Disneyland

On Monday Gan and I skipped school to go to Disneyland. It's not that far away so the trip took about an hour all on all (at least for me). It was really awesome going there, it was really a lot of fun and it felt like I was about ten years old again. It was not like FujiQ at all in the sense that I wasn't high on adrenaline all day xD

We started out taking pictures of the Cinderella castle in front of the entrance. Then we started walking further in wondering what to do first. Turned out a parade was just about to begin so we sat down waiting for it, while we waited Gan ran off to get us fastpasses for Space Mountain. Then the parade started. A lot of familiar faces in the parade, ofc starting out with Alice in Wonderland. The whole park was in an Alice in Wonderland-mode, probably due to Tim Burton's film :) After the parade we went to Tomorrowland. Where we started out with "Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters". On this ride you sat in small space ships with laser guns and you were supposed to aim and shoot laser on everything with a Z on it. Z standing for Evil Emperor Zurg. We continued with MicroAdventure, which was kind of like a film. You sat in something looking like a cinema and looked at the big screen while Dr. Nigel Channing (the guy who always sings all the songs in the Monty Python films) were trying to give the Inventor of the Year Award to Wayne Szalinski, who only happens to be the father in the "Honey, I shrunk the kids" films. In the end the whole audience ended up being shrunk xD It felt so real! :O But it was kind of weird hearing Szalinski and the Monty Python guy speaking Japanese...

After that it was finally time for Space Mountain (the fastpasses have a certain time when you can use them). Space Mountain is kind of like a roller coaster ride through space. It's so dark you can't see anything, not the tracks, not the carriage - nothing. Just the stars all around you flying past so fast... It was really cool. We continued in the space track and went to Star Tours. Which was a flight to a moon with a random robot and R2D2, travelling by light speed through space hitting meteors as it went :) That was fun! xD

Then we went on to Adventureland/Westernland on the other side of the park, getting fastpasses for Big Thunder Mountain before going on Pirates of the Caribbean. It was a boat ride through Tortuga and other pirate areas. The dolls made to look like Jack Sparrow looked very real almost as if he was really there! :O

After Pirates of the Caribbean we decided it was time for lunch, but before that we got caught up in a new parade. We watched the parade and then went to Hungry Bear Restaurant (!) to have some curry. After dinner we took a ride through the Snow White story and the Pinocchio story on those rides. Then we went up to Critter Country to get fastpasses for Splash Mountain before going to the Haunted House (which was kind of lame - the Wicked Witch in the Snow White ride was scarier) and then we went to It's a small world, where you sat on a boat and travelled all over the world seeing the culture (Sweden was the first), North America wasn't in there though xD During the whole ride they were singing "It's a small world after all" ("Våran jord är inte stor") in several different languages. Then it was finally time for Big Thunder Mountain, it was a roller coaster and it was so funny! One of the best rides of the park! After Big Thunder Mountain we went on Jungle Cruise, which were real old steamboats travelling through something set up as Africa's jungles. It was kind of funny, though, because at one point we went through a temple and that temple must have been in India, unless there are tigers in Africa :P When we got out of the temple we were back in Africa xD Our last ride in Adventureland before going to Toontown was Western River Railroad. An old steam engine train going through all of Adventureland/Westernland/Critter country. It was kind of cosy :) On our way to Toontown we saw Goofy, Pluto, Minnie and Woody walking around and getting to hug children. I was looking for Mickey, because I thought that if I saw him I would most definately hug him although it would look kind of weird I guess :P Anyway Toontown was funny. It felt like stepping into Kingdom Hearts xD At Toontown we bought popcorn with caramell flavour which we ate in the 30 minute line to "Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin". We walked around Toontown for a while after that, but it only consisted of the houses of Donald, Goofy, Minnie, Daisy and all the classics. I also found Mickey - in his house. They had set it up as a "meeting Santa"-thingy and the line was for 1 hour. I refused to stand in line amongst all the children for an hour just to hug Mickey so in the end I didn't :/ Instead we went on the children roller coaster, which was so quick it was funny xD

