Friday 28 March 2014

ageha 1day lenses, purikua & substories

I should be doing more for my thesis but instead I am here, and I decided to blog.
Here we go, my procrastination blogging comes again. And I am picking very random topics, too!

It's weird but since I came back to Germany and did not go to my parents place yet but stayed at my apartment dorm in Bonn, it has been so quiet and peaceful and some days I woke up and felt like I was in Tokyo. A year or so ago I felt the same before falling asleep in this apartment.
But now everything is just so peaceful, there is no stress, I am very very slowly working on my thesis peacefully (I've read like 40 pages so far /nervous laughter) and every now and then I met a friend and had just a great time talking. ... Life is so different if you don't live with your parents and do not hear much from them.


My friend and I met casually and I told her to try the wine I bought for the casual dinner we had and she just drank it right out of the bottle haha. No we did not do anything special but hanging out casually, last-minute, that is what I miss a lot in Tokyo and generally in my life!

Enough of Germany and some more of Japan. I tried to not spend too much money but ended up somehow broke just paying for food and transportation and all kind of things I actually needed. Then, one night when my friend and I decided to hang out and another male friend joined, I ended up leaving my coloured contact lenses at that one friend's place because actually he did not have anything to store them because he wore 1day lenses... ah he gave me a pair of his 1day lenses that were actually too wear for my eyes but at least I could see something and then I went to ALTA in Shinjuku to buy myself some 1 day lenses for the rest of my stay in Japan. I had been wanting to try the Ageha 1day lenses for some time and decided for the brown version which claims to make you look ハーフ... half-japanese and half-foreign. Obviously that doesn't work for foreigners. For some reason the people asking me if I am half-japanese/half-something else have increased incredibly though. Lately it happens almost on a daily basis, depending on the make-up and lenses I wear and in which light/scenery they see me... I suppose it is because of my Japanese skills and they want to be nice? I am a bit proud of my Japanese skills though there is still so damn much I don't understand haha. But enough of that.


1,680yen for those babes!
5 pairs... of which I have already used up 2, 1 is not shown because it was and is still in my handbag for the 'just in case'-case that of course did not happen again after that one night haha.

The diameter is sooooo small somehow! Somehow they made me look... well... I don't know, foxy? I thought I looked so vamp-ish but at the same time it suited my natural dark-brown eye-colour very well. When I was wearing my Garula clothes it totally totally totally matched my animal-print, slightly d.i.a.-ish but more classy style! 
The diameter though!! But they were extremely comfortable, I also went clubbing with them.

I will give you some purikura with them because I actually did not have time to take selfies with them on. Yes you read that right. That is how little time I had when I was signed up to that University program.


Small diameter, right? My eyes are sort of big so they sort of do not even look like circle lenses and give me a very natural look. I wish they were just a tiny bit bigger but the fact that I can wear them really long is of course making up for it a bit. I am not sure how much I like these... But judge for yourself whether you think those are worth buying!

Speaking of purikura now. What happened to all the machines?! I really don't like how I look in the first purikura and I actually over-edited most of the pictures (one of my eyes/pupils was bigger than the other in some angles!) because those damn machines made my face so full of shadows... what happened to the machines that make you look Ageha-model like? What happened to super-kawaii light skin purikura? What happened to kira kira stamps? o(;△;)o

What is happening to the Shibuya subculture? I miss the 2010~2011 times! At least they still shoot from above for the full-body shot but everything else is becoming so natural, soon we can take just simple pictures with our smartphones and purikura-like cam apps...

Ah well, besides I am a bit a bit upset guys which might be nothing too new. Lately I think I will never get along with Japanese guys, first breaking up with my boyfriend, then having this trouble with the guy I met last summer... well, he never had time and wanted me to come to Shinjuku at like midnight to meet him! When I didn't, he was upset and called and messaged me everyday to make sure I had time to meet him the week after... only so he could stand me up!
What the hell is wrong with Japanese guys? ((>д<)) It's like when you do something to them that isn't the best thing to do (OR THAT SIMPLY IS SOMETHING YOU WANT AND NOT THE GUY WANTS) he pays you back 3 times worse with his narcisstic humiliating behaviour. I don't know how to deal with men. I am attracted to them but they have such downsides I can hardly accept.
I am naturally forgiving but if someone is trying to use me, I can't let that happen. And it seems Japanese men (especially the young, eye-candy type...) are just generally using women?

But I am not their typical gyaru or whatever Japanese girls they are used to, running after them just to get a bit of their attention, I'd rather stay single and go out with my great friends then letting men take advantage of me. Hell, guys aren't worth it. He isn't worth it. He sends me those weird attention seeking mails and messages on LINE, calls me but hangs up after a few seconds because he gets bored. He gets bored right away, you know?Or he at least acts like that. And he has always at least 10 girls (mostly gyaru) commenting on his timeline updates, means he probably talks to 100. Ah, damn those players. I wish I could just show him what kind of good time he is missing. But oh well. Even though I am always too nice and forgiving, my time will come eventually.

Maybe someday I am going to understand guys and find a proper way to react to it. Unlike commonly believed in Japan I try my hardest to realize I am still young with my 23 years (and soon 24), I still have the best time and the best experiences ahead, we all do. Besides that I am having a really time enjoying myself while being single. So with that I hope my readers don't have to deal too much with jerks and are enjoying their time too, haha. Keep yourself away from trouble if you can, lovely readers~

Thursday 20 March 2014

back from tokyo & the big mountain!

Aaaand spring is almost there!
Here in Germany since a while and slowly in Japan too. (I get so pissed off when Japanese people talk about weather though haha!)
I meant to update more, right? But somehow everything got so めちゃくちゃ right before I left to Japan, I don't even remember what I was doing. Then once I was in Japan I wanted to do so many things and party everyday but I ended up doing much less than planned and doing very different things.

