Sunday, December 30, 2007

so ive been here in taiwan and every day is a new adventure hoho

right now i just ate a ricola cough drop guy but not because i have a cough or cold or anything - i think the last time i had a ricola was like... a few years ago. i used to eat them like candy because there was always some infinite source of them at the shop...

earlier today for lunch we were at this seafood restaurant where host family ordered this huge crab guy for me. it was also the last dish to come out so i pretty much stayed there after most of the family had gone home ahead and took my time devouring mr crab guy. it was a tasty dish!

what ive been doing since ive come here >>

i got here on 21 sat dec 2007 and the highlights of my day are most definitely the meals. the seafood is awesomely awesome. i know thats not a good description for anything, but... i cant really convey how good the eats are here. ive been pretty /sigh all the time in japan at the kinds of chinese food they crank out. its not it sucks or anything in japan, but when you want like real chinese food... jp chinese food just doesnt compare.

i ate at a vietnamese noodle eatery the other day at the 101 tower. i put a lot of faith in tw cooks being able to cook pho 10 times better than any jp chef would (lol totally not racist here but, come on...) and i wasnt disappointed. i think i hadnt had vietnamese food for a good half year before eating that soup the other day.

ffxi update keeps failing and while its kind of frustrating, it's all good~ the only thing im worried about is 1) if i do manage to get in, ill be all logged in to a WotG area and therefore ill be stuck floating in zone limbo like what happened when i went to jp internet cafes... 2) i need to retrieve secret santa gift...... >_> people are going to think im a fuddy duddy for not following through with the secret santa LS event >< hey, at least i sent out my gift before i left, so no worries!

ive noticed that tw people have a different 'idle pose' than jp people. jp peoples' idle pose is *check watch and/or *mess with cell phone, while tw peoples' idle pose is *eat bun. i kid not - it really is very funny to watch. everyone here eats on the go where in japan eating anywhere other than a restaurant or your house means youre some kind of weirdo. they really will stare at you... especially if youre not some innocent high school kid riding on the train after school eating a cute onigiri thing... because the public seems to think of the school kid eating homemade food thing is somewhat more ok than anyone else eating anything else... if that makes any sense... i wonder what the american idle (not to be confused with American Idol) pose would be. maybe /dance hoho

host family mother's mother took the kiddies to southern taiwan on a great bus ride. we stopped at so many temples - it was great. i took a handful of photos that ill upload sometime somewhere when i get back. it was such an awesome experience temple hopping. those temples must have been standing around for such a long time. and along the freeway you can see like tons of them near and far. we even saw this huge ass golden buddha guy lounging on a hillside. i took a blurry photo hehe. man, so cool. the architecture was totally over the top too.

there are a lot of random wild dogs here. both in the city and in the lolcountryside. we saw a lot of doggies just chilling at the temples too - dozing in the shade and such. host family tells me that a lot of native women and children are kind of afraid of dogs here because the majority of the dogs living here are those wild ones. i think theyre cute, though - even if their fur looks ugly haha.

i havent done any shopping at all here. host family females keep taking the kiddies to all these inexpensive strip mall places but i havent really found anything to buy yet. ive seen plenty of funny stuff though! there is this place called a "night market" here which is like a scene from a movie - lots of people/ shoppers, lots of food street vendors, lots of shops all along the side, everyones' wares hanging in out and everywhere, a good variety of music blaring from all the different shops, and a smell that would wake the dead. the experience of just walking around and looking at everything was cool, but the smell was the worst kind of smell ive had to endure in a long time. i remember when i was cleaning an old grease trap from an italian restaurantwith my dad... and we accidentally knocked it over... and a million year old italian food smell spashed all over us... yeah... i never thought anything besides the smell of dead rats + frogs in the LS wing could rival that... but oh man, the smell in that place was the worst ever. it gave me a headache and i had to {run away}! before i threw up. i couldnt eat anything that night lol.

tomorrow is new years eve! and we're going to stare at 101 for its awesome firework thing. all the older people have been telling me for the past few days is "oh man, the 101 firework display is like 600,000+ dollars! im looking forward to it in any case. sure ive seen the vegas firework extravaganza every year, but i want to believe that the fireworks were will be better just because we're closer to mainland china hohoho - it makes it more authentic hohoho actually, im interested how much of the world's fireworks really come from china... do jps get their fireworks from china or do they make their own?

i had a cream cheese + bagel brunch for the first time in a long time like a week ago when i fist got here - yea that was great too.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

lol

so today in english club we had a special pancake making event thing + tea. it was marvelous

height of excitement was when i was dual wielding frying pans and churning out awesome looking little pancake dudes in record time. the funny thing was their reaction wasnt, "whoa cool!" it was "zomg youll be an awesome wife!"

