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[26 Aug 2008|10:10pm] |
So. Left Budapest today.
( Sort of. )
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[25 Aug 2008|07:32pm] |
Went on a boat tour and dicked around in a more touristy area along the Danube today. The boat tour was cool, except it was hell of cold and windy and I was wearing a short-sleeved short (dumb). More cafes and shit, more sitting around and watching people, like y'do. The shops sell all the same stuff at varying prices, which is basically what tourist shopping is supposed to be, so there you go. Here it's mostly t-shirts, tote bags, trick boxes, rubiks cubes, traditional Hungarian clothing, glassware, creepy fucking dolls, and paprika. I just bought a t-shirt and some felted decoration things for my new room at crollege (yay! I need to move my ass into it when I get back), since I have enough junk already.
It's sad that both this vacation and summer break are ending soon, because I have to start thinking about real work stuff and not just fooling around. Mom spent most of last night trying to harangue me into taking Chinese. I do need one more class, but I don't know if I have enough room in my brain left for Chinese. Either way, it was a not-so-fun reminder that I have to go back and start classes.
On a lighter note, I managed to buy fruit today! I know, right? But it's harder than it seems, because you have to weigh it on this special scale and it prints out a label when you press the name of the fruit (I bought peaches so I pressed ogasdfasdfbarack). My fruit-buying skills indicate that I've gotten better at Hungary in time to leave.
Honestly not looking forward to the plane ride back tomorrow. It's even longer than the one here, because of the way the wind works or something, I don't know, I'm no windologist. Plus a four hour layover in Heathrow, which is good and bad. It gives us time to chill, but it also adds four hours to what's already eleven hours of flying
Things I'm looking forward to at home:
-Gabe
-Kittens
-uploading pictures! (must man up and do them all)
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[23 Aug 2008|10:54pm] |
Shortly after I posted, we went to dinner. It was windy when we arrived at the cafe, and many women had shawls wrapped around their shoulders, and many men had scarves around their necks, protecting against the chill. There were blankets on the back of all the seats, to wrap around our shoulders and protect from the cold.
There's a laid-back, relaxed atmosphere about those people dining at cafes. The patrons don't eat so much as the food occasionally wanders into their mouths, cigarettes amble to their lips, drinks sipped and never drained more than a few centimeters at a time to prolong the moment. The only thing that keeps a steady pace is the conversation and (sometimes) the wait staff. But somehow, midway through our soup, the whole atmosphere was shattered by a flash of lightning and crack of thunder, heralding a great and sudden rain.
People scattered, leaving tables they'd just sat down at, or going inside the restaurant. Passerbys who had previously been going by at a snail's pace rushed ahead, holding bags and jackets over their heads, a sudden panic.
But relaxation prevailed. Guests shifted to sit beneath the umbrellas of their tables, laugh, a man has a camcorder out. A policeman wandered by, already somehow wearing a raincoat - how well prepared! It's back to sitting and chatting, the same thing, just accompanied by the drumming of the rain.
We stayed and ate our pizza. Tomato sauce, cheese, italian ham, raindrops.
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| WIENER SCHNITZEL & the zoo |
[23 Aug 2008|07:42pm] |
I think I've mentioned before, but we basically live right on top of ~20 different cafes. The cafe culture is huge here. We generally eat a light lunch around 1-3 p.m., then eat dinner at 10 p.m., or the other way around. With so many cafes available, we usually end up eating at a different one every night.
So night before last we picked a cafe called "Karma." Big variety on the menu - traditional Hungarian, Indian, Chinese, some other stuff. I go over the menu a little, end up ordering pork medallions. Mom orders... wiener schnitzel. I give her a weird look, but she's like "I've had it before, it's great!"
We wait a while, the waitress comes out with our plates. Sets down my pork medallion kebobs, they look okay. Then she sets down the wiener schnitzel.
Now, I don't know what the dish is supposed to look like, but what she set down could only be described as "colossal." It's a huge mass of fried dough, literally spilling over the plate vigorously, creeping towards the table. This is like, horror movie cuisine here.
