The day after the four days

So today I slept in because I deserved it.

Just for being me!

Actually I woke up earlier than the past few days, because I had agreed to go downtown with my friend George. I owed him a drink from earlier in the year, and he convinced me to go out today (by looking at me and saying that we should. I'm very easily convinced).

This resulted in going to a bar and then a yakitori house (that was also a bar) and talking over drinks. Learnt me some interesting stuffs. Apparently in Ghana, suicide is something that is extremely taboo. The three most important events in life are birth, marriage, and death in that country, and according to custom, if you commit suicide then you do not recieve a funeral, and on top of that your family is actually fined and forced to undergo embarrassing rituals.

So yeah, don't kill yourself. Jerk.

I also managed to try chicken gizzard. This was a first. I wasn't even aware that it was edible, and to add to the surprise it's actually pretty darn tasty, if a bit chewy. So that was pleasant.

There was also a bit of confusion afterward that resulted in us getting separated. We both made it back alive, so that's fine. While I was waiting for the bus I managed to find some.... microwave popcorn!

Of course it is in a vending machine that pops it on the spot. No alternatives. And also you are forced to walk around with a Hello Kitty popcorn bag afterward.

So, desperate times, desperate measures. But at the very least, this proves to me that it does exist here, so it's only a matter of time until I come across it. Special thanks to Lauren for mailing me some in the mean time.

There won't be an update tomorrow, because I am doing a cultural exchange of dubious proportions. Provided I wake up in time. I'm pretty bad at that.

I promise I will upload the rest of the photos after I get back, so there's that to look forward to. There may also be other surprises next week. Oh ho ho.

Last Days and Departure

The trip to Osaka and Tokyo will cover four days of the blog. This will allow me to cover the trip in more detail, considering I was gone for two weeks, and also allow me to waste time in real life playing video games and sleeping in instead of finding exciting things to do so that I can blog about them. Not that I do that normally, but I like to pretend it happens. Here is part four of four. That means it's over!

The ride back to Osaka actually managed to be worse. My iPhone was out of charge so I didn't have any music to listen to. It was a long 8 hour, semi-conscious, cold, uncomfortable bus sit. Made it back more or less alive, though.

It was apparent that Runa needed some space and to spend time with her boyfriend who wasn't able to come with, so I was left to myself for my last two and a half days in Osaka. I was only able to check into my hostel for the first night as there was a holiday that weekend so the place had been booked for months, but they let me in early so I slept the first half of the day to make up for not getting to do so on the bus. So that was nice. Then I went to the arcade and did some shopping on my own, then slept more cause dammit I've been walking around Japan for a week and a half and that's exhausting!

Oh wait, I also saw the Dragon Ball movie. It's possibly the worst thing to go to theaters in years. Worse than Twilight. I'm completely serious.

The next day there was a cosplay parade going on. Again for the less nerdy of my readers, that's when people dress up as anime characters. Was sort of neat to see but I didn't stick around for the full thing. At a recommendation I headed to the aquarium.

Apparently I did so at the wrong time.

I have never seen a place more crammed full of people in my life.



It actually had me irked a bit. Tokyo was very hot, and I don't do so well in the heat. So having kids shove past me to look at the fish that I was paying to see? Screw that noise.

Eventually I hid in a bathroom to recharge the dead battery in my camera, and some security guard came in to use the toilet, caught me, and scolded me like a child in Japanese (For the love of... I'm by myself in the middle of Japan, guy. I know enough Japanese for you to tell me that I'm not allowed to charge my camera in the bathroom). So after that brief reprieve I wound up at the back of the line so to speak, and all the kids had rushed forward. A lot more open spaces, and my mood lightened up.

There was a whale shark that was decently sized, and some sea turtles and sunfish which I got excited about. There was also a manta ray (hell yes!) and some of those giant creepy Japanese spider crabs. So that was a bunch of fun. There was also an otter show and a penguin show at the end. Penguins poop like squirtguns, not sure if you knew that. Probably didn't want to either.

