Halloween out in Akihabara

今日の日本語の言葉: okashi (お菓子) - snacks/sweets

This word was brought to you in the spirit of Halloween, and I thought the word "kyandi" might have been a bit too easy.

Today was your average morning. I ate breakfast, took a nice shower, and sat around writing and watching some Korean and Japanese drama. Korean is such a beautiful language too, and I would love to learn that as well, though both Korean and Japanese are such tough languages because of the amount of honorific levels that exist. Even people who have been studying the language for a decade still tell me they have trouble with honorifics (especially Korean ones). So I've got a challenge ahead of me!

I didn't do much writing today because my writing partner was at an exhibition, with her art at an exhibition (and did I mention the piece "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Mussorgsky somewhere in there?). So I was wishing her the best of luck while I spent my time catching up on overdue reading and shows. And since tomorrow morning will be Halloween night for the majority of you, Anna will again not be around, so I expect to go to Gotanda and explore in the morning instead. More on that on the next post (hopefully).

I didn't grab lunch on my way to school, but I did manage to get an onigiri from Lawson's (one of their many convenience store chains). This was a black pepper chicken onigiri, which I thought sounded delicious, but then I tasted it, and I was floored. It's fantastic. If I could send my dad some of this without it perishing, I totally would. It had more black pepper than I had expected, which was totally fine by me, and made it even tastier.

There was no drawing in class today. I was so interested, and thus I participated very much. Plus, when I didn't, I spent time reading manga on my iPhone instead. I think tomorrow I might bring my copy of Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE to school tomorrow and try to work through that instead of reading English fantrans manga (it's in Japanese, so I might as well be doing Japanese things in class, right?).

The content is pretty easy still, grammar wise, but at least my Japanese writing is getting a lot neater and standardized now. I've been writing more Japanese than ever, which is very nice. I also (later) went to a stationery store and got myself a sketchbook, which could also serve to occupy my time in the future. We shall see.

For dinner, I went to get curry with Saya-san. She's that friend from Sweden I mentioned earlier. We were going to go hang around Akihabara a little, and it just coincidentally hit on Halloween (though I didn't expect Akihabara people to celebrate Halloween much at all, so it wouldn't have made a difference).

After dinner, we went into Yodobashi Akiba, which I've mentioned before, and browsed once again through their stationery. I love stationery to no end, and I just don't know why. What is so damn cute about paper with cats on them? Or adorable cat stickers? Or cat pencils? (Getting a theme?).

I'm not sure if I've ranted about just how cool their pens are. They have those multi-color pens, except completely empty, and then you can fill it with whatever colors you want. And they have like, every shade of the rainbow I have ever thought of. They also have mechanical pencil fillings of three different lead sizes, and a stylus filler as well. They've thought of everything. And I so want to make like, ten of them, but they're not that cheap, as you can imagine.

I don't know what these are for, but they're really cute. 

I also browsed through their notebooks and stickers and stuff, looking for something good to mark pages with, and for a sketchbook, because I didn't like all my art being on the front page of my boring textbook (it makes me sad that such fun things are on such a sad place), and I also didn't like it rubbing off when I walked around by brushing against other books.

The pen is the saddest thing I've seen. The caption says:
We were born in the North Pole. Our hometown is disappearing now.
Isn't that just a depressor on such a cute pen?! D:

After we left Yodobashi Akiba, I wanted to go to a cell phone store and look at cute little cell phone charms, and then maybe make a stop by Don Quixote, which is a general items store that sells everything from costumes to snacks to shampoo. Of course, the Japanese sometimes spell it as Don Quijote, and most of the time, they pronounce it like "Donki hote," which I find utterly adorable and hilarious.

Dressed in Halloween colors! Somebody noticed.

Very cool building with blocks that change color.

I found these cats that can connect to your phone by plugging into your headphone jack, and they just sit there, being all adorable. Of course, now that the new iPhone 5 has moved its jack back to the bottom, if I want a cat on my phone, it'll have to be upside-down, which is so weird looking. So I'm sticking with my iPhone 4S, mostly for that reason than anything else.

