Summer Vacation

Summer vacation starts tomorrow and I had my mid-terms earlier this week. I'd like to think that I did pretty well with a 95% in kanji and 85% in grammar. Also got quite a bit of homework to do during the break, so I'm not gonna be bored, haha.

I went to the Sumida Firework Festival that was held not too long ago. There was a LOT of people there. But seeing the fireworks they had, and that it is only held once a year, I can understand why.

I got some plans for the holiday, but how much of it that will actually will happen remains to see. I'm not the best at following my own plans...

Anyway, more firework related goodness can be found in my tumblr and youtube channel.

Festival Fantasy

Last week I did go to the festival that I mentioned last week. Along with half of Tokyo. The place was seriously crowded, but it was still a lot of fun! Saw the decorations, tried some of the food from the food stands and saw the lanterns float on the water down-river.

The decorations for the festivals are surprisingly elaborate for the few days they stay up, which surprised me. It's really great! The food at the stalls are also really good, but a bit more expensive than food you would find at other places.

I also went to the Square Enix offices and their shop nearby my school. I ended up buying a small Tonberry plushie as well. Inside the store they had a lot of stuff like soundtracks, games, plushies, food (as it was like a café in a small portion of it) and figures. It's been a pretty good week, and if you want to see even more of the pictures you can find them on my tumblr.

Trying to be a tourist

So I went to Ueno and Asakusa today, in a weak attempt to be a bit more like a tourist since I am in Japan on a limited time after all. The big shrine in Asakusa looks great around 7 in the evening, but most of the shops there close at 6.

It's a veery big shrine, lots of stores. Definitely worth the trip. Ueno on the other hand didn't have too much to offer today, as the supposed festival there hadn't started yet...

Other than that, there is a festival I'm going to tomorrow. If it's good I might post something about that tomorrow. Also, the following xkcd comic strip fits me surprisingly well... Well, the French and blog part anyhow.

Level up!

Level 2 classes have started and I can honestly say that they want us to step up our game when it comes to learning Japanese. From now on, all the class lessons are in just Japanese, the amount of kanji we had weekly before is now daily, and we are now also gonna have a class weekly on Japanese old-style culture. Guess the real schoolwork starts here.

I've also discovered why the karaoke places are really popular here. It's not crazy expensive and you can get as much as you want to drink included in the price. The only downside us that non-alcoholic drinks are self-service.

Anyway, that's it for this post I suppose. Nothing too special going on in this past week.

Delayed Status Update

Been a while since the previous blog post... Again. I've been bad at keeping this blog up to date and as an apology I've added some photos.

Been really bust lately, with my end of level 1 exams (last one on Monday, with feedback on Wednesday). Luckily it's "only" 133 Kanji for level 1 to know, and a whole lot of grammar. (；´Д｀)

I've gone ahead and gotten myself a Japanese phone, which makes blogging a whole lot easier than it was on the iPad. I also recently went to the Okinawa Music Festival in Ueno with a friend. Lots of fun and very catchy music.

I've gotten a lot of impressions and started to settle in a bit more here in Tokyo, so I'm planning on doing a post about the more different aspects of Japan and things I would've liked to know earlier, instead of when I had arrived in Japan.

Anyway, this was just supposed to be a short post letting you all know that I'm still alive and blogging! (The pictures are hopefully a nice bonus). Until next time! (≧∇≦)b

The First Big Test

I got my results from the test we had at Wednesday today, scoring a 98/100 on the Kanji writing and reading exercise (would have been a 99 if I didn't accidentally write さん, instead of きん for the kanji 金 ... Oh well...). I also got an 87/100 on the grammar part, which was alright.

In related news, my birthday was a couple of days ago, and I got a card with a present from my parents. That was a pretty nice surprise, as I didn't expect any presents.

As for other festivities, there's a local sake producing factory tour planned for tomorrow, as well as a party in a local park. Sounds like it'll be a lot of fun! One thing the japanese know, is how to make great parties, usually starting early. Just two or three weeks ago we went to a jazz club, at 7 in the evening, missed the last train, went back to the jazz club and took the first train back at 6 in the morning! ... In Norway people would probably start later, and end it at 2-3 at night, because people can't stand up straight anymore...

There's also some sort of festival going on in Asakusa this weekend, so I'll try going there as well, maybe get some more nice pictures out. Today on the other hand, I'm heading out to a local bar to meet some friends. Until next time!

Golden Week

During Golden Week I was lucky enough to be allowed to join a friend of mine and his family for their trip to Atami and Hakone, as they have a house there. Atami is a great place, we had some rice crackers wrapped in nori (a kind of seaweed), went to some hot springs and saw the art museum! The art museum had some stuff from way back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries, as well as a display of the golden tea ceremony room the emperor had in his castle way back in the Edo era, if my memory serves correctly.

In Hakone we went up on the ropeway, walked on the trail at the top and had some of the black eggs they boil in the area. According to my friends japanese wife, those eggs supposedly prolong your life by 7 years, but they looked like normal eggs to me underneath the sulfur encrusted black shell. Was also lots of sulfur in the air, so the place smelled like the worst fart ever though...

It's also been more than a month since I've arrived, and I've gotten the chance to meet a lot of amazing people. Some have said that they've had some racist encounters here, but I haven't as of yet. The closest would be someone asking me why I chose Japan and not China or Korea, just for someone else to point out that they should stop asking questions like that because it makes them look bad, wanting to gloat over their neighbours. xD

As always, pictures of my trip can be found on my tumblr. I might just pop them in the blog posts one day if I ever go to a net-cafe or something. No promises though.

Umtil next time, stay safe, and have fun!