this might get confusing so i:ll blog it all at once
TWO WEEKS AGO ABOUT OCT 24...
among the hardcore things that i:ve witnessed here are
*a dude in iwaki completely blinged out in silver track pants and matching jacket, bling necklace, and sunglasses. at 1 am. seriouslly all the guys here think they are corey hart. i never see sunnies during the day, only at night. go figure.
*eminem blasting in the supermarket over the sound system
*the trucks that ride around iwaki with their lil loudspeakers blasting propaganda for the upcoming election. it:s so... i don:t know... 1950s. the politicians sit in teh back and wave out the window at random passerbys. (sidenote, the election is finally over and i don:t have to wake up to political slogans anymore!)
so i know i haven:t updated in a while. sorry, i:ve been busy having fun and adventures. of course i:m back into my mode of :doing things for the sheer story: something i vowed to stop after it kept getting me into sticky situations. but it has to be done! because after all, a great story is a GREAT story.
where should i begin here... with the skater boys or my trip to nikko? let:s start with the skater boys.
ya baby! i finally found them!! i finally found my japanes skaters and my new skatboarding and breakdancing senseis!! the other night i met up with louise, phil, dan, atsuko, and fujio at the Black SHeep for drinks. at the table, er should i say floor, behind us were three guys. i turned around casually and made eye contact with one and i was like oooh, hello THERE! we invited... er maybe i should say the biiru (beer) invited them to kareoke with us where we sang all the classics and some Nihongo songs as well. it:s my mission here to learn a :nese song by heart before i leave. it:s also my mission to learn how to cut something with chopsticks using only one hand. so the guys are Manabuu, Kimiihiro, and Junya. they:re all boarders and Manabuu has some mad sponsors. we decided that i would teach them how to snowboard if they would teach me how to skateboard. finally! how many years have i wanted to learn?? so after singing it was just louise and i with these guys and we embarked on an unsuccessful mission to find a park and more beer from the local 7^11. we decided to call it a night...
oh my. i am telling you from firsthand experience japanese goodbyes are REDICKULOUS! it:s like no one wants to say goodbye so you just spend 20 minutes skirting around the issue... we finally parted ways, only to have manabuu call me, dead serious, 3 times on the 10 minute bike ride home, and another two times when i was at home!! LOL. hanging out with them is such an ego boost cuz all we hear is :you:re so beautiful! you:re so beautiful! i like you! i love you!: i:m like yo, no you do n:t love me!!! like, it:s like NOT love! it was really neat how you can spend the whole evening with someone who doesn:t speak your language and you don:t speak theirs but you still manage to converse and have tons of fun. my wise friend was right, body language transcends all language barriers.
louise, kylie and i hooked up wit da boyz last night for drinks. *holds head* i was completely crumped by 1;30 am and was expecting to be a horrible mess this morning. but thanks to my lovely liver cells i was fine. i even went for a rice field run! so we hook up with them and it:s really uncomfy cuz we were all pretty sloshed last time. but after a few drinks (ahh beer, the true social lubricant) it was fun. damn tha nomi hodai (all you can drink for a set price). i had some beer, a really funky blue apple drink that tasted like juice so of couse i drank it like it was just juice, a banana milk, and a kalua and milk. we just chilled out and chatted and ate... it was so funny. i kinda felt like Zach Morris a la Saved By the Bell cuz you can be talking to someone japanese and then you turn to someone who understands english and you:re like hey, i have no idea what this guy is saying.. oh look, he keeps on talking... do you think he:s cute... etc etc. right in front of them. it:s hilarious!! about 11, we girls booked on outta there and were walking home when, of course, tha Buu called me. i swear he:s obssessed. he keeps asking me to be his girlfriend. LOL. like buddy, where:s the intellectual stimulation when i have to speak caveman english and use mad gestures? ti:s like i:m teaching but i can use 3 sylabble words intstead of 1 er 2.
which by the way i tihnk teaching kids is stunting my brain growth. i mean, what neurons are firing when i spend all day trying to get them to remember What is it? it:s a ghost/bat/spider! this week is halloween and i:m dressed up like a devil. actually i:m quite matrixed out right now in my dark sunglasses to hide the eye makeup, my long sblack skirt and my long back jacket. i:m feeling it. i ride my bike to work and i:m like awwwwwwww ya i AM carrie ann moss! heeeheee.
