On my first day in Japan I was told to meet a liason at narita airport. When I got there I noticed that there as no liason, so I called him and then he met me and a group of others. We went on a long journey towards my new house and I played chess with him on his PSP until it ran out of battery. We then changed trains and I was met by another guy who took me to my new house. There were two other people living there and it was a bit messy. I was happy about the size of my room as I hear that they can be small sometimes. I stayed up all night unpacking.

I was thinking the other day about some random memories, I will share the earliest of which with you..t’s a little strange as this memory is in the third person, so maybe it never happened, or at least, didn’t quite happen as I remembered it. I remember picking up a rock on a pebble Beach, it was a large  black rock and as very smooth. There were thousands of pebbles around and as I inspected the rock I was holding, I realised it smelled of salt…within a few seconds of picking it up, I threw it like a shock-put shouting something like “Here is the stick rock!” and it cracked on a rock in front of my mind’s eye of the memory. That is to say, I watched myself throw a rock from a distance and it broke on the rock that my eye would have been resting on. At that angle I can see something shining inside and myself walking towards the broken rock. When I pick it up, my memory returns to first person and inside there are sparkling gems, like a geode. That’s all I remember…

This ceiling is so high, it’s like my personal sky, in all the time that has gone by, the days and nights I rest my eyes, as each day comes as a surprise, my mood becomes blue, then starts to rise, to amazing feats of happieness, peaks, and then comes down to rest, in a small scrawl of fleeting breath, those things that seem in such a mess, can be bested. And become less of a worry, a small flurry of trangled clamity, so managable once you know how. Your on top again my friend, don’t turn around, or you will soon return to ground.

Have you heard of Sunshine city? It is a fabulous place of much wonder. It is located somewhere near ABC mart. On arrival you will be whisked along past Burger King and then into a shopping area. There are lots of clothes and things to buy there so you should be able to find something that takes your fancy. The clothes there are very fashionble. Also, here are other things to do there, you can go to a lot to restaurants and cafes and sip coffee.

Ikebukuro is a nice are a in general, you can see a lot of places and pretty-much fin anything that you may desire. There is a batting centre there or you can partake in some kareoke. The possiblities are endless. There is a lumine inside the station. I found a place where you can buy a T-shirt that you can colour in!!! You even get the free Crayons to go with it!!! Oh the joy. I thinkthat if you wash it, then you canrestart the whole delightful process again!!!!

Hey, maybe you have been to Ueno, but did you know that you can get a train directly from arita to there? The answer is probably…maybe. But, if you didn’t then you an get the Keisei line straight to Narita for a cool 1000yen. I use it when meeting my friends and family. Alternatively, you can go on JR, but that’s long.

Also in Ueno, there is a market that has a lot of clothes and stuff, it is very touristy and you can pick up everything from t-shirts to jewlery. Maybe you know all this already, but hey, we all need something to write about sometimes and this is the best that I could musta is such a rush.

Check our the museum in the park, you can see a movie in glorious 3d souround-body, it’s really COOL!!! It’s about dinosaurs and a Tyranosauraus rex snaps off a triserotops triserati, horn thing. NICE!!!

Also, it the park you can have a hanami party, yay!!! But you’ll have to wait till cherry blossom season for that one!!!!

Sendai was really nice. Much greener than Tokyo, just what i needed after being trapped in the city for the past 5 months. If was gonna live in Japan permanently I’d much prefer to live in a place like Sendai over Tokyo . I think cities make people go a bit loopy in a bad way.

I went to Nikko on the way back Sendai. It’s really nice. We stayed in nice little tatami lodge thing by a river The next day we had a look around the place. There were centuries old temples and shrine,a monkey temple, mossy rocks, a waterfall tall trees and a whole ancient Japanese thing going on. I recommend it to anyone who’s in the Tokyo area. The only annoyance was how crowded the place was. It’s one of those places that would be alot more enjoyable if you had a bit of piece and quiet while exploring. So I reccomend going on a weekday or something.

