Well this sucks. I’ve arrived at Doha Airport in Qatar and read how awesome the airport was…waiting, not so special. Instead, I have a huge group of Chinese men around who all smell like their country…ghouza and green tea, and my wi-fi doesn’t seem to be connecting so I can’t get in touch with the people I need to be right now. Grrr!!! It’s 4.40AM…I have 5 hours to wait for my connecting flight. I was hoping to grab a shower and some more massage chair but I guess all I can do here is 頑張って我慢する！I really want to catch some shut eye but I don’t trust the Chinese (I’m sorry, no offense but these are fresh off the boat people…I had my camera stolen and crap), I’m weary to fall asleep in the corner some place where there are no people, I’m surrounded by men, it looks like I’m the only woman under 25, there are a handful of women here but are all I guess the retired age with their retired hubby! Of course, it’s only ever old people who visit Japan, unless they have someone they know, mainly my friends and friends of my friends who visited and don’t actually live in Japan. Well, here goes the waiting game again.

Actually, I’ve been at the airport all day to be honest, since 14th Aug 12pm. Even though my flight was that very night around 11pm something, I went so I can be with Anthony and give him a pleasant send-off at half 2. Our friends Kyoshi, Miho and Yuichi came to the airport with us. Two others were meant to come but got ill. Well, seeing Anthony off wasn’t as hard as I dreamt it to be. A few days ago, we let it all out and had a talk about our last day together in Japan, so it made it easy to see him off at the airport. We were going back home to a lot of people who love and care for us very much and I don’t doubt my relationship with him at all. HELLO, a whole year together, every single day….we’re very very lucky. Anyway, I was surprised, as was both of us when Miho started to cry as she gave Anthony a hug. Everyone was fighting tears back, and when Anthony waved his last wave at us all, Kyoshi grabbed me and hugged me real tight, he was revelled up with emotions, as he also said goodbye to me and left. Miho and Yuichi were absolute angels to stay with me at the airport for another 7hours…they didn’t have to and I told them I’d be fine alone but they insisted and persisted the hours. They were actually great company. I told Miho she better not cry, whilst Yuichi was away looking at the bus timetable, it was funny how we did a role-play… I spoke Japanese the entire waiting game, it was cool. Hey, when is the next time I’ll speak it all day in London huh. Damn, I can’t even string along a sentence in English anymore without sounding all weird and Japanese “Engrish” and mixing Japanese words in with English.
When Matthew came over on my final week here, it was hard to talk. I was so use to mixing both languages up with Anthony, I was confusing the poor guy, and I had to put myself together and try remembering a proper English conversation lol.

So far, my journey from Kansai to Doha had been fabulous. The plane is great, staff is greater. The Japanese air stewardess spoke nothing but Japanese to me. At the very beginning of the flight, I asked her in Japanese if anyone was sitting next to me. I had the window seat and the one next to me was empty. So that was a bonus. And the male stewardess would ask if I wanted a drink whilst I was walking about, great hospitality, unlike the plane going to America, that bitch was so rude, it was near her retiring age anyways! The food is also very good; of course, I didn’t have to worry about pork being snuck into my chicken…good old Muslim country.

Our send-off from College Residence was uuuggghhhh!!! Our friends Jos, Marlon, Erika and Yuka were all in my room so they can say goodbye and help out with whatever and see us off but Tsuda-san, my frigging landlady was being an incompetent bitch. The last few weeks, she’d been really nice to us, helping us sort out bits and bobs, book our shuttle to the airport etc etc. She has her on and off days, usually off…her loverboy Paco…I mean Diego was her golden boy, the asshole who use to live nextdoor to me and because he didn’t like Ant and I, I doubt she liked us too. She would eat his shit out of a golden plate if she had to. I swear SOMETHING was going on between them, because when then “doushbag” left, she was a miserable git. Well, the night before our flight, Ant and I was nice enough to tell her we’d pay the remaining internet bill and if she could pay it for us at the end of the month, coz obviously we wouldn’t be here. She was telling us how nice we were because usually people are bastards and run and leave the bill to her. She’s a biggety bitch because as soon as she said that, she said ‘Oh by the way, you owe me blab la for August…water, gas and electricity’. Oh thanks you whiney cow for dropping that on us on our last day, thanks for the LONG notice, especially when money is growing out of our ears!!! We were of course furious. Then she had the nerve to tell Anthony how lovely it would be for him to “donate” his new bike to college residence….
Number 1: The bike he sold him was old and the top half of the bike came apart a few months later completely.
Number 2: His bike set him back at least £40, he wasn’t going to give it away to someone he doesn’t know
Number 3: She didn’t deserve anymore of our generosity

