Happy Birthday Mum Post :)

Mum's birthday was yesterday :) Happy birthday and Congrats! Also, I hope you get better from your sickness.

Anyway I'll start with George's birthday last Wednesday. A few days ago, we were discussing what to get him... but there was no conclusion. I remembered that he liked Amazake, but that isn't a lot. So I went to ask him directly, and he said he wanted soccer gloves or a wallet. I'm not great at choosing gloves, so the safer (and most likely the longer-lasting) option would be the wallet.

So, I got a list of people who wanted to chip in, and went shopping after school the next day. I scoured the big mall, "Aeon", for wallets ranging from the cheap canvas type to the really high class leather wallets. Eventually after having a look at all that was available, I figured that the best thing = simplicity. So I got him a plain high quality leather brown wallet. Without the contributions of 7 people, that would have been a tough buy despite the simplicity of the design. Afterwards I grabbed a few letters (so people can write more personalised messages, and also because there weren't any suitable cards), and on my way back I passed by Liquor Mountain to pick up a bottle of Amazake.

The party itself was quite nice :) Again at Misfits, so you can pretty much guess what went on... Ayaka, George's new GF, was there, so I am quite sure he was happy. Misaki wanted to concentrate on her presentation, but ended up going anyway. lol

Thursday... was a full day of school.

Friday... In the evening, I went with Misaki to her University's Orchestra's Concert at Sakae. Apparently it was at the biggest concert hall in Nagoya, which was about one third the size of the Opera House's hall (according to my memory). She felt that I wasn't dressed appropriately, so before it started, I jumped into Uniqlo and made a speed purchase, changed, and went. lol :P

The performance was pretty good, and it didn't cost any money for us either! It reminded me of my High School tromboning days... but it was quite long, so I was dozing off half way through one of the slow movements ><. That doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it tho! Afterwards, we went to join the other bunch of guys for karaoke. It was a group of 10-11 people, and it was nice to have so many friends gathered together :) Lots of them left early tho. 11 was reduced to 9, 9 to 5, 5 to 3... and the 3 of us (Kyoji, Misaki and I) stayed until the end (about 4:30am). We enjoyed the unlimited cups of hot cocoa, corn soup and juice whilst dying from exhaustion at the same time. :P Saturday- After I got home around 5, we went to sleep... but I had to wake up 4 hours later because I had English to teach >< It went alright, despite my visibly drowsy eyes. So that went until 12. That afternoon, there was a farewell/graduation party/ceremony thing happening at Nanzan University because all the exchange students there are going home ><. So, when I got home, I just had a shower, got some rest, and then headed out together with Misaki to Nanzan. When we got there, all the sushi and… ‘good stuff’ was gone… >< So, I was just munching on salad and biscuits etc. while taking photos with, and saying goodbye to some friends that I probably will never see again  We continued doing that at their dorm, until around 6. Later that night, we were planning a yakiniku party at the party room downstairs. So I had to help George buy a lot of meat and drinks (as well as a very nice hot plate ;)) Lots of people turned up (15 or so), and it was a smokey but fun night ;) The next day was a study day… After I finished doing my part, I helped my girlfriend with her English study. Fell asleep halfway through tho. It’s getting really hot and humid here in Nagoya! >< Also, it is raining quite a lot as well… Apparently it will be the rainy season soon (sometime next month)… which I will not be looking forward to because I hate the rain so much. Especially when I have to ride a bike to get to school in the rain!! Last night was a Nabe (hotpot) party at the Nanzan dorms, where we went to say goodbye to Melinda (from America). We will miss them so much ><
Also, it was good thing that the rain stopped before I left to go there. Lol
Today, I don’t have class, but I was supposed to meet a teacher at second period, but she didn’t turn up. Then I taught English again… then… went to the gym, where I met Rina and Nana (who I really haven’t seen much of recently). Nana is going to come over in about an hour to watch a movie or something. She doesn’t seem to be too positive about her job hunting, and is pretty depressed. So I’ll do my best to cheer her up !
Alright! That’s the wrap for this week. Laters~

Mother's Day Special- 2010 Jan-May Summary :D

Since it is Mother’s day, I will make the first post since January, almost half a year ago! Mum has been asking for it for a long time. lol

This also means that I will be trying to cover as much as possible from then until now. This includes the end-of-semester-exam period, a very long holiday that lasted from February to the middle of April, and the first few weeks of my second semester on exchange. So I’ll try and make this as organised as possible to help you guys follow J I’ll try my best to remember as much as possible, and I’ll use my loosely noted-on 2010 schedule to be my memory aid.

