Kyoto Here I Come!

So this trip I've been looking forward to for a while now started today. Got to Kyoto from Tokyo by bus, not uncomfortably,  but the ride was 7 hours. Still for only $60 it was a good trip.  Made it to the hostel in Kyoto, a place called Khaosan Guest House, (apparently they have a few other branches in other big cities) without too much trouble, and so far it's really nice. Lots of people hanging out in the common room and chatting from, so far as I've talked to them, 6 different countries.

Olympic Legwarmers

So in honor of the olympics I thought I would do some knitting. During the games I`m challenging myself to complete a pair of legwarmers. I`m using a pattern called Mosey with some yarn I was
lucky enough to find in Nippori Fabric Town when I was there with a friend. More about that in a bit. The yarn is pure wool and was super cheap, which means not great quality, but these are leg warmers, and I`m a poor college student so thats just how it adds up. Everything`s knitting up really nice so far, except for some dropped stitches and my inability to gauge. (No matter what it turns out longer than it should even if the width is right.)








As I was saying earlier about Nippori Fabric Town; it is not a place for knitters or any other type of needle crafter really. There`s bolts and bolts of fabric overflowing (literally, in boxes on the sidewalks) from shops on either side of the street, and shops selling buttons and thread and dyes and even leather, but I only found two places selling yarn. In both places it was more as an afterthought than as an actual sales item from the looks of it, and one of the places only had a few solid colors of acrylic. My wool yarn was a lucky find, at one of the three Tomato stores on the street and there was just enough of the color for me to make both legwarmers if my gauge is right *cringe* I may have to stop the pattern a few rows early. Luckily this won`t be a problem, and the extra inch I would have added by finishing the complete pattern with my bad gauge would have made them too long anyway.

 This beautiful coat I found on display outside a shop selling all kinds of leather, and smelling like heaven. I would love to own this jacket so I`m showing it off and wishing to no avail that it was priced so I could afford to buy it.

Spring Break! 春休み！

Wow, it`s been a long time since I`ve posted! Sorry for that. So I`ve been quite busy actually, but I won`t bore anyone with school details; say only I am in over my head with studying over break. I`m actually really excited because my mom`s just told me that she was able to get time off work and can come to Japan to see me! Vacation of a lifetime for her, and great time to show off my (admittedly still bad) language skills.

Other than learning 180 kanji and 20 new grammar points in two months and my mom coming to distract me from studying, I`m looking forward to a week long trip to Kyoto and the vicinity coming up here for me in about two weeks. I`m planning on spending lots of money on food and hitting all the open air markets and thrift shops I can find. As far as temples go there`s only a few I have specific plans for visiting, but I`ll see what looks fun to do when I`m there. Ha, I`m not such a good trip planner.

NaNoWriMo is over but I`m still working on my writing, though because of a broken computer, I have been put on hold for posting updates to my writing blog, as well as a lot of other things. I`m borrowing a school computer for this right now actually. I`ve met with my writing buddies about 3 times since NaNo ended actually, and we three are in various stages of still writing to editing. The beauty of using fountain pens while hand writing instead of ball points has recently made itself known as well. I`ve been using this lovely purple
one I found at a nearby stationary shop recently and I love it!

As for knitting ... Sigh. I`m still working on the Haruni Shawl from Ravelry, though I`m now in the final stages. I can`t wait to take it off the needles and block it to see how the lacework looks.




And here`s a lovely picture of a small Buddhist Temple near where I`m living now. We had a cold snap for the last few days and actually got snow yesterday. How cool is that? Of course back home in the US they have about 10in (25cm) on the ground right now. Nonetheless, this was a good picture and I thought I`d share it.

Long Time No See

So, it's been a while since I've posted, I'll try to keep updated more frequently in the future... 

Anyway, lots has happened, and it's too much to write about really, but the main, major, exciting things are... I went to the Ghibli Museum for a friend's birthday, my computer is broken and making horrifying noises, I won NaNoWriMo, and last but not least... Christmas break is next week! Yay!

