Thank the gods ive got my music library back.

Geese louise, its time to get a cuppa and get some of this typhoon in my head down in black and white. (thanks by the way to yous peoples who tell me you like to read, it makes me remeber that i can write, its like free therapy).

Needless to say, ive been busy and cant ever seem to find myself in a position to write when i ramble around the city wandering what in the hell is going on inside the person ive recently come to become friends with(thats me) mainly because shes not being the worlds biggest cu-rumpett anymore. (what sentimental twod) and coming up with some brilliant answers, but they fade as soon i turn a corner you see. stick to the sightseeing shall we?

Tokyo turned into a bastard as soon as siberian winds started smacking us around the face. What happens with the weather here is that once a week on average, the winds come down from russia and turn the place into a living hell hole. No amounts of clothing will protect you and youre left with the psychological trauma of planning on how to survive the next one whilst living through the sunniest warmest winter day you could imagine the day after. It makes completely no sense, this will supposidly get worse as winter goes on. At least it doesnt rain all the time, when it does however, theres a healthy 24 hours of it. And now for the sports news...

I know no sports news, that was a pun. Actually, Alex (la femme american) has been trying to get onto the Aikido team since the beginning of term and after months of talks with the wise masters they are now in the process of forging a contract to which they may terminate her from is she does not learn enough after a 3 month trial period. She has balls, thats all i can say. Id probably have stuck a finger or two up at them by now. Thats my culture shock shining through there.

About a week before it happened, i realised inside of me that Ben was coming to say. That entire week i spent panicing about my lack of ability to really get the best out of my knowledge of the place in which i live. I have, unintentionally, been getting far too excited about the western things that i find here, mainly because i see them as a novelty that i wasnt expecting. Although the doughnuts are something to write home about, ive not yet felt justifiably homesick to warrant a loyalty cards at Mr. Doughnuts and the Haagen-dazs ice-cream parlour. (i may or may not have these things). Still, he was impressed with my terribly broken and sometimes completely made up japanese (i joke) and i think we covered a good chunk of his desires for the short trip. It was fantastic, with moments of terribly hard, to see him. For reasons i attribute to living a dream, i still wasnt jolted into missing home like i thought i would.

Narita airport is further away from Tokyo city than i thought, but i had plenty of time to practice sleeping on the train like a Japanese person:

The hotel we stayed in was on the bad side of my home town, i say bad, i mean Yakusa run and swarming with minions that made me feel like an extra in Old Boy every time i left the building. Even so, ive never felt unsafe in this country, with the exception of trying to use the kitchen out of hours at the dorm. While staying there we explored around some and i found two more department stores hidden in the second largest station in Japan. Thats right, entire department stores.

Saturday we went to Mount Takao with our tutor and the uni gang, it took about 6 hours all rounf to scale it and potter around the four or five temples and countless shrines dotted down the side of it. It was stunning, and the leaves were just starting to turn. Japan is famous for the colour shows in autumn, and it was pretty crouded with Japanese taking pictures with their hugantic cameras. Highlights have to include the dog carried up the hill in a dress to have its anual photo taken with the red leaves, man in silver jump suite and the stunning views of the city on one side and mount Fuji on the other- oh, and the feeling of fulfilling another dream - sharing it all with Ben. FINALLY THE MAN CAME ON HOLIDAY WITH ME. The wood work on the shrines is stunning, and its everywhere, visually it was gobsmacking, physically it was awesome.

Family Photo

Imagine how good HIS pictures must be

We did Harajuku properly on sunday, but the girls obviously dont like to come out in the winter. Never the mind! we had kids day at the shrine to ogle over anyway, i say we, it was mainly me who was steeling photos of the hundreds of small children dressed in traditional attire to be blessed at Meji-Jingu, squeefest. Later we ate at the only Pizza express in Japan, this was purely for novelty value and in honour of all our friends who truly appreciate our history with it. It was quite expensive and all the waiting staff spoke english. It was weird.

