sunday. august 15. 2004
music| hellsing - just my imagination
back finally at home for good... at least until school starts. then it'll be fun in the ellipse ^_^ can't wait!
nyway, the trip was a lot of fun... though i think i'm either sick or getting sick from just not enough rest... hmm let see...
last satuday, we landed in vegas, met up with dad and headed for the hualapai reservation... somewhere in arizona near the grand canyons... on the way, we passed the hoover dam... oh how special... and then we drove and drove and drove... i don't know how people out west (and i mean pretty much anything past the mississipi) can stand having to drive forever to get anywhere... i think we spend more time driving than we did in a hotel.... anyway, we finally got to the lodge in the reservation in the dark of the night.. and i mean the dark... no street lights, no building lights... no lights period... i was so scared and very very thankful that i didn't have to drive. i hate night driving here in the east and the dark here is nothing compared to what we had there. wel, the next day, we went whitewater moterboating down the colorado river in the grand canyons. i had been hoping for real rafting but... it was fun nonetheless... needless to say, we all got very very wet... after the motorboating, we were helicopter flown to the top of the grand canyon where we got to return to the hotel riding on a school bus for two hours on a dirt road... not very fun but on wel.. whatcan you do... but i did enjoy the boating. ^^ after that tho, we drove some more and got to sedona
the next morning, we got up at 5 and went ballooning. it was fantastic! sooo much fun ^^ and then everyone got a champagne breakfast and i had my first mimosa ^_^ ah... broadening my horizons ^^ hehe
that afternoon, we went on a jeep ride in the park land near sedona... unfortunately, i don't really remember the name... i think it might have been diamond creek... but who knows. it was really fun but also uncomfortable and scary as anything... i had no idea a jeep could do some of the things we did that day... but the best part was, the jeep was barbie pink! (dudh, the tour was called 'pink jeep tours' ^^)... my brother had a bit of problem with that...
tuesday we were at the grand canyons again. we spent the day looking around by ourselves. then in the late afternoon, we got another jeep tour... except this one was more educational rather than let's scare/surprise the heck out of the people. the guide took us around the woods around the grand canyon and showed us some cool things. but the best was the sunset. as part of the tour, the guide took us to an over look on the grand canyon just in time to see the sunset. it was amazing. so peaceful and pretty. definitely one of my favorite moments.. after that we headed back to the hotel and tried elk meat... really tasty.. i think.. we all ended up fighting even before the food came out so i don't really know... but i guess if i found it tasty when i really didn't feel like eating, it must have been good right?... but yeah... sometimes, i think the family should never ever spend any long amount of time together in the same room... it leads to explosions...
the next day, we went to the navajo reservation to see some ancient hopi ruins... not very exciting... altho, we had the hardest time figuring out what time it was at the reservation... the guidebook we had said that the reservation didn't so day lights savings time and was one hour behind everyone... that would mean, my 2pm would be their 1 pm right?... wel, it turns out the guide book had it all wrong and they were actully ahead... sigh.. that meant that we missed the tour we had planned on going... so all we could do was look at the ruins from far away.. oh wel, i was tired of it all anyway.
thursday found us at bryce canyon where we started the day doing a trail ride... i loved it... probably cause i love horses ^^;... if you add a horse to any activity, no matter how awful it is, i'll probably enjoy it.. at least a bit ^^.. while i did like the riding, i didn't really like bryce canyon. it's ugly.. and the hoodoos that make it so special.. they rather turn me off..
but after that was zion canyon. now zion was cool. i liked it a lot... unfortunately, we didn't have a great deal of time so we didn't see much of it. i would really have enjoyed spending a few days there... maybe later in my life
that night, we got into vegas. we stayed at the hilton, which isn't one of the fancy theme hotels so that was kinda sad... i would have liked to stay in the bell-something hotel. when we got up the next day, we spent the entire day just looking around at all the hotels there... while i think the hotels are cool, i can't stand the casino sections... sooo noisy, tacky and just a bad idea in all... but looking around was fun. however, vegas really doesn't wake up til the evening, which i kinda like.. but only if i were there with friends or by myself.. with parents, that just doesn't work... and while i might have liked to go around during the evening, we saw mystere, a cirque de soleil production. it was fair amazing....very impressive. i was glad i saw it ^^
oh but one thing i learned on the trip... never trust the guidebooks.. or rather, never trust just one guidebook... the darn guidebook we had was awful. it was for 2004 but some of the things in it had ended two years ago and then it makes mistakes about time zones and other stuff like that...
searching for chronos @ 9:24 pm
friday. august 06. 2004
music| beauty and the beast - belle
sigh... back in america... back at home.. how dull... hehe... wel, it's not all bad, i could use a break.. in fact, i'll enjoy the rest. i haven't gotten much sleep in the last three days ^^;
tuesday was the last day i spent in tokyo... and japan, for that matter.. nyway, we started the day out by going to tasaki shinju, a cultured pearl store, where they give a short lecture on how they make cultured pearls... the lecture was interesting but all it made me realize was that cultured pearls really don't have that much real 'pearl' to it... most of it is the seed.. how sad :( but i got a little pendant anyway ^^; it was duty free and just so cute.. and i needed something to console me for the loss of my hairsticks... ^^;... what happened was that, we had gone to tasaki thinking that it would just be a self done tour, like at a museum, but it turned out that they only had it at certain times and we had gotten there about an hour too early... so even though an hour isn't much, we decided to try and see something nearby... wel, it turned out that the only thing really nearby was the tokyo imperial palace but it wasn't really near at all... but we decided to chance it and rush to the imperial palace... i mean, i had kinda wanted to spend more time on it cause i had wanted to see the gardens but since we couldn't see anymore than just the gate of the palace anyway, i decided the garden wasn't really worth waiting to see. so off we went to the imperial palace. we had just timed everything correctly and was rushing to the subway when this american dude asks us to take a picture for him. we figure, 'what the heck, why not. shouldn't take that long. right?'... wrong. very very wrong. the guy asked us to take multiple pictures of the same scene, just in case... argh!!... we were just glad he didn't have a digital that he could check and ask us to take more pictures... anyway, because he held us up, we were running late. as a result, we had to run to the subway station and during that run, the sticks came out of my hair and i tucked them into my pockets, thinking that would keep them safe until we got to the station and i could put my hair back up... wel, that turned out to be a mistake... i get to the station and find that the hairsticks had fallen out...... and they were brand new too ;____;.... but we *did* make it back to the store on time and got to see the lecture
after that, we got a ride to shinjuku on the company bus (provided for customers... most expensive bus i've taken) where we got on the subway... we were trying to figure out a place to eat when we passed by a kaiten sushi place and decided out of the blue to go there...i wasn't expecting much from the place since it was in the subway station but it was really good... i guess the japanese just know how to do sushi ^^
with our tummies pleasantly full, we headed next to akihabara. electronics, electronics, and more electronics... ^_^.. but sadly did not buy a thing... we also didn't spend much time there.... but a thing i noticed that i was surprised at: the non-popularity of mp3 players... i don't get it...
