Today I met natsumi who moved to portland from australia recently for the first time. I knew her through my website from before though. She is a really cool person and I am glad that I had my website and she found it and we became friends.
Because I did not get as much response on my site as I expected, I had thought making a website was actually a pretty lonely thing and to make real friends on the internet was impossible to do. But it was proven not! so cool!!
I concluded that internet is a lonely place too quickly. I was using only japanese web services and writing only in japanese before I found antville. Maybe japanese people are too shy? or lazy? to comment on what other people have to say on the internet. I thought no one cared about my site except for my mom and myself and only I was interested in what I do. But things are totally different on antville. I get a lot of responses which are almost overwhelming. I had never expected there was such a friendly and close-knit yet open community with a cool atmosphere on the internet. I found that just like there are many different cultures in the world, there are many different cultures in the internet world too. I am really lucky that I found antville!
very cool design! I tried to learn russian last year but dropped the class after 3 days. I dont drink much but I think it is stupid that usa has a very strict prohibition of alcohol for people under 21. in japan and in europe, practically anyone can buy and drink alcohol freely but dont have as many problems related to alcohol as usa.
stolichnaya has a very cool website featuring origami! www.stoli.com
I was looking at other antville pages ( I have no idea what they say for most of the people who use antville write in german, but even so, it is very interesting to see their layout and photos, etc...), and discovered that there are pages of "" and "" for each weblog. that's so cool! i did not know that! why aren't they in the default menu bar??? well, not many people look at my weblog (only for now, I hope...) , so, the "referrers" and "most read pages" are pretty boring so far... so i have not put them in the menu bar but maybe i will in the future.
Today I went to get my photos at a supermarket. Those photos are from my last winter break which I forgot about until a few days ago. They show very beautiful scenery of Koyto. I wish they were digital or I had a scanner so I could put them here. instead, I put a photo of the supermarket.
the shopkeeper who sold the photos to me said "onamaewa?" It means "what's your name?" in japanese. he also said some other japanese words to me but I answered in english. this kind of situation happens a lot, but I always feel awkward. I could tell from his pronunciation he is not that good at japanese. He might have wanted me to speak japanese but if I speak japanese in normal speed he might not have understood and if I speak japanese very slowly it seems like I am making fun of him... in any case, I dont really want to bother.
people who suddenly talk to me in japanese makes me realize that I obviously look japanese. I wonder if they talk to other asian people in japanese by mistake. when I was in europe, many people talked to me in chinese.
I changed the design of my other journal, too, today. now it looks almost exactly like this page!! they are like twins. the biggest difference is that that one is written in japanese.
the system I use for my japaese journal is provided by "my press." it is not as cool as antville, but the pages are customizable, and there are no ads on the pages, so, it's good enough.
antville has many many more options to customize though! it is very impressive! for example, on "my press," you have to show at least 3 stories on one page. here at antville, you dont have to show more than one if you dont want to. with this design, one story on one page is ideal.
anyhow! this is the url for my japanese journal www.melnavi.net
