Announcements!

Two pieces of good news!

First, we found out on March 9, which happens to be Shiori's birthday, that she is 6 weeks pregnant! The baby is due October 30 this year.

Congratulations, Shiori and Youichi!


The second piece of news is...
I no longer have to pay rent! Yay!!!!!
A huge thanks to Prof McMurray and the international exchange office at NTNU for making this possible!!!

With the four months of rent (from April to July) that I get to save, I can...
...buy 1 and a half macbooks
...buy five good quality electronic dictionaries
...live comfortably without any income for four months in Taipei

...you get the idea :D


After finding out, a group of us went out to a ramen place for a 'celebratory' dinner :P

よ〜ふ

Here's Yuna's rendition of "yofu," which means "hello" in Tienchinese :)

A little souvenir from Faiz

In Japan, customers can buy whole bottles of Shochu wine in izakayas and leave the bottle at the establishment were they unable to finish the wine in one sitting. It's called "keep" in Japanese.

A couple of weeks ago (I keep forgetting to post these pictures before today, so...), we made another trip to the izakaya we frequented. I knew that Faiz left an unfinished bottle before he left Kagoshima but I was surprised to find my name written on the bottle (lol)
(Tienchi wrote 'Shaquille O' Neal' btw)



I thought only 007 (the Chinese guy who used to live in apt. no. 107) and Zhao owned the bottle :P

A day in the life of...

I woke up today at 6:30am
not because I had a nightmare
but because I'm working at the movers today!

Ryoutaro came to pick me up at about 6:50am
(thanks for sacrificing your precious sleep time to help me on my first day!)
and we arrived around 7:00am at the company

I changed into overalls (will try to take a picture next time!)
and the day began with us moving empty boxes, bubble wrap, and supplies into the van
staff members are divided into teams each day and you never know who and where you'll end up with
turns out males and females do not work with one another

What's special about the moving business in Japan is that females (usually) go to the client's house and pack up the client's belongings into boxes (nice huh?) and then stack them up at a certain area in the apartment/house
then the males take over and move the boxes from the old residence to the new residence
then the females take over again and unload the boxes (get this ->) and restore them in their original positions!
Talk about customer service!

So today I went out with four other females and spent around ten hours packing a couple's belongings into a mountain made up of more than 30 boxes
...and we're not done yet...
I'm surprised at the strength of the other females, two are middle-aged and two just graduated from high school
I feel weak... Orz

But anyway, today (oops, it's past midnight now) yesterday was a great experience
a unique peek into a slice of Japanese life if you will
I'm tired and sleepy but I haven't really done any exercise these days
so I look at this also a workout
and a way to make sure I don't go broke (hehe)

I'm not on duty tomorrow
I guess they'll call me again when I'm needed
(Please call me~!)

Anyway, tomorrow I'll take it slow and let my muscles rest a bit
and do some studying!
:D

February 11: Shiori and Youichi's wedding

Although I'm a bit late in posting, this is one entry I do not want to leave out from my blog.
This is the first time I attended a friend's wedding (actually, we only went to the afterparty, but anyway...)
What makes it extra special is that I'm in another country and I know both the bride and the groom :)

Below are pictures from the "feather shower" and the bouquet throwing after the wedding banquet

Here's the bride in her pretty pink flowing wedding dress :D

Group shot! (Ryoutaro is drunk here)

The bride threw three bouquets and here are the three people who caught them

Here's the sign that announces that Shiori and Youichi's wedding was in session and that guests can leave their belongings here (or something... sorry, my Japanese isn't that good yet :P)

The adorable couple :D

Shiori's siblings: (L-R) Rino, Kazu, and Nana (this is the first time I met her in person because she's living somewhere near Tokyo with her husband)

Shiori's mom and dad all glammed up

me on the quasi red carpet

The sign announces that Shiori and Youichi's wedding banquet is in session and offers candy (in the basket) to those who see the sign (basically)



More about the afterparty in the next post!

