjuku right now since they're on a tour of Japan. =D
It was sooooo good to see them. They're the first people (besides Thinh in Vietnam) that I've seen from home since coming here.
On Sunday, we got together for noodles and James and I went to karaoke. (James and I tore it up on "Oops! I did it again" hahahaha) Then today, we met in Ikebukuro after I had class and went to this really good ramen place. It has really good garlic flavored soup. =D I got a really cute Betsy Johnson hand towel that has little knitted cherries hanging off of it. ^_^ After showing them around Ikebukuro a bit, Nancy went back to the hotel and James and I went to Shibuya. Oh, Shibuya. I forgot how great it is there. We found Mango Gokuri (drink) and Blue Hawaii Pepsi, which is definitely blue. (And also pineapple and lemon flavored.)

Since James and Nancy brought me red vines, I went back to my apartment and ate red vines and drank blue soda. Apparently red vines + blue hawaii soda = purple tongue. Hahaha. I feel like I'm five. But now that they're back in Shinjuku and getting ready to leave for Hakone, I'm kind of sad. At least more sad than I thought I would be. Two more months!

Mobile:食いしん坊

2008-06-12T15:57:00.002+09:00

コンビニで買った期間限定もの！爽健美茶は普通のタイプより薄いと思うけどマンゴのチョコレートが特においしい！

モバイルブログは食べ物中心になっちゃった！(笑）

Here's a couple 'limited' things I bought at the convenience store! This Sokenbicha is thinner tasting than the other one, but the Mango Kit Kat is really good! My mobile blogs are all about food..lol.

Mobile:El Torito

2008-06-09T22:16:00.002+09:00

おいしかったです！…特にドリンク！

It was really good! ...especially the drink!

SUNSHINE~

2008-06-09T00:23:00.004+09:00

Today I went to Ikebukuro to shop and such. I haven't been out shopping in a while so it was fun to look around at everything. I saw a mug where if you drink from it, the bottom has a pig's nose. Really funny and really cute. XD Anyway, apparently I'm Big Foot because it's really hard to find shoes in my size that aren't just sneakers. I also learned to pin my hair up using one type of pin and I was all excited because I could actually do it and it would stay in. Then I found out the pin costs 3000 yen. Sad day. From Ikebukuro, we went to Sunshine City in East Ikebukuro. There's a lot of shopping there too, but more importantly, there is El Torito. So I had Mexican food for dinner which was also exciting~!

I helped Nobuko look up grad school stuff, then we were looking at pictures on my facebook and she said the same thing that Hannah said when she saw a picture of me and my sister back in the states. Apparently I look really Japanese here, but really American in America. I don't really know how that works, but it was interesting to hear that several people thought that. I wonder what's different, because I don't see it. It was pretty funny because when we were looking at grad school information online Nobuko kept being amazed since she doesn't think of me like a foreigner, so the fact that I could read English that fast was constantly amazing. Hahaha.

On a more scary and sad note, today there was a guy who went crazy in Akihabara and started stabbing people. He stabbed 18 or so people before the somehow got him to stop. At least two have died. That's some pretty scary news. Makes me glad I don't go to Akihabara very much. T_T

中間エッセーばっかり

2008-06-07T23:11:00.002+09:00

Lately all I've been doing is midterm essays. Philosophy, Issues in Chinese Women's History, now Literature. Egh. I'm hoping that after Tuesday things won't be so...bleh. Sorry for the lack of updates but nothing interesting has really been going on. I cleaned my apartment, I've been reading and doing homework, writing essays...本当にnothing special. The highlight of last week was studying with Nobuko. Haha. Sad sad. 2 more months, gotta start doing more fun stuff again.

I'm thinking that I need to get out to Harajuku sometime soon. I haven't been there in a really long time and it's getting pretty warm so I want some new summer clothes. The Mori Art Museum also has another exhibit going, as well as a MAM Project, so I think I'll try to make it out to Roppongi again too...I like that gallery a lot. =D

Already June...

2008-06-02T21:14:00.004+09:00

Wow, 2 more months.

I'm in the middle of midterms right now, so I've been tired lately. I didn't do too well on my last Japanese test, but besides that, everything seems to be going alright. I must really not be used to this schedule. I just wrote two papers in 3 days. That's a record for me, though I don't know how much I can say about the quality. I haven't written essays like those in a really long time. Japanese midterm on Thursday, Japanese speech on Friday, then I'm free of all the immediate stuff.

Anyway, school aside, I started reading Haruki Murakami's 'after the quake' in Japanese. =D It's a collection of short stories I read in translation about 3 or 4 years ago. I started reading 'landscape with flatiron' which was my favorite of all of them in the Jay Rubin translation. It's really good! I think it has a little bit of a different feeling in Japanese than in English that fits with the setting a bit more. It made me want to read the whole story at once. Hmm.. I got really into it when I was reading and tried to make myself stop around 3am when I was halfway through (it's about 30 pages), but had to get up half an hour later and finish it because I kept thinking about it too much. Hahaha. I started reading 'ufo in kushiro', but I'm trying not to get too into it yet because I have to still do work for class. Now that I finished my paper maybe.... =) Here's one of my favorite parts (I put the translation if you can't read Japanese, but I think the Japanese is more to the core. I also did not add the underlining, it's actually in the text):

そのとき順子は、焚き火の炎を見ていて、そこに何かをふと感じることになった。何か深いものだった。気持ちのかたまりとでも言えばいいだろうか、観念と呼ぶにはあまりにも生々しく、現実的な重みを持ったものだった。それは彼女の体のなかをゆっくりと駆け抜け、懐かしいような、胸をしめつけるような、不思議な感触だけを残してどこかに消えていった。それが消えてからしばらくのあいだ、彼女の腕には鳥肌のようなものがたっていた。

「三宅さん、火のかたちを見ているとさ、ときどき不思議な気持ちになることない？」

「どういうことや？」

「私たちがふだんの生活ではとくに感じてないことが、変なふうにありありとかんじられるとか。なんていうのか.....、アタマ悪いからうまく言えないんだけど、こうして火を見ていると、わけもなくひっそりとした気持ちになる」

三宅さんは考えていた。「火ゆうのはな、かたちが自由なんや。自由やから、見ているほうの心次第で何にでも見える。順ちゃんが火を見ててひっそりとした気持ちになるとしたら、それは自分の中にあるひっそりとした気持ちがそこに映るからなんや。そういうの、わかるか？」

村上春樹　「アイロンのある風景」

It was the first time that Junko felt a certain “something” as she watched the flames of a bonfire: “something” deep down, a “wad” of feeling, she might have called it, because it was too raw, too heavy, too real to be called an idea. It coursed through her body and vanished, leaving behind a sweet-sad, chest-gripping, strange sort of feeling. For a time after it had gone, she had goose flesh on her arms.

“Tell me, Mr. Miyake, when you see the shapes that a bonfire makes, do you ever feel kind of strange?”

“How so?”

“I don’t know, it’s like all of a sudden you get very clear about something people don’t usually notice in everyday life. I don’t know how to put it, I’m not smart enough, but watching the fire now, I get this deep, quiet kind of feeling.”

Miyake thought about it awhile. “You know, Jun,” he said, “a fire can be any shape it wants to be. It’s free. So it can look like anything at all depending on what’s inside the person looking at it. If you get this deep, quiet kind of feeling when you look at a fire, that’s because it’s showing you the deep, quiet kind of feeling you have inside yourself. You know what I mean?”

Haruki Murakami, landscape with flatiron
(translated by Jay Rubin)

The only other really interesting thing I can think of is that I ate pig ears yesterday. Nobuko and I were studying at a cafe and we had Chinese food for dinner. They didn't look like ears, so it wasn't that weird, actually, it tasted really good. XD

The weather here is also a little insane. I broke two umbrellas in the past week. It was also cold enough for one girl I know to wear a down jacket one day, and I also spent a day out wearing a tank top. If the weather doesn't start getting a little more consistent I think I might go a little crazy~

Mobile: キャンディー！

2008-05-29T20:32:00.003+09:00

バイトの後、このキャンディーを見つけた！アメリカにはないかも…おいしそう！

After my part time, I found these candies! They probably don't have these in the U.S...yum!

日本語　T＿T

2008-05-19T03:00:00.006+09:00

日本語...ブーーー。
難しすぎる。

最近書いた作文を書き直して、また２カ所、タイプミスがあった。
あきらめたい。
だんだん楽しくなくなってる。
そして、韓国語も勉強したい。
韓国語はまだ楽しいからね。韓国語を上達すると楽しくなくなるけどね。
あ、それ考えるとだめ〜日本語を注力すべき！

日本語の悪点を考えないように好きな言葉のランキング！

5.　奪う (to snatch away, steal)
4.　中毒 (addiction, poisoning)
3.　夢中 (daze, delirium, within a dream)
2.　諸行無常 (impermanence of worldly things)
1.　木漏れ日 (sunlight filtering through trees)

ランキングが変わっていくかもしれないけどこれは今の好きな言葉です！

Japanese...boo---.
It's too hard.

I rewrote one of my essays, and I still had two typing mistakes.
I wanna give up.
It's starting to lose it's fun.
And I wanna study Korean.
Cuz Korean is still fun. If I get better at it, it'll probably stop being fun too.
Ah, that's no good~ must focus on Japanese!

So in order to not think of the bad points of Japanese, my favorite words!

5. ubau
4. chuudoku
3. muchuu
2. shogyoumujyou
1. komorebi

The list will probably change, but right now those are my favorite words!

地震と人身事故

2008-05-08T19:15:00.005+09:00

jishin to jinshinjiko (That's kind of a tongue-twister huh?) Earthquake and "person-related accident"

There was an earthquake last night. There are sometimes little, barely noticeable shakes, but this one I actually noticed (which is saying a lot since I usually don't feel them.) I was chatting with friends online and as a joke I messaged them, "地震！地震！" and thought it was all funny, until I started getting messages like, "こっちも"and "Dang, over there too?" Apparently all of my friends, the ones in Mitaka, Kameido, Otawarashi (all the way up to where Yuhki lives!), and even the girls in the dorms in the next ken over (I forgot the name of it), felt it. 6.7. Scary stuff. I'm glad it was only shaking a little here. I really, really don't like earthquakes here. Tokyo's overdue for a big one, so as long as that doesn't happen in the next 3 months, I'll be safe.

I just got back from the station. I actually didn't go to work because of a "person-involved accident" on the Chuo line. Usually if there's a "person-involved accident" it means that someone committed suicide. =( Usually, the trains don't stop for very long, they're delayed maybe a few minutes from what I've previously experienced, but I was stuck at the station I transfer at and everyone started leaving. Then I started reading the signs they use to show the approaching trains. The time for the next train got later and later until they finally made it stop going West. I usually switch from the East line to the West line to get to work, but since no trains were going west, I had to call my boss and tell her I couldn't come. I wonder what made this one so different. I don't really know where it happened or anything, but that was definitely weird.

Mobile: 私のスイカ

2008-05-06T22:51:00.002+09:00

バスを待ってる間にビッグスイカを夕食してる〜

種はチョコ！やっぱどんな国でもロッテのアイスはうまい！

While I'm waiting for the bus, I'm snacking on a 'Big Watermelon!' The seeds are chocolate! Yep, no matter what country, Lotte ice cream is yummy!

Mobile: 京都

2008-05-05T13:23:00.003+09:00

昨日、大阪の新世界と道頓堀で食べたり遊んだりして、京都に行って、ホステルを見つけた！ホステルは外国人いっぱいいるんだけどみんなは優しそう。

大阪の有名な焼きたてチーズケーキを朝ご飯で食べた。そして友達は親戚の家に行って、私は一人で金閣寺を見に行った。金閣寺はすごい混んでた。でもめちゃキレイ〜

今竜安寺にいる。世界遺産！

Kyoto

Yesterday, we ate and played in Osaka's Shinsekai and Dotombori, then went to Kyoto and found our youth hostel. The hostel is full of foreigners, but everyone seems nice.

We ate Yakitate Cheesecake that Osaka is famous for for breakfast. Then my friend went to her relative's house, so I went to go see Kinkakuji by myself. Kinkakuji was really crowded, but suuuper pretty~

Now I'm at Ryoanji. World Heritage Site!

Mobile: 龍安侍

2008-05-05T13:17:00.002+09:00

This is the famous Zen rock garden at Ryoanji (temple).

大阪に着いた！

2008-05-04T12:34:00.002+09:00

We arrived in Osaka this morning around 5am!　We were originally going to start in Kyoto and make a day trip out to Osaka, but since our bus stopped at both for the same price we figured we'd spend the first day in Osaka and get to Kyoto in the evening to check in to the youth hostel.

We started out by going to Shinsekai where they have a lot of really good food on these really busy streets. We ate some really good kotsukatsu and takoyaki!　Then we made our way over to Namba to see another street. I forgot the name, but I'll figure it out and post again. I'm in this really strange internet cafe right now. Ayae is looking up the phone number to the hostel so we can tell them we'll be checking in a bit late. It's half a manga cafe and half an internet cafe, but entirely creepy. Our half hour is almost up. We'll see how the rest of this trip goes... =D

good things > bad things

2008-04-25T00:08:00.002+09:00

So tomorrow I'll be regretting that I didn't do all my reading and that I went to bed late, but today was interesting and fun and full of good things. Little things, but good things.

good things that happened.

