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

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.

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.