I would take a picture of the cute cat that I ended up buying as it sits on my phone, but the problem is that my phone is my camera... I'm not ready for that level of inception quite yet. And yes, there is Photobooth on my laptop, but it's currently not capable of running well with more than two apps open at a time (I need to clear up some memory), and thus, with Skype and Chrome open—two very important apps to me—I simply cannot afford a third, even if it's so simple as Photobooth. Whenever I open iTunes to sync my phone, I either have to close down Skype or Chrome, or deal with the slow impossible whirring noise that a computer emits when it is choking on its last breath to tell you that you are a murderous and crazy owner.

I ended up buying the one on the left. 

The following pictures are from Don Quixote, or Donki Hote, whichever you prefer. I'm sure the majority of them do not know that this is a guy who fights windmills, anyways.

We went there because we've never been, and was surprised to find a mini convenience store, a costume shop (though we both knew about that one), a small appliances store, a section dedicated to beauty and nails (of course, what shop in Japan wouldn't be complete without such a section?), and a very nice hat section too (which you can see we had fun with).

Weird snack... But that's Saya!

Pickled plum flavored pocky-like sticks. I'm totally getting
some for Anna.

Freeze dried ice-cream... with the cone. I have never
seen this before in my life.

At the costume section, I was so tempted to get one of these costumes. They are so damn cute. Though I thought about it, and I wondered what the hell I would ever do with one except walk around Harvard and get known as the one with that weird costume? Nothing else. Zannen desu ne.

There was also the hat section, at which point I got in touch with my inner Japanese classic lady self, and my western zodiac self as well. And... my sweet tooth self? That part doesn't exist as such a big personality as the other two seem to do in my life.

This is a duster. Would you dust with something this cute?!

I also ended up trying some big glasses, to see what the big glasses fad was all about. I must say, I now understand. I'm not sure what I understand, but I understand. It's a... feeling. That's all I can say. You definitely don't feel smarter, but you feel like you can act smarter, and that's all that counts.

When we were in the costume area, there was also this one cute guy that kept running into us on various floors. He was always polite, flashed us a sweet smile, then apologized for being in the way and stepped aside. What a gentleman! And it was an added bonus that this guy was wearing a whole three piece suit, tailcoat and all. Swoon~!

Yes, that is actual alcohol, I think. How... odd.

Below is a picture of the traditional view of Akihabara, which I finally managed to get a picture of. It's on the other side of the station from where I usually get out, so I usually am too tired to come here at night to grab a picture of this place. But isn't it pretty? Sometime I'd like to head to Shibuya at nighttime too to see that famous crossing with all the lights. It's cool during the day, but during the night, it's just awesome, ne? Maybe I might do that tomorrow or Friday. Then again, if I'm gonna explore Gotanda tomorrow, I don't think I'll feel like being out both before and after school.

Hatsune Miku! Someone actually dressed up! 

When I got back home, there was a nice slice of banana pie waiting for me. I was hesitant to eat it, because of the whipped cream (and the fact that pies usually are too sweet for me already when they're made out of apples; what happens when they're made out of bananas?!). But I tried it, and yes, it was too sweet. But I ate through half of it before giving up because any more and I might have gotten sick. It wasn't bad though. For something advertised as banana pie, it's actually quite delicious. It's just that I'm the wrong audience for it. Nothing wrong with the cooking itself, which was fantastic as always.

I've got a test tomorrow that I'm a bit apprehensive about, though only a bit. It's only covering the past five days of studying, which is already a fifth of the way through our new textbook. At this rate, I'm going to have about ten textbooks before I return to the states. I'm glad we're moving faster than I expected though. Though, as always, I wished we moved faster.

So now I'm off to get some rest. I might study for the test tomorrow morning, but those of you who know me well have probably figured out that when I don't study is when I do the best. If I do study, then I tend to overstudy and push out the bigger picture with tiny details. Who knows?

