Two More Days And Then Back To Work

i met the new twins the other day- they're adorable! so cute... they're fraternal twins, not identical. the boys were born just on either side of midnight so they have their own birthdays. maybe it'll make up for having nearly identical names.

this weekend was packed. i spent most of it in Nagoya, listening to bands and chatting with guitarists and watching parades etc etc etc. i met some extremely cool people and got some cds and other people took photos of my friends and i holding said cds in order to display their 'international appeal'.
i'm planning to continue my insinuation into the nagoya music scene. soon i will be a staple at shows, and eventually i will find a band to sing in, and then my assimilation will be complete. bwahahaha.
or something like that, anyway.

my friend ella performed in a dance festival on sunday! she kicked some serious ass. it was incredibly hot... the dancers pretty much collapsed as soon as they left the stage. they all put on some stunning performances though. as far as ridiculous goes, though, the guys who were not in any contest at all won by a long shot. photos are posted... words escape me. they were certainly memorable, that's for sure. the best part is that this is apparently a multi-city phenomenon, there was more than one group of them in the park, and they start and end every song by combing their hair.

Approximately Seven Million Festivals Later

i'm still not done with summer and the festivals keep coming. so far i've gone to... at least five? seven? lots? not sure. the last one was about slugs, which did not make an appearance, and buddhist monks, which also did not make an appearance, and nothing to do with tv crews even though they showed up anyway.

two more weeks until work starts up again. i'm actually looking forward to seeing my students, although i'm not looking forward to wearing unnecessarily hot clothing and standing around like an idiot. in the meantime, i've got EVEN MORE festivals to go to... there's a couple in nagoya and one of them is a mandatory-attendance type thing because my friend is dancing in it.

honestly, even if she wasn't, i'd probably go anyway. she's just a convenient excuse to watch people dance and wear interesting outfits and generally cause some trouble in a publicly acceptable fashion.

today i'm heading out to lunch with one of the teachers from work, and then... something? and then i have taiko practice! first practice ever. i have high hopes that this will be a better fit for me temperamentally than kyuudo was. being very serious and standing very still and posing until it was time to shoot arrows was extremely cool, but i'm neither serious nor cool. maybe jumping around and making a lot of noise will agree with me.

art-wise, i've got another couple of people who are looking for tattoo designs so i'm gonna try and get that done soon. i wish i had some studio space... it's hard to keep focused in a one room apartment that contains all your stuff.

So A Whole Lot Of Stuff Happened

And I Didn't Tell You About Any Of It

because i am a jerk.

it's probably genetic. (love you mom.)

so approximately a week and a half ago, i got a call from my fellow philadelphian expat, a really awesome girl named vash, asking if i'd be up for a trip. to tokyo. in two days.

being insane and bored, i said HELL YES and proceeded to make no concrete plans of any kind beyond buying a backpack covered in ska-check and looking at prices of train tickets. we headed out of nagoya and after approximately a million years on a train with some really pretty scenery and adorable small children speaking bad english at us, we arrived in tokyo.

weirdest question of the trip: "why are YOU speaking japanese?!" said in tones of shock and horror. luckily, every other person we talked to was pretty awesome, over all.

we spent a night in roppongi at a karaoke place and the zombie-march as the clubs emptied the next morning was enough to give a girl nightmares. i was amazed they were all still conscious enough to totter down the street in 7 inch heels, considering they looked like death spat them out and were about 60 pounds shy of a healthy body weight on average.
we ended up spending a big chunk of the next few days in shibuya and harajuku, with a brief jaunt over to akihabara. all places i wanna go again. when i have more money. tokyo is a money-eating machine O_O and i didn't even really do much shopping.

also, i met a kid who was wearing a philly cheesteak t shirt who ACTUALLY KNEW WHAT IT SAID and had worn it on purpose. apparently he really likes oldschool R+B and was pretty excited to meet two girls who were actually from philly. considering he's the first person who hasn't either mentioned rocky, creamcheese or the 76ers who actually knew where philadelphia was, i am super impressed.

also also, a very sweet japanese boy asked me for directions while i was sitting in yoyogi koen, which did not do any good at all as i could barely answer him and had no idea how to get him anywhere. he looked so disappointed... poor guy. however, points to me for not looking like a tourist in a city i don't know! hooray!

in other news: nagoya had a world cosplay summit and i missed it. steph talked me into buying a yukata and i'm wearing it next week at a festival at nagoya castle. i am in the process of conning people into coming to my tiny town and hanging out with me for a few days. everyone i know who lives close is on vacation or busy and i'm going crazy.

oh! and my friend just had her twins! i'm going to go visit them soon- twin boys! i'm so happy for her!