December 11. 2004 01:12

Today was a great day ^_^

Blaeh, how boring, that advertisement for the christmas cakes didn't mean that they'd be available on the 12th, only that they must be ordered before the 12th... How boring :( Then I'll just get one of those cake rolls and enjoy that tomorrow. And what kind of an opening for an entry is this, after such a title I complain about some cakes? Really, today was a good day.

I slept well and woke up at 11, eat porridge for breakfast and then took my bike and started to leisurery ride it towards the city centre. I planned to stop at Marikoji, that place with extremely good cakes I found some two months ago. I wasn't too sure where it was so I thought I went past it already and gave up on the plan, but then I accidentally run into it and was very happy ^_^ I had tea (I haven't had tea since I left Finland! Except for green tea, but it's different.) and a tiramisu cake. Yappari, it was so good again ^__^ That place has the best cakes I've ever tasted.

When I continued the journey I was met an Egyptian guy who studied at Kyoto University and tried to get me to date him. Hehe ^_^ It's so much fun being hit on on the street, makes me feel like I'm desirable :P It's all because there're so few foreigners here, though... In Finland nobody makes any moves on me, except for some drunks, but they make moves on anyone. (In fact I've had one drunk guy grope me in the bus in Finland, it was really surprising and disgusting O_o But that's a bit irrelevant.) Anyway, the guy insisted on giving me his phone number even though I said I didn't want to make any commitments to meeting any people here. He was a nice guy to talk with, though, and wasn't too pushy or anything.

Then I stopped by at a hair salon and got my hair cut. It's short again! I didn't really want it to be short, but all the long designs looked so boring. I wanted something refreshing and new, something Japanese, so I'll have to deal with this now. It'll grow again, so it's not a problem. Though it's a bit silly to have all those hair accessories now, I even bought a new pair of hair goms today so I could use them when I grow my hair long again :) I need to concentrate on hairpins now, they're all I can wear with this cut ^_^ Oh yeah, there's a photo in the "Me" folder if you wanna see. But what Jani said about the hairdressers being unbelievably gentle here wasn't true... At least the one I went to was just the same as in Finland. Not rought, but not extra gentle either.

After that I left my bike next to Book-Off and bought a few more CDs while I was there. This time I couldn't find any J-pop anymore, so I got a couple of anime CDs. The Ceres soundtrack that's been there almost since I first went there had gone down to 250 yen so I got it. Then I got a Sailor Moon CD because it was really cheap, too, (haha) and then this game soundtrack just because it had a pretty picture on the cover ^_^ I kinda need to find new music so I won't stay on the beaten track, so I thought I'd try it. (Yes, it was cheap, too.) Then I also got the second soundtrack of Romeo+Juliet, since I happened to walk to the movie soundtrack shelf and spotted it there. I like the music in that movie. My sister had a cassette of the first soundtrack but I never got to buying it. Oh, and then I got volumes 32 and 34 of Inu-Yasha. 38 is the newest. If I can't find the latest 4 before I have to go, I think I'll buy them new. But I still haven't gotten any of the manga my friends have asked me to bring... I think I should start buying them soon ^_^;; I've been checking if there are any packets with all the volumes, but there haven't, so I think I'll have to get them individually.

Next I went to get that Tsubasa ~Reservoir Chronicles~ wall calender I didn't get last time. It's very pretty! There was a metal box with Mokona and Modoki on it included and I thought it was just the box, but actually there were 6 stamps inside. What a nice extra surprise! Hee, now I can stamp my postcards with them. Speaking about stamping, I also found a hanko stamp with the character "wa" (of "heiwa" meaning peace and "wa[something]" meaning Japanese [something]). I'm sure I wouldn't be able to find a hanko with the characters of my surname translated in Japanese, so I thought I'd take "wa" because Anna comes from the root Hannah which means peace. I think that's the closest I can find to my name, plus there's the additional flavour of it being a very "Japanese" kanji ^_^