January

January was an extremely busy month.

There were numerous people’s birthdays which we celebrated. Rina Kimura turned 21 on the 13^th, and Jesse Noble turned 22 on the 15^th. For Rina’s I recall that she wasn’t expecting anything, and we surprised her (as we had with so many other people). Then we just were having a small house party at Rui’s place, which involved several tequila shots, but overall I think it was a pretty calm party. Jesse’s was held at Shooter’s Bar at Fushimi, which is a foreigner’s bar. All the waiters and waitresses there spoke English, and it was pretty crowded. The food we had there was pizza and something I can’t remember very well, but I recall it was really nice. There was also a huge range of beers, where George spent over 2000 yen on beers alone. There was one of those that I recall even to this day, as the beer that had a after-taste which was similar to SAUSAGES!  Not the average American sausage, but one of those gourmet sausages… it is pretty hard to describe. But if any of you want to try it, it is called HoeGaarden (Garden of Hoes! LOL) 

Weird name, weird taste, weird beer. Weird weird weird. Also weird to me that George didn’t understand why I said it tasted like sausages.

So yes, there were celebrations during January, but this was coupled with a lot of stress. As you know, my university here doesn’t teach in English at all, and I had a tough time understanding the content (especially for Japanese History, and Gender Studies). Actually, Gender Studies was just a report about Contraception. So, that was just a matter of doing my research, and typing it up in Japanese. The hardest bit about that one was that the essay was required to be 4000 words. >< History on the other hand, was supposed to be based upon material given out in class. Unfortunately, these materials were all in 古文 which is ancient Japanese text- which I can NOT read. So, I had to ask the teacher about that, and he asked me to go to the library, get a book, and write about the stuff we learnt in class (which was about the naming system and the laws/regulations attached to that). I got the book, but I also did my own research and got Ooba-san from the International Centre to help me out. At this time, my tutor, Nana, who I thought would be there to help me through this much-needed time, was too busy with her own affairs. So I had to battle it out by my own means. This kind of pissed me off, but, it’s okay now.

The month after, when the results were released, I was happy that my hard work paid off. Out of the 8 subjects I took, 7 were As and 1 was a B (gender studies). ^^

February

Family Trip

In February, the Yuen family came to pay me a visit- and travel around Japan. Actually they came in the end of January, but we went to Hokkaido together in February. We took a long train ride to Sapporo, and just did various things around there. The streets were icy, and everything was freezing cold. I even ended up buying a ninja-looking kind of mask, which covered the whole face except for the eyes.

Alex got the best beanie in the world...

Very useful when we went to the snow, but eventually, even the mask froze over because the moisture it trapped solidified. It was very uncomfortable by the end of that day. Oh, by ‘that day’ I mean the day where my brother, Alex, and I went to Teine Highlands.

It was a fun day, but it started off pretty shaky due to insufficient planning. We went to some station (whose name I have totally forgotten), in expectations for a bus that only existed during a period in December’s post Christmas. So, I thought there was no way to get to the highlands at that time. But after asking a nice lady to help us, we finally made our way there via a more complicated, but also complicated way. After arriving we did our gear rentals etc. and bought our tickets. I was on the snowboard, Alex was on the skis. 

The lift pass supposedly ended at 6pm. So, I intended on staying until that time, which in the end turned out to be a bad idea because there were no buses operating at that time from the place where we hired the stuff… So, it was chaos when we realised we were stranded. On top of that, after taking off my stuff I realised that I lost my mobile, so I couldn’t ring our parents to tell them that we were stranded/late, and I lost all my contacts~ VERY inconvenient. Lucky for us, there were still people in the office there, and they offered to help us get home, and they said that they’d help me look for my phone in the morning. (but it was never found).

