Gion Matsuri is one of the biggest festivals in Japan.

They make massive wooden portable shrines and drag them through the city in a parade at the height of the festival. Before that, they have stalls and general festiveness throughout the central city area, and people dress up in yukata (summer kimono) to go view the shrines as their being built.

My university organised a day for a group of us to be dressed up in yukata and wander around looking at the shrines, then took us out for sushi and all-you-can-drink alcohol.

The girls even got to keep their yukata, although unfortunately the guys didn’t cause there’s were rental. As you can see, there’s me in mine on the left.

Here’s a view from the back, and a close up of my hair (I got a lot of compliments on it, and everyone who asked was mildly disappointed to find out that I bought the hair clip in Australia, not Japan)

It was heaps of fun, and I got to hang out with Marthe and Ward again, as well as catch up with Annie and Yuhana (the Finnish students) and O-san (the Chinese guy whose apartment exploded - he said his new place is nice, but smaller). Annie, Marthe and Ward teased Yuhana because his name is very close to Yohana which is a girls name. He said that’s a very different name and they just nodded. I have no idea whether I’m spelling it right not not mind you.

Here are some photos of the day walking around looking at the shrines. I love the boat shaped one. Apparently they make them without any nails at all, all just joinery and rope. Also it’s really cool how they set up a gangplank from the second floor of the neighbouring building to get stuff onto the shrine once it’s done. We got stared and taken photos of a lot because we were a group of foreigners in yukata.

I also hung out with my friend Sarah and a few of her housemates from the boarding house she lives in, one night around the festival stalls. I didn’t dress up again though, cause geta (the wooden shoes) kinda hurt after a few hours, and I didn’t want to push it two days in the same week. My ankle is getting better, but it’s still not brilliant.

The first photo below, I took 4 times with different camera for them all, we all agreed it’d make a good postcard. We were in the convenience store to get a break from the humidity, but I have no explanation for why we were taking photos in there, lol.

As you can see from the second last photo, no festival is complete without a stall where people can shoot things. …Also, we were in Gion, so we saw Geisha, but I was too shy to take a photo from the front. heh heh.

My friends Marthe and Ward, from Holland are here studying manga drawing, and the manga they’re making for class (which will be published by the school!) has to be in Japanese. Unfortunately they only started studying Japanese when they found out they were coming here, which was 3 months before leaving, …so I translated the manga for them.

It was heaps of fun.
I’ve never really worked in that direction before. Normally I translate from Japanese into English. On the upside, they’d written it in English not Dutch. Lucky for me, because as you know, I don’t know any Dutch.

Apparently most manga in the Netherlands is translated into English rather than Dutch anyway for marketing reasons, so new manga created there is also normally made in English. There are more English speakers in the world than Dutch, and English has that crazy ‘cool’ factor it gets attached to it sometimes. …They said comics translated into Dutch are normally aimed at children, so the English manga seems more adult as well.

The translation was an interesting experience because of how extra careful you have to be when translating into a second language.

Marthe’s manga is about a high school girl who gets cursed by a forest spirit and a tree starts growing out of her shoulder, then it turns out it’s going to actually turn her into a tree (no-one panics before that because they think it’ll fall off in a day or so), so the guy she has a crush on (despite having barely spoken to her before) helps save her. Luckily he’s a geek and is into books and stuff, so finds a spell they can use. Although it turns out beating the spirit up is more useful.

It’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s the general gist.
I had to be careful with the register the characters used to address each other in. I made the girl and her best friend speak very informally, whereas the girl and the guy she has a crush on barely know each other at the start, but then get closer as it the manga goes on, so I had to try and start them off speaking a little awkwardly to each other and slowly change it.

Ward’s manga was about a town with an old windmill they want to tear down, but it’s possessed by a demon who occasionally kidnaps people, turns them into the undead and makes them work in a field. The demolition guy nearly gets taken, but fights the demon and escapes, then the windmill turns into a wooden mecha, and flies off, but all the flowers in the town die because the demon was a fertility demon and was making the ground fertile.

Demons speak in a different way to angry young men, and the two of them speaking to each other was the majority of the dialogue. So it was interesting to try and do in Japanese, because obviously I never use either of those two kinds of Japanese. lol.

Marthe and Ward their teacher was really impressed with the translation, and originally thought a Japanese person had done it for them [insert cheesy grin here]. Obviously, I’m pretty thrilled with that. …I’m looking forward to seeing it published too. I think they’re both really cool stories.

Here’s a couple of photos of Marthe and Ward in the Tatami room at uni, they were adding the tones in Photoshop on their laptops while I was on mine translating:

Nothin’ up ma sleeve…

In celebration of having access to the internet from home again (happened today), and also in celebration of the convenience stores of Japan, here are a couple of random pictures:

Blue Hawaii Pepsi

Claims to be “Pineapple & Lemon” flavour, but whilst I can imagine that if I try, I would more naturally describe the flavour as “Indescribably Awesomely Blue”.

It is also about as blue in colour as you would expect blue dish washing detergent to be. Yes, it looks toxic, and yet I bought, tried and am drinking it with glee.

