After getting too caught up in life to blog, I've started a blogger since a couple of my friends from Fukuoka started blogging there, so maybe we can get all of them to jump on the bandwagon. So here's the link. I'll be keeping my lj for the communities and commenting though, so perhaps I'll start blogging here again. My last year of school is going to make me a hermit anyway, so you'll see me again^^

I know I haven't finished writing my updating posts, but I felt like blogging about some current events. Lately we've been staying home instead of going out because we're all broke. At first it was alright, but now we're starting to get cabin fever xD I don't know how the Stay At Home Club kids do it every weekend. So for us, going "out" is heading over to the beach with some drinks and chilling out. It's what we did last weekend and this weekend.

On Friday it was just the Rams and Johnny's, it hadn't been that way in a while so it was nice. When we got there, there were two high school kids playing guitar. It was really early in the night which is probably why so many people were still out (9:30pm?) They didn't stay for long, and soon we had the area to ourselves. One thing I've noticed about when I drink: I talk to random Japanese people, and I actually speak pretty ペラペラ, probably because the booze gets rid of the anxiety. There were two girls dancing close by to where we were, and at first we thought they were on e just because of their manorisms, but when I went to the bathroom, I ended up talking to them for quite a while and they seemed fine. They were actually really cute. After that we chilled out some more, watched some guy on guitar (who apparently played to Pokerface, what?! I missed it) and after that there's a huge gap where I don't remember anything. But apparently I talked to a huge group of Japanese students for a while, and I got one of their numbers too. We took a nap on the grass for an hour or so, and I woke up feeling feeling less drunk so I definitely remember what happened after that hah.

Yesterday we had a makeup class for kanji. I was so exhausted from the night before that I couldn't focus at all during class. I felt bad because I kept falling asleep. But after class, sensei took us out to eat at a place right by school, and for 1500 yen we got quite a good deal. And chuhai, woo. It's true what they say about drinking when you have a hangover-- it helps~! After that, Justin and I went bowling because everyone else were poufs and we realized how bad we both suck at bowling. It was fine though, we had some good bonding time. And I had some more chuhai. Ezi and Lisa came to get us when they were ready to head to karaoke, but Justin and I split off for a bit because we needed to get some 忘れ物 from the restaurant. Somehow we ended up going to Donki's with some Japanese students, and we exchanged numbers with them. Or this happened after karaoke...Either way, I have so many random Japanese people's numbers in my phone xD Karaoke was good, my voice is crying a bit. I busted out into Perfume there, and Ezi was utterly baffled at my cute Japanese girl voice >:D After getting home and being judged by the Stay At Home kids, surprise surprise I headed to my room to wait for the kids to get back from McDonalds. Haru ended up coming to my room and we had some girl talk. In Japanese~ The booze helped, but I can tell my Japanese is improving. Sarah, Lisa and Ezi ended up coming over to my room too, and we had some girl talk until at 4am where they realized I was about to pass out.

We be going to Tenjin at 2pm today to get Halloween costumes. 楽しみしている～！ I hope i can find something good. Halloween is going to be epic.

Fufufu. Hokay. So Ezi and I had this mad urge to straighten Jonathan's hair because it's such a curly fro, so we made an appointment for 7pm (of course he came an hour late, bastard). We decided to do it in the 2nd floor common area since it's a pretty public place, and this was something that needed to be seen.


Sarah, Ezi and I attacking Jonathan's hair


His before and after (before the humidity got to it, damn)


After the style when Jonathan's alter-ego Brandon came out. What?!
After Jonathan's hair got styled, it kind of got ridiculous. We ended up styling 5 other guy's hair that night, hense SALON :D Then again, whenever something is done on 2nd floor, it ends up getting huge just because it's the spot to be for the whole dorm to come to. Next up was Adam since we previously said we'd try to give him emo bangs. But when that failed, a different approach was taken. After that was Noel, just because he was a spectator and I felt the need. I was in the mood to touch people's hair xD I ended up also going with them to their rooms and picking out appropriate outfits.


Noel looking spiffy, and wearing my tie because he doesn't have one. It was so short on him xD


Adam looking GREAT as a super nerd (with Remi in the background who did not let me do anything to his hair because it's "perfect" the way it is. Pfft.)


We ended up just attacking Keisuke's hair because he never does anything to it~!


Aki's "style" ended up getting way out of hand...it started out as rocker spiked hair, but then the makeup started...and then the corset...and then writing on his chest...he was such a good sport about it. Then again, he didn't know what he looked like at this point xD We took him over to the elevator since it has a full mirror in there, and his reaction was priceless. He was so speechless, he just laughed.


The spectators can be seen now, it wasn't even all of them.


