Went to Yasukuni shrine yesterday, sakura is already blooming there.

Now I need to understand when to go with friends to hanami 😉

Have you noticed how many buildings in Tokyo mirror the skies? This is one of them, in Otemachi area:

My friend from Hong Kong said she liked it in Tokyo more than in her city. Main reason? You can actually see the sky anywhere. Even if you’re in the busiest business area. Somehow I didn’t really looked into the sky back home. And here – every day is giving me something new. I wonder if it’s because nature and buildings blend together so fine…

Also – am going to get a bicycle next week! So I’ll be able to take walks around Arakawa park.

What are your favorite sweets in Japan? For me it’ll be Caramel Corn!

There’s a lot of tastes, but my most loved ones are – classic one and Hachimitsu Butter (that’s honey butter in English)  🙂

Classic one – because they have peanuts in the package 😉 Nice treat after you finish the pack.

And if you want to check their website – here it is:
Caramel Corn

You can play games and download cute wallpapers there <3

Other things I love are:

Hi-chew – perfect chewing candies. I especially love to get them from UFO catchers. Last time I spent 300 yen and got full bag of them – more than 3000 yen worth! Not sure if I’m ready to repeat this, though 🙂 Need to think about teeth.

In other news – spring is finally here, so is the concert season. The first one I go to is on April 3rd in Tokyo Dome City JCB Hall. Going to receive tickets from fan-club around next week.

I’m sitting in the room, surrounded by all the boxes and stuff I wrote in previous entry. New room is on the third floor, so I had a lot of fun first getting everything from second floor to the first (old house) and then from first to the third (new one).

What can I tell so far – I love the room <3 There’s new electric kitchen convo, and new shiny aircon. Also – our area manager was wonderful – he got me bookshelf in the room, so now I’ll have a place to store all my textbooks and other things. Pity the old Muji shelf I have didn’t fit in the car, so I’m going to go and get it tomorrow.

Hmmm… now I need to take care of changing my address information everywhere. This means all fanclub applications, keitai, bank, file application at the post so they would deliver all my mail to the new house. Thank god I don’t have work on Moday, so I’ll have time to do it then. Most important is the post office thing, everything else can be done via phone.

Also – best point of the new house – I only need to walk about 8-10 minutes to get to Daiso! Planning to go there home-stuff hunting tomorrow.

And here’s the pic of about 3/4 of the boxes before moving:

Preparing for move to another Oak House now.

I really loved my old room, and in the past year got to know all the people around. But commuting to my school is a lot better from the Takashimadaira house I decided to move to. So now the whole room is full of boxes, bags, containers in different states of packing. And let’s not forget that I have all the things scattered around.

Good point? I’ve found few things I though I’ve lost or forgot of.

So maybe moving wasn’t such a bad thing in the end 🙂

I’m moving to another Oak House this week, so things been a bit hectic over here.

Whole room is full of boxes, and I don’t even want to think of how it’s going to be to unpack them.

But on to good things 🙂

I’m currently trying to find any way to get new bicycle for cheap. Preferably for free 😉 but I don’t have friends who leave soon to give me one. So, I’m choosing between getting new mama-chari for 1man or getting used one with 50% discount. The problem is – the only place I’ve found which does it, placed around Shinagawa. Two big downsides – they only have bicycle fair 3 days a month, and I already missed February ones, and that I’ll have to bring it home somehow. They won’t allow me to ride JR or subway with it, so the only way I can think of, is going by myself. Which is going to be hard.

So I’ve been looking through sayonara sales pages, but with no luck so far 🙁 So if, by any chance you know someone who’s going to sell his/her bicycle, please let me know %)

In other news – while boxing, I’ve found a lot of things I either thought I lost or don’t remember even buying. So maybe moving is not that bad after all 🙂

We’re having +25 in the sun today! I even had to take off coat.

And it’s still February.

We’re going back to +10 tomorrow, but yesterday and today were real bliss – warm and sunny. I even had a chance to hang futon outside, which is good. And friend called to tell me news about sakura starting to bloom. I only have pictures of blooming plum (ume), but hope I’ll be able to post first sakura pictures soon. And yes, no picture today, sorry.

Ah! Almost forgot – if you live around Wakoshi or anywhere on Tobu, Mita, Yurakucho or Fukutoshin lines – you should definitely come and check the area aroung Shimo Akatsuka station. There’s really cheap clothes store – Notoya, and famous big Buddha shrine. I haven’t seen any foreign tourists around, so why not feel yourself pioneer 😉 Maybe I should make big picture post, promoting the area… Hm…

I met with friend who came from Russia today. And first question she asked me – Do you call this winter?..

It’s -20 at my home town now, and it’s snowing almost everyday. So here, with +10 and sun, it really feels strange. Can’t say anything here though, I think I already forgot how cold it can be back home 🙂 Though the good thing – we had central heating.

But I found a good way to fight with cold without spending too much electricity on air conditioner – there’s special aluminum sheets sold at 100 yen shops, and you can use it to keep the heat inside the room. The only bad point is that it won’t let any sunlight in. So I had to choose carefully where to use it. Another thing you can use is bubble wrap sheets – they create nice barrier if you put it on window frame.

And other thing, of course, to get kotatsu 😉

In case you don’t know what it is – here’s the link from wiki: Kotatsu

But you need to be careful with it – try not to overheat your legs, as it could lead to bad blood circulation, and another danger is that you wouldn’t want to get out of it 🙂

Keep warm, everybody.

It’s been raining since morning.

While it’s really nice to be able to sit in the warm room listening to the sounds of rain outside, I don’t really want to go out. But I had no choice – school and work.

Bad side – I have to dry my shoes now 🙁 They’re not really ready for rainy weather.

In other news – I bought new kind of potato chips today – HottoMotto Karaage. This is fried chicked in English 🙂 Was hoping to eat them while watching my favorite dorama for this season – Uta no Oniisan. But it got canceled – they showed some specials instead.

Heh, it seems that I had a bad day today. Time to make it better with some movie and hot tea.

There’s one special thing that makes me feel welcome when I get home from work or school. While I’m walking home, streets are lit with cute handmade lanterns and there’s music playing over speakers. Not too loud, just enough to make you feel warm.

There’s a lot of thought and caring about people living in this town, and I’m really happy that I chose Akatsuka.

And when I came home my neighbor was still  playing guitar. He got better lately %)

Also! Did you notice that it started to get dark later now? This means spring is coming. There’s small park with sakura nearby, am getting ready for hanami with friends!