Day 14 in Japan: Shokojo Seira / 小公女セイラ

By accident I watched a new J-Drama this evening while I was eating my dinner. It’s called Shokojo Seira and based on the novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It catched my eye because the story takes place at a Boarding School. Everthing was really cheesy and exaggerated, the actors not that good, but still I watched it till the end and plan to watch the next episode on Saturday. My Japanese is good enough to follow and understand about half of what is spoken.

20091017_01

What I like the most about Asian dramas is that you are always provided with a relationship chart ^^ For German Daily Sopas that wouldn’t be possible…after some weeks everybody slept with everybody elso, so… ^^

20091017_01

Image Source: Drama Wiki

Alles Liebe,



Day 13 in Japan: B.B.Q. & Creepy Sweets

Dear readers, it’s Friday Night and one week of school is already over. We’ve done three and a half lessons, that’s so quick and still it doesn’t feel too fast. My Japanese improves with every day and at least rudimental conversation becomes easier. It’s a new hobby to ask people in the supermarket or at the post office for some help concernign different matters. I might scare them, but for me it’s great.

For lunch I’ve tried a new bento (I was too tired in the morning to make my own) and lion-hearted I chose the cheap one with the fish…you know, seafood isn’t my favourite kind of dish. The classmate I had met at the shop told me that the deep-fried stuff might be potatoes and sweet-potatoes…it was not. When my German girls at the table saw what I had bought, they were all like „There might be fish/seafood inside“…this sentence hunts me over here…and it’s true: In Japan there might be fish in anything!
I cannot exactly tell what all of this was…but the yellow thing in the middle was calamary and it tasted good…it’s only that I shouln’t have had a look at what it looked like beneath the tempura…calamary do have suckers, you know!? Creepy!

20091016_01

Today after school I slept for some time (I cannot admit it’s been almost two hours) and then met Anna and Sarah to go for some shopping in Wing Town before we left of to the „New Students B.B.Q.“ at the student’s bar „Zig Zag“. With Helloween ahead there are funny costumes in every shop like Care Bear overalls or Pikachu caps.

20091016_01

At a car park I took this picture, secretly, of course. I didn’t intend to annoy the hardcore biker who’s the driver of this… (haha, compare the size to the bike next to it ^^)

20091016_01

At the B.B.Q. there were less people than expected…nobody seemed to know or be interested. No matter what, it was a fun event.

20091016_01

20091016_01

At around ten we left and went to the post office (there ARE plenty of people to hand in their stuff at this time) and to JUSCO to satisfy our late night Fanta and chocolate cravings. Here are two funny pictures (at least for me, I don’t know these things from Germany) with a back and…what’s that…a shaver for the sole of the foot? b. assured me it’s anatomically impossible to have hair at that spot, so it must be for horny skin instead…but if you only take a quick look…XD

20091016_01

Ans I suppose those are …what? Perhaps Q-Tips…?

20091016_01

But as I said we went there for chocolate and in between all the delicious cookies and sweets I found THIS! Creepy, creepy, creepy! It’s dried octopus or something and looks like an alien from „Independence Day“!!!

20091016_01

However one of the best things today was that two Japanese young women suddenly spoke to us and asked if we could meet to hang out together for some English/Japanese practice, girls chat and to simply have fun. I’ve received an email by one of them just some minutes ago. I wasn’t sure wether I’d be able to make Japanese friends, now it was that easy!

Alles Liebe,



Day 12 in Japan: High Tech Toilet & Fanta *censored*

I feel better again and so I was looking forward to this day. Lessons were as much fun as the days before, I don’t know how they do it, but every teacher has so many games and stuff prepared, there’s no chance to get bored…not a second.

After the headache yesterday I try to drink more, so at lunchbreak I brought myself to buy that scary Fanta Grape ( I don’t like grapes)…I opened the can and it smelled like…fruit condoms (or like a Dixi Toilet for all of you who do pretend they do not exactly know what fruit condoms smell like). OH MY GOD! The others sniffed and approved what I had just said. Ick!!! Never again.

20091015_01

After school we were all squeezed into a small bus and carted to the City Hall to aply for our Alien Registration Cards.

20091015_01

You might think we are at the airport here, but it is the City Hall. Awesome, ne?

20091015_01

There I had to go to the toilet and LOOK: It’s one of the high tech ones. I screamed when I opened the door and saw it (a bit embarrassing, I know).

20091015_01

So many buttons…I only used the one for the flushing sound and it was so loud *lol*

20091015_01

I had planned to take a picture of „Volkswagen Okazaki“ for days…loks very German, doesn’t it?

20091015_01

And it’s a pity you cannot see this properly…next to the street is a really old and rampaged caravan that was turned into a travel agency XD

20091015_01

For those of you who missed pictures about my cute buys…it seems as there is more cute food with faces on my desk than ever before XD And a new sponge in form of a chocolate roll cake. Damn, I love being in Japan!

20091015_01

Alles Liebe,



Day 11 in Japan: A little bit sick

My plan was not to become sick while I’m in Japan…well it’s day #11 and i woke up with a really bad headache. Not the migraine type of headache but the „I’m getting sick“ one. Of course despite the fact I felt half dead I went to school and lessons were just as much funa s the days before. Today we had to write down what our best day ever looked like and we were allowed to make something up. So you can imagine our stories involved a lot of money and girls finding diamond rings by accident on the beach or receiving them by their boyfriends ^^ In the end we had to decide who’s day had been the best.