ok so back to last night. long story short i met up with manabuu and kimiihiro by myself and we proceeded to drink MORE (cassis and orange, best drink ever!) and eat. then, in my moment of utter surrealism, i realized i was completely hammered and that i have to work in the morning. i think that came when manabuu was talking to me and inside my head there:s a lil danielle rolling on the floor pissing herself laughing saying ; i can see your mouth moving but i have absolutely no idea what you are saying! worse still, i just say :ne: and :hai: and agree to everything! you could be asking me to come back home so you can kill me and there i am *hai! hai!* geSUUUS! he kept asking to come home and i:m like yo brotha, my appt is for ONE PERSON, just me! just me! when i was leaving to bike home he kept trying to kiss me, as his friend stood and watched nearby. i was in hysterics laughing and don:t worry mom and dad, there was no kissing! i:m holding out for junya, what a cutie!!!
just kidding! or maybe i:m not... who knows, having my first japanese boyfriend would be QUITE the story...
i asked them why they like gaijin so much and they are like *:oooh, very beautiful! i LIKE girls! yes, very beautiful* mmm skinny too! right?
last weekend Cam and I had an adventure in Nikko. travelling to a new city where everytthign is new and fresh just gets me on that big high again. i:m realy happy here. i love how i have to relearn everything again from lerning to use a phone to buying groceries. i love how every transaction you do takes forever. i:m serious. there:s no :i want to buy this, ok here you are: forget about it!! it:s a good 10 minutes to buy a pogo. i also love being imersed in this language. i LOVE LOVE LOVE when i:m looking at a sign and i figure out what it says all by myself.
so yes, Nikko. ugh, i:m too lazy to write about this. we saw mad temples, we couldn:t get money out so we couldn:t stay in the hostel so we ended up going back to Omiya for the night. the next day we went back to Nikko to dig on Kegon Falls and Cheuzenji lake which was like living inside a scenic calendar. the bus ride down the mountain took forever, i missed my last train home cuz my fare adjustment on my tickets which i thot would take 30 seconds took 30 minutes. i spent the night in omiya and took the shinkansen home to iwaki in the morning. for all the misadventures of the weekend, it kicked ass. tomorrow night after work i:m taking the train to Omiya and we are going to go to Yokohama on sunday, then Okayama for training on mon, tues, wed, and then heading out to Hiroshima on thursday.
my kids are adorable this week all dressed up in their costumes. Kanako, the challenging student, was a sweetheart yesterday. she was writing on the shalkboard that i put up and i:m expecting doodles... no, what does she write? she looks at my nametag that has my name written in Katakana and WRITES IT IN HIRAGANA on the board. do you know how wild that is for a 4 yr old to do that??? i wouldn:t have known what she was writing if i hadn:t actually done that myself the night before. ya know, in my moment of oooh, i wonder what my name looks like in the japanese alphabet. n then later when she wasn:t paying attention again she starts writing and i:m like gees, pay attention! i look over at what she:s written and it:s
1 + 2 = 3
4 - 5 = -1
what four yr old knows minus one!!! seriously, i think she:s like a prodigy er something!
i took many pictures of my kids, which some of you have gotten, or you can email my parents and ask them to send them to you.
THIS PAST FRIDAY, NOV 7
i feel like a crackhead. i:ve had 12 hrs of sleep in the past 5 days and my body hates me for it. moreover my brain is seriously shutting down. my mgr let me off work early tonite cuz i looked so tired. my hair is falling out like crazy, i think it:s the stress and lack of sleep. actually it seems to be a common problem among foreigners here. ooh, somethign in the water! i thin i:m not getting enough B6. so sorry if this post sounds scattered, if anythign it acurately reflects my mental capacity at this point.
let me start at the... well... i d:itn know. i:ll just start. i have no idea what day is it today but last night i got back from hiroshima. oh my god, ok no wait. ok. ok. ahem.... last sunday i had tha day off so i hooked up with Camster and we went to the sea side city of Yokohama for the day. we went to Sogo, the world:s largest department store, where we purchased matching burberry bags. i got mine gift wrapped and it now sits in my appt anxiously awaiting my birthday. sogo is 10 floors tall n the roof is a park! not just any old park, it:s a park with astroturf! how funny is that?_ we bought some bento and had lunch on the turf and overlooked the city. yokohama is pretty muich industrial, and a suburb of Tokyo. but it does have chinatown! chinatown was a tripp, i didn:t know what language to use! there we shopped more and ate. i had the most expensive cup of lavendar mint tea ever, coming in at about Y700 (like 8 dolloars Cdn). but it was worth it! Yokohamae has a gorgeous waterfront with a huge ferris wheel and amusement park. the arcitecture was really cool, next to the ferris wheel (which goes extremely slow and allows you to see an amazing view from the top) is a building shaped like a sail of a boat.
