do not hit with a bat.

today anastasia, julian and me wanted to go to the university's convini between two lessons when it started raining so hard that by the time we got back to our classrooms, we were soaked! my hair and clothes dried rather quickly but my shoes didn't and it was quite uncomfortable to walk around in wet shoes all day long. after university we rode on our bikes cross-town forever till we found a damn atm machine which would accept our cards. in the meanwhile, it started raining again and we got soaked again.

we spent the rest of the afternoon mostly at the saty mall, i bought the cheapest socks so i wouldn't have to walk around in those damn wet shoes. anastasia and me played "the house of the dead III" at the game center which was so much fun! killing zombies with shotguns, hell yeah! also, i bought some clothes at uniqlo again because they're so cheap and comfy. my host family must think i'm a spoilt rich brat who is addicted to shopping because i buy so many things here but i usually don't like shopping that much, the japanese just have so much awesome stuff and most of it is even quite cheap. there're also many expensive things here as japan isn't the cheapest country to live in but so far we always found the cheaper stores in Osaka and Tsu. guess, Kyoto and Tokyo will be a tad more expensive...?!

my life at the host family is really getting more comfortable. the last few days we played games in the evenings, i've started talking more to my okâsan and the kids stopped ignoring me and sometimes even talk to me now or try to explain things to me. they also always give me little presents, mostly sweets or cuddly toys or roboter pandas. this evening i showed them pictures of my family and friends and when our otôsan (father) came home late, we all hid and scared him when he entered the house which was funny.

boy, i'd really like to eat some haribo gummibärchen right now.

university life, tsu

red pandas.

i ate a cherry blossom today, it was inside some fancy sweets and tasted awful, quite shoppai (salty) in fact!

after class, we all went to an archeological excavation. i usually like archeology but this afternoon was really boring. also, it rained and we all got muddy. before i went home i went to uniqlo with anastasia and bought another bunch of clothes (i.e. a skirt for apporox. €3!). my life at the host family is getting better, this evening we went out after dinner and did hana-bi in the back yard. also, my host brother gave me one of his pandas because they think i love animals so much. apropos, i saw a beautiful white cat at university today. i squealed and tried to catch it but alas, it was pretty shy and ran away. i really really need to cuddle some cat soon!!

i can't find my damn cutter.

university life, tsu, food
(fyi, this camera icon means that the following albums at my picasa webalbums has been updated. i will use this in future, mkay?)

雷 - kaminari.

yeah, weather icon!! i woke up to thunder and the rain against my window at 5am this morning. i really like storms and as i know that they usually calm down in the morning, i told my worried host mother that it's ok if i'll go by bike but as it was still raining during breakfast she intended on going by car. when julian's host mother fetched me up to drive us to the university, the rain stopped (of course) and i felt quite helpless without a bike the whole day long. especially when we went shopping after university and had to walk the whole way over to the "saty" mall because unfortunately, the rain in the morning didn't bring any coolness but more humidity. well, i'm at least happy that the average temperature here is now around 30°C and not 40°C like our first two weeks here in japan.

i really need to stop buying tiny whacky stuff and food all the time! i bought socks&tights today, treated myself with dark chocolate and pink grapefruit juice because it was suppai and bought an epilator by braun (since mine isn't working in japan) at the reduced priced of approx. €20 which is quite cheap for such a thing. smooth skin again! aah, the little pleasures in a girl's life!

this evening i did 留守番 rusuban (house-sitting) with my host brother. when we had dinner earlier (btw we had sukiyaki, a yummy nabe dish), the kids told me that they wanna play (board) games with me later so when okâsan and my host sister returned from her ballet class, we had a fun game night. i always lost but i'm happy to see that they're losing their shyness little by little. also yesterday i was sitting in my room doing homework when they both appeared at my doorstep, grinning like cheshire cats. they gave me a bowl of matcha icecream and ran away giggling cheerfully. so cute. the one thing that always makes them happy is the fact that i'm a sucker for green tea like themselves.

