Born to Blosom

My flight back to Japan was kind of annoying. A family with two little boys sat behind me and the boys cried during the entire flight. There was also a girl with some kind of mental disability in front of me and she was fighting with her sister and shouting during the whole flight too. So I cranked up my iPod and went through the scores and scores of music that I got from people while I was in the States. Luckily, I was in the middle row of the plane and there were three empty seats so I got to stretch out, relax and listen to music. The airport staff in Chicago and the flight attendants were kind of rude but I think that's just the way Americans talk to each other sometimes and I'm just not used to it anymore.
When I got back to Japan I was pretty tired and I headed home. I kept getting stared at on the train and one lady gave me the Japanese "shame on you" dirty look when I put my back pack in the over head storage on the train. I don't know what that was all about. Now I have to get used to the Japanese people all over again too. Ugh. It's annoying going between two cultures that are totally different and having to adjust my perception of rudeness/politeness depending on where I am.
When I got home Conor announced that we have no gas in the apartment so we have no hot water or heat. AWESOME. He said he texted Hiroko and she ignored him. Figures. I'm still really dirty from the plane and I'm really not looking foward to dealing with Hiroko trying to tell us that there's nothing wrong with our shower again -_- I wish I had the money to bail on her and go traveling but I don't right now so I can't. I need to formulate a plot because summer will be here before I know it and I've gotta figure out where I'm going next and how I'm going to get there.
I went to bed super early last night and woke up at 4:30 AM. I have a class at 10 so I need to leave soon since my bike is at school and I have to take the train and bus. Whoopie for rush hour ;p
Now that the complaints are out of the way, I've got a fashion project that I'll elaborate on later but here's the general jist. When I was back in the States I went to a couple of rave parties for New Year's in Chicago and I saw a lot of people wearing gyaru and ganguro influenced make up and styles. I've done a little poking around online about this and there's a lot of American YouTube videos and a few blogs that have popped up recently giving tutorials
on how to be gyaru or ganguro so I'm guessing these trends that are pretty much out here are picking up overseas. I'm going to track down some of the girls on the blogs and ask them some questions about how they got into the style because I'm really curious as to how this trend is going to surface as it gains more popularity overseas. I'm actually wondering if gangoru is going to resurface in Japan since I've been seeing them around more recently. I saw one IRL and I saw this white girl on a blog who is actually in the ganguro scene and I'm REALLY INTERESTED in talking to her. If she's in Tokyo I'd love to interview her. I'm going to see if Gio will shoot some photos of some of the American gyaru and ganguro styles at parties and send them to me so I can pair them up with things and maybe do something on the web with it or show it to this fashion site that said I can shoot street fashion photos for them. I see here so that's my little project I'm planning for 2010 but I may need to become less busy so I can actually do this.
I'm also toying with the idea of making a web show about Japanese fashion. A lot of people back home were REALLY INTERESTED in the fashion magazines I brought back so if I can grab some magazines and do a little weekly show about what people are wearing and maybe back it up with some street fashion photos of my own I think it would actually be a success on YouTube IF I did it right. I'm really bad at getting hits on YouTube so I need to figure out how to make a good video.
Oh yes, and the fact that Masa e-mailed me opens up room for me to invite him to the birthday party that Miki and I are going to plan to have together so I need to e-mail her about that today too.
Anyway, I have to take out the trash and leave for work.

I'm hungry. Waaaaah.

New Year's was AWESOME. I went to two very different but very fun parties and saw a lot of my friends. When I walked into the Burner party my friends screamed like they saw a ghost and started shouting, "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'RE HERE!" Then they wrapped me in the warmest hugs and I felt so very loved. Gio and I had a long talk about our relationship. I e-mailed Masa and told him happy new year and I miss him and he e-mailed me back so I guess we may be talking again...I head back to Japan in a couple hours. Crazy.

Needless to say, it's turning out to be a pretty interesting year...