Finally...

Its been a long time since I last posted here. I have given up on
trying to post regularly or at least once in a while...

Since my post last year I could say a lot has happened!!

First of all I want to wish everybody a happy new year!
It maybe a bit late, many people might already have experienced their
first best and worst memories of the year.

I want to start with last years christmas.
The twentieth of december I took a flight from Nagoya and back to
Norway. I was very excited as arriving the next day and meeting my
family and old friends:)
Next thing was Mari and Kimmy going to europe for their first time,
visiting me and John in Norway for christmas!
I picked them up at the airport and took them home by train. It was
really nice meeting them there in Norway. John met us in tønsberg not
far from our hometown.
We spent days showing the girls around where we lived and introducing
them to friends and family. On christmas eve Mari, me and my family
had a really nice dinner and ended the evening opening all the
presents we had. The days after christmas I spent relaxing at home
with Mari and my family.
After a week we had to go back to Nagoya. It was a bit sad going back
as I really enjoyed staying in norway with mari.
We left early the thirtieth of december and arrived in Nagoya early
morning the thirtyfirst.
Upon arriving i was really tired from all the travelling but I had had
the best christmas I can remember, in Norway.

After arriving we took a rest at home and met up later to celebrate
New Years. We had decided to sleep together at a hotel that night but
it was hard to find any vacant ones..
It ended up with us going to Red Rock bar where we celebrated the
countdown, we didn't stay there long though since we were still tired
from all the travelling. We took an end to the night by going to the
closest love hotel were we immediately fell asleep.

On the following day me and mari went out doing hatsumoude and
spending our first day together in the new year. John and kimmy
disappeard. However on the second day me and mari parted, and i
started preparing for going to tokyo.
John was also going to tokyo but on a later date..
I went to tokyo on the third day. My schedule was shopping and going
to a concert. This was also my first time in tokyo and i was very
excited. I arrived quickly with the shinkansen upon where i went
directly to shibuya and then up towards harajuku and shinjuku.
In harajuku i went to meijishrine to do a second hatsumoude. There
were about 30 000 others who also had decided to go there and so i
spent several hours walking in a massive queue there.
After having bought a mikuji (fortune) at meiji i went up to shinjuku.
I spent some hours trawling the shinjuku district, and eventually met
up with Jo whom I was going to the concert with.
We queued up early in front of the big nippon budokan where we
immediately got our tickets and went in to find about 14 000 people
also waiting in high excitment for the concert.
It took some time before the concert started but luckily enough we
were seated and so we didnt need to tire.
The concert was a big thrill! It lasted for five hours with some
pauses between each band. The bands were timed so as the most famous
ones were the last ones and highlights of the concert. Each band had
their own fanbase amongst the audience but everyone seemed to know the
procedures of each band. Almost everyone knew the dancing routines for
each song and so it seemed that the audience was more interested in
the dancing than the actual songs.. Me and Jo tried to join in
sometimes but I gave up too easy, especially when the audience started
bringing out special props from their backpacks, and used it for
dancing...
Anyway after the concert my ears were dead and the rest of my body too.
I hadnt booked a hotel yet so i followed jo back to hers and booked
one there, were i immediately fell asleep.
The next day, although pretty tired, i went around harajuku and
shinjuku again shopping.
By the time i had almost died from walking and found myself waiting
for the best and fastest shinkansen back to nagoya, i had bought seven
pieces of clothing i was reAlly content with.

Back in nagoya i had to prepare for the first day of school.
From the fifth of january my school started the new semester. It was
a bit exciting getting new teachers and continuing my japanese studies
but also pretty bad as i soon found out i didn't have any money., and
that i needed to find a job.

However my travelling plans had far from finished. Just ten days after
starting school i went to Kyoto for the second time. This time i was
going to the sanjusangendo to watch kyudo contests.
The first day in kyoto me and my friends from the kyudo went to
arashiyama were i had already been last fall. And kinkakuji which i
had never been to. After having done the sightseeing and eaten some
times at macdonalds we went to the ryokan we were staying at. This was
my first time staying at a ryokan, which is a japanese traditional inn.
The next after having slept well and woken up early the next day. We
went to the sanjusangendo where the contests were being held. The
kyudo contests were really interesting and pretty to watch. Everybody
wore the hakama and dogi and the women had dressed up really nicely in
kimonos.
That's also probably why you could see a lot of old men with big
proffessional cameras taking pictures of the girls there.
The contests lasted the whole day. When they finished we took a rest
and drove home.

Well back home in nagoya i spent the remaining two weeks before the
springbreak concentrating about school and finding a job. And spent
the time i could with Mari.
At school my marks got good again and i managed to deliver homework in
time.

