Goodbye to Satoko, Trains' Trips : Hiroshima & Nagasaki, and Great days

Last sunday, Satoko left for Hongkong and Xiamen already. I didn't send her off to the airport but we did have a last-delicious dinner at a sushi ya san. It was one of the saddest things that she left. I don't know when I will be able to see her again but somehow she plans to visit Indonesia next year. I can't tell how much helps she had given me and how much of Japanese cultures and places she had shown me, one thing for sure she was my best Japanese family. Good bye my dear friend, we will meet again.

To give myself a bit of last pleasure in Japan, next month, from 4th to 7th, I will start my trains' trips to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I bought the three pieces of "all you can go" tickets anywhere in Japan for just 7.200 yen (it's called " Youth 18 tickets"). But of course one ticket is valid only for 1 day. Here are my schedules :
Day 1 : Osaka - Himeji - Okayama - Hiroshima ( from 6.00am to 12.00pm), have fun in Hiroshima, stay at a ryokan.
Day 2 : Hiroshima - Ogokori - Kokura - Tosu - Hizenyamaguchi - Nagasaki ( from 7.00am to 17.00pm), stay at whether a ryokan or capsule hotel.
Day 3 : Have fun in Nagasaki.
Day 4 : Nagasaki - Tosu - Kokura - Iwakuni - Okayama - Himeji - Osaka ( from 6.00am to 23.00pm)

It's gonna be a very tiring trips, but I think I will enjoy it since I am going to pass through many places, and not to mention all the fun and unexpected things I will get from this trip.
But since I have limited times and most of the times I will have to catch the trains, I must be well prepared. So, I have read books on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, bought a timetable's book, and of course with a little advices from my classmate, Gillermo ( an Mexican guy who just returned from these places not long ago), I guess everything should be fine. Yeah !

Recently, I have been living to the utmost. Besides my busy life with my work, I am happy that I am finally on my feet again. I used to think of some unpleasant memories, but now things have changed. Things have been going well both on my works and studies, I am feeling happier right now. I speak more fluent Japanese now, made some new friends and nice partners on works. Furthermore, somehow my love-life seems to appear again. No, I am not saying I am seeing anyone right now, in fact, I am trapped by my own friendliness. And I am scared by this person's great attention, I have never meant to mislead someone, and now I am in trouble.

Okonomiyaki and AusAid

Today Satoko visited my home and we made okonomiyaki, one of the speciality food in Osaka. It's easy and it's actually like "martabak" in Indonesia, which made from flours and eggs. Well, just to remind of myself of this easy recipe, I am going to write it down here :
The ingredients : okonomiyaki flour or any kind of flour is okay, two eggs, 150cc of water, meat, cabbage and green onion.
How to make :
1. Cut the cabbage and green onion in pieces.
2. Put the flour, eggs, cabbage and green onion then add water.
3. Stir until it becomes quite sticky.
4. Fry the mixed and make it as rounded as possible in a cooking pan.
5. Add the meat.
6. Turn off the fire and then put mayonaise and okonomiyaki sauce over it.
7. Add koitsu and aonori.
8. Eat it hot.
PS: I can't explain what is koitsu ( it's one kind of fish but it's dried and looks like pieces of paper, very light ) and aonori is one kind of seaweed with green color.
I tried making it myself and satisfied with the tastes. Haha...: )

Well, just decided that I am going to take the scholarship offered by the AusAid. Henry wrote to me today and he's applying for it too and asking me whether I would like to take a chance. I actually wanted to apply for this scholarship two years ago, but at that time I wasn't graduated yet from my university, so I am going to take it this year. It's pretty tough since only 300 persons are going to be approved. Anyway, first thing first. Apply first and see what 's gonna happen later. Yeah !

This august, most of the time I am working with the Sou brothers. They're both funny guys especially the younger brother. The elder brother has just been in Japan for 4 months while the younger one already been here for 4 years. I like working with them since they can't stop talking, just talking about anything and I like that. ^.^

It might be the last time I met with Hideki and Kaoru. Last tuesday, I went to their house to visit the new born baby girl. Oh, she's so cute ( just reminds me of Derren). Then we talked alot about Hideki's works ( he's just got promoted as the Warehouse Supervisor ) and since I studied accounting before (plus mom works in this warehouse's field), I know some things connected to the warehouse, and I was glad I could manage to answer some shipping procedures from Hideki. Hah !
I don't know when will I be able to meet them again, but frankly, they're a really nice couple, and being friends with them is one of the best thing I've ever experienced in Japan. ^.^

I've got a good news from my sis. She's pregnant again and predicted next March, she will give birth. I am really really happy that I will get another nephew ( niece, I prefer since I've already had the naughty Derren ).

