suntory boss is the boss of them all.

so this was my last day in tokyo, my last day in japan. i tried to make the best of it.

in the morning we first visited the attractions in asakusa which means we first went to the asahi beer building with the huge golden fart flame on top of it and then the kaminarimon (gate to senso-ji), nakamise (street leading to senso-ji) and the senso-ji temple. i didn't know it was the most popular and famous temple which probably explains why it was so crowded there, even on a wednesday morning.

we walked along the kappabashi shopping street and took the train to shibuya at ueno station. i guess shibuya and especially the large intersection at hachiko exit of the shibuya station will never stop to amaze me. when onur first showed me shibuya, we went to this building with the huge advertising screen right in front of the intersection (by the way, in the movie lost in translation it's that screen where charlotte sees the ad with the huge dinosaur). there is a tsutaya (cd/dvd store) and a starbucks on the first floor and from there you have a beautiful view over the crowd. we spent quite some time at tsutaya, listening to japanese punk and hip hop and pop. i was just listening to a cd by 東京事変 (tôkyô jihen, tokyo incidents) and i really liked the music and then suddenly i found out that this is shiina ringo's band! i really like shiina and i liked the songs so i bought the brandnew album "娯楽(バラエティ, variety)".

we walked over to harajuku, bought chûhai and sat at the side of the omotesando avenue, watching people and resting for a while when a really drunken bum showed up and started to bother us. when julian told him to shut up in japanese he got really angry and started insulting us and went away. when he came back later with a new cup of cheap sake in his hand, he had already forgotten everything and started babbling again and we decided to move along. my brother had asked me to buy a tshirt by a certain brand ("bape") and we searched for the shop in takeshita dori for over an hour until we found it by chance. well, at least takeshita dori was really interesting.

afterwards we got a train to shinjuku (it was rush hours btw so it was real fun in the crowded train) but as julian was too tired and went home, i walked through shinjuku alone. i wanted to look for the park hyatt hotel from lost in translation but i terribly lost my way and ended up in the middle of nowhere, went back to shinjuku station by train and went to some gamecenters in kabukicho. that silent hill arcade game was rather boring but i really liked playing tekken 5! *sighs* gonna miss the game centers...

tokyo

tonari no totoro, totoroooo.

one really annoying thing about japan? the lack of garbage cans! and yet, the streets are super clean! it's a fucking mystery.

i'm really exhausted although i slept in late today (well but as i went to bed at 4am and woke up at 10am you can't really say i got much sleep). my feet hurt like hell from all the walking and i got a severe headache.

today ana and me went to shinjuku. we went to the tokyo metropolitan government office in the skyscraper district which has an observatory on the 45th floor. we went to the south tower, the elevator took only 50 seconds for 45 floors! the weather was rather rainy so we couldn't see the fuji-san but the view was breathtaking nevertheless.

in the afternoon we met up with saskia and went to the ghibli museum in mitaka (=am arsch der welt). the exhibition and the museum itself were really lovely, i especially liked the huge furry nekobus (but only children up to 12 years were allowed to play with it, bah!). the museum shop was a bit disappointing though. afterwards we walked through harajuku up to shibuya again and went home. ana had to leave for kyoto and i just wanna get some rest now.

tokyo

robots.

we met a chatty obaachan (=grandma) at the sento this evening. when she found out that we understand a little japanese, she just wouldn't stop blabbering. i was too tired and didn't understand most of it but occasional nodding and a "sô desu ka" here and there seemed to satisfy her. she even gave me and ana an o-mamori (amulet)!

ana and me visited the heian shrine this morning. we took the wrong bus and lost our way a few times before we found it and it wasn't really that interesting, also the people there were rather unfriendly. at noon, we ate lunch at an italian restaurant at the main station - real european food for the first time in 6 weeks! after lunch we met with julian and went to Nagoya which takes only half an hour from Kyoto with the hikari shinkansen. we didn't visit anything special there except the spaceship aqua of the oasis 21 complex, just walked around and did some shopping and found a robot museum where we spent about an hour in the museum shop playing with all the fancy robots and toys and i bought myself a robot tshirt and a nohohon zoku.



