Heat waves sending me home...

It is pretty much too hot to live. Since last week, temperatures have been in the 30s during the day... tonight, it's 31 degrees Celcius despite it being 10:40pm. I have the odds stacked against me: I have sensitive skin, poor circulation (and thus a poor body heating-cooling system), and I am from Canada, where it generally doesn't get this hot for so long and with such humidity. Because of that, my skin has been itching, like it's swelling and getting too tight for me; I absentmindedly scratch it and cause a rash of small bumps to appear on my arms. I've also lost my appetite due to heatsickness. I no longer have any desire whatsoever to live in a country that lacks a decent winter.

In recent news, I went to Shiga prefecture and Kyoto with two of my friends. It's my last trip in Japan, as I only have two weekends left, during which I have to finish packing, cleaning my apartment, and getting rid of the stuff I can't or have no desire to take with me to Canada. I have taught most of my coworkers (including the other foreign teacher, heh) the word "penultimate", because that's what this week is.

I live!

Pondside Buddha in Hirabari

Sorry for the silence on the eastern front, folks - Google Blogs has this tendency to not allow me to sign in for weeks at a time, though I try every permutation of password I have ever used. Doesn't help that I get all my error messages in Japanese, because Google "helpfully" senses my location and regionalizes the page.

What I've been doing for the past month: surviving.

Smells like spring...

One hundred and five yen for some potpourri and poems!

I got the lavender :3

Mankai

Meaning "full bloom".

View from my balcony.

Ohanami, oh my!

It's springtime in Japan, and that means cherry blossoms! Yesterday, I went to my very first ohanami, or cherry blossom viewing party. It's a tradition in Japan to go with your family, friends, and coworkers to a park and set up a picnic spot under cherry blossoms... it's very popular, so much so that our spot occasioned a stakeout from about 7am; the actual event was scheduled for noon. It's a sort of potluck-picnic; everyone brings a snack to share, plus alcohol, and you get drunk and chat to people and consume delicious things all afternoon.

Today is beautiful and sunny, with gorgeous warm weather; I took a bike ride to my grocery store, since my 105-yen Lawson's mysteriously closed last week. I discovered, much to my delight, that my river is lined with sakura on the block near my grocery store, so of course I took some pictures.

Good manners: turn your phone to "manner mode" while you're on the subway, Mom says! The creepy dude in the ad underneath has been grinning maniacally at me since I got here last May. HE NEVER GOES AWAY.

Signage

I have once again amassed a large amount of amusing signs that I've come across... let's take a gander!

GET THAT BABY

It snowed on Friday! It didn't stay on the ground for very long, but it was rather magical, I think.

Birthday!

Spring comes to Nagoya

I had the weirdest last day of being 23, let me tell you. It's counselling week at my school again, which means no regular classes, which means that the schedule gave the day a bit of a surreal quality already. I noticed one of my coworkers' new tie right off the bat, but didn't cotton on to my other coworker's haircut until late that evening. One of my students came and gave me gifts, though!

Hey all, my apologies for the silence over the airwaves these past few weeks; I'm going to try to resume regular blogging from now. To start with, I want to talk about what winter has been like so far: it's dry, drier than in Canada, and sunny most days. The air temperature is cold, probably about 2 or 3 degrees, and so if it's windy, it can be quite unpleasant, but the sun is strong enough that it warms one up so that it feels to be at least 7 or 8 degrees in the afternoon. Nights are cold, but rarely freezing.

Thus when it snowed last weekend, it came as a bit of a shock.

Back to the grind...

After a week of being in Nagasaki, that is!

This is in my city, about a month ago. Red maple leaves up the steps to a small neighbourhood temple. Lovely, wet, windy day.

Twas the night before Christmas...

The capitalist expression of the holiday spirit has been with us all month here in Japan, and you can see signs of it everywhere. Christmas sales are popular, and Santa-san has been advertising everything from the classic Coke to the ubiquitous Kurisimasu keeki to strange odds and ends on the infomercial channel.

Today, on Ariel's Blog: strange subway station signs!

Watch that baby. Waaatch iiiiiiiit.

This one was overtop a baby change table in the bathroom at my friend's subway station. Fun times.

Shopping!

Every once in a while I wander vaguely around the shops in Sakae, and I wish I was invisible so I could take as many pictures as I want without getting dirty looks. I mean, I stick out like a sore thumb anyway, and even with a cellphone camera, it's pretty obvious when one is taking a photo, so I try not to do it too often. But... seriously. You gotta document some of this stuff. Maybe I'll do another run next week.

Deliciousness!

This bread is amazing. "Fuwa-fuwa bread" :P It's made from mochi flour, so I can eat it! It's so light and fluffy and delicious. Also, it's only 105yen... I am going to get so fat ;.; also it doesn't have a calorie count on the side.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm so good. It has custard inside!

Sunny Monday

Monday was sunny and beautiful; I sat in the little park nearby my place and swung on the (admittedly too-low) swings. All the parks here, I've noticed, have clocks - ancient-looking, but solar-powered. Such an ingenious idea: the kids learn to tell time and can't make the excuse to their parents that they lost track of the time at the park. Also good for moms who need to keep track of time whilst minding the kiddies.

Remember bucket swings? Those things are ace. These ones are a little more low-tech than the metal-and-vinyl seats I grew up with, but nonetheless serve the same purpose.

I have so been falling behind on this.

There's not much new on the home front these past few weeks, but life continues. I can't quite believe it's the end of November, since there are flowers still blooming like crazy, and I don't think the temperature has yet dipped below ten degrees, although it feels colder at night, since the air remains wet. I don't think I'll quite be rid of humidity in the air until I go back to Canada, despite protestations from my acquaintances that in winter it can get quite dry here. Perhaps indoors, where the heating will mercilessly flay the moisture from your skin unless you are possessed of a humidifier or a very good moisturizer, but not outside.

Kyoto!

Okay, this is my first time trying this, so there's gonna be a ton of photos under the jump break for those of you who don't have Facebook :) Bear with me - this is why there were no posts earlier this week, because getting this thing ready took a bunch of time.

Delicious chocolate to fuel our adventure

One of the top things I will miss about Japan...

Full size here!

With the turn of the season, vending machines have suddenly adapted: all those drinks with the red stickers overtop the price? Are hot. Yes. You can buy a can of hot cocoa at the vending machine. And it is exactly the right temperature. You also see a can of corn soup. That's right: in addition to tea, coffee, and hot chocolate, vending machines sell soup. Also this one has one that's just called "hotto keiki", and I so desperately want to try it. I think it's pancake flavour in a can, I so do. I will venture back there when I pick up my dry cleaning and try it.

This is one of the nondescript white vending machines where most - if not all - of the products are only 100 yen. It's on the way to my dry cleaners', which I frequented this morning, and the nice little lady gave me two persimmon for my pains! She's lovely!

Purikura!

Be not afraid, for I bring you glad tidings of great joy... Happy Hallowe'en ;)

Also our eyes are not this big; the booth artificially widens them for you. But we got to scribble in all the other decorations afterwards. I fail at being kawaiiso, but oh well. This was super-fun, and only 200 yen!