Dani may be there, but I feel like a hundred bucks

OH MAN. Never in my life would I expect that after a shitty discovery like yesterday's (carpet dani in my apartment... biting me in my sleep and investing who knows WHAT linen in the place) to be taken in so quickly and kindly like I was! S-Ono, my heart goes out to you. You deserve about 100 pumpkin cakes and loafs of bread from me (since I've discovered that's all I'm good for ahaha). After buying some Dani spray, I took all my sheets to the laundromat and used their industrial sized laundry machines to ちゃんと clean my futon, futon cover, sheets, kotatsu cover, jeans, skirts.... EVERYTHING I'd been putting off washing because my little machine is just too pathetic and tiny to hold (also, I hate waiting like... 2 days before I can wear pants). It was freakishly expensive (4000 yen) to wash everything, but once it was all done, I felt a lot better about it all.

Upon getting home, I did a once-over of my house and sprayed the carpet and couch with the spray then made dinner. At one point, I got a call from S-Ono, offering to let me stay over because of the bugs. I didn't want to put her out, so I declined and said that I'd try to see if I get any new bites in the morning. On second thought and inspection (I didn't really want to sleep in a chemically room all night.... and I found Dani crawling up the wall as well) I decided to take her up on the offer. Man... was that a good choice. :) I had an ACTUAL bed to sleep in, a REAL shower in the morning, a hair dryer to dry my hair.... and we got to chat once I got there (which was really nice!) and I got kimuchi nabe and beer <3 It was honestly the best outcome to the shittyness that was the Dani discovery. Hopefully we can solve this issue SOON. I'm going to bomb my apartment tonight and stay over one more night. Maybe that'll kill the little fuckers for at least a while. I also think I'm going to buy a bed. If a single frame only costs 1 or 2万, I can afford to be comfortable AND safe from that nastly floor.

Other than that, I feel like posting some cute links and such. First, I signed up for this website yesterday called Swap-Bot which is a website about sending postcards and little packages to other people all around the world. I'd love to be a part of that and get my artistic side roaring again. Even though Japan Post has made it impossible (from TODAY ON) to send packages to the US over a pound.... I think it'd be fun to send little stuff to other people and in return, get something fun sent to me (my ugly mail box is lonely!!). Because of this site, I re-discovered my love for Etsy (blog), and all the is adorable and hand-made. I need to get back to making stamps like I had been at camp. I even bought the little chisel and everything!! In response to my love for etsy, there is also a cute blog called Regretsy, which posts hand-made things that are just too WTF for life.

On a side-note, here is some ridiculousness. :)

When my house bites back...

Because I love this picture of me and Mall, I'm putting it up. :)

Joyous events have not happened today. I found out that I have carpet ticks so I'm going off to the laundromat in order to properly get some things washed and dried. The BOE is looking into getting me flooring for the upstairs because the ticks are well into the carpet I'm pretty sure. If I have to sleep on the couch for a couple of weeks, so be it, but I'd rather do that then continue to find these mysterious little AWFUL bites everywhere on my arms. Hopefully this, and some heavy-duty bug spray will do the trick. I plan on going to Maruni to investigate their dani spray stock and also buying a bug bomb for when I go away this weekend. Maybe I'll bring all my dishes and things out to the car so that they are REALLY safe from the nastyness that is that bug bomb....

Chick peas and lovely ladies

I love my friends here. Seriously. Having Sea and De- over for dinner, and just being able to chill and chat and LAUGH... made the shit that was 5th period with the 5th graders so much better... (that, and I bought blue bike finally~). They are the reason I wanna stay longer. They give me hope when I'm down, and make me smile at the end of the day. Life can be tough here... BUT IT WILL BE OKAY WITH MY AWESOME FRIENDS HERE! <3

Also, my Kikusui internship has yet to start! hahaha

Speak-easys and birthday bashes~

Lady legs in cool stockings abound.

