Hello from Boston

It has been a week since Pat and I have left West Lafayette.

We have been travelling fair bit.
We went to

• Indianapolis
• Detroit
• Toronto
• Buffalo (Niagara Falls)
• and currently at Boston

It is not a bad effort for 1 week right? At Indianapolis, it was seriously seriously freezing. I think it went down to -24F with windchill. It was so bad. My eye lashes were frozen from my breath and my scarf was also frozen, That was a painful painful day.

Detroit was nice for wandering around for 2 hours. We only spent a night (got there late afternoon and left at noon the day after) I think if we were there for longer, we would have been bored. But it was quite nice seeing the Downtown detroit. Oh, We had this BEST greek food for dinner. it was soo good. we were happy.

We got to Toronto on Christmas Eve, eve (23rd) at night. the bus was really delayed. we got there at about 11:30pm. everything was closed, but it was snowing beautifully. It was sooo awesome. So we decided to make a snowman the next day. But the next day, it was raining! we were soooo disappointed. so we didnt have a white christmas.... But Toronto was cool. There was the underground walkaway connectging all the buildings in the downtown. The weather was quite miserable but It was good. Enjoyable. Pat loved it, as you can imagine...

Niagara falls was amazing. it was awesome just to be able to walk back and forth the border of the US and Canada. We looked at the falls from both side at day and night. It was awesome. quite cold though.

Boston is amazing. I should have come to this city to study for a year. it is such a nice place. I can so imagine myself living in this city. We went to Harvard and MIT today. both of them was very impressive considering it was only 10min train ride away from the centre of the downtown. Also walked around the city. It was quite good. The Boston Common was quite relaxing. Ice skating rink too! we didnt do it though. There was a huge line and we were hungry and tired. We will go to the one in NYC :D

Tomorrow, we are leaving Boston for Philadelphia spending NYE there :)

we would update photos, but both of us forgot cables in W Lafayette...

Love you heaps

Pat and Kumi

Bye bye!

Just checked out of Purdue Village. Moving to hawkins next semester!

and leaving for indianapolis to start out trip along the east coast! It is going to be so exciting but it is going to be freezing cold...

Enjoy your warm weather.

Ku

Minneapolis baby

Thanksgiving is great!
I am currently in Minneapolis staying with Ayano. I will be here till Sunday Arvo.
The neighborhood that Ayano's aunt and uncle live is really nice. It reminds me of Camberwell.
It is really relaxing. We went for a walk yesterday, because there was nothing that was open because of the Thanksgiving day. It was really good. the little river was frozen. I walked on it, it was a bizarre feeling.

Ayano's uncle cooked an awesome meal for the thanksgiving dinner. TURKEY!!!!!
hehe yummy. He also made this carrot, cranberry Jelly thing. He said me was savory, but I swear it was a dessert. So good.

Last night, we got invited to Ayano's friends house for just a few drinks. I already had a home-made wine at Ayano's and my face was flushing red, so I did not drink at all. But everyone else did. The people at the place were about mid to late 20s. it was really cool. everyone was quite happy. It was only 8 of us and people were so nice. Hehe it was so Japanesey. It was really a nice and quite party until someone pulled out UNO. We started playing UNO. It was so much fun! haha everyone was just playing so evil! Ayano lost 2/ 3 games. and she was pissed off!! that was so much fun.

Today was a shopping day. There is the biggest shopping mall in US in Minneapolis. Mall of America. It is gigantic! there are 500 shops or something in. we were there for 6 hours bought a few things. BUT i dont think we have seen them all... It was absolutely packed as well though. all the shops were just crazy... BUT So good. good thing that I came here with a huge empty backpack :D

hehe I have a headache so ciao for now

Enjoy summer
Ku
xx

Thanksgiving :)

Thanksgiving break till Sunday :)
I didnt go to Uni on Monday or today, so I pretty much have a whole week off :)

Tomorrow morning, I am going to Minneapolis/St Paul to spend my thanksgiving with Ayano's family. It is going to be a relaxing time :)
I will take lots of photos to show them to you guys.

I promise. I will be good

Ku

Biggest Disappointment in US so far and others.

Hi all.
I probably have spoken to most of you about this, but I write about it anyway.

I have been waiting on this 2 parcels from Australia that Pat sent me about 1.5 months ago.
One of them finally arrived last week with all the goodies like jumpers and jackets and all that. They are keeping me really warm. But my favorite coat that I bought at CUE just before I came here and a black down jacket that i also bought just before coming here were not in the box. These two things I really really need for the winter here. It is already cold enough. It has been about 4-5 degrees Celsius max for the past week. it is really really cold. I cannot believe it. and i just cannot stand it.
But anyway
Yesterday, I received a lid of my another box from the post office... JUST LID!!!! saying "it came loose from the rest of the box, so if you want us to search for the contents, fill out the form with detailed descriptions of the contents so we will try to search for you, but if we cannot find it, BAD LUCK." I was seriously seriously disappointed. i have been looking forward to the coat and the jacket for AGES. and now its telling me that they are lost :( really really sad... i cannot believe it.

i sent the letter of request ASAP. the recovery centre is in St Paul, so it shouldnt take too long to get there. oh by the way, my box lid was found in St Louis. So maybe my contents are somehow transferred from St Louis to St Paul. Damn, they are travelling much more than I am.... Jealous.

I have spoken to my mom about my coat not arriving and she was like "why dont you just go buy it" IT IS NOT THE SAME!!! my CUE coat was just so awesome. it was just so pretty!!!! I miss it :( I hope it arrives to my hand safe. I really do hope so.

Other highlights

• Halloween!

hehe yeah probably you saw the photos of me on facebook. Sorry Matt... I was SPONGEBOB!! It was so much fun. I had volleyball games on friday and saturday. we had to dress up for the friday night, so it was fun. But actual friday night was a little bit lame. I think I was a little bit homesick then for some reason too. But anyway, Saturday night was a BLAST. Caroline's was having a party, and it was so much fun! i dont know what time I got back, but i remember it was quite late. hehe makes me giggle just thinking about it. Everyone looked great, Tim did a great job being an emo, and Erik was seriously scary being whatever he was being. but his white makeup was all over everyone's face because he was being a little bit crazy about kissing people on their cheeks.... I will definitely be bringing back the spongebob costume so that you can appreciate how awesome it is :D

• Guys/Girls Basketball

Finally the basketball season has started. Last weekend, it was the 2nd exhibition game for guys basketball on Saturday and 1st exhibition game for girls on Sunday. I am in the girl's basketball band (GABS) and I was also asked to fill in for the guys band (Boiler Brass). Boiler brass was so much fun, even though about 2/3 of the bands were gone to Michigan State doing marching band stuff. The game itself was a little bit boring, I think they didnt have their best players playing for the game because it was an exhibition game or something. We won though, easy. So that was good. The student section for the guys was HUGE i think it took up about 2 or 3 sections of the arena. dunno, about 100 or more people? The girls was alright. It was not as fun as Boiler brass. The student section was really tiny. It was about 20 people or less.. I think the band was pretty much the student section. We have about 70 people in the band. I dont know I still like te Box band so much better than GABS though. Box band is so laid back and do whatever/whenever. But GABS, so strict. I dont get it.

