Two in a Row!

Hello--

Today's Activity
Today Ryan and I tried to walk to the ocean from our apartment again. We've done it once before. We left at about 9am in the morning. We were about 35 minutes from our goal (it was noon) when it started pouring. I'll admit it, for once I was the weak one who decided to take the bus back. We rode the bus somewhat soaked back to the station and took the train to a stop 2 down from ours in order to grab some Subway!

New Stuff
I've got new cowboy boots! I never would've dreamed of wearing pointy toed boots--but they just were too perfect to resist. Some students saw me and said "AH! Country Fashion! It suits you!" it was very cute. Here, all fashion has a category, much more so than in the U.S. at least. So whatever I'm wearing students often ask (in Japenglish) "whatsu youaa fashon pointo?" or, in English "What's the 'look' your going for?" They're asking if I'm trying to be goth, ballet style, punk, rock star, and--the recent popular addition: country fashion--cute cowboy boots with a skirt and maybe a denim jacket--something I enjoy because I can wear it to school looking more relaxed and simply change my shoes and take off the jacket too look professional enough to pass and yet not feel all stuffy when I go home. I hate dressing up.

Bonus info--The Little I Know of Fashion Unique in Japan
Here are some current fashions entirely unique to Japan (although the maid cosplay/ningyo looks is becoming surprisingly popular in the U.S. and other places). I'll just be providing links to pics and info--links will be added later actually.

gyaru A look that's more en vogue toward the Western side of Japan, but in Tokyo as well. Girls bleach their hair to a yellow straw, tan a lot, and wear flourescent colored skirts (bright orange, green, yellow--recently it's been flourescent, it depends on the season), sometimes putting on white eye make up all over around their eyes that looks like a super-hero mask. These girls, as Sato sensei so kindly taught me, can also be called ogyaru the 'o' not being an honorific in this case, rather it means "dirty." Gyaru is a Japenglish form of "girl" so it means "dirty girl." Not dirty in the sense of morality, however, it simply means that some of the girls tend to prefer not to bathe due to the extensiveness of their make-up. So, they smell bad and are literally dirty.

Ningyo? Ningyo means doll--(or mermaid depedning on the chinese characters/Kanji) I'm not sure of the proper name, but Melissa saw a couple girls who were dressed like dolls--to the nines--while we were in Tokyo Disneyland this July. You'll see these girls doing the "chinadoll cosplay" often in Harajuku, near Shibuya which is within the Tokyo area, and other places as well, of course. They wear full outfits/costumes with fluffy skirts above the knees, stockings, shoes, matching lacy bags and even parasols. Sometimes you could say the costumes look like fluffy french maid outfits, except they may be in pastel colors like pink or blue, not only black.

Hopefully I got that right.