Random Post =)

Thank you for kind words on my last post, I'm really happy I could share that moment with you. It feels great to have an acadamical degree now, but on the other hand, I also feel like nothing really changed. I'm still the same person I was two days ago. Anyway, I hope this will make it easier for me to get a job in Tokyo, as I also speak quite passable Japanese and even look Asian, hahaha! Speaking of  WH, I will get some new passport fotos this week, write the letter the motivation and then finally apply for the Visa at the beginning of next week. I've got less than 4 weeks left now, so I gotta hurry up! XD

As I couldn't upload any fotos yesterday (thank you Blogger) I just do it today!

A random poster I saw lately. I think it was an advertisment for some radio show or so. Just thought it was funny. It says: "Don't worry Be German - An American becomes German". I wrote one of my uni papers about stereoypes presented in the japanese popular culture, and it seems the japanese and german way of a stereotypical American would be like this XD 

As I've got only 4 weeks left, my Mum says I should start packing my stuff now, or I will forget many things :-) I always reply it's too early, but Mums can be so strict sometimes, haha! I thought I just take this opportunity to show you my travel luggage. I have a big Swimmer travel bag and a pink suitcase which I both bought in Japan. It looks so small on the foto but it's actually quite spacious. As I'm an expert on how to pack stuff efficiantly into a suitcase that it won't explode when you open it, I think I'll manage to get everything I need inside those two pieces. I'll also be allowed to have one more handbag, but I didn't decide yet which one to take.

For all the people who are still waiting for a letter from me, I'm so sorry I haven't replied yet! But I will do so this week, so expect the letters to arrive at your places in about 7 days, depending on where you live =)

For my next post, I'll write about something very typical for/ in Tokyo which I actually like but I know many people who don't, so that may become interesting.

Post 100: Call me B.A. now XD

Yay, post 100! And I don't know what to post about! XD Thank you so much for your kind words and support everytime, I can't believe I've got more than 300 followers now! Post 100 would be a great occasion to have a giveaway again, but I decided to postpone that to Nov, 23 which is the date of my blog's first anniversary! I promise I'll have something big as I already have a good idea about the prize and entry rules, hahaha!

As you can see on this post title, I've got some news! Until now, I only had the oral assurance of the examination office that I've passed the graduation thesis, but two days ago I finally got the official announcement and my grade!! :-) It's exactly the one I've wanted and I'm more than satisfied. I had to wait over 5 months (!!!) for this moment, now I can write a B.A. behind my name, I had better get myself some business cards, hahaha! Now the only thing left for me to do is to go  pick up my certificate, hope they will be faster on that matter.

Actually I wanted to upload two pictures at this point, but Blogger won't let me?? I've tried several times but it doesn't work. I'll try again later or in my next post. See you! (This must be the most boring post I ever did, haha. And the shortest.)

Post 99: Be aware of yummy food pics

Sorry I couldn't post the last two days, I wasn't feeling that good, hope it's not a cold. It would be my first in about 5 years, where I stayed completely healthy. Atm it's just a runny nose and a sore throat, but as I'm on meds already it shouldn't become any worse. Thank you, my very good immune system.

I also replied to all of your previous comments, which I couldn't do before as also cause Disqus was on maintainance.

So, I wanted to post about the visit to the Izakaya. I was there with my friend Lara and my boss from the Soba-Restaurant. It was my first time ever going to an Izakaya, so I didn't know about that you actually share every dish with everyone! But that's very good cause you get to try from every dish. I will show you some pics now, but be aware of the fact that they will make you hungry at once! XDD

 Daikon Salad (Reddish Salad)

 Teriyaki Chiken

 Kara-Age (Fried Chicken)

 Salmon Sashimi (Raw Salmon)

 Takoyaki (Octopus Balls)

 Hamachi Sashimi

 Ramune

 Maccha Tiramisu

 Strawberry Cream Puff

My God, everything was just so tasty, I'll definitely have to go there again. Today, I must admit I went eating again, cause my friend Sophie came to visit me from the Netherlands, and this was just a perfect occasion! XD We went to a very popular sushi bar in Düsseldorf.