- I went to MOS Burger by myself, but Tom ended up going there too so we ate lunch together!
- I ran into Vinodh and So-ky so I actually got to catch up with them a little bit today.
- Had some imagawayaki from Tobu (department store). Red and white an!
- My next 3 volumes of ハチミツとクローバー came!
- Going to Kyoto will only cost 7500 yen.
- I got some unexpected emails. ^_^ (サンキュー！)
- I found out that Hiroshi Fujiwara goes to Pinkberry's. (hahaha...I also want his IDF album, think its worth the 1400 yen it costs to download?)
- Mariah's new album and Epik's new album are awesome.
- Big Bang interview in Japanese. I promise I'm not a crazy fan girl, it was just hilarious and cute. It actually made me laugh out loud. (Youtube 'Big Bang Gyao' and you'll find it.)
- ラストフレンズ was on today. I love the cast. They're all very lovable, with the exception of Nishikido who plays a very convincing abusive boyfriend. O_O
- Japanese commercials are cute. (Yamapi's Toshiba CM, Oguri Shun's aji no moto CM, Arashi's au CM...they're just...Japanese CMs are something else. Haha.)

good things that will happen.

- Tomorrow is Friday!
- I'm going to see Nobuko!
- I'm going to buy new shoes!
- I'm going to read ハチミツとクローバー！
- I'm going to sleep in!
- Vinodh might hook me up at the Singaporean restaurant he works at in Ebisu! (Haha, that one depends though.)

bad things that will happen.

- I will be tired tomorrow.
- I will feel unprepared because I didn't do all the reading.
- I will be doing homework this weekend as well.

But in the final analysis, the good things win, and that's all that matters. =)

大田原市屋台祭り

2008-04-20T21:57:00.003+09:00

This weekend, I went to visit Yuhki again for the Otawara yatai matsuri. Roy and I went, and two of Yuhki and Roy's friends also went. We all stayed at Yuhki's so it was a bit of a squeeze, but it was fun. ^_^

On the way to Otawara, our train got delayed because of heavy winds. It was stuck for an hour! I've never been stuck on a delayed train so long. >.<

The festival is a taiko festival where 9 groups from different villages (Otawara, Okubo, etc.) carry out their yatai carts (that are very nicely decorated, I might add) and play taiko while they go around the area. There are a bunch of people pushing, pulling, and turning the yatai while the taiko players sit inside and play. This is the matsuri that Yuhki's group waits for all year, so it's very exciting for them. We walked with them around the town for a few hours before Roy and I got way too cold and a little bored. (They play the same rhythm the whole day...I don't know how they do it...and in that horrible wind.) So we went to cafe*repo, this cute cafe by the karaoke place and had waffles and coffee. (Kinako/kuromitsu waffles are really good!) Then we went to karaoke for a couple of hours. (They literally do the yatai thing all day!) When we got out around 7:30, I met Kuroha and Chitose (Yuhki and Roy's friends) and we got to see all of the yatai come together and 'battle'. I don't really understand how it all works, but it's really cool to see so many people and the different styles of yatai and everything. There was one girl that looked really, really cool standing on top of the yatai because her clothing was blowing in the wind and her hair was done all cool. Then there was lighting that just made her look really bad-ass in general. XD It was so cold though!!!!

When the drumming was finally over (it took a very long time), we went to an izakaya (drinking place) for dinner. For some reason, my appetite hasn't been very good lately, but the food was great there. I tried 'bakasashi' which is a mix of raw horse and deer!!! I've really been getting my share of strange foods this year.

(これは祭りモードのユウキ!　祭りは最高って...笑)

Anyway, after that, we went to karaoke again. (I'm glad the workers changed from when Roy and I were there earlier that day. Hahaha.) We ended around 4 and then slept in until around 11 or so this morning. The actual, actual matsuri was today, but it doesn't go for as long. When we went out to the street, everyone was so nice. Country people are waaaaay nicer than city people. There was one store that offered us beer and gave us sushi boxes..for free. Yummy!

After watching the yatai battle again for a little while, we stopped at a taiyaki (fish-shaped red bean filled pastry things) stand that's really well known in Otawara. People come from the next prefecture over to get taiyaki from them, and I can see why. It's the best taiyaki I've ever eaten. Filled from the head to the tail with azuki. Mmm...and piping hot.

（面白かった、人のいない電車は）

Then Roy and I headed back here. The train car we were in was empty, which was cool since that NEVER happens in Tokyo. We stopped in Ikebukuro to eat at Latin, my favorite spaghetti place. And now I'm finally back, but tired. I'll upload pictures when I get the chance. (Or energy. Haha.)

吉祥寺

2008-04-16T23:22:00.003+09:00

Today, since I didn't have school, I went to go hang out with Yu, who I haven't seen for nearly a year and a half or so. We met at Kichijoji, which was a little bit of a pain since it's far, but it turned out well. Roy came too, since they're around the same age and Roy wanted to make friends, I thought that'd be cool, and Yu invited one of his friends, Kenny, who's also around his age. It was weird being the only girl and the only one not fluent in Japanese, but I it was fun since I haven't really been able to hang out with any guys for a while.

Yu, Roy, and I walked around shopping for a bit while we waited for Kenny, who was finishing all of his job-hunting activities. First, we went to go play pool, which was funny since I'm really, really bad at it. I think the whole time, I only dropped one ball. XD Roy is really good, so his team always won, meaning that I won once. Hahaha.

Afterwards, we went to the park and walked around. It was really pretty, although I wish I could have been there when the cherry blossoms were blooming. That would have been really pretty. Yu and Roy pointed out some boats...they say if couples go on them, they'll break up. Go figure. Along the way, we stopped at the yakiniku place I went to with Yoko and Theo over summer.

Then we were off to eat dinner at an izakaya, which was just eating, talking, and good company. And last, we visited a pachinko place so Yu could try for 'beginner's luck'. No one won, and it was really noisy, but interesting since I didn't really understand how pachinko worked before. (There were these weird 冬のソナタ, or Winter Sonata...I forgot the Korean title, machines that were themed machines from the Korean drama. o_O) Roy and Yu are planning to drop by Sophia on Monday just for kicks. That should be interesting. XD It was a good night~.

弁顕密....何だっけ？

2008-04-12T14:10:00.004+09:00

Wow, it's been a while.

Since last time, Roy moved to Tokyo. We went out to play the other day, which was cool since I still miss home and all. (No one's called me Madee in months and months, I almost forgot people call me that.) We just went a bunch of random places, ate, and went to karaoke. I'm really not a good guide of Tokyo. Anyway, it was nice to see him, and it's cool that he'll be around for a while.

Besides that, I've mostly been preparing for school and such. Our first day was yesterday. Here's how my schedule looks.

1. Cultural Encounters in Literature
2. Issues in Chinese Women's History
3. Advanced Japanese 1
4. Philosophical Approaches to Buddhism

Those are all Tu/F classes, except Japanese, which is everyday except Wednesday. I might drop one of the 3 non-language classes if I like History and Theory of Architecture during 2nd period on M/Th. Having a complete day, 4 classes in a row, seems like it could really get to me. But then again, then I'd only have Japanese on M/Th and no class on Wednesday, so maybe it would even out.

I must say, the Philosophical Approaches to Buddhism class seems really intimidating. We're going to study the Benkenmitsunikyoron (弁顕蜜二教論) by Kukai in classical Chinese (but pronouncing everything in Japanese). We're going to be working on individual translations into English. (So, kanji studying finally has a purpose..haha.) By the end of the course we're supposed to have it memorized, and our oral test is to recite it. I don't know how I'm going to do that. It's hard to even get through the title smoothly if I'm not looking at the kanji. It seems really interesting, but also really intense. It's a 400 level course, which is the highest in the FLA (Faculty of Liberal Arts), so it probably won't be a walk in the park. Our teacher is a French guy, but I think he was trained at Koyasan. He can chant pretty well.

Cultural Encounters in Literature seems the easiest. It's my lowest numbered class, a 300 level. We'll see. We were going over this whole idea of 自分探しの旅 (a journey to find yourself), and it got me thinking about this whole being in Japan thing. Very strange ideas and all.

Visiting Yuhki

2008-04-02T23:11:00.003+09:00

I just came back from visiting Yuhki in Tochigi-ken. It was just a really short overnight trip, but it was nice to see him. He took me to Nikko. (After all "NIKKO IS JAPAN" according to all the posters I see everywhere.) It's actually sort of gaudy because it's so colorful and decorated, but it's pretty amazing to see since you can go everywhere. I saw the three monkey carvings, with the whole 'see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil' faces. I also saw the sleeping cat and the bird. According to the lady giving an explanation, the cat isn't actually sleeping, but the point is that it is so peaceful there that a cat and bird can live together peacefully. My favorite part was the big shrine area with the dragon on the ceiling. If you make a sound on from under the dragon's tail, it won't come out very loud, but if you go up to where the dragon's mouth is and clap or make noise, it's magnified. It's really cool. It snowed a little bit while we were there so it was really cold, but it was nice to see everything and be in nature.

Later, Yuhki took me to his taiko practice. It's a waaay chill setting and really short, but the kids are really good and the adults are even better. =D It's matsuri taiko so its different than in the states, but you can tell that everyone that does it really enjoys it so it's a great atmosphere. The drums are also really nice. The guy who makes them is a professional and did work on drums for Memoirs of a Geisha. (The shime tightening method they use is sooo much smarter than in the states. A lot less work.) We went out for dinner after that, but I didn't talk much. I was pooped, and as I get tired, my Japanese gets worse, so I'm afraid I might have given them a bad impression of me. =/ Ah well, I guess that can't be helped now.

It was nice to just hang out with Yuhki for a bit though. He's Nintendo Man. He has the craziest Nintendo goods. Today, we just relaxed a bit, went to a Brazilian place for lunch, then headed back to Tokyo, since he's going on a trip to Nara. All in all a nice getaway from Tokyo.

I added pictures to the old blogs and more on flickr, so check it out!

森美術館：ART IS FOR THE SPIRIT

2008-04-01T02:14:00.004+09:00

Yesterday (since it is technically very early on Tuesday morning), I went to see the 'ART IS FOR THE SPIRIT' exhibit at the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi. I went there once before for the 'Roppongi Crossing' exhibit, and I think it is one of my favorite museums.

The exhibit included work from everywhere and covered the three parts 'THE BODY' (a lot of portraits), 'THE BUILT WORLD', and 'SPACE'. I was most exchited to see Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol's work. It was nice to see some work by Warhol that wasn't a multi-colored Marilyn Monroe face or Campbell's Soup can. Same for Lichtenstein, since most of the work I've seen by him is the 'comic book' style, it was cool to see some of his paintings and things. There were some Gary Hume pieces next to Lichtenstein's that I really liked, though I don't know much about his other work. They were very solid colored and bright silhouette portraits that used some pretty colors and interesting shapes. Ryuji Miyamoto (宮本隆司) had some amazing photos. (The ones on that site are actually a few of the ones that were on display.) I also really liked a collection of photos of happy children. I know that's a lame description, but since the exhibit book was sold out, I'm going off of memory. I can't remember the title of the collection, but it was done by Nobuyoshi Araki (荒木経惟). Expect some artist posts in my other blog eventually.

There was also a section called 'ANOTHER LANDSCAPE' that looked at the changing landscape of cities as see through contemporary Asian art. Yin Xiuzhen did a really interesting 'Portable City' piece of Tokyo in a suitcase. Ryuji Miyamoto's work was in this section as well. If you want to see some crazy detailing, Manabu Ikeda's (池田学) piece, 'Ark' was also really insane to look at up close.

Overall, it was a really interesting exhibit, though I do like 'Roppongi Crossing' and 'Space for your future' more. (I think that has more to do with the theme of the exhibit than the actual artists though.) Apparently BMW has something artistic going on that involves Roy Lichtenstein, so maybe I'll check that out when it's going on, but we'll see.

We were also able to go to Tokyo City View and see it at night, which was great. I think the view is a lot more impressive at night than it is during the day, though it's also much more crowded and very hard to take pictures. I'll post some up next time I get the chance.

Sorry pictures are taking me a long time, I don't have time to upload right now. (I should actually be sleeping, I'm going to Tochigi tomorrow to visit Yuhki for a day, then we're coming back to Tokyo on Wednesday since he's going on a trip. Crazy~!)

お花見

2008-03-31T15:18:00.007+09:00

Yesterday, I went to go see the cherry blossoms in a park in Shinjuku. After eating lunch at an Indian place with my friend and her parents, we went over to the park. It was a lot bigger than I expected and had tons of cherry trees. Dark pink, light pink, almost white. There was an 'Amazon greenhouse', but it was closed. Then a French garden too. I was really surprised at how many people came out, especially since it started raining. My favorite tree was this one that had light pink blossoms and really dark pink ones at the same time. It was really pretty and really relaxing.

After that, Nobuko and I went over to Kameido and went to karaoke for a bit to hide out from the rain. Then we went to get our hair cut. =D I didn't realize how many hair-related words I don't know in Japanese. Like bangs and things like that. I'm glad the guy was really patient when I was trying to explain myself. It's really different from the place I go to in the states. They cover your eyes with a cloth when they wash your hair, two people blow dry (it's so hard not to laugh), then they do this weird head massage thing that feels like they're trying to pull your head off. Haha.

Anyway, afterwards we went to a cafe and Nobuko helped explain why some of the stuff I said didn't make sense and things like that. Oh man, that was an experience. Haha. Pictures later!

読み終わった！

2008-03-29T04:39:00.003+09:00

I finally finished reading 小さな王子さま！

It really is a great book. (That's saying a lot considering it still had that much of an impact, even reading it in my 2nd language.) Recommend, recommend, recommend!

I was looking for a new book to read today in Ikebukuro and came across what I initially thought was a new Haruki Murakami book. (It's the same one Yoshikaga Kajiwara has on his blog.) It turned out to be Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" translated by Murakami. Go figure. I'm probably going to take another stab at とかげ (Lizard) by Banana Yoshimoto, but before that I'm going to read the book Rie bought me for Christmas. 大切なきみ (You are Special). It's a translated copy of the book by Max Lucado. It's short like a children's book, so I'll let you know how it goes~

あっちこっち all over the place!

