Quaal

Japanese Photoshop guides

2009-09-28T08:23:00.001-07:00

This is a typical "Photoshop coloring guide". Not only do you learn how to color young females (sorry, almost no tutorials have men - including this book) but you also get to look at anime junior-high school students drench each other in see through clothing.

I hope you arent interested in coloring males or grown women or clothes other than underwear or skirts because a japanese bookstore will not be much help. Even a 6 story bookstore failed to help.

Sunset in Fukuzumi

2009-08-31T02:46:00.001-07:00

A couple photos I snapped after work today (^_^)

Qouch Imports

2009-07-19T09:03:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I've updated and I have some big news. I made a Japanese Games Export company!!

You can visit it at www.qouchimports.com. Please register and if you would like, buy some games (or request any game you would like haha). When you register, put in Blogger as the "Referral".

Right now Gift Certificates are on sale!!! (until the end of July) - so take advantage of the free money while it's available.

Maybe I'll try updating this blog more often. Until next time!

The Future

2008-11-19T21:07:00.000-08:00

So, the polls are closed and the votes are in! I had 3 people vote (かなしい) and the verdict is 2 for Daily Life and Personal Life and 1 for Japanese Study.

I'll start with my Japanese (since it hasn't got too much better). I've still been playing this "My Japanese Coach" game - which is awesome. And it helps a lot... But I don't play it enough for me to remember what I'm learning くそ. So I'll need to step that up a little bit!!

There is less than 3 weeks until I leave and it's starting to feel like I'm going soon. Today I told my boss my last day of work will be the 2nd. I want to have a couple week days to be able to do anything I need to do (that I can't do on the weekend). He said it sounded like fun going overseas to teach, so he wasn't upset at all... I don't think haha.

And it was Hime and my 2 year anniversary on the 18th!!! Can you believe it??? 2 years hehehe. I'm sad I'm not in Japan right now though. Hime and I decided not to send each other presents in the mail (since I'm going there so soon), so we'll be exchanging presents when I get there, so probably expect some kinda update about our "anniversary" stuff around the 8th-10th of December. I hope she likes my present hehe.

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain in Penticton. I'm not looking forward to that hahaha. I guess I'll need to bring something to work that won't get so wet.

Well, that's it for today!!

大神 (Okami)

2008-11-16T13:05:00.000-08:00

So I finally managed to find a copy of this game to buy again since my last one was never returned. I've been looking on ebay and checking all the stores but Ebay is fairly expensive and no stores have them anymore because they're not in production and the people who own them don't want to give them up haha.

So the other day I was in Electronic Boutique and there it was!!! Sitting on the wall! So I grabbed it and carried it around with me while I was looking at the other games. I was so excited to be the owner of this marvelous game once again. My heart has been pained since it's been gone haha. I probably won't have much time to play it since I'm going to Japan soon but I don't feel so guilty for losing a game my brother gave to me now (even though it's not really the same). It's also been reased for Wii (though I've heard it's better on PS2) but go give it a shot (if you can find a copy).

I also finally got my Class 5 drivers liscence so now I gotta apply for an International liscence so I can drive in Japan. I hope I can get it :) I'll be doing that after work on monday probably.

Hime and my anniversary is coming up soon too. Two days from now! This year I'm not sending anything from Canada, I'll be giving it to her when I arrive in Japan. I hope she likes it!!

Ralph Lauren

2008-11-09T16:25:00.000-08:00

My first piece of real brand name clothing (or accessory I guess). Hime sent this to me from Japan for our anniversary. I've been using it but I always have this sense of "what if I lose it?" haha. The wallet is worth more than what I keep inside it probably lol. It's a super nice gift though and I'm glad she gave it to me hehe. It's not exactly like in the picture to the left but its the same color and a really similar style. It's really cool haha. Thanks hunnie!!!! I hope you like my present as much as I like yours ^_^

About the poll I got going on. If you read my blog, you've probably seen it (unless you read it via RSS). Anyway, please vote!! You can vote for more than 1 thing too if you'd like. I just want some kind of idea what people like reading about so I can better tailor my blog. I see right now the only vote is for "Daily Life" which I like writing about the most anyway (even though this post isn't about daily life at all hahaha).

So yeah uh.. that's it! I've been really busy lately. I'm working on something special at the moment and it's taking up quite a bit of my time. Okay, see you next post!!

Working Holiday Visa!

2008-11-05T22:38:00.000-08:00

So, I just got back from the big town of Vancouver last night. I was applying for my Working Holiday Visa. I'm not sure how exactly it all works... but it seemed like I was going to get it, they just had to process all my info and actually make the visa for me which might take a couple weeks. So they're going to give me a call when it's all ready to go then I'm going to have to go down there again to pick it up.

It was a long weekend though. Highway 97 from Penticton to Kelowna is closed right now so the buses weren't running as often as usual, and were also taking a different route - through Princeton to Hope. I got on the bus at 8:15 Sunday morning and arrived in Vancouver at 5:00pm. REDICULOUS!!! 9 hours?! I couldn't believe how long it took. I was so greatful for the wonders of laptop computers, iPods and Nintendo DS's haha. Without those 3 things I would have gone crazy. Anyway, I went to a nice cafe with wireless internet so I could work on some stuff and get my Visa all ready to go. I got some coffee and a tasty beef wrap. The next morning I had food poisoning -_-' So far it was turning out to be an awesome trip haha.

I got everything done for my Visa though then headed on my way to go drop it off at the office and lo and behold, when I was walking up to the building was my buddy who was already supposed to be in Japan with a Working Holiday Visa. Apparently his Visa came in late and he had to change his flight. Sucks :( So, he came up to the consulate with me and sat as I finished filling out my paper work the he and I walked up to Robson together. He had to meet a friend and so did I so we parted ways and hopefully I'll see him in Japan!!

Food poisoning is a real bummer. I didn't want to eat or drink anything when I was with my friends so it was kinda lame. *sigh* But the rest of the night was alright. I stayed with my old roommates and we talked for a couple hours then played games for a bit then it was sleepy time.

When I woke up I felt a lot better so I walked with my roommate to work and got a wrap since I was pretty hungry, then we got on the skytrain together. We said bye at Stadium Skytrain (where he works) and I headed off to the Greyhound bus depot.

When I got there they told me there was no bus that left at 9:45 to Penticton. WTF!? The lady in Penticton told me specifically that there were only 2 buses... one at 6:15 and one at 9:45. Stupid. So I had to go to Westbank, then catch a bus there down to the "water taxi" then take the "water taxi" to summerland, THEN call for a ride to Penticton. In the end I got home at 8pm. So that was 10 hours and 30 minutes. So sad.

Then I had to work the next day!! (this morning) I ended up sleeping through my alarm somehow but still managed to get to work by about 7:30 thanks to my mom haha. Phew, that was a long weekend.

結構悪いやつだぜ、俺は

2008-11-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

I just started playing a game called "Yakuza 2". I've never played the first one, but it wasn't in stock and I've heard a lot of good things about the series. It's all in Japanese with English subtitles so I figured it would be an awesome game for Japanese practice too. After I started playing I realized it might not be the best game to practice my Japanese since every character in the game are Yakuza and they all talk the part haha. I haven't really learned too much useful Japanese yet. Most of it is all Yakuza (gang) style. But it's an awesome game - I'm really enjoying it. My newest (and apparently completely useless) sentence 「結構悪いやつだぜ、俺は」 "I'm a really bad guy". I know it sounds cheesy in English, but in Japanese it does sound pretty cool and... ちょっとださい if you're not Yakuza I guess lol.

I also just bought a different game called My Japanese Coach which is absolutely amazing!! I would suggest this game to anybody who is studying Japanese whether on their own, in class, or by any other means. This game is definitely not to be used by itself though, but as a compliment to some other meathod of study. It doesn't really go very indepth into grammar or sentence structure (though, it does skim along the surface). It mainly focuses on vocabulary building through small 10 word (usually) lessons packed with an assortment of different minigames like word search, multiple choice, memory games, flash cards, sentence descrambling and a bunch of others. 10 words a day is an ideal amount for anybody to remember and if you do a lesson a day your vocabulary should increase quite fast. It has options to play all the minigames with the words you've already "mastered" as well, but you don't have the choice of which words those are. I would suggest using this game with Anki as help for memorizing those more difficult words. I've been using Anki to enter the words I think might be a little bit more difficult to remember (since Anki remembers which words I remember whereas My Japanese Coach does not). All in all, this is a wonderful study aid, and for $30 it is an invaluable tool for your Japanese.

Revert

2008-10-19T09:33:00.001-07:00

Today I noticed I talk about the future a lot in my blogs. That is going to change. From today forward there will be no (or minimal) future-posts. Way back in the day when I first started posting I talked about all the menial and trivial things of everyday life - I'm going to start doing that again. This is the turning point of my blog! I was getting steadily offtrack, but now I'm back on. For updates on going to Japan I still might make the occasional "future" post but for the most part, trivial and menial. やっぱりつまらないブログだね。 I hope it's not quite so uninteresting as I might make it sound like it's going to be haha. I'll be going back to my roots talking about what I did, what video games I'm playing, which movies I've watched, what TV shows I'm watching, what I'm studying and even the odd purchase I've made. Let me know if the change is for the better (in the next post... possibly later today!)

It's been a while

2008-10-18T16:09:00.001-07:00

Wow, a long while! I got a job doing labour for a landscaping company here in town so I'm getting pretty good exercise everyday :) The pay is pretty decent too, more than I thought I'd be able to get trying to find a job at such short notice. My plans of going to Japan might have been shifted a little bit too. Right now I'm deciding between late November/early December or sometime in February haha. Hime said she would come visit Canada again if I was still here in February so I guess we'll see. I haven't decided on anything yet but I'm going to have to pretty quick. I know I always say I'll update again soon and I don't... But I hope to update again soon haha. Next month is Hime and my 2 year anniversary! Time goes by like *that*!! Well, 'till next post.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of updates!

A job?

2008-09-28T23:20:00.001-07:00

I need a job now that I'm back in Canada. I need to save up a little bit more money before I go back to Japan. Sounds easy... but is it??? I'm a slave to procrastination and for some reason I procrastinate MORE when I'm in Canada. wtf eh? Anyway, so that's where it stands. I also need to get my act together with level designing.

If you don't know, I have a website with some of my school stuff on it at www.bquaal.com but nothing is recent and I haven't really done much level designing at all since I graudated!! I taught myself the basics of Hammer but nothing came of that. I learned it then never actually made a level. Lame. So anyway, I went to EB the other day and picked me up a copy of Unreal Tournament 3 (which includes the wonderful Unreal Editor) and so I'm off to learn the UT3 editor. It's mostly the same as UT2 just 100x better in every respect. Of course it still crashes and UnrealEd3 has some buttons and menu options that really do NOTHING what-so-ever (they even explain that the buttons are completely useless and have no functionality in the tutorial vidoes) but, it's a way smarter editor. I'm liking it. I've got through the interface and kismet (introduction) and am learning particles. I already have level ideas so lets hope I can bring some to fruition and get back on track with my life as a level designer.

Now, I would like to teach English in Japan... but if it were possible, I would much rather make video games there. I just need to learn Japanese first!! If I get anything together for levels I'll be sure to update here and add it on to my website. But we'll see. I'm sorry this post is all kinda garbled together with no flow or reason to it. I'm sort of rambling haha. I just wanted to throw out an update of where I am: I need a job!! Tomorrow is Monday, time to turn over a new leaf. See you on the flip side!

Canada

2008-09-22T16:01:00.000-07:00

So here I am again. Back in Canada. For some reason I find it so much harder to blog when I'm in Canada and I'm not really sure why haha. I think part of it had to do with the convenience of being able to blog from my phone in Japan. So I could write while I was waiting for the Subway (or riding the subway) or any number of things.

Anyway, So I'm back for a while. Right now I'm a little hurting for money so I think I'll have to work for a monthish before I go back (lame eh?) And I'm going to have to go to Vancouver to get my working holiday visa. For some reason you have to apply IN PERSON. So I can't just mail it to Vancouver, I have to actually take the bus (or drive) there to drop off a sheet of paper, then come home. LAME!

Well yeah, so, I don't have too much to say haha. My teachers (from Ai) are in Japan right now having a good time and I'm jelous hehe - good thing facebook is here for me to look at their pictures.

My Japanese is kinda coming along, but not as well as I had hoped. Learning a new language is definitely not something to take lightly I guess (not that I do).

This post is completely random and has no structure lol. My appologies. Please forgive my random story stuff. Anyway, with that said... Before I left Japan I had a sports drink that tasted like fruitloops. IMAGINE THAT!!! I'd say it was disgusting but... fruitloops aren't really that gross so I can't complain too much. My only complaint is that sports drinks should NOT taste like that.

See you next post!!

P.S. I'll be posting something in Japanese soon I think (on my Japanese blog [translated]). I have an interesting story to tell... but I'm saving it for Japanese practice. I'm not sure how interesting English people might find it so I won't bother buahaha. I'll put a link to the post here after I write it - it might take me a while.

Chilly

2008-09-09T12:05:00.001-07:00

Tonight it was chilly for the first time. Anyone who knows me knows I always wear t-shirts. Well tonight after riding my bike 4km home my fingers were a little tingly haha.

This picture btw is of Sapporo Station North Exit(札幌駅の北出口). Pretty eh?

I recently made 2 new friends here in Sapporo. Asuko and Maccha. Both are pretty cool. Asuko Ive only talked to twice but Maccha Ive seen a few times now. We even sang karaoke together! haha. I also met another lady Ive studied with a few times now. Her name is Sachiko. She's really short haha but also pretty cool. Starting in October she's going to be a Japanese language teacher so she'll be able to help me a lot (^o^)v well, time to sleep. Go read the translated version of my other blog for different updates! 日本語のブログもよんでください。

gnight(-_-)zzz

Japanese Blog 日本語のブログ

2008-08-31T07:07:00.000-07:00

Hey so, recently I've been studying a lot and I thought, what better practice than using what I've been learning!! So I've been posting on my Japanese Blog a lot more often (from a few days ago). I will probably be writing things more often on that blog than on this one just because I want to practice (I'm sorry all you English people, but I'll try to post on here sometimes too).

So if you are Japanese, go here to read what's new. It's also set as an RSS feed in the column on the right, under the video. (If you're not Japanese you can view the horribly translated version via google by clicking this link... you've been warned).

僕の日本語のブログはここだよ。読んで頑張ってね☆私にコメントをあげてください～☆どうも！

Street Fighter 4!

2008-08-28T07:26:00.001-07:00

Big flatscreen LCD in the arcade! I beat the game with only one credit too! Its an awesome game too! Im not sure if its out yet but go play it if it is. Or when it comes out, go play.

P.S. this is my first post from my phone... let's see how it works (*^O^*)

Flin Flon

2008-06-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

Last week I took a short drive out to Flin Flon, Manitoba with my dad to visit relatives. I'm going to be moving to Japan at the end of next month so I wanted to see my grandparents, especially, before I left since I'm not sure how long I'll be gone for. On the way out there I took a lot of pictures... But I won't make you suffer through them all. I did find this interesting old house on a hill near the highway though so I snapped a picture of that. Sorry, it's a little overcast but there's not too much I could do about that haha. The picture on the left is of Flin Flon as you're driving in to town through Creighton. You can see the giant smoke stack in the background puffing away 24 hours a day haha. You can see it everywhere you go. Actually I just found out it's the 7th largest building in Canada o_O it's 251.5m that's kinda interesting.

After I got there I went to see my grandparents and they're doing pretty good. I was there for 4 days and visited them 3 so I think I did pretty good haha. We went out for dinner one night too, it was nice. I haven't actually been to Flin Flon since probably 2002 so it was pretty nostalgic to see the city and all the people there. My grandparents have moved from their house I remember to a retirement center but it's a nice place and they seem pretty happy where they are :) Especially my grandpa, he kept bragging they have one of the only 2 bedroom places haha.

After that I spent some time with my uncle and dad fishing from the dock at my uncle's cabin. It was really cold and windy but we actually managed to catch one! Surprising eh? It was pretty fun though, I also haven't gone fishing since the last time I went to Flin Flon so.... like 6 years ago probably. It might have even been longer, I don't really remember. And then my aunt and I went to a club and ended up drinking quite a bit together haha. It was a pretty fun night. We were swing dancing together making fools of ourselves probably. Everyone else was grinding away around us and we were bumping into them spinning around and whatnot. I think we probably took up a quarter of the dance floor for the most part. Most people moved out of the way haha. I don't have any pictures of that though, I didn't bring my camera =/

Well after all the fun in Flin Flon it was time to head out. We stopped at a few places on the way home so I have a couple pictures to share. But first, I found where Bill Gates took his picture for Windows XP haha. That's not from Saskatchewan suprisingly, it is just out of Drumheller on the way to Calgary ^_^ Then it was off to BC!!

Our first stop was Drumheller (which is before the previous picture hehe oops). Anyway, I got my picture taken with a giant freakin' dinosaur. This thing is gigantic!! You'll probably have to click on it then find me standing on it's toe before you really notice the sheer size of this thing. I was blown away haha. For a little reference I'm 6' tall or 183cm (I'm a little taller than it's toe).

Then off to Banff to the Banff Springs Hotel for a bite to eat for lunch. Now that hotel.... is a nice hotel. It's like an old castle turned into a hotel. It's amazing and the architecture is beautiful. It's one of those places you just want to go explore for hours and hours until you get lost and have to explore your way back. The food there was a little pricey, but it was good. And it's not too often I get the chance to go eat there anyway haha. It ended up being a little over $50 for 2 sandwiches and 2 coffees haha. But what can you do right? The view was awesome. I took that picture from my seat (we sat on the patio). I just turned to the left and pointed my camera over the railing. I didn't even need to stand up haha.

After that it was a short drive to Lake Louise to see what they had to see. We didn't stay long (it started to rain) but it was pretty neat place too. I'd say Banff is much more interesting, especially since there's a city nearby and stuff to do, but I guess some people might disagree ^_^ It was nice all the same though. Other than that, it was a short drive back to Penticton so nothing interesting to report there haha.

First day on the job

2008-05-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

Last night my brother drove me down to Princeton to start my new job this morning. It was an early start and a tiring day.

