"yatto"

Yatto means "finally" in Japanese, and is the word I am saying to myself now that I've finished packing and cleaning and moved out of the small shoebox apartment into my new palace home (at least for the week until I move to the boat.) The picture on the left is extremely similar to the view from the living room window, except I am located a bit higher on the 19th floor.
Oh, and I have a bed to sleep in tonight. Woo hoo! Now my neck and back pains will go away. Double yatto!!

"hikkoshi"

Yikes!!!!!!!!! Tomorrow is my hikkoshi, or moving, day. What a big ball of stress, especially since this whole week I have orientation for my upcoming job on PEACEBOAT and very little time to do any packing. I have thankfully sold ALMOST all of my furniture, with the fridge and chair going tonight after I get home from a goodbye party at 12:30 am. All the stuff I couldn't sell will be taken tomorrow by an organization that helps out foreign students in Japan like myself. This is a good thing, because otherwise I would need to pay money to a recycle shop to pickup unwanted goods.
This hikkoshi has made me realize how much junk I have accumulated over the past six years here in Japan. I am chucking tons to the curb, but still have a few packed boxes that I will need to send to the States. This is another problem, seeing that a box weighing around 20 kilos will cost $120 dollars to ship sea mail.


$120 x a few boxes = cheap last weekend in Japan for Meribon. screw!

"mata ne"

One of my very very good friends leaves Japan for Norway today. During these past couple of years we have spent many nights together in our lovely suburb of Sengawa sharing our worries and joys, usually over a nice glass (or bottle) of cheap Japanese diner wine. I wll never forget our late night escapades at Jonathen's kitchen, karaoke, and the best izakaya ever - Kuus. I wish her all the best! Sayonara sounds too official, like we will never meet again, which is definitely not the case. So I will leave her with mata ne, which basically means "See you later."

MATA NE!!!!!! See you soon in Norway!

"tomodachi"

Like I said, my two tomodachi, or friends came to Japan for a visit last week. This picture was taken in Nikko, a small temple town approximately 3 hours north of Tokyo. My tomodachi loved the temples! This is probably the only day they were here we didn't go shopping.

For anyone in Japan that has so far missed Nikko, I highly recommend it!!

"namakemono"

Okay, so I have been slacking on this blog as well. Call me a namakemono, or lazy person, if need be. But my friends from NYC were visiting for the week and we were quite busy with touring temples and shopping and karaoke and more shopping and after that even more shopping. So there really wasn't much namakemono going on...

...and my computer broke, again. What gives?? First its the hard drive, and now they say the motherboard is fried. Well, take my advice and NEVER BUY A TOSHIBA. They obviously suck the big one.

"byouki"

Yeah, so you all probably heard the news. U2 has postponed the rest of their Vertigo tour due to some immediate family member being byouki, or sick. This means that they are not coming to Japan on April 4th, and since my boat leaves on the 5th I will miss out on the concert. How extremely sucky is that?!

I do hope that whomever is byouki has a full recovery.

"yasui"

While in Tai I was able to try all sorts of fantastic foods. I would have to say that this meal was my favorite. Extremely yasui, or cheap, and very authentic - you could tell by the plastic furniture and non-air conditioned room.

The whole meal cost about 10 dollars, including 3 beers and a bottled water - yasui!! See that pad thai on the right? That was 1.50 for the plate, and it was the most fab pad thai I have ever tasted!

"tai"

Tai is Japanese for Thailand.
I was in Tai for 5 days this past week with my mom.
It was 39c/94f degrees and fabulous!

Are you jealous?