-I still hurt from my first ballet class on Tuesday, where I looked like a wounded frog. I can't wait to go back!

-NaNoWriMo...I'm on-schedule, but mostly only because of bizarre asides to talk about characters that have no bearing on the plot (not that there is a plot). Like the pyromaniac underclassman otokoyaku...

-Work is still criminally boring, thank god for the weekend.

-Sheep that I am sometimes, I bought two bottle of beaujolais nouveau last night. Will probably break into one tonight.

-But, sadly, dancing tonight is at the only place I don't like to go (not enough good dancers/too many creepy old guy stalkers) so I'm probably on my own.

-I approve of Mizu's hair on the new photo up for 'Daybreak at Solferino'(http://kageki.hankyu.co.jp/revue/155/index.shtml), but from the look of it Mizu and Mika could have been photographed completely separately and photoshopped together.

-Have had 'El Cumbanchero' stuck in my head all morning. I don't know why.

-The thing that I'm most looking forward to? Christmas shopping. But it's only November 20th.

2 years ago today I saw (with sakusha and jess_in_japan among others) my first Takarazuka show, 'El Halcon'.
Man, is it just me or has it been a hard year to be a fan? The retirements alone have been staggering, but with strange casting, surprise promotions and more fandom angst than usual I have to say that year 1 was much calmer.
But you know? It's been a good year too. When I left Japan after study abroad I thought I might not see Japan again for a couple years, but this year alone I managed to get over there twice! I saw 3 Grand Theatre shows and one Bow, reunited with a couple people from AKP, met some of you all here, had tea with Hinatan, got to watch shows with pandawife_a, bluelegend and mousey_charade when they were in town...A good year.
Oh! And I wrote a report and did a presentation about Takarazuka that went over rather well! Except, of course, for the part where none of my clips worked and I had to demonstrate musumeyaku vs otokoyaku movement by myself. I told some people that I would post my report, and I guess that I could...
Well, anyway, happy zukaversary to me!

...I'm truly sad about Hoshigumi retirements, and I'm sure I will post about them later.
In the meantime I've discovered that it's really fun to say (out loud or in my head) the name of one of the special 'Casablanca' snacks they are releasing:
Saku Saku Choco Waffuru!
Saku Saku Choco Waffuru!
Saku Saku Choco Waffuru!

I defy you to say that without smiling at least a little.

(For those on my friends' list who are wondering, it basically means 'flaky chocolate waffles')

I spent most of the afternoon (at work, mind you) trying to find discontinued costume patterns to no avail. I get less focused with every passing day. I am a terrible employee.
But! Rather than bitch about that, I'm going to write down the amazing fried rice recipe I invented the other day using things already in my refrigerator!

( Panda-sama's Super-Awesome Fried Rice )

...I may or may not have just written a complete synopsis of a revue for NaNoWriMo purposes.
If the phone doesn't ring soon I'll end up writing the play to.
None of this counts towards my word count!!!

11,000+ words and all my main characters are finally in the same room! Huzzah! Oh, except for that one. Well. Anyway.
Time to walk Hector and make some oden! If only I had the right pot.

Okay, I'm supposed to be writing but this has been bothering me for awhile.
I was wondering if anyone out there remembers whether young Damduk has any lines in Taiou II? Specifically, did young Damduk have any lines in the Shinko for Taoi II?
I ask because that was Hinatan's role in the shinko and I want to know if she's had any lines yet.
You can see her in the first 2ish seconds of this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KomYxKgFhxY

Isn't she adorable!

I have never really understood the urge to tear at one's hair, but I think that now I'm beginning to see its appeal.
I was all ready to make a happy post about how I didn't have work yesterday because there was too much snow, and that the cookies that I baked went over well with my co-workers and that it's finally Friday and Halloween is tomorrow.
( Cut for angst and ranting )
I need an aspirin.

I went to a ball last night. There was an orchestra and tons of people in masks and costumes of all sorts, and my dad's girlfriend introduced me to plenty of her friends so I had a good number of dance partners. My only regret is that I did not know ahead of time that it was a masquerade. I still looked fabulous (of course), but I have masks, corsets, hair pieces, a tiara...I could have thrown together some sort of costume. As it was, I wore a black dress of my sister's (shh, don't tell!) that was a little low-cut but had very secure cris-cross straps. The skirt was long and flowy but didn't trail so it was safe to dance in, and I finished it off with elbow-length black silk gloves and dark red lipstick (that is still in evidence, my fool-proof lipstick method is a little *too* good).
It was a wonderful evening, and I think now that I will have to make myself a ball gown for the one in May.
And stay off my feet, they're a little sore.