2008-03-26T22:52:00.006+09:00

So today I went here and there. It was nice to get out of my apartment for a whole day for once. I had an amazing night of sleep since I forced myself to stay awake the night before and woke up nice and early, did a little cleaning, then left~~

First stop was Ikebukuro for money, then Koujimachi to go to school and get a new ID. Since I had to wait around for an hour I ended up at Tully's with a milk & honey latte reading more of 小さな王子様. I'm almost done! It's a really cute book and I highly recommend it. After getting my new ID, it was back to Ikebukuro for more errands.

I ended up getting a new commuter pass (finally) and a new wallet. Wallets are so expensive here. >.< Especially since it's spring and everything in the stores is a new arrival or some new spring fashion. I ended up with a nice, simple, beige and brown patent leather Comme Ca Du Mode wallet for a bit more than I would have liked to pay, but much less than a lot of the other ones available. (I told a friend how much it costed and she said it was cheap, so I've concluded that Japan is just ridiculous.) Some weird creepy old guy came up to me and was like, "Are you free? Are you meeting someone? Do you have an hour to spend with me?" and crap. I tried the I-don't-speak-Japanese-and-I'm-American tactic with him, but it didn't work, so I basically called Monique, then walked away as fast as I could. o_O Creeps.

I met up with Monique after that and we went to Cafe Du Monde. I think I might be addicted... Followed by an hour of karaoke. I love weekday karaoke prices. So cheap! And Monique is a great singer. ^^ Then we walked around the department stores for a little bit before heading off to Komegoma station to meet Aya. (I picked up the latest CD Data magazine since they have a huge article on Utada Hikaru and a mini issue of Hirai Ken. =D Hopefully I'll get around to reading it soon.)

At Komegoma, we stopped at a combini for food and then went on our way to Rikugien (六義園) to see the cherry blossoms all lit up. It was gorgeous!!! They have a huuuge sakura tree in full bloom that's lit up for a few days this month because of the beautiful blossoms. I'll be posting pictures. It was nice to sit and appreciate nature, eat (Aya brought us Beard Papa's cream puffs, she's so sweet), and chat with friends. I didn't know hanami was such a big deal here. I mean, I know its popular and all, but they have stamps and stuff, kind of like they do at National Parks back home to prove that you went and all that. Pretty intense. Since it was night time, I'm hoping to also make it out to Ueno Park to see the cherry blossoms during the day. We'll see...

Sorry the pictures are so blurry. Since it was night time, it was hard to get the setting on my camera to work...that and there was a breeze and I was cold...which didn't help my unsteady hand. T_T

何年ぶり食べなかったデザート

2008-03-19T22:40:00.003+09:00

The dessert I haven't eaten in how many years...

久しぶりにビニエを食べられました！アメリカのデザートなので池袋のカフェがあってびっくりした！おいしかった！
I was able to eat beinets (I really can't spell that word) today! I was surprised to find a cafe in Ikebukuro that has them since it's an American dessert. Yum! (It's Cafe Du Monde...my mom used to make these waaaay back in the day. ^^)

In case you're wondering, these things are square shaped 'pillow-like' desserts that are fried. They sort of taste like donuts but are empty on the inside. They have powdered sugar and cinnamon sugar on them. They taste great! =D

キレイじゃん？

2008-03-14T16:24:00.002+09:00

Pretty huh?

日本にいなかった間にこれが咲いた！キレイ〜
While I away from Japan, look what bloomed! Pretty~

ただいま！

2008-03-12T21:15:00.004+09:00

やっと日本に戻って来た！飛行機の中にあ、日本に戻りたいと思ったが成田空港に到着して、エクスプレスの切符を買って、東京の悪い点を急に思い出した。

東京の運送は本当に複雑なんだ！私にとってソウルはもっとのんびり！韓国に住んでいる人に言ったら超びっくりさせたみたいけどソウルの方は本当にやさしい。メトロは簡単だし、安いし、そんなに満員じゃないだし。

今成田エクスプレスに乗ってる私はまだソウルにいたい！そう思って続けたら幸せにならないよね。

I'm back!

I'm finally back in Japan! On the plane I thought, "Ah, I wanna go back to Japan," but after getting to the airport and buying my Narita Express ticket I suddenly started remembering the reasons I don't like Tokyo.

Transportation in Tokyo is confusing! To me, Seoul is much more relaxing. When I said that to people living in Seoul they seemed like they were waaay surprised, but Seoul is so much easier. The metro is simple, cheap, and not as crowded. Riding the express right now, I still wanna be in Seoul.

I guess if I keep thinking like that I'll never be happy.

韓国HOT뜨거!

2008-03-11T21:44:00.002+09:00

Okay, so Korea is not really hotddeuguh, but the bus was burning up. haha. I bought some pretty good sweet potato fried bread at the rest stop...kinda like sweet potato donuts. XD

Sooo...GYEONGJU!

10th!

We checked into the Gyeongju Tourist Hotel...(soo touristy) and got tourist information from the little booth. We ended up taking bus number 11 to Bulguksa. Our bus driver was pretty cool, telling us when to get off and all since we were confused. It felt much safer than the buses in Vietnam. Bulguksa is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I studied it last semester in my art history class. The four deva kings are at the entrace (one for each cardinal direction, standing on those bad things...I forgot what they're called, but I like how colorful they are. ^^) There are the stairs that lead to heaven and the archway stairs, but no one is allowed to actually use them, you have to go up the side. It has some great statues of Birushana and Shakamuni, and some famous pagodas like Dapotap and Seokgatap. (Stephanie: the 'tap' part of those...tower/pagoda = 塔 = 탑 = TOP...it makes sense now. I was laughing to myself and I'm pretty sure someone thought I was crazy.) Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the actual statues in the temple because of preservation and all that. It was really cool to see all the things I learned about and understand what they're about. (Cause I'm a nerd...)

After Bulguksa, we went to the bus stop to wait for the bus to Sokkuram Grotto. We met an old Japanese guy there. He kept trying to get Monique to speak Japanese and stuff. He kind of weirded me out, but it was alright. Good Japanese practice I guess. The bus we were waiting for came over an hour late because it broke down, but we did also meet a guy from Germany and a Korean girl traveling together, so we were quite a strange collection of people going off to see Sokkuram. So up we went by bus to get to the top of Toamsan. There was some great scenery around, and a little bit of snow left. Unfortunately, again, we weren't allowed to take pictures of Sokkuram. It's lit really well and you could see the kongo rikishi (I forgot what it is in English...but these two warrior guys) and the 4 deva kings again. I wish we could have gone inside (there's glass) because I wanted to see the disciple reliefs behind the Buddha statue. The statue itself was really beautiful. It's very peaceful and well proportioned. It has a jewel 'third-eye' on its forehead that's supposed to align with other places (either temples or King Munmu's Underwater Tomb...I can't remember right now) and reflect the sun. So cool. =D I was really excited to see it.

The bus driver didn't want to drive us all back down early, so the five of us ended up hiking down Toamsan back to Bulguksa. It took us only around half an hour (thank god it was downhill) and then we took a bus back to Gyeongju station. It was a really interesting day. The last thing we did was eat dinner: kalbitang (beef soup) at this little restaurant. It's weird, in Gyeongju it's hard to find restaurants but really easy to find places selling 경주빵, this barley bread that Gyeongju is famous for. Since we were beat, we spent the rest of the night watching music vieos on Mnet, then Men in Black. XD

Today!

Today we left the hotel around 9:30 to find the Tomb of General Kim Yushin. We walked pretty far and ended up asking an old man for directions. I couldn't understand him very well, but he was so animated we were able to figure out what he was saying. Gen. Kim Yushin was a general who had a large role in uniting Korea (Unified Silla) after the Three Kingdoms period. His tomb is very simple though. It's a really big, grassy hill with stone relief work of the zodiac animals around it. There are a couple stone tablets with writing on them, but obviously, I couldn't tell what they said. I just wish the grass had been green, other wise it was neat to see. Some of the zodiac reliefs are wearing down, but we noticed on the way back that the lantern fixtures on the street have copies of the zodiac animals on them.

The bus ride back was uneventful save the fact that there was a tv show on KBS that was about how to smile pretty. XD Weird stuff. Then it got really hot and I started listening to 1TYM and laughing to myself. T_T I had my Gyeongju bread and yangpa rings to occupy me. (I like the yangpa rings here, they're like funyuns but a lot less salty.) When we got back, we relaxed a bit and talked to Marie, who's living in the guesthouse with Seri. She's from Australia but is riding the Korean Wave full on. She went to KBS yesterday and met Sweet Sorrow...crazy stuff. She knows A LOT about Korean entertainment. For dinner, we went to a nearby bbq place and had 'neck scruff' to eat. Hahaha, my dictionary is hilarious. Then back to Lovice for patbingsu! Yum!

We leave tomorrow, so we'll most likely just be hanging out until we have to catch our bus to the airport. I'm surprised at how much I didn't buy, but generally I don't think I need any of it. We saw and ate a lot which definitely makes it worth it. =D

韓国はBUSY

2008-03-10T00:12:00.007+09:00

Whoo, it's been a busy past few days.

March 8th:

- Coffee Prince
When I was at the police station with Seri, she told me that the Coffee Prince drama coffee shop was near the guesthouse, so Monique and I went to go find it. It's definitely really close to the guesthouse, but unfortunately, it was closed. We ended up just taking a couple pictures, but it was cool to see.

- Lotte World
The rest of the day we decided to go to Lotte World. =D It was pretty cool because when we got there we found out that its some sort of special time where you get 10,000 won off of your ticket. At first it felt like a cheap rip off of Disneyland (you can definitely see the infuences), but after a while you forget about it and just have fun. There are some pretty good drop rides and a fun wave one. I also liked the Balloon ride where you take a fake hot air balloon around the inside of the park. It's sort of like a monorail, but you're hanging instead of attached to a track below. My absolute favorite ride was Aquarius though. When we were in line, we had some fun reading the vandalism on the surrounding area (there are a lot of Big Bang fans who feel the need to proclaim Big Bang's VIPness by writing it on random walls...XD) and the guy working the ride was really funny when he said "something something something angyeong (glasses)" to me and I was like...'I'm not wearing glasses...' Then I realized he was talking about Monique, who I turned to and asked if she wanted to take off her glasses, then the guy went, "GLASSES! FLY!" Hahaha. The ride was weird. There was a seatbelt and a restraining device that was around your hips. (You straddle the ride.) It starts off ridiculously fast and is really fun since it feels like you're flying. ^^ I tried some funny peanut butter squid...not a fan. And some really good Korean taffy. We ate dinner at a nearby pork restaurant in the Hongdae area. We had what my dictionary calls 'backfat', hahaha but it was just bbq pork. Then we found a little waffle/shaved ice place called Lovice where a cute old couple worked. I had my first banana patbingsoo. Best dessert ever. Mmm. =D

March 9:
We woke up pretty late today, but ended up meeting with Monique's friend, Jihyeon. She took us to a restaurant that's popular with Japanese tourists. It was basically rice, soup, bulgogi, steamed egg, and 29 side dishes. I kid you not. 29 side dishes that were all different. Craziness. Then she took us around Myeongdong, a shopping street. We also went to the Traditional Village that was in the area and looked at the way older houses were set up and ate some roasted sweet potatoes. Apparently the princess who lived in that house moved to Changdeokgung, which we saw a couple of days earlier. We walked around the street and Lotte Department Store. There's a lot of cute stuff, but I didn't buy anything...I'm kind of waiting on Gyeongju just in case. We sat in a Coffee Bean for a bit and talked until we went off to meet another one of Monique's friends, Gwi Young. She had brought her friend Hana with her. We walked around Hongdae area together and ended up at a really expensive cafe where Gwi Young treated us to drinks and a big banana pecan waffle. (Nice warm chai latte on a cold day!) After that, we went to N Seoul Tower. Seoul Tower was pretty amazing. The lights were great and when you go up to the viewing area on the very top, the windows are labeled with the other parts of the world in that direction. (Tokyo and San Francisco!!!) The level below the top had windows labeled with important places in Seoul which was cool because we'd actually been to a good deal of them. After a dinner of odeng and ddeokbokgi, we took some pictures in front of a famous theatre and then made our way home.

Gyeongju tomorrow! Sorry I can't expand...it's 1am and we're getting up at 5:30, I'm going to bed!

韓国：Rolling, Rolling, Rolling!

2008-03-07T22:34:00.007+09:00

March 6:

- National Museum of Korea
The National Museum of Korea is gigantic. It has all of the development of Korea from prehistoric times, plus art and cultural exhibits. There were a ton of National Treasures in the museum that included things like pottery, statues, and crowns. My particular favorites were the Joseon dynasty celadon pottery and the huge Buddhist painting from Bulseoksa. There was a Miryoku Bosatsu statue that's a National Treausre that was really awesome too. Definitely a good museum to go to to get a crash course in everything about Korea.

- Namdaemun Market
Namdaemun Market is pretty crazy. There are people everywhere on foot, in cars, and on motorbikes. They're selling things like clothes, food, and other items. I bought some Korean mochi and cookies that are great. The mochi has pumpkin and azuki in it. ^^ It's a little too crazy for me, but that's probably because I got my wallet stolen. After I bought the mochi, we walked out of the market and to a couple of department stores, and when I went to buy some shirts, I didn't have my wallet anymore. It gave me the worst feeling in the pit of my stomach when I couldn't find it. Luckily, I didn't lose my passport. After that, we went home so I could figure out what to do about credit cards and stuff. Most of that turned out okay.

- Sinchon
After that, Monique and I decided to go to Sinchon for dinner. (I felt really bad, but I was very determined to not let what happened ruin my trip.) We ended up eating at a restaurant called Heungham Naengmyeon. That was my first naengmyeon, which was good, but kind of bad to eat in cold weather since it's cold noodles.

