Japanese 101 (2nd part)

Been a while since I’ve talked about it. So after almost one month here I guess I could share just a small part of my little Japanese learning.

So I already talked about the three forms of writing, more or less. Right now I would like to talk about actual Japanese sentences. Cause they are a whole new world of brain pain. You know how occidental people construct their sentences right. [Subject] + [verb] + [anything else]. Well more or less like that. “I’m going to the store.” Simple. Japanese don’t work that way. [Subject] + [anything else] + [verb]. Even if it sounds rather simple it’s a pain really. The verb always is the last thing you hear, always. Which mean that when you hear a Japanese speak sometime you don’t realise he was talking about maybe a location instead of something. So you have to make him/her repeat the whole sentence again. But you get used to it.

But What I really love is Japanese writing. As if having three forms of writing wasn’t intricate enough, they decided one day, like that, that they wouldn’t separate the words from one another. Which mean, for example, that a sentence is barely written like that: “thisisajapanesesentenceihavetotranslate.” So imagine that, even for someone fluent in English it gonna take longer than usual to understand. Will probably need to read it two times, maybe three. Now imagine for a second that you don’t speak a word of English and stumble on that sentence. The only thing you have as tool is the small English-[Something] stupid dictionary that you bought for too much just before leaving your country and doesn’t contain half the word you search in it. You’re, basically, screwed. And since you don’t make the difference between what is what you only get one solution. Take up your dictionary, a lot of courage, and search for each possible combination in this sentence. Which mean that the first word you’ll check is “this”, then maybe “thisis”... ooh... thisis doesn’t exist. After that you’ll check “is” oooh. Got something there. “this is.” One step toward success. And then the “a” even maybe “ajap” and so on till you found every little possibility and try to make sense of it. And that is of course if you find all the words cause you may as well don’t find one in your stupid little high-priced dictionary. And of course even if you all the words, even if you find them all. Imagine something like that:
“What do you think of Samuel?”
“He’s a pain in the ass.”
Still considering you don’t know a shit about English. Try to translate that. The first part is ok. A question easy to identify, easy words. The second is also easy. But only for the words. Cause your stupid little high-priced dictionary won’t tell you the exact meaning of the expression. So when you read it, for you Samuel is literally a pain in your ass. Nothing more, nothing less. So you may find yourself reading the whole book thinking that Samuel and the other guy are, maybe, a gay couple.

So that’s the main problem I have with reading Japanese right now. In school they make it more occidental, taking time to actual put a space between each word. In a book, they don’t care; you just had to speak Japanese before starting to read. Yeah, I guess it’s a good idea after all. But there’s still some way to help you.
First: Particle. Learn them, know them, and love them. They are your best ally against this terrible war. They are as useful as they are complicated to understand. Particles are inserted between words and actually tell you what is what. If you read “wa”, this mean that the word just before was the subject of the phrase. If you read “na” this is an adjective. If you see “wo” it means that it is the complement to the verb. “he” usually marks a location or a direction. So learn them. After you took time to learn hiragana and katakana, learn those fuckin’ particles or god help you you’re gonna be screwed by a children’s book. And it’s not because it is a children’s book that it’s gonna be any gentler for your brain, believe me. So learn them and love them.

Second: The kanjis. God I hate kanjis, but they are slowly becoming my friends. Cause usually a kanjis is the start of a new word. Doesn’t always work, but most of the time you know you have a new word in front of new because of the kanjis. And also useful because Japanese language have a lot of homonyms and kanjis are a good way to make a difference. Cause even if it pronounced the same, the kanjis will probably be different.

Third: Just learn your freakin’ Japanese vocabulary until you don’t remember how to write your own name in romaji.

Aside from that:
- Remember that if you see a word that end with the sound “masu (pronounced mass)” it’s a verb in a present or future tense.
- “mashita” is for the past.
- “Masen” is a negative verb. Ikimase <-> Ikimasen = I go <-> I don’t go.
- “Masendeshita” is a negative verb in the past.

Ikimashita <-> Ikimasendeshita = Went <-> Didn’t go.
- Shimasu means “to do”. Learn to recognise it cause you’ll see it often. Like “Denwa wo shimasu” Making a phone call.
- The particle “ka” is always at the end of a sentence and is in fact the “?” of Japanese. If you here a sentence with it, it means it is a question. “Dare desu ka” Who is he/she? “Kore desu ka.” What is it?
- “watashi” means “me”. “Anata” means “you”
It’s not a lot, but just take time to listen to anime you’ll notice them quickly. But probably that a lot of you already noticed them. I would like to tell more cause Japanese is fascinating, but it would take really too long.

And to answer Moi. Time and practice nothing more, nothing less. One of my trick for learning both hiragana and katakana was to actually find text in Japanese that are only written in hiragana and just translate the sounds. Not the actual meaning. But just getting used to reading them and recognising them. I must have done this stupid hiragana table over 20 times and still don’t do it perfectly. Cause often if I see a hiragana I’ll know what it is but when you ask me to write it and just can’t remember. So find yourself excuses to write them down. Anything is good.
Seeya

Answers (again)

Well I guess I'll have to get at it again :P

Actually like to answer question. I don't get much of them on the french side of this blog. So I'm kinda happy to do it here. Ok so I'll answer as I read the comments.

First:
Moi-> Depends of what you mean by vegetarian foods. If you are vegetariena but still eat eggs and fish, Japan is like the vegetarian Paradise. If you don't eat fish or eggs, you're screwed. And by screwed I mean don't come near japan cause a meal without meat (fish or not) is absolutely impossible in most restaurant.

Claudiu-> I don't know who you might be but I'm happy taht your ead my blog. To answer your question: No. Didn't see any western comics here. Not in that library at the café, not anywhere in any library I went too. And God only know how many libraries I visited in the last 2 weeks. I was looking for children's books. You know, to practice reading in japanese.

Shinka-> Actually, in my host family, they had a lot of foreigners. So oka-san, now, is more like a nickname than the actual "mother" thing. But I must admit that I feel weird every time I say it.

Shinka (again)-> Actually the beer is cheap and delicious. Except for the Sapporo. I don't know why. Cause back in Canada the sappora we have there is actaully really good. Here it tastes like shit. But in bars, the beer actually cost a lot more. I don't know why but clubing in tokyo is really expensive. When you buy drink for a girl you better hope she want to sleep with you cause it can cost you easily 50 bucks for bnot much really.

Shinka (2nd again)-> I'm leaving in Kachidoki which is in Chuo-ku. It is a small artificial island about 30 minutes from Tokyo center. It's a residential area with only primary schools and kindergarden. Actually a nice place.

