Well, it’s been two months since I last wrote a diary update… wow! Adam and I have been living in Japan for 7 months now. Time flies when you’re having fun… or so they say… but you know… these last 2 months have felt like a decade to me!! As most of you probably know (because I complain about it a lot!), it’s summer here in Japan now. It’s very hot and sticky… I’m so jealous to hear about the cold, miserable weather in Adelaide… I heard it’s been raining a lot there too! Damnit! I mean… it rains here nearly everyday too… but this type of rain just makes the day more humid… it doesn’t bring relief! It’s so hot here that it feels like you’re in a sauna all day… In the last few weeks, the temperature has been around 32 degrees… but it’s the humidity that is killing us. It’s usually between 70-99%! It’s disgusting! It’s uncomfortable… and our air con never gets a proper chance to rest! I’m not looking forward to our electricity bill next month… that’s for sure!! At times like this, I wish I was living in Tokyo… I hear it’s much cooler there… or better yet… Hokkaido where the temperature is usually below 20 and it’s never humid at all!! I heard this information from my good friend/musuko (=son) Hiroshi. He came back to Japan for the winter holidays to see his family and girlfriend. He was so shocked at the temperature in Osaka when he came to visit me for a few hours before heading back to Adelaide to finish his masters! It was great to catch up with him even though it was only for a few hours (THANKS HIRO)! We had okonomiyaki and yakisoba for lunch… surprisingly… it was my first Japanese meal in ages! Here I am living in Japan… not eating very much Japanese food. Haha. Anyways, next weekend, two other mates from Adelaide, Wilson and Stewart are coming here so I’m looking forward to catching up with them!! Later in the year another friend, Kathryn, will be coming to Japan as well! I’m really looking forward to seeing some friends from Adelaide! WOO!
Okay, so I’ll continue on from where I left off. I ended my last diary update telling you that I was going again to a KAT-TUN concert… thanks to my friend Melinda!! It was a great night. It was sad to say goodbye to her but we still keep in touch now through the wonderful? world of Facebook. Anyways… for any KAT-TUN fans out there, I wrote a concert report, you can view it here: http://mon-chan.vox.com/library/post/kat-tun-con-report.html
A few days after the concert it was my 22nd birthday! At midnight Adam surprised me with a strawberry shortcake on a plate decorated with many strawberries! It was very sweet! In the morning, on the way to work (yes… I had to go to work…), I decided to buy a small roll cake to share with my favourite class and some of my colleagues. To do this I took the opposite way on the JR Osaka Loop Line and found myself looking up at Osaka Castle. It was unreal. I couldn’t believe that I could look out the train’s window and see the beautiful Osaka Castle in the distance! At that moment I realised… “Holy crap! I’m living my dream! I’m living in Japan!!” Is that cheesy? Probably. Oh well. Anyways, I uploaded some photos of my class party on Facebook… Unfortunately I couldn’t upload any group shots because I’m not allowed to upload any photos of my students onto the Internet… but it was really fun! After that lesson my manager surprised me… She said that she was going to take care of my last lesson because Ono (my boss) was taking me out to party! Yay! <3 I was allowed to clock out early and we headed over to a karaoke place, waiting for the others to arrive. My boss sang happy birthday to me (who knew that there would be like… 50 happy birthday songs in the karaoke machine!?) and I recorded him doing it. It was sooo funny… but sweet. He gave me KAT-TUN’s latest album by the way. It was really nice of him!! 
