Thursday, September 20, 2007

Sun in an empty room

It's been a while, I know. Much has been happening and I haven't had much time or motivation to update. Let me try to recall what all has been happening....

I left off on Wednesday. If I remember correctly, I don't think I did anything on Thursday, however, I could be wrong...maybe it will come to me. Friday night my friend Keith and I went to Shibuya and found an awesome Punk Rock Bar called Garage Land. They had lots of free posters which I of course took to decorate my room. We hung out there and talked for a while. We wandered around the city for a while and then saw a sign for some random place that had cheese fondue. This was around 11:00 as we were heading back to the train. Well needless to say, our interests had been peaked and our stomaches decided that we had to find out what the fondue was all about. We went up to like the 7th floor of some random Sega building and ended up at an Isakya (sp?) which is a place that serves drinks and food. The place was super fancy and awesome. We didn't have very much time at all if we wanted to catch the last train so I had to try and tell the waiter that we had to hurry....it took a little bit but he finally understood what I was talking about. Needless to say, we got the cheese fondue and it was spectacular. We also got this delicious meat dish that we split. I hadn't really had any cheese or meat since I had been here so it was a great treat. They also served us an appetizer that was around $5. I told them I didn't want it, but they said it was required of everyone. It was some caviar and fish gelatin dish. I tried it and almost threw up. It was gross...but oh well, the meal was definitely worth it. And we luckily made it back to the train in time.

Saturday I went with Jon to Ikebukero. It was a pretty awesome place. They had fun shops and I ended up getting a really cute purse for less than $10. For lunch we went to a place that had Okonomiyaki, which is like an omelette/pancake thing. They give you a bowl with all of the ingredients, you mash it all up and then cook it at the table. It was so delicious. The food in this country is just so great. That night Jon and I, along with Becca, Daz and Dave walked to the next town over and ended up finding a Moz Burger which has delicious hamburgers. It was a semi-chill night with some random drinking.

Sunday I went on a school trip to Kamakura, which is about an hour and twenty minutes from Tokyo. It's a pretty big tourist area with a beach. I dragged my friend Kyle along with me. Neither of us really had any money and none of the ATM machines would accept our card. We finally found a post office that was open which is very rare for a Sunday, but thankfully it worked and we had some money. We wandered around the town for a while and then headed to this big shrine where there was a festival with Samurais on horseback doing archery. Unfortunately, it was so incredibly crowded that we could barely see anything. Instead we went and sat by the gorgeous pond with tons of huge Coy Fish. Keith decided to come and meet us. The entire day was pretty stressful and confusing because so much time was wasted sitting around waiting for the rest of the groups. Kyle decided to head to the beach while Keith and I continued on with the tour. We took a bus to the Giant Daibutsu Buddha. Oh my god, it was incredible. It was humongous and spectacular and breathtaking. For the past year or two, in my wallet I have been carrying around a little coin with the Giant Buddha on it for good luck. It was amazing being able to see it in person. Truly amazing. We then went to another temple with even more huge Buddhas cast in gold and silver and beauty. The temple overlooked the water and it was beautiful. After the temples, we left the group and headed back to the main part of Kamakura to meet up with Kyle on the beach. Unfortunately I had just missed sunset, but oh well. The beach was filthy, but it was partly due to the Typhoon that had just happened. Luckily (sort of) it was dark so I didn't have to see what all I was stepping in. The beach was magical. I was there with two of my close friends in Japan, standing in the Pacific Ocean in Japan. I started crying because I am a loser. We laid in the sand for a while stargazing. It was a great moment for me. After we were too covered in sand, we decided we had enough and went to 7-11 to buy a bottle of wine to drink while we were finding a place for dinner. We ended up at a sushi conveyor belt place. Despite the frustration earlier in the day, it ended up being a nice trip.