Shinka (3rd again)-> You sure ask a lot of question bud. But I actually like it. So... for the host family. This trip cost me 4500 canadian bucks. In which you have 1200 for the airplane tickets, half and half for the living cost of the fmaily and the class cost. So more or less 1500$ for the host family and 1500$ for the institute. The intitute is the Kudan Institute of cultural learning and language.... or something like. Just type Kudan Institute in google and you should find something. This thing is hosted by GEOS. Their main objective is simply to bring people to learn other languages. I'm in Japan right now, but they actually have options for germans, english, french, spanish, portugese and norway. And maybe more.
The price of this trip include the host family fees, which include a breakfeast and a diner. I hav to pay for my lunch. Everywhere i go with my host fmaily, the food is paid, but alone I have to pay for it. I have classes every weekdays from 9:10 to 12:40. We actually have two teachers. And in fact the classes here are good enough that they can bring you to take the japanese standard test of language. Or something like that. Basically if you suceed to that test, you are, by the japanese laws, fluent in japanese. Usually every lunch cost me around 1000 yens. SOmetimes more, sometime less. but with 1000 yens you can be assured you'll get a decent lunch. The subway cost me daily around 1000 yens too. I have over 15 000 yens spent only for transportation since i'm here. SO i presume that by the end of the month I'll have nearly 200$us in transportation fees alone.
So that's the basic. I could say that i cash nearly 800 yens of alcohol a day. but that would mean that i basically 1 and half liter of beer every day. Which is not false. But not a necessary expense.
And I would like to add that the institute here is really effective. They teach japanese in japanese so you learn fast. Still not fast enough to my taste, but still a little faster than I thought. In one semester i won't be able to really speak japanese well. But i'll be able to actually follow a simple conversation and be able to tell simple facts like where i'm going, when, with who. What the color of the dog... you know the basics. If you want to fo to Japan to actually learn Japanese, I think that the Kudan Institute is for you. But, god help you, take time to learn your hiraganas and katakanas first or you'll regret it.

The quest for the officially lost passport

I said I would wait to get back my passport to talk about what happened. I was curious to see how works the Japanese bureaucracy before making a post. So today I got my passport back. So… let’s start from the beginning.

08-10-11 17 :43 :32 – Get out of the train and notice that my passport is missing. Look around in the station as much as I can. No passport. Holy crap! A little bit anxious, half amused and really frustrated, I tell myself that I’ll call the embassy as soon as I enter the apartment.

08-10-11 18 :14 :23 – Calling the embassy. Now it starts. First tumble on a pre-recorded English, then French, then Japanese message. Mostly saying that the embassy is closed on Saturday and Sunday. And that Monday they will be closed too cause it’s the national sport day. Aaah crap. Nothing much to do, I’ll call Tuesday.

08-10-14 08 :25 :47 – Taking a small stop to the found objects of the metro station asking if someone brought a Canadian passport in. The guy there tells me to wait and make at least half a dozen different calls. Nope nothing on this line. Did the guy just called every single station of this line? Yup he did. Well, thank you, but disappointing. Guess I’ll have to call the embassy after the classes.

08-10-14 12 :50 :21 – Calling the embassy. A funny little message in English, then French, then Japanese. Choose your language. French. Choose which of the following options. #2 lost passport office and urgency. Fall on the vocal box that tells me that the office is currently closed. But if I let my name and contact information they should call me back in the next two working days. Yeah, lucky I’m not in urgency. Let my name, cell phone number and hang up.

08-10-14 17 :05 :23 – Cell phone ringing. Answering : « Moshi-moshi. » A kind of shy voice speaking more or less well in French ask me if I called the embassy for a lost passport. Well yes, else you wouldn’t have my phone number won’t you? So I start explaining in French that I lost my passport last Saturday. That I already checked the lost objects at the subway station. With a lot of hesitation she asks me if I need a new passport. Duh…. Yes! At this moment, she tries to explain to me the procedure to get a new one. But it doesn’t work well cause her French is not really good. So I tell her that she can do it in English if she is more comfortable with it. She said thank you and started to explain in English. Wish I told her to continue in French, it was worst in English. So basically the conversation just keep switching to English, to French, to Japanese, to French again, to English... and so on. After a moment, I understand that I need my birth certificate, the address of 2 people who know me for longer than 2 years and my passport copy. Well, at least I have the passport copy. Then, she asks me if I went to the police station to report de the lost. Well no… What are the chances of actually finding my passport now. She then tells me that I have to go to the police to I can fill an official form that will make it official that I have officially lost my passport and then they will give me an official paper that will officially say that I officially lost my passport and they can now officially ask for a new official passport... or something like that. What the … ? Oh and she then tells me the passport office is only opens on weekdays from 9h30 to 12h30. Yeah… only getting better. I honestly don’t want to miss classes. Already hard enough without skipping school. But well, I guess that a new passport is actually more important.

08-10-16 12 :45 :21 – Near the school there is what the Japanese call a police box. Those are little stations for neighbourhood patrolling. In the morning you would be able to see maybe 10 policemen planning their patrolling day. It’s really small, but actually has all the useful things you could find in a main police station. So go to the police officer there, tell him I’ve lost my passport. The officer gives me a form to fill. Name, address, phone number, description of the item lost. You know the drill. When I’m about to finish, comes in a second officer that look at me. Ask a few things to the policeman sitting with me. Then decide he stops my form filling… well that sounds dirty. Anyway. He tries to explain something that I don’t get cause he is speaking to fast and refuse to slow down. He then takes the phone and passes it to me. There is an operator speaking English. Tells me that I have to go to the main police station so I can fill the form to have my official paper for my officially lost passport. While he is telling me that, the second policeman is showing me on a map where to go. It’s near. One stop at the subway. Should be easy. Ok.

08-10-16 16 :33 :56 – It took me almost two hours to find the police station. God I hate those Japanese map. Enter the station, go to the reception. Yeah Canadian, yeah lost my passport, yeah second floor. Go to the second floor. The reception there send me to third floor who tells me to go back at the second floor to take a formulary that I should picked up on the way to the third floor. Fill out the formulary, which is the exact same thing I had almost finished earlier in the police box. Got to be kidding. Hand the formulary to the officer there. He tells me to wait while they enter the information in the computer. 20 minutes later! Does not compute! Apparently the guy doesn’t understand what I wrote so he asks me to do it again. 20 minutes later the guy comes back with my official paper of officially lost passport. Back to the first floor where they will compute that and give me another official paper for my officially lost passport. At the reception of the first floor I hand over the official paper to the official officer who officially declares that I have another official form to fill out. Holy hell! Name, address, phone number. Hand over the paper, get a new official paper for my officially lost passport. I can now go to the embassy. But not today cause anyway they are closed at this hour.

