.

Weekly update. This week sucked. We didn't do much. But lets focus on the good...

I got an amazing package from home filled with treats, presents, zines, books, artistic softcore porn and, best of all, long letters which I've read about ten times. Oh, and a copy of the Metro Herald. It's important to keep up with Irish current events with some high quality journalism.

To distract ourselves from the boredom of unemloyment, Derry and I have been seriously taking advantage the free coffee refills in Mr. Donut. Coffee and a donut for €3 + free refills + a place to hang out = hours of entertainment. In our time there we've managed to come up with a 5 year plan, which is exciting. I've never had goals before, but now I feel like I have something to work towards ie. a career and my dream house. I'm such a grown up.


I had a lesson with my private student which went well and he's paid me in advance for the next month, which is my first bit of income since arriving in Japan. Chaching.
Derry is out partying with NDT for their last night in Japan. I have my first day of work in the preschool tomorrow, so I'm home alone and I have to go to bed now. Here's hoping I wake up on time.

Hey Darragh

Darragh asked me to update this blog more. It's true, I've been terrible. It's so much easier to just throw some photos up on my tumblr. But I'm going to try to do this weekly for anyone who might care.

This week I went to the immigration office and applied for my working visa. It was a bit scary, I was nervous they would deport me on the spot, haha. Luckily, my school sent their secretary Yukari with me so she did all the talking and most of the paperwork and I just stood there and smiled a lot, trying not to look threatening. I wanted to take some photos of the immigration office, but I thought Yukari might think I was a bit weird. Maybe next time.

I found myself a private student and had my first lesson with him yesterday. He was super nice and defo seemed more nervous than me which made me feel a bit better. I'm looking forward to finally putting all my teaching skills into action! Also, it's my first bit of income since reaching Japan, so that's exciting.

Riot Cafe, Koenji

Nuclear Death Terror came over this week. Derry knows Cormy from home so we went and met up with them for a few drinks on Wednesday night in Riot Cafe in Koenji. It was a fun place. Some guy who I think is the owner or the manager or something sat down with us, he was so funny and a bit crazy, and all the members of NDT were super nice too.

Anata wa loco desu.

After Riot Cafe, I cycled over to Faye's new gaff to drink hot sake and have hilarious chats with herself and Ryuta. Faye lived with us until last week, and has now moved into an apartment just around the corner. Hot sake is vile, but I'm told I'll grow to love it.


Zone-B is a venue in Waseda that I mentioned on my Tumblr. Having been to four gigs here in the last 2 weeks, myself and Derry now feel like regulars. Which is awesome. Although, feeling at home here, strangely enough, makes me miss home a bit more. It's nice to be able to go to gigs though, despite being broke as SHIT. We went to the first two because they were cheap (500yen) and then we managed to score getting in free to both NDT shows this week. I wouldn't have been able to go otherwise, the gig last night was 2800yen on the door (about €26).


I cycled down the last couple of times to save on train fares, it's maybe about 30 mins away by bike (at least while I'm still this unfit). However last night Derry and our friend Kate missed the last train, so I walked home with them to show them the way, and what with the drunkenness, the hills and the pit stop in Mac Donalds (where we pissed everyone off by being loud, obnoxious foreigners), it must have taken almost 2 hours to walk, haha.

One awesome thing about gigs here....BYOB! It's completely grand to bring your own booze in. We had heard about this ages ago but didn't know how true it was. The first couple gigs we were so sketchy about it, but yesterday I walked in drinking a can. People be fuckin' drinking naggins of whiskey right beside the bar. It's awesome. And it completely justifies the drink charge, I suppose.

Nuclear Death Terror

NDT were so good both nights. Other awesome bands were Fuck on the Beach, Unkind and Unarm. It's fun to see new bands at every gig, although also really hard to keep track of who you've seen etc. Some of the shows have such massive line-ups. The gig last sunday had 12 bands playing, and the one last night had 8.

Unkind

We've met lots of cool people. Everybody is so friendly. We met Kazu for the first time this week, although Der has been in contact with him for a while. When we first came over he would email Der to tell us when good gigs were on. He is the guy that put out that Tunguska record over here a few years ago. I think. Lovely dude, although I make him act as translator far too often when I am drunk.

Derry & Kazu

I've mentioned So a few times before, we met him in our first week here. He is a such a good dude. He put on the show on Thursday and he let us come in for free because he knows how broke we are :)

Derry, So & Kate

Kate is from Ohio. She is an English teacher and lives in Chiba which is the opposite side of the city. She's a lot of fun. As nice as all the Japanese people are, it's fun to have somebody to buzz with, without the ever present language barrier.