No sides. No garnish. Just a huge fried monster blob. Of .
Oh, with a lemon sort of apologetically sitting on top, I guess.
As soon as our waitress is gone, I start bagging up. Lesson of the day: don't order an Austrian dish at an Indian restaurant in Hungary?
( Continued )
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| Catchup Part 2 |
[13 Jun 2008|10:30pm] |
Back to Shoin University! They have a place there called "English Island" where I guess the English club meets, and people can go to practice their English and talk to their English teachers and get homework help. It's mandatory for all Shoin students, even non-English majors) to take English until Junior year.
We had to go to English Island on Thursday, and the people that came to meet us were all English majors, and very excited, as always. I think we were only supposed to speak English, but that went out the window fast, and we mostly spoke Japanese for about an hour or so. Even when Japanese people are very skilled in reading and writing in English, they often don't get to do as much conversation practice, so it's tough for them.
My language partner came late and we chit-chatted awkwardly for a while. She's very nice, but we never really clicked. I have a hard time telling when people in Japan are just humoring me by talking to me, and when we're actually having a "conversation." When I talk to Saki, she always seems to be looking off to the side, and checking her cell phone, and so on, so I'm guessing she's in the latter category.
I got a break from awkward conversation with Saki when I went to stand in the shade of the English island building, by the windows, and some girls came up to the windows. I didn't notice them at first, but when I turned around they were enthusiastically mouthing something. I tried my hardest to tell them I couldn't understand, and Saki couldn't either. One of them pointed at her face.
"Kao?"
"I think she's saying your face is red."
"Ummm..."
We beckoned for them to come outside, and they hurried out.
"Hi hi! Can you help... facebook?"
"You want to be facebook friends?"
"Help us sign up for facebook!!!"
I go in and help them out a little bit, stumbling through since I'm not familiar with facebook at all, until we figured out that Facebook has a Japanese version (ja.facebook.com). So I stand back and watch them go about their business, until I get attacked out of nowhere by an English teacher.
Heavy Australian accent, older guy, and very friendly, and wants me to find other study abroad students to take over his class for the day and have conversational practice with his students. It takes a little doing, since we're all hungry as hell and everyone wants to go straight to lunch, but I finally managed to get four or five people.
What the guy wanted us to do, we discovered, was sit and just talk to his students. He sat us down in front of a group of three to five people, and just vanished. I quickly discovered we'd been very, very spoiled by the English majors - we mostly talk to them in Japanese, but if we don't know the word in Japanese, they can often help us out. But this was an English class for psychology majors, and they did NOT give a fuck. More than that, they didn't want to be in class, and they didn't want to talk to a bunch of strangers.
( Cut here, 'cause I'm going long )
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| Our father who art in heaven... |
[09 Jun 2008|11:06pm] |
I didn't notice the interesting combination of places I'd gone today until I started uploading photos. I'm forgetting English already... I guess it would be a dichotomy, contrast? Either way, I'm getting ahead of myself.
We had our first class this morning, and there's nothing really to say about that. It was class. Our teacher spoke maybe two words of English the entire time, so we're not sure if she actually does speak any. She's from Shoin university, and she's very nice but since the class is two hours and thirty minutes, it's pretty rough. So class class, -te kara review, deshou and stuff, and then class was over and we had to hurry to Shoin university for our tour.
So, Kobe Shoin University. It doesn't have the best reputaton, as far as I can tell. Academically-wise. It's an all-girls school (all of our language partners are girls, so the guys are rather happy about that), and some of the literature mentioned stuff about devotion to religious values. To be honest, I didn't pay too much attention to that last bit.
So we got to campus, got out of our taxis, milled around for a bit, and then headed to the reception hall. Japanese people seem pretty big on ceremonies and speeches and pomp and circumstance about things like this. I expected go in a big auditorium and chill there, and... Well, it was sort of an auditorium.
