Yes guys, this is KERORO.

I love Pikachu. But in Spring, Pikachu does not want to show up in the movie theatre, and I really want to see an ANIME movie in Japan because my time is up, …

… Keroro is the only one there that I actually “know” the name of the character.

But crying out loud, I had never even seen ONE single TV episode of Keroro before this.

Fortunately, Keroro is great.

At least good enough to make me have the urge to watch 3-5 TV episodes of him after this movie.

And later during Autumn, I finally was able to see Pikachu.

Pokemon are serious matter. The movie, it is never meant to be funny, but I think PIKACHU is beautiful and one of the most adorable creations on earth out of human brain. His every angle, every move.

And the best of all, is still the friendship of him and the main boy character … the very 1st episode, I watched the English version in America, and … oh goodness, I have to admit the translation was SO good that the 感情 was very much well conveyed. 感動する。

Of course now, they tried to make Pokemon going forever and ever, and if you just go watch any episode nowadays, you probably will not see any friendship thing going on at all. But that is not the fault of the person that created Pikachu.

Anyway, now back to the main point, what I was trying to tell you is, after the Pikachu movie  (gosh so many of them I lost count of what the number and the title is.  um … 10?) …

Pikachu と握手した。

超超超超超嬉しかった！

日本に来て良かったよ！！！！！ (感動しつづき)  (•_•)

P.S. Sorry Keroro, I just cannot feel the same way about you. Even though I 勝手に use your photo here …

Guys, you are not dreaming.

Please do not look down upon this … Yes, this is a pudding.

I love the dessert in Japan. Many people from the Southeast Asia probably do not understand what so special about this.

But if you have been trapped in a place that everyday life, all the common dessert you can see, is a bunch of ARTIFICIAL colored sugar-filled “cake”/”cupcakes”,  and the locals around you kept telling you, “Oh gosh, this tastes GREAT!!!!”
(Well, to be exact, I am implying you are basically eating sugar if you would like to have one of those “cupcakes”, it is suicidal.  You might as well buy a bag of sugar and just swallow it, that is how it tastes.) … THIS pudding is heaven, man!

(Don’t take me wrong, I am not trying to be rude. I just cannot communicate with the locals on the other side of the world over this area that is all.)

Especially this is the “time-limited” 抹茶 flavor! OH GEEZ! How can you resist this!? aaaaaaah …

When I first came to Japan, in the dorm, it might sounds crazy to you, but I was SOOOOO busy with the 自動販売機 every single day.

Why?

Because it has the 杏仁豆腐 flavor of this pudding, OH my GOD, it was SOOOOOOO good. Plus many other very interesting items, shoot!

I was also very busy with the convenience stores every night, I just could not spend a day without trying at least ONE new dessert every day.  How CAN you?

Those days.  懐かしい、そんな気持ち。

Full of adventures. Full of excitements.

人間はやっぱりずっーと満足している気持ちを持ち難いだ。

いつも何でも飽きるの日々がある。

ずっとそんなことを探すのは疲れてしまうものだ。

特にこんな歳、興味がある事も少なくなってしまうな。。

These photos were taken in Mar 30, 2009, at that time I thought I was pretty sort of sad, I thought, I had passed the chance to be with someone I thought I like, and had to bear the possibility of seeing him with someone else on the street again,

… the chill went down through my backbone …, (even though the chill he gave me was only 10% of what I had to go through in 2006 when someone left me) … those days, I tried so hard to like someone else, to like something else …

but turns out, now looking back, at that time, I was … pretty good. (Except at that time my Japanese was even poorer and had shit load of unsettled finance issues.)

… at that time, March 2009, right before I moved in to the first guesthouse, I think, I can still call myself “fortunate”, if someone said this to me at that time, I would probably slap them!

but now ちょっと見返して、… 間違えない。

because, there is another one that I like WAY even more, someone that gives me the feeling of “和やか”, such a warm and 細かい feeling for the first time, almost makes me understand, why there are actually people on earth wants a family, and why some people can have such a 幸せな顔 on their face when a kid is with them.

but once again, I also missed him, ALMOST the same way as how I failed the previous time, … how sarcastic.

I guess I did not learn my lesson well enough, … かな …

Mar 30, I went to see sakura with my friend and her 2 sons. Beautiful Sakura …

Things were never the same after this.

It is almost the end of the year, pretty unbelievable. 2010 …

A lot have happened, just about every day, cannot even remember all sometimes. Good memories, bad memories …

Before I start living here, I really had no intention of making any more new friends, reason is, I have already stayed in Japan for almost 2 years, have seen too many people come and go, 心が疲れてしまう。

At first I only came with a travel visa trying to get away from the routine life of US, then, I registered for some language school so I can have some normal social life, i did meet a lot of interesting people from hong kong and other countries. It was pretty exciting at first since these are the types of people that I could not meet when I was in Houston, a place that seriously lack hong kong natives.

So different, やっぱりAsia, the food, the design, so much more eye-pleasing to me. The hong kong people that came here, also, of course, came here because they, for the least, do not NOT like Japan, right? So we kind of can share something in common. Full of curiosity of this place.

They all from many different backgrounds, but they came with almost the same intention — to study Japanese … I guess that is the only main difference between us.

They were so fun, one of them told me “People did not study well (in Hong Kong) usually because they know how to have fun … ~”

My long-time Japanese friend told me, I only meet them by “coincidence” … but, I somehow cannot agree to a certain extent.

And my first SOFTBANK phone in Japan, and might be also the last.

The star-liked strap was given by a good friend at that time.

When you’re living in a guest house, you’re bound to have something that you don’t like or something that makes you think, “if only I had my own place…”.  Well, recently that ‘something’ has been our showers.

When I first moved in I was disappointed to learn that the water pressure was less forceful as one would hope.  However, that is one of those things you have to take with a grain of salt and that I did.

Next was the apparent mold that seems to be increasing underneath, above and in the shower walls.  Luckily, not TOO visible but at times, a very strong odor.  Last time I checked our showers weren’t natural hot springs….

And recently, the hot water has been a sort of hit and miss game and a hot topic at dinner.  For example, “How was your day? Nice weather, wasn’t it? Did hot water come out for you this morning?”

For the time being it seems to be fixed, as Oakhouse is fairly fast at responding to any problems, however, it seems like they are all short-term solutions.  Which leads me to believe that in the near future we may have to frequent the local sento (public bathhouse) while our showers are being fixed.  While this will certainly be a pain, I did pass the bathhouse the other day and it was advertising a lavender bath… doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

When it comes to alcoholic drinks, I can pretty much stand anything but nothing seems to hit the spot as much as a chilled beer after a long, hard day.  However, my waistline may disagree.  Therefore, I am always open to new options that are a little friendlier on my figure.  Afterall, it is an important necessity in Japan.  Not only for health and beauty but also for fitting into pants!

Nonetheless, lately I have grown very fond of the drink, Hoppy.  Hoppy is cheap, delicious and low in calories = perfect.  It comes as a set consisting of Japanese sake and non-alcoholic or nearly non-alcoholic beer (only about 11 calories!).  Ratio is 1:3 (sake:beer).  Furthermore, because you tend to only use half the beer on the first drink, the next drink is only about 200 yen, which the price of the sake refill.

Just the other day, at Pronto, I tried their drink, Poppy (hmm, sound familiar?) which is a sweeter version of the popular Hoppy.  The difference lies in that Poppy substitutes vodka for the sake.  It too was very good.

Both are a a great alternative to this cold weather as the liquor warms you right up!

If you get a chance I definitely recommend it!