Let's be alone together!

Though almost everyday something unexpected happens to me, I still think that everybody have kind of a normal day-to-day routine. Let me show mine..

My day begins when Boyfriend sets off for uni. It wakes me up and in half an hour I'm leaving home too.

When I get my cup of coffee there comes a time for..

Last summer, I was worried that I'll never learn to navigate all the mazes streets of the district where we live and where my school is also located. But eventually, it didn't take long to learn all the routs (not that I hadn't a topographical cretinism). Sometimes, I'd just woken up a little earlier to wander around the neighborhood.

What if I turn the corner? Oh.. oh wow!

There was a stone staircase with a slope
of 70 degrees which led to a shrine.

Prays should look cute.

When I pass different houses, eateries and stores I enjoy to examine the pots with flowers by almost every door. It's one of the charming Japanese features to decorate the entrances with flowers, garden statuary and whatnot.

It was last summer. Now, that my school starts at 1:25 and ends at 5:10, all the daily routine has mixed up. But I still find new places on my way to school from time to time. Few weeks ago, I discovered a cute playground.

A lonely panda-swing stood still under a cherry tree.

...

Aww..

1:00 pm

"Well, are we supposed to be taught Japanese in English?"

"Haha, nope. More likely, you'll be taught Japanese in Japanese."

"Oh."

I don't know how, but they really do that! They try to avoid English words as much they can.

"Our sensei almost crawled on the floor to explain a new word."

"Our teacher rolled herself in a plastic bag to demonstrate us what the verb "to roll" means."

"And our teacher put a brown sock in a bottle to show us how a soy sause looks like."

"... why did she do that?.."

Also, it seems that all the teachers know everything about you. And discuss it with each other. I like it when you are kind-of-important and your teacher won't forget your name by the end of a lesson. It just feels creepy sometimes. They are also really very friendly like no other teachers I've ever met. When you bump into them in the hallway, they start to talk to you right away. Like "Oh, Maki-san how are you how is it going oh it's sunny today isn't it but also windy but pretty hot oh ok goodbye", only in Japanese.

But to tell the truth, I cried in front of  the teachers squeezing Boyfriend's hand not able to utter a sound on my first day. I was stunned. I think, the teacher concluded that I was retarded, so she said that I need to take preparatory classes. However, after a second lesson I got used to the environment and started to speak, so the classes were canceled and we got the money back. 

On the second day of school, it was pouring since the very morning and I had no umbrella with me. So, when I was leaving the school, I came across three teachers at once and they started to jabbering over each other "it's raining it's raining it's wet it'll make you wet let us give you an umbrella". I had to repeat "It's alright, I'm fine." like.. 10 times to assure them that I'm going to buy it in the nearest convenience store. It didn't work. But they lost in thought for a second and I was already outside running away.

My first true Japanese transparent umbrella!

When I bought it, I recalled a bad dream in which I was wandering through streets of Tokyo and couldn't find a single transparent umbrella. My nightmares are pretty scary.

Anyways, it's easier and nicer to sustain a conversation without knowing the language with Japanese people than with anybody else. Usually, I just go with "Oh um un ok yeah un nya" and nod a lot. Though, sometimes there comes an unexpected pause when you understand that you were just asked about something. Oh, that's really confusing.

School trash bins with the instructions in pictures.
Dispose the garbage properly!

I started a long term course this spring so now I study in a big class with 15 other students from all over the world. I was the youngest in my class last summer and I'm still the youngest in my new class. So, when it's time to play a dialogue, sensei usually assigns the roles this way: "A mother a father a mother a father a mother a father.. a child."

All the students in my class are friendly, there are no problems like last year. Last year, I also had a perfect class, but our teacher decided that I should be transferred to a next level class. So, I was transferred. There were Russians. Girls. They were unfriendly. I stayed silent at first, but ended up with tears on my cheeks in a teacher's room asking to transfer me back no matter what.  Ugh.

This time, on the opening ceremony I've already encountered another Russian girls who left a bad feeling, but they were assigned into a parallel class yay.

Now, I study Japanese with students from England, Sweden, Italy, China, Thailand, Korea and also with two friendly Russians.

Though, I'm shy, I'm happy with my class.

As I mentioned before, lessons end at 5:10. After then, I hurry home (or to Harajuku if Boyfriend is waiting for me there). But more likely, he is sleeping at home. But! Some days, I get home before him. So, if I know that he's not at home but should be there soon, I carry a pineapple from a store to make him juice. Then, I wrap myself into a blanket and wait reading the blogs/ checking the news.

We spend our evenings together walking or watching cinema or doing sports; then, go to a restaurant for dinner and return home late in the evening where the fun continues. 

And then comes the dream.

Towns traveller.

Boyfriend teaches me how to call
really fat Japanese guys.

I was browsing through the photos I took last summer despite from the fact that I shouldn't do that because I immediately start to think of writing about each and every of them, fail, than become upset. Fortunately(?), this time around there are lots of things to be upset about, so.. I wrap my frustration left and I start my story.

