yes i'm alive but barely. i had a pretty rough week with japanese, a huge ass exam that was only worth 4% but the teacher was giving us about 250 vocab to memorize, movie scripts, news, speeches, etc etc. it was bloody hard, i finished writing it 2 hrs ago and still bad feelings about it. the whole class was like that too. -_- anyhoo, i do have pics to update, like the one from the soccer game, kyoto pics, some weirdos from tokyo back in september, but i've been swamped this week. so i won't do any pic uploading til next week. please be patient!
this weekend will be reserved for sleeping! so little sleep this week, so much homework (curse those japanese teachers).
february 16, 2004
off to finish the rest of the updates from my trip to sapporo. since i was only there for 2.25 days and 2 nites, it was hard to fit everything that i wanted to do within that time frame. i left sunday, the day that was gonna go back to kansai for a day trip to otaru, a small town that took about 1/2 hr by train. u can walk around the main part of town within 2 hours, it's that small and reminded me a lot like calgary. (lack of things to do er, i mean, quiet). b4 i headed off to otaru, i went to the sapporo university which was only a 10 minute walk from the youth hostel. i wanted to see the university cuz of the famous popular trees that's over 90 years old on the campus. cuz the trees are in danger of falling over, they closed it off to tourist. so u can only stand in front of it. actually, i could have gone thru it if i wanted to since there was this only 1 flimsy chain across the road and i could have stepped over it. i'm hoping to come back to japan in summer time cuz i wanna see it in bloom. even though it's winter and the trees are bare, i thought it was still pretty.
and here's a very small pic of what i could find on the net of what the trees should look like in summer.
then off to otaru. again they also had a snow festival there too, they light up lanterns at around 5 pm to 9 pm and let them float in the river. unfortunately, since i was supposed to be leaving for osaka at 5:30pm, i was not able to do that :( but i was still able to tour the canal and see some mini sculptures.
and here's the famous canal of where they'll let the lanterns float at nite.
and a shot of the shopping area/downtown.
it was snowing like crazy again. otaru's famous for it's glass -blowing industry. for about 20$ an hour, u could get a 10 min lesson on how to make your own bowl, cup, etc etc, what ever u wanna make thru glass-blowing. since i'm scared of fire, i had no intention of going near those fire furnances. also, music boxes are famous. there were 3 huge music box shops in the area and i had a blast going thru all the music boxes , i was able to recognize a lot of the songs. besides classical, they had j-pop and disney songs too. the area was so geared towards tourist, u can create your own music boxes. just pic the music u like, pick the decorations/beads u wanna use, and the staff will help u out. i think if i did it, it would have prob costed me over... 30$ or so since there were so many decorations there. but settled on a custom made picture frame with j-pop music. the whole area had a lot of russian influence during the 1900's so a lot of the architecture had an european feeling unlike the kansai area where it's very jap traditional.
and that's the end of the trip to sapporo. next one, back to doing toursity stuff in kyoto!
february 13, 2004
i'll just do a bit of uploading for hte time being, have classes in 15 min. so i got to sapporo on the 6th feb at nite and b4 crashing at the youth hostel, i took a stroll down to odori koen where the major ice and snow sculptures were held. so nite and day time of these statues are completely diff. the one in the background, is a replica of a town building in germany. i thought it was from england at first glass. all sculptured out of ice and at nite, they lite it up with green blue colors.
i was so tired that nite, i went only saw that far. well, i could see other scultptures but i was too lazy and called it a nite b4 the youth hostel could slam their curfew in my face.
next day off, another location in sapporo for the kiddies snow sculpture where the american based army is supposed to be close by. already pretty crowded at 10 am in the morning.
february 13, 2004
i'll just do a bit of uploading for hte time being, have classes in 15 min. so i got to sapporo on the 6th feb at nite and b4 crashing at the youth hostel, i took a stroll down to odori koen where the major ice and snow sculptures were held. so nite and day time of these statues are completely diff. the one in the background, is a replica of a town building in germany. i thought it was from england at first glass. all sculptured out of ice and at nite, they lite it up with green blue colors.
an exact replica of the taj mahal in india
BREAK for the next hour and half for class, the class bell rung. check back in this section later. i hope i can finish the updates after class today.
