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

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

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

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

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!?

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!

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...