Japanese Blog!

I’m going to be updating my Japanese blog much more frequently from now on (It’s for a project for class, so I *HAVE* to).

If you can understand it, head to http://dgarcher.seesaa.net/

Lately…

Ok, Japan is going flipping crazy for Volleyball atm. It’s the Volleyball World Cup 2007 Japan. But they’re going mad for it. There’s even a pop song. and a dance. No, seriously, a dance.

sonna ha kankei nee!(Dances)

And yeah, the band are there on TV at EVERY game. lolz. Anyway, Japan (2 wins, 2 losses, currently 5th) are playing Russia (undefeated). Top three teams will go through to the Beijing Olympic Games. Ganbatte, Nihon!

Oh yes. It’s this one. Oh yes.

In other news, I watched 1 litre of tears the other day (ichi littoru no namida)

It’s only 11 episodes long, so I had a crazy night in and watched the whole series.

I cried at the end. Not just tears making the eyes wet stuff. Oh no. I mean I actually flippin wept uncontrollably. How sad is that? But seriously, watch it. Seriously. You can watch it on Veoh and maybe Youtube? (I’ve seen some episodes up on there). It’s unfortunate that I can’t find the non-subbed version, but I guess that’s a good thing ain’t it?

Anyway, I got a good choice of sports tonight! ^_^ Volleyball on now, followed by National team baseball, Australia vs. Japan. And I got asahi beer! I’m made for tonight

Just a quickie

Thought I’d share this site, it’s very inspiring, particularly the two following articles. Guess I should subscribe to these eh?

http://trans.hiragana.jp/ruby/http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/you-can-have-do-or-be-anything-but-you-cannot-have-do-or-be-everything

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/showing-up

Cheers,

Dave.

Not a big update really…

Not much happened over the last few days to be honest. Yesterday, I was working at a middle school teaching the children English. Was so much fun! However, the kids kept wanting to feel my muscles. I said Japanese people are very touchy-feely, but the kids! flippin ‘eck, they won’t leave ya alone! There were so many of the girls that were literally dragging me around by the arm and resting up against me, it was so cute! At lunch time when everyone went out, it was weird too, because all the higher year girls started crowding round all excitedly (the 11-15 year old ones, lol). How strange, eh?

Then I returned my book to the public library (late, but there were no fines…) And got a new one!

Also, yesterday, I figured “Right, what’s the best way of me saving money over the next few months? Well, first things first, drinks. I really don’t like tap water. Really, really don’t. So I got me one of these:

That’ll save me about 500-600 yen a day (£2.50-£3)

Also, on the theme of money saving, I decided to finally get me a really nice lunchbox.  I’m spending way too much money on buying lunch every day (About 500 yen, again about £2.50), so it’s best that I do this. I can’t really start properly making bento boxes until Saturday because I need some vegetables (Well, LOTS of veg. I like lots of veggies in the salad section.) Cute isn’t it?

And finally, Inaba sensei gave me a call at 6:45pm, so that I could go and pick up:

These two futons. Inaba sensei is so nice, seriously, to just donate these two to us for the next year, bless her cotton socks! ANYWAYS, all this meant I couldn’t do much in the way of study. Pants.

Oh well!

AAAHHH!!!

Today, I learned about a game called DTXMania. It’s basically based on DrumMania (Seen in basically EVERY ARCADE IN JAPAN.)

http://www.gdamania.net/  – This site basically can tell you all about it in English, and you can download all the game, songs, etc.

Basically, this game is like Rock Band with three major differences: 1, It’s on PC. 2, There’s no Mic. 3, You can CREATE YOUR OWN TRACKS or download user created ones. As with all user-created, tracks, some are awesome, and some… aren’t. Anyway, seen as I am teh suck at the drumming games in the arcade atm (can’t get higher than a level 18 standard mode… might sound high, but this counter goes up to 100) I wanna get a practice drum kit and play this game on my PC like mad.

And it plays (when you have an awesome £500 kit, or nearly as well on a £120 kit) like so:

I am happeh.

