Bare butts, toffee apples, massive blisters and a dead rat in the river

Many are the memories of the weekend . . Much fun was had but right now I feel like there is little energy left in me for anything other than trundling off to sleep even though it's only 6:30pm! I woke up at 5:30am on Saturday morning in order to be in Okayama by just after 9am and my throat was a bit sore . . . It only got worse throughout the weekend and by the time I got home on Sunday afternoon I was only fit for some quick photo downloading and sleep. I awoke again at 8pm with a pounding head a stack of revision remaining before I was vaguely prepared for my grammar test today.
In the end I took a lot of medicine tried my hardest but still didn't get much done before retiring to bed again. Condition unimproved by morning I decided to skip classes other than the exam . . . this proved to be a wise decision as my head hasn't stopped spinning but I did get some decent revision in and think I did reasonably well except for the kanji readings section which I just gave up for bad money - not enough time in one day for memorisation of upwards of 130 unusual and complicated kanji readings!!
So that's out of the way, I can head back to bed and then start thinking about Thursday's presentation!! Ahhhhh

PS Thanks to Judy who appeared in my dream and kept me entertained wandering around some surreal streets of Adelaide . . . Then I woke with a start thinking my exam had already started (as it was apparently already past 5pm) and I had missed it! It was only 6am but reality check - how was I ever going to get to a test in Hiroshima if I was Victoria Square, A-town, SA!
Ha haaaa!

Anyway, I think I am about to turn into a pumpkin with a headache so I'll to Fief~

Hello, this is your friendly blogger speaking . . .

広島風お好み焼
Originally uploaded by Yukata Me.

Well, the text is flowing today but I thought that I should pop in a piccy liven things up!
This is me on the afternoon on my arrival back in Hiroshima, after a month in Auslandia. I celebrated my return by going out with Keinan (ケイナン） for a late lunch of 広島風お好み焼 (Hiroshima style Okonomiyaki).
Now, being a local (of sorts) I might be biased but this type of Okonomiyaki creams that ratty Kansai style stuff anyday! Give me the noodles and hold the batter!
This one was even more intriguing than usual as the cook not only did the usual egg omelette thingo but then proceded to place yet another (sunnyside up fried egg) on the top~

It's a world of epicurean delights!

I will be very busy with study study and festivalness this weekend - lots more opportunities for photos! But soon I hope to get up a more comprehensive set of photos and posts from my time in China.

みんなはそれまでに楽しんで待っててね！

Oh, the joys of living overseas . . .

Young'uns of my acquaintance, have of late years taken to heading off overseas for years on end. (I encourage people to do such things - especially international study exchange! It kicks!) Many aren't so great at keeping in touch but those out of the blue phone calls once in three years (Geets - priceless!) or three or four monthly emails (Mel, and just about anyone else I care to mention regardless of where they live!) are always wonderful. Like my good friend Phili, I have become a fan of the blog and today's Laugh of the Month goes to Josh who never ceases to bring a smile to my face, but with his latest effort has outshone himself.
So I encourage you to go check out Josh's view of the world around him . . . An Australian in the USA . . . NB Make sure you are not surrounded by a room-full of people who don't know what you're looking at and find your silent laughter equally ridiculous and disturbing!

See across ===========> in the links for Smoov Goes To College!

Bares repeating . . .

Of late I get the feeling that my lapse in posts due to being in China has meant that people have ceased to pay attention to me. I say, this shall not do! You are being educated people, educated! Do you fear to learn?! The world is in a sorry state . . . If I had my way I'd make it manditory to read my edifying prose but as I can't, let me just say that those of you who make the time to read my writing will be ahead of the times . . in a class of your own. Plus, it will make me feel loved and that's really what it's all about anyway.

I just had a message for the techonologically minded Andrew to say that he had finally installed asian language script onto his computer and that while it doesn't improve his ability to read the characters at least they are now visible! This made me think, if he, a man of electronic information age, has only just done this, there are many . . thousands, nay, possibly millions (do I kid myself of my grandeur and magnitude?) out there who have as yet also failed to do this most simple and essential of things!

For having done so, the world will be just as it should be . . . So, I shall repeat myself in the sphere of the greater blog (rather than just the comments section, for those of you not in with the in-crowd (read: nerdy) enough to bother with reading all of the back and forth banter that goes on in the world of comments (in the land of spare-oom) . . .
. . . . . if others out there are still just seeing lame little rectangles instead of 漢字 (kanji), then it's time to get a wriggle on before you become even uncooler than you already are! Just because you read my blog doesn't automatically make you a hipster but activating kanji will sure improve your kudos!
Now get to it!