this is really what the girls said too lol

silly jp society

we had a cold snap recently. oh, how the kiddies suffer. it's a whole different world outside the warm walls of the teachers room hoho

so the girls can wear cardigans right... and usually they have to pick brown black or gray. the cardigan thing actually is one of the fuzzy gray areas (including hair color and style - no brown hair and no spiral or permed or curled hair - although like most of the girls do, hence the grayness of this area - regarding school rules). one of my first year girls in english club had a cranberry colored cardigan on today and i pointed to her and was like, "you are a rebel!" and she was like, "???" hohoho. then i said, "i like your cardigan," then she got all happy hehe

as we were eating pancakes older english teacher buddy lady was talking about the real world because a second year girl was worried... because her 18th birthday is getting closer and she fears growing up + thinking about the future + enduring the jp 3rd year student hell thing hehe. then i was all laughing inside because back at home youre not any closer to the real world when you turn 18 at all - as a matter of fact i remember mom and dad gave me a bunch of chococat stuff for my 18th birthday lol. a blanket, a pencil case (that i hella brought to japan with me!) jade + gold earrings [/tangent got necklace B from them for 17th bday and necklace A from them 16th bday - when i put 16th 17th and 18th bday jewelry together it looks pimpin.] anyhoo my advice to her was to enjoy her youth and that she doesnt have to front as an adult or anything. but then i was thinkin on the inside "but shes jp so shes gonna have trouble about that no frontin thing lol"

anyway the kitchen at my base school is so awesome. we have everything in there and its so nice and new ;_; its totally to die for.

oh man, as we were washing the dishes the other girls were just randomly staring outside right. and this was around sunset-ish so it was kinda getting dark outside. anyway this one girl was all, "eek~" and started being all flustered to her other girl buddies and mumbling random stuff and i was like, "dude, whats up" and looked behind me out the window. there i saw a group of boys (from the girls' homeroom) and i was like, "oh your homeroom buddies huh?" and i turned around again to wave to the kiddies outside. at first they just stared, then they recognized me and smiled + waved earnestly. i wasnt really sure what was up with my girls - maybe some freshman love thing going on hoho. high school~

we should really have home economics stuff back in the states. that way upon graduating high school both boys and girls are guaranteed do be able to do practical cooking and cleaning stuff. my first year boys were kicking ass with their pancakes. they even made it look exactly like the picture on the box lol.

and so far i dont like the girl main character of legend of heroes II

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrgggg!!!

legend of heroes was so good.

i was creating a proper scene in the teachers room lol - good thing most of them had left when i was like... weeping openly.

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man, so good! i can see myself drawing nothing but fanart for the next serveral weeks haha

managing your bank accounts across the globe should be easier... pisses me off how round about that crud is. curse it all.

gonna start legend of heroes II now, but man, im afraid ill be all disappointed... its gotta be super awesome to be able to follow the first one... meh, its all good

man i was so sleepy at like 1215 today - right after i finished my bread-tastic lunch haha. yknow i played for like 5 hours straight after my lessons today...

i think im going to game in bed again. low energy fun ftw.

Monday, December 17, 2007

been super busy with kids

"spicy chicken" at mid level school never ceases to delight me

wore whm jacket to school today - nice reaction from otaku crowd

coldest day today. according to teachers it was like 1C this morning

cant wait til friday

naginata goodness last saturday

been blasting through all these anime at home

silver medalist in campaign

legend of heroes is grand =D

i still have fireworks from the summer ive kept... no desire/ chance to play with em with anyone here... i wonder how long theyll last... watch them explode randomly a few months from now. good think i keep em in the closet... and its gonna be like that episode of LOST once i decide to drag em out harhar

my bay area paleness is coming back lol. the locals still think im Brazilian though...

the NHK man came last saturday and i paid him properly like the company told us to.

haramaki saikou.

Monday, December 10, 2007

brief report on cool happenings as of late.

went to the dec nagoya prefecture meeting where afterwards we got to hang around local shopping district and window shop. saw tony taka works at cool gallery place going for 25000+yen

bought some new shoes and some other clothes stuff. socks!

ate at cool chinese food restaurant (jp chinese bleh but whatever).

my new fav anime: shugo chara. totally a sucker for everything that anime is about lol.

best class at my mid lvl school today - awesome kids.

still choppin thru legend of heroes.

ate 2 spicy chicken kebob things today cause they the bomb.

got a moyashimon hand towel at animate today.

and forget christmas themed lessons. im doing a back to the future themed lesson instead. (no wings of the goddess influence... i swear... >_>)

cant wait til winter break!

