Today, we had our last class where we could work on our original manga page. Thanks to E & SH allowing me hang out in their room and work on my page; I was able to finish it1. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring any of my omiyage gifts with me; so I couldn’t give one to Ueda-sensai or the assistants who were in there2. The assistants and ???-san3 came with us to the hotel and later to Ghibli museum; so I was able to give them their omiyage then.
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Category: Life
Sometimes, I feel the need to talk about me (imagine that).
Today we had a different instructor, Koshikawa-sensai, for our manga class. She demonstrated some more advanced screentone techniques and then they turned us loose to we could get started on our original work. I should note that during the previous night before falling asleep, I’d worked up a manga name (rough draft on normal paper) of what I thought I might like to draw for my original work. I did this because they kept encouraging us to use as many of the techniques that they’d taught us as we could. However I wasn’t too keen on the idea of trying to draw (and ink and apply screentones and cleanup and finish) a full strip in 2 days. So during class when they mentioned that we could do do just a character sketch if we wanted; I figured I had my out and set the manga name to the side to get started on the character sketch.
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Again I woke up before our alarm phone1 went off. I got up, dressed and enjoyed a breakfast of mizo soup and rice cakes with some strong Japanese coffee. I love the soup, the rice is okay but I’ve gotten used to it.
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It was obvious that I hadn’t adjusted to Tokyo time yet, because while I didn’t have to be up and ready to go to class until 9:45am; I was awake by 5:30. My room-mate (L) and I got up and went out for a look around. Being really early, there weren’t many people around yet, but a few business-men and office-ladies were hurrying off to work. I think it was when we were about a block away from the hotel when it really hit me that I was in a foreign country. Something about there only being one another white guy around and no English to be heard or seen anywhere around. It was just a small but impressive moment for me.
Anyway, L wanted to find the McDonald’s; so we wandered around for a while and found the train station & a KFC but not the McDonald’s. We headed back to the hotel because the heat was starting to get to us and now the hotel’s cafe was serving the free breakfast. We ate and then AWelkin-sensai, A & Bryon came in for breakfast. After we all finished eating AWelkin-sensai took us out to show us around the area a bit and help L find the McDonald’s. She also pointed out some banks for us (useful for exchanging traveler’s checks) and showed us the interior of the train station.
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My study group all made it to Japan safe & sound. We did nearly lose some people along various stages of the way here, but in the end we arrived with our lives and health in tact. I don’t know these people well enough to say whether or not their sanity is in tact after the trip or if they’re always this crazy.
As this was the first time in my memory that I’ve flown; I think I should make a note of the following:
- Flying is not as bad an experience as I had been fearing it might be.
- Puddle-jumper planes suck for people over 5 foot 8 inches, due to low ceilings and no headroom when going down the aisle.
- International flights are too damn long and my ears are still somewhat numb from the constant roar of the engines.
- Turbulance sucks! Particularly when you’re watching the wing bounce.
- Landings are not evil, but only because that means you can get off the plane soon.