This is the first time I've done any real physical labour for any extended period of time and wow it's tough. I'm a Diamond Drill Helper. Only 2 people work a shift together. I'm actually working with my dad so it's pretty cool. He's the driller and I'm the helper. He does all the pressing buttons, pulling levers, fixing, and everything to do with running the drill in general. My job is to move everything around the drill so he can do his job as fast as possible (we get bonuses by meter drilled).

So, I'm tired. Totally pooped. I didn't even do all the work today - there's a second helper teaching me all the ins and outs today and tomorrow so, come Monday, I'll be in rough shape probably haha. I enjoy it though. It's really repetitive but I'll get the hang of it. I guess I'll have to eh haha.

Unfortunately I don't have my camera so I won't be able to upload any pictures for a few days but I'll be getting it on Saturday so check for some pictures around Monday or Tuesday probably.

I'll keep studying Japanese out here at night too when I'm not writing my blog (I don't have much time from when I get home to when I want to sleep). I get back here at about 7pm then have to eat dinner so that's about 7:30ish? And 10 is probably about the latest I want to sleep haha. So that doesn't leave too much time, but it'll be enough. Also, to any of my friends in Penticton, sorry I wasn't able to hang out before I left - it was kinda short notice ^_^

While I've Been Home

2008-05-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

Nothing too amazing has happened but I'll attempt to highlight the interesting... or mildly interesting.

It all started out with a near-finished retirement home going up in flames on the 7th of April. This fire was started around dinner time and wow did it go up fast. The entire construction site was covered in wood and the building was, also, entirely made of wood. As you might have guessed already, it was found to be arson. Three teenagers deemed to be the culprits were arrested at the scene but only one's name was given out in the morning paper (due to the criminals' age). Damn kids nowadays eh.

A week later I expanded the garden in my mom's front yard so it would look nicer and would be easier to mow the grass. My sister and I dug out all the grass around it and dumped it into a big pile. I ended up getting pretty dirty. In the end we ended up with 850kg of sod (grass and dirt) we had to lug up to the dump. We were planning on putting down some wood chips the next day when BAM it snowed 10cm overnight. What in the hell? The past few days had been gorgeous! The average temperature was around 16 and it had even got to 22 the weekend before. Now it was -1. Good ol' Penticton - never ceases to amaze me.

My brother arrived home from College and I gave him the some of the souvenirs Hime had bought him in Japan when I was there. Most of it were random different candies and sweets. One of them being a strange honey-looking candy you have to spin up on sticks and then eat after it gets thick and full of bubbles. It's a pretty strange candy but they (my brother and sister) had a lot of fun with it.

On April 27th I went to hang out with a few of my friends I hadn't seen in a long time. We went out for dinner at Anthony's (I think), had some food and a drink then came back to my place to play video games. We played Guitar Hero III, then switched over to the classic SNES and dusted off Mortal Kombat II and Street Fighter II Turbo haha. It was a pretty fun night. It ended a little prematurely but everyone was tired and one of the guys had to work early the next morning so we called it a night.

We decided to give our dogs a bit of a grooming on the 29th because they were getting pretty scruffy haha. Hallie got the nicest job of them all - we thought it would be cool to give her a lion mane and a mohawk down her back haha. It turned out alright. We just didn't shave off anything around her head and we left a strip on her back about half way down. For all those who think this is animal cruelty - I assure you she is completely content with losing as much fur as she can since it's starting to get warm. And we're bringing them to the groomers soon anyway. And she likes her mohawk! ^_^

Yesterday I attended a Japanese Tea ceremony in Penticton at the Japanese Gardens we have here. It was pretty neat. They had one girl from Osaka that flew over here to be here for the ceremony (she doesn't actually live here) I was pretty surprised haha. I believe her name was Mutsuko. She sat there all alone on that mat waiting for water to boil and then meticulously adding and stiring the maccha. Very interesting - I don't think I'd be able to sit there that long. Atsuko was the one playing the instrument. I didn't get to hear her play much since I forgot my camera at home and had to go get it but from what I heard it was also really nice. It was a beautiful day to have a Tea Ceremony. I'm so glad I was able to go.

Return to Canada

2008-03-18T14:41:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Japan! Home of the rising sun and the love of my life. Some day I'll be sure to return ^_^ I still don't feel like I've left. These pictures I took on my way to Narita airport.

Well I've been back since the 6th and though it's nice to be back I really miss Japan and my girlfriend. Today, we've been together for 16 months. Sadly, we're not able to spend it together. It'll be that way until I go back to Japan which will probably be in July or August. It all depends on my money situation and how soon I can find a job in Japan and get a work Visa.

This is the last picture we took together in the airport before I had to go through customs. So sad :( I made a video of what I did in Japan but I'll have to get her permission before I post in on here ^_^ Maybe I'll put it up next blog post if I get the go-ahead.

Recently I've been studying Japanese a lot since there's not really much else to do here in Penticton and I need the practice. I think I'm getting a little bit better but I still can't carry on a conversation with any sort of competence. Compare it to French-class conversations in Grade 8: "How are you?" "I'm good, and you?" "I'm good also". Stuff like that haha. But for practice I've started a Japanese blog so I'll be trying to translate these posts into Japanese after I write them in English. If you can read Japanese and notice any problems, send me an email or comment on the post and let me know! :)

When I travel to Japan next time I also hope to travel a little bit to see my friends Ayane (彩音さん), Kenji （けんじさん), Ming (フラミンゴさん） and Ryu (隆). Most of them live in Osaka (I think) except for Ryu haha. ^_^

If you want to see some information on Penticton you can go here and read some. It's also the sister city of Ikeda (池田町) in Hokkaido, Japan (click the Japanese name for the Japanese website). One day I want to visit Ikeda also ^_^ If you know someone who's coming to Canada, tell them to visit Penticton =D It's a beautiful place if you like the countryside.

お祖父さん、どうもありがとう

2008-03-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

Today my gf's grandfather presented me with a beautiful carved wooden bear. He wrote me a message under the wood on the bottom which I'd love to put on here but it has personal information so I can't. His writing is incredibly neat and looks so cool. When I come back to Japan I will bring him something similar from Canada. He wanted me to remember Hokkaido from this bear since bears are famous in Hokkaido.

I Lost Takoyaki

2008-03-02T18:13:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure how, but suddenly it was gone. I'll start from the beginning:

Yesterday hime and I went to Sapporo together to go shopping for souvenirs together and to enjoy our last trip there before I left but it turned out to be quite an unlucky day. Mr Murphy followed us everywhere.

In the morning she asked her dad for a ride since he was going somewhat in the general direction of the train station and her mother complained we are too dependant on them jokingly. It was the start - we felt not so good but it was already too late so we got a ride from her dad. In the car my gf noticed she had forgot her watch and bracelet so she was pretty upset since we needed to use her cellphone for the time for the rest of the day (but, whatever, right?). So it was all good after that. We went to the station and with moments to spare ran to board the train *phew*.

We chitchatted for a while (an hour and 1/2) and then we arrived in Sapporo. Time to find souvenirs. We went for food first though and it was pretty tasty. We went to a really small rice restaurant. Apparently it used to only be inside massage parlors since it's a healthy restaurant but it's popularity grew and people wanted a stand-alone one... so it was made! And that's where we went. After we left we went to get some souvenirs haha.

During our hunt downtown I made a couple videos and took some pictures of Sunday in Sapporo - it was a lot busier than the last time we came but still not so crowded. And then I saw it!!　ウサギちゃん came back to me! One time in Asahikawa I saw a bunny girl and I wanted to take a picture but I didn't think it would be very prudent but now I had found one on the other side of the street. I could take a picture without her ever knowing. Bunny girls (it's just my name for them - they don't actually wear ears or something. I just think they look like bunnies) are kinda rare I think. Most girls dress kinda weird but not very many dress like the girl in the picture. We visited a mall that was full of ギャル (gyaru) (image image) it was pretty fun but I really don't know how these girls can go outside dressed how they do but well... culture is culture I guess, and fashion is fashion.

So we bought souvenirs and then ate giant parfaits and a nice dessert restaurant. They were really good and super filling (and also they looked really nice) haha. A little on the expensive side, but it's just one time so that's fine. Just look at it! Doesn't it make you want to eat it? I know I wouldn't mind another =D Mine was ８００円 and hers was ７８０円 I beleive... more expensive than our lunch (around $15 total) but it came with a complimentary drink which is awesome since their drinks are also expensive. If we had ordered a drink seperately it would have been.. ３８０円 for my coffee (which is $3.50) and about the same for her tea. So it kinda makes it feel like it's worth it.

Anyway, after we finished our parfaits we went to go play some medal games (as usual) but we had really bad luck. (the pictures on the right are of downtown Sapporo at night - on our way to get parfaits. Same intersection looking different directions) We stocked up a couple times since we kept running out of metals. I kept saying "if we keep going, we'll have to get lucky sooner or later" (I'm the optimist in our relationship haha) but we never seemed to get lucky. There's sort of a "roulette wheel" in the middle of the game where you play "bingo" and not very often you get the chance to "spin the wheel" I guess... but 5 out of the 6 first times we did it we got the number 9. Every freakin' time! What are the odds!? Seriously!? Anyway - I'm stubborn so I didn't want to quit. Which is good because eventually we started to win and we won a lot. We won back just about all the money we spent (in metals though) so we put them into the "bank" and left. Actually her brother wanted to play pool together and Round 1 so we had to hurry home. He said "either's fine" (we come home soon or stay out) but we thought we could go home soon and play.

We stopped to buy takoyaki and then it was off to the train station. One of the subway stations is named "Pole Town"... I'm not sure who had the idea to name it such but I found it pretty hilarious. In any case, we had to take the subway because we'd miss the train if we didn't.. but we missed our stop on the subway, instead, and had to go back one stop. When we got off my gf noticed she didn't have her ticket any more either so we had to talk to the security who, luckily, let us past without having to pay extra. But all that hassle ended up causing us to miss the train by about 10 minutes so we had to wait another hour -_-' We checked the sign and it said the next train wouldn't be until 9:20 so we decided to do some more souvenir shopping. at 8:50 I said we should go back so we started on our way back. We got to the boarding station at 8:55 and the giant sign that shows the times said 9:00 so we ran.

The train was packed and sadly there were no empty seats so we had to stand between 2 trains where it was cold *lame*. After a few minutes we decided to eat our takoyaki because we were hungry and it was probably still kinda warm. But... it was gone!! We lost our takoyaki. It was in a plastic bag that I was holding. I was also holding a bag full of garbage and all our souvenirs but somehow the bag with takoyaki in it was missing. We tried to figure out where it could be - where we could have left it but I noticed something... After we bought it we never stopped and I never put the bags down. I held all 3 from when we bought it until when we boarded the train. The mystery of the missing takoyaki. My gf was angry - takoyaki is her favorite food and this takoyaki in particular is her favorite takoyaki - it's kinda expensive too. ５００円 for one takoyaki boat (8 peices). No seats and no takoyaki *sigh*. After about an hour we finally got seats and we were able to sit for about 20 minutes haha. Then we arrived in Asahikawa.

Hime emailed her mom to say we arrived but she said her brother just got home. Apparently he had been waiting at the station for us since he knew there was no 9:20 train so he had no idea when we would get there. We felt pretty bad so we decided to take the bus. We walked down to the bus station. It was 10:20 - the bus left at 10:15 and the next one was 11:00. Missed by just a few minutes again!! We decided to walk to the spa her dad goes to since he was there at the time. We hoped we could get a ride. Luckily he hadn't left yet so we got a ride home with him and she explained our whole day to him and he laughed haha.

Today I Felt Famous

2008-03-01T00:14:00.000-08:00

So, today turned into one of the most interesting experiences I've had since coming to Japan. My gf and I walked to the nearby library to study a little bit this afternoon in a relaxing, quiet place. Recently, we go to the library to study quite often. Either the one near her place or the large Asahikawa Central library downtown. The one near her house is beside a Junior Highschool (age 13-15) so quite often we see students in the window who point at us as we walk by. It's both embarassing and flattering - even though I know the only reason they do it is because i'm 外人 (gaijin - foreign). But today was different.

At around 4:30 I was hungry - I had brought a pudding to eat because I knew I'd get hungry during studying, so I figured I'd eat it now. Outside the "study room" - the place where you're allowed to eat - there was a really stinky おたく guy who was reading Dragonball Z. He looked at me funny (gazed would probably be a better way to describe it) when we first entered the library so I wasn't so inclined to sit by him. I decided I'd just go outside to eat it. It's small so I wouldn't be too cold (at the time I just had a t-shirt on).

So I went outside to eat and was enjoying my pudding in the cold when a short おばさん (middle aged lady) came out and talked to me. 「さむくない？」 (are you cold) she asked me. I answered and we attempted to have a conversation in Japanese. She had a lot of questions from where was I from, what was I doing in Japan, where was I staying, what did I do in Canada, how old I was etc etc. It was a pretty good opportunity to practice my Japanese. Once the conversation started to get a little too difficult one of the employees of the library came out and apparently she speaks english! So the 3 of us started talking - she went to Canada and visited Edmonton and Iqualit? Nunavit? Something like that. She went cariboo hunting and stuff - so cool!

Then I heard a lot of 「外人外人」 from inside the school. There was a huge group of junior highschool students leaving the school and they were all looking at me. Being white in Japan is sometimes quite discomforting. They all walked out of the school and I attempted to keep the conversation going with the 2 girls I was originally talking to but the kids were so noisy. Suddenly one of them said "Hello" to me and stepped foreward (must be the brave one). I replied with a nice "Hi". She thought about her next sentence for a little while then tried a "Are you cold?" I tried to keep my sentence as simple as possible so I said "I'm not cold" but she looked pretty confused so I repeated "not cold" then she said 「なっと？」 (natto is fermented soy beans) - all of her other classmates burst out laughing and I tried to save her from being too embarassed by saying 「さむくない」 which resulted in a pretty resounding 「すげっ！」 (wow) and some whispered 「日本語を喋って」 (he spoke japanese). At this point I was pretty embarassed myself. The two girls I was talking to before decided they would leave and I thought I should do the same. I said bye to them and was about to say bye to the young girl I was talking to but she offered me a hand and said "nice to meet you" so I said "nice to meet you too" then went back into the library.

The library closed about 15 minutes later - I had explained the story to my gf inside the library. During the walk home we found a small group of about 6 girls that had been outside the school just minutes earlier. They were on the other side of the street and all waved at me. I waved back and started laughing. They all started a hushed conversation (since now I was with my gf). For me, I couldn't really understand anything so I just smiled and waved, but my gf didn't really like what they were talking about.. or more how they said it (in japanese there are levels of politeness and they weren't being polite) haha. They seemed quite concerned that I was laughing. My gf explained later that "are they laughing at us?" was the main point of their discussion haha.

I don't think I'll be able to experience this kind of stuff again since when I come back to Japan I'll be living in a bigger city, where foreign people are a little more commonplace. So for now I'll cherish this memory hahaha =D

Sapporo

2008-02-27T17:13:00.000-08:00

The other day we went to Sapporo because I decided to go back to Canada earlier than I had expected and I had to speak to JAL to change my ticket and pay a little money. I'll be coming back to Canada on March 6th now (and no, we didn't break up so don't have to worry). The picture on the right is out of the train window on the way to Sapporo - I have no idea which city it is.

But before we left for Sapporo we went to the speediest noodle restaurant ever. You order your food, instead of from a menu, from, what looks like, a vending machine, at the front of the store. It prints you out a receipt, you hand it to the waitress that is running around like a crazy girl, and within minutes you have your food. My gf and her brother got their food mere moments after we found a seat and sat down. I was really suprised. It puts McDonalds to shame in every respect. It's faster, tastier, healthier, more filling, cleaner, employees are more friendly, and the price is almost the same (a "combo" I guess it would be referred to as, is about $7.00 - What I ordered was $4.50 and I was pretty full after). Iced green tea is a complimentary drink for every customer so you don't have to worry about buying a drink either.

Sapporo is a really nice city and it's downtown really feels like Japan - much more than Asahikawa. Sapporo is somewhat similar to Vancouver population wise but is more crowded. In the picture it doesn't look very crowded but I think it's mainly because it was snowing like crazy and windy to boot. Chilly chilly. But check out the cross-walks! Notice how they crisscross all over the intersection. In Japan pedestrians all walk at the same time at busy intersections and cars wait. It's kinda neat.

Japan is really... unnerving. There are call girls everywhere and advertisements for them posted all around the place. In Japan, they say "T-Back" for "G-String" so you can try reading this advertisement on the left and see if you can guess what they're trying to say. There are Japanese/English advertisements and signs everywhere also - most often they have some kind of spelling mistake or the grammar just doesn't make sense haha. Actually... I was just watching TV and found out that the highest paid "Hostesses", as they call them in Japan, get paid upwards of $10,000 a month. The highest they had on the show is paid $30,000 a month which is $360,000 a year. It kinda makes me sad that these girls, whose only job is to talk to desperate guys, have a higher salary than almost everyone who has gone to school for years and years and has, what we think, a high paying job. I'm happy this sort of work is illegal in Canada. Actually there are "Hosts" in Japan also - and you guessed it, they're males who chat to girls for a fee. Weird eh? Whatever happened to meeting people on your own? In Japan you can just buy temporary friends - saves the trouble of making real friends haha.

But besides that, Sapporo is really pretty. We changed my flight time first and then we went to this giant covered stripmall. It's 7 blocks long and has shops along both sides the entire way. Cars can't drive either - just for walking. But each block there is a cross street which cars drive along. Also each block is numbered so its easier to figure out which "mall" your favorite shops are in. First we went to sing some karaoke, as usual haha. The place we went to had a beautiful entrance but the rooms were cramped and kinda old. Also one of the microphones smelled so disgusting we couldn't even sing with it. But it was fun none-the-less =D We stayed for about 2 hours and then it was off to find something to eat. Actually we got sidetracked by an arcade and decided to play some medal games since they're so fun. They had our favorite machine but we weren't so lucky that day and our medals were depleted a lot sooner than usual but I finally have a picture of a giant medal machine!! hahaha (because I know all of you are so interested in it -_-'). There are... 12 stations I think? or 16? I can't remember. And there's a giant rotating screen in the middle and there's balls all over the place and metals flying this way and that and music and lions dancing and pounding numbers which creates more flying metals and balls. It's really fun.

