Fil's pregnant!

I'm not sure if I'm breaking the terms of any NDA but some of you might be interested to know that my good friend Phil from university (who also happens to go by a number of aliases on this blog such as Crazy Cooter) will be having a child sometime in October. How he managed to get himself in such a condition I'm not really sure! But congrats anyways. If you're considering any japanese names (of females at least) then feel free to hit me up for some advice! A couple that I like: Ai (love), Sakura (cherry blossoms), or Yuki (snow)

Would you like some wine with that couch?

So I went furniture shopping with Fumiko last week. I've been assured that that is a sure sign of a completely domesticated boyfriend. All I can say in my defense is that I had no idea we were going in the first place-we were shopping in Shinjuku and since we just happened to be in the neighbourhood...
It actually turned out to be pretty interesting though so I would probably do over again.

I don't know for sure but I think I can say with a sense of confidence that you've never experienced furniture shopping like this. This is exactly how it goes:

• you walk into an upscale building about 7 or 8 stories tall and go up to the front counter
• they ask you for your membership card and fill out a short questionaire for you regarding the purpose of your visit
• you are then led over and sat down (they pull out the chairs for you) at a table where you wait until a man (or woman) dressed up in a suit comes over and introduces themselves and hands you your business card
• they then take any packages that you happen to be carrying and put them away in a safe place somewhere and give you a number so that you can get them back when you leave-who wants to shop while encumbered?
• they then proceed to guide you around the entire store. That's right-there's no casual browsing here. For every customer in the store there is some guy in a suit giving the ins and outs of all the furniture
• at the end of your excursion, should you decide to buy or at least reserve a piece of furniture, you are then led to yet another set of tables where they sit you down and a nice lady brings you a glass of tea or orange juice (your preference)
• after all the neccessary documents or information has passed hands, your guide will fold up the receipt, put it in an envelope and hand it to you (with both hands of course,) whereupon you hand him your number and he goes and retrieves your packages
• finally he walks you to the door, bids you goodbye and bows to you

And that's that! We got a couch (by "we" I mean that I followed Fumiko and the salesman around the store, uncomprehending of the strange language that was a fusion of japanese and "furniturese.") Lord knows you'd never catch me in a store like that on my own. I'm quite proud of the fact that we have two "pleather" couches from the recycle shop for a grand total of about 15,000 yen. Less than 1/10th of the new couch.

A virtual smorgasborg

Not sure about the spelling in the title. Jeez it's been a long time since my last post. I gotta start posting more often so that I don't have to start off all the time by saying that. I suppose there comes a point where you just get used to living here and everything turns into status quo...or maybe not-this is Japan after all.

Here's a link that you might be interested in checking out. I'm putting it up at the begining because I'm sure some of you have trouble making it to the end of my posts. Basically if you're interested in what people are wearing in Tokyo right now then this looks like the site to check out. They seem to take pictures of five different major areas in Tokyo every week so you can see exactly what the fashion is like. Some of it is quite nice and some of it is a little...Japanese. Anyways check it out: http://www.style-arena.jp/index_e.htm

Fumiko's birthday is coming up soon (July 1st so no excuse for forgetting) and I've been looking high and low for a nice penguin pendant necklace. Sometimes I call her penguin because of the cute way she (and I guess all Japanese) say it. Say it with me now: "pen-geeN." And that "gee" as in Guy the French guy from down the street not "gee I wish I hadn't forgotten to pay my electricity bill." Anyways you won't believe how hard it is to find a penguin pendant. Poor things just aren't very loveable I guess. I should have called her "dolphin" instead- I have to beat those pendants off me with a stick.

Guess who's a kool kid now!

I bought my Birkenstocks today! They were at my local PARCO and apparently a lot cheaper than what they go for in Canada. Who knew that Japan could actually be more cheap sometimes!

I think I may be able to watch all of the Stanley Cup live games live-at least they're on one of the J-sports channels and I'm hoping that it's one of the ones that I get. I'll also be watching the World Cup so that's a lot of sports for the month of June! I don't particularly like the Japanese team (I hope a certain so and so isn't reading this!) but I have been told in no uncertain terms that I will be cheering for them-or else.

Tsk tsk...

A mere 4 posts for the month of May! That certainly is pathetic! And it's not exactly like I've been leading an exciting life this month-wait maybe that's the problem. Things are starting to humidify here and before long I am going to have serious problems sleeping. I suppose I might have to start turning the air conditioner on-or maybe it would be better to just buy a dehumidifier.

I went into Ikebukuro for the first time in a while yesterday and made a purchase (also first time in a while.) I was actually planning on purchasing a pair of Birkenstocks, (after 26 years I've finally decided to be one of the 'cool' kids) but I couldn't find any that I particularly liked so instead I ended up coming home with a new pair of shades and a cowboy hat. Ok not exactly a cowboy hat. Think of maybe something that Brad Pitt might wear-in fact I even tried to convince Fumiko that I looked like Brad Pitt but she wasn't having any of that. Oh well-I suppose as long as I'm safe inside my little fantasy then that's all that matters! I'm sure I'll have a picture of it for you sometime.

I actually got a sunny day on my day off today (first time in a long time) so I managed to get out (after my private class and after the gym) and do a little sun-tanning. I didn't get out until 4 o'clock so I don't think I even singed the skin! At least when I'm tanning it gives me the opportunity to learn a little japanese. Today I reviewed my verb, noun and adjective conjugations. I even learned the definition of 'adjective.'


*edit* Ok since I'm bored I took a pic of both aforementioned articles until I can get one of the good looking guy that goes under them.