[Japan]: 春休み (haru yasumi) - Osaka and Tokyo

Apr 11, 2008 18:25

Oh, oh

I know it’s been a long time once again, but whatever.
It can’t be helped. I’m sorry and I hope I can be around a little bit more often from now on!

I just came back from Tokyo on Monday night and had a great “haru yasumi” (spring break).
This might sound strange, but as soon as I arrived in Tokyo I had the feeling that I was finally home!
Yumi-chan’s family gave me a warm welcoming and I was soooooooooo happy to finally see them again!
The next day I met with my German friends who were traveling through the whole world. Their last stop was Tokyo and that just at the right time, so we just had to meet of course! I showed them around and we had a lot of fun. It felt so great to finally speak German once again!!

We went up to the government building in Shinjuku (it was already the 2nd time for me as I already went there in September), but this time (@ hesaki) we had great weather and we could see Fuji-san! Yatta!~







From up there we could see people doing Hanami XD

After that we went to Harajuku and I told them that Harajuku is evil, especially to me and that they should pay attention or otherwise I’d just vanish in one of those various idol shops and they’ll never see me again! XDDD
They were hungry and decided to go to McDonalds ….. when I was here as a tourist last year I wouldn’t even go near any non-Japanese food, but now that I’m eating Japanese stuff every day it was okay.
One of my friends ordered “6 Chicken McNuggets” and got actually 6 packages of them!!! It was really, really funny and we ate them all together! XDDD

Then we went to Yoyogi-koen! I never had the chance to go there when I was here last year, so I was all up for it. There weren’t any crazy people around - unfortunately, but the cherry blossoms were awesome and we did hanami together and met some Japanese people (and even took photos together with them). It was a lot of fun.



2 of my male friends had their guitars with them and just started to play and sing and then a Japanese camera team came to them and asked if they can film! Actually they just wanted to practice filming, but me and one of my other friends started to take photos while our friends were filmed and then some foreigners and Japanese people came to us and asked if they were famous people and stuff XDDDDDDDD … it was sooooo funny I tell ya!!!



Hanami <3





This is also in Yoyogi park. It was such a nice place, so we took quite a lot of photos there ^^ Nice, isn't it?



And some more photos of Yoyogi-koen.





Close-up (*___*)







After that we went to Shibuya and I finally managed to go to that Starbucks!! ;P



A lot of people as usual.







Shibuya at night.

Hahh~ how I miss Tokyo!
The next day my friends went to Hakone and I went shopping. ( I already went to Hakone last September)
I had a strict “shopping plan” that looked like: Harajuku, Akihabara, Ikebukuro, Harajuku, Akihabara, Akihabara, Harajuku, Harajuku, Harajuku …
No comment ;P
So no time to go anywhere else!!
At night we all went to an Italian restaurant together. My friends stayed at the house of another German person. He is married to a Japanese woman (uuhh big surprise!) and works for Bosch here in Japan. He is actually living in Ebisu, a pretty expensive area and got a huge mansion which is paid by Bosch! Next year he will leave for Germany again and told me that I just should hand my application over to him, he’ll see what he can do for me at Bosch!!!! (That’s more like what I actually studied anyway and I would earn a lot of money, too! … Well I don’t have any confidence that it’ll work out, but at least I’ll try).
He has 2 daughters, both of them are blonde, but speak Japanese fluently!
This reminds me of a pretty strange experience I had in the JR train on my first day. There was an Asian looking woman with 2 girls (prolly 3 and 5 years old). They were reeeally blonde and I thought they might be German or at least European, so I went close to them to hear what language they are speaking …. and guess what?? Japanese … fluent! And not only me, but all the Japanese people who were sitting near to them were staring like woah!!!! That's really rare I guess, even for Tokyo ;)

But it was kind of funny! Last time I came to Japan I thought there were almost no foreigners at all!!! Because Japanese people like woah and everywhere …. this time .. coming from a town in Japan where there are really no foreigners, I felt like Tokyo is a foreigners’ stronghold!!! (compared to where I live now of course)

Well what can I tell you? Tokyo was great! I love Tokyo! I wanna be there, I wanna be with my friends almost every day etc. It was really refreshing!
I went to Harajuku and Akihabara very often and bought both Mandarake in Akiba and Bukuro half empty I think, but who cares? XD



Train station of Harajuku - this is what the JR ticket system looks like! It's so easy (*_*) ... but I already told you that last year, right? XD

I also went to the Ueno park once, because I figured that the sakuras there would be awesome and they were!!! Here are some photos:



There were also tons of Japanese people staring and taking photos of the sakura ^^















And the salarymen are spazzing XDDDD .. I also saw one wearing bunny ears and stuff XDDDD Very interesting/funny ;P





Oh no!!! XDDDDD I actually want to sleep in a bed of cherry blossoms (*__*) ....



