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

My Shopping Spree in Ginza

Today was again, very very hot and humid. I think it got up to 35.

Today, I wanted to go get a new camera, so I went out to Ginza with my mom. Ginza is like a really traditional/old/fashion capital-esc/but yet there are so many important companies located kind of place.

Really famous. It is in the middle of Tokyo. The only reason why we went there was that because it is the only city it has 1. Apple store 2. Department store that we wanted to go to 3. Major Electric store within walking distance of each other.

We went to apple store to get an connector thing to connect camera and ipod to transfer photos. But apparently the connector only works up to 5G ipod. Well I have a 5G ipod so i could have bought it. But I really wanted to get a new ipod as well so I have to reconsider...

Ginza was soooo crowed. It was ridiculous. and everyone was so RUDE! I dont understand why people could be so selfish. its like different kind of selfishness. Its like people are angry at each other for no reason kind of selfishness. So I wanted to get away from the city ASAP.

We went to the electric store to get my Camera. I now have a Lumix TZ50 or something. It looks so cool! Its a touch screen, and can choose an object to focus. and The camera is smart enough to follow the object selected if its moving. so It prevents blurry-ness or something.

After leaving Ginza, we went to shops around a station near my house. I just wanted to have a look at what sort of clothes is in at the moment in Japan. Funny thing was it was exactly the same stuff with what was on last summer in Australia! well, of course with a funky Japanese interpretation which makes more Japanesy. Gladiator shoes are seriously everywhere! And some of the shoes look like a knee high boots. it looks so strange... haha also, I found a gladiator shoes that looks exactly the same with what I bought in Australia. The only difference was that it was about 1/3 of the price of what I bought for... It was heart breaking.

After we got home, I updated photos on facebook (Finally!) and been fiddling with my camera!

HAHA, my brother just called and aparently he is coming home with Mario Kart, Guitar Hero 3, Wario Ware, Mario Galaxy. He is crazy.

We only have Wii Sports, Wii Play and Wii fit. So we are going to pretty much double the amount of games that we have now :D

I'm expecting no sleep tonight! woohoo!

hehe mom just laughed at my fisherman pants! Japanese people will never understand this good-ness about the fisherman pants!!

Anyway, Shall leave now.

Kumi

xx

Back to Japan

Here I am, hot and humid Tokyo.
Today was such a tiring day.

Got woken up by Dennis and Matt turning up 20min ealier than expected (nothing wrong with it guys, but it was just not expected) after having only about 2 hours of sleep due to the moe's adventure /puzzle the day before.

Went to the airport, Dennis kept reminding me that I had too much carry-on luggages. Well I had 3 huge bags.
Saxophone (doesnt count as a part of carry-on)
Laptop (Well suppose I had other stuff stuffed in it)
and carry on country road bag (It was 2kg over)
But dennis, I was not stopped ONCE by anyone through Melbourne or Sydney, so you know what you have to do... Be prepared and take a photo when you do it.

Melbourne to Sydney went fine. Going through custom was a little bit of pain just because I had this three heavy luggage's with me to carry all the time. But there were no trouble.
The flight to Narita was supposed to leave at 9:55am. I was kinda panicking because the custom was really busy and I didnt get out of it until 9:40am. When I looked at the boarding info screen thing, I could not find my flight number.... Gave me a fright that I might have already missed the plane. haha also felt sorry for the agen Katherine for failing the mission of kicking me out of the country (well, Dennis would be disappointed).
But it turned out that The flight was delayed to 11:30am because some equipments did not arrive on time or something. so I had to waste my time playing DS for about 1.5 hours. But it seemed that all the flights leaving Sydney were delayed or cancelled. So it must have been bad weather or something was wrong with the Sydney airport. was very disorganised.

Finally got on the plane, told that because it was too windy one of the passage? was closed so we had to line up for the one passage thats available to take off. So that was another 30min delay.
After taking off, we had quite good services from Qantas.
Lunch- I had fish as I was told
Snack- 2 splices, 3 pretzels
Dinner -Pasta
Drinks- 3 OJ about 1L of water
I think they felt pity for us that we have been delayed.

It was such a tiring trip. I sat next to this lady. she was extremely nice but something about her made me uncomfortable and restless. The flight itself was 9 hours but it felt like ages...

I was picked up by my mom and my brother. Funny thing was they didnt realise me until I went and talked to them.. I think because they were waiting for the delayed flight for 1 hour in prior, they were tired. But it was actually quite funny looking at their face expression.

Man, I am exhausted. I will go to bed.
Tomorrow is going to be my rest day from the crazy week I had in Australia.

Thanks again so much for presents people!
During the flight, there were so many teary moments for me....
Also, Laura, I restrained myself from opening the envelop good! I think I can wait untill I leave for US :)

My going away party

It was a fantastic dinner party! Everyone (except Dennis) enjoyed the dinner and Matt's fantastic cinnabomb (no idea how to spell it).

During the dinner, I was on the mission to take a self portrait with everyone on the table. Well surprisingly enough, I succeeded it :P I also had an attempt to try to make everyone move during the dinner but I think everyone was setting down enough not to want to move so that didn't happen...

We mostly chatted after dinner, some people played guitarhero a bit and the others did a puzzle. The teddy bear that I got with people's huge essays is soooo cute and I feel really really lucky to have you guys as my best buddies. The uni people gave me this awesome awesome photo frame, that I am pretty sure I will spend a lot of time looking at while trying to study in Purdue.

Thank you again so much for all the people who came to the party tonight. Without you guys, that party would have been so boring... There is actually no highlight that I can remember, but throughout the night, I had a ball! good fun.

All the photos of tonight will eventually go on facebook so be patient.

I will miss you guys heaps over the next 12 months but I will keep in touch with you and everything will be remain unchanged until I come back to Melbourne.

Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day with moving most of my furniture to Misato's in the afternoon. So I shall go to bed now.

My last netball game

Yesterday...
After a successive day of packing my stuff into boxes, I went to my last netball game.
I usually play WA so i did.
It was an awesome game. We won for like 25-17 or something. can't really remember.
But I remember Dennis was awesome. and everyone went nuts.
At one stage, I was hit in my head by some guy's elbow and felt dizzy....
But the umpire didnt call anything.. probably because I was just running through the guy's elbow area and that's not really his fault... But I felt that I was about to have concussion. haha.

We also filled in for some team that forfitted or something. So we played the second game.
Haha then, I played Centre and GS. neither of which is my usual position.
As it was my 2nd game, I was pretty much too dead to even run back to do a centre pass. and we only had 5 players (No wings) for the most of the first half. It was very tiring. and pretty much I was useless. For the second half, I played GS. Never played it before. I keep on wanting to go into the centre third and being yelled at by my opposition guy. I had 4 shots, none of which actually went in. We lost 37-7 or something. It was still a very fun game.

Tonight, I am having a Formal Dinner party with my close friends just to have a chance to say proper good-byes. I probably should go start cooking or something.

Still, music from Purdue marching band has not arrived yet....