Ikea + Onsen

Hello Dear Readers! ♥

So it's daily life here. Still it doesn't feel like I'm really here. I don't know. It's somehow wierd. Do you know those moments when you're just standing there, in a crowd of people, still, and it feels like your in some kind of a bubble? Like if you weren't there. You just imagine it? Or dream it? It sometimes feels like that for me. Hard to explain haha :D But I just sometimes feel like it's not the reality. I still can't really get it hahaha
Been talking about it for years and now I'm here and can't realise it, just too awkward haha :D

Well now, since my apartment had only the necessairy things I went to Ikea with my friend Severine in the first week of January just after school had started. Just bought diffrent things I "need" for daily life. Yeah a plant, hahaha, I need that for daily life. No, that was actually to bring a little bit of life in my lonely apartment. Since I'm living alone here I feel a little bit lonely sometimes, but because I'm kept quite busy it's not that often.

Do you know what the weirdest thing was about ikea? THE FOOD! It was sooooo weird to eat the meatballs there and they just tasted EXACTLY the same they do in the ikea in Switzerland. Well of course they do, but still. It always has been so european to me, haha, strange right?

You can see my little planty! It's now on top of the mini mini mini TV I have in my apartment. Just for that plant I'm opening the curtains every day so it can get some sunlight. If it wasn't there I think I wouldn't open my curtains at all! :D

These were the houses near ikea. Honestly, I wouldn't want to live there!

Since Severine and me had been kept so busy and Severine still had some trainticket, she asked me to go to Hakone together with her. Of course I agreed! Ok, I wasn't sure at first, since it took us over 100minutes to go there, because we couldn't use special lines, ONLY JR. But I'm happy I agreed since the Onsen was aaaaawesomeness pure and just what I needed after those busy days.

Hakone Station from the outside where our bus left.

Hakone is really diffrent to Tokyo, although it's not that far away, it's much less noisy and more quite. Also mooooore nature like. We went there to a Onsen place called Tenzan. The price wasn't expensive at all. About 1200yen without time restriction. One can also buy a towel there for like 350yen. So really not expensive. The onsen can be reached by a short busride of 10 minutes which only costs 100yen. Honestly, I've neeeeever been in a bus that small! Or well, at least that low! Like you all know I'm not the smallest person, so when I was standing on both legs, straight, my head totaly hit the roof! So I wasn't able to stand straight lol. Besides that the bus was sooooo packed, that we didn't have a chance to get a seat. It was a uneasy ride, but luckily it didn't last long.

Arrived there we had to get our tickets out of machines like that. Sorry for the blurry pic. Took it after leaving from the onsen and then it was already dark, so my keitai didn't wanna take a nice pic..

However, the onsen was awesome! Before entering the hot springs we washed ourselfs very well. Stupid foreigners as we are we wanted to enter the hottest spring of them first, lol :D Since we didn't know that it was the hottest. I really couldn't enter because it hurt my feet like hell! x__X Luckily a woman was kind enough to explain us in english, that it was the hottest and we should start at one outside. Said, done. Muuuuuch better! There were many mothers with their kids, oh god, we really had cutness flashes hahaha

We enjoyed staying at the onsen, and I've never felt cleaner than after that. One plus point was also, after onsen I was 300g less heavy :D

So if you ever get the chance to go to Hakone, I can warmely recommand you to go to Tenzan. Really quiet and nice atmosphere. The staff were really friendly and kindly helped us when we had questions. The only minus point was, that there was nothing written in English, but that's nothing new in Japan, so one just has to cope with it. We for our part didn't have a problem with it

Hello again blurry pics haha :D

No pics of myself here since I was so tired on that day and was looking really messed up. To be honest we went clubbing from saturday to sunday (sunday was onsen-day), so yah, you can imagine what I looked like after not that much sleep ;D

First days in Japan

Hello Dear readers!

