27th may

Today I had a Japanese and Geography exam, they were ok.  Anyway I got to leave school early and I went to a Yamaha store and walked around a bit.  One of the salesmen was very nice to me and he let me play some of the pianos.  They had a really cool digital organ that cost about $10 000... hmmm I might have to save up for that one.

After that I went to Junkudo (a really big book shop.)  Last time I went there I just saw the manga floor so this time I went and looked around all the levels (8 in total) At the top was a (small) english section.  Strangly enough the english manga is still cheaper in Japan than it is in Australia, but I didn't buy any.  Instead I got a really cool costume/ make up book and a novel (the little prince.)

I forgot to mention, yesterday the art teacher told me that there was a 'Sekaido' (art shop) close to where I lived. So naturally I went there a checked it out, and it was awesome.  I got a set of Neopiko copic markers for about $20 for 12.  I have to make sure I stock up on more supplys before I go home though.

Here's a drawing I did after school.

 

26th may

This week is exam week and even though i've only been here a month the (international) teachers have been testing me to see if I've been paying attention during the classes.  The best thing is that i've been finishing school early.

I think my Japanese teacher Richard (not Japanese) has pretty high expectations for a slacker like me.  He says that in western countrys people think "I don't have a life unless I have free time" but Japanese people think "I don't have a life unless I'm doing something all the time."  Which is crazy!
 School clubs can go up to 7-8pm at night, not to mention I (should) be doing 2 hours of Japanese homework everyday.  Last year to handle the HSC I pretty much fell asleep straight away after school.  If I don't get a decent amount of sleep I could get termanaly stupid, one day because I really tired the part of my brain that translates Japanese turned off so I had no idea what people were saying.
My point is i've got to figure out a ballance between doing stuff and sleeping.


Also i've found one of the best drinks ever, grape juice!!!  It's not the same as Australian grape juice (which is really gross) its super sweet, tastes great and its pretty cheap (about a dollar)

24th may

Since I don't feel like writting an incredibly long entry about the weekend i'm just going to condence it into short one.


On Saturday I went to the electronic town Akihabara (AKA where all the otaku fans go.)  Honnestly it wasn't that great, it was just full of anime porn (hentai) and shady guys reading it.  The only good thing was that I mangaed to get a set (7) of anime rings for $12 compared to Australia where they sell them for $15 each.

After I relized that I wasn't going to get any better than that I decided to leave and go back to Ikebukuro where I got some awesome punk clothes.

collar sewn on the inside to make it look like 2 shirts

plad shorts.  The skirt is removable.

has lots of useless zips

Nothing too exciting happened on sunday except for getting lost inside of Sunshine City (Ikebukuro mall.)



At school some of the boys are being jerks, so I have to hurry and learn more japanese so that I can figure out what the stupid boys monkeys are saying

Also i've got exams this whole week (easy-ish ones since i've only been here a few weeks) so I actually have to study now, so bye.

OMG

OMG, why does blogger keep deleating my entrys after I spend hours writing it!!!!! 


I'm just going to go take a break *grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

yesterday

For the people asking, no I’m not friends with the crazy guy. At first I didn't recognise him since he got a buzz cut (surprisingly there are a lot people with buzz cuts here.)  Anyway when he saw me he asked if I liked “unchin.”  Since I didn’t understand the word I didn’t answer the question, which was good because the teacher said it meant poo.  The teacher’s advice was to say “do you like it yourself” to make sure if it’s a trap or not.  He also said I was cute but I don’t think it has the same impact after asking me if I liked poo.


After school my home stay family took me to see the Pirates of the Caribbean movie.  Before that we had dinner at an Italian restaurant.  I had spaghetti with meat sauce, noticed I used the word ‘sauce’.  I think I may have found a few particles of mince in it, but that’s what I get for going to Japan.  The menu was pretty confusing and I barley understood anything since they translated Italian words into Japanese.  I could read the Japanese, but I just had no knowledge on Italian food.  I think my knowledge on Italy is just about the same as Scott Pilgrims:

(1)

In Ikebururo there are heaps of little movie theatres around (kind of like odeon back home.)  When I got there I looked like a stage show because they were selling POT/ Disney merchandise as well as movie programs (it schemed pretty classy.)  They also sold caramel coated popcorn which was yummy :3

The good news about it being a new movie is that they kept it in English and put subtitles over it. 

One day the bodyguard movie was on TV and they dubbed the talking bits in Japanese and kept the singing the same.  It was very strange; I think all movies should be kept in their original languages. 




(1)http://fyeahscottpilgrim.tumblr.com/post/2919528770/this-is-how-rome-do-rome-these-are-my

avoiding homework

I'm writing another entry to avoid doing homework right now.