On the way back, we stopped for a night at Hakodate, and then a few hours at Tokyo, before returning to Nagoya. I got a new sim card, and put it in another phone. Therefore I had a phone that worked with the same number/mail, but no contacts...

On that night, we also had a family all-night karaoke~ (Which is very rare!) o.o, and they went to Hong Kong the next morning.

Karaoke Week

That week was a pretty crazy week, because Momoka’s b’day was the next day. We went to Red Rocks (An Australian Bar), then for a Mexican dinner, and went for a few hours of Karaoke. 2 days after, we went Karaoke all night with Aurelie and her friends, Anna and Takuma. So, overall that week I almost pulled 24 hrs of Karaoke. That is a record. Lol

Also, we went to watch AVATAR in 3D, which I thought was a very good movie, despite the number of people that say that the story is an unoriginal rip-off of Princess Mononoke and Pocahontas.  

Misfits

In February we hanged out a lot with Momoka, Koala (Misaki) and Misaki. We went to play Basketball occasionally, Snooker (I found one in Nagoya!), Karaoke, Bowling, Clubbing, and drinking.

One day, we decided to pay a visit to a bar in Imaike called Misfits, because it was advertised on a Gaijin Magazine. This would be the start of a long ritual of getting drunk every Wednesday. Why? Because it was 1000yen ALL YOU CAN DRINK – whatever they have on their shelves, for 3 hours! It was an easy ritual to keep during the holidays, but even now when we have school, we are trying our best to be punctual to our weekly alcohol-class. J It’s not just a place to get drunk. It is also a great place to bond with the people we already know, and meet new people! It is almost my favourite place in Nagoya. We’ve been basically inviting everyone we know and everyone we’ve been meeting to come…

March

Haircut

So, I haven't had a haircut since the last time I said I had a haircut... which was in October. It was really really long, so much to the extent that I could munch on my fringe. lol So, I decided to go and use my 50% coupon for Ray Fields once again, and get another haircut. This time, I wanted to do something new, so I went for the perm as well- this photo was about.. 2 weeks after I cut it. In the beginning, it was so curly that no matter what I did, I could not manage it.

Before:  (Tied it up, before I went clubbing lol)

After:

Now (2 months after), it is much more manageable~ just like before I permed it, but more wavy. 

DDR

So, Misaki was going to go to America/Italy, so she wasn’t going to be home for a while. And she mentioned that she had a Gamecube and a Mario DDR mat at home~ Ingmar, Rui and Sayaka were travelling around Vietnam, Laos and Thailand at the time- so there wasn’t anyone downstairs to get annoyed at persistent stomping. So, I asked if I could borrow her games :) It was a wonderful way to kill time, while getting a pretty heavy work out without leaving the house. I got AAs on all the very hard songs, and I was trying to do the same for super hard, but it is easier said than done. 

It’s still at my place now, but since the guys are back downstairs I haven’t been using it recently.

St, Patricks Day

St. Patricks Day is the day of the green Irish beer. Had to wear something green so I went green shopping- got a T-shirt and some shoes for a total of 1900yen. Guess where we celebrated it? That’s right, Misfits. It was an awesome night. Lol that is all. 

Lan Parties etc.

When things get boring, and you don’t really want to leave the house. We go back and seek the basic forms of entertainment. Counter strike, Call of Duty, MMORPGS. We spent quite a few days on these things, too bad my computer is hopeless when it comes to staying cool.

Hanami

As the end of the month approached, the Sakura had begun to bloom in Nagoya. It is a season which represents Japan’s beauty, and it is a vital component of Japanese culture. Hanami – literally, Flower watching, typically involves setting up a mat/tarp under the Sakura trees, and having snacks and drinks (a picnic of sorts) while enjoying the scenery. The Sakura only blossoms for 2-3 weeks, and then the petals start falling from the trees, so it is only a really short period that we can enjoy this. Therefore, it was really really crowded.  But it was good experience, and we took a lot of nice photos, despite the fact that my camera isn’t as good as most. Lol

April

Rui’s 22^nd birthday party was at … Misfits! We had plenty of great times here~ and we got to meet a whole new mob of Nanzan people from France, America and whatnot. These guys are party animals, and extremely fun to talk to. lol

Other than that...

