[my boring life without korin and jen]

yeah… my life has been sort’a boring this last week due to korin and jen going back home. even though I now hang around with my classmates it’s not the same – nobody will be able to substitute them! I am so glad I met them upon arriving here! but now I miss them so much. in a way it was pretty weird living my first days as if they were my last – since they were their last days.

so maybe that’s why I haven’t written lately – I haven’t done much this week… just gone to class and back home to study. I guess I could explain 他動詞　and 自動詞　pretty well by now, but that is not very interesting, is it? (though probably 明子ちゃん might like to know – mental note to post a briefing about transitive and intransitive verbs in japanese.)

the first days I didn’t hang out with the people from class because I wanted to make the most of the little time I had left with jen and korin. so everyday would go like this: william (brazilian guy that looks anything but brazilian) would say 「約束がない人はだれ？」 – “anyone free today?” – and whoever didn’t have any plans would join for lunch. I was always like: ［ゴメン！いっしょうに住んだ人はすぐ帰国するんですが、今日もう約束した。来週からかならずひまです！」 – “sorry! since my room mates are leaving soon I already made an appointment with them. but next week I’ll be free for sure!”. the thing id this week we could only go out for lunch twice! everybody had something to do! it’s soooo boring getting to an empty home and waiting for miki to come…

fortunately I met a girl from another class who’s only staying for a month and wants to make the most of it, so she always proposes to go somewhere. the first day she took bertile (french girl from my class) to 代官山 (daikanyama), a district next to 渋谷　(shibuya) that’s pretty quiet and nice to walk around. also, it’s full of small indie shops and little cafes – it was funny how most of them sported foreign names (mostly french, as if that made them more stylish…) since the shops are pretty exclusive, prices were a little out of our budget, but it was nice however to get away from the craziness of shibuya.

this is what I meant by small shops.

today we went out to eat too. it’s amazing how well you can eat at tokyo for a pittance. if you go to traditional japanese restaurants you can have a full meal for 500 to 700 yen (3 or 5 euros). most meals include rice and miso soup and a small appetizer; water is served for free and the only thing that changes is the main dish.

afterwards we went to 原宿　(harajuku) – yes, again. I bought a very nice sleeveless sweater with cat ears attached to the hood. jen had the same one – I cut the red ribbon, jen, just like you did, it looked horrible.

it has a cat’s tail sewed to the back too. I think I look like [shiro] from [tekkonkinkreet] in it.

lorenzo (italian) was hunting for gothic clothing so we went to a basement shop that looked fairly interesting. I will take a picture of it next time because you must not, under any circumstances go there. the seller was this old weird woman who kept going off the handle whenever we made a face that suggested we found the prices a little high. she would keep bragging about how elaborate the designs were and how much time it had taken the artist and so on; she even slapped us from time to time. so fucking rude! we had to run away, literally…

so tomorrow it’s harajuku again and then maybe ikebukuro (still don’t know how to write it in kanji). and in the afternoon I’ll be meeting miki and brian (her boyfriend) to go to the edo era museum. oh! and also, I’ll be probably getting a bike this weekend from 戸越　(togoshi) house because the people there don’t use them. then I’ll be able to ride around 戸越 and go to [book off] – second hand bookshop – as many times as I like! yeah, go me!

oops! I nearly forgot. this is my room – my own private room, no more sleeping in the living-room, あああ。。。いい気持ち。。。

  

even if it’s difficult to see, those two white points hanging from the lamp cord are

glowing [kodama] I bought at [kiddyland] :9

and these are the last issues of [myojo], [potato], [duet] and [winkup]. all of them feature 嵐’s last summer concerts, NEWS, KAT-TUN, kinky kids, [maou] and .

if I somehow get hold of a scanner I'll post the scans - taking photographs of the pages still doesn't convince me...