next was the sensoji/ kannon temple at asakusa. the way to the temple had all sorts of souvenir stores on it so we spent a bit of time looking but not a whole lot. the temple was really nice. very good condition compared to any of the other temples i had seen on the trip.. i guess it helps to have soooo many visitors. we tried not to spend too much time there cause we wanted to hit kappabashi street where they sold the plastic display foods and other restaurant things but when we wre done with themple, it was already past 5 so we crossed kappabashi off our list.
our last stop was roppongi and i have to say that roppongi is my favorite district in tokyo. very much more exciting than any of the other districts. i found that places like shinjuku and harajuku are really mostly shopping districts... or maybe i just didn't see the right places?... but roppongi is more a mix of shopping and entertainment. it helps, i think, in that roppongi is suppose to be a miniature village(or something lik) on it's own... nyway, we walked the streets for a while, just looking and then we came across a store called don quixote where they claimed to have everything and anything for sale and, oh boy, were they right... they had clothes, electronics, makeup, jewelry, weapons, pots and pans, children's toys, adult toys.. yup... that last part gave us a lot to gawk at... the stuff ran from spencer's gifts type of joke stuff to really serious bondage stuff... kinda scary... expecially cause it was all mixed up with other more harmless stuff. however, we did find this really really funny yet really really kinda gross thing... an thong for guys with an elephant's face in front... with a rather prominent nose.... .... it was near the costume section... but i don't know who would wear *that* as a costume... if you're really intereted in what it looked like, i do have a picture of it in the photo gallery... we were laughing soo hard while taking the picture... i think we scared some people ^^; but it *was* fun
after we left don quixote, we were looking around for a restaurant when we came across this dinner theatre place. jane really wanted to see it so we sent in to see when and how much it was. the show with dinner was a bit pricy for us... so we were trying to decide what to do, cause we had only an hour or so before the next show and we were rather hungry, and i guess the people thought we were sort of worried about the price cause they lowered the price to 4000 yen for the show and (non-alcoholic) drink (from the regular 5000 yen for show only) so we were happy. after that, we just looked for the nearest place to eat that wasn't a mcdonalds. we ended up going to this tiny resaturant specializing in osaka food. we had no idea what was good so we asked for recommendations and ended up eating pig ears with scallion and something else with rice. it was good ^^ and we were able to finish eating in 30 min, leaving plenty of time to get to the dinner show. perfect :)
i guess i'm somewhat of a snob when it comes to entertainement and i was somewhat skeptical about the show but it was rather good. i enjoyed it a great deal ^^ it was a spoof on 'kill bill' and while i haven't seen the movie yet, it was thoroughly enjoyable. but one thing that bothered me as we were leaving cause i just couldn't figure it out... the person playing the main character... man or woman?... cause he/she was playing a female role but was mad muscular, had a really deep voice, and really sort of just looked like a man with long hair... and one of the other actresses had actually told the audience that she was really a he... but the person under question hadn't said it and there were actresses in the play... so what was he/she?... it really doesn't matter but.. i'm just really really curious... it doesn't help that i really thought the person was male and jane thought the person was female... though she wasn't sure as well...
last for the night was a visit to roppongi tower where they have an observation deck open until 1am. i really wanted to see tokyo at night so even though jane thought the price was a bit steep, she humored me and we went up. tokyo really is beautiful at night... as are most cities but tokyo tower at night is very nice... something kinda cute. while we were up there, all we saw were couples sitting together looking at the city... really cute since it is a rather romantic sight, but i don't think i would like it... too many others right next to you! i'd want a little privacy...
we stayed there until around midnight cause the subways stop running around 12:30am. we thought we were making good time but what we hadn't counted on was not being able to find the subway station!... we wasted about 10 mins trying to look for the station we had arrived at, but no luck. instead, we found out that we had walked halfway between the station we wanted and the next one!... so i sort of paniced and we randomly chose one and just sort of started running to it.. ^^; we *did* make it in time and caught the subway headed to the hotel. what we didn't do was make it to our destination.... who would have thought that the time they have written down is the time that all trains stop moving! not the time the last train makes the trip!! argh... but we were half way to the hotel so it was better than nothing... at that point, i had very little cash on me so i was thinking that i'd have to walk back.. *shudder*.. i wasn't planning on sleeping that night since the plane was in the morning and i still had to pack but i didn't want to walk all night!
fortunately, taxis take credit card (joy!) so we took a taxi back to the hotel. all in all, a happy ending.
once back at the hotel, jane and i packed and decided that since we weren't sleeping that night, we might as well go to tsukiji fish market as soon as the subways opened again at 5. we had planned on going the morning before but we both over slept... oops ^^;... anyway, tsukiji was very interesting. i had nooo idea some fish got that big... whales maybe, but not fish! we didn't stay long cause we felt sort of bad doing the tourist thing to all these people rushing aroung trying to get stuff done and we didn't have too much time... so we left the market after looking only a bit but on the way back to the subway station, we went and had a sushi breakfast. fantastic, fabulous, the best sushi i've ever had.... sigh.. i wish i could have more ;___;
wel, after that, we hurried up and caught the plane and was back in the good old usa... now i just need to get use to the time zone... and i've decided that i hate travelling and planes... someone has to figure out a instant teleportation thing...
but somehow, i don't think anyone will invent one intime for me tomorrow... the family leaves for a week long vacation in the west... i'd rather not travel anymore but i guess that's not fair... sigh.. more plane time. argh..
but first, we have to pick up my bro from his summer camp in new hampshire... and i'm already tired.. argh
searching for chronos @ 10:33 pm
monday. august 02. 2004
music| kaggra - narukotoba
today jane went to visit some friends near narita, so i was all alone... hehe. it was fun. i got to do the things i wanted that jane doesn't want to do so that was good. now we can spend time doing the mutually desired sightseeing ^^
but the day actually started out with a call to one of mom's friends who works at a financial firm in tokyo... she suggested that i meet him and get a brief intro to his work place so i did call but i'm glad we couldn't meet. this is playtime ^^
so after that, i decided i should get some educational yet fun things done so i headed off to ryogoku where the edo tokyo museum and the kokugikan which is the sumo hall... originally i wanted to see the morning practice but i heard that all the sumo people are somewhere else so there are no morning practices.. booo.. but i wanted to see the place anyway. as i was already going to the edo tokyo museum next door, i decided i should drop by... wel, when i got there, it turned out that the museum was closed.. so the only place to see was the sumo hall... sigh.. bad planning on my part.
next was ginza. even though i wasn't really looking to buy anything, i figured since i did come to tokyo, i should see the biggest shopping area and all that... wel, it was rather just like manhattan with a lot of highrises and 5th av-ish stores.. as i was there already, i wanted to find a book or music store. since the place is such a large shopping area, i assumed that there would be one of those around... i mean, even 5th av. has a barnes and nobles on it... but alas, i walked and walked and found none.... maybe i was just looking for the wrong signs... wel, by the time i decided to give up, i had reached a point where i was just a hop, skip and a jump away from tokyo tower. though i hadn't planned on going there, since i was so close and was still early in the day, i decided to drop by...
