lace qeen and space jellyfish-fungi

today i nearly cried in front of my boss and makiko. but really, it is a sad story.

makiko walks with a crutch, i thought that maybe she had an accident recently. yesterday at dinner, she told me that she has a fake leg, because, five years ago, she was very ill and it had to be taken off. i didn't really know what to say cause i felt so sorry for her. today, i looked through lace queen, a collection of her drawings. she had drawn only girls, about 100 pages of young and lascivious girls. in the last part, however, they where all missing one leg, like a big break. she gave me another book, of which takahashi-san had written the story and she had done the illustrations:
it's about a mouse, nii, who is friends with the doll meme. meme has lost one leg and has to stay in the trashcan she was thrown in, for she can't walk. so, nii tries to find her a new leg and finally gets a robot leg which fits on meme. she doesn't really like it because she can't wear skirts with a robot leg. but nii says, since it's a strong leg, maybe she could even jump higher and run faster than before. in the end, meme can neither jump nor run, but at least she is able to walk out of the trashcan and, after not having seen the sky for so long, she is amazed at how very huge it is.

having read this, i couldn't say anything, i had to hold back my tears. i still don't know what to say, for she had to suffer so much and still is so kind and seems to be a really lovely person.

puh. it feels wrong to bring up anything else after this, but still, i have to.

takahashi-san gave me two books which contained the backgrounds of an anime-movie. i never really thought about how they make animations nowadays, i only knew the backgrounds from walt disney from back in the 40s. so i was surprised to see those backgrounds which are more like paintings, really. looking through a book like that feels like walking trough a movie set after the movie's finished. nobody's there, you can wander the places and, since i didn't know the anime, i could invent my own stories on those backgrounds. i hope i'll find more books like these in a second-hand bookshop.

i want this! now! way to much cool kitsch to leave it to an anime.

they just look so ... flirrrps!

besides the usual, mindnumbing stuff, like cutting objects in photoshop, that every intern has to go through, nothing special happened today. i didn't even go swimming cause i was too late. meh.


  

too many good things for one day and one strange little ... thing?

now, this is all way too good to happen. i still can't believe i had this much luck today. but first things first.

claire had told me about a free japanese course near where i live, so i went there at 10 am to see if they have a place for me. i learned that it's mostly elderly japanese men and woman who volunteer to teach foreigners for free. thats so nice, i am really grateful. i can go there once a week, but there are other schools like this all over osaka, so, to learn faster, maybe i'll visit another one as well.

i then wandered the shopping arcades around namba station. there's a park in between all the highways crossing town and skyscrapers. it's a building with trees on every floor, some rivers and a playground for children.

namba park from above ...

... and from below.

on my way back, i finally bought some dishwasher and other household stuff i was to lazy to get till now, collected a month's supply of free tissues and said hello to a gigantic crab at kuromon market.

(i just like the roof)

 also, i found this little fellow:

wth?!

i just had time to change my clothes, because i had an interview with a graphic design agency named kokokumaru at 3 pm., so i rushed and still was 15 minutes late. but all went really well, far better than i even dared hoping before (the boss, takahashi-san, even speaks english. yay!). instead of taking me as an intern for just two or three weeks, he said i'd do the internship till the end of the year and then we'd see how to go on. and i only need to come on mondays, wednesdays and fridays, so i have enough time left to learn japanese. he showed me some of the books in which his works are published and also one of his own books. i love his work, that's why i only applied at his office and not for even one other agency in japan. i was really happy then, when they (he and his co-worker) told me that i could join them for a graphic design vernissage this evening. now i started to fly.

it was just a really tiny vernissage, one little room, but there must have been quite a lot important osaka designers. i talked to some thanks to makiko, the co-worker and now i have a stack of business cards from people who invited me to their office (mind you, i was already floating above the clouds of happiness).

and now, to gloriously crown the day, takahashi-san invited me and makiko to a dinner. it amused them that i am vegetarian, but they tried to find as much as possible on the menu for me, which ended up being far too much for my poor little stomach, but, since i haven't had the time to eat since breakfast, it was perfect.

so, from today on, i'm a happy little intern in a graphic design agency in japan. what more could i wish for? exactly, payment, but i'll give that some time. haha!

    

maybe my back won't hate me anymore?

just a few minutes ago i was all like "meh, didn't see anything of the town today, just learning japanese" and now i'm like YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYSSSSSS!!!
since i did not go out today besides to the public swimming pool (i bought a ticket for one month yesterday), i thought i at least could take some nice pictures of the surroundings from the roof. so i picked up my camera, went up two floors and ran into the manager of the apartments i live in. he isn't around quite so often, i was really lucky. why? i live in a traditional japanese style apartment with tatami (mats) on the floor. for sleeping you only have a really thin futon, and, since i'm used to my comfy, worn ikea matress my back didn't like it at all. so, i asked him if i could have a second futon and he said yesssssssss! he made an exception for me and asked me to not tell anybody, so hush! don't tell anyone where i live or some might get envious.
yes, i know, it's easy to make my day.

yummy cabbage-stuff and the all-year oktoberfest feeling

osaka is like the oktoberfest in munich in some places. there are huge writhing plastic crabs, gigantic dragons winding in and out of houses and even some ferris wheels. and, of course, a ridiculous amount of people crowding in one of the main shopping streets, leaving so little space between them that they seem to be one creature rather than individuals.

me and claire (a german girl i got to know at the airport) visited america mura today, a part of the inner city where all the main western brands have their little shops and where a lot of japanese boys and girls dress in western resp. american fashion. it's kinda cute cause they overdo it so immensely that you are reminded of the worst of the 80s, only in japanese style: too much of everything. in one of the big shopping centers we ate those cabbage-egg-stuff pankakes (forgot the name, it's an osaka speciality). delicious!

while walking i realised that you really have to search for a place in the streets where you don't see masses of cables in the sky. it's like an artificial jungle. i love it, it feels almost organic.

now i'm heading for the public swimming pool which is just around the corner. yay, fitness!

about my starving yesterday: at 4pm i finally got out, bought some noodles, removed the shrimp and meat-dice (it's not easy to be vegetarian) and i hereby swear to myself that i'll never get into the situation of not having absolutely anything to eat at home again.

first entry from japan: starving on an orange

it's now my second "real" day in osaka, japan and i still haven't seen much of the city. it's been raining heavily all day. i don't even want to go out to buy something to eat, all i had today was an orange. and, not having anything but water at home, i'm either gonna starve or get soaked if it won't stop raining.

the only things i saw so far was the view from the bus driving from kansai airport (which is on an artificial island) to namba station in the heart of osaka and, not to forget, some passages and streets circling my apartment when i dragged my 28 kilo luggage behind me for two hours, following an american from wisconsin and his two japanese friends, trying to find my apartment, only to end up at the subway station i arrived at again (i then got picked up by the manager, luckily).

the jetlag is killing me, yesterday i got up only to buy said oranges, water and some really sticky rice (if any european was ever wondering how to eat rice with chopsticks: the problem is not to pick the rice up but to get it back off). i spent all day lying in my room and convincing myself that i'll go out tomorrow and try not to get lost (again).

it's 13:06; i'm really getting hungry right now and the rain is getting worse ...
i'm where i always wanted to be and now i'm not even able to step outside my door. it's ridiculous.