( Our auditorium.... In a ton of pictures )
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| Bowling |
[08 Jun 2008|09:05pm] |
( Big pics under cut! )
I'm going to start having to hurry up here, because the computer lab is getting kind of crowded (there's actually someone here who keeps standing behind me and watching).
I managed to get a flickr account, hopefully it works okay.
Anyway, things are still going okay. Yesterday we went out and got udon like I said, and I ended up coming back and going to sleep early. A lot of people ended up drinking here. There's a lot of talk of drinking and getting drunk, nomihoudais (all you can drink bars), etc., etc. In a country where you can get beer from vending machines, it's pretty easy for people to be college students. Not my thing, so it's kind of awkward sometimes.
The biggest problem so far is inter-personal relations between all of us. People are very irritable, and with the language barrier we tend to want to go everywhere in groups, since it can be daunting to go out alone. Beyond that, some of the people going just aren't plain good with other people, so... It's a bad combo. But catiness aside, people are doing well.
But everything else is going well so far. Japanese people are very, very accomodating so far, and very kind. We went bowling today, and it was fairly fun. I did really, really badly, but whether you did badly or poorly everyone was encouraging. All "ganbare!" and "yoku dekimashita!" and "uwaaaa! sugee!"
After bowling we went to... An Italian place! It was very, very cheap, which is the best part. My italian hamburg whatever was only 500 yen. The only thing is, at one point I noticed a little button on a thing on our table. Curious, I pressed it. And then pressed it some more. When a waitress came over, I finally figured out what it was for. Hurrr. You can see pictures of the food and the restroom on my flickr, but I forgot to take one of the outside of the store.
Anyway, I'm getting braindead, and forgetting what I was thinking about typing. Hope everyone back at home is okay.
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[07 Jun 2008|05:25pm] |
So, like I said this morning I woke up around 7:20. From there I got dressed, etc. and did cosmetic stuff, knocking everything off my tiny-ass sink in the process. By the time I get done it's a little before eight, and we just sat around in the kitchen and chit-chatted. Robin had made some chai, which was pretty good - extra nice because I didn't go to the grocery store the night before, so it was my breakfast. So we sat around, sipped tea, until 10.
10, we took a tour around the neighborhood - imagine around thirty foreigners in a huge pack just sweeping the sidewalk, milling around. We walked to Rokkomochi station, and checked out the ticket machine. Super exciting! Then we headed back, and a bunch of us stopped at the supermarket. Everything was arranged a little strangely, and we weren't used to it. I made it out with a smiling bottle of orange juice, milk, apple juice, cereal, and some mysterious sticks of something that were supposed to be flavored like baked potato and were DELICIOUS. I should have bought Qoo juice, like Rachel, because she let me have a sip and it was awesome. Took pictures of most of the stuff, and I'll upload them and edit them into this entry, since I'm already spamming everyone's FLs.
So we come back again, and go to our welcoming party. There were a lot of speeches - all the senseis, and then we had to do self-introductions, more speeches, then assigned us one-by-one to our partners, and then finally food! ThERAFASD
jUST GOT STUCK IN CAPS LOCK FUCK JAPANESE KEYBOARDS
Anyway, we ate tonkatsu and meatballs and orange juice and whatnot, like you do. Mostly picked at the food nervously while chatting with our partners. Mine, Saki, is very nice and sweet and whatnot. I was nervous and tried to cover it by talking nonstop. I know I made a lot of mistakes, and probably gave off a bad impression, but I'm happy I got to practice.
So, language partners in tow, we left for Sanomiya around two. More train riding, and we milled around the shopping center there. I only ended up picking myself up some hangers, an alarm clock, a pencil, and some labels (we have a communal kitchen and we all shop at the same supermarkets, so it's easy to get mixed up) at the 100 yen store (where not everything is 100 yen.
Came back, re-hydrated, typed this LJ entry, and now I'm going to go figure out what everyone is doing for dinner.
さよなら!
おまけ: this is what I see when I go on LJ
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[07 Jun 2008|09:33am] |
Some pictures.