So she rang my door the night before at 11pm asking for the bill to be handed to her there and then. I was so mad, Ant and I were getting ready for bed. I told her no and to wait the next day which put her in a pissy mood. And then came knocking at my door 9am to collect the bill from us. My mum told me not to pay it, but we signed a contract and we couldn’t run from her could we! That old bag lived downstairs in the same building. To top it off, she was mighty furious when I told her I didn’t clean my room. Umm, ok, she’s the landlady right, isn’t it her frigging to job to do that NOT MINE> again my mum was furious that she ordered me and all my friends to get it done….umm, half an hour before I had to leave. My friends were all such angels in helping me get things ship-shaped. Well, revenge, Ant and I graffitied the inside of the cupboard, don’t worry she won’t see it unless someone locked her in, I made sure to leave my mark somewhere. My Japanese friends were telling me how rudely she was speaking to us all, her level of Japanese was down to the floor, especially to them. I told my friends how she doesn’t like Japanese students, that’s why she works with foreign students instead…why, she speaks no English. Well, today for the first time, I spoke English with Erika and Yuka so that old bag wouldn’t understand us whilst we were cussing her out. It was a stressful moving out. I didn’t feel like I really said farewell to my friends. Jos was an angel and single-mindedly brought both our luggages down…was heavy! (God save me, I have loadsa Chinese men sitting behind me and gosh they smell…plus not so long ago, I had a little black kid come up to me and ask if he could borrow my laptop charger and laptop…hahaha…NO!)
But to an extent, I should thank my bitchy landlady…why…because I can’t wait to go home after that and neither Ant nor I feel sad leaving Japan, or feel we have much left here…other than our friends whom I know I’ll see again. I mean, I haven’t even landed yet and I already know that I’ll see three of my Japanese friends in the UK this year…YIPEEEE!!!!! GO ME!

Timewatch: 5.16AM
By the way, even though it’s the dead of night, it is a whopping 36 degrees Celsius out there. I felt like I was in an oven, ooh its getting light outside now. Think I go look out the window once I’m done here. I can’t even begin to imagine how hot it gets here when its afternoon, CRAZY huh! So anyway, wish me luck with the rest of my flight. Its only been an hour and my battery is already dead. This laptop needs a new battery me thinks. Oh by the way, my luggage was overweight by 8kg. My limit was 20kg, and I was only allowed one hand luggage (I have 4)! Wow, Japanese airport are so lenient. I didn’t pay extra or anything, I was worried about that all day coz Ant and Baptiste had to pay extra…not a lot….unlike UK £27=1kg excess….frigging ridiculous. SO WISH ME LUCK with part two of my flight!

With the last week of Gaidai approaching, it became more and more apparent to us all how we were all going to leave Japan in the next few weeks. Our sorrows of leaving was balanced up with our happiness of never seeing and setting foot in Gaidai again. I thought being in level 4 again this term would be just as good as last term, unfortunately it was awful and the whilst the textbook treated us all like morons who knew nothing, the teachers treated us even worse, expelling any opinions any of us had! Anyhow, the celebrations started to the end of our Japanese “academic” year with friends new and old.

Most of my friends from England had come in the first term of my year in Japan, whereas some of my friends were just starting to get visitors now. Adam’s good friend Jessy had come down for some shits and giggles, and we got to meet him for the first time at いっぱいいっぱい. I had invited Taka and Rita as well, seeing that I really wanted to hang with them whilst I still had the chance…. OK, I have no idea where I’m going with this story…I’ll start another one! Oooh the weather…it’s starting to really warm up now, mid-July and the rain is starting to evaporate and HOPEFULLY moving to Africa. The day of our graduation day of Saturday 21st July was real sunny and warm, we were all so bloody glad it wasn’t raining. I admit, there was certain people I really didn’t want to be stuck with, the usual people I loathe…and stupid Phillip…I wasn’t very happy with him because he had a loud-ass party at residence, of course, we weren’t invited because they don’t like couples, bloody losers, and caused a lack of sleep and a lot of annoyance. Unfortunately, I had to sit next to him at the graduation but I tried not to let that bother me. Another thing that annoyed EVERYONE was the fact that the students who were on summer exchange for A MONTH had the very same graduation ceremony as us…why did they get the same treatment as us…we should have got something more elaborate for putting up with crappy Gaidai FOR ONE YEAR… Geee, I’m such a snooooot!!!! The grub was great, and it was really nice to actually talk to the teachers for the last time. I was given some meishi cards and met a few people who had “friends” or “acquaintances” at SOAS and wanted me to say hi to them when I went back…ummm…YEH!?! We were all watching Numaguchi Sensei closely, especially with John around….ooops, I’m not allowed to share this story online (I’ll tell you at home if you remind me and are interested…The title of the story is “The Gooch”).






I was completely taken aback that today was the 21st….It was Ryu’s birthday and I felt really crappy that I didn’t do anything special to celebrate especially being in Japan and in his hometown. I blame stupid Phillip completely because I slept the whole afternoon to catch up and by the time I woke up, it was too late to really do anything I could have had in mind. But the night wasn’t lost…John had a last drinking/lets go crazy at the Kamogawa do and of course I was going to go because I invited my J-gang to come down too. I dressed up in my PJ Yukata, I dunno I feel like dressing up real cute lately. The fire dancing people were entertaining like usual but John tried to drain them out with his “HoneyTone”…the girls and I were real shocked to see HOW MANY GAIKS were at Kamogawa that night, it didn’t feel like Japan at all, to me, it felt like I was in some place in Spain. A few of them came up and talked to us, and I didn’t meet any travellers at all. In fact the people that did speak to us all lived in Japan. It really shocked my Japanese friends to realise just how many foreigners were living in their country. They had second to no Japanese skills at all….how the HELL do they survive…me thinks!!!



So, I couldn’t really celebrate Ryu’s birthday properly but I decided the next day to go to Fushimi Inari for the last time. We thought it was fitting to go there, and it was really peaceful. I think our first visit here was better than this one. The millions of torii gates were kind of creepy, especially that the sun was dying down for the day. After, we took a nice long walk along the Kamogawa. I didn’t realise how long this river was actually, would be wicked to go cycling along it before I leave…I guess this is a “note to self” sort of thing huh!

