1. What will I talk about when my language level is so basic? Benny the Irish polyglot have some interesting things to say about this.
2. If I ever feel a bit lost on the internet, I pop over to Zefrank and play with the little games. So much fun, and slightly useless, but none the less, very fun, eh… stuff!
3. Gunvor makes really nice monster zines!
4. From the weekly wiki-binge-pile: In geography, the antipodes of any place on Earth is the point on the Earth’s surface which is diametrically opposite to it.
5. Back in November, Gala Darling wrote about how to get calm in a world full of crazy.
6. More from the weekly-wiki-binge: Japanese Career Woman. Made me smile.
7. Kojima Mayumi’s songs over at grooveshark. Funky stuff!
8. Youtube video about Canada’s polymer notes. That is high-tech money right there.
9. Cats and the internet. Pusheen the cat is adorable.
10. And once you are overwhelmed with internet surfing, you can always go to the quiet place.

If you are in the Kanto area, they have really cheap ski trips for sale right now. I got a round-trip ticket with Shinkansen from Tokyo up to Niigata, plus a one day ski pass at Gala Yuzawa for 6700 yen. It only took about 1.5 hrs to get there, and it was super fun to go downhill skiing again. I have been wanting to try skiing in Japan for the longest time, and finally I can cross it off my bucket list! I didn’t take any pictures from the actual ski resort, because I put my bag in a locker, and it was snowing the whole day, but it was a lot of fun. It was fairly easy to rent ski equipment as well, so if you have a day to spare and feel like skiing, it is absolutely worth the money. (And the hot cocoa in the picture above is anther guilty pleasure. Liquid sugar in a can, yum!)

I just have to recommend a shampoo – the Lush Big Shampoo. I rarely write about beauty products, I just don’t think I know enough about these things to write a lot about them, but this one just need to be mentioned. My hair is pretty thin and fine, so whenever I am in Japan, it turns completely flat, frizzy at the ends and oily at the top, and I have been trying to fix it for ages. I went and bought this shampoo (even though it was kind of pricey… ) – and it really did make the hair BIG! I was really surprised, because I rarely find products to actually live up to their descriptions and expectations. The consistency of the shampoo is really weird, with lots of big salt grains, and your hair ends up smelling like a mojito, but it did make the hair fluffy and removed the excess oil from the hair.