Hello.

It's a very EXTREMELY rainy Sunday afternoon and I wanted to use that chance to finally catch up with my Japanese studies, especially after I finally got rid of almost ALL points on my (far too long) to-do-list and all.
BUT .... my laptop hates me!!!
Some of you might remember that I was ranting about how slow it is and all a while ago already. I'm pretty sure it's not a hardware, but a software problem. As several programs such as CCleaner, Spybot etc. can't do anything and there also seems to be no virus, I don't know what to do anymore. The only option left is to perform a formatting although I HATE DOING IT so so much! ;o;
It costs a looooo~t of time to sort and save all the data first and once the formatting is done it takes forever to reinstall all programs and stuff ... FOREVER!!! GRAH!!!!
Well, my laptop is not the youngest anymore anyways, and it would be a good idea to get a new one (I bougt mine in 2005), but I really don't have the moneyZ at the moment.
If all fails, I don't have a choice, of course :/
Seems like I'll be busy the upcoming week with burning data and stuff *le sigh*

Anyways, I wanted to post a few nice things today.
First of all, the promised photos of the souvenirs I bought during my 2-day trip to Osaka and Iga-Ueno

Well, the only "souvenir" ;P I bought in Osaka was this:



I went to the Johnnys Shop there again
Although I just went there this winter I already forgot again where exactly the shop was located, so this time I asked a young "flippy" girl on a bike because she looked like she'd definitely know and BINGO!!! (^-^)v
Usually I ask old men or elderly women and of course they have no clue about Mandarak or Johnnys XDDDDD GAH!! (or at least they don't wanna admit it ;P)
Actually I was disappointed! It's been 5 months since I last came there but the photos were all pretty much the same. Almost NO NEW PHOTOS AT ALL!!!!! I hope that at least the shops in Tokyo update more often, HORRIBLE (x__X)/
At least they had photos up of Arashi's "Troublemaker", so of course I bought a few (^-^)>

In Iga-Ueno they had quite a lot of things I wanted to buy. I'd say Iga-Ueno is almost as dangerous as Kyoto when it comes to buying souvenirs! XD
Here's what I got:



Obviously from the ninja museum shop.



I love wristbands anyways, so YAY!!!



I also got this cool paper scroll as I thought I'd be a nice decoration item



In the danjiri house I got these colorful table clothes :)



And this is handmade and unique! None of them was available twice! I love stuff like that (*__*)v



I'm really turning into a Japanese. I also bought food as souvenir XD Really, really good senbei (= rice cracker) ^-^



And at the castle I found this nice book about castles in Japan with a lot of information and nice photos. For me as castle nerd a must-have (^-^)>



Last but not least: I also bought this VERY BEAUTIFUL painting at the castle!! I fell in love with it at first sight. Cherry blossoms + full moon = LOVE (*___*)


That's it!!! For only a 2-day trip I bought LOTS, huh?
That's part of the reason why I don't have enough moneyZ! XD

Btw. haven't posted anything food-related in a while:



Pocky Strawberry = love!! Especially fresh from the fridge and really cold (*__*)v (Just ate a few ^^; ...)



Completely random, but look how my cup looked after drinking coffee. A sign??? XDDD TOMAAAAA!!! (*___*)v (yeah, that was BEFORE I won the ticket and got to see Toma! XDDDD)



And now that I've started uploading videos of my journeys, I thought I could continue.
I still had old videos of my previous trips. The quality is by far not as good as of the ninja vids as I still took those with my old digital cam. The audio is not very good either, but now that I've created a youtube account (well, I had it for a long time, but just forgot about it XD ...) I thought I could share more.
Nothing much, really, but I hope you enjoy them nevertheless.
Here we go:

Let's start with videos from my spring vacation in 2009.



I was able to watch this awesome Taiko performance after I took a hot bath in the famous Dogo Onsen in Matsuyama, Shikoku.
If you want to read my report with a lot of photos of this special day, go here.
I really love Taiko and I sooo would love to be able to train/learn it somewhere (^-^)>



The whirpools in Naruto. It was really exciting there, but so so so soooo difficult to take photos or film the whirpools as they were small and fast!!!! (x___X) ....
More about my time in Naruto can be found here.



Also in Naruto, the cherry blossoms were falling off the trees like WOAH!! It's such an awesome experience!!! It's just impossible to take good photos of it (for me) or film it. I tried nevertheless XDDD



You've probably already heard of the pilgrimage of 88 temples in Shikoku. When I climbed "Godaisan" a mountain in Kochi, Shikoku, I saw quite a lot of pilgrims and then decided to film their prayers.
Sorry for the crappy audio quality, but that's the best my digital camera can do ^^;; ...
More about my day there can be found here.


Let's move on to my winter vacation 2009/2010 when I went to Beppu and Kansai as well as to Hikone and Nagahama to visit the castles there :)



Mud bubble, seen at one of the "Hells of Beppu". As it was really difficult to take a good photo and catch the right moment, I decided to also take a video. It's very short, but it doesn't matter as it's the same anyways no matter how long you film XD
More about the "Hells of Beppu" can be found here.



As you know I also went to visit the Umitamago, an aquarium in Beppu. There was a really adorable dolphin show. As it was during winter break there were a LOT of people and because I came early and waited for like 40min. I got a good seat! XD
It's quite short, because the battery life of my camera doesn't allow me to film that long XD
More about that day in Beppu can be found here.



Right next to the aquarium was a huge monkey park! A really great experience! Again a lot of people and millions of monkeys!!!! And when it was feeding time they suddenly came out of .... like everywhere! XD It was funny!



I'm not sure if that's interesting at all, but when I went to Hikone to see the castle someone was ringing the castle bell. That happened every hour, so I was lucky to catch exactly that moment (*___*) I like the sound of those bells, they're awesome!!! One day I wanna try and ring it, too :D (do you even use "ring" is that case? Prolly not XDDD)
More about the castle in Hikone and my trip there can be found here.


Okay, I hope you enjoyed the videos. I didn't share them until now (or back then in the respective entries), because I thought they were too boring and the quality was not good enough either.
I still think so, but as some of you wanted to see more after I uploaded the ninja videos, I thought I could at least give it a try XDDDD

P.S.: It's really raining too much. I'm a little bit scared that the same as last year might happen. God, please NOOOOO!!! ;____;

Thanks for reading! (^-^)/