i hate brinkster because my website is now officially dead.

i am currently too stunned out of my mind to bitch about it, but at the back of my head, i'm thinking it might be alright...i haven't lost any of the pictures, the template's just empty...maybe it's an indication that it's time to move on, time for a change, start something new. i'm thinking i'll stick up some japan scenery especially the gorgeous statutes!

ames' has already offered to design a new webpage for me, afterall, last time she designed an amazing blog page but the url was all messed up so it didn't work out...i have full confidence in her to pull of something spectacular!

anyway, i can't dwell on this right now cuz i'm supposed to be *studying* hahahaha....

guess who's going to the evanescence concert july 18th?!?!?!?! *point fingers at me* i'm so excited! i haven't gone to a concert since coldplay last summer, so this will definitely be a treat! oh, and just on the offside, their new music video, everybody's fool is just amazing...bashing the overly materialistic/capitalistic north american culture...i love their music videos.

i'm definitely tired and moody right now...human beings are such weird creatures, it's hard to figure them out. and you know what? i'm not going to try to because i can barely figure myself out...and until that happens, it looks like everyone else is on their own. don't count on it happening any time soon....

i am soooooo sore from yesterday! (that's right...wink wink! hahaha) nah, i played hockey with the fisherville guys at rockford park (picture little miao playing with 7 other big boys...yeh, i thought so...i can't play hockey!) as soon as i got on the court, jacob decided he wasn't going to look where he was slapsticking the puck, and of course it ended up on me...but the guys are tons of fun, and it does bring back memories of me and the elmsley boys in first year!

i also witnessed the most psycho crazy event today: i randomly ran into my friend, tim, in queen's park (after randomly running into miguel, and cramer at st. mikes) and he was just so stoked about fixing up his bike from spare junk yard parts...and he was telling me about the difference between a spoke and a mag (it's a plastic wheel) and how he was missing a mag for his front tire...yada yada yada...and we were heading over to check out his place where he lives with mike around spadina station when he randomly spied a homeless guy with a wagon...with two wheels...one of them being a mag...and he stopped the homeless dude and asked him if he wouldn't mind exchanging his mag for a spoke...it was so cool! i witnessed this kid take apart, switch, and reassemble his bike wheel and the guy's wagon wheel!

that among other things...i finally met up with tarik and hashim, (this is where i insert that tarik is such a girl! he says he'll be there at 2pm and saunters into starbucks at 4:30pm....rat bastard!...i made him make it up to me by buying me a coffee, and then walking me to the subway station! hahaha!) and of course, they were just complete farts the whole time! it's funny how everytime we're talking, tarik feels the need to inject omar into everything...i'm convinced that he's trying to hook us up! what i don't understand is why he doesn't think i should like hashim! ;p

and the best guy i saw today was mr. joe fazz himself! i think i caught him at a bad moment, as he was trying to bum a ciggie off some lady when i knocked on the glass window next to him and started blowing kisses at him! (priceless!)

oh summer time spells good times!!

i personally am not a huge hockey fan, but i don't have any problems jumping on the bandwagon during the playoffs. last night was no exception. jacob called me out to watch the flames play at o'grady's with his buddies, so i invited brendan out as well and well...we were a great rowdy bunch!

the long and short of it: jacob went upstairs to play pool with cathy and mike, and while he was away, i finished the rest of my ale(some alcoholic cider...sweet and easy to drink) , and steve decides that i HAVE to have a refill (afterall, who nurses ONE drink all night...especially when the guys ordered 2 team pitchers?!?!?) needless to say, i chugged the last part of the glass (to steve and brendan's disbelief) and then when jacob came downstairs, he couldn't believe it either, so of course to prove that i DID, i chugged the rest of HIS glass too.