that turned out to be a huuuuge paint in the butt. the station that i had thought was close to tokyo tower wasn't very close so i had to do a lot of walking. normally that wouldn't matter but today i had been walking for a few hours already and my legs were tired, so that was no fun... but i did get to see zojoji temple on the way and, as the day was clear, i got to see a lot of tokyo. it's a rather pretty city with a lot of interesting buildings... some of which i wonder what drug the designer was on when he was thinking up the idea.. ^^
after tokyo tower, i kinda wanted to go back to the hotel cause i was so tired but i had one more stop i had to make.. a large music store. unfortunately, i had yet found one during the day so i had to go to the only one i had seen in tokyo... all the way to shibuya, which is on the other side of tokyo to where we're styaing T___T... argh... but i did really want kagrra cds and none of the stores i had been in earlier had them so what can a girl do... so i went to shibuya and had a very productive trip... 5 new cds... alllll kagrra.. expensive but worth it ^^;... at least i won't have to get any new cds for a while. right?...
then for dinner, i just picked up some food and ate it in the hotel... it's nice to sit and relax for a while... tho i may go back out and visit the ueno matsuri again.. or not.. a shower and a nap is sounding awfully good right now... but you know what i learned today, the one thing i'm going to miss the most about japan when i get home is going to be the fish egg onigiris... fish egg is soooo good ^_^
searching for chronos @ 7:52 pm
sunday. august 01. 2004
music| x/1999 - subaru
tokyo is a lot of fun ^^ yesterday, we got in at 4-ish to try and make the sumida river fireworks. on subway on the way to asakusa, the place where the fireworks were, we noticed that a lot of people were wearing yukatas and that as we got closer to asakusa, the train was getting really jam packed... it took us a while but we finally realized that they were all people going to the same place we were headed to ^^;... when we got to asakusa, the place was crammed with people... we had to wait in line to get out of the subway ^^;... we spent a bit of time getting food to eat outside cause the weather was soo nice. but when we got outside, we realized that there was absolutely no place to sit in the park area by the river... after worrying about what to do, we just claimed a little patch of ground between all the spread out mats of the people who had arrived earlier... after eating, we decided to try and find a better place to watch the fireworks... the space we had was *only* large enough to fit our butts and scrunched up legs with no room to shift and that just wasn't going to work for the hour wait we had left and the hour and half long show after that... and we couldn't see the sky cause of all the trees and that's just no good for a fireworks show ^^;.. we thought there'd be a nice spot nearby but we ended up walking a bunch and unintentionally ended up on the other side of the river. we had been trying to watch the fireworks on the bridge but when we got there, we were told that the bridge was only for walking and viewing. meaning, no one could stop on the bridge but could try and watch the fireworks while walking slowly across the bridge... that would have been good cause the view would have been spectacular except we were 30 mins too early... and when we got to the otherside, we realized it was a one way only path... sigh.. wel, we finally ended up at a park with a jinja in it and ended up watching the fireworks framed by the temple and trees... i felt it was a very japan moment ^^ very pretty. i was glad we found that place at the end. the view was rather good and the setting was sooo pretty ^^
unfortunately, the fireworks just weren't very spectacular.. i was more impressed with the reunions fireworks, which is kinda sad... shrug... oh wel...
after that, we went to harajuku (part of tokyo where all the teenages go to shop + stuff) cause we thought that it would be lively but it was really empty... i wonder why.. :( but it was rather sad.. i guess when they say place where the teenagers hang out, they don't mean the night life...
today tho, we hit a lot of anime + book stores ^^ along with a lot of other stores *^_^* then when we got back to the hotel, we went out to look for food and found the park where they have a summer matsuri and we just bought some yakitori and ate while walking around the park. twas fun ^^ can't wait for tomorrow ^_^
oh yeah... happy birthday to me ^^ ...i'm so old
searching for chronos @ 12:48 am
thursday. july 29. 2004
music| beauty and the beast - beauty and the beast
i'm sooo excited. tomorrow this time i'll be in tokyo. it was soo much trouble finalizing all the plans for the stay... because of my plane situation and jane's as well, we didn't have a place to stay until two days ago ^^;... and even at that, it's at the more expensive places and we have to do two different hotels cause one place just didn't have the rooms for the entire time period we wanted T__T.. sigh. but we have a hotel/ryokan room and train tickets (bought today!).. now we just need to figure out exactly what we want to do in tokyo... that'll be tomorrow night, after the fireworks if we can manage to catch it in time.. if i read it right, the fireworks should be quite spectacular, bout 20,000 set off in total... or something like that...
speaking of fireworks, we did some more tonight *^_^* twas lots and lots of fun. while the normal fireworks were really cool... that's the pyromaniac in me speaking... it was rather smelly, smokey, and sooo brief... instead, my favorite was the traditional japanese fireworks where it's this thin rod that you hold pointing down in front of you. when you light the end, the stick burns upwards throwing spectacular little sparks.. it's much prettier than the others and lasts a lot longer if you do it right... as it is, they require a bit of skill to have them fully burn... all of mine quite less than half way ^^;... but that just makes it more fun to do ^^
searching for chronos @ 11:34 pm
thursday. july 29. 2004
music| inuyasha - kyuuchi
yay! i'm dooooone! ^^ i'm so happy. but now i need to pack everything ant that's not easy... ^^; i bought waaaaay to much stufff.. and my host family was super nice and bought me a tea set (i think? i haven't opened it yet) but that just made it that much harder to pack... as it is, i have one enormously large and heavy bag and medium sized and yet enormously heavy bag and i still need to load myself up like a mule to get everything home.. the bright spot is, the waitlist for an earlier eirline ticket failed so i'll still get to see tokyo for 4 days! ^_^ just wish me luck in not getting a lot of stuff... i better not, cause i don't have room to take it back with me ^^;
hm.. but the week in review.. just lots and lots of stress and not much fun. it was pretty much study study study with a lot of procrastination.. actually, it was probably procrastination procrastination with a bit of studying.. it was like the end of second semester + end of finals week lack of motivation x 10... or something..
nyway, tomorrow is the graduation and then free time and then the day after that, it's tokyo!
oh yeah, and hurray, i got lots and lots of emails from people (thanks julie ^^)... too bad i don't ahve enough internet access to reply ot it all.. it'll just have to wait until i get back home
searching for chronos @ 11:54 pm
sunday. july 25. 2004
music| kagrra - 'something kanji' no 'something kanji'
today was kinda fun... the fishing/neighborhood party was nice... but it was sooo hot T__T i dislike the beach normally so when i found out we were going to the beach instead of the mountains like i had thought we were, i wasn't so thrilled... and it being really really hot just made it worse.. bah... but everyone was really nice even though i didn't understand most of what people were saying still ^^; ..
after that, i came back and took a nap ^^ and now i should be working but i'm so unmotivated.. sigh
searching for chronos @ 8:39 pm
saturday. july 24. 2004
music| kagrra - sakura
damn.. it'd been such a good day until my mom called... she told me to come home on the 1st... not that she explicitly said to come then but that's what irritates me the most about it... she says it would be best if i could come home on the 1st without giving me a reason. even when i ask, all she says is, oh nothing... but i know that's not true cause she said the same thing when she went to korea before grandmother died... i asked her why she was going and she said no real reason... like hell... so now i need to decide whether i should cut short my travels... and just when i changed my plane ticket last week and made jane change it with me... i hope she doesn't mind too much... i could tell mom that jane would be really upset if i bailed out on her but... what if it's really important for me to go back?... grrrr...
