Die wunderbare Welt des Taryn H.!

14th June 2009

Text

My refrigerator..

It smells like dead bodies. =(

There’s nothing old in it, but I had spilled something on the shelf and didn’t notice until it went bad and started to smell funky.  I cleaned it all out yesterday, but now it smells worse than before.  It’s so disgusting.  I’d air it out, but then my milk would go bad and my Petit Party would melt.  Such a dilemma, I’m not sure what to do about this.

In other news, yesterday was awesome!  Bridget was in Tokyo for the day at the Mori museum, so afterwards she came to Minami-gyoutoku and we met up for dinner.  We went to some really good and inexpensive katsu place at my station, it was like 800 yen for a ton of food.

Afterwards we went to Urayasu and met up with Take, then the 3 of us went to Shirokiya.  It sucks that they don’t have the 1000 yen nomihoudai anymore, but it was still reasonably priced overall and we were there for several hours.  It was super fun, though, I’m really glad I get to do things like this on the weekends because my weekdays are always so uneventful and are 95% work. D:

Bridget and I got ice cream at Maruetsu, then she stayed over at my guesthouse.  I’m technically not allowed to have overnight visitors unless they pay money, but fuck that noise.. Pretty sure there is no way my landlords could find out about it anyway, so whatever.

We both ended up being awake by like 7am, though, that’s what happens when you have a real job and have to work normal-person hours, apparently.  It’s really weird, because it’s only 10:30 right now, and I feel like it should be at least 2pm.  My internal clock is so confused. =(  Oh well, more weekend for me, I guess.  And I have off tomorrow as well, because it’s Chiba Prefecture Day.  HOLLAAA.  It’s also Tochigi Prefecture Day, but Bridget doesn’t have the day off.  That’s super treacherous.

I think I’m going to go exorcise the demons from my fridge, and then go play Team Fortress for a bit.  Maybe I’ll think of something else to write about later or tomorrow.  Cheers!

12th June 2009

Text

Ew, ew, EW.

School lunch was so nasty today!  I guess I can’t complain too much, because it was really good on Tuesday, and I had that same lunch on Thursday at the other school I teach at.. But there was nothing redeemable about today’s.  First there was the standard bowl of rice/miso soup with vegetables, and a jar of milk, that much I could tolerate.  But then there was some disgusting broiled(?) sardine thing, and it had so many bones in it!  Humans aren’t meant to eat bones, that’s what separates us from the animals.  Also dinosaurs, most likely.  There were also some peanuts with what I’m assuming was cinnamon on them, and sweet potato pudding.  My third grade class I was eating with didn’t seem to like it very much, either.  Oh well.

I have a 3-day weekend, because Monday is Chiba Prefecture Day.  So freaking awesome, I hope I get to do something fun. 8D  I hardly have any money right now, but I don’t want to waste the few days that I don’t have to work.  I went to Tokyo again with Bridget last Sunday, we went shopping in Harajuku and I bought a dress.  Then we went to Meiji Shrine and Tokyo Tower because they’re affordable and good for taking pictures.  I put the pictures I took on Facebook, but FB makes the image quality really crappy, so they’re also all here on Photobucket: http://s153.photobucket.com/albums/s211/lemoncofffee/Japan/Tokyo/

I was playing Team Fortress 2 earlier, I’d almost forgotten how fun that game is.  The servers around here are shit, though. D:  Was going to play for a while after I wrote this, but I’m super exhausted already.  Getting up at 5:45am all the time has really messed up my internal clock.  I can barely stay conscious past 9:30pm anymore!  As a matter of fact, I’m about to fall asleep on my keyboard right about now, so I’ll be taking my leave.

Cheers!

26th May 2009

Text

Weekend

Oh sheesh y’all.  Last weekend was superbly fun, I meant to write something about it sooner, but then I got distracted with work as usual.  I had a 3-day weekend, because Saturday was my school’s sports festival, and they had off on Monday to compensate.  I met Bridget in Tokyo on Saturday morning, and we spent most of the day there.  We got the special Tokyo Metro day pass things for 710 yen, it saved us a shitload of money.  Saw a ton of things I wanted to buy, but everything was really expensive.  I wish I weren’t always broke! D:

After a while we went to Lalaport, which is a gigantic shopping center in Minami-Funabashi.  It was kind of out of our way, but it was really fun and we were shopping until almost 9pm.  Bridget lives way the hell out in bumblefuck, Tochigi-ken, but we thought that leaving at 9 would still give her enough time to get home before the last train.. Such was not the case, and she ended up getting stuck in Tokyo, I felt really bad! ._.

On Sunday, Take and I were originally going to go to Yoyogi Park or something, but it’s rained every time we’ve made plans to go for the past month.  So we ended up getting lunch at an Italian place in Urayasu, and then went to karaoke for a bit.

The Shirokiya in Urayasu was just remodeled and since it was finally open again after a week or so, we went there in the evening.  It looks completely different, but as long as they still have 1000 yen nomihoudai, I’ll keep going.  On Sunday, instead of nomihoudai, they were doing some 4-day promotion where all the food and drinks were half price, that was pretty amazing.  Even at full price, a sizeable bottle of soju is pretty cheap, so by making everything half price they’re just encouraging people to get wasted.  Not like I had to work the next day, though, so all was well.  We went out for lunch on Monday afternoon until he had to go to work, then I did some long-overdue grocery shopping and went home to plan my lessons for today.

