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.

and again happy new year~

Yes, happy new year again!

Haha, actually I never really care much about the lunar new year but this time I couldn't help but notice the start of it because I took chinese class last semester (I hated it though haha) and there was some sort of little festival about it too. Besides, it's the year of the horse ("my" year as I'd like to say)!

It's kind of funny because after the 31th of January things went a bit more easy going. Or maybe I just thought they were... I could not be bothered much about exams but still lately all I have been doing was studying and trying to eat healthy... more or less. I feel like all I am doing lately is peeling carrots, I am so tired of it!! But baby carrots are twice as expensive while a pack is much smaller... ugh.

I thought that if I kept eating just vegetables with hummus I will soon be too weak to cut carrots haha. But I also made rice pudding often! With whole full-fat milk (I hate skimmed milk so much omg) but sweetener instead of sugar. It tastes great, you should try it! The only problem is you have to make sure the milk does not burn ... that happened to me. It's not a nice thing to clean up later (TT)

Enough of my healthy (and not so healthy, that I don't show) eating habits. Also enough of exams even though I still have one to go (and am really crossing my fingers to pass all of them because I really didn't study much at all)...

Actually I wanted to show some of the pictures I took when I was at my friend's place! We agreed to spend new year's together (the western new year I mean haha) and it was great great great great! I went to Hannover, the city where he lives together with his girlfriend and where they work (as assistants in the University and on their PhD).

I haven't seen him for a while but we know each other since I was in high school and he is basically one of the very few close friends I have. All we did at their place was basically playing games (and they had tons of board games which are just really really fun with the right people) and eating. But we also went to a some sort of garden (I forgot the name... it was basically too cold for me to care about anything). Well, you can see shows of my coat here haha.

We made salsa!! (or rather they did, as they cooked for me the whole time ; A ;) Excuse the drawn on hearts, I have seriously no patience to download brushes for photoshop or put this on my iPod to put on filters or anything but I hope you get the impression of the wonderful time I had!

Besides, on the first we went to a steak house. I thought I can treat myself just once a year with a good steak. It was so expensive that my jaw almost dropped (about 30€), but I tried to keep composure and it was a set-menu so then I thought, come on. But my friends insisted to pay for me (TT) I felt so guilty but at the same time so happy and they told me I shouldn't look at the price and they just wanted me to enjoy the time while I am with them. I was so extremely happy. And I was so full with good food - with good meat actually, that I rarely get to eat lately.

I took this picture with my friend's girlfriend's iPhone camera that is why it turned out so good haha.
 Ahh and of course I started eating first and then remembered to take a picture. It just looked SO good I could not resist!!  And it was good, my god, I cannot remember when was the last time I ate meat that was this delicious (probably when I had kobe beef... I think they sometimes have it as an offer in this restaurant too!).

Then there is my friend's steak and his girlfriend had the same. I tried that one too and it was really really nice, too.
Since I had watched the whole Matrix triology over christmas like 3 times (because it was on TV during christmas), we kept remembering scenes from the Matrix and then I was trying out how much of the exact dialogues I know by heart... and I tried playing that scene when Cypher eats that steak when he meets the agent in the matrix and talks about how delicious it was. It was so fun haha.

(Yeah actually I must have watched the first part of the Matrix 10 or more times already, I used to be really crazy about this movie and still am!)

More food they cooked for me (the pasta sauce was so spicy and soooo delicious!) and then board games! This game was funny because we just kept making stupid jokes and basically my friend was sort of lying on the floor/carpet and when he had to give other players the cards they had earned (he sort of was 'the bank') he kept taking the cards from the bank and put them on the floor, behind the table (where only he could see them) first because it was easier to grab for him that way - but it looked like he was cheating, especially since he kept humming while doing that sort of thing happily hahaha. It was really amusing.

We played other games too, like Twister and Taboo, which I also filmed and when I watch it I just have to laugh because of the atmosphere haha. Though of course, the parts I did not film were way funnier haha.

Then, I already went home soon after. I just stayed three days over all and when my friend brought me to the station I was already getting a bit nostalgic. When I sat down in the IC train (so much warmer and way more quiet than regular trains, I was so surprised), I still felt really comfortable and tried to read a book for my studies but only got through 20 pages. 

But then, once I arrived home, I was feeling so down, I could almost not handle it. I am generally a slightly melancholic person and I like to be alone sometimes but that sadness crushed me. It was the kind of feeling that I get when I come back home from Japan most of the times. It was so disturbing, I could not even watch my favourite anime Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds because I just wanted to linger in the great memories.

I guess after all, your real home is where your friends are, the people who really really care about you, right?

What I enjoyed most about this trip is that I could have so many great talks with my friends and I forgot totally what it is like to first think about what you are going to say because I directly just said out loud what I was thinking and they listened to me and I listened to them and we could talk just like civilised people about all kind of things going on in the world (even though inbetween we were making fun of russian swearwords and how funny they sound haha).

I know this sounds like this is a rare thing but actually it is to me! I do not want to sound like a snob but what I mostly miss in my life is intellectual conversations. Not the kind that are on TV and in university (though sometimes!), just the pure thoughts, just people letting their thoughts wander and think about stuff and getting sad about thinking too much and letting it happen. I could enjoy that with my friends because I felt like they are so open-minded and think about new ideas and ah, this is just what made me happy at my heart.
Talking to people who are just on the same wavelength, as one of my acquaintances would put it.

I enjoyed this so much that of course I keep this as one of the greatest memories.

And if I don't end up in Japan after all, I might actually just ask my friends if they want to adopt me or something. I'll just be their puppy haha.

Yeah, this is the story I basically wanted to share before it is too late and I forget things. I think it is really important to treasure the people who stick with you after all, even if you become a completely different and maybe partly terrible person. I do hope everyone else has these kind of people in their life, too. Actually maybe this is the kind of people I always wanted to have in my life and that is why I adore(d) Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds so much, because they are stories about real friends.

Now this entry got so long again haha.

I will stop here but there is some more things ahead of him this month which means you will hear of me soon again.
Take care and have a good year of the horse! (read: enjoy 'my' year! haha)