Homemade nails!

Sounds good, right?.........
Well.. for us "short nail girls", it is good news! This is my second attempt at sculpting own nails, and I'm pretty happy with the result (^o^') My first attempt was done with blue glitter tips, but I don't have pictures of that.

 

上手？　

Have a happy new years tomorrow!

Snow <3

I've had a really great christmas, as always. It's always nice spending some quality time with friends and family. Eating good food, relaxing, and basically enjoying yourself. We even got a white christmas!

Since we've already got alot of snow this winter, a couple of friends asked us to go out to enjoy it. It was around - 15 degrees. Despite the cold, the sun was shining, and the landscape looked really pretty!

We went sliding in the snow. Marte and I went really fast down a hill, without noticing a jump at the bottom... Luckily I don't have any pictures of that..

I do have pictures of us enjoying our healthy lunch (^u^)/

 

めちゃさむい！

As the title obviously sais, it's extremely cold! Well, it might not be extremely cold, but it sure feels like it's -20 degrees when the wind blows at you outside.
     Nothing much has happened this week, but I've been busy preparing things for christmas, like presents, decoration, and I've also baked with my mom and my sister. I've also got to work more.
     My sister, her husband and their daughter have come to visit us during the holidays. Tomorrow we are going to play yet another round of talisman together, I'm looking forward to that! :)
     Yesterday, Joachim and I bought a christmas tree, which we decorated early this morning.

 

Mao

My sister made us beautiful christmas decoration last year.

 

 

Talisman

Yesterday we gathered a couple of friends and played the game Talisman. A fantasy themed board game. It was fun, and ofcourse - I won (^u^)/

 

My package has arrived! \(^o^)/

I've never been able to grow long nails, nomatter what kind off products I've used to strengthen my nails. I've tried using fake nails which you basically attach to your nails with glue. But these nails are bad for your natural nails, and they don't look to good on either. So for a long time now, I've wanted to get gel/acrylic nails done, but concidering it's very expensive (and you also need to fix them at the manicurist  every 4th week or so), I haven't given myself "the permission" to use that much money on myself. And who needs long nails anyway?!
.....but recently I've checked up the possibility of sculpting your own nails yourself..and after researching alot I discovered different kinds of "do it yourself" kits, waaay cheaper than if you would do it at a professional on a regular basis. It also looks very fun to do different color/design variations to make your original nail art (^u^)
     So last week I ordered a acrylic nail kit from nail4you . Today my package arrived!

I'm not going to bother explaining how you fix your nails with this equipment, but if your interested to know you can always browse videos at youtube. Just search for "acrylic powder nails" or something..

I'll post an entry when I've tried it out.

Baking for christmas

December 4th, I made gingerbread cookies with Joachim and my mum. We had a really nice time, eating lunch, baking and listening to christmas music.

My mom (^-^)

My brothers cat wanted to help us... (He definitely wasn't after the cookie dough)

 

\(OuO)/

Joachims creation

Joachims creation decorated

ipig

Yesterday I discovered something really cool, the ipig! It's basically a speaker made for ipods, so you can bring your music anywhere you want! I like listening to music while cooking, exercising, cleaning etc. But I don't like to wear headphones, because then I can't hear my surroundings (>.<'') So this ipig would fit me perfectly! The sound is supposed to be really good aswell. I want one! The only problem.. which color should I choose? Hmm..

 

 

 

 

December

1st december already! I really need to go christmas shopping soon. Three weeks until christmas, and those weeks usually passes by fast. Today I've had a really good time with Joachim. No wonder. We hang up the christmas star in the window, lit christmas incense, and wrote down our christmas wishes while enjoying coffee and chocolate ^^, Chocolate on a tuesday is allowed at this time of the year!

 

(sorry about the bad quality, but Joachims camera is sent away for repairing).

Soon, my big sister and her daughter are coming from Kirkenes to visit us. I'm really looking forward to that! We are going to have a christmas workshop aswell (^o^)/ **

part time job & cozy november

I've been a bit more busy these past days, since I got a part time job at an after school program here in Horten. I'm just helping out because they lack people due to sickness, but concidering how hard it is to get a job these days, I'm quite pleased with just helping out. Besides, I get to work with so many cute children! I made one big mistake though.. drawing a cat for them to see. Everyone wanted one, and since I'm not good at saying no to such cute faces, I ended up with a blister on my thumb after I went home from work at friday...( >_>'')

Today, we lit our oven for the first time since moving to our new apartment!

 

Soo cozy!

And winter came

Yesterday it snowed alot. It was so cozy, and I really got the feeling of winter. It's already November, time really flies doesn't it? Even though the snow is melting at the moment I write this..I'll dedicate this post to winter (^o^)/ I really hope for colder weather, and with it - more snow!

