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yagichiizu's LiveJournal:
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| Tuesday, November 8th, 2005 | | 1:00 pm |
Oh my god, I am using this journal again. I think I'll probably try to resurrect it as a generic photo blog for the times when I have pictures I want to share. Which won't be very often, but fair warning. Anyway, I promised my mom I'd show these, so. For those I haven't told obnoxiously many times already, I've got a cat now, since Thursday. She's a bit over a year -- the story was she was being fostered, since her previous owner wanted to get rid of her because she was pregnant with her second litter and the owner was trying to breed pit bulls, which probably would've been hazardous to the kittens. Apparently the conditions there were pretty white-trashy, which stands to reason when you have a cat that's only about a year old who's already had two litters. It's the equiv of having two kids when you're 17 or something. Anyway, the kittens were born and found homes pretty quickly, since people understandably like kittens. Older cats are harder to house, though, so the lady fostering was still looking for a place for the mother, and sooo... I took her. Her name's Magpie, or Pie, and she's a crackhead. Very cute, very affectionate, but a crackhead, along the order of 'OO WHAT'S THAT WHAT'S THAT? WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!' So anyway, pictures below the cut. ( Read more... ) | | Saturday, July 23rd, 2005 | | 7:12 am |
Earthquake today, kind of freaky. It was a 5.0 on the shindo scale, and I'd have to look that up to see what it translates to on Richter... Basically, no major damage, but there were objects falling and stuff. Shindo measures what an earthquake feels like at a given location, while Richter measures the energy at the epicenter, so shindo's basically more useful in everyday terms.
Anyway, I'm all right and everything. There were a few injuries across the city, but no deaths reported.
Finals done, wrapping up before heading home, need to buy gifts, no idea what to get. We spent about five days in Tateshina -- it was fun, and I have some pics but I'm being lazy about uploading so probably will... tomorrow or so. My host parents have a cabin up in the mountains, so we took Ikuya's (host father) mother up there along with Yutaka, which made things interesting. Why, you ask? Oho.
Well, as I've mentioned before, granny (which is what we call her; I honestly don't know her name) is completely senile, so she kept forgetting where we were and saying that she was going home. Yutaka just turned four and is at that stage where he's talking pretty much non-stop. Ikuya's going deaf, so it meant that the whole trip it was me and my host mother fielding nonsensical questions from the kid and granny, who were often actually talking OVER each other, so we had:
Yutaka: "Stoplight, grandma, stoplight. Look, grandma, stoplight. It's red. Why is the stoplight red? Hey. Hey, grandma, why is the stoplight red?"
Granny: "We're changing lines at Shizuoka, right? Where is my ticket? I don't have my ticket. Oh no. What do I do?"
At the same time. With both people becoming increasingly agitated as they weren't satisfactorily answered -- in granny's case, it was because we were in a car, and not, in fact, a train, but she wouldn't believe that so we ended up just telling her that Ikuya had the tickets and we didn't have to transfer so she could stop trying to unfasten her seatbelt, thanks.
Heh heh. So yeah. Int'resting. I like mountains, though. | | Tuesday, July 5th, 2005 | | 9:25 pm |
Countdown 'til return time, which is really kind of depressing. The past 9 months went by terrifyingly fast. Now I need to figure out this loan again, get the apartment lease signed... blah. It's funny; apart from the obvious schoolwork and all, this has really pretty much felt like a year-long vacation.
So now I need to get souvenirs for the people back home and stuff, get some things for myself, possibly make a quick trip down to Kyoto while I still have time/if I have money. My last final is I *think* on the 22nd, and before that I'll be going to Tateshina with my host family for Obon.
Not much to say, really, sorry -- been busy with school and stuff. And it's tsuyu, so it's been raaaaaaaaaining. All the time. When it hasn't been hot and sticky. But at least we're not flooding like Shikoku is. | | Wednesday, June 8th, 2005 | | 2:01 am |
So the interview thing was today, and it went well. Unpaid, but hey, it's pretty much a given that most people don't need monetary compensation for the chance to appear on TV. I did get a free lunch and a pen, though. You should see this pen. The slip of paper that came with it says that it emits infrared rays to heal the tension in your hand. Which I'm pretty sure is bullshit, but it sounds cool. ( Read more... ) | | Friday, June 3rd, 2005 | | 9:30 pm |
I have been lax, and for that, I apologize. Profusely.