For dinner we went to an "all you can eat" bbq. Each table has a hot plate in the middle of it which is used to fry your food! Who would have thought =D The table was pretty small though... so it was difficult to eat haha - but tasty! and cheap. It was １５００円 per person for all you can eat with no time limit. We ate our fair share. Both of us were pretty stuffed before we even finished our food. I wanted to drink beer for some reason so I ordered a beer. There were 3 sizes to choose from. Small, medium and large. I thought large would be fine - that it wouldn't be large... but I was wrong. I've never seen such a big mug before... nor so much beer in anything except a pitcher. I know in the picture it doesn't look that big, but trust me - it is. Compare it to my hand or to your hand. It's about 3 fists high. Make a fist, put it on the table. Make another fist and put it on top of your first. Now move your bottom one above the 2nd one and there you have it (it's about the height of a pitcher of beer).

Otaru & 15 Months

2008-02-18T17:20:00.000-08:00

Two days ago my gf, her family and I went to Otaru to do a little sight seeing and pick up some seafood. It was a pretty cool place. The area we visited was, I think, one of the main tourist places. Most of the buildings looked so old and some were definitely historic or semi-historic at least. There was one restaurant/bar that was in an old train station. Down the middle of the building there was a hallway from one end to the other of the building with train tracks running along it and to one side there was a beautiful restaurant and to the other, a bar. Probably half of the shops were souvenir stores. Some of them were really cool. I bought some souvenirs for some of my family and friends and a couple for myself. I bought a "Kiki's Delivery Service" card holder. It's really cute and it's one of my favorite Miyazaki movies so I thought it would be a good souvenir.

My gf and I bought a 2 peice magnetic keychain with a guy's face and a girls face kissing haha. It's so cute. I think I'll bring back the girl side to Canada with me and she'll keep the guy's. And then we bought these little gems that were quite expensive. I chose 白 and my gf chose 緑色. Every color has a meaning and mine's kinda... everything. I guess they ran out of ideas or something. My color is supposed to adapt to the wearer's feelings or problems to fix them I guess. My gf's color, green, is supposed to help build a big heart and help with money I believe. They're kinda interesting... but expensive. For the 2 of them it was １７０００円 o_O but well, it's our anniversary so what can you do right? haha.

We also bought the most expensive chocolates I've ever seen hahaha. We only bought 2 because well... it was too expensive to buy more. Each peice of chocolate was ２４０円 so for 2 peices it was almost $5. We got a tiny little bag with pretty tape though. But sadly the chocolates weren't all that amazing. Sure, they were tasty, but what $5 chocolate isn't going to be tasty right? I wouldn't say it was worth $5, but maybe if I meet a chocolate fanatic I can tell them I ate Le Tao chocolate and they'll be impressed... if they know it hahaha. I believe it's only a small Japanese company since it doesn't have a link on Wikipedia and google only brings back results of Japan... Otaru specifically. It was good though.

Yesterday was our real anniversary day so we went downtown. We wanted to go for dinner but it was too early at the time so we went to an arcade to play some "metal" games. I took a picture of the one we played today the most. At this arcade there weren't really any interesting ones or big fancy ones so we decided on a cute little one that had a lot of minigames. It was really loud though and started to give us a headache after a while even with our scarfs stuffed infront of the speakers. We moved to a new one after a while but our coins disappeared pretty quick and we left haha.

We found what looked like a nice Izakaya and went in to eat. It was pretty good but nothing amazing. After dinner we went for some karaoke. I'm really starting to enjoy karaoke a lot. Maybe my singing is improving even! Still terrible, but now only... kinda terrible - I hope haha. I've been trying to sing some Japanese songs but it's hard to read Japanese so fast. But I'll keep trying =D so far my favorite song is 胸がドキドキ from the anime Detective Conan. It's fun to sing and I know the tune ^_^ Karaoke in Japan is much nicer than in Canada, as I've said before, but I have a picture to prove it now haha. In this room that we were in yesterday it's $3/h during the day and... $6/h at night. There's big flatscreen LCD TV and the karaoke machine has pretty lights (I know, completely useless, but if you like Apple computers you'll appreciate the pretty stuff like completely useless lights). You choose songs by 2 remote control LCD touch screen displays. Both English and Japanese interfaces (and Chinese too I believe... but I've never investigated the chinese button) and best of all... 2 large Bose speakers which pump out gorgeous karaoke sound. Actually the Bose speakers are kinda a pain because you realize how terrible you really are since you can't blame your terrible singing on sound quality hahaha.

Round 1 & Valentines

2008-02-15T22:50:00.000-08:00

Round 1 is an arcade kind of place that has all sorts of stuff in it. You pay $15 and you get to stay for 3 hours and do whatever you want. They have a Tennis court, curling, batting cages, pitching practice, minigolf, volleyball, badminton, soccer, bowling, mini bowling, billiards, fishing and basketball for sports. Also there are massage chairs, manga, karaoke, rollerblading, a big arcade you can play as much as you want, a kids area with lots of balls and stuff and one of those electronic "bulls" which is in the background of the picture to the right. It's really cool. Fantastic idea and tonns of fun. For $15 you can't go wrong.

I went there one time with my gf and her brother and a few days ago I went again with her and her friend Kawa. After we played sports for a while we went to the kids area to check it out and were pleasantly suprised. There were 2 different small rooms full of balloons and fans. One had a tonn of small balloons and one had a bunch of giant balloons. The giant balloon room was a lot of fun so we took some pictures in there, as you might have noticed above ^_^. After, we went up a bunch of stairs and took a slide down into the "kids area"... and it was really staticy. I went down a big spiral-ey one first and I could see lightning bolts flying off my shoulders to the slide. It was also fairly noisy. The two girls didn't seem too inclined on going down the slide after that but I managed to convince them to go down the shorter, straight slide. My gf went first with the same result. She touched a metal railing at the bottom and got zapped pretty good haha. Her friend, I think, was a little more cautious about the railing but was overly cautious of the slide. She hugged herself and flew down it like no tomorrow, slamming into a padded wall at the bottom hahaha. The whole area was pretty full of static. We climbed through a little maze-like contraption which had metal bolts in it... 危ない。 My gf got zapped again from the bolts.

And then there were tricylces... It's been a long time since I tricylced, that's for sure. It was a tonn of fun too. We were there at around 11pm or 12pm so there were no kids so we had the whole place to ourselves haha. There was a path around the "kid area" for the trikes so we went around a couple times. It was pretty difficult for me to petal though - I think I'm a little too tall. My gf and her friend had some troubles too but they managed it easier than I, I think. Those are the massage chairs in the background of the picture of my gf and her friend. After we triked for a while we sat down to relax for a few minutes there.

We played some arcade games but didn't have very much time so we decided on a game of mini-bowling before we left. Almost every time my gf wins at bowling but for some reason today just wasn't her day. It was pretty fun though. The whole night was pretty fun. Canada should get a Round 1. I have no idea why it doesn't actually. I bet it would make a tonn of money. I think Canada's problem is they charge too much for everything. If it was cheaper, this stuff would be a lot more popular. Sucks.

For Valentines day my gf and I went to a different arcade and movie theatre and watched 28 weeks later. It was fairly mediocre. Nothing too amazing or fantastic - it was a little too busy for most of the movie. The action never ceases - never lets up - it gets a little tiring after a while. After that we played some coin games. In Japan they're a tonn of fun. In Canada it's a lot more expensive and the return is almost nil so the fun ends quite soon. We spent $20 and got 240 coins and played for 3 or 4 hours. At one point we had more than doubled our original coin count but in the end, of course, we ran out. Then it was off to Gusto. It's kinda like Denny's but a little bit tastier and a little less oily. Still expensive like Dennys but what can you do. Actually it was really cheap in the end... Actually Gusto paid me to eat there haha. I paid for our dinner with ５０００円 but the girl mistook it for １００００円 and gave me change accordingly. I actually wasn't sure myself who was at fault for a while. I also had a １００００円 bill in my wallet and a day or two previous I had 2 of them in my wallet so I had to do a little detective work to figure it out. At the time her mom was waiting for us so we had to hurry out so after we were in the car I started asking questions. I figured out that I, had, indeed, given her ５０００円.. Our dinner was ２７００円 so she gave me ７３００円 change for the ５０００円 I had given her. So in the end she more or less gave me ２３００円 to eat there which is roughly $22CAD. I feel really bad.. their register is going to be pretty off and we were already too far away to go back (it's nowhere near where she lives). Maybe some day we'll go back and buy a lot of food to kinda make up for it... or something.

What makes me happy

2008-02-10T17:20:00.000-08:00

In no particular order, here are 10 things that make me happy:

1. My girlfriend
2. My Family
3. Helping people (especially if they don't know I'm helping)
4. Eating
5. Talking to and hanging out with friends
6. Speaking a different language
7. Reading
8. Learning something new
9. Remembering happy memories
10. Snow (pretty, dry snow)

I got this from here, where I go to read when I can find free time. If you have a little spare time, fill this out too ^_^ they're kind of interesting to read.

Also, read my previous post if you haven't already. It's actually new stuff I've written about.

A Winter Wonderland

2008-02-08T03:05:00.000-08:00

I've done a lot since coming here and I've almost assuredly forgot some things but I'll try to recap as best I can. I've been trying to take pictures but I keep forgetting my camera or else I'm enjoying myself too much to remember. In any case, I've captured some moments on camera. I hope it will suffice for now.

I'll start off with the weather. It's cold here, as I've mentioned in my last post, but I don't think I put a picture... maybe I did but whatever, here's a picture of near my gf's place. We were walking to the grocery store at the time. There's snow piled everywhere!! It's great. It really makes me want to go jump in the snow like when I was a kid. It's cold but not unbearably cold. Sometimes my nose gets kinda frozen but that's about it. Nothing to complain about =D

Downtown Asahikawa 旭川 is pretty interesting too. I've only been on a couple of the streets but there's a main street meant for walking only. There's walking paths on both sides and the street in the middle is also for walking... does that make sense? Probably not. Actually the picture on the right is a picture of a different street... so maybe forget what I said until a little bit later. It's nice though. Inside this small mall there is a giant statue of the castle from Howl's Moving Castle. In Canada I would never have expected to see this kind of display but in Japan I don't see it as out of place - just cool. Actually the place that it's in is just about deserted. There's 2 restaurants, a place where you can buy bus tickets.. and that's all I've seen haha. So I'm not really sure why they chose here to put this piece. Maybe it's cheaper to keep it here or something. In any case, I'm not complaining. It's cool.

The other day my gf and I went to the Asahiyama Zoo (In Asahikawa). Apparently it's pretty famous in Japan - one of the most famous I think. And for good reason... it was really cool!! They had so many interesting animals I had never actually seen before. Like penguins!! and lots of them too. Some were swimming, some were running around, some were getting ready for the daily "penguin walk". It was really a pretty interesting thing to see. The walk way through the penguins "area" went underground and under the water that they swim in so I took a few pictures from underwater.

Then there was a tiger!! At least I think it's a tiger... If it's not please leave me a message and let me know what it is haha. Well, whatever it was, it was pretty neat to see in person. To be honest it was one of the most boring animals we saw in the zoo. It walked around in circles the entire time we watched it. Hardly interesting. We tried to take a picture with it behind us but it didn't really work out... you can only see a really small part of its back between our shoulders haha. So I won't put that picture on here.

And polar bears!!! Now that is something I thought I would never see. Penguins.. I thought it possible, but not polar bears. They're a lot bigger than I expected they would be.. and a lot tougher looking. There's two polar bears at this zoo and both of them have a lot of scars - one a lot more than the other though. Sadly neither went swimming while I was taking pictures but I still snapped a few good ones. I'll post up one to see.

We went to visit chimpanzees and orangatangs. Here's a picture of Hime saying hello to one of the chimpanzees who came to visit us and the little kid beside her. Don't worry, we let the kid say hello first before we took pictures ^_^ We didn't have very much time so we had to leave soon after that. We're going to visit again sometime. I want to watch the penguin parade. Actually we had planned on watching it but we ended up getting pushed back from the front and we had to wait another 15 minutes for it to start so we gave up since we were on a tight schedule. There's a picture of all the people lined up waiting to watch it. Actually, the reason I took this picture is because the view was nice and there was a giant ferris wheel haha.

After the Zoo we went downtown and found the ice sculptures had been started. There were sooo many sculptures and soo many people working on them. It was on the street I mentioned earlier in this post. All these sculptures are in the middle "walk way" or whatever you might call it on snow pedestals. Some of them are amazingly beautiful. We got downtown at around 4:30 so the sun hadn't gone down and I was able to take 1 picture with the sun up. All the other pictures I took are after the sun went down and so are kind of dark. I'm not really sure but it seemed to be a 1 day type of competition. At 4:30pm most of the sculptures were really starting to shape up and all my pictures around 6pm-7pm were almost complete. I really want to go down there again soon during the day to take some pictures of the finished peices of work =D

And today for lunch we made Takoyaki. I think I mentioned it in a post a long long time ago... But at the time only Kenji was reading my blog I believe. I really like Takoyaki and Kenji was the one who introduced me to it when we went for dinner and drinks together at an Izakaya restaurant on Davie street in Vancouver. So thank you Kenji for introducing me to Takoyaki ^_^ I'll explain what Takoyaki is. Tako is Octopus and Yaki is "fried" so thus the name. Even though there's a lot more too it and the Octopus itself isn't fried at all haha. First you take the Octopus as seen above and cut it up into small peices that would fit inside a 1 inch ball. Then you heat up your Takoyaki plate (like a hot plate but with half spheres) and mix up your Takoyaki mixture. (Now I know these instructions are useless but I want to explain how anyway) Next, pour the mixture into onto the tray, filling all the half sphere things. Add in some green onions, tempura bits and one peice of tako. Wait for the inside of the sphere to heat up and get.. more or less cooked. Then, using an extra long toothpick (forgive me for not knowing this word haha) spin it around so the previously exposed upper side can also cook. Spin spin spin until it's done. One package of this stuff makes a lot of Takoyaki balls... Like 50 or something. Man, is it ever filling. Her mom and dad ate some but they didn't want many. The last batch (the one I'm making in the picture) we gave to Hime's grandparents to enjoy. Actually It's kinda fun to make them but after you get full you don't really have that... drive to continue making them hahaha.

After we ate we decided we needed to take a walk to try to walk off some of the weight we most assuredly put on during lunch. We walked to the shrine near her place. The vew is amazing. This picture is overlooking the area where she lives. I have no idea which is her house but it's probably in there somewhere haha. I didn't take any pictures of the actual shrine itself because I feel it's kind of rude. But I really like this type of gate they have over everything. The style is absolutely wonderful. It's a little disappointing our culture doesn't have this kind of "style". After we left the shrine we took a different route back to her place that walks over the main road in the above picture. It's also pretty but I wanted to the show the snow piles along the side of the road. It's actually quite difficult to walk side by side along this path due to the snow. In some places it's high enough to brush my elbow while I'm walking. I'm not sure when I'll stop enjoying the snow... probably never ^_^ I really like snow, it's so pretty.

Also... my Japanese is not really coming along as well as I had hoped. I'm still not able to speak Japanese. I'm going to have to redouble my efforts... or more than that haha. I'll try to update this blog often but my first priority is going to be learning Japanese.

Ryu and Ming, I hope you guys are having fun in Vancouver. I really miss it (>_<) we're going to have to hang out in the future some time for sure. Thanks again for coming to the airpot with me ^_^ It really meant a lot =D

First Post From Japan

2008-01-26T15:15:00.000-08:00

In this post I'm going to talk about what I've done so far and not what's different. There are a lot of things that are different so I'll save that for another day =D

My friends Ming and Ryu saw me off from the Vancouver airport in the morning. They both came down with me at 7:30 to say bye. Ryu was even hung over o_O crazy guy haha. It was really nice of them though. I showed them this neat trick you can do with your hand over your eye and we had a good laugh for quite a while doing that hahaha. I'm not sure if I should put the video up... maybe some other time though =D It was pretty sad saying bye to them though since they'll go to Japan before I go back to Canada. Actually almost all my friends in Vancouver I won't be able to see again for a long time so it's pretty sad. I'm really going to miss Vancouver after I get back to Canada. But I'm going to see my Hime and that's what's important now ^_^

When I arrived in Narita (Tokyo's Airport), I was kinda surpised - it's a lot like Vancouver's airport... Except that everyone spoke Japanese. But then again almost everyone spoke enough english to get by also. Twice I had to ask for help. I needed to transfer to a domestic terminal for my flight to Sapporo but I wasn't sure which sign said "Domestic" so I asked the girl at the information desk and she showed me the way. Then I need to call my gf from the payphone and i do know her number but only when calling from Canada so I tried as many possibilities as I could think of involving the area code and prefix (since I wasn't sure which was which) but nothing seemed to work. So I ended up asking one of the employees that happened to be walking past and he explained how to do it　難しい～。 But in the end it was all good. I bought a couple of things in the little shop they had. I was really hungry and thirsty as well so I bought a can of coffee and a rice ball. Sadly the rice ball I chose was one of the only kinds I don't like... but they didn't have any pictures and I wasn't sure what it said hahaha. I guess I'll have to study some more. While waiting for my plane to depart, they had Sumo wrestling on TV in the terminal so I ended up watching that for about 40 minutes I think. The pictures here are of the Domestic terminal in Narita.

After I arrived in Chitose (Sapporo) I got my luggage, which took forever, then went to meet my gf!! Long time no see. At first it felt so different because it had been almost 3 months since I've seen her but after about 30 minutes or so it was right back to the way it had always been. We had to take the train from Chitose to Sapporo and then again to Asahikawa but it was really neat. She had brought me this super tasty bento and we were both pretty hungry so we ate that (it was really good) and she had also bought some neat chocolate. It was like... rice cake and chocolate? I'm not really sure but it was also really good. And then she gave me a DS!! ありがとう私のお姫様ぁ～ It was for our anniversary. She had been working while I was in Canada so she decided she wanted to spend some money on me =D When we got to Sapporo we left the train station and walked around a little bit downtown. Actually I think Sapporo is a much nicer city than Vancouver. I didn't take any pictures while I was there but I'll be sure to take some next time. It was pretty cold and I was pulling my suitcase around everywhere so after walking a little bit we decided to go back to the train station to wait for the train to Asahikawa (where she lives). Actually inside the trainstation was just as cold as outside... It's really weird. A lot of malls and stuff aren't heated inside... But I'll talk about that in my post of "what's different" some other day. In any case we got on the train to Asahikawa and enjoyed it together. When we got off her brother was waiting to pick us up from the train station. I've never met her brother so I was a little bit nervous but it looked like he was also a little bit nervous hahaha. He's really cool - actually I like everyone in her family. They're all so nice. But anyway, when we got home her mom and dad were already sleeping so she showed me where I'd be sleeping and after some talking we went to bed. Long first day eh? =D

Now the following days I don't remember the exact order of what we did but I'll try to remember in the best order as I can so bear with me ^_^ So far I've done a lot here. At least it seems like a lot to me hehe.