the next day we were off to Okayama for three days of training. ooh! forgot to mention the fact that we misse dour last train home that night so we spent the night in Akibane in Tokyo because we couldn:t justify the 100$ cab ride it would cost us to get home. man every time we get together we end up homeless! we hung out in fron of the local am/pm convenie and chilled, read magazines, and ate ice cream. the next day we were hurting but managed to find the right shinkansen to take us to Okayama. training was intense and hella fun. i met so many new friends, many of which will be coming to Iwaki for my upcoming birthday celebration!!
after training Cam and I headed to HIroshima with 8 other girls we met. HIroshima... oh my stars... it was such an emotional city. keep in mind at this point i was averaging 2 hrs of sleep/night. the first day we went to a sticker photo booth, of course, and for okonomiyake, something that hiro is famous for. hmm... it:s like an egg pancake with cabbage, pork, shrimp, and veggies and soba noodles inside. it was scrumptious! trhey made it right in front of us on this enormous grill. there are two kinds of okonomiyake, hiroshima style and osaka style. hiro style has the noodles inside while osaka style serves teh noodles on thei side. i think i like the hiroshima style better. afterwards we went to Haagen Daaz where on wednesday you can get 7 scoops of ice cream for 500Yen. damn, was it ever the best ice cream i:ve ever had! raspberry yogurt, green tea, caramel swirl, butterscotch, adzuki bean and two other flaouvrs i can:t remember. afterwards we went to sing karaoke. i love singing!! seriously, american idol watch out!
the next day we went sightseeing. i think i might throw up trying to talk about it. first of all my body wanted to DIE at this point cuz i was so tired. i just wanted to get on a train and come back home. but i perservered cuz i don:t know if i:ll ever make it back to hiroshima. let:s just say that after sightseeing and reading about people puking up their intestines and seeing people with their skin dripping off them i will never complain about being tired er some miniscule lil bother again.
in the morning we went to Miyajima Island. wow. there:s a giant Otorii (gate) that sits floating out in the middle of the water as you approach the island. apparently this island was thought to be a god by the locals and this was created to worship it. the temple on the island was pretty, and when the tide comes in it floods through the temple, giving the illusion that the whole thing is floating. there were tame deer wandering around the island, you could go right up to them and pet them. one even tried to eat my ticket! they just love paper. i bought some souvenirs there and afterwards we headed to the Peace Park and the Peace Memorial Museum.
the Peace Park features many goodies and it:s right across the river from the A Bomb Dome, which upon viewing i was so filled with emotion that i started to cry. wow, this expereience is making me realize how emotional i really am inside, which may come as a surprise to many. the A Bomb Dome, for those of you who don:t know, is the only remaining structure that wasn:t rebuilt after the bomb. actually, Hiroshima is very unique in that respect as it is a completely new city. what other city will i ever be in that was created from scratch in 1945? the second time around they put a lot of time into planning so much of the sites are centrally located. the Dome used to be the Hiroshima Prefectural Building and is a few hundred metres from Ground Zero, an area which has now been replaced by buildings and dept stores. to this day is stands, its: outsides burnt and its insides completely gutted, with rubble around its perimeter. it was so emotioanlly charging to see beacuse it made the horrors of war real. its one thing to just read about it in a textbook but.... times up! will write later!
TODAY NOVEMBA 9 11 daze till my birthday
i got sleep and my brain is loving me for it.
today as i was cleaning my appt i could NOT find my cat. seriously, i scoured the place for it and came up emptyhanded. oh, wait... i don:t have a cat. those are MY hairballs on the floor! *shudders* seriously this situation is getting gross. i:m scared to even touch my hair lest a precious few strands be released from my glorious crown. today i was a complete waste to society but thoroughly enjoyed the experience. i lounged around, did a month of laundry, and cleaned n emailed my peeps.