Group shot minus Frank whose hair failed anyway
We ended up making them do a photoshoot, but I don't think I'll post those pics since it'll be a bit excessive ^^; Cap ended up poufing out that night, but he agreed to do it the day after. I'm pretty sure we didn't even initiate asking that time. I'm sure he saw how awesome Jonathan's hair turned out and was like, damn I should have done it. He enjoyed it, even if he won't admit it. He had a few spectators himself, including his fangirls because apparently he looks like Zac Efron



Cap's before shot


The process & spectators


One of the at least 40 photoshoot pics I have xD He was absolutely loving it, even though it seemed he wasn't feeling it most of the time. Loosen up Cap!


My whiteboard showing each of the boys in our "Host Club", TL: Noel, TR: Jonathan, BL: Cap, BR: Adam. This drawing is still on my white board more than two weeks later xD

The school's international division planned a trip for us to Kyoto over the weekend. We didn't have too much free time since there were tours planned for us. Friday when we got there, we bussed around to a some temples there was a bus tour for Saturday. I'm too lazy to type up the details of the trip, so I'll just picture spam~


I told Remi to grow a mustache so he'd look more French, and he got the rest of the Frenchies to do it with him. Too bad they didn't have striped shirts, a beret and a baguette when I took this picture



We had some free time while we waited for the Shinkansen to get there, so we got some breakfast. This is Ezi posing with the Japanese KFC Colenel


I believe this was at the temple with the 1000 statues and Buddha with many eyes. I actually got my camera taken away here because you weren't allowed to take pictures, and I let Adam use my camera who gave it to Jordan to use who got caught taking pictures. They weren't going to give it back at all, so Nogami-san, Kawahara-san and Adam went to them and apologized a million times Japanese style before we could get it back. Ridiculous!


At another temple place, I can't remember what was special about it. Once you've seen one, you've seen them all.


Friday night at Shabu-shabu. All you can eat & drink. So good, but I was full for two days xD


Kinkakuji, golden temple. This place was pretty :D


Paul tossing some moneys for luck



Crazy man who pointed out where the Donki was



A shot of Shinsaibashi in Osaka, couldn't really capture it


Group shot outside of Donki.



On the Shinkansen on the way back. Woo, rotating chairs!


Remi looking so French, and me rocking Ezi's glasses

I'd been in Japan for over a month and I hadn't gone to karaoke until that night. How ridiculous! We went to one close by with our own room all night. Since it was silver week it was a bit more expensive, 1300 yen I think. But we brought our own drinks and snacks with us so we saved money there. And since I can't really sing in front of people unless I've been drinking, it was a good idea. Ezi and I busted into a bunch of Korean songs, we need to practice for next time xD When we were cleaning up, some of the stuff spilled so someone got a roll of toilet paper from the bathroom. When I woke up in the morning, I found that roll of toilet paper in my purse. I could not for the life of me remember how it got in there, until I asked someone and they told me someone else put it in there. Sadly I'm still using that roll now. I need to go shopping desu!

Ayako was kind enough to plan a weekend for Adam and I with her family. She's from Kitakyushu which is about an hour bus ride away from here. We were picked up by her younger brother Taichi whose English has improved exponentially since I last saw him in March and they showed us around a bit while her mom got dinner ready. We went to the mall, a castle, and Taichi's favourite spot, which is an outlook where the whole city is visible.


A small castle beside the mall


The mall which I thought had cool architecture


Dinner :D First time I had home-made maki
Her parents were very kind, they spoke as much English to us as they knew. After dinner and Ayako's younger brother was forced to play the guitar for us, we went to her grandmother's house which was a really nice traditional Japanese house. So pretty~ We sat around and had some drinks until late in the night. Luckily her grandmother was an English teacher, so she spoke English as well. Ayako's friend didn't speak English at all, but I could understand her Japanese so it was fine. The next day, we drove around to see different shrines, the biggest engraved buddha in a mountain, etc. until the end of the day when we went to an onsen.


The first place we went-- so pretty


The big Buddha which took forever to climb up and get to


One set of "stairs" to get up, which doesn't even describe how tiring it was to get up there. The other is a little ways past the Buddha to a little shrine at the top.

The boys decided randomly that they wanted to remake an old French commercial from Africa for mosquito repellent, and it was seriously discussed over drinks until we actually started filming it. I was the one to record/direct, the boys acted in it, and Remi also edited. We planned a huge release party that was blown way out of proportion-- we made it a formal event where at least 20 people showed up all dressed up. Frank even said, "I don't have anything formal to wear, can I still come?", hah. We filmed a "making of" segment, and added NGs at the end as well. I was the MC so I had to give a little speech and introduce the boys and the video-- I got nervous cause I hate public speaking, so I chugged some umeshu before I had to give it xD It was a good night.


