08.02.2013 - Koenji

Hey guys,
I'm sorry for the lack of blogging, I've been insanely busy recently.
I moved which took some time. During that I also threw away about 50% of my belongings.
5 bags of stuff, gone.

It felt good.

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I've also been dealing with getting my visa extended which included spending 4 hours at the Immigration Office. What a nightmare. But now it's in the hands of the government, I can't do anything until I hear from them!

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I've come down with some sort of stomach flu thing and feel exactly ill enough to not be able to do anything, but well enough to feel like I'm not sick enough to not do anything.
Yuck pretty much sums it up right now.

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Yesterday I went to Koenji for the afternoon which is the third biggest vintage/second hand shopping area in Tokyo. (Harajuku & Shimokitazawa being the biggest two, apparently) and it was ok.
I felt pretty sick so I wasn't as into it as I normally would be, I definitely will go back once I'm feeling better.
I tried on a few things I liked, but nothing really jumped out at me. Which I think had more to do with me feeling like I may die than anything else.

I took some photos, but I really want to go back and actually photograph the insides of some of the stores I went into, they were gorgeous!

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And today I've done nothing at all really.
I made some pasta salad, which I ate very title of before I started feeling super ill once again, so hopefully I feel better by tomorrow.

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Anyway, I'm now listening to Seu Jorge sing David Bowie songs in Portuguese and relaxing and hopefully I will be better by tomorrow. I feel much better today than I did yesterday afternoon, so hopefully it'll be good!

19.10.2012 - almost a week of illness and nothing.

Tuesday:
- I got a package from my uncle in which he sent me lovely things, including Neem toothpaste which is the fancy Indian toothpaste I feel very strongly about using. And I ran out in the morning, about 4 hours before his package arrived. How fortuitous!
Also some photos of his adorable children, who are, well, adorable.
I miss them and him and emma and everyone.

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I've been sick again for the past few days, luckily not nearly as badly as before, but I've been all stuffed up and a bit sort of woozy and have had a headache/pressure in my sinuses etc for a few days.

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Wednesday -

My alarm didn't go off in the morning because the batteries died in the night, which means I didn't get to go to aikido which makes me sad. Luckily it failed to go off on a day when all I had was aikido, and not work.
I've since gotten new batteries and a second clock just in case.

the hell?

- I walked to pick up the package that my father sent me when I had tonsillitis. For some reason it never got delivered but according to the tracking number it was at the main Kita Shinjuku Office.
So I went there and picked it up, took me about an hour since the map they gave me sucks, like 98% of all maps here ever. I'm sorry Japan, but you need to get your map act together.
And then I decided to grab a taxi back and the guy misheard me or something and went way off in the wrong direction and it wasn't until I realised we'd passed my street that I corrected him but then it was complicated to get back and yada yada yada. I have the worst luck with taxis! He was nice and didn't charge me for the mistake though, what a peach.

Da's the best father ever, it made me feel so much better just seeing the package!
I got English breakfast tea, vegan chocolate chips (I am going to find a way to make cookies without an oven. Maybe using a broiler?) , various herbals medicines, a lovely letter, a thermometer with a koala on it, and a small plastic goat! last one may seem odd, but it may or may not have made me cry.
happy tears, happy tears.

- I went to work (fine, thank you) and then to the Vegan Meetup.
Pretty good! I talked to a few people, didn't make any bffs, but you can't win them all right?
Food was amazing as usual, they had vegan chocolate chip carrot cake for dessert that was stupendous. So.

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Thursday

- woke up and went to Osawa Senei's class, which was great. Practiced with this middd ages french guy, who I think I've practiced with before. He's ok, kind of pushes you down a fair bit, which isn't my style but whatever. Good class.

 - Skyped with Magnus briefly, and now I'm off to shower & eat some breakfast.

-  I also (finally!) bought No Doubt's new album, which is amazing.
Since they've been one of my two favourite bands since I was about 6, I was a bit nervous that I'd hate everything but I am so pleased! It's really good, some stuff is a real throwback, a la Tragic Kingdom. Brilliant!

this is my favourite song off the album, so Rock Steady!

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Friday

- went to aikido
- went to my japanese lesson, I felt really good about it today. I like days like that.
- came home and made pumpkin and pasta for dinner, whaddup cooking early?
- went to work
- sautéed mashed pumpkin with my pasta and it was awesome.

seriously my two of my favourite foods together.

22.09.2012 - ill

I've been super sick since thursday.
I still went to Osawa Sensei's class and then went to Yoko Okamoto's class as part of the IAF.
They were both amazing, though needless to day I'd have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been feeling run down and gross.

current symptoms:
throat is raw, to the point where breathing hurts.
fever, I'm going hot and cold. back and forth.
headache.
shoulders, upper back, and neck is killing me.

I've been drinking as much water as I can bare (hard to stay hydrated when swallowing makes you want to cry), eating tons of ginger & garlic.
Have some flu stuff, but it's actually for sinuses and I cannot face going out to buy a different kind right now because loud noises make me die a little inside right now.

taken some hot baths (helped with my shoulder/neck pain) and have been sucking on Halls cough drops basically non stop.

this is what I did pretty much all afternoon, when I came back from work.
(my boss was nice! he let me be on gate duty and then did stuff so I had to fall as little as possible. made a big difference to my day.)

I made a video (since today is my one month anniversary of being in Tokyo) but I can't be bothered to upload it right now.
Not even sure it's ever going to go up, it focuses a bit on hard hard moving/my life is versus how cool it is. But let's be honest, I go through periods where my life feel pretty impossibly difficult.
So perhaps for honesty's sake I'll post it tomorrow.

it's 7 right now an I'm going to force down some more black bean soup (sick cooking with Signe: make soup consisting of black beans. garlic, water, and olive oil. Not too shabby considering.) and go to bed.
I work tomorrow morning until 12, but then I'm off again until Monday night. So hopefully tonight's rest and getting to sleep a lot tomorrow will make me better.

I'm going to be honest here and say being sick without anyone to care for you is the absolute worst feeling.
I mean, it's not like there's anyone in Tokyo that I want sitting by my bedside or whatever.
But it makes me feel lonely.
I can't think of anytime I've ever been sick by myself, either. I've been sick at camp, or when I was in Australia but I was with good friends, who were the sort of people I'd be ok asking them to grab me some tea or something.

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have a pleasant day, all!