Donnerstag, 28. Juni 2012

24. another birthday has passed


Hey ho

a week has passed since my birthday (turned 24), but didn’t find any time to update... I had off on my birthday, but all in all I will work 28 days out of June’s 30 days. You can guess how much I am looking forward to the end of this month ! I have no idea what July will be like... The hotel restaurant I work for is short on staff. Yesterday I was basically doing everything ALONE. Luckily, it was pretty empty and most of the time no customers at all. Of course I know most things by now, it's not like I can't be alone... but if a customer has a special request or a difficult question, I usually don't know how to answer. Also, I don't know how to handle the cashier and honestly speaking, I don’t want to know! I really don’t want to take any responsibility about money/financial matters. At least not how things are at the moment, considering I do not have any sort of employment contract with them and my salary is paid cash. In case anything goes wrong, I am probably fucked.

So on my birthday, I got up late and then went to Osaka in order to meet Lisa. It was a rainy day, so we decided to stay in some large underground mall in Honmachi and also went for coffee in Doutor. We had some confusion about where to meet up and ended up meeting quite late. Lisa, sorry! Time passed by quickly and soon it was time to rush to Nippombashi, where we would meet up with my boyfriend.

We went to an Izakaya. But not quite an ordinary one... 
http://www.zauo.com/
At Zauo you can rent a fishing rod, bait and then start fishing. Right away from your seat (at least in our case). It's not really a big deal to catch a fish, since there are plenty of fish in a small pool, but it's still fun. Once you caught one, you have to decide how the fish will be prepared and then it will be served to you. Of course you have to pay for the fish (price varies from the kind of fish you catch). I caught a Tai (sea bream) and of course requested it as sashimi (raw)! BTW whenever a customer catches a fish, the staff will ask for your name and start shouting your name, some paroles and beat the drums. Basically „celebrate“ that you got a fish.
We also ordered some other food. I ate an mentaiko dish... I think it was my first time eating mentaiko and also my first time to have Ochazuke (you have to pour lots of dashi broth over your rice).

click to enlarge



After that we walked around in Nippombashi and took purikura at round 1... and headed home at a very reasonable time.

Except for going out on Sunday with my co-workers from IKEA I haven't done anything special. I am busy enough with my working schedules....

So on Sunday we went to an Yakitoriya, an Izakaya specialized in serving chicken dishes. Naturally we had mostly chicken dishes, including chicken hearts (I love chicken hearts). The most special dish was probably the raw horse meat (it was at least the most expensive one).  At such outings it is common to split the bill even. Everyone ended up paying 3500 Yen (35euro), which was considered "cheap" by the others. I thought it was a lot and basically my limit. But yeah it is cheap by japanese standards and Izakaya nights usually end up with  huge bills. Unfortunately I didn’t take many photos that evening :(



I end my entry with a sighting of bad german at DAISO. In the stationery section I saw this  notebook:

Sonntag, 17. Juni 2012

too lazy to blog..


Hi there.. probably no one missed me on here, but I still feel i have some sort of obligation to post sth?! I am not really motivated to write a lot though... this post will feature random photos and recent stories but not necessarily in an chronological order.

I've worked a lot, but I also found time to meet friends and do some shopping.
For example my good friend Sara stopped by in Kansai for a quick visit. She came from Tokyo to Osaka by bus because she had some meetings related to her internship in the area. I invited her to stay over at my place. Unfortunately, I had to work that day and we couldn’t meet until 11pm ! We walked through the night, bought random stuff (food/drinks) at several conbinis and just talked, talked, talked... in the morning we had some Vollkornbrot and cheese and it almost tasted/felt german ^^
She had to leave around noon. It was way too short, but really great to see her.

Some days ago I also finally met up with Lisa. Actually Lisa, Sara and me studied together in Düsseldorf and hang out a lot/became really good friends. It's refreshing to meet them here and be able to talk about my feelings, opinions, experiences in a very honest way and to be understood. I mean to be understood the way only another European or German person will understand.

Lisa and me decided to meet up in Nishinomiya because it's more or less in the middle between Osaka and Kobe. It was a rainy day so we skipped on the idea of walking to some park or beach area and paid a visit to Nishinomiya Gardens, which is nicely designed mall and quite big, considering Nishinomiya is not such a big city. 


I finally received my first money from my jobs. One of my chefs (buchou) told me, it wasn’t possible to hand over my salary in cash. (That’s why I had to go to Umeda in order to open another bank account...see former blog entry). However on pay-day I checked my bank account 3 times ! Nothing... I started to worry. I also asked my co-workers, if they received their salaries that day. They did. I was almost about to go to someone from the HR department, when I got called and was handed over a brown envelop. It was my salary in cash. I was really happy but then again..why was I told I couldn’t get it in cash? Let's see how it will go this month.

At the end of May I had the chance to take part in a survey job in Osaka. It only took about one and an half hour and they pay was very well. This little job was a great excuse for me to do some shopping in Osaka. I really recommend Honmachi and Semba. Bought 3 new summer shirts/blouses, each for about 1000 Yen. I also got new platform sandals in Kobe for 1500Yen.

some days ago at work a guest in the restaurant got extremely mad at me. He took some tray he found and wanted to use it for taking food from the buffet. However we do not offer trays at out buffet. Guests are expected to use dishes and take only one or two plates at a time. If you want to eat more, then you can take a new plate and go as often to the buffet as you want ! There's no restriction/limitation of how much you can eat/take.. but we don’t offer trays.
Anyway this guest took some tray (which is originally used to transport glasses, coffee, cups, etc and part of the equipment, not for the guests). I told him something like „ I am sorry, but you cannot use this, please use the plates only“ and he EXPLODED. He got mad and requested that people in charge come there etc. Well other Hotel/restaurant staff came and tried to calm him down. He shouted for about half an hour..... Apparently he was drunk.
I don’t think I am at fault for what happened.. but I was still pretty nervous to go to work after the incident... :/ (in the end everything turned out ok though)

raaandom:


















 25th may i met up with Yukiko-san for chatting/coffee... this time it was my turn to look for some place to go and again I researched some nice spot on tabelog.. I had a tasty strawberry iced milk drink at Zoe.
Yukiko did what many japanese people do and used her days off during golden week for a short trip ! She went to korea and didn't fail to bring me some omiyage (souvenirs/ obligation gifts):
face sheet masks, lip balm and some korean candy

I also got a bit into using face sheet masks lately and was really grateful to receive these. I also sometimes buy them myself:



orange blush from Daiso
I badly wanted to try out orange colored blush! But before spending too much on something that doesn't match me, I've choosen the 105yen version.. I think it does match me, but at work I rather stick to my usual blush color. I use the highlighter a lot though and think about buying some better-quality highlighter. Any recommendations?


matcha (?) flavored pastry filled with anko/mochi cream, was sooo yummy!!


Been to this cafe/restaurant, which is located on/in the kokusai hall in sannomiya... pretty awesome to enjoy ur time on the roof of a big building surrounded by an artificial garden ^^:







 Few days ago I met up with Naoko-san and had the urge to talk with her over some drinks after work... nothing's better than an izakaya for such an occasion.! And it wouldn't be me, if I wasnt thinking of a low-budget option:  http://www.torikizoku.co.jp/

i really recommend Torikizoku, if you want to keep ur expenses to a minimum.. Everything is priced at 280 yen (294 with taxes), which makes it easy to calculate... especially if you split the bill etc.


chinese chicken noodle soup I had there