Eyelash Perm = Life is Great

So it's been a little while since I last posted. Since I last posted, quite possibly the highlight of my life has been getting an eyelash perm. You may be wondering what that even is. It is basically exactly what it sounds like lol. You go to a salon and they perm your eyelashes so you don't have to use an eyelash curler for about a month and your eyelashes remain EXTREMELY curly! It is basically amazing :-)

The lady that was doing my eyelash perm told me that I have long eyelashes. That day officially marked the first day in my life that anyone has EVER said that about my eyelashes (therefore, making it one freaking awesome day). As my friend Izumi put it, waking up in the morning and having curly eyelashes just guarantees a good start to your day. So true. Having curly lashes not just after you curl them, but also at the end of the day without having to touch them also guarantees a good end to your day.

**Due to Mark's request to see a picture, I took this photo and have added it to this posting. Just to show you how amazing it is, I took the picture after a bath with no make up on! :-)

After being on a high from getting my eyelashes permed, I stopped by a glasses store in Shibuya and got myself some new glasses. (They were much needed since my old ones were not only super uncute, but I stepped on them and the frame cracked LOL). I looked around and found a really cute pair for 9,000 yen (about $100). That was just for the frame. The awesome part is, that is all they charged me for. They are currently having a 0 yen lens sale so the lenses were free, despite my -5.75 eye sight and terrible astigmatism. They even included the super thin lens in the base price. If your eyes aren't that bad, you can get cute glasses for as low as 5,000 yen.

On top of getting a great deal, they include a complimentary eye exam (apparently this is pretty typical in Japan)! In addition to THAT (if you didn't think it could get better) they made them for me in 4 days! If I didn't have the terrible astigmatism that I do, they would have made them THAT DAY. Now THAT is called excellent service. This also made me realize how much the glasses industry is ripping us off in the U.S. Shame on you, American optometrists!

My life in 20 years.

Today I went to the Macchi (Kondo Masahiko) concert with my host mom and sister! For those of you who do not know who Macchi is, he was a big time Johnny's (the biggest boy band producer in Japan) idol back in the early 80s. It was his 30th anniversary concert, sooooo yeah. He is pretty old. Apparently he is 45 now lol You may be wondering then why the heck I would go to this man's concert. Put simply, he's our neighbor and my host mom is good friends with his wife and so we got invited. Because of the connection with the family, we were able to sit in really good seats, and since my host mom paid, I got to go for free!

It was in the Budokan so that was a really cool experience too! Before you enter into the actual building, it looks like the entrance to a castle. The Budokan is a really cool venue and it's a big deal for musicians to be able to perform there. It's also the same venue that the Beatles played in for the very first time when they came to Japan.

As far as my thoughts about the concert, I actually had a lot of fun!!! Kuroyanagi Tetsuko was sitting close to us so that was pretty cool. I also got to see Macchi's wife. His singing was also surprisingly good!!! His fans were also super energetic and really fun to watch. For the older songs from the 80s they all knew the hand motions that went with the music and it was hilarious. His fan base was also surprisingly wide in age range. I mean, a good chunk were in their 40s and 50s, but there were some teenagers there too! It was funny because he actually made a comment about how he was getting older, and how his fans looked a little more tired and older too lol.

I think the best part of the concert was seeing the fans. They were just SO into Macchi!!! They were screaming his name like little girls, it was hilarious and adorable. I can totally imagine myself with some of my girl friends coming to Japan for an Arashi concert when I'm 40 and Arashi is almost 50 screaming "Ninooooooo" at the top of my lungs and jumping up and down and waving those light up wands to the beat of the music, haha.

Weekend trip to Kobe

This past weekend I went to Kobe to visit some family and friends! I always go to Kobe via shinkansen (bullet train), but this time I took an airplane there, and took the night bus back. Both firsts!!! I have never even been to Haneda airport, where a good bulk of the domestic flights leave from in Tokyo. My cousin works there at the event place, but I was in a rush to get on my flight so I couldn't drop by to say hello.

Anyway, Kobe was a nice, relaxing weekend. I really didn't do much at all. I basically just hung out with family for two days and then hung out with my friend who lives out there for a day at her house. I finally got to eat yakiniku (Japanese version of Korean BBQ) with my family so I was VERY satisfied!!!! We also went to the Masuda (mom's maiden name) graveyard to pay respects which was really nice. In Japan, when you go visit your ancestor's graveyard, you clean the area, replace the flowers, clean the tomb stone thingy, and burn incense. The Masuda graveyard is up in the mountains (or what Gary would call hills) of Kobe. The round thingy with the design on it is the Masuda family crest.