We went out for sushi and ate a tonn of different types of sushi. In Canada we have so many kinds of sushi that they don't have in Japan and vice versa so it was cool seeing what they have here. Some of it is pretty "fishy" (no pun intended) but it's still good. After we finished I was stuffed and wouldn't have minded just relaxing but... We were going to the spa. So I went to a spa with her and her parents and it was really interesting. The spa is seperated male/female so it was just her dad and I and I don't speak Japanese so it was an interesting hour and a half together. We got along pretty well though - no major road blocks. Sign language works well and he knows some english words as well so it was all good. I pretty much followed him wherever he went and did what he did. I probably looked kinda weird to everyone else but what can you do right? I gotta learn some way. The spa was really nice. They had this circular shower that blasts you from every angle when you first come in (to make sure you're clean before you go in the water) and then they had so many pools to choose from as well as a shower area for cleaning your body and a hot sauna and a steamroom. The 4 pools they had were all different temperatures. The biggest one was like... luke warm. Like the same temperature as your body or something? It was my favorite. It wasn't warm and it wasn't cold. When you got in the water it felt the same as outside the water, just you're now sitting in water haha. Then they had a cold pool which was really cold. I'm not sure of the temperature but my body started to feel numb after I was in there for more than a minute or two. And there was a jacuzzi style tub - like a hot tub with jets which was also pretty big. It was right in the middle of the room. And there was another hot water pool which was about the same size as the cold one - it was really hot. It was really fun though. I've never been to a spa before so it was interesting to experience it with her family.

I went to meet Hime's grandparents also. They live in the house next door so it's not very far at all. The first time I went over there to meet them, only her grandmother was home so we talked to her for a couple hours but had to go back to hime's place. The next time her grandfather was home and I got to talk to them both... well, through my gf. They're both really sweet too. Her grandfather told me he was a samurai and had a picture of him with a katana. He told me to come back another day and I could try on the clothing he had worn in the picture and I could see his katana also. So fascinating! I accepted his offer ^_^

Then my gf and I went out together downtown to sing some Karaoke and go to Izakaya to drink to our hearts content. Karaoke is so... fancy here. Everything is "fancy" actually. She used her phone to show her membership card and we got to choose what kinda machine and it was on the 3rd floor! Three floors of karaoke! So interesting haha. Actually in Japan it's incredibly cheap as well. In Vancouver it's usually $20 for an hour but here it was ３４０円 or $3.25 for an hour (I think). I had a coffee and my gf had tea, we sang for 2 hours and our total was $12. The quality of the karaoke machine and the room you get to use is all a lot better also. And there's way more songs to choose from - English included. After that we went to Izakaya. Now, in Japan there is "all you can drink" for a certain price at some Izakaya restaurants so we went to one of those. We paid ９８０円 which is about $9.50 for all you can drink for 90 minutes. I had my new favorite drink 梅酒 (Umeshu - sweet plum wine) on the rocks. It's so good!! I think I had 9 drinks before we had to go. We bought a bunch of food as well and it was all really tasty. After that we walked around Asahikawa for a while then walked over to the spa her parents were at so we could grab a ride home from them instead of taking the bus. We had to sit and wait there for almost an hour in the lobby though but it was well worth it haha. It's cold outside.

We went back to her grandparents house the next day to talk to them and we ended up talking Izakaya. He asked me if I was a strong drinker and I said I was kinda mediocre. Then he asked if I'd like to try some shouchu? I'm not sure how to write it actually. It's kinda like Sake. I said "sure, I'll try it" so he poured me a small glass of it (straight) and it wasn't as bad as I expected it. Actually it was kinda tasty. But it was pretty strong. I drank about half the glass and then he asked me if I'd like to try the kind of souchu that he drinks (he drinks a little bit weaker stuff) so I accepted and he poured me a 2nd full glass. He also poured himself a glass. So now I had 2 glasses of it in front of me. I thought "I'll be okay... maybe a little bit intoxicated but I'll be fine" So I continued drinking the strong one first but he refilled my glass for me when I got just a little over half finished haha. The weaker stuff was a little bit better but almost the same taste... just less of a burn. But I wanted to finish the strong first so I could relax a bit more. But it was really strong. I could feel I was getting a little bit drunk. In the end he said I could keep the bottle of Souchu. He said it was from the most southern part of Okiniwa... actually I can't remember the city he said so I'll have to ask Hime but I was pretty suprised. I thanked him a lot and took it back to her place with me. But he had these really tasty peanuts too! They're Japanese peanuts. Usually peanuts are made in China so they're bigger (like probably all the peanuts you've ever eaten) but these peanuts are a little crunchier and longer and skinnier. Like not so big around. Man were they ever tasty.

Hime and I visited her local library here to study. She wanted to study English and I wanted to study Japanese so we sat in the library for quite a while trying to study. She found it really cold in the library for some reason so I told her to wear my jacket. Actually I was wearing a tshirt so I wasn't really sure why she found it so cold... but then again almost everyone still had their jacket on. It was pretty weird hahaha. Also we visitied a DVD store near her place to look at DVD's and stuff. We ended up going into the game area and they had Wii's for sale!! They actually had Wii's in stock! Actually her father really wanted one but they could never find one so Hime bought him a Wii and a game. I also bought him a game as a thank you present for allowing me to stay here in their house. I got him ぷよぷよ (PuyoPuyo) because he really likes puyopuyo according to my gf. He hasn't had time to play puyopuyo yet but yesterday he tried out the minigame game.. I can't remember the name of it though... maybe はじめってWii or something. It's pretty fun too. In Japan Wii sports doesn't come bundled with the Wii though... even though in Canada it's the same price as in Japan. It's kinda stupid. But whatever. Can't complain ^_^.

Just as an end note I'd like to mention the weather. It's absolutely beautiful. It's cold, yes, but it's really nice here. It seems like it's almost always snowing but snow is so pretty! Right now it's -13 so it's kinda cold but what can you do, right? I have a warm jacket so it's all good =D

Also I've probably forgotton some stuff but I plan on writing it on here as I remember. Hopefully I'll have more time from now on to write what I've been doing. And I'll try to take some more pictures too. I think this post is long enough as it is though hahaha ^_^

20th is When I Leave

2008-01-09T01:04:00.000-08:00

It's confirmed. I fly out on the 20th. This morning I woke up, went and picked up my passport and went straight to buy my ticket. I'll be leaving Canada on January the 20th and comin' back home on the 13th of April. I'm pretty excited =D I can't even imagine what it'll be like. Right now it feels like it's all a dream - like I'm not actually going there. It's a pretty amazing feeling. My gf has been at work all day so I haven't been able to share the excitement yet but I think she'll finish soon ^_^

Here's some numbers:

The passport took me about 2 weeks to get. I applied in person and picked it up in person. It cost me $97 I believe (with the $10 pickup charge).
The plane ticket cost me $1057 (incl. tax) for a round trip flying economy on JAL Airlines. It's a flight to Sapporo (In Hokkaido - Northern Japan) so I'll transfer in Narita to Chitose.
Other than that.. no numbers haha. Once I'm in Japan I might be able to give a little more insight but that's it for now.

I'll be moving out of my apartment before I fly off to Japan. I'm moving back home to Penticton so I can save more money and live with my family before permanently moving to Japan later in 2008. I'm kinda sad to say bye to my friends here in Vancouver but well, we'll only be a flight away ^_^ I'm not sure if anybody reads my friend's blogs I've linked on the right (at the moment only 2 update) but Bodhi is who will be moving in. She's mentioned it in her blog too but I thought I'd point that out. She has an interesting blog so go read it if you're looking for more reading material. If you're studying English, also go read it as she uses a lot of interesting grammatical styles that you probably won't find very often.

I'm going to Japan!!

A Man From Earth

2008-01-09T01:00:00.000-08:00

A Man From Earth is a good movie. I watched it because... well mainly because I was bored. The 2nd reason was because it sounded interesting. More-so than most movies that have come out recently. The 3rd reason was because it's free to watch on certain websites. Now, I'm not condoning being a pirate however, on this site you don't actually have to download anything. It's great!! If you can find a movie hosted on Stage6 or S6 for short, you're laughin'. It's DVD quality and streams really fast. Wonderful website - use it while you can. (also the poster for the movie has no relevance to the actual movie itself... so don't be fooled - it's completely different haha)

ANYWAY the movie was really good. It's about this guy who's been around for 14,000 thousand years (or so he claims) and suddenly he just decides to tell his friends about it before he leaves town. The whole movie is situated in his living room (yes I know it sounds boring but bear with me) while he tells his story. His friends are all highly intellectual colleagues of differing professions. It's really well written, filmed and told. Despite it never changing location, it went by quicker than most movies - I was upset it was over so soon. But don't let the drab description I've given it dissuade you from watching it - go watch it because I said it's good. That is... if you like movies that make you think.

Skiing at Apex

2008-01-04T16:34:00.000-08:00

Today my dad, his friend Chris, my sister and I all went up to Apex Ski Resort to go skiing. Well my sister and I were going skiing and my dad and his friend were going to go skating and play some hockey at the rink they have there. The forecast was for snow, moderate winds, and about -5 degrees... It ended up being quite different.

We arrived at about 10 and it was already snowing quite heavily and the wind was blowing pretty hard at 1500m (base elevation). I couldn't imagine what it would be like up the Quick Draw (that lead to the top of the mountain). But after getting some equipment and our passes that's where we were headed. One of the people working at Apex told us that if the winds hit 90km/h at the summit the Quad (Stock) chair would be closed. Meaning more than half the runs would be inaccessible. So we went fast haha.

We got on the chair and started riding it up and damn it was windy. It was really snowing hard and the wind wasn't helping it. My sister and I took cover under our jackets and kept our goggles on the entire time (except when we took pictures). Cold cold. Up at 2100m it was really cold and really windy... and really snowy too! I didn't even bother taking pictures because there was too much snow. The picture of me there is about 1/4 of the way down the mountain on the side that wasn't as windy haha. It was really fun though. After we went down the mountain once we went up the Triple Chair (Stock Chair) which is about 3/4 of the way up. It was also pretty windy but what can you do right? We went down a couple times then packed it in for lunch.

We went to the Apex Mountain Saloon if my memory serves me correctly and had a bite to eat at the restaurant. We took some pictures before ordering anything. My sisters face was just about frozen and mine had condensation all over it hahaha. Anyway, my sister ended up getting poutine and I had the chicken fingers. They were a little on the dry side but still pretty tasty. And anyway, who am I to complain - I'm hungry. The food did take quite a long time to arrive so we didn't tip very much ^_^. Time to head back to the mountain.

After we at lunch we discovered that the Quad had been closed. I guess the winds were above 90km/h now at the summit. Lame -_-' So we continued down to the Triple chair to get a couple more runs in. Overall it was a pretty good day. I haven't been skiing in soo long but it was really fun. I didn't even fall down! Then again we didn't do any black diamonds. BUT Apex blue's are pretty hard too - moguls and stuff.

I took some pictures of the scenery on the way home but none turned out all that well. It was cloudy, we were moving and I'm not a photographer haha. So because of that I'll just put this on picture here. Don't want to bombard you with crappy attempts at scenery photography.

On a side note, I watched I Am Legend last night with my brother. It was a pretty good movie but definitely nothing spectacular. I was really surprised at the ending. I won't spoil anything except the fact that there is almost no falling action. Really weird... There was the climax and then about 30 seconds more of the movie. When it ended my first thought was "that's it?". It doesn't leave it hanging for a sequel.. it just sorta ends haha. It's alright though. I like the idea and I like how it was made.. most of it.

Polar Bear Swim

2008-01-03T14:31:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure who's familiar with a "polar bear swim" so I'll explain it. It's when crazy people run into freezing water in the winter to celebrate New Years. At least that's the definition for Penticton. Other cities might do it differently... but the 'crazy' part still stands haha. This new years afternoon my mom and I went down to watch this strange event. This is the first time it's been hosted in Penticton (It's our centennial year this year). There was quite a big turn out too! Usually it's in Summerland which is about 20 minutes out of town so it isn't so busy. This year there was a lot of people participating and a lot of people that just came down to watch.

The weather was pretty good - it wasn't windy. It wasn't snowing either though which is also good. But it was kinda cold. I think it was probably -2 or something near it. Also, as you can see on the left, the shore was completely frozen. That's a picture of some ice some of the kids that were there broke off before it started. The lake wasn't totally frozen obviously (only a very small part of it was) - but that's enough to keep me from going in haha.

Here's a shot of a bunch of the people getting ready to go in. If you look at the full size picture you might be able to see some people standing in the snow in their bare feet! (refer to my crazy statement) I was really surprised to see so many young girls going in - they'd be the last people I'd expect to go swimming in freezing water. There were also a lot of people in strange costumes too. There's a guy with a blue spiky plastic wig on, some sort of ladybug(?), a santa, some girl who just wanted to look eccentric, a guy in a Hawaiian t-shirt and some others I can't remember that aren't in the photos. Almost all the young girls in the picture were in an out of the water in just a couple seconds (before all the people were even in the water). There's a video of it at the end of this post if you want to check it out.

Also!! When I went to Kelowna a few days ago I found a place I thought was "Bon Appétit" but it was "Bone Appétit" I was a little bit disappointed but It was still interesting enough to take a picture. The reason I found it interesting was because Sam Soon from "My name is Kim Sam Soon" worked at a place called "Bon Appétit" so I wanted a picture of it. So here it is - even if it's not really what it was supposed to be haha.

And here's that video of the Polar bear swim I was talking about. I hope you enjoy it!

Fortune Cookies

2007-12-29T20:11:00.000-08:00

Why do they even make these? Do people actually take to heart what they say? Today I had Chinese food and got pretty lucky when I opened my wonderful fortune cookie. I didn't get 1 fortune... nor even 2! I got three! That's right, three small little pieces of paper with my destiny foretold:

"You would be wise not to seek too much from others, at this time."
"No Obstacles will stand in the way of your success this month."
"An admirer is concealing his affection for you."

Sadly the month is almost over so my success for this month better happen pretty quick. But I personally like the last the most. I'm not gay so I'm not really quite sure where the fortune cookie fairy gets her information but it always keeps you guessing. The first one does have a ring of truth in it though. I really shouldn't ask for so much - which I have been recently. I'll try my best.

New Jacket

2007-12-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

This post is dedicated to my new jacket. Such an exciting topic eh? For me it is! I've finally got a new jacket after many... many years of using the same one. My dad bought it for me as an early birthday gift since I'll be needing one when I'm in Japan. I looked through most of the stores in Penticton and one in Summerland and I wasn't able to find any decent jacket. I found 1 I liked at The Bay but it didn't seem warm enough. Then I thought I found an acceptable one at Mark's Work Wearhouse but the sleeves were way too short. I had planned on going to Kelowna to look for one at some stores there but on our way home from Summerland today, my dad asked if I wanted to take a look at Canadian Tire. I said "sure" and we went inside. Immediately I found 2 jackets I liked - one more than the other. I chose one and tried it on and decided "I like this". I looked at the other one but it wasn't as appealing. I wore it around a bit to see if it was comfortable - it was great. So I decided to get it. Actually I made my dad take a picture of me so I could see it on myself. I thought it looked pretty good too. It's kinda long but whatever. The sleeves are long enough and and its warm. It's a down filled jacket so it should keep me pretty warm. Here's a link to the beige version if you're interested for whatever reason. It's a North 49 jacket from the brand World Famous of Sales. I don't think it's a very big name brand but it's a nice jacket so I'm not complaining.

Weather here is nice though. Today it was positive 1 but the snow stayed on the ground. I love the dry cold. I don't miss Vancouver's weather one bit. The picture above is near my place in Penticton and the one on the right is down mainstreet at the beginning of downtown. So this is a view of Penticton's downtown. Busy, isn't it?

This tasty looking treat is a shrimp dip my mom made to dip crackers in to. I'm not sure exactly how it's made but it has guacamole in it. It's super tasty and I ended up eating quite a bit of it. She made a giant plate of it and it was gone in no-time. I'll have to get the recipe from her and bring it to Japan with me =D (if I can even make it).

Christmas

2007-12-25T23:59:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas everyone!! =D I hope everybody had a good day today. And if you're not Christian then Happy Holidays to you! haha.

This picture is first thing in the morning this morning. 8:30am!! Usually we don't start the Christmas opening until a little bit later I thought but apparently not this year. My brother came down at 8am and turned on the light in my room. After a futile effort of trying to fend off the light I gave in and decided to get up. I went upstairs, had some coffee and then there we are - all ready to open presents. That's my sister, me and my brother from front to back. My brother and I are wearing our TMNT toques that we got in our Christmas stockings.

All in all everyone had a pretty good Christmas, including the dogs as you can see in the picture. They're all fighting over a new toy they got. In the end the big one (spotted) decided it was his and kept it haha.

I got some really nice presents including an Ipod Classic 80gb, FujiFilm A820 8.3MP Digital Camera, a new suitcase for my trip to Japan, GT4, the new Tolkien book, the next book in the series I used to read!! (My sister randomly chose the book thinking I might like it and it just happened to be the next book in the series I was reading. She didn't even know I had any of them), a gift certificate to The Gap, some cash, a t-shirt and some other presents ^_^. Thank you to everybody!!

After all the craziness of opening presents we had some Eggs Benedict for breakfast. I had 3 and was pretty stuffed after that. For the rest of the day up until dinner we were pretty busy with our gifts that we got. My sister got Guitar Hero 3, my brother got WoW, and my mom got a karaoke machine. Actually my mom was most busy making us food so thank you mom!! We had cheese and crackers for lunch and a wonderful turkey dinner as is tradition =D I ate so much and was totally stuffed after that too. Today was a pretty good day for food actually! I really can't complain hahaha.