My polaroids make everything so much cooler. <3

Saturday started off busy and ended up busy. I woke up at 9 to start cooking for S-Ono's girls-day-in luncheon. I made some pumpkin soup and started baking the dessert for De-'s birthday. At 11AM, S-Ono came by to pick up me, De-, Panda, and Bee and we all drove down to her house, followed closely by Sea. This luncheon was the most delicious and filling meal I've had in a long time. We sat around, chatted, and stuffed ourselves full of pumpkin soup, minestrone, bread, spinach and yogurt, pasta salad, miso soup, cookies, brownies, banana bread, and cakes. After, we were introduced to the beautiful game "Dodgebe" by S-Ono's children. It was actually a pretty fun game, but was hard to play in our small playing area. After lunch and games, a few of us went over to the Akishiminkaikan to see my photo that won in the contest! It was rather exciting to see if up, even though this was only a small contest.

After being dropped off back at my house, the cleaning and cooking frenzy began. For the first time I had some helpers that could run around and do some chores for me while I finished baking and putting things away (it was soooo nice!!). We all got ready at about 6PM and waited for the others to arrive. For the first time ever all the foreigners arrived long before the Japanese people got here, but even so the party was great as soon as most of the east-side dream team had assembled. Nearly everyone had dressed up in the Party's theme: 1920's speak-easy. There was lots of black and white, fringe, and feathers, as well as suspenders and adorable hats and beads. I was really happy and rather impressed that most everyone tried!! De- made a couple of different Gin drinks, which were surprisingly yummy, considering I'm not the hugest fan of Gin. Kei and Tomo showed up around 8PM and most of De-'s co-workers showed up around that time too. There was even a baby!! De-'s co-workers were really nice and brought lots of food and even tried to dress up too! Buchou even came! I was way too excited about that and kept calling him Buchou, which only made him laugh, hehe. I even got a picture with him. Matto's friend Mal came and I terrorized him at the end of the night with my feather band by continually put it on his head and calling him adorable.

At one point, I told some of the women from De-'s company that I liked the one guy that had come (Kei) because I wasn't sure how to say "I think he's cute and wish we could hang out more" and they took it upon themselves to grab him and forced us to henpai and drink beer (way more beer than I wanted...) over and over again. I found out that he likes baseball (the Cubs, in fact) and likes art to a certain extent, and the fact that he's a fireman in training (and works out on his off days lol) and is still in school for it until the end of the year. Julie had found out from him that he thinks I'm cute but he's bad at texting so I guess that means I need to try harder? Dunno. I need to stop getting all work-up over being perfect at Japanese and just try to communicate and have fun. I get too stressed out over not knowing what to say... I just need to talk. Anyway! The night ended with me falling through the gap between my door and the outside (I wanted to harrass Australia and Matto, and so went out yelling about Australia getting me peanuts and then just went down), cleaning up the millions of beer cans all over my kitchen, and getting everyone a place to sleep that ended up staying (Juri, Panda, Mall, Matto, Australia, and Sea). De- had ended up getting a Daiko home, and all her co-workers managed to get home too. Kei and Tomo went home because Tomo had to get back to Susaki in order to take De- out on a bike-ride the next day and Kei wanted to keep him company (although we all said he could stay).

Despite the hangover (due to too much beer henpai) it was an awesome night, awesome party, and I can't wait to have another in December~ :)

As usual, Shu-chan makes a face while we all try to look normal.

ベキーだ！

Some of the girls at Aki JH told me I was "cuter than Becky" today. Wow. That actually made me feel really good. Becky is that half-Japanese, half-English talent that's always on TV and is super cute and spunky. They could have been being nice, but they didn't think I understood them so I don't know how that would have been possible.

In other news, went to a concert with Matto and Panda tonight in the city. The bands were fun and I love that kind of music live (not really into hard core punk otherwise). Matto's friends at the venue are also really nice and fun to listen to. I love how the one guy is named "Yousuck" like.... spelled in the Japanese way, but pronounced like that.

My new love for seisui and the search for the perfect school

I had the most pessimistic thoughts going to Seisui today. I thought that these Jr. High students were going to be EXACTLY as horrid as Aki Chu... I thought that they were going to make fun of me, make rude comments, not listen, run around, and interrupt during class like Aki Chu...

But they didn't.