Today:

- Cafe Pascucci
Monique and I actually didn't know each other very well before coming on this trip, so we have a lot to talk about, which is nice. So before meeting Sohee at noon, we walked around the streets to see what was around and stopped at a cafe for hot chocolate. Good conversation in a cute cafe with yummy dark chocolate. Ahhh~!

- Lunch with Sohee
We were able to meet with Sohee for the day and I really wanted to try samgyetang (Rice stuffed chicken soup). So Sohee took us to a restaurant that served it and I think it's my favorite thing I've eaten here so far. =D According to the person working at the restaurant, it will make us all pretty. XD

- Japanese Embassy
After lunch, we went to the Japanese Embassy to see what to do about losing my alien registration card. We weren't actually able to do anything there, but they told me to get a police report.

- Gyeongbokgung Palace
Next to the Embassy was Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was the main palace of the Joseon dynasty. It's pretty big, and there was a really nice man-made lake/pond that's really pretty. We also saw the 'changing of the guards' that they do each hour. You know how in Europe they have the guys who stand there and don't move no matter what? It's really like that, the only difference is that they're Korean and their outfits are way more colorful. After walking around the palace, Sohee had to go do some things at school, but school, so Monique and I were off on our own for a few hours...

- Changdeokgung Palace (with a tour)
We decided to go to Changdoekgung Palace, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. For this particular palace, you have to take a tour in order to get in, so we were able to get into the very last tour, which was in Korean. So basically, it was a self-guided tour. This palace is HUGE! We didn't see all of it and we spent over an hour with the tour. I'll actually have to review the pamphlet guide to make sense of everything we saw because we moved so fast. Amazing though. It's really nice, I wish I could see it while it's in season and the plants are nicer.

- Cheonggyecheon
After that tour, we headed to City Hall to meet with Sohee again. We went to a creek that's really well known in Korea. It's called Cheongyecheon. We walked right next to it about half of its length. Sohee told us that its a popular 'date course'. I wish I could have seen it with illuminations, but the architecture of it is really nice too. ^^

- Insadong
We went to Insadong following that, which I love. We started out by eating dinner. I had gopchang sundubu. (pig intestine tofu soup) I think that's another favorite for me. Mmmm. Insadong is a big shopping street, but not as crazy and disorganized as Namdaemun. (Almost everything is written in Korean, like the Starbucks, it's the only one in Korea written in Korean.) They sell a lot of traditional items and foods. (OMG the sweets. I'm definitely going back before I leave to stock up on some.) You can watch them make it and there are tons of street vendors selling everything from candy to hot dogs to tempura to odeng. We watched a man make noodles and another man pound mochi, and more men cut up slabs of sweets. My favorite thing of all though was these 3 guys making candy in a little booth. They were very loud and animated. Their sales pitch was to be loud and speak a mix of Korean and English. They were yelling about almonds from California and how they roll the candy around the nuts like "dong dong dong, or in English: rolling rolling rolling!!!" (This is done simultaneously with them giving a demonstration of how to roll it.) And then "Oh my gad!! Whaoo!" XD I was seriously laughing out loud. And one of them reminded me of the waffle-maker in Coffee Prince. Hahaha. Then we walk a little further and these older men are making the same candy in a very dignified way. Insadong is awesome. We ended out the night by going to Red Mango, a yogurt shop that Rie recommended I visit, and sharing a big yogurt. Then we were off to a department store to look at cds. I got Lee Soo Young's 4th album, which I'm listening to now as I type. Ahh, what a good day.

- Police Station
When I got back from the day out, I felt a lot better about the whole wallet situation. I still feel a little weird, but the woman who runs the guesthouse offered to take me to the police station to get a police report about my wallet. So we walked over to the police station and were able to talk about a lot of different things. It was the first time either of us had been to a police station, so we were both a little nervous. And there were a lot of police there. Seri was able to translate everything for me though. She also took a picture of me in the station with her phone. XD What an experience.

That's all for now, more to come!

韓国にいるよ！！！

2008-03-05T22:49:00.002+09:00

We made it to Korea safe and sound. (My handy dandy hand-drawn map was great! =D)
We're staying at a cute little guest house called Carpe diem, and the girl that runs it is really nice. The bus ride from the airport was pretty easy too. I'm a little surprised at how easy it is to do things, so far...but there's still a lot to figure out, so we'll see.

After we dropped our stuff off at the guest house, Monique and I walked around the area we're staying in. There's a lot of shopping around, even an American Apparel which I thought was really weird. A lot of neon lights and signs, and a lot of noraebang. (We did an hour of noraebang, which costed about the same as in Tokyo, but if we find more people to go with, it'll be cheaper.)

My favorite part of the day was going to the street vendor on the corner who had a little hut set up out of her van. She was selling mandu, odeng, and ddeokboki, so we got a plate of ddeokbokki for a grand total of 2000 won, which is about 2 USD. XD Pretty crazy. And delicious. So we're definitely going back there if we get munchies at night. Then we stopped at a convenience store for a box of choco pies (we couldn't resist) and drinks. (Chilsung Cider!) Hahaha, oh Korea. This is gonna be fun!

行きますよ、韓国に！！！！

2008-03-05T00:37:00.003+09:00

I'm going to Korea!!!!

It's about 12:30am, and I should be sleeping, but I'm a little too excited for that right now. Hopefully this time I'll be able to update you all during my trip instead of doing a big overview at the end. Whoo!!

I'll get to see Sohee again! Changdeokgung, Gyeongbokgung, Insadong, Lotte World, Namsan, Bulguksa, Sokkuram...so much to see. Ddeokbokgi, samgyetang, patbingsu, gopchang...so much to eat. (my specialty... XD) Monique and I will be in Seoul and Gyeongju for the next week. Whee~!

Youth KOSTA

2008-03-04T16:05:00.005+09:00

Yesterday, I went to Youth KOSTA Winter Camp with my friends from the Yohan Waseda Church. I originally was really against going because it's kind of awkward, me being Buddhist and all, but my friends all wanted me to go, so I gave in.

It turned out to be really fun even though I was only there for a day. It was a at a place a little past Gotenba by Mt. Fuji. Unfortunately, it wasn't clear, so I didn't get a good view of it. It even started to rain/snow. It was that half frozen type of rain. On the bus, I met a couple of girls who go to Sophia, so maybe I'll run into them sometime when we're back on campus.

Anyway, there was a concert where Aram (Korean gospel singer) performed along with a few of the exceptional singers from the Yohan Church. You know how Japanese people have that stereotype that they can't actually sing? Well, they CAN. There really are some amazing singers at that church, which is part of the reason I like going. I really like Aram's voice, but he has a Korean accent, which is kind of funny, and in a couple of the songs he has some really embarrassing dance moves, but I guess if I just listen it's okay. XD

It turns out that Eden (a girl who lives in the same apartment as me and is in the same Japanese class) went too. =D (The picture above is everyone who was staying in that room.) That was a cool surprise. And I finally got to see Mi Yeong again after a very long time. I met a few other really cool people. I'm having trouble remembering names, but overall it was a good experience. The only thing that kind of scared me was when everyone was praying out loud all at once with their arms in the air. It felt like a cult or something...but after those two minutes, everything else was pretty normal. I went back to Shinjuku with Tomoko, which was cool. (Tomoko, Rie, & me. It's foggy because of my camera lens and the weather.)

鎌倉！

2008-03-02T18:52:00.008+09:00

Yesterday, I went out to Kamakura with Aya! I haven't been out there, so it was really nice to get away from Tokyo. I wanted to see Daibutsu, but it was pretty far out of the way, so I'll have to go next time. (Which will hopefully be for sakura season.)

We started in Kita-kamakura at 松ヶ丘東慶寺 (Matsugaoka Toukeiji...a temple). We mainly came here to look at plum blossoms. They're really pretty, but they're just starting to bloom so I think we were probably a few days early. It felt a little weird because most of the tourists there were old Japanese people who like to take macro-photo shots of the flowers, but the scenery was great. There was a cemetery in the back, but unfortunately, Aya and I couldn't figure out who important is buried there since our kanji reading skills aren't up to snuff.

After that, we got a little confused about how to get places and we found a honey shop that's famous for its honey! That was exciting. Then we ended up on a hiking trail. (There are a lot around Kamakura.) At first I was bummed we ended up hiking, but it was actually a nice change of pace to walk somewhere with real, natural scenery instead of flashing lights and crosswalks. Our hike led us to a statue of Miyamoto no Yoritomo. There was a nice picnic spot, but we didn't have bento so we just kept on walking...

We ended up going to Komachi-doori for lunch.　美水 (Misui) was where we ate. Yummy kake set. We were really full and ended up walking up and down Komachi-doori to do some shopping. There are a lot of traditional things in Kamakura, and they have some excellent senbei stores. I had some fresh senbei that they dip for you right as you buy it...so salty! But it does taste good warm. I also bought an assortment of strangely flavored ones. (uni, shiso, shichimi, ume/sugar, spicy, wasabi, etc.) Highly recommend getting some there. We also found a store called まめや, or bean shop. That shop never seemed to be empty. They have different flavored beans, the kind you find in cheap senbei packs and are always left til the end...those, but delicious! My favorite was the kinako one (We tried a lot of samples.) The last thing I picked up was a bottle of Kamakura beer since I hear it's good. I bought a pale ale (星); it was actually really good. Better than Asahi, that's for sure.

The last thing we visited was the Hachiman shrine. There was some sort of ceremony thing going on, which was cool because there was taiko. ^_^ There's also a huge tree outside of this one that is famous. Then we walked around the garden area to look at more plum blossoms. It's so nice and peaceful in Kamakura compared to anywhere in Tokyo. Lastly, we bought some murasakiimo ice cream. (Purple potato! Some ignorant lady said, "I wonder what's so popular..oh! Blueberry ice cream!") Best soft serve I've had. =D Hopefully I'll see more shrines and temples next time, but for this time, it was just nice and relaxing. (Though the train ride home made me tired and irritable.)

Bananas.

2008-02-29T22:04:00.002+09:00

Hello all, it's been a while. These past few days I haven't done anything of particular note. I've gone to cafes a couple times to study with Nobuko, had lunch with Rie, Maki-sensei, and Min Jeong, and went out to Shibuya with Aya, but there hasn't been any sightseeing or anything lately.

I did make a strange observation when I was grocery shopping after work yesterday, though. I took a class on Caribbean literature last year and we spent a period talking about the economy, bananas in particular. (You know that 'daylight come and me wan' go home' song? Not so happy.) So basically Chiquita has taken over the banana market, effectively destroying that market in the Caribbean. (And how that leads to a bad economy and things like importing dry milk instead of buying regular domestic milk, selling off the cows and things like that. It's amazing how well banana growers know about the world economy, put me to shame. Anyway...) I knew that last year when I bought bananas and actually felt kind of bad about them being so cheap and everything. So, how is this related to Japan? When I was in the Seibu store I was going to buy apples, but they costed 100 yen EACH (about a dollar). So I look around again to see if there's anything else I might want. 2 oranges are 250 yen. And then there it is, nice yellow bananas. 5 for 97 yen. I was excited for about 20 seconds, then I looked at the sticker and of course, it's Chiquita and I feel bad again, but buy them anyway. Isn't that messed up? I'm conflicted about bananas.

靖国神社＆新宿！

2008-02-23T02:04:00.007+09:00

On Friday, I met up with an old classmate from UCI who's teaching English in Akita. He came to Tokyo, so we spent a few hours walking and subway-ing around. We stopped at Iidabashi (where I spent summer going to my Japanese intensive class) and visited Yasukuni Shrine.

Yasukuni Shrine is the controversial shrine dedicated to the soldiers who died in World War II. (Remember a few years back when the prime minister got crap for going there?) It was much more...regal looking than I expected. There's a museum right next to it that has relics and things from that time period. I only went on the first floor though, since the rest of it required a ticket to get in. Overall, it kind of gave me the creeps. Usually Nick and I both go throw money and pray at shrines, but decided not to at this one. Here's a picture of the statue for mothers, who took care of everything while the men were out at war.

It's pretty 'fancy' leading up to the actual shrine since it has statues and things in front of it. The lighting was horrible because of the placement of the sun, so a lot of my picturs are backlit, but hey, what can you do? Anyway, there were also a bunch of statues that I couldn't read, so I'm not sure I got a full understanding of everything there, but there was a Kiwani's fountain that I thought was odd. Tokyo is the first place to have an international Kiwani's Club, apparently, though I'm not sure why they chose to add to all the memorial type things in the Yasukuni Shrine precinct. It looked neat though.

And being the Tokyoites that we are, we met up with friends later that night to go to Shinjuku. (Oh, Kabuki-cho...>_<) We had some awesome Thai food that was nice and spicy, then made our way over to Ikkyu, which is apparently the cheapest drinking establishment in Tokyo. (Don't worry, no one got plastered.) We closed off the night with an hour of karaoke, which was amazing since they had my current favorite song, Heart Station that came out only 3 days before. I made it back just in time to catch the last train home. ^_^

For more pictures, check my Flickr.

台場

2008-02-19T11:28:00.004+09:00

Yesterday, I went to Kameido and Odaiba. =)

It's been a while since I've been back to Kameido, but it's nice since I know my way around; I'm very comfortable there. Before meeting up with Nobuko and David (who is currently visiting from Kyoto), I walked around the shops, drank some coffee, and stopped by Book-Off to get another book. This one seems easier than 星の王子様.

