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tammaiyaI've been having some exciting cultural experiences
Okay, one of the major reasons it's super fail that I haven't updated in forever is that I've actually done a lot of things since the last update, whenever that was. Two months ago by this point, probably. Even without all the below headings, I've done a bunch of interesting things around Tokyo-- and not just Tokyo, either. I've been to two firework events (hanabi taikai) in Yokohama, a summer festival in my local neighbourhood, and explored Odaiba.
Hanabi Taikai #1
The first hanabi taikai was back in mid-July, on the Sunday of the Sea Day long weekend. A group from the dorms were going, including Debbie, Kathleen and Brendan. It was pretty disorganised in terms of information dissemination, so I didn't really know about it until Debbie sent me phone-mail asking if I was going. I really wanted to go-- not only did I want to see the firework festival atmosphere, I hadn't been to Yokohama yet. But I was supposed to be working at my third job, the private tutoring job. (More on that below.) I was feeling pretty down about that, but then I spoke to my parents and my mum said I should ring to see if I could change my work, since I had the phone number. So I did, and explained the situation, and Reiko-san was really nice and understanding and we rescheduled for Monday. \o/ But my woes weren't over, because I still didn't have a yukata and I didn't have time to go out to Musashi Sakai and buy one. I'd been continuously intending to buy one before the festival season, but I'd kept putting it off and now I was actually going to a festival I didn't have one. ~___~; But I still wanted to go, so I met up with Debbie and Kathleen (who both looked really good in their yukata) and we took the various trains to Yokohama.
I'm glad someone other than me knew what they were doing, on that note. I would have just gone to Shinjuku and caught the first train that said "Yokohama bound". XD; But the station we wanted was Minato Mirai-- near the port, where the fireworks were going to be set off-- and the only train that goes there is a train company I'd never heard of (Toukyuu? East something, at any rate) leaving from Shibuya. Whichever way, we got to Minato Mirai, and even better, there was a Uniqlo there, which meant I could quickly run in and buy myself the yukata I'd been eyeing off for a while. (The unfortunate side effect of this was that, while I'd started the day out with over 10,000 yen, ie about $100, between the 4000 yen yukata and the 5000 yen I unthinkingly added to my train pasmo card, I became very dangerously broke.) Debbie helped me put it on over my clothes in the bathroom, and another Japanese girl also jumped in to help. Success! There are photos, albeit crappy ones I took with my phone, but at the moment they're only on facebook and I don't really have time at the moment to link them or upload them to livejournal. Sorry, maybe later.
As for the festival itself, the port area of Yokohama was extremely crowded, as you might expect. There were a lot of yukata, mostly girls but also some guys. (I notice that usually when there's a guy wearing a yukata he's with his girlfriend/family. Interesting.) It was a fair walk to the waterfront, which made me glad that I wasn't wearing the correct footwear, no matter how incongruous I'm sure it looked to be wearing alice shoes with a yukata, because I have really sensitive feet and walking that far in geta or thongs would have KILLED.
There wasn't as much in the way of festival food as I'd been expecting, just a few people selling yakisoba and kara-age chicken here and there. Kathleen and I were rather disappointed, but went on the trek to purchase some unheathy food stuffs anyway, since there was a while before the fireworks were going to start. There was also a guy selling ice candy (icy poles) around the seating areas.
--On a side note, I got hit on by a guy on our way back towards the shops, as in I walked past and he randomly said "kawaii su yo!" XD; This is, according to Kaori, the textbook definition of "nampa".
The fireworks themselves were pretty impressive, but I've seen a lot of fireworks over the years and I was tired, so I kind of spaced out for a lot of them. After they were over the guy who'd nampa'd me earlier came up to chat and he seemed nice enough, so I shrugged and gave him my phone details. Since then, he's only used it recently to mail me to ask if I wanted to meet up so he could learn English, and I decided to ignore it. I maybe would have said yes if it hadn't been that long after, because I don't usually mind helping people with their English, but it's a bit presumptuous to not contact someone for weeks after you meet them and then basically ask them for a free lesson. So, whatever.
Of course, the really memorable bit of this festival was going home. There'd been a lot of dawdling and the group got separated in stages, and by the time we reached Shibuya Debbie and I were both sick of waiting for people all the time. Brendan was going with a group on the JR lines back via Musashi Sakai/Tama, but the Chuuou line is congested on a normal evening, let alone festival + long weekend. Going back via Keio lines would mean having to walk from Tobitakyuu to home, which is a good 20 minutes, but it seemed the lesser of two evils at the time.
Debbie and I were REALLY regretting that later, let me tell you. Now, keep in mind that I don't often catch Keio trains; they're cheaper, but given the choice between walking five minutes to Tama and taking the changeover or walking 20 minutes to Tobitakyuu, usually I'll take the Seibu/JR combo from Tama. So I don't have a lot of experience with Keio trains, and I didn't know about their unsavoury tendency to branch off. Basically what happened was that when we took the connection train on the Keio line, we caught a local train going towards Choufu. Choufu is two stations from Tobitakyuu and is the closest major station. If we'd caught a rapid train, we would have had to change at Choufu. But we thought, hey, if we catch a local train, it'll take longer but we'll have more chance of getting a seat and won't have to change again.
We got seats. It was very relaxing. Unfortunately, what we didn't realise was that the Keio line branches at Choufu, and the train we were on was "Hashimoto bound", which meant it took the other line from Tobitakyuu. I just assumed Hashimoto was the final stop on the Tobitakyuu line, since I didn't know what stations came after Tobitayuu and I didn't know it branched. I mean, I'd made sure it was going in the right direction, shouldn't that be enough? ;___; (anyone who knows me well knows that I am CURSED when it comes to public transport. I miss buses a lot and I have been known, in my youth, to catch things going the wrong way. This happened to me once with a bus at home in year 8, and again in Sydney in, um, second year uni. cough.)