08-10-17 13 :42 :08 – PHONE! The embassy. Someone found my passport and brought it to the police. How amazing. No more bureaucracy for me! Forgive me if I’m a bit naive but I can’t help it. So, anyway, where’s my passport, huh? The intelligent thing to do would have been to say to the girl at the phone to wait for me and I’ll go directly to the embassy to get the information. But you know, I’m stupid sometimes. So I ask her. Maybe I forgot that I was in a restaurant in a basement right in the middle of Tokyo, but the line was really crappy. And I don’t hear half the information the girl is giving me in French/English/Japanese. I try to go up one floor. The line is better, but too much noise from Tokyo. Try to go higher while I write the information. When I’m nearing the third floor she asks me if I have an e-mail. Would be easier of course than noting all that on a scrap of paper. HAHA! So I start: “A”, “C”, “I”, “D”, “E”. Then come the underbar « _ ». Yeah, try to explain what is an under bar (_) to someone who doesn’t understand neither English nor French well on a half shitty phone line that threaten to cut every second from now. Just forget it. Impossible. Then I just tell myself if can get the phone number right I’ll just call and ask for the whereabouts of the station. SO make the girl repeat at least five times to make sure the phone number is right. Excellent. I will be able to handle myself from there.

08-10-19 10 :13 :18 – I don’t know exactly why I didn’t call sooner, but I didn’t. Sunday morning, just spent the night clubbing and went to sleep in a capsule hotel.
Just need to make a quicky about capsules hotels. Those things are amazing. You enter the first floor, rent a room from a machine. A guy gives you a key to you can store your shoes, give him back the key, he gives you a new one. You go to the second floor. Lockers. You put your clothes in, and inside you’ll find a bathrobe and a towel. There are showers there and a laundry. On the third floor is a huge salon with 3 huge televisions. 7th floor are our cabins. Actually 1 meter width, 1meter height and less than 2 meters long. Not too bad. You have a sheet, can watch TV, listen to radio, and have you own alarm clock. ON the TV you can see animation, sports, news and pornography. Actually the worst pornography I ever saw. If the pornography was that bad in North America no doubt we would like animation more. In the morning you wake up, go to the bath room. There is individuals’ toothbrush, individuals’ razor. 3 different perfumes. It’s really not that bad. In the morning you have free coffee available on the first floor. I don’t have pics was too drunk to even think about taking some.
Anyway, Sunday morning, I call the station where is supposed to be my officially lost passport. The first thing I hear is a “moshi-moshi”. This is fairly strange for an official government office. I hang up and double check the phone number the second time I try. Japanese phone numbers can be fairly longs so it’s easy to make mistakes. Again, same girl, same “moshi-moshi”. Ok. I try to ask her about a lost passport. Silence and then moshi-moshi. Hang up. I go to the reception of the hotel and try to ask to the guy there if he knows the place I noted on my scrap of paper. Never heard of. His coworkers say the same. Holy fuck!!! Guess I’ll have to go to the embassy.

08-10-22 16 :30 :12 – Entering the embassy. Took me almost 4 hours to find it. In facts, the building is easy to find, but the actual embassy entrance is not. Without any indication in French or English and without finding any katakana saying Canada, I walked past it almost 5 times. Actual walked around the building 4 times. And except for the suspicious looks of the guards watching me, no reaction at all. The entrance is in fact on the fourth floor of a hotel, and you have to go all the way around outside to find an escalator. A pain really. SO I enter. The reception has a superb sign all chromed saying English/Français. Cool! Going to the reception, and telling to the woman there that I lost a passport and I’m here to get the information to get it back. I think she lost me after I said “Bonjour!” She tells me to wait and she goes fetch a Japanese woman that understand French better than her. Ok to me. She could actually really talk it well, but not understand. Took me about 5 times to make her understand that I wasn’t there to report a lost passport but to actually get the information to fetch it back. She then says to me to go to the third floor. Down to the third floor. The passport and urgency office. Which is supposed to be closed at this hour is actually closed. Yeah! But there’s a guy waiting there, so I take a sit. Not long after, a woman comes to me and asks me in English if I’m here for a passport. Yeah... more or less. I ask her if she speaks French. Her fingers tell me « Just a little bit. » Well, congratulation miss you just found a good excuse to practice cause there’s no way I’m gonna speak English in an official government building where I should be able to get services in French according to the Canadian law. 30 minutes later she understands. Then with a suspicious look, ask me if I have some ID. I get out my passport copy, my sun card, my 2 hospitals cards, my Gundam’s mecha driver card, my library card and the scrap of paper with my host family information on it. Am I tired of all this? Hell yes I am! She just takes my passport copy and tells me to wait a moment. She comes back with a paper holding all the information I need, including which subway line I should take and where to disembark and which exit to take. Cool. Then I realise that the school is just near it. Holy cow in heaven!?! Why me? She then tells me that I just go there, show them this case file number and it’s gonna be quick. Cool! Thank you very much miss.

08-10-23 15 :08 :20 – Entering the Keishicyo Isitsubutsu Center (Yup! I had a scrap of paper near me to write this one down on the computer.) I walked from school. To come in the neighbour where this police station is took me only 20 minutes. But to actually find the building took me near two hours. Did I ever tell that I hate Japanese maps? Well, I fucking hate Japanese maps! I found it after asking to ten different people who each single ones of them pointed a different direction to me. I have a really huge thank you that goes to the woman of the pharmacy who actually took 2 minutes of her time on the job to walk me to the building. DOMO ARIGATO GOZAIMASU!!! SO enter the station, which is in fact the lost and found objects office of Tokyo. GO to the reception. I hand over the paper with the file number on it and tell the guy it is a passport. He then hand me a formulary to fill. What the!!!! Name, address, phone number. Anything you want I don’t care just gives me back my passport. Give him back is piece of paper. Then tell me to wait. He comes back later with the passport in his hands. JOY!!! I reach to get it, and he step back asking me the name on the passport, date of birth, passport serial number. WHAT!?! Give him the information. Just hand over my passport you piece of sh*&!!! He gives me back my passport and I get the hell out of there.

So that’s it. Now I have officially retrieved my officially lost passport. I can say it was a good day. I don’t have pics of course, no one want to see office buildings pictures. But I do stumble on one thing while in the subway. Since you will only see that kind of decoration in a subway in Japan I thought I should take picture. I really like that.



Cya.

TGS2008

Ok I’ll start by saying that I realise that I don’t post as often here as on the French side. I thought I could keep up the rhythm, since every post is usually 1 hour to write, I tend to do the French part of it first and then I’m so bored with writing that I skip the English part telling myself that I’ll do it tomorrow. I’m sorry. But still continue to post anyway.

