7:45 PM

today's bit of lovely

So...in honor of it being Friday (not really, but that's my story) I finally went to go see the Kurosagi movie! XD *happiness* Kurosagi is a j-dorama (duh!) that I watched (c.f. the "Taiyou no Amida" PV, which was the movie's theme song), and seeing as how the ending wasn't very wrap-up-ish, they made a movie sequel. It came out on March 10, but I only got around to seeing it today. (I'm a bad fan, I know) Anyway, it was lots of fun, but I won't go into details here--either you've seen the drama and don't want to read spoilers--or you haven't seen the drama and will have no idea what I'm talking about. But one thing I was pleased with, is the fact that the atmosphere was very different from the drama--in other words, they really worked hard to make it a movie, and not just an extra-long episode of the tv show.
So, since I went to see the movie, it was dark by the time I headed home-- hence today's bit of lovely! i.e. another night view of Landmark/Queen's Mall/the Cosmo Clock ferris wheel, this time seen from Bashamichi. Ooh, shiny!

Also, new PV update. I swear, instead of a "J-pop PV of the week," I could totally turn this into a "J-pop PV that takes place near IUC," and not ever run out of options.
On that note, this week's song is by yet another group that I've started listening to constantly, after just discovering them last week: w-inds, and the song is "Love is the Greatest Thing." I'll admit, the song is a little odd-sounding at first, but it grows on you, and after a couple listens, you'll be dancing to it all day (and if not, pretend that you are so I don't feel so bad). And, on the IUC theme, the skyscrapers that you can see in the back of most of the PV are Landmark Tower and Queen's (seen from the opposite side as the photo above). Oh yeah, and I didn't get the Shrek thing either, at first--but apparently they stuck that footage in cause the lead singer of w-inds voiced one of the characters in the Japanese dub of the movie.

11:09 PM

but, it's not Halloween!

Fun stuff! so, Wed afternoon i stayed late at school--first for my weekly project meeting with Senda-sensei, and then after attempting to do some more of the aforementioned bungaku reading. (which, incidentally, was a resounding failure--i was deathly sleepy and kept nodding off in the middle of sentences). anyway, i packed it in around 4:30 and started to head for home, since Wed is my night for kyudo practice. but, on my way home i got distracted in the plaza between Queen's and Landmark, by a guy who was putting on a fire juggling show! which of course, thanks to YAGS, is forever associated in my mind with Yale and Halloween. ^_^
anyway, he was doing a pretty good job, so i sat down to watch the end of his show (which actually made me about 15 mins late for kyudo...but whatev). The funniest part, though, was that right about that time, it decided to get incredibly windy, so the poor guy's fire kept going out. lol.
and of course, being me, i also took a video!


(the sound in the background is the wind blowing--i told you it was strong!)
Then, he finished up with a bang by juggling while riding an extremely tall unicycle--just getting on it was rather a production. he had to have a guy from the audience come up and hold a big pole that he used to support himself while he climbed onto the thing. i have to say, i was amazed that he managed it at all!
anyway, it was lots of fun, and even though it made me late for kyudo, it also gave me the energy to actually go to kyudo, which was a good thing--i'd been so tired at school that i was actually contemplating skipping

10:41 PM

in which things take a turn for the worse

(WARNING: this is going to be another of those posts in which i am too lazy to capitalize things)

4th term has begun! it's only been a week, so why does spring break seem so long ago? i guess school has that effect on you...? still, there's no afternoons, and only 2 out of my 3 classes are going to involve actual work. well, that last is an assumption--i mean, i still have IJ--we spent T/Th this week doing the last 2 chapters of the keigo book 待遇表現, which was really no work at all, tho it's not really clear what we're going to be doing next in that class. we're having a mini-発表会 next week though, so i have to write some kind of a speech between now and then. (pick a topic... pick a topic....)

Now, onto the hard stuff:
we've moved on to Meiji literature in bungaku, as of this term. (for those of you shaky on your japanese history, that's post-1860, after the collapse of the shogunate). on balance, not that long ago i suppose, but it's long ago enough that everything's written all weird! (T_T);; sort of along the lines of the way Shakespearean-era things use different spelling and stuff like that... it's not all that bad actually, just takes some getting used to. and this was my first time reading anything in that kind of Japanese--but once i got myself broken in, it felt pretty much the same as regular japanese. right now we're working on Natsume Soseki's 夢十夜 "Ten Nights of Dream," which i was actually super happy to get to read. i've read them in english in a j-lit class i took sophomore year at yale, tho that was long enough ago that i didn't remember much other than the fact that i liked them. but, for anyone who's read anything else by Soseki, they're (to my mind at least) very unlike any of his other works.
less fortunately, next up, according to Otake-sensei, is Higuchi Ichiyo and possibly Izumi Kyoka--both of whom are authors that, again, i've read in translation for j-lit classes at Yale, and really enjoyed--but who are apparently a bitch to tackle in the original japanese. Ichiyo especially, according to Otake, has a habit of using a variety of different spellings for her characters' names, within the same story. as well as another equally charming habit of writing single sentences that take up an entire page. i exaggerate not in the least. (ack!) before we even get to start reading her, we have to spend a whole class learning various techniques for "how" to read her works! お楽しみ。。。(please note the sarcasm)

on Friday i have my first 現代小説 "Modern novel" class, so i'll report on that later. the first reading was a Murakami Haruki short story (that i *swear* i've read before....) which was interesting and not too difficult. so hopefully that class stays fun.

