11.09.2012 - yay vegan food.

Sunday

what a life I lead.
I was out from 8.15 until a but past three, at work for most of it and then I stopped by the grocery store to pick up some vital things. Going to a busy shop with low blood sugar makes me buy tons of sweet things, as it turns out.

I'm pitching my new show 'Cooking With a Poor Foreign Girl in Tokyo' to the food network, so we'll see if my life takes a sudden turn for the more food oriented.

Anyway, because of my schedule on Saturdays & Sundays I actually only eat one meal, at like 4.
I know it's not actually a healthy way to eat, and during the week I really do my best to eat three meals a day. But I can't eat less than 2 hours before I'll be doing aikido (that's work or my own training) because then I feel crazy sick. So, it can be a it hard.

Anyway, original point: when I eat on the weekends I make one ridiculously massive meal. Like two meals honestly.

more of those gyoza, steamed with broccoli and mung bean sprouts.

Then I did some laundry, and felt that I had done so well at being an adult I decided to just watch the newest Doctor Who and eat oreos.
Good call on my part, made me feel awesome.
Seriously, often not doing anything makes me feel like just dying, but it made me feel awesome and relaxed today.

Today is also the first day I've not skyped with my family, I feel like it's a big step for me honestly.

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Monday:
woke up at 5.30, went to the dojo for an hour.
I'd been planning on staying for two, but then after two days in a row with Cesar's crazy's warm ups and my legs felt like jelly. Just biking to and from the dojo made me want to cry.

Came home, ate a massive breakfast (I'm actually just always hungry. I walk so much here that I need to eat so much more, cause you know, that's how it works) and skyped with my family for a while. They're so freaking great. I mean, shit.

Then I went out to submit my application for Japanese Lessons. So I deicide to go to the Shinjuku City Office, as that seems the closet.
Try to go there, end up a the City Health Office.
They send me to the City Office.
City Office information lady says this isn't where I need to be, I need to go to some other building.
Go there.
They send me to the City Office, and tell me I need to go to the second floor.
Go back to the City Office, so up to the second floor and the lady tells me I need to go to a totally different plaza, to the Multicultural Plaza, which is like a 30 minute walk away.
AND IS CLOSED. Luckily I realised this before I walked there.
But I just had to come home and get ready for work, where I have to leave to go in 7 minutes.

So now tomorrow I have to try to squeeze in a trip to the Plaza after work, but before I meet Keiko/go to work again.

In good news I ordered my new hakama today!
for those who don't know, this is where you can learn all about hakamas.
anyway, I have a heavy cotton one, which I love deeply and more than many people.
But, its heavy and all the time it's been spending being carried from school to school is beginning to mess up the pleats. Plus it's super heavy.
So I'm ordering one of the super light polyester blend ones, and it's getting embroidered with my name and everything. That's actually just because all hakamas have that here, but hopefully it'll be here by Friday.

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Well, went to work, it was really good actually.

Came home and made some food, unfortunately I ended up buying weird gyoza when I got them (since I can't, you know, read the label.) and it had a kind of almost middle eastern flavour? like a little but like falafel? or maybe some artichoke as well?
Not so great.

the noodles were from the grocery store too, I'm obsessed with them.
they have like, pickled carrots and bean spouts and raw cabbage and they're awesome.

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Tuesday

Got up, went to work for an hour or so. It was just Cesar and I this morning, and that's one of my favourite classes to teach. Even though it's horribly early.
Really nice conversation with him after too, he's nice.

Came back here, ate a wonderful breakfast (not even being sarcastic, I was really psyched about it) of french bread, peanut butter, banana, and honey. I was cheap and just bought some Skippy's peanut butter, but it's magically too sweet AND too salty at the same time, so next time I will definitely fork out for the organic stuff. Fun fact, right?

Lay down for what was meant to be a 20 minute nap, but I forgot to set my alarm and slept for like, 2 1/2 hours. Oops.
I have absolutely got to submit my language application tomorrow, I need to start lessons asap.