drunk now, the subway ride home was pure shits and giggles...jacob, steve and i COULD NOT STOP LAUGHING the whole time! the guys decided that the one-sided plexy glass on the subway conductor's door was really a mirror and the conductor REALLY COULDN'T see what they were doing...steve and i broke the seal earlier before we left o'grady's so we were both like "i hafta pee sooooo bad!" by the time we got to bloor, and then jacob decided that he was going to buy chocolate and candy, but he knew that i didn't eat either...so he bought me an apple strudel...a really sweet gesture...except that when you buy one of those at 12am, it's quite STALE...hahahaha, i took a couple of bites before i succumbed to the grossness and jacob ate the rest! at finch station jacob and steve decided to sing happy birthday to me (which they were doing periodically on the subway) from outside of the ladies washroom, and there was another drunk lady in there, and SHE started singing to me too! the guys thought it was me at first, and when they realized that it wasn't...they decided to hide in the guys washroom till i came out!

i was sooooo going to kick jacob's ass if i was hungover this morning...but seeing as i'm good, i'm jetting off to class! whoo! i should do this more often....

well it's been proven...i have delayed reaction.

we went out to dinner and ordered fried eggplant in a hot pot, and when the hot pot came, the waiter was having difficulty opening the lid, so OF COURSE i had to be retarded and think i could give him a hand by holding down the handle so he could pull it of. but OF COURSE the HOT pot is made of IRON and was HOT AS HELL...but OF COURSE there was the DELAYED REACTION and didn't realize how freaking HOT it was UNTIL it was too late.

i now have a circular depression on my thumb and a red ouchy depression on my pointer finger. you'd think i'd have learned from my last burning (last time i burned my pointer finger on the toaster oven...hey...same pointer finger!) but clearly i did not. *sigh* some things you NEVER learn...

well, in lieu of that...i went for a morning jog this morning and had my senses assaulted with nature (this is a GOOD thing). there were pine trees laden with raindrops, they looked like teardrops off weeping lashes...sooooo pretty. and then there was this scallawag squirrel that was sitting comfortably on this tree branch that was extended over the road...i actually almost didn't see it until i was UNDER it. it wasn't scared at all, it could have shat on me for all it cared (thank goodness it didn't)...and the BEST part about my jog was when i rounded a curve, i was confronted with a road that was no longer there. the rains from the weekend had flooded the road completely! i don't think the water was THAT deep that i couldn't run through it, but it was also enough that i'd be splashing through, as well i'd get my feet wet, and that is SUCH a NONO for running...plus because the road had become a lake, there were all these families of geese and their offspring that were just swimming around the little 'lake'.

actually, before i forget...when you run on the road, you have to be SOOOO careful of where you are running, so you don't crunch the snails that are on the warpath! later in the summer, there's always a patch of road that are almost COVERED in snails, there's only a few now...but when i say warpath...i mean that they are OUTTA THEIR SHELL and moving at a pace that you can say they're even moving! i'd hate to accidently step on them...that would totally suck for them! but yeh, anyway, they totally reminded me of this drawing grace once drew...it was something about a warrior snail...i can't really remember but i found it HILARIOUS! grace, you gotta post your warrior snail picture cuz i want to see it again!

oh, and we went to niagara falls today. i've been there a million times, and there's really nothing interesting anymore, perhaps they've added a couple more crazy fun houses and stuff on clifton hill, and maybe they made some of the little sketchy motels into something fancier...but other then the supposed 'drug bust' in the parking lot, there was niagara falls, casino niagara (btw, it was the FIRST time i'd been in a casino...i was carded THREE times today, clifton hills, niagara-on-the-lake....yeh...stuff.

my starbucks tall chai latte with soy cost $6.27. i think i had a heartattack before i recovered...thank goodness dad won money at the slot machines! ;p

oh wow...my computer just died on me.

i was chatting on msn with a couple of ppl...and there was this weird smell, like something was molding or something had died behind my computer....and then it died.

it turned off, and i was like "wtf?!?!?" and tried to turn it on again, but it was officially dead. which sucks ass because dad took this goddamn thing to the shop while i was in japan to clean up the viruses that overtook it....and i bet you they rigged it so that it would explode and i'd have to take it back! *shakes angry fist at dead computer*

so i'm on ames' comp now...thank goodness she's working tonight!

oh, before i forget...today was the first time that i ate in the CN Tower restaurant (the 360). it was really cool to see toronto from up above, cuz it definitely gives it a different perspective to when i'm walking around the city on foot. i just had a blast! and the best part was the fact that it was all free! (ie, i didn't have to pay for it! thanks dad! ;p)

oops...ames' is home now...and i am being kicked OFF the computer...

i'm hungry. interestingly enough, i'm craving turkey...

edit

i lied...i don't like turkey
had little shanghai dumplings instead, there's soup in the dumpling....YUMMY!