Honestly, I was amazed. These kids were well-behaved, polite, they participated, we all made jokes together (and they liked my retarded hana marus and everyone wanted one on their worksheet) and I had a really good time teaching today. I mean, I didn't REALLY teach, but still, giving my self-intro to the second years and actually getting good questions from them (unlike Aki chu, they could form a sentence, or at least follow a fucking pre-written pattern) was really fun. They didn't obsess over my height (I mean, of course there were kids who mentioned it a lot) but I think that comparatively, they didn't mutter 『背高いね〜』 every two seconds. The day went by REALLY fast because I was actually enjoying all my time being there. I mean.... I left at 10:00 and I got back at 2:35. That's four and a half hours that just FLEW by. I wish Aki chu was like that... I have to go there tomorrow and teach four classes I think. I don't do much in terms of work there, but the kids can be so unbearable... There were only a few girls in the second year that were nice (band kids, inconsequentially) and we talked about music.

Please let every lesson at Seisui be like that!! I don't want this beacon of a school to be soiled in any way. I want them to be my perfect school. :)

And although it's completely irrelevant and strange, today is Pocky day because, 11/11 looks like a bunch of Pocky sticks lined up (learned that from the Jr. High class 2-1 today).

Struggling for Inspiration..

As an artist, to say that I'm struggling for inspiration is a really depressing thought. Especially when what I'm hoping to be inspired to do is to study for the goddamn JLPT2 (日本語能力試験) I'm going to take in less than a month. I've been setting goals for myself and trying every day to get in some practice but... I seriously don't feel like I've improved at all (even with the 500 kanji and the 45 pages of vocab I've crammed). I started a few weeks ago writing goals into my schedule book so that, while I was checking what school I had to go to that day, I'd look at those goals and have to face them head on. I even started giving myself stickers (little shiney stars) for finishing the goals. Anyway, I'll keep 頑張る-ing and see what I end up getting on this test. Maybe then I can finally start enjoying my studying...

Where I'm not lacking inspiration is actually in my art endeavors. I recently entered a contest in Aki City and ended up winning two awards! The 新人賞 (the newcomer award) and the 努力賞 (the effort award). I think my entry was almost too modern-art for them.... I entered a diptych in which I put two photos together and had them all presented as a single photo. The people at the photo place seemed to have a lot of issues with this but.... IT'S ART, damnit. A diptych isn't THAT forward thinking (笑).

In other news, I've been following a little blog here called the "SAKURA Project" which is a blog for a private college which has been hosting this running art exhibit called "フォトフォトミュラルフォトミュラル" and just update occasionally about cute things and events going on. I guess it's a way for me to practice my comprehension skills and find some new vocab. I really want to find some new blogs in Japanese that are interesting and worth checking frequently.

SAKURA Project

Guy Fawkes Night~

Guy Fawkes Night... where shall I begin?

On Saturday, after a well-deserved house cleaning session and some studying, I headed into the city to pick up De-, The Brit and Tall-Matt so that we could start our westward journey into gorgeous mountains, and sickeningly windey roads. Both times I've been out toward the Shimanto area, I've been driver and have yet to be able to really appreciate the beauty of the area.... but alas. My day will come.

It took us a few hours to get out there to Gab's house, and then another hour to get ourselves to the store to stock up on drinks and food (me and De- split a lovely bottle of Nakamura sake, since she is the sake queen herself and I am her apprentice). Once we finally got to the camp site, it was rather dark, and greeting everyone was really difficult because we could only go by the sound of voices and cell-phone lights. After some scavenging of the food left over from the day, we all headed toward the lake side to partake in the heat and light of the bonfire Jon scrapped together for the ritual burning of the effigy. Although Guy Fawkes night was being celebrated a day late, we all lit sparklers, and various people set off little dollar-store fireworks above the lake. Soni had used her amazing sewing skills to create a fabric doll to toss into the fire to burn (as the effigy). After much banter and fizzling fireworks, we counted down, tossed the girl into the fire, and gave a few hurrahs before heading back to clean up and go to the bar that Jon had reserved for the night.

The bar we ended up at was very cute and had a door handle made from a wooden hand (so odd). It had karaoke capabilities, so of course hours of entertainment. Many of the chairs in the bar were shaped like hands as well. Unfortunately, one of the hands lost a finger that night.... After the bar, we went to a ramen shop and then back to Gab's house to crash~ The next morning, before taking on the 2 hour drive, me and De- stopped to take a lovely and refreshing bath in one of the Shimanto onsens.

Umaji Mura and Yuzu festival

Tuesday night, after sitting around and doing some studying, me, Matto, Bee and Sea all headed up to Umaji so we could spend the night, party, and enjoy an Umaji-style yuzu festival the next day. Although we got there rather late, we all went to the local snack for some karaoke until about 11PM and then headed back to Irelands's for some drinking and conversation.