Finally springbreak is here and now I am taking a rest from my trip to
tokyo two days ago.
Kimmy, Mari and me wanted to go to Tokyo to meet John and spend time
together. We went last saturday morning by bus which took six hours
and arrived in tokyo at four pm.
There mari went of to see some friends and me and kimmy to meet John.
All three of us spent some time together with some people from Johns
school, we went to a resturant and ate some before going to softbank
to pick up johns new phone.
We tried to get a hold of mari but it took some time and after some
struggling we managed to meet where our hotel was. We checked in and
took an early night.
The next day me and mari were early up and ate breakfast. John and
kimmy was a bit slow and so me and mari checked out and went off to
where the hotel we were staying in sunday night was. We met up with
john and kimmy there, stored our luggage in a locker and set off to
asakusa. In asakusa we went down one of the known market streets to
sensouji. Me and mari went ahead of john and kimmy and did some
praying before we sat down in a small seating place and got our
picture taken several times by one of those old perverts with a camera.
We then went to akihabara, mainly because i wanted to see it, and ate
some gyudon there before going to tokyo central station and the
imperial gardens. The wind was powerful and we wanted to borrow bikes
but we were just minutes too late.
We decided to head back to the hotel via some shopping in Ginza, which
by the way is the coolest part of tokyo, at night.
Before meeting john and kimmy we bought some food and drink and went
back to the hotel with them.
We agreed to meet up eight pm to go out but again john and kimmy were
a bit late and so we headed out before them trying to find a three
hundred yen bar. After some searching we finally found it, it was a
stand-up and drink bar were you can buy anything they have for three
hundred yen.
It was a nice place and it didn't take long until kimmy and john
showed up. We spent some time there and it all ended up a wet night. I
remember watching pirates of the carribbean 2 dubbed in japanese,
pretty entertaining, hearing johnny depp speaking japanese.
The next last day we saw john off to school and went to yoyogi park
and ate lunch there. Then we went shopping in harajuku and omotesando,
lunch/dinner at macdonalds and walked down to shibuya, where we took
the train back to shinjuku to meet john, who had finished school.
After having been at a cafe we went to a bar not so far away to say hi
to an old friend of mari and kimmy. He was an irishman who had worked
with them earlier and now moved to tokyo.
We spent the rest of the evening at that bar. And around 10 pm we went
back to shinjuku getting ready to leave with the night bus.
At eleven thirty we said bye to john, he said he was going to visit
nagoya next week, and the bus left.
We arrived in nagoya at six am and me and mari went back to my dorm
and rested there.
She left just some hours ago and now i am preparing to go to shizuoka
tomorrow with her and chiyuki and chiyuki's friend.

I am really excited as we are going to see mount fuji and go to onsen.
Mari is leaving next week, going to Europe for one month, visiting
several countries.
Until then we try to spend as much time as we can together. And also
maybe i will start working at the cafe she works at.
If not then i am already recruited by three modelling agencies..
Hoping for a job there..

Until next time bai bai.

And i hope i can be better at writing more often.

Ugf tsukareta..

Her er forresten et bilde jeg tok i tokyo fra asakusa. Finn mari?!!

Hm dunno i catched a cold.
それは残念。でおれは今日はきっと彼女と会うと思ったんだし…

このくそったれ風がひいた。

Yeah yeah guess it is stay in for me today...

Not posted in a long time...

Sorry guys.

I have  not had the time or will to post in a long time...

There is a lot of things happening all the time, and I have therefore little time to post anything.

 The least I can do now is summarize a bit of what has happened during the time since the last post.

First of all I went to Kyoto just two days after the post.

It was a really nice experience and I found that I really like Kyoto.

The city as a mix between really old buildings and streets and newly built markets and centers.

You can walk through a new part of town, enjoying window shopping, and then suddenly find yourself a midst old temples and shrines. If you enter one of the temple gates, you are immediately surrounded by old buildings and nothing  seems to be from newer eras except for the vending machines, which are everywhere in Japan.

In Kyoto I went to a temple called Kyo Mizu Dera, it is, if not the most famous temple in and sight in Kyoto and a lot of tourists visits all year around. I also went down Philosophers street, a famous street in Kyoto, known for couples walking it holding hands...

The second day I were there I went to Arashiyama, and Tenryuji, a famous temple in Arashiyama. Arashiyama was a very nice and although also packed with tourists it was more quiet and serene than Kyoto's newer districts. It also has a really nice Bamboo forest which you can walk through, and which I immediately fell in love with.

After Kyoto I had a lot of work that needed be done.  I was to prepare a student comment for the school prospectus. We had several tests after the trips and I spent a lot of time out by the start of november.