The cast + director :D


The people who showed up minus a few who left or were behind the camera

Original Version


Our Version

When we came back to the I-House, people were trying on yukatas in preparation for the festival the next day. I was told to put one on, and I did :D...which also lead to the boys putting on girl yukatas xD Sadly they looked really good.


Me and Haru-- I later gave my yukata to Cap >:D


The boys looking mighty good. From the left: Cap, Noel, Justin, Rika being a creeper, Adam, Remi, and Aki in the middle in his high school uniform.
The festival was alright. We paid to get in a haunted house which so wasn't worth it, but the drummers made up for the disappointment in the festival. So cool! The takoyaki was really good too.




The group minus Aki, Noel and Paul. From the back-left: Keisuke, Sarah, Alex, Frank, Hao, Joy, Oriana; front = Karin and me.

The night started off normal enough. The Frenchies made crepes, so a huge bunch of us had crepe night on first floor and ate hella lot. So good~ After that in the big room, we watched Princess Mononoke, but we had to get out of the room when there was a half hour left in the movie (we can't be in there past midnight), so we relocated to Hao's room. Before that however, I was attacked by Aki and Sarah who came out of no where with drawn on faces, and eventually ended up chasing me down to write on mine. Turns out they were drinking in Adam's room without me! I ended up joining the ridiculousness.


Leah, Emma, Remi (looking so French), Adam and me
Randomly, I don't remember how, someone proposed we go to the beach, so we started our journey over there. There were many pictures and jokes happening along the way. Such as these passed out Japanese people in their car. I regret not getting someone to sit in the back seat and taking a picture like that xD


As we continued walking, we found these two drunk (or high?) musician guys jamming out with drums and a violin. They had a few other instruments with them, so Adam and Aki joined in and it sounded so great (although it could have sounded better because I was tipsy) The two of them ended up joining us further down the beach where we took off our clothes (kept our undies on, don't worry) and went for a swim. It was epic.

Before we tried going to another bar, we thought Fubar was the shit now we realize it's only good for cheap nomihodai so we went there again with a smaller group of people. It was the usual awesomeness. We stayed there for a while until we were hungry, so we went to MOS Burger (mmm...tastes great when you're drunk) After we were done, we realized that we sobered up quite a bit so we figured we might as well head back to Fubar since we already had all you can drink there. Once we got back, somehow Sleepy (Peter) thought we left and went on an epic adventure: He was having an intense conversation with a guy at the bar, and when he turned around he thought we left without him, so he decided to look for us outside. He ended up getting way lost, and decided to call it quits and get a taxi home. But when he did get a taxi, the driver took him to the wrong beach from the one he wanted to go to, so he took a nap on the sand and used his t-shirt as a pillow. When he awoke, still drunk, he started off on his mission home again-- and 10 minutes later realized that he forgot his t-shirt. By the time he got there it was already gone, so he stumbled into a store half naked, covered in sand and drunk to buy a t-shirt. He got himself a taxi and went to the actual beach he meant to go to, and finally made it home probably around the time we got home ourselves since we waited for the subway to start running again at 5:30am before we came back. But before we did get back, we took many pictures with drunk passed out people.


A day in the life. This is a pretty normal sight at night in Tenjin.
There was a festival going on in Hakata (which seems to happen a lot more often than you'd think in Fukuoka) where there was a free fireworks display by the beach. A bunch of us went down there and got separated for a while since there was a shitload of people, but we found each other so it was fine. The fireworks lasted foreverrr, probably an hour. Which was great since Canada fireworks I swear only last 15 mins. The finale was great~ I couldn't capture it well enough on camera. The whole sky was lit.


Damn person getting in the way of my shot

I woke up feeling pretty alright, but Hao and I were both forced to get ourselves checked out at the clinic with Nogami-san. We got tested by having a huge stick take a swab up our nose, which was shoved in all the way and hurt like a bitch. Hao got a nosebleed from it xD And of course we were tested positive, damn. After we bought our meds we were forced to stay in our rooms. We had food delivered to us from the advisers which luckily was paid for by the CIE office. The rest of my day was pretty boring. Luckily I had internet by that time.


My shitload of Swine flu meds
The next day, I had already had enough of being quarantined. Strangely enough, my hermit tendencies from Canada did not follow me here. I waited for my JASSO scholarship to be delivered to me since I couldn't pick it up myself (yes-- 24 000 yen! which has all DISAPPEARED somehow x___x damn gotta pay rent soon), and snuck out to Hao's room. Yay for sick people company. At first I was being really ninja about it-- I went down the stairwell, out the back door, climbed over the fence and onto his balcony and knocked on his door there. But after I used his front door and someone saw me outside and didn't care, I stopped sneaking around.