I have Japanese readers clamouring to read my wonderful prose but still I write for the benefit of ye Australian monolinguistics who currently compose the bulk of my readership! 一方で、Soon you shan't see me for the boxes . . . or understand . . as the case may be!

チュー～


Now I ought to go and study before a little light proscrastination (Season Finale, people!) ~~ Mid term grammar test next Monday and a festival to be in on the weekend! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - the tragedy of popularity!

Just another manic monday . . . .

中国、最低なバスツワー～でも、きれいだね
Originally uploaded by Yukata Me.

I have a headache in a very weird way . . the left side of my head suddnely hurts from time to time and it's been making it hard to get through classes. Now my teeth on the lower right side are hurting . . . In an attempt at not falling asleep I have come to the computers between my classes - I was considering going home to sleep - who needs 6th period anyway ?! But now it's only 10 minutes away and the prospect of the hour long trip home seem more draining then simply walking from one room to another, one building to the next.

Don't even feel like posting . . . sleeeeeeep

Weekend was eventful in a nicely quiet fashion.

Today I was walking through Uni and saw other white people - it was very intriguing.

China . . . I am looking forward to more holidays - just have to study my grammary arse off in the meantime.

Must dash to class.


OH YES!! I almost forget!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FOR TOMORROW ALIESE!!
HOPE YOU HAVE A LOVELY DAY!

不機嫌

Today started out okay. I did sleep in a little, but then again, I was up late.
I got going on some study and the highly positive aspects of homestay were reenforced when I was able to get a whole lot of questions answered about the meanings of words that weren't in the dictionary.
Japanese has a very particular usage of onomatopoeia that makes English's usage pale in comparison. For example, we have a whole lot of different individual words to describe the ways in which people might 'laugh' - grin, smile, beam, giggle, smirk, etc. In Japanese these actions are described by using adverbs, so that the basic phrase will always be 'laughing' but you can 'nikoniko warau' 'niyaniya warau' 'kusukusu warau' and on and on. The number of these words is vast and half of them aren't in your standard dictionary or if they are they're flipping hard to find!
Simiarly, in Japanese there will be words that in English are a whole phrase . . these can be especially hard to locate if you happen to forget them!

Anyway, I digress . . .
It is raining again. I became lateish through being engrossed in my study but decided to walk to the train anyway because I heard that a typhoon is on it's way as I was getting ready. If umbrellas and typhoons are not a good mix I hardly feel the need to point out the degree to which bikes and typhoons are to be avoided. Especially as the wind howls down the valley and riverbed on average days, meaning that crossing the bridge can be a wavering experience.

I made it to school in perfect time but suddenly became aware of the hole that had presented itself in my new socks upon their first wear. CHINA!
No worries - turn them around - problem solvered.
Cafeteria full - no troubles - let's eat in the International Exchange office.
No, I can't sing at your function this month because I will be participating in a boat race festival!
Go to the 教務課 (kyoumuka - 'study general relations department')? Must I ? That just means trouble . . .
Arrival at class - Straight to the kyoumuka with you! Bugger! A month into classes and they realise that despite the teacher, time and subject contents being entirely different, because they have assigned the same course code to the subject I can't take it! Arse . . . haven't I been through this before ?! Japan is a land of bureaucracy! . . and it cannot be breached.


Hmmmmph . . . 不機嫌 (ふきげん fukigen) . . . ill-tempered!

Sent a grumpy email - have sent apologetic one in its wake.

Wiz, I failed . . . I read a lot whole, but am doing okay. Maybe the worst has passed . . . . Here's to fooling myself!

Who decided to call my skin white ? In this weather it goes all blotchy and purple - how unsightly!

It looks like things will work out okay with the subjects - I don't have to take up any new ones due to taking extra classes last year. Go me.

Too late for me now though . . . 不機嫌！

Homework to be done. A typhoon to be had . . . maybe I should head home to avoid hitting the worst of it later.

Incidentally, did you know that the word typhoon comes from the Japanese 台風 (たいふう taifuu) . . . .

Today it is raining again but not very heavily and I was going to run late for school if I didn't ride so I did - through the rain across the bright red bridge over the wide river surrounded by flatlands of lush green, water from puddles splashing up onto my feet. Last week I was late and missed the short quiz at the start of the class that I HAD bothered to study for. On the train I realised I forgot my umbrella . . . I certainly stood out in the tramp up the hill amid the bobbing current of umbrellaness. Nice weather.

