Im was just listening to the Caramellen Dancen in the lunch room of a skii resort in Nagano prefecture.と(≧∇≦)つ I also came back from asnowboarding leason on how to stop、 after hitting about 10 people on my way down a mega slope.(-_-;)

Only in Japan、 can find 21 manga books for the equivalent of $30 AUS. Life's good＼(^o^)／

I just came back from the Algonquins fashion show & the Disacode live concert. It was awesome (☆。☆)

h.Naoto's Christmas Party from last Saturday

After going to h.Naoto’s fashion show last month, he then invited us (everyone at the show) to come to his Christmas party on the 10 of December.  At first Tatiana and I decided that we wouldn’t go since we didn’t have any girly, Lolita clothes to wear.  However I changed my mind at the last minute, because I really wanted to go and I didn’t care if we were dressed differently.  It was a good thing that we did because we ended up having an awesome time.

So last Saturday Tatiana and I went to h.Naoto’s Christmas party!  We have decided to name ourselves the “Psychedelic Dream Team” because so far we’ve managed to make our dreams come true 3 times already, which was meeting our favourite designer.  (We chose the ‘psychedelic’ part from our favourite Japanese band, X Japan’s slogan “Psychedelic violence, crime of visual shock.” -->)

shop on the left

Inside picture from google

When we went in the shop, all the main shop keepers from the other h.Naoto branches came to the party as well, most of whom we recognised since we always visit the different shops around the city.  They were all dressed in Santa outfits and they checked our tickets and wrote our names down, which made us fell like VIPs.  The people that showed up were customers and fans of h.Naoto. We were lucky because the people there were dressed in both Lolita and visual kei clothes, since h.Naoto designs different styles of cloths.  Meaning that we fitted in this time!

Misako

Midori

At the party we saw two fashion models, Misako and Midori from the Japanese magazine, KERA.  We saw Midori in real life for the first time that day, but it was the second time that we saw Misako because she was one of the runway models at the fashion show.

In order:  Mint, Ibi and Nari

We also saw the members from Sixh.  Sixh is a band that collaborated with h.Naoto to create their own fashion line, which is a mix between goth and visual kei = Ghost Kei. Ibi and Nari were there selling their new clothes and special life sized pillows of themselves called a ‘dakimakura.’  They were going to play a live show at the end but Mint only showed up for a few minutes and had to leave, so we couldn’t hear them play.

(a different) dakimakura

far left

We also saw Jun Utahiroba from the popular group called Golden Bomber, who showed up for a little while as well.

When we asked h.Naoto for a picture he said that we couldn't take pictures since it was a special event.  However, he then said that it would be ok if we took the picture on his camera, which would then make it 'Offical'.  Yay!!!!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=283303938387520&set=a.273929919324922.87339.100001237492070&type=3&theater

 I also recorded a crazy video after the party, when both of us were tired but I haven't finished editing it so i'll up load it later.





h.Naoto's blog - http://ameblo.jp/kyounohnaoto/page-2.html#main

I found a Santa bread yesterday〓

My original T-Shirt

☆ YOU COULD BE THE OWNER OF MY NEW 'ROCK 'N ROLL' T-SHIRT ☆

The 'Rock 'n Roll' t-shirt design

A few weeks ago I designed an image for a T-shirt and then found a place that would print them, then my Japanese teacher helped me to more information by calling up the company to ask questions about the price etc...

So far 1 T-shirts costs a bit more than $20 AUD, however I'm not exactly sure since the price varies depending on how many I order.  Therefore I want to know if anyone is interested in buying one of my t-shirts so that I can figure out how many to order.

 You can chose from M size and L size.  I didn't bother with the S size, since the Japanese sizes are really, really small.

The design features my original character 'Yuu-kun' [勇くん], a punked out lion, who plays the guitar.  To give you an idea what it looks like, I've photoshopped an image of what I think the t-shirt would look like (image above).

If you are interested in buying one, please leave a comment, thanks!

Im currently at the 60th floor of Sunshine building with Tatiana & Nicolas.

Akihabara video

I bought a new video camera this week so that I could film some of my adventures.


The video is about me and my friends who went to Akihaba yesterday and all the crazy stuff that happened.

me at the gundam cafe

The outside of the gundam cafe

Haro Pizza

The AKB48 (popular Japanese idol group) cafe

Tatiana and Nicolas with the Colonel

Wow, it works

I've figured out a function where I can use my Japanese phone to email messages and pictures from my pressant location, meaning that I can also upload short messages like the previous too just now, cool!