Wise men say, only fools rush in.
But I can't help falling in love with you

Shall I stay
Would it be the same
I can't help falling in love with you

As the river flows
Gently to the sea
Darling so we go
Some things were meant to be

Take my hand
Take my whole life too
'Cause I can't help falling in love with you


- cover sung by darren hayes

ames is on a darren hayes kick right now (who by the way, has a great falsetto voice)and i wonder if it's possibly because i bought her that spin cd...i'd like to think so!

i got a gorgeous cream colored sheepskin throw rug for my room, a present from my ah yee...although, according to someone, this makes me a princess...i resent that!

ok, gattaca, here i come

it was bad enought that i had to get up early this morning...it was even worse when i got on the TTC. this morning was a very unpleasant reminder of why i think our TTC is abysmal, disappointing, and an embarrassment of north american transit system...and i guess it doesn't help since i have the japanese transit to compare it to. i got to downsview station at around 7:30am to find that the subway was shut down between downsview and st. clair west station. they were running shuttle buses in between, but not many people knew because the PA system was so faint and tinny. the japanese transit runs to the minute of when it's scheduled, and there are sooooo many subway/train/bus lines, it's just great! ugh...either our transit system needs more money, or a better system because it's just not working!

i just picked up my pictures....just looking at them brought back so many good memories of the days in japan! i miss japan! i'm looking to make a very large scrapbook, it's looking to be the one catherine suggested at lunch today, or my mom found another one at costco...hey cheap goes here! i can't wait to show these to people interested in what i saw...there really aren't any pictures of me in them...i never understood it before (i used to berate joseph about that...) but now i totally understand...why ruin a perfectly beautiful scenery with my face? hahahaha!

anyway, if people believe in the power of prayer, please pray for one of our abbey girls...it was just made known to our little circle of friends today, she has thyroid cancer....please pray...

i just finished watching the last samurai with tom cruise, and let me tell you, i'm not usually a fan of his movies, but this was too amazing! it kept making me cry! (yes, i'm a sucker for movies that make me cry) and it's just sooooo good! i think i'm going to buy the dvd and put that as one of my top ten good movies to watch....along with finding nemo and armaggedon...

last night's party at alan's house was a good party to kick off my coming back to the T dot. it had a lot of people that i knew and it felt so good to be back into the non-asian atmosphere! flo did a kickass job of hostessing the food, before she became...uh...MIA...hahahahahaha! lots of hot guys too...too bad i wasn't...uh...looking...(flo, laugh all you want...)

yes, it's good to be back in toronto, i did miss my bed alot! i do miss my friends and family...but i can't help but start thinking about travelling again...perhaps australia or new zealand next time...or back to japan...i really love that place! and i just got an email from ray today, saying that he's going to nagano to teach english in a farming community in less then a month! i got so excited that i wrote him an email blathering about how great japan is and how people stare and yada yada yada...i hope i didn't scare him...hahahahaha...liz it was great seeing you in japan, and don't worry, i KNEW you had some dust in your eye! ;p

shelley dropped ANT323...damn girl, and here i thought it would be a great class with us never paying attention! i haven't checked any of my class marks yet...i'm still trying to avoid it like the plague...i really really really don't want to be disappointed, especially after i heard that the professor didn't change the weight of the marks...i think after i get the nerve to see my dismal marks, i'm going to be making some sort of complaint to the either the TA or the prof...narsty business....

to end on a positive note: ah yee haley is coming to toronto for wednesday, yes that's right...from AUSTRALIA!!!!! i tried to talk lachlan into coming but he explained to me how it would be wrong for him to be travelling with his parents...hahahahaha. i'm hoping that she'll bring with her tons of pictures of baby krystal! and hopefully by then i'll have my 10 rolls of film developed!!!!

omg...i need to go to the gym...

so i've been too tired to blog the past couple of days. i've been waking up at 6:45am to get to kyoto for 9am to meet up with the kids (cass, chris and michelle) and getting home really late and then going to bed at around 2am...it's like i sleep even less then during the school year! so this is it...tomorrow i'm going home! anyone miss me?

ok, so highlights of the past week...

