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27 Nov 08
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Sleepy and no Starbucks The medication the doctor gave me yesterday consists of bags with white powder which you have to empty in your mouth and then wash away with water (as expected this is totally disgusting) and regular pills. So far, so good, I haven’t felt any pain sin... |
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27 Nov 08
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From Chinatown in Kobe to the hospital in Amagasaki We had two plans for today: go to the doctor to find out what has been wrong with me this las week and go to Kyoto to see the red maple leaves. We didn’t go to a doctor because after a week of uncomfortable pain and strange feelings, I was finally feeli... |
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25 Nov 08
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Christmas shopping at the Loft Machiko and I had so much fun together yesterday, that we agreed to meet up again today. This time to do some Christmas shopping at the Loft in Umeda. We found some interesting things in that store, like cups with noses, mugs with breasts and money boxes... |
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25 Nov 08
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Quick karaoke After her work at the airport, Machiko came back to Senri Chuo to pick me up after my work. We’ve been looking forward to singing some karaoke together since we didn’t have enough time the last time. There is only one karaoke place in Senri Chuo, bu... |
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21 Nov 08
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Sick day I’ve called in sick today for the first time since I’ve been working in Japan. I’ve been having severe stomach pains since Monday, but I couldn’t go to the doctor because Yasu is in Tokyo for 2 weeks (it sucks to be this dependent). On Tuesday ... |
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20 Nov 08
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The MacBook has arrived Last week Yasu and I ordered a new MacBook for me in the Apple Store in Shinsaibashi. We had to do it online because they don’t sell computers with English keyboards in the store and I really can’t work well with a Japanese keyboard, it keeps switchin... |
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15 Nov 08
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Shopping in Shinsaibashi Today was shopping day. After getting up really late for a change, we refueled with brunch at one of Tsukamoto’s new small restaurants. It’s a 24 hour place where you buy a ticket from a vending machine, and then the waitress uses your ticket to tell... |
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13 Nov 08
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Dating in Kobe We’ve been together for more than 4.5 years, but Yasu and I still love going on dates, and tonight we went to Kobe Harborland.
On our way from the station to Harborland, we discovered a crowd of people watching soccer on a big screen. Which was qui... |
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12 Nov 08
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Christmas candle cake Christmas is coming again and Japanese stores have been into the spirit since the first day after Halloween. Santas and Christmas trees everywhere, and I’m expecting the music on the radio stations to repeatedly play Wham and Mariah Carey soon. Honestl... |
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09 Nov 08
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Gorilla Granny Old people at the gym, especially old women, are a big nuisance. They’re probably really nice grandmothers to their grandchildren, but at the gym they turn into annoying monsters. It starts even before we enter the gym. During the week the gym opens at ... |
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06 Nov 08
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Suntory Yamazaki Distillery I’ve never tasted whisky before, (except of course Drambuie, a honey- and herb-flavored Scotch whisky) and Yasu doesn’t like alcohol in any version, still we visited a whisky distillery today. I wanted to do some sightseeing and I like factory to... |
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06 Nov 08
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Mug shots I have a new Japanese experience to add my to my list: taking pictures in one of those train station photo booths. We needed new pictures for some official business so we chose the cheapest and most convenient option. In the photo booths at home have you... |
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06 Nov 08
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Hanging with Machiko I met up with my new friend Machiko in Umeda to take a train to Universal City to check out the Universal City Walk that leads up to Universal Studios Japan (which we were not entering). We wanted to walk around a bit, check out the Takoyaki museum and... |
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05 Nov 08
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A week of costumes After a week of dressing up, everybody appeared in their normal business clothes again today. Yesterday was Halloween and since last Saturday most of us have been wearing costumes to work. Not everyone had to work during the Halloween party, so here are... |
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02 Nov 08
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No parties on the train please Going home from work tonight, I spotted this interesting poster somewhere in the JR station in Osaka:
I though it was a rather peculiar warning, first of all it wasn’t just in Japanese but also in English, perfect English and not incomprehensib... |
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28 Oct 08
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Halloween My 7 day workweek is finally over, somewhere during this week I also caught a cold, making everything a more tiring. Honestly, I was really fed up with working on day 5 and was really not looking forward to the last 2 days. But now it’s over! When I g... |
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24 Oct 08
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Follow-up training Today was the first day of my first-ever-7-day-workweek. I had a whole day of follow-up training at Honbu with the Welshman and 5 other teachers. It was a long day of going over everything we learned at initial training again and observing (pretending to... |