Monday we had the day off from school, thankfully, due to National Respect for the Elders day...or something along those lines. I spent the day relaxing and then went out to dinner with Jon, Lucas, Becca, Paul, April and her friend. We went to the most incredible place called Alice in Ginza. It is an Alice In Wonderland themed restaurant. Oh my goodness, it was great. The waitresses were all dressed in the Alice costume with thigh-high tights. The food was all based off of characters and symbols from the book, such as a sushi roll shaped as a caterpillar, a french-toast like dessert shaped as a card house, a pizza that looked like a Heart Card, a dessert tart like a bunny, etc. Not only did everything look amazing, but it tasted spectacular, as well. The decor was all Alice, of course. The food wasn't too expensive either. There are a ton of theme restaurants around Tokyo and I want to go to all of them. I love those kind of places.

Tuesday was back to school and since then I have just been hanging around. I have had a lot of tests/quizzes and so far I am doing quite well, despite the fact that I have had no motivation or study habits. Japan is not conducive to my scholastics. I spend all of my time socializing and I have no regret for that.

I have another busy, exciting 3 day weekend coming up. I am also planning a trip to Kyoto, Nara and Osaka for the first weekend in October since we have a 4 day weekend. I have taken it on myself to plan the entire thing for as cheap as possible. I have planned out where to say, how to get there, where to go and how much everything costs. I typed up a whole itinerary and according to my calculations, the entire trip (except food) will be less than $175. That is an amazing price. I still have no idea who exactly is coming with me, but regardless, I will be going. Keith has a friend that lives in Osaka so she will hopefully be able to show us around that day. I will post the itinerary later on.

Anyways, my fingers are now tired and I have to load more hundreds of pictures. That is all.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

What a wonderful world

Things have been crazy around here, hence the lack of updates. I haven't even had time to update lately...but that is a good thing.

The rest of last week was spent staying up late and socializing. I made mashed potatoes which were delicious. I'm slowly learning to cook more interesting things (although I wouldn't say mashed potatoes are interesting, we don't eat them here.) I am still getting eaten alive by mosquitoes which is making my life slightly miserable.

Thursday night excitement arose due to the looming Typhoon no. 9. We were hoping for a day off from school on Friday. The wind was definitely blowing and there was a fair amount of rain, but alas, the my first typhoon was a let down.

Friday after classes, I hung around campus for a few hours waiting for a pizza party/social/mixer. It was great fun just relaxing on the couches and making new friends. Most of my friends from the dorm were there, along with So and some of his friends. We decided to go out after the pizza. My friend Sara and I , as well as So, and his friends Tomo and Zach, went to Shibuya for dinner. We ate at an awesome place where we had to sit on the floor. It was a tight squeeze, but totally worth it. I broadened my horizons by trying raw octopus and fried tofu. I would never eat either of them again, but at least I tried it. After dinner, we went to Karaoke for an hour (we wanted to catch the last train). Oh man, it was everything I was hoping for and more. We had our own room with free sodas and tambourines. I sang a few songs, of course, and danced a lot on the couches. So and Tomo sang a few songs in Japanese which was really cool. We had a few nice group sing-a-longs to Andrew WK "Party hard" and Goldfinger "99 Red Balloons." The night ended by us singing "A Whole New World" from Aladin.

After Karaoke, I came back to the dorm and found myself spending hours and hours gossiping and spending time with the great people who live here. The dorm here is really great, for the most part. It's so crazy because it's not just freshman or things like that. The age range of students living in the same building is from something like 18-36. There is definitely an obvious age difference between some of the kids. It's also awesome because there are so many international people living here. One of my best friends, Nadra, is Indian, but lives in Singapore. This one kid is Chinese but lives in England so he has an extreme British accent. There are people from Taiwan, China, Russia, Korea, Spain, Nigeria, as well as all over the US. It's fun to learn all about them, as well as try their food that they cook.

Speaking of International things, Saturday I went to a Brazilan festival in Harajuku. I went with a few people, but it mainly ended up being me, my friend Sarah, this guy Colby, and my Japanese friend Yurie. The festival was awesome. I was given a yellow ribbon bracelet thing that was tied 3 times, for three wishes. I have to wait for the ribbon to fall off naturally...I'm not allowed to cut it off. The food was really good...or at least the free samples that I tried. There were Brazilian bands, as well as Brazilian dancers, who were basically naked. There were Sumo wrestlers and lots of cute little kids.