FRIDAY:
- went to roppongi with the kids at night and then walked to the tokyo tower and took some really cool night pictures (but now that i think about it...i forgot to take the flash off...it might not come out...)

SATURDAY:
- spent the morning in shinjuku shopping in expensive but really pretty stores
- cass called her friend, yasu, who came and met up with us, took us to a ramen restaurant and then took us to harajuku
- harajuku is a kickass place to be...it's where all the teenagers go to shop for stuff (like a kensington market)...aka...you see all the STYLIN' CLOTHING (hahahaha)
- yasu brought his friend, shun and we walked to shibuya for the night life...took sticker pictures...they are HILARIOUS...i'll put it up once i get home...)

SUNDAY:
- went to mount fuji for the day....and saw JACK SHIT....it was raining that day and nothing could be seen!
- BUT...i bought a postcard of how mount fuji would have looked like if it HAD been nice!
- went out for a beer in shinjuku, brought our new friend, bill, with us (i met him on the first day, we were both looking for the hostel and we both couldn't find it for awhile...)

MONDAY:
- while the kids headed straight to kyoto in the morning, i went to see nikko with bill
- saw the most beautiful temples and shrines made for the famous buddhist leyasu

TUESDAY:
- went back to kyoto and spent the day looking at more temples and shrines
- walked the philosophers walk (not the one at u of t) and stumbled upon the quaintest shop where i bought the cutest souvenir...tba...hahahaha
- got tons of mosquito bites (i itch all over!)

WEDNESDAY:
- went back to nara and looked at the kasuga taisha with all these gorgeous lanterns surrounding the shrine...
- saw more deer (nara has tons of deer because in pre-buddhist times they were considered messengers of the gods)
- went and saw the most gorgeous night view of osaka from the umeda sky garden....stunningly breathtaking...(i remembered to take the flash off this time...)

TODAY:
- went to himeji to see the himeji-jo castle (this is the castle that the great anime director, miyazaki, based his movie, spirited away on)
- shopping in the himeji mall! whooo!
- went to visit liz at work...saw her in action!!!!! she's a great teacher!

i will go into more detail when i get home...but i need to watch the last samurai and lost in translation ;p

wow, it's been awhile, eh?

i've been in tokyo drinking and dancing and hitting up the boys....lies....all lies... hahahaha!

i'm too tired to update, but there's alot to say and i'll write it tomorrow...

i saw the most disturbing event this morning with liz as i was leaving sakasegawa....some guy was riding his bicycle and he most have swerved or something and fell of his bike. he hit his head on the concrete and this is where liz and i stumbled upon him. someone had picked up his bike and stood it up so at first i thought that perhaps some weirdo was sleeping on the ground. but then we realized that he was hurt...he was bleeding from the head and i think he was either trying to pick himself up or he was having a seizure...it was horrible. i think someone called the ambulance, but we went into the closest store (a phone store) and asked them to call an ambulance (kyukyusha)...and the worst part was we were making sure the ambulance was coming,?@and just before it came,?@some of the people tried to turn the guy over and that:s the worst possible thing to do...he may have hurt his neck or something,?@and by turning him over he might have his breathing passage blocked....it was the most horrible experience ever...we had to leave because it was so horrible and i felt like puking....even now i can:t really get the image out of my head....

i took the shinkansan to tokyo and had a bit of a hard time finding the guess T hostel....japan doesn:t really have streets...it:s a complex system of numbers the hostel didn:t really have a name out in english...plus people don:t speak english...but i finally found it and met up with christian,cassandra and michelle. we actually just got in...we walked around town and visited roppongi (a mix of yorkville and yonge street) with pimps and prostitutes (in big fluffy coat) harassing us...it was interesting to say the least. we walked to Tokyo tower but didn:t go up because it was closed...and ended up in a park nearby the hostel and just ate and drank some stuff...good times.