Everything is going well -- Yo's back from Italy, we went for the best freaking sushi in the world in celebration, a tiny place near the Myogadani train station. Host parents are currently attending a wedding and a funeral down near Fuji, so I'm alone here with Yoichiro and Rieko. I'm probably going to head to Hakone tomorrow with a friend if I can drag myself out of bed early enough.
I did end up going to that festival, and I have pictures which I'll probably upload tonight to free up the camera memory.
I might be on TV, too. My prof., Shimizu-sensei, sent around a sign-up list for an interview of native English speakers on NHK, and I got an e-mail today from the people about it asking to set up a time. They call it a "shooting," which is kind of scary. | | Monday, May 16th, 2005 | | 10:33 am |
Man. Why are electronic dictionaries so damned expensive?
I'm cruising ebay and the best deal I can find on one that has the features I want is around $200. Sheesh. You'd think there'd be some college students out there somewhere who'd gotten one and decided that Japanese was the devil and wanted to sell. Or something.
Pondering just getting the $200 one. I don't have a ton of cash to burn, but I've got enough, and it'd shave a ton of annoyance off of my study time. Hmm. | | Saturday, May 14th, 2005 | | 11:00 am |
Continued... Right on, right on, ikuze, here we go. ( Read more... ) | | 10:30 am |
Moskau, Moskau, lalalala la la la. This is almost timely. I've got... a pretty impressive number of Chichibu shots, so this one's going to be on an installment plan. Chichibu's a pretty 'what the hell, there's nothing here' town about two hours outside of Tokyo via Ikebukuro station. It has mountains, though, and I like mountains. It's a national park, with hiking and so on, though we didn't do a ton of that given that the host parents are in their 60's and it was a pretty hot day. Anyhow. ( Read more... ) | | Friday, May 13th, 2005 | | 10:24 am |
All right, so motivation isn't my strong point. Here's the first photo dump of... two. Soon to be three, probably, since I *think* tomorrow is a mikoshi festival at the Kandamyojin shrine (previously pictured) so I'm going to have to go to that, and of course take pictures. But for now, here are some old ones from a few weeks ago when we went to a temple near Takadanobaba (best area name ever.) It was a place famous for its botan flowers, and I have absolutely no idea what that translates to in English or if it even translates to anything at all. They look like... well, look at the pictures. ( Read more... ) | | Monday, May 9th, 2005 | | 11:57 am |
I've got a ton of photos, but I keep forgetting to upload until it's really late, so I'll just update this now in an effort to remind myself to do the photos tomorrow.
Golden Week's come and gone here; it's the time of year when just about everyone in the country is on vacation, from students to salarymen to... whoever. As a result, all of the big areas were packed. To. Hell. Unbelievably. Ikebukuro was a teeming mass of bodies.
I went to Chichibu with the host parents. It's a wildernessy sort of area up in the mountains, very pretty, I have shots of that.
