Monday, July 18, 2005

Here I am sitting in my room in Japan, a Japanese style room, with tatami mats, and those paper windows.. So cute it is haha. I am so happy to be here, to see my girl and to see Japan. I will tell more about it later, but for now I will go back to the beginning at 13july when my travel started from Amsterdam.

After waiting 7 months I was finally going to see my sweet girl again, and visit Japan for the first time. My bag was packed, everything I had with me. I travelled from Amsterdam to Brussels, Brussels to Milan, and from Milan to Kansai ( Japan). Yes, I was thinking like that too.. LONG!!! And it was long too. I need to wait in Brussels for around 12 hours , cause I needed to take the most early bus from Amsterdam the evening before. The bus wasn’t that bad though, were I could have some nice sleep, but the airport was just killing me, all the shops and café’s were closed, so I didn’t had anything to do there, besides sleeping on a table until some cleaner needed to clean it… so eventually I slept around 1 hour, and closed my eyes for 2 hours. The flight from Brussels to Milan was absolutely stunning, as I flew above the Alps, and it was the first time for me to see mountains with snow YATTA(*yatta means like GREAT in Japanese ).

Arrived on Milan, I was really happy that I could start my last flight to Japan, first I did some shopping , OF COURSE.. Hello I am in Milan, there I should buy something shouldn’t I ?? So I bought some nice perfume, and called my girl that I had a terrible night haha. I just needed to wait for around 1 hour, in an ugly airport ( with strange toilets, instead you open the door up down, you need to push the handle… how the F**k should I know, so I pulled it down for around 3 minutes… I thought I was going crazy, I didn’t want to miss my flight, If I would be in here longer I would kicked that door for sure!!!!! ). The airplane was pretty nice though as I had a tv in front of me, and I could listen to music, watch movies and played some games ( no super Mario this time.. ). But yeah all this things didn’t matter cause I was just so sleepy/tired that I didn’t felt like using it a lot. I tried to get some sleep, but it just didn’t work, maybe I was just to doki doki (*nervous/excited in Japanese), or because I changed my watch 7 hours later (Japanese time).

As I finally arrived on the Kansai airport( the airport near Kobe that was build on the water, when you land it almost looks likes you land on water, sugoii ne (* cool/great in Japanese) ) Mayuko her sister Minako-san(*in Japan they use the word San after the name as respect for people who are older or higher level) was waiting for me, I was a bit afraid of her English, cause Mayuko didn’t knew about it, and bit I was afraid that she couldn’t speak English, but yeah that turned out to be fine, and I had some nice conversations with her in the bus to Kobe city (Sannomiya), where her mom was waiting for us. Her mom was came toward us, and as I had practiced many times ( but it still feels strange) I bowed to her and said: Hajimemashite, Dave Desu, Dozo yoroshiku (*how are you , I am Dave, nice to meet you… the how are you in this way you only say when you meet somebody the first time, normal how are you is : O genki Desuka?) and she bowed back and said the same thing, + something extra that I couldn’t understand.



Its really humid in the summer I remembered Mayuko saying to me, haha and so I found out, cause it was just so hot in there, even in the car to her home it was. We talked in the car with her mom, and I said some Japanese words which I knew. The way to Mayuko her house was great, driving true strange roads, seeing Japanese style houses, and see many hills, and mountains ( as maybe some of you know, in the Netherlands we don’t really have mountains or big hills… ). The house was just so cute to see, bigger then I expected , cause I thought it was a small house, (turns out that my girl is rich anyway haha no joke,, normal she says .. Yeah right ;)) , I took off my shoes, and refreshed myself, before I would see Mayuko again.


A couple of hours later we were driving to the near by station were Mayuko was arriving. When we arrived at the station I saw Mayuko waiting outside, and we hugged and kisses each other (a decent kiss cause her mom was watching…), and it felt a little bit strange in someway, cause we haven’t seen each other for 7 months. But yeah the best thing was that after an hour or 2, that strange feeling was disappeared , and it felt like we have seen each other almost everyday.

In the evening I met her father, and he was really kind to me, gave me some beers to relaxed and as we were eating this nice oichii ( delicious in Japanese) food, we started talking , easy talk, but also really serious . I thought I would be really difficult and really not looking forward to it, but it wasn’t like that at all, it was a relaxed talk ( the beer does it.. Asahi you are the best!!!!!! (*Asahi Japanese beer .. Best haha). At the end I asked her dad straight, ( this was the most scary part!!!!) Kekon Sassete kudasai ( can I marry with your daugther) and he said……. Hai Hai Hai. Of course ( hai-yes) , and I just felt so relieved, cause In the beginning, he didn’t agreed with our relation , cause I am a Gaijin ( non-Japanese) and in his mind he thinks a Japanese should marry with a Japanese ( which I can understand in some way cause in Japan the percentage of gaijins is only 1% ( from 125Milion people, and her parents don’t know any gaijin) .