i'm resigning to the fact that they often still ignore me because they're too busy watching tv or something. speaking of which, japanese tv is crazy. &who would have thought that a tv show about a couple of men dressed up as women standing in front of a table with miscellaneous items who have to guess if an item is worth 100¥ or more could be that entertaining!?

my hands are bananas!

another lousy day at university. our teacher's shrill voice gave me a severe headache again (julian's "scale of sonic death" gives you an idea of how much her voice actually hurts) and i don't even wanna start ranting about those chinese students. i just hate that language and communication's not really going too well between germans and chinese. at least the things we are learning in class (set phrases for example) are quite useful methinks.

we had classes till noon. anastasia and me ate "kitsune udon" at the university's cafeteria and got some sweets at the convini afterwards. i really really like the food here, especially udon and soba but also the chocolate and everything with green tea in it. it's strange because the last time i was in japan, i really had a problem with the food here. only after a few days everything tasted like algae to me which is why i brought half a bag full of german food with me this time but until now, i'm fine and enjoy the food. i just miss "suppai" (sour) stuff like lemons and the first week i really graved for haribo gummi bears. it's also a bit annoying that most of those 飲物自動販売機 nomimonojidôhanbaiki (soft drink vending machines) don't have clear water but all that sticky sugary drinks.

after lunch we all went to the cultural center of Tsu and attended a tea ceremony. afterwards we visited the library there. i went to the children's corner and found some english beatrix potter books and read the adventures of peter the rabbit and his friends.

the man in the wilderness said to me,
how many strawberries grow in the sea?
i answered him as i thought good:
as many red herrings as grow in the wood.

- the tale of squirrel nutkin

chûhai & burgers.

the day started off awkwardly with my host family. our relationsship is getting better but i still don't feel really comfortable around them, especially the kids can be very repellent. like this morning, when i loudly chanted "ohayô gozaimassssu" ("good morning") but they just ignored me. things like that often upset me.

since language classes started today, we first had a reception in the morning and had to introduce ourselves in front of everybody. unfortunately, they obviously only told the chinese students about it so most of them had prepared some fancy self-introduction and we german students just mumbled "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" and sat back on our chairs. we then had this placement test and i really screwed up, especially the listening comprehension, and ended up in the loser's class. well see, it isn't as bad as it sounds.

after the test there was a delicious buffet und we were put together in groups each with a german and a chinese student plus a japanese student as their adviser. my adviser is a very lively girl called naoko. she is the first japanese person here i could really get along well with. of course i really liked our tandem partners but naoko is always happy, always chattering and thus encouraging me to speak as much as possible in japanese as well. i didn't feel awkward around her when i talked in japanese like i do feel around everyone else...

after the buffet, we already had our first lesson. unfortunately, our teacher has such a shrill voice and annoying intonation, that i actually got a headache. then, just when i was sulking and distracted for a second, she asked me to stand in front of the class and let me introduce myself in japanese. i was completely caught off guard and could barely utter a word. that really sucked.

after university i was so frustrated i went shopping at uniqlo and saty, then bought some chûhai and a grilled chicken burger from mcdo, sat down at the river on my way home and just sat there till i had to go home.

universal studios japan.

today was such a fun day i don't even know where to start! i went to the universal studios japan in Osaka with my host family, julian and his host sister. we left Tsu around 5:30am and arrived there around 7:00am, lined up and had to wait till 8:30am when the gates finally opened and the crowd rushed in.

first we went to see the shrek 4d adventure, which was a 3d movie but you could not only see and hear the action, you could also FEEL it. for example when donkey sneezed, it rained or when they flew on the dragon, there was wind. i was scared to death when some spiders in the 3d movie fell down and at the same time there was a stream of air under our seats which felt like the spiders would crawl along there! simply amazing!

the next thing was the e.t. adventure but i'm not a big fan of that movie and the ride was rather dull as was the jaws ride in "amity village" later that day. compared to the rides of spiderman and jurassic park, the back to the future ride wasn't that great either.

