It's been nearly three full years that I came to Japan, but this was the very first time I went out drinking with this group of people. Sad enough, it was a farewell get together for two of my seniors, Osanai-san and Honma-san, who will be starting their teaching career in Kobe this April.
Mai, Honma-san, Osanai-san
Osanai-san, Noguchi-san and Na-chan
Saito-kun, Ko-san and Kameoka-san
Coming to think of it, these seniors (including those who are still left in school and those who'd moved on far before this) were actually the people who helped me greatly on my very first year here at Kyoto University. Without these people, I don't think I would have come this far. They might not realize it, but it's true. Being in a country that I could barely speak the language, they saw me through those barriers. I'm really happy that I've gained some much skills in Japanese communication that I could possibly enjoy our conversation to the point that I'd never imagined or hoped for. It felt good to be able to, at last, exchange ideas, thoughts, lifes and all other things among them (but man.. it took me all these THREE years!!!) Above that, it was great to finally get the feel of what kind of thoughts they had on me. It does mean a lot. Thank you for being very open and supportive - this extends to all my other seniors that were not there at the party last night too. :)
Osanai-san and Honma-san: eventhough you are leaving, please come back and visit when you have time k! 今後もよろしくお願いいたします。m(_ _)m
After it has been budding for so long, finally, Sakura has started blooming!
March 16: only sakura buds
It has been a good feeling for Spring, except that I slightly have the hayfever! Ick.. ick! I'm sure in a few days time, everywhere will turn so beautiful with full bloom sakura. Definitely, I will go somewhere to enjoy this natural beauty. Meanwhile, here is a picture from last year.
To remind myself that life is full of beautiful things, here are photos of my planted Tulip! My first time ever to put my hand on planting flowers. Seeing it blooms is just as seeing the beauty of coming life. :)
on March 6, I don't remember exactly when I first planted it, but some time in mid-Feb
Cho, my Taiwanese friend, is leaving Japan upon her graduation. She and I was accepted into the same host family with KAHF (Kyoto Association of Host Families) Program. We ride on this chance made our second visit to Yoshida-san's place near Biwa Lake.
I haven't met Yoshida-san in a really long while. We don't even remember when our last met was, but most likely nearly 2 years ago. Gosh.. that long! This time, Cho brought another friend, Yo, a Taiwanese who was accepted into the care of Yoshida-san too. We had a really fun day getting to know each other. Also, Yoshida-san kindly introduced us to her neighbors who just got involved with KAHF - Matoba family and Sakae-san. I could barely believe how much we talked today. Truly, it was another fun time.
Ringing the bell of Yoshida-san's house
wine opening
chicken and fries
Gratan
pumpkin salad
Mai, Yo, Yoshida-san and Cho, before our lunch
with Matoba family (Yoko-chan and the mother)
afternoon sakura drink
Farewell Cho too. I'm sure we will meet again somewhere! ;-)
This morning when I was still lying on my bed watching TV, I felt as if the bed was shaking. Glancing over to the dangling lamp in my room which was also swinging slightly, I realized it was the earthquake. "It must have been a big one", I thought to my self.
There was just a news clip about Nagano Earthquake yesterday. It has already been two and a half years since then. I never felt the quake again around where I live inbetween these periods of time. This morning, only a few minutes after the quake, every TV channels appeared with earthquake news. The magnitude was marked 6.9 point on the Japanese scale. (I have no idea of the equivalence on the regular Rickter scale though.)
The thing is.... the center of this quake is said to be offshore from the northern part of Ishikawa Prefecture. Wajima, a town in which I did my homestay program during Japan Tent, is severely damaged in a lot of parts (see pictures). The phoneline must have been cut off cuz I just couldn't get my line through to my host family's. I know that they are safe, but just worry of how they are doing. I have been looking for them in earthquake rescue news, but still couldn't find them (-"-). Also, Niida family in Kanazawa. I'm sure you can feel the strong quake. I lost your phone number somewhere and so couldn't get in touch with you. If you are reading my blog, please send some words, k! Hope everything is ok.
Yet, another year has passed. I still remember well today of last year. Congratulations to all graduates! Kyoto University's Ph.D.: P'Gap and Oat (ASAFAS); P'Golf, P'Ploy & Ball (Engineering); Aye+ (Med) M.A. : Wan (Econ-biz); Joe & Yam & Nott (Engineering) Kyoto Seika University's M.A. ; P'Chompoo (I hope I don't miss out anyone!)
2 out of these people are our graduate :)
Do you want a graduation album?
commencement atmosphere
Japanese Hakama - the graduation gown
P'Ploy & the girls
our graduates!
and another graduate
lastly, with my Japanese senior: Osanai-san 卒業おめでとうございます。京都を離れてもまた８研に遊びにでも来てくださいね。（＾＾）
Also, congratulations to Palang, Ae+, O, N'Ling+ and a few other from Osaka University. Then, P'Ni, Nui~ and others from TIT & Tokyo U. too na ka!