When i got show ben the giant Eva statue in the pachinco parlour in Ikebukuro it finally struck him that he was in Japan. We spent the evening trying to cope with it.

The rest of the week was awesome fun, i even managed to get the important classes in. We had one last jaunt to the countryside before he left. Kamakura is stuck between epic forest and the coast, its like hiking up boxhill, trailing your way through beautiful temples and secluded cave shrines and finding yourself on the other side on the beach of west-wittering. Absolutely beautiful place, but nowhere to eat on a budget, Nikuman and hot-can of cocoa it was. We got off the train in Kita-Kamakura, the north height of the town, and went to a large temple there, it cost to get in but the place was huge, pathways and beautiful buildings, ponds, gateways, sacred gardens and Japans larget bell. We had the pleasure of hearing chanting coming from a closed of complex inside and the entrance to a school of zen inside the temple read "please step lightly enter with peaceful tranquility ". We walked from there up and down a twisted hill to a cave shrine in which people washed their money to triple it in worth. Its worth mentioning to some of you guys that the tristar is tattooed everywhere in these places, it is infact, a real buddhist symbol, representing the three attributed of your life you need to perfect to achieve zen: Your relationship with the gods, your relationship with your environment, and your relationship with other people. Exhausted from that we went out and partied all night until it was time to oversleep and nearly miss Bens flight home.

And now im just about recovered from a little void that stopped me from living like i did before he came, but wouldnt let me see him and pretend like i was infact at home. Its about time to push the boundries i had created around my life here and launch full tilt into sucking in as much as i can, not like theres any use in dwelling on the negative is there? Its only gratuitous time wasting. Next weekend, were going on a long weekend trip to a traditional Japanese inn and experiencing the thrills of an Onsen: japanese spring baths, naked. Joy of joys.

Dont forget kids, if you dont want to hear any of this disjointed ramblings, there are videos on Youtube and pictures on Facebook to enjoy. Anyway, goodnight, im going to get some rest and curl up and feed my new obsession with americas next top model. Dont judge, im going through a lot right now. :)

End of October and a world of fun.

To say i've had a hectic couple of weeks would be boring and uninformative, so forget that. What i actually did is far more interesting. I partied like i expect they meant in the song 1999. Shibuya: east Tokyo, one of 23 wards, home to the famous scramble crossing where the traffic stops from all directions and people invade. The Starbucks that over looks it is interestingly the busiest in the world, not surprising considering its got a population of over 200,000. Also home to Hachiko, a dog that waited at shibuya station every day for its master to come home, for 12 years after his death. Moving.

We however went there for nothing but a good old rave. And we succeeded, with unprecedented vigour. Its two weeks later and my knee is still killing me from the epic workout it got. This part of town is amazing, its what i would expect everyones image of Tokyo to be if they had never seen the place, and when im drunk, it seems im brilliant at making records of things, theres no shortage of footage. Charlie, Jon, Snezh, Alex and I used the photo of google maps that i took to find the place and when we went in, realised that it was a brillaint find. Club Atom lets women in for 1000yen, which pays for two 500yen drinks, guys have no free drinks, but at £3.50 a drink, its not really a problem. Three floors of RnB, Pop and Trance (brilliant!) make for 7 hours until the first train pretty tiring. We did our best to out dance everyone. I must say i thought i would have some reservations about being a white girl in japan on a podium in the centre of a crouded dance hall, but these are the things you learn about yourself when you travel, and evidently, i have no fear. And everyone was so nice to us, especially when Charlie was dancing up there in her mini dress, theyre all so accommodating to foreigners. After we had a casualty of kamikaze's (a drink i dont think needs explaining) and saw the others off home, Charlie and i rocked out until about 5am when they shut and tried to get breakfast. I have never in my life enjoyed being trashed at 5am in public so much. We made friends with a few hundred Japanese, French and Nigerians (Walter was a bouncer we stole from the club, but he just took our stash of ubrellas we also stole and went home. Maybe, not so sure) Breakfast was paid for by a lovely man who wont leave Charlie alone now, and we made it back to the dorm in time to crash out before the kindergarten below us opened its doors.

