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tammaiyaJapanese language classes started on Thursday, but I didn't HAVE any that day, so it was pretty much licence to bludge. I hadn't bought anything specific for breakfast, so I just ate an apple, a banana and a glass of milk, and proceeded to lounge around in my room until 1pm or so.
This time was mostly spent on the internet, but I DID take some photos of my dorm room to email to a few people, mostly family and uni friends. Which I will now upload here. And yes, okay, I KNOW my room is messy in these photos, stfu. I copped flake from my mother, sister and aunt about it already. << And I've cleaned it, sheesh. YOU try staying neat when you have no storage space. *sulk* Anyway, photos.
You can see my front door, the edge of the shoe cupboard, my kitchenette and my fridge.
Other side of the same corridor. You can see the door to the bathroom and the intercom phone. (I has a doorbell! ... the phone would probably be more useful if it linked to the entrance of the dorm, but hey.)
Bathroom. Pretty tiny, but works for me. Can't tell in this photo but the bath is really deep. It's a Japanese-style furo. (actually, Japanese people might consider it shallow, I'm not sure. It come to about my knees when I'm standing, and I'm pretty tall.)
Shelves, continuing on next to the fridge. Yes, they're messy. Whatever. You can also see my rice-cooker, which I have nowhere else to put. (my clothes are in my suitcase under the bed and my bathroom stuff is under the kitchen sink. so not kidding about lack of storage.)
Desk. Now, as everything else, a lot cleaner. It was even cleaner than it currently is at one stage, but right now it has my academic handguides and class registration forms spread on it. Note the billboard! It was empty at the time of taking the photo, but now has a unit outline and a timetable pinned to it.
My (unmade) bed, across from the desk. There's about a metre of space between the desk/shelves and the bed. Unfortunately there's no where I can take a picture from that reflects that because the bed is sort of in an alcove with the headboard against the wall of the bathroom.
View from the balcony! The cherry blossoms were nicer before it rained, but still fairly pretty.
Whatever. So it was raining and cold again on Thursday, after the brief sunny interlude of Wednesday. I did have to leave my room sooner or later for food and to get the letter from my parents' bank saying they had funds to support me that I'd sent with my original application forms from the international student division, so I decided at about 1 or so to have a shower and get dressed. Then I decided to wash my hair while I was at it. THEN I decided, hey, let's try out the furo while washing my hair! I don't have anything else I have to be doing!
All I can say is, it's just as well Japan does not have a water shortage. O.o; Coming from Australia, where we've been in drought for 10 years and for the last few years even the major cities have been having to seriously monitor their water usage, I couldn't help but feel like it was sacrilege filling this enormously deep tub with water. How many litres are in a normal bathtub? It had to be at least double that, maybe three times. Like 20-40L for one bath! Also, there's the issue of my water bill. How much does water cost here?
Either way I probably won't have baths too often... especially since hot water has the unfortunate tendency to make my blood sugar drop. XD; I managed to wash my hair, but by the time I came out I was really hungry to the point of feeling a little faint and ill. Clearly LUNCH TIME. Except I'd have to go buy lunch and my need was more immediate than that, so I ate one of those egg-based cookies from the bakery in Fuchuu and felt a lot better.
Of course, one element of fail to this hair-washing plan was that it was cold and wet, and my hair? Also wet. I don't have a dryer. I did actually consider that BEFORE washing my hair but I really needed to wash it and I couldn't conceive of a time where it would really be less inconvenient (can't do it before bed, don't have time most days, need to wash it NOW, etc) so I threw on my hoodie and dealt.
In theory I assume the international student division has English-speaking staff, but in pratice I have never witnessed this occurrence. Mostly when I've had to go there Kaori has been with me and has dealt with most of it, but Thursday I was on my own. Nevertheless, I managed to explain that I wanted a document from my bank in Australia that I'd submitted to TUFS when applying, did they have it? and achieved success in the form of the exact letter I wanted. VICTORY! \o/
After that, I went off to the Familymart combini-- the one near the station, not the one across the road from my uni (the Three F) because it has more stuff-- and on my way leaving the uni campus I ran into Brendan, who decided he had a craving for an American hotdog and went with me to the combini, where I bought nikuman for lunch, plus eggs, and when we couldn't find rice at the Familymart, returned to the Three F where Brendan showed me where the rice was located. In theory, now I could cook food for myself. Hooray!
