Birthday

Good afternoon or as they say in Japan; こんばんは, 

It's that time of the year again, My birthday! Well it was recently you know me; terrible at writing posts on time. 

This year I celebrated my 19th Birthday. As usual, or at least for the last 5 years, my birthday is during the exam period. Best luck ever, most years I actually have an exam or two on my day, so in comparison you could say that this year was a breeze. Even though for once it was relatively hot due to being in Japan rather than the UK, I would still not go as far as saying that. 

As a result, for which has become tradition for me I have several birthdays before,on the day, and after. It almost becomes a birthday fortnight. As you know last year I had a Camping festival, this year I scaled it back a bit, although the quantity increased. This year I had 3 haha; 

1. With my mum before -  Day out In Tokyo 
2. The actual day - Lazy pamper day and Dinner out
3. Party with friends after - Yoyogi Park 

Day out in Tokyo

My mum was actually away on a business trip for my birthday so we celebrated the weekend prior. Seeing as it was coming towards the end of our stay in Japan, we decided to do a bit more exploring of Tokyo. Its a huge place, there is always things to see. This time we decided to go more as ladies of leisure rather than the frantic tourist. There was no rush out the door to get the earliest train, which was great if just for the fact that I LOVE my sleep. 

Once we made our way into Tokyo we navigated ourselves to Tokyo Sky tree. Top tip for anyone that is visiting Japan or has a foreign passport: You can jump the huge queue to get up the tree. I felt kind of bad to begin with, but no matter how great the view is it's not worth 2+ hours wait. I say that but, I would recommend going, although it really is a weather permitting activity, If its cloudy its a waste of money. And remember you can always try the government office which is free. 

There are 3 floors, the top you have to pay extra for, which is kind of annoying but I can understand. It also means that when you do get there it is a lot quieter than the other two floors. Another secret most people don't notice is to pay particular notice to the lifts. 

We then went to the other side of Tokyo for some retail therapy and some architecture spotting in place called Omotesando. While I have been in Japan I bought a book of Modern architecture all over the country so I thought it was about time we visited some. We did a little shopping but nothing major, it was just nice to have a girly day in the city. We ended up getting back to Utsunomiya on the last train rather late.

Yoyogi Park

As I said my birthday is in the middle of exams so its sometimes quite challenging to organise my friends to celebrate my birthday. This year was particularly difficult due to it being the last year of A-Levels and I live quite a distance from everyone else. So much so that I had kinda given up. Luckily some of the friends I have in Tokyo weren't going to let that happen.

My birthdays is the middle of May which means there is always a week exam free due to May Half term, so one of my friends arranged for us all to meet in a park near Shibuya. It was nice to have someone else organise my birthday, not something I had experienced before but it was hassle free for me, all I had to do was turn up. Great!

We were really lucky that we had really good weather, my shoulders were a tad rosey at  the end of the day. It was so nice to see everyone, that came, even the people that I hadn't met before. It was such a great day and everyone was so lovely, one of the guys I had never really met before made birthday panacotta. Super sweet, not the taste the texture. We chilled out, ate food, had a lot of laughs. So it was a great day, and i'm so thankful to everyone that came. 

Well thats my birthday adventures, I hope you enjoyed reading what I got up to. See you soon. 

Maria xx

Living in Japan

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Manic Week

Good evening, ... or morning, depending where you are :)

So with all the planning and becasue my mum is in such high demand ;) our flights were booked for the 30th of June. Which left us with less than 10 days to get organised. Best and worst week ever, so little time and so much to do. Not only did we have to pack and ship everything as well as cancel/reduce our bills (boring adult stuff), but i also had a lot of arrangements already.

The day after we got back to English soil I had my friend's belated 18th Birthday! To say the least I was tired, jet lag is worse on the way back - probably has something to do with the fact I did not sleep on the flight back. That aside, I had so much fun and there are so many good ... and bad memories from that night. 18th party = alcohol, which lets just say it doesn't mix well with jet lag. That's not to say I got 'hammered' but I did get a bit 'tiddly'. Which made socialising easier, I think, which was good because there were new and old people as well as my closest friends. The party also had a theme so if you were stuck with what to say you could just play the guessing game; Who are you? The theme was Fictional Character so I went as a Gingerbread Man/Women, to be honest I hadn't had a lot of time to prepare (being in Japan and all) so that's what I had in my closet.

