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!!