I just wanted to write down some cute quotes I like and make a daily post out of them as well.

Here are a couple of pictures from the book 花と苺がいちばん可愛い (Flowers and strawberrries are the cutest). There are so many cuuuute books filled with different themes of clipart, they have popped up all over the bookstores in Japan, especially over the two past years. There is at least 5 other books I want to get just because they are beautiful, but I hardly use these kinds of books. One will have to do for now, so I chose the ones that had birds, cakes and deers. It is just 100 pages of super cute clipart, and the CD that comes with the book, everything is in good resolution in both JPG and PNG. 本当に可愛いでしょうね？

This is how I start my day today! キャンディーズ　年下の男の子 , my new project is to learn how to sing this to impress all the women around 40 at the local bars 😉 Hope you are all having a fabulous morning!

今、日本語を勉強していますが何回も読んだのにまだわかりません。。。最近日本語の授業や宿題はドンドン難しくなると思います。

Translation: What happens two times, happens three times.

Ok, the video part of this video is just pictures of flowers, but the song! Omg, the song. I think I have a new favorite song. I love Hibari Misora, but I do not know all of her songs, but yesterday I heard this song again and actually got the title, and went straight home and looked it up on youtube. And omg. The text. So beautiful. I turned into this big blobby sappy thing, crying and smiling and whatnot. I realize I sometimes I have musical taste like someone’s grandmother, but I don’t really care.

♪ ♫ ♩ ♬「雨 潸々と この身に落ちて わずかばかりの運の悪さを 恨んだりして 人は哀しい 哀しいものですね それでも過去達は 優しく睫毛に憩う 人生って 不思議なものですね 風 散々と この身に荒れて 思いどおりにならない夢を 失くしたりして 人はかよわい かよわいものですね それでも未来達は 人待ち顔して微笑む 人生って 嬉しいものですね 愛 燦々と この身に降って 心秘かな嬉し涙を 流したりして 人はかわいい かわいいものですね ああ 過去達は 優しく睫毛に憩う 人生って 不思議なものですね ああ 未来達は 人待ち顔して微笑む 人生って 嬉しいものですね」♪ ♫ ♩ ♬

Yesterday was a lot of fun btw, we went to Chiba for the evening. Go inaka! Chiba is the prefecture next to Tokyo in the east, and among other things Disneyland and Narita airport are in Chiba. Still, I have never really been much in Chiba, apart from trips to the airport and trips to Disneyland. Anyhow, we ate sushi and drank some sake at the sushi-bar, went to a bar that my partner used to go to from about 18 years ago, and everyone in the bar was old enough to be my parents, or grandparents. Hohum. They were singing karaoke and drinking shōchū, and we sang too, in the middle of drinking sake and smoking too many cigarettes. Oh joy. Life is grand, and I feel like I just consumed about 10 cans like this:

It is time to sign up for JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) again! I am going to sign up for the N3 now. My classmates are signing up for the N2, but I highly doubt that I will pass that one at this point, so one step at the time, I think. My goal now before July is to write as much grammar as I can to get as close to 100% of N3, and study the kanji that goes with it. It is such a hassle, the book we are using at school for kanji right now is the entire N2 kanji, so there is actually a quite a few N3 kanji I do not know. I have so much homework I am wondering how I will have time to study the N3 kanji on top of all the other school work. Sure that will be a lot of fun. N2 will have to wait until December for my sake, I think.　これから、頑張りましょう！

Anyone else taking the JLPT?

明日週間テストがあるのに、今日は横浜に行って、あまり勉強しませんでした。(Tomorrow I have my midterm test, but today I went to Yokohama and didn’t study much at at all.) The blog have been a bit quiet for the past two days again (blame it on valentine and homework), but I am sure that will change as soon as my midterm test is done and I have some time to breathe again. In the mean time, I present you with crappy iPhone Hipstamatic shots because it was snowing last night and I did not bring my camera.

You get your own yukata at hotels in Japan.

Look, the Japan Railway family of birds!

Doing homework at Starbucks. I really don’t understand why everyone thinks Starbucks coffee is so amazing.

If it wasn’t for the clouds, you would be able to see Mt. Fuji in the background here. I saw it this morning, but I didn’t take a picture.

My class schedule, and me looking at it.

Pretty soap and pretty tea at the hotel.

And more of the funny smoking signs at the smoking area.

Today we went to chinatown in Yokohama and ate dim sum for lunch.

One of the gates in chinatown.

And then – lo and behold – we found a cafe called “The Cafe”. The Cafe actually had good coffee. After all the nasty coffee I have been drinking in cafes in Japan, I was in heaven for a little while. I think it was french roasted, because the taste was mild and round and not too bitter. Bliss.

ブルー・ライト・ヨコハマ　いしだあゆみ

私はノルウェーという国をみなさんに紹介しようと思います。

ノルウェーは北ヨーロッパに位置しています。ノルウェーは西側に北海に面していて、東側にスウェーデンに接しています。北ノルウェーは東側にフィンランドとロシアに接しています。

ノルウェーの人口はちょっと少ない、４５０万ですが、面積は日本とほとんど同じです。ノルウェーの宗教は国家のキリスト教ですが、一般的なノルウェー人はあまり教会へ行きません。ノルウェーの産業は石油と漁業です。

ノルウェーの冬は本当に寒いから、夏のほうがいい季節だと思います。ノルウェーに行くなら、５月から８月の間に行くといいと思います。

ノルウェーは自然豊かな国と言われていました。観光するならベルゲンという町がいいとおもいます。ベルゲンは西ノルウェーに位置しています。ベルゲンと言えばフィヨルドです。フィヨルドというのはとてもきれいで、深い川のことです。フィヨルドに人気がある観光スポットとして有名です。「Sognefjorden」は私の国でもっとも有名なフィヨルドのひとつです。スキーするなら、ノルウェーの真ん中に行くといいです。そこで高い山があるからたくさん大きいスキー場があります。

ノルウェー人はもちろん日本語ができませんけど、一般的なノルウェー人は英語ができるので、行く前に少し英語の練習したほうがいいと思います。

あなたも機会があれば、ぜひ一度ノルウェーに行ってみてください。

(This is a small introduction about Norway in Japanese. I am trying to post in several languages on this blog so I can get some practice writing in both English and Japanese. Hopefully I can even manage to write some posts in Norwegian sometime in the future.)