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)