Expect Me When You See Me

Recently, there's been a lot of inappropriate touching going on at onsen for me. I was accosted by this woman at Kirara who wanted to know everything about me including whether I was married and my plans for the future, and she pretty much backed me into a corner of the pool and kept leaning in so close... She was an older woman and I got the weirdest impression she was trying to matchmake me or something but it was disconcerting, especially when you're naked, ne? Then yesterday, I stopped at an onsen in Shimonoseki and this lady actually grabs my hair (to make a point that I should tie it up. I didn't bother trying to explain in Japanese that I usually do, but I forgot my hair tie.). I kinda wanted to be like, "er, personal space, lady?"

Combine this with the time that little old lady felt up my breasts (twice!) and I'm really beginning to wonder about Japan.

I was in desperate need of the massage jets at the onsen since I've been so tense getting everything done that I need to get done. I still need to apply for accommodation at Leeds, but I'm doing that today (had to wait until they got me in their system) which only leaves getting my China visa and my student visa for Britain. Joy.

Since things have died down again, I've been able to go back to writing my book, though I'm not back to a page a day like I was before. Cannot decide if I should kill the giant monkey. I keep thinking it's kinda unfair to slaughter all these creatures just because they're trying to kill my 'heroes'. Not to mention, it's a giant monkey *grin*. One shouldn't kill them unless absolutely necessary. Luckily, have just had an excellent idea. Mwhahaha. I also can't decide if I should invent my own measuring system for the story or just stick to feet/metres/whatever. My instinct is to write 'feet' and not worry about it, but it's not like our measurement systems are based on anything logical and there's no reason a fantasy world would have the same measurements though I've read plenty of books where they don't care, and dear god, I'm anal...

Have been reading Supernatural fic. I find it rather fascinating how it runs the gamut in tone, and yet the pure attempts at humour in the fic falls flat. There's just too much nastiness running underneath anything for any of the usual jokes to be funny (not that that would stop me. I could write a hilarious fic providing you *really* like morbid humour *eg*) Cannot actually decide how I feel about incest in the fandom, or to paraphrase one author's note, "making the main characters brothers to avoid homoerotic subtext only drives the fangirls to deeper levels". I kinda feel sorry for the slashers basically. And did I hunt down all the "John finds out" fics because I'm obsessed with revelation scenes? Yes. Yes, I did.

Finished Barry Hughart's Eight Skilled Gentlemen which is the last of his Ancient China stories, and he somehow managed to get me teary-eyed at the end there (bastard;)). It wasn't as good as the second book, but only because I've grown wise to his plot twists. The theme of the books was definitely that appearances are deceiving and people are always in disguise. Even the narrator wears his peasantry like a cloak. It's nice and makes me want to finish up that short story I'm writing about Emperor Qin.

Japanese reading wise, I'm still in the middle of Yu Yu Hakusho volume 8. It's the middle of the Dark Tournament and I never realized there were so many ways to say technique, defeat, victory, etc. I figure once I get all the vocab down, I'll be able to read any fighting manga easily at least. The other thing I'm reading is a children's book form of Ge ge ge Kitarou which is about a youkai boy with one eye who lives with his youkai friends (including his father who is an eyeball) and protects them from the world and the world from them. I lifted it from my work and I can actually read it without the help of a dictionary since it's mostly hiragana, but it's kinda annoying because sometimes I know the word, but I don't recognize it without the kanji there to boost my memory. This particular story is about aliens landing in Tokyo and the youkai decide to fight them because they smell bad (and over simplification, but a funny one *grin*) I really want to see the recent movie for this series, but I can't afford it. *sigh*

Watching wise, I rented Casino Royale and found it rather refreshing. From the lack of exploitation of women in the opening (yay for exploiting violence instead) to the prelude to annoying catch phrases (Shaken or stirred? Do I look like I care?). The blondness was distracting, but I liked the blue eyes (shallow? what?). Plot was kinda meandering and I'm not sure if they knew where to stop, but it was nice enough. A nice popcorn movie. Good thing I bought some kettle corn, ne?

Monday (5-28-07) was a shopping day since all the museums were closed. We had melon bread for breakfast, then headed to Akihabara. I have it described in my own little guide to Tokyo I made as 'discounted electrical mecca' which led to many jokes about the other type of mecca and perhaps they'd have a gundam for sale? We got there before most of the shops opened so we wandered through a few hobby shops before going into the SEGA arcade. Kirk played Melty Blood while I played Virtual Fighter 5 and we killed time until 10am.