oh yes, all i ate today was chocolate and maple candies. what:s happeneing to me? what happened to that neurotic health conscious girl that left for Japan two months ago? i:ll tell you what happened! i grew up! and i had realizations about myself and the world that really started to put a lot of things in perspective. for example, let me just give you a mental picture of myself that might not be so attractive, but it:s not like i:m trying to scoop guys on this webpage anyway. in addidtion to tha hair nonsense, i stepped on a scale today, i have no idea why, prolly because i just found it in my closet, to discover i:m 18 lbs heavier than when i left! and for the first time in my life, i don:t care. in fact, i like it. i:m just so comfy with the way i look and i think gaining weight has made me more beautiful. or at least that :s how i feel. i feel so sexy! and for the first time in my LIFE i fill my bras! and i have cleavage! how feminine is that?? Cam and i were talking about the way we are here and how so many things are so opposite as to how we would act back home and we concluded that here it:s just us, no one else. so you learn to be comfy the way you are and dress for you, nto anyone else. cam:s all up in arms that she can:t fit her jeans and has to wear sweats all the time but i just think she looks so cute in sweats! *i look even cuter in my jeans!* she says. hahaaa. whatever, all i know is that i:ve got mochi booty and i don:t care! and if i start caring, well, i always have a year to lose this weight. but in the meantime i:ll spend my brainpower worrying about more important things. like what i:m goign to do for winter vacation!
ok i:ve been avoiding talking about hiroshima cuz it was just so sad to be there. the peace park is beautiful, you can go up and ring the peace bell, or visit the memorial mound where teh cremated remains of 70 000 victims are housed, 836 of which have been claimed as of june 2003. there was also an arch inscribed with the names of the victims and peering through it you can see the Eternal Flame (which will burn until all nuclear weapons have been eradicated) and in the background the A bome Dome. many people come and leave flowers and water in memory of the victims. they leave water because when the bomb dropped and people were burning they jumped into the river. afterwards you could see many floating bodies bobbing through the river.
the peace park also has an area where there are all these booths filled with paper cranes. i:m sure you:ve heard the story about the girl who, 6 years after the bomb, developed leukemia and during her stay in the hospital started to fold paper cranes in teh hopes that once she folded 1000 of them she would be all better. of course, she died, but to this day people from around the world fold cranes and donate them to the park. theyt were so bright and colourful. the day we were there an elementary school was donating a bunch and there was a tiny orchestra of 7 n 8 yr olds palying the saddest song i have ever heard on their flutes. so of course, i started to cry. it:s just so moving to be there and see these things you have only, until this point, read about in textbooks. i:m a huge disbeleiver of texts and i have to see things with my own eyes to believe (who knows what MNC is sponsoring the publication of textbooks anbd skewing the facts?). it made everythign so real. i felt so much pain and suffering just looking at the remains of the buildings and inside the memorial museum.
the museum was outstanding. i hope to get the chance to show my parents when they come. the admission is redickulously cheap, 50 Yen per person and the artifacts are out of this world. i touched some pieces of tin roof bubbled and melted together. at first i was like aint no way i:m touching that radioactive noise! but then i realized i:m in freaking Hiroshima and there:s still radiation floating around. go for the gold! touch a piece of history! (oh my god, i am such a geek!!!)
anyways, i think the most heart wrenching part of the museum was the artifacts of clothing of lil children and a lil plaque beside each one that told of their story. there were also pictures of people with their skin dripping off them (think draping sheets of saran wrap over your arm and you have a pretty acurate picture) and massive burns covering their bodies. there was one picture of a man whose entire backside looked like a blackened marshmallow left too long in a campfire. and here i am complaining about my hari loss. at least im not growing black fingernails from the top of my fingers, or have massive cataracts or the pattern of my kimono burned into my shoulders.
all in all, the museum was the most f:ing depressing place i:ve ever been in in my entire life and in retrospect i have not known sadness until that day. ooh, so i guess that:s one thing accomplished in my stay here- i have felt intense sadness.
on a sidenote the sins i:m trying to boot out have not had a gtood week. i am just becoming more vain as the days pass, prolly because i love me and because i have boobs baby! ya know the workings of the world are strange. you want something you don:t have your whole life, then you finally come to terms with what you have and you love it, and then boom! the universe hears your pleas 9 years too late. ahhh... such is life i guess!
hmmm i thot i had more to write. did i talk about training at all? i met sooo many new and cool people, a few of which are coming for my bday celebration in a couple weeks. i:m so pumped! Cam is coming to Iwaki and no doubt we will embark on some kind of redickulous and strange adventure. Annamarie and Valerie and Suzie are coming up form Koriyama, and turns out Louise and Kim will be in town after all. i think it:s going to be a big ass group of gaijins showing Iwaki how to party that night!
well i have to run out and buy some new bedding because i just realized i havent washed mine since i:ve been here. actually i have two pairs but the second pair is red plaid. who am i, al borlon? the thought of sleeping on such a fiery colour trips me out, and plus... plaid??! too many sharp edges!! one must be ZEN in bed!