I forgot how expensive it is to go to Daiba. Since you have to take the sky train it's a little more expensive than just taking the regular train or subway. Anyway, David treated us to a great Indian dinner. (Naan and curry!!) We also did a bit of shopping. 2 sweaters for 1000 yen...that's ridiculous! XD Rainbow Bridge and Tokyo Tower look really pretty at night since they're all lit up, but I still think Rainbow Bridge isn't colorful enough to be called that. =X

Inside DECKS in Odaiba Park, there's a shopping street that's completely retro. It's decorated as if it's a school (check out the 'cafeteria'), and there's even a restaurant that's cafeteria style, complete with desks. Walking around the shops there was really fun since it has a bunch of character and joke goods. My favorite were the candy shops since they had all the retro candies I like. Botan Rice Candy, fortune candies (the little colored circles), sour powder, whistle candy, neba-neba (sticky) candy...yum! Nobuko got her portrait drawn by one of those little booth people, which I think is a little gimmicky (you know, like the ones at state fairs and stuff), but I guess they aren't that common here. Lastly, we stopped for a couple of drinks, and finally made our way home, just a few trains before the last one. ^^ Overall, a good time. David's not too crazy about Tokyo in comparison to Kyoto, so hopefully he had fun too.

Lethargic and watching TV

2008-02-17T17:48:00.008+09:00

I feel very lethargic lately, and I thought 21 was going to be really exciting. I think part of it is because it's still so cold and I'm getting tired of it. I don't like going outside anymore, which is really unavoidable if I want to go anywhere. >.< haha.

I spent a bunch of time yesterday waiting for a plumber to come to clean out my drain since I couldn't reach what was blocking it. That was awkward. It was really confusing for me to find a plumber, so I had to call Nobuko and she helped me to find someone and have them stop by. The plumber probably thought I was stupid for not being able to clear out the drain, but it's okay. I thought he was stupid when he was confirming my credit card. It has an MTV image on it, so when the guy on the other end of his phone asked what kind of card it was he said "MTV....oh, wait...maybe it's Citi," and was a bit confused for a minute. XD

I just got a little distracted by the tv, but just a random thing I noticed (since 3 Korean artists will be on Music Japan next time, according to the announcer lady). There are an insane number of Korean artists trying to make it in Japan. It's ridiculous. Besides BoA, who I think is fine since she actually knows Japanese, I always see things for 東方神起 (TVXQ, 동방신기, whatever their name is...), John Hoon, SS501, Rain and more recently, Big Bang and SG Wannabe. But particularly 東方神起. They've been in the front of Shibuya's HMV and Tower Records, on the posters at the Shibuya crosswalk, on the register screen at Lawson's, in the Edwin store and their ads, on television, in magazines, and in other people's songs (i.e. Koda Kumi). But it isn't really that they're Korean, it's that they can't speak Japanese. It doesn't really make sense. Big Bang's first Japanese release is in English. I don't really understand why they'd try to cross over, except for money, but I don't think the Kanryu going to stay that strong...maybe it is, but it's crazy how many Korean artists are popping up everywhere.

Anyway, Hikki's new album will be out next month, which is really what I'm looking forward to. =D

Okay, so I'm still watching NHK, and according to the international news, 南大門 (남대문, I'm not sure how to spell it in English...Namdaemun or Nandaimon?) in Seoul was burned down by someone. It's supposed to be one of Korea's national treasures that I actually wanted to go see next month. That sucks. ...And what's going on in China? I don't really understand what they're saying, all I know is that there's a lot of snow (some kind of snow disaster), food prices are going up, people have died, and they can't ride trains. o_O Time to do some googling.

Off to make curry for dinner~!

Tokyo Digenie Sea!

2008-02-17T00:15:00.006+09:00

For my 21st birthday, I went to Disney Sea with Nobuko and Hannah! (Everyone seems to be busy, so nothing huge and crazy.)

Disney Sea is Tokyo's 'second gate', kind of like California Adventure in Anaheim. It's set up similar to Disneyland, but instead of 'lands' they have different water-related areas. For example, American Waterfront, Arabian Coast, Mystery Island, Disney Harbor, Lost River Delta, or Mermaid Lagoon. Disney Sea has a reputation for being a very couple-oriented theme park, which it definitely was, especially because it was the day after Valentine's Day. They had a thing called "Season of the Heart" where they basically make a bunch of cheezy love and friendship oriented areas like Sweetheart Fountain, Bridge of Friendship, or Precious Post (this one was cool...if you mail something from there, it'll be delivered exactly on White Day.) So here's a picture of Hannah and me on Friendship Bridge. Apparently by putting our hands in the box and shaking, we're showing that we'll be friends forever..or something like that.

There are a few rides that are the same as ones in America with only smaller changes to the storyline to make it work in Japan. (i.e. Tower of Terror and Indiana Jones) Mystery Island, however, is a little different since it's made up of a couple rides that have nothing to do with Disney. There's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Both are interesting rides, though 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea freaked me out because I'm not so cool with deep sea (or deep sea appearing) things. Port Discovery isn't very Disney oriented either. There are rides called Storm Rider and Aquatopia. I guess it's supposed to be like Tomorrowland but with water instead of 'future'. Here's what Port Discovery looks like...

We ate lunch at a restaurant in Port Discovery called Horizon Bay. Yummy grilled salmon and seafood salad! While I'm on the topic of food, I continued my sampling of strangely flavored popcorn that's so popular here. This time I had Strawberry and Cappuccino flavors, but I like Honey from Disneyland the best. I also had a sesame churro and sea salt ice cream, both were pretty good, though the sea salt ice cream was a little strange. I'd say that this park is more suited for just enjoying someone else's company rather than running around trying to do everything. You can do almost everything without rushing and without even getting any fastpasses. Most of the interest is in the way things look and how they're done. Check out Mermaid's Lagoon...

There were also a couple of shows. The shows here are pretty funny, mostly because the character voices are exactly the same but in Japanese. The water element makes them interesting, though also very hard to take pictures of. During the day there was 'Legend of Mythica' which was a lot of different boats shaped as different animals that moved around and people dressed in bright costumes who ran onshore to dance. XD In the eventing there was BraviSEAmo! which is a water and fire show. It's not quite as fun to watch as Fantasmic, but it's definitely pretty. Dinner was chicken and roast beef at Cafe Portifino in Mediterranean Harbor. =) Yummy yummy. Lastly, we went shopping. I got these hilarious cups that have buildings of each 'land' on them made out of the genie from Aladdin. The cup says "Tokyo Digenie Sea" on it, which I didn't understand until I read it out loud. (In Japanese they say 東京ディズニーシー, which is pronounced Tokyo Dizinee Shee...which, when you say it like a Japanese person, ends up sounding like Di'genie'. Haha. Okay, enough with the lame jokes.) Overall, a very fun, relaxing time.

More pictures on Flickr!

PIECE OF PEACE

2008-02-12T23:29:00.001+09:00

I went out to Shibuya today. Unfortunately, it started to rain and my socks got wet, but before that, I was able to go to PARCO (department store) to check out the PEACE OF PEACE World Heritage Exhibit with Lego. It was a small exhibit, but it was pretty crazy. Lego made sculptures of famous world heritage sites like the pyramids or the Statue of Liberty. The plaques were in Japanese, so I couldn't read much, but it was cool to see the sculpture. There were also Lego works by other artists there. Tsuchiya Anna (the singer of a couple of the NANA songs) did a sculpture too. Cool stuff.

After that, I mainly walked around in PARCO and visited Tower Records and HMV. PARCO has some amazingly cute clothing, but it's so expensive. I spotted the Hysteric Glamour and BAPE stores. I also didn't realize the Tower in Shibuya is so insanely large. Made me want to buy more music. It would have been a perfect day to shop if not for the rain. Anyway, there's a few pictures, and for the rest of them click the Flickr. =)

Staying in.

2008-02-12T03:49:00.000+09:00

After I decided to go on EAP, I talked to a guy who went to ICU the year before. The main thing he warned me about was getting stuck in your own apartment, forgetting to go out, make friends, and actually LIVE in Japan. I don't think his experience was particularly successful in the way he wanted it to be. I'm about halfway done with my year and I finally understand what he meant. Up until now, I've always been going out, going to school and doing things, but now that school is out for a couple of months, it's very, very easy to just not want to go out. I finally have the chance to just stop fighting everything here. If I stay in my apartment, I don't have to fight my sleepiness, get dressed presentably, fight the rush on the trains, or struggle to be understood. It's just easier to stay in sometimes.

But that's no way to live. I've had a weird pattern of going out one day and being a complete hermit the next, but I think that needs to change. It's very unhealthy for my sleeping patterns. I've had my week of being lazy and getting in touch with friends from the States. Time to go do things. ...Not that that is really 'work', but it can be expensive and confusing. I need to start speaking more Japanese. Really, Sophia makes it so easy to just...not.

Upcoming things for break: shopping for birthday presents, shopping for spring clothes (yay! I need new shoes so badly...), Disney Sea (for my birthday), Dean & Deluca with Aya, Hokkaido with Hannah, Korea with Monique, Yokohama with Nobuko, FujiQ, Nick visiting, Visit Kris in Gifu (Nagoya?)...

Tokyo Nights

2008-02-09T00:30:00.001+09:00

Today was a lot of fun!~

I woke up around 10 this morning and got ready, then Sohee stopped by to say goodbye and drop of the television she wanted to give me since she can't take it back to Korea. (It's absolutely the most adorable television ever. It has Pooh on it and just looks really cartoony and great. =D) I'm sad she had to leave, but I'll probably be seeing her again when I go to Korea next month.

After that, I went to Takadanobaba to meet with Nobuko (and finally give her her one month late birthday present). We went to the ice rink to skate. I'm a really bad ice skater, but I definitely did better than last time. I love ice skating, and the little kids there are so pro. They're doing spins, going backwards, and jumping. I guess it's a little on the expensive side, but you can stay for as long as you want. Plus, we saw this guy do the most amazingly hilarious wipe out. He was jumping and waving his arms and we couldn't stop laughing.

Afterwards, we walked to Shin Okubo and Shinjuku to look for a Korean restaurant to eat at. Along the way, we found Korean mochi and each bought a box. We ended up at one in Shinjuku. We ate BBQ (you know, the lettuce wrap things) and a soup with (I think it was pork) spine in it. Yummy. And a bottle of Chamiseul, because Korean food and soju are the best. Then we went to an internet cafe for an hour so I could teach Nobuko how to use facebook. Internet cafes/Manga cafes give me a really gross, weird feeling, so I don't think I'll ever be going back.

We ended the night with a couple of hours of karaoke at Karaokekan and got to the station just in time to catch our last trains. That, my friends, is a pretty good night out in Tokyo. (It'll run you about 5500 yen, but it's worth it.)

Japanese People and Trains

One thing I noticed is how crazy Japanese people are when it comes to catching their trains and how much tolerance they have for others while they're riding. I waited for a second train when I got to the station because so many people were lined up for the one that was already there. They squeeze themselves in there like there's no tomorrow. The station men even help push people in and once the doors close, the poor fool next to the door looks like one of those cartoon birds that ran into a window pane.

For a culture that is very 'hands-off', riding the train is uncomfortably crammed. I've been physically closer to complete strangers on the train than to some of my very best friends, and sometimes it HURTS. Japanese people also generally do not believe in holding onto the handles hanging from the train to help them balance, they'd rather just lean around on others or shuffle to catch their balance, which makes me crazy when I'm trying so hard not to get on others' nerves by leaning on them.

There also ends to be a very, very low tolerance for noise, like talking on cell phones, wearing loud headphones, or having conversations with the people around you, but a very high tolerance for reading material. Any reading material. I've seen older salarymen with some of the most inappropriate, restricted magazines sitting next to young women, other salarymen, or teenagers without showing the slightest bit of embarassment. I don't understand it. It's crazy. On one hand, they're ultra-conservative and on the other hand they're freaks. It seems like such a country of extremes, and its weird to see how that works itself out.

もう少しだけ〜

2008-02-04T00:01:00.000+09:00

Just a little more...

All that is left for me to do this semester is to go to school, print out my essay, and hand it in. It has to be one of the most painful essays I've ever had to write, but I blame that on not having written anything substantially academic in the past 7 or 8 months, a poorly formulated essay prompt, and of course, my lack of enthusiasm for the topic...but it is sitting in my inbox waiting to be printed and over with.

It's been a long while since I've actually written anything in here, and I'm sorry. Here are some things of note:

- Sohee is moving back to Korea on the 9th. It will be sad to see her go.
- Michael is returning to the States sometime near the end of March, but traveling beforehand, so I probably won't see him go. I wish he would stay.
- There are at least 3 others who live in Azalea going home, but in all honesty, I don't know them well. Nonetheless, it'll be emptier until the new exchange students show up.
- Karaoke at Karaokekan is very cheap if you go before 6pm on a weekday. 2 hours and a pot of tea later, I was only down 800yen.
- Tom bought a brown ferret. Her name is Anko and she likes to bite, but it will be fun to have a pet around to play with.
- I went to Gospel Night at Yohan Church and decided that Japanese people really can sing. Some of the people there have amazing, amazing voices.
- I visited Rie-chan's apartment and she made kimchi jjigae for Maki-sensei and me. It was delicious, and now that I know how to make it I'm going to give it a shot sometime soon.
- Never eat natto and kimchi in close succession. It is upsetting to the stomach.
- I will probably be going to Disneyland or Disney Sea (whichever is of Ayae's choosing) for her 21st birthday on the 5th.
- When I woke up this afternoon, I looked outside my curtains and it was snowing!

Now that break is about to start, I feel like I'll have a lot of time and should write about the more'meaningful' observations about Japan that I've had, but for now, since I'm a little tired from writing. Tomorrow I am off to buy a new commuter pass, but this time only one that goes until Ikebukuro. I need to find closer areas to explore.

Mobile: 泣き出した

2008-02-01T21:56:00.001+09:00

Crying

なっちゃんが泣いてしまった…
Nacchan is crying...

