All according to Keikaku

Keikaku means plan.

My plan was to secretly sleep through the Hanami, and then go to the tent festival anyways. My RA came knocking on my door pretty hard, but I resisted and went back to sleep for four hours instead of waking up at 9:30. Cause seriously, 9:30? People shouldn't even be awake at that hour.

Anyways, I made it down to the tent sale festival... thing. I'd show photos but... you've all been to festivals. IT's just a crowd of people, food stands, and overpriced trinkets.

Food was good, though.

Afterwards I bought some potatoes. Like, of the cooking variety.

Apparently you can make microwaved potato chips? Not so sure how good they'll come out, but I found a recipe. I'll give it a go and if it turns out edible (or even better - tasty) then I'll post it up here with a thumbs up and a go ahead, which incidentally carry the same connotations so it's sort of redundant to do both.

But that's just how much I care. I care enough to make sure that you understand fully the information that is presented to you. I care enough to inform you how tasty microwaved potato chips are. I care enough to sometimes but not usually update my blog according to schedule.

Vote Roshi in 20089.

He cares.

Rain rain, go away

It's my own fault if I wake up after the sun goes down, but I hate it when it just never comes up.

There was a thick cloud of rain hanging on the campus today, and it was pretty stormy. I went downtown to get some groceries and was half afraid that the buses wouldn't be going back up due to the weather. They did though, so not a problem.

I'm glad I went down, too, because otherwise I never would have known about the Tent Town or whatever it's called. There is a sort of festival going on today and tomorrow where people are getting little tents up and selling food and trinkets. Hanami was moved to tomorrow, so if I end up going to that then I'll head down to the tents afterward.

I'm bothered by my inability to read calligraphy, still. That's the fancy brush stroke writing, not the regular characters. Well, I mean, it is the regular characters, it's just that they are written a bit more stylized, and as such I have no idea what they say on half of the signs I come across, reducing me once again to gibbering foreigner status as I point to items on the menu and say "kudasai".

Man I hate that.

I should start using the kanji dictionary on my DS to try and imitate the strokes as best I can before going to order.

Then again, that seems like effort, and who needs that?

Girugamesh

Today was pretty uneventful. Went downtown initially to go grocery shopping, but thought that that didn't sound very interesting so instead I went to the internet cafe to play some TF2. NONE OF YOU AMERICAN JERKS WERE ON. And the one American server I got onto they kicked me off because they were playing a private non-passworded game (because they're intelligent like that).

I did wind up on a Malaysian server that was absolutely hilarious, though. Everyone was speaking in a mix of English and Malaysian and spouting internet memes like no tomorrow.

Oh, also when I was downtown I noticed that one of the mountains was on fire.


Picture used without permission from the Beppu official site.

Yeah, it was part of the Onsen Festival, so apparently it was supposed to be like that. Just a huge ring of fire going along a good portion of the mountainside. Was pretty impressive, and I saw it by accident. Which is better than most of the people I talked to who didn't see it at all, thanks to the campus not actually informing us of it or anything like that. Nah, of course not.

There is another Hanami tomorrow that I could go to if I felt like waking up at 10am. My RA said he's going to come knock on my door. I guess the morning will determine whether I go along to the party or defenestrate him.

Ouch ouch ouch

So I tried my hand at cooking some hash browns with cooking oil today. Normally this is a good thing, but we must keep in mind that I'm pretty dumb when it comes to doing anything easy.

So I put the oil in the pan, right? So far so good. And I let it heat up a bit, which I figure, you know, normal? And then I toss the hash browns in.

This is where things went wrong.

You see, anybody who took highschool science courses knows that there is an explosive reaction if you submerge something cold in something hot. So in hindsight I shouldn't have been so startled when the frozen hash browns tossed into the sizzling pan burst hot oil all over the place. Luckily I escaped with only some minor burns to my forearm, and a plate full of delicious, delicious hash browns.

No kitten today, which is sad. Hopefully she will come back soon and I can sneak her into my room, where I can have an awesome kitten pet and all the cool kids will be jealous and want to be friends with me and invite me to their parties and-

I mean... hey, kittens rock, amirite?

I'll just be over here....

Out of my way, ladies

I've got a blog to do.


Man I suck at this job. I've had the window open for the blog for a good hour, and then I kept getting distracted.

I got a bunch of games for my R4 and spent some precious time with that today. Also ran into one of the new students from yesterday, so that was cool.

Most of my time not-blogging was taken up with this site: My Brute. My dude (well... chick) is pretty tough, so try your hand and earn me master credits.

Other than that, it was windy as hell today and made me regret living on a mountain. The security staff seems to be flip flopping with whether or not they want to turn the heat off, so it was off for a few hours today and then it started working again. Then again that could just be my sad excuse for a heater doing it all on their own.

I also got harassed by a kitten. I was coming back from the cafeteria and school store when I heard some very loud meowing. I looked all over for where it was coming from, and thought I heard it coming from a room, then was curious for a moment if we are secretly allowed to have pets and nobody told me (the fiends!). Then a calico kitten jumped out of the bushes and proceeded to yell at me in deafening cries for food. So I took out a melon bread and tore off a big chunk for it, and she gobbled it the hell down.

It was actually one of the cats from the top of the hill where I normally get my potato croquettes. It's big enough to wander from its mom now, apparently. I never thought I'd see them running around the campus, though, and considering the dorms are a good deal away from the mountain top... even more surprising. I actually debated shoving it in my bag and taking it to my dorm room for a minute, but I decided against it.