Besides Tokyo we've visited 5 more cities and towns (excluding Okinawa (the number of visited places is counted in islands there :) ). It's easier to do because towns and cities here are very close to each other. For instance, it takes half an hour to get to Yokohama. By metro. So sometimes, all you need is to take a kind-of-metro-train. It gave Boyfriend a chance not to be lazy to show me some famous places like Kamakura, Nikko, Kanazawa, Kyoto and Osaka (to visit the last three you should take an electric-train or a high-speed train). 

KAMAKURA

One Sunday morning (actually, for some reasons, it was no longer morning) we left for Kamakura to meet Big Buddha who makes this town kind of worth-to-see. First thing we saw after we arrived in Kamakura was a big map on the way out of the station. The road to the BB was highlighted in red and was named “a hiking road”.

It would be logical if it was a shortcut or smth, but.. NO IT WAS NOT. It turned out to be a way through the thicket and steep hills which took us approx an hour to wade them. Also, we caught in the rain when there was no store or any kind of roof nearby. When we finally noticed a god-blessed  convenience store it was too late to buy an umbrella as we were already thoroughly soaked. But we entered anyway.

We were sitting in the store’s cafe while rain was pounding against the glass like in my childhood dreams. I've often imagined that I was a great traveller when my Mum drove me to an adjacent town to visit my Granny. We stopped at the gas stations and I bought tea and collected the tea bag tags.

- And now you are travelling Japan this way.

- … thank you, Boyfriend.

 

Not a single holy ghost was detected.

The same day, we were snapped by a Japanese student girl who was working on her uni project. She said she liked our clothes and gave us the scraps of paper where we had to write our favorite places in Tokyo. Then, she took some pictures.

A train
with just the awesomest list of stops. 

NIKKO

The next town we visited was Nikko, a place famous for the three see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys which you know about at least from your emoji keyboard. Also, Nikko is known as the most beautiful town in the whole Japan as there is a complex of the amazing shrines in the forest high in the hills. You know..

Never say 'kekko' until you've seen Nikko 

kekko = beautiful

..and stuff.

Anyway, I just looked through the pictures I took in Nikko again and understood that there is not so much at-least-somehow-informative pictures in my collection. Except maybe, this guy:

..and this torii in the middle of the thicket (it looked very powerful in real live):

I have a picture of a strawberry lemonade, though!

.. a picture of me starring sullenly at Boyfriend..

.. a picture of me standing next to Boyfriend..

.. a picture of me riding a Shinkansen:

.. and a picture of my eye-bow taken by Boyfriend for whatever reason:

Ehh.. I AM SORRY. So, I post this link for you to look at some much informative pictures of Nikko. By the way, you can blame Boyfriend too because he took a lot of pictures of the shrines with his super-camera, but what he didn't do is edit and share them :<

 KANAZAWA

When I was on my way to Japan I was nervous about the sakura blooming season. Will I have time to watch it or will the trees already fade? Will I catch the leaves falling down from the sakura trees like the snowflakes? Ughh.. Although, when I finally arrived to Tokyo sakura started to fade, Boyfriend decided to take me to Kanazawa where the blooming season has just begun (Kanazawa is located north of Tokyo).

 We're halfway to Kanazawa

Compared to Nikko and Kamakura, Kanazawa is pretty far from Tokyo. It took us more than four hours to get there but it didn't matter. There was sakura and it was blooming in the most awesomest way I could barely imagine. And it was everywhere. Along the rivers..

..and the roads..

..it was even stuck to a taxicab windows ^-^

Also, there were special seasonal drinks at the stores:

But the trip ended with the awful weather with a thunderstorm so, we had to leave Kanazawa the day before we supposed to at the first place. But our train stuck in the middle of nowhere and the announcement said that it even may not reach Tokyo at all. All the passengers who wanted to return home but happened to live in Tokyo were FUCKED UP. There was only way to do it - to return to Kanazawa and buy a new ticket to a train with another THE LONGEST-EVER-IMAGINED route. Finally, we spent t e n  h o u r s changing the trains mehh.. 

...

.....

...

Well, I suddenly run out of words but no worries here, I still have a drawing to show. It should be named as "When I'm bored, I'm bored":

I draw it during my Japanese classes.

You just read a long and dull post of mine. Ok, bye.

Maki:/mind/Tokyo/

Why, hello there. Now, you can watch me being productive because Boyfriend gave me one of his macBooks (my had 3 cups of coffee in it the last time I handled it) and just installed Photoshop for me!

As he already moved me to his apartment and from that moment on we live together in Tokyo, something special happens everyday (and I don't think about death and cry every single day anymore). So.. pretty much stuff to write about, I guess. Now, it's important not to forget to draw/ take photos/ make notes on a regular basis because if I don't do this right away, I will never get back to it and the moment will be lost forever. 