A really nice song from Enyas winter album:
Enya - And winter came

Some winter photos taken by my boyfriend 4-5 years ago

Here is a reeally good brownies recipe! I highly recommend it! And since it's satuday, you can feel less guilty about eating them (>u<¨) And the recipe name fits the theme of this post!

Brownies under the snow

300g dark chocolate
200g butter
4dl sugar
4 eggs
3 dl flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 spoons cocoa
powdered sugar

Set the oven to 175 degrees.

Start by melting the butter on low heat.
Add 200g of chopped chocolate, and let it melt on low heat while stiring occasionally. It should end up as a smooth mix.
whisk the eggs and sugar together until it's just mixed.
Add the melted chocolate and butter while stiring.
Mix together all the dry ingredients, and stir them into dough.
Add 100g of chopped chocolate.

Pour the dough into a square cake form  (about 20x30cm) covered in baking paper, and leave for about 45 minutes, lowest in the oven. When finished, it should still be a bit raw in the middle, but not floating dough. (In our oven it takes about 60 minutes for it to finish, so don't be afraid to let it stay more if you feel it's not ready).

Let the cake cool for at least an hour, cut it into squares, and sprinkle powdered sugar all over them!

Enjoy! <3

Gifts from Shiori and Bjørnar

Last weekend, We had some friends over to see our new apartment. (For those who didn't know already, we moved back to Horten some weeks ago. I'll post some pictures later). We had a really cozy time, eating pizza and watching a movie together :)　It was really nice seeing my best friend Marte again. It's fun that we're almost neighbours now. Our friend Bjørnar brought home presents from Japan, from him and Shiori (his girlfriend). It made me really happy! ^^

Chocolate and a kittychan phone strap <3

(My beloved korean speaking kittychan alarm clock in the background ^u^)

We enjoyed eating them :3

 

かわいいね。

本当にありがとうございました！

ひさしぶり。。

Havn't really updated my blog in a while..basically because there hasn't been much to blog about :)
Then, after a couple of friends request for me to keep blogging, I thought - why not blog about normal everyday stuff..? It would be a great way to pastime when I'm bored.
     I thought I'd blog about things such as my hobbies, pictures, recommend recipes and so on. And then, maybe, I'll manage to keep the blog ongoing longer than the last time >_>''


Some weeks ago, I attended desucon , which is an japan inspired event, focused on manga, anime and games. I've been there each year since it started. Last year I sold pictures there. People cosplay as different characters, and there are stands selling stuff from Japan. Like pocky, actionfigures, plushes and such. I can't say I'm too fond of this event, considering it lacks the autenthic japanese feeling, and the event building is crowded with teens dressed out as naruto and bleach characters, like those two animes are the only knowledge they have about Japan. Still, it is nice that the japan loving population of Norway are growing in numbers.
This year I went to desucon to meet Sindre, a boy I've known over the internet for about 6 years. It was fun to see that we had the same type of connection as we do over the internet, like I had known him for many years in real life. He was just as I imagined him. Later on in the event, I met my friend from my japanese class, Vigdis. It was nice seeing her again, and I ended up hanging with her the rest of that evening, talking and eating on a restaurant in Oslo called friday.

I didn't take any pictures at desucon.. but here is the pocky colletion I brought home from the event.

キャアー！ 　Didn't even like them.. Anyone want pocky? \(^.^)/

Shibuya & Harajuku

A bit late update, but better late than never right?

Tokyo didn't really live up to my expectations. I don't really know why, but I imagined it to be more "flashy and showy" than it was. I think Tokyo is quite similar to Kyoto, only less tourists and more people. Despite this, I really had a good time there!

On our first day in Tokyo, we went straight to Shibuya after relaxing a bit in our new hostel. Shibuya is one of the modern, shopping places in Tokyo, with a lot of stores and malls. We were headed to Shibuya 109, which is a huge shopping mall for girls. 9 stores of clothing stores.

 On our way to shibuya 109. By the famous "street crossing" in Tokyo.

A really blurry picture, but this is a fashion style many people have in Tokyo.

Oh.. yeah, and the one to the left is a boy.

There are sooo many pretty clothes there, but 70% of the clothes are like size XXS here! Looks like the clothes you will find in children stores. And the clothes that do looks like the right size, you often aren't allowed to try on. Why? I'm not sure. Other places we've tried clothes they just put a paper bag on our head to prevent makeup getting on the clothes, but most places in Tokyo, they wouldn't let you try on the clothes no matter how many bags you'd be willing to cover yourself in. I did buy a sweater, necklace and a phonestrap though.