Things have really picked up recently. It's good to have made some friends outside of the house and have somewhat of a social life. We're defo in with all the punx now, haha.
My family have discovered how broke I am, and I think are gonna send me some cash so I'm hopefully gonna go see Floorpunch next week, which I think will be a nice change of pace from all the gigs we've been to so far. It's really expensive though :(



I think I might be a little homesick sometimes, especially when I get really bored, although I try to convince myself I'm not. Sometimes I get the kind of feeling like I've stayed too late at a friends house, or I've been in town all day and I'm tired and it's time to be getting home, and then I remember that I am home, this is home, for at least the next year. It's a weird one. This is the longest I've ever been away from Ireland before, although it's gone by super quick.
I just have one more week before I start working, so that'll solve the issues of boredom and brokeness, and I can go straight to moaning about having to work all the time.

:)

Lame 2010 recap.

My little nephew was born - Cillian Thompson.

I started and finished the blasted thesis and finally graduated college (with honours, yah).


I worked in Topshop which is honestly the only job I've ever enjoyed.


I lived in the most beautiful house with the most beautiful kitty cat.



I went on an adventure to Thailand and Laos, where I learned how to travel without complaining, how to give up feeling safe and clean, how to party, and that Ciara D. is awesome.


I got to spend 2 months in Warren St. and finally make up for the summer of 2007.


I finally made the move to Japan, in the most reckless and scary manner possible, without a job or a visa, and it was terrifying, but things are working out and I love it here (although I'll love it a lot more when I'm making all the money).


Myself and Derry celebrated our four year anniversary, our first Mexican Christmas and rang in the new year together, and regardless of how much I tell him I hate him, I honestly couldn't be happier that he's still around.


Special shout out to Jack. In the last year we went from ex-roomies to study buddies to The-Office-watching-pizza-eating-stop-motion-thesis-writing whizkids to yoga partners to next door neighbours with a super-fun trip to London along the way.

On Christmas Eve we had a little party. Ray, one of the lads we live with, made loads of food, including delish meatloaf and chocolate scones, om nom nom. Derry made tofurkey, which turned out quite well! I ate a ridiculous amount of cheese and crackers.

Derry's mum had sent over a Christmas Cake and some Christmas pudding. These went down quite well with the Japanese folk. I found it very amusing to see people eating Christmas cake with their chopsticks :)

On Christmas day we exchanged our gifts. Derry got me a hair dryer, a curling tongs, a ring, loads of Pocky and the best teddy bear ever. Derry Claus fuckin rules. We went into Shinjuku in the afternoon to have a Christmas pint with Sean Lugosi in Dubliner's Irish Bar! We don't know Sean very well but it was great to see a familiar face and to hear his impressions of living in Japan. I got a pint of Strongbow for 1000Yen (€9.19).

Then we came home and made our me-xmas-ican feast. I ate 5 tacos and a giant portion of nachos. I'd been craving mexican so bad for the last few weeks so it was awesome. We watched Elf while we ate.

After dinner we Skyped both of our families in Kildare, Laois, Dublin, Offaly and Chicago. We finished off the day and the bottle of Captain Morgans, watching Bad Santa and Home Alone with our fave roomie Ryuta:
An interesting Christmas to say the least.

So I have FINALLY gotten a job. I officially live here. Up until now everything was up in the air and I honestly didn't know if the whole Japan thing was going to work out. Myself and Derry had started working on our backup plan which was to move to Korea, because going back to Ireland with our tails between our legs was not an option.

The job seems awesome. It's in a Bilingual preschool in Tachikawa, which is about 30 mins away from where we live. I only have to teach a couple of classes a week, so I won't have to spend ridic amounts of time planning lessons, and the rest of the time I'm just there to participate in the activities and talk English to the kids to provide a bilingual environment for them. Easy!

It's slightly less money than I had hoped but I suppose for someone with no experience coming in at the middle of the school year, I can only be so picky. And it's still double what I was making at home! Furthermore, it's a LOVELY school and I'd much rather work with kids singing songs and going to the park than teach 40 year old men the functions of the present perfect progressive tense, ya know?

My next step will be to start the application process for my visa, and to start looking for private students to tide me over until I start working full time, because I don't start until February and I'm definitely going to run out of money before I get paid in March! Uh oh!

I'm feeling pretty positive about everything, which is good because I had just about given up hope, and I really didn't want to go to Korea, haha!

Yay Japan!

I haven't been updating this much, because we haven't really been doing anything very exciting. My two priorities are jobhunting and not spending money which puts a severe limit on the amount of fun things we can do.