• Assignment and shit

This week is not too bad. I have a lab exam tomorrow arvo, but you can bring in all the textbook and stuff so Im not too worried about it. I should though, seeing that it is worth between 10-20% depending on how well you do it. On Thursday, I have another exam for process control. I really should have taken this subject in Australia. It seems so much better. the lecturer here is so dry and it always makes me want to fall asleep. it is really bad. I just spent about 1.5 hours in the tutor's office trying to make any senses out of the topics that is on the exam. Suppose I have a rest of the day with me to figure out whats going on, and also tomorrow. So I should be alright. I am somehow motivated for this exam than the previous ones. After the Thursday exam, I dont think i have any homework due on Friday, which is quite unusual for me. But AWESOME :)

Thats about it for now. I shall go grab lunch with GG and Remi.

Missing you heaps here!
Love ya

Kumi xx

the night before a lab report due date...

Hello all.

I write a bit about the hectic night last night...
I had a lab report due today at 7:30am. It is a group work.
As I was a group leader for this experiment so I had to get everyone's piece together make sure all the fonts and styles are correct and write an abstract.

So I needed the other members' part before I can complete mine.
one of the members didnt give her part (result and discussion) till 11pm yesterday...
WHAT THE!? godo thing I wrote everything else up to her part so that all I needed to do is read through her part and write an abstact for her part...But I thought it was ridiculous.
sigh...
Good thing that it was handed in without any troubles this morning...

I feel disgustingly fat.

I will start going to the gym again. i feel heavy...

anyway, hope you are enjoying the last part of your exams and looking forward to the holidays.
hehe, all of my friends are ready to go back home (as in to their countries) and i still have 6 months to go.
I cant wait for pat to come.
it will be exciting.

Kumi

oh, halloween! I will write about that later. It was so much fun!

Homecoming

Hello! I'm alive! I have been again seriously busy. I have probably had 2 exams and about 5 quizzes. But its not a new story anymore...

Probably the highlight of my week so far was the homecoming weekend last weekend. Last weekend was homecoming for Purdue. so all the alumni comes back to watch the homecoming game and all the crazy parade/shops/stuff happen. It was an exciting event. Friday night was the start of homecoming weekend. there was a homecoming parage. All the clubs and societies (mainly sports) and AAMB marched from somewhere to the Slayter hill where the big outdoor stadium is located. Stacey was in the parade for her rowing club. so my kiwi friend David and I went joined the parade with Stacey. We met up with others at the hill and watched a bit of AAMB perform. The night was seriously freezing and it was possibly raining. But it was again good to see AAMB perform. As now I'm in the girl's basketball band and the box band, all the songs seem so familiar now. I enjoyed heaps. At the stadium, they announced the homecoming queen and king for 2008. I have no idea what is the benefit of bing a queen or king but all the people look smart and stylish. I enjoyed

On Saturday, we went to the homecoming football game with Sakeena, Tim, Akio and David. It was so cold. we were freezing our arse off. But it was good. I enjoyed it much more than the last time. I understood more. It was against Minnesona and we lost terribly the score was 6-17 or something. But I got to see the marcning band. So it was good time :) I love AAMB!!! After the game, those two idiots (Akio and David) went for a fountain run. they looked sooooo cold. I was glad that I have already run through the fountain when it was hot. After the game, we went to maccas and bought 50 chicken nuggets for $10. It is a game day special. I shared with Dave and Akio. But I only had about 14 or it and I feld disgusting....

I have been going to Caroline's house quite a few times this week too. It is just so much fun to chill with people. Unfortunatelly there is always an alcohol involved... I think one of the nights, me and David finished a whole bottole of smirnoff.. It is seriously cheap. you can get 750mL for about $12. But others are so much worse. I dont htink I have ever gotten drunk, but others... hehe just too funny.

I just finished my oral presentation on the lab work that I was doing today. It made me so happy. I was seriously nervous about it. I dont feel comfortable of talkig infront of people at all. But now it is all over. I am just relaxing and all.

I have uploaded all the photos on facebook. but I will do that on picasa now :) just wait for it non-facebook people.

Love you guys heaps!

Kumi

xx

Getting Cold in Lafayette

Hello!
Again, I have not been posted any blog for about 2 weeks... I am alive though.
Definitely the highlight of my past 2 weeks is:
I WENT TO CHICAGO FOR 3DAYS!
It was a beautiful city. I keep on wondering why I did not go to a university within a big city. (eg, NY,LA, Chicago, Boston, DC...) oh well.
I went up there by myself, thinking that I will be able to enjoy the time on my own, which I did. BUt I spent some of the time with guys I know from Purdue. It was really nice.
highlights in Chicago.

• Went up to the tallest building in the US (Sear's building)
• Went on a cruise at night, saw the view of Chicago from the River and the Lake. It was the most beautiful thing I have seen in a while. For some reason, the view reminded me of Melbourne. maybe something to do with walking along the yarra or something. It was just gorgeous. I totally fell in love with the city then. I will put some photos on picasa later.
• Went bit of a shopping. Magnificent mile was full of expensive brands. I didnt like them too much.
• TOKYO HOTEL!!!! just too funny
• Saw some architecture madness.
• Just walking around the city was just fascinating
• Went to an aquarium, spend pretty much all day there. I was seriously relaxed and charged :D :D :D so good!

It was time and money well spent. I loved it.

Other than that, I have been again busy with all the uni work and stuff. I have an microbiology exam on Wednesday and I have no idea! and also ,i really dont like bioinformatics... I am hungry so I shall go get something to eat or something. Good luck with the exam then :)

Kumi

Marine Band

Hey Guys.
Long time no post...
there has been heaps of stuff happening

Highlights are:

• Had about 4 exams
• Had about 15 quizzes
• Had my first box band games (vs Iowa-Win, vs Minnesota-Lost)
• Lost my voice for yelling too much
• Had a whole weekend to organise the shit that I had been leaving behind
• Studying, studying and studying
• French crepes are similar to the crepes Matt makes
• Had a rotten banana and got a massive headache
• Did some kayaking/canoing

That's about it. hehe exciting stuff.

But anyway, tonight I went and saw the "president's own" United States Marine Band. It does not play underwater (thanks dane). But it is thought to be one of the best concert band in the state. Sure was! it was fantastic. They played from the songs from the army,navy and air force to the summon the heroes. That was awesome. I was seriously close to tears because it was so fantastic. One of the things I like about concert bands is that they play march!!! So good! makes you wanna walk around for no reason :) that was a worthwhile. especially as it was free :)

One of the piece they played had a singer in it. she had a fantastic voice. she kinda reminded me of Emily someone from phantom. like opera but not too much. I liked it.

This weekend, I am going to Chicago! I am so excited :) it will be so much fun and relaxing. Going away from Lafayette is going to be cool :)

Guys in Melbourne, have fun at the nursing ball and the bendigo med ball.

Kumi xx

Procrastinative post

HELLO!!!!!

Man, I have an exam that counts for 15% (Big enough to make me wanna study huh?) in about 30 min. But I just cant be bothered studying.... It is an open book and I have no idea what the hell this MATHS MODEL is about... I dont like dealing with alphabets over numbers...

