Tina in Japan

It’s been such a long time since I did calligraphy. I took it for 2-3 years about 8-9 years ago. So I am almost a decade out of practice and I was never that good at it =P.

One of my Japanese classes on sub-culture called ” COOL Japan” has a session on Japanese Calligraphy for the first 4-5 weeks with Shodo-Sensei. We just had our 3rd session on Wednesday and now I have my own signature stamp XD.

The first class, two weeks ago, was with practicing how to set up, how to sit when doing calligraphy, arm postures, and how the hold the brush properly when writing. Calligraphy is also a form of meditation so it was important to concentrate when writing, with good posture, and to be at peace and quiet.

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Our first calligraphy writing was on writing 土(do) and 日(hi). Earth/soil and Sun ( or Saturday and Sunday). We also gave Shodo-Sensei our names in katakana so the next week she would give us our Kanji names to write.

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This week and last week was writing our Kanji names. I thought the name Shodo-sensei gave me was pretty neat. It meant the same thing it did in Chinese when I found out the meaning in Japanese. The first character means “very wise” and the second character is the family name of one of the main wisemen from the Nara period in Japan.  We made our own signature stamps today in class from erasers with our favorite kanji from out name.

Was randomly out near the bathrooms of the 1st floor outside of classes . Drawn during break one day. The cows have been on there for over a week. I’ve drawn more cows on it since. This is the most up to date picture. XD;

Omg BBQ Meeaaat. :3 or in this case, Yaki Niikuuu.

Monday night there was a huge gathering set up by one of the international clubs at school called ” Ryu-Soc”. Went to a all you can eat Yaki Niku restaurant about a 15-20 minute walk from school. It was a very huge crowd, I’d say about 20 of the international foreign students and 20 Japanese students.

I believe this was the first time for me to have authentic Yaki Niku. it was very delicious. They also had bottomless salads and daikon salads. :3.

While in Akihabara sunday evening I went to get something to eat at Curry House Co Co. They had a special where they had fried croquette-like OYSTERS curry. I tried it and wow, it was really good :O. The curry was very flavorful too.

Oysters are naturally a bit heavy on the stomach though so I’m quite oystered out. However it was indeed yummy and I would eat it again if I get a craving for oysters again =)

I was in Akihabara sunday evening and passed by the Sega Arcade where downstairs are all UFO catcher crane machine games. There were 2-3 machines of the new Vocaloid PVC figures and oh my goodness, there was always a huge crowed around the machine. All 2-3 of them XD;. Amazing.

So when I went to the main desk of my dorm to pay for my monthly rent and electricity bill, I found out that you actually don’t pay the landlord directly. You go to a local post office or an ATM to pay for your rent and bill. That was a trip since I’m used to just writing a check or pay in cash to the landlord.

So i went to the post office, took a number, got called, handed them my forms regarding the rent and bill, they gave me the final total, and I paid. How different :O. I guess it makes sense since Japanese post offices are also banks. So it was probably directly paying it into the landlord’s account. It’s also a safer procedure. Cooool.

The spiders here are huge and create very impressive webs. I’ve seen ones at school that would expand over 10 feet or more from tree across to another tree above a pathway. I can never get a good picture of it. The spiders at school are colorful too with red,green, and yellow marks on it.

Then there are the grasshopper(?)/mantis(?)

I saw this big guy on the way home from classes. One of those floor blocks is about the size of my hand. To give you an idea of the size.

Coolest Freebie ever from the post office yet! Soo nice. Rice here is expensive. I pretty small bag is near 10USD. Post Office here is <3.

Yes I did want to steal it in a way.

From last night after the whole Pokemon Center adventure with Jamie. Went randomly to Kannai which is a stop away for food. Found this :3

Oh man, I was so giddy. Since my original plan of going out was canceled out due to the rain ( even though it completely stopped raining at the end.) Jamie and I went to the Yokohama Pokemon Center located at Sakuragicho in Yokohama. I’ve been wanting to go for a long while and luckily Jamie likes Pokemon or enough to come with me and buy some stuff herself =D.

I couldn’t take a lot of pictures =( There were signs saying no picture taking inside the store. I was able to get some pictures outside. They have a Halloween themed mural outside of the store. So cute!

One thing that was really cool about the Yokohama Pokemon Center was a special theme. ( I don’t remember if the one in Tokyo had a theme or not) Since Yokohama is famous for being a huge harbor, the store had exclusive items just sold at the Yokohama store of harbor themed pokemon items! The main mascot of the whole thing is of Pikachu in a boat/sailor hat.

I also got a lot of their Halloween themed merchandise.

Aw man, I’m already eager to go back during Christmas or earlier. But def. Christmas for the Christmas exclusive items!

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