Afterwards I met up with a friend from APU who was passing through the area. We uhh... we went to an arcade. It's what we do. I kicked his ass in the taiko arcade game (And by kicked his ass I mean barely won). Then we got lost in the subway system and he found his way back, while I found my way to an internet cafe. Since I couldn't get a room in the hotel, I wound up there. And I rented a booth with a massage chair.

Oh hell yes.

So I thought. Apparently the chairs aren't very comfortable to sleep in after the massage mechanism turns off. That was remedied by, well.... waking up in a massage chair. Damn, that's convenient.

My last short day there was spent eatin more Indian food, going to the arcade, buying more crap, and visiting some parks and shrines. So all in all, not bad.

Until I had to leave. I left with a good hour and a half to make it to the ferry. About 5 minutes after deciding to make my way there, blisters on my foot that I didn't know I had decided to burst painfully. Extremely painfully. Like, the entire ball of my right foot painfully. Yeah. And walking around limping on that, I twisted my ankle. So, carrying all my luggage, limping on a bum foot, I ended up about halving my walking speed.

That wasn't fun.

I also got hindered due to my color blindedness. There are two blue routes, or a blue one and a purple one, or possibly one of them is green. I DON'T KNOW. Anyway, I went on the wrong one. And then had to backtrack to a different route. And get on there. And ask a station attendant. And then go on that one. And then switch to a train. Finally, I got to the Ferry Terminal stop. And also my ferry does not leave from the Ferry Terminal. That seems.... dumb. So I had to go to the stop I needed and...

By the time I got there, with all the delays, I missed my ferry. I was angry, and sore, and exhausted, and ready to threaten military force on whoever tried to deny my free passage (I am not capable of doing this. My face would have been laughed at). Anyways, turns out there was a second, indirect ferry that would get me to Oita. Fine, whatever, I'll take it. They had to bump me down a class because of ticket change fees, but I was okay with that. Until I saw where I was.

Every bed was filled. So there were no spaces between the businessman next to me, and the guy with his kid on the other side. Very cramped spacing. I curled up with my book and concentrated on not looking in either direction (although the girl across from me was pretty cute).

After sleeping with my headphones on to drown out the noise in the room, I woke up and...started reading again. Then I looked up from my book and there was ice cream on my pillow.

I was very confused.

I took off my headphones and the businessman to my right began talking to me and said the ice cream was for me. He introduced himself, and I introduced myself, and we began talking about random things. He was very friendly. Has a daughter my age. She's studying in China. His mother couldn't understand my Japanese accent. What part of New York am I from? Oh, he's a PC Doctor? That's cool. Here, use my Japanese to English dictionary. Oh right, the snoring. Nah, don't worry about that. What? You have to go get lunch? Alright, thanks again for the ice cream.

And then he came back with cup ramen for me. Sometimes you can be floored by random acts of human kindness, no matter how extravagant. I thanked him as sincerely as I could in a language that is all but completely alien to me.

Before the ferry ended, he asked for a picture with me and gave me his business card. He mentioned something about a homestay. I still need to e-mail him.


I took a bus to the train station, and a train (or 6) back to Beppu, more a result of Oita's train charts being more complicated than Tokyo's than of any need to take more than one.

I finally got back to my dorm, tossed all my expensive trinkets on the floor, fell back onto my cold hard bed in my smelly tiny room, and passed out with a smile on my face.

Tokyo

The trip to Osaka and Tokyo will cover four days of the blog. This will allow me to cover the trip in more detail, considering I was gone for two weeks, and also allow me to waste time in real life playing video games and sleeping in instead of finding exciting things to do so that I can blog about them. Not that I do that normally, but I like to pretend it happens. Here is part three of four. Who am I kidding with the pictures. They'll get up when they get up. Also I made some hash browns today. They were pretty good.