Otherwise I'm trying to get prepared for next semester. I did the FAFSA, now I need to renew my US Bank loan. Have an apartment picked out that looks good, and registered for all my classes. Man, though, the time went by really fast. Not over yet, but still. | | Saturday, April 23rd, 2005 | | 5:57 am |
More photo-heavy posting! Like, really photo-heavy. These were all taken about the day after I snapped the previous cherry blossom pics, which makes them a bit old. They're from Kanda Myojin, the shrine near Ochanomizu, and since finding it during KWT's visit it's become my favorite Tokyo shrine because it's pretty and red and within walking distance. A lot of these are going to be kind of redundant, because I like getting as many angles in as possible for my own memory's sake and also for possible drawing reference. I figured out what the deal with the shrines and temples is, incidentally, through my architecture class. Apparently the shrines were originally homes for the gods, and the temples were based off of the Buddha Sakyamuni/Shaka's tomb, particularly the multi-storied pagodas. Eventually, though, the Japanese combined them into hybrid Buddhist/Shinto, so while there are temples and there are shrines, there are also temple-slash-shrines -- in other words, there often isn't a difference. Hooray, college education! Onward ho for photos. ( Read more... ) | | Monday, April 11th, 2005 | | 7:10 am |
Registration here really makes very little sense. I already went over the issue with registering for courses about 2 weeks after you've started attending, and that there's no web enrollment. New hitch: rather than going by a credit system, where you must register for however many minimum credits in order to be considered a full-time student, they go by an 'hours' system. Thing is, how many hours a week you attend a class has next to nothing to do with how many credits it's worth. For instance, normal courses are 4 credits, language courses are 2, though you spend the exact same amount of time in class. What this means, though, is that I have no idea how many courses I'm supposed to register for -- I'm taking one 4-credit Japanese class, and also taking Chinese, 2 credits, and Japanese art history, 4 credits, and all of this adds up to their required 10 hours of class time, but their book says you should register for four classes and doesn't say whether or not Japanese counts as two classes and argh. I'm just going to assume it does. But still, that's only 10 credits. Which is, really, bogus, because that 4-credit Japanese class is as much time spent in class as I'd spend for TWO regular classes, but for some reason they only count languages as half the credits, and I really CAN'T UNDERSTAND why, because if anything you're doing MORE work in a language class. So I should really be getting 14 credits. I call foul. Moo. Also, I hate the FAFSA. Anyway, have some cherry blossoms. I heard there was a blizzard in Colorado or whatever. HAHAHAHAHA. ( Read more... ) | | Tuesday, April 5th, 2005 | | 2:35 am |
A Haiku
Sakura are great
for like two days before they
all fall down. Oh shit.
So yeah, the cherry blossoms are blooming and it's an insanely big deal here, with drinking parties in the parks and news broadcasts showing where the first blooms are and so on. I'll have pictures tomorrow or something when I'm less lazy.
Amusing thing: we went out flower-viewing with Tamaki and co., and she brought her kids. At one point she went to a vending machine for something to drink, leaving me sitting on a bench with Takuma nearby in the stroller. While she was away, two middle-aged women passed by and started admiring the kid, saying 'Oh, he's so cute,' etc., but appaaarently, when they were out of MY earshot but were passing Tamaki, they were like, 'Wow, that baby really doesn't look like her at all.' Well... of course he doesn't.
Snicker. | | Thursday, March 17th, 2005 | | 5:02 am |
They had this thing on tonight for the ten-year anniversary (if anniversary's really the right word, since that sounds a little bit too celebratory) of the subway sarin gas victims here. Sadly, no happy rehibilitation stories. It was pretty damned sad, actually. To summarize in case anyone hasn't heard of it, though I think I mentioned it here before, some members of some Buddhist cult went on a couple of the major subway lines (the Marunouchi, which is the one that runs closest to my host family's house, was one of them) and released sarin gas on the trains by dumping cannisters and puncturing them with sharpened umbrella tips around rush hour. During the rush hour, you really can't see a thing on the floors of the trains since they're so packed, so the gas was being released for a long time before anyone noticed.
Anyway, apparently the poison has long-term effects; they had this woman on who was actually doing BETTER two years after the attack than she's doing now. They had her in rehab eight years ago and she was able to sit up by herself and move her limbs, but now she's confined to a wheelchair, blind, and can't talk -- she acts a lot like a severe stroke victim. She seems to be somewhat conscious of what's going on, but she can't shape words or control her facial muscles. Her older brother takes care of her.