When it started to get dark we went on StarJets, which is space rockets. They were really small and you were supposed to be two people in one! xD Fun, fun :P Then we rushed back to Adventureland to go Big Thunder Mountain one more time - awesome. Then there was the Dreamlights Parade. Which is a light parade when all the lights go on in the park - it was really beautiful. After the parade we went on a ride through the Peter Pan story before rushing back to the Cinderella castle to watch the fireworks :) After the fireworks we still had more time before our fastpasses to Splash Mountain were valid so we went on Grand Circuit Raceway. Which is a car you drive (almost) on your own through a curvy track :P After that we still had more time so we went on a ride through the Winnie the Pooh story and then it was finally time for Splash Mountain. When we got there the line's waiting time were only five minutes. But we used the fastpasses anyway. Splash Mountain turned out to be a boat ride through the Bedknobs and Broomstick story. In the first round we were in the very back and didn't get very wet in the final hill (just falling down from a huge hill into water), but in the second round (since there were no line we went one more time directly after the first one) we got to sit in the first row and had a carriage all by ourselves. That round we got really wet xD But it was so funny! Water is fun :) By the time it was over the time was 10pm and it was the park's closing time. I was home around midnight and school the next day was not funny. Luckily now it's Golden Week, which means a whole week with holidays off from school and I'm going to Korea for a few days :) I will bring my laptop and if my Internet works there I will blog, but otherwise you wont see me online again until May 4th :)

More photos in the second and third albums :)

Friday to Sunday

Friday it was raining. For lunch we went to have sushi at the usual place and with it came a surprise. A sushiroll with whole mini-squids! :O It looked so weird but ofc I had to try it - and it turned out to be delicious! :) After lunch I, Laura and Gan went to karaoke to kill some time before they were going to see a baseball match together with Julian. I on the other hand went to Starbucks to have something warm to drink and to study some kanji.

Saturday has become my do-nothing-day. It's like the day when I recover from the adventures of the week and just hang around the computer all day. Kind of nice and relaxing. Although the weather was wonderful yesterday I only made one trip outdoors - to buy lunch at the convenience store across the street :P

Today on the other hand the first thing I did after I went up and had breakfast was to go out. I took the subway to Shinjuku Gyoen National Park and sat around studying kanji and writing some of my story. Sometimes just laying around. There was a really cute little Japanese girl running around giving acorns to everyone and saying Totoro while she was doing it. She was about 1 or 2 years old maybe and it was so cute just watching her. I also managed not to get tanned at all despite being in direct sunlight for about 2 hours :/

After a while I left the park to go to Starbucks again and have something cold to drink - the Frappuccinos are just heavenly. There I sat for about an hour just writing on my story and drinking wonderful vanilla/cream blend frappuccino :P

This day has been perfectly spring-y. Just to add to that the Sakura-shinmachi sakuras are blooming. Apparantly, according to my hostmother, these are sakura version 2 and they bloom a little later than version 1. And these are pink! ^^

Lunch

For lunch today Massimo had invited us (Laura, Gan, Julian and I from the old course) to his flat. So for dinner we had pasta with some delicious salad. But Massimo thought the pasta wouldn't be enough and thus he had also prepared some green and some yellow Thai curry and for dessert: role cake and coffee :) Really nice.

After lunch he showed us an Italian TV-show he had been in. It's some kind of program where they film Italian people living in different parts of the world and they needed someone in Tokyo. Massimo knew someone who knew someone... anywho he ended up being their person in Tokyo. It was all in Italian ofc, but it was kind of fun to see. I suggested he subtitled it and put it on Facebook or YouTube and Laura said she might know how to put subs on it :P That would be so fun cos apparantly he was talking a lot of crap xD

Then we ended up just lazily hanging around the sofa and talking and Massimo put on some BBC-show he had downloaded. Like something out of a Nature channel :P Anyway it was nice and relaxing sitting there and watching animals on TV xD

All on all this has been a very relaxing day, if it wasn't for the fact that the 25 degrees summer time was exchanged for below 10 degrees and rain it would have been really perfect :)

Jiyuugaoka

Today was like Swedish summer. Sun and 25 degrees. My arms and face have a weak red tinge to them...