So I'm pretty sure you aren't actually intended to sleep on those buses. The seats are small and uncomfortable, the ventilation is bad, and since there are no toilets on it they stop once every two hours, turn all the lights on, and make an announcement over the loudspeaker. I'm not quite sure how anybody could think any of that is a good idea.

To top off the horrible bus experience, the second we got off the bus Runa's boot split a zipper. That was a great way to start the Tokyo trip. We made our way to Don Quixote (like a sexier version of Wal Mart) to get her a new pair for the trip, then made our way to a McDonald's and then to the hostel.

We stayed at the Sakura Hostel in Asakusa, and to anybody going to Tokyo I highly recommend it. The staff are very friendly and helpful (they googlemapped some restaurants for us and put up with our confusing coming and going schedule) and are open 24 hours. Check in time isn't until 1 though, so we had to go back out into the wild Japanese yonder.

I got a picture with a Kamen Rider (statue)!!


Probably the only picture of myself I will proudly display on here.

After that, we met up with some jerks (aka friends of Runa's that I had never met before) and went to Harajuku. As some of the geekier of the people reading this blog may know, that's the part of Tokyo where hip j-rockers come out adorned in crazy clothes to compliment each other on how much money their daddies spent on them. As you can probably tell, I'm not that into the scene. There were some pretty cool outfits there regardless, even though we missed the usual gathering time for them. There was also a surplus of other white people trying to be kitschy (I'm not even using that word right) and hang out in the general area.

This is a common theme, foreigners. They are goddamn EVERYWHERE that you look in Tokyo. Osaka and Beppu you'll see a couple of them around in a day, but they are abundant in Tokyo. That makes it easier to get around in English if need be, but it also crowds the heck out of all of the tourist locales.

We ended up in Akihabara (Akiba to the hip cats) and bought a whole bunch of anime related crap that we didn't need, then went back to the hostel. There were some Australians in our room and a Korean kid, and they were all pretty cool. I spent a lot of time talking to two of them (Leo and Steve), mostly about the American government/economy and linguistics stuff. I knew much more about one of those than the other (keep in mind that real Americans don't know shit about how their country is run).

The next day was also spent in Akiba, this time trailing Runa and her friends to the girlier anime departments while they tried to talk me into emasculating myself and wearing womens clothing. But I was having none of that no sir.

No, there aren't pictures incoming of that. For once I actually didn't submit to those types of requests.

The next day was Kabuki! We went to a performance. It was crazy and I could only understand like 1/10th of what was said by the performers. I had also forgotten that there were no women in kabuki, so the "ladies" on stage took me momentarily by surprise. After that I ditched everyone's sorry asses and headed off to the imperial palace!

And it was closed. Apparently it closes at like...four. No matter, I could come back tomorrow morning. I had also wanted to go to the Ryogoku Kokugikan (aside from having the best name for anything ever, it's also the Sumo museum) and the Edo-Tokyo history museum, so I figured why not? But those also closed early so I went back to Akihabara and ate at a Japanese Subway restaurant. Which is pretty tasty and has different flavored french fries (I got BBQ. They tasted like tomato soup. I really can't explain it.) I also found this sexy awesome Cyborg 009 70th anniversary watch that I had been looking for, and almost cried to myself when I found out that it was 400 dollars. I got excited when I found it because I read the price wrong and thought that it was only 40. I left with my head sunk low.

Back at the hostel Myself, Runa, Skylar and Kirsten (the two girls we went to the kabuki theatre with) all sat down for girl drinks and made idle convo with a handsome stranger (can I say that without sounding gay?) His name was Tom, and he kept is entertained with interesting conversation and by laughing at my crappy jokes. Apparently he quit his job (at a bank mind you) so that he could do a bit of travelling. In his words, with the direction the economy is headed in, he figured it'd be best to go travelling and see the world now, because there's no telling how much longer that will even be financially possible. A decent argument, and I can't look down on a guy for wanting to live.