The remaining of July just consisted of saying goodbye to those bastards that were leaving early…haha, funny how it’s John first, funny!!! Well, actually, a lot of my Japanese friends made such an effort to see me this week. My whole evenings were booked up with events.

MON 23rd
We had “make-up” classes, so I HAD TO go to Gaidai, I had to go to a supplementary translation class. I was very disappointed to not have worked on my translation more; instead the concentration of this lesson was to fill out a questionnaire and talk about how to improve the classes. I felt really pissed off to have woken up to go to THAT, plus after seeing Melissa’s and Bree’s work, I was kinda upset that I still haven’t “finished” mine. Well Melissa did one episode of “NANA” the anime and put in sub-titles and Bree did one Japanese music video and put sub-titles for it. I think I have nothing to be upset over. I did a FULL MANGA from scratch unlike Brad. He did his on an “Intial D” manga which is already translated in English, and he said it himself, he looked at the other translations to cut corners when he was stuck. When I was stuck, I struggled with the text and consulted teachers and Japanese friends. Anthony’s right, I have nothing to be upset over, and I did a crap ton of work on it, especially having it all done. My project at home will be to put it in proper manga form, once I have a scanner.

Anyway, my friend Maya came round mine to hang out and catch up. The poor girl is so busy, her only days free to hang is Mondays and yo, I have nothing to do :D It was great being with her as always. Her and Hiroe, and perhaps Mai are the only three I speak English to *BECAUSE THEY ARE GOOD!!!* She wasn’t too keen to come to John’s ho-down of a goodbye at ippai, so once we saw her off, we made our way to his. Wow, he was really insistent that we came to see him, that was real cool. And of course, we didn’t go to the izukaya near home, because of what stupid John and Jos did last time. Well, they were drunk and recently the owners re-done the wall that had holes in it (guess who made them before?)…well, John was telling Jos how he didn’t have the guts to put a hole through this new wall. Jos being an idiot said “Yes I can” and punched a hole in it with his elbow…. Of course, they made a racket and the owner saw what he did and called the cops. Stupid Jos a few days later had to be pay £150…this coming from the guy who was complaining he was low of cash and didn’t hesitate to pay this. What idiots, right!? I wrote all over John’s arm, final bye bye messages from his Japan-cru posse… he wasn’t going to shower til he got home, I can’t imagine how uncomfortable that is, especially with how hobo-like he is anyway!! Uggh!!! ANYWAY my graffiti didn’t last too long…sweaty dude!



The next day, Anthony and I went to work at Gaidai for the final time, and saw Kera there to say goodbye!!! I guess I needed to mend a few patches with her 

I will continue with this story in the next instalment!

Gion Matsuri is said to be one of the most important and famous in Japan, and lucky for us, it’s held in Kyoto. Gion Matsuri is actually held throughout the whole of July, but the festival etc with parades are held for four days… It was quite fortunate that the typhoon didn’t come because it would have been likely that those four special days would have been cancelled.

FRI 13TH JULY
I think this is the first Friday 13th that I didn’t have a shitty day, regardless of the shooting rain all day. I went to a short school trip for my translation class. This place 杉本家住宅 is opened only throughout the matsuri. People actually live in this house but for the time being is open to the public. I didn’t find this trip very fascinating at all, I’ve seen Japanese houses loadsa time. But Melissa and I agreed on one very important thing. One of the room had a really nice view of a Zen garden and with the relaxing atmosphere of the room and the heavy rain pounding the rocks outside, it was SOOOO serene and relaxing. I could have sat in that room for hours just watching the rain. It’s nice having a balcony and all but you don’t get much of a view and even if I did, there’s nothing to see much.

On the very same night, Bobby and Honami came round. I asked Honami to help me with my translation project but Bobby came along too for some fun and frolicking. She helped me out a lot, but it was super fun being “disturbed” by Bobby and Anthony playing ‘King of Fighters’ coz Bobby would talk just like the characters and say all sorta weird stuff like he always does….of Bobby don’t change you かっこい Chinese fruitcake!



SAT 14TH
Usually during this festival, people wear lovely yukatas. And especially for this masturi, Ant and I got ourselves kitted out with one. We went out in the evening to see the first night of the matsuri parade. But it was slightly drizzling so I didn’t bother wearing my full length yukata. Instead, I wore what was meant to be my PJs, but its sooooo cute, I had to walk out in it. It’s like a yukata, but with short trousers and no obi required. And its PINK and all flowery and CUTE! Anyhow, it was a lovely walk in Kawaramachi. The streets were actually all closed off…think of Oxford Street being closed off for a few days. I didn’t see any sort of parade or food stalls as a matter of fact but lots of couple were out and about in their yukata. Ant was so sweet and bought me a flower hair-piece for me to match my outfit…it was a pretty penny me thinks!
Seeing that we were in the area, as promised, we decided to see our friend Rita at her work-place, ‘heya girl, we’re here to cheer you up’ sorta thing and eat dinner at the Brazilian bar. We love you gal!