 My sushi set :-)

Bonus Pic of a happy Thanh Thao, getting to eat her favourite sushi :-)

Next post is post number 100!! And I don't know what to post about XD

Post 98: Random update

I've got some great news from Japan! My friend Ai gave birth to a beautiful baby boy called Hinata yesterday, 21 September at 09:43 PM local time. She sent me a foto, and he's just adorable, he's got much black hair! Mommy and child are doing well. Congratulations, Ai, I can't believe you're a very young Mommy now! I shall pay you a visit asap.

I was awarded again, which makes me happy everytime cause lovely bloggers think of me :-) Thank you, dear NeNe for two awards at the same time!

 One Lovely Blog Award! 

 

Here are the rules for accepting this award:

1. Accept the award. Post it on your blog with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
2. Pay it forward to 15 other bloggers that you have newly discovered.

 

I don't think I even get 15 new bloggers together cause I'm always following the same blogs:-) Everyone who thinks he/she is a new reader shall be nominated.

 

A Blog with Substance Award! 

Here are the rules for accepting this award:

1. Thank the blogger who gave me the award

2. Sum up your blogging philosophy, motivation, and experience using five words

Friends, Share, Love, Respect,Happiness

3. Pass this on to 10 other bloggers that you feel have a substance in their blogs

 

My blogging philosophy:

I started blogging just out of boredom and fun, but it has bestowed me with so many new friends, who I hope to meet in rl soon. I wanna share everything with my readers, as I love them so much. I have a high respect for other people's blogs, as each of those are masterpieces of their creativity and way of communication. Let's spread happiness and brighten up each other's days.

 

I think every blog has a substance somehow, and therefore you all shall be nominated.  

 

Another topic: do you own points card? They are not so popular here in Germany, but slowly most of the shops have point cards to attract customers. In most cases you get points for shoppping, and after reaching a certain amount of points you get a discount or something for free. I must say, I wasn't a  fan of point cards (you have to carry so much junk in your wallet already, so where's the space to store some more??), but after having been to Japan several times I grew very fond of them! I'm looking forward to make many point cards when I've settled in Tokyo, so that I can say "yes", in case they ask for one at the cashier, which they do actually most of the time, doesn't matter what shop I was in :) Now I also know why Japanese women need such a huge wallet, haha!

Different kinds of point cards and yeah, that's my wallet atm!

 

I really like the point cards from Restaurants or Cafes, since you usually get a hot drink or something to eat for free after a certain amount of points. I love food so much, hehehe, one could say I'd think with my stomach XD Hey, it's better than nothing, right? At Starbucks, f. ex. you have to drink 7 coffees, and the eighth one is for free. Too bad they don't have the point card at Starbucks any longer XD

 

Okay, that's it for today, I must hurry now if I don't wanna come late for a dinner with friends in an Izakaya, which I will post about tomorrow! I'll also answer to your comments from the previous post then! See you!

Post 97: I wanna have a cute household!!

Hello my lovlies, I know I've been slacking with blogposts lately, but there were some things which kept me busy. Yesterday I spent the whole day looking for a room in Tokyo via Internet. I did researching, comparing many companies in their prices, conditions etc. Now I'm quite an expert, so if anyone plans to move into a guesthouse, ask me for any advice :) I made some inquiries to some companies, and hope I can find a nice room soon. I prefer to live in West Tokyo (Shinjuku, Suginami or Setagaya). Compared to East Tokyo, they are a little bit more pricey, though. 

Anyway, now to today's post title. Do you have an own household already? Or do you still live at your parents place, like me? Just in case I will have my own household one day, I started buying different cute stuff which I took some fotos from and wanna share. Most of the stuff is of course from Japan. Yeah, I was crazy enough to bring back cutlery and tableware XDD I was afraid that the airport security staff would take it away from me (I could've broke the glass and use the shards as a weapon, same goes for the fork and spoon =), but luckily they didn't so everything landed with me safe and sound in Germany!