Up in the hostel room I spent a lot of time talking to Steve (Leo went back to Australia) about the dangers of his country. Also apparently the guy was born in South Africa and moved to Australia, so that was pretty neat to hear about. He also did a lot of complaining about how worthless Australian money is at the moment, and we came to an interesting thought process. Apparently, there is a chance that it'd be cheaper for me to fly to Australia from Japan, and then fly to America from Australia, because the Australian dollar is worth so little that buying tickets from there with American money or the yen would be a pretty good deal. Haven't looked into it so much yet, but if it's possible I'd very much like to. Chances are that I'll probably die, considering that Australia has the largest concentration of animals that can kill you, but it should be a blast until that happens.

The next day I woke up early to get a jump on going to the two museums (decided to forego the imperial palace as it was most likely closed for legal matters). The history museum was great, and had full scale reconstructions of buildings and old parade floats and the like. There were some cool ancient weapons, and the timeline spanned from the Edo period to modern times. There was an evolution of culture that was eerily similar to early America's, what with the same fashion magazines and cars and everything.

Oh yes, there was also a section devoted to World War II and more specifically the American air raids on Tokyo. There were chunks of shrapnel and twisted wreckage on display, and while I was viewing it there was a very old Japanese man in a wheelchair close by.

If I had been wearing an American flag on my t-shirt and humming our national anthem (ba-da da da daaa I'm lovin' it) then that might have made it slightly more awkward.

The Ryogoku Kokugikan was pretty much three rooms of sumo memorabilia, to contrast to the awesome immensity of the other museum. Interesting fact though: Those ropes that the sumo wear out to the ring are filled with copper wire and weigh over 40 pounds. That was crazy I thought.

Also this awesome statue was on display.



I didn't get to go to the Ghibli Museum (the ticket reservation system is ridiculously stupid) or climb Mt Fuji (I would've had to have gone there specifically for that) but the trip itself was pretty good.

Oh right, I wanted to go to the zoo as well, but the last of the pandas died last year.

Sadness.

Osaka area Goings on.

The trip to Osaka and Tokyo will cover four days of the blog. This will allow me to cover the trip in more detail, considering I was gone for two weeks, and also allow me to waste time in real life playing video games and sleeping in instead of finding exciting things to do so that I can blog about them. Not that I do that normally, but I like to pretend it happens. Here is part two of four. Also, the pictures are taking longer to go through than I intended. They'll all be up before this is over, though.

After waking up and being treated to my first Japanese style shower (the dorms have western style ones. The hostel had one where you have to sit down, and there is sort of a pump lever to get the water. It's really annoying) I had some time to waste until Runa got out of classes, and I was supposed to meet her at a train station, so hurrah. I decided to grab some breakfast, and from all places, McDonald's. They had this MegaMuffin..thing, that is a weird hybrid of meats and egg and ketchup I think. It's relatively tastey.

But not as tastey as the Indian food I had for lunch. Dear God, UB's Indian restaurant is either awful or I ordered the wrong thing there, because the legit stuff is absolutely delicious. Highly recommend everyone go out and eat some asap.

I spent the first day mostly wandering through Den Den Town again, then going to Runa's town with her, and to her campus. Kansai Gaiadai is a much bigger campus than APU, and their cafeteria food sucks. While there we picked up one of her friends and went... SHOPPING!

Yes, for women's clothing.

No, I did not buy anything. But it was a good opportunity to look at the whatever-it-was-called area, and it's a pretty nice spot. I was also gifted with a Disney Princesses calendar (don't ask) and we got some ice cream before calling it a night.

I really suck at operating the trains/subways, I need to point out. I'm colorblind, and the routes are categorized by color. So when the routes are two similar colours, I look at them dumbfounded and just guess at it. This is apparently a terrible idea, and after jumping on two or three different wrong trains, I started asking the attendants for help and remembering the names of the routes I needed instead of using the color coded maps.

