Cherry Blossom Adventures

Three and a half years ago I went to Kyoto. It was my first time there and it was pretty amazing. I was there for about 5 days staying with a friend from high school. This friend, Kanako, is the reason I decided to study Japanese.

See I didn`t get into the uni course that I wanted to get into…in fact I got my sixth choice…my last choice. Which was an arts program at Griffith University…I thought I would do it for six months then transfer into the course of my choice. I was quite shocked at first, I thought getting into a course of my choice would have been easy…my OP was good, my grades had been good at high school and all but my first choice was thought to be well in my range…It just so happens that a lot of people applied to do the courses I wanted to do…people who had better OP`s.

Kanako had attended my high school on exchange for my last year there. I hadn`t studied any Japanese since it was compulsory in the eighth grade…I remembered nothing. Luckily she spoke awesome English and we were in the same roll group and we became fast friends.

So when I ended up in an arts program at Griffith I decided that studying Japanese and doing some media courses for six months while I waited to get into a program of my choice would be a good idea. A second language had worked well for Kanako…and at that time I had been thinking of going to visit her later in that year (2003) and a bit of basic Japanese would help right?! Thing is, I hadn`t anticipated that I would love Japanese so much…and six months later instead of transferring out of the course I was applying to go to Japan on exchange. I was told my chances were pretty slim since I was still a first year student and my Japanese level was minimal….but I got in, and even got a scholarship grant from my uni.

I arrived here in March 2004 and 2 months later I went down to see Kanako in Kyoto. We had both changed a lot but it was great fun to see her again. I haven`t seen her since but we still catch up by phone occasionally and mail back and forth when we have time. She is set to finish university in the Spring….she will go back to Nagasaki, her home town, and be a junior high school English teacher.

I decided that before she went back to Nagasaki, which is really far away, that I would go see her in Kyoto, and see the autumn leaves at the same time. So Shun and I have taken a day off work and will be going down to Kyoto for two nights the first weekend of November.

I am really excited because I haven`t seen Kanako for 3 and a half years. I will get to meet her boyfriend and she will meet Shun for the first time too. Plus Autumn has begun and I am hoping that I will get to see all the beautiful temples and shrines surrounded by autumn foliage. I went to Kamakura last year to see the autumn leaves which was amazing and beautiful and I suspect that Kyoto will be just as amazing and beautiful if not more.

