randomness

Randomness post.
It's gotten very hot here. Still the rainy season but today was GORGEOUS...even though it was technically 100 degrees. Little to no humidity, so bathing in the sun, for what we could, was extremely nice.

But I really need to post things so enjoy a randomness post.



nom nom nom. Pizza from the bread section in the grocery stores. Japanese= obsession with bread. All kinds of bread. except rarely bagels (much to my despair). Cold pizza covered with crazy stuff is included. The left one was good and normal but the corn and seaweed (sea grass as one of my friends accidentally called it) was a bit...weird. The right one has egg on it. No joke.

Nom nom ice cream- vanilla, chocolate and almond! Actually very good- also excellent for diet control :P

Emiko asked me to grow a giraffe. And so I did.



The Japanese walk their dogs. But they also walk their cats.

This cat gets a lot of outdoor action. It's out a lot on its leash.


Speaking of getting a lot of action, manholes get a lot of action. The Okazaki ones are really nice.


Okazaki castle, the flower festival, and the famous hanabi (firework festival) all in one on a manhole.


This one is from Nagoya. I thought it was just plain amusing.

Took that manhole on the way back from the Volks store which was found when exploring Nagoya. Found quite a few things actually- the second secondhand shop in Osu Kannon, the Tenshi no Sumika Volks store, Jesus Diamante.....
Got a wig, stand, and a few accessories for assembly (need to restring my one doll Sakura). Linn is currently sporting her new Alice outfit that I had crescent (shopping service) ship finally to me here. Also her new wig. This one is by far the best- and the greatest purchase.
She's sporting the Volks brand...all the way :P

Speaking of dolls, planning to go to Home Town Dolpa Osaka 6 and extremely excited about it. May be able to see a friend in Kyoto that day as well. So just throwing it out there- could get outfits and such if any of my friends may want anything. No pictures are up yet, but throwing out the offer.

And now I sleep. I have quite a few things to post, so I will try to post at least picture posts!

Fooding and Karaokeing

This weekend has thus far been quite a bit of fun. The past few days have been nuts.

I no longer have a roommate- turns out she just couldn't take to the language barrier. Part of me is like "that would have been so good for us!" And then a part of me is thinking that it is rather stupid to come here with no English and minimal Japanese experience- how would you get around? No wonder it's hard and the poor girl wanted to go home :/ There really aren't any other languages here being used outside of English and Japanese. And certainly not much English by far. She was cute and sweet, but honestly it was a facepalm all around. Yamasa accommodation folk had expected her to be able to speak English as well, so....

Friday I was a zombie all day but that didn't stop me from going out to eat and karaoke with friends! Friday was also the day we had semi culture class. The teacher was ok, but I didn't particularly care for her, as she didn't really help those of us (the two of us) who struggled with the language. Some teachers just brush you off instead of taking you by the hand and running with you. She was one of those that just brushed you off. I guess it's difficult when you have three different levels in one class together to accommodate all levels. Nevertheless, it was frustrating so I don't feel bad at all for switching out for private lessons for most Fridays. This week we did origami, which was fun but omg trying to give instructions in Japanese while zombie-fied (ie my brain was a bit fried and exhausted) was terrible. And of course my partner and I had a hard one- the box.

We made the box ourselves (squashed thing at the bottom) and then we were taught by others to make a bird and whale.

After went home for a little while, relaxed (found no roommate), and then went out to get food. The group of us had Okonomiyaki, which is basically batter, cabbage, and a bunch of other stuff. Very much like pancakes. Toppings add to the taste- like some folk order shrimp, I ordered beef, etc. The common toppings are special sauce for the dish, fish flakes, mayo. Basically you plop the batter onto the grill at your table and cook each side for 6 minutes. Deliciousness was to be had.

Us just starting out, plopping our cakes down and shaping them into a round yum yum.

Done cooking and putting our toppings on- now just working on getting pieces of the deliciousness onto our plates.

Afterward, though the sky was "spitting" at us, we went to karaoke. Single room for the party, free refills at the drink bar, and unlimited hours (well, until 4am) only cost 1,700 a person. Beats lincoln square's karaoke by far in price. Also melon soda over and over again :D I need to remember to take a picture of it but it is a very GREEN soda. Realized mixing that and orange made it taste extremely yummy.