I thought they were gone! I hadn't seen one for some time, it's been freezing, not just outside, but in the basement too... I had seriously thought that I'd move back into my room tonight.
I made it most of the way down the stairs before I caught sight of one lurking underneath one of the steps: Another giant spider.
It's not fair!! This is my room!! I'm going to go crazy if I don't have a space of my own soon.

After everyone else has already finished it, I finally post my answers.

( Takarazuka Meme )
Well that certainly took awhile.

I'm tired. I did data entry today, but am only about 1/4 of the way through the 561 contacts that I need to enter in, and that's before I go through and also fix the complete contact database. Work is exhausting and I'm always afraid that I'm going to do something wrong. In addition, I spend all day in the office with my two co-workers trying to make sure I stay busy, then have no where to go for my lunch break because I'm trying to save money/cut calories by bringing in my own lunch and the only place around to sit is at my desk. When I get home I have maybe half an hour before my mom comes home, when all I really want at that point is some time to myself. I have phone calls that I *need* to make as well as phone calls that I really do *want* to make, but talking on the phone at work gives me this anxiety reaction to the telephone. I have a new laptop, but I need to get the Windows 7 upgrade ordered before I can use it. Not only do they not want to accept the file type of my proof of purchase, but they're also charging me $11.25 to ship my 'free' upgrade. I ordered the Aqua5 cd that I should have bought when I was in Japan, and now realize that I won't get it for 1-3, or maybe even 12, weeks. Everything just makes me more stressed. I'm so tired and wound up when I get home I can't even do things that I want to do. I'm so desperate for my half hour alone when I get home that I drive right by the mall on the way even though I have a coupon for 3 free Godiva truffles in my purse. I'm still sleeping in my sister's room because 1)I'm not convinced that the spiders are gone from downstairs and 2) because I've been too tired to move all my stuff back into the basement.
It's only Tuesday. How the hell am I going to get through the rest of the week.

So some of you may already know this, but I have a bit of a fashion...obsession. I even started a picture folder on my computer just for beautiful clothes, which now includes portraits, antique Worth gowns and tsujigahana kimono, among other things.
So today I was watching America's Next Top Model (go ahead and laugh) and they had shots of a couture fashion show in Beijing by a designer named Qi Gang. The gowns were *Amazing*! I had never thought of China as a fashion centre, but then I looked into it, there are some amazing designers there! Meanwhile Christian Dior Couture, whose Spring '07 and '09 have permanent places in my pretty clothes folder, put out a bunch of awful things for their most recent show. Clearly Asia is where all the innovative and *attractive* couture is coming from these days.
( Pictures )
In real life news, family has been in town all weekend. Luckily, it's a part of my extended family that I actually like (gasp!), so it's been a good time.

( Jumping of a Cliff Meme )


Because if you can't post horrible poetry on lj, where can you post it?
秋風に
ゆれる薄が
声を出す
葉月の記憶
霜月の夢

Err. It's really bad, and it almost sounds pretty in Japanese so I think that's how I'll leave it.

I suppose that I didn't do a whole lot my last day in Tokyo, since I had a 4pm-ish plane. I pretty much only had time for a short outing with Jackie in her neighborhood before we had to go look for the train, but we were productive all the same. I went to the local supermarket and bought some pickles. We bought breakfast there too and ate it outside, which was nice and relaxing. Our next stop was 7-11, where I wanted to pick up several steamed cakes to bring home with me. On the way there, however, we passed by Yasukuni Shrine, which I really wanted to see. It's really a lot bigger than I imagined, and very pretty.
The flight back was pretty uneventful, watched a couple episodes of The Tudors, and got pretty dehydrated. The flight attendant in charge of my section kept filling up the tiny plastic cups that we got about once every two-or-so hours barely 3/4 of the way, and since I did fall asleep and miss some of those water breaks I was so dehydrated by the time I landed in Houston that I could hardly talk. Ugh. It was only just before we landed that I took a look at the ticket for my connecting flight, just to make sure that I didn't have a quick connection to make. It turned out that I had a scheduled 7-hour layover, yay! I tried to get on another, earlier flight, but the women running the gate seemed annoyed at my very presence and then I missed getting on it by one seat. Darn. So I figured I'd get myself some dinner and settle in at my new gate. I didn't quite manage to eat the shrimp ceasar salad I bought, since my stomach was weird from plane food earlier and jet-lag and I kept falling asleep at the table in the restaurant. I was so happy just to board the plane for home!
...Until the kid behind me said 'I made a poopie' before we'd even taken off. It's hard to sleep through a smell like that.
But now I'm home! And you all have been updated thoroughly on my marvelous adventures. And I start work tomorrow. Damn.

