chocolate_chip

Vacation was insanely busy, and I did almost none of the things that I was supposed to. I wanted to use the time to catch up on things, and instead I fell even further behind. ;_; I did have a good time though, and I got to hang out with anruiukimi, kyashieru, jougetsu, and misspaulette. I also had the most Japanese New Year's yet, including sending and receiving New Year's cards, making a trip out to the inaka, going to a temple for the New Year's Eve bell-ringing, making a New Year's Day shrine visit, and shopping at the New Year's sales.

x____x OMG, the New Year's sales. I spent so much money. Like seriously insanely ridiculous amounts of money. First we went to Peace Now, and I got two skirts, a top, and a sweater. Then we went to the loli department store, and I got a jewelry lucky bag. Then Cassiel took Paulette and me to Osaka to show us the Qutie Frash store, which is made of awesome. And the salesgirls' hair was made of even more awesome, all teased up and crazy colors and filled with tiny little New Year's decorations. I wish I'd thought to ask for a picture. Anyway, Qutie Frash makes Asian cyber-punk clothes in styles and materials that actually fit the non-tiny. And they even let you try on sale items! I bought two skirts, a pair of pants, a Chinese-style tunic top, a Japanese-style kimono top, and a camisole. After that, we tried unsuccessfully to find an ATM that would actually let us withdraw money, ate at a cute okonomiyaki place, went by h. Naoto, Gouk, and Hangry Angry, but they were closed, and hit up Kera and the used shop. I had no money left, but I went back the next day and got a pair of armwarmers at Gouk, a hoodie, a pair of bloomers, and a doll case at Kera, and a whole bunch of stuff at the used store. I got an h. Anarchy t-shirt, two Algonquins skirts, a Qutie Frash skirt that would be Cassiel's if I hadn't seen it first (and if it didn't go PERFECTLY with my dragon jacket), and two h. Jelly skirts that I thought were wraparounds, but turned out to be fitted skirts with wrap overskirts. x_x One of them fits (barely), but the other one I don't think I could fit into even if I were at my ideal weight. The overskirt goes great with my QF stuff though, so I'll probably just keep it.

And there's still Super Comic City next weekend! T__T But after that, I'm definitely through spending money. Except for BPAL. And maybe some shoes to go with the skirts that I bought. It wouldn't really be a problem, except that I also bought three dolls for other people during vacation, so my yen level is pretty giri-giri for this month. And the whole thing about maybe having to return to the US with its distinct lack of jobs soon.

Speaking of BPAL, holy crap, my collection exploded over vacation. Not literally, thankfully. XD After the After Event, Cassiel and I had a sniffing party at Starbucks. (BTW, I highly recommend this month's houjicha latte. I don't like coffee OR tea, and even I thought it was great.) I tried scents until both arms were full, and she very generously gifted me with several of her unloved imps. Then when I got home that evening, there was a package of even more imps waiting for me! XD So now I have 50 different scents, not including the vial of Zombie Apocalypse that fell down the drain. And 30 more in the mail. Aaaand about 15 more that I need to send money for. ^^;;; BPAL is very dangerous, because it's not very expensive, if you look at each imp or bottle by itself, but it's SO easy to get carried away.

One of the things on my list that DID get done was a trip to Spa World. I went with Lannie and a friend of hers, and had a great time. It's a pretty strange experience though, moreso than a regular onsen, because there are employees selling snacks or doing spa treatments, and the customers are all naked, but the employees are all clothed. We decided to get some spa treatments; I got the one where they rub off all your dead skin, and a mini-facial. I thought that the skin rub was going to be just arms and legs, but no, it's ALL over. o.O I hated it at the time, because my skin is really sensitive and it hurt a lot, but I have to say that my skin looked fantastic afterwards. The facial was also uncomfortable because it involved a lot of really hot towels, but since then, my face has been noticeably less oily than usual. It's starting to go back to normal though, unfortunately. Outside of the baths, there's a lot more stuff that you can do while clothed or in the spa-provided tunics, like several restaurants, a game center, a nap room, and a pool where doctor fish suck the dead skin off your feet. I love the fish, they're so cute and it feels like a cross between a tickle and a mild electric shock. There's also a pool, mixed bath, and seasonal water park, but we didn't get to that part. And they've extended the ¥1000 campaign, so I want to go again either this month or in March to see the European floor, but finding a day that won't be packed will be difficult. Oh, and one more awesome thing about it: the building is really well-ventilated, so you can wear your glasses everywhere! Being naked in public is a lot easier if you don't also have to be blind.

