ANNOUNCEMENT

I am very sorry about my lack of updates these past days. I have done so many amazing things I need to tell you about (like my trip Kyoto!), but I'm afraid that will not happen. Why? Because of personal reasons. I will abandon my computer and give it away for some time, Yukiko-san will keep it for me until the day I return home. I know this may sound really strange, but I just need to do this for the time being. This also means that I won't be able to read any emails you guys send me. Therefore, If you have anything to tell me, email me on my phone:

St_eev@softbank.ne.jp

I will get these emails straight away and can reply too. So, I am so sorry, but I have to do this. I will still continue about my days in Tokyo, but I will release the stories once I'm back in Holland.

Love, Steven

March 12th - PHOTOS

March 12th - JAPANESE FREEZER

I met up with Yukiko-san early this morning to make a reservation for the tea location on Saturday. The location was gorgeous, it was an old Japanse house where a shogun used to live. When it's cold outside, it will be even colder in a traditional Japanese house. Because it was pretty cold, I was freezing. But whatever, it's OK! We made the reservation and left again.

Shoko-san called Yukiko-san to invite us for lunch., because she had to wait in Shibuya for an appointment. We had lunch in a very fun restaurant with a swimming pool where we ate a delicious pasta.

After lunch, I went home to go to the gym. I am kind of proud of myself, because I truly go every day! And yes, I am starting to see it. =) I didn't tutor Yuki, because he had no school on Friday. Therfore, I have to tutor him tomorrow. I don't know if I will though, because there is this cool party going on in Omote-Sando.

xx Steven

March 11th - PHOTOS

March 11th - MANGA ART

The previous days were kind of boring, my daily routine: gym, tea practice, shopping. So, not really worth telling.

Today, I went to the gym and had tea practice at Yukiko's house. I am looking forward to the tea party on the 29th, because I'm gonna rock it! Also, Yukiko and I went to our favorite family restaurant Gusto. Oh my god, I am going to miss that restaurant like crazy. I mean, everything is SO cheap and it's totally cozy.. I love it so much.

I called Johnnie Walker the other day, so we're on speaking terms. He told me there would be a very cool art gallery opening around Naka-meguro, something with Manga figures. I love those figures, allthough I'm not crazy about it like most Japanese. It began raining, which totally sucked. Also, Johnnie was really late so I just went alone. The opening was on the 5th floor and the room was terribly small, but it was totally amazing. The paintings were so beautiful and the room was decorated as a bedroom.

One painting in particular drew my attention: a girl with blue hair and amazing eyes. If I had the money, I would have bought it without a doubt. But, it was 100.000 yen (800€), and I just don't have that now.. At least not for a painting.

I bought some cool stuff and left, I wasn't going to wait on Johnnie. I called Asato and we made an appointment for later that evening. I went by Odakyu lint to her house and we just chilled. Overall, I had a good day!

xx Steven =)

March 8th - PHOTOS

March 8th - FOOD PARTY!

Because it was Sunday, I turned off my alarm and slept until noon. I really needed that, so why not? It's not that I have anything to do, so =). After waking up, I went to the gym.

In the evening, I met up with Raul in Roppongi to go to Chris' house for a dinner party. I was so excited, I love to have fun with friend. Asato also joined the group which was very nice. Before Chris moved to Tokyo, she lived in Amsterdam. Originally, she is from the USA. Raul is from Australia. Chris works with plains, very technical. Her company pays everything for her, she has an AMAZING apartment. When you look out of the window, you see the Tokyo Tower in front of you, it's crazy! She has 2 bathrooms and 2 bedrooms, located in Roppongi Hills. Normally, I guess an apartment like that would cost you around 4000$ a month! But good for her!

I brought a lot of delicious (and expensive) sweets. I had visisted over 3 pastery shops to buy nice stuff. Because I can't cook at all, I felt kind of guilty to come with empty hands. I was just chillin' while the rest were cooking in the kitchen. To be honest, Chris didn't cook that much either, nothing actually. We ate these delicious spring rolls, pasta, rice, bread and alots of sweets and snacks. It was so much fun! I always feel guilty when I eat that much, but it was just too good.

After dinner, Asato and I went out to get movies. It is quite hard to choose movies, all four of us have totally different tastes. I mean, I'm obviously the girly one who loves Mean Girls etc, but they don't. I picked 'Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2', which was a good choice, if I say so myself. It was then that I found out that we would sleep at Chris' house. I didn't have anything with me, but I just stayed for the night.