kyoto

momooooooo.

i bought myself a 400¥ momo (peach) today to cheer me up. the peaches here in japan are huge and really expensive, they usually cost 500-700¥ at the supermarket so i got away really cheap i guess. i'm starting to feel better again. these last few days i really couldn't stand japanese food anymore and felt rather lost and sad and even more exhausted that usual but now i'm getting back on my feet again. only one week left and i should try to make the best of it. like buying overly expensive peaches or a camouflage fan. guess my kali mates are going to go green with envy!

soooo we went to the kiyomizu-dera (temple) today. i was looking forward to that because i enjoyed my trip there in 2003 very much. like the last time, i ate macha icecream, drank from the holy water of the otowa spring and bought chocolate yatsuhashi for my family. we also saw a few maiko walking around today. the temple was very crowded and there was a school class from Nagasaki which obviously had the task to talk to tourists about their home countries and stuff, we were "attacked" by at least 2-3 groups of pupils today but at least we always took funny pictures. we actually also wanted to visit the nijo castle today but as we spent far too much time at the souvenir street leading to the kiyomizu temple, the castle was already closed. we went to the main station instead and saw an amazing cheerleader performance, afterwards walked around at the gion district a bit before we headed home again.

kyoto

kimono.

i'm so exhausted. because of the binge yesterday everybody skipped classes today so it was only me (dead tired) and anastasia. it was really stressful and i was royally pissed off at the others for just staying in bed and letting us do all the work.

it's raining again and i got soaked on my way home. i took a hot shower when i arrived but i'm feeling a cold coming up. just watched some drama with my family again while eating matcha cookies.
julian's host mother gave mine a hint today that there's a sale at some second hand shop in the city where you can get yukata at a low price. she took me there and i got 4 yukata, 3 beautiful obi and even 2 kimono (each only 1000¥!) for a total of 5,500¥! one yukata and one obi even was for free. me lucky. me happy gaijin.

on our way home i gave my mum a call and when i put her on speaker, she talked to my host mum which was really cute: "konnichi wa, okâsan!" "konnichi wa, okâsan!" (...) i can't believe i'm already leaving on saturday. it feels like yesterday when i arrived here, putting my clothes in the drawers of my room and feeling rather uncomfortable around my host family. but in the meanwhile i grew fond of them and this house and everything and i'm really sad about leaving this place.

today we also had our last trip where we went to an elementary school which was real fun - japanese kids are just so cute! when we arrived, they were all super excited and cheered and waved at us. first, they were rather shy but soon they started touching our blonde hair and "different" clothes and permanently asked questions and asked for autographs on their exercise books, we felt like damn celebrities! it was exhausting but fun.

i was in a 4th grade class with haichi (a chinese student). we came around lunch time so we ate lunch together with the kids. the way they act with their teachers and their politeness is intriguing, so different from european kids. they all have their tasks, for example a group of pupils handed out the food to everyone, two stood in front of the class before and after lunch and asked everybody to put their hands together and say "itadakimasu" and "gochisôsama deshita" and they all cleaned up their classroom together afterwards. also, the teacher's more acting like a father than a teacher.

after lunch, they had half an hour of free time and we all went to the schoolyard and played basketball together. after that, they had to clean up their classrooms. when the lesson started, haichi and me stood in front of the class and were the sensei (=teachers) and tried to answer their questions. i didn't felt nervous because they were so curious in a nice way. before we had to leave, we all played games together and had to give more autographs or draw pictures for them. one girl wrote me a little farewell letter, how cute is that?

university life

funky donkey.

what a busy weekend! on saturday the kids had their ballet performance at the city hall. we arrived very early so i walked around in some park with beautiful gardens and a pond with huge kois and little turtles right next to the city hall. the performance was very nice, there wasn't only my host kids' ballett school but also performances by a modern dance school.