Just for the hell of it I got lost in Osaka the next day (after playing at the arcade). Seriously, the arcade was 6 stories of pure fun! Or well, about two of the floors were fun. But I did play Lord of Vermillion, and by the gods, if that's not on the PS3 like the rumors say by the time I come back to the states, I just might not come back.

Anyways, Turkish food that day, and then I had to find a way to meet up with Runa and Dan, despite not knowing where I was. I managed to find my way to a train station to take it to where they were, and then after I met up with them we went back to the train station I came from. I...what? Oh well. Went to Dotonburi which is the hip area of Osaka (think some mix between Vegas and that expensive shopping area in NYC that I'm too poor to know the name of). It was raining, which is apparently a frequent occurence for them whenever they go down there. We did some window shopping, saw some hobos, and ate some Mos Burger. There are shops there called "Showcase Stores" which are essentially garage sale booths, primarily for anime toys and dvds. So like a very specific flea market. I saw one of the toys I've been looking for since I got here for 90 dollars, and just sort of cried into my wallet.

The next day we went to Nara. This was much anticipated because it's something I picked out to do, and my friends were sick of thinking things up. Also we got to see deer.



Seriously, lots of freakin deer.




They come right up to you too. Had I a better connection, I'd upload a video I took of one trying to eat my bag. They're cute and you can pet them (not on the cut horns though, that pisses them off) and they're really friendly. And they kept running from Dan, which was hilarious, because he really wanted to pet one.

We also had a stalker there. Probably my fault (the deer were coming over toward us and she wanted to pet one, so I stepped aside and motioned toward the deer and said "douzo"), but she totally followed us around. I thought maybe we were just going in the same direction, but we went into a store on the site and she waited outside for us to get out. When we were in there for a while instead of coming out, she left, and we went in the opposite direction from her. Yeah....

The whole thing was a whole bunch of fun, though, and I bought a plushie deer and a crazy hat, so totally worth the trip.

The next day was filled with more shopping (it's pretty much what you do in Japan. Shop and drink.) and then waiting for the overnight bus to Tokyo to show up.

Buses are very much not made for sleeping in.

Embarkment

The trip to Osaka and Tokyo will cover four days of the blog. This will allow me to cover the trip in more detail, considering I was gone for two weeks, and also allow me to waste time in real life playing video games and sleeping in instead of finding exciting things to do so that I can blog about them. Not that I do that normally, but I like to pretend it happens. Here is part one of four.

I woke up early the morning that I was going to leave, excited to get the hell out of Beppu. I was packed and ready and got some food and some Hi-chew (it's delicious fruit candy. SO GOOD) and promptly sat around for 6 hours. I was going to clean my room, but the best I did was throw out some pop bottles and get some air freshener for the toilet room so that it wasn't rank by the time I got back. I hit that "I'm on vacation" vibe before I even left, so wasn't really in the mood for any physical exertion.

The instant I made it to the ferry station I become idiot foreigner guy again. I asked somebody where the boarding dock was and went up, then tried to hand the attendant my payment receipt. He looked troubled (probably because he didn't know how to explain the situation in English and wasn't sure if I'd understand Japanese) so instead of attempting anything verbally, he picked up a ticket slip from the bin, showed me the difference between my paper and his, made a gesture to indicate exchanging them, then said to go downstairs. Alright, sure. So I did that and happily handed the woman my paper to exchange it for a ticket. Apparently I needed to fill out a travel identification form (which I had been given and simply stared at blankly and tucked away instead of filling out). So after that, everything worked out fine and I found my room. At which point I was filled with a sense of "Uggh."