after e.t. we went to the "new york" area of the universal studios and lined up at line for the spiderman ride. we had to wait for over 50 minutes but it was so worth it! that ride was one of the funniest, entertaining things ever! we had those 3d glassed and were driving through the streets of NYC when spiderman jumped on our ride and villains appeared and we were actually caught in the line of fire. it was like that 4d shrek adventure but even more fun! we were attacked by the villains with water (raindrops) and fire (hot streaming air) and were thrown around. we laughed and screamed out of joy, it was awesome!!! in the end, spidey saved us (and NYC) of course. thank you, spiderman!

we had an exquisite lunch at "lombart's landing" and afterwards went to the jurassic park. we had to wait there in line for quite a while again for the ride. the ride was on the water and at first, it was quite peaceful watching those dinosaurs till we got to the research center when things started to get dangerous. we were attacked by little dinosaurs and everything was getting darker and scarier till a GIANT t-rex appeared in front of our ride and we suddenly plunged down into the darkness and fell down 26 meters almost vertical into the water!! (this & this is how it looks like when you shoot out of the building after the fall) i got so fucking scared i screamed like a madman! afterwards i trembled and giggled hysterically for a few minutes. fucking awesome.

next on our schedule was the waterworld show. just like in the movie, there was a huge floating fortress. there were "dry seats" (yellow) and "wet seats" (blue) in front of the stage for the audience. as most of the "dry seats" were already taken, we cluelessly sat down on the "wet seats" but soon found out the meaning of the seperated seats: the waterworld guys walked around and poured water on the members of the audience of the front rows. oddly enough, we were spared but when the show started (which was quite good btw with all the stunts and pyrotechnics and stuff), there were guys on motor boats and jetskis driving very close to the audience so one large wave of a jetski hit me and i was literally SOAKED! (as you can probably see here)

it was ok though as it was a very hot day and my clothes dryed rather quickly. after the show we took pictures with one of the waterworld guys. there was this guy at the beginning of the show whom i think was really cute and i wanted a picture with him and also one with the kinky villian but a fat old security lady told me that time's up and chased me away. i'm still pissed off about that.

the salty brass band cheered me up a bit, they were the only cool thing at amity village anyway. we went on the boring jaws ride and sat down and watched the shrek baby birthday parade and then the universal water parade where they poured water on the audience and sang about "summer water fun" so just as my clothes were dry, i got soaked again. duh. we went on the back to the future ride and watched the universal monsters live rock and roll show which was bad, not only the story but especially the singing and the dancing. sorry, guys.

we passed on the terminator show and went to the spiderman and jurassic park rides again instead. in the evening, we watched the peter pan's neverland show at the lagoon where the actors were soaring high above the ground! after the show, the universal studios closed and we left. on our way home i was so tired i imagined i was sitting in a ride instead of a car and when we finally arrived at 12:30am, i was so exhausted i immediately fell asleep.

花火。

this morning my host sister's friend and her mother visited us and we baked several pastries together with eggs or sausages or cheese&ham or chocolate. they were really tasty. in the afternoon we first picked up my host brother from ballett class (he was the only boy in a room full of tiny young japanese girls in tutus which was quite cute) and then went to a big shopping mall. they had a disney store there and i spent a lot of money on stickers and pens and stuff. we also went to the mall's game center and my host family won a few dozens(!) of tiny cuddly toys (but also a huge micky mouse). afterwards we ate dinner, i had udon with tempura and green tea donuts filled with azuki beans. i really love the food here! (except pulpy meat)

i also found hobbes a new friend, the cat "jiji" from kiki's delivery service which i still haven't seen. yes, our family really is getting bigger and bigger! hobbes was happy to finally have found a feline fellow. there aren't many cats here in japan, let alone tigers. they have beautiful cranes and scary huge insects here instead. a few people have tiny dogs but we both really miss the alley cats!

on our way home we saw a little display of fireworks. my host parents stopped their car and waited and said they wanted to see the fireworks. because the few effects we had seen so far weren't that spectacular and because i was tired and had to wake up at 4am the next day i was quite annoyed but about half an hour later the real display of fireworks began and it was so beautiful and huge and almost scary! i tried to take pictures and videos but they just can't capture how great it was! if you ever go to japan, be sure to watch a hana-bi at least once!