Anywho, today I had originally planned to go and see Alice in Wonderland, which premiered in Japan last Saturday (just a month and two weeks after the rest of the world), but the weather was so nice I just wanted to stay outside and do something fun with people. All day I've felt like going to Shinjuku Gyoen or Yoyogi Park and just lie around doing nothing in the sun, but instead Gan and I went to a place that I went to on my first week and Gan hadn't been to yet: Jiyuugaoka. That's where I went to Sweets Forest with my friends in my first week.

Ofc we started out by finding Sweets Forest. It was nice being there again, so I celebrated with a piece of strawberry cake and an Ice Caramel Latte :) After sitting around there for a while we went on walking. Gan wanted to find a place that were selling cream puffs. On the way there we found a camera shop, which also had some stationary. I found stationary there named "Pö om Pö, by Lotta Jansdotter" xD I was so surprised seeing a Swedish name that I wanted to take a picture, but the light was off so I couldn't take a good enough picture without anyone noticing, and I wasn't sure if photographing was allowed :/ Anyway we found the cream puffs. After some more walking around and looking we found a second cake café called Sweets Factory. We went in there too and had more cake. I, a heavy chocolate tart and peach juice. Yummy ^^ And here's today's surprise moment:

Mum's polar bear!

A week

A week has gone by without much happening.

On Tuesday it was nice weather for once so Gan, Laura and I decided to go somewhere we hadn't been before. At random we just picked a place in Gan's guidebook and off we went to Shimo-kitazawa. It was a nice place with a lot of cool shops. I actually found something really funny. A t-shirt with Swedish bad words on it. It looked like it was graffitti from the school toilet xD Anyway I just had to buy it although they only had it in size S. But it fits kind of ok anyway.

Wednesday we went to have sushi for lunch at a sushi place in Shinjuku that Lin had found. One plate with two pieces on it cost 105 yen, which ofc meant that I ate about 18 pieces and I've never been that full after a sushi lunch! xD Then we went out for karaoke for two hours before going home.

Thursday it was raining so after checking out a purely Japanese hamburger place called Freshness Burger for lunch we all went home. The burgers were really small. Japanese size. -.-

Friday it was once again raining and everyone went home after lunch. Well first I took a trip to the Official Jump Store next to Tokyo Dome. It was heaven. Filled with manga merchandise, I wanted to buy everything. But I decided on some posters and then I went home.

Saturday it was still raining and I spent the day at home. Today the weather was nice so I went to Shibuya to walk around and ended up doing some shopping.

It's been a quiet week, but I guess those come around too, even when you're in the middle of the greatest adventure of your life :)

Fuji Q

All week Gan and I had been watching the weather forecast closely, because we had decided that if the weather was nice we would go to Fuji Q, which is a huge amusement park right next to Mt. Fuji :) It was a long trip to get there - almost 3 hours. But when we finally got there it was so worth it! So now I've been riding every ride that went fast, high, backwards, upside down and sideways ^^ I wanna go again!

The first ride we went on was a water one, because I thought it would be better to ride the water one first and then get dry on a roller coaster :P So we went on a boat ride that was somewhat like a roller coaster. You get in the carriage and then you go up a hill and then you fall - right down into water xD Luckily we were all given rain ponchos before getting on the ride - otherwise I would probably still be wet :P

Then we started to get on real roller coasters. The first one was Fujiyama, only 40 min waiting time. The starting hill was 80m high! :O The ride itself was just incredible! Then there was the Dodonpa (1½ h waiting) which was a roller coaster accelerating to 172km/h in 1.8 seconds! It looked and sounded so much worse than it was...