TWO WEEKS AGO ABOUT OCT 24...
among the hardcore things that i:ve witnessed here are
*a dude in iwaki completely blinged out in silver track pants and matching jacket, bling necklace, and sunglasses. at 1 am. seriouslly all the guys here think they are corey hart. i never see sunnies during the day, only at night. go figure.
*eminem blasting in the supermarket over the sound system
*the trucks that ride around iwaki with their lil loudspeakers blasting propaganda for the upcoming election. it:s so... i don:t know... 1950s. the politicians sit in teh back and wave out the window at random passerbys. (sidenote, the election is finally over and i don:t have to wake up to political slogans anymore!)
so i know i haven:t updated in a while. sorry, i:ve been busy having fun and adventures. of course i:m back into my mode of :doing things for the sheer story: something i vowed to stop after it kept getting me into sticky situations. but it has to be done! because after all, a great story is a GREAT story.
where should i begin here... with the skater boys or my trip to nikko? let:s start with the skater boys.
ya baby! i finally found them!! i finally found my japanes skaters and my new skatboarding and breakdancing senseis!! the other night i met up with louise, phil, dan, atsuko, and fujio at the Black SHeep for drinks. at the table, er should i say floor, behind us were three guys. i turned around casually and made eye contact with one and i was like oooh, hello THERE! we invited... er maybe i should say the biiru (beer) invited them to kareoke with us where we sang all the classics and some Nihongo songs as well. it:s my mission here to learn a :nese song by heart before i leave. it:s also my mission to learn how to cut something with chopsticks using only one hand. so the guys are Manabuu, Kimiihiro, and Junya. they:re all boarders and Manabuu has some mad sponsors. we decided that i would teach them how to snowboard if they would teach me how to skateboard. finally! how many years have i wanted to learn?? so after singing it was just louise and i with these guys and we embarked on an unsuccessful mission to find a park and more beer from the local 7^11. we decided to call it a night...
oh my. i am telling you from firsthand experience japanese goodbyes are REDICKULOUS! it:s like no one wants to say goodbye so you just spend 20 minutes skirting around the issue... we finally parted ways, only to have manabuu call me, dead serious, 3 times on the 10 minute bike ride home, and another two times when i was at home!! LOL. hanging out with them is such an ego boost cuz all we hear is :you:re so beautiful! you:re so beautiful! i like you! i love you!: i:m like yo, no you do n:t love me!!! like, it:s like NOT love! it was really neat how you can spend the whole evening with someone who doesn:t speak your language and you don:t speak theirs but you still manage to converse and have tons of fun. my wise friend was right, body language transcends all language barriers.
louise, kylie and i hooked up wit da boyz last night for drinks. *holds head* i was completely crumped by 1;30 am and was expecting to be a horrible mess this morning. but thanks to my lovely liver cells i was fine. i even went for a rice field run! so we hook up with them and it:s really uncomfy cuz we were all pretty sloshed last time. but after a few drinks (ahh beer, the true social lubricant) it was fun. damn tha nomi hodai (all you can drink for a set price). i had some beer, a really funky blue apple drink that tasted like juice so of couse i drank it like it was just juice, a banana milk, and a kalua and milk. we just chilled out and chatted and ate... it was so funny. i kinda felt like Zach Morris a la Saved By the Bell cuz you can be talking to someone japanese and then you turn to someone who understands english and you:re like hey, i have no idea what this guy is saying.. oh look, he keeps on talking... do you think he:s cute... etc etc. right in front of them. it:s hilarious!! about 11, we girls booked on outta there and were walking home when, of course, tha Buu called me. i swear he:s obssessed. he keeps asking me to be his girlfriend. LOL. like buddy, where:s the intellectual stimulation when i have to speak caveman english and use mad gestures? ti:s like i:m teaching but i can use 3 sylabble words intstead of 1 er 2.
which by the way i tihnk teaching kids is stunting my brain growth. i mean, what neurons are firing when i spend all day trying to get them to remember What is it? it:s a ghost/bat/spider! this week is halloween and i:m dressed up like a devil. actually i:m quite matrixed out right now in my dark sunglasses to hide the eye makeup, my long sblack skirt and my long back jacket. i:m feeling it. i ride my bike to work and i:m like awwwwwwww ya i AM carrie ann moss! heeeheee.
