modeS4u reached 10.000 fans on their facebook fansite so they decided to make a kawaii giveaway! ♥Â Take a look here to see it’s worth it 
Besides that their shop is worth a visit anyway. They sell a lot of cute stuff from Japan and I’m crazy about the Helloween fabrics. Matryoshkas, cats and cute other things combined into one pattern – adorable!
Three weeks ago I decided to look for a new student job. I have to admit I’m always lucky when it comes to stuff like this. I aplied for the job, was invited for an interview and chosen as the new staff member for the online team within only four days.
The office where I work serves as a kind of umbrella company for several publishers and deals with all service tasks that come up, e.g. marketing and website maintenance. The latter’s where I come into play. 
I was always curious how it is to work for a publishing house, so here I am, one step closer to what I want to work after university.
Alles Liebe,
Well, actually this post is more about a space to learn, but because I picked up my copy of Elizabeth Gilbert’s „eat, pray, love“ today it was too tempting to make up a titel with a hint to the book.
Tonight I’m here to show you my work space for a minute. This afternoon I removed everything from my desk and the shelf above and started to clean, sort through everything and throw a whole bunch of things away. It’ll be the start of the new semester soon and I wanted to free my writing desk from all the clutter that had piled up over the last weeks. I need a place where I feel good, where it’s easy to concentrate and fun to learn. Maybe it’s the most personal place in my apartment and I wanted it to be perfect. 
Time managment isn’t my strong point. That’s why I bought a Moleskine Daily Planner (via ebay, because the clerk in the book store looked shocked when I asked for a 2010 calendar in September >< ) I’m prepared for fall with some adorable stickers and have started to integrate all the stuff I had bought in Japan, hence for example the basket and the cute fairy tale index markers. 
But it’s the little details that make everything so adorable and fresh, like the pinky street figure Kotori had given to me as a birthday present 
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I’m in a very good mood today. Tomorrow’s my first day in the online department of a publishing company (GeraNova Bruckmann) and I’m really looking forward to my new job
Have a good night everyone!
If I keep going with that pace six or seven „weekly“ retrospects will be enough to cover all of 2010 XP
In my universe I’m the sun
In Japan I started to love Sundays. It was my day of the week with tea, ham & eggs, some letter writing and crocheting. Now that I’m back home and don’t lead a single life anymore (♥) things have changed a bit of course ^^ Now my shiny Sunday’s start with sleeping in and a good breakfast in bed (no moaning about crumbs in the bed, please ;P). Actually I wonder if there’s anything better than to start your day with a yummy breakfast in bed.
And yes, we do this every week. It has already turned into a kind of habit, I guess. There…look, in the right corner of the next picture, it’s the ripple blanket I’m working on. But more about it in another post. (Ch. just saw the „we“ and had to smile, because he’s got a place in my little, magical world now: on- and offline ^^)
My quite and relaxing weekend with good food, crochet and my Xbox was important contrastive program after an eventful week with A.’s visit, meetings with some of my friends, a birthday and work – all of this in combination with a slight cold. You can see it’s getting stressful again, so I have to find ways to compensate.
Studies
I’m at a point with my Japanese studies where I don’t spend hours over grammar and Kanji books but can enjoy what I like most about mastering a foreign language – read novels in the original tongue. Well, actually the book I’ve started to read is a non-fiction book called 「自分ã€ã‚’変ãˆã‚‹100ã®è³ªå• which means 100 questions that will change „your self“ (buy at amazon.jp). I look up every word I don’t know and create vocabulary lists. It’s a nice way to study and memorize new words. The plan is to read one chapter = one of the 100 questions every day.
Entertain me
Finally I bought an Xbox 360, the new slim model and I simply love it ♥ It’s connected to my old TV so far which means I can only play games that support 50Hz ( I’m so lucky I can play Final Fantasy XIII) but even with an old television it’s pure eye candy. If anyone wants to add me as a friend on Xbox live: my username is as usual schildmaid.
This weeks Oricon single charts are even better than usual. I listen to SMAP’s No. 1 hit This Is Love over and over again and can’t get enough of the catchy tune that reminds me of Michael Jackson’s Black Or White. Besides that you can find Plan B – Prayin‘, Fettes Brot – Jein and Tocotronic – Im Zweifel für den Zweifel on my playlist.