The last week I've been attending the Kyudo again after a long absence from it because of all that happened. I want to buy my own bow now, but the NOK is doing badly and so I don't wanna do it yet as a bow here is not cheap, about 40,000 yen. But once I buy one I will be allowed shooting at the range as my skill is more than good enough now. But there is not a bow long enough for me to really be able to shoot with.. (-_-)¤ 

John left us three days ago.. I think Kimmy his girlfriend is missing him very much. She doesn't seem too upbeat these days. I hope she'll survive the waiting time 'til he comes back.

I hope he is working hard back in Norway as he said he would. And that he doesn't forget us down here:)

(Btw if you're reading John. I don't know if you managed to steal one. But I got the poster of your man. He is hanging in my room now. Watching me as I sleep!! I'll bring him home with me!)

Two days ago was my birthday. I had a really nice day:)

I even got a cake from one of the girls in my class, and a lot of gifts as well.

My roommate even decided to decorate my door with a lot of small stickers...

And best of all I got Norwegian chocolate and chips from my family.. Yum!! I ate it with Mari, whom I went on a date with the same day. We saw P.S. I Love You. Which is an american movie I think.. There were a lot of famous actors, amongst those Hilary Swank, whom I actually regard as a far better actor than others coming from that God-forbidden hollywood. 

The movie was actually better than I had expected. And there were also a few other guys, probably with their dates, watching it as well. 

Today I am going to celebrate my birthday at St. James bar. And probably later go to a club. It is a shame John couldn't be here to celebrate but that's how it is..

Anyway I will try posting more in the coming days and hope you are still reading:)

Purikura

Purikura is one of the most known Japanese phenomenon’s except for

 karoke and arcades.

Purikura is an english import word,

 an abbreviation of “purinto kurabu” which means “print club” in English..

In Japan you’ll have your purikura

 taken at least once during your life if

 you are Japanese, and most likely about 100 times..

Purikura’s are a special form of photo where you, hopefully in company of other merry people, walk into a big photo box to get your photo taken. Once in the photo box you choose backgrounds and how many pictures. POSE and get some nice pictures, and do a wide variety of after-touches to them afterwards to make them look really cool.

Purikura’s are highly addictive and one can end up taking a lot of them without having a reason for it. You can get the pictures in print-form and on your cell as a wallpaper. The print-form is really neat as it is actually a sticker!! 

Now while I’ve been in Japan I have had the the chance of taking many purikura’s. I also really recommend doing it if you decide to go here, as it is a really nice memory of the trip. They are also great fun to watch!!

I can share some purikura’s here, two seconds..

New way of blogging

Hi, today I have acquired a new way of blogging:) This is an easy way
of blogging from my phone and it will hopefully lead to more posts
coming from me!!

I at least hope so.

In waiting for my next post I'll give you a nice picture:) ...

Radiohead in Concert

On wednesday I went to see Radiohead in Osaka. After class was over I went down to the dorm and got ready to leave before dashing of towards the busstop with the bus that would take me to Hoshigaoka station. After leaving the bus I went down the stairs leading to te subway. Of course at this point there are bound to be two old ladies blocking the stairs down, walking at slow speed because, oohf the left lady has had this hurt in her leg since last saturday 10 years ago and she can’t for the life of her

remember why. Well anyway. After a painful stair-walk and entering the subway at high speed almost not catching the ticket coming out, I am finally at peace amongst a club of salarymen talking about what happened at work. I sat.

Finally at Nagoya station I manage to screw a bit up. I have never taken the shinkansen or any similar trains before. Or rather I had never experienced putting two tickets at the same time inte the ticke machine… Anyway I got through. And miraculously ended up walking back an forth looking for the right shinkansen entrance, ignoring all the big obvious signs saying “Shinkansen ➡”yeah yeah. I did actually find out in good time for the train though.

The shinkansen platform is very easy navigating and you feel really cool standing there for the first time. Once the train rolls in to the platform, a fierce looking long and slender train, you instantly feel that “yeah! I am going high-speed.”. And that’s exactly what you do as well. You enter the train which is actually more roomy than what you first thought. Once sitting down on the train you feel really comfortable and you have got nice space for legs and luggage. Almost like taking a first-class airplane. 

The train starts to accelerate out of the station and continues well out of the station as well. You can really feel the acceleration in the train and notice the gradual increase in speed just by watching out the window.

Now I thought I had some time to do my homework as travelling 170 kilometres would take some time. But I was wrong. It took 40 minutes, through which I sat playing with my iphone, an amusing instrument, before we reached Kyoto and had a brief 1 min stop. And by that i mean 1 min. The train accelerated again and I could soon hear that we were arriving at Shin-Osaka. I hurried to take on my shoes and see if I had lost some values on the train, said goodbye to the girl I had sat beside, she was going to Kobe, and got of the train, which immediately started off again. Well in Shin-Osaka I had to find the special rapid service i would take to Osaka. Easier said than done. Well I found out that almost all local trains, even the subway stops by Osaka. Anyway I boarded the rapid service it took 5 min. and I reached Osaka. From there I had a hassle finding my way to Asashiobashi, because of transfers.