I realised this wasn't right about three unfamiliar stations after Choufu and we got off the train, thinking we could just catch a train back to Choufu and change. No biggie, right? Annoying, but easily solved.
Hah, or NOT. It was 12.10am when we got off the train, and the trains going the opposite way HAD ALREADY STOPPED. There were NO TRAINS. We were FUCKED. Neither of us had very much money on hand (see above), and I didn't have my credit card anymore since it had stopped working. Debbie called Brendan, and upon looking it up, he found that it would take us three hours to walk back. We'd gotten off at this tiny little station called Inagi that wasn't likely to have internet cafes or anything halfway useful for people who are stranded. So I called Kaori, hoping that she could tell me what to do.
Let me just say, Kaori is the nicest person in the WORLD. We both agree she's more like my older sister than my tutor. She asked if there were any trains still running towards Hashimoto, told us to catch a train to Tama Centre, and said she'd pick us up in her car. Thank god. ;___; We were SO RELIEVED. Kaori said I got really lucky, because usually she would have had a beer by that point, but she'd been leaving it until after she'd finished her report-- and when she finished her report, she thought maybe she'd hold off a little longer, just in case, because I'd sent her a message about the festival and the fact I was going home and she was worried. She knows me too well, clearly. XD;
So, it was a very memorable adventure, and it was like 2 am by the time Debbie and I got back. I knew I was going to have a public transport crisis one of these days, I wouldn't be me if I didn't. Nice to have that out of the way, now I know to be more cautious both of Keio branching lines and final trains. *g*
Summer festival
Chronologically the next thing to happen was the summer festival in my neighbourhood. I saw the pamphlet by chance when I went to visit the Community Store combini next to the small playground where the festival was being held and saw thes structures they'd set up and was like, OOH, FESTIVAL! So I mailed my friends to ask if they wanted to go on Sunday (I had work on Saturday). Brendan and Debbie had a thing with the German-speaking contingent-- everyone was going back to their own countries the next week-- but Kathleen and Dawn were both up for it. Even though Debbie couldn't come, she helped me get my yukata tied and loaned me a pair of thongs. <3 Then I met up with Dawn and Kathleen and we took the short walk to the playground where the festival was being held, going past the dog cafe on our way.
Quick note of explanation-- there'd been a farewell party for everyone the Friday two days before, and Dawn and Debbie had decided they wanted foodstuffs from the Community Store combini (which I previously had not known the existence of; there's also a 3F, Family Mart and 7/11 in walking distance). On the way back we walked past this cafe with a whole lot of dogs. It's run by a married couple; the lady brought out one of her dogs, the one that had been barking a lot, and while I was cooing over it I mentioned that I have a poodle of my own back in Australia. Turned out there were two poodles inside the cafe at the time, so I went in to see them. I thought Debbie and Dawn would follow, but they didn't, so I assumed they'd gone back to the party. A fair while later they mailed to ask if I was alive, since I hadn't emerged from the cafe. I felt really bad knowing they were waiting for me that whole time. ^^; Anyway, they went back to the party. I eventually went back-- the people in the cafe walked me with their dogs, they were all really nice-- but it was winding up by then so I ended up going back to my room.
Er, back to the festival, though. We popped our heads into the cafe on the way there to say hi, and then continued on our merry way to the festival.
It looked GORGEOUS. It was only small, but there were all these food stalls, and in the centre there was a platform set up for dancing on the bottom half and a huge taiko drum on the top half, with brightly lit lanterns hanging in strings out from the platform. It was really exciting, and it was the kind of thing Kathleen and I had expected from the hanabi taikai and then been disappointed in. I ate lots of delicious food, and after a bit we joined in with the dancing and ended up going inside the platform, where there are festival staff who are experienced dancers helping learners-- most of the staff were really friendly obaasans. It was all heaps of fun, and it was a great experience. At the end of it all one of the obaasans told us to wait for "omiyage" (a much more all-encompassing word than the translation of souvenir) and then led us to a long table spread out with onigiri and sweets and things, with places set with cans of green tea and told us to sit. It was so nice of them! So in addition to all the food I'd already bought, we got food from the table, and then while they were packing up they gave us bags of stuff from the sponsors-- including beer, which is sitting unloved in my fridge, instant corn soup, which I ate, and a hand towel, which I use frequently. XD
On the way back, we did a longer stop in at the cafe. The okami-san helped Dawn with her yukata, which had come loose at the hem-- it turns out that her mother used to weave kimonos, so she knows a lot about tying obi. All in all, it was the night was heaps of fun.
Odaiba
Odaiba is a man-made island in Tokyo Bay. The most immediately interesting aspect of it is, of course, Rainbow Bridge, although I went during the afternoon so I didn't get to see it lit up-- I'm hoping I can do that with my parents. XD Basically, I think I mentioned this before, but there were two Japanese girls, Madoka and Eri, who I ran into randomly on campus. They wanted to practice their English, and they figured a foreign studies university would be a good place to start. I agreed to go out with them somewhere at some time, and we'd been trying to organise it for a while. Eventually we settled on Monday the 21st of July (the day after that festival, incidentally) and decided to go to Odaiba, which I wanted to see. They said to invite friends, so I asked Brendan and Debbie to come with me, as they hadn't been to Odaiba either and were going home to America that Thursday.
We had HEAPS of fun. Even the train out there was fun, because it was a monorail-- I used to LOVE the monorail in Sydney as a child. The whole atmosphere was very much like Darling Harbour, actually. Lots of shops and cafes and tourist attractions, plus the sea breeze. We ran all over the place-- we found a small themepark called Hong Kong Town in one of the shopping centres (I have photos; again, I'll upload later), took photos of the miniture Statue of Liberty (Brendan and Debbie, being from NY state, were a little miffed at Japan cribbing their national symbol), rode the world's biggest ferris wheel, and generally just had a great time and tired ourselves out. I went to dinner with Eri and Madoka in Shinjuku afterwards; Debbie was too tired, and Brendan had a prior engagement with karaoke, so it was just the three of us. I helped them with their English while we ate sushi.