The next day, at around noon we all went over to the bright and shiney yuzu festival! I ate some yummy yuzu-salted karage (which has made me crave karage ever since that moment) and drank as much free gokun yuzu juice as I could manage (which was a lot, apparently). After the festivaties were over, we all went for a walk around Umaji, road the little rickety train ride and the big red incline, then me, Bee and Matto drove home so I could get ready for a little pizza party. Nat-chan, Ryoku-chan, Shu-chan and Bee all came over so make pizza at my house. It all turned out surprisingly well, and we had a good old time chatting about random stuff. Some of the best quotes sit below. :)

"My hobby is fan."

"Where do you buy tofu?"

"Danger Boy"

"My Hobby... BIKE..... VRRM VRMM"

"I was having fun and then i stabbed myself." ~Scotland

Hello! Hello! Halloween!

This weekend went by in a blur.

Best way to start off the weekend was by going on a GROUP DATE. Yes. De-'s friend Kei (who she met at Music Lovers) suggested that she get 3 friends, and he bring 3 friends so we could do a 4 on 4 boys meet girls at an Izakaya in the city. In Japanese, this is called a "gokon." It was rather nerve wracking to begin with.. we had to do little self-intros and English became the secret language for us three foreign girls. However, as soon as intros were over and the food was served, we all had a chance to relax and feel more like ourselves. All in all, it was fantastic fun with 4 very attractive, young, Japanese firefighters from Susaki. We went to 3 places that night, including the original izakaya meeting place and two cute bars in the city.

Saturday night, me and De- drove into the city to meet up with Orlan, The Brit, Juri, and De-'s co-worker Chisel. The night started out with a delicious yaki-niku dinner at a place called "Gyu." After dinner, we all went back to The Brit's to costume ourselves up and then headed over to Hirome for the party. I was amazed by how they transformed Hirome... it was really cool! There were live bands, DJ's, awesome decorations and great dance lighting.  Before we entered Hirome, Orlan kept scaring girls by running up with his joker costume (ligit creepy but awesome). I ended up meeting a couple of girls who were really nice and wanted to hang out in the city sometime!

I was princess Mononoke from the Ghibli film.

 After the party was over, we went to Chisel's friend's bar on Sunday Market Street for a bit of a drink and some ramen. Although I wish we had gone to the club everyone else was going to instead, I was glad to go home around 3:30. Extremely exhausted.... (Also, Chisel had found this creepy guy that kept following us around and wanted us to stay out later with him because he hadn't been to Kochi in 15 years.... weird).

The next day, me and De- drove home and I baked and cleaned all day until around 7 when I went over to her place to cook some stew. It was nice just to chill out and chat after such a busy weekend. We also made a playlist for her awesome birthday party we'll be having later this month at my house. All-in-all. Good Halloween weekend. I'm surprised at you, Japan. I didn't think you had it in you. ;)

Kikusui, Crotch Grabbers, Aki-baby Halloween, and Fuck U! :D

Kikusui Boss that I've met like... 3 times now I think. BUCHOU!

The drinking game they taught us and I promptly lost and had to drink 5 cups of sake because of.

Friday started off this fantastic weekend with a FREE (無料！) sake tasting and dinner at a nice little Izakaya in the city~ (worst part of the night was having to take the train back... but honestly not bad. especially since it was the BEST TRAIN RIDE EVER). Kikusui was putting on a sake tasting for the foreigners of Kochi so many East-siders and some Kochi-ites came out to get hammered and dine with the great De- and her awesome company. We tried 15 different sakes (sake, shochu, hard liqueurs, sweet liqueurs, Korean liqueurs, and some in-the-making liqueurs) and had to write comments about each one we tasted. Considering I'm not a huge fan of sake... there were some really decent sakes being distributed and I was proud to make some helpful comments. The Imo-shochu was the hardest to drink, and I couldn't get past the 2nd sip of it (just too damn strong and NASTY). The best group of liquers was the sweeter ones. There was a Korean liqueur that tasted like a banana-smoothie, a honey liqueur that was AMAZING, a yuzu liqueur that tasted like lovely juice, and an Ume-shu which had syrup residue dripping from the sides of it. My favorite, however, was this champagne-esque sake that was in the still-in-the-making group of liqueurs. I miss champagne so much.... I drank most of the bottle of O1 (O2 was not sweet enough. O1 was PERFECT). We got to take some of the left-overs home, and each got a cute bottle of sake as gifts. The food for the event was also verrrryyyy good, and included some lovely salad, sashimi, edamame, karage, and cha-han). After that, me, Bee, Orlan and Sea left on the train (much fun was had... we played Janken half the way, and then made up some stupid story the rest of the way) and went out to Pieno after for some Karaoke. At Pieno, as usual, all of the Aki "youth" were out, and I got to see crazy Natsuki again (from the last drunken outing we had). Poor Orlan had to do battle with some drunk Japanese guys and arm wrestle all of them multiple times (as well as protect his man-hood from prying hands). I got called cute by some attractive guys (huzzah!), even though they were 28/29 and not the 25 I always hope when I see the "youth" of Aki-city.