My first and the only time to Universal Studio Japan was the summer of the year it first launched, which I think was in 2001. I don't know why I never really felt like going back there again. The chance and will came when Pun, my BE friend, came for a visit.
Pun, P'Ton and I rode on the train together and met N'Best at the Park Entrance. It was freezing cold that day! Sometimes it rained, sometimes it turned sunny, sometimes it was windy.
The ticket to the park was 5800 yen for one whole day. I didn't realize there is no such 'fast pass' here at USJ as there was in Disneyland. They actually sell them in booklet! Without getting one, we had to spend so much time lining up for each rides.
Wait-time @ Back to the Future Ride
Even with that, we managed to get on quite a number of attractions.
Jurassic Park The Ride
Jaws (credit: Pun)
Shrek, 4D Theaters
The Musical Wicked Show
Spiderman, the ride
Classic E.T. Adventure
I still think we spent more time in lines than at the attractions! My favourites would be Spiderman ride and Shrek, the 4D Movie. Jurassic Park wasn't bad either. There was also the newest ride called "Hollywood Dream The Ride" which was opened only a few weeks back that we didn't get on. The line at times wasn't that bad, but it was too cold!!
Then we also walked around the park taking photos.
lovely kids
Land of Oz
Look at the hats!
New York Zone
street crossing
Dinner -- Can't resist going to Hard Rock Cafe which is located right in the front of USJ. Yum~~~ :)
I intended to keep all winter sport trips for this season in one blog, that's why I never wrote about them earlier. I don't know if my decision is right cuz I think I ended up having too many photos to post. But well, we try to keep them concise. The rest, visit my flickr album!
Trip#1: [2007.02.03-04: Tsugaike Kogen, Nagano] :accommodation: Albint Inn (close to Gondola Station) :rental: Spicy Rental :members: Mai, P'Au+, Nott, Chadin, Woody, Lar, Nhong, Bee, Kee and Pe~ (total of 10 people) My first trip for this season. We picked to go to Tsugaike Kogen. Trips in February is usually very expensive since it's the spring break holiday (yes, it's so-called Spring!) But we managed to get a package that was still affordable. We left, as usual, on Friday night, spent a night on the bus, reached the ski resort early morning of Saturday. Then, put our stuff in the hotel, changed our gear and headed out for equipment rental and ready to get some fun. Our hotel (well, actually lodge) was quite close to the slope, but I think people there had some kind of attitude that wasn't so nice for their guests. The weather was PERFECT! I meant it. It hasn't been snowing for a while and we were afraid for bad slope condition. It turned out that the resort was hit by snow for a few days in a row before our arrival. So we had completely new quality snow of about 10-20 cm with clear sunshine day.
Pe and Bee were our newbies for snowboarding, so we spent the first morning in a chill-chill way. It was so funny to see beginners like them perform sooooo incredibly well once I took out my VDO camera. :) On the other hand, falling was not restricted to only beginners. We all had some shots like this too (see below)
name unrevealed...(but please look at the outfit!) haha
the VDO mentioned above
The next thing we realized, before lunch time, Pe's was already on the snowmobile! What a great excuse to ride that instead of snowboarding down the hill!! tsk tsk!
great snowmobile ride
After our KFC lunch, we splitted in groups, leaving Chadin and Bee to go on our Olympic training with Coach Lar+ as usual. Welcome Woody on board the team for the first time! Coach was accompanied by Kee who seemed not to like the word "breaking" or "stopping", making the rest of the team members so exhausted. Nhong and I snowboarded at the same speed, so we are always buddies when we go snowboarding.
the two powerful skiier&snow boarder
snowboard fight!!!
Nott & Nhong
The second day, we also had perfect weather. It snowed during the night time and the sky cleared up in the morning, allowing us to enjoy new snow in bright sunlight. We could see Hakuba Iwatake and Hakuba Happo Kogen Ski resorts from Tsugaike Kogen. Happo looks sooooo tempting, though I heard from a friend that they have tiring trails. Maybe next year!
It's Tsugaike! (this sign came with the national ski competition which was held on Sat)
Trip#2: [2007.02.18: Ice Skate @ Hirakata Park, Osaka] ::credit to Pote for all photos from Hirakata Park:: ::members:: Bee, Lar, Chadin, Nhong, Mai, Pote, P'Au+ & Kee
Just for a change, we went ice-skating! I also went to this very Hirakata Park's ice square last year with Bow and Pear. (the birdy dancing uncle and the two pro-look kids were still there at the ring this time!!) Please remember there is McDonald's inside the park!! I forgot there was food there, so we had to suffer eating something not so good in front of the park instead.