Oop that at the left is melon soda actually :D These folk here are from Minnesota, Spain, and Ireland :D


The youngins of our group :D They're still in school (awwwwwwwwww)

Karaoke machine/TV
They have a good collection of songs- had some fun attempting Japanese songs (most of the kanji has hiragana above it but sometimes it is difficult to read as fast as the song goes).

That's it for now. I need to start studying (it's already 4pm...) and I am still feeling tired/exhausted. Thinking just to take it easy.

Bonus- silly purikura photos from first day at school done at Aeon mall.
I had fun with the cat stamps they had, but it took some getting used to as to how the machine worked- kinda screwed up on a few and never added anything :( Well, now I know!




These are pretty simple compared to the other two I've done thus far.

Also- I'm thinking of going to the Home Town Dolpa Osaka- what is technically a doll convention by the main company that produces dolls- Volks. I have my Volks Yo-SD girl, Linn, so it's not like I would go empty handed. Plus I did this last time I was in Japan, I kinda want to do it again!

sunsets in okazaki

Realizing the group that started the UJP program with me is full of awesome. We went out for noodles during lunch- DELICIOUS SOBA ZOMG. failed at taking a picture because I didn't have my camera with me. Hopefully we will go out for karaoke tomorrow night! Saturday I should be going to Nagoya with one or two of the girls potentially in lolita :P Found out at the moment only Meta has sales this Saturday. You'd *think* they would start at the same time. Baby has their sale on the 1st... a weekday....there's no way I can make that :/ Don't know about AP tho. NO news on Nagoya yet- kinda pissed because I want to know :( boo. Not that I would buy anything, but their limited sets are cute.

Ah well :/ and homework takes forever, studying takes longer. Getting home at around 5 is really starting to kill me especially since I start around 6.... it's almost 9 and I still haven't started my homework-I've just been studying verbs. DOH.

I have GOT to go to an onsen because my back/shoulders are starting to really lock up. *almost* tempted to go today but I only got 5 hours of sleep and I'd probably pass out in the bath. This would be a badddd idea. Supposedly one of the onsense have massages.... must check out!

Got distracted today when I saw the world in a pink hue. The camera really didn't capture as well as it looked (do cameras ever? esp digital...) but the sky was pretty at dusk.


Some relaxing and then homework time!

First of hopefully many posts from Okazaki

I am in fact alive!

Well I have been in Japan for 11 days- about 3 of which were spent in Tokyo, the rest in Okazaki. I am here currently in Okazaki studying Japanese at Yamasa via the University Japanese Program, which is a more structured version of their Acceleration program.

Tokyo was very much enjoyable, and unfortunately I will save documenting it for another day. Honestly, I didn't explore much of Tokyo except Shinjuku, Harajuku, and Sanrio Puroland. Ultimately I had 1 evening, 1 morning and two solid days, one of which was spent at Puroland and then sick in bed (but omg was Puroland a lot of fun with Emma and Ellejay!). Shopping was to be had in Tokyo, and just general culture immersion. And my god was that a good idea. Despite having to lug 2 huge suitcases and (what ended up being) 2 carry ons, staying in Japan outside of Okazaki a few days before coming to school was the smartest idea as it covered culture shock, jetlag, and just getting used to a crazy routine. Granted we can arrive at our accomodations in Okazaki 2 days prior to the program commencing, but in my humble opinion that is not enough to sleep off the terrible jet lag and just get used to the environment.

Anyway, I'm staying in the same accomadation as before- Residence K. It's nice and quiet, though sometimes I wish I would have stayed in the Student Village because it's busier. I like quiet, but when you are alone in a foreign country, quiet isn't always the best. But at any rate, the rooms are bigger here. I opted for a roommate though I could have lived alone. Kills the loneliness.

The buildings of Residence K

"Gate" into the courtyard of Residence K.