I think I'm addicted to mobile blogging...

Mobile: イケメン！？

2008-01-31T20:05:00.002+09:00

(・_・)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

2008-01-29T21:53:00.001+09:00

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

2008-01-28T22:25:00.001+09:00

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

2008-01-24T23:14:00.001+09:00

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？

2008-01-23T15:46:00.001+09:00

First snow?

雪が降った！
It snowed!

日本民藝館 & 韓国！

2008-01-21T02:50:00.000+09:00

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

2008-01-20T01:57:00.000+09:00

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

2008-01-17T21:29:00.000+09:00

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

2008-01-14T18:24:00.000+09:00

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

2008-01-12T15:11:00.000+09:00

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

2008-01-06T01:13:00.000+09:00

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...

2008-01-06T00:52:00.000+09:00

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！

2008-01-02T00:48:00.000+09:00

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!

やっと冬休み！

2007-12-22T01:46:00.000+09:00

冬休みが来た！うれしいです！

まず、一つのノート：「星の王子さま」という本を買って、読み始めた！かわいい！

今日はすごく忙しかった。授業はつまらなかった、しかも３時で終わったから銀行で旅行者用小切手をドルに交換することができなかった。だから、明日しなきゃいけない。成田空港とかベトナムでできるかもしれないけど心配がいっぱいあって、すぐにしたい。

とにかく、その後、池袋でリエちゃんと真紀先生に会った。リエちゃんは本当に本当にいい人だと思ってきた。いろいろな話題を話し合ったり、マックを食べたり、クリスマスプレゼントも交換したりしました！私はジェリーベリーというお菓子を真紀先生に。そして、ココアミックスをリエちゃんに。真紀先生はロッテのチョコレートをくれた。リエちゃんはクリスマス紙で包んだまでかわいい本をくれたんだよ！マックスルケード作家の「大切なきみ」という本です。本の中にクリスマスカードも書いて入れた。それは初めての日本のプレゼントです。カードを読んで、なんか感動した。世の中にこんなにいい人がまだいるのはすばらしいと思うの。

リエちゃんと真紀先生との遊びの後、亀戸にのぶことWendyに会いに行った。Wendyは日本の彼氏と会いたがっているからのぶこの友達は鍋パーティを準備してあげました。のぶこは私と参加したがって、今日にしました。（旅愛好会のクリパに行かなかったのは本当に残念ながら！）のぶこの友達の友達のアパートでやったからちょっと緊張したけどみんなと一緒に食べたり、テレビを見たり、話したりして良かった。日本では人は知らない人にアパートのパーティまで誘うのが珍しいです。会った男の人は思ったより年取ったんだけど面白かった。最年少の私は２０歳で、最年長は２８歳だった。最年長はなんか、テビンという歌手みたいな様子をしました。（とくにかっこいいわけではないけど見るのは面白かった。w）前の遊びで疲れてしまったから印象がいいか悪いかわからないのに人の家（ってか、アパート）に誘うのは初めてだった。あぁ、今すごく疲れている。ー＿ー

それはちょっと関係ないけど...
スーパーライブ２００７を見て、「KAT-TUNがかっこいい？」とか「気持ち悪い！」とか話し合った。超面白かった。でも、NewSが出てきた時、ちょっとびっくりした。ヤマピはやっぱりかっこいいと思ってきちゃった。ずっと前からかっこいいかな？それとも、私の好きなタイプが変わったかな？まぁ、いいか...

(StephanieとChloeへのノート：CMが出る時、ビッグバンのCMが出てきた！びっくりしたのに笑っちゃいました。日本でCMさえ出ているんだよね。頑張ってるみたいだよね。XD)

で...明日ベトナムの準備をしなきゃ〜！荷物まだつめなかった！ワクワクしてるんだよ！みんなさん、メリークリスマスと良いお年を！

Translation...

It's winter vacation! I'm so happy!

First, one note: I bought "Le Petit Prince" and started reading it. It's cute!

Today was really busy. Classes were boring, and on top of that since classes ended at 3pm I wasn't able to exchange my traveler's checks for dollars. So I have to do it tomorrow. I can probably do it at Narita Airport or Vietnam, but since I'm all worried I want to do it quickly.

Anyway, after that I met Rie and Maki in Ikebukuro. I think Rie is a really, really good person. We talked about a bunch of things, ate McDonald's, and exchanged Christmas presents! I gave Maki Jelly Bellies. Maki gave me some Lotte chocolate. Rie gave me a book that was really cute all wrapped up in wrapping paper. It's a book called 'You Are Special' by Max Lucado. She also wrote me a Chrismas card and stuck it inside. Those were my first Chrismas presents in Japan. I was sort of moved when I was reading the card. Like it's kind of amazing that this kind of good person still exists in the world.

After meeting with Rie and Maki, I went to Kameido to meet with Nobuko and Wendy. Wendy really wants to meet a Japanese boyfriend, so Nobuko's friend prepared a nabe party. Nobuko wanted me to come, so they made it today. (But it's too bad I couldn't go to the Travel Club Christmas party.) I was kinda nervous cuz it was at Nobuko's friend's friend's apartment, but it was good to eat, watch tv, and talk to everyone. Inviting people you don't know to a party at your apartment is rare in Japan. The guys we met were older than I thought, but it was interesting. I was the youngest at 20 and the oldest was 28. The oldest guy had the appearance of this one singer called Taebin. (He wasn't especially good looking, but it was interesting to look at him. haha.) Since I was tired from hanging out before I don't know if I had a good or bad but it was the first time I was invited to someone's home (or...apartment). Ah, I'm so tired. -_-

This doesn't really have anything to do with before, but...
We watched Super Live 2007 and talked about things like "Is KAT-TUN good looking?" and "That looks gross!" It was interesting, but when NewS came out I was kinda surprised. I think Yamapi is good looking after all. Has he always been good looking? Or is it that my taste is changing? I guess it doesn't matter...

(Note to Stephanie and Chloe: When commercials were on, Big Bang came on! I was surprised but then started laughing. Even commercials are coming out in Japan. It seems like they're trying really hard. XD)

So...Tomorrow I have to prepare for Vietnam~! I still haven't packed! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!

Mobile: 御茶ノ水の橋

2007-12-21T11:31:00.001+09:00

Ochanomizu Bridge

写真はそんなにキレイじゃないけど実際に見たらすごい！
This picture isn't that pretty, but the real thing is great!

Weekend!

2007-12-17T19:56:00.000+09:00

This was such a good weekend. Since I finished my last midterm and presentation I didn't have to do anything over the weekend, not even study for Japanese. So I ended up having fun. ^^

On Saturday, I met Yuhki and his friend, Shinji in Shibuya for some drinks. Yuhki came out to Tokyo because of Shinji's ゼミ, which is like a research thing. We went to the HUB, which is an English style pub. There's always a lot of foreigners there. Calpis Surfer and Sex on the Beach were really good. Yuhki and Shinji decided to order this drink that had the most number of hearts next to it...which was a very bad idea. It turns out, it was the strongest drink they had, the hearts weren't for popularity. It had an absinthe base and it was disgusting!!! I don't know how they finished it. It's gross just thinking about it. Then I got a motivational speech from Yuhki (with Shinji's interjections here and there) about how I should try to speak more Japanese, to not take the easy way out and use English, and how it's okay to make mistakes. It was actually kind of amazing Yuhki could still say such inspirational stuff after drinking. Haha. He's a good friend so I was glad we could hang out. I felt like garbage going home on the subway, but I made it back safely and didn't feel bad in the morning.

That was a relief because I went to Yohan Waseda Christ Church on Friday morning. Min Jeong met me at the station and I met up with Rie at the church. Everyone there was really nice. It was a little long and hard to understand, but the church is actually pretty music oriented, so there's a lot of music and singing. Afterwards, I was given some cds (gospel and a recording of some of the Christmas Concert) and a copy of the New Testament in Japanese. XD We ate lunch together and I met a few more people. Since Rie and Min Jeong were doing preparation for the other service, Mi Yeon walked me back to the station. Overall, it was a fun experience. I'll probably go with them on their one day trip to onsen on the 3rd. ^^

Nobuko ended up skipping her training for Starbucks and met me in Ikebukuro along with her friend. We went to eat and drink at a little restaurant. I hadn't seen Nobuko in a while, so it was nice to see her. And of course, we went to karaoke after that. Her friend left early, but we stayed there for about 3 hours total. It turns out the only songs we can sing together are old Hamasaki Ayumi songs because we have different tastes in music. XD Anyway...it was great fun. =D

The only downer was that I slept in too long and woke up at 8am, which means I couldn't make it to my Japanese class without being ridiculously late. So I skipped that and showed up for Korean Art and Japanese Literature. We didn't actually have lecture for Korean Art. We all went up to our professor's office and she threw a little mochi party with different kinds of Korean sweets. Korean mochi is really good. ^^ It was interesting, since our class is so small. Most people showed up so we just ate and talked and stuff. Very interesting. Only a few more days to pull through...

6 days until Vietnam!

Christmas Concert

2007-12-12T16:53:00.000+09:00

Last Sunday, I went to a Christmas Concert in Shinokubo with a girl I met at school. It was a little strange that she randomly invited me, but I figured it was worth it just for fun. When we got to there, I met a couple of other people. I've never been to a Christian church or anything, so it was an interesting experience for me. It was a really interesting mix of people. It was mostly Japanese and Korean people, but everyone spoke Japanese. Some gospel singers, No Mu Han, Song Ok Nam Gung, Aram, and Naeri performed, which was a big deal for a bunch of people there since they came from Korea. (But not for me since I didn't really know who they are.)

Apparently the Japanese way of saying 'Jesus' is 'イエス' which roughly sounds like 'yes', and made me confused at first. Then after I actually listened to the rest of the words I thought, "Ohhh, Jesus." Hahaha. They sang Christmas carols, 'Fight', 'Love', 'Amazing Grace', 'イエス', and 'Holy Night', but my favorite by far was 'You Raise Me Up'. No Mu Han and Aram sang it together (they're father and son) so it was really cute. XD Singing was done in Japanese, English, and Korean, which was kind of funny, but cool because everyone sang in all 3 languages, even the little kids.

Afterwards, I met a few more girls. I was surprised that I didn't meet any Japanese people there since most of it was held in Japanese. Most of the girls there that were my age were Korean, but they have amazing Japanese. o_O Anyway, I'll probably go on Sundays (I know...weiiirrrddd...don't worry, I'm not converting.) to hang out with them. One girl used to be Buddhist and ended up converting and all of that so she understands how weird it feels, but since I'm only here for a year and they don't care if I only go for fun it should be interesting. We'll see how it goes...

Besides that, I have a midterm and presentation this week. As long as I can make it through those, I'll be home free. Vietnam in 11 days!!! I'm so excited!

しゃぶしゃぶ & Pure Suite

2007-12-09T03:56:00.000+09:00

This past week, I had a crazy craving for shabu shabu, but I couldn't go out to eat any, so I decided to try and make it. It's a lot harder than it seems to make it taste right. Mine definitely didn't taste as good as the real thing, but hey, I tried. I didn't have the right kind of pot and I think I used the wrong kind of stock for the soupy part, but I ended up full and happy so it's okay.

Before:

After:

On Friday, I met Nobuko in Shibuya to look around at shops and things. I ended up finding the cd I've been looking at online for a while now. It's Francfranc presents Pure Suite Love Song House Covers. (I know, a mouthful.) It's a compilation of love songs remade by different electronica artists. Daishi Dance (who did FreeTEMPO's "HARMONY (DAISHI DANCE REMIX)"), Clazziquai Project (Past albums: Instant Pig, Love Child of the Century), GTS ("ABSOLUTE" featuring Ryohei) and ROMANTIC COUCH (mastermind behind Humming Urban Stereo and Instant Romantic Floor) are alll on it in addition to a few new artists I've never heard of. Overall, a good cd. And the packaging is quite impressive. I'll end up blogging this on my music blog later, though it's been a bit overshadowed by ETERNAL MORNING at the moment. =) It'll be nice to have some unconventional love songs to listen to around Christmas. (For some reason all I've been hearing in stores is that one Christmas song that goes, "Last Christmas I gave you my heart, but the very same day you gave it away...")

I'm getting really sick of school and I'm impatient to finally go on break. I hope you're all doing well. It's getting cold, so don't get sick!

John Lennon Museum

2007-12-03T20:16:00.000+09:00

Today is Xavier Day, and Sophia, being a Jesuit university, gave us the day off (whoo!), but I woke up really late, making me two hours late to meet So-ky in Akihabara to go to the John Lennon Museum in Saitama. I felt so horrible. He spent two hours waiting around Akiba for me to show up. I'm lucky he's such a nice person.

I must say, I'm not a big John Lennon fan, though I do like the Beatles and all that, but the museum was very well done. When we got to the entrance, one of the people working there was explaining a special thing that just started today. They put a tree in the entrance for people to tie their wishes to. Then those wishes are going to be sent to the 'Imagine Peace Tower' being built in Iceland. (Random right?) Apparently, Yoko Ono was at the museum. I didn't get a good look at her or or anything, but that's why it was a big deal. She's doing the 'Dream Power' concert that's going to be on the 8th, so that's why I'm guessing she visited today.

The museum itself was very well done. It was split up nicely and each section had its own feel. I especially liked the end. The date of John Lennon's death was on a big white wall and that led into the 'Message Room' that was a white exhibit room that had a big wall that had his quotes and lyrics. It looked really cool, but we weren't able to take any pictures inside. At the end, there's a lounge that you can go into to look at books, watch dvds, and listen to music Lennon made, which is actually a pretty cool idea. We closed out the visit by adding our wishes to the tree downstairs. Can't say it's a must-see exhibit, but if you like John Lennon or have the time and want to go to Saitama it's really interesting and very well presented.