Ok, so. Last Saturday, ototo (Young brother in Japanese) and I decided to go to the Tokyo Game Show 2008. I didn’t tell about it before cause honestly I was a bit disappointed with this experience, and, secondly, I’ve been wasting myself on alcohol since Friday. I found on that Friday that Japanese beer is cheap. Curse you Japan for making me an alcoholic. So anyway, I’ll do my best to get the exact same translation form the French side. SO the TGS is supposed to be one of the biggest gaming conventions in the world. Hundreds of participants and thousands of visitors in 4 days. The first 2 days are closed to the public and the last 2 are open. So here we come. GANBATTE!

Saturday, more or less a fresh start. Still a bit drunk from my Friday night. Happens I guess. WE want to be there for noon. SO as well leave the apartment at 10h30. Meet my brother at 11h, take the train and ride to the Makuharu Messe for noon, more or less. Sounds good to me and my brother. The subway system here is really effective. And the Makuharu Messe is really not that far. So we think. HAHA! I leave at 10h30, Ototo a little bit sooner because his ride is longer. WE meet at 11h at the smoking square. Not here that in Japan you can’t smoke in most of the streets, you have to search for what they call “Manner parks”. Little parks every here and there where you go to smoke. Or you hide in an alley. Policemen won’t come after you in the alleys if you have a portable ashtray.

Anyway. Meet then wait a bit for Aymrik to show up. He doesn’t. Too bad for him, we won’t wait. Enter the Kudanshita Station; I already know where we have to go. WE have to hop on the Tozai Line till the terminus at Nishi-Funabashi. Should be easy. HAHA! Yeah sure! I don’t know why but Saturday at noon seems to be a rush hour for the subway. So when we show up the wagons are already full. 1-0 Tokyo. Next train in 20 minutes, no way. I push to enter and a pusher helps me with his shoulder. You can call me back pain. But refuse to let enter my brother. So he makes a head sign to me and I brace for the impact. He takes 2 meters starts and hit me shoulder first in the stomach. I fall behind, lot of Japanese do so around me and, I guess everyone know what are dominos right, half the wagon fall more or less on the ground. Japaneses looked at us angrily, my brother has a little nervous laugh and I grin to the pusher well making “bebye” with my hands. 0-1 Québec.

The subway goes on and we are stuck between 150 Japanese that don’t like us. Good. As the train goes on it empty a little. I take the opportunity to take a pic with my japanese cell phone. Smile! 30 Minutes later we’re at the Nishi-Funabashi station. Everything is fine so far. WE try to find a map and try to make sure which line we have to take. And this is 1-1 Tokyo. We don’t understand anything on the plan. WE see our station, we see the station we want to go, but we don’t have a damned idea as to which line to take. Two lines seem to go the red and the orange one. But can’t find the difference. And in Japan, when taking the subway, never assume that two lines going in the same direction are going to bring you to the same place. So we try to know for sure. We finally think that we should take the red line. Well I think we should, my brother is more looking on the orange side. So we wait and 2 oranges subway pass before us and the red seem to not exist so far. When the third shows up, my brother decide that we take this one. OK.

Hop on the train. One station later, the train stop. TERMINUS!!!! WTF?!? Hop out and still wait 20 minutes for a red one to show up. Hop in. God I hate this. 2-1 Tokyo. 45 minutes later and a really disastrous look at the city border side we arrive at the Makuhari Station. (Is it me or I change the name of this station every time I write it?) And then, hell, people like you never seen before. I’m sure Shibuya is not that populated. We make lines with hundreds of Japanese. And when we look around we realize that it’s gonna take us one full hour to reach the gate. No... fuckin’... way!!! Step aside, we are from Québec, we are Nordic people, bigger, stronger and meaner. Go *beep*…rself. We pass on the other side of the walk, the one reserved for the people going the other way. 2-2 Québec.

We then find ourselves on something, I must say, is totally cool. Air walkway. Walkway suspended over the streets. You can actually walk for hours in those and never have to touch the streets with your feet. Those walkways are making a web between all the hotels, shops and the Makuhari Messe. I didn’t take to take a picture sorry. But anyway. 30 minutes later, the TGS is right before us. First thing we see:

Second thing we see:

I don’t have any idea what it is supposed to be. And you see the kind of black cage on the bottom right corner of the pic. There was a girl in it. Don’t have the pic.


Anyway. We show up to get our tickets. 1200¥. Of course. Then straight to the door right above the stairs. At this point a rent-a-cop tells us that we have to go through the first floor gate. Ok. Go to the first floor. The rent-a-cop there tell me I have to go through the second floor gate cause I have a bag. Holy hell! Back to rent-a-cop A that tell me again that I have to go through the first floor gate. WHAT? I show him my bag and then he decide that I may pass through this gate, but not my brother cause he doesn’t have a bag. WHAT THE!?! You’ve got to be kidding me. Try to argument with Rent-A-Cop A but he doesn’t want to hear anything. WHAT THE FUCK!?! Got to be kidding me. Finally, the other guard tell us that it’s ok we can pass. Yeah thx. But still, so near. Show up at the entrance of the actual exposition rooms and... We get turned back cause we’re not Japanese. Oh fucking hell. The girl point us to the information center. The girl there doesn’t understand a word of English or French. But she points us to the international information center. Ok. And there a gal who speak English really badly.... PAUSE

Maybe some people notice that every time I talk about Japanese people speaking English I say they suck. It’s not that they actually suck at it, they actually know really well. But simply try to speak a proper English we you can’t pronounce R and L correctly. That you inverse, for some reasons, the A and the O. And that you have one hell of a time saying a word that contains the letter V.

Ok. So the gal there looks surprised to see us. And when we explain what happened she looks surprised again. She then point us to the entrance right next of the information center. WE show up there, and once again we are being refused. I’m going to punch these girls in the face when the information gal shows up and start talking with the girls at the doors. We finally can pass. And the TGS unravel before us. But still 3-2 Tokyo for all this stupidity.

And I must say that I’m impressed. There are pics only of the first part of the exposition. The TGS is separated in 5 distinct sections. Well, let’s say 4 cause one of them is for the restaurants. But still really huge.

WE try to navigate as much as we can. But there’s a big lot of people, we’ve been there for 5 minutes and we are already sweating like we just did 1 hour of jogging. Honestly would be easier to be naked and actually swim in the sweat than walking. It stinks, we are so close to other people that I only know one other way to be closer, and it implies being inside someone. Of course, we were expecting this. And, don’t forget, Quebecer are from the north, which bigger, stronger and meaner. We move around the Japanese and make our way while a line from behind us as we walk. 3-3 Québec. And we start the tour. Hudson, Namco, Sega, Xbox, PS3 and Wii. To just name a few. But there actually were a big lot of companies, a lot of them I didn’t even know they existed or were still alive. There was even a stand for Québec but since there was no one there, I don’t even know what they are supposed to do. Lot of little companies that are trying to show their products, games and technologies. I respect that. There was a complete set of stands with companies that only create games for cellphone.