Overall, it was a great weekend, which makes up for the fact that I’m too busy to ever go out and do anything fun during the week.

Actually, speaking of being ridiculously busy, I have to go finish thinking up what to do for my one school’s English club tomorrow.  Ugh, I so have no idea what I’m doing.  It’s weird doing a job that you have no experience or training in.  It’s like someone handing you a scalpel and asking you to perform a splenectomy.  I feel like I’m just someone impersonating a teacher, it’s weird.

But I digress.  Gonna go finish this and crash for the night, I only got 5 hours of sleep last night and I’m beyond exhausted!

16th May 2009

Text

懐かしいｗ

Last night Take and I went to Kaihin-Makuhari, I hadn’t been there since 2006 but it hasn’t changed at all!  We went to Y’s, which is tabe/nomi-houdai until 10pm, it was really fun.  I seem to recall going there once or twice before, but I can’t remember who I went with D:  I really feel compelled to pay a visit to the IES office or at least the Meikai branch, being as I pass right by it three days per week.

For the record, though, going to Makuhari from Minami-Gyoutoku is a pain in the ass!  From Ichikawa-shiohama it’s only like 17 minutes, no transfers, and it’s 210 yen.. From my station, it’s 400 yen, takes 33 minutes, and you have to transfer at Nishi-Funabashi AND Minami-Funabashi.  Tozai line is DOING IT WRONG.  Ichikawa-shiohama is dodgy though, I wouldn’t want to live there. =/

Oh, my futon is being delivered tonight!  I’ve been renting the one in my room from the guesthouse, but it was costing me a shitload every month so I ordered my own on Rakuten.  It actually came last night, but I wasn’t home, so I had to call and re-schedule delivery for today.  That was an adventure, too, it was an automated answering service, and obviously intended for people who are native Japanese speakers.  I managed to set up the re-delivery time on my second try, so that was pretty chill.  I’m excited. 8D

Anyway, I think I’m gonna go to window shop at Daiei or something.  I don’t have anything else to do today and I’ll probably be inside all day tomorrow as the weather’s going to be shit. 出发！

10th May 2009

Text

DISGUSTING

I found the huge son-of-a-bitch mosquito that (I assume) was biting me when I was asleep last night, it was flying around my room this afternoon.  It put up a fight, but I finally killed it, and it left a big blood smear on my ceiling.  MY OWN BLOOD, PROBABLY.

Holy shit, I am so grossed out right now.  I hate mosquitos so much.

10th May 2009

Text

What the helllll.

I have 2 more freaking mosquito bites, one on my other arm and one on my face, just as the other 3 are starting to get better!  I really don’t understand it, I hardly ever got bug bites back home, but ever since I got here I’m like a buffet for blood-sucking insects.  WHAT.  THE.  HELL.  I need to invest in bug spray, fo sho.

I wrote a blog post the other day while I was trying to pass the time in the teacher’s lounge at school on Friday, but I never got around to typing it out yet.  Maybe I’ll do that later if I can’t find anything else to do.

It’s really hot today, I think the high is like 80 degrees or something.  I want to use the AC, but I don’t want to jack up my electricity bill.  It’s going to be a long summer. D:

5th May 2009

Text

My eye’s gotten a bit better since this morning.  Now it only looks like I’ve been stung on the eye by one or two bees, instead of an entire swarm.  I do love to exaggerate, but I’m being 100% serious when I say I physically could not open my right eye until around 3 this afternoon.  That is how swollen that shit was.  Hopefully it’s not going to get worse again overnight, because I’m not staying in my room all day again tomorrow.  Since my eye’s not quite as bad, my brain is now completely focused on the huge mosquito bites on my arm.  They itch so badly, I would kill a man for some aloe vera right about now.

One of the bites looks a great deal like a sheep’s head, so that’s weird.

I didn’t go out today on account of my eye, so I read for a bit, then caught up on a few things like House and Law and Order CI.  This week’s House was a little strange, particularly the end bit with House and Cuddy.  Didn’t really expect that..  I guess as long as they’re not slitting any main characters’ throats, though, I’m not about to complain.  I think I already knew this, but pushed it out of my memory, but Hugh Laurie is 50 years old.  The hell?  I don’t think he looks 50.  Early to mid 40’s, I’d have said.

I also watched the first episode of this drama that’s just started over here called Yako no Kaidan, because I’d seen an advertisement for it on the train one day and it stars Fujiki Naohito.  The synopsis told me next to nothing about it (which is pretty standard of drama synopses), but after watching the whole first episode I still don’t feel like I know very much about what’s going on.  I learned very little about the plot, but Fujiki Naohito is hot enough that I’ll keep watching it regardless.  Apparently he’s a murderer in this drama, though, which my brain has a hard time accepting after watching the ridiculous fluff that was Gal Circle.  But I digress.