In practice, I discovered later that day that there were several issues with this. One: I wasn't entirely sure what rice to water ratio is appropriate with a ricecooker and ended up having to add more water to it mid-process. Two: no measuring cup or scoop, spilled a little rice on the floor, still need some kind of dustpan/brush equivalent to clean it up. Three: no vegetables, soy sauce, etc. Rice with egg boring and made me feel a little ill because I MADE TOO MUCH RICE and then didn't want to waste it, not least because I'd have to find somewhere to throw it out. Refer back to lack of measuring cup. Four: ... there is no four? There feels like there should be. Anyway, conclusion: FAIL. Need to work on this whole cooking in limited space with limited resources deal. (I have subsequently bought a measuring cup and soy sauce, amongst other things.)
Other than that, checked the tracking for my certificate of eligibility. Apparently they attempted to deliver it at 5pm and failed. Mum was all, WELL WERE YOU HOME? and I am fairly confident that I WAS, but, as I pointed out to her, I live on the fourth floor of a building which can only be accessed by swipe card and no intercom at the ground level, and mail goes to the international student administration division ANYWAY. Maybe they tried to deliver it there and it was closed. (I was also worried maybe they tried to deliver it there and because I couldn't sign for it they couldn't leave it, which would have created major problems because HELLO, FOURTH FLOOR, but it turned out this was not the case. Phew.)
Um, I can't think of anything else particularly interesting about Thursday-- oh, that's right, I watched himitsu no arashi on my mobile phone, which filled Becky with glee. XD; There was too much focus on the imparting of random facts about Disney Land and the Japanese defence force, but it was kind of worth it to see Ohno fluttering around gracefully on toe shoes while everyone else was like, O_o;
Really. Watching weird Japanese tv is part of the whole Japan experience.
... SHUT UP, OKAY, IT'S ALL BECKY'S FAULT.
This time was mostly spent on the internet, but I DID take some photos of my dorm room to email to a few people, mostly family and uni friends. Which I will now upload here. And yes, okay, I KNOW my room is messy in these photos, stfu. I copped flake from my mother, sister and aunt about it already. << And I've cleaned it, sheesh. YOU try staying neat when you have no storage space. *sulk* Anyway, photos.
You can see my front door, the edge of the shoe cupboard, my kitchenette and my fridge.
Other side of the same corridor. You can see the door to the bathroom and the intercom phone. (I has a doorbell! ... the phone would probably be more useful if it linked to the entrance of the dorm, but hey.)
Bathroom. Pretty tiny, but works for me. Can't tell in this photo but the bath is really deep. It's a Japanese-style furo. (actually, Japanese people might consider it shallow, I'm not sure. It come to about my knees when I'm standing, and I'm pretty tall.)
Shelves, continuing on next to the fridge. Yes, they're messy. Whatever. You can also see my rice-cooker, which I have nowhere else to put. (my clothes are in my suitcase under the bed and my bathroom stuff is under the kitchen sink. so not kidding about lack of storage.)
Desk. Now, as everything else, a lot cleaner. It was even cleaner than it currently is at one stage, but right now it has my academic handguides and class registration forms spread on it. Note the billboard! It was empty at the time of taking the photo, but now has a unit outline and a timetable pinned to it.
My (unmade) bed, across from the desk. There's about a metre of space between the desk/shelves and the bed. Unfortunately there's no where I can take a picture from that reflects that because the bed is sort of in an alcove with the headboard against the wall of the bathroom.
View from the balcony! The cherry blossoms were nicer before it rained, but still fairly pretty.
Whatever. So it was raining and cold again on Thursday, after the brief sunny interlude of Wednesday. I did have to leave my room sooner or later for food and to get the letter from my parents' bank saying they had funds to support me that I'd sent with my original application forms from the international student division, so I decided at about 1 or so to have a shower and get dressed. Then I decided to wash my hair while I was at it. THEN I decided, hey, let's try out the furo while washing my hair! I don't have anything else I have to be doing!
All I can say is, it's just as well Japan does not have a water shortage. O.o; Coming from Australia, where we've been in drought for 10 years and for the last few years even the major cities have been having to seriously monitor their water usage, I couldn't help but feel like it was sacrilege filling this enormously deep tub with water. How many litres are in a normal bathtub? It had to be at least double that, maybe three times. Like 20-40L for one bath! Also, there's the issue of my water bill. How much does water cost here?