( here )
No picture of our beds. It's not much to see - you climb the ladder in the first picture, and there's a small platform with a futon. Fairly comfortable. Someone put those stickers of planets and stars above the bed at some point, and they glow in the dark.
Not feeling terribly jet-lagged! I woke up at 7:20, and have been feeling good since (knock on wood). Not much time to post now.
I'll post more when I have time, but it's off to tour the neighborhood now.
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| Arrived |
[06 Jun 2008|09:34pm] |
Just arrived! Like 6:30 a.m. there, but 9:30 here. It was a LOOOONG ass flight. I'm glad to be anywhere that's not an airplane right now, I guess.
Using the computer lab keyboard, which is a huge pain. When I want an apostrophe, I have to press 7+shift and so on. I'll take a picture of it later.
Not much more to say - this will probably be more interesting when I get a chance to take pictures. Our rooms are AMAZINGLY small. Like, you can't imagine. Very cozy.
Tomorrow we're taking a tour of the neighborhood, having some kind of welcoming party, and potentially getting a lesson in how to ride the train. Hopefully I won't die!
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[04 Jun 2008|02:43pm] |
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music |
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Peter, Paul, and Mary - Leaving on a Jet Plane |
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So I've spent most of the time since finals ended preparing for Japan. It always seems like there's something I've forgotten to do or buy.
If I haven't talked to you recently: I'm spending the next month in Japan. See you when I come back!
I'm going to do my best to keep a good log of my experiences, with pictures and everything. Usually when I'm traveling I keep a paper diary and always plan to type it up later, and then never do. This time, I'll try my best!
I'm staying in a building owned by Shoin university. I'm not really sure what to expect from our accommodations, except that each room supposedly has a shower, which seems pretty boss to me. I'm not sure what to expect out of the whole experience, to be honest. I'm nervous and a little apprehensive but happy and excited.
Tomorrow we leave from JFK at 1:30 p.m. EST, and arrive in Narita at 4:30 p.m. (Japanese time) After that we take another flight to Osaka, eventually arriving at 7:45 p.m. - 6:45 a.m. EST.
Not looking forward to that jet lag.
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| continuing the trend |
[04 Aug 2007|05:08pm] |
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music |
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one cat snoring, the other sucking his toes |
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Based on the amount of surprise I was met with last time I showed up for an event (an event, I think here, meaning "Olive Garden", although I don't know if I'm quite comfortable being the type of person to whom Olive Garden is an event) wearing a dress, I expect at least a little praise for the fact that I am packing in excess of one dress for my trip. I'm packing dresses based on a 1-2-0 scheme, one being the number of people I am packing for, two being the amount of dresses I'm packing, and zero being the number of purses I found that don't (a) make me look like a gigantic douchebag or (2) take up my entire carry-on luggage. I wonder if Mexico will mind if I pair up my dresses with one of my favorite bags, or That Goddamned Lime Green Messenger Bag, Jesus Christ Is That Thing Stapled To Your Shoulder I Mean Come On, as I believe it's known.
In terms of weather for the trip, I'm currently working on the premise of rain EVERY SINGLE DAY for the entirety of my trip, as in accordance with the current weather.com forecast, something I actually find rather impressive.
In non-trip news, as my daydreams grow increasingly surrealistic and nonsensical, my sleeping moments become increasingly mundane. It has reached the point where last night I dreamed of Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Not "Bed, Bath, and Beyond except everything was upside-down," or "Bed, Bath, and Beyond and it was on fire and employed solely by those Silent Hill Monsters who shoot acid out their chest and instead of asking Debit or Credit they shoot acid and instead of asking if you want to save 10% today by applying for a Bed, Bath, and Beyond charge card they also happen to shoot acid out their chest." What I mean was, I dreamed about going to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and buying Sterilite-brand drawer organizers, a product I do not necessarily endorse or oppose, simply a product I don't expect to feature so heavily in my ventures into the mysterious arms of Morpheus.