I got to sleep on the floor! On a boat! Wow! And there were tiny compartments to store the luggage over my head, so I was filled with a sense of dread that we'd hit stormy seas and everything would spill out and crush me to death. Ack. On top of that I was retarded when entering the room and didn't look down far enough to see my "bunk" number (the opposite side of the room had them listed on the wall, my side had them on the floor) so an old Japanese man was kind enough to point it out to me.

The food was pretty good on the boat, but expensive. There wasn't much else to do, other than an onsen which I'm pretty sure was exclusive to the higher class people (damn you second class C package!) so I went up to my room and read, watched movies, and slept erratically. This was my first time on a boat, and the swaying was neat at first, but then I realized it wasn't actually comfortable in any fashion, and made finding a good position to sleep in relatively difficult.

But I made it to Osaka in one piece (yo ho ho). Then I had to wait for Runa to wake up and come fetch me because I had no idea where I was or what to do. So I went outside the station and read more of my book as a bunch of middle schoolers passed by, making me feel like some gigantic pervert staking out his prey. That was pretty awkward.

After we checked into my hotel we waited for her boyfriend to show up and went for some food and such. Also random window shopping. Mostly I was just overwhelmed by Osaka being 4 times the size of Beppu, and I was taking that in for a bit. Also, Miley Cyrus cds.



After we met up with Dan, we went to see the peach blossoms (like cherry blossoms, only much less important to Japanese culture and also in bloom at the time). That lasted about 20 minutes of me taking photos of trees and birds and a big castle! In the distance. Then we went to Den Den Town which is the equivalent to Akihabara (Tokyo's electronics district, hugely nerd famous) but in Osaka. Then I got sick because of all the smoke in the city, and that was not fun. I need to get one of those face masks sometime.

I went back to my hostel and got nice and comfy, passing out with my glasses on and the light and tv on due to exhaustion from lack of sleep on the ferry.

Early to Rise

I was walking around early in the morning. I saw a very stoic looking man standing on the corner of the street with his dog. The dog was very happy, rolling around on the ground in the spot of sunlight that he found. The contrast between the two was so great that I laughed to myself and thought about how glad I am to be here.





There will be a new update tomorrow.

It is the Sabbath Day

And thou shalt perform no labor upon it.

Stupid Sunday, ruined my ability to do things.

The ATM for my bank was closed. So I went to the bank to use their ATM, and it doesn't have wire transfer functionality for some reason, and the bank itself was closed. So I couldn't pay rent fees.

Then I went to go get my cell phone, but it's the weekend, so apparently the English speaking guy has off of work. So that didn't happen.

Then I went to go buy some Panatarian Shelf Minks from this guy on 5th and Naratomi, but it's Sunday so he's in prison.

Stupid Sabbath. You make me look bad!

I did buy some ankle weights of dubious usefulness (how much is 1.5 kilos in English measurements?). Also a kickass Kamen Rider figure on a motorcylce that cost like 200 yen at the Book Off. So he is gallantly riding on my...desk.

Also picked up 3 shirts for 2000 yen (woo wooo!). I needed some Engrish shirts, and these will suffice.

Tomorrow will be the last blog before my absence.

Edit: ALSO!

My friend found the very gay video I had mentioned.

So, enjoy!

SHIKIBU Love何だよ！

Pringles and Peanuts

Are now a staple of my diet.

I need to get back into cooking.

If anybody has some really good recipes or just foods that I should try and cook up, by all means let me know. I'll do my best at cooking them up and then post pictures here for everyone to laugh at how badly I screwed it up.

Tuesday looms ever closer and I am loathe to admit that I am so very unprepared for it. I need to study much more and I desperately need to clean my room. Tomorrow will probably be spent doing some of these things.

Also, one member of our Tokyo raiding party has been disbanded due to schedule conflicts. This is muy triste, but we will still venture forth!

Oh wait I lied about the studying. I've been playing my Japanese video games. I'm counting that as studying because I've been bothering to actually read the text on screen instead of skipping past it because it's in another language. I have no idea who "Counotori-san" is in the Mario World series, but he is an albatross. If anybody has any idea what his English name is, please let me know because this shit it unpronounceable.