Asato and I slept in the same bed, and we woke up around 5 o'clock. I know, insanely early. But we wanted to go to the major fish market. I looked like a total ghost, because we only had 3 hours of sleep. The fish market was gigantic, and all the people who work there, hate tourists. They have these little cars, which drove me over all the time. People were pushing me and it was so lame. But, it was interesting to see. The fish looked so.. scary, I never want to eat fish again.. SO gross, bloodbaths everywhere. We also saw the notorious auction, totally insane..

We had fresh fish for breakfast (I know, I ate fish.. After all) and we went home to get some serious sleep.

xx Steven

March 7th - PHOTOS

March 7th - ORCHESTRA

This morning, I practiced for the tea party. We were with quite some people, so that's always fun. I really love it. After tea practice, I went to the gym to work out.

In the evening around 5 o'clock, I had an appointment with Raul. He had tickets for this orchestra, and he asked if I wanted to come along. Of course =). It was quite far away, but that didn't matter. I love classical music, but instrumental music is just not good for me. Remember that time I went to that Jazz café? I was devastated for 2 days. Well, it wasn't that bad this time, but I just find myself in this uncomfortable position. I begin thinking about everything when music like that plays, very weird. It was beautiful, but I just didn't feel right at all, unfortunately. I am just so amazingly nervous for the decisions of the American universities, it makes me literally sick.

After the orchestra, Raul and I went out for dinner. He knew this very cool Mexican restaurant in Shinjuku, which was totally hot. The food was simply delicious, oichi (Yummy in Japanese)!! We had a chat and had a great time. We finished dinner around 11 o'clock, so we went home. I mean, we were considering to go out, but we were too tired. So we said goodbye in Shinjuku and I went home to get some sleep!

Tomorrow, I will have a dinner party at Chris'! =)

xx Steven

March 5th & 6th - ROUTINE

These days weren't so special, actually. Thursday, I did my gym-routine, tea practice, shopping in Kichijoji and tutoring at Yuki's place. My day was filled, but not too special. In Kichijoji, I bought some super-cool stuff. I don't know why, but my creative side is really shining through here in Tokyo.. I bought loads of iron beads, of which I will make Sanrio figures. Kawaii desu! Also, I bought some cute Pokémon stamps, =). At Yuki's place, there was a whole photoshoot: his father got his camera out for some family shots, with me. It was hilarious, but they were totally serious. Really, they are the sweetest ever.

Friday, I went to the gym again and I also bought diamonds for my camera. It's going to be so beautiful! In the evening, I stayed home. Pawel (photographer I met) called me to postphone our appointment for a photoshoot. OK!

March 4th - PHOTOS

March 4th - CEMETERY

Today was so much fun. I didn't have any plans, so I emailed Yukiko-san to ask her if she was available. She was, luckily. She has been very busy with the cemetery. Here in Japan, it is very important to have place waiting for you for after your death. So, they picked a place and a grave, and now she wanted to show me. The cemetery was totally gorgeous, I loved it. The only negative thing was that it was raining so badly, that all my clothes were soaked in mud. But that's hot.

After that, we went out for lunch in a family restaurant. Once again, we had a lot of fun. We also went shopping. There was this very cheap shop with all sorts of things.. I love shops like that, so we went shopping there. They had the cutest things ever, like some sort of hat to protect children for earthquakes... With Hello Kitty print, loves it right?

My day wasn't too special, but it was OK. In the evening, I went shopping in Harajuku =).

xx Steven

March 3rd - WTF?!

OMG, what a dramatic day. So lame, listen up!

This morning, I had practice for the tea party on the 29th of March. That is going to be a very important day, because I will have to perform in front of over 30 people.. But, I am improving and I think I am doing great. So, I'm confident about my first tea performance. After that, I did my daily gym routine, so nothing special.

In the evening, I met up with Noriko-san to go to a Ray-ban party. I was so excited, I even cancelled my tutoring. I was waiting for Noriko at Ebisu station, and I emailed her where I was and I asked her to call me once she got there. I mean, I'm not a native, so it's very difficult to find locations or places. Then, she emailed me back: Wait for my at the exit at the café. That pissed me off; there are a million cafés and thousands of exits, how am I supposed to know where? So I emailed her back that I didn't understand why she always has to make it so difficult. She finally arrived, and I didn't look to happy. She became SO upset with me, ridiculously upset. She would be like: 'Don't look at me that way, DON'T ORDER ME. Yadaya..'. Then, she walked away.