To put this into perspective with a contrasting example, after spending a night watching educational and thought-provoking Shark Week programming, I found myself standing outside, shoeless, pajama-clad, and near-paralyzed at the prospect of opening our green Waste Management bin, afraid that a shark would come out (presumably to savage me, not to offer scones or shoot acid out of its chest) when I opened it.
Which reminds me of something Lauren's semi-ex boyfriend told me from his branch of whatever military organization he was in: "Do you know what they say that WM stands for? Women Marines."
eta: Oh man I just browsed through my Sent Items and found an e-mail I wrote when I was kind of out of it, telling my mom I missed her and hoped her judging was going well and that Hideous Monstrosity brought a dead mouse because it missed her too
WHY DID I DO THAT THAT IS SO GROSS :( plus when she gets back she'll be like "why didn't you get rid of it?!" (it's still on the remains of our deck, post-dad chainsawing it [the deck, not the mouse])
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[03 Aug 2007|11:14pm] |
I am afflicted, relentless and uncaringly, by packing and the associated regulations.
It should be an easy enough matter, especially with the handy mnemonic for packing liquids of 1-1-3, a sole one (1) quart bag containing bottles not in excess of three (3) ounces each, a gospel I have committed to memory but which offers little assistance in facing the trials before me. Regulations give a vague "comfortably" as to how this one (1) quart bag should be packed. If your bag is found to be uncomfortably packed, will you be forced to sacrifice one of the bottles? Is there a special line to wait in while you try to choose what will be left behind? Will you sacrifice your eyedrops, or your body lotion? What happens to that abandoned child? A mental picture of standing next to a great mountain of abandoned travel-sized bottles and forbidden cargo, hands trembling while I cast my precious 99 cent bottle of sunblock to the growing pile. A tear rolls down my face. Adagio for Strings plays. Everything is sepia toned and slow-mo.
But perhaps the greatest point of confusion is the purpose of the 3-oz limit. I doubt my growing nest of tangled hay can be nurtured with three ounce bottles of conditioner and shampoo for the duration of our stay. What if I were to take two sets of shampoo and conditioner: 6 ounces of each, split into separate, 3 ounce bottles? It seems, somehow, logical but hopelessly cheeky. So obvious that I almost imagine some sort of preventative measure to stop smartasses from trying to bring more than their three ounces of any liquid.
I pass through checkout normally, reaching down to pick up my one (1) quart resealable bag, but a great and terrible hand seizes it by a bottom corner before I can.
"Wait a moment. This is..."
The bag is ripped open by the giant, so that he can reach inside and pluck my 99 cent bottle of conditioner out between ring and thumb fingers, letting it hang low so that it won't touch his palm. In one smooth gesture, ripping the top off, and then he tilts his head back, and he's chugging a mouthful of my conditioner. Snipers in airport camouflage - patterned in hypnotic carpet prints - peer out from potted plants in varying states of alarm and disgust.
"You already have a bottle of Dove conditioner in there. Do you think you're better than the rest of us? Do you think your flyaways are worth six ounces?"
Actually, that's not the greatest point of confusion now.
Mascara is one of the three-ounces or less liquids.
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[15 Aug 2006|04:22pm] |
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mood |
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resigned |
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music |
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dick dale - miserlou |
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Things that I do NOT have:
-An academic advisor
-A LIFE cluster
-The ability to drop/add classes online
-A housing assignment
-My AP scores
The housing assignment people have changed their reassurances from me being assigned housing sometime on the 13th, to some time by the end of the week. For those of you at home keeping score, we are just two days away from everyone else having recieved their housing assignment a week ago, and over a month has passed since AP scores were released.
In times of stress and trial it is not unusual for me to look to the Holy Bible for guidance, and this time is no different. I'm comforted by the fact that, as often is the case, there are words that relate to my daily life and my anxieties, and so I quote:
"And yea the Lord spoke unto them: 'That shit is bananas. B-A-N-A-N-A-S.'"
