GUESS WHO'S COMING TO GAIDAI!

Kato Miliyah!

I was walking back to the dorm today after classes, and at the bike parking... I saw this sign. And stopped. This is so awesome. She's one of my favorites! So I get to see two my favorite singers while I'm here: Aoyama Thelma and Kato Miliyah!

Anyways, so it is the weekend! YAY! No school again. 2 days of classes, nothing much happened. Aced a Japanese quiz. Studying Keigo now. Learning new Kanji. My Psych and Communication class is still interesting. So all is good at school. I made a bento all this week (haha for the 2 days of classes we had). Thursday I had broiled chicken, steamed veggies, and fried rice. My fried rice wasn't too good. Edible... but not the best. I'm going to try to add cooking sake and some other things to try to make it better. Today I put in leftover mac&cheese and the last of my chicken nuggets and I thought I'd put some ketchup in there too. The moment I poured that ketchup out, I had a feeling something was wrong. And I was right... that ketchup... I don't think it even deserves to be called ketchup. I shoulda stuck with my collecting McDs ketchup plan HAHA. Oh well... lesson learned... Kagome ketchup is nasty... and ketchup and bento do not mix either.

Tomorrow is Saturday. No plans. I think I'm going to studying my Japanese and Kanji and go to Midori for my study break to get out of the dorm. Maybe pick up an ice cream. Sunday I'm going to Kyoto with the INFES dance group :)

Other Awesome Dates:

9/30: MiChi's CD comes out
1st week of Oct: I can pick up my Alien Registration Card
10/4: Cooking Class
10/6: Hiroki's Bday (but he already got his present... his new gf, Aki, AWWW)
10/7: YU-A's CD out
10/12: HOLIDAY NO SCHOOL
10/25: Aoyama Thelma's Concert
10/28: JAY'ED's CD out

Oh and Midterms are in there somewhere LOL. I believe I have one Monday morning, the day after my concert. Gotta study hard before the concert HAHA

Osaka Castle

Well, tomorrow is the last day of Silver Week... wait??? REALLY!?! Yep... I thought today was Monday, too. Tomorrow is Wednesday and the last day of my 5 day vacation.

Saturday: I was suppose to go to the INFES party, but fell back asleep which is OK. I don't remember exactly what I did instead that day... oh well.

Sunday: I was suppose to go to Osaka with some friends but decided to go to Karaoke on my own and just stay in Hirakata. I bought 3 CDs, 2 which had bonus DVDs, for 750 yen at Book Off. It was a good day :)

Monday: I was lazy yet again. I was trying to find a place to get money when my guardian angel, Taka-san (yes, I shortened his name), took me to find an open ATM. Double riding his bicycle. I always wanted to do that :) And it went a lot of faster. So I got some grocery shopping done.

Today, I somehow fell back asleep and slept til 2 pm... waking and rushing out to meet Vanessa in Osaka. We were going to meet at Osaka Castle. The castle closed at 4:30 and because it takes me an hour at least to get there. Let me comment on the trains here in Osaka (yeah, you know this was coming).

This was the first time going on my own on the trains here. I've only ridden them once before too and that was with Kanako. All these Osaka people are always like "Amber, if you can navigate Tokyo, you can navigate Osaka, it's easier" !!!!! NO, IT'S NOT! There is like 5 different trains... the local, express, super express, limited express... and Osaka has thing not caring to have maps and English maps available for me to tote around! I navigate Tokyo good because I had a map for a long time... eventually it got embedded in my head. And the local train of course stops at all stops while the express trains... I don't even know the difference between them... if I had an English map, I probably could tell you. I guess some stop at some number of stops and the more faster the train the less stops it takes. So you have to make sure your train stops at your stop. Very complicated and confusing. Not easier than Tokyo.

But something I never saw in Tokyo... is a double decker train. In fact I stopped mid Japanese direction asking to go "OMG!" I made sure to ride in this car too. Just because.