And this is Ikebukuro of course. K-Books.



Animate and K-Books.



That's also in Ikebukuro in a huge department store. I just loved this fountain.







Eeeeevil Kiddyland in Harajuku!!

I also had a lot of fun with Yumi and my Japanese friends! We also went to do Hanami on the weekend! That was somehow the first time that I hung out and actually talked to Japanese guys my age! It was really a lot of fun!!
We ate a lot of stuff, drank some alcohol, played some games like catchball etc. and talked a lot - in Japanese only.
By the way all my Japanese friends said to me that my level went up like woah since last September! I didn't realize anything! And why? I didn't study anything since then ... weird, but of course that made me happy! I only spoke in Japanese, I hung out with Japanese people, did hanami and that all in Japanese only (^____^)>



That's where we went to for our hanami. It was in Yokohama ^^





Part of our food. Of course sakuras fell into our food and drinks XD ... if you catch a cherry blossom it will bring you good luck ^-^;

@hesaki: Viele liebe Gruesse von Chizuru soll ich dir ausrichten! Teruko konnte leider nicht kommen, hatte eine Erkältung! Und Chizuru lässt ausrichten, dass es ihr unendlich leid tut, dass sie nicht so oft/schnell auf e-mails antwortet!
Ich schreib dir mal ne E-Mail auch mit meiner Adresse sobald ich ein wenig mehr Zeit hab :)



Random shrine in Saitama.

On Sunday I did a trip to Nikko together with Yumi-chan and her family. It was awesome and the weather was great, too!



Awesome, right?







There was a pretty huge waterfall - quite interesting. In Nikko there are also tons of onsen ^^





That's also in Nikko. We went to see a lot of stuff there. This was a huge place with a lot of temples/shrines.



















I have loved these monkeys forever and ever and never knew that their origin was actually in Japan!!! KYAH!!~



At the end of the day we went to eat sushi. It was really yummie, but no need to tell you, right? (*__*)

Monday was my last day. As my shinkansen left in the afternoon, I still had quite some time and just left my luggage in a coin locker and went to Harajuku once again. After 2 failures I finally managed to get a ticket for TEH Johnnys shop (last time it was much easier, but this time was haru yasumi, so not only me, but all the students had off, too!!! and ALL of them went shopping -___-; .....)
And this time I bought quite a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot~ of photos! It was a lot of fun, but I had to stand in line for 1,5 hours for the cashier!!!!! It's crazy!!!!!



My ticket for the Johnny's shop. I came there on 10am and got a ticket for 11am. That's very rare!!



But as you can see there was not much going on in Harajuku at that time and on that day XD ... Lucky!~ Finally ... the other few days it was horribly crowded and a pain in the ass to go shopping!

I came back here pretty late on Monday and had work right the next day.



This was my dinner in the shinkansen on my way back.



Okay actually it was my lunch and dinner! It took me over 6 hours to get home from Tokyo again and this stuff was pretty expensive (1000Yen), but yummie like hell!! ^^; ....

And now some a lot of photos of the stuff I bought (there will be more photos in the future, too, it's too much to post all right away XD ...)



One huuuge suitcase full of stuff that I bought! I don't even want to think about how to get all of this home again (T___T) .... I spent a loooooooot of money, but I don't care! I'm happy (*-*) with all that stuff XD



I bought a lot of these boxes with different cute figures in it, although I didn't even know the series/games sometimes XD ... but I couldn't help it they were cute!!! <33





Random: there was a cute little small plate in it (bought at K-Books)



Uhm ... yeah ... somehow my appartment is getting cuter and cuter I guess XD ...



I bought these Rirakuma sweets at Lawson in Osaka! Very cute.





Tons of cute stickers. Daiso is your friend and worst enemy! XD



Some close-ups of the stickers ^^; ...









Cute notebook.



The denshi jisho I bought (electronic dictionary). It was very expensive, but it's very good: Eng-Jap / Jap-Eng / Eng-Ger / Ger-Eng / Ger-Jap / Jap-Ger plus you can draw kanji and it will (usually) recognize it! Great ^^; ...



