I thought my time here would get less hectic once classes started but holy mother of Batman I was wrong! There's so much going on and I feel all scatterbrained when it comes to this blog. I honestly don't think I'm capable of writing a well structured post, so bare with me please, as I list a series of random things I feel are worth mentioning.
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School is pretty fun. My Japanese classes aren't too difficult. Actually, I haven't received grades this good since middle school! I'm not kidding, I'm getting 80 percent on my tests! I'm not used to being good at school. On the other hand, it's doing wonders for my self-esteem!
My Japanese art class is way more interesting than the one I took back at home, so that's good, and in my 'Learning Kansai' class, we've been learning the Kansai dialect which is really funny! I'm slowly falling in love with Osaka and the Kansai area. Everyone here is so open and lively and welcoming, it's amazing.
The class I look forward to the most each week is Naginata, which is a martial art. If you want to see what Naginata is, here's a
video of my professor, teaching Naginata on a TV show. I love having a physical class each week, plus, I've always wanted to try something like this. Definitely my favorite!
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A place I've been loving a lot here is the
Dog café near our campus. It's like a regular café, except there's a bunch of dogs running around and since I miss my dogs at home so dearly, I find comfort in playing with the dogs there. They're all really nice and affectionate. They love jumping into your lap, getting petted and playing games so most of the time I can't even drink my beverage because I'm tending to three dogs at the same time. The owner is really nice too, he's really starting to know me because I come there so often (I keep taking people there). I already know I'm going to have a hard time saying goodbye to these dogs when I have to return to Belgium!
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I went to
Universal Studios again last week. It's amazing during the Halloween period!! They have horror nights where, starting from 6 o'clock there's zombies all over the park who come out and scare you. They also change the rides and make them horror rides. I had so much fun!! I'm going to go again next Friday and next Sunday (I mean I have a year pass, I need to use it to get my money's wirth right? ^^ ).
After I go again I think I'll make a seperate blog post about the USJ Horror Nights with pictures and video, because it is absolutely amazing! The Japanese do horror really well!
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I've noticed Japan really likes the 'all you can eat' concept. There's a lot of places where you can do
食べ放題(tabehoudai), which means 'all you can eat' and most bars seem to have 飲み放題(nomihoudai) or 'all you can drink' option. The most fun experience I've had with this is the ケーキ放題(keekihoudai), which is 'all you can eat': cake edition!
The place is called
Sweets Paradise and it's pretty much flawless. They have so many different kinds of cake and for only 1500yen you can eat as much cake as you possibly can! It's been over a week since I went there but I'm still not over it, it was so good!
I went there to celebrate my birthday a little early with my friend Rachel, whose birthday was also coming up and they gave us free T-shirts and a personalized cake.
I ate so much there I actually kind of got sick. I would just pile on ten different kinds of cake and eat until I felt sick of the flavour. Then I'd go get a little bit of pasta (they also had different kinds of pasta and they were all amazing as well) to cleanse my pallete and then I'd go for a plate of cake again.
I secretly took some extra cake home with me in a lunch box. I know it's kind of bad, but I couldn't help it it was so good and I couldn't finish my 86451351th serving!
Anyways, it was more than I could've hoped for, it was perfection! I need to go again soon!
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Another thing I'd like to talk about is these things. There's so many of them around here. Just take a stroll to the grocery store a few blocks away and you'll find dozens of them in the trees and bushes! They scare me but at the same time I'm very intrigued by them. I keep trying to take proper pictures of them, but it's not easy.
They're pretty darn big (I'd say 7cm counting the legs) and they have a creepy yellow and black stripe pattern all over. I looked them up online and found out they're called Nephila Clavata, or the
Joro spider. They're poisonous and apparently, getting bit by one would be like getting bit by a Black Widow. So yes, I should probably not get too close in trying to take my pictures. But at least they're not deadly!
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I've noticed that I
haven't been eating all that healthy over here and I can think of a few reasons as to why:
- Not having the luxury of my parents wonderful and healthy cooking
- The fact that my knowledge of the kitchen is close to zero
- I'm lazy
- Most meals you order at restaurants here don’t contain many veggies (udon, ramen, kareraisu,..)
- I feel like I’m on a holiday and so I tend to eat like I’m on holiday (AKA Ardennen-style). I mean, did you see how much I ate at the all you can eat cake place?
In any case, I've decided to start eating healthier now. I've begun buying all sorts of vegetables and eperimenting with them. It's kind of sad and kind of hilarious, watching me try to fry vegetables. But I manage!
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| This was my first try. Carrots, bean sprouts, mushrooms, some leafy green things I don't know the name of and egg. I made some mistakes but it's alright. I did better the second time! |
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As I mentioned before, I bought a new phone here in Japan and aside from using it for messaging friends I play this one game. Everyone in our dorm play it on their phone. I'm slightly obsessed. I think you might be able to download the game in Belgium as well, for those who'd like to try it.
It's called TsumTsum and it's made by Disney. Honestly, the game itself isn't all that interesting, you just try to connect as many similar Tsums as you can in a limited amount of time. The addicting thing is: you earn coins by playing and with those coins, you can buy different Disney characters to play with! Right now I'm playing with Miss Bunny from Bambi but I really want to get Malificent because she's really strong and she'll get me a better high score. That's also the thing, you just want to be better than the other people at the dorm.
I realize this is probably not at all interesting to read about. But listen ok, this game is an important part of my life. I have to mention it!
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We had a Halloween party at our dorm last week. It was really fun because everyone dressed up really well and we did all sorts of games. I was just going to wear my Hogwarts uniform but everyone kept telling me to do Elsa from Frozen, so I made a last minute dress and did that. We took so many pictures!
I love all these people so much!! ♥
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I'm proud to say I made some money this weekend. I did a job at our school's culture festival. I had to give people a tour around our campus and tell them where everything is. Aside from that I had to be at this booth where people could come and try foreign snacks (like Belgian chocolate or Australian Tim Tams) and talk to foreign people. I made only 900 yen (6.5euro) per hour but it was really easy money so that's fine. Most of the day I just hung around the festival and talked to people, it was really fun.
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Tomorrow is my 24th birthday. I made cupcakes at the dorm tonight and tomorrow I'm taking some to school as well to eat with friends during lunch. The Japanese people here all thought it was weird that I was making cupcakes for my birthday. They feel that other people should make them for the person whose birthday it is. They were all very happy I made them though!
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Lastly I want to announce that I'm going on a trip to Tokyo this weekend! I'm going with nine other people from the dorm and I really excited! I'll make sure to take lots of pictures!!
That'll be it for now.
Hopefully I'll post a little sooner next time haha!!
♥♥♥
Ulrike