SUN 15th
Today was the day we got all dressed up in our full yukata, but not because of the matsuri…we were FINALLY invited to Rory and Batiste’s place for lunch. I didn’t want to leave Japan not knowing where they’ve been living all year. And let me say, I feel really bad for these guys coz the place is soooo out of reach, far from everything and not much there really. Anyways, I think wearing our yukata was a bad idea… the wind was real strong coz of the passing typhoon…or what we thought! I doubt wore my yukata properly coz the bottom kept getting undone and so the wind kept opening it up and my legs were on show. I knew I should have pinned it down when I had the chance, but it was also happening to Ant’s yukata too. I had no idea the boys were cooking, it was quite the sight as you can imagine. And all rather tasty, except I couldn’t eat anything Ilan made, coz she used pork and stupid Rory forgot to tell her tut tut tut! The sound of the wing outside was kinda scary, it was whistling through the whistles and I was really worried we’d get caught up in the typhoon and won’t be able to go home if it did hit Kyoto. Well, when I went to Rory’s room…who lived on the 10th floor of the flat, I was scared crapless that the wind would just lift me away over the building. In fact, Rory’s door was a challenge to shut. The battle between the wind versus two SOAS students….we won…after a long haul, but was in no hurry to play a re-match! After lunch, we had some fun and games in their lovely common room, and Rory being Rory playing some weird piano and Tiste showing us all he got on his PC, lucky git!

Shortly after, Ant and I struggling home in the wind, and had plans to meet up with my goodey buddy Yuka for Gion Matsuri Number Two, but defo changed out of our clothes to regular stuff, but I added on the panda ears so I wasn’t THAT normal :D
Today we hit the food stalls…matsuri food is always super, expensive as it may be, but yummy. I think today, I finally got over my fear of たこ…OCTOPUS (yucky tentacles *faints*) because I had a whole pack to myself…freshly made, and didn’t flinch. The watermelon and cold pineapple was super awesome. Ant bumped into a Japanese friend of his and Yuka met a real old school pal. And stupid kids like usual just ogled at me like I was some bizarre animal lol. Whilst having a watermelon spitting contest, we made our way to the Kamogawa to meet with Jos and his gf Waga and they looked fabo in their Yukata, Jos did a good job pulling it off…I bet Waga put a good amount of work making him look good, coz apparently it took her an hour to put her yukata on and get the obi all good-looking. As always, it was super fun hanging out with the girls, and being able to breathe without an obi hehehe!

The Kamogawa for the first time was rushing water like crazy due to the crazy rain we've been getting all month, it was quite crazy and let me add, scary! But we had a blast...rather Yuka and I, watching the Japanese hippie fire dancers and going oooh and ahhh even though I've seen them loads before in London and in Sardinia!







MON 16th
Today was meant to be our final trip with my usual foreign friends, but dumb typhoon warning, decided to call it off!!! Plus, loadsa people (you damn people) cancelled on us all last minute last night, and decided to just take a chill pill and kick back!
I think it was a good idea we took a break from the matsuri, especially with all us GAIKS going to the main festival tomorrow with school. It was more like a kick back sorta day, but caught up with my Japanese usual suspect girlies (long title huh) Erica, Yuka and Aya to see Harry Potter…blimey, the Japanese sub-title was mighty complex. So many words used furigana on top of the kanji and at the end of the movie, the girls were telling me how they didn’t understand what was going on in the movie…that just shows how grrrr Japanese is if the girls themselves didn’t understand their own frigging lingo huh huh huh huh huh huh!!!!

TUES 17th
Early start…we had to leave home at 8.30am because our rendezvous was at 9am. Tsuda-san was nice enough to order two cabs to get to Saiin 駅. The handful of people who didn’t dress in a yukata sure felt dumb like Micheal, but some, like Marlon just rebelled. Anyway once we got to the matsuri, it wasn’t as spectacular as I had anticipated. In fact, it reminded me very much like the jidai matsuri. The roads are closed off, and those that participate in the matsuri are dressed real cool and pull the parade wagon, and play traditional instruments. Oooh the most embarrassing thing happened…I’m so dumb right, I put my yukata on all wrong, and one of my friend noticed, and I felt real crap about it, plus my obi took half an hour to put on. Well, whilst I was taking photos of the wagon from a distance, a Japanese lady in front of everyone just started to undo my obi and said she could fix it for me…I thought I did a pretty good job actually putting it on with no help or assistance. Well, as she was sorting that out, I told her that I put my yukata on wrong too…I don’t remember anymore whether the flap of the yukata is right over left or left over right. Basically, if you get that wrong…it means your deceased. Only the body of the dead wears a yukata that way, so I guess I was dead for an hour. All the Japanese ladies were in a state of shock, then pulled me to the corner of a department store and stored me out. It was quite embarrassing but I was glad someone was nice enough to fix me up rather than feel like a total idiot the entire day.
After some pancakes at McD’s (hey, we needed some brekkie early this morn), we watched the parade a bit more before starting to head for home. We were all hot, tired and flustered in out yukata. But before I got out of my outfit, I took loadsa purikuras of me in it, it was so cute…come on, my yukata has bunny wabbits :D :D!!!
We also did a cool catwalk in teramachi-dori, looking all cool and hanging out at the UFO-catcher. Josh and Ant have become really good at it now, in fact, we’ve all become quite an expert really and it’s sooooo addicting now. I think I have 20mini-ones and 4 big ones.

I'm going to be completely British now and complain about the weather we've been having here all July. SO, I knew that Japan had a rainy season that will only last for two weeks...ok, cool! I just had to put up riding my bike in the rain going to Gaidai and coming back home soaked, but at least I had a hot shower to look forward and clean, dry clothes. The rain wouldn't have bothered me so much if I had a car, like back in London. Ok, so two weeks of rain.... WRONG!!! The rain started mid-June and lasted til nearly the end of July.....DO YOU KNOW HOW ANGRY THAT MADE ME??!?!?!!?!?!?!?! To wake up, open the curtains and see heavy-ass rain that can drown you... a lot of the time, I didn't fancy going to school for a pointless class, listening to some old Japanese ladies babble on and on about something completely un-related to the topic at hand, or waste time playing DS in class, when I could be home, dry and happy. Plus, because of the rain, the two trips I really wanted to go to; Ise-Shima, Amanohashidate...I can't now, I have absolutely time and the weather screwed me over on countless accounts.

