拓羅寿イン東京

髪型

douglasintokyo — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:03:35 +0000

My new haircut has grown into a bit more of a hairstyle now – I have given in to pressure and hereby am giving you a photo of me, right now! Excuse the cheesy grin.

That BIG thing behind me is the air-con in my room. The little fan over my left shoulder is a fan I got given in Akihabara by a random person giving them out on the street … speaking of which, I want to go there again soon … it’s been a while. For those interested, the mysterious characters that adorn it are advertising ear digs. Like, things you can buy to clean your ears. Nice, right!

Tokyo Snippets

douglasintokyo — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:47:05 +0000

Hello there! I had a bit of time free this evening so I thought I’d do a blog post … although as my classmates will understand, I really haven’t been doing much recently aside from living between my dorms and uni, doing work >_<

That said … a few things which might amuse!

Firstly … my current favourite items of footwear, which I only really feel safe wearing in Asia!

They’re rather amazing right!!! I love them … they’re so warm and squidgy!!

Ok, secondly, my new favourite magazine here is called Choki Choki (チョキチョキ) so I thought I would show you some photos … GQ it is not! Also it is really a specialist hair magazine …

So yes … there are a few pages that I thought were interesting There’s also a big two page spread advertising this sort of special body suit you can wear that claims to be able to increase a person’s height by 15 cm in 3 months … although that sounded rather dangerous to me!

Ok, this amused me too, it’s a sort of ‘how to look like a foreigner’ kit.

I wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or not … I’m sure you couldn’t buy the ‘look like a Japanese person’ equivalent of this in the UK though! A bit shocking! But amusing.

Recently, it has been much colder here too … and naturally this means that the vending machines start selling more hot drinks – here is my favourite! They have lots of vending machines here, outside mostly, every street has them all along it!

… and finally, my first complete manga set! This is Death Note … I am going to go to Akiba to scout out some more manga some time, obviously I will get a lot more before I leave!!

I hope this finds everyone well!

20 degrees in November!

douglasintokyo — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:25:09 +0000

Hallo~! As predicted, as I have so many classes, my blogging has been not as avid as it was when I first arrived … sorry about that!

It’s Sunday afternoon, I’m just having a little break writing this before I get back to my work. It’s funny really, I seem to do little else! Saying that, I did go have my hair done at a Harajuku salon last week, which was good! I actually got a postcard from my hairdresser a couple of days after, which was so SWEET! I realise they do it for everyone, but still! It was really cool!

I went with one of my good Japanese friends to Nihonbashi yesterday – we always have lots of work, but it’s fun changing the place where we are working at least! Except … we ended up walking to Ginza by accident, but there was a nice café there that we found so we could work there just as easily!

So yes, that is sort of the shape of my life at the moment – it feels that I do very little apart from work, but I try to find new places to go and work, to make it more interesting! I am in Tokyo after all, it’s a big place – lots of options for study-cafés!

Life at Waseda

douglasintokyo — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:50:24 +0000

Nearing two months in Japan!

Firstly, I realise that I haven’t posted anything for ages! Sorry about that! When I first arrived, I had lots of time to go places and take lots of photos and things, but obviously now University is fully underway I have less and less time for that – I’m having an amazing time though!

I have 21 hours of Japanese lectures a week, which is about twice as much as I had in Edinburgh *shock* but then in Edinburgh I suppose we got more homework, marginally I am glad though really, I think it’s good for me to be doing lots of Japanese! All the classes are taught in Japanese which is helpful, and some of them have volunteers from the University who come in and, well, for example I had a guy in my writing class help me go through my essay (all about Amy Winehouse haha!) and make it more Japanesey and generally better! We also have a class in Keigo, which is super-polite Japanese, which is barely used in day-to-day life, just in really formal situations.

I “only” have two 9 o’clock starts, my others are 1pm, 10.30am, and 1pm … some of my friends actually have lectures on Saturday morning too, but thankfully I don’t have any of those!! I’m not going out clubbing and partying that much, but I’m so obsessed with actually getting better at Japanese that I don’t mind! Anyone who has lived abroad will know that if you’re in a place where even going to buy groceries is an adventure, it doesn’t matter if you aren’t out clubbing and partying aaaaall the time!

At first I was finding it all really really hard, which I guess is understandable, but gradually I think I’m starting to adjust to the level although it was a big jump from the Japanese I was doing last year obviously! There are so many Asian people on our course, and they of course you see have a very good knowledge (mostly) of Chinese characters. Whilst this does mean that sometimes they are prone to insert Chinese words into Japanese essays, or Japanese words that they can’t pronounce properly, it still means that they have the edge when it comes to comprehension, with reading at least. That’s the hardest thing at the moment, kanji kanji kanji.

All that said, I’m trying to adjust my Uni work schedule to spending about 35% of my study time per week on kanji, as I think that is the thing that will help improve my confidence the most – not so much the kanji themselves, but compounds. I have a kanji class with weekly tests, about 120 words a week, which is quite a lot on top of everything else :S

So yes, all in all, lots of work, social life suffering a little bit, but I’m not being a complete hermit, going on little ’study dates’ and what not – it’s all very fun and educational! I do also have the prospect of two months holiday at the beginning of next year which is rather exciting!

That, and also one of my friends from the last time I was here (when I was 16) is coming to see me from Kobe in November, I’m really excited about seeing him again! Last time I saw him he was doing a homestay in England – I spoke to him on the phone the other day, in Japanese (teehee!) and he was very complimentary which whilst probably largely flattery was nevertheless encouraging!

There we go, a little bit of an update! I would write about something other than work, but genuinely, I do relatively little else *heehee* I will try and think of an anicdote or two for next time!

(^_^v)

Ginza at Night 銀座の夜景

douglasintokyo — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:38:57 +0000

Ginza at night … I took some photos! Kind of speak for themselves, I love it! I love even more that it takes me like 20 minutes to get there!

Izakaya居酒屋

douglasintokyo — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 07:31:24 +0000

I realise it’s Sunday now but, on Friday we had an International Society gathering at an Izakaya (sort of like a bar/restaurant … except you take your shoes off and things) and I had a few pictures on my camera so I thought I’d pop them up here!

Typhoon day

douglasintokyo — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:00:14 +0000

The day of the typhoon everything sort of crunched to a standstill, so we went on a walk from where we live (Nishiwaseda) to Harajuku, via Shinjuku, taking pictures along the way! Here we go!!

Maid Cafes メードカフェ

douglasintokyo — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:28:41 +0000

Yodobashi Akiba

douglasintokyo — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:57:48 +0000

Having a cold in Japan…

douglasintokyo — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:35:08 +0000

It is seen as polite to wear such a mask as this, in all common spaces… so I am! It’s hot, right? …

… webcam quality picture, but, you get the idea.