... before that phone call, i spent the morning in calligraphy class... very boring. and then at night, i went to a cookout at yu-san's hostfamily's house. it was very nice... tasty food and all. met a 2nd generation korean couple... embarrasingly, their korean was better than mine.. ^^;...
tomorrow, i'm waking up at 5:30 to go fishing with the family so i think i'll go to sleep now...
searching for chronos @ 11:01 pm
friday. july 23. 2004
another awsome day despite it being a weekday.. probably cause it's friday. fridays are the best ^_^... anyway, other than the fact that i won't have class for two whole days, today was cool cause i got to actually do kinpaku and eat kaiten sushi!
kinpaku is gold leafing. i got to gold leaf a pair of chopsticks ^^... i couldn't think of any designs at the time so the chopsticks aren't so great but the entire process was really interesting. you start out with a pair of plain chopsticks. then you add tape to where you don't want gold. then you dip the parts you want gold leafed in some sticky substance (don't know what) and then you take a sheet of gold and roll the chopsticks on it... the gold leaf is soooo thin that if you touch it at all, it tears... to move it around, you need to blow on it ^^;... anyway, so i have a pair of chopsticks that i 'made' ^^... but now that i'm done with making it, i have a few good ideas for shopstick designs... maybe i should go back?...
then, for dinner, my host family took me to kaiten sushi (conveyer belt sushi). i'd already been to one in kyoto but this one was much larger, much tastier, and much more expensive... at the kyoto place, every dish was 120 yen... here, the dishes ranged from 120 yen up to 1000yen. eep. O.o...
after that, i would have liked to have worked more on the css page and perhaps finish it but 'tonari no totoro,' a miyazaki anime, was on so i watched that instead... and happy, i could understand most of it... the sad part is, the movie is intended for tiiiny kids so the language is rather simple and i still couldn't understand all of it T___T... must work harder...
searching for chronos @ 11:37 pm
thursday. july 22. 2004
music| globe - like a snowy kiss
oh yeah... before i forget, i found a new favorite band. it's a band called kagrra. i had they music before and really really liked it but now i've decided they're my favorite ^_^... the band members all sound very cool and the type of music they have, i really like... it's also the first band to whose concert i actually want to go but the first one isn't until 8/5.. a day after i leave.. bah... but something that's a bit scary... or is it just annoying?... anyway, it's not just with this band, it's with pretty much all the male singers... they're all so damn skinny!... most of them weigh *under* 130 pounds and they're all taller that me!?!?!... they're guys!! guys should *not* be that light!!!.. or look that effeminate.. but that's an entirely new rant...
searching for chronos @ 9:15 pm
music| globe - sayonara
hmm... yesterday was a barrel of fun ^^ first i glazed by chawan. yay! we'll see how the glaze turns out... i'm keeping my fingers crossed. the sample tile on the top of the glaze barrel looked really awsome so i chose it but i got a chance to see some other sample tiles of the same glaze and they look nothing like the one on the barrel... i hate glazes...
after that, i spent more money on cds ^^ but i'm happy. have more music.. as if i didn't have enough ^^;.. but on my way home, i noticed that the traffic lights weren't working. i didn't think much about it until i got to the intersection a block or two from the house and i saw a whole bunch of firetrucks... turns out the powerstation there had caught on fire. eep. but i didn't know that until i got back to the house and okaasan told me that we had no power T___T... no power. no computer. no music. no playing with css. but most of all no light!... so i silently flipped out and started doing my homework like crazy... amazing what solid concentration can do for one... i finished hw that ususally takes an hour or 1.5 hours in .5... i guess that's cause i don't stop in the middle and write blog like i'm doing now ^^;... but just as i was about finished with the work, okaasan tells me the lights are working again.. oh wel, good for me ^^ since i was finished with the work i would have to do at night... so instead i spent hours and hours futzing with the css zen garden page... still not done yet, but getting close ^^
today, i spent the afternoon trying to get around a rather pesky barrier and put music on the nomad zen off a certain cd by a certain band that obviously failed kindergarden.. they didn't learn to share... tsk tsk... ^^;.. but yeah, i found a way but it's still not there yet... the webmail keeps on striping the music file off the emails i send myself T__T.. i'm just irritated that i can't put music i bought on my nomad...
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep...but i just realized... a week until the final.. ::running around like chicken little::....eeep.... T___T
searching for chronos @ 8:45 pm
tuesday. july 20. 2004
wheee. just did ikebana. it was fun.. tho i don't think i understood the principle of it yet.. but you know, considering i've only done it once, no surprise there! nyway, it's really pretty. i'll be posting a picture of it in the photo section ^_^ um.. but that's about it... i'm all written dry from the last few days.. now if only welfel-san gets off the ethernet line soon...
searching for chronos @ 3:10 pm
monday. july 19. 2004
music| kagrra - shi, mi, me, yu, ki, sa, a
today was sea day! so we went to the aquarium ^^.. lots of cute and tasty looking fish. hehheee... ^^; i think i've been here too long... anyway, my favorite part was the sea otters. otters are soo cute. the dolphine show was awsome but i always feel sort of bad for the dolphins for having to do all sorts of weird things for us humans... i always wonder if they enjoy it...
another really awsome thing i saw was a show of dancing fish... wel.. not really dancing ^^ tho that would have been cool ^^... no, it's just a tank full of little tiny shiny fish that have been trained to move right or left depending on the note they play underwater... as simple as it is tho, it's amazingly beautiful
after that, on the way back to the house, we stopped by a glass making studio where i got to see a lady make a sake cup. very very cool... too bad i couldn't buy any of the large things... but i did get some small cute items ^^... it brought on a bit of embarassment tho... i didn't have any cash on me (or exactly 85 yen... which amounts to no cash) and tho they had a sign saying they took credit card, which is the only reason i started to pick stuff up to buy, i didn't see the little disclaimer stating 'only over 20,000yen' until i was at the checkout counter and they had rung through everything.. ^^;... so while i was just gonna not get the stuff, the hostfather insisted on lending me 10,000 yen so i could buy the stuff... (not that the stuff was 10,000 yen but i guess that was just convenient for him)... anyway.. i was slightly mortified.... sigh.. now i just need to remember to stop at a bank.. i've fogotten for the last week but i can't anymore!!! must go tomorrow!!
searching for chronos @ 11:18 pm
sunday. july 18. 2004
music| saikano - yumemirutameni
the last two days were fun ^^
yesterday, i woke up laaaate... around 10, i think ^^ ... which is rather early compared to school but i've been getting up around 7 everyday until now... but afterthat, the hostfamily took me sightseeing to some of the spots i'd never had a chance to see in kanazawa. oyama temple was first. very nice place. some babies were being blessed.. i think... and so i got to see some of the ceremony with the miko and the priests (is that the word?) doing their thing... so descriptive aren't i? ^_^... after that was an old samurai house, the nomura samurai house. it's not the entire building by anymeans because most of it was destroyed earlier but there's a little bit that was preserved. peaceful and beautiful... the garden had the biggest koi i've ever seen...