Man I am so distracted. I had actually never realised facebook can be such a distraction... I think I am kinda getting more addicted to the facebook since I got to US. This week and the whole last week has been all the same. really really busy studying and handing in the assignments and what not. This weekend i think we are going to a little bit of a Kayaking i think. it will be fun!
But next weekend, all of my friends are going to Chicago but I cannot go!!!! How annoying. First game for the BBB on friday and Saturday and a concert for the symphonic band on sunday... I cant even go for one day!!!! so annoyed!!!!
But its okay, I really need to catch up with all I have been missing anyway.
Yesterday, I had a quiz that counted for 5% or something for frickng bioinformatics. BUT i didnt know.. because the lecturer was mean enough not to notify us on the blackboard and I didnt go to the lecture (actually the one lecture before the quiz) so when I turned up, i was like WTF!?!?!?!?!?! Good thing i was lucky enough to grab a page of lecture note which had an exact information for one of the questions. Phew I think I got 15% of the 5% quiz covered.... I know its not enough to pass....

You know what I found out? I found out the pass grade here is like 60% to 70%! How ridiculous is that!! I thought I was passing if i got over 50% but obviously I havent... The grading system is so confusing!!!!!

hmmm i think I might wanna skim over the material once more.... hmmm annoying maths model!!!!!!!

Miss you!

Kuko xx

Cactus and Indianapolis

hey guys. I really should update this blog much much more frequently than I am doing at the moment. There has been so much happening!

last Thursday, We went to Caroline's house to have dinner/pre-drinks to go out to a club called neon cactus. I had to go to the dining court for dinner (stupid meal-plan) so I wasnt there for dinner. Tim made this awesome awesome lasagne. even though I was really full, I had to eat some because it was really awesome. I think Tim should make meals more often instead of going to the dining court... Nora also made a home-made bread. That was GOOD too! hmmm I wish I could cook like them. We were just hanging around, drinking (again... sigh), pretty much making fool of ourselves. Tim (The guy next to me half undressed) was hilarious. he is like a big brother. way too funny. After all this shenanigan, half of us decided to go to the neon cactus, the other half still undecided.

Eventually we all got to the cactus. Remi (the guy to the left) really really wanted to go. Awesome club. all of us drunk and dancing like crazy. really sleazy massive club. all the music are like typical club music. Should i call that R&B? but anyway. Me and Erik left at 1:30 because we had 8:30/9:30 classes and couldn't afford to skip them. but the others stayed till 3 or 4am. it is awesome that everything is walking distance. its like It just took me 30min comfortable walk to get home. So I was again sobered up by the time i got back home.


For the last weekend, I went to Indianapolis to see the bike show called "Moto GP" It was interesting. I wouldn't have gone to it if someone I knew were going. But I went there with Tim, Marion and a couple of Marion's friends. So I had a good time. The weather was pathetic. It was wet and miserable. So I was like concentrating more on staying as dry as possible rather than enjoying the race. Some Aussie was competing as well actually. His name was something Stoney? But I dont know. I really wanna go back again to sight seeing and stuff. The city looked pretty cool. That's pretty much it from me :) Cactus night was fantastic, and Indy has a potential.

It was so awesome talking to you guys on Saturday night. I enjoyed it.
We should do this more often! just you know when you are all at Paulette's or Matt's, just connect me to the skype and we have a chat :)

Missing you guys heaps!

Boiler up!

Kumiko

My First football Game

Last saturday started very interestingly. The first home football game at Purdue. The Purdue tradition of the morning of the home football game is the breakfast club. This is the event where you get to dress up in crazy Halloweens costumes and start drinking ridiculously early in the morning. The bars open at 7 in the morning.

I thought I might as well try out. why not? I went there as a scissors. A lot of people dressed up crazily. The first impression of the breakfast club was not very good. It is way too early in the morning. I only had 3 hours of sleep. and the shit vodka I had at the bar was not very pleasant. It was cold. the bars are crowded. my scissors costume is in the way of everyone. But some people put a lot of effort in so it was rather interesting. I was dead tired and hungry by 8:30am.

I went for a dining hall for the breakfast and by the time I finished eating it was time for the football game.

The game itself was quite boring. I didnt understand the rule and it was stupid that the game was stopped every 5 seconds. But the marching band there was FANTASTIC. I wouldnt have been able to do it. It looked really really awesome. They formed a block P and 3 or 4 other patterns. It was impressive. The music they do during the game was quite cool. So I am really looking forward to the Boiler Box Band. It is going to be really really fun!

After being exposed under the Sun, We went for a fountain run. I wouldnt have done it, but I was dressed appropriately enough. So what you do here is you pretty much run through a fountain. There are so many fountains within the campus but this is THE fountain to run through. It was really really chroliny but it was really really refreshing. Good times.

The night was quite interesting as well. I was meant to have a quiet night in, because I have been up drinking since 7 in the morning... But I somehow ended up in a Mexican restaurant drinking margarita with my Aussie mate Tim and a few French girls. I LOVE margaritas! they are so yummy! but i was a good enough girl to put myself to sleep by 12:30 :)

This week shouldnt be a hassle in terms of assignments and stuff. I finished almost half of the assignments that need to be handed in throughout the week. So it shouldnt be a stress. (fingers-crossed). Sigh I think next week or the week after I have a few evening exams that count 20% or so. God, this country is crazy

Boiler Up!

Kumi

Yo yo

Hey all! How are my favourite people in Australia going?? This week has gone really really quickly. Past Monday was a public holiday. so the week actually started 2 days ago. But almost weekend! woohoo!

Since whenever I posted my last blog, it has been a pretty interesting week! Sunday, I got invited to this guy's lake house, that I randomly met at a call-out. The house was absolutely amazing. like exactly like what you would see in all those filthy rich MTV reality shows kinda thing. We had an awesome awesome fun. Played pictionary. I think I need my Laura as a partner... I didnt go too well playing with all these American people... But it was fun. I lost my voice then second time since I came to US. It still sounds funny too...

On monday night, I had to stay up till 2am in a computer lab trying to finish up a lab report... It was gigantic. I had to wake up at 6:30am the next morning to hand in the lab report that we finished the day before.. It was fun :D

Since then, have been just normal uni days! trying to finish up assignments and tests and stuff. I like my lab group members though. They are like the nicest people I have ever met! So I actually have fun meeting up with them at 7:30 in the morning :) they are good bunch of people.

Love

Kumi

Gus it is!

Okay, the name for my bike is Gus. Woohoo!

After I went out for the dinner last night, Gus broke down on me.... I had no idea about the bike, so my Swedish nerdy friend Erik took a look at my bike. He said he could fix it if he had his "tools". So hopefully Gus is going to be fixed by today sometimes. Apparently the nut? for the back wheel is really loose so every time I try to paddle, the chain is pushing the back wheel forward and causing a massive friction to actually ride a bike. Or something like that.

Last night, we went out to the bar first time ever in Purdue (well for me anyway). It was quite fun. The atmosphere in the bar was definitely different to the bars in Melbourne. I met heaps of people and they kept on shouting us drinks. The drinks are so much cheaper! I ordered my usual Vodka with OJ but it only costed me $3.75. We had this really sugarly shot. Have no idea what it was called. Red something something... Oh well.

Oh my god, check out the massive Corona bottle!! It is pretty much twice the size of what you can get in Australia! It is really gigantic! I couldnt finish even half of the bottle before getting to the point of if I drink anymore, I would throw up...