It was finally time to visit Harajuku again, so I dressed as one can only dress when going to Harajuku and went to meet sakusha. It was hot. And crowded. Not only were there a lot of people in general, there were also *tons* of foreigners, saying annoying things and walking slowly. Ugh. We went into the sparkle shop of amazing and I managed to not buy anything, which was a challenge. I mean, they had a red Oscar millitary uniform jacket! It looked just like the real thing! But I told myself that I did not need another Oscar costume, no matter how awesome. Sigh. We then went to Kiddy Land, where I bought my sister a Hello Kitty-dressed as Gloomy (Meaning wearing a pink bear suit and splattered in 'blood') phone strap and Libby bought a mutual friend a YoshiKitty (Hello Kitty dressed as Yoshiki from X-Japan). I also bought some things for other people and an unnecessarily adorable dayplanner for 2010. Time properly killed, we headed over to Edelstein for our lunch reservation. Edelstein is a cafe where one pretends to be the rich patron of a German boys' boarding school, and is thus served by young men dressed in school uniforms. I mentioned 'Solomon's Ring' to Libby and one of the boys turned out to know a great deal about King Solomon, which caught us by surprise. Once our amusing lunch was over we took a walk over the bridge and into Yoyogi park, where a couple people asked for my picture (Yay!) and where there were several shifts of 'greasers', most of them doing choreographed dances. Next we headed to a different fashion district, Shimokitazawa, which turned out to be much less crowded, shaded, and just in general more laid-back. We stopped at Mois Cafe, a cafe that Libby had been to before that was a little off the beaten path, where I had a lovely coconut 'ethnic curry' and coconut chai. It was so nice to relax inside out of the heat! We decided that we had to go to Ikebukuro to get name stamps made at Tokyu Hands, so that's what we did! While we waited I fretted over letter sets (you see, I need one for every season) and looked for a nice case for my name stamp, which ultimately turned out beautifully! The next stop was, logically, print club! We took amazing PuriKura of awesome, then decided that we needed to head down to Cafe B:Lilly Rose. In case you don't know, B:LR is a garcon cafe, where the waiters are all women dressed in suits. I had been there once before with jess_in_japan, but we had been too nervous and allowed ourselves to be seated in the corner away from the handsome garcon, but this time Libby and I were not about to let this happen! We sat at the centre table, ordered our preliminary drinks and did our best to strike up conversation with our waiter. She was very cute, but seemed a bit unsure what to talk to us about after the inevitable 'You speak Japanese very well!' and 'Why are you in Japan?' conversations. There was this one woman, very cool, who kept looking over at us, stopping by for a little chat here and there before wandering back to the bar. After a bit she came over and we started to talk about art, which she knew a great deal about, both Japanese and European. When she heard that Libby was going to Osaka she immediately began to list off all the best art museums in the area. Sigh. She was *very* kakko-ii! We left when the cafe closed for the night and went our separate ways, we must do this again some time!
On the (nearly empty) train home a guy sat *right* by next to me and started talking to me, two things that are very rude, I feel especially so in Japan. I gave him non-committal answers and messed around with my phone, so he pretended to fall asleep, bumping into me with every bump in the train. Yuck! Luckily I made it home without hitting him.