next was suppose to be the ishikawa traditional craft museum but i had already been there so instead of going in, i made some pretty postcards at the stand in the lobby... too bad they could never really be used ^^;... then we went to daijoji temple outside the city. on of the larger temples i've seen. the high point was when i got to see the zazen room... apparently most people who don't do zazen don't get to see it but my hostfather asked and we were allowed... the guide monk told us they wake up at 4... *shudder*...
last on the list was myoryuji temple.. more often called ninjadera... but the temple didn't have anything to do with ninjas... the name comes instead from all the hidden secrets the temple has, like two hidden stair cases, the fact that from the outside it looks like a 2 story building but it's really four stories... and then there was the stairs leading in from the outside with ricepaper portions to allow soldiers in the olden days to see the enemy when they were entering the building and be able to stab them from under the stairs... yeah, very interesting. too bad i didn't understand any of the tour... it was all in japanese... T___T...
that night, i went to see kah-noh, which i think is a shorter version of traditional noh... it was really short but interesting... i can't say i really enjoyed it the way i enjoy a concert or an opera.. but maybe that's cause i didn't get any of the words... recited in a sing-song voice, apparently even japanese people have a hard time understanding the words.. at least so my host father tells me... but otherwise, i really liked it. too bad some of the pii people were rude... i hate it when people take pictures during performaces, adding flash to it just makes it worse, and it's the worst when it's a tourist activity... for goodness sake, you don't need a damn picture of the performance to remember that you saw the show... most likely you'll remember the show. and if you don't, you most likely won't enjoy the picture later anyway... besides, even if you *must* take a picture, at least, *at least* you shouldn't use flash.. that i object to as a performer... it sucks to have a flash come out of nowhere when you're trying to perform... grrr.. i hated it in the tourists at the gion corner in kyoto where the only people watching the show are tourists and they're all taking photos and it's expected but i hate it even more when it's a regular performance where no one is suppose to be taking a picture... erm.. yeah.. that's the end of my little rant... eh.. hee.. oops ^^;
today, i woke up late again.. then i spent most of the day futzing around with css and the rest of the princeton site ^_^ some little cosmetic changes and code change to make my life easier later but nothing else.. then before dinner, the father, mother and i went to the little plot of vegetable garden they have a bit far away and spent a little time harvesting.. carrots, green pepper, tomatos.. while it was nice, i felt my skin crawling most of the car ride back... all those bugs.. ewwwww.. T____T...
searching for chronos @ 11:20 pm
friday. july 16. 2004
music| sazaallstar - tsunami
we went and did fireworks on the beach tonight after dinner. it was so much fun ^^ lots and lots of pika pika (shiny shiny).. and you know how much i like that! ^^ hee. but yeah, they had all sorts of fireworks... and apparently, you can buy it all at the grocery store O.o... too bad i can't take any back with me. that would be fun ^_^ and now it's time for a long weekend, celebrating sea day! yay the sea!
other than that, i've been fooling around with css... anything to not do work ^^;
searching for chronos @ 10:44 pm
wednesday. july 14. 2004
music| nanjo koji - bridge
heee. i'm getting so spoiled from my host family... i've been eating sooo well the last few nights ^_^ granted, i don't think it's going to be like this for the rest of the time... on monday we had homemade tempura (yum) then on tuesday, relatives from kyoto came up so we had sashimi and crab (yummmmm). and then today, since the relatives are still here, we went out to a traditional japanese restaurant and had a fantabulous meal where i got to eat a little bit of everything (sashimi, tempura, somen, etc)... they had some really odd food too tho. they had this dish of fried fish... the thing was, you're suppose to eat the entire thing, head and all... it wasn't bad.. the head was a bit bony and bitter but edible. after that, we had fish shabu shabu that we cooked individually in paper pots... yup paper. *^^* i alwasy did want to try boiling water in a paper cup hehee.
and i like the family more and more. the parents are fabulous. the sis is really nice and the bro, takeshi (and not whatever it was i wrote before) is nice and funny too... if a bit um....odd? ... i don't know what else to call someone who walked around the house yesterday with the fly of his jeans down and the flaps wide open, giving an unavoidable view of his boxers.... ^^;... granted, i want to be considered family but...um... maybe not *that* far... besides, i don't think guys normally do that... right?
the only think i can't stand about the family is the smoking!!!! argh!
searching for chronos @ 11:20 pm
monday. july 12. 2004
music| hellsing - logos naki world
today i got to play with a koto. it was called a lesson but since i really didn't learn how to play the koto and instead just got to pluck at notes, i don't relly count it. but nonetheless, it was really fun. too bad i forgot to take a camera and record the moment... sigh.. silly me.
searching for chronos @ 11:11 pm
sunday. july 11. 2004
music| rolling stones - sympathy for the devil
oh yeah, before i forget. the new host family is really cool ^^. they live near the beach.. about 5 mins by car. and they have this old jeep and the father and the sis took me driving in it on the sand. ^^ we also saw some other parts of the neighborhood. but the best thing is, i can return home *anytime* i want!!!! happy happy!!!!
searching for chronos @ 9:34 pm
music| porno graffitti - apollo
with my new host family now... everything is cool except one thing... three out of the five people smoke... i *know* i put 'can't stand smoking' in my host family application. what happened??! sigh.. anyway, the room is nice. it's actaully one furnished to accomodate someone living here. it's rather cute. and the house is really nice. it's an old japanese style house with a room with a center firepit/someplace to heat water. i rather like it. and having a larger family with older kids is nice cause they just talk and all i need to do is listen ^^ the bro's name is takito.. taketo?...argh... and the sis's name is maki. wel.. nyway, dinner was fabulous. make your own sushi ^^ wheee
wel, now i better do some work. i can't believe the senseis gave us hw due the first day as well as a mini quiz! grrrr....
searching for chronos @ 9:01 pm
saturday. july 10. 2004
music| hack SIGN - broken wings
got back about an hour ago from a much too short vacation in kyoto. it was soo much fun. being back in a big city and being free from school and my hostfamily. i don't mean to make my hostfamily situation sound awful but it's soooo restrictive... i feel like i'm walking on eggshells all the time... :( asking permission to do anything (like shower and touch anything that's not mine) and not being able to do things when i want to (like come back to the house or eat dinner...) .. oh wel.. i change host families tomorrow... i wonder how that will be... sigh. a whole new set of habits to get use to... T__T
nyway, kyoto was lots and lots of fun... did i already mention that?... the first night, jane, kelly, and i got to the ryokan just in time for dinner. we debated for a while what to do and when we got to the lobby we met the other 4 pii people who were staying at the same ryokan. serendipitus ^^ so we decided to go out to dinner together. the other group had plans to go to kawaramachi (the big downtown district) and eat. but when we tried to find the bus that went there, we couldn't find it at all so instead we decided to skip kawaramachi and go to the gion district (the geisha/entertainment district) where they had planned to hit after dinner to go to some bars.