Different Character tea cups! The tea tastes even better in these cute cups!

Rilakkuma tabelware which I had to collect points for at the convienience store LAWSON

Again some cups and a rice bowl :-)

Bento box, a thermos bottle, chopsticks and fork/spoon set

I have a lot of more stuff, but it would have taken me hours to make fotos of everything I have :-) So I just grabbed anything which was near :-)

When I was a university student I used to make bento everyday in those cute boxes and it was an eyecatcher everytime it was lunchtime and everyone went to the canteen :-) So, I hope you enjoyed seeing all that cute stuff. Hope I could inspire you to furnish your houses in a cute way, I will definitely do so. 

Btw, I've almost reached 100 posts, I've never managed to keep on blogging for so long, and that's only because I have such wonderful readers like you who make blogging so much more fun! :-) Thanks!

Friday afternoon

Hey ho, how are you today??  I'm just doing fine, the week went over way too fast. On Tuesday we brought my sis to the airport, as she was leaving for Tokyo. We just skyped a sec ago, she is doing fine! She already bought a cell phone, and got to meet fellow exchange students and what not. Seems to be very exciting! Too bad I'm no university sudent anymore XD 

The last couple of days I took a break from revising Japanese to meet some friends. We went to cafes and shopping, and I bought the first eyeshadow of my life, hahaha! But I really love cafes, I could hang around there all day. Anyway, have some fotos!

We went to our beloved Cupcake Cafe again, where we got a new point card! Collect 11 points and you'll get a cupcake or a hot drink for free :-)

We also went to H&M, where we tried on some clothing. I tried the grey sloppy beanie and a lovely ribbon print shirt which was on sale, but in the end I decided not to buy it... :-( But it was lovely anyway. Have some bad quality mobile pics, hahaha! I love those pics XD

Yeah, I am short XD

Do you like to take pics from you in the fitting room?? I certainly do, hahaha! Have a lovely weekend!

Now it's official

Hi my friends, here I am again with some great news to share with you! But first of all I wanna share the fotos of the day, as my sis and me had a date with our japanese friend today. We had lunch together at the Cafe Relax, a japanese cafe and restaurant which is very popular. We ordered the daily set meal, which was really good. 

The set menu-starting at the middle and then clockwise: Kara-age (fried chicken), rice, salad, salmon, Harusame (noodles) and Miso soup

Even a dessert was included in the set menu! Left: Soymilk Mouse Right: Mango Mousse

After the lunch we went to the main office of a huge bank to change my sis' money into japanese Yen! The exchange rates are horrible at the moment, I almost cried when the (almost) 800 Euro were "only" worth 80,000 Yen... Two years ago I got 110,000 Yen for 800 Euro!! Anyways, here's a foto for all of you who haven't seen any Yen yet. (Unnecessary info though, but I've seen the first and real 500 Euro bill of my life today! I doubted they exist, only having seen them in movies, hahahaha!)

The 10,000 Yen is the biggest bill you can get, then comes the 5000 and the 1000 Yen bill. Other money comes in coins, with 500, 100, 50, 10, 5 and 1 Yen

Okay, here are my great news: I just booked my ticket to Japan a sec ago! Now my Working Holiday is kinda official, and I can't go back now. I was lucky enough to find a cheap flight with British Airways (yeah, waiting was really worth it, since my sis paid more for exactly the same flight). 

I will be leaving Germany on November, 1 at 10:50 a.m. from Düsseldorf Aiport via London Heathrow and arrive in Tokyo Narita on November, 2 at 9:10 a.m.

My Working Holiday will last for one year and I'm extremely excited. For all of you who wish to meet me in Tokyo, or happen to be there at the same time, I'm always looking for new friends, so feel free to contact me at anytime for a meet-up! Don't be shy, I'm very friendly and easygoing XDD I'm already looking forward to meeting Nic, Sara Mari and my other friends in Tokyo. Gosh, I'm so excited as I can't wait to come back to Japan again, it will be already my fourth time but I'm still not fed up with Tokyo, haha! 