I think I saw fair bit of strange "bar tradition" at harry's last night. I dont know I cant quite explain, but if someone drops his/her drink, there is this chanting that we all have to do and stuff like that. It is pretty crazy. Apparently Harry's chocolate shop was actually a chocolate shop back in the day with a hidden bar at the back...

We left the bar at about 12:15, Erik and I dropped Stacey off at her apartment and went pick up his bike and he walked me home... It took about 2 hours. by the time I got back to my apartment, I was pretty much sober but really really tired. Had a very good night I suppose! You know what? I really really felt like maccas last night and we walked passed it on the way to Stacey's. but I resisted my temptation... when I come to think of it, I dont think I have had maccas in US yet... hmmm HOW CRAZY.

Anyway, Brunch time! I'll talk to you guys soon!

Love you heaps and missing you even more!

Kumi

xx

Name my bike

Hey! I finally got a proper time to myself after uni. It is actually really relaxing. Since Monday, after uni I was always doing something and I didnt really have time to relax and stop for a while. it is quite nice to actually have time to write my blog properly :) Last time, I was rushed by Pat.

Yesterday, I went to this Internation Centre and grabbed a free bike. How adoreble is she! she is like an old school bike. If there was a competition on the oldest bike in the campus, I think my bike can win. I was talking to my frined from Indiana about my bike and she told me this tradition that they have going on here. Aparently if you are naming stuff, car or bike or whatever, you have to pick the first letter of the colour of your stuff (in this case its G-reen) and you have to pick a name from the opposite sex (Male). So we were thinking about it and all we could come up with was Greg and George... but my bike doesnt look like Greg or George. We kinda thought about Ginger, but its not really a guy's name is it... so if you could think of something, let me know.

I had 2 music auditions today. One for the Volleyball team and the other for the symphonic band. I got in both! I was so excited. The Symphonic band is the top band interms of the wind symph, and if you couldnt get into the Symphonic band, you are going to be put in the Concert band. There is a time conflict for me for the symphonic band so I knew I had to go to the concert band. After the auditon, the guy was trying to convince me to drop the class with the time conflict so I can get into the symphonic band! isnt that great? they said I had a realy good tone and technique was excellent! I was sooo happy about that :) That's probably thanks to my awesome sax teacher Ms P :D :D

anyway that's all the news for me apart from my crazy assignments due on tomorrow... I shall go check out the laundry now tata!

Ku

First Day "Back" to Uni

Yes. I finally started uni here! woohoo!
Today was a little bit full on. Started at 9:30 in the morning and had 5 hours of lectures till 5:30pm. I had a lecture for every single subject that I am taking this semester.

I thought Monash was hard working university comparing to some of the Japanese university, but you have to come to Purdue to find out what the actual hard working university is like! Every subject has at least 10 Homework assignments to hand in and 10 little quizzes, as well as 3 mid-semester sized exams at night every month kinda thing... Hmmmm it is good that it is going to keep me busy until the end of semester but I might actually be popped by the end... This week, I already have 3 things to be assessed including 2 quizzes and 1 HW assignment.

Tomorrow, I have my first 7:30am class EVER! nope, I am not excited at all.... But I finish at 1:30pm so its a plus, i suppose.

The past weekend has been quite a blast, actually. I met so many exchange students like I am through a picnic that was happened to be held right next to my apartment. I met a couple from Australia, about 4 from Japan and so many from France. One Swedish guy that I met was quite nice too. after the picnic, we went to some guy (that i had never met) for a party. It was quite a blast. His house was quite tiny but there were about 50 people in there... it was really hot inside so we had to spend some of the time outside breathing... It was quite fun! I dont know why I didnt meet these people before...

Sunday, I went on a trip to Lake Michigan. The Lake Michigan was HUGE. it looked like an ocean. There again, I met quite a few nice people too. I really like the girl from Adelaide, Stacey. She is quite funny and really fun to be around :) The bus trip from West Lafayette to Lake Michigan was 3 hours. so we had to spend 6 hours in the bus, but it was kinda good chatting away with some total strangers in the bus :) I love talking random stuff!

Apparently today there was a welcome reception for exchange students... but I had a class right on the reception so I couldnt get a free lunch or meet new people. hmmm I actually havent met American kids apart from a couple I met through the band camp. Oh by the way, I could not get into the Marching band here :( Well I am kinda sad but not really at the same time. I really dont know what to feel about it. It would have been a blast, but by doing 2 hours of practice everyday and Saturday game, I would have no other time to do anything else, you know. I am still going to be playing in some form here. I am having an audition for the concert band and Basketball Band or something to support basketball players. No time for Jazz though, sadly my timetable doesnt let me to any Jazz apart from the top one. well I dont think I am good enough for the BEST Jazz band at Purdue... hmmm no.

Meh, I am kinda neutral at the moment. I cant really say I am the happiest person in the world but I am pretty happy :)
hmmm yeah I probably should go to bed preparing for the class at 7:30 tomorrow :S

Love you heaps
Kumiko

Official Last Day of the Band Camp

Today I had my last day for the AAMB try-out band camp.
Till yesterday, we either did playing rehearsal or marching rehearsal.
But today, it was both! it was so hard! As well as trying to play the un-familiar music, we have to make sure that everyone is in the line for sides and forward/back. It was really hard.

I dont know if I did a very good job of it. But i think the experience I had for the past week has been so tremendous that it does not even matter if I get in or not. Being able to play in the marching band would be so awesome but it is a lot of commitment.
You will have a rehearsal for 2 hours everyday and every Saturday we are playing somewhere.
I am not really sure if i am up for this kind of commitment. Being in US I kinda wanna see and travel around for the weekend and stuff if possible. So either way I win, I think.

If I get in the marching band, it will be a really American experience. and if I didnt get it, It would still be okay, because I can still join Jazz/Concert bands which have less commitment and have a weekend to myself! When I was talking to upperclassmen (3rd/4th year), apparently chem eng here in Purdue keeps you really busy. So it might actually better if I wasnt part of the marching band... not too sure. we have to see.

also, we marched from the drill field to the Elliot Hall of music (massive Robert Blackwood Hall est place to practice/perform music). It took us 30 min! but we did crazy moves and played 3 fight songs. by the end, I was sweating so much! apparently they do that every friday for rehearsal and every saturday pre- football game! That would be awesome awesome fun!

I will find out the result tomorrow morning. But I will have to attend the international student mandatory meeting, so I wont be able to be at the actual meeting. I will find out the result later than everyone else, which could be good :) And I'm finally meeting up with this guy from Adelaide, Daniel! We have been facebooking each other for a while while trying to organize the trip to Purdue. So I'm going to go grab lunch with him and go to Walmart to get a mobile phone so you guys can text me :D

Finally uni is starting up next week! I cannot believe I am looking forward to it so much...
ah yeah, also, I went and bought text books. the text books here are SOOOOOO expensive. I found an eng book I used in heat and mass transfer at Monash here. they were selling it for like $200!! i got it for $100 or something... even considering conversion, it was ridiculous!!!!

Okay, I am stinking hot so I might go have a shower :)

Love you guys heaps!

marching Day 3

Today was so tiring so I shall go to bed...

was under the sun for about 9 hours.
it is band camp dane, I left the home at 8am and didnt come back till 9:30pm...\

good fun. i think I'm gtting used to it a bit by bit. but I still cant march for shit...