after the performance we put on our yukata (ok, it was only me and the kids) and we drove to Toba to a matsuri (=festival/fair) which was very lovely with so many people walking around in their beautiful yukata. there was a 2-3 hour long wonderful hana-bi. we all sat on the meadow, got some yakisoba (=fried noodles) and yakitori (fried chicken) from the fair and watched the hana-bi.

afterwards we went to the grandparent's home. they live in a fishing village in a very old japanese-style house with tatami flooring and sliding shoji doors and everything. unfortunately, you could hear every word and every snore of the people in the other rooms so i didn't really get much sleep and was a bit grumpy in the morning.

the next morning i walked around in the village, the houses there are quite colourful. i walked down to the docks with my host father and brother - finally! the sea! the pacific!!! the water looked so clean (though there were jellyfish here and there) and i wanted to jump in so hard. at least i went down to the shore and greeted her shortly, got some shells and went back home.

we then left for spain mura. yeah if there's somebody putting up a fake spanish village with roller coasters in the middle of nowhere, it's the whacky japanese! first, i wasn't too excited about it because a) i was still tired and grumpy and b) nothing can beat the UCJ! my host parents bought me kitty ears because i like cats so much and to cheer myself up i walked around with them on my head all day long (omg did i really do that?! how silly!). the rides weren't as much fun as the ones in USJ of course and the music (about "funky donkeys" and "hola! amigos!") was rather annoying but all in all it wasn't so bad after all. for example, there was this ice castle which was so freezing cold that you couldn't stay in there for more than half a minute! my kids and i ran through the halls screaming and laughing quite a few times that day. i had much fun together with them today, my host brother and i explored the castle museum on our own for example (y'know, they're usually afraid of being alone with me without their parents around). we also watched a musical and the dancers and actors and the choreography was actually much better than this horrible universal monsters live rock and roll show at the USJ!

in the evening the grandparents invited us to a yakiniku restaurant. now that's a really cool thing: you sit at a table with a build-in grill and get all the raw ingredients you like, not only meat and fish but also vegetables and mushrooms for example, and you cook them on this little grill, dip them in a sauce and eat it. it was one of the most delicious meals i've ever eaten, i was so stuffed but i couldn't stop eating. (...) while dad drove the grandparents home we waited at a mall before we drove back home. i incidentally finally won my first prize at the gamecenter there: a stitch squeezie thingie!

trips to various places, food, whacky japanese stuff

kaiyakiba.

i hardly slept this night, the strong wind and rain of the taifun kept me awake and i was dreaming about annoying things and persons again which happens too often lately. i wake up all angry or sad or both. this morning i was feeling a bit sick from last night's binge. i tried to appear as sober as possible but when i went down to the kitchen i greeted my dozy host father with a loud and cheery arigatô! (="thank you") instead of a ohayô! (="good morning"). there was a moment of silence and he looked at me rather confused before i started apologizing and mumbling ohayô, ohayô!!, sat down at the table and ate my cornflakes without saying another (wrong) word.

when i left the house, the weather was great: sunny and a fresh breeze. i really enjoyed my ride to the university because later that day, it was only hot and sticky again.
in the afternoon we went to the mie prefectural art museum. the exhibition wasn't very interesting imo, although there were a few paintings i really really liked (e.g. kaiyakiba by noriyuki ushijima).

when we arrived at school again i couldn't find my bike. i thought it was stolen and went to the office. they suggested that i should look for it on the campus so poor ana and me looked for that goddamn bike everywhere only to find it in the end at the very same spot where it always stands. just embarrassing.

i've just watched this cheesy tv drama called yamada tarô monogatari with my host family, i need that theme song! tomorrow my host kids have a ballet performance, i'm really looking forward to that. afterwards we'll go to see a hanabi where i'll probably put on the pink yukata i got as a gift from my host family. after that, we'll stay at their grand parents. they live by the sea and i asked them if i may go swimming but they said it's too dangerous because there're too many jellyfish there. dammit, i really wanted to swim in the pacific!

university life

miss kyanya.