After 10:00 PM, my manager and Hitomi (the marketing manager who I’m really fond of) arrived and we did what you normally do at karaoke… sing, drink and eat junk food (GOURMET PIZZA – my favourite! YUM!). As usual, my boss paid for everything… He’s a champ (well… when he’s not yelling at me anyway… haha). The best part of my birthday was when I got home… I found my inbox full of birthday messages from 45 different people! I still have all those messages saved in my inbox! I was so happy to receive so many wonderful birthday messages! To the people who sent me a birthday message, I want to thank you. Your message meant the world to me and I will cherish it forever. Thank you very much! On the following weekend, I had a small get together with my Japanese friends who live in Kansai… plus Rie who came all the way from Okayama (arigatou~)! The photos are already on Facebook. It was a fun night. We had kushikatsu (many different foods on sticks that you deep fry yourself at your table) for dinner. Everything tasted sooo good! After dinner we did purikura (sticker photos) which can also be found on Facebook. After purikura some of us went to a cafe but we were soon kicked out because it was closing time… 
I received many wonderful gifts by the way! For example, I got a chocolate fondue kit from Yuri and her partner Raizou… It’s Disney themed! It’s sooo cute!
The week after my birthday, I had some good and bad things happen to me. For example, on Saturday, I was asked to come in to work even though I don’t actually work on Saturdays. The other foreigner who joined us (his name is Rick and he’s also Australian…) couldn’t come in for some reason. The week before, my school opened a new branch so there was no air conditioning in that branch yet so it was very hot and gross to work in… There was no fan either! >_< Anyways, to make up for it, my boss shouted us dinner and drinks in the yakiniku restaurant next door. After dinner we all ended up going to a driving range (golf)!! (I was able to ride on my boss’s motorbike again that night! YIPPEE!!) It was my first time to go to a driving range. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a proper driving club (you have to bring your own) so we had to use a normal club that was given to us by the staff… I pretty much sucked at driving (I blame my boobs! lol!) but on my last shot, I managed to hit the ball all the way to the green! That was 190 yards! WOO HOO. Haha. Anyways, that night, on my way home, it started pouring down with rain. I walked into a convenience store to pay a bill and went home. When I got home, Adam was already asleep so I had to get my key out of my purse… but huh!? My purse wasn’t in my bag!!? I panicked and ran back to the convenience store looking for my purse but it was nowhere to be found. I asked the staff at the convenience store (I must have looked like a crazy lady… everyone was looking at me and I was all wet from the rain…) but they didn’t know anything. I thought my life was over. I had everything in there… my ID and credit cards etc.! Well, just outside the convenience store (on the corner) there is a koban (police box) so I decided to go there to report my purse… when I opened the door I started saying that I had lost my purse but I couldn’t finish my sentence! My purse was on the table!! I literally collapsed on the floor screaming from relief, completely drenched from the rain. The police were like… what the!? Haha. Some kind person had thankfully handed in my purse just moments before my arrival… I must have dropped it just outside the convenience store when I pulled out my iPod… Anyways, nothing was missing so I was a very lucky girl! I ended up spending 1.5 hours at the koban reporting my stolen wallet and listing all the contents of it (even though it was right there on the table in front of me!!), but I had no choice because it was “standard police procedures”. After reporting it missing, I had to wait for the police to make a document… I had to sign it (with my fingerprint because I didn’t have my hanko (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(East_Asia)) with me!!) before getting my purse back. Unfortunately, that was not my final visit to the koban that week… On Thursday I went to the movies to see “I Come With The Rain” – a movie with my favourite Japanese actor (Kimura Takuya) and Josh Hartnett… Anyways, that night I must have forgotten to lock our bike up because the next day… our bike was gone! Someone stole it! I couldn’t believe it! I got my purse back… with all my money in tact yet I had my rusty bike stolen! HAHA! What a strange country! Getting your bike stolen is very common in Japan though… but you might be able to get it back when the police do random bike checks from time to time (bikes in Japan are registered just like vehicles are so the police randomly check to make sure that the bike you are riding belongs to you or someone you know). I was very impressed with my Japanese skills that week… I was able to communicate with the police completely in Japanese on two different occasions! My Japanese has definitely improved since living in Japan… it’s great!
