Tadaima~!

I'm back from Kyoto(came back yesterday night at around 6pm) I'm blogging from my host family's laptop, so I have to make this short. I'm actually on to try emailing Dad, but they're internet has some weird thing which won't let you go to certain sites or atleast it won't load certain pages (including the page after you sign into hotmail). Since this is the case I'll just leave a short post here and find dad on Monday. Tomorrow, I'm gonna go to Tenjin again. Wish me luck (that I don't get lost) Btw, Andrew, please correct Ivan: Its not nextdoor, its the next "city"/ few train stations over. I'll explain futher if needed in my next post. Anyways, ja.

Whoops, almost forgot: DAD- I got the money last Friday, but I was busy preparing so I didn't have time to email you. Sorry. I also used the credit card today to buy some stuff for badminton club(running shoes, T-shirt and shorts [Genie, they're Tenipuri shortsXD]) I'll get you the amount later, because I don't have it on me.

Kyoto & Nara

Well today I have 2 computer periods in a row... yay I suppose. Either way, tomorrow is the school trip and I suppose I'm excited. We're going to Kyoto and Nara by Shinkansen, and I'll try to take lots of pictures (and yes Genie, I'll work on my phtography skills). I got some camera supplies yesterday, including a larger memory card (which the largest they had was 256mb... how stupid is that? Although the did have a 2.2gb one for those digital SLR cameras) There are so many rules and checks they're doing that its taking the fun out of the trip. Ah well, I suppose its all for the "retaining of the good image" of the school.

Anyways... today I had a classmate in my Japanese class. This girl from Thailand is here for a week, and when Shibata-sensei(my Japanese teacher) asked her what textbook she studied and how much of it, she said she finished the whole textbook that we were using. -_- She also finished it in a year, while I've stuided Japanese for 2 years and haven't finished a single textbook. Not complaining or anything.. but her Japanese is quite good. (Envious) She, like almost every other asian, looked Japanese, so when she first came into the classroom, I didn't realize she was the exchange student. Anyways, class was a slight bore as usual and now I'm here.

Saturday was an interesting day. Since school on saturdays is always shorter than normal days, people usually stay in the cafeteria longer to chat. I was having lunch with Ai-chan and Jin-chan, and we somehow got onto the topic of crime. Ai-chan asked me what kind of crimes there were in Canada.. and I said child kidnappings (the last major crime I could remember). Apparently in Japan, there are lots of family murders, where the whole family is killed, usually by a member of the family, who then kills him/herself. They then asked about guns in America, and if everyone has one in their house. I told them that in Canada, you can have one as long as you register it. They didn't know what a "gun registery" was.. so I had to simplfy it and I told them that they had to tell the police they had one. Close enough... right? Either way, its always interesting having these comparison chats with the Japanese people, cuz you learn alot of stuff that you would never learn from anime and those tour guide books.

Afterlunch, I went to work on my oil painting for a bit. I rather dislike the 2nd years, cuz they like to stare at me and it makes me feel really out of place. It doesn't help that I have my university lectures with a whole class of 2nd years. All the 1st years are really friendly though. Usually when I pass through the halls and they see me, they'll say hi, even if I'm not in their homeroom class. Okies.. that was off topic. Back to the story. I worked on art a bit and afterwards I headed home. We went out for dinner (Yakitori I think.. its like Korean BBQ, except the grill is more like chicken wire rather than an iron cast grill and of course, the meats and stuff are seasoned differently) At the restaurant, they make you take off your shoes at the door and put them away in cupboards. Its a really nice place and I wish I got a picture of it. Either way, after dinner, we went to the other Book Off (the place that sells used manga and stuff) which is apparently the bigger one. I believe I've found the giant stash of doujins. Most of them are PoT compilations, but they had a few others (like Canon). They also had the full set of Sensei(20 volumes) for 4000 yen. Kinda tempted to buy it. Oo, before I forget: Andrew, there is an X set 1-9 for 300yen. I calculated, and if you get X6-9 individually, it costs 420yen. I'd suggest getting the set (cuz its obviously cheaper) and you could most likely sell the books that you don't need from the set. Of course, its your choice. Let me know and I'll get whichever one for you.

Back to the ramble. That location does have more stuff, but too bad its not near any train station (I think the closest one is Ohashi.. but you still have to walk a whole lot of blocks before you get there.) I also went to Uni Qlo, which was supposed to sell cheap clothes, but the clothes really aren't that much cheaper (not cheap enough for me) The quality is good, and for once, most of the clothes are solids or simple designs (not like every other clothing store for teens) but the price tag could do with some adjustments.