The next few days, I snuck out of my room a lot, usually to Hao's room cause he was my swine flu buddy. Some people came in and played monopoly with us, i guess they weren't scared of getting sick. Other times we snuck outside at night to go to the beach, and once to a good ramen shop called Ajichi not too far. It felt nice to be outside, I'd go insane if I stayed in my room that whole time.


One of my first beach shots with my camera Billy.
I think the blur is Hao's st00pid hand

Swine flu was going around. Two students were stuck in their rooms because they had it and were quarantined (well we found out later that Aaron didn't actually have it, he just had a regular flu, but they were being hardcore and wouldn't let him out for a week) I could tell I was getting sick, but I didn't care. I wanted to go out and have some fun. Previously, the Johnny Walker guys went out to FUBAR (Fucked-Up-Beyond-Any-Recollection, a club in Tenjin) and Adam showed us a couple of videos from there night. Of course we wanted to go. On Friday nights, the first 50 people get in for 1000yen for all you can drink. Hells yes. There's no way something that cheap would exist in Canada. Half of the I-House came out with us that night, and since Fubar is so small, we took up most of the area. Our social groups weren't yet completely established, but the friendships started working their ways. Nono was my "boyfriend" for the night to keep the creepers away, I made a shy Japanese boy dance with me, I tried umeshu for the first time which was great, and lots more that I can't remember because it was so long agooooooo.

I woke up the next morning feeling like shit. I took my temperature and it was high, so the manager told me I couldn't go anywhere. Happy birthday to me. I got a few cards throughout the day slipped under my door, and a few nice whiteboard messages [click to see!]. I slept for most of the day, and at night I could hear people outside in the kitchen having cake talk. Yes! They were being awesome and making me a cake. All I had to do was wait. Which was a while, actually. For a minute I thought they weren't going to come. But they did! I believe it was Sarah and Megan who made it. It was delicious :D They knocked on my door and sang happy birthday and everything, there were at least 15 people there. The ones who weren't too scared to share my germs ate the cake with me. At least it's a birthday to remember haha.

My room while I was packing.

Luckily for me, my dad has travel points from work, so he used his points to buy my plane ticket over to Fukuoka. And it was business class :D Sick. MaPa were being pretty clingy, understandable. They walked me up until they couldn't go past anymore, and even after I got in they called and asked if I was okay. I was really nervous about traveling alone but it worked out pretty well. It was quite a comfortable flight to Tokyo, luckily the business class flight was the 14 hour one. I got lost in Tokyo airport a couple times, but Fukuoka airport was a lot more straight forward. Ayako-tachi were waiting for us outside to pick us up, which made it a lot less stressful. At first I felt that Adam and I were the only two normal ones who decided to exchange to Japan, but after meeting the rest of the students the morning after I was reassured.


The view from the plane, and my seat (sorry for not using flash >>;)
My first impression of Fukuoka was: Holy shit it's hot as hell, and it's night. But damn this city is a lot larger than I thought, I was expecting a bit of boonies.


My room :D before it became a huge dumping ground
The first 3 days were move-in days, so there were no academic events planned. The Japanese students living in the I-House, aka the advisers, took us on a tour of the area on Saturday the 22nd morning. I’m surprised I could wake up after a 24 hour travel. At first the tour did nothing for me, it took a few days to finally remember where Sunny’s the grocery store was at. Saturday night some of us went to Tenjin, the downtown area of Fukuoka. We went to the SEGA building which has a few floors of arcade games, and the top floor with purikura. The next night was okonomiyaki night, a bunch of the advisors helped make quite a few of them, and yakisoba. At least 20 of us ate it together on first floor. Monday the 24th was the first day of orientation, where we went to an opening ceremony and dressed formally. Lunch was provided to us, and we spoke to many Japanese students whose major was English or were interesting in learning it. At night a huge bunch of us, probably 20, went to an izakaya and had all-you-can-drink along with some foods. The next few days were tours of campus and other academic type stuff. Other than that we chilled out, like going to the beach at night and playing a truth game in the sand, or walking around the city.

Alright, this is getting bad. I need to take a laze day, like today, and just write up a bunch of stuff that's happened. I changed up my layout in hopes for it to help, haha. I just quickly chose from from Premade Layouts, maybe it'll motivate me to make once since I hate using other people's stuff. Here's what my old layout was:


click for a larger view
I think I'll make each entry from now on from a different day. Let's see how it gooooooooes!

I haven't posted once since I got to Japan, have I. I think I should try catching up on this shit yo. So slowly, I'll try remembering and writing what I did each day. This may take a while, but I think I can do it!