So yes, I did manage this by myself... taking the Keihan Line to Kyobashi, changing to the JR Line (WAIT! I STILL CANNOT USE MY PASMO HERE! Osaka is SOOO weird) where I rode to Morinomiyo. I met Vanessa and her friends from Nagayo at Osaka Castle. I got there 8 minutes before it closed so I just hung around the gift shop. I've made a note to go back there later.



After resting, we decided to go to Osaka Tower. We stopped at the shrine, I gave some money, did a little prayer then bought a fortune. Mine was a so-so fortune... not sure, but I hung it on the tree anyways.



So 2 subway stops later, switching lines, 3 stops later, we arrive to the Tower. The wait to tour the tower is 50 minutes. I've made a note to go back there too. We walk around, there are 3 Pachinkos at least in this area (Osaka... you guys have a bad addiction) and finally a small arcade with some purikura which we do. Supposedly there is no Purikura in Nagoya. The best Purikura I've been to was the one in Makino... with the monkey bars <3



So after that, I headed back on my own... taking one subway line 3 stops, switching lines, going 2 stops. I get off the subway and notice... the escalator isn't moving... there is a train stopped with all the lights off O.O This isn't a power outage... I start worrying that it being a holiday maybe the trains stop running early... but at 7??? So panicking, I ran out the wrong exit... >.< So I go out exit 2 and ask a lady which direction the JR station was and walked in a heavy rain (good thing I grabbed my umbrella just in case this morning :D) by myself at dark. It was a little depressing. But I found it and everything was running so no worries.

I got by to Hirakata on my own a little early so I stopped at McDs for a fast dinner and went to Ring with Taka-san for Karaoke :) It was fun. We seem to sing the same types of songs too. I like singing with him. Ring is a bit expensive though. I kinda like my Smiley Karaoke better.

Yes, Yes, Yes :) No, No, No :(

Today was my rough schedule... I have a class at 10 am and a class at 2:30... LONG BREAK! So after Spoken Jap I took my make up quizzes and then ate lunch in the CIE lounge with Ash. I stayed around there doing my makeup/catch up work for Spoken Jap while hanging around with random people. At 2:30 was my Communication class where we played an awesome game... I would love to tell you all about it but I don't want to spoil the game for anyone. But basically I volunteered to try to communicate with people who did not speak my language and had a totally different culture than mine. I was to find out as much as I could about them. I was 1 of 5 and we all basically failed but I was sight chasing one guy around who would not communicate with me HAHA. I was so determined to get him to talk to me. I soon found out why he wouldn't. It was really interesting, I'm really starting to like this class. By the way the title of this blog goes with this little experiment.

After class I came back to the dorm to start dinner: mashed potatoes, yakitori, veggies, and Ash was making wings. I was making it for Kanako, my speaking partner. I found out why I struggle so much with peeling potatoes... I can't do it with my right hand... I have to do with my left. When I tried doing it with my right, I dropped the potato in the garbage. WOOPS. That's ok we had plenty of potatoes. So I cooked, luckily Ash got out of class early and got her wings done and we were done just in time for me to meet Kanako at the bus stop and get her to the dorm.

We ate in the lounge, one person commented that she wishes she were my speaking partner... Hiroki came in and I let him have some food... Eddy came in and told him that the food wasn't for him LOL. But Katie came in and ate some too. Ash and Katie and I heard some extra helped washed the dishes (I washed some while waiting for Kanako) and I washed the tables downstairs. Kanako and I and Ash hung out in the room for awhile. When I went downstairs to clean the table I asked Aki if she wanted to go to Hirakata with us to do Purikura and she couldn't but she wanted me to ask Hiroki so I asked him if he wanted to go and he did so about 10 minutes and fast costume change later we headed to Hirakata.

We did our Purikura, saw Kanako off, and went to Tsutaya to rent a horror movie. We didn't watch it tonight because someone wants to watch it and they aren't here right now. It was a good day :) Silver week has started which means NO SCHOOL FOR 5 DAYS! But I have plenty of work to do.

I have to learn to make Curry for Hiroki's bday. I'm cooking him dinner and he wants Curry... well I like curry :D Aki is going to teach me <3 yay!