I think that's all I really needed to ramble about today. If you guys don't see me around MSN this week, its because I'm in Kyoto. This coming weekend I'm going try to go to Tenjin again and check out the Animate store and the Fanwork store. If there's anything you guys want, leave me a comment.

Oo, one more thing: Genie, about song pimping. If you could post them up somewhere.. that would be nice. Or you can send them to my gmail account. Whatever works best. I have some songs that I heard off the TV or what have you: could you try downloading them for me?
Utada Hikaru- Devil inside
思いがかさなるその前に…：平井堅
瞳をとじて：平井堅 (I love Hirai Ken!)
CAROLS：浜崎あゆみ
世界に一つだけの花：SMAP
Wonderful Life：&G
ARIGATO：B'z
浪花いろは節：関ジャニ∞ (エイト)
Mickey：Gorie with Jasmine&Joann (this song is crazy popular.. especially for dance/syncro performances)
栄光の架橋：ゆず
音色：KREVA
Life is Like a Boat：Rie fu (Bleach anime ending)
光の中で：hiro

Some of these might be hard to find, because they're rather new. So gambatte ne! ^.^ (By the way.. song title:artist... incase you couldn't figure it out) Ja.

Strange Weather

This morning it was FREEZING. It doesn't help that we have to wear a skirt either. Anyways... now its warm (22 degrees apparently) but its still rather cool. And apparently another typhoon is coming.. although I think the most we'll be getting is some icky weather. I think this is typhoon #23 already... o.O

Well, the main reason for writing today is to let you all know that some pics are up. Most of them are pics I took around where I live.. but there's a few from when I went to Karaoke and some from my outing in Tenjin. If you're wondering.. the caucasian girl(her name is Amanda) is Airi's(the girl in black and white) exchange student from New York. Ayumi is the one in orange. The pic of the 3 figurines are all from FMA, and I just took the pic to show Genie.

Well.. I 'll be putting up more pics as they come... so for now, you can see what my current neighbourhood is like. I'll be moving in November.. so I'll take new pics of that area once I get there. Anyways, chatting to most of you guys on msn right now.. so I'll get back to that. Ja.

P.S. If you guys STILL haven't figured it out.. when there is an arrow beside the title... there's a link.

Heaven #3 (Or is it 4?)

Whoever keeps commenting without leaving their name: stop it already! It's driving me crazy. Anyways...

I decided to skip science today to go online, since I haven't been online in the longest time, and there are some things I wanted to look up/do/reply to. Genie, I got your letter. The doodle of Tezuka you did on the envelope looks like Pe Yeon-Jun from that Korean show everybody loves.(The guy has dyed hair, glasses and wears a scarf... just like your pic... actually.. just like Tezuka. Woot! A real life Tezuka! ^.^) There are a million things I want to ramble about, so I suppose i should get started.

Last weekend, I went with my firends to Tenjin. It was GREAT! The speech contest was amusing. We didn't stay for the whole thing, but the first few presenters had really exagerated expressions and intonations. Ai-chan's speech was good: not extremely exagerated, but enough emotion in it to keep you interested. She kinda has a British accent, but it wasn't a big thing. They had copies of everyone's speeches, so I read them after we left, and they were GOOD. Not only was the composition good.. but the choice of topics was also interesting. One girl wrote about how her Tiwanese friend's grandparents could speech Japanese. When I get back, I'll show you guys the speeches. We went to Act-1, which was a bit of a disappointment, because all they had was Pe Yeon-Jun, Playboy, SMAP, and other extremely popular celeb stuff. It was amusing seeing some of the merchandise the come up with though. For example, they had those embrodered good luck charm things, with Gackt and W-inds embrodered onto it. Very pretty, and very expensive. -_-

It took us a while to find the Animate store.. but on the way, we came across some other store which sold Doujins and fan software. We didn't go in.. but I plan on checking it out next time I go to Tenjin. The Animate store is on the second floor and its like "WOW". Not only do the have manga, but they also have DVDs, soundtracks, and all the crazy merchandise that you see on Animate-USA(and then some). I didn't get a chance to look through the whole store.. but I plan on going back there AT LEAST every time I get a 2 day weekend (which is like twice a month). If there's anything you want, let me know. (You can check out the Animate-USA site to get a feel for what they have.. the link is in the title)

Lol, the other day, I saw someone who was exactly like Bill. He was tall, slightly tanned, had glasses and dressed like Bill too. He also sat and messed with his hair like Bill does. ^.^ I was amused by him during the ride home (he was on the train a few seats away from me.)

