Saturday, 22 January 2011

Ibaraki's 1st Snow

I was actually under the impression that I would have to wait for at least another 3 weeks before I got a chance to see the flaky white stuff but lo-and-behold, snow started falling on the night of 15th January 2011. Yay! *massive grin

At first it was more like sleet and wet and miserable-looking but then the 'proper' white stuff started falling. And falling and falling and you guessed it, falling. It probably snowed for about 8 hours straight. Though, the next morning I found out that it hadn't really built up much. At least not much when compared to the 8 inches or so of snow that the kids who lived in the southern regions got. Apparently, living pretty close to the seaside means that snow doesn't really come your way often enough or in 'enough' quantities.

Oh, just when I was starting to feel sucky about other people getting more snow I slipped on an ice-patch while cycling and fell on my ass. That did it. Snow, you can go.

 Like fairy dust :)

Like Narnia...?


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Monday, 10 January 2011

成人式

Which basically translates into Adult Ceremony. Sounds a bit..lewd, if you ask me. This celebration, which takes place on the 9th of January every year, is done to celebrate the coming of age-ness(?) of everyone who turns 20. I'm not sure when this started but it's a huge deal in Japan. Every year parents spend at least 100,000¥(around RM3689.1347) for the rental kimonos, the make-up artists, hairstylists and photographer. If they bought the kimonos, then a whole set can cost up to 1,000,000¥(around RM36891.3475). Scary shit.

It turns out that I was the only international student to get invited to this year's celebration. Lucky me. Big whoop. I asked my host mum what she thought I should wear, and she said I should wear something from Malaysia. So I decided to wear a simple purple baju kurung that I had, thinking that the gold thai silk kurung would be too over-the-top. Stoopid me. When we got there, I was probably the most under-dressed person.

The ceremony started at 1.00pm. The Hitachinaka-shi representative gave a short speech about how we were all now adults and that we had to start giving back to the community and had to work hard to a better future. A student representative also gave a short speech about all the responsibilities that we all have to bear now. Then a slideshow of teachers from all the participants's junior high school was shown. Lastly, a lucky draw was held. The lucky ones got an iPod touch, PS3, a pair of tickets to Disney World, a pair of tickets to Fujikyuu. The not so lucky ones got a tumbler.

It all ended around 2.00pm. The most exciting part was probably when a gang of guys, who I'm pretty sure were drunk, started to pick a fight with a few of the officers near the stage area because the officers had given them a warning about being too loud. Lame lah weii..


Kpala singa..roaarrr!




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