I have e-mailed my imaginary academic advisor (in my mind), the CollegeBoard, and the head of undergraduate studies for the Art History department. If this stuff isn't cleared up by tomorrow morning, I'm getting on the phone (which my mom has been doing for the past couple of days) and taking charge. Collegeboard has $175 from me, and UD has cashed our checks. If I wanted to pay people to get screwed, I'd find myself a prostitute.
Things I do have:
-A smile on my face!
-A spring in my step!
I'm done thinking about this stuff for today, though. I'm probably going to go out and buy myself some stuff for my imaginary dorm room as retail therapy. Happy shopping~!
( The e-mail I sent to Collegeboard, which is a pretty accurate depiction of my current state of mind. )
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[30 Jul 2006|09:11pm] |
The schedule is now up at Otakon.com for panels and whatnot, which is pretty neat. If you guys can, print it out and start highlighting stuff you want to go to. The only things I have marked right now are the Gaia Online panel (I'm so-so about that) at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, and the Cosplay Wig Design panel, which I'd really like to go to, but it starts at 9:00 a.m.
The Nana Kitade/MUCC concerts are listed at both 8 p.m.-9 p.m. on Friday, and 4:00 on Saturday. I'm not super psyched about them, although I know you are, Lian, and Connie is all over MUCC, so I'm very likely going to be abandoning you guys to 4:00 p.m. one on Saturday - especially since it coincides with the One Piece photoshoot, which I had a lot of fun at last year. I still love you, though!
Our hotel check-in time is at 3:00 p.m. (weird, but that's what it says on their site), and check-out is 12. I propose leaving sometime between 10-12 on Friday? It's an hour and a half drive, according to Mapquest. Maybe we could do a sleepover the night before hand and watch HMC or something, I dunno (though by the end we'll probably be sick of sleeping with each other).
Connie, you're going to need to hook yourself up with a pair of black pants to go with your jacket, I think. If you don't have a tophat already, I'll be making one.
Everyone remember to bring CDs and whatnot for the rides down and back! Like every other single post I've made lately (and there's been a rather lot of them, hasn't there?) I'll probably be editing this to add more info later.
LOL at the Do it Yourself Bukkake (18+) panel.
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[29 Jul 2006|02:23pm] |
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music |
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Sneaker Pimps - Bloodsport |
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ETA: Thunderstorms now predicted for EVERY DAY of the convention.
http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/21201?from=36hr_fcst10DayLink_undeclared
Just caught up on Avatar last night (from Blind Bandit to The Desert). I like the new girl! She's not too obnoxious and they don't mention her being blind every two seconds. And man, I love all of the animals in the show so much. Like that thing that was all raping Sokka up in the "You have to learn Earthbending, Aang!!!" ep.
I have "The Blind Bandit" going in the background and I forgot about this quote.
*Skeezy guy comes up to the trio* "Psst psst, heeeyy, you kids like... Earthbending??! You like... throwin' rocks?"
There's not much more to say that I'm sure hasn't been said. Sokka is still awesome. I know the lightning Zuko scene was supposed to be all dramatic, but I couldn't stop laughing, and I was superhappy when his lisp showed up. And his hair is growing in kinda fugly. And Aang in the desert just seemed really, really weird? I know he was all bent (lulz) out of shape, but it seemed rather overdramatic, even for him.
Also, I saw Avatar and Naruto figures at the store the other day. I was so close to picking up, like, Sokka and Rock Lee to party together.
Otakon so close! I wonder if we'll see Avatar cosplayers. We should have done it this year. There's what, four days left till Otakon? :D We still have time to sew costumes!!
Also, almost August and still no AP scores.
ETA: At least Zuko's hair is going to be less scary eventually!
Timeline of Zuko's hair stolen from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lychii 's report on an Avatar panel at Comic-con.
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a174/frisbeecatch/PICT0085.jpg
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a174/frisbeecatch/PICT0086.jpg
ETAx2: I just went to make up a shopping list and ended up making a checklist of EVERYTHING instead. I thought I'd upload it because I'm the nicest person ever. There's some crazy stuff on it.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=1D744F7A235CB6EC
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