11:08 PM

桜、咲け!(って、桜木町?!)

In honor of spring, the newly-warm weather, and the fact that the cherry blossoms are in bloom, this week's PV is
花は桜、君は美し by いきものがかり
"The flowers are cherry blossoms, you are beautiful," by Ikimonogakari.

And where would one film a PV about sakura (cherry blossoms)? Where else but Sakuragi-cho station-- 当然だろう!
To be specific, the plaza outside Sakuragi-cho JR station, between the station and the IUC-bound people-mover.

。。。Don't you love it when it all just fits like that?
High-five! ( ^^)Y☆Y(^^ )

(ちなみに、I can't even *begin* to imagine how they were able to keep the plaza area clear of commuters long enough to film this thing!)

6:23 PM

random hilarity

Meant to post this pic in the Ghibli post, but I forgot. On the way to the museum, we found the funniest thing. In Japan, you really can buy anything from a vending machine.
Including...milk! XD

4:01 PM

Ninja Akasaka

Cause it's Yale spring break, so Stever-sensei, my 3rd year Japanese teacher at Yale, has been in Japan checking out possible language schools and stuff for the Light Fellowship (I think, anyway). But more importantly, she took all of the Tokyo (former) Yalies out to a fantabulous dinner! Along with Stever-sensei, my 1st year Japanese teacher, Nishimura-sensei was there, too, which was a really nice surprise. なつかしいなぁ~ On the student side (well, sort of) was me, Jason, and Jeff from IUC, plus 3 other recent Yale grads who are currently in Tokyo on other programs, or working, or whatever.
The restaurant we went to is called Ninja Akasaka (Akasaka being the area of Tokyo it's in), and 名前どおり、it's a Ninja restaurant! The door is small and fairly unobtrusive; you go through it into a dim room with dark wood paneling that has a reception desk and nothing else. When your party is all gathered, the receptionist calls out, a small door in the wall opens, and a ninja comes out! The ninja leads you through another door, and down a winding, labyrinth-like hall to your table. There's steep steps, little river-things, and a bridge that lowers down from the wall. Then you get to your table!
The staff are all dressed as ninjas, and the menu is on a ninja-scroll looking thing. The food was also really good. It's sort of an a la carte menu, so we ordered a bunch of small things to share. Some highlights:
Sushi boat! This really cool grapefruit thing with a sword stuck through it, and when they pulled the sword out, all this smoke came pouring out. A super-yummy soup that the "ninjas" made at the table. And finally...a "froggy" dessert! かわいい! We finally had to leave the restaurant cause they needed the table for the next group, but that didn't mean the night was over. ^^ Cause next up was karaoke! Hadn't been in ages, so that was lots of fun. Also, Stever-sensei is amazing! She's got this super strong, low voice, sort of like a Stevie Nicks (sp? lol) or a Carly Simon. Anyway, she and Nishimura-sensei were getting all fired up singing songs they remembered from college and stuff. Then Jeff, Southerner extraordinaire, started up an impromptu marathon of Credence Clearwater Revival songs. lol.
It was fun times! We took the last train home from Shibuya--which, incidentally, only went as far as Yokohama station, so Jason, Jeff and I had to split a cab the rest of the way.

9:38 PM

♪tonari no totoro, totoro... ♪

On Monday, I met up with Molly and her friend from the states to go the the Studio Ghibli Museum in Mitaka! For those of you who don't know, Studio Ghibli = Miyazaki Hayao (i.e. Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Totoro...well, you get the picture).
The museum was really cool! It's in the middle of a park, so it's a very pretty area. When you walk up to the building, there's a cute little Totoro "receptionist" area. And a sign that says "The real receptionist is that way -->" ^_^ The building itself is really neat, too, like something straight out of a Miyazaki movie, lol. Here's the view from the roof! Where you can also see...a replica of the giant robot dude from Laputa! (or "Castle in the Sky," in English). Life-size! (kind of a funny picture of me, tho...oh well).
You're not allowed to take photos inside the museum, but it was really interesting. First, they have a screening room where they show short movies that you can only see at the Ghibli Museum. We saw a really cute one about a water-spider making friends with another water-spider--it was very Miyazaki, too cute for words. ^_^
Then there was a really cool exhibit about the history of animation---with displays about zoeotrope, and these 3-D plexiglass boxes, and this really neat stop-motion machine thing, that I don't really know how to describe, but it was *amazing.*
Then, upstairs there was a giant stuffed Neko-bus for the little kids to play in, and a whole series of rooms of Miyazaki's drawings, and cels from the films, and things like that.
At any rate, it was TONS of fun! ^_^