Yay for egging!

Due to the egging on of my girlfriend and a severe want to just type like a madman, thought I may as well give this a go again. Going to be a personal one seen as I’m sharing my girlfriend’s with her.

So what shall I be putting in here as opposed to there? Well… I guess I’ll be putting in any stories, poems etc. that I write. Any random thingymadoodles like pictures and random musings should go in here too. Also any really awesome pictures I decide to make. I’ll put my random doodles in Caryl’s (though she’s going to make mine seem kinda naffy).

I have a dream machine! iMac, Wacom Cintiq 12, and Adobe Web Premium CS3.

Also, I want a britta water filter tap.

Isn’t life interesting?

TODAY’S RTK KANJI OF THE DAY!

宴 – BANQUET

(As an offering to guests, your woman spends all day in the house preparing a BANQUET!)

Shopping!

Went shopping today, was able to take a couple of photos of the local town, and I have one more picture of some of the uber, uber food I bought. I managed to pick up some sushi for just 580 yen, roughly £2.50. (Photos below)

I also decided to go to Makuhari, the main town. The city is so cool. Below is an edited picture of the scene you see from the bridge just before arrival. Looks good doesn’t it?
(Click on Thumbnails for full image)

While I was there, I decided to go to Tecmo arcade, played some shooter games and some Mario Kart, was really amazing. Enjoyed it so much ^_^.

Still really enjoying it here. It was so sunny though today! Even though I slapped the cream on like a madman, I still got kissed by the sun. I do think that my face is actually a little burned, and my arms are turning a shade browner. And when I say a shade, I obviously mean like five or six. I must be getting enough Vitamin D to power a small computer. Don’t get me wrong though, it doesn’t look bad for once.

I forgot how long it had been since an update! I’ve manged to buy myself a bike (It’s SO nice, only cost ~£70, and it doesn’t look sporty or anything. The nice fact is that I can get from A to B that much quicker). So, whether I like it or not, I’m going to be getting a lot more exercise, seen as I won’t be catching the bus to anywhere locally. It’s bike only, baby! Of course, when I travel further, I can use my new travel card (Such a useful thing that too, and it has a picture of a penguin on it… strange…)

On a side note, I said I’d be bringing in some Software news here and there. Ubuntu Studio is finally out! (WOO!) When I can actually get some DVD’s, I’ll get a download of that on the go. It seems so useful, just wondering if it can use the things my PC has. For now though, I’m quite alright using the software I’m using. The photo effects above were done quickly, and extremely easily, on Paint.NET, which is actually well worth checking out. It does all the things I could ever need in a paint program. Seriously.

Ja ne~!

Nihon de~~!

I made it to Japan safe and sound. Minami and Megumi met me at the airport with the cutest drawn picture I’ve ever seen. Poor things, I kept them there for over a full hour before I arrived out there, but that was because customs were being so slow…

Japan is… well, kind of how I expected it to be, and kind of not. It’s actually really fun here, and everything really is SO cheap it is almost unknown. The food is awesome too, and I’m only touching the bare basics of it (Had some miso ramen yesterday for lunch, and a bentou for tea (See picture!)). The two guys I’m going to be living with (Dan and Journ… that’s not the right spelling I’m sure, but not entirely sure how to actually spell it, it’s a Danish name) are absolutely sound. I’m DEFINITELY going to be buying a bike as soon as humanly possible. The University is at a weird distance from where I’m living, too far to walk, but I find it hard to justify going by bus every day. I think it’s about 4 1/2 – 5 miles.

It’s also SO hot here. While I was walking around yesterday, I thought that was the case, but I didn’t realise until I got home yesterday just how hot it was – 34 degrees! Man, that midday sun is very, very hot. Good job I bought some suncream. It’s quite strange , the bottles of suncream are SO small here it’s almost impossible, but I suppose due to the nature of their skin colour, it’s very rarely used. At least, that’s what the girls were telling me about Japanese guys.