Of course we can try games. I first wanted to try Resident Evil 5 (Biohazard 5) but the line was way passed the sign telling “1 hour from here” and since I didn’t want to wait 2 hours for a 5 minutes play of a game I wouldn’t even understand cause it’s in Japanese, I passed. But I tried Street Fighter 4. This is going to be one hell of a hit. Really. Still the same good old feeling but better, faster, prettier and just more awesome. Still 2-D, but simply better. You liked Street Fighter before, you have absolutely no reason to dislike it now. But right after that I have the second best moment of this day.

Yup! The new Bionic Commando. I totally liked this game when I was a kid. Me and my bro would spend hours on it. And I didn’t have much choice, I had to try it, japanese or not. Get in the line wait 1 hour. And finally I hold the Xbox360 controller. This game is pure awesomeness. Of course, you have the opinion of a hardcore fanboy who played every single version of Bionic Commando that ever existed and liked them all. But the 3-d and design are goods. The first stage is in a bombed cit or something like that, it’s marvellous. You have a kind of spider-man feeling while playing. The main character design is totally bad-ass, but I’m still wondering how he can take out his t-shirt without having to rip it first. A mystery really. The game have a surprising good feel to it. It was 10 minutes of pure bliss for me. And then happens what is the most absolute event of my TGS.

Are you reading that well? I hope so. This is an error screen from an Xbox360 while my brother was playing Bionic Commando and simply tried to press start to change the stage. Yup. How surprising, error screen from Microsoft. It took me 5 times to be able to take the picture. Of course the tech guy there didn’t want me to do so. But I couldn’t leave the TGS without an error screen of something; it would have been a waste. 4-3 Québec.

Concerning the pictures. I don’t have a lot of them. Mostly due to the fact that every time I tried to take one, someone would show up saying: « No pictures, no pictures. » There was a lot of bad-ass costume there. Lot of thing to see, but couldn’t get away with taking picture most of the time. And can someone explain why in a convention made to show the entire world the newest product I can’t take picture? I’m totally lost. And finally the only thing I was allowed to catch in my camera was the “brand girls”, as the Japanese call them. You know those pretty girls that are there only to be taken in picture with the products. You know them for sure. So that’s what I have form the TGS. Just for my own pleasure, I’ll post some right now.

So. We entered the TGS at 14h and left at 15h30. Honestly not much to see since I already saw on the internet everything showing up there. I was expecting a lot more new stuff. But apparently no. So we left and decided to take a walk around the Makuhari messe. And then we saw that.

While walking we see this gigantic glass tower. You already know about him, my last post was made from there. So I’ll skip that part. As to answer some question about this place. No I didn’t see any western comics there. And must say that I don’t see any very often. Second is no I don’t have any picture. The place was really quiet, much like a library and taking picture of all this would probably have used my entire memory card. And if you want one more fact. Without having to rent a room, you can rent shower time and eat at that place so when you enter you don’t have to leave before a long time. Which would be kind of dumb cause it cost a lot. Anyway we leave. Upon reaching the first floor, my brother has pressed every single buttons of every single floor. 50 in total. I really pity the guy that entered the elevator right after we left. 5-3 Québec.

Ok, from there everything went fast. Back at the train, we bully our way to the wagon. Everything fine we hop on. Ok. I know that it’s really disrespectful of us to actually toss Japanese away so we can pass. But there is that kind of day sometime when you don’t want to waste your time and don’t have the patience to be kind and good. That was one of those days. SO back to Nishi-Funabashi station. On the Tozai Line back to Kudanshita. Brother and me separate here he has to take the Hanzomon Line and I take the Oedo Line. So I go to the line and when I reach in my pocket to take my pass I notice something is missing. Search my pants, search my bag. Search my pants again, my shirt, my boots, my bag, look around, walk back to the Station. Nothing. Holy.... fucking... hell.... I lost my passport. Holy shit I can’t believe it. Tokyo ate my passport. As much as I hate to say it, that certainly is 2 points in one shot for Tokyo. So 5-5. And already called at the embassy and all. Really it’s fine nothing to panic about really. But, I’ll talk more about this when I’ll get my passport back, but it’s one kind of hell to get a new passport here. And I don’t have any choice to lend another point to Tokyo for this shitty bureaucracy.

Final score 6-5 Tokyo. I’m not giving up; in 2 weeks it’s the Halloween festival. I’m planning on winning this one.

That’s all for now. Already long enough in my opinion.

Cya.

Answers

Ok, I'll make a new label only for that. And first I must warn you all that I'm not on my computer. But in a rented one. You know cyber-cafe, you pay for a bit of time on a computer. I usually don't do it and don't need it. But make a pause, close you eyes and imagine that. We went to the Tokyo Game Show, I'll talk about it another time, and when we got out we see this really really tall glass tower in front of us, and my brother look at me and say: "Hey let's ride the elevator to the top." 50 floors and a nice little video later we discover that the 50th floor is in a fact a comics & Internet cafe. And I really mean comics & Internet. You go there, rent a little space, they have a huge library of manga here, and when is ay huge, I mean fucking big awesome huge library. So anyway, with taht before us, we didn't of choice but to try and rent a space right? So anyway here I am.

The first thing I want to say is "Arigato gozaimasu" for reading and commenting. You don't know how relieved I am when I see commentaries at the end of a post.

As for answering now:
Moi, yes there is a clustering effect, obviously. French people tend to get together, germans, americans. I think it's normal and even if I wanted to prevent it, I wouldn't be able to keep myself alone.
Shinka what you see in anime is absolutely false for a majority. Everytime you try to get something there is always huge portion, even in vending machine. Aika is slim as hell and eat almost the double of what I eat. And hell I eat a lot. And even if the portion his small, eating here cost almost nothing. You'll bankrupt with train ticket for sure but not cause of the food.
And yes I call Miyako "oka-san" but it's fairly recent, before yesterday I was not certain if I should or not. Aika finally told me that I can and should call her oka-san. Apparently Miyako will tend to be more receptive when you call her oka-san.


so got any mopre question, jsut throw as much as you can, I'll try to answer every single one.

I'll leave you on that, I'm still paying for the seat I'm using. So...

Cya

Idea of the century

I ws kinda wondering what to write at first. I mean, like i said before, so much to say and not enough time. And must admit I post more on the French said of this blog, you know family and friends take priority. But it’s been a while here. I could have talked about how I got my Japanese (nihon-go) cell phone. But just that took me 6 pages on the French side, so.... aaah... the hell. You have to hear that story cause hell it was one stupid day.