We then visited K-Books, then Mandarake which has a decent toy selection on the 6th floor and a scary amount of hentai doujinshi on the 5th. We wandered to the main street after that and went in a place called ________ comic books which, it turns out, was right next to Animate's Tokyo store. Haul for the morning was Bleach plushies and Saiyuki cards. Kirk bought a Raito from Death Note plushie though what I'd really like is the Ryuuk one that's coming out. Next, we headed to Ginza to see if the Sony Building still had free video games in it (it doesn't. Damn you twice Lonely Planet!), so instead, we had pork cutlets with cabbage salad and miso soup for lunch.

Our final shopping stop was Shibuya in search of yet another branch of Mandarake. We got to the stare at the famous crosswalk outside the station and take lots of pics of the scary amounts of people there. Saw the dog statue, and wandered through HMV. Mandarake is down two flights of stairs that are painted black, making it feel like you're going to a night club and not an anime/manga store.

This was the anime store that had everything. Cels, really, really old manga, new and used manga, toys, action figures, plushies, and, as they put it, "new and used doujinshi for women." My goal for this trip was to find gag DBZ doujinshi, plush any doujin by some of my favourite artists. It was a daunting task since the majority of the doujin isn't collected in books but released in individual chapters books, so you end up pulling a lot of slim books off the shelves. On the plus side, most were only 210 yen so you were free to indulge.

( Doujin babble mostly )

Days 3-5 tomorrow (perhaps...)

In an effort to actually use my super cheap train ticket without putting too much strain on my knee, I headed for Fukuoka (ie Hakata) today. This was my fourth time in the city so I was pretty comfortable with getting around, and I had a good time. My trip was plagued with mechanical failures from the battery on my camera failing (forcing me to buy a disposable camera - so awkward. I've completely forgotten how to use a non-digital display camera) to the headphone hole on my mp3 player developing a loose connection. I bought new headphones to see if that would help and it doesn't. There's a little metal strip that provides a connection deep within the headphone hole and it's not extending far enough any more. I'm not sure what to do about it.

Anyway, once I reached Hakata around 12:30, I picked up a new map (since they decided to change all the street names last year) and headed to Kinnokuniya which is right next door to the station in the bus terminal. They had a ridiculous number of crime novels and I went looking specifically for Victorian ones. I wasn't going to pin my hopes on finding a Sherlock Holmes one (ah, published fanfic) but oddly enough I did. It's called Night Watch and has Sherlock Holmes and a young Father Brown which may or may not be brilliant. I remember getting bored half way through my anthology of Father Brown mysteries but I remember that was due more to the language and a certain repetitiveness of situations, than the character. I figured I'd try it.

After that, I took the subway to around Ohtani park and Fukuoka castle. First though, I stumbled upon a display of the archaeological site of Korokan which was used in the Heian period as a centre of trade. It was free and had a nice brochure in English so it wins many points. The cherry blossoms are just beginning to bloom (a few trees are full, the rest are just buds) but people were out to enjoy some early hanamizu under the cherry blossoms. Consequently, the castle ruins were scattered with couples on dates and drunken people. The weather was gorgeous and the walls were surrounded by gnarly trees and cherry blossoms so it was relaxing.

I made my way towards Ohtani park which is basically a lake with arching bridges and swan boats. I paid a few dollars to get into the Japanese garden there and it was worth every penny. It was the cliche of the traditional Japanese garden in all it's glory. Small waterfalls with streams flowing under tiny arched bridges or stone steps. Multi-coloured carp, obviously chosen for their beauty, wandered around the main pond which was dotted by sculptured topiary and wonderfully shaped bonsai trees. The pond continued as a small stream with stepping stones criss crossing it at points. And when the stream died out, it became a zen garden of rippling stone.

I wandered around in the garden for awhile, then made my way to the nearby Fukuoka City Art Museum which boasts a strange range of artists from traditional Buddhist sculpture to Salvador Dali to Andy Warhol (only one each of the later two, of course). The older art was mostly pottery though I enjoyed the Buddhist sculpture. Of the modern art, it was a bit hit or miss methinks and it was strange to see a gallery where the modern and more traditional art are mingled. I don't have a high opinion of most modern art since it seems too easy *shrugs*

I had fun looking at the Salvador Dali painting. I wrote a report on him once in French class and ever since, I've been unable to see a Dali painting without searching for the hidden genitalia. It was "The Virgin of something something" so I suppose it's not too surprising that I didn't find any penises. I'm pretty sure I found a vagina though, besides the blatant pearl and oyster symbols. Ah, Dali.

