7 posts tagged “japan”

Japan is great! I'm having lots of fun and learning a lot. Made many new and wonderful friends. I feel like I am the real me here. Hopefully I can bring this "me" back home at the end of this month. Today is a day off. phew. I so needed it. Everyday is early: 5 a.m.! Alarm goes off at 3:50 a.m.! I'm getting use to it.

It's raining today. But at least it's not super hot yet. Tenri (the city where I am) is famous for its hot, humid, muggy weather.

Sometimes I feel like my Japanese is so inadequate. It can get stressful. Speaking is ok, reading and esp writing in Japanese causes me to go bonkers. I had a little breakdown yesterday but it's all for the good.

I feel like my English isn't so great either. And I want to be an English teacher, ESL that is. I've been told that I have an accent when I speak English. Well great.

I want to stay here yet I feel that I should go back. Well, after I earn my degree, I'll be free to go anywhere. I'd love to work in Japan and make tons of $$$$$$! I really do like it here. Maybe because it's Tenri. Almost everyone is so nice here. It's probably like any other place outside of Tenri. I will probably find out soon enough.

Take care!

I'll be going to Japan tomorrow! YAY~! I have been internet deprived so I haven't been able to read any of your fabulous updates or post anything! Not that I post much anyway. However, it's been fun this past week! 

Someone told me I got fat this morning and normally I would've let it bother me and bother me until I pulled all my hair out or ate all the cookies in the cookie jar. But I remained calm and collected because just because I gained weight doesn't make me any less of who I am. I am still me. I am whole. I am beautiful and smart and kind. I am everything I want to be. There's just more of me to hold.  I would love to lose the weight, be slim and pretty, but that will come later or now. I don't know. I still got my hand in the cookie jar.

Just a note* It is normal for people in Japan to comment on another person's appearance or change in appearance, (yes, a japanese person told me this morning in japanese) i.e.: you got fat, you got skinny, you haven't changed, etc.
i don't like it but oh well. that's life.

How do you eat your pizza:  folded, flat or with a fork and knife?
Submitted by danimass.

This question makes me want to eat pizza right now! A great big Costco one, just cheese please.
I guess I instinctively eat it flat, depending on the size and shape. But big slices I fold slightly so it's easier to eat. Some I eat with a fork because it's just too messy or to gooey to hold. I love cheese pizza! I didn't like it until I was older though. I always like pepperoni, but now i can leave it. The pizza in Japan is slightly different, especially their toppings. They put mayo on their pizza! With shrimp and other seafood. It's not bad, but at first weird. Of course they have the standard tomato sauce and toppings, but their thin crust is better than thick. sigh. I want some pizza!

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?  Why? 
Submitted by abcdefg81.

My favorite question!! For those who know me well, of course my first answer is Paris, because it's been my dream to live there, go there, see the sites, experience Paree! I have been there once and it was before the year 2000, so they had a countdown on the Tour d'Eiffel. That was cool...but the most disappointing was that the facade of le Notre Dame was covered! Because I guess they were doing construction/restoration whatever you call it. So I vowed to myself that I will go back and see the facade of the Notre Dame in person.  I was there for only two days, though we did a lot. I was lucky and was friends with  my high school band director, so he let me go on the Europe Band Trip for a fraction of the cost, after I had already graduated, as a junior chaperone (what a laugh!). I was with my high school love at the time (who was a senior, i was in college already) and it was kind of towards the end although we still really loved each other. But we were fighting almost throughout the whole trip and even before that he refused to be on the same bus as me! That was a sign of the end!! I was very disappointed, but hey, what could I do? He didn't want to deal with me anymore or as much as possible. But it was very romantic despite the tension between us. Especially being in Paris with the one you love. We sort of made up on the Seine River boat ride. It was quite romantic with the sun setting and the streets of Paris lit with the colors of dusk. sigh. Well, that's all in the past already, a distant but fond memory. Anyway, so we did a lot, i think there were over 100 people including students and chaperones, and we went to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa. It was quite funny because we couldn't take all our bags in with us so we piled it into the corner of the lobby and several of us were waiting and watching the bags. But then I had a chance to practically run through the Louvre just to see the Mona Lisa. actually we didn't have a lot of time so we all rushed to the famous painting (smaller than expected), took pictures, without flash of course, and then rushed to dinner. I was sick and had a sore throat so I couldn't really enjoy the I forgot how many course French dinner. But it was great fun rushing around then waiting, rushing around then waiting again. We went to the Eiffel Tower, then to  Versailles (that was a site to see, especially the huge garden), then stayed overnight at a hotel then back to London again. I want to go back! Right now! From the bus, I saw the back of the Thinker. Tres cool. And I would love to go to the Mont St. Michel and the Bastille and several other places. sigh.

I wouldn't mind living again in Japan but I wouldn't work for Tenrikyo again if I could help it. Maybe teach English at a private school or something, get paid a lot so I can travel all over Japan, which I haven't done yet. Especially get vacation time!! That would be so ideal. I could go to Tenri whenever I want. Have my own apt, come and go whenever i please, take a bath whenever I want! (I had to bathe by 10 at my dorm when I was living in Tenri because everything shuts down at 10 pm! They lock all the doors too!) Stay up all night and sleep in on the weekends. Sounds marvelous!

I would also like to live in Singapore if I had the chance. It's a great country, very small, but fast-paced and urban. I'm not much of a city girl but the transportation is excellent, i can handle much of the food, and it's just a mini city country. Even the escalators move really fast! watch your step! Everyone drives about 90 km an hour on the roads, kinda scary but zoom zippity zip it is.

maybe it's more like jetlag but boy am I going through some of it majorly. I could not sleep last night at my usual sleep time around 12 or 1 so I got up, read some mags (there's a provocative article in Best Life, a men's magazine, about the devastating effects of plastic on the environment, birds, ocean, and sea life. it's really horrible. it makes me not want to use anymore plastic! did you know that plastic turns into nurdles, which are tiny round plastic pebbles that mix in with the sand on beaches and is potentially deadly to land and sea creatures??? because they look like fish eggs. ugh. poor souls), hand wrote in my journal which i haven't done in a long time. that was good to let all that pent up shit out of my system.  then finally went to sleep at 4 in the morning. i got up at 8:15, 15 minutes before I need to leave for work. I did not hear my alarm go off at 7. man oh man. but it's just one of those things that will hopefully wear off or my body will get readjusted to hawaii time. japan is 19 hours ahead, which makes it 5 hours behind but it's the next day already. so going to sleep at 12 here would mean it's still 7 pm there. I'm such a night owl that it's probably easier to get use to japan time. oh welly well. 

Hi all. I'm back from my trip to Japan. It was a trip to renew my spirituality, become refreshed in mind, body and spirit, and mainly to accompany my father there. It was quite an experience and tough on my patience, but I survived without any big mishaps. Thank goodness. I was able to see many old friends and new ones too. It was good to be back in a place that we call Home and also a place where I use to live. There are many memories that I'd like to remember, some I'd like to forget but what I gained from everything, every moment, every person I encountered is forever. I will never forget and will always remember. I don't feel desperate to go back and live there as before. I've still to find my own "place" but that should show itself when it is the right time. It just feels good to be back in Hawaii, where I grew up. It's hard to replace something so familiar, you know like an old quilt.