ちょっと眠い~

i like curling up like a cat.
(even without tomcats around, darling)
i'm quite tired and took over 300 pictures again, that's crazy. "camping" was great, the location was beautiful and we had lots of fun - what a pity it's already over! we stayed up until the crack of dawn and drank chûhai (and/or "ureshii wine", bahaha!), we did karaoke, we cooked curry rice and german food (the kartoffelsalat was more like a kartoffelbrei but obviously they liked it anyway) and this morning we went fishing which was a bit boring plus i got a damn sunburn again but standing in the river bare-footed was quite refreshing! speaking of which, today's lunch was cold soba and tempura, oishiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

we also had classes, of course, but they were ok because our tandem partners are great fun people ("superman ist super, das ist doch selbstverständlich!"). i hope that we'll meet them again sometime during the next few weeks (our tandem week is over now, the next three weeks we'll only have language courses at university with a bunch of chinese people).

my japanese is getting better, especially thanks to the last few days. nevertheless, most of the time i have to ask my okâsan to repeat her sentences and then i still have to guess most of it. i'm such a loser. after dinner i watched some japanese "drama" show with the family, the kids danced and sang along to the opening theme which was quite cute. i didn't really get the story but it was hilarious because the acting was so bad! i love japanese tv.

i'm getting quite fond of those flavored pipes, called paipo. i never smoked (although many people thought so for whatever reasons or said it would suit me) but i really enjoy the peppermint ones. the picture on the left is me holding a can of chûhai in one hand and a peppermint paipo in the other (that bloke behind me is julian btw). yeah well gotta go to bed.

Tsu: Camping (Aug 22-24th)

lucanus cervus.

just a quick update. we're on a tight schedule and i almost can't find the time to write here. at least i've finally uploaded some pictures over at my picasa webalbum. so far it's only the pictures from osaka but i'll add the ones from tsu maybe this weekend.

the lessons at university are ok, the weather's still unbearable though and the permanent change between the hot/sticky outside and freezing cold inside of buildings/stores/restaurants is quite exhausting and i feel like i'm finally coming down with a sore throat.

the relationship to my host family is getting better day after day. yesterday we went to eat ramen at a restaurant (i had never eaten ramen and i didn't really like it either). on the way to the restaurant i made my first little joke everyone laughed about and also, the boy talked to my directly for the first time. also, i had quite a chat with my okâsan this morning at breakfast and this evening, her, the kids and me played some cute game on nintendo ds together. it sounds strange but it's those little things that make me feel better. i'm not much of a chatty person anyway and i still have to get used to the fact that they're so much different from my other host family.

in japan, they eat a LOT. i'm just happy that i started eating again properly a few weeks ago otherwise i couldn't keep up with all the food at all! all those side dishes and the sugar-filled drinks you get every few hours for 100¥ because of the heat and those tasty green tea chocolates and pocky they all already made me gain a few pounds! and i've only been here for a week!!!

which is why i especially like the fact that i'm going to university by bike. julian and me (since he is practically my neighbour we go there together) have to ride for about 20 minutes through rice fields every morning. tsu is quite a grim place, all grey and bleak, but those residential areas we ride through every morning are quite beautiful with old houses and those typical japanese blue roofs and pines in their gardens.

tomorrow we're going camping for three days in..."green park"?...or...whatever, where we have lessons and have to cook german dishes for our tandem partners amongst other things. we decided to make "schwäbischer kartoffelsalat&würstchen" and chocolate cake. i'm all on edge because i never made kartoffelsalat and cooking for over 20 people is difficult anyway. at least we're doing karaoke again in the evening.