Ooooh, speaking about weather, let's continue with the second thing that nearly ruined it all. Let you tell you one thing; I think the Japanese are real crap at telling the forecast of the weather. It was said that a huge typhoon that was coming from a Japanese southern island called Okinawa, would hit Kyoto and the Kansai area during the Gion Mastsuri. This particular matsuri is one of the most famous in Japan and important in Kyoto which runs for a whole month but has three very big days, the days the typhoon was meant to hit. We were told that the typhoon was strong and because of that, it was very possible that the whole matsuri was going to be cancelled. And our stupid teacher was telling us "It's going to be very dangerous to leave the house....you're very lucky to see the typhoon....please go to the matsuri...." He said a million things that contradicted eachother. Again, my plans to go out of Kyoto had to be cancelled. But guess what....the typhoon never came. In fact it completely missed Kyoto altogether...waaaaagh all my plans were cancelled. We only got very light gust and that was like at 3am or something. STuPId friggin' WEATHER MAN!!

So with the rest of July...this is what my crazy month has been like!

SUN 1st JULY

Yay, I finally got to visit the Manga Museum not so far from home. And there was a special action figure exhibition too, I had to see how that was like. Itw as actually pretty impressive actually, I completely loved the massive life-size figure of "The Fist of the North Star" character...he's awesome (what's he called man!!?) I wanted to paint the free figure we were given and get some practice on how to draw manga art, but the workshop wasn't open til an hour later and we wasn't prepared to wait. But I got to something that made that whole trip worth it. The whole museum had an awesome collection of old manga for customers to read at will, like a library I guess. So on the search computer, I thought I'd give it a try by looking for street fighter and found 3 copies of something called "Ryu Final"....VOLUME THREE... I was stoaked. Volume One is the one I translated completely, I have two but have never heard of number three nor seen it. Of course, I went to go hunt for it so I could at least tell people or feel accomplished that I've seen that manga. Well, after half an hour or searching the whole manga collection and help from the staff, I saw them all. It turned out to be a different manga altogether, I have the American comic at home, all of them but this was obviously the Japanese style manga book...I really wanted it, it's extremely rare but of course I couldn't buy it off them.
After visiting the museum, we took a bike ride to Kawaramachi, which was relaxing.


WED 4th JULY

Monday, no thanks to the rain, I skipped school and actually managed to get some good packing done, ready to ship home. But had to go to stupid Gaidai for an "orientation" meeting.
Anyway so Wednesday...(ahh, that's why I was talking about skipping school on Monday), I skipped today too. Actually today is America's Independence Day, the day England kicked its own ass, meh, I celebrated nonetheless. Uchida Sensei gave permission for the Americans to take the day-off and celebrate, and also gave them £50 for food and BBQ. I'm not American and neither is Jos but we skipped school and joined in the fun. As always, it was pissing down with rain, but that didn't stop us. Adam actually found a really nice spot in Arashiyama, where we got shelter but also a nice BBQ spot, whether rain or shine. The group that did come was awesome, it was nice to finally be in John's cousin Chris's company, him to celebrate with us all (they're Canadians). The food was awesome and having Yuka and Erkia (my good J-girl buddies) made it all the better for me :)






FRI 6th

Finally today, after a year, I'm able to say that I hanged out with the very first Japanese friend I made when coming to Japan, Hiroe. I swear that girl is forever busy busy busy and she always had something happening with her phone. Well, she invited me to a birthday party she was holding for her "Gangura" friend at the Pig and Whistle Pub. I had Hiroe for an hour before the rest of the crowd came. I think she and Maya are the only two Japanese friends I speak English with. Actually, I kinda forget they're Japanese because their English is so damn good. Well when the party did kick off, I was actually kinda bored. She invited alot of her foreign friends who either worked with her or were her umm pub-buddies I guess and some of the other foreigners I met were just down right annoying..."Oh I came to Japan because I'm obsessed with manga and think that Japan is just like the animes" etc sorta people...what you would call OTAKU! Plus, she had invited Carla, one person I cannot stand being in the room with because she's soooo annoying. Well after the crowd did came, I didn't really hang about much and called an SOS to Yuka asking her to save me and accompany me whilst Ant was still out on his boys night out! Well Yuka, gosh, she really is my best friend here, despite having exams the next day, she said she'd come round to mine and chat etc. Having Yuka around was real awesome. We chat loads, all in Japanese. Even though her Japanese is machine gun fast with a really weird Shikoku accent, I understand 85% of what she was saying and we really did have an awesome night together. She didn't leave my place til about 3am...LOVE YOU YUKA!
I also want to wish my friend YUKARI >> HAPPY BIRTHDAY and I'm sooo sorry I couldn't come out to Osaka to celebrate your birthday with the gang, I wish I didn now!!