On another not, a new blog that is amusing has spouted. Check it out over at this link. It's a review site that reviews reviewers. Talk about redundant, but they make some good points, and the introductory dialogue is hilarious.

Roshi out.

Archaic means Old

And there is an old form of Romaji (Japanese written in English lettering) that exists, and it looks really strange compared to the current one. Things like tsu and chi are tu and ti despite not being pronounced that way. My favorite result of this is that the older signs in Beppu are spelled Beppoo.

Yes, I'm juvenile, but I don't care, it's funny.

So the most important factor when going to a place is remembering where it is. I went to go to a game store today before going to pick up my cell phone, but I apparently didn't remember exactly where it was. By the time I found it and was done there, the cell phone store was closed.

That's cool though, cause I forgot my bank information anyways.

Finally picked up Yoshi's Island DS which is lots of fun, so I should be at my game quota for a while.

Also: Addicted to pringles.

In sickness and in health

And today was a sickness, so whoever is crazy enough to think that they're married to me, stay strong and help me out.

I was fine until after lunch. I have no idea why, but after I ate lunch I felt immensely sick and as a result decided that it would not be in my best interests to walk around town causing undue physical strain to my delicate state.

Also it was raining like a sumbitch. Supposed to be bad tomorrow as well, so the hike is being pushed off. Which means I can still go downtown instead tomorrow (providing the health part comes back around) and hopefully get my SHINY NEW iPHONE and then probably should clean my room up a bit.

In other grounds, I can't remember if I've brought it up here or not, but a site that you should check out is MS Paint Adventures, particularly the Problem Sleuth storyline. It's a sort of Pseudo Choose-your-own-adventure type dealie, and it's often funny and occasionally hysterical. It's very well put together and it's near the end, so check it out.

Also here's a Youtube video for good measure: For you Watchmen fans.

Yuuume wo miteeeeeee!

Grooooovin to the pillows here on WG96.6FM! Up next we've got some classic Van Halen followed by a three hour block of Vanessa Carlton!

Oh man it's probably a good thing that I don't have a radio station.

Today was filled with playing games (I figured out that stupid Chocobo Land game. It's really stupid but it's addictive. It's sort of like Monopoly, and my thirst for power has gotten me to own every property on the board until the computer is in such massive debt that they just give up) and also studying.

BUT! Despite not doing anything, I do have some news.

First off, Friday, weather permitting, JM and I are going for a mountain hike. It goes from SPA Beach, through town along the gardens and parks, and then up the side of one of the mountains. There is also a lift on the mountain, so hopefully we get to ride that down so that I can dangle in midair sniffling and holding back my tears and attempting not to think about plummeting to my death. So, that should be fun.

Secondly, Tuesday is the day. Gotta go get my ferry tickets, but I leave Tuesday night to go to Osaka and visit my friends. Then that Friday we leave Osaka to go to Tokyo for 4ish days, then back to Osaka for a couple of days. Depending on how things play out, I'll be back at the earliest the following Saturday.

I'll try to get an update in (don't expect too much) but I'll definitely try to update my twitter a bunch. Mainly because I might be getting an iPhone tomorrow (yay?) and that's got internets on it and such. So that'll be good. So be sure to watch the feed on the side of the page, read through the backlog if you want to stalk me. Should be fun.

One more thing: If any of you have access to marble pocky at a local asian market or something, buy the hell out of that stuff. I'm serious, it's delicous.

Many things in Japan do not taste good

Donburi I trusted you!

I spent a good amount of time at the internet cafe loading my HD up with crap (and for some reason this was a very difficult task. Stupid Japanese computers.) While I was there I got hungry, as most organic beings do (aside from Oprah) and they include a menu in the booth. One thing looked delicious until I read that it had kimchi in it (if you want to eat rotten cabbage, be my guest) so I chose a random donburi bowl to chow on.