yesterday i had my first real karaoke experience and it was so much fun. first i didn't dare singing alone and sang fun stuff like "barbie girl" by aqua with saskia but then i dared to got for it alone. they didn't have songs by tori amos so i mostly sang weird stuff like "it's oh so quiet" by björk, "wuthering heights" by kate bush (omg! ^^) but also "don't speak" by no doubt for example. also, isabella sang "supermassive black hole" by muse which was pretty cool! i can't get that song out of my head since.

by the way, hobbes found some new friends: belle & genie. i'll post a picture soon. well, that was more than just a quick update but now i've gotta go get some sleep.


ps: what's the deal with all those stag beetles here in japan? like they wanna piss me off on purpose or something, y'know? like it wasn't hard enough already...stupid.

techno-toilet.

finally, another weather-icon! it rained today for a few minutes but unfortunately, the weather's still as hot and sticky as the days before. the only thing this change of weather gave me is a severe headache.

yesterday in the afternoon we arrived in tsu. after the orientation with o.-sensei there was a little party with the tandem partners which basically means we were thrown together into a room with music, crackers and a couple of bottles of tea for one and a half hour to get to know each other. anastasia and me were talking to the two boys in our group about squirrels (リス risu) and sunburn (日焼け hiyake, my shoulders still burn like hell btw). after that little party we met our host families.

i'm still a bit unsure about mine. they were extremely distant the first few hours which gave me a really bad feeling. they kinda ignored me, especially the kids. now i know, japanese people are shy and stuff but my other family in ogaki (in 2003) was so different. so when we came home yesterday they just showed me my room and disappeared. it wasn't until my okâsan (host mum) showed up about one or two hours later and told me that we were going to a restaurant with julian and his family in the evening (his family lives only a few yards away) which cheered me up not only because i wouldn't be alone but also because she actually TALKED to me!

the food at the restaurant was delicious! it was sort of an all-you-can-eat open buffet and at some point of the evening, the chef pounded mochi for everybody. some kids and julian and me were also allowed to pound the wet rice a few times which was fun. also, during the evening things started to loosen up and i started to feel better around my host family.

although i've got an air conditioner in my room, i could barely sleep so i was feeling really exhausted this morning and got sick on the bus on our way to the ise shrine (伊勢神宮 ise-jingû). in ise, our group and the tandem partners went to some place where we learned about japanese food and then we even cooked our own lunch: miso-soup, pickles, fish and rice (w e had to make onigiri!). it took forever, especially roasting the fish, but it was worth the wait because it was quite delicious. afterwards, everybody washed the dishes and/or cleaned the whole place together before we had the afternoon off to walk around the area around the shrine(s) with our tandem partners.

it was very hot but the gardens and shrines were beautiful, also the restaurants and shops. i finally got to eat macha (green tea) icecream, my favourite!! (and i usually don't like icecream at all!) they selled lots of delicious and weird stuff, for example cooled salted cucumber (which is a great idea for hot summer days!) or sweet potato icecream, ugh!? anastasia and me even tried some black(!) icecream with 黒ごま kurogoma, black sesame!

back at home we had japanese food for dinner: a large cube of tofu with soy sauce (i never ate tofu before but it was good), rice, fish, edamame (which i LOVE), yellow tomatoes (they're really good), pickles and some soup. tomorrow okâsan wants to make ramen for dinner because i never ate that. (...) we came along better today. they even gave me a pretty pink yukata and showed me how to wear it (but i'll forget how to bind the obi by tomorrow anyway it's too complicated).

i wish my japanese was better because everytime i try to make more than one proper sentence i fail or completely forget the grammar or don't remember the easiest words. it's also annoying that the japanese aren't really correcting us as long as they basically understand the meaning of our babble...that doesn't really help me, y'know.

i took over 300 pictures the last two days and i'm just too tired to go through them and upload them now. but i'll publish them soon, i promise!

suntory boss is the boss of them all.

we checked out this morning and are sitting in the lobby of our hostel now, killing time till we leave for tsu around 12pm.