Marching Band Camp

Hello again.
Well, I still havent got my internet connection yet in my room. (arrrggghhh!)
First of all, Thank you guys so much for all the lovely emails. You have NO idea how much better that makes me feel :) They were awesome!

Well, I cant remember what I did in LA anymore. But all I can say is "Do not go to LA for more than 2 days" it is seriously seriously boring!
It is not a city that is worth going for like a week. Go to Las Vegas or San Francisco instead! There are much more to see in those 2 places than in LA!

But anyway, after getting to Purdue on Saturday early morning at about 8am. I had to quickly organize my bank (Purdue actaully has its own bank...) and my Student ID. I had to also go to Walmart to get stuff so that I could sleep on that day (as in I had to go get bedlinens and blanket and stuff). Coming back from Walmart, it was so hard! i had laundry basket full of stuff and it was sooo heavy! the walk from the bus stop to my apartment usually takes 15 min but it took me almost 1 hour. I had and still has some cuts and swallen bit across my both arms. It actually looks like I was trying to kill myself so many times or something.

Sunday night, I had an audition for the AAMB (All American Marching Band in Purdue). It was just a playing audition. The student leaders there were the nicese people around. The audition itself was alright. I think I did my best I could being nervous and not getting my music till the 1.5 week before the audition and all. We have to see how I go with it.

This one girl, Vicky, is the girl I met at the AAMB last night. She is actually senior at Purdue and she was born a day after I was. What an coincidence! She is one of the student leaders. and She could possibly be the head of the student leaders. who knows. As I didnt have a proper pair of shoes Vicky was nice enough to drive me to the Walmart at 10pm. We chatted fair bit and she dropped me off. We had an icecream on the way home as well. So last night I was quite happy that I think I found someone that I can properly talk to here in Purdue.

This moring, we started an rehearsal at 8:30 in the moring. It is going to be like that for the rest of the week I am assuming. I missed about 5 hours of rehearsal becasue i had to go do pre-orientation check in for exchange program, but after coming back to it, there were some intence training that I had to do.

The marching itself is so hard. There are all the movements and callouts that we have. It is so hard to think and do it immidiately after we were told. We were all so uncordinated. But suppose its the first day... No one can expect too much, I suppose. I dont know whether I can actually get into the marching band. but the experience i can get in this week would be something I could never experience in Japan or Australia. So I am thinking it is alright either way :)

The apartment that i am staying is alright. It is quite small considering there are three people living in there. Luckily, one of them hasnt turned up yet so it is wuite roomy here. There is nothing though, like microwave or anything. so I am kinda confused. All that was supplied was bed kitchen fridge desk and some closet. Thats about it. ah of course bathroom as well. very small bathroom though. So you can imagine what I had to buy at walmart on Saturday. EVERYTHING.

My roommate is a little chinese girl, coming from China. She doesnt speak very good english and she seems to be hanging around with her chinese friends a lot... So i dont think I can communicat/socialize with her too much... not really what i was expecting from my room mates but oh well!

That is all i can think of for now.
I am doing better than the last time i wrote my blog. Thanks to you guys :)

Love you heaps

Kumiko

Hello from Purdue

Hi. I finally got to Purdue University. This is a gigantic university. even though I live within the campus, I think it might be further away from where I used to live from Monash... To get to the centre of the campus, it is taking me 15-20min. I just wanted to tell you that I might be coming back to Melbourne in 6 months instead of a year. I'll see how I go with all the Purdue stuff but i am considering it. Once I get my internet connection settled down in my room, I will try to update photos and blog in details. With Love. Kumi

First a few day in LA

Yay! I'm finally in US of A!
Okay I will try to track my memory down to when I left Japan.

I was dropped off at the airport about 4 hours prior to departure with my mom thanks to my brother having to go to a class at 1pm. (the flight was at 3pm)
So I was just chatting with my mom until about 12pm when 2 of my good friends Momo and Haruka came to see me off. We went for my last meal for possibly next 2 years in Japan. We had sushi :D surprise surprise :) I have a habit of staying back at the airport as much as I can in Japan, just because it is really really hard to say good bye... My flight was at 2:55pm (to be precise), I was at the restaurant until 2:35pm. I didnt realise there was a HUGE CUE to actually get into the terminal (carry-on checking). So I panicked a BIG time. I was like "OH MY GOD IM GOING TO MISS THE PLANE!"　 so I asked a lady who was working at the airline I was travelling with if I could skip the whole cue and get inside the terminal. I DID! That was awesome. I skipped about 150 people, saved about 45 minutes wait!

The only sad thing was that I couldnt say proper goodbye to my mom and the girls.... but oh well, if I did, that would have been teary, so better not!

The plan trip was pleasent enough. The plane didnt have a TV infront of you or anything, so I somewhat entertained myself with the Laura's book and DS and everything. There was this guy who sat next to me. He was a creepy creepy guy. He happened to be the same age with me and he was from Vietnum. So he kept on talking to me and asking me what I was doing.... And he goes... "Do you do MSN?" I'm like, now I dont! He was creepy.... Good start to the trip isnt it....

LA airport wasnt as bad as expected. I was out of the airport within 45min of landing. Caught the shuttle bus alright, and gave the driver my first tip! (yes.. that might have been your $1 dane..) Got to the hostel. It is on a really really awesome location. It is at Hollywood. Right along the Hollywood Boulvard. During the Oscar, the road infront is closed off completely for the red carpet! How awesome is that! It is close to everything like, the Disney theatre (its called something else) Chinese theatre, Egyptian Theatre, Kodak Theatre, Roosvelt Hotel, and Hollywood&Highland etc etc...

The hollywood itself is quite boring though. Too many people and too many people randomly coming talk to you try to sell stuff to you. I think seeing it once would be enough for this place. Just can say that I've seen it. I was jetlagged yesterday, walking along the hollywood, I think seen everything that needs to be seen in about 4 hours of walking. Done. Capital record building was pretty cool. I'll put the photos on picasa/facebook later.

Walk of the Fame, I dont know why I was so excited about it to start with now. Its just names of famous people surrounded with starts.... and its on the street.... That's it. Well, I have taken photos of them though if I knew them :P

Last night, even though I was suffering terribly from jetlag, I didnt get home till 1am... An only girl I know in LA is quite a night person, and I needed her to come pick up my sax asap. So she came about 9pm (well there were heaps of troubles involved as well) had something to eat, met up with her frirends for a drink, I was falling a sleep in the car on the way back... I feel really sorry for her that it seems like I used her as a taxi or something....

I slept in till like 10am today. It was such an awesome sleep! Well turns out only 8 hours sleep, but still! I wanted to go to Griffith Observatory today to have a look at entire view of LA and also a planetarium there. I asked the information centre and everything how to get there when it is open and stuff. I went to the station to catch the bus which goes to the observatory. And It turns out The Observatory is under construction and there is no servise available there.. DAMN!
So, instead I went to a little town called Pasadena. It is still along the hill about 15km east of Hollywood. Such a beautiful place. Really nice cafes, not too crowded. It slightly reminded me of melbourne in the sense that they had reasonably old buildings. So awesome. And I went to an art museum to appreciate arts :) I heard there was the "thinking man" sculpture there, so I was looking forward to it. BUT I couldnt find him anywhere... Which was dissappointing...