Gab smelling his new shoes

Having kebabs at Shibuya with Gab Nick Popp and Tatiana

'The best day ever'... from a few weeks ago

Today is a holiday, meaning that I can catch up on some blog updates. The first one is about when Tatiana and I meet the designer h.Naoto.  I actually wrote an entry on the day but forgot to upload it ^_^’ but the good news is that you can tell how excited I was from the writing style.  Anyway here it is:

Today Tatiana and I went to Harajuku; Pop said that she would meet us later. So we went around to all the cool shops to use up the time.  After that I suggested that we should go to the ‘h.Naoto FRILL’ shop, which was always closed every other time I went, since I’ve come back in August.  h.Naoto is my favourite Japanese brand and even in Australia I was always looking for his clothes on the internet thinking, “It would be so cool if I could buy these when I go to Japan.”  Inside the shop I saw a guy who looked familiar. At first I thought, “Wait a second, h.Naoto is a famous designer, why would he be in one of the stores?”  To be sure I went up to him and asked if he was the designer h.Naoto.  Then he said “Yes.” “…huh?!!”

WARNING – this is when I started to freak out

Did he just say yes?  Am I dreaming? Out of all the things in the world, I Jessica McLeod-Yu actually met my favourite designer, holy cow!!!!  He said (in English) that the reason he was there was because it was a special event day because he just released a new collection, so the two of us were just really lucky to be at the right place at the right time.

 I was completely star struck that I couldn’t speak very well.  He asked us questions in English, but I was so nervous that I kept answering them with my bad Japanese, how embarrassing.  He saw our clothes, which were punkish and recommended that we should go upstairs to see the rock/ punk collection.

So we did what he recommended and went up stairs and checked out all the amazing clothes, which were too expensive for us poor students.  By this time I think Tatiana was a bit scared because I was beginning to show my several signs of nervousness/ excitement, such as smiling a lot and almost hyperventilating.  After calming myself down (a little) I decided that I had to talk to him again since I was too nervous to talk to him the first time.  So back down stairs, I told him what clothes I liked.  Luckily enough I was wearing the pants I made, so I was able to show them off.  It felt great being able to say “I made these” to my favourite designer.  He even let me take a picture with him, wow! I’ve got evidence :D AWESOME!!! 

 After that he invited Tatiana and I to see his fashion show the next week at his shop in Shinjuku.  I had always dreamt of going to h.Naoto’s shop, but to be personally invited to a fashion by the designer himself! WOW!!!  What a privilege, I couldn’t believe that something like that just happened, I could die and go to heaven I’m so happy, but I must stay on earth since I haven’t been to the fashion show yet hehehe. 

 

Ahhh, I’m so happy.  So far I’ve met 3 of my idols:  Matsumoto Rika, the voice of Ash/ Satoshi from Pokemon (I met her in Australia though), Akira a model from my favourite Japanese magazine (will write another entry about this) …and finally h.Naoto.  Japan really is the land of dreams!

After we left the shop, I was so shocked at what just happened that I started laughing uncontrollably AKA ‘my nervous laugh’, which scared Tatiana again. Suddenly we realized that we forgot about Pop, who was waiting for us, ops.  After meeting up with Pop we went and took Purikura photos (Purikura stands for Print Club, PURINTO/ Print + KURABU/ club = PURIKURA) and sang at Karaoke, which has become a norm for us.  We had a lot of fun, but I ended up losing my voice at the end of the night again.  Anyway that was an awesome day and it could be classified as a ‘Best day ever!!!!’

me and h.Naoto

at Karaoke



Tatiana and h.Naoto

Purikura - Tatiana, Pop and me



Pocky Day

I have a lot of entrys to write about but I'll start off with Pocky Day since its the stupidest and shortest thing to talk about.

As some of you may know, (from eating boxes of it at animania) Pocky is a popular snack in Japan and last week they had Pocky Day on the 11.11.11, because pokey is straight and looks like a 1... get it?

In the middle of class when the clock hit 11:11am a bunch of my class mates screamed out 'Pocky Day.'  Then in the break time I swear half of the class all had their own boxes of pocky.  Since I didn't want to miss out on that joyous occassion, after school I bought my own box and shared it with my friends.

"It's strawberry and If I hear any
innuendos, I'll kill you" 

Also I managed to get a giant pocky from Shibuya the week before since they were having a huge 'advertising thingy-mabob.'

Pocky Ad

Culture Festival

I actually wrote this entry a few weeks ago for the Seiritsu website however I kept forgetting to upload it, so here it is:

the International Department

I kind of got off on a rocky start on the first day of the Bunkasai.  First of all the Bunkasai started at 10am so I thought I would get there early at about 9am, but it turned out that I needed to be there at 8:20am like normal so yeah, I was late.  I also showed up wearing the wrong clothes too, so it was a double whammy.  During the sports carnival everyone went to the event wearing their sports clothes with their class t-shirt over it, so I did the same thing for the Bunkasai too. However when I got there I saw everyone else wearing their normal school uniform with their class t-shirt over it so I had to go home to change back. Other than that the rest of the weekend went well. 