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23 Oct 08
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Maiko in Osaka Maiko’s job took her to Osaka for a couple of days including this weekend, so of course we hung out today, and she took one of her coworkers along for the ride. After a quick introduction to KJ, and a thorough search for a big enough locker for Maiko... |
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22 Oct 08
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Eating out in Tsukamoto again Yasu and I decided to try another restaurant in Tsukamoto, instead of Osaka tonight. Especially since the last time was such a success. This time we chose a Japanese restaurant where tour guides apparently take busloads of foreign tourists to let them... |
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21 Oct 08
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Lunch with students Normally, I eat lunch by myself on a workday. Lunch is usually around 4 PM, so all the restaurants are almost empty, which makes service quick and gives me an hour of peace and quiet to relax and read a book or magazine while eating. On Saturdays, I start... |
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14 Oct 08
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Meeting Yasu's American friends Yasu is a very social person and he’ll talk to just to about anyone who looks interesting. Once, when Yasu was still a university student, he saw a tall American in an elevator at school and struck up a conversation. And now more than 5 years later Ya... |
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08 Oct 08
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Indonesian lunch in Nagoya Last night Kristin and I fell asleep after 4 AM, not because we were drunk and dancing around on the streets, but because we weren’t drunk and talking even though we ought to be sleeping. We ended up leaving Inuyama around 12 to get some food and do so... |
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08 Oct 08
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Lou versus Louana In Osaka everybody calls me Lou, but in Inuyama everybody calls me Louana. I don’t like the full version and prefer the nickname Lou, and most people I know automatically shorten my name to Lou anyway, so I was never bothered with the sound of my fu... |
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07 Oct 08
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Party in Inuyama Even though I left Inuyama that doesn’t mean I don’t know what’s going on there anymore. I still keep in touch with Kristin and I always check Sean’s (my replacement) facebook for the latest pictures, videos and stories from Inuyamaland. Apparen... |
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07 Oct 08
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Spanish dinner I guess we’ve been a bit tired of Japanese food because for the last couple of weekends Yasu and I have been frequenting Outback, a Western steakhouse chain, to feed ourselves with some very non-Japanese food. But we’ve gone there too many times and... |
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07 Oct 08
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Pounding mochi Every weekend it’s pretty busy in Senri Chuo and often some kind of event is going on like a dance festival with hundreds of teenagers in entertaining costumes, or another famous Japanese person is handing out signatures and performing on the Selcy stag... |
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30 Sep 08
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Transfer haircut Japanese people are always in a hurry because they are always busy with work. They don’t have enough time to sleep at night so they use the trains they commute to work with to catch up on some sleep. Women don’t have enough time to do their make u... |
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30 Sep 08
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Osaka Castle Saturday was the first cool day since the insane summer heat and it’s still cool here, I think maybe autumn has finally arrived. Sadly, the comfortable temperature is paired with a lot of rainfall, which is kind of annoying but still a hundred tim... |
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28 Sep 08
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Body bag Even though it’s Sunday I had to work today, this happens every so often and we get paid overtime, but if it were up to me it would never happen. I’d choose a full two day weekend over a little extra money everyday, so I was very eager to leave Senri ... |
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27 Sep 08
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How-to Kaitenzushi They do things differently in Japan, and they have a proper way to do everything with numerous unwritten rules. Although I wouldn’t be surprise if there was this huge library somewhere in Tokyo filled with rulebooks telling the Japanese how to ... |
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23 Sep 08
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Croc love Everybody knows those colorful soft sole clogs named Crocs right? The ones with the cute little crocodile on the side, well if they are real. Well, in Japan they definitely do. I think it is the iPod of shoes in Japan, everybody seems to have them. I... |
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23 Sep 08
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Girl talk This week was counseling week at school. Meaning lots of classes were cancelled and that we were teaching special classes. I was teaching a special movie class, where we analyzed and practiced a scene from ‘How to lose a guy in 10 days’, and a girl ... |
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23 Sep 08
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Quick stop at Osaka immigration I’ve been dreading going to the immigration office in Osaka for weeks, ever since I picked up my new passport at the Dutch consulate. As nobody gave me any deadline for transferring my visa to my new passport, I decided to go there after Obon. I ju... |
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23 Sep 08