anyway, it:s late and it:s been a strange day.

i got lost today...hahaha...well not really, i'm generally pretty good with directions, but since today liz wasn't with me (she had to go to work...her vacation is over! =(...) i kinda forgot what i wanted to see (the golden pavilion) and ended up wandering around to see the kyoto tower and the shosei-en garden (which was soooo peaceful and amazing! i saw a new family of ducks and tons of fish in the pond...aka fish pond...yes i made that name up!)

japan is a very clean city...there is NO garbage littered in the streets anywhere at all, in fact they don't even have many public trash cans, so it's quite amazing that there is no pollution to be seen. i think i'm liking japan alot...how ironic is that? that i can't stand to hang out in asian populated places (ie, the sidney smith hanger, or first markham place, or pacific mall), yet the first place i go out of north america....is japan. hahahahaha. (THANKS LIZ!!!! ;p)

i saw the cutest (kawaii) event take place at a the umekoji park i visited today...there was a dog and his owner sitting close by where i was, and this little kid who looked about 2-3 yrs old with his parents. the kid was sooooo facinated by the dog...and he would point at it and say "whoa whoa"...it was so adorable! it reminded me of when i was little and i used to say that! and then when the dog was leaving, the kid waved at it! and that was my cute for the day (well, that and my cute owls!...but that will be explained another day...hahahaha!)

Back from mount koya!

what a great experience that was...to live a night in a temple and then....getting up for a 6am buddhist prayer feast! ahahaha. liz and i went to osaka for the day and went shopping in a store called "comme ca" which is like a department store with different floors equivalent to "old navy" and "gap"...man we had fun in that store. plus we looked at different cameras for my sister, and we sent her an email with attachments of the pictures, and hopefully AMES will write back...hahahah.

rode on a 2 hr train ride to mount koya and looked at the gorgeous scenery of rural japan (although it was raining all day, but that's ok...rain is fun!) the temple people are gracious and hilarious! i have pictures of the futons we slept on, and the very fluffy comforters that were on top...i mused about whether the staff would notice if i left with one of their comforters...but decided that it would be too noticable, and plus, it's quite large....

we had an incredible amount of vegetarian food for dinner and breakfast (more for dinner) and we chatted for just over 2 hrs...what a great meal! what a great experience!

checked out some temples and gravestones as okunoin-mae and it was really cool with the fog in the morning (well, we were up at 6am, so it didn't make sense to go back to sleep...) then we went back to namba (south part of osaka) and took a train to nara!

nara is a touristy place known for it's run of deer and of course, the big buddha. it totally reminds me of the deer park in marineland, same deal. i spent an exorbitant amount of money on souvenirs in nara...oh man, the stores totally sucked money out of me like there was no tomorrow. yes, we visited some temples like the famous todaiji temple (with the large buddha...there's this pole that has a hole cut in the bottom, the size of the big buddha's nose and little kids like to go through it...liz did it last time and she fit through it....however, this time ....no can do!) we also took a look about turtle lake, which is basically a large lake with tons of turtles in it....this is where i got hit on by this guy while liz was playing with a turtle...hahahaha...he kept asking me if i was japanese and where i was from...it was quite funny!

the best part is that everywhere liz and i go, people always assume that i'm japanese and turn to me when they speak. i always smile, nod and give a blank/surprised stare. liz on the other hand, is my translator and somehow, no one seems to believe that she can speak japanese, and continues speaking to me, even though i CLEARLY cannot understand what they're saying....irritating...but understandable...

anyway, japan is sucking me dry...and it's only been 5 days....i learned a couple new words..."gomenasai" means i'm sorry, "kawai" means cute (remember, everything is cute here...) and "wakannai" means i don't know.

oh yeh, grace i saw those charms you were asking about today...sorry i didn't know earlier, but i hear they're all over the place so yeh i'll look one up...exams are cute! hahaha.

