farewell, blogger

it`s been a long time coming in my mind, but a bit of sudden change i guess, to everyone else, but i have decided to leave blogger (i`ve been having a lot of issues with blogger recently).

i`ve been at the same url now for almost two years... a long time by my standards , and i think i need to move on.

it`s a bit of a risk because i have decided to move to tumblr - i really like how things seem to work over there... but there are some setbacks to moving - tumblr is still quite new and they are still adding things on all the time, but for now, you cant really comment and stuff. so if tumblr doesnt work out for me, i might find myself back at trusty blogger {if any of you are on tumblr, please add me or let me know! }

i have really enjoyed meeting you all here ; hope you will still read about sarah-japan life at my new home and i will definitely keep up with you all still.

just cos i`m moving home, doesnt mean i`m moving away!

peace out and thanks for the good time, blogger

MY NEW BLOG :

nomad`s land

http://thenomadsland.tumblr.com/

book store babylon

my valentine`s post made me all nostalgic and stuff なつかしい

and i went trawling through all of Tom`s photo albums on Facebook during which i stumbled on a few real beauties that Tom took with his cell phone from our time working at the book store.



{for a few years when we (me, thomas and shakti) were at university, we worked as night staff at one of the branches of a South African book store conglomerate called Exclusive Books. we had some amazing times there... both before and after our managers turned into hitler-esque despots intent on destroying the planet.}


the first time Mandela came into the store during our shift. my coworker Monique ran to help him. Tom and I stood open mouthed behind the counter like fools.

sometimes we would throw caution to the wind and lie on the floor instead of cleaning just to damn the man

the time thomas thought shakti`s scarf arranged on our heads in the right manner would make us look like Belarusian refugees

i remember thomas saying `geez sarah, look more DESPONDENT... look HOPELESS... look like your CHILDREN are on a RAFT in the OCEAN`... it was a very draining photo shoot.

shakti went through an origami box phase.

thomas and i went through a `put origami box on shakti`s head` phase.

she is a very patient girl.

bookstore makeovers!

you know you`re getting older when you think of the `good old days`. but... yeah... they were good.

dusky time snowy views from the apartment of sarah

here in the land of sapporo, lady winter dictates that the sun set at 3 or 4 every day.

which means , by the time i change into my outdoor shoes and head out of school,bed time seems to be creeping up upon me.

i now subscribe to geriatric happy hour - you get to a certain age where bed time is better than party time. hell, bed time IS party time.

wait. that didn`t quite come out right.

Bygones.

{isn`t this police station so cute? i would totally live there.}

.
but yesterday i realised that spring might just be around the corner indeed. For, lo and behold, when i got home {way earlier than usual} at 5:30 , it wasn`t pitch dark at all! Instead it was a light pinky dusk.

apart from the fact that today was -8 and that it snowed for a good 6 hours straight, i`d say that all the signs point towards spring slowly a headin` my way.

{which means soon i can wear my new sparkly navy blue pumps instead of these stupid uggs. snow boots are only fun for the first month... after that, they can go suck it}

AKB48 freaks me out

sometimes, i give my boys work to do.
but when i walk past their computers, a picture like this is on the screen :

AKB48 is this massive Japanese all girl pop group consisting of 48 schoolgirls in three teams : Team A, Team K and Team B.

That`s exactly 9.6 x the size of the Backstreet Boys.

And my students spend way too much of their time on the website trying to decide which girl they like the most. Which is kind of cute in the way I used to be in love with Devon Sawa after he was Casper {remember when Casper became a real boy? swoon}

but when you go out with your grown up friends with grown up lives and grown up jobs and THEY talk about which barely legal member of AKB48 they like and then they SING THIS WHOLE SONG and DO THE DANCE :

that`s creepy, non?! i need to find {real life, air breathing, walking, talking} girlfriends for some of my friends... and fast.

Valentine`s Flashback Circa 1995

on this valentine`s day 2010, i am not going to wax lyrical about ラブラブ love.

boyfriends come and boyfriends go {especially with this attention span of mine} , but instead, i am going to tell you the tale of Valentines Day 1995 when I was the wise old age of 10.

{Even if i had a photo of myself at 10 you wouldn`t get to see it... but if you think of Hermione Granger, you`re pretty close. Thick glasses, wild curly hair, annoying bossy girl guide like attitude. And I really really liked maths. }

it was also the year i got my first secret admirer valentine`s day card...

that i promptly flushed down the loo.