The few days afterwards have been pretty chilled out and just packing boxes of books ready to ship home. I've also been trying hard to see as many as people as possible, trying not to let the rain get me down or ruin anymore more of my plans. I had dinner with Rita, being updated on what her recent condition has been like. We were meant to go out for an Indian but the place was closed on the one night we wanted to eat there...tut tut very disappointing and had unfortunately turned our hunger towards McD's. The next day (Thurs 12)...Adam and Jos asked us to go to いっぱいいっぱい with them so it wasn't just the two of them drinking, you saaaad men! ;ol

THURS 12

Another exciting episode of the "Rotary Club". This time the sugar Daddy Kurihara-san took me to a Beer Garden in Kitano. However this turned to be a very special/different date. On our previous meeting, I had asked Kurihara if I could bring Anthony to our next meeting, he said yes so long as I could bring a female companion, so naturally, I asked Yuka to come with us. The reason why I wanted Ant to be there was because I wanted him to get the chance to meet maikos and geishas. It's nothing special to me now, I've seen and been with them so many times now thanks to Kurihara-san, but he hasn't, so I was being the good girlfriend, so he wasn't burning with jelousy at the end of the day. Well it worked out all pretty well. As I expected, Yuka was great company as usual and Ant's view of Kurihara had COMPLETELY changed after hanging out with him for the night. Before meeting him, Ant was saying how he was nothing but am old perve who wanted young girls and hates company of guys, stingey bastard etc... but both Ant and even to Yuka's surprise find him to be an excellent comdian and real good fun. Yuka was telling me how shocked she was that just because he was filthy rich, he wasn't like most business-men who get stinking drunk, have no control, no sense of humour and stick their noses in the air, in fact he's down to Earth and is an excellent host. Those comments made me really happy actually, coz it made me think, yip, I had many dinners with this guy and have an awesome relationship and contact now!

So, we went to this really beautiful Beer Garden, and no, it's nothing like the one back home. In fact, the reason why this one was so special was because the customers would be greeted and entertained by maikos and geishas, not with their full make-up though, im their "as normal as we can be" attire. They were actually awesome people. I think we met 5 of them. They were real friendly with Ant and I, didn't dumb down their Japanese at all and actually tried learning geisha-ben, even Yuka and Kurihara-san was telling us how sometimes they didn't understand what the girls were talking about because their accent was so flowery. When the maiko stopped talking coz we all were, she could take our chopstick paper cover and made Ant and I a chopstick holder and an origami frog, it was quite funny actually. I was real surprised, as we all were how the maikos were 15 years old. They didn't look that age at all, and their hair was real as well. I was talking to them about maiko fashion and sounds way too painful :s Kurihara-san was quiet the charmer... it was great how when the maikos saw Kurihara (of course, as always he knew everyone in the room) they didn't greet eachother with a bow but a hearty handshake and pat on the back, Yuka couldn't stop laughing.

After the Beer Garden, and having stuffed ourself silly with various yummy Japanese nikpiks, Kurihara took us to a laraoke bar, only for an hour though but it sure was classy and of course ordered loadsa snacks. I was impressed how he sand to us all the Hawaiin Wedding Song and knew it off by heart. Yuka sang an English song, Ant a Spanish one and me being his English teacher and English one but also Japanese...meh, we all did.
The icing on the cake was defo taking Kurihara with us to take purikura. He said it was his first time, and foudn it embarrassing but I told him, he did a great job showing me Japanese culture but how could he miss this particular one...hehehe!!! It was sooo funny. Well done ME!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RYU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

June had been a very busy month indeed. Everyday, I had some sort of activity or social event to attend. It's crazy how time lifes when you're having fun and keeping with reality.
So the last thing I did was bitch about the downside of being around foreign students all the time. The intense competition sometimes can really drag you down, but let's explore the positive things that was accomplished over June. So, up til this point, I had two months left in Japan. Naturally, I wanted to hang out with friends as much as possible and experience all that I could... no regrets right. This month, I probably worked the hardest I've done since coming to Japan, I did a big chunk of my translation this month and it was serious work. Anyway, here is a daily account of what I've been doing:

TUES 5th JUNE
The celebration of German Phillip's birthday. Strange how nearly everything that had happened tonight kinda mimicked that of Anthony's party last month. The "ooohh let's surprise birthday boy with a cake"... "Oh my goodness so much"... "Yahoo, presents"...of course, it's a birthday-do, so all of this is expected. The Australians as always looked very pretty with their lovely frocks (I think the only ones who actually dressed up)and the whole dealio kept everyone close and very entertained.

WED 6th
June Festival...so we had no class. I'm sorry but don't ask me what that festival was all about because I have no idea and nothing really happened in Kyoto. So all in all, just a relaxing day catching up with me-time. But in the evening, the much anticipated "Pirates of the Caribbean 3" had been out in cinemas for over a week now and we were dying to watch it. I think this may have been the first time I watched a movie with my Japanese friends (I can't remmeber), but before heading to the movies, we all played the Wii together (hoho, great bonding,being silly session) and chilling out in my room. By the way, Pirates3 was fabulous...Johnny Johnny, I salute you Mr. Captain Jack Sparrow!!!

**************

That weekend, I was very excitedly working on my translation project, morning til night, because I had receieved some very exciting and inspiration words of wisdom from sensei the day before. She basically told me that my work was excellent and if I manage to finish my translation, she could look into buying a manga software so I can input all my work in the actual manga and possibly have it published. Now for only having a month left at school, this was a massive task for me, but the manga I was doing is Street Fighter after all, so I was completely hooked on it. It was defo my Japanese drug to work and really be motivated. I wanted that book finished before leaving Gaidai, that was my one and only goal being in that school.

THURS 21st JUNE
My Rotary Club date with Kurihara-san. We didn't go to any event or anything like our past hang-outs, instead, just a dinner in Ponto-cho, at a very very nice tori-niku (chicken) sukiya place. Of course right, Kurihara-san knew everyone at the restaurant, him and the manager were on very good terms with eachother and we all got very chatty with the waitress that was serving us, who was a year younger than me and studies at some Budhist university, which was interesting to here about.