I've been on a museum fritz recently. I don't think it'll last much longer since there's only that other art exhibit I want to go to, but wow. So many museums!

Space For Your Future!

2007-12-03T00:25:00.000+09:00

Wow, Space for Your Future was amazing. It's a temporary exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) that's going on right now. I couldn't take any pictures, so I actually bought a book about the exhibit, because wow...I really wish you all could see it. Amaaazing. I originally wanted to go to see Ninagawa Mika's section of the exhibit. (She's a photographer whose work I really admire.) But it turns out that her section of the exhibit wasn't even the best part.

I started out by sitting in these bubbly chairs that appeared white, but lit up a neon color once I sat down. Then there was a piece that was huge scrolls of tissue paper hanging from the ceiling that had been cut with an xacto knife to make designs that I thought Steph would have really liked. Really beautiful. I also tried out this beanbag suit-chair. There's a flap for your arms and head to go through that attaches you to the rest of the beanbag that's hanging behind you. Then you sit down and you can lay back. It's a really strange chair because you can't get into it by yourself, but once you put it on, it's really comfortable.

A surprising amount of the exhibits were interactive. Well..I guess it isn't that surprising since it is about 'space', but they were interactive in ways I didn't expect. My absolute favorite part of the entire exhibit was the Disco Phonebooth. From the outside, it looks like an empty booth with a disco ball hanging from the top and headphones to put on. If someone goes in, you can see them in their mini disco. The catch is that the person inside can't see outside. When I went in, it was all me. The inside of the booth is covered with mirrors, so it really feels like a private disco booth, and makes you want to dance. The thing is that if you dance, everyone outside can see you. Really fun and funny.

There was jewelry, photographs, Ninagawa Mika's room, movies, lighting devices... I can't really go through it all, but I must say, the most impressive thing was the 4 story tall square balloon. Yup, square balloon. It was floating in the middle of the building. It's so confusing because 1) it's gigantic, 2) it's just floating there, 3) it's square, 4) it's made out of metal, 5) it distorts your image in the reflection, 6) what the heck?!?!?!

It's hands down the best museum exhibit I've seen in my life. It makes me really excited to go to the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi because it has a similar take on mixing genres and media. They have a sort of partnership where if you go see one and show your ticket, you get a discount at the other. The exhibit is called Roppongi Crossing: Future Beats in Contemporary Art. I missed the Future Beats in Music and Moving Images event where Shinichi Osawa DJed and I also missed this interactive sculpture/music workshop with Ogai Takeharu. (Ryuichi Sakamoto composed the music for it. Augh.) Booo. Anyway, I'm still looking forward to it.

Iloveart.

Mobile:カボチャ

2007-12-01T14:38:00.001+09:00

かぼちゃパールドリンク！美味しい！
Pumpkin pearl drink! Yum!

Yesterday I went to Harajuku with Britten so she could look for nice clothes and I could buy a new jacket. (Yes!) After that, we went to Denny's! (I had steak. I forgot how much I miss eating big pieces of meat. XD)

Mobile: クリスマスタイム

2007-11-29T19:52:00.001+09:00

日本でのクリスマスタイム！
Christmastime in Japan

江戸東京博物館

2007-11-28T18:25:00.000+09:00

I went to the Edo Tokyo Museum today!

I was supposed to go with Melissa, but she accidentally overslept, so I ended up just looking around by myself. It's a huge museum. I wish I was there with someone so we could take pictures of using some of the hands-on things they had there. (There were rooms you could go in, bikes and other vehicles you could sit in, that kind of thing.) It's a very thorough museum. It goes from the beginnings of Edo, covers all aspects of life (economy, international communication, arts, etc.) and goes up until the Tokyo Olympics.

It took me 2 hours to get through it, though near the end I wasn't looking at everything. I wish I had gone before my Japanese Civilization midterm. It might have helped me remember stuff. Overall though, it was nice to look at all the stuff.

I didn't go see the special exhibit since the museum was closing. I think it was something about pottery, but I'm not sure since the title was in kanji that I couldn't read. I was a little disappointed that I didn't wait until December because they'll be having a special exhibit on Hokusai. Though it's only 440 yen or so to get in, I could always go back. =)

ただいま！

2007-11-27T21:52:00.000+09:00

I'm back!

...and with a brand new MacBook! (Though I would have much rather just kept my old one. I was way more used to it.) Anyway, let's recap what's been going on...

On the 21st, I went to Sunshine City in Higashi-Ikebukuro for the first time. It's basically just a ton of shopping, but I did find a really good grocery specialty store. They have those truffles they sell at Trader Joe's and a bunch of interesting imported foods. I also found a Lupicia! Lupicia is my favorite tea company. They have a ton of stores in Japan, but only one in the U.S., in San Francisco. So after getting some Sirocco tea, nougat, and dried veggies, I was quite pleased. =)

Since my computer was broken, I spent a lot of time (finally) doing some non-school related reading. I finished "What is the What" by Dave Eggers. Highly recommended. I couldn't put it down after I got back into it. I also read "Out" by Natsuo Kirino (in 2 days!). That is one of the most disturbing books I've probably ever read, with the exception of a few scenes in Haruki Murakami's "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" and a story called "Red Hair" by another Japanese author. I don't know what it is about Japanese authors. They write a lot of perverse stuff. Anyway, I'm looking to start "Survivor" by Chuck Palahniuk. After that, I'm out of English books.

The 25th was a fun day. Hank came in from Kyoto, so I met up with him and Vinodh in Harajuku where we did a bunch of shopping (Above: Harajuku Uniqlo UT Store) and ended out the evening with an hour of karaoke. That, however, was not the end of the night. So-ky and Busby were throwing a Thanksgiving dinner since we all missed it. So I bought a pudding-cake-fruit-dessert and made my way back to good ol' Kameido. Anjee had also come in from Kyoto, so it was nice to see her. I must say, for a bunch of exchange students, we put together a pretty good dinner. Salad, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie (that was amazing, none of us expected pumpkin pie), chicken, stir fried veggies, mac and cheese, Japanese fried chicken, apples, mini-cheesecakes, fruit-pudding-cake-desert, and two other kinds of tarts. (Basically, every girl brought or made a dessert. haha.) Are you impressed? I was impressed.

Besides that, I've been running back and forth from here to Ginza to get my new computer. Ginza is kind of like New York. The department store next to the Apple Store was basically made into a big Louis Vuitton box, and it has the nicest Dotour Cafe I've seen yet. (Dotour Cafe's are everywhere.) Anyway, the Apple Store. It was crazy that they had so many bilingual people. According to one employee, about 1/3 of the people that work there are bilingual. (It really threw me off when the one white employee came up to me and was like, "keigo keigo keigo".) I was thinking that if I had been more into computers, it would have been kind of fun to work in that store. There's these two automatic glass elevators that just look neat.

As far as school goes, I'm mid-midterms. And I got an 82 on my Japanese midterm. Boo. I'm no good at particles and remembering verb tenses in grammar patterns.

Mobile: 晩ご飯

2007-11-23T17:29:00.001+09:00

Dinner

自分で作ったカレー！
Curry I made myself!

Mobile: イライラ

2007-11-22T18:09:00.001+09:00

3ヶ月半。
日本に住んでることにかかわらず、日常生活はまだ複雑だよ。留学生の友達と話したのは外国人のことばかりだ。
日系人なので私の場合は普通の外国人と違う。外国人はいろいろないい特徴があって、日本人との付き合いはもっと簡単だと思う。(例えば、格好が良い。）私には…
外国人点：１
それは？日本語が話せないこと。
とにかく、みんな楽しいThanksgivingを…！

Irritated

Three and a half months.
Despite living in Japan, everyday life is still confusing. The only thing my exchange student friends and I talk about is being foreigners. Since I"m Japanese-American my situation is different from a regular foreigner. There are a lot of good points to being a foreigner and I think it's easier to just go out with Japanese people. (For example, they look 'cool.') As for me...
Foreigner Points: 1
What is it? Not being able to speak Japanese.
Anyway, everyone have a fun Thanksgiving!

Mobile: アップルブルース

2007-11-21T18:04:00.001+09:00

昨日、iBookを壊れてしまった。今日、銀座のGenius Barに行った。5日間ぐらいコンピューターがないけど無料で直すって。音楽や写真などなくなるので少しカナシイ。

直したまで、携帯電話のメールアドレスで連絡してね！

Apple Blues

Yesterday, I broke my iBook. Today, I went to the Genius Bar in Ginza. I won't have a computer for about 5 days, but they said they could fix it for free. I'll lose things like my music and pictures, so that's kinda sad. Until they fix it, contact me on my cell phone email!

"エビとのコラボ！"

2007-11-16T23:54:00.000+09:00

...ってか、旅愛のみ会！

("Collaboration with shrimp!"...or, travel club drinking party!)

So this week, my Japanese midterm owned me. Really, I didn't know we'd have so many questions to answer on the reading, so I didn't divide my time up well...anyway, we'll see how that goes. A lot of people didn't finish.

The good news, as stated before, today was my first nomikai with travel club. I've now discovered that the later it is and the more tired I am, the less Japanese I'm able to understand and use. I think I only understood like..half the conversation. But despite that, the food (at Salsa Cabana) was good and it was fun to mostly listen. Everyone is really nice, even if I can't talk to them that well. It's weird to be the only who doesn't understand everything that's going on, but it's a comfortable atmosphere. Rina tells me that after a while, you get to know people and it becomes like a family. =D And the shrimp thing? That was, I think, my favorite thing anyone said all night. Keisuke (I'm trying really hard with names, it's embarassing I can't remember them all.) got this chocolate/ice cream crepe thing on his shrimp and said that. XD Japanese people also do not know how to drink tequila. The salt and the limes and oh, the confusion. Hahaha. It was all fun though. Whoo.

It's gotten really cold all of a sudden. Had to bust out my biggest jacket. I really think I need to go shopping for long sleeves and coats/sweaters/jackets. I was not expecting it to switch so suddenly.

Mobile: 犬

2007-11-14T14:54:00.001+09:00

Dog!

カラオケの外で見た犬です！

The dog we saw outside karaoke!

soundsreal

2007-11-13T22:07:00.000+09:00

Nothing too exciting has been going on lately. I bought new headphones since my old iPod ones broke. No more in-ear headphones for me. I ended up with some (affordable) audio-technica ones. My old ones must have been really messed up, because everything I listen to now sounds so much better. (Some stuff I've never listened to except on my laptop speakers or with those bad headphones, so I'm sort of amazed.) I also have another blog just for fun. Mostly it's just to practice Japanese and it's probably full of mistakes. XD It's about music stuff, but feel free to check it out.

新ブログは音楽中心です。
日本語で書こうと思って、作りました！
別に日本に留学する一年間に関しないけど是非読んで下さい！
間違いだらけですけどよろしく。

LOTTE BLACK

2007-11-09T00:08:00.000+09:00

LOTTE BLACK = crackchocolate.

I've been having a pretty awesome week. Let me count the ways:

1. Vietnam is a GO!
2. I just got paid!
3. I owned my literature essay in the face (relatively, for not doing all the reading)
4. I discovered some great dark chocolate.
5. Yuhki is coming to Tokyo this weekend!

So about that crackchocolate. That's my new name for LOTTE BLACK since I was doing fine when I got home. I was tired. Then I drank some juice, ate an apple, and ate some chocolate. After the choclate I just became really hyper. Ask Yuhki. He had to put up with my insane instant messages. I'm not one hundered percent sure it's the chocolate that's got me all crazy, but this mood is just strange. Whee~ (I promise I didn't ingest anything mind altering or illegal. I promise.)

Ilove/hateJapan.

ベトナム大使館、代々木八幡宮、明治神宮

2007-11-07T20:14:00.000+09:00

Today I went on a hunt to find the Embassy of Vietnam. Definitely not as easy as I thought it would be. It's in a sort of apartment/resiential area, so I kept thinking I was in the wrong place. Anyway, I was able to get my visa, good for one month of tourism. XD I also booked my flights, so I'll be leaving on December 23rd, leaving on December 30th, and arriving back in Tokyo on December 31st. I had a little bit of a panic attack when I found out that the flight to VN I was going to book was filled after I'd already booked the domestic flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang, but I was able to find an even better set of tickets, so it worked out well. =)

Besides that whole bit of organizing and arranging, I stopped at the Yoyogi-hachiman shrine that was on the way to the embassy. (See above.) It was really small, but people really go to it since I saw about 5 people there. On the way back to Heiwadai, I also stopped at Meiji Jingu, which I'd been overlooking on all my trips to Harajuku.

Meiji Jingu has one of the biggest (if not the biggest) wooden gate in Japan. There were also a bunch of sake barrels stacked up like a wall next to the path leading to the shrine. I'm not exactly sure what it was there for, but it looked cool. XD I took a picture of the sign..maybe one of these days I can figure out the purpose of it. One of my favorite things at Meiji Jingu is the tree where everyone places the votives they've written their wishes on. There are sooo many of them in so many different languages. (I saw Japanese, English, Korean, Chinese, French, German, I think it was Arabic...and a bunch that I couldn't really identify.) It's kind of cool to see so many wishes and hopes all in one place.