Oh, yeah just an important note at the end of this post: for all of you who also write letters to me, be sure to send me the last letter before Nov, 1!! I will take your letters with me to Japan and continue to write to you from over there. If your letters come later than Nov, 1 I can't take them with me and you probably have to wait a year long for a reply, 'cause I don't want my Mum to send all of my personal post all the way to Tokyo. As soon as I've got my address in JP, I'll let you know. Hope we're still be penpalling a lot! =)

 

Okay, I'll go to bed early today as tomorrow is the great day for my sis. We'll bring her to the airport and see her off. She really appreciated all of your nice words and wishes, btw. Thank you guys!

懐かしいAnime

Hello my lovelies, are you enjoying a nice weekend?? Sorry I couldn't post the last couple of days, we've been quite busy, I helped my sis with her travel preperations. Can you believe she's already leaving in TWO days?? Well, I can't, it's just seems so unrealistic to me. Maybe I'll realize that she's gone when I return to my empty house, hahaha! We'll have a little farewell party tomorrow for her, and on Tuesday we'll bring her to the airport. 

Time's really flying and as you can see on my side bar's counter, it's just about 50 more days for me as well :-) I still didn't book a flight, but I've already made a contract with my international health insurance agency. Now all that's left for me to do is to write a letter of motivation, book a flight and hand it in along with all other necessary documents to the Japanese embassy to get my Working Holiday Visa. I'll get everything done in about 2 weeks.

Well, I'm back to blogging again now. I have replied to all of your previous comments which I never or hardly forget to do, so check out some older posts as well. As the time of my sis departure is coming nearer every minute, we decided to do funny things, and somehow we came to speak of old Anime we watched in our childhood. We then watched some of those on Youtube for hours, hahaha! I then thought that would be a nice post!

My interest in Japan actually started with watching Anime when I was a child. My sis and me grew up in a very small town in a rural area inmidst Lower Saxony, North Germany, where people (still) have never seen anything japanese, let out eaten, for example Sushi :-)) In the 90's many famous and old japanese Anime were on TV, and since my Mum never gave me any TV restraint I could watch whenever I wanted XD I now want to introduce my Top 5 懐かしいAnime (natsukashii: jap. for nostalgic).

Ahh, Sailor Moon!! Who did not love her and her lovely friends, who always try to save the world from evil enemies?? XDD

"Rock'n Roll Kids" or better known as "Aishite Naito". I love the fat cat!

"Rose of Versailles" (I still know how much I suffered because of this anime, hahahaha! The little worries of a child... I think this Anime also triggered off my interest in history, it was one of my favourite subjects at school ;-)

"Little Women" tells the story of the March family who are living in the US at the time of the Civil War and their everyday life struggle. This was one of the most touching Anime I've watched, forget the movie with Winona Ryder, this is by far better! XD

"Robin Hood" (there are some differences between the original Robin, but that doesn't make it any worse)

Of course I watched way more (all around 1996-1998), this is only a small list. Thinking back, I've been quite an Anime addict, hahaha! My interest in Anime and Manga is still there, but kinda becomes less and less. As I've been to Japan several times by now, other things became more interesting, I guess many of you have experienced that as well. But it was good I was able to watch so many good anime, because I became interested in Japan and it's culture because of them. If I look at what they have today on TV, I'm really glad I grew up in the 90's! What did trigger off your interest in Japan??

PS: If you are interested, most of the Anime can be watched at Youtube or other platforms now! I don't know if there are English versions of all Anime, though. Otherwise, for all of you who are learning German, watch it in my version, hahaha! I wanna have the DVD version...

UK Goddies and Sara Mari's Giveaway

Hey, I've almost reached 100 posts, so that's maybe the reason why I post so often lately, hope you like that :-) Even though the posts are a bit boring lately. 

Well, my sis got back from her UK trip yesterday and she brought back lovely and yummy goodies! I love to try out different snacks and food from other countires, so I'm looking forward to eating all that. Have some fotos: 

Here are the snacks she bought, even a package of my beloved Jelly Bellies! :-)

Lush and Body Shop stuff :-) Lush stuff is much more cheaper in the UK than here in Germany!

