summer at the library

you haven't experienced summer... until you've experienced a japanese summer!

mucho calorrrr!!!

chuukan happyou

for Luis.

saudade

everybody feels lonely sometimes. maybe often. some, hardly maybe.
but it always feels better to have a friend by your side, especially when home is far away.

grocery dillema

one of the most difficult challenges of living in japan is of course, the language problem. while some foreign students have excelled and or have managed to make themselves understandable in japanese, a lot of foreigners in japan still continue to live with very little to nil knowledge of the language. this can be especially difficult when buyin food and everyday household goods!

useful garbage

it can be amazing as to how much the japanese throw away! from electrical appliances to common household things, foreigners are usually amazed as the amount of things they discard. while they are recycle stores in japan where you can buy cheap, used things for the home, you can also survey the nearest trash dump and find some useable stuff. that is not to mention flea markets!

yes, japan can also be cheap!

jisshin!

earthquakes! to the uninitaiated in japan, it may come as a big surprise as to how they frequently occur! we all got used to it eventually.

bills and notices

paying for bills, reading notices and announcements can really prove to be a challenge especially with limited language skills! more often than not, we bungle up these seemingly mundane tasks!

nihongo lessons anyone? hehehehe

freedom?!?

congratulations to the soon-to-be graduates!!! yay.

ni hao ma?

two-thirds of foreign students in japan are chinese. TsukU is no exception. the other half mostly speak english. one my friends in the university speaks chinese, japanese, and english (he's not chinese tho)! we therefore think that he can be the mayor for all foreign students in the U!

he's taking the entrance test next week, we wish him good luck!

in case you're wondering, the guy said "these noodles are great!" to which the girl replied; "really?" thanks to Poi for the chinese translation. cheers~!

ramen date

it's on every grad student's menu... RAMEN!

oh, what are we to do without it?!?

japanese bikinis

everybody loves japanese matsuris or festivals! well... except my roomie. hehehehe...
check out all those men in fundoshis.

who stole my bike?!?

in TsukU, as well as Japan, bicycles are a way of life so losing your bike is probably the crappiest thing that can ever happen... especially to a poor student who relies on a *gasp* stipend!

keep you bicycles locked everyone!

internal alarm clock

ever notice how the japanese can sleep through their entire commute and simply wake up in time for their destination? amazing ne?

the first yougakusei strip

this was the first YOUGAKUSEI comic strip I made for Mind the Gap. Kate Neath had this brilliant idea of creating an infomag with Tsukuba U students specifically in mind, and I volunteered to create a comic strip. i didn't have much to do during those times so it wasn't a problem.

anyway, TsukU is notorious for its *ahem* dormitories. yeah, i mean besides being the university with the highest suicide rate... ain't life colorful in TsukU? anyway, if you can't read the comic directly on the page, just click on it for better readability!

hopefully, we'll see more yougakusei strips. your comments and suggestions, are of course welcome.

thanks for dropping by!