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Apartment

It’s about time I gather some time to post! We’ve been moved into the new apartment for nearly 3 weeks now! I suppose, more than anything, we’ve been busier than ever getting things together and more settled. A little background on where we’re at and what’s going on :3

Our new home is located in the International District, in the heart of old Japan town. As I happily showed off before, Kobe Park is located in our backyard and the famous Maneki restaurant is right down the block. We’re atop a HUGE hill, just about the same length and steepness as the damn hill I use to climb to my dreaded dormitory in Kanagawa. In one way, I’m not a fan of the hill. In another, It’s my best friend. I’ve already lost 4 lbs climbing it the past couple of weeks so I suppose it’s a good thing.

Cute cakes in one of the many cute downtown bakeries <3

Our local market is now Uwajimaya instead of PCC (organic natural crap store), which also happens to be the home of Seattle’s Kinokuniya. My god… amazing upgrade.
The cabinets are well stocked with Oi Ocha green tea, lots of curry and random little snacks. Our god send for stupid tiny necessities is DAISO, a Japanese dollar store, located just around the corner from Uwajimaya. The location in Harajuku was where Liz and I had originally picked up all the stupid random crap we needed for our dorms. In a way, it gives a warm familiar feeling of happy times.

First meal in our empty apartment <3

Instead of spending $20 a week on Starbucks the new guilty pleasure is bubble tea and cute little cakes from the many Chinese and Japanese bakeries around the neighborhood. I like to do more walking than ever trying to discover all the little shops and fun things there are in the neighborhood. Our latest goal is to find a good bar in the area. We suspect there’s a traditional bar on the second floor of an electronics shop, soon we hope to visit. We’ve found two Karaoke places that offer private Karaoke rooms. Now I simply need to get Kai into the idea of singing like an idiot with me.

Really, I suppose if I couldn’t have stayed in Japan and we certainly don’t have enough money to live there, this is probably the next best thing for us. It feels like a place where we fit in a lot more, we can explore around us and find new and interesting things. Fremont was nice for a while but, in the end, I’m not a hippie and that just wasn’t going to work for me.

No more hair dye, not much make up. I think I can like me again :3

Out of everything that has changed I’m the most excited about the changes I’m seeing in myself. I really didn’t think simply getting our own apartment was going to make a huge difference in my struggle with depression. I figured even after moving I’d still have a lot of healing to do. But, no, it is not so. Every day I’ve been more full of energy, in fantastic moods, enjoying life again and feeling very hopeful. I want to be out. I want to be alive. I want to get dressed up every day and feel good about myself. Yes, I’m still a gloomy little girl. I’m still a pessimist. I still wear shades of black and gray, keep my hair in my face and avoid the sun. I’m glad to see that’s just part of who I am and not what I’ve become.

So, it’s late now. And I feel relieved to get everything out and have fun talking about so many new things. If everything goes well I should hopefully be updating more in the future. Photo dump:

Keeping our cute little chi tank in the kitchen

I have a thing for keeping the kitchen neat :B

Holy crap.. I have a couch... and a coffee table 8D

Soon, there will be color!

Random post of randomness

Ok, so I’d like to just forget about this Christmas. There will be no Christmas post as I planned. I’d like my infrequent posts to not be based around only holidays. To be honest, Christmas is over and there isn’t much to say about it other than it was ridiculously busy, I’m now very tired from so much work and this year’s holiday season was a small disappointment. I think I put in more effort than I got back from everyone. Normally I’d be ok with it but… I feel like I could have used a pick me up amongst the chaos recently. Seattle is indeed depressing this winter and not because of it’s weather. If my feelings were a color it would be a slate blue, not yet colorless but still rather dull. I’m still looking forward to a new year though. I understand the beginning will be difficult at first but I’m feeling very optimistic about the future for once. I don’t think typing this out can really express the sincerity in what I’m saying. I look forward to the day it’ll feel safe to express my hopeful plans and opportunities. For now it’s still a while off and I have plenty of other things to focus on. I hope I change a brighter color.

So I’ll make this a very uneventful post and write about something stupid! I haven’t done that in a while, huh? On to the randomness!