Happiest little girl EVER.

On Saturday, The Brit arrived at my house around 12:30 and then we all headed over to the community center to help out with S-Ono's Aki-children Halloween party. We did some prep work, tried on costumes, and surveyed the area that we would be trick-or-treating in before coming back to the center and getting ready for the children to come at 3:30. Once they all came, we broke into 5 groups and went out trick-or-treating. I got to be one of the photographers for the event, so I didn't have a group and instead got to run around and laugh at everyone else as they struggled to keep their children in line. None of the kids knew that I was princess mononoke (not their generation I guess... wtf), and one kid asked me why I was wearing a towel (It was an APRON fool!!). Anyway, after trick-or-treating, we all came back to the community center for games and a cape-design contest. They were very impressive capes (even though they were made from garbage bags).

The weird game we were playing at our enkai-after halloween party where the picture taker would say a word right before taking the picture, and we'd all have to make the appropriate face.

My Fav bartender with my FAV cynic. :)

One of the "youth" that called me cute and then actually asked ME to take a picture with him. That's a first.

Art Islands and a revival of my artistic spirit

Port of Ogijima and the gorgeous decay that is happening on this oddly arranged island.

Many attempts at jumping and getting photos in front of the FLOTSAM fish produced a number of awesome shots. :D

This last weekend, me, Sea, De-, and Bee took a little road trip up to Takamatsu in Kagawa Prefecture to see the Setouchi International Art Festival (Inner Islands). Friday, after work at 7:00 we all took off from Dana's place and started the 3 hour drive up to Takamatsu. Luckily, a few weeks prior, I had e-mailed the CIR of Kagawa so that I could see if he knew anyone that would put up 4 strangers. What luck! Two people offered up their homes to us and we took to the home of "James" Justin outside of Takamatsu and only 30 min from the port! :)　His house smelled like moth balls..... but that was well worth getting to crash in a place for free.

The rest of the weekend was full of beautiful art and island hopping that I'm too tired to go into right no. :P

Hang Ten (or at least get up to your knees!)

FANTASTIC WEEKEND.

This weekend started out fantastic, ended fantastic... couldn't have asked for better, really. :) It started off with a nice rainy half day at home (I took off from work because I had Daikyu to take and just took the rest of the 3 hours off too). It was really lovely to sleep in, laze around, get my paper products strung together, clean, buy some stuff for the house, and get ready for the rest of the weekend. That night, was eating and drinking at its best. Me, Bee, Ireland, Scotland, and Jar went to Nahari hotel to eat and drink all we could for 3500 yen at a Hokkaido food festival. It was basically like a giant enkai. The food was buffet style, so you could go up and get as much as you wanted, and the drinks were endless (delicious Ume-chuhi and beer). The food was stupendous, there was this one dish I wish I could have eaten more of. It was potatoes, salmon, veggies, and CHEESE baked in a dish. There was also amazing crab nabe and circular koroque. Me and Jar and Ireland sang Karaoke songs when it came to that part of the night, and I challenged Jar's co-workers in hashiken (the janken chopstick drinking game). Me and Bee decided to skip the last train and crashed at Ireland's house for the night.