8:27 PM

kyudo, prettiness

today was absolutely the Best. Weather. Ever.
*kyaa!*
we had a massive thunderstorm last night (久しぶり!) and when I woke up this morning, it was 60, blue skies, and brilliant. which was ちょうどいい as far as I was concerned, because today was my kyudo club's monthly tournament. it was seriously the first time in months that I've gone to kyudo and not frozen my ass off. it made for a nice change--and was just in time, too, since I've worn holes in the soles of my one pair of tabi that are large enough to wear an extra pair of socks under, and I had to wear my other pair today.
On my way home, I took some pics of the budokan, to celebrate springtime. I think I mentioned that the budokan is right next to Kishine Park, which makes it really pretty. That's actually the kyudojo area that you can see there, on the right side. The lake thing, with the grass growing in it and stuff, sort of reminds me of the marshes on the Outer Banks. Well, to me anyway. As for the tournament itself, I'd say middling? Average performance I guess. Today, we shot 10 arrows in the individual competition: 2 shinsa-style; 4 practice style; 4 standing (risshya). I missed both my first two sets, but then I hit 2 out of my 4 arrows in the Risshya at the end, so that made me kind of happy. And a few of my misses weren't that far off. Of course, a few of my misses were also *quite* far off. All in all I felt like I had kind of an average-to-off day.
Then came the group competition, which is done like a brackets tournament. In the first round, we tied with the other group (no thanks to me), and did another tie-breaker round shooting one arrow each. Which we tied again. ;-P So they then decided to determine the winner based on a game of janken (rock-paper-scissors). Which we won. (yay!)
Of course, we then promptly lost the second round, 7 hits to 2. (>_<)
Ouch.
But the day wasn't a total loss--I did win a 特別賞 "special prize"--remember, the kind that I won before? Which I have since discovered are awarded based on a random lottery...
Oh well. A prize is a prize, right?
;-D

1:05 PM

and then there was Sunday

Of course, since Sunday, I've basically become a slug--but there are those kinds of vacations, too.
On Sunday, Molly and I heard from Ben A about a microbrew tasting going on at a bar out past Aobadai (read: kind of far). I don't know a bit about beer, and I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to the darker ones, but Molly and Ben are チョウ詳しい. Anyway, it was lots of fun.They had a variety of different beers from this one label, Green Flash. Basically, you paid 3000 yen, and got a glass and 6 beer tickets, which you could redeem for a glass each. 6 tickets, 6 beers, so the idea was to try one of each, but you could also get doubles on things if you wanted. I tried everything except the Belgian Dark Ale, cause like I said, I'm a wimp about dark beer. Although I did end up really liking the Barleywine, which despite being dark was super yum.And the bar itself had a really neat atmosphere. Totally in the middle of this residential area, not where you'd expect a bar to be, and very tiny. We also made some friends--Satoshi, Rikako, and Izumi. Ben just started talking to them, and the next thing we knew, we were headed to Kabuki-cho in Tokyo to go to Satoshi's "favorite restaurant" for dinner. And it was pretty good, despite the rather...sketchy atmosphere. Kabuki-cho is known as Tokyo's red-light district, and the restaurant we went to was in a building full of host/hostess clubs, and snack bars. Rikako and Izumi were getting kind of nervous, lol, but as Satoshi assured us, the place turned out to be really good. We all exchanged contact info, and we snagged an invite to Satoshi's annual Hanami (Flower-Viewing) party in April, which apparently (according to Satoshi at least) is quite the event. ^^
All in all, it was quite the day.

Oh, new PV as well--"Monochrome," by Bennie K, who are a female pop/rap kind of duo. I hear they actually met up while studying in L.A., which explains why their English is better than your average Japanese performer. lol.
I like this song a lot.

10:12 PM

update

kay, so the photos are all uploaded onto my kodakgallery.
お楽しみ!

1:03 PM

oh, i forgot

When we were at Osanbashi, there was this cruise pulling out, or something. I really have no idea what was going on. All I know is when we got there, there was a huge ship docked, and all the people on it were standing at the railing throwing colored paper streamers to the people standing on the Osanbashi side. I took tons of pictures of the streamers and stuff, and also whipped out my small camera to catch a video of the ship leaving the dock.

5:13 PM

you wanted photos...