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Too high After work Yasu and I met up in Umeda for dinner at Outback. We spend several hours eating and making good use of the free refills on drinks. After dinner we walk to the station and Yasu suddenly says he feels like going somewhere high… Eh alright?... |
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23 Sep 08
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Not working this Christmas! On Tuesday I arrived at work with swollen eyes, because I cried too much the night before when I had to say goodbye to the Dutchies. The manager asked me if anything was wrong, and I explained the way my eyes looked was just a souvenir from the night... |
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23 Sep 08
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You can run but you can't hide from your homework They put me in charge of some project at school. Which basically meant making a poster to motivate students to study harder at home and finish their materials on time:
It was actually quite nice to do something a little more creative than teaching the... |
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23 Sep 08
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No bowling for us Just another Sunday. We didn’t have to work today, instead we could do something totally useless (actually I think free time is way more useful than time I spend on the job). We decided to go bowling, in Amagasaki because we expected the bowling alleys ... |
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23 Sep 08
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Lou's Cup Noodle In August, I went to the Cup Noodle Museum with the Dutchies to make my own Cup of customized Noodle, but I don’t really like instant ramen… But my boyfriend loves it! So today he did the honors and prepared the Cup of Lou noodles and then devo... |
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23 Sep 08
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Bye bye Jeroen Jeroen has an early flight back to Seoul today, which meant we didn’t have much time to do some sightseeing today because he has to be at the airport in time to check in and it takes about an hour to get there from Osaka. So, he came over to Tsukamoto ... |
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23 Sep 08
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Futile geisha hunting in Pontocho and Gion After returning from the country we went for a walk through ‘downtown’ Kyoto. We started at the Kamo river, where we found numerous couples sitting on the river bank enjoying the view and cooling effect of the water. Being a couple seemed to be a r... |
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22 Sep 08
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Arashiyama Jeroen like most foreign tourists really wanted to see Kyoto, so that was our destination for today. We took a train to Kyoto Station where Jeroen got to admire all the stairs and escalators first and then we all waited for about an hour for a bowl of... |
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22 Sep 08
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Jeroen in Osaka My old housemate Jeroen visited me in May this year and he came back today. He is moving back to the Netherlands next week, and I guess he wanted to see a little more of Asia before returning to Europe. He picked me up from work today, so he could check... |
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22 Sep 08
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Bye bye Dutchies Yasu picked all the Dutchies and all their suitcases up in Tsukamoto and drove us all the way to the airport, which is at least an hour by car from Osaka. On the way from the parking lot to the terminal the Dutchies were all still in their karaoke mood... |
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22 Sep 08
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Karaoke for the last time We survived the hot night in my even hotter shoebox sauna, it was quite tight with 4 people and all those suitcases, but it was also nice to have everybody near their last night in Japan. Their plane isn’t leaving until late tonight, so before packing ... |
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22 Sep 08
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The Dutchies' last night in Japan Of course, dinner in Nagoya had to be had at Yamachan, the tebasaki king. Maiko came to Nagoya to join us for dinner after Gyano invited her earlier in the day via email. And naturally the Dutchies all loved Yamachan’s tebasaki, but several other dish... |
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21 Sep 08
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Breakfast with Kumiko Maiko’s parents are friends with the owner of Inuyama City Jail and they arranged free breakfast for us in the prison cafeteria. My mom choose the Western breakfast and the rest of us tried the Japanese version. Turned out it didn’t matter which one... |
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21 Sep 08
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Inuyama City Jail So last night I slept in a hotel in Inuyama for the first time, and I won’t do it again, at least not in that hotel. Actually, the hotel was pretty nice, the rooms were big, the beds were comfortable and the price was reasonable... but I really don... |
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21 Sep 08
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Hanging with Maiko and her family For dinner we hooked up with Maiko and her mom again and this time they also brought along her dad Shigemi. We drove to a buffet restaurant in Komaki named Viking. I remember driving past it with someone else telling me Viking was cheap and lacking... |
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21 Sep 08
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Checking out my old life in Inuyama Besides my old workplace, the Dutchies really had to see where I used to live and shop too. We went to Pearl Hills, my old and ugly apartment building with nothing pearly or shining about it. Sean the guy that lives there now is in Osaka right now with... |
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21 Sep 08
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Shooting the rapids again One of the most entertaining things I’ve ever done in Inuyama is shooting the Nihon Rhine Rapids on the Kiso river. When I discovered it in Golden Week I was so enthusiastic that I was back on another boat no less than 2 weeks later, and it’s not ch... |
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