I was starting to feel all the walking in my knees at that point, but it was time for the shopping part of my trip since what's the point of visiting a big city with an anime store, without visiting the anime store? Thus, I headed over to Animate where I almost pre-ordered a L plushie, and instead bought a very cute Tamaki dangle thing for my pencil case (I am so turning Japanese), and a doujinshi focusing on the Jounin (a casual scan of it reveals good art and somewhat scary plots including Iruka and Kakashi babysitting a baby, Shikamaru/Asuma (kinda disturbing but the part where Shikamaru's father asks how far they've gotten and Shikamaru casually answers 'C' (we use baseball metaphors, they use the ABC's. No one's ever been able to tell me why...). Or at least it would have been funny if Shikaku hadn't imagined 'C' in the next panel..., Gai in a speedo, Ibiki looking hot and surrounded by flowers, Jiraiya with his genin team including an adorable Yondaime, and kage bunshin sex). My final purchase was a one-shot doujinshi by a group called Honey Canon. Unfortunately, the art on their site doesn't do justice to how beautiful this book is. I bought it just on the cover alone but the inside art is the same quality and tells a sweet little story about Kakashi and Yondaime (and I made it three pages in before I needed a dictionary. yay!).

After Animate, I had to take the subway and walk a bit to get to Canal city, a huge shopping mall. There, I was disappointed to find the shop that sold Maltsers was gone, but I also discovered that in honour of their anniversary, Shonen Jump has opened a shop. This was predictably bad for my wallet seeing as they had a little bit of everything, including pins of every single character in all the popular series and many of the more obscure ones. I ended up with a young Kakashi pin (they had Obito, and Naruto's purse to give you an idea of the selection), a four star Dragonball, and Smoker from One Piece. I would have bought an adorable Urahara plushie but it was part of a prize draw and not for sale. About that time, I realized it was pushing 8 o'clock and if I wanted to get home before the trains shut down, I had to leave soon (it's at least a 2 hour train ride back though in practice it takes longer since they stop the train at places and wait ten minutes here, five minutes there etc.) I stopped by Wendys on the way (there are none where I live) to pick up a frosty and a really delicious ranch cheddar chicken sandwich which was made from a real chicken breast and tasted so good *sigh*

I grabbed the food, jumped on the subway again, ran into the train station and managed to catch a train heading to Moji with a minute to spare. It was a local train which meant it stopped a million times but I eventually got to Moji, where I had to change again, and yet again at Shimonoseki. Shimonoseki was interesting at least since there was a group of drunken college students (perhaps) and they were hilarious to watch. One guy was seriously dressed in pink with a wavy sort of pompadour Mohawk. They also tried to throw each other onto the tracks and the guy in pink actually climbed down onto the tracks as a dare. Needless to say, they had their own car of the train.

So now I'm home and tired and my legs hurt, but it was a good day, and I have the disposable camera pictures to prove it. Ja ne!

20,700 / 80,000 (25.9%)

That counter makes me feel a little better about my book. I love using actual publishing word counts (it gives me an extra 5000 words *L*). Being 25% finished is much better than I expected.

I've been writing like mad recently. It has something to do with being forced to stay at home and the ridiculous amount of free time I have atm. I'm not really sure what type of book I'm writing, but it is interesting, I'll give it that. It'll also be longer than 80,000 words at the rate I'm going.

I've mostly been reading comics recently. I read through the Zelda Ocarina of Time manga, and I honestly wish I'd read it before I played the game since things would have made a lot more sense (It probably isn't helped by the fact that I have ADD when it comes to video games and my usual urge is to wander off in random directions to see what I can see - completely forgetting the bad guy ravaging the land.) I read a short manga called Adult Problems about a boy growing up after his parents divorced because his father is gay. Other than the decidedly weird idea of adopting your lover so they can share your name (since they can't get married) it was a nice story. Am currently reading Hellblazer while catching up on various other Western comics.

Today, at kickboxing, for the first time since I was ten years old, I managed to do a full out sideways split. One of the guys asked me to teach him how to stretch so I took him and his friend through my usual advanced routine (I have to be pretty bored to do it on my own actually). It was after 40 minutes of intensive fighting so I was already pretty lose, and the routine showed that despite the fact that I've only done basic stretches for the past month, I seem to have kept up with everything. It's cool:) The guys were struggling a bit so I told them to stretch like that every day since that's what I started doing years ago (I can't really decide how much my natural flexibility plays into such things.). Though to be fair, the one time I went to a yoga class, I found it extremely easy and was bored. I've met men who can out stretch me easily so it's not like it's impossible.