After the festival, we walked around Yoyogi Park and saw lots of interesting things, such as people performing a play, people creating large paintings, meditation, dancing, yoga, and people learning how to become bartenders. We also went back to Menji Shrine where there happened to be a few traditional Japanese weddings going on. The brides were absolutely gorgeous in their kimonos. We then went to dinner in Harajuku. It was delicious, as usual. Following dinner, we went into this big "picture booth" type stores. The entire store was just photobooths that you can then draw all over and make stickers. It was so much fun and they make great keepsakes. I finally got to try the Harajuku crepes that are all over. Banana, caramel and whipped cream. AMAZING. I am planning on definitely having more of them.

Sunday was spent doing homework and relaxing. Monday after school, So came back to Ontakesan. We went grocery shopping and bought all of the ingredients for a wonderful spaghetti dinner. He cooked the dinner and I just tried to help out how I could. We hung out for a while, listened to music, and then watched a crazy Japanese movie, "The Suicide Club" with some other people from the dorm. It was a lot of fun. I am hoping that he comes over again sometime soon.

Tuesday my friend Kyle and I went to Shibuya after class. We found a great sushi place where the sushi is on a conveyor belt. I tried the cucumber rolls, the shrimp sushi, and egg sushi. It was delicious. We were then caught in the rain so we decided to go shopping. I got a cute necklace. Once the rain stopped, we went to another one of those photobooth places, where we did it twice. It was so much fun. Our pictures were great. Today after class, Nadra, Sara and I went to an Indian restaurant. I was nervous because I don't really like spicy food, but it was delicious. I am still full.

Things are really going great. I am truly in love with this place and the people that I have been getting to know. That's enough for now. I need to go attempt to study.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Chopsticks

I can now use chopsticks proficiently. I feel like I'm officially part of Japan because of it. It has been quite the busy past few days. Although I'd have to say I'm definitely enjoying it. The first week of school was very long and tiring. It was had adjusting to commuting to school every day. It has been getting slightly easier, however.

Friday night, after lots of waiting around, a group of 10 of us went out to a club in Shibuya. It was decent. I was the only sober one, but that's how it always works out. I don't mind. If I have to be the person to know how to get home, so be it. The club was 3 floors : one hip-hop and R&B, one trance, and one funkadelic. It was extremely crowded and expensive. I had a good time but probably wouldn't do it again anytime soon. The trains in Tokyo stop running around midnight and then start again at 4:30. Therefore, the clubs stay open until 4:00...and we stayed the entire time. It was exhausting. We didn't get home until 6:00 after a McDonalds stop.

Saturday day was nice and relaxing; trying to recover from the night before. Then my friend Kyle and this other guy Kevin and myself went to Shinjuku. I had never been there before. It's another really large town in Tokyo. It reminds me of a more-spread out Shibuya, but just as bright and exciting, if not moreso. We wandered around for a while before deciding to eat dinner in an alley. This alley was extremely tiny and rundown but was completely filled with little restaurants. The restaurant only sat around 10 people at the counter with a grill on top. The food was all on skewers and barbecued. I ordered some Sake as well. The food was quite delicious, despite not exactly knowing what I was eating. We struck up a nice conversation with two Japanese men who at one point did a cross country road trip across America.

After dinner we decided to venture from Shinjuku to Shibuya by foot. We knew it would be a simple walk, considering there are only 3 trainstops between the two on the same line. We kept asking for directions to ensure we were heading in the right direction. Each time, the person would say something to the effect about how there was a train right there. Once we said that we knew that but wanted to walk, they would go "oh! that's far!" However, the walk only took around 45 minutes. It was refreshing. We walked through areas that we would have otherwise never found. I found a breathtaking Japanese Garden near Harajuku. Despite the enormously large spiders and their webs, which I tried my hardest to ignore, it was beautiful. The garden had at least 10 cats that were fed by cat food on top of a brick wall. There were ponds with huge fish. I can't wait to go back during the day sometime. We finally made it to Shibuya and wandered around for a little before making sure we caught the last train, as to not be stranded until 4:30 am.

