ROACH - Piece of ASIA

Bad news first, I think my phones camera is busted from the humidity. The pics look awful so actually there's no reason for me to have my phone with me at all. Fucking great. I guess I could send it to Finland for repair but somehow it doesn't feel worth of it right now, I guess they can fix it when I'm back to Finland myself.

Flight from Moscow to Narita was quite uneventful. Though we did have DELICIOUS food! For dinner we had appetizers, main course and dessert. Appetizer was slices of smoked butterfish and marinated salmon (gravlax, elikkä suomalaisille graavilohta) with cucumber, lemon and lettuce. For main courses you could choose between Tilapia fillet in Teriyaki sauce served with green peas, bell pepper and Jasmine rice or Chicken in curry sauce with bell pepper, broccoli ad rice. As for dessert, we had caramel cake. Breakfast was also appetizer, main and dessert appetizer being slices of chicken fillet in curry sauce and smoked beef served with Edam cheese, pickles and black olives w/ lettuce,  main could be chosen from mushroom frittata with tomatoes and vegetable ratatouille and crepes with peaches and vanilla sauce. For dessert we got some kind of Russian nougat candies but we forgot to eat them and by the time we got to our "home", they were so melted we couldn't eat them :D I don't know why people think AEROFLOT is a bad airline, for me, it's one among others. OK, the staff is all Russian so expect a little crappy English but these guys at least tried unlike the staff at the airport! We both slept most of the flight so it was kinda easy :D

When we got to Narita and went through customs etc. and actually got our bags!! (for those who didn't know, we were supposed to get our luggage in Moscow but ran into some trouble (aka the airport staff) and our luggage were send to Tokyo after all), Eve got us some tickets to Tokyo and then we had to wait for a few hours for the N'EX train to leave. We got off in Shinjuku and had to find our way to Chuo-line to get to Nakano but everything went rather smoothly, the only actual "bad" thing being my huge bag :______D got off in Nakano and made our way to YADOYAs office and then to our "home" near Higashi-Nakano, Suzushiro A. What to say about this place... well, crappy is one way but if I'd be putting it nicely, I guess I could say it has character XD moldy, humid-kind of character :D nah, I live, for two weeks and then off to Shinjuku and Lis' and Yoheis place!! Dear God I hope they have AC!!

It's so hot in here, every day the "real feel" or "comfortable level" has been like +38, the actual degrees around +32 but humidity being over 65% all the time makes it hotter. I knew it'd be hot so I guess I shouldn't complain but I have to admit I'm hoping to find some sort of a nirvana with this weather XD

We haven't been doing much yet, just trying to get used to the weather and walking around Nakano and Higashi-Nakano. Yesterday we were sitting at some stairs near Nakano ZERO, in front of Daikyu JHS and  some kids (maybe 12 yo) walked past us, one of them was carrying everyone elses bags and when they saw us, they snickered and told him to talk to us so for the whole 3 minutes it took them to walk by, he kept saying 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry' :D for what he was sorry about, I have no idea, maybe it was just all he could think of in English at that moment :D overall kids, little ones, are so cute when they notice you're a foreigner, they just stare at you and when yo look back, they smile like you just made their day :D when we sat there on the stairs, I noticed someone waving at us from the school windows and before we knew it, there were 5 kids staring and giggling and waving at us :____D later when it was dark already, maybe around 9.30PM, we were walking around, trying to find some temple I thought I knew were it was but didn't, some older boys, maybe high schoolers, went by us with their bikes and just as we were far enough, they shouted 'Fuck you bitch', which, I can only guess, was again the first thing to pop into their minds. A little less Western AVs, how about it boys? ;))

I'm pretty sure Japanese people have a lower body temperature 'cos they all look so cool and uncaring of this heat. Yeah, I know I'm not used to this, but it's so unfair to be out in daylight and look like I just ran a marathon and then poured bucket loads of water on me an then there's a dozen Mr. 12-out-of-10s in jeans and sweatshirts :O

Today we went to Nakano Sun Mall on the North side of Nakano station. It's a loooong hallway filled with stores selling just about anything and apparently on 2nd, 3rd and 4th floor is an otaku Heaven with all you can ever need in the anime/manga/cosplay department. An Akihabara #2 it seems. The mall was nice and cool, despite all the people, so it was a nice change. Didn't get any pics this time though, but maybe we'll go there again tomorrow so I'll take pics then. Just have to remember to take the other camera!

Tomorrow would be the first change to go check out Harajuku but I think we'll check out Horikoshi HS instead. It's a kilometer away from our home and should be quite easy to find. I suppose most of you don't what's the big deal on this high shool so to sum it up, it's a private HS where a lot of Japanese idols go to (Akanishi Jin, Yamashita Tomohisa, Miura Haruma etc.) so it's totally a place for us :__D ok, ok, I guess it'll be quite empty on a Sunday but we can go again on Monday to see the upcoming idols up close ;)) plus of course I have to see the school 'cos my friend Yuuko went there when she was in high school!

Well, I guess this is enough already, if you made it this far, congrats :D this is mostly for myself anyway so yeah... sorry Mom and Dad that this is in English but I'm sure you'll manage ;) off to see if I could boil some water for my noodles in this rat hole♥

Rammstein - Moskau

Sitting at the Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow is no piece of cake. The staff here speaks little to no English and has apparently had no training in how to deal with customers. Don't expect any help nor a friendly face when coming through here. Seems it's not very great that you're only passing through the Great Mother Russia and you should be punished for such an attrocity. People look straight through you like you're not even there and God forbid if the personnel at the desk for international connection flights would actually know what they're doing or answer question if your poor soul should have some problems. I knew this would be... interesting to say the least but to tell the truth this is more like a bad infomercial if how NOT to do things!

On a lighter note, we have roughly 12 hours left until the flight to Tokyo. We managed to get a few hours of sleep on the floor but I might take on The Parents' offer to get a hotel room for the transfer-time in August.

emmurée - I hear the clocks counting down

So the time has come, in just a few short hours we'll be on the plane to Moscow. Our flight leaves at 6.45PM Finnish time and lands 9.30PM Russian time so it's a 1h45min trip, then we'll have a jolly good 22 hours and 30 minutes of leisure time on the Shremetyevo airport not a long distance away from the lights of  Moscow but still unattainable for us 'cos we didn't feel like paying almost 100€ for visas :D

From Moscow to Tokyo we'll be leaving on the 6th at 8PM Russian time if I'm not completely wrong and landing in Tokyo 10.20AM Japanese time so I hopehopehope I can catch a few hours of sleep at some point. I'm not too positive I'll be able to relax too much at Sheremetyevo but maybe on the plane then *crosses fingers*

I haven't had time to get anxious while we were in Kokkola, every day we were so busy with wedding related stuff, but now I'm kinda seeing some butterflies in the horizon, if you know what I mean ;)) everything is packed but I still need to finish sewing my pants XD I'm such a procrastinator it's not even funny :_____D with that, I' off to do the sewing machine, I'll try to update every once in a while~