FRI 23rd
Unfortunately, today was the last time Adam and John were going to perform in Japan (except for ramdon "let's pick up girls" on the street frolicking). And for their final showdown (including Tom)... "The Sonar Panthers" played amazingly well, and I was pretty amused with their ummm, band name too. The company was all great, especially with the fact that my Japanese friends Yuka, Aya, Yuriko had all shown up because I was there... that definately boosted my mood. The tiny but atmospheric bar they played at was too expensive for anyone to get drunk in, but I guess Adam and John's last performance made us all realise that it's not long now that our adventure in Japan was actually and finally coming to an end. Hats of to Johnny and Adam!



WED 27th
Cinemas...AGAIN!...With my J-girls.. I've been very desperate to see "Maiko Haaaa~~~~~~~n". This Japanese movie was filmed al in Kyoto and kinda took the mick out of Japanese people and culture. The film was based around Maikos of Kyoto and was the story of how a guy who was obsessed by geishas would do anything to become a member of the geisha/maiko society. It was amusing, even though alot of the times, I foudn it very hard to understand the language. Geishas use their own style of Japanese, very soft and flowery, but as the movie went on, I figured out what certain words meant :D Go me!

THURS 28th
I'll tell you one thing...I'm going to miss going to the Kamogawa River in Kyoto. It's definately where all the young people hang out at night, to have a good time, and it defo has a great atmosphere. Well, my J-girls and I all decided to bring our own drinks and hang out there. It was a great night, laughing, talking and enjoying eachothers company. I feel real proud that this month, I've been using my Japanese more and have found friends who I often hang out with and share mye experiences with. Drinking at the Kamogawa is swell *just watch out for the light-weights who fall in the very shallow river or just thro wup...euuughh*

SAT 30th
Very early start for a Satur-day, but today was an important day that was possibly the very start to the making of my future career. It was the day my club and I were anticipating, even though the big UN event was in October. We held a practice Model United Nations conference at Gaidai and I represented the UK. Being the only foreigner in the club, I felt brought me lots of credentials, plus it forced the Japanese people to use their English. In real UN meetings, as you can imagine, Japanese isn't used, so they had to articulate themselves in English, however, this was only 4 out of however many members we had. I, of course used Japanese too. My first 5mins speech was in English to explain the UKs position on "Nuclear Arms Disarmament and Proliferations"...but I had managed to write a second all in Japanese and presented that half-way through the meeting. It was an amazing experience and I never owuld have thought I'd be involved in something like this in Japan. Plus everyone was dressed up all very professional and the room was re-arranged to mimic that of an actual UN general assembly meeting. Thanks you guys xxxx



After the meeting, which ended 7pm (damn..10hours...no wonder I was exhausted!!!), I had three choices for my evening wonder..
1. Go to Naoka's birthday party
2. Stay at home and special movie night with Ant after hard days work
3. Tabehodai with other friends

I decided with option number 3... It was kinda like a couples night out except Jerry and Jos didn't bring their date/gf. It seemed like a while since I actually hanged with Mai, but I always see Kazuya about at Gaidai, sometimes I feel he stalks Anthony and I lol, but we met his gf for the first time, and the general company was perfect.

That concludes my June adventure!

I need to vent right now so here I am telling everyone how I'm feeling right now, and I don't really care what anyone thinks...

Goodness, busyness is right! Actually, this week, I've been so busy, that I've been catching around 4 hours of sleep by night, so you can bet your ass I'll be catching up with sleep this weekend. Yup, my schedule is pretty tight right now. Here are the reasons why:

About three weeks ago, I joined Gaidai's United Nations circle..yahuh, I was completely stomped when I found out a stupid uni like Gaidai has one and I joined straight away. I've been researching on the UK's view of Nuclear Disarmament, and writing a paper about that, before our big debate next weekend (9am-6pm dealio). I've also been busy doing two presentation projects, one about "Gift-giving culture in Japan" and wahey....to celebrate my country "HARRY POTTER" which I will be presenting tomorrow.

Also, it had recently come to my attention that we have like 2months left in this crazy insane country, so I wanna hang out with my Japanese friends as much as possible, naturally. But not having much cash left, I had people come round mine and have "Wii night", play games, be silly bla bla bla bla!
I'm so fucking fed-up with classes, I'm sure you guys in Japan must be feeling the same thing, like you're ready to go home now and don't wanna be here anymore. Classes are so pointless. For example, TODAY I was playing on my DS all day. I had Japanese computer class, 3hours basic Japanese with Uchida (ugh) and then Interculture Awareness Practice (ICP) class (with utility belt sensei)...well, for computer class, I finished my "purikura" project TWO WEEKS AGO, and the sensei doesn't know what to do with me now, plus the only students in his class is Ant and I lol! Its blatant the teacher gives two shit about the class, coz he's always out having a fag and leaves early...so we come to class late always lol. Uchida..haha, fucking joke, I played my DS allday, with my beloved pet dog Zizii the Beagle, then training my pokemons up....and in ICP, my group and I (with Japanese students) finished our presentation last week, so we had to sit there for 1.5hours listening to other people...so I was playing "Puzzle Quest" all that time plus being stupid with John, Honami, Daisuke and Bobby!
STUPID GAIDAI!

