Weekend Blog (6,7,8,9 october)

Friday October 6th

Wow, it’s Friday already! This week has gone really fast with all the new information we’ve been getting, and the organising of our apartment and everything. The dorms are actually sort of starting to feel like home. My room really is my room now, with all sorts of bits and pieces that are truly mine. Pictures, cards, books etc. Mariko and I went shopping in the afternoon, to the 5 story 100 yen shop. They had as good as everything we still needed for the kitchen and everything.
We bought some really nice plates, we bought cutlery ( we only had chopsticks – makes a peanut butter sandwich really hard to make :p) and we bought all sorts of general ‘house’ stuff. We’re going to go back next week to get some cushions for the “couch” and chairs, to cheer the place up, and as the tv is now standing on a removal box, we’d like to get some fabric to put over the box.

I have to add here we took a break at Starbucks where I had the ‘ice pumpkin spiced latte’, which is the seasonal specialty over here. It was de-li-cious! And so was the teriyaki chicken bagel I had for lunch :P
When we came back from shopping we set to cleaning everything. We washed everything up, and cleaned the whole place in fact. Gave it all a good vacuum clean and we gave everything a good wipe. It actually seemed to look a lot cleaner afterwards. Shinier. The furniture is still dull, dark brown, but at least now it’s clean!

After dinner we met up with the rest and went to a place called “London park”, it’s an arcade hall near the station to take a look at the DDR game (dance dance revolution) they had there. The plan was to then go to Za Watami again, but as usual, it was full. We went to the izakaya next door, had a drink, and then when we tried again they let us in. This is when it gets good, because I found my Malibu Cola! (sort of my favourite drink).
It wasn’t called exactly that, it was called: kokonatsu ramu koora: coconut rum cola, but it smelt and tasted like the real thing. It was delicious!! Since Mariko got here I’ve gotten into the cocktails more than the beer when we go out, as they don’t really do wine, and I don’t like sake, what the guys usually drink. But with my MaCo I was happy as a bunny!

The trams here only go until 11pm, which is a little bit early for going out on a Friday night. As taxi’s here are reasonably cheap, we decided to take a cab home. We managed to find a cab that would take 5 people, as long as we tried to duck so that the police wouldn’t see us leave. Once on the road it was alright, but a little tight if you ask me. In the end we paid 300 yen (2,10 euro) each to get home. Not bad ey!?

X Jenn

7 october

Good morning! It is currently 3:30 am and I can’t sleep. It’s been a long day, last night was a late night, and yet I’d rather do this than try to sleep. We all got up a bit late as last night we didn’t get home until 3 am or something, and then we went food shopping. This weekend being a festival weekend I didn’t know when the shops would be open, so I bought enough to last me :). Claudia checked whether the university was open in order to check our email and everything, but alas. You shall have to wait for a few days to get this update :(. Anyway, after the supermarket we set of to a ‘bazaar’ of some sort that was supposed to be really nice according to this Philippine girl, Nessa, who lives on our floor. When we got there I guess it was sort of wrapping up, and it looked more like a flea market to me. So after that rather unsuccessful trip we were told there was something to do a t the station, so we all piled back in the tram towards station where whatever it had been, had now just finished. We don’t have a program of the festival, and the one thing we got at the information stand at the station is all in Japanese and just slightly too hard for us unfortunately.

Mariko, Claudia, Richard and I were going to have a nice quiet night in. Richard had brought some wine and snacks and so we sat down and watched a movie together. After the movie Mariko had an energy burst so we decided to go out for a drink nearby. Nearby turned into quite far away but we had a great time so that makes it better :P We sat down in a local izakaya, small, cosy kind of place. We decided to sit in a room (there were 2) where there were some Japanese people, but they didn’t seem to be very interested. After they’d left, a guy from a group in the room next door came to say hello and soon came back with some of his friends, and we ended up talking to them the rest of the time. They study ‘fish’ and ‘seaweed’. Sort of marine biologists I guess. The two guys were too funny for words, a real pair of comedians!
The place usually closed at 1am but the owner thought Mariko was kawaii (cute) and as there was still good business we ended up staying until 2:30. Mariko even managed to get free booze somehow haha. All in all, the quiet night in turned into a late night out.

Oyasumi (good night)

Jenn

Kunchi Matsuri (Kunchi Festival)

Unfortunately yesterday we didn’t get to see much of the festival happenings, so we decided to get up at a reasonable time today to see what we could find. Someone had told Ruben about something interesting in the kanko dori area, China town, where we’d been before to the 100 yen shop and everything. So we went there, and initially we couldn’t really anything special. The were a few stalls with food and trinkets, but nothing interesting. We decided to walk to Dejima Wharf to see if there was anything to do there.
As we walked there we saw more and more stalls until the entire road was a big swarm of people with stalls on both sides. The smell of food was everything, and the sound of people calling out to customers “please take a look”, “please try it’s really good” and things like that was everywhere. It was quite an experience! There wasn’t a lot of variety food wise, as in the food itself, but the presentation and look was different everywhere. All slightly different to the others, and yet the same.