Today it snowed also! So I got my wish, we had a white Christmas here in Penticton. It was pretty clear out for most of the day but in the evening it started snowing quite a bit - windy too. But it was really nice. Today was one of those days you don't really go outside so who cares if it's windy ^_^ This evening we played a game called Mad Gab - it's super fun. You have to try to read these seemingly nonsensical sentences but really you're saying something else... It's kind of hard to explain. Maybe check the wikipedia for more help. It was really fun though. We played with my whole family and my old baby sitter from when I was a kid. It was nice seeing her again. I haven't seen her in years! I won't put a picture of her because I'm not sure if she'd want me to but it was really fun. We played 'old vs. young' or "parents & babysitter" vs. "kids" and we won!! Take that adults! But in all honesty, it was a really close game. We played to 25 and we only won by 1 or 2 points. I don't remember exactly. This, on the left, is my Donatello toque I got in my stocking. It was an awesome day.

Merry Christmas again!!

Christmas Eve

2007-12-24T15:16:00.000-08:00

So here we are at Christmas eve. It's just right around the bend and everyone seems to be in the holidays spirit. We got the Christmas tree all ready and it's getting all populated with presents. Sadly it's pretty warm here today and the sun is shining so the snow is starting to melt. It better all be back tomorrow morning haha. Despite the snow melting it is very nice weather though - far better than Vancouver =D

I've got all my shopping done and am ready for the big day. Tonight We'll be going to a Christmas church service before all opening one present each (as is tradition in our family on Christmas eve).

Earlier today my mom found my "school history" book which she's compiled for each year of school I was in from Preschool to grade 12. It was really fun to look through and see all the class pictures of each year and some of the assignments I did. It really took me back. On Facebook I stole a picture my friend Kate uploaded of our Kindergarten class and put it on the group for my Elementary school and went through and tried to tag as many people as possible. I missed a few and I was kind of unsure of a couple others but I got about 75% of the class. I'm 2nd from the right in the middle row wearing a while button-up shirt. Pudgy eh? I've really changed since I was a kid (>_<). Some of the other people in that class I'm still friends with to this day and I graduated with almost all of them. Also there are triplets who were in my class. All of them are in the front row. The 2 on the left side and the 3rd girl from the right in the white shirt. Pretty interesting eh?

I just got off the phone with my girlfriend - I was her wakeup call but I was an hour too early. すみません姫君。I was calling because it's Christmas Day in Japan right now so I thought I'd say Merry Christmas to her first thing in the morning hehe. Also Merry Christmas to all you other guys in Japan =D I hope you have a wonderful day ^^ even if you have to work (>_<)

Snow!!

2007-12-22T12:36:00.000-08:00

For the first time since I've been home it's snowed, and for the first time it's been moderately cold. Today it's a little bit brisk outside - temperature is 0 the last time I checked and it's snowing! Though hardly any is on the ground. I hope we have a white Christmas this year - the past few years it's been green and then we've had crazy flurries the following days (>_<) so we'll have to see. Christmas is getting close!! I didn't even realize its only 3 days away - I'm not even done my shopping yet!! Yeesh, what to buy what to buy.

I was supposed to go to a party last night but I didn't really want to go alone and I realized I don't have anybody's phone number in Penticton anymore. Like no-one. So I ended up contemplating it until it was too late to go anyway - but I had to stay home and make sure my sister and her friends weren't up to no good. She had a party here last night and damn it was noisy. Made me wonder if all my house parties in the past were the same. I asked my mom and she said they were. I felt pretty bad. I really had no idea parties were so loud - you never really notice until you're not part of them. I was upstairs in my kitchen listening to their music through my feet until late at night. I had to stay up until they went to sleep... which meant I didn't get to sleep until about 3:30am -_-' but whatever. As like all parties there were a few small issues but they got it sorted out and seemed to enjoy themselves. I think she had a good time so I'm happy despite being sleepy.

Home for the Holidays

2007-12-20T23:11:00.000-08:00

And do you know what that means? A haircut! It's pretty short now and I'm not really sure if I like it but well, it's a bit too late to go back now so I'll have to enjoy it hahaha. What do you guys think? Good? Bad? I'm not really sure if I prefer it short or a little bit longer. Hmmm such hard decisions haha. In any case, Penticton is just how I remember it - well actually the past couple days have been warmer than Vancouver surprisingly.

I've been shopping and chatting with my family the past few days (and probably most all the days until I leave haha). I bought lots of stuff but I can't really put anything on here since they might read it so... Not until after the 25th haha. I also went to see a few of my friends last night. That was pretty fun. Two of them I probably won't see for a long time. One is going to Egypt and then to Afgan (he's in our army) and the other is going on a cruise to Hawaii! It's really interesting (>_<)

On another note, I finished watching My Name is Kim Sam Soon and I'm really impressed. It's a really well made drama and should be watched by all!! ありがとう私のお姫様と姫さんのお母さん。

I'll probably post a few more times while I'm here in Penticton. I hope all you guys in Vancouver are having a good time!! 隆さん、ゲームを頑張ってね。楽します下さい。 (Actually I'm not even sure if that's correct) but I hope you enjoy ^_^

My name is Kim Sam Soon

2007-12-17T01:45:00.000-08:00

Or "My Lovely Sam Soon" if you want a translated name. Or 내 이름은 김삼순 if you can read Korean (I believe it's correct... but I could be totally wrong haha). Also here's the link to the Japanese wikipedia on it too if you'd rather look at it in Japanese. But DO NOT read all the spoilers because, well, that's just lame. I put the link there for reference. Use it wisely.

But, it's very good. It's a 16 episode Korean TV drama - Each episode is about an hour long. It might be a little bit hard to find in stores though.. I haven't checked myself. I've actually only watched a little less than half but I'm really enjoying it. It's quite hard to put down. My girlfriend introduced this drama to me because her mother told her to watch it. So now I'm telling all of you to watch it too. I don't have a true opinion about it since I'm not finished - but even watching the first 5 episodes is worth your time.

It's about a 30 year old girl named Kim Sam Soom (if you didn't already guess) who's love is baking. She's single and a little overweight (like all patissiers), doesn't have a college degree, but has a Cordon Blue certification from Paris. It's mainly about her guy troubles.

In any case, if you don't believe me, believe the facts. I'll list some for you. It won 12 different awards (check the wiki) and the finale was watched by 50.5% of the population of South Korea. FIFTY PERCENT. I was shocked. Actually I still am. That's quite amazing.

Watch it! If you do watch it, leave me a comment and let me know what you thought =D (but no spoilers)

150 Finally achieved!

2007-12-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

To be honest, in my Anki deck I have more than 150 but I don't really want to mess with the numbering scheme at the moment in the list I'm using because I have it all set up for Mnemonics and whatnot. So after I finish the 318 words in the list that comes with Anki, I'll add the rest of the words in my deck. I'm at 151 to be exact! That's the number of Pokémon in the Red/Blue versions isn't it? What an interesting coincidence o_O

Okay, enough random game references. It's time to start learning grammar. I've learned some in the past so hopefully I'll just pick up where I left off... Or something along those lines =D

Also for anybody that's interested in learning Japanese I've been slowly adding links on the right to different websites and blogs that should help you in learning Japanese. Some are better than others and I've tried my best to put them in order of Best to Really Good (because none of the links are mediocre). However the list of blogs is not in any specific order so if for some reason you're on my site and see your blog in the list and it's in 4th or something - it means nothing and is not any kind of personal slander. It's there because it's worth looking at.

If you're wanting to read all the posts I've made about studying and Japanese you can click on this link here or you can click on "Japanese" under "Sort By:" and it will pull up a list for you.

Unofficially Unemployed

2007-12-15T13:13:00.000-08:00

I was laid off yesterday but technically not from the right employer. I was working for Electronic Arts as a contracted employee of the company Angus One. And let's just say Angus One's "Professional Recruitment & Templine" isn't all so professional. Throughout my employment with them I watched a lot of people get laid off. Most were given only a couple days notice of their termination. For us it was same-day notice. Well actually that's wrong... and that's why I'm "unofficially unemployed". Angus one has yet to contact us to let us know we've been let go. Electronic Arts apologized profusely for the lack of professionalism on Angus One's behalf (in nicer words of course) and told us that Friday was to be our last day. EA was pretty good about it though - I give them props. I would have rather stayed but you can't have everything, right? The entire day of work yesterday consisted of Street Fighter, Guitar Hero, Rayman Raving Rabbids on the Wii, Memphis Blues, Pizza, Pop, and other various snacks. It was a pretty nice last day at work.

So now income might be a problem since I have none. And since I'm planning on going to Japan in January sometime and I'm going home for the holidays to visit family, I'm not sure how I'm going to make any money. I've been trying to think of some simple "get rich quick" scheme but none seem too promising. But there's gotta be something I can do back home. Maybe shovel people's driveways in the morning? That's what it might come down to unless I can find a job in some warehouse - possibly for a liquor store. We'll see, we'll see.

Sick Days?

2007-12-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

So today I was sick so I stayed home from work. I felt like crap when I woke up and I didn't even want to call work to say I was sick hahaha. I ended up falling asleep again and then waking up at around 10:30 to call in - which isn't good at all, but I figured... at least I am calling in. When I called I surprised myself when I started to talk - my voice was all weird sounding. I hadn't actually talked to anybody this morning so I had no idea. It was pretty strange.

Actually, apparently my gf is also sick. Interesting eh? I wish she wasn't sick but at the same time it's kind of interesting that we both got sick the same day haha. So it's actually not as bad as I thought ^_^

Recently I've been studying Japanese a lot. I've been trying to learn at least 10 words a day and so far it's working out!! 10 words a day is surprisingly easy. I've been doing it with the help of that Anki program I mentioned in a previous post and my own short 10 word lists I've been bringing with me to work and wherever else I go during the day. I've compiled a list of the words I've learned recently from the Japanese Proficiency Level 4 word list here and I've also put a link under the "Japanese Study" heading in the right column if you want to check it out. I've also been writing some of my mnemonics... which might be useful for some people (but they are my own so it might be hard to grasp why I chose the certain mnemonic) but help yourself!!

Hopefully soon I'll be learning some more grammar and then I might be able to actually speak a little Japanese! =D I'm really excited. I really miss my gf though. I hope I can get my passport soon so I can book my flight... I don't want to get a flight if I can't get my passport in time. But... I'll get it all figured out eventually.

To Japan!

2007-12-05T17:17:00.000-08:00

Actually, I'm not quite there yet. I'm still working on this passport thing and trying to get the money together but so far it's looking up. My pending day of departure is early January and I'll be staying there for a few months... if all goes as planned.

But that's the problem! I'm not sure what that plan is. I gotta figure out if I'm going to keep my apartment, move back to Penticton, sell all my stuff, keep all my stuff, etc etc etc. It's tough. I've been talking to my parents about it a little bit but I think they're also in the dark with what I should be doing.

I finally got most of my Passport stuff together - Just need a guarantor to sign my picture to say that I am who I say I am. Then I'm ready to go! Passport Canada is pretty strict about this whole guarantor thing though yeesh.

But I'm still super excited despite all this crazy stress about what's going to happen. I know it'll all work out - I just gotta figure out how to make it haha.

In the mean-time I gotta study and plan and study and plan. And work sometimes too.

あなたが　そこに　いるだけで

2007-11-23T21:42:00.000-08:00

This book, my Hime sent me from Japan for our Anniversary. It's all in Japanese so it's kinda difficult to understand but I had my good friend 隆さん (Ryu) translate it for me.　It roughly means "You're presence is all I need" or "Being with you is all I need" or something along those lines.It's a super pretty book and I really wish I better knew Japanese so I could understand it more clearly. My roommate isn't home right now so maybe later I will put some pictures of it on this blog. Update: And Now they're here! (as you may have already noticed - ありがとう隆さん). This is the bookmark it comes with (even though you don't really need a bookmark because it's short) but the bookmark is also so nice. And in English too. Interesting. (Japanese people really like English) Anyway, I took a picture of one of the pages I like a lot (which is every one but I had to choose one). The Japanese on this page means something like this "When I'm alone, I can't see. When we're together I can see." I know it's a little bit strange but the sentence is backwards - If it was written in English it might say "I can only truly see when we're together". Actually there's another page I really like that says something along the lines of "When we're together all my life's complications are fixed". So pretty >_< . Now I gotta get crackin' on my Japanese study! I know I mentioned it in a previous post - but it never really happened. Well now's the time! I gotta learn enough to be able to understand this book! =D

And for those of you who are curious. Here's a picture of what I got for her. Did you know... sending stuff to Japan is terribly expensive. I talk about things being expensive a lot don't I?　僕は少しけちと思います。 It took me a long time to find a present I thought she'd like and I think she liked it =D I think she liked the card more but it's kinda personal. But I'll post up the cover of it! It sucks we weren't able to actually spend time together this anniversary but there's always next one =D This time next year I should be enjoying my time in Japan! I might have to start a new blog for that... or continue this one - I'm not sure. Either way it's gonna be awesome and I'm super excited.

暗記 (Anki)

2007-11-23T20:02:00.000-08:00

This wonderful program I found thanks to Clay on Youtube (profile) has really increased my retention for Japanese. It's called Anki (暗記) which means "Memorization" or "learning from heart" - a very apt name. And the best part about it is it's free! Of course you can donate if you'd like to (which I would suggest if you start using this program regularly) but it is free. As a side note - Watch Clay's FAQ. I've provided a bunch of links but he makes it clear: 'no stalkers' so be forewarned. But back to the subject at hand.

This program is awesome. Download it, use it, donate.

I was not asked to advertise or promote this program. I am doing so solely because this program is good.

1 Year Anniversary

2007-11-19T21:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was our 1 Year anniversary. Such a long time but seems so short. Time really does go by like that. I still can't put pictures of the present I got her because she hasn't got it yet but there is something I can put on my blog and thats a video I made of us together this past year. It's to the song 大好き (Daisuki) or "I love you" in English. By the singer 広末涼子 "Ryoko Hirosue". I chose this song for a couple reasons... Because my girlfriend used to always sing it in Kareoke and it's also so happy so how could I not choose it right? Well, without further ado, here it is:

If you can't get it working just put your mouse over it and click on the line at the bottom and the controls should appear then just click on the play button on the bottom left. If it's still not working you can also watch it here.

愛してる～

3 More Days

2007-11-15T22:00:00.000-08:00

I know I made a post named 3:00 and now this one is 3 more days but whatever. 3 Is a good number is it not? But yeah.. the significance to this 3 is our real one year anniversary. "But you just met her on the 12th!" I know! It just seemed right. It was less than a week actually (6 days for you those of you who aren't good at subtraction). Weird eh?

Right now she's in Japan as you may remember (from an older post) so we can't actually spend our anniversary together sadly but that doesn't stop me from sending a present!! I'd say what that present is buuut.... she also reads this blog so that'll have to wait for another time. Let's just say I'm really happy with what I found (I just hope she likes it >_<) Today wasn't a very eventful day actually. I snagged a PS2 with a mod chip from a guy at work so now I can play import games on my PS2!! I'm kinda excited about that. Also I saw a friend from school on the bus on my way back home after getting the PS2. I haven't talked to her in a really long time and it was nice to chat again ^_^

I started an excel document to record where I'm spending all my money because it seems to disappear pretty quick and I can't have that happen any more. I gotta save!!! If anybody wants a blank copy of this document so they, also, can watch their money, send me a message on MSN and I'll send it over =D (But I think it might be Office 2007 only).

The cute Japanese girl with a tuque

2007-11-13T18:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to Triple O's to call my girlfriend at dinner. Weird you say? Well not entirely. November 12th, 2006 I met hime at Triple O's. At around 6pm to be exact. So that's when I called her. I sat in the same seat she was sitting in when I first met her and reminisced about that day...

It was raining and cold. I used to work at Triple O's so I was going there at the time to see some of the employees and I remember as I walked in I saw this girl sitting at the "bar" table (It's not really a bar, its on the other side of a magazine rack but it only has seats on one side - like a bar). I remember stopping at the door just after entering the store to look at her. I remember thinking "she's beautiful" but I knew it was pointless to think that because, well, I knew it'd be impossible for me to ever be her friend. So I enjoyed the short moment and went to talk to my friends (I didn't want her to notice me and think I was weird).

I talked to the people working there for quite a while but then it got busy and they had to actually start working again so I was waiting around (I had no other plans). But it was busy for too long... And that girl was still there. It looked like she was studying something. "Maybe English," I remember thinking to myself, "she looks Japanese". I had just started really learning Japanese and I was kinda excited to try saying something so.... I went for it. I went for it! I've never talked to a stranger in my life. An absolute stranger and I talked to her. (Well it took me about 10 minutes to get enough courage to say hi but it was totally worth it.. Even though it didn't seem to be at the time.) I remember I said "excuse me?"... no answer.

I was devastated. The first time I had spoken to a stranger and she didn't answer. But wait! She was wearing headphones. Maybe she couldn't hear me? I tried again... "excuse me?" Once again no answer. Well I've gone this far I might as well continue. So I tried a different tact, "sumimasen". (she's gotta know I'm talking to her now). But still! no answer. What should I do. This is the time when my heart started to pound. Should I give up? Keep going? ドキドキ I decided.

I put my hand down slowly on the table, close to her (I knew it was weird) and I inched it towards her. She finally noticed it and looked at me. Our eyes met and my heart stopped. WHAT DO I SAY NOW?! "Are you Japanese?" I think is the first thing that came to mind. She answered smoothly. "Are you studying English?" my thoughts started to blur. Wow, I'm talking to her. I believe she asked me "Do you know Japanese?" and I said "No, not really. Well a little bit" then I said what I had been learning. 「私は・日本語を・勉強しています・でも・まだ・上手じゃありません」 "I'm learning Japanese but I'm not skilled yet". She laughed and laughed and laughed. I had given some kind of impression apparently. It seemed to be good. I was excited.

We talked for hours and hours. We talked for a little over 6 hours. From about 6 to a little after midnight. It was the most exciting and interesting night I've ever had. I believe some people refer to it as "Love at first sight". I wanted to see her again. I had to see her again... but that required that "courage" thing again that I'm not very good with. But hell, I've already faced my fears once and I didn't want to pass up this once in a life time opportunity. I knew I'd never see her again if I didn't act. So I asked for her number, and she gave it to me! I gave her mine also. A little while after that we said goodbye and parted ways. Little did I know that she would be the girl I fell in love with.