{meet my best friend thomas}

seriously, what was / is wrong with me?! the minute i got tom`s card, 10 year old feminist me was so overcome with disdain that i tore it up and flushed it. to this day, i find it really difficult to handle outward displays of mushiness. friends still tell the urban legend of how i refused a second date with a boy because he bought me red roses on our first date {bleugh... i know... pretty heartless}. I`m not talking PDA here, I`m not entirely Holding Hand-ist, but it really gives me the heebie jeebies to be given things like giant pink bunnies by people i barely know...

anyway, 10 year old thomas was so upset when he heard of my valentines card murder ritual, he refused to talk to me for a few weeks {how long was it, tommy?} , but 10 year old sarah probably didnt notice because she was off studying fractions or bossily telling people to plant a tree or something.

To cut a long story short, tom subsequently realised he was more into men than woman and came out of the closet. To this day, he jokingly blames me for turning him off women ... at least it seems joking to me. But just in case, i think i might need to find a gay boy to `turn straight` just to fix the balance of the universe.

{pictures of us like this are always surfacing on the internet. no wonder a lot of people think we`re going out}

.

I believe that we have many soul mates in life. Some of them are lovers, some are friends. I love that I know almost everything about thomas. I love that I know just how much he loves his rotties and how much he hates Bryan Adams. I love how we can drive down the highway singing Jamie Cullum and Mika together for hours. I love that we can be so smart togther, but also so silly. I love that my life is technicolour because him and shakti are a part of it.

.

thomas and shakti {indian sarah haha} i love you guys

Happy Valentines Day

{mushy mushy mushy}

p.s. Thomas has a superb blog about life in Johannesburg that you should definitely take a gander at if you are so inclined : Urban Joburg

and on the third day

I spent Day Three of the Grand 4 Day Weekend with some of my favourite people and filled with completely atrocious jokes and really へんたいness and lost loves and cake.

As you know, once a year in summer, Sapporo has the huge Beer Festival where everyone sits in the park and drinks and gets rowdy-ish {only -ish mind you...this IS japan after all} and it is the perfect time to Fish For Friends. It`s not so easy to make friends here, people tend to stick to their groups and whereas back home, we have things like house parties, there isn`t that culture here. Either you meet by being friends of a friend or you pick people up on the side of the street. It`s hardknock, man! {maybe it is different in Tokyo / other parts of Japan?}

My first beer festival, Teej and I were so busy making eyes at the Hokkaido University Tennis team {who later turned out to be... Not So Nice} that we almost missed out on becoming friends with this group. But, as fate and a spilled beer would have it, we ended up forming one huge circle of friends that, almost three years later, is still going strong.

we don`t get to meet them in a group much... sometimes we hang out one on one, but at least once every two or three months, we have a huge shinding that lasts way into the morning. 5 of the boys had their birthdays in Jan / Feb, so we had a 飲み会... often in japan, you will go to something called a `tabe - nomi houdai` which means you go to a place and pay a set amount for two hours for all you can drink and eat and then after your 2 hours are up, you usually go to a second party {like karaoke or another bar or bowling}. well, we usually go to a third and fourth and fifth...

and the night usually ends with Ryota sleeping on the floor of some establishment.

friends can really make your home away from home feel more... homey.

in which sarah goes to 小樽 on a very grey day

Day Two of The Great 4 Day Weekend was a little more productive.. 10 points Sarah.

it was very very very very {you catch my drift} cold, but we dragged ourselves out into the world and went to 小樽　Otaru, one of my favourite towns in japan - about half an hour out of Sapporo by train and on the coast. i`ve been a million times and it is one of the cutest places ever ... i mean, last year winter there was Harry Potter theme music playing in the streets...where does that HAPPEN?! it`s super quaint :

it also has a lot of buildings with pictures of the island of Hokkaido adorned with boobs... hmmm...

anyway, this week is the Otaru Romantic Lantern Festival - it ends on Valentines Day and there were hearts and lovey dovey nonsense everywhere.

Star Crossed Snowmen

about two steps away was this fellow... i call him Third Wheel Marcus

and, of course, the lanterns and the `lights of the lovers`

and now, i am watching the japanese national defense force VIOLENTLY DESTROY all the snow sculptures on the news with cranes.

WHAM there goes the gorilla`s head.

i am distressed.

{p.s. small edit... people seem to be confused and think that the Japanese NDF has gone rabid and are destroying the snow sculptures because they didnt receive enough love from their mothers when they were children. this is in part, my fault because i didnt explain that its their job, on the last day of the snow festival, to SMASH the statues down with large pieces of construction equipment. its my least favourite part of the festival... hearing those snowmen scream}