A couple of photos from my Autumn trip to Kamakura last year…

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• D`Jen wrote a life list while she was traveling back from the bush…it seems like a good idea and I am thinking of writing one myself. There are a lot of things I want to achieve in my life, problem is they are always changing….are life lists able to be changed I wonder. Or once you write one it is stuck like that forever…or is this a personal choice?
• My school where I work is moving…to a bigger place! It is all very exciting. We will still be in Kichijoji but we will be a lot closer to the inokashira park and the area is three times the size of where we are now. November is set to be a very very busy month!!
• As some of you know I have been tossing up with the idea of going back to Australia next year for about six months..with Shumpei. We would then return to Japan after six months. We are thinking next July. My contact with my school is up in December but my boss has kindly offered to sign me on again for six months instead of a year. This is great because I really want to stay in the same job but it would of been hard because usually you must sign year contracts!!! I will be staying on at the school until end of June!
• I have had a headache since Monday. At first I thought it was just a normal headache…gone by the next day but nope. So I thought perhaps it was because I had been using the computer a lot without wearing my glasses….so started wearing them all the time at home…nope not that either. Then I had a scary thought…maybe it was a toothache. I hate going to the dentist…in fact I have never been to one in Japan…I always just got check-ups when I was back in Australia. A friend of a friend is a dentist and he speaks English too (Although we had always spoken in Japanese) so I booked in to see him yesterday and got all my courage together and went to the dentist. Turns out the tooth I thought was a problem isn`t a problem (Basically I have a tooth at the back of my mouth that fell apart when my wisdom teeth pushed on it a couple of years ago so while it didn`t have a cavity I still had some of the tooth missing…about 2 months ago the filling stuff they packed it with to make it normal tooth shape fell out and I didn`t do anything about it so I thought maybe it had turned into a cavity. But apparently it is fine, and if I don`t have to do anything to it), He did find one tooth that has a small hole which is going to fix next week. One hole after 2 years of not going to the dentist isn`t bad now is it? I think it will be my second filling in my adult teeth. But he said it is not causing the headache since when he touched it I couldn`t feel anything so it isn`t very bad. So now back to square one with the headache….BUT I now have a dentist in Japan and he is lovely! Thanks Hide!
• Last weekend I saw the worst movie ever. Shumpei and I went to the night theater and I told him he could choose the movie…sukiyaki western django…WORST MOVIE EVER! I actually fell asleep in the theater… It is basically a Japanese movie where the cast speaks English thought the movie. When I asked why they spoke English and not Japanese shumpei said he thinks it is because they want the movie to become popular overseas. NOT LIKELY! I couldn`t understand the English real well… What is the worse movie you have ever seen?
• Two days ago I started knitting again. I wasn`t even sure I would remember how to do it…I did a couple of rows of practicing…just getting the hang of it again…and then I scrapped that and started knitting a green scarf… so far I am about 1/8 finished…and I can see a couple of mistakes in it but overall it is actually going OK. Perhaps I will start on a knitting craze and learn how to knit something that isn`t a scarf or hat! Any ideas on what I should try to knit? Or where I could get some decent patterns that are easy to read?!
• I also made my first piece of jewelry in about t3 or 4 months. I made a couple of pairs of earrings. They turned out OK too…I think I must be going through a bit of a creative phase. I have always wanted to be creative but am unfortunately lacking in almost all creative skills. When I draw for the kids at school they can hardly ever tell what it is unless it is a tree or a flower or something simple. I drew a kangaroo and they thought it was a dog! I wish to be creative though…..I would love to make things!
• Last night I finished work at about 5:15 and rang shun but he was going to be late and unable to meet for dinner. So I rang Cat and we made plans to meet for Indian food in Shinjuku at 7:30. Kazu ended up coming too. I love the fact that I can ring someone at that time and arrange to meet up so quickly….I had no plans, hadn`t made any but finished work and wanted to do something…and I did! I love my friends!
• Rachael, a Scottish friend living in Korea just tried to do a mini detox and made it to day six (of 10 I think) I doubt I would make it to day 2 but it did get me thinking that maybe a detox would be the best thing to kick start my metabolism. Has anyone ever done one? What did you do? Was it successful? My mum is always telling me about herbal life a supplement drink that you can have two times of day instead of two meals….Maybe I should even give that ago. I keep saying I want to lose weight and while I try to watch what I eat (and drink!) it never ends up doing much….
• No plans really for the rest of the weekend…and I am kind of glad it is a quite one. There is a couple of things I could catch up on at home….Reading, blog checking, watching TV, cleaning, washing, knitting etc etc….Shun and I will go out and have dinner somewhere locally later tonight but until then I am free!!!!!!!!!

10 dot points seems a good place to finish don`t you think?!

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I have decided to participate in this reading challenge for next year…perhaps If I write down what I want to read then I will actually do it! The rules and more information is here but basically the rules are as follows

1. Challenge runs from January 1 through December 31, 2008.

2. Choose 8 categories of your own that you would like to read 8 books EACH in.

3. You will be allowed 8 overlaps, for a total of 56 unique book titles.

4. You may overlap these 56 titles with any other challenge.

5. You may change your list or your categories at any time.

I have used a lot of books I already own but there will be a couple I will need to borrow or buy! Some of the books haven`t come out either yet but will be coming out next year and I know that I will be wanting to read them. My categories and books are as follows, but if I find I can`t finish a book then I will substitute another one in…A couple of spaces are still open as I haven`t yet decided on everything (If you have any recommendations they are always welcome… I have also bolded the books that are overlaps the first time they appear in the list…(However there are alot of other book in the list that could have overlapped these are the ones I decided on)

Favourite authors- Chose this category for obvious reasons

1. An offer you can`t refuse- Jill Mansell
2. Change of Heart- Jodi Picoult
3. Thanksgiving- Janet Evanovich
4. Cage of Stars- Jacqelyn Mitchard*
5. Prisoner of Earth- Jeffrey Archer
6. Dear John- Nicholas Sparks*
7. Lean Mean thirteen- Janet Evanovich
8. Black Cat- V.C Andrews

In a series- Chose this category since I have started a couple of different series but need to catch up on them, plus also already had a couple of these books on my shelves

1. Broken Flower- V.C Andrews*
2. Scattered Leaves- V.C Andrews
3. Lean Mean thirteen- Janet Evanovich
4. #14 book in Stephanie Plum series- Janet Evanovich
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Harrows- J.K Rowling*
6. Morigans Cross- Nora Roberts*
7. Electric Blue- Nancy Bush

On my bookshelves for more than six months- Again obvious…I must get rid of them from my to be read list!