We have been having a laugh though, going on lots of walks and doing a bit of sightseeing. I put some photos up on my Tumblr:
hamsterhatesyou.tumblr.com

I've had a few interviews so far but no job offers. The job market is a bit more competitive than I had anticipated and every week that goes by my bank balance drops and I get a bit more nervous. A lot of the jobs on offer right now are for an April start, which is when the new school year begins, but we can't last that long on our funds.

Hopefully things will work out. If not, we have a backup plan :)
I'm keeping a positive attitude and I think I'm getting a lot better at interviewing so hopefully something will come up soon!

xx

:(

I had an interview for a job today which would have been PERFECT.
But I was told I probably won't get it because I have an Irish accent.

FML.

Birthday weekend

I turned 24 this weekend. It was weird, it didn't feel like my birthday at all. Firstly I suppose because I'm getting a bit old to be making a whopper deal out of my birthday, but also just because I knew it wasn't going to be like it would be at home. No mates means no presents, no party, haha.


Me and Der still had a class time though. We went to the zoo on friday and saw all the animals. It's quite cheap to go to the zoo here, tickets are only a fiver, a yearly pass is about €20 and they have three days a year where it's just free admission for everyone. Which is class. Defo want to go back because the giant panda exhibit was closed for renovations and I was dying to see the panda! Had to make do with these guys.


On the way home I bought myself some birthday pyjamas including lovely matching neck scarf.


Derry got me my very own leopardprint TV blanket. All my close friends know how I feel about my blankies, well this is a blanky with sleeves. Incredible. I will never be cold again.


We went into Shinjuku that night and got hella locked. I ate about 2 dinners in a mexican bar (mexican is hard to come by here) and got too drunk to go bowling, which was the intended plan for the night. I wore my gown because it was my birthday and I felt like being fancy.


On Saturday we went to Shibuya to meet Sean Lugosi, which was a mega fail, because as previously mentioned, we don't have a phone and we're really bad at meeting up with people. Shibuya fucking rules for shopping. There is two department stores called 109 an 109(2). They are incredible. Something like 9 floors of delightful Tokyo fashions. And not that expensive!
I bought myself a couple of birthday presents including this Hello Kitty bow tie (so I can be like Chuck Bass)...

...and this tartan scarf.

Oh I like tartan. I didn't bring my camera to Shibuya which I regretted, as per usual, but it's so fucking awkward and heavy that sometimes I don't want to bring it. Also, I hate looking like a tourist.

One million puppies.

Yesterday (Sunday), we went to Yoyogi park and Harajuku. Yoyogi park is fun to go walking in because there are people dancing and busking and having a laugh and there are a million doggies all wearing their sunday best.

Me and Derry spent most of our time flipping each other off.

Again, notice the t-shirt in the middle of winter.

After our stroll in the park, we went shopping in Harajuku, so I could buy myself EVEN MORE birthday presents: a new pair of Vans, and a pair of vintage Levis, that I don't have a picture of.

You can't QUITE see how hairy my legs are in this photo which is good.

I'll leave you with this photo of Derry blowing smoke rings at me. Notice the smoking indoors. Delightful. All in all good birthday weekend, which could have only been made better by the company of my dearly missed friends at home. Love yall xxx

Koenji

Strolling through Koenji.

After bumping into Penke last week, we arranged to meet him and his girlfriend Kate to hang out. Unfortunately we were all very drunk when we made these, and Derry and I don't have a working phone, which resulted in Penke and Kate waiting at Nakano station, and Derry and I waiting at Mc Donalds in Koenji. We are really bad at meeting up with people. Whoopsy. So anyway, once we realised that we weren't going to be meeting the others, we went strolling again.

Village Vanguard - Exciting bookstore!

Koenji is such a cool area. There are vintage stores everywhere, with the best vintage clothes I have ever seen. Which are unfortunately, very expensive, but it's fun to browse, expecially when there are such beautiful things.

Aggressive Leather Shop....and Meat! What a name. It had some of the
nicest vintage leathers I've ever seen. No meat though...

This shop was called Slut :)

There are also lots of antique and secondhand stores. These are a little bit more fun because they are actually affordable! There are a good few 700Y used shops, where everything in the shop costs 700Yen or less and some of them are the kind of shops where everything is in piles and you have to get in and have a rummage to find the good stuff, which I enjoy.

700Y shop - about €6.50.

Koenji is also known to be a "punk" area and it's where there are a lot of gigs and venues and record stores and tattoo parlours. We found a shop that pretty much just sold vintage band t-shirts which was rad, there is a Municipal Waste and a Minor Threat shirt that I really want.

This guy was terrifying. He stood at the entrance of Booby Trap,
a skate and rock store with a million Black Flag posters on the front door.

Derry and the Christmas Colonel.