Uso(J); ;Xu1(M); 14 Strokes Lies! Lies! This week found out that a close e-friend had been duping not only me but my group of e-friends for close to a year. He told us outrageous lies (you know who you are!) while at the same time extracting from us trusting souls some very personal information. Like telling us he was 22, married, Korean-Japanese, employed, an owner of a computer store and one of three siblings when in fact he's just 17 yr old slime who had nothing better to do than to make up lies. And he kept lying even when I confronted him...something about a gang running a game forced him to lie. Pffph! Made Yunikuns cry too. Bad Bad Boy!Anyway, this character means lie but in Chinese has the meaning of "insubstantial". In other words, blowing in the wind.
I leave for Japan in three days and I haven't even packed. But I did spend the last hour and half wrapping up two wonderful gift baskets for my hosts in Tokyo and family friends I am to visit in Nagoya.
Am I a good guest or am I good guest? I have to admit I went a bit hog wild. I never knew putting together gift baskets could be so expensive. All in all I spent close to $100 USD for both baskets. -__- Personalized gift baskets come at a cost. I was aiming to make gift baskets that give a taste of California.Contents include: One large jar of Hot Strawberry Jelly (Really good by the way),two jars of locally made honey, two mini jars of wine jelly--Merlot and Champagne flavored, three snack packets of seasoned pistashio nuts, one large almond pack,two herb almond snack packets, two mini bottles of hot sauce, some yummy chocolate from a San Francisco Company and a bottle of California Wine The Kurahashi's bag (my hosts in Tokyo) also has a hand puppet for their little year old daughter.
You can't really see the wine in the picture above but it's there. I couldn't fit everything I bought too. I have six mini jars of gourmet mustard and crackers that for the life of me I can't figure out how to fit into the basket. And I hate mustard. What to do? Hmmm..could chuck them across the river just to hear the satisfying !plomb! The gift bag that holds the stuff looks like a very pregnant lady already-- monstrously pudgy around the the middle and quite bent out of shape.
I hope the recipients of the gift bags like the contents cause if they don't...tough luck. Next time I don't think I'll do gift bags..I'll just..um..be a true American and come with nothing but a hearty handshake and a silly cowboy grin.
Kusari(J); So2(C);Suo3(M); 18 Strokes This is an an interesting character. It means lock in Chinese but "chain" in Japanese according to the Random House Japanese-English dictionary. Notice the gold radical on the left side. I probably won't be able to put up kanji's every blog entry because it does take some time but it sure is fun. 
Yume(J);Mung6 (C);Meng4(M); 14 Strokes Some fortunetellers can divine by just looking at a word one picks. Today's word is dream. Because I was procrastinating and ended up working late into the wee hours missing out on lucious dreams. I crave sleep tonight. There is nothing more satisfying than being able to go to sleep when you want and waking up when you've had enough. Southeast asians believe that when one sleeps, one's soul wanders to another place to have adventures. So my soul was tied down yesterday earthily to the ground and could not soar. How sad. I am prepared to rectify that tonight.