Thinking back now... I'm so glad I talked to her. I'm also so glad that I'm kinda persistent. If I wasn't I would have given up trying to say hello and I wouldn't have ever been with the girl of my dreams.

So that's my story of last night. And that's my story of last night - one year ago.

三時

2007-11-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

Today I went out with a friend I hadn't seen in a long time. I met her in Blenz on the corner of Bute and Davie. なつかしいね、けんじさん？ But yeah... she's had some guy problems recently (quite big problems) and she wanted to go to the clinic to get "checked" I guess is how you'd say it. The past week or so I've been talking to her on the phone quite a bit and she's really worried but she was also too scared to go alone so I said I'd go with her. We had originally planned to go on Friday but we switched it to today because she wanted to get it out of the way. BUT... today it was closed. So we met at about 1:30 and she had to work at 3 and the clinic was closed. Sucks. So we ended up going out for Korean food on Robson at a place called Nor Boo. It's really good and inexpensive also. Actually I had to give her a going away card for a different friend I hadn't spoken with for over a year. So I got that out of the way as well.

After I finish writing this I think I'll go to Konbiniya again to pick up some stuff. Today is the last day of their huge sale they have going on right now so now or never I guess. After that I'm probably going to go to Triple O's to hang out. I haven't been there in a long long time. Then... I guess we'll see! If anything exciting happens maybe I'll post again.

Making Progress

2007-11-11T23:44:00.000-08:00

Today was good. I studied a bunch, I got to sleep in and I played games. I also tried out this interesting kind of Japanese energy drink from Konbiniya. They're having this huge sale on now because it's their 14th (i think) Anniversary! So everything is quite cheap there. They're also selling this neat little gadget that lets you watch Japanese TV right here in Canada over the internet or something. It's pretty interesting. They had it on display today.

In 10 minutes it'll have been a year since I met Hime. A year! It totally doesn't seem like its been that long. Time goes by like *that* eh? It's pretty crazy. (It's not REALLY our anniversary per se, it's just the first time we met. First time we talked). It's hard to believe. A year. It's amazing =D

Right now the weather in Vancouver is terrible (but when is it not, right?). Right now its like 10 degrees, the wind is blowing at about 45km/h and its rainy. Beautiful eh? Well yesterday was nice (cold, but nice).

I also found out some interesting information about Japanese Working Holiday Visa too. It is only valid for 6 or 12 months. 悲しい。 But I will get one soon I hope. I will need a Passport first though I guess eh? And a medical exam!? >_< くそ

今日本語勉強しています

2007-11-11T11:52:00.000-08:00

That means "Now I'm studying Japanese" because well.. I need to get crackin'. Today I downloaded a flashcard program that will hopefully help me out a lot. I have my own flashcards here at home but they take a while to make and it's hard to test myself with them. This way will hopefully be a lot better.

Here's what I'm using if you're interested:

Flash Card Manager - This flashcard program is awesome. It's super easy to put in all the cards you want and then while you're testing yourself you actually click on what rating you give yourself (like Positive, guessed, fail etc) It's great. If you fail something it will keep showing it to you until you get it right and it tracks your stats too so you know how many you still have to memorize and how many you've memorized so far. Amazing!

JquickTrans - It's got pretty much any word you could imagine. I got it for free when I bought Instant Immersion Japanese Deluxe but It's totally worth the $10 it costs online. Sometimes it's almost too much help because it has so much information. It has romaji also (If you're worried you don't see any romaji in the screenshot)

Instant Immersion Japanese Deluxe - If you're going to buy it DO NOT buy it from Amazon though. I just provided a link there to see the details. In Canada (as you may have noticed) things are extremely expensive compared the United States ($85CAD / $49USD which is about $45 Canadian). So you're paying almost double if you buy it on Amazon. If you want it - Find some way to order it from the states or find a place that will sell it for a decent price. (But with all that aside, it's an awesome program.

Kanji Gold - This is a flashcard program for Kanji. Already pre-set with all the kanji in the different "grades". It works with the JWPce databases so check that out too if you want this. I think this program would be really good for starting to study for the Japanese Proficiency Exam as it goes through the grades as an Elementary student would go through them.

Today I am probably going to study for a long time. I haven't spent too much time studying and I'm really regretting it. Wish me luck!

Shopping on West 4th

2007-11-10T18:25:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the morning, today I was going shopping with my friends. We left a little bit later than I thought we would but that's because I'm slow. すみませんね。 We took the bus over the bridge to West 5th, then started shopping on West 4th under the bridge. We went into a few stores then finally found one that was giving away free hotdogs and had this minigolf game where you could win stuff. It was pretty interesting... I won a scarf hahaha (I'm terrible at minigolf).

We walked up west 4th into the Kitsalano area before turning around and walking home over the Burrard Bridge. After we were back to the downtown core we went to Daikichi Sushi (I mentioned it in one of my first posts) however, now it's not near as good as it used to be. ほんとに悲しいです。 The service isn't as good and the food isn't as tasty. It's also not very busy any more... I think most of the regulars are probably having the same reaction as me. It's really too bad. I withdraw my recommendation for Daikichi. Musashi on Denman is 100x better. Go there. I love it.

I emailed my friend Kenji yesterday because I hadn't talked to him in soo long. He used to teach me Japanese when he was in Canada. He's a teacher in Japan and he's been teaching so I think he's pretty busy. I'm excited to see him again (even though I won't be able to until after I move to Japan haha).

Long Weekend

2007-11-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

Today I'm going to go shopping with my friend フラミンゴさん if you remember who that is :) Actually these nicknames I use are kinda なつかしぃ. But in any case we're going to go look for snowboard gear, I believe. I actually just woke up (it's now 1pm) - I was pretty sleepy but I think I'm good to go now. Tonight I might be going to a friends' birthday party from work. I haven't really decided yet but I don't have any other plans and he's a good guy so I might go.

そして日本にでんわするのは高すぎますね～ちょ高いよ。。でもオケイです。 If my sentences are wrong I apologize (I'm just practicing hehe).

Right now my hime is in Sapporo with her friends so I'm not able to call so much any more (calling a cell phone is really expensive) She'll be home next week and I'll get to talk to her more often then. Luckily I can send emails to her cell phone so we're always in contact やった！

Sunday and Monday I have no plans as of yet. Maybe I'll clean a little bit because I haven't cleaned very much recently.

THAT REMINDS ME. I have a new roommate! But I don't think he has a nickname yet. Maybe I will call him 隆 (リュウ)(Ryu) because he likes Street Fighter so much. He moved in last week so we've only been living together for a week but it's really fun. I'm so happy he is living here now and not our old roommate (who was quite antisocial and messy) He moved in a week after my gf left so it's been good. We play games together all the time. Actually he is kinda otaku like me. Its a good otaku though haha. でも、隆さんはゲーム上手だ。I always lose haha but it's fun.

Okay maybe I will blog again this weekend sometime. Now I have to go get ready to go out. My friends are probably waiting for me >_< またね

Notes for reading this post:
なつかしい (Natsukashii) = A feeling of nostalgia. It kinda translates to "Wow that really brings back some good memories, doesn't it."

Long time no post.

2007-10-28T18:06:00.000-07:00

姫さんがここにいないので、僕は悲しいです。姫さんは日本に帰りました。

I haven't written on here for a really long time mainly because I didn't really have the time. My gf just went back to Japan this morning so I have a lot more free time with nothing to do... So I'll probably post on here more frequently.

It's pretty sad that she's gone now. Our room feels so... empty. I still have a lot of cleaning to do and I'm sure that after I'm finished it will be even more empty. めちゃ悲しいぃ。

Now I gotta go get some kind of Visa to go live in Japan myself =D I've started studying Japanese again and as I said earlier, I have a lot more free time so I'll be able to study lots I hope :) I'm really excited and sad all at the same time.

Our Trip to Disneyland

2007-10-26T19:04:00.000-07:00

Oct 20 - This is just after we arrived in Los Angeles at about lunch time. Right now we're just at the airport waiting on the little cement island for our Shuttle bus to our Hotel in Anaheim. It took so long for the bus to come and there were literally a hundred buses that came by (and we had no idea what it was supposed to look like). But finally a big bus pulled up with Disneyland written across it's side and Disney characters all around. I asked just to make sure... It was it! So we boarded and tried to catch some shuteye... but it was hard with all the excitement. We went to Disneyland until late that night after we checked in to our Hotel and dropped our stuff in our room.

Oct 21 - The second day of our trip we ended up sleeping in without even meaning to. We were so tired from the 2 days before (we had an overnight layover in Seattle on our way here and we stayed up most of the night because airport seats aren't meant for sleeping). This is probably around 11am. It was probably around 30°C and damn it was windy. This day we spend just about the entire day in Disneyland. After this day we had taken just about every ride and seen every attraction that was there (except the boring ones of course). We were only missing a few and we had one more day of Disneyland to go so we were pretty confident we could do it :)

Oct 22 - This day we went to Universal Studios. It's not really what it's all made out to be. Most of the attractions (shows) aren't very interesting or even entertaining (in my opinion), but the only two actual 'rides' that they have are definitely better than Disneyland. They have Jurrasic Park (my favorite) and The Mummy (Hime's favorite). They're both super fun. Jurrasic park has this huuuge drop at the end of it (you're floating in a boat) and you get soaked! It's great. The Mummy, instead of using gravity to gain speed (going up and then back down), it actually suddenly accelerates you foreword really fast. It's really interesting - I've never been on a ride like that. Also when you think its all over.. instead of actually ending, you start going backward - it's awesome.

Oct 23 - This was a weird day. We went to Disneyland in the morning thinking that today was our last day in LA but... it wasn't. So we finished our shopping early in the morning, then came back to our hotel, checked out, grabbed the shuttle bus back to the LA Airport, and attempted to check-in. After quite a while they finally figured figured out why we weren't booked for the flight that evening... because we weren't leaving until the 24th! Very embarrassing. Luckily we had got a stamp when we left Disneyland so... We took the shuttle bus BACK to Anaheim, checked BACK in to our hotel (luckily they let us) and went back to Disneyland. This day we stayed right up until it closed to make up for our lost time. We tried every ride we wanted to so it was all good in the end.

Oct 24 - So today was our actual departure date so we went to LA in the late morning so we could do some shopping downtown. Sadly, as we discovered, downtown LA is ugly and shopping is hard to find. We had to tote around all our luggage as well since we weren't able to check it in until 4 hours before our flight (which was at 8pm). We went right into the heart of downtown and visited the Fashion District and Jewelry district. Both of these areas seemed very dirty and they weren't very busy at all. But we went and found the LA Library which is actually super nice and from there we looked around and found one tiny little shopping center so we had some food at the food court and headed out again. We didn't really find anything interesting except for the yoshinoya Japanese restaurant. It was pretty tasty. Then we headed back to the airport just in time to take our flight to Seattle.

Oct 25 - We didn't take any pictures this day but we did do a lot of shopping. First thing we did was we went to the Greyhound bus station to buy our bus ticket back to Vancouver, then we put all our luggage into a locker (LA doesn't have them at the airport). So we were able to shop without luggage! It was amazing. We ate lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in the Greyhound bus station. The food was pretty good but the service wasn't so much. After that we took a stroll in downtown Seattle. It's way nicer than downtown LA and there's actually places to shop and things to look at (not just broken windows and run down buildings). We found an arcade and played games for a while then had some Nachos there too (but they weren't as good as the nachos at our hotel in Anaheim). Hime bought a nice jacket JUST before we had to come back. It looked so warm >_<. Then... we came back to Vancouver! And thus ends our trip to Disneyland.

Summer Recap!

2007-07-29T23:33:00.000-07:00

It's Canada Day!! Actually we took this picture while we were still in Vancouver (It was a really sunny day... that's why my eyes are not open haha). Such beautiful scenery around here... I was actually pretty suprised. But anyway... And so it begins, our trip to Sechelt, B.C.

We went to a few different cities and towns along the way. The first place we stopped at was Gibsons because, well, that's where the ferry stops. This was the day before Canada day we got here. And DAMN does Gibsons have a huge hill!!! It was pretty crazy... and we walked up it. Actually our hotel was at the top and I just had a map from google so we figured we'd adventure a little bit but it was really tiring. In this picture we were about 1/3 or so of the way up the hill. We had no idea how much longer it was going to go on for... we just knew we had to keep going haha.

Day 2 it was Canada Day and we were still in Gibsons. We walked back down that crazy hill, all the way to the bottom where the actual downtown area is and went out on to one of the many piers. Again, it was a beautiful day. It was hot, the sun was shining and there were people milling around all over the place. We were in a 'festive spirit', I guess you could say. This is definitely the reason people come to Canada. The beautiful scenery (and the people of course ^_^) We didn't stay in Gibsons for too long today though, we had plans to begin our trip to Seachelt! But we had to try those tasty smelling hot dogs the cadets had on sale. They were a little on the expensive side but they were really good. And it was vacation! Who cares if a hotdog costs a bit too much, it's time to enjoy! But, we had had our time to enjoy already and it was time to get on a bus and head off to Seachelt.

On the way over there we got a little sidetracks and suddenly decided to get off the bus to explore a beach we saw (It's public transit so it was all good). We wandered over to the beach and started to fish around in the sand for anything living. Crabs, oysters, etc. Sadly we couldn't find anything too interesting. Then it started to get a little overcast and our spirits started to drop a little bit but not to fear, the tide is coming in! We had to evacuate the beach along with everyone else who was enjoying their time there. But it was interesting watching the tide come in on such a flat beach. Very cool. After the beach we crossed the street and went over to a small little farmers market where they were selling vegetables and fruits. We bought some raspberries and cherries and then went next door to a little store that sold collectibles, juice, hand-made jewelry and the like. We bought a fruit punch smoothie there... it was alright - nothing spectacular, that's for sure. And then off to the Fish and Chips place! We bought some fries and were just sitting down to eat when the bus came! What's up with that? So we ran to get on the bus and were informed that we can't eat on the bus. So we ended up just looking at our fries being hungry until we got to Seachelt.

Now this is Seachelt. Actually, I'm sorry, I don't have a picture of the city but I do have a picture of us together on the coastline! (I know that doesn't help haha) This picture you might have seen before... Actually I know you've seen it before because it's both my display picture on MSN and it's my picture on this blog also. I really like it, as you might have guessed. Seachelt is a pretty small town - I'm actually not really sure what there is to do here, I just remembered the coastline was so pretty - that's why I wanted to bring my Hime here to see it. We went for dinner at one of the few restaurants I know of and we had Halibut - it was really good actually... but expensive haha. The next morning we took some pictures at the local Drug Store with cute animal hats on. It was actually really fun - I've never done something like this before - just put something on and taken pictures hahaha. After we finished looking around the Drug store we were off to go back home.

And that was our Canada Day weekend and our trip to Seachelt. I really had a lot of fun - I love traveling and it's so much better when you're doing it with someone you love. We're trying to plan another trip.. but we're not quite sure where to yet. Maybe Disneyland =D

My mom and sister came to visit us in Vancouver for a night then we all went back to Penticton together for the weekend. Sadly Penticton wasn't very hot the few days we were there, which is pretty strange - usually it's in the 30's. But we still floated the channel.. but were freezing the entire time because it was so windy. Actually we had a little mishap with one of the floaties... I was holding on to my sisters' and then I thought she grabbed it but apparently she didn't so we both let go and whoosh, it was gone upstream. I attempted to swim upstream after it. It didn't have any trouble continuing upstream but I sure did. I was so, incredibly tired when I finally got to it. I didn't even have enough energy to talk once I managed my way back to Hime and my sister. Whew, interesting experience. But we still had a good time and still managed to get suntanned despite it only being 26 (which, I guess, is still pretty warm in most places)

Back in Vancouver and... our roommate is now gone. She was pretty cool and I kind of miss her. And now we have a new roommate and he's not really... well he's kinda anti-social actually haha. He never does anything outside of his bedroom. He always either eats out or eats cup noodle. Strange guy.

Right now I'm working a lot of overtime at work. I've been working from 9am-9pm Monday to Friday and 9am-5:30pm on Saturdays... It really sucks. Lots of money, but no time to spend with my girlfriend. I'm so happy she's good about it though. Actually she cooks me lunch and dinner everyday. So nice! I love you Hime - ありがとう!!! Actually, I got somewhat of a promotion at work. Mainly just more responsibilities but I see it as a way to show what I can do. They asked me if I would like to be the Point of Contact for the Economy in our game and I gladly accepted. So my roll is to coordinate the testing of our in-game economy. It's pretty cool. I'm so happy I was given this opportunity - I hope it pays off.

Karaoke is awesome!! Man, I love it. I'm a terrible singer but I really like karaoke. The first time I tried it I was with Hime and her best friend and I was so nervous. I sang a couple songs alone and then I tried singing one with Hime's friend but I was so off key we couldn't even sing together hahaha. Recently I've gone with Hime a bunch of times and I'm really liking it. Sadly it's really expensive... not even just kinda expensive. It's super expensive. More than dinner for 2!!! It's crazy.

フラミンゴさん (Ming) came back from Monterey in Mexico and brought with him some souvenirs! I love souvenirs haha. He brought me a coffee mug that says Monterey on it so I brought it to work and use it every day. Thanks!!

Now its なっとさん's (Nat's) turn to go back to Japan. Actually I was never very good friends with her but she's really cool and a good friend of Kenji so it was kinda sad saying bye. Hime and I went together to her party to say goodbye at a restaurant called Ebisu on the 2nd floor on the corner or Robson and Bute. We didn't actually stay to order any food or have any drinks so I don't really have any comments on the restaurant but the ambiance seemed pretty good for hanging out in groups. Actually I told Nat that Hime and I had just got back from Penticton and going down the channel because I remembered she told me she had done the same thing back in December of 2006 at Ming's birthday party but she said she had never told me... but she gone to Penticton to go down the channel. Hime also remembers our conversation at Ming's party so we had no idea what was going on hahaha. It was pretty funny though. Still now I have no idea.

We're Moved In!

2007-03-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

Hime and I moved in on Monday of this week and it went pretty smoothly. No major hassles or anything. The move itself went just about as smooth as you could ask for. Nothing broken and so far nothing lost. The major problem we ran into was after the move when we discovered we were missing a lot of essential things such as a pot, a can opener, bowls, microwavable plates, plastic wrap, a toaster, oven mitts, some kind of sharp knife, and a few other things. Actually I just remembered I do have a couple of sharp knives... but my old roommates must have packed them up with their stuff by accident. I'll have to call them later and get them back.