Either way I probably won't have baths too often... especially since hot water has the unfortunate tendency to make my blood sugar drop. XD; I managed to wash my hair, but by the time I came out I was really hungry to the point of feeling a little faint and ill. Clearly LUNCH TIME. Except I'd have to go buy lunch and my need was more immediate than that, so I ate one of those egg-based cookies from the bakery in Fuchuu and felt a lot better.
Of course, one element of fail to this hair-washing plan was that it was cold and wet, and my hair? Also wet. I don't have a dryer. I did actually consider that BEFORE washing my hair but I really needed to wash it and I couldn't conceive of a time where it would really be less inconvenient (can't do it before bed, don't have time most days, need to wash it NOW, etc) so I threw on my hoodie and dealt.
In theory I assume the international student division has English-speaking staff, but in pratice I have never witnessed this occurrence. Mostly when I've had to go there Kaori has been with me and has dealt with most of it, but Thursday I was on my own. Nevertheless, I managed to explain that I wanted a document from my bank in Australia that I'd submitted to TUFS when applying, did they have it? and achieved success in the form of the exact letter I wanted. VICTORY! \o/
After that, I went off to the Familymart combini-- the one near the station, not the one across the road from my uni (the Three F) because it has more stuff-- and on my way leaving the uni campus I ran into Brendan, who decided he had a craving for an American hotdog and went with me to the combini, where I bought nikuman for lunch, plus eggs, and when we couldn't find rice at the Familymart, returned to the Three F where Brendan showed me where the rice was located. In theory, now I could cook food for myself. Hooray!
In practice, I discovered later that day that there were several issues with this. One: I wasn't entirely sure what rice to water ratio is appropriate with a ricecooker and ended up having to add more water to it mid-process. Two: no measuring cup or scoop, spilled a little rice on the floor, still need some kind of dustpan/brush equivalent to clean it up. Three: no vegetables, soy sauce, etc. Rice with egg boring and made me feel a little ill because I MADE TOO MUCH RICE and then didn't want to waste it, not least because I'd have to find somewhere to throw it out. Refer back to lack of measuring cup. Four: ... there is no four? There feels like there should be. Anyway, conclusion: FAIL. Need to work on this whole cooking in limited space with limited resources deal. (I have subsequently bought a measuring cup and soy sauce, amongst other things.)
Other than that, checked the tracking for my certificate of eligibility. Apparently they attempted to deliver it at 5pm and failed. Mum was all, WELL WERE YOU HOME? and I am fairly confident that I WAS, but, as I pointed out to her, I live on the fourth floor of a building which can only be accessed by swipe card and no intercom at the ground level, and mail goes to the international student administration division ANYWAY. Maybe they tried to deliver it there and it was closed. (I was also worried maybe they tried to deliver it there and because I couldn't sign for it they couldn't leave it, which would have created major problems because HELLO, FOURTH FLOOR, but it turned out this was not the case. Phew.)
Um, I can't think of anything else particularly interesting about Thursday-- oh, that's right, I watched himitsu no arashi on my mobile phone, which filled Becky with glee. XD; There was too much focus on the imparting of random facts about Disney Land and the Japanese defence force, but it was kind of worth it to see Ohno fluttering around gracefully on toe shoes while everyone else was like, O_o;
Really. Watching weird Japanese tv is part of the whole Japan experience.
... SHUT UP, OKAY, IT'S ALL BECKY'S FAULT.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 05:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 05:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 02:22 am (UTC)*goooooos at* I'm sure one day we can have deep baths and rice cooker problems together! although who knows, maybe I'll be able to actually cook by the time that happens. XD
no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 06:11 am (UTC)How much are lentils over there? You could also make nachos or burritos; tin o beans, tomatoes or tin o tomatoes, onion. Chop, mush, let warm. Get a bowl and serve it on cornchips or whatever ^_^
no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 02:35 am (UTC)- use chicken stock instead of water
- when the rice is half done, add thinly sliced pieces of chicken on top and drip some sesame oil over it all
- when the rice is all done, put fresh vegetables on top to steam
no subject
Date: 2008-04-12 07:14 am (UTC)But still, even if your place is small, it has a quaint feel to it. I like it.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-13 02:26 am (UTC)Yeah, it's small, but it's cosy. The only thing that bothers me is not having enough shelves and drawers and things.