Anyway, I really enjoyed myself. We're going to have to go out and do something together again sometime, but they've been in Nagano working up until now and I'm about go on holidays with my parents, so it'll have to wait.
Hanabi Taikai #2
Hanabi taikai #2 was in the same location as the first-- there are hanabi taikai all OVER the place almost every day in late July/early August, but this was what I knew so I was sticking with it. Akane had said that she'd like to go to a hanabi taikai with me, and I knew there was another one in Yokohama on the 1st of August, so we agreed to do that. Unfortunately I didn't wear my yukata-- it was creased from the last two occasions and I couldn't tie it by myself-- so I gave up and wore normal clothes. My feet thanked me, I'm sure, because we did a LOT of walking. Akane looked very pretty in her yukata though, and she must be made of much sterner stuff than me because she said her feet were fine when I asked if she was okay with the geta.
Akane knew her way around Yokohama, certainly a lot better than I did, so this time instead of going straight to the free seating we walked towards the official area where the fireworks had been held. I didn't realise it, but there was paid seating some distance from where I'd been sitting at the last festival-- and near that paid seating, there was rows upon ROWS of food stalls. It wasn't that there was no food at hanabi taikai, it was that we'd MISSED it.
And it was all very delicious. I can take or leave the choco bananas, but takoyaki and potatoes = <333. The ice candy was also delicious. I love festival food. *____*
We had to walk around a bit to find a place to sit, and then we had to move during the fireworks because there was a tree in our way, so we ended up back near where I'd been sitting the time before in the end, only further, back towards the shops. We had a good view, though, and they really were spectacular, which I was in more of a mood to appreciate that time, not being half asleep. I can't imagine how much that taikai must've cost; they held it three times total, and each one the display went for over an hour, and they certainly didn't skimp on the fireworks.
Anyway, heaps of fun. We decided to walk to Yokohama station in the hope of less crowds, which was a fair walk and I would have gotten hideously lost without Akane, but she obviously knew where she was going. It wasn't actually as easy as we thought for me to get home from Yokohama St-- we'd both thought there was a train directly to Shinjuku-- but in the end I caught a train to Shinagawa station (which is HUGE, by the way, there's a bunch of restaurants and a bookstore and a delicious icecreamery and stuff all within the ticket gates), connected onto the yamanote line to Shinjuku, and then connected from there to the Chuuou line. All JR trains. The biggest plus about this was that I got to sit the whole way to Shinagawa, plus I didn't have to walk home from Tobitakyuu. Shinagawa station was also pretty cool.
So that went much better than the first one, and I really enjoyed it. ♥
I went through an exceedingly fun period of fail
So okay, it almost makes it sound like I'm a competent adult after all that stuff about me Experiencing Tokyo and working for a living and so forth, but we all know nobody changes quite that much. I had a two week period wherein all of my jobs except the home tutoring job (which isn't quite once a week, as we change the days around) were on break-- it was the two weeks preceding this one, in fact. Obviously, I've been on summer holidays this whole time, so I pretty much had no pressing engagements, and all my friends had either gone back to their own countries (wah. even if I still talk to them on the net, it's not the same.) or were busy travelling or working or whatever. So, me being me, this equated to backsliding into hermitry and odd sleeping hours. Only without my parents here to yell at me, I truly, spectacularly fucked my sleeping patterns up like NEVER BEFORE-- I was sleeping from the afternoon to the early evening, and it took ages for me to actually manage to stay awake for 24 hours to fix it.
I've kind of been feeling a little homesick, too, but when I think about it logically, I'm really not missing anything specific about home, precisely. I'm not missing my family-- I talk to them all the time, and I'm seeing my parents in two days anyway. I'm maybe missing my friends a little, but I talk to them to and being brutally honest about it I'm a hermit at home, too, whether or not people are in the same city as me. I'm a little bit wistful for the ANU and law, of all things, but it's not really serious. I miss driving a bit, every now and then, and sometimes I want some real bread, but Japan has a lot of food that more than makes up for that particular lack. There's nothing about Australian culture I really long for or about Japanese culture that's really annoying me.
No, I'm just sick of living in a room the size of a postage stamp. Which is partially Japan, but mostly because I live in a dorm. XD; It didn't bother me that much during term, but now I'm in here all the time it's sending me a little crazy. I won't be in here for the two weeks my parents are coming, though, so hopefully that will make me feel better.
... Alright, and I miss my dog too. But ce la vie.
But at least I'm not dying!
I finally went to the hospital, which Kaori and I have been saying we'll do for at least two months now. This was the first day after I'd fixed my sleeping patterns-- for a certain value of "fixed"-- and I woke up at 4, had breakfast at 4.30 (I was starving, okay?), went back to bed at 5.30, and got out again at 8. Which meant I was well and truly ready for Kaori when she came to pick me up at 10; my alarm had been set for 9, but obviously I didn't need it. This is, as I'm sure you can all imagine, very unusual for me.
Anyway, Kaori picked me up in her car, and we drove to the hospital, where we got a park easily but very expensively. (I paid the parking, it cost us 500 yen for about 3 hours.) What proceeded was a VERY LONG WAIT. Although probably less than if I hadn't had the referral I got from the uni doctor, and also cheaper. (There was I think an extra 3000 yen fee if you didn't have a referral.) The process went like this: fill in form with details. Wait. Answer questions about self. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Blood test. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait. About an hour or so of waiting. Appointment! A little more waiting to get the bill. FREEDOM!