Sometime during June I started working one extra day a week so my pay went up nicely… Oh, at the end of July, because it was 6 months since we came to Japan, I was finally able to apply for a Japanese bank account! The bank system in Japan is a little different than Australia. Along with your bank card, you have a passport (it’s like a book) that goes into the ATM and it records all your transactions for you… it’s like an instant statement. It’s VERY cool! Hmmm… what else? Ah! I had a girls day with all the girls from work. We met up in Shinsaibashi (it’s kinda like Rundle Mall) and we did some suit shopping for one of the girls. I ended up buying myself a yukata! I love wearing a yukata! After shopping we had dinner and after dinner we did purikura. After purikura, my manager left but Hitomi (and her daughter – who is a student at my school so that’s why there are no photos of this day on Facebook), Mari and I went to karaoke. I love singing Morning Musume with Hitomi. She has an awesome voice… I have videos of us singing together but I’m not brave enough to upload them onto Facebook! Haha. It was a great day. That night, when I got home, I found out that Arashi (my number 1 favourite band ever) announced this year’s concert dates!! I couldn’t believe it! I was so excited… I even cried because I knew there might be some disappointments ahead… and I was right. My first ballot failed (I found this out on Thursday) and so did all of my friends’! I know some people online that managed to get tickets to two different nights though so I was pretty disappointed about that… but I have decided to buy a ticket from an auction. I’m looking for cheaper tickets at the moment… but if worse comes to worse, I will buy a ticket for about AU $1000. Yes… that’s how popular Arashi are. The people who are selling their tickets are smart… but it’s not fair. I wish I had their luck! 500,000 people applied for these concerts by the way… but there are only 210,000 tickets available… I can’t believe that… Well, Arashi have more concerts later in the year but this one is in the biggest venue in Japan so I have to go! It’s also Arashi’s 10th year anniversary this year and because I don’t have to pay for an airplane ticket I should just go for it! Anyways, I’ll keep you posted! The concert is later this month. To add to Arashi’s 10th year anniversary, they’re releasing a special album this month. As soon as I heard this news, I went to the shops and pre-ordered the limited edition all by myself! I’m seriously impressed with my Japanese lately… haha! Yeah… I really should just create my own luck. Who cares if I have to spend so much money? I’m lucky to be here and I deserve to spoil myself… since I work my ass off here… it’s summertime but they’re making me do flyer work outside in this heat 3 days a week… that’s 7.5 a week!! It sucks…
In July, my Arashi buddy, Tae came to Kansai! It was great to see her again. We slept over Mariko’s house (I met Tae through Mariko). We had yakiniku for dinner with many of their friends that night. Everyone was very nice to me even though I was a stranger. I had a great time. The next day, Adam and I went to the Umeda Sky Building for tanabata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanabata). It was beautiful up there… unfortunately my camera’s battery died so I didn’t get many pictures of the night view… Oh well… next time? My tanabata wish was to get Arashi tickets… well… that kinda failed… but maybe I’ll get tickets to the next set of concerts in Osaka… since the venue is only 5 minutes away by bike, I decided to try for Osaka instead of Tokyo!! On the actual day for tanabata (the 7th of July), my colleagues and I went to celebrate after work. We went to Kaito’s house/restaurant (Kaito is an elementary school student of mine). Everyone was already drunk by the time I arrived after teaching my lessons… but yeah… haha… I wrote another wish for Arashi concert tickets… This got the attention of some randoms who were sitting at a table across from us. They were very impressed with my Japanese writing skills (plus my love for Arashi)… and my origami skills too! The paper we used to write our wishes on was normal origami paper so I decided to make some things for them. They were very impressed because many people in Japan can’t actually do origami these days… so I taught them how to make sunflowers… hehe. They made a sunflower for me and wrote “Congratulations Mika & Adam” (because they asked about my engagement ring, lol) and then I took a photo of them. It was a great night. I had to leave before everyone else though (because I didn’t want to miss the last train home) but the master (the restaurant’s owner/my student’s father) was sad to see me leave (I made him a sunflower too with his name on it and he pinned it to his apron and all, hehe)! He said, “Eh!? Mika mou kairu no!?” (Eh!? You’re leaving already Mika!?) and the whole restaurant cracked up laughing! 
