• The convenience stores
• The vending machines
• The amazing customer service
• Muji
• Clean, trash-free streets!
• Extremely well-mannered people
• Prices that include tax are actually printed on price tags!
• Lower tables/beds/chairs/counters
• Smaller clothes (sometimes)
• Awesome snacks and drinks at all hours
• Awesome ramen and curry EVERYWHERE
• Soft water
• Feeling pretty safe (not that Irvine is all that dangerous ;P)
• Excelsior Cafe's awesome frozen peach drink thing
• Delicious apple juice!
• Sapporo Classic (well, in Hokkaido anyway)
• Tokyo public transportation (even though it was expensive)
• Cute illustrations on EVERYTHING (even the cans of insecticide I saw had cute pictures of dead roaches on them wtf)
• Daddy (Kyoto-specific)

What I will not miss about Japan

• Language barrier (although this is probably totally my fault)
• Higher prices (not as bad as I'd expected, though)
• Ridiculous humidity (probably Kyushu-in-the-summer specific)
• Evil mosquitoes (likely summer-specific)
• Crazy summer rain (only happened in Gujo Hachiman and Hokkaido...and I guess this is why Japan has awesome soft water)
• Lack of trash cans along the streets
• Feeling fatter than the general population
• Feeling more out of shape than the general population (most evident as I struggled to stay upright on subways/trains/buses)
• 100 and 500 yen coins (my wallet got really heavy)

What I wish I'd brought to Japan but didn't
Insect repellent. Ugh. I got some pretty nasty bites while I was there...mostly in Kyoto. Even my dad has problems with insect bites there and he never gets bitten. I ended up buying insect repellent while I was there, which was no easy task since the label was entirely in Japanese. I went by the cute illustration of a mother applying the product to her son, followed up by a cute illustration of a very distressed/dead (but cute!) looking wasp (or bee...or something). Anyway, it ended up smelling nice (like peaches!) and I guess it might have worked since I didn't get any new bites after I started using it.

The most useful thing I brought with me to Japan
Katakana. So glad I could read it. Unlike hiragana, you don't really have to know Japanese to make sense of it.

Yes I did feel the earthquake
But we were in Kyoto by then so we barely felt it. It was only VV's second earthquake, though, and he promptly freaked out.

:D :D :D

Actually, that's not so much a smile as it is a forced grin. Let's try this again.

Admit it, this one just looks stupid.

Okay so this isn't a smile, but do you know how hard it is to slowly twirl an umbrella in one hand while keeping the rest of you perfectly still for a long-ish exposure shot?

I look like I feel stupid because I do feel stupid. Smiling for no one is mentally exhausting.

And finally, something relatively normal. Hallelujah!

Actually, this one isn't too bad. Why didn't I use it? Maybe because my bra strap was falling. Hmm...

And now for our second example. My face doesn't look so bad, but the shutter went off before I was ready for it (this was before I started using a remote control for my photos) and consequently look like I'm about to take a dump on the wall. NEXT.

So, I bring you example #1

I think this is the only photo in this particular set in which I smiled, and I probably don't have to tell you why I didn't use it but I'm going to anyway. It's because I look effing stoned.

Stay tuned dudes. More coming up.

Holy crapsters I totally forgot I had these. I took them on Thanksgiving when I was lying around my old room, trying to sober up so I could drive back home to Orange County. I took them with the intention of post-processing them but I forgot what I had in mind so I just did whatever to them. I left the middle one unprocessed for kicks.

Check out my sickly pallor. So hot. Getting lazy on the post-processing. I'm effing tired.

Yup, I've resorted to recycling old sets of photos. Here's the original post.

As you all know, this is a scheduled post so I'm really sitting in VV's living room half watching him play Bioshock which is kind of creepy when it's dark and it's late and you haven't gotten enough sleep the night before. Creezies.

Yeah, this is just filler. Another photo from that last photo set. Post-processed differently.

Anyway, with any luck I should be wandering Tokyo right now in the crazy heat, humidity and rain!

Blog more later :)

Haha I missed. Whatever. You get the picture. Fck did I just pun?

Anyway, as I said a couple posts prior, I wasn't really stripping. I just took off the sweater and the belt to show what the dress looks like by itself. I ordered it online and it ended up being more high-waisted than I would have liked so it sat in my closet for a really long time (too much of a hassle to return ;P) until I finally gave it a go on Friday with a wide-ish belt.

The dress is really wrinkled. Anyway.

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am leaving oc for lax at 9am tomorrow. tired tired tiredddd

Sorry about the inherent shoddiness and boringness of these photos but I didn't want to do a photoless post and didn't have any relevant photos so I quickly took these poops and edited them all within maybe the space of 10 minutes or so. Awesome I am.

First photo: hand luggage. I'm probably going to switch to another bag, though (old Nike duffel bag from my high school days) since it has more room and I'm only allowed one piece of luggage and one piece of hand luggage for our particular tour and I need to be able to stash my purse in it.

Second photo: real luggage. As you can see it's not very full which means I have room to stash souvenirs/purchases (YAY) on the way back. I've always been a terrible packer but have improved exponentially over the past couple of years.

Yes, I'm leaving for Japan in roughly 36 hours. So not mentally prepared. Need to go to Sephora to stock up on Rosebud Salve and UDPP before we leave since I'm down to 1/2 tin of the salve (need to travel w/ at least two of them) and the UDPP I've transferred out of my old tube has more or less dried out.

As much as I want--and have wanted--to go to Japan I'm going to miss being able to say that no, I wasn't born in Asia and as a matter of fact I've never even been there to those who look at my Asian face and think that it means that a) I wasn't born in America and b) I speak [insert Asian language here].

Meh. Pet peeve of mine. That's all. Must continue readying for travel. BBL.