My second Takarazuka day! sailortelevator had been good enough to secure tickets for sakusha and I, but Jackie and a Japanese friend of hers (apparently another Wellesley alum? She knew me but I'm *so* bad with names) wanted to come along to see "Russian Blue/Rio de Bravo!!" so Jackie and I headed down to Hibiya that morning to secure a couple of same-day tickets. I had never bought same-day tickets before, but here I was getting them twice in one trip. Hmm. After we grabbed the necessary tickets we wandered around for a bit until Libby arrived, hit up Taka-an and QR, and checked out this little event going on near the theatre. It appeared to be a green farming deal, with lots of stands and crafts for kids, as well as produce, including a stand selling minorly imperfect fruit. Fruit in Japan is expensive, and is pretty much always meant to be perfect, so this stand was selling fruit that might normally be wasted for very cheap. Jackie bought some pears while Libby and I grabbed some ice cream from the next stand over. This was about when I got the text that Debbie had arrived and that Libby and I should join her to pick up our tickets. It was lovely to meet Debbie and to gush with her over the many charms of Yukigumi in general and Otozuki Kei in particular.
Russian Blue was so much crack, it was wonderful. Mizu's smile had a sound effect. And a light effect. Five-or-so musumeyaku carried her off stage as if she were a log or something. Mizu and Yumiko did an ad-lib about 'musumeyaku' and Yumiko said that she wanted to be Mizu's partner. Alright, so Yumiko's character in Mariposa was clearly intended to be in love with Mizu's character. In this show, whenever the two of them were alone onstage together their chemistry was just too good. Not that I'm complaining. The first half had many other amazing moments, including whenever Miho Keiko sang, Ayana Oto tap-dancing in geta, Saou Kurama's expression when Aihara Mika exposed all of her film, and the dance-off between Kimu and Yumiko.
Intermission mostly served to giggle and fangirl some more.
Rio de Bravo: So many colours! So many sparkles! So many patterns! And yet....NO LEG RUFFLES!!!!! The sparkle gods heard my prayers! I think that my favourite sequence (though Mizu wore my least favourite wig, ugh) was one 'back in the olden times' sequence with Yumiko jealous angry at Mizu for running away from her country for the sake of Mika. Naturally, a sword fight ensues where, naturally, Mika throws herself stupidly in front of Yumiko's sword to protect Mizu. However! Instead of the usual 'Oh shit, I ran through random chick while trying to kill enemy!' deal, Yumiko almost seemed to slash at Mika out of sheer frustration 'Get the hell out of my way!' It was great. Then they all turned into butterflies and sang the butterfly song (see above). One of the musumeyaku butterflies at bottom stage left had a ripped wing, like it had gotten caught in a door or something.
There were also pom-poms (yes, I did buy one) and sparkles and fantastic gold boots.
Afterward I scratched down a letter (I covered my mistakes with star stickers! It was a very sparkly missive) for Kimu to go with the chocolate I'd brought her and was going to give to Debbie to give to Kimu at demachi. As it turned out, there was a club bit where they couldn't give presents (they all got one instead!), but she offered to bring it to the next day's irimachi for me. When Kimu finally came out I heard a big "EEeeeehhhh??!!" from the crowd, followed by laughter and then applause. Confusing. I found out later that Shirahane Yuri (and much later that Maikaze Rira as well) had come to the show, which was why the ad-lib had mentioned musumeyaku and partners! It was awesome, I just wish that I had gotten a better look! After we'd finished demachi (apparently Mizu and Yumiko always come out together, which now that I think of it is what happened when Jessica and I were there in '08) we scoured the area for an atm and then dinner, chatted some more and then headed our separate ways.