i FINALLY met a cat today on my way home! she was very talkative but hobbes wasn't with me and i couldn't really understand her accent. we had a lovely time anyway. maybe i'll visit her tomorrow again. her name is kyanya by the way.

after a week of rain and cloudy weather it's getting hotter and hotter again. i was all sweaty when i came home. they're expecting a taifun tomorrow though. i'm really excited. september's apparently taifun time here in japan!

anastasia and me spent the afternoon at the saty mall, killing zombies and drumming at the gamecenter, doing purikura and eating donuts. i really love those cute mister donut animals. i'm already a member of the so-called misdo club but i'll have to eat a lot of donuts to earn enough points to get a present. i also found a cheap handy curling iron today, i wanted one for so long! me happy. i really like the hairstyles of the girls here in japan. so curly and perfect. how do they do that?! *_*

yesterday we went to the suzuka museum of traditional crafts and learned about suzuka zumi (ink) and ise katagami (paper patterns). we also did small easy stencils ourselves which was fun, you can see mine on the picture to the left. i was so tired that at first i didn't wanted to go but it was worth the visit. those paper patterns were amazing and some of the artwork quite inspireing.

university life, tsu

苺。

holy schmoly! i had no idea that eggplants turn BLUE when being pickled! my host family took me to a sushi restaurant this evening (finally! sushi!!) - prawn, raw tuna and salmon with wasabi and mayonnaise, blue pickled eggplants...sooooo delicious! i had frozen strawberries for dessert and incidentally learned the kanji for ichigo: 苺. cute, isn't it? i didn't even know there was a kanji for it.

the food was much better than what we had for lunch in Igaryû. for the first time since i've been here in japan, i could neither identify most of it nor eat it without feeling nauseous. i know that there was lot of tofu and i'm not the biggest fan of tofu you know. although everything looked delicious and nice, i just couldn't eat it. my okâsan on the other hand makes delicious meals, i'm really lucky!

this morning our group and our host families we all went to Igaryû to visit the ninja museum there. the museum was fun and interesting, i especially liked the cat eye's clock. you could also try out some of the ninja stuff like a rope ladder and there was a ninja action show. afterwards, you could threw some shuriken at an aim and win t-shirts and stuff. nobody but alex suceeded but it was fun.

in the afternoon we went to a pottery museum or something, we had ordered various pottery like vases and plates ahead which we would paint now. i had a bowl and while everybody drew landscapes and flowers and cute animals on their pottery i had really no idea what to do and painted an abstract world or something like that. some people looked at it and didn't really know what to say, others told me it's great and someone told me it looks like a mushroom cloud. oops. but it's a tree, dammit!

trips to various places, food

the hippo club.

today i went to Nagoya with julian, his host mother and her friend ame-chan. Nagoya looks like an interesting city, although the streets of Osaka seemed much more cleaner. we'll definitively make a trip to Nagoya with the japan railpass during our week in Kyoto again to see more of it!

we primarily went to Nagoya to visit the tokugawa art museum and tokugawaen (a landscape garden) but later, when ame-chan's friend fu-chan joined us, we spent the evening walking around in sakae, probably one of the main shopping/entertainment districts of Nagoya.

there was this huge complex called "oasis 21" with a large fountain/pool on the "water spaceship" roof and a great view over the neighbourhood and at the famous tv tower. as it was already evening, we went to a little restaurant where i drank my first beer here in japan. as you may know i'm not so crazy about beer but i drank a glass with 'em because it was fun and so cliché. but i got tipsy quickly (and sober again even quicker haha) and got an headache from the permanent nodding while talking to the japanese women.

by the way, the tokugawa museum was great, definitively worth a visit. there was this one crazy drawing of the ninomaru garden of the nagoya castle which really fascinated me because the perspective permanently changed and you could look at it for hours. i wasn't allowed to take pictures but ame-chan got me a little book at the souvenir shop with a picture of it as a gift.

the garden also was beautiful. there were koi in the pond and when i was watching them swirl around, an elderly woman came and started clapping her hands. she said that you can call the kois by doing so and really! they all gathered around her in no time.

nagoya

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