Finally, I have booked my tickets back to Jakarta via Seoul. I will leave on 23rd of September, and then on 27th, I will arrive at Jakarta. It's earlier than I expected but it was unbelievable to me that all seats to Seoul from 24th to 28th are full, and I was lucky enough to get a seat on the 23rd.

Forget German. It sounds like I am giving up German already, right? Just a few days ago I said I wanted to learn it, but now I have to put it aside. But don't get me wrong, I still want very much to learn more about it as the matter of fact that I found it very challenging and interesting. It's just that at this moment, I have no time and not to mention I have no teacher here which means I need LOTS of time learning it. I will do that later. At this moment, I am concentrating much to my Japanese since I will take the Japanese Proficiency Test this december. So, yesterday I went to the library again and borrowed 5 books. Yeah, now I am ready to spend my spare times practicing it. ^.^

I feel like going home right now, I guess that I miss my family much. Last saturday, I made a call to mom and she told me that they're going to ask for American visa next month and asking whether they should wait for me. It's fine with me, I can do that later by myself.
Well, a new idea coming up again. If I get the visa, I probably will stay for a few months in the USA ( even though that I can't say that I like that place very much, but I'd like to experience a new environment). I don't know yet, this is just one of my plans, and I usually don't stick to plans, know what I mean ?

German ? Too Little Time?

I finally found out one great "hanging out" place here. Well, at least to me. It's a library. A very big library, indeed. A three-floors big library where you can find any kind of books, and of course I like the English and foreign languages corners best. ^.^ Another great thing is it's a great escape from the heat, haha... I like that place very much that I think I can spend my whole day there.
Anyway, I went there two days ago, registered myself (free, of course) and borrowed total of 6 items : "The Brethen" (John Grisham), two German's learning books (including CD and CD Rom), a dictionary of German-English, and one Spanish's learning book (for Ken).
Today, I finished reading the novel, and now I can concentrate on learning German. I hope I can handle two languages at one time : working hard with my Japanese and now German ! Hah !

Okay, so I started my new language's course earlier than I expected. Well, since I can get the materials free here, why not using it? To my surprise, it's not as difficult as I thought. Some words are similar to English, and believe it or not, the alphabets pronounciation are almost alike with the Indonesian. Anyway, I am just starting it, and so far it's quite interesting. I know that German's grammars aren't that easy, I just hope I can keep going. Yeah !

Somehow, I am feeling like I am running out of time every day. This summer, I am spending times at school, meeting with Satoko and helping her with her English, working, and learning new language. I try not to sleep too late every night, so that I can wake up early in the morning and then mingle with the crowds inside the trains just to get to school every day ( even though I am always late at least 30 minutes ).

That's all and I feel like I have no more spare times ! It's not that I dislike it, I am enjoying it every day, but it seems like I am having too little time yet too much things to do.

My flight back to Jakarta will be on the 25th of next month. First, I will spend three or four days in Seoul, meet my friends and explore Korea ( in such a short time ??) then back to Jakarta, perhaps around the 28th or 29th.

Kamikochi and Myoujin Pond

Okay, so I returned from Nagano already. It was a really great trip, I think that was the best trip I have ever had in Japan. Even though the bus' trip was quite tiring ( and I had to cancel my work at that day ) but overall it's worth the price ! Yeah.

Me and Satoko arrived at Kamikochi at 6am, it was quite cold ( and I blamed myself not to bring any additional cloth, a bit of brrrr...) but when the sun was coming out, the weather was just right. ^.^
I was so impressed by the forest and great mountains ( some mountains still have the remaining snows ) and the water of the flowing rivers are green !! They're so beautiful !
We walked to the deep forest ( tiring enough for me since I didn't do hiking for so many years ), and finally came to the Kamikochi bridge. Actually the bridge itself isn't that beautiful, but the mountains behind the bridge were incrediblely beautiful ! Then we walked more deeply again and got to the Myojin Pond, a very nice pond which you can see the reflection of the mountains behind.

Now something funny that happened yesterday at the ramen ya san. There was one drunk customer came, he was so heavily drunk that he couldn't even sit right, and almost fell to sleep. It was not busy at that time so I patiently watched him and suddenly he took the pepper and wanted to drink it ( he thought it was a beer ) and because of course he couldn't drink it, he thought that the can of that "beer" wasn't open, he tried to flick it up,and then failed. Later, he tried stabbing the can using the chopstick. I was almost laughed it out loudly but then I came to him and said that it's not a beer, it's a pepper.
Somehow, there're lots of drunken customers coming, and funny things always happen.