I just got a roommate today- it turns out she doesn't speak much English! She's from Taiwan, but I can't really talk to her about her home because I don't speak Japanese very well (she knows some) and English is a no-go... so I don't know how this is going to roll :/ She seems nice and quiet thus far, but I feel bad if she opted for a roommate so she could practice speaking at home. I'm not really all that social, especially in the language I am currently cramming. Gyahhhhhh....

Manhole cover! It's Okazaki city esque- including the hanabi (fireworks)!


But I do like this residence. You have the two rooms- 1 main room with beds and desks and another room with the kitchen, your own washing machine, shelving. Then you have a toilet room and a bath/shower room. You dry your clothes out on the balcony. The beds are boards with a thin futon on top. I'm opting for sleeping on the futon and comforter and using the "cool" blanket I just bought (for cool weather, apparently breathes well, and is machine washable! YAY). When you rent/buy you also get a nice bean bag pillow. It's actually more comfortable than you think. The internet is rather fast here and only available via land line. Apparently campus has wifi but I tried to use it and it sucks hardcore. Still haven't figured out where I can use my computer via ethernet at campus since some things have changed and the website isn't updated.
Mah view is actually pretty awesome.


ANYWAY. There isn't much around here in terms of buying- it's all residence. The house on a hill literally. I burn quite a few calories whenever I return home since it's alllllll uphill. There's a convenience store at the bottom of the hill right next to the student village. There are, I discovered, 2 places to buy food at a supermarket about half of a km away, which isn't bad at all. One is mediocre with a 100 yen store and a walmart style store. The other is new and has a movie theater and a mini mall with some nice shops. Found some size L tops so I definitely took advantage of that (I like the things in style for summer quite a bit. Slightly gyaru....as I realize I need to research more about Japanese fashion....). There are other places to go as well- the Daiso (100 yen store) is right on the way to school (school being about 8 minutes via bike away). Right next to it is a Dennys...first restaurant I ate at here in Japan :P and the last time there....Then down the way there's Seiyu which is rather target-y. Then down even more is the big post office, book shop, joann fabrics/michaels craft store (I think I'm in love with it), and then the huge Orland Mall-of-Okazaki. Has a Jusco and a Seibu with many many many shops in between, including a Coldstone (MINTICECREAMOMG), Sanrio, AND SWIMMER. Boy was I excited about a Swimmer that close. For those who do not know, it's a extremely cute accessory shop- home goods, personal goods, at-the-desk-goods, whatever. They were famous for a while in the western lolita community for their cute headphones and bags. They have some really nice stuff for extremely affordable prices, so I picked up a few things like slippers, a rug and such there.

Some things I want to explore in Okazaki are the main city hall area and the castle...which I did not visit at all last time. I also need to go to an onsen, specifically the one that has massages...and no not those kinds of massages.....Apparently they are open until midnight, so I should really opt for one in the evening. I also want to discover and explore some parks here. But I am finding that there is NO TIME WHATSOEVER with studying.

So-what is class all about?
Well, to begin with, we are super super super accelerated. While that's really nice for class time, covering a chapter/lesson a day is kinda killing with the homework, the memorization, and the kanji. We have kanji almost every day with tests also every day. There are 4 levels of the program. And while I thought I would be in the 1st level and start from scratch again- NOPE. They put me in the 2nd level which started with lesson 14.
I was only confident about the vocab/grammar/etc up to chapter 6, grammar up to 10.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

I've done lessons before 14 before, and I'm familiar with the grammar that we are covering...but bringing it back is like sticking needles into my brain and picking at pieces of it. It's REALLY HARD. Main goal is NOT to burn out. I'm pretty confident I won't. There are things that help with not burning out. Things in school, and a Michael to talk to and ask questions- it's like having yet another teacher! FRIGGIN AWESOME.