Sunday was yet another adventure. I took the train back to Shinjuku where I met up with my friend So, the Japanese guy from school. We walked around Shinjuku a little and then took the train to his town, Koenji. I love his town. It is full of punk and vintage shops, as well as other really cute areas. There is a Sex Pistols themed hair cuttery where I must go at some point to get my Japanese haircut. He took me to dinner at a restaurant similar in style to where I ate the night before, just on a bigger scaled. We sat there for a while eating and talking. He is a great guy. I enjoy his company a lot. We then went and I bought a charm for my cell phone. Every single Japanese person has at least one charm thing that hangs from their phone. I don't understand it, but now I can feel like I belong in Japan. The charm I got is a pair of tiny white handcuffs. It is awesome.

We then to a train to a town a few stops away from Koenji (I can't remember the name of the town) to go to the Turning, a concert venue. So's friend's band, The King Busters were playing a show so we we went to check it out. The venue was really small and there were only 5 bands, yet the show cost 2000 yen, which is around $20. More then I would spend for a lot of shows in the US, but supposedly all shows cost more here.

Needless to say, the show was worth it. Each band was completely different; all different genres. The first band I didn't care for at all, the second was just a girl singing accompanied by an acoustic guitar. She was pretty good actually. The third band was called the Rusty Knackle Heads. They sang in English and covered the song "Proud Mary." However, since they are Japanese, the pronounced "rolling on the river," "lolling on tze liver." It was hysterical. I have video of it that I loaded onto youtube, (I'll give the link at the end). The crowd was very diverse, but my favorite was this older women, probably in her 40s, completely rocking out to all of the bands. She was dancing the entire time. It was amazing. I have some video of her dancing, as well.

The next band was The King Busters, the band we went to see. They sang in Japanese and sounded like the Ramones. They were so good. So went crazy dancing. It was a great time watching them. The last band was the Junglin Junks who sang partially in Japanese, partially in English. They were great, too. All of the bands had so much energy and kept the crowd, although small, on their feet. After the show, So took the train with me part of the way and I found my way home. It was quite a simple trip home. The night was great and I definitely want to hang out with him a lot more.

Monday was fairly uneventful. Tuesday, before class, I got an iced coffee. Between not drinking any caffeine for at least a month and the coffee being unusually strong, I was wired the entire day. Of course my two classes were boring lectures so I could not concentrate. I couldn't sit still and was sweating. In my World Music class, I ended up making friends with the Japanese guy sitting next to me since we were both bored so we passed notes all class. After school I came back and made some French Toast. Kyle and I ate our lunch then decided to watch "Clue", in the social lounge, while picking up a few other viewers. He the helped me study for my first Japanese quiz (which I think I aced). Kyle is awesome. Love that kid. We studied for a couple hours and then hung out in the social lunge with other random people until 1:00 am.

I'm definitely making more friends, both in the dorms and at school. It's making me feel like this is home. I don't know how I'm expected to leave completely in 3 months. I can't dwell on that now. I must enjoy the time I have here. Each day is such a learning experience.

With that said, I'm going to go in the social lounge and attempt to read for my anthropology class.

My youtube link to my videos is:

http://youtube.com/user/frenzyfromwithin

Monday, September 3, 2007

Pictures galore

I put all of my pictures up in a photo album:

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v319/MelanieB/Japan/

There are multiple pages, so make sure you look at them all.

Also, my address in case you feel like sending letters or packages (all are welcome) is:

Room 203
12-27 Higashiminemachi Ota-ku, Tokyo Japan 145-0074

I got a cell phone and my number is:

080-3517-6889

Expect a long entry within the next day or two.