First of all. I have been accepted to this program at a Japanese (girls) University for 10 days for which I received a scholarship. I won't put up any names here, don't want do get any bad reputation and I really have a lot to rant about haha.
So why am I back from Tokyo and 'the big mountain' you wonder? The station where the dorm was located was called that way in Japanese and it was just this tiny little terribly cold, old lonely place. My first impression was that I, coming from a 10 days stay at a hotel in Ikebukuro (close to the central station), was too spoiled to get used to that kind of dorm where I did not have even an own shower. But I was so tired every damn day and this Japanese schedule and way of making tours just tired me out so damn much and I was so damn angry everyday because they did not give us enough time to sleep or eat, some days I was literally fearing I would hurt someone.
No, seriously though, the dorm was even worse than probably an usual prison room! No internet and no private shower, constant cold and if you go out or inside of the building at 1am to 5am an alarm will go off. Hell yeah, you read that right. Sort of like a prison!


This was my room when I already packed up everything and wanted to leave. They took away my futon and covers at 9am in the morning on the day I was leaving even though I just came home at 6am (TT)

Okay, I have gotten over this experience because the other German girl who I was doing the presentation with was with me and tried to calm me a lot of times. Because of our insanely long schedule (some days from 9:30am till 8:30pm!) we were constantly brain dead. When writing our review and filling in the survey for the scholarship, we were already falling asleep on the keyboard (we had to use the computers in the common area of the dorm, great deal haha /sarcasm).

My friend was filling in the survey thing for me... originally I told herto write 'Because of my financial situation' but she just happened to accidently smash random buttons and it turned to 'mz ¥¥' hahah we were laughing our asses off.
Then we kept being more silly because I had talked about how I wanted a proper shower and wanted to go to a love hotel just to shower (and I was sure nobody would believe me if I make that propose!) so then I was mentioning how Uguisudani had really cheap love hotels. And my friend said she knew and then the conversation went like
Me: 'Why? Have you been there before?' 
Her: 'Yeah... but not for THAT reason.' 
Me: 'Oh yeah, you mean for just sightseeing? As in, dick sightseeing?'
We laughed for hours and she actually wrote it as the reason why I wanted to come to Japan lol. WHICH IS SORT OF CLOSE TO THE REAL REASON haha. But we deleted that again.


I guess the following picutres do not need much explanation though. They are in cronological order. We/I still went out after the University schedule when we had time which left us very little sleep and caused us to be even more brain-dead during class. But at the same time I wanted to get drunk every night because I just wanted to enjoy myself! We had so little time to enjoy ( ; ; )

First of all: 10 days Ikebukuro stay 
(no photoshop or filters)















I somehow did not take too many pictures and did not go out with too many people then! Huh.

following 10 days stay at the University dorm
(mostly no filters or photoshop)








Hibiya Park (3.11. Memorial Day)








You can't imagine how much fun I had at those swings! They were much easier to use than German ones haha. Damn after all the work out we did over there my legs were constantly hurting haha.






Ikebukuro at night











Dorm area at night... look at that hole! 
That is not your usual 'watch your step' hole between the train and the platform.


 Ehem... some crazy stuff! Including a trip to a shrine at midnight.







On the way back home to the mountain after clubbing!
(My friend called it retard-mountain and retard-train line haha ... then she was like 'Take picture of me next to the retard- train line!' and then I wanted to have on like that too hahaha)




 Messy post (TT) But my actual stay was pretty messy so this sums up everything pretty well. When I was in the dorm and in the University I absolutely did not realize I was in Tokyo.

I still cannot say I am disappointed or anything. It was worth the experience and of course life is not just about having fun. But because of this I once again know what I want and what I do not want. I do not want to study at a Japanese University where I come out more brain-dead than before graduation because they do not seem to learn anything.
The classes consisted really just of saying your opinion and asking questions (and if no one had a question, they picked someone random to say something!) but how can you say your opinion if you did not read into the topic at all? Also the students did not seem to learn how to properly gather information, at least none of them seemed like they really knew how to write and present on an academic standard... as a result of a presentation where you describe the current situation/problem in the world just saying your opinion is a NO-GO in Germany! That is not (!) a result.

Ah well. It was worth that experience. I am glad I am studying in Germany and actually have some sort of standard and don't go living my life like a brain-dead zombie. Sorry Japan, but that part of the education you are getting wrong. And even though I knew Japan's education system was messed up, experiencing it in real life was a really big shock the first days. People constanly asked me to say my opinion towards that topic but if I did not have the chance to read anything about it yet, what sort of opinion can I give you?! And yeah, I just thought to myself constantly that loose lips sink ships so I better shut up about everything I wanted to say into their face, about how unprofessional they were and that what they were doing was not going into the direction of proper eduation at all. And I just kept my opinion (about everything) to myself. All I did was sometimes explain the situation in Germany and that is it. I am not going to sink onto an unprofessional level saying my opinion that has nothing to do with the topic.

I could rant about this forever. Nobody seems to knows anything, or at least they cannot give a proof or some proper quotes or anything like that. Probably that is why a lot of people in Japan do not seem to know anything 100% for sure. Everything is so vague. Maybe that is a bit of a new culture shock but oh well. I guess I can live with it. Just thank god I was not brain-washed into this education. Thank god I am studying at a proper University.

So thank you for reading all my rant haha. I think I got to know a different side of Japan (probably the one that should actually be called the dark side!) and I have personally grown with it so I am glad I could gather this kind of experience. I hope everyone else also has the chance to experience different sides of Japan.