So Tuesday. 7am, alarm, I wake up from a terrible night of sleep, but resist the temptation to snooze, ask me how I did it, I don’t know. But I did. I thought that it was a really bad way to start my first day at school. And put it on the back of the jetlag, but I woke up. Get out of bed, go to the bathroom. Shave; I cut myself about 7 or 8 times, too sleepy to shave correctly apparently. Anyway, I stop the blood. And I find a way to poke my eye with the toothbrush. Yeah right. Get out of the room, which is right next to the entrance, my head hit the toilet door right in front of me. Notice here that the toilet is separated from the bathroom. So you shave, take a shower or a bath in a room, and go to toilet in another one. Anyway, I’m sure, but not quite, that my teeth let a mark on the door. Anyway, I’m about to turn around, a bit dazed, when I hear:”Aye aye aye! Ali-san [insert something I didn’t understand here] ne.” Apparently I triped on Aika-san who was searching something in her purse on the ground. Take notice here: Miyako (okaa-san) and Aika absolutely can’t pronounce my name. They first tried Olivier, but they put an A instead of the O and a B instead of the V. But in the end it sounds kinda like “Alibuer”. So we tried to settle for Oli, my nickname. But still can’t pronounce the O correctly. So now I’m Ali-san.

Anyway, we go to the kitchen, Aika pour serial in a bowl while I start boiling water. I burn myself with the water, Aika-san too busy to laugh at me find a way to hit her head with the fridge’s door while looking for milk. We transfer to the kitchen’s table. I burn myself with the coffee and spill half of it on my last clean shirt. AIka-san can’t refrain to laugh and spit her mouthful of cereal and milk on the table. Doesn’t we go well together or what?

Anyway, while I try to find something less messy to put on, I hear “Itekimasai” from Aika-san. Ok, she’s gone to work. Not long after I’m on the street walking to my subway station and fighting the wind to try to light a cigarette. Nearing the station I put my cigarette butt in a kind of portable ashtray. Japanese don’t throw their cigarette butt in the street. Ok. And now, I must explain you something. It’s usually a known fact that Japanese are horrible at map reading and I’ll tell you why. Because, Japanese never had the stroke of genius to put the north on their maps. So when you enter a subway station, the maps of the trains are not always oriented with the north, nor they are not always oriented with the subway line you need. So when you go in one of those subways. Just take time to triple check where you’re going cause after the pusher gave you one hell of a back pain after pushing you with 150 people in a wagon that smells like shit you’ll find yourself really stupid if you took the wrong line.

So I get in the wagon, and put a huge smile to the pusher whom I would like to punch straight in the face cause he gave one hell of a back pain. SO the train start two station later I get out of the wagon for Monzen-Nakacho. So i look around and see Kiba written everywhere. Fuck! Take a wuck walk to the other side of the line to take the subway back in the right direction.

From there everything is well. First school day, nothing much to say. Mariko-sensei learn us to tell our name, where we’re from, waht we do for living. You know that kind of stupid thing when you start school. 12h40 end of school for today. Not unhappy, if I have to here one more “nani” I’m gonna go crazy. So Julien, my brother who is recovering from a cold, Eimrich, a French we met Monday, and me decide it’s time to explore Tokyo. Hello World! But we must first go find an ATM cause my brother is short on cash. So I remember that I saw something called [insert word here]bank. Excellent here we go.

And now start the worst case of stupidity you’ll ever see. First we show up in front of the building. The name seems to be Softbank. Maybe some of you already know that place, not me. So we’re at the entrance; two sliding doors with some kind of slim metal rectangle on each side of the center. So I step first and wait for the door to open. And wait, and wait... wait some more... maybe a little more... hum... ahum! I said. Nothing happen. OOOK! I guess we don’t do it the right way. So I try to push aside those little squares and still nothing happen. I feel extremely stupid, EImrich seems lost and my brother can’t stop laughing. Finally, someone get in front of me and simply touché the square on the sign written “Enter” on it. AAARG! I guees it wasn’T obvious enough. We enter and come to the realisation that the Softbank is in fact a cell phone shop. Holy hell! We’re about to leave when I see Oliver-san talking with a salesperson. Oliver est a Sweden student in my class. Curiosity gonna kill me one day, so I tell the others to wait a second and ask Oliver what he is doing. He tells me that he is buying a cell phone.
Yeah but you’re not Japanese.
Maybe but I can still buy one here, that is less costly and more convenient than the one they are trying to rent us at school.
And could I get one even if I only stay two months?
Of course.

At that point my face change expression, EImrich seems anxious to see me like that and my brother have a growing smile on his face while he understands where I’m going with my idea. The idea of this century. Buy a cell phone in Japan while i don’t speak a fuckin word of Japanese at all. Yeah they should give me a Nobel’s prize or something like that.

So we way behind Oliver-san who start to explain to me that he have been here for 1 hour. He explain that i can’T choose my cell phone, there is a precise model for the prepaid card setting and only got to choose the color. Ok. After a while, the saleswoman explain something to Oliver and he stand up to go away a bit frustrated. When I ask him what happened he answer that he can’t rent the phone cause he’s only 19 years old and we needs to be 20 to rent a phone. Anyway, I sit down with the girl who was talking with Oliver-san. And believe me or not, it takes at least 15 minutes to make her understand that I want the same thing that the guy before me wanted. After this 15 minutes, she ask my age. I’m 24 so it’s ok. And then she starts to ask me a lot of thing, most of them, in fact all of them i don’T understand. 10 minutes later (total 25 minutes) she is on the phone japanesing with someone and then she passes me the phone. I push an uncertain “moshi-moshi” and a woman with the worst ever English speaking I ever heard start to ask me questions. 15 minutes later, I know i have to give my address and my phone number to the girl in front of me. For the convenience her name is Hitomi. So I write those two things, pass the paper to Hitomi-san and she starts to enter the information in the computer while I’m still on the phone with the support. After maybe 5 minutes (totalling 45 for now) Hitomi-san try to say something to me. I don’T understand, she asks for the phone, I give it to her; Japanese again, give me back the phone. Support still talking in Japanese when I say:”nani?” She switches to her horrible English. 10 minutes again to understand that the phone number is not valid cause it is a cell phone, or something like that. So I give another phone number. Ok! The support tell me that Hitomi-san gonna enter the information and i’ll have my cellphone right after. Good. Hitomi-san hang-up the phone and i give her my passport so she can write down my name and things like that. Soon she asks me something again. She’s trying her hand at English and I finally understand that she want my middle name. I simply don’t have one, we don’t use them in Canada. I try to explain to her for 5 minutes and she’s back on the phone. Oh crap! Not again. She passes the phone to me. Yes.... And I there’s a man on the other side of the line with an exceptionally good speaking. Cool. So he ask for me middle name, I explain taht i don’t have one again... and then silence. I ask “moshi-moshi” and he asks for my middle name again. What the hell!?! Trying to explain again after 10 minutes (sub-t: 70 minutes)he understands that I don’t have one and tell me that they’ll need to do a check or something like that so I’ll have to wait 20 minutes or so. Waiting again. I suppose that Hitomi-san received confirmation cause she ask me which color i want. Give me black, a goth should always have a black or a metallic phone, always.