Still, air conditioning in my room. Speaking of which, my room is beautiful – it has its own balcony, and though it is a little plain, it’s still bang on. It’s the Japanese-style room, you can still smell the new tatami mats below me. The bed though is the best bit – it’s so unbelievably comfortable that it almost defies belief. Very low to the ground it may be, but wonderful anyway. Plus I’ll have almost all the comforts of home – One of the guys has already bought a TV, but we’re going to have to buy a microwave (which also acts as an oven), and a rice cooker (Just trust me on this one – we’ll be eating a LOT of rice).

But it’s strange how close to home it is. I don’t feel out of place at all here. Everything I could want or need I do actually have at the moment, so just leave it at that. Even the bath is great – it’s like a jacuzzi bath, got the temperature controls and everything, and a seperate shower attachment which you use to wash – the bath is just to relax in!

Speaking of which, I need some soap, lol. It’s quite strange, but men use the same kinda stuff as women, with a few differences. In other words, soap is soap. You don’t get to use male gels or shampoos. It’s a one-size-fits-all deal. Going to sort myself out with the essentials today, you know, cleanliness products, basic foods, stationery, etc. I’m going to need it, the amount of sweating and eating – possibly at the same time – I’m sure I’ll do.

Anyway, best get myself ready to head out to Kanda today. I got myself a tour of the grounds today so best head over.

Mata ne~

Hello World!

As with any really good computer-stylee thing in the world, I’m beginning this web blog with my “Hello World” post.

So what exactly will I be doing in this blog? Well, to be honest, nothing that you can’t find by trouncing around the web for hours, weeks, months etc. anyways. I’ll just be playing my own little position on the world from where I see it. So I guess I should provide some information about myself, my interests and my works; makes it easy for you to consider whether or not you’d like to actually bookmark it.

I’m 21 years old, currently at the University of Central Lancashire doing a BA (Hons.) Business Information Systems with Japanese degree. Strange eh? From next month (September-July 2008) I’ll be in Chiba at Kanda Daigaku doing my year abroad there. Miscellaneous pictures etc. will make themselves apparent on here so that my friends and family can keep up with what’s going on.

I have some wierd and interesting hobbies, as well as some cool things that I’m going to write about. For instance, one of my hobbies is checking out software. You’ll be able to check out what’s best of the free software out there to do this, that and the other. I know, what a geek huh?

Also I enjoy music, Japanese language, computer programming, and I’m something of a philomath. I love cooking, and want to learn to do some gardening. I’d love to grow my own herbs and veg, and raise chickens for eggs. I do play guitar, albeit terribly, and don’t have the worst voice in the world, but I’d never look into a career in music. Trust me, if you heard it, you’d agree. I have an interest in it though, as well as to a certain extent in art (though not bothered about some of it). I guess I’m just a generalist really.

I read a lot of books, and tell tales, write stories and some poetry too. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a selection of all the creative things I do on here. I enjoy fantasy, but I have some skill with writing for older children. In terms of computing, as a user, there’s not much I can’t do really to be honest. When it comes to development though, I am the most newbie noob you’ll meet. So as I’m going through this, you’ll see how I’m progressing with my programs.

I LOVE making things! It’s so cool to see the things you make, and where it started from. Kinda like this blog. It’s starting here, who knows where it will go to?

I have an interest in history, in space and the stars, in maths, in physics, in chemistry, in weird science, in writing, in music, in art, in computers, in programming, in musicals, in language and languages, in religion, in technology, in design, in open source software, in football (both European and American)… so there’ll be a bit of everything for everyone. Just have a go with it. Stick with me, we’ll see where we go.

I am a Christian at heart, and God is very important in my life. Though I find it hard to place Him first in everything I do, I try. This’ll log my mistakes and my triumphs. Hopefully people can learn something from me, and me from them. In terms of family, I’m in a stable, loving and strong relationship with my girlfriend, and have the most loving and relaxed family you could hope for. Far as they’re concerned, I could do whatever I want to, so… I’ll try to do everything I want to, lol.

So yeah. We’ll see where this takes us.

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”
-Carl Bard-