We got there just before 10.30. We left at 2pm. I was STARVING, as you might imagine. Also, I'd overtreated the hypo I had when I got up for the second time and spent the entire time with my blood sugar hovering around 13, which made me feel like crap. (This was kind of a running theme for the day.) It also makes my blood really sluggish, and my veins are hard enough to find in the first place without the added dehydration, so that was fun times. Just as well I'm completely inured to needles that aren't cathaters, I can be fairly sanguine about being poked and having my blood taken even when it hurts a bit. To be fair the nurse only punctured me twice-- she did a lot better than most Australian nurses etc have. After the first failure, she sent me to a bed and got me to lie down, and apparently that worked, although, as previously mentioned, the blood was sluggish so I ended up with a bruise on my inner left elbow. It was Wednesday that we went to the hospital, so it's starting to turn olive yellow at the moment.
Of course, in the grand scheme of me hurting myself, it's barely anything. The last time I made an attempt to update, maybe a few weeks ago, I'd banged my elbow really hard on the side table when I rolled over in bed and that hurt like a MOFO, shooting pain right up to my shoulder. It killed for days, I was kind of worried I'd damaged a joint somewhere.
Back to the point, though; the verdict is that my HbA1c is 6.2, which is good and certainly a lot better than I thought it would be, and my internal organs are continuing to function. Hooray! I made another appointment for November, by which time I will need more insulin, and then used the bank account with my parents money in it to pay because I didn't have the cash on hand and they don't really object to paying for my medical costs anyway. *cough*
Anyway, it was a long time at the hospital with a lot of hunger pains, and it was quite depressing to realise as we were leaving that there was a cafe we could have sat in inside the hospital, but it could have been worse. I'm glad Kaori was there to talk to; she really is so nice to me.
My laptop is, though...
In fact, both laptops, although that's not news concerning my old Toshiba. The main problem is the laptop I bought second-hand in April; I must have opened/closed/adjusted the screen too much, because it's breaking apart at the seams near the right hinge. It's still under warranty, I opted for extra warranty when I bought it, but when I rang Softmap (which sucked; I'm fine speaking Japanese in any situation except on the phone, practically, and it also didn't help that I have limited vocabulary when it comes to computers falling apart) the woman on the phone said they'd probably have to send it to Sony and it would take maybe three weeks.
Me: Three... weeks...? *WHIMPER*
Now, I have the Toshiba, but it's still got the same hard disk failure that drove me to buy another laptop in the first time. It'll only run for about four hours before it crashes hideously and you have to leave it to cool down or whatever before using it again. So I wouldn't be completely computer-less, but it would hardly be an ideal situation. However, with my parents here for a fortnight, that seemed like the best time to send it in, right? That was the plan, but I couldn't be bothered going out to Akihabara yesterday, so now I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. In my defence it was also raining, but being brutally honest I probably would have been too lazy even if it hadn't been. Oh well.
On a random note
* I'm thinking this year I will actually do the JLPT test, specifically level 2. I've been saying I'll do it since year 11-- a good 5 years ago now-- but I'm always too lazy to get the passport size photo and send in the application form, not to mention that it's always right after my finals. This year it's much less effort to apply and my finals aren't until like, February, so it's a good time. Especially since I'm pretty much studying for the 2-kyuu exam in all my classes.
* Speaking of classes, I haven't got my marks back yet but I'm pretty sure all is well. I probably got A for grammar and kanji and B for the integrated class. No idea about Religions or Ukiyo-e, but I handed in the final papers so I assume I'll at least pass. As for the ANU, I got 5/5 on the abstract; I've got an annotated bibliography due at the end of next month, which I haven't even started yet because I've been filled with lazy and fail, oh my god. Need to get on that.
* I always thought the cicadas at home were loud, but they're cacophonous in Tokyo, or at least in the bit of Tokyo where I live, since it has actual trees.
* Since fixing my patterns mid last week, I have apparently become a morning person for the first time in my life. I wake up automatically at 6-7 am and get tired before 10 at night. It's CREEPING ME OUT. I wasn't like that even when I was four. O.o;
The upcoming adventures of Siobhan's parents in Tokyo (and southern Honshuu)
My parents' trip to Japan has been in the planning since before I left Australia, in a vague kind of way-- my brother's trip is far more organised and already planned out to the minituae, despite the fact that he's not going to be coming until just before New Year's Eve-- but it's slowly come together over the last few weeks. My dad got me to occasionally ring places to check bookings and so on-- which as previously mentioned I find fairly stressful, despite that I can carry on a normal conversation face-to-face. I actually accidentally left out the word for confirmation in one phone call and they thought I wanted to make a booking. XD; There's been talk of what we'll do on each of the days in Tokyo.
Starting today.
Yes, that's right: my parents should officially be in Tokyo right now. Their plane was due to land an hour ago. Which gives me extra added incentive to finally get this post done, both because chances are that I won't be online for another two weeks after this and also because I'll have a whole heap more to blog on when I get back. We're going to the Kansai region and then Hiroshima after Tokyo.
I was also trying to get the next part of Boyband!X out before I left, which I've been dragging my feet on and writing bits on here and there for several months now, but unfortunately I've still got a scene and a half to go. Maybe I'll work on it when I'm away from the internet; I know from a lot of experience taking these trips with my parents that there's often a fair amount of free time in the evenings, so I might upload the newest version of the file onto the Toshiba and take that with.
In any event, I intend to have a fun two weeks. :) Unfortunately I forgot to say goodbye properly to people over AIM, but have a great fortnight and I'll see you later~!
This is actually not the whole post. There was supposed to be segments on Siobhan Sort Of Works For A Living, Parts 1 - 3, as well as some reference to my recent geekish activities (hint: there have been a LOT, mostly in the way of j-dramas and DS games) but I'm running out of time before I have to go to Shinjuku to meet my parents, so I decided they were the bits most easily left for later. XD;
Okay, one of the major reasons it's super fail that I haven't updated in forever is that I've actually done a lot of things since the last update, whenever that was. Two months ago by this point, probably. Even without all the below headings, I've done a bunch of interesting things around Tokyo-- and not just Tokyo, either. I've been to two firework events (hanabi taikai) in Yokohama, a summer festival in my local neighbourhood, and explored Odaiba.