So the program- 9-3:30, 6 periods with a lunch break in the middle. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays we have elective classes. We were allowed a private 1 on 1 class, semi private class, call seminar (they have the program online as well, and here you work in that program and have 1 on 1 speaking time with the teacher) and general elective (choosing between reading/listening, kanji, etc). I opted for call seminar and then private lesson on Tuesday, Reading/listening on Wednesday, and then a semi private class where we talk about culture on Friday. I have thus far experience the call seminar, private lesson, and reading/listening. The call seminar was a bit silly- it's hard when you are jumping chapter to chapter within a day...it's not with the same teachers, and it's just an extension of what you could be doing at home. I haven't really used the online resource at home much yet but I intend to once I find an area on campus where I can connect to the internet and work. The private lesson was SO HELPFUL. While class time is practically private as there are only 2 students including me at my level, the one on one helped so much especially since we reviewed things prior to lesson 14. I kept apologizing profusely for my poor Japanese, and my awesome teacher reassured me that I should not apologize- if I didn't make mistakes she would be out of a job :P She was a lot of fun, but I still felt like an idiot stumbling through speaking. It takes me a while to formulate sentences when conversing with people in english... so no wonder this is damn hard. Reading and listening was awesome. Granted all we did was sit and read to ourselves BUT there are books specifically for our levels that we use, and some of them come with CDs so that you can shadow read. I was surprised how much I could in fact follow and understand- enough to bawl at the story about the hachi statue in shibuya. I'm seriously wearing my heart on my sleeve so to speak... oh hormones. Anyway, I'd love to go to the bookstore and just read through books to see if I can understand and use as practice-but OMG WHEN DO I HAVE THE TIME??!?!??!?
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

So regular classes are actually very nicely structured. In the previous program, SILAC, there was a lot of nonsense practice. Silly games we would play, lots of mistakes on the teacher's part, whatnot. That program is geared for people who do short term stay in 2 week modules. Usually most stay for 2 or 4 weeks, and a lot of the population don't take their studies very seriously. UJP cuts right to the chase and covers things in detail until we understand it. The teachers are not afraid to speak english to us so that we get the grammar. Our main teacher, Shimezu, is AMAZING. Explains things well-he's awesome overall. Male teachers tend to be less intimidating to me so that especially nice as it doesn't make me nervous/upset when I don't get something. We get other teachers as well- I don't like them as much as they tend to prefer to stick to only Japanese which doesn't work so well when explaining grammar with a limited vocabulary. But overall it has been so far a really good experience with the teachers and lessons for each day.

My schedule for this week.

Weather wise- I think Chicago is getting all the rain. It hasn't been that bad at all rain-wise. I got soaked a few times, but it doesn't rain all day, and the sun has come out several times. When it isn't going to rain within a few hours the weather is just beautiful. Cool, comfortable, and the breeze from the sea is so soothing. It's still humid, but not horrible.

Right now it's almost 11:30 pm and I still have a lot of hmwk to do- been mostly studying/catching up and now realizing how much I have to do for tonight....gahhhh I wish I could just study and not do hmwk :(

But hopefully for now this entry will do :P I hope to post shorter ones as time goes on.

Before I leave- my room!


Snazzy snazzy my side of the room. I just had to decorate. Positive reinforcement ftw.

Beautiful tapestries from Eri Kamijo and Kira Imai. I have some postcards from Kira Imai as well that I picked up at MaruiOne. I loooove these tapestries.


MY NEON BIKE. Rented from Yamasa directly. Cost me an arm and a leg but at least when I turn it in I get 9,000 back (SHINKANSEN TICKET!)

And now I run off to finish my homework...

Today I discovered that earthquakes make me motion sick.

Crazy things- already bought some goodies that were on the list of buying- hitting up Nippori for a little then coming back to change into rorita. Will probably write in extensive detail about trip when I am in Okazaki.

Bit of a delay...

If I had left in time, I would be arriving in approximately 2 hours.

Nope :( Leaving a day later- tomorrow at 8:40!

I managed to get rather sick the past few days, and yesterday it got worse. Hit nearly 103 degrees. Luckily after a lot of sleep and medicating, it went down and right now I'm feeling much better minus the huge crinks in my neck.

So I only get 2 days, 3 nights in Tokyo- Saturday late afternoon, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday early early morning. I'd like to get onto the Shinkansen by 12:30 or 1 on Tuesday with my suitcases.

All packed in two large suitcases, a carry on and laptop case. My carry on is a bit breezier inside then ever before, so that's nice. I have a bag that works as a third check in as well for the trip back (so goodies? :D)

Pretty excited now that I'm feeling much much better. Now to go and sleep!