Lupus - A Restaurant's Name

Wow! I haven't updated for a long time - my apologies! I have no real excuse as to why I haven't updated. Actually, I kind of forgot about my blog. Oops!

Did I mention how the gig went? The first gig went pretty well. While my bandmate and I did make some mistakes on stage, the crowd loved us (granted they were all my students and friends). We couldn't have asked for a better crowd for our first gig. I was so nervous to perform, during one song I completely blanked on the lyrics for a while haha! Our second gig (We had a second gig on July 16th) went well - no mistakes but due to the last minute invitation to play and the time of our performance there were only about five people in the audience. Oh well! We had a lot of fun playing. We dont have any plans to perform again in the near future. I think there is talk of another performance at the first venue in October or something. The second venue asked us to perform every month but we declined - we're too busy for that kind of commitment.

So since Vietnam was cancelled due to an overall lack of interest by Japanese people (the tour needed 10 people to be held and only my friend Ayano and I signed up) we have decided to go to Hong Kong! We decided to opt out of going on a tour and to just sightsee by ourselves. We're going for five days leaving in about a week and a half. My travel companion is a bit nervous about going to Hong Kong so I have assured her I will be better than any tour guide so I have to start finding out where to go and what to see. While we're over there we are going to stop by and say hello to an old high school friend of mine. I haven't seen him in seven years! Wow time flies!

Speaking of time flying - it's my 25th birthday today. I had a nice video chat with my parents and brother, it was really good to see their faces. My family sent me birthday presents too!! I got some lovely clothes which I'm very excited to wear! So for the birthday festivities... tonight I'm keeping it a bit low key with a small birthday dinner with a few students and my coworker (it's her last day today). I took tomorrow off so I plan to relax all day and then head into Tokyo to celebrate with some friends. We're planning to have a photo scavenger hunt which should be very entertaining.
As a side note... people keep saying "congratulations" to me because it's my birthday. It makes me think.... are you congratulating me that I've managed to stay alive this long? Surely it cant be that big of a feat. It makes me think of dogs who get into the garbage and eat some chocolate and accidentally die. "Congratulations, you haven't accidentally killed yourself (yet)".

Fresh Radicals - Some Guy's Hat

Wow it's been a while since I last updated. I'm a total shmuck when it comes to keeping regular contact with people.
So a lot has been happening!
1) I had my first encounter with a chikan (pervert) on the train. That was interesting! He kept staring at my chest and asking if he could pay me to touch my boobs. Poor guy was not expecting me to be able to swear at him in Japanese hahah. He quickly got off the train and went to another car. For people saying how common chikans are on trains I'm kind of surprised it took over a year for one to bother me.
2) I rode my bike for the first (and probably last) time. What can I say? The bike is too small for me, I feel ridiculous on it. I think I'd feel more comfortable on a bigger bike for safety reasons too, not like a bigger bike could do much against a car anyways.
3) I booked my trip to Vietnam for August!! I'm going for six days with my coworker. We chose to go on a tour that would allow us to see most of the country, starting in Hanoi and ending in Ho Chi Minh. The tour, interestingly enough, is all in Japanese. With the tour we get to see four world heritage sites which should be cool (I'm not exactly sure which ones as the brochure was all in Japanese haha all I know is that I'm going to Ha Long Bay and getting to do a river cruise on the Mekong so I'm happy.
4) My gig is in less than two weeks and I could not be more terrified! I think I might have the lyrics down for two of the three songs I'm singing. The Japanese song is proving to be very difficult.
5) Rainy season started almost a full month early which apparently means we're in for a ridiculously hot summer. It's a good thing the air conditioning at work has been broken for about two months and the classrooms are now getting up to 30+ degrees.