Down..

A bad day - to sum up:
1. Continue with my theory that I am cursed to travel, a typhoon is due tomorrow afternoon, the day i am suppose to fly back to Taiwan to see my long lost parents and friends...yay.
2. Due to the upcoming typhoon, I got soaked in Shinjuku even in the presence of an umbrella. Nice prada shoes died due to excess water soakage and the clogged japanese draining system on the streets.
3. The only good thing about today is probably meeting my really good friend clare who i haven't seen for 3 years!!! meeting up and catching up as if we have not been apart for long ^^. Talking about friends, my other really good wei is looking stunning right now, which is brilliant~don't get me wrong...but it consequentially conveys that in comparison i'm useless at dieting, ugly looking, have no will power and am jobless still yet..oh god wat a shit day~~

Ginza

I spent most of Sunday sleeping. And Monday was full of rain so I had come home straight from uni.
Today I was neither energy deprived nor weather restrained~so we ventured into the Ginza district where neon lights of Mikimoto, Mitsukoshi, Apple Mac, Sony showroom etc flooded the area.
We also found a PS2 showroom~where you can play free PS2 games as much as you want! How cool is that?! I found the latest version to Shun's golf game and also this DDR: Drumming style game!

I'm meeting my high school friend Clare tomorrow~she's coming to see me from HK! It's gonna be so good seeing her, last time I saw her was at A-levels...so..lots to catch up over a yummy Japanese dinner

Kimono

We went to try on kimono yesterday~damn it i look like a pillar -_-;; I wanted to tell them to put less layers on me but then the grannys didn't speak any english so i just had to cope seeing my body resembling more and more closely to a trunk.

AND, if anyone knows any photoshop programmes that can let me get rid of my shiny forehead on the photos please let me know (yea i know it would have been easier to just use compact powder beforehand..)
and then~we went to sing ktv from 11pm to 5am!!! I can't speak and don't have a voice now, and my mum left 21 messages on my answering machine..I am wondering whether or not to call home and ask for a beating x_x

Make up

I went to take makeup lessons today~~and there was this strange guy in the shop having his eyebrows plucked and getting make up put on...@_@
it was such a novelty and bizarre thing to see that i had to take a picture through the mirrow (hence myself at the bottom right corner).
ohoh, and I saw doraemon at televion asahi in Rioppongi! It's apparently doraemon's 25th birthday so there was a celebration of 鳥山明's work. SOOO cute!! I went mad shopping~^^;;

Matsuri

Japan festivals: Matsuri explained~
Today it's the so called Autumnial National Festive day, namely another matsuri-filled period.
I have always thought of Matsuri as a festival. However having witnessed one myself it seems somewhat description-deficient to call it just that.
Matsuri means both festival and worship, posed as a link between the human and the divine, marking stages in the rice-growing cycle or historical events.
The aim of the matsuri is to preserve the goodwill of the deities (kami). All maturi follows the form of purification by water/fire; and offerings, followed by a procession in which the kami is invoked at the shrine and excorted in a portable shrine (mokishi) to a temporary dwelling where there is entertainment (eg dancing, archery etc). The kami is then taken back to the shrine.
I got woken up this morning by the local shrine chanters clanging metal instruments shifting themselves along the narrow streets of Shimotakaido (where i live, near Shinjuku). A weird, almost comical concoction of feeling was generated: one is excited, uplifted yet repectful.
There you go~it's not always a waste of time reading Annie's blog, it has SOME information in it!

Impressions on Japan

I've been here for nearly 10 days now. So far my impression on majority of homebred Japanese men has been more than devastating~quoting from Miss Wang, 'Shun's so above average in Japan' and reenforced by Miss Lin, 'Yea I should have cherished him more when he was around =P'.
So far i have been knocked sideways, pushed over and stepped on by them, it's so frustrating sometime and I wanted to say to them: 'why the rush?!...to hell?!'
Guys should at least be gentlemen-like and open doors for people..and being a girl i'm going to completely contradict myself by posing a theory that sometimes I would like men to go first:
If guys are willing to first try the long expired food in your fridge; jump into the freezing swimming pool to check wheather the water is approachable; taste the food in restaurant and let you eat it if it's nice and eat it himself if it's not...that's also kinda cute right??
However, I bet under these circumstances japanese men will willingly become gentlemens. I do not say this without proved: I was informed that when couples go out on subways and there are one seat left it is most likely the woman who stands throughout the journey...ai~behaviour of Japanese men. Better avoided.