I also did get up to Mineyama to see Elizabeth, and Mandy and Jarrad came over for dinner and hanging out. There were cookies and hamburgers and mixed veggies and biscuits and proper bacon and scrambled eggs.... T^T I miss having real food. We watched The Fifth Element and Cars in shiny shiny blu-ray, and I had a nice, snowy train ride back to Kyoto. I also now have Kirk and Spock action figures which I need to put in inappropriate poses.

Hatsumode was beautiful! It was snowing gently, and clouds raced across the full moon. Unfortunately, my videos of the bell-ringing turned out crappy because my camera was on a super low-res video setting that I didn't even know it had. But I got a lucky fortune, and ate delicious strawberry taiyaki! And then Paulette and I rode the subway back and forth until 5 in the morning.

What I DIDN'T do: dishes, cleaning, studying, mailing Christmas presents to family. x_x I don't feel quite so failtastic though, because out of the whole vacation, there were only three days that I was actually at home, and I spent one of those recovering from vertigo. I also didn't eat any McDonald's the whole vacation! Yay me!

I'm not going to do a decade retrospective, because I'm lazy 2010 is the last year of the current decade, not the first year of the next one, geez people. 2009 was pretty okay, had some fun times, not too many bad times. My biggest regret is that I pretty much just let 2009 happen to me, instead of going out and making things happen. That's the main thing I want to change for 2010.

Apparently there is wank about the PW show? o_O

Anyway, I've been incredibly lazy lately, but I'm still on schedule with the senbazuru, and surprisingly, my Japanese course. I also got the most incredibly amazing doujinshi at Super Comic City. I wish I'd bought two copies so I could slice the binding off one and scan it. Oh yes! And I dragged rkold to Baby, The Stars Shine Bright and scored an Alice and the Pirates sweater. Wish their dresses would fit me.

Crane count: 409 down, 591 to go.

First of all, rkold and misspaulette are sneaky, devious, awesome people. They planned a surprise birthday party for me! ♥ There was ice cream, presents, JET people, non-JET people, dollie people, non-dollie people, cheezburgerz, and all-night karaoke! ^o^ (Fastest seven hours ever, btw.) We didn't get the ¥10,000 parfait, but the group two tables over did.

Then we stumbled home around 6 Saturday morning to get some sleep before going over to Tenshi no Sato. Sato was a bit of a bust -- the release date was pushed back on the mini Komame plushie, the outfits we wanted were sold out, and all the good cakes were gone -- butttttt Kun-maybe-Tobin got her wings! ♥ Sooooooo cute~~~~ Be glad I have no good place to take photographs, or I would spam you with a billion of them. Then I had a yummy sort of carbonara with pumpkin for dinner, and once again went home to try to catch the bare minimum of sleep before the next day's events.

Sunday was Osaka Comic City (tiny! only two halls!), so Rachel, Paulette, and I headed down there to meet Irena and Rachel's friend who omg works for Capcom and is totally awesome. And a big Phoenix/Edgeworth fangirl, which explains so much about the English version of the games, lol. But most importantly, I found out the answer to the question I've had for a while, and I'M RIGHT AND FANDOM IS WRONG. \o/ SUCK IT, FANDOM.

Anyway, I got a couple AtoZuka doujinshi, some Roy/Ed, and a rather long Dean/Sam book by my favorite Supernatural circle (who has also branched out into Chronicles of Narnia, which is perfect for their style, but I soooo don't want to go there). There's no smex, unfortunately, but it wins just because Dean is stranded on a planet with a bunch of Docomo mushrooms. But actually, I was much more excited about my non-doujinshi purchases. I got a new cleaning cloth for my glasses, which is not only so much better than my old crappy one, but has Oshitari proclaiming his love for megane on it! There were two booths with the cutest original kitty artwork ever, and I got a bunch of postcards, an eco-bag, a cleaner strap for my DS, and a notepad. And at assorted other places, I got a necklace, a bookmark, and some stationery and a cell phone strap for gifts.

Then, because, you know, we hadn't spent enough money on porn, we headed off to K-Books and Animate and the Osaka Volks. I actually may have not bought anything. I was tempted by a post GS4 Phoenix Wright doujinshi because it had a super hot older!megane!Edgeworth on the cover, but other than that, the art wasn't that good, so I passed. We finished off the evening with dinner at some garlic place that had the best garlic bread evar.