Hmm.. I'm sure there is more I wanted to talk about... I'll go check the comments and see if there is anything I need to "answer". Back.. lol.. you guys like to comment in waves, don't you? Anwyays, I'll just address you guys individually, since its easier that way:

Fi: We're baking some kind of cake next week, and they were making puppets last semester, so they're finishing that off now. I wanna learn how to make some other stuff, but I don't think they teach it in home ec class. Ah well, I'll ask my host family sometime, and then we can add it to the menu ^.^. The uniform is on loan to me, so I don't get to keep them. I kinda wish I could keep the winter one though.. cuz its cosy and pretty. Lol, when I get back, we can all sing "Amazing Grace" in Japanese! It sounds pretty in Japanese. We can pray in Japanese too! Ahem.. okay, I'll shut up now. This is what morning service does to you.

Ivan+ Nick: Yah.. I thought about that AFTER the old man got off the train. Well... its a little too late to do anything about it now. Let's just hope the old man keeps his "perverted" goodies to himself.

Arthur: Maybe you can help me figure out how to get that index page for my pics. You can hack into my account and do it for me. (Not like there's anything inportant in my Brinkster account)

Genie: I have the files for the booklet on my flash drive. I'll put it in brinkster and you can download them or something if you want. Keep pimping songs~! lol, fear the growing number of W-inds merchandise and clippings I'm getting! I kinda wish they would stop throwing all this junk at me (I swear, Yuri's friend is over W-inds or something, and is trying to get rid of all the merchandise... she's given me like.. 2 bags worth of W-inds junk already.). What kind of junk do you want? Maybe if I tell them some other group/singer/actor.. they'll throw other junk at me ^.^ I'll look for the Odoru soundtrack and Kimeru as well. Nobody seems to know Kimeru though so its gonna be tough. Eto.. about the yarn.. I'll try to get online sometime

Anyways.. the first bell just rang... I should get moving (since I haven't finished my Japanese homework) Ja.

Art Hurts My Butt

Not supposed to have time today to blog.. and I still actually don't, but I needed to check some things, and besides, its break now. I have 10 minutes to rest my butt on something soft before I have to go back to the hell that is the art room. (Think of a hot musty room that smells like oil paints and a hard chair)

gah! gotta run! finish this tomorrow!

Old Man

Yesterday on the way home, an old man at the train station came over to talk to me. I couldn't really understand what he was saying, but I managed to get across that I was an exchange student and my Japanese isn't very good. He understood (thank goodness) be he kept on talking to me anyways. I'm not sure what he said, but he said something about my uniform and mini-skits. I think he likes the school uniform because the skirt is long. Then asked if he could take my picture. That kinda freaked me out a bit (pedophile?) but I let him anyways. He had a digicam with him, and it was kinda amusing how when he gave me the camera to take a picture of him, he did the piece sign thing ^.^. Either way, he shook my hand and wished me luck as the train was pulling into the station and I thought the conversation ended there. I was wrong. On the train, he sat across from me and began writing something. Earlier, he asked me for my name, and on the paper, he had made an attempt to write it in katakana. I wrote the "correct" way for him and he then asked me something I couldn't really hear. It was getting a bit akward after that... since everyone was looking at this rather strange scene and the old man just kept talking. Anyways, long story short, the old man asked me some more questions, shook my hand, wished me good luck and got off after a few stops. That was an interesting experience.

I don't think I blogged about this before, but last weekend I went to sing Karaoke with my host family. I had a blast! They have EVERY song imaginable! They even have Korean and some Chinese songs. Genie, Vicky, we have to find a time where we can ALL come to Japan and sing together! They have a giant amount of PoT songs and other anime songs too! lol, they even had "Ka-ba-ji" I love Japanese K-boxes, although I think they cost a lot -_- Pity.

Anyways, tomorrow I'm going out with my friends for the first time. We're going to Tenjin, which is kinda like the heart of Fukuoka. I'm a little worried though, cuz I've never been to Tenjin, and since we're all from different prefectures, we're meeting at the Nishitetsu Tenjin station. Airi wrote down where we're meeting in a little memo pad I had, so if I get lost, I can show someone it and they can direct me to where ever it is. Its gonna be great though, cuz apparently there is an Animate store there. There's also this other store called "Act-1" which sells merchandise related to actors, singers and celebs. I can pick up Kimeru junk for you if you want Genie ^.^ My Japanese teacher told me that there is gonna be ANOTHER typhoon on the weekend. -_- I'm starting to think I really did bring all this weather with me. Either way, this weekend is going to be a blast!