But anyway, after I came back from Pasadena to Hollywood, I wanted to go to West Hollywood area to see Beverly Centre and farmar's market and everything. But it turns out it was Sunday and everything was closed.... Even in LA... So I went to the wax museum instead...
Hehe, that was quite hilarious. Some of them looked so real, some of them I couldnt find out who they were... But yeah i dont know if It was worth paying $15...

After dinner, I went to see WALL E. A new disney film at the disney theatre. It was cute, and it was worth it for me because there were like little shows of all the old disney characters just before the movie. But I dont know if its worth seeing just the movie.... But it was an awesome way to spend a night :)

oh my god, I was just asked to come to the Dodgers game tomorrow night! aparently its against Philadelphia. The couple that I'm sharing the room with is aparently going and I was having a chat with them and was invited! woohoo! How awesome is that :D :D

Tomorrow, I'm goign to the downtown LA to see all the stuff like little tokyo and thares and markts and everything :)

Also FYI (esp ravi, i dont know if he is reading this), yess all the food here are so fatty, but my appatite has gone down so much in 2 days. I have only eaten yoghrut and drunk about 3 fruit juices :P healthy Kumi :) :)

Good night :D

Kumi

The Last day In Japan

Past week, pretty much has been just packing up my stuff to leave the country.
Caught up with a few friends here and there. But nothing too spectacular really.

I had my last dinner with my mom tonight, we had a sushi :P hehe yeah what would you expect.
My main backpack only weighs like 17kg. I have a laptop and a sax.
I have another parcel to be sent to Indiana when I get there, which weighs about 5kg.
I am really light weighed for the whole trip.

I am leaving Japan tomorrow at 2:55pm Jap time, which is 3:55pm Aus time?
I will get to LA on 9am on the same day. the flight is 10 hours long.
My head hurts too much, you figure out the time difference.

I will suffer from my first serious jetlag in my life! travelling from Tokyo to Melb back and forth doesnt really give me a jet lag because the time difference is like 1 or 2 hours.
So I'm not planning on doing too much on the day I get there. I'm just going to rest and go for a walk or something so I will feel relatively tired for the night.

Expect an exciting blog or two during the time in LA... if I can get an internet connection :P
Or, I will update everything once I get to Purdue, which will be August 16th (US time), which would be about Aug 17th sometime for you guys.

Woohoo!!
Hollywood! Walk of Fame! Santa Monica! Venice! Westwood! Paris Hilton!
Get excited for a Kumi :P

Love you heaps

Kumi xx

Biggest Firework festival in Japan

The firework festival with the largest amount of fireworks fired in Japan was on today. Lucnkily my house is about 10min walk, and As my house is 3 stories high, if you go up to the roof, you can really easily see the fireworks, very awesomely.

Knowing it is in Japan and Japanese people love going to places which is crowded, I didnt particularly wanna go to the actual place to see the fireworks because it is going to be disgustingly crowded. But, I didnt want to see the fireworks fron my roof just with my mom, so I asked momo to come. (Some of you might know her because she came over to visit me in 1st year and stayed in Bernadette's for a week.)

This event is one of the things that i have been missing heaps in Japan. The awesome fireworks and to wear a traditional summer kimono, which is actually called yukata. My mom got it made while I was in Australia still so that I could wear it anytime when I come back.

Momo came over a bit earlier than the actual start of the hanabi. We were playing wii when it started firing fireworks. We bulted to our roof to enjoy the japanese summer.

The Hanabi lasted for an hour and it was awesome. It is so different from what I saw in Australia. Very different, and very traditional Japanes-like. Well it might be just the atomosphere that makes it Japanese but i think it would be different experience if that was done in Australia. This has to be in Japan. If anyone is coming to visit Japan, you should come and see the fireworks. This is just too awesome.

I'll update more photos on picasa/facebook.

Kumi

high school, Jazz, melbourne and aquarium

hehe yeah, sarah! i think you jinxed it :P i was actually lazy for about 3 days not posting anything. But it has actually been the most condensed three days that I have experienced since I came back. I actually hadn't seen my mom for 3 days or didnt come back till 12 every night.

29th, I caught up with my friends from high school. They e the bunch that i used to catch up every x'mas eve, when the others are actually spending time with

lovers. We used to call it a "lonely-party". Just because we didnt have any boyfriends or I had mine in Australia.....

I catch up with them everytime I go back to Japan. They dont bore me at all. we always have something to chat/laugh/tease about each other. I dont think I will get bored of them ever.

In Japan, my year level is the final year of uni. They are in the process of finding jobs, a very big deal for them. Out of us, actually only one is doing 4th year and the others are doing 3rd year including myself. So we were really keen on listening to her successful-but-still-very-stressful year so far. She has already found a job so she can relax and have a few drinks with us.

31st in the morning. I met up with a friend from junior high school. He is a very talented musician. He is fantastic at piano and can play guitar/base and so on. As I am planning to go for a Jazz audition over in US. So I have asked him to help me play impriov with him. He hired an studio and we just blasted for about3 hours. We went out for lunch afterwards and caught up with 1.5 year worth of goss. hehe hilarious!

At night, I caught up with the guys from St leonards!

Oh god, It was a hilarious night, I couldnt stop laughing. As yuri was bringing her boyfriend from England, our conversation was a mixture of Jap and English. Jack must have been so confused! hehe like Pat was when he was over!

Mio left St leonard's when She was in year 11. So I only know her for about 6 months. But she is probably the most hilarious Jap girl that I ever met in Melbourne. We get along so well. We went to Shinjuku, which is a place with a HUGE night life. We had a dinner there, expecting its going to be really expensive. But it turned put about $50 for 4 of us... We wer eso surprised! but not that we werent full or anything, so I let it go. I had to go home early because I had not seen my mom for ages. and she was getting cranky about it.

Today, I went to an aquarium with one of my friends from high school. It was supposed to be the biggest aquarium in Tokyo. So i was expecting it would take like 2 hours to go through the fish tanks. BUT, the aquarium had 4 roller-coaster-est rides and dolphin/sea lion show pooly things. So the aquarium itself was quite huge, but the actual fish tanks area was quite tiny. I was expecting to sit in the aquarium and be overwhelmed with the size of the fishes and chill for about 3 hours. but that didnt happen.

We went to the dolphin show, and saw some people splashed big time in the front row. That was quite cool. It was like 5 dolphins and 1 skinny whale (still huge). Of course, the whale couldnt jump as high, so he was in charge of splashing people. It was quire funny.

After that, I came back home, and spent time with my family.

Finally i received my music from Purdue.

I played them tonight and they arent too bad.

it is really easy, so I have no time actually to memorize them and concentrate of other things such as Jazz stuff. That is a relief..

anyway Im going to go watch some movies

Missing you heaps

Kumiko

Disneyland

Last a few days have also been fun! hmmm maybe not Saturday. I didnt do too much. I just hang around with my mom, didnt do anything special.

On Friday, I met up with Ayumi at 1 to help out with her "the end of her exchange study in Australia" kinda essay.