I've been reading Girl Genius all day. The artist occasionally gets the facial expressions wrong, but the story is interesting and the characters are well developed. I think it could use a bit more exposition, but it's definately worth a read.

Have been catching up on my Naruto manga reading (I'm about two volumes behind at this point). I actually don't have much to say about it other than it kinda feels like reading a fanfic at this point. I'm still reading Snape mentors/is Harry's father stories in the fanfic reading world. I think the irony of the fact that there's enough of these fics to keep me reading for another month or two (and this is excluding the huge number of them I read back when the Severitus challenge first came out) keeps me entertained. The more recent fics that factor in canon facts (while often ignoring the actual canon, thank god) have been pretty entertaining.

Writing wise, I'm going through a "this story is horrible" stage with my book. I think I need some encouragement but I'm not sure how to get it. Meh.

My LJ dungeon has a statue of Neil Gaiman, floors patterned in nihongo (Japanese), and the walls are covered in graffitti about Rincewind and Hikaru no Go. Yep. That's my dungeon all right. ("A wooden sign warns of Yondaime." *cackles*)

Even more fun is going into other people's dungeons and wandering around. Look! ( Ke ke ke )

In other news, turns out French guy was happy so I'll be teaching French once a month from now on. Baby class has taught me how many children's songs I can actually remember and reminded me that I'm pretty good with children. Got to hold one of the babies today. God was he cute. Am glad I only have the class two times next week. I can use the sleep.

Read more Eyeshield21 today and ran out of translated chapters to read *pouts* Also tried the first two chapters of Mr. Fullswing. I'm really not a fan of over the top perverted characters but I may give it a chance since it did have crossdressing in the second chapter.

Am having one of those days where all the children love me. It was so bad that I had trouble getting out of the kindergarten cause the kiddies followed me through the whole school. The kids were especially cute today though and even the special kid thought I was the one to come to with all their problems ("I don't have a red marker!" "I didn't finish drawing!"). I gotta admit I adore the kid who turns every single worksheet I give him into a drawing of a hoard of bug monsters, even if he does tend to lick every single flashcard I hand out...

Later on the kiddie love extended into my final class where the girl was pretty enthusiastic with waving me goodbye and such. I think she was thrilled I was able to tell her that Pumba from the Lion King was a warthog in English. *L*

On Thursday, I think I shocked my class when I had read more Death Note than they had *L* Found out the movie only goes up to Light and L's first meeting and that there's a second part coming out. In the meantime, I have to read more. Amusingly, one of the guys there spent the weekend reading the series and had the same problem I've had with getting bogged down by the plot in the second part.

Weather here is the rainy season, or so my students keep warning me, and yet it's not all that bad. It does rain pretty heavily for a day or two, but I can't say it fazes me after living in Edinburgh for so long. It's also the coolest June I've experienced outside of Edinburgh. I'm used to having an air conditioner running full tilt by this point. As it is, I've only had to turn mine on a few times and on the dehumidfier setting.

Tomorrow, I can book the Shinkansen tickets for my trip to Kyoto/Nara in August. I dearly hope I can get it all worked out and such using my limited Japanese... Other than that, it's an easy day since I don't have my early morning class which is good since I'm planning on going to kickboxing then out to a club with the girls. I shall have to describe more of it after the fact since I've been forbidden to give out details beforehand *L* It promises to be humid so kickboxing will be a bitch, but I refuse to let that stop me.

I suppose I didn't bother to post about it, but I ripped off a layer or two of skin on both my toes at kickboxing on Wends. and also pulled the muscle on the top of my right foot (from kicking) so now I'm going to have to seriously wrap my toes up before training and try not to reinjure the right foot muscle (which is kinda stiff atm, but only barely twinges and should be all right for tomorrow). They had me fighting a lot near the end, I think because everyone else was tired from the first half hour I missed, and also cause there were new members and they wanted to show off their one female/foreign member. Even if I'm quite slow and I suck compared to any of them.

I love the latest issue of Amazing Spiderman, and all the latest issues of Civil War for that matter. I'm in a state of post-revelation glee even if I think the whole situation is contrived and poorly defined, not to mention the various authors could afford to talk to each other a bit more.

In the meantime, I've been reading through Spider-man from the beginning and I'm afraid I've had to stop reading through all the narration parts and just stick to dialogue so I don't break into peals of laughter from the campiness. I was kinda surprised by how many classic spidey villians show up in the first twenty issues. Somehow in a series with so much history, I expected the villians everyone knows to be introduced over a much longer time period.