Productive day

Although it wasn't very long, I finally sat down and read a research paper today.
My goal for the two-month long (which is halfway over) vacation is to read plenty of research papers and decide on a topic for my master's thesis and if I'm lucky, to get the literature review portion of the thesis over and done with.

Today was just a tiny, tiny step.

I'm going to start writing comments about the research papers I've read on a separate blog (http://jenzthesis.blogspot.com/) because it is not something everyone will be interested in. The reason why I'm starting this blog is so that I can put my comments down into words before I forget them, to help me think up more ideas revolving around the topic, and to potentially generate comments from other people who may read the blog.



One other thing that's happened today is that I received a call from Youichi saying that I can go work with them at the movers tomorrow. Yay! Money! I'm seriously strapped for cash, so this will definitely help some.

Youichi called me a couple of times today to make sure my first day goes well. Shiori sent me several emails teaching me some of the basics of the job and assuring me that all will be well. Ryoutaro has offered to pick me up at 6:45 in the morning tomorrow to make sure that I get to work on time and to help me with the transition.

Thanks a lot, you guys! You're the best!

Reunion

About a month ago, Marie, Trisha, and I came up with this idea that we should hold regular (say, annual) trips with the friends that we made in Japan at a different location each time

Sounds tempting
Even though it sounds like hard work, I hope that we can follow through with this

The last last print club with Tienchi in Kagoshima

Me and my big mouth again...
The previous print club stickers weren't the last ones with Tienchi
These ones are.
I can say for sure this time around because Tienchi should be in Taiwan now (her flight was two hours ago)

We took these photo stickers before we went for another all-nighter at our favorite karaoke place (MUSE CLUB)
Tienchi chose to do an all-nighter at the karaoke so she won't miss her train which departed at 6:30 this morning

Clockwise from bottom left:
Zhao, Hiroki, Erina, Tienchi, me, and Shinobu

Culture bubble

I was on the train the other day and started thinking about what I have been noticing all throughout my stay here: people keep their distance from other passengers when they're taking the local transportation

Case in point: there are two types of trains where I live (in Sakanoue).
One type of train come in two-seater benches while the other type has long benches (cushioned, of course) on both sides of the train.
In both types, passengers tend to sit a bit apart from other passengers
It is especially evident in the trains with two-seater benches (I don't know how else to call it)
Although each bench can seat two people, not many strangers share the same bench in the train
I remember one time I was sitting in one of these benches and the seat next to mine and the two seats in front of me were unoccupied. Still, the high school student who boarded the train after me chose to sit on the floor instead of occupying any of the empty seats.

Ever heard of the term "culture bubble?"
I'm not sure if I got the term right, but the term essentially describes the distance a certain culture of people feel comfortable with when they deal with other people
For instance, if it were the same train in Taiwan, all the seats will be filled
If it were the same train in the Philippines, the two-seater benches would seat three to four people. LOL

I'm not exaggerating.
One time I went back to the Philippines, I was waiting in line at the airport and the person behind me was practically leaning on me!
I took a few steps forward and again she came closer to me like bees on honey!

I guess I have a way bigger bubble than most Filipinos after living outside the Philippines for so long...

いいです

Here's a funny little story from Zhao...

He was in the professor's office one day and a Japanese student was pouring drinks around.
When it was Zhao's turn, he said "いいです"
(which literally means "yes")
But the guy didn't give him anything to drink and left
LOL



Okay, here's some explanation
You know how it is the norm to be indirect in Japanese?
Well, this is the perfect example
When people say "いいです" (iidesu)
it can either mean yes or no depending on the context, the intonation, and I don't know what else

Quite tricky, huh?



Whenever I offer Shinobu something and he replies with an "いいです" (iidesu) or an "いいよ" (iiyo)
I recheck to make sure he's saying no
and that's usually the case

When he's saying yes, he says "いいの？" (iino)
which literally translates to "Oh, can I really?"



Japanese sure is a difficult language to master.