(no subject)
May. 22nd, 2008 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flameravenSo yesterday was actually surprisingly awesome.
I went to class as usual, and then, partly because I'd once again forgotten my power cord and was out of battery life on my laptop, and partly because it was a beautiful day and I needed to get out; headed home, dropped off my laptop, and set off for an adventure.
I got some onigiri and tea from the 7-11, then biked over to the park where we went sakura viewing last month. It's all much greener now, obviously, but I thought it would make a nice spot to sit and eat lunch, and take a longer look around since it was no longer dark and freezing. I ended up being really glad I stopped there. Everything was quiet and shady, and I spotted a few things I hadn't even realized were there-- a little mini-shrine near the lookout point, and a much larger memorial marker (or grave?) on the other side of the park. I didn't get to go across the bridge, unfortunately, as there were people sweeping over there and I didn't want to disturb them, but it was lovely anyway.
After that I biked down a side street and investigated the local temple/shrine I'd seen before (but hadn't gotten a chance to look at closely). As I parked my bike, though, I noticed a little road, lined with lanterns, right across the street, so I went and looked at that first. I don't know why all the lanterns were there; possibly there's some event or festival that has to do with them, because there was a giant torii midway down the road. I did note that each of the lanterns had a different string of kanji written on their poles... I think they were each the name of a local business or something; I couldn't read enough to really tell.
I wandered up and down the road, taking pictures, and then went back and visited the temple/shrine place. They had an ad outside for weddings and funerals, it looked like...? It was a much bigger place than the other little shrines I've seen around though. Very interesting.
They actually had a mini-shrine and torii off to one side, half-buried in the bushes, but sadly my camera refused to take pictures of it; they all came out really blurred or otherwise messed up.
I biked back to the station after that, taking note of a restaurant I saw on my way back that looked promising (Keleih and I have been despairing of finding any decent restaurants around the station, although she's been cooking more lately anyway so the issue has come up less often than it did). I mostly browsed at the station, wandering through the various floors. I'd meant to stop in at the bookstore and see if they had any books about Hokusai, who is apparently the one I need to be looking into if I want to research the old Japanese folktales and ghost stories. I did eventually get to the bookstore, and looked through some of their art books, but I didn't see anything about Hokusai.
Before I got to the bookstore, though, I made a much more important discovery. The first was that on the fourth floor of Roble there's a stationary store, with all kinds of pens and notebooks and such. I thought there had to be one around, so I was glad to find it. But then! When I was on the sixth floor, I found it. An art supply store.
This is a huge thing because I've been pondering a few pieces in my head for a few weeks now, possibly watercolor/ink pieces dealing with the crazy electric poles I see all around, but the only paper I brought is a cheap pad of 9 x 12", 90lb paper, and not only is that not really thick enough to do much with, but the stuff I have in mind really needs to be bigger. Problem is, I couldn't find anywhere that sold paper larger than A4, let alone in the thickness I need for watercolor. But lo~! Here we have an art store, and the first thing I looked at, purely by chance, were pads of watercolor paper. They were fairly pricey, so I didn't actually buy anything (an 11 x 14" pad of what looked to be 90 or 140lb paper was about $21), but at least I know where to find it now! They had cheap watercolors, and decently priced brushes, although their markers and pencils were ridiculous-- $60 for a 24 set of watercolor pencils? No way. (This is a shame, because now I'm actually kinda curious to try out watercolor pencils. I'll have to pick some up at Prizm before next semester.)
So I found art supplies, and it was good. I am pleased.
From there I went up to the seventh floor for food, to our usual spot, and got my usual fare of a small bowl of rice and tempura. Just as I sat down, though, one of the old ladies sitting at the next table came up and tapped me on the shoulder, and wanted to know if I had been at the dance festival on Sunday...? I told her I had, and she complimented me on my dancing before she left. It was really unexpected, being recognized like that (I guess I stand out more than I thought-- how many gaijin are there doing these dances, after all?), but pretty cool, too.
I headed back to school then, and sat in the language lab for an hour or so. I was pretty tired, and half-thought about taking a nap, but then one of the Japanese students came in and started talking to us, and we actually got into a pretty interesting and involved discussion of politics and history. (He wanted to know if all Americans were really interested in politics, and we were trying to explain that no, we're mostly just interested this year because we finally get to kick Bush out of office, and then he asked why we don't like Bush, and it sort of spiraled out of control from there.) Good way to spend an hour, though.