Ghibli was awesome! I will definitely be going again, as this time we entered at the 4pm entrance time and only got about 2 hours in the museum. Since Sophie wanted to eat at the cafe we completely skipped the 2nd floor. The first and 3rd floors were amazing and the rooftop garden was fun. Gotta love that Laputa robot!The interior of the building on the 1st floor made me think, "If Santa's workshop were steam punk." Unfortunately the entire interior is a no-photo zone, the outside is fair game though, so here's a quick pic! Notice the 2 story Christmas tree hiding amongst the ivy background.


Anyway, I've already pretty much given the rundown on the computer situation, and if you wanna know more about what went on during NaNo, and haven't been reading my other blog, here's the address Koori-chan's Writing. The story is not yet finished, and the blog form is unedited, so there may be issues with grammar or punctuation, don't let that bother you. Updates will be going a bit slower now that NaNo is finished, but please go look!


That bit of personal advertisement over, Christmas break is on the way. I have school on the 23rd, :( so feel sad for me. I have Christmas Eve through the 5th of January off, then dead week, then finals week. These are then followed by spring break, which in Japanese universities is about 2 1/2 months long. I'm planning on flying to Kyoto in Feb, and having a few day trips to Osaka and Nara while there. Actually, a friend who's family lives in Osaka told me today that she likes Kobe better than Osaka... That said, I know another girl from school back in the US (Japanese student) who grew up in Kobe, so I'll probably head there too. Time to find travel guides at the library!

Homestay!

So, if being a college student in Japan for a year isn't cool enough, I'm also gonna be doing a homestay next weekend. It's Toyo's bunkasai (school festival) so we have a long weekend, most of the exchange students from various countries signed up to join the homestay! We're going to be in Itakura in Gunma prefecture, and stay with families who volunteered to host us for 3 days! Sounds fun right?

My host family is a young couple with a 4 year old and a baby. Sadly, no pets. I miss my kitty from home... Also no smoking, but I requested that (the only thing I requested) when I filled out my paperwork. The ryugakusei (exchange students) are also going to go to Seijoin Temple and participate in a tea ceremony, and have a lecture on Buddhism. Which may sound boring, but considering that I'm doing the NaNoWriMo this year, it very well might make it into my story! 

Stress Less

In the last year or so of college I've started getting more and more interested in knitting, and as I've become interested I've found that the more stressed I feel the more I want to knit. It is relaxing as nothing else I enjoy is. My current project is for a friend who saw a hat I made the first week I was in Japan. She said she wanted one just like it and offered to buy it. (Paying customer Woohoo!) I told her 1,000 yen (about $10) plus the price of the yarn, so she bought the yarn and gave it to me on Monday.

I suppose without realizing it I've been de-stressing all week by working on this hat for her. My class has had an awful week of vocabulary tests and grammar lessons. We did lessons 5-7 this week, plus the vocab test for lesson 4 on Monday. Tomorrow is, thankfully the last day of the week, and this week there's no Saturday class (Yay!). Hopefully next week isn't so bad, but thanks to my knitting I'm not feeling as bad as I could be.

I'm currently about halfway done with Emily's hat, and since the yarn is a bit fluffier, same weight but different brand, so it is turning out a little different, but I'm happy with the results. I found a little shop with some superwash wool/cotton yarn that I think I'm gonna buy to work on a shawl for when autumn starts cooling down as well.

Nekobukuro

Nekobukuro, Cat City... The name really speaks for itself, I think. It's located on the 8th floor of a department store in Ikebukuro called Tokyu Hands. The store has some crafty things, and a whole floor dedicated to stationary and another to bags and travel supplies, but noting too interesting to report short of the pet shop on the top.

Sorry about the lack of photos of the actual building, but my camera was not cooperating with me and did not want to focus on anything out of arms reach. 

Basically the whole place is two rooms that have ramps, stairs, and walkways all over the walls and ceilings for the 15 or so cats that live there. You pay 600 yen and go in for an unlimited amount of time. I got there just at the end of nap time, I think because the cats all started to wake up a few minutes after we got there.

Keep in mind this is a busy shopping district in Tokyo, so if you want to come visit the cats, try to go during school hours. That seriously decreases the chance that the place will be filled with 5-10 year olds chasing the cats with strings tied to sticks; or all the benches being full of high schoolers trying to keep the hair off their uniforms. All in all it was a fun place to go, and the cats were great, though they do make me lonely for my cat back home.