Apparently she can write anything she wants as long as it is related to Australia. And for some reason, she decided to do that on the Australian Car Situation, and hybrid cars. But it was not much related to the environmental issue.

so We pretty much locked ourselves into her room, and tried to fix her essay. (yes I am fixing her essay, it cant be good.) It was pretty fun, just having a chat while correcting. But it took until 8 at night.... it was a 2000 words essay, so it was pretty lenghthy but we lost our concentration half way and I showed her the facebook page and everything. It was fun. we went to Korean BBQ (Adapted to Jap style) for dinner and again had a chat until about 12 in the morning. I pretty much talked with her for 11 hours... Haha didnt think that was possible.

Yesterday was awesomely awesomely fun as well! I went to the tokyo disneyland with Hitomi.

We got there at 8 in the morning and didnt leave until 10 at night. 14 hours! I think we got on about 15 rides. So it was okay. They always say "its 120min wait" or something like that, but it actually was 60min wait so it always made us feel like we saved 60 min! We got on the new pirates of Caribbean twice! the story line was slightly different from what I remembered. JACK SPARROW was in there! 3 times! I was amazed how much similar the wax doll (or whatever) of Jack sparrow actually looked real. the way he behaves is like "WHA!!! INSANE!!" so similar... scared me.

All the mountains are like meant to be scary, but suppose as I have grown up and experienced Fuji-Q highland (the insane amusement park with 4 world record roller coaster rides) they seem like a piece of cake. Space mountain was actually scary because hitomi and I were on the challenge that we had to put our hands up high throughout the ride. It was scary because we could see the rails above you and scared, that you might get your hands chopped off.... damn..

But it was exhausted by the end. Had a very good night sleep :)

Also, I went for a drive with my mom ( I drove) in Japan like 1st time ever! Our car in Japan is like HUGE, unlike pony, so that was so scary but it was fun! I should drive more often in Japan.

Today's plan is to go to the fish market and eat fresh SUSHI! HAHA! yummmm

also, check out what we were doing in the splash mountain ride when the photo is taken. we were thinking so hard what to do until just before massive fall and thats what we came up with.

Ku

xx

Hanabi

Recently it has been such hot days...

I had been restraining myself from wearing shorts and tankies like I usually dress in Australia, just because it is Japan and all. But what the hell. It is too hot to wear anything but shorts in Japan atm and it is too humid and disgusting.

The highlight of the day was that I did fireworks with my friends last night! I went to a 100 yen shop (everything in that shop is 100yen) yesterday and saw fireworks (well pat thought it was a kind that shoots up high in the air, but no, its the ones you can hold and appreciate the sparkles). I had an urge to buy them. So I gave hitomi a call. She is one of my best friends in Japan. and last night after dinner, I turned up to Hitomi's house and there was one other girl, Takki. I know her from the tutoring job that i used to do with hitomi. So 3 of us went to do the fireworks. I bought plenty of cheap fireworks. so some of them were rather disappointing... BUT, it was still fun :) The fireworks lasted about 1 hour, and we decided to go to a 24hour open restaurant. It was 10pm when we got there, but we ended up staying there till about 2am. I had to taken an taxi home... It was so much fun. We talked about all sorts of stuff. I think this was the time that I couldnt stop laughing and my cheek were really hurting from laughing. At some stage, I felt the scare of my wisdom teeth kinda tore... That didnt feel too well. hehe oh well! it was still fun.

When I got home, I wasnt expecting anyone to be up. But apparetly my brother was up playing mario kart... So i ended up playing mariokart till 4 in the morning with him...

Today I am helping Ayumi with her "What did I learn in the 4 month stay in Australia" essay. I think she pretty much wants me to write it for her... and I think there is some sort of party of some guy from the tutoring job coming back to Tokyo... I dont know the occation, but I got a call from some guy last night telling me that I had to turn up... So i might turn up to that...hmmm

Hehe yeah, I shall practise sax now. I havent played it for 2 weeks!!!!!

missing you heaps

Kumi

A fun night out with bowling and billiard

Hehe yesterday was an awesome awesome day.

During the day was rather boring though, I had nothing to do... Probably the highlight during the day was that I spoke to patty! oh also, Ravi called. heheh that was so out of blue. and i was so confused when I picked up the phone! hehe but it was awesome to talk to him even though it was only for 10 min :)

The night was awesome! I met up with a girlfriend of mine that i know from Melbourne, Ayako. She had the same guardian as I did in Melbourne and she used to stay in the same host family that i was staying at after I moved out. So whenever I turned up to my host family's house, I get to have a chat to Ayako as well. That was a good time. She is like 2 years below me, but i dont really feel it that way! hehe But anyway, since she came back to Japan to go to uni here and I am staying here for a month, we decided to meet up at Ikebukuro. The place itself is gigantic! it is such a busy city. I had not been there for at least 5 years, so I was pretty much overwhelmed by how much it has changed and so many people walking by along the main street.

As we were kinda hungry, we decided to go for dinner first. We had Monja, which is like sloppy Okonomiyaki (Jap pancake). Sounds strange but it is awesome. All the Japanese people and patty can confirm it. it doesnt look too appetising though... we stayed there for pretty much 3 hours, chatting away. This is what I love about Ayako. Suppose that was also because we hadnt seen each other for at least 6 months, but we can talk about each other's stuff for ages! it was so funny. I think I laughed so much that my cheek was sore :)

After the dinner we went to bowling. hehe because it was 2 of us, the game went really smoothly. It was kinda strange playing an actual bowling instead of wii bowling... the Bowl was HEAVY!!! and it is impossible to put a crazy spin on, that I usually put when I play wii, without hurting your wrist. We started off really well. I got a strike and Ayako got 2 spares in a row. but half way through something happened.... we had streaks of G-s... I dont know what the hell happened. But we ended up getting about 100, which is not bad i suppose.

After the bowling, we went and play billiard. It was awesome. Ayako was really really good! I ended up losing so badly! hehe there were 2 western-y looking guys playing next to us and we just couldnt help trying to figure out where they are from! I think we decided they are from Russia or France. cant remember.

To finish up the night, we went and eat crapes! Japanese crapes are awesome! you can put pretty much everything in it! what i had had cream, banana, melted chocolate, rare cheesecake . yeah what we have at Matt's house is awesome, but having rare cheesecake is pretty wicked. It was tasty!

And Ayako was picked up by her boyfriend from Ikebukuro!!! I thought it was really cool! they looked so happy together and that made me really happy!

To sum up, yesterday was an awesome awesome day :)

Today I'm catching up with another girl that i know from Melbourne. hehe that will be fun too!

Ku

Wisdom Teeth Day 5

Yesterday,

Okay, I think this is the last day to post my ugly face online.

My face is much better! it is still strange and hurts a bit. BUT compaging to the day 2, my face looks soo normal!

Yay!

unfortunately, Yesterday was not exciting other than my face :P

oh oh actually, I actually went and picked up my sax from servicing. It was expensive.

But When I played for 2 min (my mouth was hurting too much to play on), it sounded fantastic! the low keys are so much easier to make sounds and i thin the high notes were less buzzy. that was awesome.

But anyway, Tonight I am seeing my friends from high school!

excited :)

Ku

xx

Wisdom Teeth Day 4 and Tokyo DisneySea

Hurray! I finally went outside of the house today! to the crowded , crowded Tokyo Disney sea. This morning, I think the swelling was a little bit better than last night. I was hoping it would go down more. but what the heck. I cant be stuffed staying at home anymore.