The next weekend I went to the movies to see “Gokusen The Movie”. One of the members of KAT-TUN is in it and it was really good to see him in something new on the big screen! 
Anyways, the next day I went to Kyoto to meet a friend I hadn’t seen for years, Chizuru! It was sooo hot but we managed to see Ryozen Kannon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryozen_Kannon) and Kiyomizu Temple (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiyomizu-dera). I have been to Kiyomizu Temple before but not in summer… it’s very beautiful during summer… We spent a lot of the time relaxing in cafés to cool off. It was great to see her again. I didn’t recognise her at first! Well… the last time I saw her, she was 14! She’s 19 now… When I got back to Osaka, I briefly met up with Rie who was passing through on her way back from a seminar in Tokyo? It was great to see her even though it was only for a couple of hours!!
Hmmm… what else? Oh! Last weekend was the Tenjin Matsuri (boat festival) here in Osaka (the biggest festival in Kansai). I went to work and had a colleague help me put my yukata on. Then a bunch of us (including Adam) caught the train to central Osaka and we all went to a fancy French restaurant on the 52nd? floor to see the fireworks… I didn’t enjoy the view (a building was kinda in the way) so Adam and I ended up ditching my boss and colleagues (and some students – so that’s why I couldn’t upload many photos of me in my yukata, I have heaps of photos with students!) and went down to the action (which was a good thing since dinner was going to cost us 7,000 yen (about $88) each!!!) at the Sumida River. The fireworks were amazing and the festival food was cheap and yummy! We were told that it was going to be impossible to see the fireworks because it gets too crowded at the river but we got there just fine (but yes, it was VERY crowded)! Anyways, the fireworks at the festival lasted for 3 hours… so that’s how we were able to get there in time after leaving the fancy restaurant. It’s not 3 hours straight of fireworks but short bursts of fireworks every few minutes… It’s kinda weird but it builds the excitement as the fireworks get bigger and better for the grand finale finish! I want to go to a fireworks festival this month… I heard there are some during Obon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Festival) but I’ll be away on camp with my work for two days so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to go to any???
Now to finish this diary off on some short random notes… We got the Japanese stimulus package and a good tax return last month! WOO HOO! Haha. Erm… ah! Cicadas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada)! They are SO loud! If there is a bunch of them together, my ears start to hurt! They sound like road works! It’s crazy! It’s definitely the sound of summer though… I don’t like summer but I kinda feel relaxed when I hear cicadas… even though they’re loud and hurt my ears!! I guess it doesn’t make much sense but… it’s kinda nice somehow, lol. Ah, mosquitoes! Mosquitoes in Japan love me… I had more than 20 bites on my legs the other week and they leave sores! WHAT THE HELL!? I had to wear pants for a while to wait for all the sores to heal… it’s really weird!! Basically, I hate Japanese summer bugs… lol… Ah, I had a semi-cat scan done… on my teeth… lol… I have a tooth that’s continuously hurting me and even though I had a root canal done on it… I can still feel pain!? So the dentists used the cat scan to see if there was another canal somewhere that wasn’t showing up on a normal x-ray… but they didn’t find anything. They don’t know where this mystery pain is coming from… but I pretty much go to the dentist every week now to check on its progress. It’s not fun…
So yes… I think that’s all for this diary entry… Ja ne~ (see you~)!
P.S. Instead of “bike”… I keep having the urge to write “bicycle”… I have to teach bicycle to my students so not many people know/use bike here in Japan… haha.
P.P.S. I have decided to apply for university next year. I want to apply for a graduate course to teach Junior Primary and Primary School children at UniSA’s Magill Campus. Applications open August 10… I mustn’t forget!! Okay, it’s really goodbye this time! BYE!
