K-Drama - IRIS

The biggest tv drama in Korea right now starring Lee Byun Hun and Kim Tae Hee, IRIS.

Ive let it be known before that im a big fan of Lee Byun Hun. For me, he is the best Korean actor. Ive probably let it be known too that Kim Tae Hee is the hottest Korean woman walking the face of this planet. When you put them together in a big budget romance/action tv drama you get one of the best shows ever! So far, the show has been awesome in terms of action, romance, musical score and production value so i really reccomend checking it out even if you are not usually a fan of tv drama. Lee Byun Hun and Kim Tae Hee work really well as a couple providing us with some really cute scenes in Japan :). T.O.P. seems to be the only real flaw in the show IMO but he doesnt steal too much screen time :p

Music: Kpop - "You And I" by Park Bom

Best song out at the moment in Korea IMO

John`s Art - Incredible Hulk

It's been a while since i drew anything. In fact, i hadnt actually drawn anything during my time in Japan until now so its nice to just keep my skills fresh and maybe improve a little more, which i think i have :D

I know its ANOTHER Hulk drawing but honestly, i love to draw the hulk. Hes just such a cool looking character and the oddly proportioned body parts are easy for a guy who cant really draw very well at all. I also like this drawing because it feels kinda pop-arty and modern. Its hard to make out but he is actually raising a tank over his head.

Originally, this piece wasnt supposed to be in black and white and i planned a lot more detail and colour. But somehow i still wanna keep that a cutesy feeling in my art no matter how angry the character is :p Here is an unfinished version of the drawing before i went in a different style direction:

Photojackin'

Has anyone else coined the phrase photojackin before?

Well, i dont care anyway because i just came up with it as the best way to describe my new way of chronicling my time in Japan. From now on, when i post up something about a trip or event, ill just steal photos from other peoples Facebook accounts. I rarely remember to take my camera anywhere with me and when i do, i forget that i even have it. So its a good job guys like Linus take pictures of everything!

KiyoSato Wings trip

To continue from my recent post about going on a trip and not having a clue about it.........

It turned out to be a REALLY fun trip and even though it was a little expensive, im really glad i went. The schedule was like this:

Saturday
- 4 hour drive to Kiyosato
- Japanese style Lunch & sightseeing
- Onsen
- Dinner & party at the hotel

Sunday
- Make our own Soba Noodles!
- Eat our Soba Noodles! :D
- Visit the Suntory Whisky mill
- 4 hour drive home (turned into 6 hours)

Onsen
This wasnt the first time i've been to an Onsen so im totally over the whole "bunch of cocks flopping around" scaryness. Even so, it is pretty fucking weird but the Onsen is so relaxing and the one we visited was kinda famous. Apparently some guy was diagnosed with terminal cancer, given no chance of recovering. He spent 300 days in a year at this Onsen and miraculously his cancer was cured.

Party
The party was just awesome. Wings really delivered on this one with their promise of free alcohol and a fun time because we got absolutely trashed and partied the night away creating even a new chant to replace the former "A!" chant which tends to rock all our parties. From now on "I`ve seen your balls!!" (referring to the onsen) will be the new party chant.
Even the Japanese got involved despite not knowing we were referring to Kintama lol.

Wings
Wings is the name of a society at YNU dedicated to arranging get-togethers with foreign students. Their members are all really friendly and while their trips are expensive they are just about worth it. I reccomend joining them to any current or future exchange students (^_^)b

and because my grammar is so crap, some photos to explain......

Everyone at dinner


Some of the Wings crew (& Andreas)

Sightseeing area

Me, Sri & Will

View of Mt Fuji

Fuck NTT

NTT sucks!

Why? cos my internet is broke for no reason and when i called them they told me i have to find a day where i am able to sit at home all day so that they can do a line test. Im really pissed off now thinking that probably ill have to spend my Monday off sitting around in my room waiting for some stupid test which will probably not have any promising results or likely they just wont turn up at all.

BAH!

At the moment, im stealing Mikes internet but its such a bad connection all the way from my room trying to pick up his router. Cant even download IRIS or One Piece properly :(

Im going on a trip and i havent got a ****ing clue where im going

So to sum things up, i was drunk and agreed to pay 15,000 yen to one of YNU`s overseas-student based societies for a trip that i know absolutely nothing about other than the fact that there is a hot spring and free beer involved. Also, as im told, "You will never be able to get there without Japanese people". I tried to get further information by asking the question "Joei, what exactly are we gonna do on this trip?" and all im told is"We gonna have a lot of fun. Its gonna be really fun, you gonna see". I havent actually even been told about a meeting time either (The trip is scheduled for saturday). Ill let you know how this one goes but im not optimistic...........

Korean 101

It seems that Korean people, when they learn you have an interest in Korea or the Korean language, are sooo kind and helpful! Recently, a Korean girl from my class told me that she had heard about my interest in learning Korean and offered to teach me for one lesson a week. So, today was my first lesson where she also brought along another Korean girl to teach me. For the first lesson, we just went through the Hangul because my knowledge of it actually sucks. So to prepare for my next lesson all i have to do is to improve my recognition of the characters and then we will work on reading words and pronunciation (^_^)b

They played one of my absoulte favourite songs.....

in Yokohama central station today. I absolutely adore this song and its my favourite song to sing at karaoke. You probably know this song from the chorus of 2pacs "Do 4 Love". I know all the lyrics and have sung this song in the shower for years so to come to Japan and find that, back in the day, it had some kind of bizarre popularity over here is just great :D

And him singing it live in Japan in 1992

Music: Kpop - Masa Mixes - KPOP 2009 Mashup Part II

Another awesome mash-up from MASAMIXES

Upcoming Posts

Blogging is quite time consuming, so unfortunately i only casually add stuff. I promise im working on new posts/stories though (^_^)b

Coming Soon:

• University Festival
• Minesawa Cats Eye
• Halloween
• Nikko Trip
  
• & more.....

Me teach English? thats unpossible!

So recently my student advisor asked me if i could help out her friend with some of his linguistic research by assisting him with an educational video to help Japanese school children learn English.

I didnt really know what was going to be expected of me but when i got there, he had a camera and whiteboard ready for me. So in the end we shot a short video clip of me talking very brielfy about myself in English and then i discussed, in Japanese, about the katakana words "igirisu" and "consento" and how they are not so recognisable for British natives. The worst part about it though was that i had 2 mins to come up with a script and so the video will be kinda let down by the fact that i had to read some of what i had to say off a notepad. But i received a small amount of money, a compliment that my English was "perfect" for this kind of thing and i was also asked to come back next semester and create a presentation in Japanese about my home country.

So now i can add to my resume that i`ve been on Japanese TV and Japanese educational video. Whats next?...................