 Just in case you needed to know. In your local area there is an office. It is called a ward office. Make sure that you go down there and ask about information and how to enrol in a health insurance system. They will issue you with a card. You can use this card in the hospital to get treatment and then pay on the spot.

The Immigration Bureau has recently announced that as of April 1, 2010 all those applicants for either a new visa or an extension of their existing visa will be required to present proof that they are enrolled in one of the government-managed health insurance systems.

There is a requirement that all residents of Japan to be enrolled in a government-managed health insurance system has existed for some time. However, the requirement for foreign nationals applying for a visa to provide proof of insurance represents a significant change to the Immigration Bureau’s policy.

I hope that this will help you.

My boyfriend, housemate and I made a trip to Sendai the other week. We went to visit our housemates family. We bought the Seishun 18 rail pass and made our way north by local train. All the way up to Matsushima, just above Sendai for our first nights stay. It took about 7 hours I think by train, and then anotherhalf an hour on the ferry to get to our housemate’s grandmothers house. She lives on an island.

We were sooo wrecked by the time we got there, turns out we had to change trains about 4 or 5 times and run to the next platform when the change was made or else you wouldn’t be guarenteed a seat. This was very tiring. But we got there in the end.

Finally we made it to the little island which our housemates grandmother lived on, and omgoshimasu! her house was soooo old school japanese style! it was awesome! my boyfriend said it was like a museum, there furniture and architecture  was just fantastic.

Our housemates Obasan was pretty cool too, she was so friendly, even if she didnt speak much English. hehe. We all had a nap once we were all settled, and had had something to eat, as I mentioned before we were soo tired from all the train jumping. We  woke up to a delicous dinner, salad, sushi and yakniku type dishes were laid out for us to enjoy.

Later that evening we lit off some fireworks by the docks. Then headed in for a nice shower and relaxing japanese bath(my first time to have one!) I was so tired that i wanted to stay in the warm water forever, but i resisted and headed for bed as we had another long day of travel ahead of us…

I went to summer sonic this week!!! It was really cool as there as there were lots of bands that I didn’t now that I liked, but did after that day!!!

I liked this one band called GHOSTLAND OBSERVATORY, lets just say that they were… different. The DJ also served as a keyboard player and a drumber, of which all he was really talented. His co-hort, the singer, was cool too!!! He sang really crazily and danced even more so. There werelights and lazers and they put on the best performance in my opion.

I was also hapy as I got KASABIEN’s signature on my CD, I originally went there to see them, but other bands such as PHONEX and particulary THE ENEMY were really cool!!!

There was a food court too, that had a lot of cheap snacks and food, some of which including crocodile and emu, which I neglected to try.

In all it was a really cool day!!! It sapped a lot of my energy though as I was jumping around. A small mosh pitt started up during KASABIEN’s perfomance. Maybe this was because I had fought my way to the front of the crowd and were a stone throw from the band.

One of the first things I noticed about our little town is that there is background music playing as walk the streets. It’s pretty random, but at least no one wears those lame t-shits that say “I wish life had background music” or something equally lame lol.

So at different times of the day you can catch tunes ranging from some random Rastafarian type beats, to music which sounds like its from a Final Fantasy games, to jazzy melodies and a whole other range of questionable songs. I think that its pretty cool/cute tat our town has its own songs playing. I am not sure if any other tows do the same thing though, but I think it gives the place a nice atmosphere.

Also at 6pm everyday there is a tune which is played that signals to the children “Time to head home, its getting late, you’re parents will be wondering where you are, it’s time for dinner, etc…” or something to that extent. I suppose it is fairly handy for children to have a signal to tell them to start heading home, particularly if they don’t wear watches or pay attention to the time.

I was just told that the ‘background music’ to our town may be a local radio station. Sometimes we hear a voice over that sounds like its advertising something, I guess I should find out what is being said sometime. But he also says that he has never heard ‘background music in other towns.