1. The Great Gatsby- F Scott Fitzgerald*
2. The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini*
3. The Mermaid Chair- Sue Monk Kidd*
4. Wuthering Heights- Emily Bronte*
5. 1984- George Orwell*
6. Diary of Anne Frank- Anne Frank*
7. Running with scissors- Augusten Burroughs*
8. Kafka on the Shore- Murakami Haruki*

Mystery/Suspense/Thriller- Chose this since mysteries etc are one of my most read style of books, this and chick-lit

1. Bell, book & scandal- Jill Churchill*
2. Chocolate chip cookie murder- Joanne Fluke*
3. Killer Blond- Laura Levine
4. Shoes to die for- Laura Levine
5. Dream man- Linda Howard*
6. Ricochet- Sandra Brown*
7. Honky Tonky Kat- Karen Kijewski*
8. Count down- Iris Johansen*

Chick-lit- What I read just as much, if not more than mysteries….

1. If I were you- Julia Llewllyn*
2. Second Wives Club- Jane Moore*
3. Baby Proof- Emily Giffin*
4. You Could Do Better- Stephanie Lehman*
5. Marshmallows for breakfast- Dorothy Koomson*
6. Friday Night Cocktails- Allison Rushby
7. Scot on the rocks- Brenda Janowitz

Young Adult/Children Fiction- Thought I should go back to some books that make me the reader I am today, and also read some other YA fiction that has had a lot of good reviews or awards!

1. Alison- Margaret Watts (One of my favourite books as a teenager- reread)*
2. Dear Venny, Dear Saffron-Libby Hathorn (same as above)*
3. The Book Theif- Marcus Zusak
4. Gossipgirl- Cecily Von Ziegesar*
5. Kira Kira- Cynthia Kadohata*
6. All American Girl- Meg Cabot*
7. Rules- Cynthia Lord

Japanese authors/books about Japan- Live in Japan so thought I should try to read some more books that have come from here…The first six on the list are already on my bookshelves!

1. Kafka on the shore- Murakami Haruki*
2. Snow Country- Yasunari kawebata*
3. Kitchen- Banana Yoshimoto*
4. South of the border, west of the sun- Murakami Haruki*
5. Yakuza moon- Shoko Tendo*
6. In Praise of shadows- Junichiro Tanizaki*

Male Authors- I am trying to broaden my reading horizons a little bit and it seems that most of the books I do read are by female authors…Hopefully this will help me get started on my quest to broaden my reading horizons.

1. When we were Orphans- Kazuo Ishiguro*
2. The Complete Polysyllabic Spree- Nick Hornby*
3. For one more day- Mitch Albom*
4. The Winner- David Baldacci*
5. East of Eden- John Steinbeck*
6. Deception Point- Dan Brown*
7. Running with scissors- Augusten Burroughs*
8. Dear John- Nicholas Sparks*

I have four overlapped books meaning the total for the challenge will be 60, once I put in the other couple of books in the Japanese category and other categories missing books. I will also have to swap books if I read any of them before 2008 starts….but I have a pile of books to read that didn`t really fit into any of these categories to be read before the end of 2007 anyway so I should be fine. I should point out that I don`t expect this list of 58 books to be all I read next year…I’m not sure exactly how many books I read a year but I think it would be closer to 150. I don`t really do book reviews either, I will however keep track of what I have read and when on this blog, as well as perhaps giving some ratings!

The books that have *Astrix` * are already on my bookshelves!

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Today I am pretty sure I saw somebody famous…famous here in Japan anyway.

Going into an izakaya in Nakano I think I saw Hideaki Takizawa (the one on the right!) from Tackey and Tsubasa (Which is a band….I had no idea that was the name of his band til I googled him 5 minutes ago though!)….I wouldn`t normally recognize Japanese talent in the street (and I am not even sure if it was really him) but I watched a drama with him in it a couple of months ago called boku dake no madonna….and he was the main character.

The thing about this drama was, that I didn`t realize it until after I had started watching it, that some of it had been filmed at my old university, Seikei Daigaku in Kichijoji!!!