            I was involved with three different rooms: the English Conversation Club, the Art Club and my Homeroom.  We had the International Department and the English Conversation Club together where we each took turns to tell fortunes AKA (uranai) to the Japanese people in English and then we had to translate them into Japanese.  Some fortunes were direct and easy to translate such as “Wearing red tomorrow will bring you good luck”, while some were very vague like “You should spend less time thinking and more time doing.”  Here is a picture of Nicolas fortune telling.

We also got to go on stage, where the Japanese girls from the English Conversation Club interviewed us and introduced us to the community.  After the interview we had 10 seconds to present our ‘Special Talent’, my talent was playing the guitar.  They later sent me into the hall way with the guitar to attract customers, which actually worked since one lady said she followed the music. 

In the Art Club’s room we made a little art gallery.  Last week everyone prepared their best works and made little frames for them and hung them up.  We each had to name our works (in Japanese) so I close really simple titles to avoid messing up, my works are the two middle ones.  We also had the new Art Club magazine on display, where everyone contributed something towards it.

For my homeroom, we made two rooms for the festival the Haunted House and a Kid’s Room.  I have no idea why they we made two rooms since everyone else only had one room but it was handy since the teachers made us close the Haunted House.  Everyone really put their hearts into making the Haunted House so in comparison they really didn’t count the Kid’s Room, which didn’t need any management like some of the other rooms, which were shops or attractions.  I was lucky since I was involved with other clubs, so I didn’t get as depressed as some people.  The funniest thing is that they kept the bleeding dummy from the Haunted House and put it in the Kid’s Room and filled his belly with candy!

When I was off duty I went looking around at all the other rooms.  Some of them were really cool.  There was a planetarium, cassino, miniature train room, and many more.  One of the classes had a gold fish catching game, which I’ve only seen in animes.  You have to use a paper paddle to catch as much fish as you can before it breaks.  A lot of people said that it was hard but I ended up catching about 13 fish with one turn.  It looks as though I’ve got a new special talent.

On the Sunday the International students including me had the privilege of carrying the Mikoshi.  The Mikoshi is a portable shrine that people carry around in the streets during festivals, however it is extremely heavy.  With the help from the professional Mikoshi carrying guys we marched into the school were the other students joined in and helped us carry it in.  The Mikoshi had little bells on it so we had to keep shaking it up and down to ring them.  It was exhausting, but also a fun experience.

Over all the Bunkasai was awesome!! It was great seeing everyone working together to make something as amazing as this.  I feel as though I’ve gotten to know my class more from working together with them this last week and I hope I can continue to make more friends.

kids room - guess who drew most of these

my class

last week

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not again!! I just deleated my journal again, damn.  I guess i'll have to start all over again *sigh*



Ok now where was I?  Oh yeah, I was talking about the Bunkasai (culture festival).  Friday was a holiday however since the Bunkasai was on Saturday everyone in my homeroom came in to help finnish off everything.  One of the boys brought in a creepy looking maniquin to put in the haunted house, I then painted some blood on him.  Here's a picture:

http://sachsen.deviantart.com

The theme for the haunted house was a parody on the movie Totoro (a kids film) where we had evil totoro instead.  I first thought they bought the streamers but I then realized that they made them.  They stuck strips of 'suzuran tape' (a roll of tape with thin plastic like a shopping bad) together and ripped them into smaller pieces.  They had other streamers and secret walls inside for the ghosts to hide in.

full body

the students made the sign and I drew the totoro

one of the secret walls



A wall of 'blood'. Actually I found one of them with my name on it. Those boys really like saying/ writing my name... even if it's on creepy 'bloody' sign boards. (-_-') 

some of the boys.  Akito was posing specially for this ^_^

After we finished everything the Teacher came in a said we couldn't do it.  (I'll skip a head since I don't feel like writing everything again).  When I asked one of the girls in my class to explain why we couldn't do it she said that at another school some on was sexually harassed in a haunted house (probably because it was dark).  Therefor the teachers wouldn't let us do it, though I wonder why they didn't tell us in the beginning instead of at the end?  Almost all the girls cried (the boys probably wanted to as well) since they worked so hard to make it. 

In the end everyone decided to give it an upgrade so that we could enjoy it one more time.  So they put cardboard and tape over the windows to block out the light and then they invited some of their friends from their homerooms.  The haunted house was awesome (I spent more time laughing compared to screaming though).  At the end the teacher came back and told us to tear it down, which made everyone cry again.  I think they wanted to go in on Sunday everning with their friends again after the festival was finished or at the very least have prof that they actually made something.

Here are some pictures of our beautiful mess, at the very least we had fun making it even though we couldn't have it at the festival.  If there's one thing to take from this experience it's to not sexually assult someone in a haunted house!! 

Sorry for making such a crappy entry however I'm too tired to re-write everything again.  I swear I need to figure out a (good) system that will stop this thing from deleating my entrys.  P.S I remembered the Japanese word for p****... is that a good thing or not?