School started. Although I tried so hard to get in touch with the commerce department, subject approvals are still pending after the due date was past… This semester I won't be taking any Japanese language courses. Instead, I will be taking all normal courses, and general education courses taught in Japanese. 3 of these are related to history (one of which is Art History- which I sat in the other day, and the lecturer put up slides of DaVinci and other old old european artistic genius' works, then asked us to sketch them o.o wow, I really didn't expect this kind of class to be available in Meishidai. The report would be more history related tho *sigh*. The other courses I am taking are economics/management related, and culture related. I'll try my best to get the same results as I achieved last semester!

George moved into the dorms with us~ after heading back to Taiwan, for a week. It seems like he is getting a scholarship of 100k a month! Since he's such a nice guy, he will be spending it liberally for the sake of his friends as well as himself :)

So, we are doing our best to balance study and partying~

And, I am trying to spend as much time as I can with my girl :))

May

Golden Week One-day trip

We headed up to shirakawagou, which was famous for its uniquely shaped buildings. 

There was a huge river running along it, which I guess where the name Shirakawagou comes from 白川郷・・・white river town. The people who went were George, Yuka, Jun and I. We went to Takayama as well… which was nice and traditional, with lots and temples and all. But, we didn’t end up going to an Onsen, which I thought was what Takayama and the area was famous for- and that was a disappointment and a big shame.  :(

Sorry, the detail has been trailing off because I’ve been writing for so long- ~

The exchange students studying at Nanzan are about to leave us at the end of this month because their school schedules are different from ours- and they finish earlier. It's going to be really sad, but we can't be sad yet. There should be more good times to come before they head home to their respective countries !!

 With more luck, I may start making regular posts again-!


Happy Mother’s Day!!

Birthday :D

As some of you may know, it was my birthday 2 days ago - turned 21!

I was kind of intending to do something, but since it was that time of year- everyone seemed to be coming back from their trips overseas and to other parts of Japan exactly on the 4th, so it made things a bit too hard to plan. So I kind of gave up planning anything, and I thought I'd just ad lib it. On top of that, I had Younu's room keys (because he was coming back from a trip back to his home in Korea), so I couldn't leave the house until he came back - otherwise he'd be locked out of his own place.

So the morning went by pretty fast... very uneventful, just a normal day at home. Had breakfast, had lunch etc...

Then I decided to send out a text to everyone, just to let them know that they were free to come over and hang anytime. However the only replies I got were from a select few who had work etc., and one reply saying that she'll come over in the evening. lol

I expected SOMEONE to come, however noone really did :( Oh! Ingmar and Rui (who just came back from Shikoku) rang the doorbell and gave me birthday wishes, but they were 'busy' apparently, so they couldn't come in and chat. But they said that they'd come back later, and have some drinks.

After that I was waitin' and waiting'....

.
.

.
.
Get a message from Ingmar: "DUDE I SHOP STH, THEN I COME UP TO U, N LETS GET TO DRINK"
So I tell him to buy some food too- :P

.
.

It was 7pm, noone had come, and I was feeling pretty hungry. But I was thinking, somethings gonna happen, I bet they're all gonna come as a group or something so I better not eat yet. lol

.
.

.
.

7:15pm, the doorbell rings
I go to answer it, and there stood a pizza delivery guy with 2 large pizzas and some hash browns!
I was like... right, what do they want me to do with this pizza haha...
Then he revealed a piece of paper on the pizza box which had writing on it. And that told me to open the box. Inside the box, was another piece of paper, which said come down to the Parry Room (Saya's t looks like an r) with me (the pizza). So for a moment I was thinking, what and where is the Parry room... then it came to me, OHH PARTY room! xD

So I headed down, bumped into Yuji on the way down- who seemed to be oblivious of what was happening lol.