After food we went to ride the PaniClock which is a ride where the carriages is the two arms of a clock. And that ride goes upside down! And then we went on a second water ride before getting on the last big roller coaster (1½ h waiting). This roller coaster was going backwards. You got in a carriage that went backwards. And when you got going you realised that the carriages where also twisting and swinging. But that roller coaster provided us with the best view of the day - Mt. Fuji upside down xD Our last ride became Pizza-La which is a ride where the carriage is a large circle that's twisting and at the same time swinging back and forth. Sometime almost going upside down :)

We were back in Shibuya around 9pm and then we went out to eat ramen before going home and falling asleep. Fuji Q has been taken over! :)

Odaiba

This Friday Laura, I and Gan went to Odaiba after lunch. None of us had been there and we had all heard that it was supposed to be beautiful. Odaiba is a city part which is an island, so in Odaiba is also the beach. I want to go back there in summer, but I've touched Tokyo Bay xD

We went looking around and we found the Statue of Liberty, probably smaller than the one in Manhattan, but it was situated so it looked like it was Manhattan in the background. :P There were also sakura and beautiful nature. Close to it were a department store. A section of it were made up to look like Hong Kong and Gan said it was really similar. Like we were really in Hong Kong, so now I've been in Hong Kong xD On the bottom floor was also an indoors amusement park and we decided to go while we waited for the sun to set so we could se Odaiba by night. The first ride we took was a normal one, like you sat in pairs in carriages that went around on a very small roller coaster and the carriages kept twisting. So sometimes we were going backwards :) A lot of fun. The other rides were actually no rides, but they felt like it. We entered a carriage and then it got dark and we entered a pair of doors. Then a screen appeared in front of us and to the left of right - that was the size of it. Anyway it felt like you were inside the screen. So we've been flying through the jungle, gone on a wild boat ride in the jungle and also been on a wild road trip in the jungle xD Actually the carriage stopped right after it entered those doors :P But it didn't feel like it. They had put stuff on the carriage so it felt like it were moving on tracks or flying or whatever :P Really really funny ^^

After having all kinds of fun at the indoors amusement park called Joypolis we went out to see Odaiba by night. Unfortunately we just missed the light show in Tokyo Bay :( But we got to see the Rainbow Bridge and it was really nice just hanging around in the cool night air.

Tokyo Tower

Yesterday it rained so we didn't do anything. After lunch we all went home. But today the weather was nice and clear so we decided to go to Tokyo Tower :) The experience was kind of like going up the Eiffel Tower so not much was new. But the view was great, just too bad that there was so much smog so you couldn't see Fuji :/ So here comes a photo collection! The rest is on Facebook :P

Tokyo Tower on the outside :) Odaiba, the harbour and me :) Fuji for blind people and a looking-down window :) Old stuff amongst the new stuff :)

The weekend and Hanami in Ueno

On Sunday I had planned on studying all day but the weather was so nice that I decided to take a walk around the neighbourhood. I've never been around the neighbourhood where I live so I thought it was a good idea to see some things. I'm definately gonna go on a walk again, there are some interesting houses here that just makes my fingers itch for playing The Sims :) And when walking I came across the cutest church I've ever seen :P Monday was also a day off, or rather I didn't go to the factory tour the school had planned for us. I didn't feel like watching how laundry powder and beauty products were produced. So I had planned another study day. Which didn't go too well. Around 3 I was sick of being indoors and although the rain was pouring I decided to go to Shibuya and just walk around for a while. My umbrella broke and I bought a new one - a Japanese one, which is plastic and see-through and I love it :) All the Japanese have those since they are cheap and easy to get, just go to the closest 500yen store and you'll have one :P It's really big too so two people can easily fit underneath it. I also ended up buying two long-sleeved shirts at H&M, one that I just fell in love with and one that is perfekt for wearing under T-shirts.

Tuesday was the first day of the new course. I was nervous going there. Audray (my room mate) and I now both take morning classes so we go to school together (almost, she's always late so I always end up going by myself anyway xD). But we're not in the same building, so my Swedish friends are all in the other school building. The new class is more adultlike and I'm not sure I like it. The people in the class overall are older than in the old class and it's less teenage-y and fun :/ Gotta get used to it, though. The new book is kind of boring too. We're now on Intermediate level, which is supposed to be the hardest one. This far it's like there's no new grammar, just new ways of using the old stuff and more difficult words. It's kind of good in one way, though, that all the old stuff gets stuck. But I still want to learn new things, we can't possibly have covered all the grammar already, can we? :o