At five, we went to the school cafeteria, where they were holding a sort of welcome party for the new students and exchange students. Unlike the last "party" we went to, this was actually a real party, with drinks and real food, even, not just snacks. (Sushi and yakisoba and little sandwiches and pizza, huzzah.) It was still mostly standing around and talking, but that was okay. I ended up talking to Kumar, the Indian guy, who I've seen in class but haven't really talked to much before this. Eventually I pulled out my sketchbook, which drew a huge crowd, which was kinda cool. I really need to get more recent sketches done, though. Half the work in my sketchbook is from 2007, and even if everyone else likes it I kinda cringe at a few of the drawings. And we got to listen to the koto club, which was pretty cool (although I had to raise an eyebrow when they played "Camptown Races," but hey, whatever.)
Afterwards there was karaoke, which was... eh. I really enjoy karaoke more when there's fewer people, and this was really pushing it, with about 10-12 people in our room. It didn't help that Chris and I were in a room with most of the Chinese students. We ended up really isolated, and it didn't help that they were really being kind of rude, talking during whatever songs we sang, and on one occasion using the remote control to interrupt a song with all sorts of random noises. I mean, what the hell? We didn't interrupt them when they were singing a dozen Chinese songs that we don't know, they could at least extend us the same courtesy. And, of course, it also didn't help that Chris ended up singing along with me most of the time, and Chris... really can't sing. We did "American Pie" at the end, and he missed the rhythm for everything but the chorus, which was really distracting and kind of killed my enjoyment of most of the songs.
I left at ten, too tired of the noise and the people to stay longer, even though most of the others were staying. So it was a little bit of a disappointing end to a good day, but we didn't have to pay for the karaoke (Hakuoh treated us, because we were the "guests" of this little event), so I suppose I can't really complain too much.
I went to class as usual, and then, partly because I'd once again forgotten my power cord and was out of battery life on my laptop, and partly because it was a beautiful day and I needed to get out; headed home, dropped off my laptop, and set off for an adventure.
I got some onigiri and tea from the 7-11, then biked over to the park where we went sakura viewing last month. It's all much greener now, obviously, but I thought it would make a nice spot to sit and eat lunch, and take a longer look around since it was no longer dark and freezing. I ended up being really glad I stopped there. Everything was quiet and shady, and I spotted a few things I hadn't even realized were there-- a little mini-shrine near the lookout point, and a much larger memorial marker (or grave?) on the other side of the park. I didn't get to go across the bridge, unfortunately, as there were people sweeping over there and I didn't want to disturb them, but it was lovely anyway.
After that I biked down a side street and investigated the local temple/shrine I'd seen before (but hadn't gotten a chance to look at closely). As I parked my bike, though, I noticed a little road, lined with lanterns, right across the street, so I went and looked at that first. I don't know why all the lanterns were there; possibly there's some event or festival that has to do with them, because there was a giant torii midway down the road. I did note that each of the lanterns had a different string of kanji written on their poles... I think they were each the name of a local business or something; I couldn't read enough to really tell.
I wandered up and down the road, taking pictures, and then went back and visited the temple/shrine place. They had an ad outside for weddings and funerals, it looked like...? It was a much bigger place than the other little shrines I've seen around though. Very interesting.
They actually had a mini-shrine and torii off to one side, half-buried in the bushes, but sadly my camera refused to take pictures of it; they all came out really blurred or otherwise messed up.
I biked back to the station after that, taking note of a restaurant I saw on my way back that looked promising (Keleih and I have been despairing of finding any decent restaurants around the station, although she's been cooking more lately anyway so the issue has come up less often than it did). I mostly browsed at the station, wandering through the various floors. I'd meant to stop in at the bookstore and see if they had any books about Hokusai, who is apparently the one I need to be looking into if I want to research the old Japanese folktales and ghost stories. I did eventually get to the bookstore, and looked through some of their art books, but I didn't see anything about Hokusai.