When I arrived, I entered the room- it was dark, but the lights came on, and everyone was there lol
It was nice =) Thank you guys a lot! ^^

We had the pizza; lots of alcohol; donuts fresh from korea; and Saya brought her Takoyaki machine/utensils (what do you call it :S) so, we had Takoyaki. But, the thing is, we didn't have any octopus, so it really shouldn't be called takoyaki :P There was all sorts of things put inside the balls tho.
It was great !

Apparently everyone who got the text (and everyone there were recipients of my text [luckily:P]) were asked not to reply to me -_- so they didn't reply on purpose!! Bitches :X haha

Anyway, Rina and Nana were missing in action- and they came around 11, after ignoring my attempts to contact them by phone >.< But they brought cake :D

Got some funky pressies as well from everybody! ^^ Thank you all!!

Afterwards we went to 'Yu-yake', the karaoke place about 1 minute away. At first there were 8, and by the end (6am) there were 4 of us left, everyone was tired, the floor was sticky, and the room was a mess (probably Rui and Ayumu's doing). lol

Aurelie went home by train, and one Misaki wasn't allowed home so early because her parents would get angry. So both Misaki's stayed for another 3 hrs, chatting etc. before they left. I.e. finally could go to sleep at 9am-ish. But strangely enough, I wasn't that tired.

It was a super night everyone! Awesome fun ^^ Thank you guys for everything =]

Btw. Someone left a pink beanie with bears on each ear in my possession... who does it belong to???

New Years @ Fukui!

This new years was spent at Nana's hometown (Fukui　福井） which is about 3hrs North-East of Nagoya. Although I say it is 3 hours, because of heavy snow etc. it took me about 6 hrs to get there >

Anyway when I got to Fukui, I met her dad, and we drove another 30mins or so to get to their house.
When I got there, I met the family and they gave me dinner - sushi and yakitori (in actual fact, it was the first time I've had sushi since coming here because of the $) lol! Soo good-★! Also had beer and snacks whilst in the kotatsu in front of the TV..... just kept eating > <

And that was where we did the countdown- which was an EXILE countdown -_-; (A Japanese band, where there are 2 singers and a ridiculous number of dancers) But good nevertheless :)


 The next day everyone woke past midday, and we had お節料理(new years food) for breakfast (brunch), and there was lots of Mochi in the soup- which I couldn't finish :S But it was so tasty :D Also I receive an　お年玉 too! !  :O thankyou thankyou thankyou  ^  ^

 Then we drove to the temple for 初詣 which is what the Japanese people do on New Years. It was freezing > < And when we were there, I wasn't exactly sure what was going on... There was a monk and he was in front of a fire, hitting a bell with a little stick. lol There was also a guy drumming on the Taiko and guys chanting into a mic I assume, because the sound was coming out from a speaker above us. I think they were blessing some wooden planks with names of families who donated to the temple by waving them over the fire - but yeah, really not too sure what was going on. . .  When we left that place, Nana and I did an おみくじ and I got a 大吉 (very lucky fortune) :D Let's hope it's true !

We also went to see the sea, because Fukui is on the western shore of Japan. + The place we went to apparently is a famous cliff where people commit suicide o.O! (1 person/month average). It was freezing even more so there, the wind was fierce, and there was a bit of rain. Pretty brutal waves too... Nana used to work in a shop over there, so she said hi to her former boss, and borrowed some umbrellas temporarily- because we didn't have enough :P

Kouki (nana's bro) stayed at home 'cause he was tired and he went to the temple the night before. So afterwards we went to pick him up from home, and then we headed to their grandparent's place for dinner. There we had a feast, drank a lot, and talked for a good while-! I'm so sure I put on a few kilos during that short stay >< Gotta work it off when we get back to school. lol

Yupz- and then headed back home the next morning :( Was such a short stay~

But, it was super fun, and I am so glad that I was invited :D
Well that was my Japanese family experience for this exchange I guess :P Thank you so much Nana! (and the Takayama family) ^^　

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本当にお世話になりました！！ありがとう！

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