OH SHIT! before i forget....HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIMONE! ;p heh heh...i almost forgot, man i'm terrible about birthdays....

also, liz has a blog now. check it out at happyenjoytime oh, and also, the time that appears on the blog is CANADA time, you gotta add 13 hrs to that time. hahaha

the fashion crimes continue...it's all over japan....i guess for liz, she's become desensitized to it all, but i ALWAYS laugh and point out the girls and their funny fashion sense...it's so weird, like liz says, it's like in toronto the people that dress retro or have their own "sense of style" do it to be different...but in japan, they do it to be the same.

went to kobe today and the china town there...it was PACKED full of people. two words i use alot in japanese are "sumimasen" (excuse me) and "arigato" (thank you). people aren't very polite here, they just kind of push me and i turn around and say "sumimasen" like I had pushed them and then they look at me like i'm crazy! hahaha....had kobe beef at this really cute restaurant, Ryu-en, that looked out over the harbor of the 'port of kobe'. we also went to the top of the 'port of kobe tower' (nothing compared to our CN Tower) and did some shopping! there are soooooo many shops that sell 'cute' stuff. cute is the name of the japanese game. everything is cute...from stupid 'hello kitty' toys to the cute sound of the siren on the japanese ambulances.

we went to mount rokko later in the evening because we wanted to see the 'spectacular' city lights from the top...BUT when we got there, we saw nothing but fog and mist because it had begun to rain. it was SOOOO funny, liz and i were like we totally got suckered..hhahahaha, we couldn't stop laughing, i have a couple of pictures of us in the dark with NOTHING behind us...hahahaha...

went searching for okonomiyaki for dinner...didn't really happen because the town of sakasegawa basically shuts down at 8 pm (well except for this really neat shrine right by liz's place) so we rented a really sweet and sad movie called 'my life without me' with sarah polley and scott speedman while eating instant ramen in a bowl...ah you gotta love instant noodles...especially when i spent so much money today... anyway, we're supposed to go running tomorrow morning so sleep is in order.

no grace, haven't visited the pachinko places yet...maybe tomorrow in osaka. ;p

the most memorable thing i've seen today on the subway: a 10 year kid flamboyantly picking his nose like he was digging for gold...haha....

good times in kyoto! went to maruyama park and went to look at the kiyomizudera and chion-in temple (even including a grave yard!) had takoyaki for the first time...what is it? it's octopus balls! hahahaha, it's pieces of octopus cut up and mixed with a batter of ginger and rice and green stuff and heated in a special cooker and it tastes delicious!

the japanese girls have a funny sense of fashion...they like to go 'sight-seeing' in stiletto heels...we're climbing mountains for crying outloud! and anything goes...from wearing fishnet stockings in bright yellow pointy shoes to wearing blue panty hose to right below the knee in open-toed sandals!!!

we went back to osaka and went to an ALL YOU CAN EAT AND DRINK beer garden with some of liz's friends, some sketchy guys, stefan and rob...typical foreigner guys who think they're the shit in japan because all the JAPANESE girls fawn over them...yech...BUT we did have fun drinking chu-hi (equivalent to coolers) and eating japanese food...before heading over to the dotombori district to check out fun games, sketchy-fake souvenir shops and typical pimp daddies trying to make me into a hostess...hahahahaha!!! (j/j! liz wouldn't let me go...how would she explain this to my parents? hahahaha!)

anyway, 2am...time to sleep...the jet lag has begun.

jet lag hasn't set in yet....maybe in a couple of hours, especially since i'm going out right now...hahahaha. so that means liz DID find me at kansai (well, there's only two terminals) and it's been really interesting...on the flight over from toronto to vancouver, it suddenly occured to me that there might not be any starbucks in japan so i got really worried that i had missed my chance of drinking tazo chai's with soy for the next 14 days! luckily there was one at the vancouver airport so i got one...but little did i know that there's a starbucks on most every corner of the big japanese cities....DUH!

anyway, we're going to a going away party for one of liz's friends so i'm hoping i'll have more time to write more later. (or not...)