On Saturday we slept in until around 10-11 and had some talk with each other, until we decided to have a short walk around. We went to some store’s near here, and I could finally see the Japanese Vending machines , and we went to sushi train were I tried out around 5-6 different kind of sushi with raw fish, and raw meat. The rest of the day we only talked, serious up to stupid.

On Sunday we went to the city to Harborland ( an area where are heaps of shops, and restaurants/café’s ) there was a free market, which was a bit smaller then I thought, and we saw a Japanese couple who where just married in a western style dress, and some girls wearing kimono. What I really like in here is that they still were traditional clothes a lot, like the Yukata ( the Yukata is a similar version of the kimono, but then much easier and less expensive.). As I will be staying in Japan for a month it would be convenient to have a Mobile phone, and Japanese phone’s are just so kakoii (* COOL) as they have so many extra options, and great designs, so we looked for that… but at the end I didn’t bought that one but a normal phone that looks like a phone that children from 5 use… but haha I only need a phone for a month , for a cheap price, and cheap it was.. For only 25 euro (30.000 Yen) I got a phone, with the same price Prepaid card included.. Well is that cheap or not cheap? I also bought some slippers, HOT weather ;), and some nice sushi/rice/meat balls to take with us, .. Were did we go? Well haha to the soccer game, Kobe VS Tokyo… stadium was pretty big 15.000 people in it. And the atmosphere was great.. Kobe fans in Red shirts, and with flags, who were singing the Whole game, even Kobe lost with 4-0... Only kawaii-so (* sad/poor) thing was that some F-side fans started to throw bottles on the field, and yelled bad things.. Because Kobe lost the game the players decided to give there apologise to the fans, and came closer, and they even bowed for them, this was really amazing to see, as this would not be thinkable in my country, were the players would almost run to the dressing room, and run to there wife’s to forget about the game. So lots of respect for the players that did this! We walked home after the match, we were just so tired from all day walking that we didn’t felt like doing anything else anymore that evening.




On Monday ( well just 2 hours ago LoL) we went to the city to Sannomiya and to Motomachi, and Mayuko teach me about how the Subway works in here ( not that easy to understand I think, cause everything is in Japanese… ( it is difficult sometimes for me, because I cant speak Japanese well, especially against there parents it is difficult to communicate good with each other. ) there are so many nice shops in here, and everywhere there are so oichii looking restaurants!!!!! We got some Starbucks coffee ( STARBUCKS RULES!!!) and went to Kobe’s China town, were we eat some Chinese food. I noticed today about the fact that there are not many Gaijins in Japan, but yeah, in one way I think that is not a big problem for me in the future. Mayuko bought a nice cute t-shirt, and we went to the Ikuta shrine ( one of the biggest shrines in Kobe) and we prayed there, and wrote a message on a piece of wood. it always relaxes me when i go to a shrine, or a church. it makes me think deep about spirituality.


I am really enjoying my stay in Japan , and am looking forward for the next weeks, but yeah I hope they wont go to fast, as I know I have to leave Japan again , and that I wont see my girl for another 5 months, its hard to think about it now, but yeah I am here just 4 days, and I still have around 25 days to go. So yeah that Is something for later to think about more.

Today I will look for jobs, do some things on the web, go walking around, and help her mom with mowing the lawn. Mayuko is working today and I will see her tonight again.

For now, I will stop cause I am really tired. But besides that, I can say I am one of the Happiest man in the world at this moment, cause I have almost everything that I want in life for now!

Aishiteru yo Mayuko always and forever

Sunday, July 03, 2005

1 week to go

Just 1 week to go, and then i am finnaly going to Japan! my flight is in brussel on thursday the 14th. its going to be a pretty long travel, cause i need to go to brussels first, wait there for 9 hours, check in, wait 2.5 hour, go to milan, wait 2 hours, and then i fly to Japan....

well i am pretty nerveuse, and also verry happy. i will meet her parents for the first time, and the rest of her familie, also i will see japan for the first time!!! have been waiting pretty long for that... but most important of all is that i will see my beautiful girl Mayuko again! cant wait to hold her in my arms, to kiss her, etc. i will stay there for 4,5 week almost, and were going to do really lovely things!!!

just 1 week work, and yeah the last 2 days next week, are just mmm hurry up days

gr Dave