So yeah. I went into work Monday morning having spent no more time in my apartment over the weekend than was absolutely necessary to sleep and shower. =_= Everything was awesomely fun, but no recharge time whatsoever. Monday, had to work late. Tuesday, realized holy crap, yes, all the applications for the big Volks event did have to be mailed together, and had to arrive by November 3rd, sent out a bunch of frantic e-mails, and met Rachel for a surprisingly filling vegan dinner, although my teriyaki tofu steak was more like tofu and less like steak than I would have liked. Wednesday, had to meet Paulette to get her application, and we were both in the mood for a movie, so we decided to see Eagle Eye instead of doing silly things like catching up on sleep or watching Supernatural. It was the right choice. Thursday, spent my lunch break and the post office and worked late again, but treated myself to dinner at McD's and a delicious piece of chocolate cake from the local bakery. Friday, met up Paulette again, as it was 31% off Baskin Robbins' double cone day, an event that is not to be missed. (Ghost World = ♥) And we swung by Animate so I could pick up my MaruMa OTP mug! Seriously, it has chibi-Yuuri and chibi-Conrad surrounded by sixty-three hearts. Even the handle is shaped like a heart! IT IS OBVIOUSLY CANON. Then I came home and went to bed. And spent a relaxing three-day weekend doing laundry and finally getting a chance to watch Heroes and Supernatural. Yes, an entire week without even a single spare hour to watch Supernatural. It was hell.

But now we can all rejoice in a new birth of freedom from batshit fundie Republicans! Thank you, America, for not repeating the same dumbass mistake as four years ago. I think, for the first time in my life, I'm actually excited about my country's president.

FMA.

Post-movie.

CROSSOVER WITH INDIANA JONES OMG YOU KNOW IT WOULD BE AWESOME.


And now, for another rousing edition of "Look At All the Crap Emily Bought!" I ended up NOT going to Comic City today after all, because there's a bigger one in August, and it's a lot of time and money and hassle just for some mediocre porn that I already have too much of anyway. Plus, the group that was going wanted to see Juno afterwards, which was all hell no. But I promised rkold that I'd send her package today, and hey, I was already dressed, so I went down to Kyoto Station. In case you're wondering, Kyoto Station is where the central post office is, which is open all day on Sunday, and there's also a big craft store there, and I needed to buy some snaps for my h.Naoto skirt. (That's right, bitches, I said h.Naoto.) And the easiest way to get from the subway to the post office to the craft store without getting soaked because yay, rainy season, is to use the underground mall. And I was weak. But most of it was stuff I really did need. I got some socks and a couple calculators and a necklace stand at the 3 coin shop, where everything is ¥300. Of course, that's not including tax, so it's actually impossible to buy anything with 3 coins, but whatever. Then I went looking for the shoe store I had seen earlier, because they had Toppers, and I really REALLY needed a new pair of sneakers. But I was distracted on the way by a really cute blouse. >.> It was a little expensive, and I probably shouldn't have bought it, but it actually fit, and it's SO Japanese. So it can be my token Japanese girly shirt. I just need to find the right thing to layer it with. Then I found the shoe store, and they were cute and fit well and were actually not that expensive considering what shoes in Japan usually go for, and considering how hard it is to find shoes here that you can actually wear all day without wanting to shoot yourself, so I got them. And then I thought I was done, but a display of folding fans caught my eye. Of course the one I liked was the ¥3000 one in a display of ¥1000 ones, but it was really nice, and I really needed one, so I got it anyway. I was also tempted to get the Disney's Belle perfume that store had, but I didn't. XD The End. Until next week, when the sale at Black Peace Now starts. >_>;;
This shopping trip was brought to you by the numbers 7 and 11, which is the only place I can get cash on weekends. *fang*

But yes, I saw Indiana Jones yesterday! *fangirl* It was far from perfect; ( spoilers )

Back on the topic of doujinshi, last weekend I went with Ilona and nightflight to a Phoenix Wright doujin and cosplay event. It was small, but fun. There were lots of good cosplayers, including a cute-as-a-button Apollo, a freaking amazing 6-years-ago Mia, a perfect Judge, and a Jean Armstrong, lololol. There was also a raffle, and Ilona won a pair of Gavinners or whatever the Japanese name of the band is guitar picks, which she gave to me. And if your birthday was in June, you got a bag of Godot's special blend coffee. As for doujinshi, there wasn't much for pairings that I like, but I got two Gavincest, one when they were younger, which I can fully endorse, and one just because it's a whole lot of really well-drawn cat-ear porn. Ironically enough, after explaining to my cohorts how Klavier and Apollo just didn't have that "spark" in the game, they sparked in my own mind, so I think I'm an official fan of the pairing now. ^^

Long sentences are long. Also rainy season sucks, even though it looks like we got off easy this year. Also, I want to punch American Guy in the face, but that's an entry for another time.