I booked a holiday to Kyoto and Osaka today! soon i will be enjoying the a-ki weather with beautiful reddened maple leaves falling upon me~can't wait!!
Today's been a hard working one, but I've also discovered the exsistence of a doraemon paradise!! yaya~apparently it's in Rioppongi, will shoot off there after class tomorrow.
I'm enjoying my life so much right now, everyday's been productive and eventful. I have a lot of things lined up, so be prepared to join me and my hectic schedule ^^v

Harajuku

Being a true germini I believe there are different sides to people. Today I experienced the true weird side of Japan. Harajuku is full of make-up-heavy, self expressive teenagers. I couldn't quite decide what the point was for coming out into the blazing heat every sunday dressed up in layers of goth like clothes putting tonnes of makeup on oneself. Maybe it is a road to self discovery, though I somehow believe it is more a desperate attempt to become noticed by others.
We caught a matsuri on the way home~it was so funny to see people fighting and stepping over one another in the blazing heat scrambling along the street~that kinda balanced out my earlier thought of people being lonely, seeing everyone as one union force moving the mikoshi along ^^

Hello Kitty Land

I went to Hello Kitty Land today! things are so adorable in there!EVERYTHING is pink and cute...I wish there's a doraemon land, though i don't think such thing exsist

and you can see my hair now ^_^v tell me it's very obviously brown...cos it was hard work trying to convey that to the hairdresser via sign language..so give me some credit

Hair Salon

Todays blog is dedicated to all those people i promised that i will dye my hair to.
i dyed my hair yesterday hohoho!! personally i dont think its that obvious but jane says its nearly yellow! Maybe i am blind. Have not yet got a photo but will post it shortly as we are going to a disaster museum this afternoon to experience typhoon, earthquake and fire..not that i havent been through all that before.
the sushi and sashimi here are SOOOO cheap!! the bacteria in my stomach is going to multiple exponentially by the time i finish in japan..and i am sure you all wanted to know that.

Riopponji

IJLP is so fun and yet so tiring!! The lessons are 3 hours long with only 10 min break in between. So I had literally been crammed 6 hours worth of vocab in one day after my uni exit at 1730.
Went to Riopponji today and I bought two CUTEST rings

I have somehow established a reputation already. ALL the teachers when they start the lesson goes, 'where's Annie san?' =_=;; Jane skived as well...so unfair man...
Really have to study, I can't believe i'm saying this but i have so much work!! It's must easier than natsci tho =P just take some time to commit 100 vocabs into memory each day haha~~

First day of IJLP

My first day of school!
My head hurts from the literally INTENSIVE japanese speaking today, not so much at school but from all the hardcore bargaining at the shopping heaven after school.
With literally no vocab and dramatic acting I managed to ask how to buy a mobile and get a return plane ticket home to TW...well at least I hope it's a return ticket home....hmmm..haha ^^;;
Food it so so so nice...my diet plan going down the drain....

Kamakura & Yokohama

mm, have to be brief...cos the wireless internet connection is suprisingly unreliable.
Went to Kamakura and Yokohama today, and i'm beginning to talk rubbishy Japanese :D:D:D haha can't believe i'm happy about it. At the Ramen museum which serves various dishes we were forced to use 1000yen notes which i do not have, so i went up to one of the shops in the museum and asked for change. But instead saying i have a large note and thus needs change i said i had a large STOMACH and thus neede change. Oh well ^^;; It KINDA makes sense doesn't it?!
On the way back we had a minor accident with the car (see what i mean about being cursed on travel) and it's made me realise how properly the japanese follow rules! The subway is for one: the gates are usually open and people still pay the tool as if there was an invisible eye watching over them. And as for today, the car has merely TOUCHED the car infront, leaving not a single scratch on it, and yet we were forced to call in the police, write a post mortem, inform the insurance company: a step by step protocol which took nearly an hour, of which if i was in taiwan would have just been dismissed with a casual 'sorry'. I guess there are pros and cons to such diligence. Better stop writing just incase the internet crashes again.

Japan - I've arrived!

i've arrived in japan!!! FINALLY~~
I think I am blessed (or cursed) to have an eventful life whenever I travel. For once I wasn't running for the leaving plane/bus but instead, my seat was double booked and I had to wait for the ENTIRE plane to board and then only to be spite on by everyone thinking I was the reason for the delayed departure. THEN, then air con went malfunctional... we were being incubated as the plane was delayed by a further two hours due to some mal-coordinated BA people who managed to load the luggages into the wrong compartment of the plane.
And throughout the entire journey the motherlike airhostess was informing us the exact happenings of all the operations on the plane: when the films were on, when the toilet was in use, what the customs forms meant...it all seemed a bit excessive for a frequent traveller.A note to self: never travel by BA again.

Japan

yes, and I can't wait to go to Japan tomorrow morning!!
After the month-long battle with insects that infested my house I've decided that science is everywhere: the famous predator/prey relationship cycle is at work right in my flat...after spending 60 quid cleaning the carpet and completely eradicating the woodlice, I am now exposed to hungry huge 3x3cm spiders on the hunt for food and scavenging and jeopardising the place. After spraying insecticides around my house and intoxicating myself I have then successfully eradicated the spiders, only to be infested with woodlice again...what can i say..the miracle of mother nature at work and its sustainment, natural evolution of life. Respect =_=;;

hohoho~I must first congratulate myself for actually getting off my lazy ass and creating this (not that it took long).
I hope through this I will not only be able to inform all my dear friends (those who wants to know of course) about what I am up to, keep in touch~but also to datalog and hopefully see personal progression ^^v Let it begin~