This week’s Top 10 in Japan
Those songs marked with a heart got a five stars rating on my ipod, so this weeks charts are worth it ^^
Alles Liebe,
Saturday another big dream for me came true – a trip to the Grand Shrine of Ise, Japan’s most sacred place. According to Japanese mythology the sun goddess Amaterasu gave the Three Sacred Treasures of Japan – sword, mirror and jewel – to Ninigi-no-Mikoto and while the sword and jewel are located at the Atsuta shrine in Nagoya and the Imperial Palace in Tokyo the mirror is kept at Ise.
What is simply called a shrine is in reality a complex of several bigger and smaller shrines located at two sites – the outer (geku 外宮) and inner (naiku 内宮) shrine. We took the train from Nagoya and when you arrive at Ise you just have to walk for about 500m to arrive at the outer shrine. The weather was perfect and I was lucky to go there with a person like A. who shares my enthusiasm for Japan’s sacred places and understands if I spend minutes staring at the buildings or talking to the enormous trees.
Although it said in the travel guide that if one’s in a hurry it’s better to skip the outer and go straight to the inner shrine I can’t agree. The atmosphere there with all the green and huge, old trees was amazing.
Actually it’s forbidden to enter the area directly around the shrine buildings themselves but at least the tourists/pilgrims are allowed to peek over a fence to get a glimpse of the thatched roofs with the golden embellishments.
Yes, the trees were HUGE, and yes, I do talk to them. Only this time I wasn’t the only one 
We saw Japanese everywhere hugging trees, touching trees, pressing their ears to the ancient stems (okay, I did that too but couldn’t hear anything…so we have the theory that one day somebody started, other saw and imitated that person and so on…like when you stare up at the sky and suddenly others stop to do the same thing xP)
The bridge above, made out of one gigantic stone, is supposed to look like a turtle ^^
I bought the most beautiful protective charms I had seen so far – shaped like the legendary magatama – for my parents and one for myself. And of course I prayed bowing twice, clapping twice, bowing one more time and thanked for the wonderful time I have at the moment ^^
From the outer we headed to the inner shrine with a bus in which a lovely recorded voice told me to „press the butter“ if I wanted to get off xDÂ The naiku is surrounded by hills and thousands of trees…oh, and tourists.
At the inner shrine I bought some more protective charms, talked to even more trees and was able to recharge my batteries.
Mah, I’m running out of things to tell inbetween the pictures
After all the spiritual input we came back down to earth to enjoy a little strolling around the nearby quarter that is designed to look like back from the Edo period. It was packed with tourists but the atmosphere was good nonetheless.
Fresh green tea anyone?
One shop was entirely for manaki neko – fortune cats.
As if spiritual fulfillment wasn’t enough for one day we headed to a small town called Futami to see the meoto iwa – the wedded rocks. To our suprise there was a big aquarium at the bus stop with sea lions outside.
We arrived before twilight and spent some time at the beach picking seashells and enjoying a salty breeze.
Hm, who’s that? xP
I wonder if I had ever seen so many shrines on one day. Each and every one of them is beautiful in its own way and I never seem to get tired of them. ^^
I especially like the different temizuya where you wash your hands and normally mouth for purification.
Finally, here they are – the wedded rocks that symbolize the deities Izanami and Izanagi. To be honest they were a lot smaller than expected…but who cares? They look great on pictures.
I love the next picture ♥
Another temizuya with a lot of frogs. ^^
At every shrine it’s possible to buy ema – small wooden plaques on which you can write your prayers and wishes. The one on the left without the tiger is A.’s ^^
Ah, the suspicious person again!
All in all I had a fantastic day and can only recommend a trip to Ise if you’re at least in some way interested in shinto, Japanese culture or sprituality.
I guess with this picture everything is said ^^ „May Peace Prevail On Earth“ irrespective of origin or believe!
Sometimes you wake up and feel good. Not that I had this experience too often over the last couple of years being exhausted by university and everything, but recently those kind of days have increased ^^ And Friday was one of those days.
I managed to get out of bed earlier than usual which left me enought ime to take a refreshing shower and enjoy the morning sunshine in front of the open window. For a change all three of us girls were online and hat a little chat before school and I even squeezed in short chit-chats with D. and my Dad *shiny* That in combination with some nice tea and a yummy breakfast PLUS the simple fact I’m in Japan…the perfect life.
Alles Liebe,