…This may be a reflection on my intelligence.

I wonder if Hawaiians get annoyed with people naming random tropical holiday-esque stuff after them. *ponders*

Chewbacca

Came free with a bottle of pepsi. …not the above bottle of pepsi just a normal coloured one, which just goes to show you that the drive for things to be cool or cute here know no bounds.

They also have the following characters - amongst others; DarthVader, A Stormtrooper, Yoda, C-3PO, R2-D2, Wicket (which James assures me is one of the Ewoks)… etc (aren’t you glad I didn’t list them all?) I shall be keeping my geeky eyes out for them. Hehe.

Anyway, yeah… the NTT phone line company came round today and checked my phone line, connected me up and made sure stuff generally was all in order. He also made small talk and told me he’s been to Uluru… although it must’ve been a while ago cause he called it Ayers Rock.

He smelt sort of weird in a way I couldn’t recognise, but perhaps that’s just a phone-guy smell. Anyway he is totally my hero of the month.

So I have to apologise to everyone for not being online or otherwise staying in contact.

I moved out into my new flat and I don’t have the internet set up there yet. At the start I still couldn’t walk very well at all, so it made doing things like buying food to eat kind of difficult, so that if I had to walk to the convenience store, that was the only thing I could do for the day cause it wiped me out so bad.

But it’s all going waaaayyyyy better now, and I even made it back to the museum this week!!!! yay!

Forever ago, I promised photos of my new place, and I’m still too slack to have gotten round to taking any with my actual camera, not like that would be hard to do, it just hasn’t happened somehow. But here are a couple of small ones taken with my mobile phone.

As you can see above, I own a futon, and some stuff, and two cardboard boxes I can put some of the stuff on. lol. I am also highly excited to own a fridge and microwave, but have yet to acquire a hotplate for cooking on or a rice cooker if I decide to get one of those either.

The setup my laptop is on (permanently next to my bed, cause I don’t have a seat to sit on anyway), is basically three little collapsible crates of the type that you’d normally buy from the 100yen store here, only I scabbed them for free from the ‘free stuff table’ in the Dohokan on my way out. It’s a table of random stuff people have left there that they didn’t want or couldn’t be bothered taking home when leaving the country.

I also downloaded lots of stuff to watch in my last week at the Dohokan, and that’s still getting me by on days when it hurts too much to do anything else, also my friend Sarah has been coming round to visit me with Dr.Who episodes on a USB stick for me for the past two episodes. …gah! Cliff Hanger From HELL!!! gahhhh!!! etc.

Here’s the view out my front and rear window:

Anyway the internet peeps are coming round on Wednesday, so I expect to forgo sleep for the couple of days following that while I catch up with things and get back in contact with people
…possibly until then, bye and I hope everyone is well! *huggles to all*

It’s been fun living in the Dohokan.
As dorms go it’s nice and spacious and has relaxed rules that let us sneak friends in to crash the night. *mini-evil laugh*

Also living with the UC Davis guys has been a lot of fun.
They were pretty noisy some nights, but not often. And it was really really nice to make a big bunch of friends as soon as I got here (well technically the next day, cause I got here a day before them). Alos, it was awesome to have company and help when I was completely bed ridden.

Some of my friends at my bedside:

Left: Song time with Casey and Vincent.
Right: Ivan and Katie battling it out on DS. She kicks arse at Mario, he kicks arse at Tetris, fun was had by all.

Most of them left yesterday. A couple more left today. Vincent, Richard, Joseph and Katie are the only one’s left.

It’s so sad. I’m going to miss them so much. Also, I suppose I’m nervous about being on my own again cause I still can’t walk properly, but mainly I’m just really going to miss them.

Vincent, Jackie and Maggie bought me a goodbye gift, which is a plush toy tofu block (pictured left) ^_^it’s sooo soft, and cute and was totally unexpected, and so nice of them. *huggles tofu*

O-san, the Chinese guy who moved in a little while ago because of the ‘explosion accident‘ also moved out yesterday, as he’s found a new apartment.

He had an awkward relationship with the UCDguys cause they didn’t share a common language. The UCDguys weren’t quite sure what to do about the fact that he didn’t speak English, and were too nervous to try my suggestion of speaking Japanese (lol), and he was never sure what to do when they kept trying to speak English to him, so they all kind of gave up after a couple of days and settled on awkward looks and shy nodding.

He was actually pretty cool, with better Japanese than me, so we spoke a bit when he was around (although he wasn’t around much) and he taught me all about the scariness of portable gas hotplates. He came in to say goodbye before leaving and gave me a packet of caramel corn as a parting gift, which was really sweet and (again) unexpected.
People are so nice to me ^_^;

Also, caramel corn totally rocks. It’s all sugar, msg and awesomeness, and it totally cured the dizzy spells I’d been having all day so I must have been lacking those things. lol.

So,… I’m moving out tomorrow.
I managed to ride my bike all the way over to my new place today with a box of stuff, then took the train back, so I only have one bag and my laptop to shift tomorrow. Which is good cause it’s going to hurt walking to the place on campus where I have to pay the rent, and it’s going to be way too hot to ride my bike afterwards.