Hanabi Taikai #1
The first hanabi taikai was back in mid-July, on the Sunday of the Sea Day long weekend. A group from the dorms were going, including Debbie, Kathleen and Brendan. It was pretty disorganised in terms of information dissemination, so I didn't really know about it until Debbie sent me phone-mail asking if I was going. I really wanted to go-- not only did I want to see the firework festival atmosphere, I hadn't been to Yokohama yet. But I was supposed to be working at my third job, the private tutoring job. (More on that below.) I was feeling pretty down about that, but then I spoke to my parents and my mum said I should ring to see if I could change my work, since I had the phone number. So I did, and explained the situation, and Reiko-san was really nice and understanding and we rescheduled for Monday. \o/ But my woes weren't over, because I still didn't have a yukata and I didn't have time to go out to Musashi Sakai and buy one. I'd been continuously intending to buy one before the festival season, but I'd kept putting it off and now I was actually going to a festival I didn't have one. ~___~; But I still wanted to go, so I met up with Debbie and Kathleen (who both looked really good in their yukata) and we took the various trains to Yokohama.
I'm glad someone other than me knew what they were doing, on that note. I would have just gone to Shinjuku and caught the first train that said "Yokohama bound". XD; But the station we wanted was Minato Mirai-- near the port, where the fireworks were going to be set off-- and the only train that goes there is a train company I'd never heard of (Toukyuu? East something, at any rate) leaving from Shibuya. Whichever way, we got to Minato Mirai, and even better, there was a Uniqlo there, which meant I could quickly run in and buy myself the yukata I'd been eyeing off for a while. (The unfortunate side effect of this was that, while I'd started the day out with over 10,000 yen, ie about $100, between the 4000 yen yukata and the 5000 yen I unthinkingly added to my train pasmo card, I became very dangerously broke.) Debbie helped me put it on over my clothes in the bathroom, and another Japanese girl also jumped in to help. Success! There are photos, albeit crappy ones I took with my phone, but at the moment they're only on facebook and I don't really have time at the moment to link them or upload them to livejournal. Sorry, maybe later.
As for the festival itself, the port area of Yokohama was extremely crowded, as you might expect. There were a lot of yukata, mostly girls but also some guys. (I notice that usually when there's a guy wearing a yukata he's with his girlfriend/family. Interesting.) It was a fair walk to the waterfront, which made me glad that I wasn't wearing the correct footwear, no matter how incongruous I'm sure it looked to be wearing alice shoes with a yukata, because I have really sensitive feet and walking that far in geta or thongs would have KILLED.
There wasn't as much in the way of festival food as I'd been expecting, just a few people selling yakisoba and kara-age chicken here and there. Kathleen and I were rather disappointed, but went on the trek to purchase some unheathy food stuffs anyway, since there was a while before the fireworks were going to start. There was also a guy selling ice candy (icy poles) around the seating areas.
--On a side note, I got hit on by a guy on our way back towards the shops, as in I walked past and he randomly said "kawaii su yo!" XD; This is, according to Kaori, the textbook definition of "nampa".
The fireworks themselves were pretty impressive, but I've seen a lot of fireworks over the years and I was tired, so I kind of spaced out for a lot of them. After they were over the guy who'd nampa'd me earlier came up to chat and he seemed nice enough, so I shrugged and gave him my phone details. Since then, he's only used it recently to mail me to ask if I wanted to meet up so he could learn English, and I decided to ignore it. I maybe would have said yes if it hadn't been that long after, because I don't usually mind helping people with their English, but it's a bit presumptuous to not contact someone for weeks after you meet them and then basically ask them for a free lesson. So, whatever.
Of course, the really memorable bit of this festival was going home. There'd been a lot of dawdling and the group got separated in stages, and by the time we reached Shibuya Debbie and I were both sick of waiting for people all the time. Brendan was going with a group on the JR lines back via Musashi Sakai/Tama, but the Chuuou line is congested on a normal evening, let alone festival + long weekend. Going back via Keio lines would mean having to walk from Tobitakyuu to home, which is a good 20 minutes, but it seemed the lesser of two evils at the time.
Debbie and I were REALLY regretting that later, let me tell you. Now, keep in mind that I don't often catch Keio trains; they're cheaper, but given the choice between walking five minutes to Tama and taking the changeover or walking 20 minutes to Tobitakyuu, usually I'll take the Seibu/JR combo from Tama. So I don't have a lot of experience with Keio trains, and I didn't know about their unsavoury tendency to branch off. Basically what happened was that when we took the connection train on the Keio line, we caught a local train going towards Choufu. Choufu is two stations from Tobitakyuu and is the closest major station. If we'd caught a rapid train, we would have had to change at Choufu. But we thought, hey, if we catch a local train, it'll take longer but we'll have more chance of getting a seat and won't have to change again.
We got seats. It was very relaxing. Unfortunately, what we didn't realise was that the Keio line branches at Choufu, and the train we were on was "Hashimoto bound", which meant it took the other line from Tobitakyuu. I just assumed Hashimoto was the final stop on the Tobitakyuu line, since I didn't know what stations came after Tobitayuu and I didn't know it branched. I mean, I'd made sure it was going in the right direction, shouldn't that be enough? ;___; (anyone who knows me well knows that I am CURSED when it comes to public transport. I miss buses a lot and I have been known, in my youth, to catch things going the wrong way. This happened to me once with a bus at home in year 8, and again in Sydney in, um, second year uni. cough.)
