You know you have a spoiled lab on your hands, when she gets the bed and the blanket, and you get the sheet and the corner! Luckily it hasn't been too cold yet, so I haven't had to turn on the heat in my room or anything, but Venuppi Puppy doesn't' seem to think her fur is warm enough!

(You can't see it that well, but the black lump in the middle of the photo is Venuppi's head... That's how she slept all night last night!)

Today Peter and I had hair appointments together at noon, so this morning was basically spent getting ready for that... We headed to TONI&GUY where I met Lincoln, Pete's long time hairdresser from the UK. He's a very nice guy! For once in my life I didn't get in trouble for endlessly home dying my hair, and he wasn't all snotty like sooooo many hair dressers at home are! I just got the tiniest trim since I'm still trying to grow my hair, but he said that once it's a bit longer I can get a really loose perm, which I want to try so I can have some loose casual curls.... Now I just have to wait for it to grow more! Patience is so not my strong suit!

It was all very different from my typical, awkward, 'let's get this over with' hair cutting experience from home... We got head and shoulder massages, coffee and Christmas Oranges, and British Marie Claire! It was all very indulgent, good fun for the amount of hair I actually got cut!

Since it was right across the street, we stopped by for some Kua'aina burgers, and then came home to 'potter' around... Pete has been having closet organizational woes, so we headed back out to Shimachu, a 'home centre' over here. I was picturing a 'do it yourself' home centre along the lines of Home Depot, but it was actually more like a Walmart. You could get furniture, stationary, storage solutions, heaters, pet supplies, lighting fixtures, etc... In short a totally random variety of stuff, but fun to explore! Peter got a bunch of extra drawer type things, and I just got one big box thing to store my scrap booking supplies in... They had a pretty cool aisle of like craft metal and Plexiglas and stuff... I was thinking about how cool some of the design projects from last year would be if you had access to the random art supplies you can get over here! They had sheets of super thing pressed metal which looked exactly the same as the front of a G5...
(The store also had the added bonus of making even ME feel tall! They had quite a lot of furniture for when you want to sit on the floor, but in a chair, such as this living room set which came up to Peter's knees...)

(This table is interesting because it is heated... I'm not entirely sure how it works, but its got a huge thick blanket around it, and then I think there is some kind of heat source built in? I guess in Japan, people tend to heat themselves as opposed to their houses, which I think is great, I think its much cosier to bundle up in a couple of layers and a blanket than blast the heat, but maybe that's what growing up with the heat basically off will do for a girl! :) )
(The lumber section was pretty cute as well! Everything was three or six feet pretty much (they had about 10 eight foot 2x6's in a corner). The wood was also sooo nice! Really nice grades and generally sanded and ready to go - no gnarly, warped bits here! Some of the pre made trim and stuff also looked great - not that I know much about it, but the wood all looked like it would be really nice to work with!)

Anyway, we came back and each just did our own thing for supper, Peter had his turkey leftovers, but I'd enjoyed mine already so I decided to make some udon and it was so good! I have no idea what I actually added in there, since I basically cooked them in water with some red pepper oil and onion, and then added some mystery 'general purpose seasoning' sauce (a variety of soy sauce I think), and then something else that I pulled out of Peter's cupboard... I'm pretty sure it's what Hitomi used when she made noodles before, but I have no idea what it actually was, and I couldn't quite identify it by smell - it was a pretty tasty combination though!

We watched a couple of episodes of Friends, and I worked on my scrapbook a little bit. I also got a really random email... from myself! I guess last year, I participated in something that forbes.com was doing, and wrote myself a letter to be delivered to my inbox one year later. (More info about the project) Unfortunately, I didn't write too much to myself - just that it was almost the last week of semester, that I was stressed out because the lab was down (I'd forgotten about that terrible weekend!), and that George and I had gone to the Underground for the first time the night before and had a great time... (What a great night of hilarious misunderstanding!...) That was it though, which is too bad, I'm curious what else I was thinking a year ago! I tried to send myself another one today from a different website they mention in the article I linked to, but it ate my message I think :( Ahh well, this blog is a big time capsule in itself!

So that's about it for today.... Not entirely sure what is happening this week as plans keep changing, but on the horizon for the weekend is design festa, and then a wedding party for Yukiko, who works at Orbitune...

D.