Read Busou Renkin, from the creator of Rurouni Kenshin, for the first time today. Wasn't too impressed. (I've only read the first chapter so I'm not bothering to spoiler cut.) It read like a cross between Bleach and FMA, with the main character played by a male Misao (from Kenshin). The art was excellent as usual with crisp lines and nice detail but the character designs were pretty plain all things considered. Suppose I'll read more someday, but it really doesn't make you want to. I think I'd have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read Bleach and FMA first, or you know, really enjoyed what he did with Kenshin.

Naruto's latest chapters were rather lowkey, and I'm glad Kakashi wasn't saying anything important for two chapters because I was completely distracted by the fact that he was hiatate-less and sleeveless and reading a book (two of my favourite things) for the whole time. I also get the impression that Sai is a lot more amusing in the original Japanese. Oh, and Ino? Sasuke might not be gay *cough*, but Sai definately is.

Read the first couple of chapters of Bowling King. I understand the manga is from Taiwan but I noticed little difference between that and Japanese manga other than it was a bit more rude in places (what is with foreign manga and rudeness? I noticed the same thing with Threads of Time (which is Korean).) Pretty typical shonen manga - leecherous boy sees a girl he adores. Sets out to save her from the evil mafia guy by winning a bowling competition, only problem being it's his first time bowling. Problem being solved by him being a bowling prodigy and having a really strong left arm. Only really entertaining thing is the random costumes the main guy changes in to all the time, especially since the other characters break the 4th wall and comment on them.

Eyeshield21 continues to be its insane, crazy self. Makes me sorry I've been ignoring it for awhile, but it makes it more fun when I get to read a lot of chapters all in one go.

In other, non-manga news, the recaps of America's Next Top Model on TWOP are almost as addictive as the show itself. I am both ashamed and entertained.

Right now, lounging around in my summer yukata, my ample cleavage showing quite clearly, I look like a lady of the night. Would that I were awake enough to care. Today, eight classes and kickboxing on top of my period exhausted me. Classes were okay, and in fact went well. I had a trial class with two very smart three and four year olds. Thing is, the older girl was a total brat, calling me a "shitty hag" and other things. The weird thing being that my child magnetism was definately working since she spent all the time after the class trying to kancho me (my first kancho attempt. yay? no). It's cute how they think they're being sneaky, but you do really have to keep aware.

My Japanese studying this week involved me looking up every adjective on the list for the JLPT 3 and making flashcards. I'm quite proud of myself with them since I made them with hiragana on the front for the ones I don't know, and just kanji for those I do. I'm making an effort to use as many of them as possible in conversation now *L* Of course, I got depressed when my student today watched me go through them and knew all the english definitions of the ones I didn't *le sigh*

Signs of manga addiction: Was chatting with one of my students about him playing tennis and he mentioned how he was beaten by this high school student who was left handed and I could help but mention how much that sounded like POT. heh. Was told on wendsday that the Dragonball manga is tough for even the Japanese to read because of all the weird kanji Toriyama uses. Consequently, have decided to give up on it for awhile and go read YYH instead.

Must get some sleep. Probably hitting up an onsen tomorrow. Yay for onsen. Ja ne!

I had the horrible misfortune this week of discovering both an ice cream that tastes exactly like a melon gellatti, and the most perfect ice cream sandwich I've ever eaten (for less than 50 cents too). This is a very bad thing.

Life is pretty good. I had two less classes today. One just because and one because my student didn't show up, so it was surprisingly relaxing. And someone gave me a bag of microwave popcorn, which is always good. *L* I continue to be amused by how much Japanese I end up using in my afternoon class on saturdays. I nearly spoke as much Japanese as I did English today, though that was mostly because I was trying to explain health concepts.

In other news, you have no idea how thrilled I was to finally find a kanji I'd been looking for. It wasn't in my own dictionaries or online, so I resorted to the dictionaries at my work, and lo and behold, I found it in this monster of a book. Turns out it was a suffix and was part of a word ("heated battle") which taken out of context could mean many things, but was actually just refering to a fight in Dragonball. Speaking of Dragonball, I think I scared my high school student today when I discussed the plot of DBZ in depth with him. *L* I was very amused last night when the secretary of the school called me to inform me my car was being fixed and did so entirely in Japanese. I've taken to writing down each new kanji I encounter (and think I'll be able to, or need to remember) so it's been interesting how my vocabulary is growing.

Tomorrow, a bunch of us teachers are heading off to Fukuoka, or more specifically, Costco *L* It should be fun, if slighty confusing.

Just watched Dr. Who - The Girl in the Fireplace. Quite enjoyed it actually. Very scifi, even if clockwork men are so overdone.