My last day in Kansai I finished up my shopping (did you know that you can buy Akafuku mochi inside the Kyoto bullet train gates?) and hopped on a train that was a lot more crowded than I had anticipated. Luckily I still got a seat and was thus able to doze most of the way there. I *did*, however, wake up in time to see Mt. Fuji! It was my first time ever seeing it, and just by chance I glanced over and there it was!
Once I'd arrived in Tokyo I hurried back to my friend's apartment to drop off my stuff (there are far too many stairs in Tokyo subway stations for a roll-aboard bag to actually be convenient) and dashed over to the Tokyo Okura Hotel. My friend's husband, the one who helped me get the job, had offered to show me around the hotel and introduce me to the people who work with him. I got to see every level of room in the main building (All very nice, but the suite especially so), the spa, the tea ceremony room, and then the offices. I never want to work in the Tokyo Okura office. It is in the basement: no windows, not even any cubicles, just row upon row of desks in what looks like a cement bunker. Even his boss's office was tiny, though it was in a separate building and above ground.
Over the course of a couple hours I recieved about 20 business cards and said the catch-all 'Yoroshiku onegaishimasu' probably a couple hundred times.
My tour over, I hopped a train to Shibuya, where I was to meet up with sakusha, who I had not seen since AKP ended, and Jackie. We finally managed to all gather in the same location, though we all had moments of being certain that Shibuya station was going to eat us alive. The station is ridiculous. Signs everywhere for stores, restaurants, subway lines, but no signs that just tell you how to get the hell out.
We had some pasta, I bought a couple persimmons from this tiny fruit stand in a sketchy alley, then we smuggled some drinks into Big Echo karaoke. By the way, if you're doing karaoke in Shibuya on a Friday night, expect some price gouging. Jeez.

I had plans to meet wao_wao in Umeda station in Osaka, as well as a plan to wear kimono. The kimono plan had a slight collision with the meeting plan, as it took me *much* longer than it should have to get dressed. Being in America leaves me so out of practice in putting on kimono! So I was late for our meeting. We did meet up, however, and head over to Eikokuya for tea. They have a nice matcha au lait and chiffon cake set that I had back in January. We chatted, ranted and fangirled over all matter of things (Mostly Takarazuka-related) then had a look around QR, went back to her place for more chatting/ranting/fangirling and then I hopped a train to Takarazuka city.
It was SO TERRIBLY HOT!!! I could not have chosen a worse day to wear kimono. Seriously, wrapped collar bone to ankle in three layers of silk with a wide brocade sash? And lace-up ankle-boots? Not appropriate attire for a humid 90 degree day. I decided that the best thing that I could do was have chilled soba for lunch at my favourite soba restaurant, with plenty of iced buckwheat tea and tempura vegetables, so that is exactly what I did. Afterward I did some shopping in my second QR of the day as well as Taka-an, hopped up to the Puchi Museum for some closeup shots of costumes from 'Legend' take one, and was happy to also find a mountain of shan-shan's, some of which I recognized! Among them the one from 'Sora Fantasista' that looks like a silver flower/ray-gun and the pretty light-up one from 'Miroirs'. Also! There were two costumes from Hanagumi Elisabeth!
I was most of the way back to the station when I saw that my okonomiyaki restaurant of choice was open, so I headed up to good old Mai-san's for an early dinner. They recognized me! I guess that they don't get *that* many tall blonde gaijin with strange fashion-sense, and I *was* there about three times in one week back in January. So I talked with the ladies there and with two older men sitting across the shop who were very nice and gave me warabi mochi as they left.
I managed to stagger into my hotel room after a long train ride, back cramping because of the obi and totally exhausted from sweating almost constantly all day.

I spent the day with my host mother, which is always fun. Of course, I had a mission: to pay for at least one thing over the course of the day. My host mother never lets me pay for things, even when my parents were in town there was nothing I could say or do that would result in our paying for ourselves, let alone treating her. My mission was an abject failure. It always is.
We went first to a temple that was displaying kimono for Noh woven by a 105 year-old master weaver. They were so beautiful! The colours and textures! The stunning overlays of patterns...I wanted one *so* badly.
Next was lunch at the Kyoto Okura hotel, a walk down Pontocho, then over to Takashimaya department store to pick up some marrones glaces (I had never had them, so my host mother insisted on buying some for me), where we saw about three off-duty maiko! One of them had the most beautiful coral and jade hair ornament, and however much I wanted a better look at them I didn't want to be a stalker.
When my host mother went home to cook dinner I wandered around the Shijo area for a bit, bought myself an obi (Solid dark purple on one side, solid grey on the other) and picked up one that mom had asked for (Orange with gold clouds and pawlonia with waves in olive green and blue), then strolled through Nishiki market (If you cook, this place is a must-see), but was sadly too full from lunch to eat anything, no matter how delicious the fresh tofu doughnuts smelled.
The evening was spent hanging out in my host family's living room and having a very nostalgic home-made dinner: shredded chicken with cucumbers, boiled pumpkin, grilled eggplant with red miso, and of course rice with pickled plum and tea. I miss okaa-san's dinners!