save the global warming,

we just came back from the sento. this time i used the sauna (the first time in my life btw) and one of the baths and i'm feeling soooooo relaxed and tired now. i just wanna go to sleep.

i've rather lost my appetite these days because of the cold and the stress and insomnia. i'm feeling exactly like in 2003, craving for sparkling mineral water and european food. ana and me went to starbucks at the kyoto tower today, ate cheese blueberry cake and macha frappucino, one of the yummiest things i've ever drank. alas we don't have that in europe!

today ana and me went to the kinkakuji (golden pavillion) and the ginkakuji (silver pavillion). i had already seen the kingakuji in 2003 and although the ginkakuji itself wasn't as impressive as the kin one, the gin's garden was more beautiful. afterwards we met with the others in the gion district and went to a restaurant. sorry this entry's boring but i'm tired and sulky.

ps: save the global warming? that's actually on a bag of a perfume dajana bought today. ...


kyoto

kyoto.

sorry for not updating properly. i had a bad cold those last few days and i couldn't sleep last night at all. we left Tsu and arrived at the temple in Kyôto yesterday. coincidentally there was a buddhist wedding ceremony that evening and as those are very rare (even in japan) we all went down to watch it but after half an hour i was feeling so bad i left and went to bed. i also missed the noh theater performance this morning because i stayed in bed till 3pm. when i finally could stand up and walk without almost fainting immediately i went to the sento (public bath) right next to the temple (as the temple itself has no showers) which made me feel a bit better.

i don't know, i'm just really really exhausted and confused at the moment. the weather is strange, i've got mosquito bites all over my arms and my neck and back hurts from my heavy luggage i had to drag from Tsu to Kyoto yesterday. i've just watched hard candy with the girls in my room, now we're all lying around reading manga (the temple has hundreds of manga, it's crazy!) before going to sleep.

countdown...

i'm feeling sick and exhausted again. it's really annoying: the days here start off sunny and rather cool but in the afternoon it's raining cats and dogs so i always get soaked on my way home. an umbrella isn't really that helpful so i got myself a raincoat but still got a sore throat.

as ana was a bit sulky today, julian and i took her to that kimono shop after classes where we had bought those cheap yukata, kimono and obi lately and when she got that beautiful white/red kimono with golden embroidery for only 1000¥, she was all happy again.
so today i visited the saty mall, uniqlo and the edobashi (where the lawson plus & the us mart, where we always sang karaoke, are) for a last time. still can't believe we're leaving on saturday. on my way home, i also shouted "sayonara!" to miss kyanya and as i rode past her house quickly because of the rain and i heard her meowing back at me.

i've already started packing as i don't wanna waste my time with that tomorrow and enjoy my last few hours with my host family instead. tomorrow's gonna be busy: first we'll have our presentations in front of the class, after classes we'll go buy the ingredients for the german dishes we have to cook for the sayonara party in the evening. on saturday morning we're leaving for Kyôto then. they said that there's internet at the temple, we'll see.

ps: i still gotta finish monday's entry, sorry about that.

university life

broooooooot.

idil: 0 - weather: 1. yeah, so i finally catched a cold. this morning i felt dizzy and had an headache so i asked my host mum if it is ok to stay at home today. she immediately gave me medicine and sent me to my room where i slept and stayed in bed till 4pm.

a few weeks ago we had met a professor at the university who needed help with the pronounciation of some turkish names for a paper. i told him that i'm turkish and helped him with the names and we incidentally met from time to time on the campus and because his german is really good we chatted a lot and so he invited anastasia and me and our host families over for dinner at his home this evening. i wasn't feeling too well but i went there anyway and it was so worth it! it was a very nice evening with lots of delicious food and laughs and: german bread and salad with balsamico vinegar! ana and me were delighted!

tsu

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

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

fuzzy navel.

as i've already mentioned, today there's this crazy taifun raging around. it was cloudy all day long and it started raining as soon as i've left the house so we arrived at the university all soaked. fortunately, i had an extra pair of pants with me because i knew something like that would happen today.

we went to this candy factory this afternoon, they gave us azuki icecream which was quite tasty but i prefer matcha! after our trip, a small group of japanese and german students went to the us-mart karaoke bar. we drank lots of chûhai and were quite drunk and sang funny songs all evening long. they ranged from songs by björk, beastie boys and no doubt to eminem, dolly parton and britney spears. julian and me scored a fancy 97/100 when we sang the beatles' groovy back to the u.s.s.r., only outperformed by yuya with an 98/100.

i drank this canned cocktail called "fuzzy navel" because i thought the name was funny but i think there was vodka in it or something. anyway i got really sick by the time i arrived at home. i had drunk a whole big bottle of pocari before to sober up but it didn't really help. we had to ride through the nasty weather, there was strong rain and the wind almost tossed us into the rice fields. i was soaked and exhausted and had this funny feeling in my stomach and guess what we had for dinner - sashimi (raw fish)! urks. my luck i've already accustomed to japanese food. i wonder if they have noticed that i'm a bit drunk...?!

university life

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!

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.