Mata ashita!
マギー

Hurricane Sandy Made My Day

今日の日本語の言葉: ongaku (音楽) - music

This word has been brought to you by what's been following me all day

This morning I woke up and got on Facebook. I do that every day, but today was especially special in the sense that everybody on the coast seemed to be online, talking about their hurricane experiences. Many Rindge students were also praying for no school, and the way that they were doing it was so humorous that I feel that I must share some of it with you, as a service to the world:

Above is Mach's status, which made me (and Anna) laugh so hard. It was my favorite of them all. The reason that I found this hilarious is because Mr. Matteo was my AP English Language teacher, and he is currently teaching world religion, a class which both Anna and Mach are in. They've been spending this weekend writing a paper about whatever religion they want (it's been on my mind too because I've been helping Anna with hers), and thus, this hit at just the right time. This status is also why I love hashtags. #commentswithnospacesseeminfinitelyfunnier

Some of the other ones that I've encountered and would like to put down somewhere more permanent than the ever changing face of Facebook can be found below:

• Mach: I realized the most horrifying news a few minutes ago, and it's still sinking in, Angleo's closed last year cause of flooding, and if they close this year, I might just not be able to cope. If Angelo's doesn't open, neither can Rindge! (Angelo's is a sub shop near school that is frequented by us CRLS students, yet is known to serve very good but highly greasy food)
• Henry: I always knew I would have a heart attack because of angelos... but I never thought it would be like this (This here is the comment that had me dying of laughter)
• Mach: If you rename the hurricane A-Rod, then it won't hit anything.
• Arthur: Rocking the bathing suit to school tomorrow. Who's in?
• Eli: I will not step over trees to get to school. Just letting you know.
• Julie: My school is too smart to cancel school. So while you guys can enjoy your day all warm and cozy Belmont and Arlington, we in Cambridge will be dodging trees and getting sick in the rain. #cambridgecaresabouteducationratherthanhealth

My favorite thing I found though, were two of the following things, one of which is unrelated. The first is a picture of Keanu Reaves when he was younger in some movie the name of which I've forgotten. The second is a video of MIT doing Gangnam Style, which I knew was coming sooner or later, but I did not know it was going to be this awesome. Thus, please enjoy:

And here is MIT's take on Gangnam Style:

So after I explored all of Facebook's wonders and had talked to Anna for quite a while, alas, it was time to go to school. I promised Anna I would refresh the page every hour for the CPSD website to see if school was canceled, because there was a chance it would be, but it was highly unlikely. And now that I sit here, I am sad to report that there was school, and thus Anna couldn't stay home and talk to me. D:

But then again, education is also good.

Class today was held with Seshime-sensei, who, as I told you yesterday, thinks we're all more simple-minded than we actually are. She asked us if we knew what "banana" was, and was like, "Oh! You guys know?!" as if "banana" (pronounced like a British person would say it) is something so foreign to all of us. We all learned English in our lives before we came here... And we've told her that. Alas, I don't know what more I could do. So instead I spent the class drawing hands, which are so damn difficult. I also read manga on my phone, which was nice.

A hand that I'm especially proud of (though not the rest of it,
since that part was sketched)

On my way home from school, I ended up listening to "For Your Entertainment" by Adam Lambert, which also makes me think of Alexei and Mikhail very much. I also finished learning "Eternity ~Memories of Lightwaves~" on piano while I've been here, and have started learning "Itsumo Nando Demo" on the piano, which is a great and new adventure and change (I've been working on Eternity for two years off an on, without much else). So this is where some of the music theme for today comes from.

I stopped by 7/11 on my way home from school because I was so damn hungry, and stumbled upon the wonder that is chocolate mochi with a chocolate sauce filling on the inside. Do you know how much I had to restrain myself in order not to get this? I don't think I'll have that much self restraint tomorrow! We'll see. It just looks so damn good, and chocolate has always vied with vanilla for the post of my favorite ice cream flavor. Yummm!

While I was paying at 7/11, I put my bag down to search my wallet before realizing that my bag was resting on something. I've always put it either on the ground or on the actual counter, and it took me a while to realize that it was on neither of the two. I was stunned. Why don't I see this more in America, huh? It makes perfect sense, it doesn't take up that much space, and it's so damn helpful. No longer will I have back pains from bending over, or guilt from taking up their precious tiny counter space (and sometimes accidentally knocking over those little candy boxes and stuff either). So smart!

This is out of chronological order for these pictures, but below is a picture of a curious little shrine that I pass every day to and from school. It really is just very random. I walk, and here's the inner monologue: wall... wall... wall... garage... wall... hole... wait. Backtrack. Is that a shrine? It's almost unnoticeable, yet it's so beautiful and quaint. It's the little details like that that make me really love Japan so much more than I do already. I have no god to which I pray, but I am able to appreciate the beauty of the place nevertheless.