In my 'international student handbook' it was talking about how japanese friendships work.  You first have the honeymoon, devorce and then marriage.  Which means that eveyone is going to welcome you because you're new and show you how great Japan is (honeymoon).  Then when they get use to you they start to ignore you since you're no longer interesting (devorce).  Then after a while when they get to know you, the real friendship starts (marriage.)

At the moment i'm starting to feel a bit of the honeymoon part and a bit of the devorce part.  For example last week-begining of this week some of the boys at school were teaching me weird things to say to their friends (read 16/5 post) but now they're kind of bored of hearing me say stupid stuff and haven't talked to me too much (devorce.)  But at the same time so other boys from other classes (who I probably said all the weird things too) are trying to teach me more weird stuff like "kuchikusai" or your mouth/breath stinks.(honeymoon).

Also because of the lack of communication its hard to have a propper conversation with people.  At lunch I sat with a bunch of girl but they didn't really talk to me.  I kind of felt inferior to them since I  had no idea what was going on.  I also feel that some of them were nice to me as a curtisy rather than actually wanting me to join their group.
So my general plan is to go around and talk to lots of different people even if its just to say hello. That way I can get to know people (and not piss them off by tagging along) as well as keep my individuality. 

Oh yeah I forgot to mention, Yesterday during lunch I heard music coming out of the room next door and I went to check it out and there were some kids who were dancing and so I went and talked to them.  I also met a weird but cool girl who likes to shout, she was teaching me words like "daisuki and aishiteru" which mean I like/love you. (hmmm... boys are teaching me 'you stink' and the girls are teaching me 'I like you'... I guess i'm getting the best of both worlds.)  Now everytime I see her she shouts 'daisuki' and I shout louder than her and she shouts louder. etc.  Now that I think of it we have a game like that at home except everyone shouts "pe-



Ok, next point.  Here's what REALLY inspired me to write this entry.
 
I told my homestay mum that the boys at school were teaching me weird things to says and the first thing she said was "did they teach you Majide?" <-- in Japanese
Bullseye.  まじで/Majide was one of the first words they taught me.  She's a school teacher so that might give her an upper edge, however she was good at guessing some of the words.  Then she went on to teach me more weird/ bad words (not swears.)  The bad thing is... I forgot them all :O


P.S i'm going to see pirates of the caribbean tomorrow, Yay!!  Japanese people love disney just as much as westerners love anime.  How much is that?  Alot.
One day my homestay parents took me to a disney shop and then skipped the Studio Ghibli shop... :(

Japanese people aren't that into anime, who knew.

Yesterday

I was dead tired yesterday and fell asleep as soon as I got home, so... here's what happened:

Anyway, 2 years ago when I was in Japan my friends (M'lissa and Dianna) and I went to an art shop that sold all sorts of manga supplies however we ended up getting lost in the shady parts of shinjuku before we got there.  So this time I thought I should google how to get there this time, and it turned out that subway station "shinjuku sanchome" written as "新宿三丁目" was on the same line I took to go home. 
So after school I decided to go on an adventure, half way there I realized that shinjuku was the biggest trains station in the world and that about the whole population of Australia goes through it everyday... meaning its big and its busy.  The good news is, I took the subway which is less crowded than the trains (they have people who literaly push people into the trains.)  I was kind of freaked out when I saw that they had exits everywhere "eg: A1-A-9, B1-B9, C1-C9, E1-E9..." (Because its so big I could end up anywhere) lucky enough I was smart enough to ask for help from one of the train guards before anything bad happened. 
When going down the passage way (about a 5-10 walk) I recognised it from last time.  Back then I just thought it was a small station that only had 1 platform, only now do I realize that it's all connected underground.  As soon as I got outside, I looked around to see if I was in the right place (since I'm know to have a terible sence of direction.)  Studdenly I looked up and realized... That this is what heaven looked like.

(1) "Yes, i'm learning how to source things properly"

 The shop is called "Sekaido" and it sells art supplies in general.  The 1st floor has scrap booking and crafts, the 2nd floor has printing and manga supplies, the 3rd floor has paints and sculpting supplies and the 4th and 5th have framing.  As you all probably guessed, I went to the 2nd floor.  They had so many amazing things there for resonable prices.  In Australia I use to have to wait weeks for items to come in and then have to pay alot for them.

(2)

I got comic paper (can absorbe ink well and has blue ruler lines that disapear on photocopiers,) a name book (used for storyboarding your comic) and screen tones AKA gold (used in comics for shading and patterns.) 

I not very good at using screen tones because I couldn't afford to waste any of my precious resources while I was in Australia, but since I can actually buy then here I figured that I should start of with a few basic patterns to practise with until I get better. 

As for school... I don't feel like talking about it now.



(1) http://doortojapan.seesaa.net/article/73187122.html
(2) Picture by me