Anyways, since I have my iphone now and that's with me even when my camera isn't, I was actually able to get a picture of the little guy.



Cute, ain't she?

Edit: I just got a message from the main office telling me that since I haven't paid my dorm fees that I can't stay here any longer.

I paid them two weeks ago. I have no idea what's going on right now and that was a lot of money to just go missing.

The message said that if I don't get the money to them by Saturday that I'm going to be evicted from AP House. I'm nervous and I'm not sure what to do. I don't have the money for an apartment downtown.

If this doesn't work out I guess that means I'll be coming home earlier than planned.
April Fool's

Insert Title Here

It was going to be Holy Crap! but apparently I've used that title already. [shakes fist at past self]

First thing's first: I finally uploaded all the pictures! All four hundred and some odd count! Which means I didn't go through and delete the doubles or blurry ones like I was pretending to do! Oh well. They're still up there and you should check a few out, especially the ones of the deer.

Those deer are wicked awesome, yo.

Right, that cultural event. Myself and a bunch of other exchange students (who apparently I knew? Who knew! Well, me I guess) went to Saiki, which is a middle of nowhere city that is probably lower class American suburb sized than it is city sized. Really, no buildings over 3 stories.

We were told to go there by the academic outreach office, and that the event would cost us 1500 yen. We were not told, however, that the ticket to reach there would be itself 1430 yen, each way. And also that the ride was slightly more than two hours.

Also we were given the wrong contact information for the people we were supposed to meet.

Long story short, we made it there, we wandered around the city for a bit, then we managed to get a hold of Funaki-san and he told us the correct number and things went well from there. So well, in fact, that we didn't have to pay the attendance fee and the group agreed to drive us back to Beppu the next day to make up for our inconvenience.

I really hate having people wait on me like that, but it was counteracted by how much I love not spending money, so it worked out in the end.

We were there for 花見(hanami) which is the cherry blossom viewing festival. Well, less of a festival, and more a... you go there. And see the cherry blossoms.

They're pretty?

You're also supposed to drink with friends, and possibly picnic with a significant other (I have neither of those things! Suck it Japan!). We did hang out at the party with random Japanese people and played some games before heading back to the bar that we were staying at. Two of the people I traveled with made us some Korean food for dinner and it was hot damn delicious. I forget the names of them, but it is some unpronouncable foreign gibberish so don't worry about it.

We all struggled (well, two of us did. Everyone else didn't) to speak Japanese with the people hosting us. This one guy (Yoshi) was really interested in my iPhone and the American music on it, so he kept making me play random songs so he could rock out to them. He's an architect, and I refuse to believe that he was sober throughout the entire day. We watched some Imoto (really.... odd Japanese comedy show) and then went to bed on some futons in a drafty room. They offered us the shower, but I didn't really have any clothes to change into considering I wasn't planning on spending the night.

The next morning was the drive back to campus (which was about an hour and a half shorter) and then Funaki suckering us into working the Exchange Student Orientation which is what occupied me today.

So after the previous night where I slept uneasily due to being on the floor and in a strange house, and last night where I slept very little due to having to wake up and be ready at 8 am to do announcements, I was exhausted. But guiding the students went well, so that was fine.

Then we were asked to come back later to give them a tour of the campus.

Oh...

I'll be frank. I don't know the campus that well. There are buildings that I have never been inside, and I still get lost looking for the occasional classroom. So I weaseled my way into combining a huge super group with one of the other guides, and basically just rebounded off of what she was saying and made idle chatter with some of the new students while also trying to answer their random questions. So that went well.

New students are cool, looking forward to this semester already.

I also got my R4 chip for the DS so I can emulate games play multi media formats (totally not a lie, Nintendo). It works pretty dang well. The video quality is nice, there is an e-book program in there (if you want it for some reason). I put a kanji dictionary in it and a bunch of games and played with it while all the dang pictures were uploading. Hell yes hour and a half of Taiko DS!

I think I need to lie down.

The day after the four days

So today I slept in because I deserved it.

Just for being me!

Actually I woke up earlier than the past few days, because I had agreed to go downtown with my friend George. I owed him a drink from earlier in the year, and he convinced me to go out today (by looking at me and saying that we should. I'm very easily convinced).

This resulted in going to a bar and then a yakitori house (that was also a bar) and talking over drinks. Learnt me some interesting stuffs. Apparently in Ghana, suicide is something that is extremely taboo. The three most important events in life are birth, marriage, and death in that country, and according to custom, if you commit suicide then you do not recieve a funeral, and on top of that your family is actually fined and forced to undergo embarrassing rituals.

So yeah, don't kill yourself. Jerk.

I also managed to try chicken gizzard. This was a first. I wasn't even aware that it was edible, and to add to the surprise it's actually pretty darn tasty, if a bit chewy. So that was pleasant.

There was also a bit of confusion afterward that resulted in us getting separated. We both made it back alive, so that's fine. While I was waiting for the bus I managed to find some.... microwave popcorn!

Of course it is in a vending machine that pops it on the spot. No alternatives. And also you are forced to walk around with a Hello Kitty popcorn bag afterward.

So, desperate times, desperate measures. But at the very least, this proves to me that it does exist here, so it's only a matter of time until I come across it. Special thanks to Lauren for mailing me some in the mean time.

There won't be an update tomorrow, because I am doing a cultural exchange of dubious proportions. Provided I wake up in time. I'm pretty bad at that.

I promise I will upload the rest of the photos after I get back, so there's that to look forward to. There may also be other surprises next week. Oh ho ho.