Went and met Keiko for our hour chat, she was nice enough to invite me out for dinner with her family on Saturday. Which is even better than it might be because it's Magnus' birthday so I'll be horribly sad that I'm not with him.

Went to work! good class, Paul and I taught. It was the first class of the year at that school so there were heaps of new faces for me to put names too, haha.

On the way back I stopped and actually bought myself dinner at a vegetarian restaurant called Eat More Greens. So good, jesus I can't stop talking about it.
It had a nice atmosphere, it was all vegetarian or vegan, each dish told me if it had dairy in it, it was cheap, the food was outstanding, I got to eat vegan apple pie…
I could go on forever.

I will definitely be eating there pretty regularly, I walk right past it for two of the places I teach and a third is only about 5 minutes away… so I have plenty of opportunities!
Unfortunately I didn't have my camera, there are a few I snapped with my mobile. Horrid quality I know, but just look how damn nice it was! Ugh perfect food is perfect.

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Sorry about the lack of photo recently, I don't like taking my camera with me to work so I often don't have it when I see lovely/interesting things.
I wish I had a point and shoot that I could just have in my pocket you know?

here's a bonus selfie, taken while waiting for the metro the other day.

have a pleasant day!

08.09.2012 - everyone has off days, right?

Friday:

Went to Hombu for two hours.
first class was the beginners class from 7-8 taught by Waka Sensei
second class was a regular class from 8-9 taught by Irie Sensei

both were very good, good amount of time too.

Managed to finally post the stuff home, took me aaaages though because of the size of the package to my family. They wanted the weight of each individual item. In grams, which I don't even understand to begin with.
Anyway, only made harder by the fact that the girl helping me spoke very little English, but she was really nice and helped me guess the weight of stuff and I liked her for it.
But yeah, took me a solid 30 minutes in the office to post two packages and 5 postcards.

Mail is really cheap here though! I mailed my family a box about the same size as the one they mailed me but it cost me maybe half as much.

Went to work for the afternoon/evening and on the way back to my house I just grabbed some readymade stuff from Olympic because I didn't feel like cooking.

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Saturday

Ugh, today so far sucks.
Woke up at 4.30 after a horrible night of sleep, only to realise I could have slept for another whole hour, maybe even hour and a half. I just had today and Tuesday's times mixed up, since they're both mornings and at the same school.

But yeah, slept so badly. I've been sleeping ok here, I mean, I still wake up a lot but I've just been so tired that I've been passing out.

Then I went to work and it was just really frustrating. I felt like I was doing a bad job explaining things, and in the class with the youngest kids I ended up telling them to do it not how my boss does it, but how my home dojo does it.
I just felt like a bad teacher.

Then I did an hour of weapons, where Cesar is doing on the demonstrating on me, just because he knows I will be at every class, even though he knows I don't really understand what's going on.
Managed to make a total fool of myself. I, repeatedly, screwed the the simple thing we'd all just been practicing and was just generally mortified.

then I came home, found a letter from my mother in the post box, and made myself some gyoza which together, so far, have been the highlight of my day.
I just bought them from the store, but even cooking stuff like that is hard since I can't read the directions. These had 3 little pictures and a ton of words, but obviously the photos were all I got.
I did a pretty damn good job in my opinion.

 

 

Then I tried to take a nap for a bit, but couldn't sleep and then when I did fall asleep it was restless.

My throat's a bit sore too, I think it's from constantly being in air conditioned environments. Because it's so hot here everywhere is freezing.
I think even just having the dehumidifier on in my room is making it worse, but I'd just die without it. So oh well.

I might go for a walk, maybe to Shinjuku Central Park. It's like a half hour walk away.
But I think I just need to leave the house for a bit.