On the train I found my attention drawn to the rice paddies which are starting to fill up with water. A year. One year since I was walking through this landscape, then so unfamiliar, for the first time seeing the rice grow over time in their waterlogged, concrete defined shelves. I saw little frogs then. It still doesn't fill like I know this place as though it were entirely my own, something that I had grown up around and intrinsically felt a part of, but it does feel comfortable.

A year.

Shanghai - tourist trap but pretty

Shanghai
Originally uploaded by Yukata Me.

I haven't finished uploading my photos as I was working under harried conditions the other day; exchange student moonlighting as a babysitter, so I am getting ahead of myself and things will be rather out of order . . . Regardless, I thought I'd pop this photo up as a nice little reminder of my trip and as thanks to SareB and Andrew for the emails.

To me, this photo is rather iconically Chinese but in fact not much like the China I saw. After a reasonably extensive amount of experince travelling overseas I have come to expect that the stereotypical images you see plastered about the people are likely to be the last thing you see when in the country itself. This is by no means a bad thing, on the whole, but it's nice to get a taste of the fantastic and exotic from time to time.

I had many a random and amazing experience whilst in China. Travelling with a Chinese person made a big difference to what we were able to do, see and where we could go. Every moment was not blissfully enjoyable but it certainly was an incredible time.

The bus whose engine exuded smoke into the bus interior and provided me with a toasty seat on perfect warm sunny days. The ideal opportunity to perfect the art of positioning flannels over one's mouth and nose. Kept in place by a head scarf gifted to me by my siblings in a time of need.

Driving, at dusk, along narrow roads carved into cliff faces high up in the mountains near Tibet, lost in thought pondering life and the magic of the landscape that had artistic impulse racing.

A massage at 3am following a session with some crazy boys from the Chinese backsticks, now living in Shanghai. A laughed myself silly - I have always been unbelievably ticklish! Everyone else proceeded to fall asleep around me so in the end I decided it mightn't be such a bad this to follow suit so that in the morning we might have another chance for a repeat performance. I awoke hours later feeling the most energetic I have felt in a loooonnnggg time. Wish I could have brought one of the massage boys back with me . . . I could really do with a invigorating massage right now! All this study kills my back . . . ahhhh all fantasies aside I should head off to 6th period - yuck!

Tell me why ?! I don't like Mondayssss
. . . because I have to leave the house at 8am and classes don't finish until 8pm! Not to mention the awful grammar class that rolls around at 2:30.

ALSO a belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO SARAH for the other week - I have been compiling a parcel for over a month! I promise it will be on its way soon!

Yesterday I made strawberry filled crepes for my host mum because my own mum is so far away. Then we had a nice family outing into the countryside to visit host dad's mum on the family farm. That done I feel asleep for a couple of hours before working into the wee small hours on insurmountable loads of study. Who needs so many kanji ?? Come on Japan!

Must away!

花見

花見
Originally uploaded by Yukata Me.

This post is hereby dedicated to SOPHIE AND THE POOJMEISTER
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIDDIES!
お誕生日　おめでとう

This photo matches the pattern on a bowl that I see Sophie received and to which I, incidentally, have a matching set . . It's a small Adelaide . . well, not so much after all . . This has been a long acknowledged fact.

Upon my return to Hiroshima Flower Viewing (Cherry Blossom vewing gatherings that usually involves large consumption of alcohol) party invitations were flying hither and yon. Hoping (and expecting) to outdo last year's rather lame experience, I did my best to get into the festive spirit and certainly had a merry time. There is a ridiculous amount of photos remaining on my camera to prove this!

I went to a sakura (cherry blossom) lined laneway in Hatsukaiichi both with Maki's Mum and then with Maki whilst staying with them. This is a photo I took on one of these occasions. I think it rather perfectly captures the Japanese experience of Hanami (花見) because everywhere you look there is a blue canvas carpet to accompany the starkness of the snowy petals against dark wood.

Also that the interesting experience of 夜桜（よざくら night sakura viewing）at which Lane got excessively drunk and hurt his ankle, I had a heart-to-heart with Dadz and took numerous shots trying to capture the amazing sight of the near full moon rising from the mountains with the illuminated sakura in the foreground.

I think the apt phrase for most people on this night though was 花より団子（はなよりだんご　'hana yori dango' "sweet dumpling ('dango', and damn they are good when filled with black sesame seed paste) rather than flowers") Which is simply the tradiotnally flowery way of saying that people are far too busy making hay and drinking to notice the beautiful sight they supposed congregated to see!

Sakura are now well and truly over but I felt they deserved a posthumous post. We have hit 'tsuyu' 梅雨, the rainy season, and whilst today is reasonably cool at my Uni on the mountain, it was suprisingly warm when I returned from China and we have had some amazing days of unceasing rain.