I didn't write one myself. Maybe I'll go back one day and do one. I was going to, but I didn't know what I wanted to write. There were some families taking their 7, 5, and 3 year olds to temple for the Japanese 七五三 (7,5,3) thing. It was really cute to see them all dressed up and trying not to step on the middle of the gate when they walked in. (You're suppposed to step over it, not on it.) That's all for now!

not quite homesick

2007-11-06T18:20:00.000+09:00

I was talking to another girl who lives in my apartment and I realized that living here doesn't really feel like real life. It's definitely not as much work as before. I don't have a real job like I did at the Testing Center, and the classes aren't that great either. I mean, the teachers definitely know what they're talking about, but two of my teachers [who teach in English] are really bad at speaking. Besides that, I wrote a crappy essay on some readings I barely did and got a 'B'. It's like school and work got a whole lot easier and being social got a whole lot harder. Sounds dumb right? But when you're sitting at a club meeting where you're the only non-native Japanese speaker trying to understand the next event that's going on, it kind of takes you back to when you were little and you wanted to hang out with the big kids even though you didn't know what they were talking about. Ah, but I try. I try.

All that stuff aside, it is a lot of fun. There's no shortage of places to go, things to see, or things to try. Sometimes I feel like I'm having too much fun and not being serious enough about my studies or spending too much money or whatever else. I've just never had so much free time before. It's almost like being homesick, but I think it's actually just twisting up my lifestyle. Oh, Japan. What am I going to do?

ソフィア際!

2007-11-03T22:43:00.000+09:00

Sophia Festival!

I met Nobuko at school today so we could to go the school festival together. There were a lot of people there, so it was kind of crazy, but a lot of fun. I had some ジャージャー麺 (jaa jaa men, Chinese noodles) and some Jijimi (Korean pancake). I saw Eun-jeong and So-hee at the Jijimi booth since they're both in the Korean Exchange Student Club. The jijimi flipping was kind of impressive. Haha. Anyway, after that, I went to Bldg. 9 to find Tom since he said he was going to be dressed up like a schoolgirl all day. When I got to the room it said: コスプレ＆ゲイBar (Cosplay & Gay Bar). Then Nobuko and I looked in and there were a bunch of guys (basketball players, hahaha) dressed as girls, sitting at little makeshift cafe-like tables talking to people who paid for little snacks. Hahahahaha. It was like one of those things you see on those Japanese dramas. Some of them were really pretty too! And the ones with make up actually had good makeup. It was sorta scary in a funny way.

After that, we went to the stage to watch G-Splash, Sophia's best dance team. They were amazing~! If you look them up on Youtube, they're there. We also ran into Wendy and Melissa, so we watched the Mr. Sophia Contest together. Wendy was rooting for contestant four, who was on the basketball team. (Five contestants total, one of them was even a foreigner.) They did questions and answers, self-promotion, and marriage proposals. (I know, it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it was fun to watch.) We were all rooting for number four, but number three had the best proposal. He picked Kobukuro's "永遠にともに" for background music. It was something along the lines of, "We've had a lot of good times and hard times, haven't we? Shouldn't we end this kind of relationship? [insert audience confusion and "へぇー？"] Marry me.” [insert audience understanding and "あぁー！"] Anyway, Wendy took all of our voting papers and voted for number four. XD

Before they announced the winner, JONTE performed. He's another Korean singer crossing over into the Japanese market, so I thought I wouldn't like him, but daaang, he can really sing. (And he actually isn't crossing over, I just found out, he's a 在日韓国人-- Korean person born in Japan.) He sang his first single, "ゆれる." Afterwards, as expected, number four walked away named Mr. Sophia 2007. Hahahaha.

I went to Starbucks with Wendy and Nobuko after that, but Wendy had to go home. The rest of the night was spent at karaoke with Nobuko, where we discovered that the only songs we can both sing are Hamasaki Ayumi songs since we have different taste in English and Japanese music. XD What a fun day. =D

Tokyo Disneyland

2007-11-01T23:00:00.000+09:00

I decided I still wanted to go to Disneyland, especially since we have W-F off because of the Sophia Festival. So a few friends and I decided to go. Thus...

I just got back from Tokyo Disneyland! It was so much fun! I went with Hannah, Monique, Melissa, and Nobuko. We met at the park at 8:30. The main street and castle look quite different, but it's actually a lot less stressful and crazy than the Anaheim one.

We started out with Pirates of the Carribean, which is very similar to the American one. (Voice overs and recordings in Japanese are kind of hilarious. XD) After that, Melissa explained that one of the attractions in Disneyland and DisneySea are the popcorn flavors, which are made available on different dates in certain lands. I decided I wanted to try some of them and got curry flavored popcorn in Westernland (American equivalent = Frontierland). We followed that up with the Jungle Cruise. Japanese skippers are actually quite energetic, which was not what I was expecting. It's more of a cheezy, over the top funny than a sarcastic, monotone funny. We finished up Westernland with Big Thunder Mountain.

Next was Fantasyland, where we went on the Haunted Mansion, which was decked out with Nightmare Before Christmas. It's a little less impressive than the American one, though the mansion itself looks pretty cool. Then we went on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (白雪姫と七人のこびと), which was also about the same. I tried some of Hannah and Nobuko's Chocolate flavored popcorn and also bougt the Honey flavor popcorn, which was absolutely delicious. (Really, the best popcorn I've ever had.)

After eating lunch, we went on AstroBlasters and went on to Space Mountain, which for some reason doesn't have any music. It was a little more eerie that way. Then we watched the Christmas Parade. (Yeah, Christmas already.) There was Soda flavored popcorn here, but it smelled funny so we passed it up. Instead, we had honey-lemon churros, which were yummy. (I think I have a thing for honey now.)

For dinner, Melissa and I went to The Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall (the others opted for something a little less pricey). We had to eat there, the atmosphere was just too amazing. It was made to look like a mix between the flower garden and the rose garden in Alice in Wonderland. There are playing card statues around, and you have to walk through the doorknob's mouth to enter the restaurant. There are big flower lights, and almost all the windows are stained glass, most of them with hearts on them. Very cool. =) (The chicken was delicious too.) I wish they had that in Anaheim. After that, Melissa and I went to Pooh's Honey Hunt.

Oh, Pooh's Honey Hunt. It's my absolute favorite Disney ride, ever. Basically, you walk into a gigantic Pooh storybook and get into a honey pot. Then you're off into the story, seeing scenes of all Pooh's adventures. The coolest thing about it is that even though you're in a huge room and can see the other honey pots, you have absolutely no idea which way you're going or where you're going to turn because there is no track. There's no track! (Jerry told me it's done by GPS.) There's also animation added in the backgrtounds for movement, and some cool effects with mirrors and puffs of wind. You also get to bounce with Tigger, which had me and Melissa laughing our heads off. Yes, basically the best Disney ride.

We headed to the Tea Party after that, where the lady said, "お誕生日じゃない日おめでとう！" ("Happy Unbirthday!") I forgot how dizzy those cups make me. The Dream Lights parade started while we were on it, but we were able to get off and rush to watch the majority of it. The light parade was really pretty. It had a few newer things like Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo that looked really good. We met back with everyone else, then Nobuko and I went on the Castle Carosel. We finished by watching the fireworks. (They were a lot less than stellar if you compare them to the 50th Anniversary ones in the U.S.) Then we did some shopping on Main Street. (Actually, in between rides, we went shopping, so we hit most of the stores in the vicinity we were in. Haha.) I restrained myself from buying any Disney headgear. It was so hard, especially since so many people were wearing them, and they were really warm. (Mickey earmuffs or hats, character ear and hat clips, headbands, etc.)

Overall, definitely a fun trip. =D Next on the hit list? DisneySea! Heehee.

Mobile:Disney Station

2007-11-01T22:20:00.000+09:00

舞浜に到着して、びっくりした。東京ディズニーランドの電車だよ！
After arriving at Maihama, I was surprised. There's a Tokyo Disneyland Train!

CANCELLED!

2007-10-27T14:32:00.000+09:00

Recently, it seems like everything is being cancelled. First, the 旅愛好会 (Travel Club) trip to Disneyland on Halloween was cancelled because there weren't enough people. Then, my Korean Art class was cancelled for unknown reasons. (It just said 'Class Cancelled' on the board.) After that, I went to work and found out that they were going to cancel the 7:30 - 8:30 class I teach, so now I only work one hour a week. And, as a continuation from Thursday, the trip to Ueno Zoo was cancelled because it's raining really badly. And the rain, of course, has led to my friend's party being cancelled. He just moved into a new apartment and was planning a party for tonight, but now no one is going because of the rain. Ah, cancelling things sucks.

I recieved a package from my grandma today though. =D おばあちゃん！本当にありがとう！♡

Sorry my updates have not been as interesting or photo-filled as usual. I'm kind of in a rut of having to figure out school and all of that. Hopefully things get better (and less rainy!)

Mobile: ヘアカット

2007-10-24T15:53:00.001+09:00

Haircut

かわいくない？どう思う？
Isn't it cute? Whatcha think?

Mobile: 料理

2007-10-22T18:48:00.001+09:00

Cooking

初めての焼うどん！
My first yakiudon!

Ebisu

2007-10-21T01:15:00.000+09:00

Nothing too exciting has bee going on. I went to Ebisu for the second time. (The first time was to go to the LIQUIDROOM. haha.) Tonight, I had Singaporean food for the first time with Vinodh, Keith, Monique, Hannah, and a bunch of other people. For a lot of us, it was a new experience. Singaporean food is yummy! =D Curry, bread, rice, chicken, noodles. Really good. It was a really international crowd too. There were 2 girls from Korea, a bunch of Americans, a guy from Singapore, a Japanese girl who studied abroad in Germany. It was all pretty fun. After that we went to an izakaya (drinking place) to talk and drink. Sohee and I just made the last train back home. Even though doing this sort of thing gets expensive, I think it's worth it to meet all the interesting people. =)

I miss people from home a lot recently. Skype is now my new best friend.

Harajuku again...

2007-10-17T17:07:00.000+09:00

So I spent a few hours in Harajuku again today. My objective was to visit the Bape Cafe?! (I'm rather proud that I found it by looking it up online and drawing myself a map. =D ) I found Bape Cuts and A Bathing Ape Kids, too. The cafe's atmosphere is kind of dark because of the navy blue walls, but its also full of Kaws art. (like the signature XX eyes and Kimpsons pictures.) It's surprisingly cheap to eat there. I had Red Shrimp Curry and iced coffee for 1000 yen, so a little less than 10 bucks. It's very cute. There are star shaped ice cubes and the ape insignia on everything, including cups, plates, oshibori (wet towel), napkins, and coasters. I recommend visiting it if you're into that kind of design stuff. It was weird the way they seated people. Everyone who was alone was at one big, round table instead of at little individual ones. It was kind of cool.

I also had to buy a new planner because I discovered that the day of the week were labeled incorrectly on my old one. I went to Kiddyland to pick up a Miffy one. =D Then I finished out the day by buying a few pairs of fun socks from Gap and a pair of boots (There's a boot boom this season.) from ABC Mart. I definitely like Harajuku, but this could get expensive. o.O

Mobile: Bape Cafe?!

2007-10-17T15:31:00.001+09:00

カレーエープ！
Curry Ape!

Yogurt Soju

2007-10-15T18:16:00.000+09:00

Okay, so I have to preface this with: I AM NOT AN ALCOHOLIC. (Since I know a few people who will suggest that I'm turning into one.) Anyway, I had a bottle of soju from a bad day that I didn't know what to do with, so I found a recipe for yogurt soju. It's actually really good. I'd drink it without the soju, too.

1 shot soju
fill glass 2/3 full with yogurt drink
top with Sprite

Yum!!

Besides that, I'm just communicating with Thinh to see if a trip to Vietnam over winter break is in the cards. I really want to go!

料理ブーム

2007-10-14T15:58:00.000+09:00

Recently, I've been into cooking things. I'm not a very good cook, so nothing I make is spectacular, but hopefully I'll get better.

Seafood okayu. The grocery store I go to doesn't have very much stuff, but there was a seafood mix...

Beef & onion stir fry. Salad. I could only buy onions in bags of three, so I had to figure out what to do with them.

What else can I make with only one burner?

ANY LOVE

last day to play~

already one year

cereal and...foot massager?!

Mobile:さようなら〜

Mobile:六本木からのＨＥＬＬＯ

6:53AM

STRESS and RELIEF

STINGRAY!

Mobile:靴！

テンション！

Mobile:かえるさん

catching up~

Mobile:本虫？

Mobile:渋谷での遊び

JAMES!

Mobile:食いしん坊

Mobile:El Torito

SUNSHINE~

中間エッセーばっかり

Already June...

Mobile: キャンディー！

日本語 T＿T

地震と人身事故

Mobile: 私のスイカ

Mobile: 京都

Mobile: 龍安侍

大阪に着いた！

good things > bad things

大田原市屋台祭り

吉祥寺

弁顕密....何だっけ？

Visiting Yuhki

森美術館：ART IS FOR THE SPIRIT

お花見

読み終わった！

あっちこっち all over the place!

何年ぶり食べなかったデザート

キレイじゃん？

ただいま！

韓国HOT뜨거!

韓国はBUSY

韓国：Rolling, Rolling, Rolling!

韓国にいるよ！！！

行きますよ、韓国に！！！！

Youth KOSTA

鎌倉！

Bananas.

靖国神社＆新宿！

台場

Lethargic and watching TV

Tokyo Digenie Sea!

PIECE OF PEACE

Staying in.

Tokyo Nights

もう少しだけ〜

Mobile: 泣き出した

Mobile: イケメン！？

Mobile: コンビニ

Mobile: 期末テスト

Mobile: Cidre

Mobile: 初雪？

日本民藝館 & 韓国！

Vietnam: Part 3

Recap

森美術館: Roppongi Crossing ＆ Tokyo City View

Vietnam: Part 2

Vietnam: Part 1

So busy...

明けましておめでとう！

やっと冬休み！

Mobile: 御茶ノ水の橋

Weekend!

Christmas Concert

しゃぶしゃぶ & Pure Suite

John Lennon Museum

Space For Your Future!

Mobile:カボチャ

Mobile: クリスマスタイム

江戸東京博物館

日本語　T＿T