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Well, went for a walk for like two blocks before I just felt like crying and came back here and took a shower.
Which luckily made me feel better, so I decided to go walk around Shibuya and take some night photos. Turned out tonight was Fashion's Night Out here in Tokyo, which I was absolutely not dressed for let me tell you. I would have worn something much more snazzy if I'd know.

Anyway, walked around for about an hour, went in a few good shops that I'll definitely go back to at some point.

Came home and skyped with mum, she gave me some seriously good advice, because that's what she does. It was just what I needed though, made me feel less crazy and more just… normal I guess.

Now I'm going to bed, even though I get to sleep in until 6 tomorrow .
(that is the worst sentence I've ever had to write.)

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Have a pleasant day, all!

28.08.2012

Went to class, Fujimaki Sensei was teaching.
Never heard of him? didn't think so.
But he's a 6th dan Shihan.
Just quietly teaching beginners class at Hombu.
He had a bit of a sense of humour, at least that's what I gathered from all the laughing after he spoke.
No idea what he was saying of course, probably something like "best of luck to those poor, sweaty westerners"

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Skyped with mum and da.

I miss Mouse, too.

Went to meet Paul and to meet Keiko, she's nice. I'll be meeting her at that cafe every Tuesday, the tea's really good too.
So there's a plus.

Came back, timed how long it takes me to walk to Shin-Okubo & Okubo stations so I can properly time my trains.

Now I'm just taking a moment to re-pack my gi  bag and go meet Paul again to go to the British School to practice for a bit, and learn how to get there.


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Went to Shibuya station, met Paul.
These are a few photos I snapped, just off the platform, while waiting for him. Since I was early, like always.

We walked to the British School, learned how to put down the mats.
Then we went over pretty much every detail of each class for about an hour.
Walked back to the station, he decided to take the bus but I just on my first [almost not quite] rush hour train. Pretty fucking packed.
Needless to say, I hated it.

Got off and on my way home I decided to stop and buy a present for my lovely aunt, Emma, who hand made me the most beautiful quilted jewelry case as a going away present. She's the bomb.
Anyway, was about to pay for it and I couldn't find my wallet in my bag, just about had a heart attack because I knew I'd put it in there because I can't leave my house without my Residence Card or I can be jailed. Which is something I'd like to avoid, for the rest of my life.
Walked home in a total panic, basically waiting to be stopped by a cop.

Got home, realised it was in my bag and had just sort of migrated underneath my gi, and saw a package from mum had arrived! I was thrilled of course, even if I did already know what was in it.

my face when I saw it.

you all remember that scene in Harry Potter (I can't remember which right now) where Mrs. Wealsey sends Harry a letter and it's just plastered in stamps because 'she wanted to make sure there were enough'?
Well I basically got that today.

Felt so inspired by my newfound joy I walked all the way back to the shop and bought the 'item' for Emma, then walked to Olympic for takeout. It was getting dark at this point, so it was also the first time I properly went anywhere after dark, big steps today for Signe in Tokyo.

So far one of my favourite thing's about Japan is the takeout. I mean, you go to a grocery store and get takeout for the equivalent of life, $7 and it's so good. And it's not just me that thinks that, a lot of Japanese people eat a lot from grocery stores, so the food is genuinely good. It's awesome.
As you can see below I put together a wonderful meal (still had to eat by myself, which is still depressing, but the food was good!) and I actually bought at least twice as much as I ate tonight.

inari, vegetable gyoza, fried rice, some sort of fried noodles with picked bean sprouts and not-pickled caabbage, and some picked ginger.
+ water, orange juice (pulp free, haven't seen able to find it with pulp yet.), and a soy sauce based dip for the gyoza.

Now I'm going to watch a movie or something to keep me awake for another 2 hours or so, so I don't wake up at 4.30 again like I did this morning.
Tomorrow I get to sleep all the way in to 6 because Paul asked me to come to the 8 AM class instead of my usual 7 so we can practice together. It's a sensei he really likes; we'll see how I feel tomorrow!

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have a pleasant day all of you!