Anyway, it's been a week since I'm in Tokyo. We've already visited Kanazawa (the pictures are coming soon), watched azaleas in Nezu park and Kwanzan sakura (the super fluffy cherry trees) in Ueno park and I had an opening ceremony in my new school. It means.. pictures! and drawings!

Everything started at the airport though. There my mind was able to maintain only one thought - DON'T  KILL ME, PLANE, pretty please?

But after all, the trip ended quite well; my plush shark was always there for me sitting on my lap all the way to Japan. Also, there was a Japanese guy sitting next to me who was constantly asleep no matter what happened. As fo me, I couldn't sleep at all, so I  decided to watch some movies. First was Ruby Sparks. Interesting idea, but it didn't help --> boring. Then, came Life of Pi. It was just bad. I hate it when authors decide to overshadow a complete absence of sense with the nice special effects.

On Monday 8th, there were entrance ceremonies in all the educational institutions in Japan and my school wasn't an exception. The ceremony lasted for 2 hours and it even wasn't too boring! We even played games. Here's the end of the last game where we should write/draw something on the giant poster which is now hanged on the wall near the teacher's room. If you haven't figured that out yet (rly?), I used blue ink.

Soon, it turned out, that before you start a long term course, you have to repeat all the material that you've ever studied starting with the Subaibaru Japaniizu. Got it? Anyway, here is the first thing that came to my mind:

Another thing I noted was one of the sensei's self introduction (it's not a joke!):

The next day, both Boyfriend and I had a free-from-school day so we hurried to Nezu azaleas garden. After the cherry blossom’s season comes the azaleas season which lasts until May, and Nezu park is the best place to enjoy it because it consists completely of these flowers. However, we didn't see them at their best but we'll definitely come back at the end of the month. Look at these bushes! All of them are expected to turn crimson really soon.

Did you notice the path linded with torii in the background? 

JFYI: a torii is a traditional Japanese gate literally translated as "bird perch" ("tori" means "bird")

Last year, I saw another torii path in Ueno park and decided to take some selfies. Everything went wrong though. It was rainy and crowd-y and WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO ME, CAMERA?

This time, we heven't gone to Ueno park yet but went to the lake nearby. It was literally framed by the cherry trees which were blooming so intensively although their season was already over. I like the man on the picture, he kind of adds charm to it.

In other news, I've needed some stuff for a moral satisfaction school and the drawing supplies, so I decided that it was a perfect time for a.. SIX-STOREY STATIONERY STORE in Shinjuku. Now, I'm a little silly thing lucky owner of the panda-markers, Japanese ABC stickers, watercolor set and other mysterious though vitally important stuff.

I spend a whole hour in the store and when I left it, I remembered that there was Sturbucks in the nearby high-rise building.. agh I write this bla-bla thing down only because I want to post a picture I made there. Such a ceiling! Unfortunately, there was nothing else to do in this store except for staring upward.

The last funny thing that happened this week is this bun. Why? Because it's the policeman who gave it to us in a "the policemen are your friends" matter. Haha what are you doing, Japan, stop it.

Tokyo calling.

Hello-hello! It's April already and I see nothing but snow outside the window, isn't it great?

IT IS NOT.

I haven't been writing during the week again, but this time my laziness wasn't the reason. This time, it was a real workload that was distracting me from blogging the whole week. I had to draw a header for a website, design a logo for a firm, make some sketches of the honey-cakes and come up with the design for the packages. I haven't done half of it yet! However, I can't stay away from my blog any longer, I have some drawings to show and some pictures to share. For instance, here is me in front of Candy shop somewhere near Harajuku.

Btw, this is me inside of that store with a candy in my hands, whoa what a moment!

And here is me investigating Harajuku stores.

...and some pillars.

..and some wires. Time to crawl to school!

Also, I was looking through the photos that I took during my last Tokyo summer. Here, let me show you just the best thing ever:

You just saw a dinosaur necklace. Don't thank me. It' just the beginning.

Investigation is a great thing. Especially when you live in Japan. So..

"HOW TO INVESTIGATE" GUIDE:

1. Pick out of your window

First of all, you should make sure that everything is still alright outside your shelter. If you get a wee bit behind the times and the next thing you know is that you're living the zombie apocalypse, you'd better reconsider your  free time plans.

2. Pack up stuff

My school backpack! Japanese textbooks, a sketchbook, a bottle of white tea, a rabbit-scrunchy, a bb cream and some gum. I'm done. First few days, I used to carry a guidebook with me. I can't recall a single dramatic situation when it somehow helped me though :/ 

3. Investigate

Double check the neighborhood. Sometimes, I understand that I haven't been outside for days. This feeling is wrong. You should always keep up with what happens nearby. As for me, I knew that there is a hidden temple in a minute from home after a month living in Japan.

4. Don't stop

5. Well no, stop.

Buy yourself a big cup of coffee and try to do Something already not to feel worthless at the end of the day. That's the reason why I always carry my Japanese papers and a sketchbook with me (and stickers. Lots of them). 

Don't forget to feed your Rilakkuma.