It was Sunday that we went. The crowd was just toooooo much. We barely had room to move. And when we were in the center of the ring, there were people cutting across, so we couldn't really do much. There was a nice uncle who seemed to come skating so often. He saw me and Nhong trying to do some moves, so he came to teach us. Now I can make backward circles!! yippee~!! It was nice having someone to learn something together cuz it really helps with the speed of learning :) I didn't bring out my camera, so every photos from this trip were of p'Au's and Pote's. P'Au's brought his fish-eye lense which we really enjoyed so much. (see the Kyoto Doc collection)
Trip#3 [2007.03.01-04: Niseko's Grand Hirafu, Hokkaido] ::accommodation:: Lodge Kuropokuru ::rental:: (forgot the name -"-) ::members:: 22 people - Tokyo: P'Ni, Nui~, Jib, N'Pook, P'Bao', N'Som~, Job, Vee (8) - Nagoya: Ae~, Roong~, Pete, Ping~ (4) - Osaka: Palang, Poy, Moo+, N'Gift, N'Or (5) - Kyoto: Mai, Nott, Yok, Donut, Ball (5) ** thanks Palang for the trip arrangement **
beautiful view of Mt.Yotei (from the top of Hirafu)
Below is the map of Niseko's Grand Hirafu's slope. Our lift tickets allow us to ski/snowboard the whole areas on this map except for the farleft area (to the left of the bending line). The slope opens from 8:30 - 20:00. The tickets earn us automatic permission to access the slope for night skiing, which was really cool (and much like the US standard). Niseko town's people can speak fluent English since roughly half of skiier/snowboarders are non-Japanese, most of which were Australians.
map of Niseko's Grand Hirafu Ski area
The trip was composed of a mixture of us from Kanto, Nagoya and Kansai areas. Most of us spent 2 overlapping nights together in which we were able to enjoy some fun activities together. Thanks Nui, Vee and P'Ni for preparing the Wii, remote controls and projector. We had fun trying out the Nintendo's Wii games! It was truly addictive!! =P
great snow up there
Niseko is famous for snow powder in which, yes, I loved the touch of it. But it was quite disappointing that there wasn't much snowfall which resulted in a not-so-good snow quality this year. In the upper mountain, the snow was still very great. However, at the bottom, especially by the end of the day, most parts turned into sorbet-like wet snow that was quite yucky.
waiting for group members along the way
There were a lot of us that most of the time we had to split into groups. While I was teaching nong nong, there were these Milo kids who took private ski lesson that really caught my attention. I saw them since before they got on the ski lift. Then while I was on the slope, I saw them coming down in line with their instructor at the front, sometimes like flying airplanes. They were just so adorable! I admire how these instructors have the psychology to plays with the kids. :)
Milo kids
captured by p'Ni
It was quite a relax trip this time, if compared with our usual exhaustive Olympic training with Coach Lar+. =P But man... it was still quite an exercise for my leg muscles anyways.
since my outfit stays unchanged, you have to look at snowboard colors to be able to distinguish which trip it was! =P
Trip#4 [2007.03.10-11: Hakuba Goryu&47, Nagano] ::accommodation:: White House Hotel ::rental:: Woody Rental ::members:: Mai, P'Au+, Nott, Chadin, Woody, Lar, Nhong, Bee, Kee, Donut, Yok, P'Ton, Best, Pote + Poy&Moo+ (total of 14+2 people)
Our last trip of the season was just this past weekend! 14 of Kyoto people got together to leave on the Friday night bus, while Poy and N'Moo of Osaka joined us only on Sunday. (<-- meaning they spent Sat&Sun nights on the bus and only skiied/snowboarded for a day!)
We got an accommodation right on the slope, that we basically could ski/snowboard to the hotel entrance. Really cool! It was the hotel, so yes... beds, not futons. The funny thing was that they didn't have a cafeteria. The room was more like a pension style equipped with kitchen and dining area. All (fresh) food was served in the room and we made hot-pot for dinner that day. We had fun in a way though :)
Our pass permits us everywhere on this slope. Our most favourite place is the longest red line toward the right side of this map. The snow condition for the first day wasn't that good eventhough it had been snowing in the past few days before our arrival. However, it wasn't as bad as I imagined it would. The weather was VERY hot that we didn't really need the heavy winter jacket (but too bad, we had them on anyways.)
behind the scene of our photos on the slope. Coach must have been very strict that Chadin turned out like this! =P
The second day was a total opposite. Snow storm hit the slope on Saturday night, leaving us with brand new snow of approx. 20 cm or more. Even after the storm had passed, we still ended up with fairly strong wind the whole second day that lifts toward the top of the mountains were all out of operation. We got stuck at the top of the highest lift for a while before the sky cleared up a bit and allowed us to make our path down the mountains. We, then, moved ourselves to the 47 side and sticked to the red line which Coach Lar+ had our Olympic Training! Yok, Donut and Pote moved back to Goryu side and splitted with us since then.
to save time and energy, we moved our luggage by snowboarding / skiing down the slope to put them in lockers at Escal Plaza after hotel check-out, instead of walking down the road
turning our backs to the wind
Since then, we didn't really bring out our cameras for photo shooting. The VDOs we have are way too large to put on youtube. But if you got to see them, I'm sure you'd laugh. =P Btw, Coach.... who passed your final exams?? =P (There were 8 of us. Take a guess who's who!)
::lesson learned:: you don't need great skills to enjoy this kind of sport. But you definitely need to have good speaking skills to enjoy the most part of it! <-- "I'm lovin' it"
returning our equipments, calling the end of this winter season