Oh, and I uploaded my old Yami no Matsuei music video to youtube. Validate me, plz.

Happy Birthday, nightflight! I hope you have a great day~ ♥

Man, Straightener puts on one effing KICK-ASS concert. And Nanba Hatch is a really nice venue. There was no opening act, which was good, because that meant I was able to get back to Kyoto before the last subway. There also wasn't anything in the way of set design, but the lighting was so freakin' amazing. Especially at the end of "March" when they had these bright white lights shining from behind the band into the audience and they kept getting brighter and brighter until it hurt to look at the band~

I wasn't able to get too close to the stage, but from where I was, I had a really good view of both the band and the crowd in front of the stage. I think I like that better than being down in the crowd. I was also standing right behind two guys who weren't into jumping up and down, so it was really lucky for me. ^^ (Is that proper English? God, I can't even tell anymore.)

In addition to the band being just so damn good, the bassist really gets into performing, like there's honestly nothing else he would rather be doing than playing on that stage. It was really fun to watch him.

As for merch, I got a tour t-shirt, the tour towel, a wristband, and a bright pink keychain with the Straightener dog on it. The keychain is for my bike, since it's a happy keychain, and I have a happy yellow bike. (My bike is also named Ken-chan because Ken-chan is a happy name.)

I really want to see Straightener again. This concert was sold out, but since I got a pre-sale ticket, I don't know how fast the tickets went. I hope I'll be able to get tickets next time, too. Now if only I can get into the Bump of Chicken concert~~~ >o<

( I can has blatherings about Asian Kung-fu Generation? )

I’m hoping that this string of good things, particularly situations which seem bad but turn out well, applies to the JLPT, too. I did really badly on the first two sections, but much better than I expected on the last section, which is worth half the test. So there is a very slight possibility that I may have passed, but I won’t find out until March or so. :x

This post has been brought to you by the letters A, K, and G, and the fact that I have no classes today. \o/

Well, I did it. I just placed the order for my laptop.

Sweet Jeezy, I'm looking at a $3000 credit card bill next month. >.<

Best t-shirt ever? :o

I saw a big flock of robins today~~

It was snowing at the time, but never mind that.

I bought new dishes today. I probably shouldn't have, because I already have a set. But that set is Fugly with a capital F, and Bed, Bath, and Beyond was selling these at $20 below MSRP, and I had a 20% off coupon on top of that. And look at how pretty! I've really got to cut down on my spending, though. With the living room actually starting to look pretty good, it's put me into designer mode, and I have to keep reminding myself that this is the worst time to be loading up on stuff.

Also, McDonald's, it is March. That means you are supposed to be selling shamrock shakes. Wtf, you fail. Also, it's been how many years? Fix the damn typos on your cups and bags already.

-_______-; My tummy is feeling better, but now I've got a cold. Stupid body. *stabs*

And damn Amazon.com. I happened to hit on a day when their discount roulette for Supernatural S1 was on 45%, so I had to buy it. The problem is, they've found me out, so every time I visit their site, they keep suggesting all these gay romance novels that you just can't find in bookstores! Some of them are absolutely ridiculous, like this, or this one (what is that in his pants anyway, a canteloupe?), but some actually look really good. I, um, got one about cowboys and one about pirates and one about knights and wizards. >_> Well, the last one I'd been planning to get for a while, since I'd already heard it was really good, and was just waiting for it to come out in paperback.

Football party today at work~

WHY DON'T I HAVE ANY MORE SUPERNATURAL TO WATCH OH GOD HELP ME

I typed cod instead of God at first. That would have been funny.

Hey, regisjr! Guess what I saw at Borders today! ANIMANIACS VOL. 1 ON DVD!!!!! Also scored a copy of America (The Book) for $8.