the gion district didn't turn out to be much of an entertainment district as people had been wanting (no bars or nightclubs... at least that we could see) and there weren't too many restaurants... we wandered for a bit passing lots and lots of sketchy signs... like 'lucky ladies club'... those types of things seemed to be a majority of the establishments... you might say that counts as entertainment but not when 6 out of the 7 are female ^^;... we finally settled on a thai restaurant. i had curry and it was good. i didn't realize until then how much i missed the diverse meals at school. the meals here everyday are tasty but more or less similar...
after the restaurant, we walked to kawaramachi. it was around 9 so not many stores were open... but we did pass a lot of pachinko and game places. after a while, ho-san suggested that we go into one of the game arcades and get sticker photos of the entire group.. rather funny that he was the one to suggest it considering he's in his 30's.. i seems like a kid thing to do ^^... so we went in and found a large booth to take the sticker photos... it didn't take long for us to figure out that the machines aren't optimized to have more than 3 people in the picture... we have some innnteresting photos...lots of half and quarter faces ^^;... after that, we got lured to try the other games there. a mistake. it seemed really easy when we saw the other people doing it but none of us won a single thing ^^;... after that, someone said she's like to try pachinko so we went to a pachinko parlor next but no one played. it was 1000yen for one game and that was a bit too steep for just the experience..
after that, we went to a gaijinbar...people drank.. i wanted a virgin raspberry casis frozen cocktail but they didn't take cc and i had no cash.. boo :(... the bar closed early that day since it was a weekday (wednesday) so we left and looked for a bus but found out that the last bus ran at 11 something. eeep... so then we spent the next hour merrily tromping through the city to get back to our ryokan ^^
the next day, i started the day with ambitious plans to go see all of the eastern side of kyoto. the day started out well, if rather late.... we hit the first itinery point, the sanjusangendo temple, around 11am... the temple is dedicated to the god kannon and has 1001 different statues of the god. it's rather creepy. each statue has 30+ arms and is more or less life size and they're all standing in rank on risers... really interesting. too bad no photos were allowed. phooey... wel, after that, i wanted to go to kiyomizudera temple where one is suppose to be able to get a fantastic view of kyoto... unfortunately, the day was really really hot we had been walking all morning and the temple was on top of a very steep hill/mountain... so we had lunch at the base of the mountain and decided to call it quits and head to the a.c.ed sanctuary of the store... my shoulders were already burnt T__T... and we also wanted to get to gion and get tickets for a show that night
so we finally got to gion. the theatre didn't start selling tickets until 7 so we decided to look around the main street there for omiyage. we found lots and lots of nice store. we spend about an hour in a tea store and got some nice tea stuff ^^ ... it'll be coming to school with me *^_^*... then we found a kanzashi and other hair ornament store and i finally picked up a kanzashi! it was a bit pricy but it's soo cute ^^ after that, we saw the show and then it was time for beddie-bye ^^
on friday, i had no ambitious plans... i decided seeing one place would be more than enough for me in the weather we had... so we went and saw nijo castle. the place was gorgeous but what made the place special was the nightingale floor. a nightingale floor is a floor specially constructed to squeak with every step so as to block assassins. but the word squeak isn't enough to describe the floor cause the sounds are really sort of musical and pleasant to hear... anyway, i really liked it...i wonder if i could possible have one installed in my house in the future..?
after that, the day was spent in kawaramachi shopping ^_^ twas fun... then in the evening, we went to a conveyer belt sushi place for dinner and then saw harry potter 3... not bad... tho the actors look waaaaay too old
then today, i went back to gion and kawaramachi for last minute gift shopping. finally got something for everyone in the family... mom was the hardest but i got something that i think she'll enjoy... i hope...
now it's to sleep with me... walking all day for three whole days under the hot sun is tiring...
searching for chronos @ 10:01 pm
tuesday. july 06. 2004
music| paul mccartney and the wings - live and let die
argh... studying for final... or desperately trying. all in all it's not working all that wel.. i need to memorize 50+ kanji by tomorrow as well as brush up on vocab and grammer points... T___T...
searching for chronos @ 8:30 pm
sunday. july 04. 2004
music| final fantasy vi - the mystic forest
wheee. spent the entire day shopping. picked up 4 skirts, 2 t-shirts, and a tank top and all for under a $100... i think. jane and i found two used clothing stores where they had some nice stuff for dirt cheap. the first one wasn't so great but the second one was quality. it was a pay by the gram store where 1 gram = 4 yen regardless of the quality of the clothing. so we each bought skirts for around 400-600 yen. yay! ^^ after that, we went through a lot of shops... probably 20-30, i'm guessing. so for all the looking i did, i guess i didn't buy much *^_^* but at one place, i found this orange and black skirt. yeah, sounds like an obnoxious color combo right? wel... i kinda fell in love with it (sort of like what happened with the fuchia and orange dress!) and bought it... it was the most expensive purchse of the day but it was still only 2500 yen. now i finally have something obnoxiously orange and black ^_^ whee ... after that tho, didn't buy anything until we got to a store called something+'fan fan'... i wasn't gonna get anything but there was a t-shirt i just *had* to get... so i got it ^^;... but that was my last clothing purchase of the day... after that i spent about an hour in an anime store we found. tehee ^^;...
oh yeah, just a little complaint... i have to vent it somewhere cause i'm rather bitter about it... japan has these *adorable* shoes but i can't get any of it cause the people here have damn small feet! argh!! the latgest size they have just barely fits me and all the shoes i want are either out in that size or aren't made in that size... grrrr... ok. now i feel better ^^ .. but i still want to get some of those cute shoes T__T..
searching for chronos @ 9:35 pm
thursday. july 01. 2004
music| globe - come into existence
finally. we have reservations for the ryokan... now we just need to get train tickets. but that's not difficult ^^... but it's scary to think that we have our final on wednesday... T___T i need to do some serious studying over the weekend... and then i change host families next sunday!.. i'm rather nervous... the new family has 2 kids and they're both older... such a change from what i have now. i'm not sure what to expect ^^;
and then last night, my host mother and i were talking and the topic of instruments came up and she asked me how much my violin was... i kinda felt like telling here it was none of her business but that would have been rude so i told her the truth... now i wonder if i shouldn't have. by her reaction, she probably thinks i'm a rich family brat now... sigh... it's not *that* expensive... or maybe i'm thinking about it too much? i hope so. wel, back to studying
searching for chronos @ 8:24 pm
wednesday. june 30. 2004
music| globe - lights brought the future
it's so hard to plan a group trip... jane, me, and kellY(maybe?) are planning to go to kyoto for the midterm break and even though the break is next week, we still have no concrete plans T__T... if i had been going by myself, i'd have had everything planned out last week... sigh.. hopefully we can get everything squared off tomorrow.. but i doubt it. we were suppose to meet with kelly at 2 but she never showed... bah..
but you know, it's interesting, i've read more books during this trip than i managed to during the school year... i'm at almost 1 a day... wel.. maybe .8 a day. i had thought i wouldn't have any more english books after i went through the books i brought with me but the program has a library with, not a lot, but enough books. the selection is really eclectic. ^^ last week i went through the heinlein that i hadn't read before. they were good... very confusing tho ^^; i just don't get a lot of what her writes... and then just yesterday i finished gods and generals by jeff shaar, son of the guy who wrote killer angels. good book but kinda depressing reading only about union incompetence and there's *a lot* of that... but i can't wait to see the movie!