Next, More 18th Parties! This time it was my cousins birthday, she lives near Warwick, so we travelled up there and then for her birthday we went to Alton Towers. Hers was a much smaller, quieter party.  There was me, my cousin, her sister (who's birthday is the day after, busy busy) and 3 of my cousins friends. Now Alton towers have had some extremely bad press recently, which I think is known worldwide, lets just say one of their rides broke and lots of people were severely hurt. Anyways due to this there were very few people at the park, where normally it would be packed. On the average day you can expect to wait between 60-120mins and the longest wait that day was 30mins. Its unfortunate but it meant we were able to do everything at the park where you would normally only be able 4-8 rides. Even though I didn't know most of the group, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Things to note about a UK 18th Parties

- There is normally alcohol
- Its always a laugh for one reason or another
- At least one person has to go home early because they've been sick for one reason or another, however this could be just my experience as I've only been to 3 - I'm not that popular.
- There is always one argument

- There are plenty of memories to keep forever

After the jam packed weekend it was time for a brief interlude of boring stuff. I had to go to school on Tuesday and Wednesday to go to a few classes as well as meet my teachers to discuss my trip to Japan. Overall all it went well, but of course you don't always agree with everything they say. We then had plenty of paperwork as well as going to the Embassy of Japan to apply and collect our visas. Not that I can really complain because the embassy is near Green park underground and round the corner is Harvey Nichols (expensive department store). So I was able to use my powers of persuasion to get lunch in the restaurant, which we used to go to regularly when I danced in London. Depending on who you ask, this was planned or not, but there just happened to be SALE!!! Some sales are bad, there is no point if it just 20% but this beauty was 60% - I nearly died. When it comes down to it I ended up spending my birthday money on a Michael Kors bag, its beautiful and I feel in love almost instantly and then I saw the price tag and I couldn't let it go.

Your probably thinking that's busy, there must be just packing left, hahaha no! PROM. Senior prom was on Thursday. My two best friends came over to get ready and then we went to meet my other friends before we actually went to prom. See I'm super cool, I had a pre-party before the pre-party, not ;). Prom this year was less about the partying and more about being together for the last time. The dance floor was mostly empty, although the teachers were making good use of it, and people were just mingling. A lot happened that night, I had too many giggles with my friends, I reconnected with old ones, I spoke to a few people in more detail which was really nice. Last but not least one of my classmates brought me a drink/s. I know it probably didn't mean anything but I'm a girl and that was the first time that has happened so I thought it was pretty great.

My friends came back to mine and we really didn't get much sleep, when we woke up the moving men had already arrived. My friends stayed all day which was really great, even though I felt really bad as I thought it would be really boring. Packing was so confusing as I am only going for 6 months, we couldn't say "just pack everything", there were 4 different options; Go-AIR, Go-Ship, Storage and Stay. It doesn't get much more confusing and because we had been so busy we were unable to do any prep. So they asked us to do a walk through, which was fine we are tidy and we roughly knew what we were taking, but I had just had 3 teenage girls in my room for 2 days so my room was a tip - they very wisely decided to leave my room for Monday.

The weekend was just as busy; packing, labelling, sorting out arrangements and buying last minute things like ibuprofen which they don't seem to have in Japan. And when they do its prescription only and really tiny doses because they are generally smaller people in comparison. My boyfriend came over Sunday night to help. I'm going to miss him so much. Oh wait almost forgot, on Sunday morning I had my ballet exam! It went well except that day was particularly hot and humid and I am pretty sure I looked like a tomato throughout. Also due to the heat my feet had swollen up, my pointe shoes are normally very comfortable (as comfortable as standing on your toes can be) and I can dance well but that day it was just not happening. I was all over the place.

When the movers came back on Monday everything was labelled and the process was a lot more smoother as well as quick. Everything was packed up and taken to their respected places leaving our house quite empty. The next morning we were on our way to the airport, next destination Japan with 6 bags of luggage!

Maria xx

Moving to Japan

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