Tomorrow I have dinner with my Rotary Club "sugar-daddy"..again, tomorrow is a blugh day... the whole of tomorrow, in every single class, there are presentations...BOOOOORRRRRIIIIIINNNNGGGGGGG!

But on to fun stuff, I'm so going to go out more often. For example, last Friday, I had the most fun so far this time. For the first time, I went out clubbing with a group of Japanese g-friends. Goodness, it was so much bloody fun. We went to a Mexican salsa club (free) but they were having salsa classes, so we all joined in dancing with old sweaty people. then grooved it out at a club called "Sam and Daves" also kicking out near Kamagawa River and trying to hit on my Japanese g-friends (lol, I miss being with chicks meh!) But that night, I didn't get home til 4am or something, but it was frigging awesome.

I'm also working real hard on my Street Fighter Ryu manga translation. I have such a heavy deadline to meet now. I'm now on Chapter 7 now, but I have up til Chapter 13 plus OMAKE plus making everything sound like natural English...my deadline is the end of June.... that sucks. I didn't have time to work on it this week....AGGGHHHH!

Umm yup, thats's how I've been recently!

Another school trip wooraa hoooraaah....For a while, I wasn't actually looking forward to this trip because it's a one night stay at a "ryokan" (Japanese Style Room)...well, it was a free trip and all, and for once, me not organising something was super but my biggest ugggh-ness was the people I was sleeping with. It's a single sex room and I didn't go to the "MEETING" which was held when I was at home after class was over for the rest of the students...ridiculous... anyway CHIN-MIDA... now let me tell you something. Coming to Japan, I have met the most infuriating, annoying people in the entire world...there's two people I completely cannot stand and that's Carla and Chin (not so much Armida, she's just Chin's biyatch)...Carla is just fucking annoying, her voice is like someone scratching a chalk board and Chin is just the goody two shoes of the class and hangs by everything the silly Uchida Sensei says... So I had no choice but to share a room with Chin-mida and the Taiwanese girls I've never said Hi to. Anyway Ant reminded me how I was only going there to sleep, the fun was in other places.

The trip itself was fun, not because the location was super duper, but the company was great...seriously, when was the last I got to hang out with EVERYONE!!!! It was a good atmosphere, and the people thsi term are loads better than last time. There was LOADSA people I didn't like from last term compared to this time, so thank god we didn't have one night stay trip with THEM! I didn't actually know where the heck we were goign til AFTER we came back from the trip.

Basically the trip consisted of three things...Nakes Onsen with the rest of the girls, pork in every single one of the food they made us eat EVEN THOUGH I told them I'm muslim and DON'T EAT PORK (I frigging hate Japan and their stupid incompetance) and a day off stupid omiyage shopping.
I preferred the first day better than the second, as did 67% of the exchange students. Oh just to add it in, we also went to some castle which I wasn't really impressed with at all...come one, after Himeji, no competition!

Well the best part of the entire trip, can you believe, was the 3hours coach trip..that's right...WHY? It's because we had a huge Nintendo DS Mario Kart party going on. Plus as usual hobo-stylee, John brought his "HoneyTone" with him and we played loud music at the back of the bus. 8players battling for first place, there was a crap load of curses, swears and flipping people off, it was so much fun, we did that the whole night when we were all in Anthony's room (8people ryokan). I'm sure people who didn't have a DS or wasn't part of the "party" so to speak weren't pleased with our racket but bluuugh, it's a school trip, if they expect silences, screw them...but no-one said anything so its all cool.

The second best part I guess was the onsen itself...we have hot baths like that in England except being naked is *shudder, shudder shudder*...I didn't want to but everyone went so I decided this onsen naked experience would be my first and last time. I was there fore an hour or two, it was very nice and I can now tell you who has the best body out of all the exchange student *hehehe* and some other nasty stuff lol! But I won't.
But I can share with you one really really nasty piece of info.... I SAW THE SENILE UCHIDA SENSEI NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKEEEEED... NAKED!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH! NASTY NASTY NASTY!!! I was ready to just throw up....how weird is it to see your old teacher naked! Seriously man, that wasn't pretty!

Ok anyway *shuddeerrrrrz* The best place stupid Gaidai took us was the reef near the sea. Now that was one hell of a spectacular view, plus there was eagles flying about which was a bonus, I think the place was called Oshima 雄島. I took my sweet time exploring....ie, being the last person to get to places. The boys (Jos, John, Adam and Anthony) were the first people to get to the top of the cliff and chilling out. By the way, my camera had broken in Fukuoka, so I had no camera for this trip (the pictures are a collection from other friends...thanks Jos, Adam, Margo).

The stupid part of the trip was he stupid omiyage experince, they put us in a Craft Village, full of shops (or you can pay like £10 to make your own plate etc) and we were there the entire time. But Michael and John made the most of it, by "medidating" for a while near the pond, it was so funny, I couldn't break John's concentration and I was scared that if I touched him, he'd push me in the pond. Oooh speaking of pond, stupid John jumped into the sea where the cliff was and apparently all these nasty creepy crawlers got themselves entangled on his shorts and started to take a nibble on him. Pictures were taken for proof. Plus early in the morning we went to a sake shop...hahah at 10am....of course, John got drunk on the big bottle of sake he bought.

Stupid trip, but FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

Holy Crap....I want to adopt that girl as my daughter. These kids are awesome, I'm going to look for them, from now that will be my sole purpose existing in Japan. You so have to check it out!!! I'm sure there is a "How to kick ass with a guitar" brain drink developed here somewhere, me want...ME HOSHIIIII!