ok so back to last night. long story short i met up with manabuu and kimiihiro by myself and we proceeded to drink MORE (cassis and orange, best drink ever!) and eat. then, in my moment of utter surrealism, i realized i was completely hammered and that i have to work in the morning. i think that came when manabuu was talking to me and inside my head there:s a lil danielle rolling on the floor pissing herself laughing saying ; i can see your mouth moving but i have absolutely no idea what you are saying! worse still, i just say :ne: and :hai: and agree to everything! you could be asking me to come back home so you can kill me and there i am *hai! hai!* geSUUUS! he kept asking to come home and i:m like yo brotha, my appt is for ONE PERSON, just me! just me! when i was leaving to bike home he kept trying to kiss me, as his friend stood and watched nearby. i was in hysterics laughing and don:t worry mom and dad, there was no kissing! i:m holding out for junya, what a cutie!!!
just kidding! or maybe i:m not... who knows, having my first japanese boyfriend would be QUITE the story...
i asked them why they like gaijin so much and they are like *:oooh, very beautiful! i LIKE girls! yes, very beautiful* mmm skinny too! right?
last weekend Cam and I had an adventure in Nikko. travelling to a new city where everytthign is new and fresh just gets me on that big high again. i:m realy happy here. i love how i have to relearn everything again from lerning to use a phone to buying groceries. i love how every transaction you do takes forever. i:m serious. there:s no :i want to buy this, ok here you are: forget about it!! it:s a good 10 minutes to buy a pogo. i also love being imersed in this language. i LOVE LOVE LOVE when i:m looking at a sign and i figure out what it says all by myself.
so yes, Nikko. ugh, i:m too lazy to write about this. we saw mad temples, we couldn:t get money out so we couldn:t stay in the hostel so we ended up going back to Omiya for the night. the next day we went back to Nikko to dig on Kegon Falls and Cheuzenji lake which was like living inside a scenic calendar. the bus ride down the mountain took forever, i missed my last train home cuz my fare adjustment on my tickets which i thot would take 30 seconds took 30 minutes. i spent the night in omiya and took the shinkansen home to iwaki in the morning. for all the misadventures of the weekend, it kicked ass. tomorrow night after work i:m taking the train to Omiya and we are going to go to Yokohama on sunday, then Okayama for training on mon, tues, wed, and then heading out to Hiroshima on thursday.
my kids are adorable this week all dressed up in their costumes. Kanako, the challenging student, was a sweetheart yesterday. she was writing on the shalkboard that i put up and i:m expecting doodles... no, what does she write? she looks at my nametag that has my name written in Katakana and WRITES IT IN HIRAGANA on the board. do you know how wild that is for a 4 yr old to do that??? i wouldn:t have known what she was writing if i hadn:t actually done that myself the night before. ya know, in my moment of oooh, i wonder what my name looks like in the japanese alphabet. n then later when she wasn:t paying attention again she starts writing and i:m like gees, pay attention! i look over at what she:s written and it:s
1 + 2 = 3
4 - 5 = -1
what four yr old knows minus one!!! seriously, i think she:s like a prodigy er something!
i took many pictures of my kids, which some of you have gotten, or you can email my parents and ask them to send them to you.
THIS PAST FRIDAY, NOV 7
i feel like a crackhead. i:ve had 12 hrs of sleep in the past 5 days and my body hates me for it. moreover my brain is seriously shutting down. my mgr let me off work early tonite cuz i looked so tired. my hair is falling out like crazy, i think it:s the stress and lack of sleep. actually it seems to be a common problem among foreigners here. ooh, somethign in the water! i thin i:m not getting enough B6. so sorry if this post sounds scattered, if anythign it acurately reflects my mental capacity at this point.
let me start at the... well... i d:itn know. i:ll just start. i have no idea what day is it today but last night i got back from hiroshima. oh my god, ok no wait. ok. ok. ahem.... last sunday i had tha day off so i hooked up with Camster and we went to the sea side city of Yokohama for the day. we went to Sogo, the world:s largest department store, where we purchased matching burberry bags. i got mine gift wrapped and it now sits in my appt anxiously awaiting my birthday. sogo is 10 floors tall n the roof is a park! not just any old park, it:s a park with astroturf! how funny is that?_ we bought some bento and had lunch on the turf and overlooked the city. yokohama is pretty muich industrial, and a suburb of Tokyo. but it does have chinatown! chinatown was a tripp, i didn:t know what language to use! there we shopped more and ate. i had the most expensive cup of lavendar mint tea ever, coming in at about Y700 (like 8 dolloars Cdn). but it was worth it! Yokohamae has a gorgeous waterfront with a huge ferris wheel and amusement park. the arcitecture was really cool, next to the ferris wheel (which goes extremely slow and allows you to see an amazing view from the top) is a building shaped like a sail of a boat.