My friend in Kobe just got married a little while ago and had a baby 3 weeks ago!! SO precious!! Her name is Sakina (咲菜)! Very cute kanji right? :-) She was born on January 14th, and is my first friend baby! She was very well behaved when I was there and just slept the day away. Although, my friend was pretty scared about what she would do at night since she was sleeping so soundly during the day, haha. She has a lot of hair for a little girl her age, and it looks like she has a little mohawk!

So the weird, coincidental thing about both my friend and my aunt and uncle who live in Kobe is that both families have the exact same type of dog. Back in high school when I was in Kobe visiting, my aunt took me to Ashiya train station to meet up with my friend. My aunt had glanced at my friend's home address and said that she must live close, but she wasn't sure exactly where she lived. I then met up with my friend and I slept over at her house that night. That was the first time I realized that they both had the same dog. So I went back to my aunt and uncle's house, and told them that my friend's family had the same dog. I then realized that my friend's house was on the way to Ashiya train station from my aunt and uncle's house! My aunt and uncle then realized that they had talked to my friend's dad before when they were both walking their dogs one morning!! Crazy coincidences right???

Anyway, here is a picture of Ken-Ken, my friend's dog. He is a grandpa now, at age 13. He is the sweetest dog ever though :-)

Here is a pic of my aunt and uncle's dog, Paula. She looks funny here because she is cold and is wearing a head scarf lol She looks like an old lady! In fact, she is an old lady, at age 11 :-)

Although Kobe was fun, I oddly missed Tokyo. I always thought that Kobe was the perfect size city because it's not too large but not small either. Now that I have had a taste of big city life, it's actually started to grow on me :-) Weird!

Working in Tokyo.

All of a sudden, life has become ridiculously overwhelming. Currently, I'm trying to balance my life with a new job, managing a side job, reading for class (or rather, making a poor attempt to), exercising (or rather, thinking about it), and trying to finish my independent research project from last semester. The ironic thing is, even though I'm ridiculously overwhelmed, I actually have a lot more motivation to get things done than I did prior to this week. Apparently I'm a sick, sick person.

I'm assuming that a lot of the above information is new information to you, which means I have a lot of updates!

First! I got an internship :-) I cannot even tell you how relieved I am. I was getting pretty worried for a while, since the internship was a HUGE part of the reason I decided to come here. I started on Monday, and was supposed to work everyday, but it's going to change to 3 times a week from next week which is PERFECT. It's with a Japanese law firm, which is also PERFECT because I figure I would utilize and improve upon my Japanese the most this way. A few of the attorneys took me to lunch today, and I got an assignment reviewing a contract in Japanese and English, as well as a project looking over and verifying damages for a med mal case. So yeah, exciting stuff!!! The firm is in Kasumigaseki, which is a nice business area, about 15 minutes from my train station! Lunch time is interesting because they have a few places that sell bento boxes for cheap on the third floor of the building. Ahh, the conveniences of Japan :-)

Second! My side job. So, my side job is teaching private English lessons. Actually, it's not even a "lesson" because all I do is get paid to have a conversation in English with my student. I'm using this website called FindStudents.net, and I have gotten TONS of requests. Although, I've only had one lesson so far, so I guess the number of requests is not necessarily indicative of how many lessons I actually teach. Anyway, for this website, you set up a teacher profile and students find you and request to have you teach them. You can set up your own rates as well as meeting places to teach. My friend back at home told me about the site, and he said that he charged 3000 yen for 1 hour, so I figured I would do the same. I mean, he charged that when he was still in undergrad, so I figure I would maybe have the competitive edge because I am in law school charging the same amount. Right? Anyway, last week I had my first lesson with a doctor in Shinjuku, and it was a great experience. We talked for about an hour at a cafe near the train station (thank you for all of my friends who stayed with me at the station to make sure he was not a creeper!!!), he paid for my ginger ale, he paid me my first lesson fee of 2000 yen, and on top of that he gave me an extra 1000 yen because Shinjuku is a far commute from where I live. Sweet deal right??? I'm currently in the process of setting a few more lessons up with other students, so we shall see how that goes.

As for other updates, they are school related, and therefore, not exciting. Back to my independent research project!!

Famous People Sitings in Tokyo

One of the things that I wanted to do while I am in Japan is to see famous people around the city! During previous visits I have never spotted one, but I never really looked either. SO! I wanted to make it a point to be a little more cautious in hopes of spotting some :-) So far I have successfully spotted 2!

First person I am PRETTY sure I saw was Sakurai Sho, who is a member of my favorite boyband, Arashi <3

I saw him by the Naka Meguro station, close to where I live. He was riding a bike and part of his face was hidden by his scarf. Our eyes briefly met and he looked sort of panicked and cycled away! Although I like Sakusho, I wish it had been Nino <3

The other person that I DEFINITELY saw is Miyazako from Ame Agari Kesshitai.