I realised this wasn't right about three unfamiliar stations after Choufu and we got off the train, thinking we could just catch a train back to Choufu and change. No biggie, right? Annoying, but easily solved.
Hah, or NOT. It was 12.10am when we got off the train, and the trains going the opposite way HAD ALREADY STOPPED. There were NO TRAINS. We were FUCKED. Neither of us had very much money on hand (see above), and I didn't have my credit card anymore since it had stopped working. Debbie called Brendan, and upon looking it up, he found that it would take us three hours to walk back. We'd gotten off at this tiny little station called Inagi that wasn't likely to have internet cafes or anything halfway useful for people who are stranded. So I called Kaori, hoping that she could tell me what to do.
Let me just say, Kaori is the nicest person in the WORLD. We both agree she's more like my older sister than my tutor. She asked if there were any trains still running towards Hashimoto, told us to catch a train to Tama Centre, and said she'd pick us up in her car. Thank god. ;___; We were SO RELIEVED. Kaori said I got really lucky, because usually she would have had a beer by that point, but she'd been leaving it until after she'd finished her report-- and when she finished her report, she thought maybe she'd hold off a little longer, just in case, because I'd sent her a message about the festival and the fact I was going home and she was worried. She knows me too well, clearly. XD;
So, it was a very memorable adventure, and it was like 2 am by the time Debbie and I got back. I knew I was going to have a public transport crisis one of these days, I wouldn't be me if I didn't. Nice to have that out of the way, now I know to be more cautious both of Keio branching lines and final trains. *g*
Summer festival
Chronologically the next thing to happen was the summer festival in my neighbourhood. I saw the pamphlet by chance when I went to visit the Community Store combini next to the small playground where the festival was being held and saw thes structures they'd set up and was like, OOH, FESTIVAL! So I mailed my friends to ask if they wanted to go on Sunday (I had work on Saturday). Brendan and Debbie had a thing with the German-speaking contingent-- everyone was going back to their own countries the next week-- but Kathleen and Dawn were both up for it. Even though Debbie couldn't come, she helped me get my yukata tied and loaned me a pair of thongs. <3 Then I met up with Dawn and Kathleen and we took the short walk to the playground where the festival was being held, going past the dog cafe on our way.
Quick note of explanation-- there'd been a farewell party for everyone the Friday two days before, and Dawn and Debbie had decided they wanted foodstuffs from the Community Store combini (which I previously had not known the existence of; there's also a 3F, Family Mart and 7/11 in walking distance). On the way back we walked past this cafe with a whole lot of dogs. It's run by a married couple; the lady brought out one of her dogs, the one that had been barking a lot, and while I was cooing over it I mentioned that I have a poodle of my own back in Australia. Turned out there were two poodles inside the cafe at the time, so I went in to see them. I thought Debbie and Dawn would follow, but they didn't, so I assumed they'd gone back to the party. A fair while later they mailed to ask if I was alive, since I hadn't emerged from the cafe. I felt really bad knowing they were waiting for me that whole time. ^^; Anyway, they went back to the party. I eventually went back-- the people in the cafe walked me with their dogs, they were all really nice-- but it was winding up by then so I ended up going back to my room.
Er, back to the festival, though. We popped our heads into the cafe on the way there to say hi, and then continued on our merry way to the festival.
It looked GORGEOUS. It was only small, but there were all these food stalls, and in the centre there was a platform set up for dancing on the bottom half and a huge taiko drum on the top half, with brightly lit lanterns hanging in strings out from the platform. It was really exciting, and it was the kind of thing Kathleen and I had expected from the hanabi taikai and then been disappointed in. I ate lots of delicious food, and after a bit we joined in with the dancing and ended up going inside the platform, where there are festival staff who are experienced dancers helping learners-- most of the staff were really friendly obaasans. It was all heaps of fun, and it was a great experience. At the end of it all one of the obaasans told us to wait for "omiyage" (a much more all-encompassing word than the translation of souvenir) and then led us to a long table spread out with onigiri and sweets and things, with places set with cans of green tea and told us to sit. It was so nice of them! So in addition to all the food I'd already bought, we got food from the table, and then while they were packing up they gave us bags of stuff from the sponsors-- including beer, which is sitting unloved in my fridge, instant corn soup, which I ate, and a hand towel, which I use frequently. XD
On the way back, we did a longer stop in at the cafe. The okami-san helped Dawn with her yukata, which had come loose at the hem-- it turns out that her mother used to weave kimonos, so she knows a lot about tying obi. All in all, it was the night was heaps of fun.
Odaiba
Odaiba is a man-made island in Tokyo Bay. The most immediately interesting aspect of it is, of course, Rainbow Bridge, although I went during the afternoon so I didn't get to see it lit up-- I'm hoping I can do that with my parents. XD Basically, I think I mentioned this before, but there were two Japanese girls, Madoka and Eri, who I ran into randomly on campus. They wanted to practice their English, and they figured a foreign studies university would be a good place to start. I agreed to go out with them somewhere at some time, and we'd been trying to organise it for a while. Eventually we settled on Monday the 21st of July (the day after that festival, incidentally) and decided to go to Odaiba, which I wanted to see. They said to invite friends, so I asked Brendan and Debbie to come with me, as they hadn't been to Odaiba either and were going home to America that Thursday.
We had HEAPS of fun. Even the train out there was fun, because it was a monorail-- I used to LOVE the monorail in Sydney as a child. The whole atmosphere was very much like Darling Harbour, actually. Lots of shops and cafes and tourist attractions, plus the sea breeze. We ran all over the place-- we found a small themepark called Hong Kong Town in one of the shopping centres (I have photos; again, I'll upload later), took photos of the miniture Statue of Liberty (Brendan and Debbie, being from NY state, were a little miffed at Japan cribbing their national symbol), rode the world's biggest ferris wheel, and generally just had a great time and tired ourselves out. I went to dinner with Eri and Madoka in Shinjuku afterwards; Debbie was too tired, and Brendan had a prior engagement with karaoke, so it was just the three of us. I helped them with their English while we ate sushi.