I tried to find an anime or manga themed lunch box from the anime stores, but there weren't any, so I had to get a box from the 100 yen store because I need one for tomorrow. It's okay, though, at least it's nice and tidy and cheap. I also got a pile of filing supplies to put all my papers in... Though I was thinking about how I'm going to use them in Finland more than how I'll use them here. Then I bought a set of apple incence. I'm amazed it was only 100 yen, 20 sticks and a holder on top of that. It's a shame there was only apple. They have so many nice smells here. And I found some christmas CDs at the 100 yen store! ^__^ The one I got said it had vocals so I was a bit worried if it'd be in Japanese, but it was in English. It's not the greatest CD, but it's okay. The others were panpipe CDs and stuff like that, so I thought I'd rather take the most traditional one.

I also got to eat the pizza I've been dreaming about since the last time I was downtown! It was a bit disappointing, though, because I couldn't remember any good pizza places so I had to get the bacon & asparacus pizza at Fast Chicken. Sometimes I'm wondering if the sales clerks mishear me on purpose, because when I ordered the pizza and a coke the girl asked if I wanted frech fries too, and when I said no thanks she gave them to me anyway ^_^;; It was a set, so it might've been something that comes with wether you want it or not, but couldn't they just not give it to me if I say I don't want it? ^_^; Strange. Well, since I got them I ate them... But they're not satisfying enough for beign so unhealthy.

That concluded my tour, which for once was not hurried and I still got everything I wanted. The ride to the town was slow and enjoyable, but the way back I took as an exersice. It was a bit annoying that I couldn't take off my coat, though, because I got really hot in it when I rode so fast. But there was so much other stuff in my basket that I couldn't fit the coat there and I didn't have and extra plastic bag (for once!). My woollen socks and jacket got all sweaty and now I'm wondering if I have to hand-wash them here... I really wouldn't want to bother :P

I saw a Nightmare Before Christmas scale in a shop downtown, by the way, and was kinda tempted to buy it to Maya because I really need a scale here :D (Maya likes NBC) But that'd be a very weird souvenir, so I didn't :P But when it comes time for me to go back, I'll be in trouble if I can't find a scale I can use... I have no idea how much stuff I have and how much of it needs to be posted to Finland.

Tomorrow I'll go to another flea market at another temple, where I'll hopefully get some obi for Frigga and Tsubasa. And maybe some accessories for my fine kimono set, if I can just figure out how they're all used. If not, I'll go ask at ichi-man-ben downtown, it's a nice reasonably priced kimono shop run by students. They'll probably be nice enough to explain me the details of wearing a kimono ^_^ The Kyoto Visitor's Guide said that the last and first Kobosan and Tenjinsan markets are really big, so they're my next big chance of getting cheap kimono accessories for my friends if this weekend is not a success.

The Visitor's Guide listed an amount of other new year related happenings, too, and reading about all of them makes me less sorry for staying here over christmas ^_^ Lately, whenever I think about christmas back home, I've been feeling very bad because I decided to stay here. I'm even more convinced that I should never spent christmas away now... But reading about all the interesting events of the Japanese new year makes me think it's worth it after all. This month's Guide is a double number lasting for January, by the way, so there are also events that happen after I've gone back to Finland. It seems really soon when I can read about things I won't be seeing. But then again, when I went to Marikoji it felt like I've been here for so long because it really was months ago when I was there the last time. Half a year is quite a nice period to stay in a foreign country, you get to see and know a lot of things but the home sickness won't get unbearable. I really wish I would've learned more Japanese, though...

Oh, it's so late... I wanted to make my lunch for tomorrow ready so I wouldn't have to make it in the morning. The markets start early, so I'll have to be on my way early tomorrow, which means I won't get to sleep as much as I'd want... Well, no helping it. I think making the lunch today, even if it's so late, is a better plan than making it in the morning, when I'll have trouble getting up in time anyway.