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

how my faith in mankind came to be restored:

so going off my theory i asked cool old otaku sensei what he thought and he was like, "dude lets go!" so he drove me to the police box again and we showed them how i opened that other bike with my key and they were like, "!" so they got the ball rolling on contacting other owner. we left after a few minutes and they said if they get a response, theyd contact us again, so we drove back to school. no sooner had we arrived than a call came in from the police. they managed to contact owner of other bike and they said within the next 15 mins theyd be back at APITA. so we were all like w00t!

since the bike had a high school sticker on it, i was expecting some kid to show up, but instead it was - get this - and old granny and gramps! LOL. way to illustrate the situation in my mind. they were all apologizing and speaking in old people jp and it was great hehe. im just glad pink stallion is back~

after school i went to the store and bought a fatty combo lock chain thing haha

now if i ever do buy baby blue stallion, it will be for a different purpose.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

yea! being positive ftw

man, i was hella right.

thanks to awesome jp teacher buddies, they went to the police box with me again today and i got to show the cops how i could open other bike with my key. they then took down numbers, IDed the bike, and it turns out that other bike is some first year kid at a local school. a few phone calls later, bike-chan found!

more updates after i get home!
my bike theory is gaining more ground.

so i went back to APITA this morning to check on that other bike that looks similar to mine. sure enough, it was still parked in its same slot as i noticed monday after i came out of the mall. i held my bike key thinking, "man im going to look like such a thf struggling with the lock or if my key gets stuck or something," but i went for it anyway... but just as i originally thought, my key went inside the lock just fine and the bicycle unlocked with sickening ease. i was like, "..." then i was like "!!!" so i really wanna believe some random granny glanced at my bike, thought it was hers, unlocked it just the same, and rode off without another thought. i looked at the name tag on the other bike and was sad to see that it had faded beyond legibility.

why did all the other teachers throw my "maybe someone simply just opened my bike with their key?" theory out the door? -_-

and why did everyone strongy dissuade me from buying the second lock + bike insurance in the beginning?! arg! "yes this city is a very safe place. i grew up here all my life. women can walk the streets without escort 24/7 just fine." man, you guys. i should have just stuck with my richmond mentality.

Monday, December 3, 2007

so i have tons and tons of things to be thankful for and happy about. this is why i dont feel too incredibly bad after having my bike stolen today, lol.

it happened somewhere between 315pm and 630pm after school today at APITA. good thing i didnt decide to buy that big steamer pot thing + an iron otherwise i would have had to carry all that stuff home on foot. anyway, i thought that in choosing the small 24 rims and the frosted pink color, i would have deterred the average thief into targeting my bike. guess i was wrong!

poor bike-chan, my faithful pink stallion ;_; i bet it's wallowing in some watery grave at the moment.

crazy thieves... JESUS IS WATCHING THEM!!

im thinking of getting another hot ride if my first one doesnt turn up anytime soon. it'll be baby blue! that way, when i get my first bike back (cause im soooo gonna get it back. i believe!) i'll have one pink and one blue hoho.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

yay for clean apt~

i wish they had draino here though. ive been having to make do with these weak sauce fizzy tabs. anyway, clean apt makes me sleep well. starts off the week all nice and stuff. effect is enhanced if there is laundry hanging to dry at the same time hoho (which there is atm!)

Saturday, December 1, 2007

hit 70 woodworking today

and i finally put those pesky maple lumber to use - just so happened the guild point item for me turned out to be maple tables hoho

i wish parchment desynth was easier >_> then id be able to blast through the rest of these rattan...

anyway i think ive mentioned about the foliage already, but as its getting colder and colder, the colors are really coming out. there was this one tree around the university that had all gold leaves! it was totally awesome - a sight especially nice to see during sunset. what wasnt totally awesome were all the huge spiders chilling everywhere on campus @_@ i dont think i can ever stop complaining about how theyre everywhere i look. i know theyre really not doing me any harm, and theyre not even moving around or anything... they just look really creepy in their extensive web matrices... in their spider crew... it's such a color contrast when you look up at the sky between tall trees and you see this fat dark blob of legs suspended in the air... /shudder they dont really clip the bushes or trees into perfect shapes or anything... so the branches dangle into the walkway... near your head and stuff... so you get spider buddies there too...

anyway, spiders freak me out.

hooray for december. i can finally get all christmasy at my schools and stuff. first of all, these kiddies dont need another lesson about the holiday in general, because im sure it's been beaten into their heads pretty well over their academic lives, so im going to think of some different part of christmas... something completely unique to americans... or me.