I never wrote on my blog about the last famous person I saw…When enny was here in Tokyo, we saw Nicole Richie and Joel Madden walking down the street in Harajuku! She can back me up on this!!!! We later figured out that she would have already been pregnant at the time!

Who was the last famous person you saw?

Ps: Wow I technically had no spelling mistakes in my post….although spell check really hated all the japanese words!

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The last couple of weeks we have being teaching our preschool class about animals, this week it was farm animals. Today, we were talking about where food comes from, what food comes from farm animals and other types of farms….

I asked `Where does milk come from`

Little girl aged 3 replied `冷蔵庫　（れいぞうこ）‘　It means fridge in English….

（Today was also the day that some of the children realized meat came from farm animals…It was a bit of an eye awakening experience for some)

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• I was going to do a weekend wrap-up post, but now that it is Thursday it does seem a little late. But in a couple of sentences…Cat, James and Mai W celebrated their birthdays on Saturday night in a bar in Harajuku…we had the place to ourselves (about 30 of us) for a couple of hours and it was great fun…we headed to an izakaya in Shibuya after that (I hate finding places for lots of people on a Saturday night though…never anything available!) and I taxied it home about 3am…Totally random but saw Taiichi, a friend I met a couple of years ago in Australia and hadn`t seen since…new he was back in Tokyo due to a mutual friend and he just happened to come with that friend out of Sat night…Love it when you see people you haven`t seen in ages! Great fun, and I think the birthday kids had a good time. Sunday took Shun and I to Yokohama to watch 10 year olds play soccer (He helped a manager from work a couple times training the kids)…another friend from Shunpei`s work came too (His name is Junpei…it is so weird to say their names together) and in between games we headed to landmark near the grounds…Love Yokohama…could live there! We ended up having dinner in a really posh Italian place close by and drank three bottles of wine (Keep in mind shun had two glasses and fell asleep…he is not much of a drinker). Monday kept us inside, and I slept until 3pm…lucky it was another public holiday)

Some photos over at flickr here, but here is a couple from the weekend

• I am going through another book stage…remember a couple of months ago I decided to join a book challenge. Well now I have decided to do the challenge listed here as well. Read 8 books from 8 different categories in 2008……Yep, 64 books (Although you can have 8 crossovers which brings the number anywhere between 56-64)….I am working on the list…Trying to use book thats I already own (Which is a lot) but it also meant I went through the books that I have and realized that if I want to read some of the books on my shelves next year in this challenge that I should get started on the books that I am not putting in the challenge that are still on my shelf, now (if that makes sense) Meaning I have about 30 books to read before the start of the new year. Since I discovered that three days ago I have read three books….Yep, that is right, three books in three days….And I surprised myself…One was chick lit, one was non-fiction and another was short stories…the latter two I don`t read much of. I have decided my categories for the challenge and they are favourite authors (Anything by favourite authors, especially books that will come out next year while I am doing the challenge, books from a series (Most series I have started already, a couple of books I have been meaning to read that start series etc), on my shelf for more than six months (Mostly classics and non-fiction since I buy them thinking I will read them and then put them off until I have nothing else left to read), mystery/suspense ( I read mainly mystery and suspense novels or chick lit), chick-lit, young adult/children’s fiction (Revisit some childhood favourites and go back to reading YA which up until I was 15 or 16 was all I read really…therefore it is technically what started my love of reading), Japanese authors or books about Japan (Classics and modern fiction plus some non-fiction) and Australian authors (Figured since I was doing Japanese authors I couldn`t leave out the Aussies!). Shunpei and I both have our own bookshelves…mine however are overflowing, and a lot of my books are on shun`s shelves too. Hopefully this challenge will take away some of them……although I will probably just end up buying more and more books….I can not help it! 60 books or so in a year won`t be too hard for me…..I think on average I would read about 150 books a year……although I really have no idea. I have decided to start keeping count of what I do read from this month to see how many I do ready on average! Expect a post soon only about books!
• Book recommendations- I love getting recommendations of good books, especially if they are going to fit into one of my categories above!!! Please recommend any books and authors that you like!!!
• I have five cups of coffee today, I just realized. I think that is why I am slightly wired…..and not making much sense when I type. For the first two points I used about double the amount of words I should of to explain things. I think the coffee also means I will not be sleeping anytime soon…..
• My health has been really bad. It has been one thing after another in the last couple of months. A couple of colds, a couple of bouts of bronchitis, a couple of asthma attacks (one last night), weird stomach pains, chest pain (Which I had for ages, turns out after a lot of tests that I had tears in the cartilage between my ribs…probably from moving or from coughing all the time- The coughing is also why it is still not getting any better…you name it, the last couple of months I have probably had it. And it really sucks…I am sick of getting sick. I work in a job where there is two of us teachers and that is it…which means that taking time off work would mean leaving the other teacher/owner by herself. So I don`t feel as if I can take time off work……..I doubt it would help much anyway. Any recommendations on how you stay healthy? My mum recommends zinc powder…haven`t been able to find any yet…I did see some zinc tablets but am putting off buying them in case I can find zinc powder. I also drink lemon C drinks when I feel a cold coming on…….
• Okay time to watch gossip girl and private practice! I am a TV junkie…(As well as a book junkie, Internet junkie and coffee junkie….It is no wonder that I have put on so much weight since returning to Japan now really is it?)