My aunt is in Tokyo for a couple of days from Osaka. She is super cool! she is like a sister I dont have! even though she is mid or late 40s. Maybe because she doesnt have any kids, nor married, she is really young and so awesome to talk to.

After going to the dentist to pick up more drugs to reduce the swelling, I went to the Tokyo Disneysea. It was sooo hot. So all the rides outside were quite empty considering it is Saturday and also the first day of the long weekend in Japan. Next monday is a public holiday in Japan celebration summer to come, kinda thing.

But some of the rides, such as Indy Jones Adventure ( I do not understand why they call him indy jones instead of Indiana Jones. I dont think its too difficult to say indiana....), Center of the earth (yes Japanese use American spelling, I need to be precise!) and Tower of Terror (Shiriki Utundu!) are the main 3 attractions in the disney sea, and the most croweded ones of all. All of which I would never be able to get on if i was with my mom. My mom is really bad with fast/scary stuff. Thats one of the reasons I love about my aunt. She can get on the roller coster thing. I cannot be bothered explaning what the each of the rides is about. They are quite fun.

We go to the Disney Sea at about 1pm, didnt leave until the disney sea actually closed, which is 10pm. Thought we did really well. We went though 10 rides! Indiana Jones was 90min wait, which turned up to be only 65min. Tower of terror was 70min wait which turned up to be about 35min wait. hehe Japan is awesome.

Thanks to my cheek, I got a funny look from several random people at the disney sea. What the hell! Who cares! Well some of you might say that is not because of my cheek, but I dont usually get a funny look from random strangers.....much...

Today was such a fun day comparing to the past a few days! and next week is going to be full of fun-ness! catching up with my friends pretty much every day :) how exciting!

hehe I just looked at my cheek in the mirror and it is turning yellow... I might be Jaundice or I might be recovering! either way, better than a puffed cheek!

I shall go to bed now.

Good night xx

For those going to the snow next week (more like today), enjoy and play safe!

Ku

Wisdom Teeth Day 3

Today, I didnt go outside the house at all! It was such a boring and depressing day in many ways. The swelling seemd got bigger again in the morning so that was really sad. Playing mario kart with my brother in the morning was actually painful. Everytime someone does something stupid, we couldnt stop laughing. But it was actually really painful, so instead of saying "that's funny" I was like "ah that hurt my mouth..."

I was really hoping that the swelling would go down by tonight so that I could go out with my friends. Again, it failed... I went against the advise of my dentist and had ice pack with me all the time today just to reduce the swelling. (<- See left)

Surprisingly i think it worked. I think... (See right ->) At least I can hope! but not enough so that I could actually go out... But my friends were actually nice and they were like meh next monday! yay ! i am still meeting up with them on next monday! Alex's birthday :D

Tomorrow, my plan is to go to Disney Sea with my aunt from Osaka. Hopefully I can go to that... I shouldnt be staying up so late. REST!

Hehe, Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Missing you heaps here

Kumi

xx

Wisdom Teeth Day 2

Okay. Today it seems that my face is more swollen and more sore.

I had to go to the denitist for a check up and they said my swollen-ness is within expected. So they just looked at the scar and that was it.

For the rest of the day, I had to stay home because it was too embarassing to go outside to do anything.

I played a bit of wii, organized my trip over in LA, had a it of a nap and so on. Very relaxing.

I was hoping that the swelling would go down by tonight so i could go out with my friend from high school. But i think as the day went, it seemed that the swelling got larger... So I had to cancel it today... sigh...

Tomorrow I have another dinner with my friends so hopefully i can go to that one. I warned them that my face is swollen and i might not be able to come..

Seriously though, tonight after the shower, it seems that the swelling got bigger and bigger. As it goes bigger, it gets more and more sore, suppose it is streching the skin further....

Hopefully tonight is the most it swells and goes down over night...

Ku

Wisdom Teeth Day 1

Okay. I think people can guess what I did today...

I got my wisdom teeth taken out.

It was so painful. I was only under local anaesthetics so I could hear all the cracking and pulling of my tooth. Yuck!

It was strange. After they did local anaesthetics, I felt really dizzy and almost feinted. So they had to let me rest for about 20 minutes. It was so strange.Well I was scared and freaked, but not that much that I would feint. Apparently my face was pale and slightly sweating. People recon that was because I have a low blood pressure. Who knows.

But actual procedure didnt take too log. He pulled it out in about 10 minutes. The rest was just trying to stop bleeding and all that jazz.

After leaving the hospital, I went straight home and took a massive nap. It was fantastic! After woken up, My face was/is really really swollen (see above).

I ate dinner which wasnt too hard. Even though I had to mainly chew with my left hand side of the mouth. This could be annoying for the next a couple of days... I am going out with my friend tomorrow so hopefully the swallow goes down by tomorrow...

Kumi

Bad news

Last a few days have been a bit of a blast. Yesterday I went to my dentist for a check up. It turned out that I have no cavities (yay!) but my wisdom teeth are coming out and one of the four will annoy me in next 1 to 2 years. I told them that I am not planning on coming back to Japan for at least 2 years. They wrote me a referral to the nearest dental surgeon so I can at least get that one removed. I was in a bit of a shock because all the dental hygienists were telling me all the scary stuff wisdom teeth could do and it was a good idea and it could ruin mouth if you leave it for too long....

Last night, it was my first time to see people I know other than my family. There was a farewell party for some girl I used to work with as a tutor. I turned up for just about 1.5 hour because I had to catch the last train and the party, for some reason, did not start till 10. Yes I was late for about .5 hour. It was quite funny, about 20 people were just sitting around talking to each other at a bar kinda place. I turned up realised i didnt know half of the people. The only reason I turned up is that the girl who organised the party is my friend from junior high and i kind of know the girl leaving. So half of people didnt know me and the half of the other half people didnt know that I was back. So there was this awkward silence when I turnd up of "Who the hell is she?" and "Wow, What the hell is she doing back in Japan?" So I had to quickly scan the army of people to look for my friend from junior high and I pretty much ran at her... hehe yeah that was pretty awkward.

The rest of the night was actually good. People were just doing what they pleased and occasionally they came and talked to me. It was actually good to see someone that arent my family. It has only been 4 days that I am back in Japan. But it already seems like it is about 2 weeks. .. I dont know if it is a good thing or band thing :S

I turned up to the oral surgeon for the consultation today. I actually saw him for about 10 minutes , only because I was asking him stupid questions like "How will you clean the teeth after the surgery/do I get a band aid after the surgery to cover the scar? and so on even though I was in the hospital for almost 3 hours. I made an appointment to get my wisdom teeth pulled out tomorrow! woohoo I will have a funny face for the next seven days. Hehe Dont worry, I will put those photos in some form so people can laugh at me.

After the consultation, I pretty much went straight home and bummed. It was so good. Nothing to worry about and I was just online and reading some Japanese comics and all.

Good old Lazyness that I kinda forgot last 2 months.

I still havent received music for my auditions in Purdue. I swear they hate me even though the reception lady that I have to call up regarding auditon stuff remembers me and we are up to the point that we have a chit-chat... Sigh

Good night

Ku

xx