MY OPINION: Face Masks

Recently, I decided to use up my face masks that have collected over the past two years.  I sent a bunch of them to a friend at Christmas as a little silly thing to add to her gift but I still had about 7 to use up.
Either I had them from a) binge purchase with Tran two years ago because there were 20 in a bundle for 400 yen or b)gifts/free-be for buying something at a Korean music shop in Shin Okubo.  After using them though, I discovered that I haven't had as much acne and they also seem to help my acne scars fade more quickly. I'm all for that, so I went and purchased more.

Previously, I had only been using Korean brands, but K-town is a little far for me to go just for face masks so I went to my area's AINZ TULPE and found some there.

Thus far, I adore the brand PURE SMILE.  There are several different "flavors" and I liked every kind that I bought.  When I am out of this batch I bought, I will be buying more of this brand.

My friend and I also bought a big, bulk bag of some "Royal Jelly" kind, but I am unsure of the brand and have not tried them yet.

Today was my first time using this one though:

We also purchased this due to a bulk option.  But, I have to say that if they all are like this one... I won't be purchasing them again.  One of the things that I really liked about PURE SMILE is that they are scented- lightly scented! This "Stick Face Mask" kind...at least this Pearl one, was quite heavily perfumed and I didn't like that.

Besides that, I guess I have no real complaints.  I did appreciate that they took the eye holes all the way out, and didn't leave the flaps like all the other kinds of masks I have used have.  My skin feels similar to how it did when I used the other masks, so I don't think that there is a real difference there.  Simply, the perfume bothered me.  I will update as I work through my half of the pack if my opinion changes with the other variety I have.

So...

My boyfriend is finally back in Japan after nearly a year of being apart, though he is probably going to have to go back to Europe to finish up some loose ends which is too bad.
I am so excited I can hardly stand it.  When I read the email he sent telling me he was going to get on a plane in two hours, I couldn't stop smiling. I'm STILL super happy.

My grandmother is hyping herself up to meet him, I think.  Every day she emails me (which is normal) she mentions something about him, asking something about him or telling me to tell him hi and not to worry about communication because her neighbor is Japanese so she can understand a Japanese accent fairly well and... Just really cute and funny.

I really hope that we can go to meet my family soon...

Some other things from this past week

Tuesday night, I had a very scarily realistic dream- my cousin's *douche* boyfriend was trying to hurt her over something quite trivial, and I can't even remember it.  She ran to me and I was trying to protect her from him.  I told him I wouldn't hesitate to break his balls.  I can't remember anything after that, because I think I woke up. But I know it was him, I could clearly see his douche face.

I worried most of the day on Wednesday about her.  I know's it's a dream, but still... why would I dream about something like that?

Tuesday was a random holiday (on a Tuesday of all days, I don't understand...) Japan is so interesting- we get the autumn and spring equinox as public holidays.  If it's a Tuesday, then so be it- no school.  In the US, I think that holiday would get moved to the nearest Monday and be deemed "the (second) Monday of the month" rather than the number day.

I also apparently made a mistake on the form for the Arashi lotto too. (I followed their damn directions, I don't really know what I messed up and they didn't tell me either!)  They sent me a (quite rude) postcard stating so, saying that I have to not only 1) not be entered in the lotto period but 2) I have to pay 840 yen to get my money back and 3) it will take up until November 20th to get the refund.  Well, eff you too JE.  I was on the fence about renewing my membership with them in the first place but now it's decided:  I won't be.  I probably won't be supporting them anymore either, in any way out of spite.  They (probably) won't get any of my money if I rent the CDs from Tsutaya instead of buying them.  And it'll save me money too, because the CDs are so damn expensive anyways.  The only reason to be the in the fan club (which is 4000 yen per year too, by the way) is to get tickets.

So sad.  I was so willing to give them my money too.  Oh well, I guess.

On Monday night, I finally heard from boyfriend again.  That boy... he's been sick again.  That's what happens when you're far from your girlfriend and she can't take care of you (hah- not really, he works way too much and that's probably much more the reason than anything.)  But, I'm happy because I got to talk to him and he said he's going to try and come home next month for a few days to meet with the person in charge of moving people.  He wants to come back (to me! Yay!) (Soon!)  I don't understand why (or how it's affordable for him) to come all the way to Japan to meet with someone for a day or so, but I asked him if it was better to meet in person and he answered "I think so" so I'm not going to question his choice, especially if it means I can see him.

Tuesday night, we made a chicken dish that Momsey recommended to me.  We made some substitutions, but it turned out REALLY good so I am going to file it away (in my brain?!) to use in the future.  We also had mashed potatoes with it , but I would love to figure some kind of vegetable dish to go with it instead, that way the starch can be rice or noodles.  It was a bit light for a normal dinner, too.

Recipe (taken from this site here.)