I saw him with friends on Friday night in Roppongi. He was literally RIGHT in front of us when we were waiting to cross the street!! He is a pretty funny and famous comedian who is frequently on TV and is in a commercial that they have been airing on TV recently. We saw him with Down Town's former manager.

Hopefully more postings to come :-)

Wonderful things about Japan

Hello friends!!! It has been a few days since I last posted, so I thought it was about time :-)

I don't know if I have ever mentioned that this is my first time ever spending winter in Japan. Recently it has cooled down quite a bit so walking to and from the train station is mildly painful. The other night when I got home my legs were so cold they could not fully warm up until I got into the bath. This brings me to my topic of the day, "wonderful things about Japan". Of course, there are many wonderful things about Japan, but here are a few I would like to highlight today.

#1. Japanese baths.

BY FAR the best part of daily life in Japan. At home, we take showers and baths often in the same unit. However, in Japan, the shower and bath are separate (unless you live in an apartment than it could be diff) but are a part of the same room. Here is a picture for clarification.

So the really nice part about having a shower room is that you can sit and shower. It's nice because it's more relaxing to wash your body and hair sitting down. It's also a lot easier to shave this way too. It's sort of hard to see in this picture, but the faucet is the silver thing above the blue bowl. So if you want to put water in the bowl, it's nicer when you wash your face and stuff. It's also efficient because you can save water this way! :-) The thing that is covered to the left is the bath tub.

This is the tub without the lid. It's nice and deep so when you sit in it, it covers your shoulders easily :-) The little panel with the black screen on the right is the most amazing piece of technology ever! With the panel you can select how hot you want your water to be and how much water you want the tub to fill. Also, note that there is no faucet to the tub. This because once you set the panel to what temperature and how much you want to fill the tub, you push a button and it automatically prepares the bath for you from inside the tub! The tub has the ability to maintain the same temperature, so you never have to worry about it getting cold over time. AMAZING right?????

#2. Japanese Cellphones.

While I am in Japan, my good friend is letting me use one of his three phones because he works for NTT Docomo (thank you Shingo!) Even though the phone is about two years old, it is AGES ahead in technology compared to American phones. Instead of texting, they have e-mail which is what they use instead of texting. Although this may not seem like much of a difference, it's really nice because people can "text" me directly to my phone from a computer. So if you ever want to send me a little message, feel free to text me at sachiyo.isoda@docomo.ne.jp. I have unlimited emails so any message is welcome :-)

The other nice thing about my phone is that it takes great pictures. My digital camera is about 6 years old now, but my camera and my phone almost take the same quality picture (ridic). I can also watch TV as a part of my all you can use internet plan which is pretty cheap. Even though you can do a lot of these things on an iphone, the monthly plan is cheaper than having an iphone which is awesome. You can also use your phone as a credit card, although I'm currently not doing that.

#3. Japanese food.

Japanese food is definitely the best (I am aware I am biased). For those who are not aware, ramen in Japan is amazing. It's not the cheap crap that college students eat because they don't have money. People really get into it here. Really popular ramen places have lines going out the door and you have to wait to get in to eat. My first weekend in Tokyo, I went to a ramen place in Shibuya, and it was SO good!!! The place is called Ichiran, and of course, there was a line to get in. It was an interesting place because the seating was private booths, so even though I went in with 2 other friends we all ate separately in our own booths. They specialize in tonkotsu (pork broth) ramen. Gochisousama*

Adjusting to life

Hello! It's been a few days since my last post :-)

Today I went and got my haircut in Harajuku! It was a simple and cute salon and I just got my hair cut, colored, and treated. It has been a REALLY long time since I got it professionally colored so the change was nice! I was going to get it permed too but we decided that I should wait a month before I did that to avoid too much damage to my hair and also so the color would hold better. I have never gotten my hair treated before so it was also very nice :-) It's so soft!!!!!

Here is a pic of my new hair. Sorry it's a little blurry, I took it with my netbook camera so it's not the best quality.

After I got my haircut, I had some time so I shopped around Harajuku. I got a cute black skirt, a light gray cardigan, and a cute black dress. I got the cardigan ans dress at H&M for 1000yen (appx. $10) each!!! Pretty sweet deal :-) I wanted to take a better picture of Harajuku, but I always feel weird taking pics around Tokyo since I don't look foreign. I think if I were white, tall, and blonde no one would think twice about it, but yet again, another time when blending in is not always the best. This time I just took a pic of the Forever 21 that they have there now. It was right next to the H&M I went into. There's even two guards outside the store. Fancy for Forever 21.

I also stopped by Shibuya on the way to school. If you think this is a lot of people, boy are you wrong lol. On the weekends there would be absolutely no open spaces like this. This intersection is called the "scramble kosaten (intersection)" because you can go in any direction you want when you cross the street. In fact, there are like 5 different cross walks or something ridiculous like that. FYI, I took these pictures with my new cellphone :-)