Riding that far hurt a little (it’s not really far, just far for the state of my ankle), but it felt really good that I could. Also, now I know for sure the bike’s not broken. …And it was especially good to have something constructive to do after waving Jason off, so I didn’t dwell on the whole sad, lonely, missing-my-friends-already feeling.

Joseph leaves tomorrow night, and the others leave on Wednesday.
I’m glad I’m not going to be the last one out of the dorm, that’d be a bit too much.

Besides. They made a lot of mess, drank a lot of beer and broke a lot of cups. We’re not even sure what all the crap in the kitchen is or where it came from but technically it’s the last person out that has to deal with it. I’ve been doing their dishes for them sometimes, but haven’t touched any of their other mess.

These things (amongst others) are not my problem:

I’ll help clean up a little though, cause otherwise poor Vincent and Richard will get lumped with it ALL.

In the past week, Kyoto has suddenly had a growth spurt.
There’s masses of wild green weeds and vines attacking buildings and pathways everywhere.

Compare the photo of outside my window I showed you earlier, with a new photo taken of the same view (photo of Triffid lunging at the window included for extra value):

Before	After	Triffid at the window

And that shit was the height of grass when I first got here!

Today, is the one month anniversary of my bike accident. Heh.
Normally i’m not really into observing anniversaries, but seeing as I noticed, I felt like I should do something for it.

So I rode my bike round the block.

Yay! It actually hurt less than walking, and was waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyy faster.
I was scared though. I guess it’s going to take a while to get over the post-accident nervousness.
I rode nice and slow, round the shortest block, just to test it out.

I was thinking of waiting until 8pm to do it, cause that’s when my accident happened, but decided against jinxing myself into having another accident by riding in the dark on my first try back on the bike.

Now to continue the celebrations I have an episode of Dr.Who downloaded and ready to be watched.
hehe.

Yesterday I managed to get all the way to the ward office to pick up my alien registration card. So, yay! I’m all legal now. Woohoo!

In reality, it isn’t that far. But unfortunately it turned out that it was over doing it for having just had my cast taken off. So I’ve had to spend today sleeping, and leaving my foot be.

I wish I still had the crutches. But you know, then i’d use them like a crutch …ha-di-har etc.
It’s a shame, cause I wanted to goto class today. But it’s better not to push it, I guess.

A pattern has emerged…
Ever since I could first put weight on my foot again, I’ve had to alternate the days.
One day I can do something, and the next day is my recovery day from that activity.
So hopefully I can goto class tomorrow. Then I’ll probably have to sleep all Saturday to make up for it.

There’s something I want to do on Monday though, so I’ll have to be careful not to do much on Sunday either.

I got my cast off today!

They took me to the hospital first thing in the morning.
The doctor was pleased with the xray, and checked that I could put weight on it and walk a bit without it hurting. …heh, not really walking though, it’s really more of a limping shuffle, but it’s mostly because the muscles are still badly bruised, and haven’t been used in nearly a month, so their stiff and sore.

He said I shouldn’t use the crutches anymore, just walk as normally as possible, but take it nice and slow and don’t overdo it to begin with.

To celebrate, Hanatani-san took me and Hirose-san out to lunch in one of the restaurants near the station. He even insisted on paying for us. ^_^

They’ve all been so awesome. …They keep saying ‘no, no, it’s our job’ but regardless, i’m soo grateful. I want to buy the staff a thank you present when i’m mobile enough to actually make it into town.

I’m looking forward to shuffling my way up to class this Thursday and Friday.
…Tomorrow, I don’t have class and the manga museum is shut, so i’m going to see how I go trying to go food shopping on my own.

These photos have just prompted me to think, “lucky me, I wear bootleg jeans!” Haha. It meant I could still wear them with a cast on.

I added the daisy right at the end, while I was waiting for them to come this morning.
The doctor thought it was funny that people had written all over it… lol. Doesn’t seem to be common here.

My foot’s really sore all the time now that I can actually move it, but it’s still so nice to have the option ^_^… healing takes up soo much energy though. Still always sleepy. heh.

I got an email this morning from Hirose-san saying they couldn’t take me to the hospital today because another student had, had an explosion accident.

That was the weirdest way to put it. I freaked out. What the hell does that mean?
I asked her what exploded and if they’re ok, she came down later to check on me and told me the details that she knew.

It was a gas explosion.
It seems like maybe they left the gas on.
They are ok. As in not dead. …In truth, no-one really knows yet.

I really hope they’re going to be alright.
It’s scary.

EDIT (4thJune): It turns out the guy wasn’t actually in his apartment thankfully, so he’s ok, and nobody was hurt at all *sigh of relief* …Apparently the force of the explosion was strong enough that it blew out the door and window!!!

They went round the dormitories today checking the hotplates and taking away any that looked old, just in case they’re faulty. Everyone’s paranoid now. I don’t even have one for my apartment yet, but i’m paranoid too, thinking maybe I shouldn’t even buy one. o_O;eep!