Our new apartment is really nice; I'm super happy with it. It's fairly large and it has a wonderful layout. Can't ask for too much more. Oh, it also has a balcony and is a block from Robson street =D. We still have to get a little bit more furniture such as a coffee table or a TV stand (since the TV is currently on my coffee table), a dining room table, a second desk for Hime and a few other things. We also will be looking for a roommate soon so we will have to buy a second bed for the roommate to sleep on and probably a desk for them to do their work on. The kitchen is great. There's lots of cupboard space for the size of kitchen it is and still enough counter space too. Also, this time, the counters are the right height. In my last apartment the counters were made for midgets, I swear. I feel so comfortable here. I'm so happy we found this place and I'm with my hime.

By the way, I finished reading Ancestors of Avalon and it wasn't very good. It also took me a terribly long time to read. I plan on reading a good book next.

Our New Apartment

2007-02-20T13:35:00.000-08:00

Hime and I found an apartment the other day. Its on the 7th floor of a highrise. Beautiful apartment. Its about 650sq ft (60.4sq m) and has 1 bedroom, kitchen, living room, dining room, bathroom, and a balcony. Its a block from Robson street (downtown blocks are incredibly short - maybe 1 minute walk) but its still in a fairly quiet area as the street we're on runs parallel and is a dense residential area (if you've played Sim City you'll know what this means). I'm really happy with the apartment we chose. We looked at a different suite in the same building in February but it was 525sq ft and far too small for us so we didn't take it. But this one is great. The hotel also has a gym and sauna. I can't wait to move. After we move in we'll take some pictures and I'll post them up here.

Also I've decided to start with a healthier diet. I've decided to quit eating potato chips and drinking coffee. I plan to quit more things in the future but for now this is fine. I don't want to quit it 100% but... 95%. I plan on eating chips every few months maybe and I'll have coffee to be polite if I'm at someones house and am offered coffee and no tea. I just want to start eating more healthy. I also don't drink milk but I haven't drank milk in a really long time.

Valentines Day

2007-02-17T16:00:00.000-08:00

Valentines day was great. We checked in at our hotel after buying some snacks and dinner. We bought chocolate to melt and strawberries to go with it for a snack. For dinner we bought a frozen pizza and some KFC. We also bought a bottle of wine for the occassion. I hadn't had KFC in sooo long. It was interesting. Good though. The lady at the hotel had listened to our request to move from room 2406 to one of the other larger ones and when we checked in she informed us that she had given us 2409 which is a corner suite. It was a beautiful room with a beautiful view.

We exchanged presents and then sat down to eat dinner. I gave her "The Notebook" book and a little mood ring and panda stuffed animal (だれぱんだ). She said that Darepanda is her "most hated" thing in Japan but she will keep it anyway. She gave me a promising note and a box of chocolates that were quite tasty. I will post up a picture of some of the presents after I censor the names ^^.

We had quite the time. The jacuzzi was wonderful. Not too much more we could have asked for except maybe a clear sky for a better view, but the view wasn't bad anyway. It was good. We had one accident. A wine glass got broken while we were in the jacuzzi so we had to evacuate and then I cleaned it up a little bit later.

Hime's Parents!?

2007-02-14T14:08:00.000-08:00

Last week I met Hime's parents. They came to Canada from Japan for a week (well about a week). They arrived Monday but on Tuesday they left for Las Vegas and brought Hime with them. They came back from Las Vegas on Thursday morning and I saw them again for most of the day Thursday and Friday. They left to go back to Japan on Saturday at around noon but I was at work so I had to say goodbye to them on Friday night.

It was really interesting meeting them. I couldn't have much of a conversation so Hime ended up translating a lot but they were really cool. I really enjoyed thier company. They took me out for dinner and lunch a number of times and wouldn't let me pay. I wrote a letter for them in Japanese with help from Kenji though. I wrote it in English and then he translated it into Japanese for me and then I rewrote it in Japanese. I gave her parents both the English copy and the Japanese copy. I think they liked it. I hope so.

Today is Valentines day and Hime and I rented a room at the Sandman hotel on Davie. We got the Jacuzzi Queen Suite on the Penthouse floor (24). Its a really nice view of the city. I can't wait until tonight ^_^. It is suprisingly inexpensive for what you get.. Top floor of a nice hotel with a beautiful room.... AND a jacuzzi for $204 a night. I bought her a couple little things that I hope she likes. I guess I'll find out tonight. Next blog I'll talk about what I bought and put up some pictures of our room and the view. ^^

Week of crazy

2007-01-23T15:50:00.000-08:00

It's been one week since my last post. I had planned to blog on the Saturday but I had other things come up. Right now I'm at work and so I won't be able to finish this post probably until later.

Last Thursday was Hime and my 2nd month anniversary. We had planned to go skating at 12:00-1:30 but I was late meeting her and then we ended up talking and exchanging presents and then it was already too late to go. We had stayed up really late the night before so we decided just to have a nap.

She had been waiting for her phone to arrive (we ordered it from customer service because it was cheaper and they were going to mail it with UPS to her apartment). They tried delivering it on Monday but she wasn't home so they left a notice. They tried again on Tuesday but they had an incorrect address so of course... It wasn't delivered yet again. On Wednesday it was the same thing and they said to pick it up at UPS... but they left no address information so I called the 1-800 number on the notice. The lady informed me that UPS was near the airport. So we were pretty upset we had to go so far just to pick up the phone. But what can you do. We sucked it up headed down to the UPS. We took the bus and it took about 20 minutes. Then we had to catch a cab to drive us to the UPS store because it was so out of the way.

When we got to the UPS store I asked the cab driver if he could wait and he said sure. So we went inside and waited in line. Finally we were helped and the lady brought out the package. Hime had her passport and whatnot on her so she could prove it was her picking up the package but apparently UPS needs an address identification to pick up parcels. And since Hime didn't have any kind of government issued identification with her current address we had to phone Fido with the UPS phone. The lady said "let me know when you have a customer service rep available". So I called them up and when I got ahold of a rep I said "UPS just needs to verify the address information on the account with you" and I said it loud and he said "Okay, can I talk to her?" and I said "She's helping a different customer now. Just a minute." (also loud enough for her to hear) So we waited... and waited... and then when she was finished with that customer she began helping a 2nd customer so I said "Excuse me, how long do we have to wait for you?" blah blah and then finally after helping THAT customer she came over and took the phone from me to verify. Idiot girl. Then she tried to blame me for not letting her know. We were waiting for so long before we got the package. The cab driver was wondering what was going on and came in to find out too. The cost to drive from the airport to the UPS store was $5 and the cost to make him wait for so long was $20. I was so angry with UPS. So please, boycott UPS if possible. They have horrible service ^_^.

On the way home we couldn't find the SIN card so again we were upset so we went to the Fido Downtown to ask them about it but apparently we just weren't very observant and it was in the box all along. So that was resolved. Finally. When we got back to my apartment we activated the phone and all was swell.

On Saturday Hime and I made a discovery when she signed on to her MSN at my house. Her roommates MSN name said "you're the idiot. just die" in Korean and she thought that it was directed towards her. She was really upset and and they argued a lot about it. On Sunday I spoke to him on the phone and he said that that wasn't his MSN name and that he had that as his MSN name a few weeks ago and it was about himself, not about anybody else. After I spoke to him I got to thinking "ah... I think he's telling the truth" because we saw him when he was offline and she never goes on msn at my house so odds are it was from a few weeks ago. We had called him from Hime's house so after that we went to my apartment to investigate. Sure enough it said the same thing which confirmed what I had been thinking so we called him and apologized. Hime was very emotional because she accused him of saying that as well as lying about saying it. I apologized too because I was more or less the instigator of the whole thing. Hime felt really sick afterwards so she had a nap in my apartment for about 15-20 minutes or so. Then my roommate came out to complain about Hime being there too often. I was really angry about that. A few minutes later we left and went to a going away party for one of Hime's friends.

The Ultimate Recap

2007-01-16T23:40:00.000-08:00

I haven't written on here for a while and a lot of things have happened so this will sort of be a recap of happenings since my last post. I have a feeling it's going to be sort of.. all over the place but I will try to keep it as chronological as possible so it makes a little bit more sense (even though almost all the topics are completely unrelated).

I had my "3 month review" the other day... (I've worked for my current company for almost 6 months now, I think) So I was a little bit surprised when they told me I was having my 3 month review. In any case I had a really good review and then received a 25 cent raise so now I'm up to the big $10.50/h. They also said that since it technically IS my 3 month review that I will be getting "retro pay" from my 3rd month up until the present. So that means I'll have an extra cheque for $50 or something which is good.

I started reading the book my sister bought me for Christmas. It's alright, I haven't gotten too far into it yet though. Just 50 pages or so I believe. I'm finding it pretty hard to get into. I think it's mainly because every time I've tried reading it I've been really tired. Hopefully I'll get a chance to read it when I'm not so tired though so I can get more into it and start enjoying it a little bit more. At the rate I'm going at, I won't finish the book for another month or something. >_< Mondo Gelato to get some icecream and talk to my friend Jay. I was surprised to see my friend Toune in there too. I graduated with both of these guys but Toune had moved back to Niagara Falls after we graduated and I didn't know he was back in Vancouver. I talked to them both for quite a while but I ended up talking to Jay the most. He started talking about this funny CG cartoon called 金卵(Kintamago) that you can find on youtube. He seemed pretty excited about it so I figured it must be pretty good. After we got back to my place after icecream we went on youtube to check it out. It wasn't very funny. We only watched one episode and yeah... not the most interesting or funny cartoon.

After that we headed off to Daikichi Sushi. We go there so often it seems. Hime always has second thoughts about going there because she is worried the lady who works there is going to think she is crazy. But I really like it and its cheap so I figure "why not go there"? ^_^

Ah yeah. So I installed Ragnarok Online II the other day too. This game currently isn't playable nor is it released in either North America or Korea. It's still in development. I know a few people working on understanding how this game works and I managed to find a downloadable and working copy of the game online. It looks really nice and I would really like to play it soon. If it's anything like Ragnarok Online, I will probably like it a lot.

The other night we watched The Elephant Man. Hime bought this movie before we went to my family's house for Christmas, we just never had time to watch it before now. It's a really good movie and it's also really well made. It was made in 1980 and was wonderfully done. It's also based on a true story after the life of "The Elephant Man" AKA Joseph Merri ck. I watched the special features on my own time and they were also quite interesting. I'd suggest everybody watch this movie whether or not you think you'd enjoy it. It's not the most action packed movie - that's for sure. But it's a really interesting movie to see. Keep in mind its based on a true story after a real person (who looked VERY similar to the actor in the movie).

Saturday morning I had a phone interview with the Vancouver Japanese Language School. I'm planning on taking their 10 week course. It's one day a week for 10 weeks for $180. I applied and then had the phone interview. It went pretty well... I guess. I found out my weak point is definitely sentence creation. I can understand fairly well and my listening skills are also pretty good, but when it comes to responding... I really struggle. She said I placed into the Beginner 2 course but the course MIGHT not have enough people to run this time so she would get back to me. I really hope it works out because I would really like to take some REAL Japanese lessons from a teacher in a classroom lesson. It seems like it would be a really good school for me and from what she told me, most of what I would be learning would be how to communicate in Japanese... which, right now, is where my problem is.

After I finished work I went out for dinner with Hime. We went to this Persian restaurant and got two different dishes. I don't remember exactly what they were called but it wasn't the best food and it was also a little on the expensive side. Hime didn't like what she ordered at all and I thought both were kinda mediocre so I traded with her and ate hers while she ate mine... or most of mine. When we checked the time we discovered that it was already 9:45 and I had told Kenji that I would phone him at 9:30 so we had to rush out of there pretty quick.

I called Kenji and then Dom and then Jay. Jay didn't answer his phone but both Kenji and Dom did. I explained the situation and went to meet Kenji up by the Blenz. Kenji, me and Hime headed off to this place called 1215 on Davie street. It's a Japanese bar and it was pretty neat. There was this one Canadian guy in there who I've met before that was really loud and causing a lot of trouble it seemed. Stupid guy. In any case it was really fun. Kenji ordered this dish called たこ焼き (Takoyaki). It's more or less octopus but go read the wikipedia for more information on what exactly it is. It was sooo good. The first one I ate was incredibly hot but it was tasty. I really like trying new food. Later in the evening Hime ordered me a drink. A green tea drink.. I also don't remember what it was called. Maccha something. It was really really good. She ordered it with soy milk. Its made with Maccha and Vodka and soy milk and I'm not sure what else. Dom showed up just as 1215 was closing so we went across the street to Sugar Daddys.

It wasn't too busy so we grabbed a table for the 4 of us and ordered a pitcher and started to drink again. After we got the bill for the first pitcher I showed them all this stupid little magic trick which turned into a big talk about magic and us trying to figure out new tricks and whatnot. It was really fun. Kenji made up the neatest trick. I won't explain it because well... it's magic. But it was great. We got him to show the waitress and then she showed us this other really neat trick with a little bit of ash. After that Don got her to explain how she did it and then he tried to do it to us but I figured it out when he tried it. I haven't tried it myself but I think I might be able to pull it off if people were drinking hehe.

After we left we said bye to Kenji and then Don and I walked Hime home. He came back to my place to crash. We ended up talking and playing guitar until about 5:00am or something. I taught him how to read tablature and how to play Good Ridance (Time of your Life) by Greenday. I let him sleep on my bed and I slept on the floor with a bed made up of a bunch of different sweaters. It was surprisingly comfortable.

On Sunday I had to work alone from 3:30 - 6:00. It was really strange working by myself. I still took my lunch break so for 30 minutes there was nobody working and a lot of calls started to pile up. I really don't care though, I think it's stupid they didn't schedule anybody else to work with me. They fired the person that usually works with me on Tuesday and then never bothered to ask anyone to take the shift. They just let me tough it out all alone. So they can go suck on it for all I care ^_^.

When I got home from work I went over to my friends place to play D&D. Right now I'm a sorcerer. I'm level 3 and we're progressing quite quickly. The DM is really good and I'm really enjoying his campaign. We have to do a lot of roleplaying and its really fun. At the moment we have this illusion spell stuck on us that has turned us into these crazy monsters. I'm a mind flayer at the moment (well I'm not really, but other people perceive me as such). We have to drink this potion to keep ourselves in our regular form but it only lasts for so long. At the moment we're looking for ingredients to cure ourselves but its proving to be quite the arduous adventure.

On monday, after work, I bought some flowers and went to surprise Hime at the library. At first I couldn't find her anywhere but I think it's because I got there before she did. I searched the whole 2nd floor then went up to the 4th floor and looked there. It took me about 30 minutes to search both floors. After that I thought about it and figured "ah.. maybe I was too quick getting here" so I went back down to the 2nd floor and started searching again. I found her without too much trouble... In a place I know I looked earlier, so I knew I was too early. In any case I snuck up behind her and put the flowers down on top of her book. She was so surprised and made a little noise then looked embarrassed because it was so quiet in the library. It was so cute hehehe. After that we studied English together for a little while and then she went home. More or less...

Today I had free pizza at my work. Lots of free pizza. Because of the shift I work I got free pizza with the morning people and free pizza with the afternoon people. So I ended up eating 7 pieces of pizza throughout the day. Complimented with a bowl of baby carrots and another giant garden salad. So much food. It was nice. The pizza wasn't really the best pizza but what can you do. Tomorrow we have a company-wide meeting. We're speculating that the company is gonna bite it and we're all going to get laid off. I'm happy. I can't wait till the meeting hehehe. Severance pay FTW. But I can't get my hopes up too much until tomorrow though. I will post what happens tomorrow... Hopefully (I might forget.. or have other things to do).

So I have to start looking for a new apartment because my roommates are moving out in March which means I will also have to move out in March. I want to move in with Hime but she has to stay with her current roommate until April because they are in a contract for 1 year. It sucks. I think I might find us a place together and then just live alone for 1 month. Then again she will probably end up living with me anyway for that month hehe. I have to figure it out pretty soon. Before January ends.

Also Hime's parents are coming to Canada in February. I'm so excited. Well... excited and scared at the same time. It's a big thing to meet someone's parents. Especially when they travel from Japan. She said they just want to see Canada. I sure hope they aren't coming just to see me. Not that I think that's the case because well that would make me seem pretty conceited but I still worry that that's the reason. I would feel like such a burden. But I'm still so excited to meet them. From what she's told me I think I will really like her parents.

This Thursday will be Hime and my 2nd month anniversary. It doesn't seem like 2 months already but it is. I'm not sure what we will do but I will meet her friend late late Thursday night. Well... technically Friday morning. At around 1:30am probably. I'll have to make some plans for what we'll do on Thursday though hehehe.

My Hime's first day back

2007-01-09T23:50:00.000-08:00

So my Hime came home this morning from Japan. I picked her up at the airport at just after 9:00. Her plane arrived earlier than it was supposed to so I was waiting in line for coffee when she arrived so I had to run to say hello. I was so glad to see her again. We ended up going to starbucks and getting drinks anyway. I had forgotten to call my work in the morning to let them know that I wouldn't be coming to work so I had to rush home after we finished our coffee. At my work we have to call in one hour before our shift or else we get a warning of sorts depending on where we are on the attendance or whatnot. I managed to get home and call at 10:50 (I start work at 12:00) So that was good. Hime went on to her apartment by herself on the bus (I got off at my stop to call) . After I called in to work I went to meet her at her apartment then we headed back to my place. I cooked up some chicken and made a garden salad with chicken on top. So tasty =D

Hime gave me some presents. They're awesome. She gave me some Hokkaido cookies and some tea and some presents. I got this giant Dragonball Z calander for 2007. Each month is a poster size ^_^. Its so great. Also she gave me this sweet Vegeta action figure (on the left there) and this hilarious little keychain thing with a boner (on the right). It's called Marimokkori and its, apparently, a really popular Hokkaido souvenir. It's so weird.

After that we started to watch Moulin Rouge but she fell asleep about 20 minutes into the movie so I paused the movie and she went to have a nap. She asked me to lay with her while she fell asleep so I did that. She fell asleep after about 10 minutes so I snuck out. I found japanese subtitles for her since Moulin Rouge is a really confusing movie and the people speak SO fast. Last time we tried to watch it I couldn't explain it fast enough.