hm.. other than that, nothing really new. just doing my normal thing, scaring all the store workers by looking japanese while not knowing enough to understand them well or to convey what i want... sometimes i wish i were pale skinned and blond.. or at least a brunette.. it'd be easier if no one expected me to speak any japanese... today was unusual tho, i had left put a box i had bought at the post office down while trying on some cute shoes... yes, cute shoes. don't laugh... and then forgot it was there and just left. i remembered about 30 mins after and went back but i wasn't there... so i retraced my steps to the places i had gone to after the shoe store, a travel agency and the train ticket counter. i confuesed the hell out of the travel agency worker cause i think she thought i thought the place was the post office when i was telling her i was looking for the box from the post office... but the box wasn't at either of those places so i went back to the shoe store and tried to ask one of the salespeople... unfortunately, i don't know the word 'to find' (nor was it in the textbook) so i couldn't ask her if anyone had found the box there... the only way i could think of asking her was to tell her i was looking for a box from the post office... i had problems here getting her to understand that i wasn't just looking for just any box... at one point i wonder if she thought i was trying to mooch off an empty shoebox.. ^^; ... anyway, she finally understood me and it turned out that i had left the box there... thank goodness! but it sure was frustrating...
searching for chronos @ 10:12 pm
tuesday. june 29. 2004
music| flcl - ride on a shooting star
argh.. i just realized that i can't go back to the house until after 6... i just remembered that the host mother said they won't be back in the house until 6... bah.. why can't they gimmie a key? it's not like this doesn't happen very often. it happens everyday.. except ususally it's by 5 instead of 6. and i didn't even pack my workbook today so i can't do my homework while waiting either.... sigh...
i really do enjoy reading slate from time to time.. it's funny ^_^ laaa
searching for chronos @ 4:36 pm
monday. june 28. 2004
music| flcl - ride on a shooting star
i tried to go to the ohi pottery museum today... silly me tho. i turned left where i should have turned right ^^; so instead of going to the ohi pottery museum, i ended up back at the higashi chaya district (the place i went to on the very first full day in kanazawa)... then i visited a gold and silver leaf store nearby and spend more money... but this time it was for gifts for family so i guess that's ok ^^; i think i'll try the museum again tomorrow... or maybe not. i should probably spend the time planning my nakayasumi, which is in a week and a half.. scary.. that means my final is in less than a week and a half T__T
searching for chronos @ 11:28 pm
saturday. june 26. 2004
music| rebecca - moon
just got back from kenrokuen after watching for fireflies (hotaru)... not very exciting cause there weren't many there... or maybe that's why it's so exciting for the people? i couldn't figure out whether fireflies are a rare thing here or not... oh wel... but other than that, there were so many people making sooo much noise, i'm surprised we saw any at all... if i had been a firefly, i would have stayed hidden from the mass of noisy mammals...
before that, the day was rather uneventful... just went and explored the shopping district. saw oodles and oodles of clothing stores but didn't buy anything other than some manga and a teapot.. go figure ^^;... i was keeping an eye out for engrish shirts but i couldn't find any.. booo :( but i still have time! i'm determined to find a shirt as good as the demarcate one. now that would be cool ^^
searching for chronos @ 9:53 pm
friday. june 25. 2004
music| globe - many classic moments
oh yeah, i almost forgot. i tried nato... i really don't see what people have against it. i found it quite tasty with rice...
searching for chronos @ 10:23 pm
music| globe - merry-go-round
i think i'm enjoying japanese food a little too much. i'm definitely putting on a few pounds... as well as running out of money ^^; so i'm resolved to stop eating as much but then i think to myself, i'm only going to be here for a little bit so why not enjoy ^_^
searching for chronos @ 3:47 pm
thursday. june 24. 2004
music| chage & aska - crimson
woop.. got 6 more cds today ^^;... bah, i have no self control... but the music is really good ^^
searching for chronos @ 9:55 pm
music| hellsing - alucard fight
it's thursday and i'm already burnt out for the week T__T ... i can't keep my mind on anything substantial. sigh... oh but happy, the rice i'm eating now has ginko nuts in it... ah how easy it is to make yeppie a happy girl ^^; but i think i need to go find a bag of raw ginko nuts and take it back with me to the states... would that be a no no for customs tho.. probably *bleh* ... anyway, i don't know why i'm so burned out... maybe it's the fact that we just started learning the formal way of speaking.... every single verb has a honorific (sonkeigo) and humble (kenjyougo) form and circumstances dictate when it's used. so sometimes you use sonkeigo for your boss but then sometimes you use kenjyougo... my head hurts....
so this week... um... oh yeah, tuesday was a visit to a elementary school. the kids were sooo cute and kinda scary ^^; half the kids were bouncing off the walls and the other half seemed to want to hide away ^^; maybe that's all little kids but i wouldn't know.. and rather ironic that the one place that we're not allowed to speak in japanese (for the benefit of the little kids so that they may hear 'real' english) i was dying to use japanese for everything.. as it was, we all had to resort to japanese once in a while cause most of the time, the kids didn't understand what we were saying... i think? either that or they just didn't like me T___T
then yesterday was our second pottery class. we trimmed our cups and boy was it hard ^^; since the place didn't have enough foot/electric wheels, we all had to hand turn and trim ^^; needless to say the cup looks interesting...
searching for chronos @ 3:57 pm
monday. june 21. 2004
music| laputa - rose
got some new j-pop cds today... one of them is the one i'm listening to right now. i like the music but the cd cover is really scary ^^; the band members look like marilyn manson... now i'm wondering if the words are anything similar... i tried to read the inside booklet but the words are ultra small so the kanji all look like a blob of black ink to me... eep... i don't want to be accidentally listening to black rock or whatever that type of music is called... but the melody and the singer's voice is actually nice... i'm so confused T__T
but more interesting, there's a typhoon on the way ^^ not much rain and lots and lots of wind. happy ^^ i just love strong wind *^_^*
searching for chronos @ 8:56 pm
sunday. june 20. 2004
music| hellsing - when you start the war
pii took everyone on a field trip to the noto pennisula over the weekend. noto is another part of ishikawa that's up north from where we are. we left kanazawa yesterday morn and saw a lot of stuff. the first was chirihama beach... nothing really special other than the fact that cars and buses can drive on the beach cause the sand is so fine and the waves pack it down so hard... but i don't like beaches and the sand isn't so finely packed down that i didn't get sand stuck in my shoes... eck
after that we saw a shinto shrine (keta-taisha shrine) and a buddhist temple (myojo-ji temple). both were really cool... we didn't get to spend too much time at either place... but i did get to pick up charms from the shrine ^^ and see mikos ^_^
after that we hit the nanao fisherman's wharf... i don't know why this place is special... i think we just went here cause it had a restaurant that would accomodate us... or maybe it was to let us shop for souvenirs? cause the entire place was just a couple of restaurants and some souvenir stores *shrug* oh wel... i got some yummy green tea gelato out of the place so i was happy ^^
the next planned stop was suppose to be mawaki to see the ruins there and go visit the onsens (hot spring type things) but the tour people found out that it was closed for repairs or something so we didn't go there. much to the chagrin of many and to my relief ^^; i don't really like sitting in hot tubs not doing anything... it just seems like a waste of time... not to mention, the entire naked thing doesn't appeal to me much either...
