what i have been up to this few days

* VISUAL DECEPTION*

  だまし絵
17 September Thursday

(joyce, mei ching, me!)

okay guys.. take a guess at who we went out with again today... Aww...come on.. its not that hard! we're all eating expensive-looking-like food (haha sorry.. the food in the second pic actually looks a lot better than that. but by the time i've satisfy my hunger enough to pause a few seconds to take the pic....well it somehow looked like that already hohoho). And the answer is.......

YES! We went out with our host family 'okaasan' again~! This time there's 2 of them (usually there's owes more than one okaasan at any one outing... i guess they're shy to be alone too), mine and joyce's .

(zhong ing, my okaasan, me) (mei ching, joyce's okaasan, joyce)

The main point of the outing is actually to come to this art exhibition called visual deception or in japanese, だまし絵 held at 兵庫県立美術館.

This fellow here is drawn with all sorts of fruits. Can u tell that his right cheek is peach and his left cheek is actually an apple? haha i thought the cheeks were of the same fruits until i took a look at the explanation. Bah~ anyway for someone who doesn't really have a clue what art's about, it was quite interesting.

You're supposed to look at this pic from the right side and voila~.. a guy's face. But i think its pretty obvious its a guy from the medieval era 's face without having to look from the right side or whatever.


This one's a bit trickier. You're supposed to look at it from the left side. And you're supposed to get to see an old man 'bercangkung'.
There's a couple of really impressive bits like one on a view of a port with ships docked there that seems to moving as you're walking pass it.

cost: 電車tickets: 570x2 =1140 yen =rm45.. not cheap also right the transportation fee though we get free lunch (okaasan) and free entrance (we foreign students have a card that lets us go in places at our prefecture, in my case hyougo-ken兵庫県 for free!)

幸せ にゃんこ
~shiawase nyanko~
erm... english translation would be... happy cat...??
14, 16 Sept Mon, Wed

basically you sew up a cat's shape, insert the peg (for the legs and hands), some cotton and tadaa~ When you squish the legs, the hands open up and u can peg it at the curtain or anywhere you like i guess.

lookie~ I didn't think i would get to use a sewing machine again. i even know how to set the thread up now hohoho. the one on top of the cotton is mine.. the rest are mostly joyce's and some, zhong ing's. haha i keep on procrastinating and still have 2 or 3 more unfinished ones which i will, hopefully, complete within this few days.

At first i was totally helpless in turning the cloth as the needle fire away and couldn't get the machine to sew the shape i want AND gave up several times before i finally master a wee bit.

(zhong ing, joyce, 寮母ryoubou, me!) <---- yes i intend to insert names until u guys can look at any pics i put on and go 'Oh look, this is XXX'

oya.. that 寮母 is the aunty i mentioned last time who 'ask' --> order me to clean up the corridor a bit cause some vips are coming over. Her job... i think is probably to look after the girls' dorm and its inhibitants' (us) well-being. She's the one who ask the school for a sewing machine (its brand new~ we're the first to use it) to be put in the girl's dorm and thought up this 'shiawase nyanko' project for the 3 of us .

MEI CHING'S STAY-OVER

(mei ching, me!)

usually i'd refrain putting unphotogenic photos of me but this photo of mei ching is just so... wild that i can't help it =).
Mei ching's my akashi college senpai who's just graduated this year and entered Kyoto University (2nd best in japan). I'm currently using her ex-room and her bicycle btw. She stayed here a couple of nights before she left with Joyce for a raya party held at 四国, shikoku(not that you guys would know where it is but ah well ...) yesterday. so now there's only me and zhong ing at the girls' dorm. Luckily its a tiny dorm so it's not creepy at all.

小学校
15, 18 September Tuesday, Friday
I'm not really sure what this program is called... foreign exchange program?.. Anyway this elementary school wanted their primary 2 students to be exposed to foreigners by having a class where the kids have fun, play games sing songs for 45 minutes with foreigners (us). And so the International Relation, Cultural & Arts Affairs Dept asked if we wanna go or not and since we were kinda free so... They divided the kids into groups of 5 and assigned one foreigners to each group. Its quite easy actually, the kids have already prepared board games and trump cards to play with us. At first i was kinda scared that i'd have to think of something to entertain them. plus they're just 8 years old so they were quite hyper and willing to do watever i say =). o.. they took back the crown btw... stingy..

(linh, zhong ing) okay pls remember this photo.. someday in the very future i have an intuition that i'll be writing a blog on loneliness because zhong ing is busy off somewhere...

(joyce, zhong ing, linh, me!)

the four of us akashi 留学生 went to the planetarium together after entertaining the kids. This photo is taken in front a mirror-like door which i very soon find out is the type of mirror door where the ones inside can see through... and behind the mirror-doors we have... the ticket booths.... #^^# paiseh... i bet the workers were laughing their heads off... this is just one of the very many, many photos we took in our effort to take a decent one.

The planetarium... wasn't as interesting or impressive as i hoped it would be. Maybe its because the exhibition's written in japanese and i can't enjoy as much as i could have had it been written in english... but they had a section where you sit on a laid-back seat, stare at the sphere-shaped ceiling where they show stars, zodiac and explain. That was very nice.

2nd trip to elementary school

We're still assigned to the same group as last time. Its a lot more fun this time round cause the kids and us know each other already. This time i made them play our malaysian game..(the finger thingy) cause i was quite bored with their memory cards game. the kids were really cute tho.. usually when you play memory cards you would first line the cards up right? in the kids' case, they just mix the cards up, leave them in the messed up state and just started the game. So it was a game of luck more than memory.


i had them fight each other hohohoho

(china, russia, zhong ing, china, china, thai, me, mei ching)

originally i thought they came to japan because of work relation or study but it turns out most of them moved to Japan because they're married to japanese. some of them still can't speak jap yet.. o well.. all the best to them

*btw this is strictly a volunteer program. I didn't get a single cent! souvenirs also no-no.. i mean they would usually give some food or something but..

well at least the school had the decency to pay our transportation fees.

AND!!! their treatment for the first time we came and the 2nd time is totally different! They had cups of tea and snack (a small one but it's still something) and our name cards lined up properly at the coffee table for the first time. For the second time, there was a pile of name cards on the table with zero snacks =(... ah well.. it IS volunteer work...