Normailly, I would have been like whatever, but this was different. So I ran after her to apologize (I wasn't sorry, but whatever) but she screamed: DON'T FOLLOW ME! People were looking at me as if I was some sort of creep.. I was SO mad, she didn't even try to understand my situation and she knew I cancelled my tutoring for this party. So, I missed out on the party ánd on my money. I felt bad doing it, but I called Yuki to ask if I could still come. They loved it, so I tutored after all. They had a whole meal waiting for me, they are just too sweet. Awkward day, I hope Noriko will forgive me.. OMG, what's there to forgive? Geezz..

xx Steven

P.s: Today was the daughter's festival in Japan. This is the day when the daughters are being celebrated. Every household has this traditional Dollhouse, with Japanese dolls. Shoko-san used that as inspiration for dinner, so cool.

March 1st & 2nd - PHOTOS

March 1st & 2nd - 'I LOVE NATURE'

March 1st

Today, I woke up because Asato called me. We had been planning to go to Mount Fuji, and the day was finally there! She looked all the information up and we met up around 3 o'clock in Shinjuku where the bus would departure. She told me to pack as light as I could, I was so excited. I mean, I was brought up with camping and hiking, but I haven't done that in a very long time. I just really need my space and a proper room.. But I wanted to go for it, a new experience!

I was wearing jeans, Dsquared belt, Dsquared shoes, UCLA hoodie and my normal bag. So, it was pretty much a fashionable outfit. When I saw Asato, I knew I was dressed too.. normal? She had a total hiking outfit and it was like she stepped out of a 'Human Nature' ad campain, haha. But I mean, loves it right! We got our tickets (1700 yen (13€), one way) and we waited for the bus. The bus was so comfortable, we had a good time.

The drive took us maybe 2 hours, and once we arrived, we wanted to have some serious dinner. The air was so cold and fresh, which was nice! The town was like a ghost-town, there was literally no one.. Kind of scary, but that's hot. Also, the mountains were simply beautiful.. Anyway, we looked for a place to eat, which took us longer than initially planned. But we saw so many amazing things, that it really didn't matter. At last, we ate at a very nice and cozy place, we ate noodles.

After dinner, we went to a game center.. Seriously, I would die if I would actually live in that town, I would probably be in that game center 24/7. We did puricula, my hobby. After that, we went to an onsen (hot spring). I had never been in an onsen before, so I was nervous. You have to be completely naked and I don't know, just a very new experience. But it was just gorgeous, when I got in, there were some people, but they left. So, I was alone all the time! Unfortunately, I couldn't make pictures, only one of the changing room. There was one hot spring inside, and two outside. Because I was all alone, I could fully relax! It was like a video-clip.. I don't know why, but I always see something glamorous in everything.. Excuse me! Haha.

We left that onsen around 11 o'clock, and went searching for out hostal. I could not believe I was actually going to sleep in a dormitory, so scary! But luckily, this is Japan so everything is very clean and new. We slept with 2 other persons in the room, awkward. I almost slept on my Ipod, Blackberry, wallet and phone.. Just too scared that anyone would actually steal my stuff.. But, I slept pretty well! And I am proud of myself to have lived the Simple Life for one night =)..

March 2nd

I woke up around 8 o'clock today. We ate breakfast at the cheapest family restaurant ever, I love that so much. We wanted to go to the forest, very scary forest. That forest is the most popular place to commit suicide for teenagers.. I don't know, but I just wanted to go there so badly. So we took the bus to that place. The environment was simply major, so beautiful! When we arrived, I was extremely happy. I mean, it was so cool. We entered the forest and it was like we entered a fairytale world. Everything was green (obviously..) and vast.

We walked for so long, but because of my good condition, I wasn't tired at all. There were a lot of secret caves everywhere, and other special nature-things. We also found a natural swing, which was totally cool. It was like a tree that was shaped like a swing, that was totally hot! Loved it.

I don't really know what to tell you about the forest, cause you just had to be there to see it yourself. Oh, and yeah, we didn't see any dead bodies hanging on the trees. Thank god, I would have died, also =). Also, we saw Mount Fuji, which was major. There was snow everywhere, but we didn't climb it, because that would have been very dangerous.

We didn't know where the bus stop was, so we just walked along the road. But that was kind of tiring, but whatever. Asato wanted to go hitch-hiking, but that's just a 'no-no' for me. I want to die as a non-hitch-hiker.. I rather walk to the moon that doing that =).

Anyway, we catched a bus and drove back to Shinjuku. We had to much fun, it was a great trip! We're planning to go skiing and to go to Kyoto next! I was so tired that evening that I went straight to bed..

xoxo Steven