At around 6:00 Hime went home and I installed Diablo II and started a campaign with Marth. I made a druid who goes by the name of Ninjin =D (it means carrot in japanese). I only got to play for a little while though before I had to go meet up with Hime. She had to go pick up some stuff from her friends place. Then we went to Blenz and had some hot chocolate.

Now shes nagging me and nagging me because she wants to play Cake Mania. I'm going to let her use my computer now. She's so crazy but I still love her. ^_^

New Bookshelf

2007-01-08T23:59:00.000-08:00

So last night when I got home from work, I passed a bookshelf in the alley of my apartment. First thing I thought was, "I could use that". But I went inside and sat down on the computer instead. After some game playing and chatting and whatnot I decided that I really DID need that bookshelf. So at around 12:30am I went back outside and grabbed the bookshelf. I tried my best to reorganize my bedroom but it didn't quite work out 100%. My room is still a little messy (but definitely a lot cleaner than it was before). It's a ratty old purple bookshelf that looks like it was made by an aspiring 10 year old and then painted by his little brother. Either the last person who had it used it as a punching bag, or it was fashioned from random planks of wood found in the dumpster. But it works, and now its mine.

Today, work was boring. Then again, its always boring. This girl, Rupe, asked for my email today at work. Normally I'm not a fan of making "work friends" but she's pretty cool. That makes two people's emails I've got at work. There's one other person's email I'd like to get. This french lady named Gill. She's very cool - my favorite person to talk to at work right now.

So, my Hime comes home from Japan tomorrow. I'm so excited. I'm going to go meet her at the airport tomorrow morning and spend, hopefully, the rest of the day with her.

Right now I should be sleeping because I need to wake up early in order to get to the airport in time to greet her when she gets off the plane. She will probably be tired since 9am our time 2am in Japan, so if she didn't sleep on the plane she'll be wanting to sleep ASAP after she gets off the plane probably. So weird to change timezones so drastically like that.

Today I got my friend Sol8 to make a blog and hopefully he will be updating his quite frequently too. I also tried to convince my friend minibean to make a blog but she refuses. She hasn't even read this yet. So, minibean, when you read this, email me.

I think my room is about as clean as it is going to get tonight since I have to get to sleep pretty soon. I made two teriyaki chicken breasts for dinner and man where they tasty. (But I probably didn't make them 'correctly' according to tradition... but whatever, they sure tasted good)

Oh yeah, I should talk about Empire (Orson Scott Card's Novel). I finished it today and it was really good. It was hard to put down. I had to force myself to stop reading. In the beginning I wasn't totally sure I would enjoy it, but after I got into the story... really good. It is worth buying in my opinion. Definitely worth reading, that's for sure. It was a Christmas present from my Mom. =D

The next book I'm going to read is "Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ancestors of Avalon" of the Avalon Series by Diana L. Paxson. My sister bought me this for Christmas so its time to read it ^_^

Well sleep time. I hope to post tomorrow evening.

Ugly Weather

2007-01-05T22:11:00.000-08:00

Today, the weather in Vancouver was horrible. It snowed most of the day but with positive temperatures so it was more like melting snow. The streets were covered in slush and there were puddles everywhere. Trees were all weighed down and breaking. It was just bad. It's all just about melted now, which is good. Vancouver weather is so unpredictable.

Today I didn't really do all too much, as I should have. I went out to meet a friend to pick up a CD with a game engine on it. He wants me to be the level designer for the company he is hoping to create with a friend. I have to install this and start learning it, pronto. That was my plan for today but I actually didn't get around to installing it yet. I can't believe myself. Instead what I did was play video games.

I played Metal Gear Solid 3 for a couple of hours today and then after I got stuck at a hard part, switched over to Ookami. MGS3 is a really really nice looking game for PS2 and I really like how they have so much story involved. It isn't all just gameplay gameplay gameplay (though I am a lover of gameplay). There are parts of the game where it stops the game and has story for 10 and sometimes even 20 minutes at a time. It's great, its like playing through a movie. Very well done. The gameplay on the other hand is a tad bit frustrating to be honest. The game is obviously made for people who like to wait and sneak. I like to sneak but only to a certain extent. There are four "modes" that Snake can be in while playing. "Alert" which is when the enemy has spotted you, which lasts for 99 seconds (but usually quickly goes down once you've hidden yourself). "Evasion" which is after you've hidden yourself well and they're still looking for you. That lasts for 99 seconds as well (but also can be sped up if you have hidden yourself REALLY well). Then theres "Caution" which lasts for 99 SLOW seconds (by slow I mean every second in the game is about equivalent to 1.75 regular seconds)... this mode does NOT speed up if you've hidden yourself well. You have to wait for the entire 99 game-seconds to finish. It takes about 3 minutes-ish for this to finish. So all this time together can take up to 5 minutes before its totally safe to proceed in the game. Highly annoying. Also the enemies are really smart and if one sees you, you might as well just die and start from the last load point. Its possible this might change later in the game, but for now its annoying. The last mode is just the regular mode that you're in for most of the game. I got stuck at this part with landmines and whatnot and it was quite upsetting so I just shut the game off and turned on Ookami.

I played Ookami only for about an hour and 1/2 or so. Didn't get too much further either, but at least I didn't run into any problems or annoyances while playing. Ookami is everything its made out to be so far. I'm really loving it. Not too much to say about Ookami... I have no complaints, I'm not stuck, and I haven't got far enough to talk too much about what I like most. So in the future ^_^

Right now the wind is blowing like mad. Seriously... wtf is wrong with Vancouver's weather. Our living room windows are buckling. *sigh*

Thursdays

2007-01-04T11:26:00.000-08:00

This morning I got up early (8:15) so I wouldn't be in a rush to eat breakfast, shower, and head out for the day... But when I woke up I was sidetracked by an email Hime sent me. It was pretty long and it took me a little while to send a reply. By that time I was already running late and only had time for a shower and to run out the door. Luckily I remembered my mp3 player my sister gave me for Christmas.

Whenever I walk across downtown from my apartment to the skytrain I like to learn Japanese.. So I've been listening to the Pimsleur's Japanese audio books. They're really really good (though I haven't got too far into them yet. I'm on Japanese I - Lesson 15 (out of Japanese I, II, III - 30 lessons in each) But so far I'm progressing quite well. I've already learned a bunch of new things ^_^

I arrived at Metrotown at 10:00 on the dot, there was an announcement saying that stores will be opening now for customers to enter. While I walked through the mall I changed my mp3 player over to the Diablo 2 soundtrack. The first song that came on was the "Wilderness" song. So I was walking through metrotown listening to Diablo 2... it was quite epic.

When I got to the arcade lo and behold it was still closed. I looked inside and sure enough it was 'fat guy' who was opening it. He never opens on time. Idiot. So I went over to Sakura Media to check out what they had (even though they almost always have the same stuff, I had to kill some time). I looked through all their DVD's and then moved on to the soundtracks. I want to buy Hime the 耳をすませば (Whisper of the Heart) soundtrack but I couldn't find it. I asked the lady working there and she said I could find it in the Crystal mall Sakura Media. Then I got to thinking that Hime might not even want it and I don't really want to buy her something if she won't like it. But I know where to find it at least if i change my mind.

After a while the arcade opened up so I went in and played a game of In The Groove 2 since Sol8 hadn't shown up yet. He showed up a little while later and we played for a bit. Then I realized I was hungry since I hadn't even eaten breakfast yet. I went and bought McDonalds -_-' After sitting outside for a little while to cool off we went back in to play some more In The Groove.

At around 12:30 we left and headed for Sports Check because I wanted to buy something. My aunt gave me a gift certificate and I wanted to buy something while they still had holiday sales on. Sol8 left after about 20 minutes because he had to go drive his sister somewhere. I ended up staying in there for quite a while. I finally decided on this UnderArmor Fleece Hoodie and a Nike Dri-Fit Pro Shirt. They had a deal for "buy one get 2nd item 50% off" so I went a little over budget on those two items but I think it was definitely worth it. I'm really happy with them. The sweater is incredibly comfortable, super warm, and surprisingly light. Its great. After that I went home.

When I got home I went on irc and was chatting to some friends in deltaanime. Namely Ajarn. We started going through old quotes of friends. We did that for a whole hour, reading and laughing. Good times good times. After that he left to go eat "and stuff" and then my girlfriend came online. Perfect timing ^_^.

I talked to her for an hour or so, I believe, but she had to go to her friends house out of town so she wasn't able to stay and chitchat forever like we normally do. I hate saying bye to her but well, what can you do. I hope she's having lots of fun in Japan though, I really do. I'd rather her have fun in Japan than talk to me on msn, that's for sure. Well I mean I would rather talk to her but I'd rather her be happy before me, so there you have it ^_^. In any case she said she would email me and she hasn't yet so I guess she will be emailing me in the evening her time which is early early morning my time. I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning.

I had planned on going out to the "Draw Jam" tonight (hosted by The Artery) but I got sidetracked by laundry... 5 loads of laundry! It was chaos. So many clothes to fold. I washed 34 shirts, 6 pairs of pants, 13 sweaters and who knows how many socks. Now my bedroom is a lot more clean. In any case, I convinced kachu to make a blog. Let's hope she updates it hehe.

Also I told my friend Potato that I would mention her in my blog so... Thank you for letting me spill out all my problems to you!! =D You're my favorite pomme de terre.

Miscommunication

2007-01-02T21:54:00.000-08:00

So today Hime emailed me and was telling me about her time in japan and something she said I misunderstood and took it for something TOTALLY out of context and got quite upset. I emailed her back trying to be as nice as possible because I KNEW I had probably misunderstood at least to some extent but I still was unsure. I emailed her on my lunch break and then after I got back to work I kept thinking and thinking and then i realized what she had actually meant and I felt sooo guilty. As soon as i finished work I emailed her again from work and apologized about it.

After I got home from work I phoned her to apologize in person but she hadn't even got the email yet. So I explained it and apologized in advance but then she got all sad because she was thinking that we're going to have lots of problems in the future so I tried my best to assure her that we will be okay. Everybody has problems but they will get resolved so we don't need to worry about it. It wasn't good but I think it worked out. We talked for an hour and 1/2 about this and that. She's going to email me either in the next couple hours or later tonight (I'll be asleep).

I really miss her.

Holiday Recap

2006-12-31T19:23:00.000-08:00

So my Hime and I went back to my hometown to spend Christmas together with my family. Sadly I don't have any good pictures at the moment so I will have to put up some pictures later. Seeing my family and being with my girlfriend was awesome. We had a great time. We didn't do too much back home. Just relax, chat, enjoy the scenery; same ol' same ol'.

She left to go back to Japan at 5:45 in the morning on the 26th. I won't see her until the 9th... which really isn't THAT long, but it sure seems like a long time already and its only been 5 days. By the sounds of it she's really having a lot of fun over there with her friends and her family. New years in Japan was 7am my time. I talked to her this morning at 11:00am and she was still awake (so 3:00am Japan time) She seemed like she had lots of fun but I think she was pretty tired. Right now I'm just waiting for her to call me ^_^

My Christmas was awesome. I got almost everything I asked for and more and I think so did most of my family. It wasn't a white Christmas but man was it a white boxing day. Like 6" of snow or something. I'm not 100% sure how much but it was pretty crazy. Luckily Hime left so early in the morning because all the flights later in the day and the day after were cancelled because of the snow. If she had missed her flight in my hometown she would have missed her flight to Japan.. and that would have been expensive >_<

Currently playing: Metal Gear Solid 3 : Subsistence, 大神 (Ōkami)
Currently Reading: Empire - Orson Scott Card

Secrets

2006-12-20T01:28:00.000-08:00

Tonight was interesting. Hime and I did a lot of talking... a lot of talking. We ended up talking about our past and about our 'secrets'. I found out many things tonight I was suprised to hear. She told me things I daren't repeat; things she has scarecely told anybody before. I'm so glad she was able to talk to me about such things but I think she was afraid I might leave her after I found out about her past... But I think it has brought us closer together. I can't say I agree with her actions in the past, but who am I to judge? I don't have a perfect track record either.

愛してます俺のお姫様。永遠～

Aishiteimasu ore no ohime-sama. Eien~

Health Hazard?

2006-12-18T13:59:00.000-08:00

So I'm on my lunch break right now at work. Its 2:00pm and I'm not supposed to be taking my lunch until about 3:30 or so since I work until 6pm; however, right now our whole room reeks of propane and it's making me feel really light headed. I refused to work but management told us that if we didn't want to work we would have to use our own breaks to do so as "it isn't a health hazard," they claim. It's interesting that they already know its not a health hazard since the smell has only been there for 15 minutes and they haven't had anyone to officially 'check' for any hazards. So I guess that means if someone gets sick they can sue the company? I haven't been in the room in almost 30 minutes and I still feel light headed. My hands are shaky as well, but they still claim its 'not a health hazard' as it doesnt affect everybody.

Update (2:33pm):

So it still smells in there and even going in makes me feel lightheaded. I talked to management again and they say that if I wait around its unpaid time (which I feel contradicts the Workers Rights, but they say that its not technically a "health hazard", it just makes me feel uncomfortable). They also suggested I go home early, but that would give me a written warning since I already left early once in the past 14 days. So that is totally out of the question.

姫

2006-12-18T10:50:00.000-08:00

So for the past 2 weeks I've been so busy with things. Mainly my girlfriend; I've seen her just about every day in the last couple of weeks. Which is a good thing mind you, surprisingly. I never thought it was possible to hang out with somebody every day for near a month and not get bored, but that's exactly what we've done... and I'm not bored ^_^

About a week and 1/2 ago I went to her friends フラミンゴさん's (I'll just call him Ming) birthday party at Shinanigans. It was pretty cool, he's an awesome guy. Hime is going to give me his MSN soon. Right now he's in yellowknife with his friend なっとさん (Nat). She's pretty cool too even though I keep forgetting her name.

Here's two pictures of the birthday party:

First: フラミンゴさん(Ming),　姫様(Hime), and me.
Second: 姫様(Hime), Me, なっとさん(Nat)

Current Games: Final Fantasy VII, Halo, Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords
Reading: A Game of Thrones (Book1:A Song of Ice and Fire) George R. R. Martin

What I want to play: Neverwinter Nights 2, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, 大神 (Ōkami)

Smile -_-'

2006-12-02T01:49:00.001-08:00

So today work was fun and went by pretty quick. After work I called Kenji to reschedule our meeting as now I have a birthday party to go to tomorrow evening. Then I gave Hime a call just because I like hearing her voice. She didn't sound very happy though. Apparently her roommate is totally ignoring her because she is spending so much time with me (he likes her but it's not mutual in the slightest). She sees him as a friend but he's not happy with that it seems. She was at the library and said that she was okay and would be fine. So I talked to her for a while and said goodbye before running over to play D&D with my friends until about 12:30am.

When I got home I started talking to Hime on msn. She seemed very upset but kept telling me she was okay. I finally got her to explain what was wrong and asked if she would like to go out for coffee. Her roommate had taken some of his clothes and his laptop and left. He also had left a huge mess in their apartment. She wasn't in the best mood. We ended up in Denny's and stayed there until about 5am before I walked her home. He is incredibly selfish and from what she tells me, neurotic too. Such a bad environment >_<.

THE有頂天ホテル

2006-11-29T23:59:00.000-08:00

After work and a short D&D session, Hime and I got together to watch a movie Kenji lent me called 「THE有頂天ホテル」 or "The Uchoten Hotel". From what we watched, I really enjoyed it but I was too tired to watch the whole movie so we ended up stopping it with about 30 minutes or so left. I plan on watching it again though, it was, honestly, pretty funny. It had English subtitles so I was able to fully enjoy it as well.

A long day out

2006-11-28T23:25:00.000-08:00

So today I left my apartment at, I believe, around 7:50. I grabbed a coffee from the Macs up the street and headed off to meet Hime. It was really cold outside... Hime and I bought $0.99 gloves from London Drugs before we left downtown... Which reminds me... I had to go to the bank to figure out why I was $1,000 in debt since... I know I wasn't. Apparently someone had "skimmed" my card, deposited an empty envelope for $1500 into my account and then withdrew $1000 of that amount. The bank put a hold on the $1,500 amount (since the envelope was empty) and thus leaving me $1,000 in debt. It was definitely an interesting morning. After signing some papers and talking to this cool guy named Mauricio we were off to coquitlam.

Coquitlam was interesting - It took a long time to get there by public transit and it was pretty damn cold. We found the mall without too much trouble and started exploring. Nothing too interesting.. There was a salesperson selling massage items that tried to offer us a deal but after I refused he got pretty rude and so we avoided walking past him the rest of the day. In any case though we found the bookstore I was looking for and browsed around for quite a while. I bought a few books. One of which was for myself: A Crack in the Line. It was an okay book. Not amazing by any standards but it kept me interested for the couple of hours it took to finish. After that we had a mocha at Starbucks (I really don't like Starbucks) and headed back home.

It was still very cold.

We had sushi at this awesome little sushi restaurant on Burrard called Daikichi Sushi. It's one of my favorite restaurants and I would suggest anyone who likes sushi to give this place a visit. (Its close to VFS, near the Burrard Bridge). おいしいです。 After that we met up with my friend Kenji ( 乾児) and studied English for a while. That was about it. We said bye to Kenji and I walked Hime home and then went to sleep.

Damn it's cold.

2006-11-28T06:49:00.000-08:00

So I live in Vancouver and right now we have snow. It's really quite strange. But what's even stranger is how cold it is here. Right now the temperature is -8 according to the thermometer but the "feels like" highs and lows for today are -11 and -17 respectively. Right now it "feels like" -17. Chilly.

Today I'm going to coquitlam to check out a bookstore a friend at work suggested. After that I'll be going skating with my 姫. It's Robyn's birthday today and I think she just wants to relax so I'm going to try my best to be out most of the day.

My secret blog

2006-11-27T22:27:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago I met a beautiful girl (姫 - Hime). We hit it off pretty well, I thought. I was enthralled from the get-go. We've spent soo much time together in the past few weeks and I just can't get enough.

There's other new news too. I might be getting involved in making an "all canadian" game - which would be pretty cool. Also I gotta start looking for an apartment of my own >_<. A few other things. I'll post that up some other time though. Time to sleep now. おやすみぃ。