Before I got to the bookstore, though, I made a much more important discovery. The first was that on the fourth floor of Roble there's a stationary store, with all kinds of pens and notebooks and such. I thought there had to be one around, so I was glad to find it. But then! When I was on the sixth floor, I found it. An art supply store.
This is a huge thing because I've been pondering a few pieces in my head for a few weeks now, possibly watercolor/ink pieces dealing with the crazy electric poles I see all around, but the only paper I brought is a cheap pad of 9 x 12", 90lb paper, and not only is that not really thick enough to do much with, but the stuff I have in mind really needs to be bigger. Problem is, I couldn't find anywhere that sold paper larger than A4, let alone in the thickness I need for watercolor. But lo~! Here we have an art store, and the first thing I looked at, purely by chance, were pads of watercolor paper. They were fairly pricey, so I didn't actually buy anything (an 11 x 14" pad of what looked to be 90 or 140lb paper was about $21), but at least I know where to find it now! They had cheap watercolors, and decently priced brushes, although their markers and pencils were ridiculous-- $60 for a 24 set of watercolor pencils? No way. (This is a shame, because now I'm actually kinda curious to try out watercolor pencils. I'll have to pick some up at Prizm before next semester.)
So I found art supplies, and it was good. I am pleased.
From there I went up to the seventh floor for food, to our usual spot, and got my usual fare of a small bowl of rice and tempura. Just as I sat down, though, one of the old ladies sitting at the next table came up and tapped me on the shoulder, and wanted to know if I had been at the dance festival on Sunday...? I told her I had, and she complimented me on my dancing before she left. It was really unexpected, being recognized like that (I guess I stand out more than I thought-- how many gaijin are there doing these dances, after all?), but pretty cool, too.
I headed back to school then, and sat in the language lab for an hour or so. I was pretty tired, and half-thought about taking a nap, but then one of the Japanese students came in and started talking to us, and we actually got into a pretty interesting and involved discussion of politics and history. (He wanted to know if all Americans were really interested in politics, and we were trying to explain that no, we're mostly just interested this year because we finally get to kick Bush out of office, and then he asked why we don't like Bush, and it sort of spiraled out of control from there.) Good way to spend an hour, though.
At five, we went to the school cafeteria, where they were holding a sort of welcome party for the new students and exchange students. Unlike the last "party" we went to, this was actually a real party, with drinks and real food, even, not just snacks. (Sushi and yakisoba and little sandwiches and pizza, huzzah.) It was still mostly standing around and talking, but that was okay. I ended up talking to Kumar, the Indian guy, who I've seen in class but haven't really talked to much before this. Eventually I pulled out my sketchbook, which drew a huge crowd, which was kinda cool. I really need to get more recent sketches done, though. Half the work in my sketchbook is from 2007, and even if everyone else likes it I kinda cringe at a few of the drawings. And we got to listen to the koto club, which was pretty cool (although I had to raise an eyebrow when they played "Camptown Races," but hey, whatever.)
Afterwards there was karaoke, which was... eh. I really enjoy karaoke more when there's fewer people, and this was really pushing it, with about 10-12 people in our room. It didn't help that Chris and I were in a room with most of the Chinese students. We ended up really isolated, and it didn't help that they were really being kind of rude, talking during whatever songs we sang, and on one occasion using the remote control to interrupt a song with all sorts of random noises. I mean, what the hell? We didn't interrupt them when they were singing a dozen Chinese songs that we don't know, they could at least extend us the same courtesy. And, of course, it also didn't help that Chris ended up singing along with me most of the time, and Chris... really can't sing. We did "American Pie" at the end, and he missed the rhythm for everything but the chorus, which was really distracting and kind of killed my enjoyment of most of the songs.
I left at ten, too tired of the noise and the people to stay longer, even though most of the others were staying. So it was a little bit of a disappointing end to a good day, but we didn't have to pay for the karaoke (Hakuoh treated us, because we were the "guests" of this little event), so I suppose I can't really complain too much.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-05-27 12:03 pm (UTC)And reading the lyrics I felt didn't really match the song.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-28 01:47 am (UTC)And... what? The lyrics didn't match the song? I don't know what you're actually trying to say here. You either know the song or you don't. That's the difference between just, you know, reading the lyrics, and singing the song.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-07 06:12 am (UTC)