the next day we were off to Okayama for three days of training. ooh! forgot to mention the fact that we misse dour last train home that night so we spent the night in Akibane in Tokyo because we couldn:t justify the 100$ cab ride it would cost us to get home. man every time we get together we end up homeless! we hung out in fron of the local am/pm convenie and chilled, read magazines, and ate ice cream. the next day we were hurting but managed to find the right shinkansen to take us to Okayama. training was intense and hella fun. i met so many new friends, many of which will be coming to Iwaki for my upcoming birthday celebration!!
after training Cam and I headed to HIroshima with 8 other girls we met. HIroshima... oh my stars... it was such an emotional city. keep in mind at this point i was averaging 2 hrs of sleep/night. the first day we went to a sticker photo booth, of course, and for okonomiyake, something that hiro is famous for. hmm... it:s like an egg pancake with cabbage, pork, shrimp, and veggies and soba noodles inside. it was scrumptious! trhey made it right in front of us on this enormous grill. there are two kinds of okonomiyake, hiroshima style and osaka style. hiro style has the noodles inside while osaka style serves teh noodles on thei side. i think i like the hiroshima style better. afterwards we went to Haagen Daaz where on wednesday you can get 7 scoops of ice cream for 500Yen. damn, was it ever the best ice cream i:ve ever had! raspberry yogurt, green tea, caramel swirl, butterscotch, adzuki bean and two other flaouvrs i can:t remember. afterwards we went to sing karaoke. i love singing!! seriously, american idol watch out!
the next day we went sightseeing. i think i might throw up trying to talk about it. first of all my body wanted to DIE at this point cuz i was so tired. i just wanted to get on a train and come back home. but i perservered cuz i don:t know if i:ll ever make it back to hiroshima. let:s just say that after sightseeing and reading about people puking up their intestines and seeing people with their skin dripping off them i will never complain about being tired er some miniscule lil bother again.
in the morning we went to Miyajima Island. wow. there:s a giant Otorii (gate) that sits floating out in the middle of the water as you approach the island. apparently this island was thought to be a god by the locals and this was created to worship it. the temple on the island was pretty, and when the tide comes in it floods through the temple, giving the illusion that the whole thing is floating. there were tame deer wandering around the island, you could go right up to them and pet them. one even tried to eat my ticket! they just love paper. i bought some souvenirs there and afterwards we headed to the Peace Park and the Peace Memorial Museum.
the Peace Park features many goodies and it:s right across the river from the A Bomb Dome, which upon viewing i was so filled with emotion that i started to cry. wow, this expereience is making me realize how emotional i really am inside, which may come as a surprise to many. the A Bomb Dome, for those of you who don:t know, is the only remaining structure that wasn:t rebuilt after the bomb. actually, Hiroshima is very unique in that respect as it is a completely new city. what other city will i ever be in that was created from scratch in 1945? the second time around they put a lot of time into planning so much of the sites are centrally located. the Dome used to be the Hiroshima Prefectural Building and is a few hundred metres from Ground Zero, an area which has now been replaced by buildings and dept stores. to this day is stands, its: outsides burnt and its insides completely gutted, with rubble around its perimeter. it was so emotioanlly charging to see beacuse it made the horrors of war real. its one thing to just read about it in a textbook but.... times up! will write later!
TODAY NOVEMBA 9 11 daze till my birthday
i got sleep and my brain is loving me for it.
today as i was cleaning my appt i could NOT find my cat. seriously, i scoured the place for it and came up emptyhanded. oh, wait... i don:t have a cat. those are MY hairballs on the floor! *shudders* seriously this situation is getting gross. i:m scared to even touch my hair lest a precious few strands be released from my glorious crown. today i was a complete waste to society but thoroughly enjoyed the experience. i lounged around, did a month of laundry, and cleaned n emailed my peeps.