In Asashiobashi I knew my way. As I had familiarized with it on google maps. At first I thought “Hm, is it supposed to be a Radiohead concert here?!” I could not see any people around but as I came closer to the gym, I could see that a whole mass of people had gathered. 

I took a tour around the waiting area to find out what it looked like, then I went to the closest convenience store, a 7Eleven, to buy myself some food. Upon coming back to the waiting area I could see that a lot more people had gathered up in the queues. I sat down in front of all the queues to have my lunch. And had a nice view of everyone from the bottom of the stairs. After finishing my lunch I started wandering up and down the queues to see if there were someone I knew there whom I could sneak in there. For I actually did know some people who where going but I didn't have their phone number unfortunately. About one hour before the concert I stalled myself at a stand close to the queue A selling CD's. My ticket said Block A so I reckoned it was the right queue. I stood there for some time pretending to wait for someone. The reason why I snuck in the queue was because by the time I had gotten back for the "convi" there were already 1 000 people queued up in that queue. I did all the right things when sneaking into a queue and nobody seemed to take care or notice. Only a pair of girls discovered. But it seemed they were too immensely taken by my looks to even take notice of what I did.

I had bought myself a pack of Pocky's that I was supposed to 

eat while waiting for the concert to start, but however unfortunately I had to throw them as they were not allowed in the hall. I got into the hall  as one of the first people. And to my great surprise I saw that the ones with block A tickets had front row stands. I got myself a nice spot, put my bag down and started waiting.

The hall filled slowly up with people. People passed by me and I don't think I even have numbers for how many stupid people that managed to park in the security walkway. No matter how many times the security said that they had to move. This was also the case for two girls who found out that they wanted to stand close to where I was. And managed to stop in the walkway. And when they were ordered away from there they immediately took place in front of me instead. For what reason I don't know..

Anyway. The concert started after a while.

Electronica had been warming up for the concert and it didn't come as a shock that the warm-up band was a Hip hop/Electronica duo from Germany called ModeSelektor. The reason for them warming up was simply because they are one of Thom Yorke's favourite bands. I have nothing to say to his taste however as the duo was quite good.

They played for a good 40 mins. and managed to get the crowd quite warm.

After some time to rig the Radiohead's scene and make sure everything was OK, it was time for the main act:

Radiohead opened the concert with some electronic background music while entering the scene and started immediately playing the opening song of their new album; 15 Step from In Rainbows.

The song switch the crowd on immediately and everybody started dancing, including Thom Yorke who seemed well more prepared than the audience.

Now it is hard to explain how the concert went on, but I can say as much as the setlist was a real good one. I'll post a link with it further down the page. And fortunately but at the same time unfortunately it was a quite a special setlist as it contained lot's of Radioheads more unheard songs. It sometimes took the Audience a while to recognize the intro of the song. But once they did they knew the song in and out.

Radiohead did two encores the first one being a really good one. I really liked the end of the first encore which ended with all the band members leaving the stage one and one after having played "Everything in its Right Place" and keeping the music alive. 

The concert was an amazing one. And I truly recommend people watching them live as they in my opinion are more of a live band than studio band. And especially Thom Yorke seems to like stage.

I will definitely start listening to more radiohead after this concert. It is a really good band. Although it may take you some time to get accustomed to the music.

When it comes to my travelling back to Nagoya. I ended up walking up and down Umeda and Yodobashi in Osaka looking for a Manga Cafe. After finding one I spent 5 hours sleeping in a chair at the cost of 2 000 Yen.

I woke up at 5 the following day and got my way to Shin-Osaka and took the 6 o'clock shinkansen back to Nagoya, arriving 7 am in Nagoya and 7.40 at my dorm. The time at which I usually get up in the morning. And I went to school as normal the day after.

Tired but feeling really good!

じゃ、それでけっこう。またこんどね。おやすみなさい。

Links:

Setlist

My favourite song at the concert bad sound quality but:..

Everything in its Right Place 

Kyudo's Progress

Not many posts ago and I know yes I haven’t posted much lately. That is because a lot has happened since last time.

I am now a member of the Kyudo club and I have already done two official training sessions with them. Although still not ready to fire an arrow I have made a lot of progress and beginning from next week if I do well I may start on some hay-balls on close range.

I have also bought a full kyudo outfit that means; Do-gi, hakama, obi, keshi, and tabis. Altogether for a whopping 25 000 yen… (find the conversion tool, cause I ain’t gonna do it anymore…)

Today I wore the whole outfit and I liked it. People said I looked like Alghren (from the Last Samurai). Pictures will come when I take them. 

I am really looking forward to next week’s training:)