Woke up the next morning at 6:15 to get on the 6:30 train back to Aki so I could sleep in my own bed, take a shower, and finish packing for the surf camp over the long weekend. It was raining, and I was worried that the 3.5 hour drive would take longer and the surf camp would be shitty... but that was totally not the case. We made it in perfect time (got there at 12:20 for the 1:00 start time), and even picked up Holly at Kochi station along the way. The drive was gorgeous, if not a little abunai. Once most people had gotten there, we went over to Bruce's "Hata Surf Dojo" and suited up in rash guards and board shorts. Then we were assigned a board according to height. The rain, at that point, was really light, so it really wasn't a nuisance and only made it so that we didn't have sun in our eyes. We got to the beach, practiced balance points and then went out into the water to catch some waves (with out standing). Once we did that for awhile, we came back in to practice standing and popping up (which was by far the hardest considering my weak-ass arms). We played around in the ocean for awhile even when the rain started coming down harder. Once it got too tiring, we went back to Bruce's place to change, get showered and wait for the amazing feast that was ahead of us. Bruce made the most amazing food for us. We had pumpkin soup, pesto pasta, taco rice, home-made pizza, chicken, garlic bread, and enough beer to kill a man. I was staying with Amy, so we left a little early (10:00ish) but I really appreciated the good food, not too much beer, and a REALLY good night's sleep.

We woke up the next morning at 8:00 so that we could get ready, eat, and be at Bruce's by 9:30 to start the next lesson. During the night, the clouds had cleared and left the most amazingly blue and clear sky. It was a perfect day to be outside and we were allowed to surf with Bruce's boards until 4:00pm. I got to the point where I was so exhausted I couldn't push myself up any more (good time to stop, I'd say). Unfortunately, that day left me with a little sunburned cheeks (but well worth it). We all set up camp at the camp site and got food ready for the BBQ that we ended up having on the beach (with a bonfire!!). Me and beer buddy chatted and we all ate so much amazing meat and veggies. A bunch of us went to bed around midnight, and I woke up at about 8:15 to get things put together so we could do yoga. Yoga wasn't on the beach (as originally planned) because the sun was just so hot and direct, but we all did yoga at the campsite, and it really helped to make my muscles feel better and more relaxed. 

A three hour drive later, I ended up exhausted at home (and unfortunately had to cancel some plans). Instead, me and De- made curry and watched "ダリングは外国人" which was actually the first romantic movie I've ever seen in Japan. It was sufficiently awkward but cute and me and De- had a good time laughing at it and dissecting the awkward parts. :)

Surfing on Sunday was AWESOME and gorgeous!

Ramune chugging and an onsen belly

Saturday, instead of my awesome idea of a beach party and BBQ, we all headed up to Umaji for an onsen-dinner and drink fest with Ireland. The drive up there was a little scary (narrow mountain roads, fast trucks zooming along.... Sea screaming in my back seat ) but it was beautiful. I wish I could have stopped more often to take pictures or explore the random caves and bridges along the way up into Umaji. The weather there was also quite a bit cooler (which didn't stop me and Ireland from jumping into the freezing river water... so freshing) but the sun stayed out all day, and I'm not gonna lie, I was a little disappointed about not getting to do the totally plausible BBQ on the beach.

The next morning (after many a strange dream), I woke everyone up at 8AM, ran through the downpour to my car, and some how made it safely down the mountain in one peice (even though my car kept fogging up :<). Sunday's sports day was surprisingly a lot of fun! there were only like... 12 kids? 14 kids? So parents, teachers, and staff got to participate in just about every event. I participated in about 7 or 8 events (always with an invite from the kids). I got to show my drinking skills by chugging ramune and winning my round of drinking, as well as grab bread with my teeth and run around come cones (among other silly activities). I also got to see and talk to cute mountain teacher (even though it was only for a little while) who was adorable in his basket ball shorts. haha.

That night, Nat-chan and Ryoku-chan came over (along with Bee) to make okonomiyaki and yakisoba. We met up with Em in the super market and invited her along as well. The okonomiyaki was thus far, the best I've ever eaten. I can say that with all honesty. I feel like before this, I'd been lying and just SAYING I liked it because it was OKAY but this stuff was awesome (and had kimchi in it!). We sat around, listening to music and chatting about random stuff, and I tried to use a Japanese top with a string (almost killed Bee with it hahaha). But really, it was a lot of fun getting to speak so much Japanese and such. We also helped Nat-chan out with some English :) Good Weekend.