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Reminiscing is perhaps not the right word, however I spent some time the other day looking through some old photos….old digital photos, and since I have only used digital cameras for about 4 years the pictures aren`t that old. But the amount of things that have changed makes it seem like a lot longer….

I look so young, people I knew then look so young……( I have nothing much to write about but do have the urge to blog about something!)….There are so many memories attached to photos. Perhaps looking at them reminded me of what I used to be like…I am not saying I have changed that much but my life certainly has…….there are photos of highschool friends, some of which I haven`t seen since then. I keep in contact with only a few highschool friends…although facebook is making it possible to get in contact with people again. A lot of people in these photos all still hang out together from what I can tell…Perhaps next time I am in Australia I should make more of an effort to catch up with highschool mates…A lot of them couldn`t care less about what is going on in my life though, but at least I could say I made the effort!!!

I have known em, in this photos with me, since we were five. Yes we are in a bathtub!!! In surf lifesaving outfits that belonged to the same girl that owned the bathtub

Em, Sim, me and Ben. Ben and I knew each other a long time, we dated for a couple of months before I moved to Japan, after my my highschool first love type relationship ended! We are dressed in green for some friends netball final…they were called the ribits!

My 19th birthday…about six weeks before I moved to Japan to go on exchange for a year!

Two friends I am still very much in touch with. Duck and Nic…Nic was here in Japan for a year up until about April, and Duck and I met properly for the first time when we were 16, on a drunken week away at stradbroke Island. He was one of the best friends of my ex boyf, Jake…who I also met that week. Jake and I no longer keep in touch but the other two guys I met that week, Duck and Wingnut are still floating around in my life. I catch up with duck whenever I am back in Australia, he is great mate! I miss having Nic around in Japan, I got used to having her here and then she had to go home….but luckily thanks to email and facebook we still keep in regular contact!!!

Wingnut, Duck and Jake

Playing dressups in the middle of the night! Claire and Em

Anna, the blond girl in this photo next to me is someone I regret not keeping in touch with more. But as anyone reading this will know sometimes things happen that can not be undone…and with us, something like that happened…She is on my facebook though! Her and I were pretty close…it was her bathtub I was in in that first photo! She is well though, one of my best Aussie friends Clare, keeps me up to date on the comings and goings of the group of people I hung out with then. Maybe one day we will be close friends again!

This is little Clarie. I love her to bits…She is one of those people that can let anything go I think, she just has a big heart, and can see the best in anyone….We became best buddies when we were 14…and while I relationship had a lot of ups and downs I guess you could say, we came out of the highschool drama, the uni drama, the friends drama ok!

After looking at some of the really old photos, I looked at some of the photos taken in the 10 months I spent back in Australia after my first year in Japan. A lot of photos of from when Shumpei and I first got together and when he came to Australia….I can not believe we met almost three years ago now. Maybe I will post some of them another time!

It is nice to look back on old photos! I might be going back to Australia next year to live for six months or so…I think that is one of the reasons I was looking back on old photos. Nothing will be the same as it was in that year after highschool….nobody had moved on, nothing had really changes. And now, like I said, I don`t even know some of these people anymore…but looking at the photos from that time, the same people popped up in all of them. I am not sure I would want life to be back the way it was then, I have changed and my friendships have changed….but it was nice to revisit it for a bit, even if it was just in photo form!

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