4:18pm
AAGGGHHH! all the stuff i typed in just got bloody erased with yahoo asking me to sign in again. so tempted to smash this computer to the floor.
alrite, i'll just take a deep breath b4 i have to hurt anyone or anything that's sitting by me......back ot the kiddie land. kids were allowed to slide down on those ice sculptures but i figured i would look like an idiot if i followed suite.
to celebrate the new doraemon movie coming out, a replica of doraemon and it's sidekicks. guess i should see the movie now b4 i go home cuz i know it'll never come out.
besides sculptures, kiddies were allowed to make their own snowpeople (being polictically correct here) and this is only a side section of it.
next stop, susukino where they had about 100 ice sculptures lining the main street. kirin, for people who don't know, is a disgusting jap beer. u prob all know i hate beer and that if anyone offers me beer, i have the urge to dump the beer on your lap or to smash the glass on the floor. but! how often do they advertise beer with ice sculptures?
next, live fish. ok, not exactly live, but FRESH. i don't remember if it was built by the osaka team. just looking at that made me hungry to steal a few of them.
another beer commercial here. this time, sapporo beer that's being manufactured and produced in sapporo. u know, i tried the sapporo ramen and other sapporo specialities but i never tried their sapporo beer. prob be cheaper to drink it in their city vs back home with import taxes and all
back to odoroi koen in the afternoon. yes judy , i know u like new york and the yankees but i know u're gonna HATE this one. #55 matsui hideki from the yankees, they built him and new york cuz it's the 55th annual snow festival. to celebrate matsui's success, this was sculpted.
unluckily, snow began to fall like crazy and it was hard to take a good pic of the snow sculptures. my head almost froze with snow piling up and u can even see it on the germany's ice buildling too.
now here's baseball i like! japanese baseball! sorry judy, mwa ha ha. hanshin tigers, the local baseball team here, did win the central leauge but not the japan series title. otherwise i would have pics of people jumping off the bridge into the filthy water in osaka.
snow sculpture of a government building in hakodate also in hokkaido.
xmas lites still running
again, another shot of my fav building. they have famous entertainers come to the snow festival to perform. on sat nite, they had some freaky goth band to sing on the stage. i guess their music was OK, i GUESS but there were some other freaks in the crowd. ie, a group of high school chicks were all dolled up in those lolitas outfits. the frilly dress, the little bonnet hats, platforms. speaking of which, i still need to add pics of those people from tokyo when i went in september! but those chicks kept screaming out "urara, urara!" like a broken record til i realized they were calling out to the guy on the far right side of the pic instead of the singer. but most of them were very femmy and prettylooking, i mistakened one of them as a girl.
to celebrate the summer olympic games in greece, the parthenon was built. i know u're gonna like this one judy cuz it has athena! u're favorite goddes that we learned in the classical studies, ah, good old memories of me talking to u that almost got us into trouble!
a kiddie sculpture, i took this late at nite and my eyes were shutting down.
the last of the giant sculptures, dinos and me close up with a t-rex.
other updates, i still have to complete the pics to otaru, a small town close by sapporo when i went up that weekend with BLOODY homework to bring. and some other shrine pics and host family pics. next week! have a happy valentine's day people! i haven't seen many people, jap chicks, giving giri choco to the guys. u know, the day where chicks giving "obligation " chocolates to males and on march 14th, guys give something back.
february 10, 2004
back to school and the boring life! well, actually i've been surprisingly busy everyday with bloody school homework. being in level 5 jap class, level 6 being the highest b4 they throw u into academic japanese, they stepped up the level of difficulty. so instead of just sitting in class daydreaming like i usually did last semester, they're making us watch this movie "shall we dance" while filing in the lines of the scripts. also, listening to news programs and also filling in the lines. of course, it's difficult cuz they speak ridicuously fast and i have to rewind the section over and over and over. let see, besides 2 jap classes, have 3 regular english classes but sorta regreting that now! group work, readings. this is the 2nd week only and i've been forced to stay up late doing homework.
so in sapporo, the nothern part of japan, was their annual snow festival, yuki matsuri. since my friends were late reserving their tickets, they weren't able to book hotels so they were forced to abandon that idea. but i was able to do since cuz i booked them like b4 xmas! in sapporo, they have huge snow and ice sculptures in 3 diff areas and it's usually in the 1st week of february. i was able to catch it on the weekend from feb 6 to 8th, but pathetic as it sounds, i had to bring my homework! yep, the teacher from hell decided to give us a test on monday and a speech on tuesday so i had to bring my crap. the teacher was also a bitch and didn't tell us what's gonna be on the exam til 4pm friday afternoon with a pathetic note in our mailbox. by that time, we would have gone home by then so in short, i did very shitty on that test.
pictures will be uploaded from the yuki matsuri, prob b4 the end of this week. no internet access at the new home stay place.
