Sushi, Fireworks, thunderstorms and shopping

Hey, it's a second post in a row. Well what do you know, I'm on a roll :)

The Saturday right after I finished work there was a huge fireworks festival on Sumidagawa river. Obviously, we had to go see. Since it was a special occasion we decided to hang out all day.

First we went to the fish market. Eric wanted to go at 5 in the morning, but in the end it was more like late noon. Hahaha

Apparently, this is what wasabi actually looks like.

compact days

Yesterday and today were like night and day. On Monday I was sooooo sleepy. I kept switching off. But today I didn't fall asleep once and had a lot of fun working. When I finally felt like my brain was blan
king out, I went for a walk to get some buns.

These 2 days I've been having lunch with people from the office. I really like having lunch with the girls, they are really fun and very nice. I wish I could be a positive person like that.

In the afternoon it poured cats and dogs (I don't really understand that saying). There was lightning and thunder and it seems it was close. We heard lots fire-truck sirens. I was glad it was early in the day. When we go home there is usually no rain. But perhaps the weather will stay rainy all week. Weather forecasts are useless.

Today I wore the skirt from my suit that I swore I would never wear. It was relatively comfortable, but still too tight in the waist. I might wear it more in the summer, since wearing trousers is like having a personal sauna.

The past 3 days I've been wearing my pink crocs. I found out that if it's hot and humid the shoes will act the same way as all my other shoes and rip my skin. The obvious solution in to wear socks. But when the weather is cooler the shoes are extremely comfy.

I didn't take any photos today or, indeed, yesterday, so here is a photo from Sunday. We bought a pack of these with our combined money. The guy in the stall recommended the far left ones as the tastiest.

Another lunch

I got to do more of the same layout design. But somehow my creativity petered out soon after lunch.

Speaking of lunch, I went with two of the ladies from the office - Ii san and Takada san (if I am not mistaken. I am sooooo bad with names). The lunch itself was pretty good, but oh so expensive. However, I had so much fun talking to the girls.

Let's hope my head works better in the morning so that I can have fun working as well.

In the evening there was a thunderstorm. It rained a lot, but, again, while I was indoors.
I forgot to buy milk on the way back again.

I am thinking of buying crocs. But not those ugly ones that are sold in most places. I want to get one of the jelly ones. They feel very nice on my feet, but I wonder of it's possible to walk for long periods of time on a rubber sole.

Cookies!

Was really sleepy today and actually nodded off at work for half an hour. I think it was fine, since the girl next to me was napping at the same time.

When I went out to get some food, there were some really ominous clouds looming. I also forgot to take my umbrella, but it worked out ok, because it rained when I was indoors again.

I received a cookie around 5pm, which was lunchtime today. It was branded with the name of the person who brought it. Really delicious and an awesome alternative to meishi (business cards).

Other than those 2 things the day was absolutely uneventful. 

Justified

I was finally justified in buying my umbrella. It rained a bit on the way to work.

I am finally getting more fun tasks, although nothing major yet. I really wouldn't mind if they let me do some layout designs for the current competition they are doing. I am mostly doing volume studies for that.

The two other interns came downstairs today to work on arts and crafts type design. The company received some glass hooks from an italian company to incorporate in whatever design we'd like. It was really fun to play around with all sorts of stuff like tree branches and wires, and so on.

Lots of roofs from the volume study stacked on top of each other. I thought it looked like a rose.

I think I'm slowly getting used to the 12-hour days. I didn't feel as tired today. However, that might be due to me sitting a lot more. The first few days I spent the 12 hours standing.

Comatose

It rained while I was indoors again. I feel like I cannot justify my umbrella purchase if I don't get rained on at least once.

I have forgotten my phone at work. But I downloaded an alarm app, so it should be fine.
I wonder if I can charge an iphone at work?

I was given a fun task at the end of the day and thus, in my excitement, I stayed until 11. Now I am comatose.

Tasty sweets

Went out really early today to go to the station where they have ATMs in English. Then went to work, stopping on the way to get an umbrella. Even though I was prepared it only rained while I was indoors.

I came too early, but luckily the door was open and I could get in. So today I actually worked for 30-40 minutes longer. Today was kind of windy, but it was still hot in the office. Somehow there's not a lot of cross ventilation even though there are lots of windows.

I was invited out to lunch by the secretary lady. It was a welcome break from being in the office. I ate a really huge salad. It was delicious. I even drank chai that has cinnamon in it. It was surprisingly ok.