  

A picture of the entrance on our way out.

 

This is the sweater and necklace I bought in Shibuya, the wallet I bought in Harajuku, which is the place we went to the next day. My hello kitty sweater has catears and a ribbon on the hood.... only in Japan <3

  

This is a shopping street in Harajuku, with soo many stores I could only wish we had in Norway! (I don't have pictures from the stores, because you're not allowed to take pictures of them in Japan).

 

Weird accessories..

 

..and crepe stores at every corner! A crepe is a pancake filled with good stuff <3 I didn't get to try it though.. but I will for sure next time I see one of these stores. The price is about 25NOK.. cheap!

Unfortanely, I didn't get to take more photos because the batteries died. I have a bunch of videos though, But I havn't quite figured how to upload them yet.

So, now I'm back in Norway as most of you already know. And for those who didn't know, you do now.
     I didn't really see a future for me living in Japan the next half year, for various reasons. It wasn't quite as I expected, and things very more expensive than I though. Also, I didn't get to have visitors living with me, even though we we're told we could from the beginning. That resulted in both Joachim, and Marte - my bestfriend - had to cancel their flights..
     I really do like Japan, and I'm planning to go back already around december/january. But now when I'm back in Norway, I realise that I've made the right choise in returning. I also want to say that I'm very happy with finishing a year with japanese studies, living in Japan proved to myself that I've learned so much in just these two semesters! And my plan from the beginning was to learn japanese because it is something I've wanted for such a long time. I didn't begin studying japanese just to get a bachelor etc. but for my own sake. And that dream is fufilled :-) I will continue studying on my own though, and I will also continue updating this blog.. so stay tuned...

Tokyo tomorrow

Today was our last day in Kyoto. Tomorrow morning we are taking the shinkansen to Tokyo. I've seen so much pretty places here, and I really feel we have gotten much out of our time here. Even though Kyoto has been great, I'm really looking forward to se a new place! I don't have much days left here in Japan, so I'm going to enjoy these last day to the fullest.
     Today we woke up quite late. around 11.30.. It was nice to sleep in a bit. After eating sandwiches for breakfast, we went to Kyoto station (It is a shopping mall there with restaurants and such...), to eat dessert! We have been drooling over fake window desserts the past days, so today we decided to try it out.

 

Icecream with cake on top of it!

It was good, but filled with weird coffee gelly O_o It was waay to sweet, so we only ate about half of it. 

.
 

I bought these shoes yesterday at Kyoto station! Love them <3 Only 350NOK.

I'm glad I'm spending the last days here in Tokyo. I think there is alot to see and do there. It's gonna be nice to return to Norway though :-)

More from Kyoto

Yesterday we spent the day with Kenta, a Japanese boyfriend of Wictoria. He had a car, so we had the opportunity to go to alot of places. First, we went to the Inari temple, or one of the inari shrines here in Japan. Which is such a pretty place! Inari is the fox god which represents rice in Japan or something.

 

On our way up to the Inari temple/shrine.

Bought some souveniers aswell..

  

Really pretty buildings at the Inari shrine.

 

 

  

The fox god

 

Kenta made us do a japanese ritual, by tossing a coin inside a temple, and ringing these bells. We were then supposed to close our eyes and pray for something I think.. but I skipped that part >_>''

We bough one of these fox heads. We were supposed to draw faces on them, and then write our name and wish on the back of it.

We then hung them here among lots of other fox heads.

 

Guess which is mine......         ......the one in the middle!

Another fox statue

Into the portals of the unknown.......

  

Pretty right?

Later on we went to another place with temples, don't know the name of the place though.

 

This temple is sooo big! the pictures doesn't really show...

Later that evening, we went together to take Purikura (pictures from a photomachine), eat ramen, and go to karaoke!

Narutos favorite! Tasted good. This is the smallest size, but it was really big! And only about 30 NOK!!

At the karaoke. Bad picture, but this was the japanese friends of Wictoria we went out with. It was really fun. about 200NOK, and you can sing for as long as you'd like in your own room, and drink as much alcohol/tea/juice etc... as you want :-)

Today we only went a small trip to Gion, which is a place with lots of gift shops, and some temples. We were so tired from last night, so this small trip suited us perfectly.

 

I found some cool statues in Gion.

Another huuge temple.

 

Later on we went shopping :-) 

  

We then went to eat some japanese cake! This looks sooo much like the ones you see in anime. So perfectly shaped. 

 

Right now I'm eating mango pudding, and relaxing in the hostell bedroom. We have done so much these past days, and all the new impressions havn't really sunken in yet. Therefore, I'm quite tired. I wonder when I'll realise that I'm in Japan?