On Tuesday after lunch the four of us from the old class (Laura, Julian, Gan and I) and the new Taiwanese girl Lin first went to Tokyo Dome City Attractions to ride the huge roller-coaster just once and then go for Hanami in Ueno. The roller coaster is 80m high and after the peek you fall, almost vertical, for 60m in 130km/h (go wikipedia!) I loved it! :) Hanami in Ueno was white too. I had thought that the sakura in Ueno were pink since the second time I went there. But they were white. I figured while being there that it wasn't sakura that was pink, it was ume (plum) and they bloom before the sakura :) The petals of the Ueno sakura were already falling and when we sat at the Starbucks later we all plucked petals from our hair :P

Sweets Paradise

Yesterday was Chappie's last day. Today she went back to Taiwan. It was also the last day of the course so lots of people had their last day at school. Those who wouldn't continue recieved their certificate. After that we went out to have lunch, we had to wait for forever to get into the place we wanted to go; Sweets Paradise. It's a delicious buffet for 1400 yen. It had normal food too, mostly different kinds of spaghetti and noodles, but what we ate ourselves full on was cake. The cake buffet was just incredible! I didn't need to eat anything else that day. I was full even when I went to sleep around midnight :P After we had been sitting our 90 minutes there most of us went on to take purikura and go to karaoke. Everything with Chappie and Melanie, since they were the ones leaving school that day.

Today I was awoken at 7.30 by my roommate stomping around outside my door and slamming doors. Gee, thanks -.- And ofc she stole my laundry day again! -.- I'm getting seriously annoyed here. Just one more month... I can handle that... I hope.

Today I went to check out the other place that was supposed to sell old Hello! Project stuff. It was in Nakano so it was quite some trip. First to Shibuya, then from Shibuya to Shinjuku and then from Shinjuku to Nakano :P But the stores there too turned out to be something of a disappointment. However I managed to come out with a poster and a photobook :) After som extra nerdy shopping I went home and I've just been hanging around at the computer since then. Tomorrow will be a serious study day and on Monday I might hang out with some friends (it's also a day off from school, since it's the orientation day for all new students) or I might study some more :) Probably wont be any more posts 'til Tuesday.

Oh and I had the strangest dream the night to Friday! It was a Peter Pan-The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus-Desperate Housewives mash-up xD I, Peter Pan and the lost boys lived in a neighbourhood that looked like the one in Desperate Housewives, just us, no adults. Then one day we escaped the neighbourhood and when we got out of it we entered some kind of weird world. It was a huge house and we took our flight to the basement where we lived for some days before we continued to explore the building. On the second floor we found an old man (Hook) who didn't recognise me and I talked to him and asked him about the place. Then he caught sight of Peter Pan and suddenly everyone remembered Neverland. Then a wild chase started because Hook wanted to catch Peter but we escaped to our basement and there he couldn't reach us. Just when we were about to start planning how we would get back to Neverland I woke up.

More Hanami and some random things

Today has been very summer-y :P Around 20 degrees and sunny. For lunch today Massimo suggested we all buy ourselves some lunch boxes and then go to Kitanomaru Gyoen National Garden, which is close to the school. That meant more hanami, but also a lot of fooling around and taking pictures of the nature in the park :) All on all it was a great time. Here are four pictures from today: After lunch we all parted to go home or buying souvenirs for family and friends so now I'm gonna talk about something else. I've been here for a month now and somehow the strangest part has been getting used to it not getting lighter, the day isn't getting longer. Here the sun sets at 6.30pm, no exceptions.

I've gotten used to being stared at sometimes. I just stare back :P I have even gotten used to the jam-packed trains every morning and learnt how to ride the train without holding onto something. I feel more and more confident speaking Japanese and it feels like I understand more and more all the time.

But sometimes I miss my home, my friends, my family, my bed, my room, my computer... Sometimes I can't wait to go home and still I don't want to leave. I'm definately coming back someday :P

I thought I'd also show you how I live so here are three pictures of the house, the kitchen (with the cute little chevalier puppy Rira) and my room (the wardrobe is behind me):
And btw, did you see the new gadget on top of the sidebar? They are direct links to my photo albums at Facebook. There I have uploaded almost all of my photos (which are over 250 by now).