Last but not least, I want to mention a giveaway again! This time the lovely Sara Mari is holding a 770 followers giveaway. She is my great idol, she was one of my first followers and by now also one of my best Net friends, I really adore her and her fantastic blog Moments Like Diamonds, and can't wait to finally meet her this winter in JP! (Btw, where are you lately, Sara? I miss your comments! ) If you're not already following her, then I strongly urge you to do so. Hmm, I have the feeling everyone is doing a giveaway, and I wanna do one again, too! But you guys have to wait a little bit longer, I plan to throw something big on my blog's first anniversary on Nov, 23 (I'll be in JP already at that time;-)! So stay tuned and keep your eyes open on that day XDDD

I'm actually studying XD

Hello lovelies, how are you? Hope you enjoyed a wonderful weekend like me. The short trip to the Netherlands was great, we went to the fish market and did some shopping. I listened to my old CD's from "The Corrs" all the time during the 90 minutes car drive, and I realized how much I've missed listening to english music. For years I've only listened to japanese music (well, for fun and also for listening comprehension :-) When I was a teenager "The Corrs" were my favourite band. Well, enough of nostalgic moments, back to the present!

Today, I actually did something I have postponed all of the time, I started to seriously study japanese again! I don't wanna show off when I say my japanese speaking abilities are quite passable (I know a lot of people who speak it so fluently and so much better than I do), but let's say I'm not the worst, hahaha! I've been learning for about 5 years now, and next year, during my Working Holiday in Japan I wanna take the Japanese Poficiency Test Level 2, meaning I have to know 1000 Kanji and tons of vocabulary and grammar. I still miss about 300 Kanji, and about 1/3 grammar, which I hope to catch up to before I leave in November. When studying today I realized I somehow got out of learning, my back and hand hurt after about 90 minutes :-( Anyway, hope I'll manage to learn the rest more efficiently when I make more breaks but therefore study intensively XD.

Here you see my books and note :-)

Maybe you have already seen it on your dashboard if you're Naka's follower, but she is holding a fantastic and huge giveaway! She is one of my very best Net friends and penpal, so I strongly urge you to check out her blog and join her giveaway! :-)) There will be many winners!

Tonight we're picking up my sis who has returned from her UK trip, maybe I can take some fotos, let's see. Okay, that's it again for today, hope this post didn't bore you! XD Till next time and hug you all, TT.

Shopping Day

Hello my lovelies, how are you?? I've been so lazy lately, I forgot to post! Sorry for that. Yesterday I had the chance to chat a little bit with the lovely Clairey from Oh So Glams Blog. It was fun! Let's do it again soon. 

Well, at least I've got something to post about today, as I went shopping the whole day with my friend. We paid a visit to a great and huge shopping mall in Essen, called Limbecker Platz which is about half anhour away by train from Düsseldorf.

Essen Central Station, the blue lights were really cool :-)

My friend wanted to go to a cosmetic store called Kiko Cosmetics, to buy nail colours :-) They had a huge variety of lovely colours.

Häagen Dasz White Chocolate Raspberry, sponsored by my lovely friend! (Thanks so much again, as I know you're reading this! I'll treat you to something nice the next time!)

A beautiful fountain

Super cute penguin sweatshirts :-))

Bonus pic: my outfit of the day! (Sorry for the mess in my room)

Beanie: no brand

Jeans jacket: Miss Sixty

Onepiece: Daiei

Leggins: Honeys

Shoes: from a random store in Harajuku

You can't see it on this foto, but I'm actually wearing heels :-)

Maybe this one's better?? But too dark, lol.

Okay, that's it for today, hope you enjoyed. Tommorrow I've got my day off from work, and I will use that to go to the Netherlands for fun. Just for one day, 'cause we live near the border. That's the practical thing about living in Europe, you can go to another country so fast if you live near the border :-) Have a lovely weekend, my followers!