Raindrop thoughts.: January in Review

Welcome to the monthly review!

Books; This month, in keeping with my new year’s resolutionto read (at least one) book a month I read; Lena Dunham – Not That Kind of Girl.

It is a collection of essays written about Sex, Body Image,Work, Relationship and stories of youth. The book is very funny and made me laugh out loud. Due to not having read a collection of essays in a while it was strange to read a book with no plot or direction. However it served as a great entertaining casual read, which is perfect to pick up when you have time, but not that kind of book you would read for hours. I’d give it 3 out of 5.

Movies; Into the Woods

I didn’t get to the cinema too much this month as I was only in Belfast for about a week, but I did manage to see Into the Woods. I am a sucker for musicals so I just HAD to see this.

Although the movie has some good plot points, and enjoyable singing arrangements it drags on for absolutely ages and the ending left all of us feeling very unsatisfied. If you like musicals, definitely give it a go but don’t be expecting too much from it. I’d give it 3 out of 5.

TV;

Attack on Titan

Whilst in Japan is seeing anime and merchandise EVERYWHERE Brian suggested I watch this. Although I have not finished I found it really interesting. Not sure if this dystopian fiction or just fiction with a dystopian feel but I thought it captured post-apocalyptic themes very well. However it can be very depressing, and because of that I have to not saturate myself with it! I would give it 3.5 out of 5.

Suits

I watched the first 2 seasons of this and I was surprised to find out how much I loved it! However, I am watching season 3 at the minute and it is quite bad. Mike Ross is very attractive though, as are the majority of the characters. Charming lawyers handling interesting and controversial cases!

Friends

As FRIENDS came to Netflix, I had to re-watch. Still makes me laugh, although I hate the audience laughter!

Special Events;

New Year;

I spent the New Year in Karatsu, drinking in a few wee bars and also we went to a temple where all the people in the city had gathered. You could buy a wee fortune, which was obviously completely in Japanese. If you wanted your fortune to come true to tied it on specific racks. If you didn’t want it to come true there were giant fires to burn them! There were also giant bells rung at midnight, and lots of music and street food!

Went to an onsen!

For those who don’t know what an onsen is, it is a Japanese public very hot bath. You will pay in, put your shoes in a locker and walk barefoot or in slippers into the changing room where you will get fully naked, and carry a small vanity towel. You then walk into the onsen where they have a wash area where you wash your body and hair thoroughly. It looks like this;

After washing, you walk naked into the many hot baths. In one that we went to there were two inside baths, and two baths outside, a cold bath outside and a sauna. It is a very relaxing place, and after the first 5 minutes I stopped feeling awkward and just embraced it - and found it so liberating!

Looking at all the naked Japanese women of every shape and size made me realise (I know this is incredibly soppy); Everybody really is beautiful in their own way!

For obvious reasons no photos were to be taken inside the onsen but here is a similar one I found online;

I sort of got addicted to the onsen and went about 3 times, so brilliant.

Went to a Cat Cafe in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

This was called Cafe Calico. It was about £5.50 in for an hour and they had about 30 or 40 cats over two floors. Most of the cats were very friendly which was great. You could pay 300yen for two small containers full of shredded chicken and when the cats seen that they would surround you and eat the food out of your hand - it was very adorable.