yesterday we went to osaka castle, which was quite boring in my opinion. the park around the castle was pretty though but full of huge, ugly cicada. i also got a sunburn on my shoulders. we stayed at our air-cooled room in the hostel during the afternoon, in the evening we went downtown again. first namba and then america-mura. ebisubashi and shinsaibashisuji were pretty cool, too.


my feet hurt like hell when we finally arrived at the hostel. fortunately, i had bought a foot mask at lush (i got 50% off when i told them i work at lush in germany! ha!!) which really helped. oops, gotta go! looking forward to meet my host family. i hope they have internet at home...

convini-hopping.

still not feeling too tired considering i didn't sleep much the last few days, my feet hurt like hell though. we walked a lot today. in fact we walked from one chilly airconditioned convini to the next because you can't stand this heat for more than 5-10 minutes.

we went to tempozan today, a huge area where the aquarium, the santory museum and a giant ferris wheel are located. the disney exhibition was really lovely, i especially liked the sketches of sleeping beauty. afterwards we decided against the aquarium because it was just too expensive and went to a huge electric store in namba instead. i finally got my ac adapter (although the clerk told us that it's not the right one and that it would be "abunai!" (dangerous) to use the plug in japan but my notebook didn't blow up till now so me=happy) and i'm already about to upload pictures. :)

at the moment we are waiting for the other students from germany to arrive at the youth hostel so we can go get something to eat together.

maccha daifuku.

insomnia got me last night. after being exhausted all day long i was suddenly wide awake as soon as i went to bed. couldn't sleep till 5am and woke up two hours ago. strangely enough, i'm feeling quite well right now. eating maccha daifuku (small green tea mochi filled with red bean paste) for breakfast and waiting for julian to wake up who couldn't sleep last night either.

i found this great website, the osaka visitor's guide, which says that there is a disney exhibition at the suntory museum tempozan. i also wanted to visit the kaiyukan aquarium...which i think julian is not too keen to do...but as it is in the same area as the museum, we should probably go there and postpone our visit to the osaka castle as it already closes at 5pm.

rosehip-mint chewing gum.

these weather icons are getting boring...

we saw the grossest insect on the street on our way to tennoji. fortunately it was dead but it was about as big as my hand! ugh. we ate dinner at our new favourite restaurant (a small cup of delicious soba for only 200￥, that's about €1,20!) and i bought rosehip-mint chewing gum. they have lots of crazy food here anyway like kiwi chocolate, salt candy and banana-flavoured baumkuchen.

jetlag.

i'm fucking tired. last night we explored the neighbourhood of our hostel before we went to bed. it's definitively not one of the most beautiful areas of osaka (bums and lots of pachinko parlours) but if you walk a while you reach the tennoji ward which is quite nice.

today we went to namba to look for a japanese lush store. after about 2-3 hours of wandering around quite aimlessly we finally found it in the huge namba parks shopping mall. i had to pull myself together as to not to buy any more soap as half of my bag is already filled with them. (but boy i couldn't do without my therapy massage bar! i was feeling so depressed this morning and the neroli really cheered me up! ...and NO they don't pay me for writing this!)

afterwards we ate lunch and the first thing when you enter a restaurant here in japan is that you'll get a cup of ice cold water or, even better, iced green tea! yummy! i ate a delicious noodle-shrimp-salad dish (i actually choose it because i liked the photo on the menu) which turned out to be a cold dish which was of course perfect because of the heat - 36C today! later i got myself a honey milk latte and some sort of cake with macha filling at a coffeeshop - yummyyyyy!

unfortunately, i still can't post pictures. we found an electric store (denki ya) today and bought ac adapters but they don't work for the plug of my notebook. maybe we can find a denki ya at the tennoji ward later. and maybeeee i should buy me an energy drink or something.... *headdesk*

ion!!

somehow we have arrived in osaka and met up with julian at our youth hostel. the humidity here in unbearable and the journey was long and exhausting, especially the flight (i almost fainted and threw up three times, it was just horrible).

