guess what’s my favorite flower?

Meiji Jingu shrine had an iris festival going on for all of June.

A few weeks ago I went with Yu to Indonesia.  I have tons and tons of pictures from the trip.  I’ll go through them slowly!

We arrived on a Saturday night- my cousin Novi picked us up and we went straight my aunt’s house.  My aunts and uncles cooked a huge welcome feast for us!

The next morning, we had delicious food from street food vendors, during which I dropped my camera lens and watched as it snapped into 2 distinct pieces.  We went back to the house and had 15 minutes to gather up our belongings and start the drive to my grandma’s house– all of which I spent desperately trying to fix my lens.  With some gentle twisting and pushing and snapping it actually came back together– I don’t need you, warranty and officially lisenced Canon dudes!

The drive was long but there was lovely scenery, and we stopped at various points through the trip to eat spicy fish and ice durian (and re-fill the gas at a station with a world-record number of toilets).

Tomorrow: my grandma’s house.

I have spent the past 4 days at home.  I got food poisoning Tuesday and then slid down the hilly road in front of my apartment Wednesday while buying groceries to cook innocuous food for myself, injuring my foot and my knee.  Since my apartment is my entire scenery these days (so thankful for friends who come by bringing porridge, bandaids and first aid cream, home made apple sauce, multi out cables and adaptors, and something else so awesome that it sort of deserves its own post) I thought maybe what better time than to show you my little place.  The photos were of course taken a while ago.  My hair is shorter now and my legs are all bandaged.  But anyway.

Hello would you like a tour of tiny loft apartment?

I still have a lot of ideas for decorating but this is what it looks like so far.  My place is basically a 1st grader’s dream.  It has a ladder!  It has a secret fort!  There’s a traditional Japanese style futon floor bed, but with Barbie bedding  (it was a gift from a 2nd cousin when I was 7, I found it while digging through closets at home)!  But truthfully, I am on the lookout for a Spiderman bedding.  It would still go with the 1st grader theme of my apartment.

Moving along, no room of mine is complete without piles of magazines and books.  I’m so happy to once again have access to Zipper and spoon and furthermore I live by a 24 hour book/magazine store.  And I have a little kitchen.

My first weekend after moving in, I visited my neighborhood Tokyu Hands and returned with an armful of art supplies, and used them straight away to paint this pink flowery explosion.  I have so much wall space so I want to make many more paintings.

How do I climb up the ladder to my loftbed now that I am injured you ask?  Verrrrry very slowly.

I’m a sleepy tired blur.  But today I did 2 important things.

I saw OYA in concert.

And I got my guitar back.

Oh it has been crazy busy since arriving in Japan!  In the best way of course.  Yu planned a welcome-back trip– 5 of us went to Nagano and soaked in hot springs while it snowed outside.  We also did a bit of guitaring and singing and bowling and shopping.

We came back and I stayed with Yu at her apartment until mine was ready to move in.  I moved in yesterday.  The apartment has a loft and it is across the street from an Indonesian restaurant and it is by 3 music stores!  I will finish decorating soon and then show you!

And, today was the first day of work!  Everyone I met was so amazing, I can’t wait to tell you about some of their projects.  It feels so so wonderful to be paid to work on this frivolous dream project of mine.  It is like being paid to eat an ice cream sundae.  It doesn’t really make sense, but I won’t say no!

Anyway I will write more when I am more coherent and less swamped.  I am really looking forward to this weekend– not because I want the work week to be over with, actually I might keep working on my project anyway or at least conduct “research” by shopping for cloth and dress forms– but because I just want the chance to breathe and stock my fridge with fresh vegetables and dance to bad hip hop while painting and maybe convince some wonderfully disgusting vintage plastic kaiju (my latest obsession) to be my roommates.

xoxo

My mom and brother are away for a swimming competition.  They’re the noisy ones of the family so the house is so quiet when they are gone.  Since it’s just us, my dad and I cooked and served for a community pantry/ homeless shelter tonight.

Before you get the wrong kind of idea that I’m charitable or anything, I’ll have you you know that it’s 100% out of selfishness and gluttony.  The hearty southern food that we and everyone else make, let me tell you, it’s flippin delicious.  After we’re finished up, we fix up a plate of the leftovers for ourselves.  I liked the moment in “The Princess and the Frog” where the little girl’s dad makes gumbo for the whole neighborhood, and says her something like “Food is amazing, it brings everyone together.”  Who could say no to hash brown casserole with fried onions and sweet iced tea?  Most certainly not me.