So Saturday (thank you, Molly!) was incredibly fun. Molly found out, through Flickr, about a Yokohama photo tour thing. It's a group of people who all live in the Yokohama area; we all met up Saturday morning at Yokohama station and spent the day walking around taking pictures. And I mean the whole day. We met up at 1pm, and Molly and I peaced out around sundown. We walked from Yokohama station, through Tobu and over to Noge-cho, past Pacifico and Minato Mirai, Aka-Renga, and finally over to Yamashita Koen and Osanbashi. It was a lot of fun, but my feet were killing me.
The group turned out to be a really interesting mix of people, too. Aside from me and Molly, there were about 8 other 30/40-something Japanese, a French woman who's been living in Japan for the past 6 years (yet speaks barely any Japanese), and a Korean woman who was actually just visiting Japan for the weekend, and wanted to take some pictures.
I'm currently in the process of uploading all the photos to my Kodakgallery --it takes *forever*, I took about 300 photos! But I'm sticking a few into the post here, also a video! ^_^
First, we found some cherry blossoms! It's still a little early for them, so they're not out everywhere, but they were beautiful!
This is part of the temple over in Noge-cho, which I'd never been to before. I loved the pinwheels. Took lots of pictures of them! ^_^
Oh, and remember Jack Cafe that I went to last week for the triple-birthday? Well, we walked past it on the way to Osanbashi, so I snapped a picture of it. I really want to go back!
Lastly, view of the Minato Mirai skyline at sunset, from Osanbashi. You can see Pacifico, Landmark, and the Aka Renga.

3:40 PM

3rd term thoughts

The nightmare is over!
Lol.
Well, not a nightmare, exactly, but 3rd term has been pretty draining. After 4 months of having the same classes every day, the switched-up schedule took some getting used to. Sometimes literature, sometimes pop culture..and IJ thrown into the mix twice a week. IJ which, more often than not, ended up getting the short end of the stick, homework-wise. Oops.
The hardest part overall was definitely the lit class. We've been going at a pretty fast clip, and along with each short story, we also read a related scholarly article, and wrote our own essay. Some of the stories were longer and harder than others; I actually think the first story we read, the Endo Shusaku one, was the easiest even though it was the longest (and, I think, the oldest). Some of the stories I liked, and a couple of them made me want to bang my head against the wall.


I had my end-of-term interview with Ari-sensei on Friday morning. As expected, she talked about how I need to work on upping my kanji skills over the next term, and introducing some more formal words into my vocabulary. Which is something I've been sort of self-conscious about too, mostly because I feel like since most of the other kids here are grad students and stuff, they're all coming from a background of lots of reading in Japanese for their coursework. So I worry sometimes that I'm kind of behind in that sense. So, that's my goal for 4th term! ;-)
Oh, and I made the mistake of telling Ari-sensei that I didn't really have any plans over break--which got me stuck with a whole mess of homework that I'm now expected to do over break. Joy! *note sarcasm*
I should've taken a page out of Molly's book. When Otake-sensei asked if she had any plans over break, Molly was like "Yes, I have a friend coming. The whole time. Lots of traveling. No time for homework. Sorry. Two weeks. Whole time. Yup."
Wish I'd done that! >_<

3:20 PM

It's break!

So, there's every possibility that my Spring Break will turn into a veg-fest eventually, but it has definitely not been lacking in excitement so far.
Thursday after class I went with Jason, Jeff, Molly, and Misa to go see "The Golden Compass," which I had been wanting to see for a while (sorry Mom!). It was pretty good. Not as good as the book, obviously. There were definitely some problems, some places where the movie felt kind of jerky, or like it moved too quickly. And that ending! (if you've read the books, you know what I'm talking about) But there were also several moments that really resonated with the book. Seeing the movie, though, really made me want to read the books again! (-_-) But I don't have them with me *sigh*
Anyway.

8:38 PM

新曲

This week's PV. I was intending to put up a different one, but then I discovered that the PV for Kanjani8's new single (drops 3.12) was on youtube, so I couldn't resist!
^_^
The song is called ワッハッハ "Wa-ha-ha." Yes, as in the sound of laughing.
Witness the dorks in action! (but the dorkiness is why we love them)
Kanjani 8 cleans a bathroom, Yoko sets his hair on fire, and Ohkura plays Whack-a-Mole on Yasu's head.

7:29 PM

i get to leave when?

I have to say, I am completely on board for this whole no afternoon class thing. Monday, when I went to leave school at 12:30 in the afternoon, I felt like I was doing something wrong, and kept half-expecting one of the sensei to come chasing after me to bring me back.
;-P
I'm suddenly finding myself with all this free time on my hands that I don't exactly know what to do with. The homework load has noticeably lightened. And I know part of that is due to this being the last week before break, and that it will be increased later once the project work gets going, but for now...I'm enjoying life. ^_^
Also, the weather lately has been gorgeous, and only slightly chilly, so I've been in *such* a good mood.