still feeling a bit weak and i could really need some sleep. hobbes is dozing upstairs in our permanently air-conditioned room while i'm trying to keep me alive with pokari sweat and oishii onigiri and all that funky stuff we bought and the supermarket earlier. i'll write a better update and post pictures as soon as i get an ac adapter and can use my notebook again.

when i was your age, pluto was a planet.

everything's finally packed and ready...except me. hobbes is dozing on my bed but i'm too nervous and worried to sleep. too many changes in my life lately, it's getting a bit overwhelming.

my new mobile phone is driving me crazy. that sony ericsson w660i is crap, it just annoys the hell out of me. bluetooth doesn't work, the screensaver is the most stupid thing i've ever seen (the same color for the background and font of the clock - wtf!??!), you can only use crappy themes and it even doesn't have a currency converter! i hope that at least it'll work in japan. also, the ac adapter i ordered didn't arrive in time which sucks. i hope i'll find a good one at the airport.

tomorrow's gonna be a long, long day:
stuttgart - munich - tokyo - osaka
a total of about 24 hours of travelling!
i have no idea if the internet at the youth hostel will work or when i'll be able to update the next time...also, i can't find any clever closing words for this post.

the pink dress.

the weather's awful here in germany, don't mind the smiling frog on the left. by the way i guess you've already figured out that those little animations at the beginning of each posting are displaying the weather at our current location. we're still working on the design and widgets of our travelblog. yesterday we've added a shoutbox, feel free to leave random comments there. still searching for a nice pownce widget though as they're not available for blogger yet. please let me know if you've found one!

idil is no big help at the moment as she is jumping around happily all evening because she finally found this pink dress she was looking for for weeks and even bought it at a reduced price today. oh well. i also have to look after my buddy mico (idil's brother's cat). he is so sad because his big brother left for turkey yesterday for three weeks so he is eating cookies and chocolate all the time like some depressed girl. he even started licking the furniture again. that cat is crazy...

/hobbes

plazes.

a few days ago i watched lost in translation again. as you can tell from my website designs, i really like that movie. ;) japan-guide.com has a list of the locations where the movie was shot and i'd really like to visit the park hyatt hotel for example. hobbes says i'm a dork.

some other places i'd like to visit in japan this summer are:

• tokyo: senso-ji, harajuku, shibuya, roppongi hills, ueno park, national art center, takaraza revue, ghibli museum, park hyatt tokyo
  
• osaka: osaka castle, kaiyukan aquarium
  
• kyoto: gion district, kiyomizu-dera
  
• nara: nara park, todai-ji

if you have more suggestions, let me know. (...) japan-guide.com is a neat website with lots of information on japan and tips for traveling/living there. for example did you know that there are large lavender fields on hokkaido? weird. too bad i probably won't leave honshû though.

i'm still a bit unsure about that plug and voltage stuff in japan as it differs from the european standards. i've ordered some travel plug adapter and i just cross my fingers and hope my notebook won't blow up or something. also, i don't wanna drag it around for nothing. especially not after i've checked the weather forecasts for japan earlier today: average 30°C! apparently i'm going to melt there.

there are still so many things to do! today i bought myself a new sketchbook and ordered my new cell phone. i just hope it'll arrive in time and that it'll work in japan. i also need to think of a name for it...

realization.

this morning i had the last exam for this term. i still got papers to write but i'll deal with those after my trip. anyway, i'm relieved the learning stress is over for now and i'm gradually starting to realize that i'm going to japan for almost 2 months!

i've never been away from home for that long and my longest stay at a guest family was 3 weeks. i got a letter from my host family in tsu today which lifted my spirits because they have two little children (you gotta love japanese kids!) and sound very nice and i'm looking forward to meet them.

nevertheless i must say, the whole thing's frightening me a bit but i'm also excited. i really need some time off of germany and especially tübingen anyway. i'm sure there'll be plenty stuff to take pictures of and maybe i'll even start drawing again!? i wish i already had some kind of crazy art project in my mind for japan. i really miss the art in my life.