Watch Naopi sleep on http://danakil.heteml.jp/receive.html
Offer only available until Saturday 11 am (4/28)

(Italian for ‘the blues’)

Got my hands on tickets to Sweden today. August. Beaches. White nights. And crayfishes from China.

The straycat outside, who eats ants, seemed worried about this;
I was squatting, while smoking, when he came by parking himself right underneath me as if he wanted me to take a ride on his back.
An invitation to go see his world, in- and out of the bushes, instead. Perhaps. But with a body built on an ant-diet I had my doubts could he support my weight. Also, he’s a cat.
I politely declined the offer, for now, but at least he’s not ignoring me anymore.

One day we’ll go for a ride, Anty.

(Mailing the other players, I’m sure)

– Saturday. Pre-season baseball with my bro Gyama.
“Catchball” sounds too corny.
– Sunday, checking out my friends new office.
Convinced them to install Ikea lightning.
– Sunday, working on long overdue projects. I.e. spring cleaning.

I’ve nothing to report. No puns, no nothing. Just a decent weekend.

The 28th marks a ‘Shinkan’ – the initiationparty for freshmen. One of them at least (there’s one for each department). I’m bringing my monkeysuit I haven’t had the oppertunity to take out for a spin yet. An excellent oppertunity to show and instruct exactly what we do in Hashimoto.

(Pandas straying from their repetative bamboo diet)

Yasu, Bashi, Naopi & I had a few drinks on me, celebrating that I now have some money in my account.
No pictures from last night but the above one is a fair recreation.

(Come to think of it, dogs do make good armrests)

The following morning, after stopping at my place, someone found a few issues of “Super radical gag family” (Ura yasu in Japanese) under my table. I’d make the most excellent internet-cafe manager.

(Awesome present left on my monitor)

This…is all I could snap at Becks concert. Lots of fun though. More later.

* update (4/10)
– BECK: (*In English*) Everybody say “Na-na-na-na-na-na-NA!”
– CROWD (*bobbing heads*): . . .
– BECK (*Annoyed expression*): Everybody say “Wheeee-oh!”
– CROWD (*bobbing heads*): . . .
– BECK (*Disapointed expression*): Everybody say “Whoooooh”
– CROWD (*bobbing heads*): . . .

Graduation ceremonies and parties for friends, Hanami-season, University started, blablablablablabla, more posts to come. Later.

* update (4/10)
Here’s to old post. Added & arranged some March-ish posts timelinely.

All those yearly checkups have revealed to me that I’m shrinking. This year, oh ho ho, I’ve been stretching which has payed off by a few millimeters.

Later that day (See “The 25-minute Hanami” below), after some bad news I wanted to see some friends so I headed out to the jungle that is Hashimoto.
Bashiko, Naopi (both part of the ‘Couch potatoe’ research (harrharr) team we made back in…2005?), Yasu and orange-guy (Bad with names….his hair is orange), went for Hanami.

At 3 at night, on my back, in some park, I couldn’t really capture the moment with my cellphone. But alas, I provide with what I have.

It is the season. Thanks to last nights De Niro impressions I was late to meet up with my old Japanese class at Shinjuku-Gyoen (The one with the Japanese garden). These are they. What’s left of the they. Seems everybody’s been heading back to their respective country. Ouch. What’s with all the goodbyes lately?

From the left: Sonika (Made chicken. All gone by the time I got theire so it was probably great), Ashita (Joined class late), Nomura-sensei (Plays steeldrums. Her mailadress is ‘drinkingpants’), Sahido (Bangladesh. Makes wicked curry), Nakade-sensei (Spent last year in Korea). And me (Writes a blog)

Caspers (exchange student at Tamabi) girlfriend Josefine (Half Scottish), were doing some work/interning at Kenwood. She uhm…kindly…always que up Craig David for me whenever we head on out to a karaokebox.

Sadly she was leaving Japan, so her French boss Fabian organized a farewell-party (Why with all the way too many goodbyes lately?). The place we went to had plastic cherry-blossoms indoors. But the real blossoming was when Fabian turned into De Niro. Cheeks turned pink. Everywhere. He could have got us into any place had we just figured which side the dimple were supposed to go on.

My old colluage Sofia (from the Razorfish era) and her soon to be hubby Pal came over. Partly to talk with telecom-giants about their pretty great stuff, partly for Hanami.

(Sorry for this picture)

Of the 3 times we got a chance to hang out, last night was squeeze-your-own-fresh-wasabi-night (Resturaunt-find courtesy of Yasu).

(Raise your hand if your name is Yasu. Right: Shinpei)

As a farewall-please-come-back-soon-gift Yasu and Naopi (Shinpei too? Probably) got them both a little something from the conbini: a Japanese comicbook, a package of instant-yakisoba, and I think even a “onecup” of sake. Because – “it is Japanese style”. My friends are the most awesomestes. Next week we’ll head on over to the 51st floor of Sumitomo building for some grilled chicken.

…came over. No Karaoke first night. But second time out. 3rd times pictures are above this post. That’s it.

Graduation Ceremony. It’s all right to celebrate in any fashion, even with attires that are a hazard to others. And I like it.

Dressing up seems to be the thing to do at Tamabi. I’ve a whole new wardrobe since I started. A third of it by choice. Below are photos from last year.

What’s this thumbs-up business? What’s this fascination with it? Still haven’t grasped it. Could be worse; it could be peace signs raked up there.

So this photo is from my friend Gyamas schoolwork in the making. From the picture I figure it’s pretty obvious that we study hard.