Has been a while hasn't it? ♥

I've been so busy arranging my life here that I didn't find time to blog. Also my motivation for it was a little down since I could think of 10 other things that were more important. Gomen ne!
But yeah, here I am now and finally found time. Ok actually I should be studying now! Got a kanji test tomorrow! The school's quite strict. Got homework EVERY day and have to turn them in the next day. besides that I've got at least 1 test every week. But it's fine I guess. That way we'll at least learn japanese more efficiently. My class actually consists of about 22 students of which 19 are chinese and 3 not. Nice one! Chinese means at this place easy kanji learning, what makes it harder for us non chinese since it takes us longer to understand and remember the kanji.. D: It's really giving me a hard time! Especially since I have to study some of the old Kanji because I'd been learning them in a diffrent order, so I don't know all of the kanji they learned before, urgh D:

But yah, enough about having a hard time at school for now :D

On my day leaving for Japan my flight had 4,5 hours delay! UGH! but okay, that way I had more time to spend with my family what actually was very nice!

It was especially hard for me to say good bye to my mum since we've always been like good friends and I knew that she'll be all alone at home. So I really felt bad leaving her (;A; ) Suprise Suprise, we both cried when saying good bye. The good thing, she'll be visiting me here in Japan in the encd of March. I'm sooooo looking forward to it! We'll be going together to Kyoto since I've got holidays the same time, hihi! Aaaaaand it'll be her birthday! So we'll be celebrating that as well! HAPPY! ^__^

↓my plane when I left. there was so much fog that you couldn't nearly see ANYTHING! O__O

Arrived in Japan I managed to buy the wrong trainticket hahaha since I mistook the names of the train, skyliner and NEX. JUHUU! So I had to change trains at Nihonbashi. Fine. Easier said than done. I had 2!! have suitcases + a heavy bag for my carry-on luggage and my LV-Handbag. On my changingway I manage to break my bigger suitcase.. >_>

Finally in Shinjuku I took the wrong exit hahaha although I've been living in a hotel on the same side as my apartment is, I still took the wrong exit. Those of you who have been in Shinjuku before, they know how hard it is to get to the other side if you have taken the wrong exit. I dragged my luggage some 100 meters until I finally could take a cap to bring me to my apartment. Thank god it didn't cost more than I had planned for it.
After leaving the cap I was able to get my key easily and enter my apartment. I was positively surprised since I started to imagine it as being worse. But actually it's really fine! I'm happy with it. The room is a little bigger than I had imagined, just the kitchen is a little eww, but it's alright.

Btw I have already changed some things, like bedding sheets and stuff. Bought also cutsey stuffs so I would feel more at home. I'll show you when I have completed my purchases here ;)
Then I'll make an apartment-introduction-entry! ♥

Also to feel homely right away I bought these things at a store nearby:

muumi! Part of my childhood and origin! lovely!
So I arrived at 28th, 4.5 hours too late, what made it impossible to go to immigration bureau for my alien reg card. Wanted to get it right away so I could get a mobile phone. So, FAIL! On 29th I was supposed to meet friends who were here on holiday, 2nd FAIL! One of them was ill (;_; ) luckily he got better soon! So I just made some purchases for my apartment like cooking utensils and stuff on 29th. After that on 30th I went to an Exte Salon with Conny! Nicola helped us a lot at that point, THANK YOU! Honestly! I'm so thankful! After the exte we went to Karaoke, was really fun! ♥
On 31st I met two friends! First V. and later on Severine! A lovely girl who's attending the same school as I am. She's also writing a blog, so check it out here: Petit Pain d'Epice
We are really similar and I've grown to like and to value her! It's always fun hanging out with her! We've already taken maaaany purikura, but I'll show them to you later ♥

a pic from ALTA-Shopping Center in Shinjuku ↓

So since it was New Years Eve we went to a hairmake and after to Ikebukuro to meet Conny and her friends there. We went direclty to an Izakaya. Was so tasty and so much fun! ♥
They still met some other friends before 00:00 so Severine and me went to Shinjuku for Karaoke alone. Since we both can't sing at all it sounded terrible haha, but it was fun!

We parted at about 1 o'clock and I made a visit to a shrine near to my place. It was soooooo crwoded that I couldn't see where the line started and where it ended! It was sooo crazy! So I decided to let it go and went there at about 9pm on 1.1 instead. (accompanied by Severine ;D)
Finally pics taken with my better cam, the Nikon one! There were still people lining up! O_O

So now, I will talk about the last days more in my next entry. Too much going on to write about it all in just one entry! Hope it's not too boring to read.. ^^;