Anyway, I really enjoyed myself. We're going to have to go out and do something together again sometime, but they've been in Nagano working up until now and I'm about go on holidays with my parents, so it'll have to wait.
Hanabi Taikai #2
Hanabi taikai #2 was in the same location as the first-- there are hanabi taikai all OVER the place almost every day in late July/early August, but this was what I knew so I was sticking with it. Akane had said that she'd like to go to a hanabi taikai with me, and I knew there was another one in Yokohama on the 1st of August, so we agreed to do that. Unfortunately I didn't wear my yukata-- it was creased from the last two occasions and I couldn't tie it by myself-- so I gave up and wore normal clothes. My feet thanked me, I'm sure, because we did a LOT of walking. Akane looked very pretty in her yukata though, and she must be made of much sterner stuff than me because she said her feet were fine when I asked if she was okay with the geta.
Akane knew her way around Yokohama, certainly a lot better than I did, so this time instead of going straight to the free seating we walked towards the official area where the fireworks had been held. I didn't realise it, but there was paid seating some distance from where I'd been sitting at the last festival-- and near that paid seating, there was rows upon ROWS of food stalls. It wasn't that there was no food at hanabi taikai, it was that we'd MISSED it.
And it was all very delicious. I can take or leave the choco bananas, but takoyaki and potatoes = <333. The ice candy was also delicious. I love festival food. *____*
We had to walk around a bit to find a place to sit, and then we had to move during the fireworks because there was a tree in our way, so we ended up back near where I'd been sitting the time before in the end, only further, back towards the shops. We had a good view, though, and they really were spectacular, which I was in more of a mood to appreciate that time, not being half asleep. I can't imagine how much that taikai must've cost; they held it three times total, and each one the display went for over an hour, and they certainly didn't skimp on the fireworks.
Anyway, heaps of fun. We decided to walk to Yokohama station in the hope of less crowds, which was a fair walk and I would have gotten hideously lost without Akane, but she obviously knew where she was going. It wasn't actually as easy as we thought for me to get home from Yokohama St-- we'd both thought there was a train directly to Shinjuku-- but in the end I caught a train to Shinagawa station (which is HUGE, by the way, there's a bunch of restaurants and a bookstore and a delicious icecreamery and stuff all within the ticket gates), connected onto the yamanote line to Shinjuku, and then connected from there to the Chuuou line. All JR trains. The biggest plus about this was that I got to sit the whole way to Shinagawa, plus I didn't have to walk home from Tobitakyuu. Shinagawa station was also pretty cool.
So that went much better than the first one, and I really enjoyed it. ♥
I went through an exceedingly fun period of fail
So okay, it almost makes it sound like I'm a competent adult after all that stuff about me Experiencing Tokyo and working for a living and so forth, but we all know nobody changes quite that much. I had a two week period wherein all of my jobs except the home tutoring job (which isn't quite once a week, as we change the days around) were on break-- it was the two weeks preceding this one, in fact. Obviously, I've been on summer holidays this whole time, so I pretty much had no pressing engagements, and all my friends had either gone back to their own countries (wah. even if I still talk to them on the net, it's not the same.) or were busy travelling or working or whatever. So, me being me, this equated to backsliding into hermitry and odd sleeping hours. Only without my parents here to yell at me, I truly, spectacularly fucked my sleeping patterns up like NEVER BEFORE-- I was sleeping from the afternoon to the early evening, and it took ages for me to actually manage to stay awake for 24 hours to fix it.
I've kind of been feeling a little homesick, too, but when I think about it logically, I'm really not missing anything specific about home, precisely. I'm not missing my family-- I talk to them all the time, and I'm seeing my parents in two days anyway. I'm maybe missing my friends a little, but I talk to them to and being brutally honest about it I'm a hermit at home, too, whether or not people are in the same city as me. I'm a little bit wistful for the ANU and law, of all things, but it's not really serious. I miss driving a bit, every now and then, and sometimes I want some real bread, but Japan has a lot of food that more than makes up for that particular lack. There's nothing about Australian culture I really long for or about Japanese culture that's really annoying me.
No, I'm just sick of living in a room the size of a postage stamp. Which is partially Japan, but mostly because I live in a dorm. XD; It didn't bother me that much during term, but now I'm in here all the time it's sending me a little crazy. I won't be in here for the two weeks my parents are coming, though, so hopefully that will make me feel better.
... Alright, and I miss my dog too. But ce la vie.
But at least I'm not dying!
I finally went to the hospital, which Kaori and I have been saying we'll do for at least two months now. This was the first day after I'd fixed my sleeping patterns-- for a certain value of "fixed"-- and I woke up at 4, had breakfast at 4.30 (I was starving, okay?), went back to bed at 5.30, and got out again at 8. Which meant I was well and truly ready for Kaori when she came to pick me up at 10; my alarm had been set for 9, but obviously I didn't need it. This is, as I'm sure you can all imagine, very unusual for me.
Anyway, Kaori picked me up in her car, and we drove to the hospital, where we got a park easily but very expensively. (I paid the parking, it cost us 500 yen for about 3 hours.) What proceeded was a VERY LONG WAIT. Although probably less than if I hadn't had the referral I got from the uni doctor, and also cheaper. (There was I think an extra 3000 yen fee if you didn't have a referral.) The process went like this: fill in form with details. Wait. Answer questions about self. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Blood test. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait. About an hour or so of waiting. Appointment! A little more waiting to get the bill. FREEDOM!