oh yes, all i ate today was chocolate and maple candies. what:s happeneing to me? what happened to that neurotic health conscious girl that left for Japan two months ago? i:ll tell you what happened! i grew up! and i had realizations about myself and the world that really started to put a lot of things in perspective. for example, let me just give you a mental picture of myself that might not be so attractive, but it:s not like i:m trying to scoop guys on this webpage anyway. in addidtion to tha hair nonsense, i stepped on a scale today, i have no idea why, prolly because i just found it in my closet, to discover i:m 18 lbs heavier than when i left! and for the first time in my life, i don:t care. in fact, i like it. i:m just so comfy with the way i look and i think gaining weight has made me more beautiful. or at least that :s how i feel. i feel so sexy! and for the first time in my LIFE i fill my bras! and i have cleavage! how feminine is that?? Cam and i were talking about the way we are here and how so many things are so opposite as to how we would act back home and we concluded that here it:s just us, no one else. so you learn to be comfy the way you are and dress for you, nto anyone else. cam:s all up in arms that she can:t fit her jeans and has to wear sweats all the time but i just think she looks so cute in sweats! *i look even cuter in my jeans!* she says. hahaaa. whatever, all i know is that i:ve got mochi booty and i don:t care! and if i start caring, well, i always have a year to lose this weight. but in the meantime i:ll spend my brainpower worrying about more important things. like what i:m goign to do for winter vacation!
ok i:ve been avoiding talking about hiroshima cuz it was just so sad to be there. the peace park is beautiful, you can go up and ring the peace bell, or visit the memorial mound where teh cremated remains of 70 000 victims are housed, 836 of which have been claimed as of june 2003. there was also an arch inscribed with the names of the victims and peering through it you can see the Eternal Flame (which will burn until all nuclear weapons have been eradicated) and in the background the A bome Dome. many people come and leave flowers and water in memory of the victims. they leave water because when the bomb dropped and people were burning they jumped into the river. afterwards you could see many floating bodies bobbing through the river.
the peace park also has an area where there are all these booths filled with paper cranes. i:m sure you:ve heard the story about the girl who, 6 years after the bomb, developed leukemia and during her stay in the hospital started to fold paper cranes in teh hopes that once she folded 1000 of them she would be all better. of course, she died, but to this day people from around the world fold cranes and donate them to the park. theyt were so bright and colourful. the day we were there an elementary school was donating a bunch and there was a tiny orchestra of 7 n 8 yr olds palying the saddest song i have ever heard on their flutes. so of course, i started to cry. it:s just so moving to be there and see these things you have only, until this point, read about in textbooks. i:m a huge disbeleiver of texts and i have to see things with my own eyes to believe (who knows what MNC is sponsoring the publication of textbooks anbd skewing the facts?). it made everythign so real. i felt so much pain and suffering just looking at the remains of the buildings and inside the memorial museum.
the museum was outstanding. i hope to get the chance to show my parents when they come. the admission is redickulously cheap, 50 Yen per person and the artifacts are out of this world. i touched some pieces of tin roof bubbled and melted together. at first i was like aint no way i:m touching that radioactive noise! but then i realized i:m in freaking Hiroshima and there:s still radiation floating around. go for the gold! touch a piece of history! (oh my god, i am such a geek!!!)
anyways, i think the most heart wrenching part of the museum was the artifacts of clothing of lil children and a lil plaque beside each one that told of their story. there were also pictures of people with their skin dripping off them (think draping sheets of saran wrap over your arm and you have a pretty acurate picture) and massive burns covering their bodies. there was one picture of a man whose entire backside looked like a blackened marshmallow left too long in a campfire. and here i am complaining about my hari loss. at least im not growing black fingernails from the top of my fingers, or have massive cataracts or the pattern of my kimono burned into my shoulders.
all in all, the museum was the most f:ing depressing place i:ve ever been in in my entire life and in retrospect i have not known sadness until that day. ooh, so i guess that:s one thing accomplished in my stay here- i have felt intense sadness.
on a sidenote the sins i:m trying to boot out have not had a gtood week. i am just becoming more vain as the days pass, prolly because i love me and because i have boobs baby! ya know the workings of the world are strange. you want something you don:t have your whole life, then you finally come to terms with what you have and you love it, and then boom! the universe hears your pleas 9 years too late. ahhh... such is life i guess!
hmmm i thot i had more to write. did i talk about training at all? i met sooo many new and cool people, a few of which are coming for my bday celebration in a couple weeks. i:m so pumped! Cam is coming to Iwaki and no doubt we will embark on some kind of redickulous and strange adventure. Annamarie and Valerie and Suzie are coming up form Koriyama, and turns out Louise and Kim will be in town after all. i think it:s going to be a big ass group of gaijins showing Iwaki how to party that night!
well i have to run out and buy some new bedding because i just realized i havent washed mine since i:ve been here. actually i have two pairs but the second pair is red plaid. who am i, al borlon? the thought of sleeping on such a fiery colour trips me out, and plus... plaid??! too many sharp edges!! one must be ZEN in bed!
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home