Oh the Joys of Camping!

Posted by: skammie on: August 11/07

• In: My Life
• 11 Comments

I realized I seem to do this a lot — collect a bunch of stuff I want to blog about in a week or so and then throw them all together into 1 entry. The result? An entry that has like a billion tags…well fine, more like several. But still, I don’t like it ><

Anyway, I should have done a summary of my camping trip as soon as I got back on monday, but then I got too tired and procrastination became my best friend again, so yep, I’m finally doing it now!

Who: 11 guys, 2 girls, and a couple (the adults) = 14 in total
When: friday morning – monday afternoon
Where: Stawamus Chief, by Squamish (5 min drive to civilization!)
Why: just to hang out and hike 🙂
What: notable events include…

– at the pub on fri, Josh eating steak for lunch
– walking around the WHOLE town of Squamish
– going to McDonalds every night XD (and me having a burger with ice-cream *lol*)
– leaving Bill asleep at McDonalds while we left the place XD
– midnight “airplane board game” and card games
– getting multiple complaints from neighbours for our “noise” (we were just being happy campers and having fun, that’s all!) -.-
– having to move to the phone booth by the parking lot (the only place with a good light source and away from the neighbours) to chat
– being practically the last person to wake up everyday…haha I love my sleep!
– hiking to Shannon Falls
– some of the guys climbed the Chief…and got naked at the top (thank goodness I wasn’t there!)
– playing taboo (“what is something that carries people in the sky and it’s not big?” 😀 )
– playing ultimate
– wading at the bottom of the waterfall (COLD!!)
– not showering for all those days…ewww (yes, it’s sorta gross)
– playing taboo at the gazibo in the park at Squamish and a cop came to check up on us, he was very friendly though 🙂
– the beautiful starry night and trying to spot the constellations

Warning: the following is a rant of useless junk about a guy the Japanese language that I came across on the trip; read only if you have nothing else better to do XD~

Last but not least, I made a new friend! He is a friend of a friend, a Korean guy living and studying at Japan’s 2nd most famous university for the past 5 years who is here for the summer. He speaks perfect Japanese (but not so perfect English)!! During this trip, I actually had the opportunity to carry out a conversation, 日本語で！(Well, I have before too, but that was usually to my sensei, so this is different!) When I first told him I knew some Japanese, he responded immediately in fluent Japanese to me. But he spoke so fast that I was left in the dust with a blank expression. o.O *lol* But then he spoke slower and I could catch on and reply. He said it was not bad, just that i needed to speak faster. ^^ However afterwards, I told him I have studied it for 6 year already, he told me it was “下手” (hey, what can I do if I have no one to practice it with?!) 😦 He seems like a guy who has a sense of humour, but I’m quite sure that sentence held some truth *cries* He also said other rather interesting statements, like he was “Johnny’s 系”…err, I didn’t know how to respond to that, although I must admit some of the poses he did for the camera were quite kawaii~ *lol* Another thing he said was that I was “太い”! How dare him?! So I said to him “うそつくないよ！” haha~ Um…what else? Oh ya, there is a nice side to him though. I once said “日本語が何が間違ったら、ぜひ直してくれない？” and he replied with a simple “いいよ～” That made my day ^_^ I also told him I plan on living in Japan for a year or so next year, and he told me to find him in Tokyo! And then of course, the big Japanese convo that took place in the car! It was about a bunch of stuff: the differences between the school calendars of Japan, Korea, and North America, the subjects we study, アルバイト, sleep times, blogs, other random stuff, etc… All in all, the whole convo was pretty much ALL in Japanese, and I could understand almost all of it (though sometimes I had to partly guess), and I could respond in Japanese!!! That was really a first for me and I was 超嬉しかった～ When we chatted about what we were going to do after camp, he told me he planned on blogging in Japanese on his Mixi (A Japanese “community entertainment” network, according to Wikipedia) and invited me to read it. Too bad I don’t have a Mixi account…so he said he’ll email me about it, but we ended up forgetting to exchange emails 😛 (that’s ok though, because I’m sure I can find out from our mutual friend ^^) I also told him I had a blog myself, but I didn’t tell him the addy, so I bet he’s never going to read this, unless I tell him later~ I did mention that sometimes I want to blog in Japanese too, but then not many people will understand! *lol* でも、もし彼が私の blog を読んだら、もっと日本語が使うほうがいいかな？Anyway, this “Japanese experience” gave me the boost to really get the determination to “ずっとずっと頑張る！” YOSH!~

In fact, this determination to improve my Japanese carried out onto the next 2 days. On tues at work, I came across a Japanese customer, so I gathered up the courage to chat with her in Japanese (usually I just speak English with them and pretend I don’t know Japanese)! It was a short conversation but still one nonetheless!! ^^ Then on wed, I FINALLY had the guts to chat it up with one of my Japanese co-workers. I told her I studied Japanese and she started talking to me nihongo de! I told her of my plans to live in Japan for a while and asked for her opinion for the best city to live in, since I’ve heard that Tokyo has a lot of English exposures, meaning I won’t be in an environment where I’m forced to use Japanese (which I want). But she also pointed out that Tokyo would be the best place to go if I wanted to learn standard Japanese instead of some Japanese dialect (like Kansai). Hrm…good point. Throughout our convo, she used mostly simple sentences and talked slow; I bet she was scared I won’t know what she was talking about! *lol* But oh well, it’s a start! This is exciting! My Japanese may ACTUALLY get somewhere!!! ^^

Other news:
1) I polished clean through News no Onna in the past few days! Ryu-kun is so cute!
– HOCKEY! I’m not a big hockey fan, but the fact that it’s Canada’s sport and that Takki plays it in this drama…it makes me smile 🙂
– there’s this one scene around ep 7/8 where Aso Tamaki pinches his cheeks! KYA~ I wanted to do the same right there and then!! CUTE!~
– if only Tackey smiled more of that charming smile of his in this drama…but then again, I know his character is supposed to be “cool”

2) I updated the last entry with the SAMURAI lyrics too! If you’ve been waiting, gomen ne!~

3) I finally managed to d/l all these delicious T&T appearances from Bonnie and Michelle! *hugs these 2 lovely ladies* But I didn’t make it in time to clear up room on my comp, so I have to resort to saving all these clips on my SD cards. I have 3 of them and they are 2 GB each; right now, one of them is filled…I think I should be fine until the end of the SAMURAI/24 hr TV rush? I hope? I still haven’t found time to watch each clip in detail yet though *pout*

4) I’m still waiting patiently for my cd. Stingy me didn’t order the express shipping method, that’s why. But that’s ok, because I know when it comes, I’d be no less happy than when it came for you guys! I’m a supporter of T&T, NOT a supporter of I-will-rip-off-oversea-fans online ordering/shipping services, thank you very much!