Damn, though. I think I'd rather die, in that situation. | | 1:35 am |
I think I need to get my wisdom teeth pulled when I get back in the States. I keep unintentionally biting my cheek. Uh... plum pictures from the shokubutsuen. Okay, I actually took these about a week ago. I have no idea why the files are so big. Actually, I do -- I set the quality too high -- but anyway. ( Read more... ) | | Thursday, March 3rd, 2005 | | 9:04 am |
Hina Matsuri (Girl's Day) today. Host mother lent me her kimono, and I got some pictures. They're a royal pain in the ass to put on. ( Read more... ) | | Tuesday, March 1st, 2005 | | 11:02 pm |
I found it endlessly amusing that two Tokyoites behind me were laughing at the prices in Starbucks. Tokyo. Prices. Are crazy. So, if even they were able to find Bucky prices nutso, you know something's up. I dropped by Tsukiji again today because it was largely closed down when I went there with the host folks on Sunday. We hadn't really intended to go to Tsukiji that day, but it sort of happened. We'd gone to Asakusa with Yutaka and did the Sumida River boat tour, which was decently fun, but I had to laugh because it went sort of like: Announcer: (In Japanese) "This is the Blah Blah Bridge, and is the largest bridge on the Sumida River and was built by blah blah blah in blah blah blah. The arc is supposed to represent blah, and at night you can see it lit up. In the distance you can see a memorial to the famous haiku poet blah blah blah." (In English) "This bridge is called the Blah Blah Bridge." Also saw the Asahi Beer building that day, which was crazy. I didn't take a picture, but here's an image from Teh Intarweb: http://arch.cside.com/t991228/asahiazuma03.jpgIt has a big squiggly gold carrot. I don't know either. Anyway, that was Sunday. Today was Tsukiji, which is the big fish market place. I went at around noon, which is supposedly after the most crowded time. From around 6 AM to 8 AM they have auctions for the fish -- Tsukiji's the place where most restaurants go for their fish. Bunch of cheap sushi places around, too, and it's all supposedly really good, which stands to reason, given freshness. | | Wednesday, February 16th, 2005 | | 11:12 am |
La. Picture of the dog I took just before I left. Posting here because I remembered Mom probably doesn't have any/many of him, so. ( Read more... ) | | Friday, February 11th, 2005 | | 9:12 am |
So, like. Took a couple more shots, nothing special. My picture quality's getting better as I've finally figured out the camera, but this sadly means the files are getting larger. We went to a mochi tsuki today, which, appropriately enough, was a thing where they made mochi. Usually this is more of a New Year's thing, but since it was just recently the Chinese New Year, I guess it still works. Mochi's glutinous rice pounded together with water to form this sort of sticky... wad. It's hard to describe. Really good, though, when served in soup or with anko (red bean paste.) Hard to chew because it sticks together, and I guess they have a few deaths every year from old people choking on the stuff. Eheh. Anyway. The thing was near a smaller temple we have near here. I think it may actually be the Myogadani temple, but no idea. I may have to look it up tomorrow for the hell of it. Basically, the deal is you've got a guy with a big-ass wooden mallet pounding the rice in a stone mortar, and you've got another guy (or girl, or whatever) bending down between pounds to put water in the mixture. It's kind of dangerous to be the latter person, 'cos, like. If the mallet guy isn't paying attention... Fun fact: Instead of the 'man in the moon,' the Japanese have a rabbit pounding mochi. You can see it in old cartoons and stuff. Probably has something to do with the 'tsuki' in 'mochi tsuki,' which means 'making,' also being the word for 'moon.' The More You Know. Anyway, pictures. Just two. The mochi thing and some plum blossoms. At least I think I figured out what the weird floaty thing in the snow pic was -- it was a traffic sign that caught the camera flash. I think. ( Read more... ) | | Thursday, February 3rd, 2005 | | 5:10 am |
Today was Setsubun. Setsubun involves tossing beans out the doorway and saying 'oni wa soto,' and tossing beans in the entryway and saying 'fuku wa uchi.' Devil is outside, good luck is inside, style of thing. Sometimes someone dresses up as a devil and gets beans thrown at them. On a variation of this, the various temples have people born in whatever particular year it is (tori/cock, in this case,) tossing oranges and candy and stuff out at the crowd. So... I have pictures. They're pretty big this time because I was too lazy to resize. ( Read more... ) |
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