Kai and I discovered this crazy, stupid, screwed up band a while back called “MY DRAGON – Nijigen Complex” (Nijigen meaning like two dimensional). Like many things from Japan, it leaves you scratching your head saying “… WTF did I just watch?! What was going on!!!”. But seriously, I love this band. It makes me laugh so much every time I watch PV or Lives. I just can’t believe this exsists, furthermore, I can’t understand why the hell they’re so popular! They sold out effen Shibuya O-East! How?! Why?!
Upon further inspection we found another band kept popping up under youtube related videos. A seemingly completely unrelated band called 己龍 (kiryuu) with a heavy traditional VK style… Only once we actually clicked one of the videos we realized there was an odd similarity going on…

For the sake of making a proper comparison here’s their PV:

Ok, hope you had fun with that. Now here’s a PV by 己龍.

Notice anything? Yeah.. the guitarist and Bassist look kinda familiar… Well, that’s because it’s the exact same band. Yeah… and the amazing girly pretty vocalist of 己龍 is the same bearded bee costume clad, phallic faucet crazy dancing lead singer in MY DRAGON. HOW?! HOW DOES SUCH A PRETTY MAN TURN INTO THAT?! I was completely mind fucked. Apparently MY DRAGON is like an alter-ego of the band 己龍. Even then, if it weren’t obvious enough, 己龍 actually translates to “My Dragon”. Fuck.

Thank you Japan. Thank you for completely screwing with my mind with your crazy screwed up ways. I have not yet seen all of your potential but that makes me really happy. I look forward to more mind fucking in the future.

Sincerely, Me.

Halloween 2011

I make the un-dead look sexy ;D

I must admit.. getting older has made Halloween not so much fun at all. I wish it was still acceptable to go around to stranger’s houses, dressed up all crazy and demand candy. It seems until I have a child of my own to drag out Halloween won’t be the same. It’s been a rough couple of years. Because of that I haven’t really been involved with things that I use to find fun, like dressing up. I suppose my self esteem still has trouble sustaining that. But this year I decided not to let all the blahness hold me back. Sure, I couldn’t get all decked out in a costume for trick-or-treating. I’m also too far away and too poor to have visited home this year to party with my friends ;-; So I did the next best thing. I dressed up for work. Something I haven’t done to this extreme before. I was determined to go out in public looking as odd looking as possible. My weapon of choice this year? A bloody gorey Zombie!

Under the Sea~

I realized just the other day I never posted anything up regarding my beloved Picotope mini-reef tank that I’ve been wanting to set up for years! So I went to it and took a bunch of pictures and even made a stupid little video. I amused myself with all of this at the very least.

Procrastination end?

For a while I’ve been meaning to finally sit down and write again. Start making updates and show I’m existing. I suppose I still had a lot of recovering to do. I thought moving in general was my way of healing. Apparently time is a huge factor as well. It was a very difficult summer at times.. but now that it’s over I see the progress that’s been made. And if I can reverse this much of the damage done over the years in one simple summer I’d say it was well spent.

Cooler weather is starting to move in here in Seattle. I’m actually kind of relieved. Summer time isn’t all that hot here. Especially this past Summer. It felt rather foreign and uncomfortable. Not like how Summer usually feels in New York. As Autumn is setting in, however, the smell of the leaves and drop in temperature holds a nice familiarity. So I think I’ll start to feel more relaxed and at home.

With that said, I’m feeling far more productive than I’ve felt in a very long time. I’ve started sketching again. And a part of why I’m writing now, I’d like to get back into my old web projects which includes fixing this place up properly. All this unfinished content bothers me. Most of my old entries I’ve archived as they’re rather pointless by now. I’d still like a proper gallery set up at some point too. So hopefully this is the end of my procrastination on everything I use to love doing. Or at least a step in the right direction. I’ll also try to focus on not posting uninteresting randomness like I’m so notorious for doing (like I’m probably doing right now!). No one cares WTF I did for Columbus day or what kind of sauce I like on my chicken nuggets… including me when I look back and try to read my own writing. It’s probably a bad sign when you’re boring yourself with your own ramblings years later!

I’m bad at ending my posts as well so here’s yet another bad ending: It’s kinda effen late and I’ve satisfied my craving to accomplish something before bed. SO I’ll be back soon hopefully with something more substantial to say! Night!