Dang, there's never enough time to blog! Well, gotta go to Bible class now, won't be back for the next 3 days, since Monday is Sports day. Oo, btw, I'm joining the badmintion club! It should be interesting (and extremely tiring) Ja.

Long Evening Chats

Hey guys.. haven't posted in a while, have I? This week is a little wacked cuz they have some teacher evaluation thing, and the shinken-moshi to study for. (The shinken-moshi is some big exam they have.. I think all Japanese students have to take it during their senior years.) That's good in a way, cuz the school days are shorter, but it messes up my schedule a bit since periods are moved around to make sure that the students aren't doing the same subjects everyday. My schedule is kinda fixed though, because my Japanese teacher is a university professor, so she has a set schedule to follow. I was supposed to have home ec. yesterday, but because of my Japanese class, I had to miss it. Pity, I was really looking forward to it.

By the way guys, I posted some pics.. but I can't seem to find the link for them. Maybe its a stupid brinkster thing, but I can't seem to get that index page, and I'm too lazy to give you guys the link for every picture, so you'll just have to wait until I figure it out. ^.^;; There aren't any pictures of me in my uniform yet, so its not really like you're missing out on alot.

Recently, I've been having long talks with my host mother. I don't know how they start, but we basically cover everything imaginable. Yesterday, I was trying to explain to her about "fan ban" games. I had to explain the whole process of people buying Japanese games, copying them and then selling them in Asian malls in Canada... I don't think she really gets it. She was amused when I told her I like cosplaying, and perhaps a little irked by it. Apparently my next host family is rather good at English, since the mother stuided it and the brother is in Austraila right now on an exchange program, though he's coming back when I go stay with them. Yay (I think)

There was a whole lot of other stuff I wanted to blog about.. but since we're running on a weird schedule, the periods have been shortened to 40 mins. Anyways, gotta run to Japanese class now. Ja.

P.S. Ivan, yes that's swearing in Nick's post.. don't you remember his stupid christmas song? If you don't ask him to sing it to you sometime.

Awfully Quiet

You guys must be really busy. Haven't see a comment here in ages (that, or I blog about stuff you guys aren't interested in.) Either way, I'm back with more boring stuff to ramble about.

We had another typhoon on Wednesday. Apparently, they don't name their typhoons like how we name our hurricanes: they number them. This week's typhoon is number 21... funny, since the last one was 18. What happened to 19 and 20? Either way, the typhoon wasn't as bad this time around, since it just kinda brushed past Fukuoka.. although I think its hitting the Tyoko area (for the exchange students there.. ^.^ have fun.) Since it was Wednesday, Yuri had Labo, which apparently wasn't cancelled. School was cancelled though, so I couldn't check my blog (not that anyone posted a comment). We went to the used book shop (called Book Off) and OH MY GOODNESSS, this is my heaven #2. (Heaven #1 is this shop that's like Bouclair and Michaels in one) They have shelves upon shelves of used manga, CDs, DVDs, what have you. They're practically all half of the original price, and usually in mint condition! Some of the older series are in boxsets and have been priced really low. If anyone is interested, they have X1-15 for 500yen!

I just went to get the winter uniform, and I like it alot better already. Its a little heavy, but I don't really mind, because its better than having my skirt fly up when I ride my bike. Hokazono-sensei (one of the teachers who speak English and look out for me at school) gave me a cardigan as well. Geez, why couldn't she have done that when she gave me the summer uniform? For the past few weeks, I've been wearing my black coat, and as much as I like my black coat, I kinda stick out. Ah well. Starting Monday, we change into the winter uniform. Yay~! I'll get pics sometime soon, since I have a digicam now, I'll ask my host family if I can transfer images onto my flash drive using their laptop (They don't want me using their internet) and I'll post them at school. By the way, Arthur, if you're reading this: How do you make the 360 degrees thing work? Does it have to be ALL 360degrees for it to work?

Anyways, today is a short day, so I plan on going shopping (I want to go get a bag\sleeve thing for the camera, and get some school supplies.) On Sunday, I might go to the used manga shop again, so really, ANYTHING, I mean ANYTHING that you guys want me to look at/get for you, let me know. It gives me a reason for shopping all the time ^.^;;

Alright, I'm going to try to be "productive". Tiff, I sent you that "thing" I wrote. Check your email for it. Ja.