The Right Time

Do you know that sometimes the right timing plays important role in what you do? Like when you say to the girl that you like that you like her at the right time, everything will go smooth?

Well, the picture doesn't have any relation with love anyway :-). It was when I went hiking at tsukuba-san with some Hippo members. There were some gliders cruising around the peak when we reached the top. Tita was telling me that she would like to have her picture taken with the glider, when, as if hearing what she said, the glider turned and move closer to where we were. There was only few seconds to take the picture and the result was shown above.

The glider never went close to the peak again that day. It's really the perfect timing... :-)

Why's everybody should be in pink?

Matsuda-san invited me to a bon-odori festival in Yokohama. Since I've never been to a bon-odori festival before, and since Matsuda-san also gave me a jinbei (甚平 - one of Japanese casual wear for summer) to wear there, I automatically accepted the invitation. Miyuki happened to be there, and since Matsuda-san had just taught her how to wear yukata's obi (帯 - belt), she said that she'd come wearing yukata.

The day came and I went to Matsuda-san house. Not only me, two girls from Korea and one girl from Malaysia were also invited to the festival. The moment I entered Matsuda-san house I was thinking that it was valentine - (almost) everybody wore pink (well, pink yukata is quite a cliche wear on Japanese festival). Yuna-chan and her friend wore pink yukata, while even though not wearing yukata, Nazli wore pink hijab. Of course the (cliche :-) ) compliment came from me: "可愛い (kawaii: cute!)" (well, it's cliche, but they indeed look cute in pink :-) ). Thanks God that Matsuda-san wore pale-blue yukata, so I didn't have to go with all pink group :-).

Miyuki mailed me that she still had problem with the obi ("it started to fall down when I walked"), so we went first. It took around 30 minutes to the festival, and I saw some more pink there :-). (It might sound that I hate pink, but actually I don't hate it at all. It's just that I got tired to see cliche things around :-) ). A lot of stands there, and the first stand that we visited was... goldfish scooping (Ryo-kun, Matsuda-san's son wanted to try that. I'm glad that the goldfish was red, not pink :-) ). Well, it is also a cliche game at a summer festival, but at least I could show off some knack there - specially in front of girls (too bad that Miyuki had not came yet :-) ) . I finally gave the goldfish that I got to Ryou-kun.

The bon-odori finally started, and now I began to wonder whether the dress code of the festival was pink :-). Rumi-chan dragged us to the dancing ground, and I started to dance - among the pink :-). Well, it was quite fun. There was a break for the dance, and some elementary school students perform taiko (太鼓 - Japanese traditional drum). At that time I heard Miyuki voice from behind, "お待たせ (omatase: sorry to make you wait)"

I turned, be prepared to see yet another girl in pink and say the cliche word "可愛い", but when my sight struck on her, "格好いい (kakkou ii: cool!)" was the word that came from my mouth (automatically, well, she indeed looked cool... :-) ). Miyuki was wearing a dark yukata with (unfortunately again :-) ) pink obi, but at least there was a different sight eventually :-). And it seemed that the obi was alright, not falling :-).

The rest of the festival was fun, even though it's full of cliche things. There was some more dancing and lottery (we won cooking oil :-) ). And like all cliche date on Japanese summer festival (by what definition could I call it a date? :-) ), Miyuki and I ended up sharing takoyaki (たこ焼き - octopus ball) and drank ramune (ラムネ - Japanese traditional carbonated drink). All that's missing was hanabi (花火 - firework)... Well, the cliche thing didn't end just like that. When we went home, again we said the cliche greeting: "楽しかったね (tanoshikatta ne: It was fun, wasn't it?)"
(Actually, the standard expression is "楽しかったです(tanoshikatta desu: it was fun)", anyway, Miyuki and I had said that we would never used polite Japanese to each other, so we used the plain form...).

Sometimes it's good to be cliche... :-)

Disneysea Cruise

Went to disneysea with girls that 10 to 12 years younger than me :-)

Sani was homestaying at one of hippo members, and when her host asked her to go to disneysea together, Sani asked me to come along.

Anyway, since most of the rides are intended for two, and usually Sani stayed with Shoko (her host), most of the time I rode the rides with Maha - Shoko's friend. She's 12 years younger than me (well, almost 12 years younger actually, since her birthday only 6 days differs from mine), however, we still could hold a great conversation - I didn't feel the age gap and so did her (several times she said disbelievingly, "Are you really 29 years-old?" :-) )

One memorable trip...

Overdrive

(So far, two of my four karaokes this year started with this song (yes, it's not just one of the songs, it's the starting song), and at that two karaoke I was the only non Japanese in the room... well, what I wanna tell you is that this song quite popular among Japanese, specially in summer. Come to think of it, all of my karaoke in Japan always has Judy and Mary's song if there is a Japanese girl in the party... You can see the Judy and Mary's clip here)

もっと遊んで指を鳴らして呼んでいる声がするわ
本当も嘘も興味が無いのよ
指先からすり抜けてく欲張りな笑い声も
ごちゃ混ぜにしたスープに溶かすから
夜に堕ちたらここにおいで。。。
教えてあげる最高のメロディ

あなたはいつも泣いてる様に笑ってた
迷いの中で傷つきやすくて
地図を開いていたずらにペンでなぞる
心の羽根はうまく回るでしょ
音に合わせて靴を鳴らして
あたしだけの秘密の場所

走る雲の影を飛び越えるわ
夏のにおい追いかけて
あぁ夢はいつまでも覚めない
歌う風のように。。。

夜に堕ちたらここにおいで
宝物を見つけられるよ
信じてるの。。。

愛しい日々も恋も優しい歌も
泡のように消えてくけど
あぁ今は痛みとひきかえに
歌う風のように。。。

走る雲の影を飛び越えるわ
夏の日差し追いかけて
あぁ夢はいつまでも覚めない
歌う風のように。。。

(Judy and Mary)

Omikuji Machine

Yuka accepted one girl from Singapore staying at her house for a week, and when they went for a small trip to Kamakura, Yuka asked me to go along just in case there's a problem on the way (actually, there's nothing to worry about since Stella (the Singaporean girl) can speak a comprehensible Japanese, and Yuka's English isn't bad at all).

Anyway, we found this omikuji machine in Kamakura. Omikuji is one of Japanese fortune teller, you shake a box full of sticks with number and make one of the stick go out from a hole in the box. The monk will give you the fortune teller paper based on the number on the stick that you draw. However, with this machine there is no monk, you just put your money and the machine will give you the fortune teller paper directly. Well, a combination of technology and mystic (religion?). Very Japanese indeed... :-)

Spider Attack!

I already take pics several times here, but it's always cool to be taken again...

GP in Tokyo

I don't know why suddenly there's a lot of GP96ers that come to Japan, anyway, Rita was coming to Tokyo, and we had the time to visit Olive and her family...