Before I go for the day, here's something that I find interesting about Japan: the Yakuza are so... ordinary. I've always thought of the Russian Solntsevskaya Bratva or the Italian Mafia and many other organized crime groups or gangs to be pretty secretive or feared and stuff. Or at least a little ostracized from the rest of society. But I've already seen a few Yakuza members around, just taking the train like it's nobody's business. You can tell them apart from everybody else by their style of dress and their tattoos, but otherwise they're just like normal people. I felt highly uncomfortable sitting on the train next to a Yakuza guy once, but no one else seemed to mind. After a while, I relaxed too. I've seen one in a little grocery store buying shampoo. That was something I thought I'd never see.

They can't enter places like onsens and stuff, but I wonder why, considering they're allowed practically everywhere else, and I've seen them in many odd settings that I don't think would be the same if you were to move the whole situation to Russia and have it with the Bratva. If I saw some kind Yakuza guy helping an old lady cross the street now, I don't think I'd be surprised.

I mean, I was stunned today when I saw someone shoplift in Japan for the first time. I know that like every place, they obviously have their share of criminal activity, but it was so damn blatant that I thought my eyes were deceiving me. If it was that blatant in America, some self-righteous guy or upstanding citizen might have spoken up, but I definitely wasn't the only one who saw it, yet everybody else remained quiet and just looked away. What a difference in culture! That thing and the organized gangs thing. So very different.

Well, that's all for today! Tomorrow is another class with Yoneyama-sensei, so there's tons of fun to look forward to then! Mata ashita!
マギー

All the Fun at School

今日の日本語の言葉: tanoshii (楽しい) - fun

This word was brought to you by class today, which was the funnest class I've had in Japan so far, and the first class that wasn't boring.

I woke up today to find about forty emails in my inbox, which isn't the largest amount I've found when I've logged in ever, but it's the most I've found in one day. And then after deleting mail from subscriptions and stuff, there was still about twenty-five left behind. About twelve of them pertained to the chapter I posted yesterday, some of them were from some of my teachers wishing me well and checking in, a few were from family, and a few were from various friends sending me pictures from their own lives. It was a wonderful way to start off the morning as I waited for Anna to survive the beginnings of the hurricane and get back to her house and get on Skype. It's nice to know that people care so much, you know? It's sort of why I keep going with this blog; whenever I talk to people, they reference it, and I know they read it. So then it gives me reason to write~ A good circle, I'd say.

So after I replied to all of that stuff and had some nice email chats with people from around the world who read my story, Anna came along and we do what we always do: write. If this trip is about discovering myself and my interests, I think it's going quite well, don't you? xD

After breakfast, I got ready for school, wrote a little more, and then left. When I got on the train, I finally had a clear enough picture to show you what has surprised me quite a bit for the past days I've been here. Everything on the train is so clean! I mean, everywhere is so clean, but I've never ever seen any part of the train defiled or damaged. There is absolutely no litter. Even when people forget things and leave things on the ground, other people pick it up and put it on the rack or something. People are so caring. No one writes on the ads, as far as I've seen, and everything is spotless. Not like Boston, where there's "SWAGGG" scratched onto every surface, or a moustache on every expression. *sigh*

When I got to school, I dropped in at Vie de France to try another pastry of theirs. This time it was some apple pastry, which was very soft and very hot. Inside was filled with a gooey warm sweet cheese filling and apple chunks. I describe it as something very delicious, yet it ended up being way too sweet for me, and I couldn't finish the whole thing. Alas, my lack of a sweet tooth!

Across from my school building, I also saw all of these bikes. They're here every day, and none of them are ever locked up. I see bikes in other places that are just left around like this too. They're so trusting, and I find it very nice. You would never see this anywhere in Boston or something. And it's not even that Boston is distrustful of others; the fact of the matter is that if this existed in Boston, all the bikes would be stolen in a matter of hours. It's just a difference of... street-wise acceptability?