Today I was cutting out the surrounding buildings for the model. It was more relaxing then making the base, because I could sit.

Someone brought in おみやげ, so I got to eat some delicious sweets.

KumaFesu

Last month I went to the KumaFesu to see what was all about. The weather was pretty bad - it was raining all day and generally gloomy. I also really don't like going anywhere alone, but you can't drag people out into the cold rain. So, I did go alone :D

Weekend trip

Last Saturday we went on a small trip to Aso. It was raining really hard in the morning, so I felt a bit reluctant to go at first. But it was pretty fun, so I'm glad I did.

Plan A was to go photograph もみじ (maple trees) if the weather was good, plan B was to go eat 馬肉 (horse meat). When I first came to Japan, I was against eating cute pony meat. But as it turned out, horse meat is delicious. Nowadays I'm totally fine with it.

This is the restaurant we went to. The view is just amazing.

Routine days

Let's see. This week we were preparing for the debate again. I did manage to get data from my other class, but we didn't use much of it I think. Had to meet on a Saturday too. Our team won though :)

The week wasn't very eventful. I honestly can't remember much of what I did. Thursday's meeting took a really long time. I ran away before it finished (as always). I really want to know what the upperclassmen are doing though. I spent Friday preparing the 2-week report. As usual I do stuff at the last minute. Got to work on that.

I try speaking with the students from the lab a bit. Even my tutor girl forgets I don't understand much and just rambles on in Japanese until she sees my eyes glaze over :))) Well, I suppose it's good practice. I also told Shiori-san I might start attending the competition meetings next semester or the next competition they have. The current one's description was so confusing and vague, I just gave up.

Shiv says I should write my blog every day, at least 2 sentences or something. Isn't that what twitter is for?
I might try it though.

On Sunday we went to the city centre. Did some shopping and fighting :(
I finally bought that make-up thingy, but not sure yet if I like it as much as I thought I would. Need to experiment a bit more with the application.

So serious.

I think the most enjoyable part for me was drinking the honey-au-lait and stealing Shiv's pumpkin cake.


In the spirit of practicing my Japanese more, I shall attempt to write some stuff -->

今日のディベートで私のチームはかちました。とてもうれしいです。
ディベートちゅう雨がとてもはげしいふっていました。

The Rainy Season

And so it started. It's been raining practically non stop today and the forecast promises more to come.

Basically, the rainy season is about 3 weeks of rain with high humidity and moderately high temperatures. Beforehand I've been told scary accounts of how it's going to be (むしあつい), but so far it hasn't been too horrible. Certainly better than the rainy season in Latvia, where it gets pretty cold in June. And practically always rains on my birthday. The weather makes my hair all fizzy and I feel sticky, but better this, than the August heat.

Still waiting for my marriage document resolution. I guess it's no big deal if we don't marry in June.

I tried taking some pictures of the rain today. As I got the camera out, I noticed that the battery was dead. Off to the charger with it. I took my phone to try and get at least something. But it refused to cooperate, saying the battery was too low. Put that on charger as well. Conclusion - no photos :(
Not like you could see much in that wall of water.

May

Already end of May. Time flies so fast, but it feels like one week takes ages.

University is far too busy here. I often have to go there on the weekends as well. I feel overwhelmed.

The weather is a bit annoying as well. I should really start getting ready for the rainy season and buy some rubber boots (and a better umbrella). I've already spent some days with totally wet feet.

Today was pretty nice tough. Quite warm and sunny. I have actually got a bit of a tan, although nothing too noticeable it seems. If I was in Latvia, I'd be pretty happy about it. But in Japan, white skin is considered more of a beauty standard, so you can see many girls and women walking round with parasols. Because of this, now that I finally don't look like a zombie, I'm afraid of getting too tanned. Ridiculous! Oh, the dilemma :)

In general, I think, I'm getting accustomed to university life. The biggest problem, of course, is the language barrier. There are only 2 people in my lab who speak English, some more people who can understand some amount of English, and the rest can't make out even a word.
One of the lectures has debates. Today we had the first one. It was pretty awful. I prepared for it a lot, but when it came to asking or answering questions, I couldn't help, because I couldn't understand when was the time to ask the question or what was the oppositions question to which I know the answer. Soooo frustrating.
But some of the students do sometimes express a desire to speak more English. And many help me by typing some of the stuff that's being said into a translator. I am infinitely grateful to them for that.

I keep forgetting about the blog. Plus, I rarely get a lot of free time. But maybe now I'll try tracking my study process more, so that'll give me more opportunity to write :)