It will probably take years to pack out all of the stuff and put it somewhere XD



I also bought a looooooooooooooooooooot of doujinshi .. and I mean A LOT!
As I don't have a scanner here just some photos, more will follow!
This is a veeery cute Death Note douji! <33333





Another cute DN douji.





Bleach (*___*) ... I bought tons of Bleach doujis, because last time I went to Japan I didn't even know Bleach so of course I didn't buy any doujis back then XD



Yah .. Arashi is everywhere (*__*)





I really want to see the Sushi ouji movie, but nobody is going with me ;___; ... XD



Some of the photos I bought in the Johnny's shop this time.







Finally I have some of the young Yamapi + Toma photos! <333





I also bought Prince of Tennis and Bleach cards and stuff ... and lots more (but more photos will follow XD)





Wolfram plushie (Kyou kara maou) ^____^;



Small Atobe clock. I totally love it (*____*) ....



And especially in Akiba I bought tons of figures and stuff XD







I even found some Yakitate Japan stuff ^^



By the way please ignore the dust (-___-') .... XD





Again Kyou Kara Maou XD



Light: "What do you mean? Christmas is already over??!!!!"



Neon Genesis Evangelion

I also bought some cute dishes (*-*) ...











I'm still in a pretty good mood because of Tokyo, but I already miss my friends and Tokyo as well *sigh* My next job gotta be in Tokyo!

What's more is that I just need to get used to having a full-time job now. How can I find some time for myself and my hobbies? I need to figure that out step by step. I'm not complaining, it would be the same in Germany!
So there's a lot of new stuff going on, most of it is good!
I already managed to watch some series/animes and still had time to do my laundry, go shopping, clean my appartment etc. ... because this needs to be done, too, you know?

And about the size of my appartment: a lot of you seemed to be surprised that it's so small, but that's normal for Japan. What did you expect?
In Tokyo appartments are even smaller and you pay a looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot of money for no space at all! Here it's at least cheap!!
Even very expensive mansions in Ebisu or so are not really that big compared to Western standards!
After I have bought some cute stuff in Tokyo and made this place slowly into my own, I feel more comfortable here :)
And my apartment when I was a university student wasn't really bigger! Where the hell do you live? XDDDD In a palace? XDD

And one more thing: where I live in Germany it usually snows a lot and is fucking cold, so here it's acutally pretty warm compared to that, BUT ... in Germany I have my car and don't have to use a bike if I want to go anywhere AND we have central heating there, so that's the huge difference and that's why I'm saying it's cold HERE ;P ... although it's getting warmer and warmer everyday, but still a lot of rain *sigh*
... and sakura are still alive here! ^^

Yesterday when I came home from work I just turned on the tv as usual and there was a show with Arashi and Last Friends airing at the same time. After some zapping I decided to go for Last Friends.
It was really good and Ryo so cute, but so eviiiiiiiiil as well ... but that suits him somehow XDDDD
And lately I watch a lot of the stuff that is aired on a channel called "Kids Station": Kyou Kara Maou, Naruto, Ace wo nerae, Cat's Eye, ..." - as you can see a lot of old, but also new stuff as well!



Thanks to that I now want to watch 2 series I've just got to know through watching here on tv: Gintama and Katekyo Hitman Reborn!



I also found tons of merchandising for these 2 series while going to animate and co.
I've finally started to watch Oofuri and I'm looking forward to the drama "Zettai kareshi" (^____^)v
(Oh and I saw part of the Attention Please special last week! ^^ @andou_: viel Kotaro-Schatz! XD)

Right now there's some new Gundam anime airing on Kids Station ... usually I don't like any of the Gundam series, but this one is new and I'm kind of curious XD .... Japanese tv is EVIL!!! (HOMG ONE OF THE GUYS HAS LIGHT'S VOICE!!! (*___*) ... ahem ..)
(EDIT and now Loveless is airing ... waaahhh natsukashiiii yo!!!)



That's the show I'm watching right now.

I'm eating some green tea pockys and will soon go to bed because on Saturday I have to start working earlier than usual.

I THINK that was all! I'm sorry that it's gotten so long, but that's what I get for not updating for so long.
For people who are interested in my life in Japan, it would be good to read it all, for other people: just enjoy the photos .. I guess! XDDDD

Hopefully read you soon again and thank you sooooooooooooooooooooo~ much for all your nice comments last time! (;____;)
They really helped me!!! <33333

Bye-bu~

*japan, *photos: fandom, *japan: sakura, *japan: photos, *japan: nikko, *japan: tokyo, *photos, *travel

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