Class today was so damn fun! I don't know how to begin to describe to you how it was. Yoneyama-sensei was teaching today, and as I've told you before, I like him a lot. He's got a wonderful sense of humor, and he really knows how to make learning fun. We were learning today about when to use "ha" and when to use "mo," which is something I already knew. I was liable to be bored quickly, and Yoneyama-sensei knew the class was too easy for me, so he challenged me. Out of nowhere, he would turn to me and ask me a ridiculous question in Japanese, like "Two days ago last week, what was the first thing you ate for breakfast?" Then I'd have to think. Then he'd ask me if I ate this, or that, and I'd have to answer using "ha" or "mo" or neither as the right particle. It kept me on guard, and it was actually quite fun. He has this way of teasing you when you're wrong that makes everybody laugh, but makes you laugh too. It was just such a good time.

Yoneyama-sensei also is wonderful at sarcasm. He's got that down to an art. Someone would say by accident something like, 「レストランを食べました。」which literally means "I ate a restaurant." Yoneyama-sensei would reply with something like, "You do? Funny. I haven't done that in a couple of days. The mood just hasn't struck me recently." We'd all crack up laughing, because the fun thing about our class is that the majority of us are on the same Japanese level. We're all bored with the current material. But at least we all can understand enough more complex Japanese to get it when Yoneyama-sensei makes a comment like that.

I did draw in class though. No matter how interesting class is, I always can find time to write and to draw. And the mood struck me today to draw... guess who?... Alexei and Mikhail! Alexei's on the left, and Mikhail's on the right. Alexei loves his coffee, and has about three cups every morning. Mikhail is posing with some things he's stolen recently: a painting of Catherine the Great, a goblet (well, two, actually), a bottle of wine, etc. I just love them so dearly! <3

After class, I walked to the station with Saya, my classmate from Sweden. She's a wonderful and very interesting person, and is the best English speaker in the class. We also both love BL very much, and naturally migrated together because of those two reasons. We've already talked a lot, and we went out to dinner on Friday. She's very quiet, but she's highly intelligent. She seems to be just as bored as I am with class, though we both stave off boredom by exchanging names of good books and dramas. =]

Cats on her backpack! So cute! 

We went to 7/11 together on our way back to Akihabara station, and I got this odd thing that I wanted to try out. I love salmon, so I figured it couldn't be bad. It's difficult to mess up salmon and rice. And it actually turned out to be pretty good! It's sushi rice, with cooked salmon on top. So it's like a massive aburi salmon nigiri (cooked salmon) the size of my palm. What's there not to like?

I also found some shampoo and conditioner in a bag, which I guess saves on hard plastic, but I've never seen such before. Is there some benefit or something? Why doesn't America have it if there is one? It's just fun to see some of the fundamental differences between the things Japanese people are used to, and the things Americans are used to. I found this bagged shampoo weird, while other people found it weird that I was taking a picture of something so ordinary. xD

For dinner, we had chicken katsu, which is delicious as always. We also had pumpkin, which I've grown to love! I don't think I still like any other pumpkin, but Yoshiko-san's pumpkins are absolutely wonderful. I could eat them all day (this is why her children are so well behaved, I think; they eat so many, many vegetables).

I encountered wasabi powder for my first time today, though. This made me think immediately of dad, who would get a kick out of this. The left is a powder of wasabi and soy sauce. How do you make soy sauce into a powder? Does it just become... soy? o.o
The right one is wasabi and salt, which I find just as interesting. It tastes like it advertises it should, and it makes everything taste better, I have to say. It's sort of like the deep-fry effect: if you like something already, and then you deep fry it, it 99% of the time tastes better (though it's totally worse for your health). You have to like it already first, though. Thus, since I don't like twinkies, deep friend twinkies would probably make me gag twice as much. So I guess deep-frying amplifies whatever feeling you already have toward the food.

That's all for today, folks! Hopefully tomorrow's class will hold to be as much fun as today (though I think it's Seshime sensei tomorrow, who always seems surprised when we know something and actually understand Japanese; thus, it might not be as fun...). It was also nice to talk to Janet today, who was chatting with me on Facebook as I was writing this. Sometimes I don't realize just how much I miss you guys until I get a chance to talk to you again; and then my heart gets just a little bit homesick.

I miss you guys tonnes (I've been writing a fic about someone British, so, in honor of it being done, "tons" is "tonnes" for the day)!
マギー

P.S. I also want to wish my beloved god-brother, Corbin, a happy birthday today! It's been your birthday all day for me already, but it's only just started for you! Hope it's a magnificent day! I miss you lots! XOXO