The week following I joined the gym. I KNOW. Me, in the gym. As fun as it was, i cant go again until my leg sorts itself out or im going to do myself some permenant damage. Shame. I also settled myself into catching up on the ol'feminist movement in Japan, turns out they didnt need to turn to killing themselves in protest over here, the government got there first, which is interesting. The pressure to maintain the family system over here also didnt really boost its popularity. Its difficult to not spend a small part of each day reflecting the value of my life while im here. Its clear that my outlook regarding everything is changing bit by bit. Ive become more content. Probably because im living one of my dreams. Probably because ive got a chance to patch up all the holes that contributed to making me feel shitty unnecessarily all the time. Probably because Ive met people who come with no bullshit that approach friendship as a responsibility and will look out for each other to the deprecation of their own health. I could go on forever, but the point i was trying to make, is that there is a rut you get stuck in when you see the same thing everyday, and all it really takes to make you feel a million times better is to be kicked out of it, to leave your smelly comfort zone and do something you dont ahve the guts to. Ive surprised myself with what i can do, because the nerves that stop me at home dont have the opportunity to rise, when i know ive only got one year to experience everything i can. I love how getting involved makes you feel, who would have guessed university is more that writing essays and getting drunk? The angry attitude is something ive also been trying to banish, and i think i may be getting somewhere. ANYWAY, im getting emotional, i doubt thats what you want to hear about.

The post piss up gang, i nearly got ran over trying to get this one.

Moi with the birthday boy, Tomoya

On Jimmy's birthday, it was also Tomoya's birtday, and so we went for a quiet drink in Ikebukuro and got trolleyed mid week at an Isakaya. Nomihodai (all you can drink) tends to have this affect. Great fun. Wednesday was also the final day was also the final day of the Burgerking promo for the lauch of windows7: they were selling, in Japan only, a 7 patty burger for 777yen (about £5) and of course, we had to get some. I have to note here i played no part in this and was merely there to capture this.

The Bleurgh Burger, only 2200 calories.

Friday was Roy's birthday, ive just realised i havnt bothered to ask him how old he is now, but anyway, as it was Halloween, we combined the two and smashed fancy dress in the face. When we went shopping for costumes, we found a shop called Pandora, there are many shops like this in Tokyo, which sell food, cosmetics, DIY necessities, and costumes, but if youre larger than a Japanese person, youre going to struggle getting around corners.

Does not cater for fat people.

In terms of Halloween costumes, EPIC effort was put in on all fronts, ive never seen a better dressed bunch of people in my life, when we got to Shibuya there were many photo opportunities, and i felt a little like a Hrajuku girl for a few minutes, after everyone filled their memory cards, we went to club Atom once again, and once again, we did ourselves justice. Roy and Yasuo turned out to be most amazing escorts on a night out and rescued me in the swiftest manner when i got dragged away by my waist by a lecherous italian, before i realised what was happening i was safe infront of Yasuo and Roy was having words, i felt like a celebrity. They are both wonderful men, im lucky to find as friends.

Yuki and Roy at uni.

Yasuo pre photo shoot for uni brochure.

Today, it was the beginning of a three day festival at our uni. Tomorrow, were going to join the campus mates and some others and help make Wonton soup for the festival Isakaya style attraction, which may be more of a challenge than i thought, as in the practice session, we watched nothing but contributed greatly to the eating. Its going to be fun. And, as if that wasnt enough for me to dwell on, BENS COMING TO JAPAN ON FRIDAY! I cant actually wait, there are more than a million things i want to show him.

Im missing you people an awful lot, i see things all the time i want to send home to each of you. The fam are also on my list of people im desperate to see, the bro's are growing up without me, i miss you millions more than i can describe. Many loves and care. Heres some awesome shots from Halloween. xxxxx

Some amazingly dressed Japanese girls. The boys and the girls.

Found a man dressed as a golden sperm.

With the corpse bride, brilliant! The fallen angel fell asleep.