Dear December,

 

I want you to remember some of the things you got to do this month...

You made your own sealing wax.

First, you grated the beets and set them up on the table outside to dry.

Then you turned the dried beets into powder to make natural dye.

To make the wax, you melted together some organic bee's wax and glue sticks.

And with the natural dye, you got yourself a sealing wax stick!

Then you used the stick to melt some wax off for the sealing.

At first, you tried a 5 yen coin as a stamp, but oh did that go horribly wrong.

So after that, you tried the 1 yen coin which worked alright.

That's the one on the envelope you see in the picture.

Success! I think..?

Hmm.. I think I'm gonna change back to first person view now.

It's a little weird saying 'you' when the experiences I'm talking about are pretty current to me.

So, I remember I made a nice healthy soup too ~

I really liked how the carrots turned out, and how the tomato added some flavor to it.

I just remember really enjoying it.

Oh, with yaki imo too ~ 

A few days later, I fell into this state where I felt numb to everything.

I didn't feel the urge to want to do anything.

Well, it's been like that no matter what I did. 

So finally, I decided to watch Whisper of the Heart.

I wanted to go back to the beautiful green gem that glowed.

Hiding and Seeking.

I wanted to feel what she felt. 

As soon as I finished watching, I made up a crazy plan, that I would stay up until 5 am and take the first train to the place where some scenes of the movie took place. 

I thought I would be able to see the sunrise like in that last scene where Seiji takes her to confess.

Here's that road that looks like the place Seiji would ride his bike.

It was fun walking around and imagining the characters in the scenes.

It was peaceful and tranquil.

あと、久しぶりに真っ赤で綺麗な紅葉が見れたよ。

There were a lot of beautiful autumn leaves there.

Here's the shrine where Sugimoto confessed to her.

This looked like the long staircase she would go rushing down.

I think this is the view Moon saw on the train.

I can't believe the Keio building still stands there since the movie came out.

Since she met Moon for the first time.

Here's the roundabout that was in front of the antique shop.

It didn't look too much like the scene in the movie, but the area was pretty cool.

There were two little shops with Ghibli and Whisper of the Heart theme. 

I went into the one on the left and I met a cool ojichan there.

He asked me where I was from and made conversation with me.

It was kind of nice.

I realized that I think I'm getting better at talking to people.

I didn't feel afraid or self-conscience as I used to. 

I bought a small slice of strawberry shortcake and Hokkaido milk there.

After that, I took them down to the park nearby and ate them with the mushipan I got from the station.

By the time I came down from the big hill, I was greeted by the beautiful gradient of the evening sky.

The puffy stratocumulus and the wispy cirrus clouds were very cute too.

I sat down by the riverbank 

I was able to get really close to the water ~

So pretty ~ 

And then I went exploring the mall near the station and found some cute clothes and went home.

Moving on! 

So... I went to hang out with Justin, poopy, and penguini yesterday...

Beautiful scene isn't it? Justin took this picture with his phone.

I took them to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.

Overall, the hangout went okay.

We did an escape room in Shinjuku and went up this huge tower to see this scenery. 

I was able to make some decent conversations with the bois.

It's fun getting to know people so I guess it's a win-win.

BUT

Oh man oh, man.

The time came where we had to go EAT.

Oh goodness...

I realized how bad I still was with social gatherings.

I guess I'm not used to eating with other people yet.

Especially with a group of people. 

The bowl of tantanmen wasn't even that spicy...

But I kept acting like it was too spicy for me so I didn't have to finish it.

God that was so bad. I felt like Justin kind of noticed that.

Welp, what's done is done.

Maybe if I just...