Going to go play Peggle or something now, I need to get my mind off these mosquito bites before I chew my arm off like a coyote stuck in a bear trap.  Not really sure how that would be an improvement, honestly.

5th May 2009

Text

Fffffff.....

My eyelid is even more swollen today.  It’s like a beach ball got stuck to my face.  I’m freaking out right about now, because I don’t know what I’ll do if it’s this bad on Thursday when I go back to work.  I can’t even open my eye all the way because the eyelid is so huge.

My actual eye seems fine though, my vision is okay when I can actually open it enough to see anything, and it’s not red at all.  It doesn’t hurt, either.  It just looks horrible.  It seriously looks like I was attacked by bees or something.  I REALLY hope it gets better soon.

On the plus side, I did some stuff to the CSS on my blog, I think it looks pretty chilll.

4th May 2009

Text

alsidjkdsf

Meant to post some of those pictures from Tokyo today, but I’ve come down with a cold and couldn’t be bothered.  I did next to nothing productive today, aside from cooking something sort of strange for lunch.

I messed up my right eye pretty badly this morning, I was getting well frustrated at this eyeliner my mom sent me, because it’s waterproof, so I couldn’t get it to come off and ended up irritating my eyelid trying.  Now it looks a bit like I’ve been stung by bees on the eye.  The whole ordeal prompted me to go to Maruetsu and buy some ridiculously overpriced Biore makeup remover.  Hopefully that helps, I guess I’ll know once the swelling goes down enough for me to try it out.

In addition to all that shit, apparently there was some huge-ass mosquito in my room all last night, and it was using my arm as a buffet while I slept!  I’ve got 3 large mosquito bites on my left arm, all in the same vicinity so they’re super noticeable.  They itch SO FREAKING BADLY.  I found the little fucker in the morning and killed it, after making sure to spray it with hairspray so that it suffered more.  I feel like once you’ve killed the mosquito that bit you, your mosquito bites should vanish.  Like vampires or whatever.  Someone should get on that.

Overall, not such a great day to be me!  Hoping I feel better tomorrow, but even if I do it’s supposed to rain for the next 3 days so I doubt I’ll feel like going out much. =/

3rd May 2009

Text

Tokyoooo

Bridget and I went to Tokyo today.  We went to Ginza first, to window shop for stuff we’ll never ever be able to afford, and we saw a shitload of police knocking about for whatever reason.  They were wearing like, riot gear, too.  Maybe they are getting ready to do battle against the swine flu?  Who knows.

After looking at ridiculously expensive stuff for a while, we went to some restaurant for soba and okonomiyaki.  It was also slightly overpriced, but what can you do.  We walked around some more and ended up at Hibiya park, so we hung out there for a little while and got ice cream.  The weather was really nice, but it was sort of overcast so I didn’t get many good pictures.

Our original plan was to go to Tokyo Tower, since Bridget hasn’t ever been there, but we didn’t really expect it to be as crowded there at it was.  I don’t know why we didn’t expect it, it’s Golden Week, a Sunday, and it was probably the time of day when people are most likely to go to places like Tokyo Tower.  And since we weren’t keen on waiting in line for like 2 hours, we just decided to come back on a different day.  And since the weather wasn’t great for taking pictures, I think we’ll be better off going back when it’s actually sunny.

After that, we went to Shibuya, walked around and window-shopped some more, went to Claire’s, and had some dinner at this katsu-don place.  It was really good!  There were also a shitload of cops in Shibuya, I think because there was some kind of protest going on.  There were a bunch of people with megaphones and flags and they were on about something, but I couldn’t really understand them.  Some people got into a physical altercation, and the cops had to smack them down, but I’ve seen far worse in State College and wasn’t particularly fazed.

After that we were both pretty tired, so we just headed home, I have to say that it’s really nice having such a short commute, in some ways it makes up for my rent being so ridiculously high.  I took a few pictures and a couple videos today, so I’ll try to upload those later.  Cheers!

2nd May 2009

Text

Wrapping

Okay, so I just bought a package of cookies, and I have to say something about this.

WHAT is the deal with Japan and individually wrapping everything imaginable?  Of course the package has regular plastic wrapping, then inside, each small cookie is in it’s own wrapper!  They’re cookies, not Russian stacking dolls!  They’re so fond here of eco-bags and not wasting plastic bags, and the extent to which they recycle here is absolutely MAD, but it just seems so hypocritical to me.  I’m not particularly environmentally-conscious myself, that’s not the point I’m trying to make here.  Sure, I’ll throw my cans and bottles in the recycling bin when I’m at home instead of the trash, but that’s about the extent of it.

My problem with this practice is this - when I’m eating things like cookies and other junk food like that, seeing a big empty pile of the wrappers each cookie came in makes me feel bad about my eating habits.  There is absolutely NO need to wrap each individual cookie, it’s nonsense.  They’re going to be eaten long before they have a chance to get stale, and seeing all the plastic wrappers of the cookies I’ve eaten is a disturbingly tangible reminder of just how atrocious my eating habits are.  It detracts from my ability to enjoy eating an entire package of cookies, and makes me sad.

Just wanted to throw that out there.