We strolled through the mass of people all the way to Dejima wharf, where basically, there were more stalls. Gerrie tried some black ice cream which turned out to be sesame seed ice cream, and had an okonomiyaki type thing on a stick. I’d brought lunch with me so I just had that :P. After having another look at our Japanese festival guide, we went back to kanko dori to take a look at some ‘boat’ thing (that was the kanji we could read :P ). On the way we passed a stage where there were groups of people shaking their ‘thang’ to some r&b and hip hop music (Daan! Do the robot! – these kids did :P). It was some sort of dance competition, and they weren’t half bad! We continued our journey after that and ended up seeing one sort of carriage, carried by some men, with drums on it played by some kids. Not really worth bothering about, but nice to see in a way. At least we saw something today haha. By now we were all tired and so we went home. That’s where I am now. I’m going to make myself some dinner in a minute and then make it an early night as we are meeting the tutors tomorrow to see more of the festival.

Good night!

X Jenn

October 9th – the Whale

Ou~su!

Hello hello, and the reading goes on :p. Don’t worry, after tomorrow there ought not to be another big ‘internet-gap’ like this weekend. We found out that the uni is open on Saturdays, well, the library is, and as we have student id cards now, we should be able to go there for internet during the weekend. So then it’s only the Sundays that will be skipped, until we have internet here. As mentioned yesterday, we met the tutors at 12 in front of the uni so they could take us to the interesting bits of the festival. Unfortunately they didn’t really know much either, but after a few phone calls to their obaachans (grandmas) we figured out a plan. We first took the tram to kanko dori, where we’d been yesterday aswell, walked past some more stalls, and then we were supposed to see some carried shrine thing. As it was really crowded and hot we thought we’d go upstairs to the balcony of the shopping centre we were standing in front of but the doors were closed (probably to stop people doing exactly what we were trying to do) and by the time we were back outside the ‘parade’ has passed! So we figured it’s really short. We then ‘chased’ the parade (we didn’t even stroll – it was slower than that) and managed to see part of it anyway.

By that time it was time for lunch so we went back to kanko dori (we had walked our way to Dejima in the mean time) to have some lunch as the next ‘event’ was there as well. We had a quick look at China ‘town’ (you can easily call it China ‘street’) where some weird guy kept trying to take pictures of Mariko and me. So I hid behind Ruben, and then the guy had the nerve to ask Ruben if he could take pictures of us. I didn’t want to have my picture taken so Ruben got rid of him. Most people just stare at us, which I’m used to by now (that’s just what it’s like in Japan – kids in the tram will just sit there, mouth wide open, gaping.). But this very obvious picture taking without asking us first was just weird. Anyway, we survived, unharmed and everything, a little weirded out that’s all. We made our way back to the Kanko Dori shopping ‘arcade’ (sort of inside shopping streets, not quite like a mall) where we were supposed to see ‘THE’ whale. The whale was late, and the Japanese were getting impatient, but finally it came! People walked by with numbers on sticks, which was the countdown. Then some stupid guy announced that the whale wouldn’t do it’s special dance where we were standing, that it would just pass through, it would come back to dance later that evening. I guess they were tired? Anyway, we saw the whale! The whale made us wet! (it ‘ejected’ water – sorry, can’t think of the right word) and in the end it was still quite fun, especially practicing Japanese with the tutors. Still can’t wait to meet mine.

What really pissed me off is the lack of information on this festival. I’ve said it before, but we had no programme we could make sense of, and even the tutors didn’t really know what it was all about. And the bit I really wanted to see (dragons and the whale and things dancing by a Shinto shrine thing I think, with fireworks and all) that had been the day before, and you needed tickets to get in. No one had told us or anything. In fact, we feel rather clueless in general about everything that’s happening over here. So I’ve sort of decided to jot down things that I think people ought to know when they come here. So I mean the next load of Leiden students that are going to come here. Because a lot of things we could have known. I mean, last year’s students must have had the same problems and questions, so I’m going to try to help the next load by giving them some vital information! Aren’t I nice :P ;)

Anyway, we’ll have to see if that actually works out, so far my good Samaritan moment. Good for karma and all that sort of nonsense. What’s better for me right now is to go to bed, because it’s way past my bedtime. I had meant to go to bed early, but I stayed up late chatting with Clau and Mariko, and then I still had to resize pictures and write some more blog to keep you lot entertained :P (good karma X 2 – yay!).

Mada ashita!

Jenn