so instead of mawaki, we went to tokikuni-ke, an old farm/samurai house. interesting but a bit on the moldy side... but considering the place is a few hundred years old, understandable... i was just a bit upset at the millipedes? centipedes? worms? somethings that were crawling all over the tatami mats... i was barefoot and i had the most awful time worrying about stepping on one of those... ewwww *shudder*
by then it was time to head to the ryokan. the night was fun. we had karaoke night. ^^
today we went to a morning market (wajima morning market) where i picked up some very nice ceramic pieces! and at a discount without even having to work for it *happy* i was just standing in front of the display cart looking at certain pieces and asking the prices. i was standing there trying to figure out exactly how much i was willing to pay cause i wanted a couple of pieces if i could and the woman just tells me that i can have all the pieces for 500 yen cheaper! so i got the three that i wanted ^^ 2 matching cups with saucers and a small asian tea cup *^^*
then it was the senmaida. 1000 rice paddies built on tiers. amazing. after that we went to this festival lantern museum (kiriko museum) where they had these huuuuuge lanterns that are made for a certain festival. the lanterns are so huge the museum staff told us it takes about a hundred men to carry it around ^^; oh my...
out last stop was the ganmon. a natural rock formation that looks like a giant gate by the shore. very beautiful... in fact, noto in general has some gorgeous scenery... i'm really happy we got to spend some time there even tho now i need to do the hw and study for the quiz we still have tomorrow T__T
searching for chronos @ 9:42 pm
friday. june 18. 2004
i recently found a used bookstore and so fell on the slippery downward slope of going broke... not that being broke is anything new but how on earth am i going to get everything i buy home?!?!?! i don't have enough space or muscle for it T__T and of course, not only the books but i also want to get some beautiful pottery stuff as wel... maybe i'll have to mail stuff...?
but speaking of pottery, we had our first pottery class on wednesday. we all started making chawhans (bowls for green tea) fun fun fun ^^ but also very very hard. they had us throwing on a hand turned wheel.. hoeeeee!?... such a pain... and we can't make anything more than the one chawhan which is unfortunate... they have some beauuuuutiful glazes... sigh
searching for chronos @ 10:54 pm
tuesday. june 15. 2004
another day, another tea ceremony ^^ it was good and then tomorrow is the first pottery class. yay! too bad i also have a test tomorrow ^^;
searching for chronos @ 10:54 pm
sunday. june 13. 2004
the light fell off the ceiling.. nani?! ... good thing i wasn't asleep yet!
searching for chronos @ 11:37 pm
saturday. june 12. 2004
music| saikano - track 9
the parade was fun... too bad i wasn't closer or had a better view. we actually had a really nice spot with a clear view of everything at the beginning but it turned out that that spot was right next to a sewer opening... it reeked rather stongly so we couldn't stand there for very long... so we moved over to another spot but the only spot open by that time didn't have such a great view... oh wel, what can you do... but i think it's a little bit of studying and then sleep for me... i slept a lot today but i have an awful headache... i think it must have been standing outside for 4 hours in the cold that did it. it was a lot colder than i thought i would be so i was dressed for a very summer day while it was more a nice fall day...
searching for chronos @ 8:37 pm
friday. june 11. 2004
music| read or die - theme
little kids are so cute.. but i forget how disgusting they are sometimes... my host brother spent most of the evening pulling down his pants+underwear and/or with his hands in his underwear... granted he's 5 so i guess that's excusable but stil ick... other than that, spent some time talking to my host mother. i showed her some of my pictures... i can't tell whether she found them interesting or not... but i never realized how many pictures of dressup events i had... or maybe it just seems like a lot cause i have photos of nothing else?... anyway, now that i have a digital camera, that shouldn't be a problem ^^ ... in fact, i think i already have more picture of the summer so far than i ever took all of freshman and sophomore year put together ^^;....
nyway, i think i'm going to go to sleep now... waking up at 6:30 sucks...
searching for chronos @ 10:44 pm
i just love bit torrent. yay for stan for showing it to me *^_^*. anyway, since i'm sitting here getting more music for the weekend and likely to be here a while, i have lots of time to write
aaanyhow, this week has been fun fun fun ^^
wednesday we got a lecture on the sacred mountains of japan from this professor who use to be at princeton. too bad he's not there anymore... i would have liked to have taken a class with him even though he's a public policy/history guy. he was an awsome lecturer. not many humanities profs can get me to stay awake for a 2 hour lecture ^^; ... he had a lot of quality quotes. one that topped everything else went something like 'japan is a very sick society... it's because we got rid of all the penis festivals' mwahahaha ^_^; ... hehe
eh... oh yeah, yesterday we didn't have any planned activities for the afternoon so me and some others spent some time eating lunch and then looking around the downtown area (not quite new york but nice and busy nonetheless). lunch was good. since we couldn't read any of the kanji and there were only four items, the group of us decided to order one of each and share. the result was a sashimi, chirashi, tenpura, and tonkatsu feast. all yummy ^^... after that, it was off to look for book and hairstick stores *surprise* ^^ hehe. during the search, we found a 100 yen store (like a dollar store in the us) and got some snacks there... i swear i'm gonna go back to the states many pounds heavier than i left... darn the tasty food.. after that, we hit the book stores ^_^ didn't buy anything but it was fun looking. and then i tried looking for hairsticks but the two places i tried didn't really have anything i liked. oh wel, there's still many many more days left ^^
today, my host mother took me to her tea ceremony lesson where i got to take part in it. the treats were yummy and the tea delicious... i felt a bit awkward tho cause no body told me what to do so i just sort of sat there watching, hoping i wasn't seriously offending the teacher by some unconcious action... but it was fun nonetheless. and i go back next friday.. i think?.. tho i think my knees and legs would rather we not... i don't know how most asians sit on their knees for so long... my limit is 20min and that's pushing it...
hm.. guess that's about all the excitement for the week... it's been class and homework and studying for tests otherwise... oh but, *excitement* this weekend is the hyakumangoku matsuri! it's a festival celebrating the entry of lord maeda toshiie into kanazawa a long time ago (1583). there'll be a parade and other such festivites... i can't wait! some of the students will take part in the parade (just wearing happi coats... love the name ^^.. and walking around) but i'd rather watch...
other than that, i need to find some awsome pottery, try some kaga cooking... should i get a yukata?
searching for chronos @ 4:35 pm
wednesday. june 09. 2004
music| happatai - yatta
5th full day in the land of the rising sun ^_^ still lots of tiredness... will try and keep posting over the summer... i think... ^_^
but anyway, so far, so good... can you believe that i wake up at 6am every morning now?!?!?! it helps that i still have jetlag so that my sleep schedule is a mess compared to what i have back at home but i need to find a way to keep this oddness... classes start at 9am (an ungodly early hour in my opinion) but besides that, my ride leaves the house at 7:15am.. sigh... at least i won't have such a large adjustement to make when i get back home... T__T
searching for chronos @ 4:50 pm