After that, Hitomi-san decide that she’s gonna explain me what I can do with the phone. Can you imagine that jsut for a second. Think about it. Think at how it gone so far and now she want to do that. Oh MY fu*beeeeeeep* god. Guess what? It went so well I can’T believe it. She switched the phone to English, showed where to find my phone number, showed me how to use the camera, where to go for my setting preferences. In 15 minutes it was all clear and done.

Totalling 90 minutes, 1 hour and half to buy a cell phone. Not choose, not discuss what best suit my needs. But simply point at one and say I buy it: 90 minutes. But I have my Japanese cell phone now, how cool is that.

And I’m gonna keep it at that for today. Already a long post.
But before I forget. Moi asked me tips to learn Japanese. Well Moi, first I should advise you to not learn Japanese, it’s the easier way around. But if yous till want to. First, and i’m deadly serious, donT’ even try anything else before you do that, learn all you’re fucking hiraganas and katakanas. And I mean it. Check every single one of them, make sure you memorise them. You msut be able to use them easily and even then double check them. It’s the first thing you’ll need and the most important one. Cause when it comes to Japanese you won’t go far without hiragana and katakana. You’ll learn kanji on the way to learning Japanese anyway. And grammar is not as difficult as it may seems, but it is strange and really different from occidental grammar.

Ok... well...
CYA

Live from Japan (part 2)

So much to say and not enough time to talk about it. I feel like days are fast-forwarding here. There’s so much I see and yet I can’t find time to talk about it. And what would be the point of talking about what I notice with my host family. In the French version of this post, I got carried away a little in trying to explain what the feeling of Tokyo is. So I’ll try to make it shorter or else people won’t read it. And also, Miyako-san and Aika-san don’t like it when I spend too much time on the computer. Aika-san explained that when I was doing that, they felt like I wasn’t comfortable here or something like that. This is absolutely wrong. I don’t think I can’t be more comfortable than right now, considering I’m in a totally different country. Miyako-san and Aika-san are wonderful, warming and comprehensive. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain to them how much they make my stay easier here in Tokyo. It’s kinda strange to say that after 2 days. But just tell you how much I would be lost without them.

So today was orientation day. Basically, they give you test to check your level of Japanese. Then they explain to you how the school work, the rules. How you should treat your host family. Like I would spit in their face for what they’re doing for me. It was long and boring. End of the day at school.

Then comes the tourism part. Julien, my brother, Emrich, a French guy we met today, and me went to look around the school. And there comes the weirdest feeling I ever had in a city. Most people will agree that Tokyo is huge, colossal. Over 30 million people roaming in a city not bigger than my hometown. I can’t tell how it feels like. It’s like one of the biggest city in the world and but still have a feel of a nice little village to it. The city has this kind of really fast beat to it but still is really smooth. How can I explain that? You’ll see office worker rushing to eat between two cigarettes while young people walk slowly and take their time. Everyone seems stressed and cautious about everything, but you’ll never see a chained bicycle. They have “pusher” to make sure people would get in the train and compact more of them to save time, but everyone sleep in the subway while they are riding. I don’t know if you get what I’m saying. I guess... no... not guess... You have to be here to know what I’m talking about. You will find on the same corner, a little convenience store with a old manager that doesn’t even speak Japanese well and a gaming center full of noise, music and screens showing new games, with light everywhere, people screaming. I don’t think it can’t get weirder than that in some way. You’ll find small shops lost in the alleys that make you think that you’ll probably lose your kidneys if you try to go in there. Right next to it, you’ll see this sweet park with a lot of trees. And right next to this park, an office building for Apple or Panasonic. It’s... weird... I can’t find any other word really.

So anyway, we went touring. Try to recognise and memorize the streets. But not the name, mind you, for now they all look the same for me. But simply be comfortable. We stumbled on a pachinko house. We first thought it was an arcade. HAHA! How wrong. Pachinkos are slot machines houses. Except that there slot machine is in fact played with little metal balls and you have this kind of switch you have to turn to make them go around and try to put the balls in a hole. It’s really strange. We never figured it out by ourselves. One of the staff showed us how to play. We didn’t win. Well maybe we won, but we don’t know.

And when talking with other French people there, which means a lot in fact, we all came to the conclusion that Japanese obviously don’t like foreigners. Ok. Let me explain. When you walk on the street people will make efforts to not look at you and when they do you can feel this “What the fuck are you doing here?” stare. In the subway you’ll never have to be compacted with others cause they make really great effort to ot touch you. If you sit somewhere you can always be sure you’ll have empty seats on both side of you. If you are in the subway during rush hours, people will try to close each other before you. If you want to sit somewhere who someone just have to his ass a little too make you someplace, forget it, Most of them won’t move and if you finally make them move they’ll change place. It’s seems horrible just like that. But I don’t feel hate from them really. It’s not hatred; it’s more like they are uncomfortable with you. Like they don’t know how to react... Oh I got it! They look like they are dealing with wild rabid animals. So they seem both uncomfortable with you and afraid of you. Which will manifest itself in something that look like hate but isn’t hate. I’m not annoyed by this. Simply we noticed it quickly.

Ok so just before I leave. Quick facts:
Japanese eat a lot but are never fat. Fat Japanese are rare occurrence honestly. In fact I still don’t remember seeing one as for now. I’m considered to be a big eater in my country even for men standards. But here I look like a girl on diet.
A meal will cost you around 850¥, roughly 8$us. The meal is huge, you never give any tips. SO basically you eat a lot for almost nothing.
Subway can cost you as much as 12000¥ every month. More or less, 120$us. Often people will pay double of that. Honestly moving in Tokyo cost you a lot.
Strangers will come to you and often gives you card of bars or pubs so you can go with them and drink. Just yesterday happened thrice. We were advised to not follow them. GUH! Cause I usually they’ll drink with you and you’ll have a good time, but as soon as you are drunk enough you will wake up jawless and cloth-less in an dark alley.
Japanese physiognomy, so far to me, says that they have a kind plain face, their teeth are never right, for a majority. Japanese are not fat, most are really slim but have beefed thighs. Guys all seems to have a natural v-shaped torso, but they never look like they are doing exercise on a daily basis.

Ok that’s about it for today, have to go to school. I like the subway really. I don’t know why but I do.

Cya.

Live from Japan

That's it! I am in Japan.
I'm totally out of my mind, I'm really excited. I slept a bit, 5 or 6 hours, not more. I'm totally wasted, I look like a zombie. But hell, I'm in freakin' Japan. What can you say to that? Nothing, it's simply awesome. Hell now I don't regret that cavity search anymore... still hurt a bit tho.