We got there just before 10.30. We left at 2pm. I was STARVING, as you might imagine. Also, I'd overtreated the hypo I had when I got up for the second time and spent the entire time with my blood sugar hovering around 13, which made me feel like crap. (This was kind of a running theme for the day.) It also makes my blood really sluggish, and my veins are hard enough to find in the first place without the added dehydration, so that was fun times. Just as well I'm completely inured to needles that aren't cathaters, I can be fairly sanguine about being poked and having my blood taken even when it hurts a bit. To be fair the nurse only punctured me twice-- she did a lot better than most Australian nurses etc have. After the first failure, she sent me to a bed and got me to lie down, and apparently that worked, although, as previously mentioned, the blood was sluggish so I ended up with a bruise on my inner left elbow. It was Wednesday that we went to the hospital, so it's starting to turn olive yellow at the moment.
Of course, in the grand scheme of me hurting myself, it's barely anything. The last time I made an attempt to update, maybe a few weeks ago, I'd banged my elbow really hard on the side table when I rolled over in bed and that hurt like a MOFO, shooting pain right up to my shoulder. It killed for days, I was kind of worried I'd damaged a joint somewhere.
Back to the point, though; the verdict is that my HbA1c is 6.2, which is good and certainly a lot better than I thought it would be, and my internal organs are continuing to function. Hooray! I made another appointment for November, by which time I will need more insulin, and then used the bank account with my parents money in it to pay because I didn't have the cash on hand and they don't really object to paying for my medical costs anyway. *cough*
Anyway, it was a long time at the hospital with a lot of hunger pains, and it was quite depressing to realise as we were leaving that there was a cafe we could have sat in inside the hospital, but it could have been worse. I'm glad Kaori was there to talk to; she really is so nice to me.
My laptop is, though...
In fact, both laptops, although that's not news concerning my old Toshiba. The main problem is the laptop I bought second-hand in April; I must have opened/closed/adjusted the screen too much, because it's breaking apart at the seams near the right hinge. It's still under warranty, I opted for extra warranty when I bought it, but when I rang Softmap (which sucked; I'm fine speaking Japanese in any situation except on the phone, practically, and it also didn't help that I have limited vocabulary when it comes to computers falling apart) the woman on the phone said they'd probably have to send it to Sony and it would take maybe three weeks.
Me: Three... weeks...? *WHIMPER*
Now, I have the Toshiba, but it's still got the same hard disk failure that drove me to buy another laptop in the first time. It'll only run for about four hours before it crashes hideously and you have to leave it to cool down or whatever before using it again. So I wouldn't be completely computer-less, but it would hardly be an ideal situation. However, with my parents here for a fortnight, that seemed like the best time to send it in, right? That was the plan, but I couldn't be bothered going out to Akihabara yesterday, so now I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. In my defence it was also raining, but being brutally honest I probably would have been too lazy even if it hadn't been. Oh well.
On a random note
* I'm thinking this year I will actually do the JLPT test, specifically level 2. I've been saying I'll do it since year 11-- a good 5 years ago now-- but I'm always too lazy to get the passport size photo and send in the application form, not to mention that it's always right after my finals. This year it's much less effort to apply and my finals aren't until like, February, so it's a good time. Especially since I'm pretty much studying for the 2-kyuu exam in all my classes.
* Speaking of classes, I haven't got my marks back yet but I'm pretty sure all is well. I probably got A for grammar and kanji and B for the integrated class. No idea about Religions or Ukiyo-e, but I handed in the final papers so I assume I'll at least pass. As for the ANU, I got 5/5 on the abstract; I've got an annotated bibliography due at the end of next month, which I haven't even started yet because I've been filled with lazy and fail, oh my god. Need to get on that.
* I always thought the cicadas at home were loud, but they're cacophonous in Tokyo, or at least in the bit of Tokyo where I live, since it has actual trees.
* Since fixing my patterns mid last week, I have apparently become a morning person for the first time in my life. I wake up automatically at 6-7 am and get tired before 10 at night. It's CREEPING ME OUT. I wasn't like that even when I was four. O.o;
The upcoming adventures of Siobhan's parents in Tokyo (and southern Honshuu)
My parents' trip to Japan has been in the planning since before I left Australia, in a vague kind of way-- my brother's trip is far more organised and already planned out to the minituae, despite the fact that he's not going to be coming until just before New Year's Eve-- but it's slowly come together over the last few weeks. My dad got me to occasionally ring places to check bookings and so on-- which as previously mentioned I find fairly stressful, despite that I can carry on a normal conversation face-to-face. I actually accidentally left out the word for confirmation in one phone call and they thought I wanted to make a booking. XD; There's been talk of what we'll do on each of the days in Tokyo.
Starting today.
Yes, that's right: my parents should officially be in Tokyo right now. Their plane was due to land an hour ago. Which gives me extra added incentive to finally get this post done, both because chances are that I won't be online for another two weeks after this and also because I'll have a whole heap more to blog on when I get back. We're going to the Kansai region and then Hiroshima after Tokyo.
I was also trying to get the next part of Boyband!X out before I left, which I've been dragging my feet on and writing bits on here and there for several months now, but unfortunately I've still got a scene and a half to go. Maybe I'll work on it when I'm away from the internet; I know from a lot of experience taking these trips with my parents that there's often a fair amount of free time in the evenings, so I might upload the newest version of the file onto the Toshiba and take that with.
In any event, I intend to have a fun two weeks. :) Unfortunately I forgot to say goodbye properly to people over AIM, but have a great fortnight and I'll see you later~!
This is actually not the whole post. There was supposed to be segments on Siobhan Sort Of Works For A Living, Parts 1 - 3, as well as some reference to my recent geekish activities (hint: there have been a LOT, mostly in the way of j-dramas and DS games) but I'm running out of time before I have to go to Shinjuku to meet my parents, so I decided they were the bits most easily left for later. XD;
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Date: 2008-08-25 08:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-25 09:50 am (UTC)But it's good to hear from you! <3 It's always nice to hear what you're up to. xxx