12 chicken drumsticks (sub: 10. Because things don't come in 12's here)

Sauce:
-2 tablespoons of

• shoyu
• BBQ sauce (sub we used tonkatsu sauce because BBQ sauce is hard to find. Recipe called for 1 tablespoon, oops)
• Sweet and sour sauce (sub: we had to make this too, because we can't find that either.  We used this recipe here.)

-1 tablespoon of

• honey

-1/2 teaspoon of

• sesame oil

-2 tablespoons of sesame seeds*

-1 teaspoon of crushed garlic**

-1/4 cup of green onions**

*sesame seeds and green onions are garnish and go on last.

**one of my roommates is allergic to onions and garlic so we added this after her portion was made

The site says to  preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, then turn it down to 400 once you put the chicken in.  We kept the oven at 220 degrees C because once it's pre-heated and you open the door, my oven has this habit of turning off. (It's an asshole.)  And because under-cooked chicken is the worst, we left it at that 220 degrees for an hour.

While the chicken was baking we made the sauce.  Originally I wanted to eliminate the sweet and sour sauce altogether but after mixing the shoyu and the tonkatsu sauce, we realized that it was necessary because the shoyu was way too overpowering.

After the sauce was mixed, and the chicken was finished and cooled, put it all in a bowl and pour the sauce on, mix and then add the sesame seeds and the onions and then it's done!

It was very delicious!

I got nanpa'd ...In my little ass country town

Yesterday, I was a bit of a dummy and forgot that it was Wednesday.  Usually, I am at West Elementary school on Wednesday, but due to the choir and band competitions, I was at East.  I tend to walk to East Elementary school because it's so close but also forgot about the meeting that we have on Wednesdays.  I explained my mistake to the vice-principal and everything was okay- she understood and let me leave a little early to go home and get my car.

I was thinking that I would run inside my apartment and use the toilet before leaving too, and was just spacing out while I walked up my street.  I saw a random salary man-esque guy coming from near one of my students houses, which I thought was weird (but it's not that weird... Lots of people walk around here because we are fairly close to the station.) He was only holding a cell phone, which WAS weird.  My first thought about him was "religious cult guy?" because when I lived in my other place some people from some cult always came to my door.  I avoided eye contact and kept making my way to my apartment.

Then, I heard a hello (in Japanese) from a soft spoken man's voice.  All I could think was "Damnit, he caught me. He IS a cult person..." but unluckily for me, I am not a rude person so I greeted him back.  Then he was suddenly walking next to me.

"Where are you going?" he asked me in casual Japanese.
"Huh? I'm going home..." I answered back in equally casual Japanese.  Looking back, I'm unsure if this encouraged him or not.
"Where do you live? Around here?" This may sound like a creep question.  It's usually not, because I live in a small town with a small amount of foreigners.
"In that area," I answered.  Don't worry- we were still a bit away from my home.  It was impossible to tell exactly where I live.  At this point in time, I thought that perhaps he was lost so I asked him "What's wrong? Is everything okay?"
"Ah, no.  I just thought you were cute so..." ...oh.
"Oh.  Thank you very much."
"Yeah, so next time let's go on a date..."
"Ah I have a boyfriend so, I'm sorry but..." but by the time I'd said I was sorry, I looked to see and he was gone! A mirage?! No- I looked behind me to see him jogging back the way we'd come.  I turned around and said "That was really goddamn weird."  I turned around again to make sure he wasn't following me and I hightailed it to my car, foregoing my bathroom pit-stop.  Luckily for me, my parking lot is situated between two buildings, so even if he did see which car I got into, it's not telling of my exact apartment.

When I got to the meeting, my roommate asked me why I was so early and when I told her this story she just laughed and said that it's because it's me.  I'm starting to think that she's right.  It IS me.

Boyfriend will say something similar when I tell him this story.  I keep telling him he's biased, because he loves me but he always tells me to be careful of getting hit on when I start a new business class or make plans to travel on a busy holiday.  I can't even count the times he has told me "You will probably get hit on."  Thankfully, it's no where near as often as he warns me.

Still.  So bloody weird.

LEE MIN WOO LIVE IN TOKYO

Went to see Lee Min Woo live, it was excellent.
It sucked, waiting to get into the venue because it was pouring outside. And I don't think that I liked Zepp Tokyo's ...method of getting people into the venue. Perhaps more so because it was raining. (ALSO WHAT IS WITH CHARGING TO GET INTO THE VENUE, PLUS THE 500 YEN DRINK FEE. DISLIKE.)

Since it was a standing show, I was very close to Min Woo *_*
It was very fun, and as I thought when I saw him last summer, Min Woo is SO good at getting the audience pumped up.

And he finished (before encore) with my favorite song "Kiss it Away"~ So I was very happy about that.

It was very much worth all the pain getting there.

(please note that this was composed well after the concert!!)