One hour after school I had a 20 minutes meeting with my class teacher about what I did before Japan, what goals I want to reach while I’m here and what i want to do after Japan.

On my way home i took some photos with the „sunset“-setting and I like the colors. This is the „Info gallery“ where we can buy books, rent bikes and electronic devides and so on. It’s an old and small Japanese buliding.

20091012_11

The car park and surrounding buildings.

20091012_11

That’s the school itself ^^

20091012_11

On the way I discovered something that might be a shrine.

20091012_11

Or is it not?

20091012_11

And of course another cute sign that says something like „take the poo back to your home“ XD

20091012_11

With my head ache I slept the entire afternoon and tried to drink a lot (I havn’t the last days). unbelievable, but it helped. Hopefully tomorrow I will be fully recovered!!! We’re taking the bus (adventure!!!) to the City Hall to get our Alien Registration Cards and want to explore another shopping center afterwards! Hooray!

Besides for the first time I made some meat for dinner…umami! God, that light soy sauce by Kikkoman is incredible!

Alles Liebe,



Day 10 in Japan: Tokubaibi

20091012_11

Today nothing special or very intersting happened, besides that I’m very tired because I stay up too long every night to do these blog posts. So today: bed!

We went to Jusco today because Tuesday is tokubaibi, which means it’s special sale day again and I was able to buy apples…well, only two. But some fresh fruits, hooray.

No new pictures either, my camera gets a rest after the shock yesterday. Tomorrow we will go shopping to Wing Town, so expect a longer entry then ^^

Alles Liebe,



Day 9 in Japan: Castle & Temple Visit

Today was the first real school day, with all classmates present and the correct textbooks. The vocabulary quiz in the morning turned out to be not dramatic at all, but because I was nervous I made stupid mistakes and now I’m angry about myself. I could have done better! Time really flew by and after school you can already guess…WHAT? No, not shopping again, but I met Sarah and Anna and together we set off with our bikes in direction to Okazaki castle. After a 20 to 25 minute ride we arrived at Otogawa, Okazaki’s river and to stand on the huge bridge and look down at the riverbed, where in ancient times the harbor had been, was beautiful.

20091012_02

20091012_02

We crossed the bridge and turned right, because we had already gotten a glimpse of the castle’s roof. On our way through narrow streets we found out…where Santa Clause lives (according to Bibi Blocksberg at least where the Japanese one lives)…

20091012_02

…that Japanese spiders are all very huge (we’ve seen several of them and I hope to never find one in my room)…

20091012_02

…and that Panasonic seems to produce about everything, including Sarah’s bike saddle…

20091012_02

…and my basket ^^ (look how saucily Little Red Ridinghood peeks out of the back)!

20091012_02

Finally we arrived at the castle and enjoyed a good time walking around and taking a close look at everything, including the attached Shinto shrine.  By the way Okazaki is the birthplace of famous Tokugawa Ieyasu.

20091012_02

This is of course me beneath the toori.

20091012_02

Here Sarah and I wash our hands for ritual purification. ( I was so excited to finally do it) we saw some Japanese that even took some water into their mouths and spat it out afterwards, but I didn’t.

20091012_02

In front of the main hall there’s a offertory box and above an enormouss bell that people ring after their prayer so the kami (gods) will hear them. There were many Japanese who came to do it so I felt ashamed to pray there as a foreigner, but perhaps another time. (I would have loved to ring the bell XD)

20091012_02

To be honest, I had the castle expected to be a bit bigger, but that’s just how it is. Sarah kisses a giant stone turtle in the lower right corner of the picture ^^

20091012_02

That tree was shaped like a tuning fork XD

20091012_02

The surroundings of the shrine/castle are very beautiful and I can imagine to spend time there again.

20091012_02

20091012_02

Near the castle I found a new manhole cover, this time with the castle and a ship, I guess to remind of the old harbor just next to it.

20091012_02

We crossed the river again, this time on a smaller bridge intended for pedestrians and bikers and stopped because there were plenty of monstrous koi carps in the water, all over one meter long. Most of them were black, but I was able to see a yellow, a white and a red one, too.

On the bridge suddenly a woman talked to me in Japanese and asked from which country we are and what we do in Okazaki. I had fun to talk to a totally unknown person and it turned out to be, that she’s a teacher of English and looks for foreigners that like to present their country (in English) in her class. She asked all three of us to come and we will get some money for it XD

20091012_02

After that we were in an adventurous mood, so we took off to explore more of Okazaki…and almost got lost. We were three hours on our bikes today…hills up…hills down (oh my God, due to a road hole my camera flew out of my bag and landed on the street, when a car was turning exactly into the street I had just crossed; the car missed the camera only buy some centimeters….lucky!!!!)

When we were more or less lost a big „Aeon Mall“-sign showed us the correct way home XD

20091012_02

3 hours on the bike…I guess that’s more than I spend on it the entire summer at home *lol* My legs will be made of steel when I return to Germany.

Sorry, no cute shopping today. .. XD

Alles Liebe,