Seriously.
We took the flight from Montréal to Detroit yesterday. Then Detroit to Japan. 13 fucking hours. I can't say it was a nightmare, but hell sure close to it. Compressed with other passengers, it was hot in the plane like you can't imagine. The food was... huh... food... Even then. I still have the egg in my stomach and I have the impression it's gonna take the two full motnhs to waste them. Couldn't sleep at all. They played movies. 4 in total. Kit Kittranger (or something like that), Speed Racer, Swing Cote and Kung Fu Panda. The only use of these was to keep me more from sleeping. Horrible, simply horrible. I didn't remember movies could be that boring. Except Kung-Fu Panda.

So basically, 13 hours of flight and we land in Narita near Tokyo, exhausted, food poisoning and stinking. There we try to check-out. Yeah try. Get out of the plane, really not unhappy to walk after 13 hours sit in the plane, I'm with my brother and we both wonder where we shoud go. We follow people as much as we can, checing everywhere like two paranoide crack user, and we sure looked like ones. TO finally end in the immigration lobby. Which, of course, trouble us since we're not here to immigrate. SO we turn back, look around some more for our fixe of crack. Nothing, so we go back to the immigration lobby and there we stumble on a kind of old security agent trying to speak english. I don't know exactly what he said, but apparently we were at the right place, but we couldn't buy crack tho.
So right there we have to complete little formula paper. Detailing name, family name, flight no, passport no, and the adress where we're gonna stay.... Holy crap! My brother take the rapsheet of his family and try to write what it thinks, more or less, his the family adress. Me I search my bags as much as I can, while the old security guy who doesn't exactly speak english look at me with suspicion, or maybe he was blasé. Really can't tell, was too much afraid for my "cavities" at this moment to really notice. So I can't find my paper, I decide to go without it.

Right at this moment come the boarder security check. Say "Hello" to NiceGuy-san. Stern, callous at best, maybe a little bit agressive. He looks like he could strangle a bear single-handlely. So he checks my passport and doesn't seem to like that I don't have any adress to tell him. So I try to explain that I can't find the information and he simply keep staring at me with the killer look. OhmyfreakingodIdon'twanttogetacavitysearchpluuuuuueaszze. Then he said:"Okay, go on, welcome to Japan." But before that say hello to security check again. Put your fingers in this mahcine and smile to the camera. *click* I'm officially in the Japanese governement system now. No matter what thy'll find me and probably rape me in my sleep.

So we follow the sign with lugages on it. Our instinct was good. We find our precious bags pick them. Cool. We see the "exit" sign. We're close now. And then come the other security check. Again another sheet where I must write my name, where I come from, my flight number.... and guess what? The adress I'll stay. Crap. Fill out the form go see NiceGuy-san #2. He looks cooler, but he have this perverted look I don't like. AT least he speaks english. So I explain that I don't have the family information. He seems to udnerstand and then look at me and my brother and decide he is gonna search the lugages. No prob! Anyway nothing wrong with them. And then look at me, apparently sceptical. And I swear at this moment I had a flash of me, bent over a table while this guy put his fist in my ass. SO Niceguy-san #2 say he must search me. Oh fuck NOOOOO! He comes near me, pat me a bit here and there. Find my zippo, he finds it pretty, tell me so and then tell me :"Okay, welcome to Japan, have a nice stay." He search my brother. And we're good.

Still don't know where we going exactly, we wonder near the exit door aimlessly, and then come our savior. Kimura-san. Nice little guy, probably not older than me, or he hide it well. He show up with a nice and warming "Konichua". He look at us with a smile and say some thing:"U look tured." Yeah, can't disagree with that. He just explain to us that we can sit over there and wait there gonna fetch the bus. He put us in a bus, telling that I'll be the first to join my host family. OK. Then the bus start and I realise that I still don't have the adress.

45 minutes later, the guy stop at a kind of nowhere place, I can only see a convenience store and 3 colossal tower of 20 floors each, and the guy seems to want to let me there. huh.... no...
He spend 10 minutes trying to explain to me something, he doesn't speak english and I'm not evens ure he's talking to me in Japanese. And then what is going to be my second angel of mercy show up. Miyako-san. She simply say "Konichua" with the sweetest smile I've ever seen. Ask to the driver something about the Kudan Institute. And then she help me transport the lugage. Goes to the 15th floor, apartement one. So 1501 it is.

So officially I'm here. Miyako-san show me the apartement, my room, washroom, toilet, kitchen and everything. She doesn't speak english. But can't help to find her really warming with he kind smile. She finally ask if I'm hungry. Well, yes. We eat. And while we eat we try to speak. The funniest try to communication you'll see in your life. She have on her side a kind of, really kind of, french-japanese guide. She have all the problem in the world pronouncing the words. But she try hard and I understand. On my side I have my pocket french-japanese dictionnary that doesn't contain half the word I would like to say. 30 minutes later, and a lot of "Naniiii!", I finally understand that we are eating porc, calmar and chicken. Cool. I can't even remember the words this morning. So we try for a while to communicate after that, she shows me how the shower work. I still don't get it exactly. I'll post a picture later, if someone can help me I would appreciate greatly.

Later that evening, the third angel of mercy shows up, Aika-san, who insist that I call her Aika. She speaks english, not very well, but she still do. We spent 3 hours talking about me. Which mean, that we had a ton of scrap paper where I would right the english she doesn't understand and explain them to her. Which finally turn out to be the main point of the conversation. "Tabunne" is probably the word I heard the more, which mean maybe. She took time to precise that guy should only say "tabun" or else it will look gay. Thanks Aika, wouldn't like to pass for gay the first time I open my mouth.

After that, I was completely wasted, totally and completely wasted. Went to sleep. 6 hours and I write this.

I'll stop at that. More to come, probably later today in fact. Both Aika and Miyako are going to work this afternoon, so i'll have free time.

So 13 hours from home and live from japan,
Cya.

See you later

5 a.m.
Totally wasted, not awaken yet. Sipping coffee, burning cigarets. Yeah nothing too good in the morning. In one hour, more or less, we're gonna climb into the car, make a 3 hours run to the airport and take the fly to Japan.

This post here don't have much in it. I was simply thinking that I should post something before I leave... you know... just in case.

It's strange tho, I was over-excited yesterday evening, couldn't stay still for a second, but now I feel like ... nothing.

Simply don't know what to do while I wait.
I feel excited of course, a little bit nervous. Afraid they may find the explosive in my lugage, it's nothing dangerous really. Seriously, no explosive. But some good friends of mine, assured me that they sent anonymous mails to the border check. Thanks guys don't know how would have been this trip without a good anal search before entering Japan. I do wish the guy gonna buy me diner after, you know, wouldn't like to end this with a cold touch.

So basically that's it. Nothing much to say, I jsut had a few minutes to spare.

I'll be back in 13 hours, more or less.

Cya