I actually had no idea what I was doing. There were little slips in the room that I thought were for ordering food but I read them over and nothing like that. There was a phone on the wall, and it had a picture of an ambulence underneath it so I was nervous about calling it.

So I used the internet to go to the website for the place that I was sitting in to read up on how to order food.

I apparently am not a risk taker.

Picking up the phone rings the front desk, which is what a sane person would have guessed it did, so I ordered the delicious photo and lie in wait for...deliciousness.

I was let down. School cafeteria donburi should not taste better than the stuff I get in town. But it does, and it did, and I'm not sure I want to risk eating at this place anymore.

They did get me someone who spoke English this time (I'm not exactly sure why. I was speaking Japanese just fine when I came in there. Or...understandably) and this turned out well because apparently they have a no smoking section. It's actually an entire other section of the building separated by a room and everything. It's very nice, and a bit roomier, but there was this guy who just kept farting the whole time, loudly. It was gross.

So I jumped the cubicle and strangled him, now I'm getting deported and I'll be home this weekend!

Haha, you wish.

Monday

Nothing happened.

Seriously. I stayed home and watched the "Walking with Monsters" and "Walking with Dinosaurs" Discovery Channel specials. They're really good and I recommend them. Some of those things are freaky looking, and I want them all as pets.

Also, I read about elephants. Specifically, elephant intelligence. Apparently they can cry, and this creeps me out for some reason. I think that I might try to befriend a pack of pakiderms (see what I did there?) and become enlightened through their playful trumpeting and altruism. It will be a wonderful experience, and I certainly will not get trampled for being an interloper.

I forgot to do the "Weird Site Hits" yesterday. So here it is today! There is one hit that I'd list, except for the fact that I am for some reason the 9th search result for it on google. I've never mentioned the two things together though, so I'm weirded out a bit by that. I did however get a search for "Gundam Donuts". Not sure why, exactly. Do I forget the things that I blog about? Did I mention Gundam Donuts? Or maybe I was playing with a Gundam while watching donuts?

The world may never know.

I want to see you again someday. So leave me alone away with you.

Augh. Sorry to anyone who saw this blank. I accidentally hit publish right after I made the title because I was rocking out to my music.

The title is from the song I was listening to, for explanation.

I came up with an ingenious plan. I put my alarm clock in the bathroom and closed the door. This way I would have to get up, go into the bathroom, turn it off, come back out of the bathroom, and then lie down if I wanted to go back to sleep. And why would I want to go through all that trouble?

So anyways, I wake up two hours later than I wanted to, which is about 15 minutes after I wanted to leave. Super. Try my best to head downtown and meet up with my friend for our plans, and he's not there because I suck. Run into a different friend who's apparently being financially molested by Japan, and then I decide I should get some food anyway, then go to the electric store to look for a case for my portable hd.

And hey, there's my friend. Awesome. He knows me well enough to hang out at the electric store until I eventually go there, because I am a loser nerd who goes wherever the electric hum can be found.

Anyhow we got some of that delicious unlimited ramen. Mine looked like someone was sick in the bowl, but tasted pretty damned good. No picture this time, forgot my camera.

I tried to find a video of this stilt exercise video that plays on loop at the store, but no dice. Suffice it to say it is the most hilariously gay thing I've ever seen. I mean gay as in gay. As in, 5 guys in short shorts wearing headbands doing synchronized exercise, singing about loving and working out, and sporting faux manly little mustaches.

I also bought a game called "Chocobo Land" for the gameboy. I have no idea what to do in it. It's like a crappy version of Mario Party with no minigames. Only 200 yen, though, so I can't really complain.

Since it's been awhile, let me leave you with a controversial old Looney Tunes cartoon.

Enjoy.

150 Whoooo

Blog number one five zero unless my counter is dysfunctional.

I've been less good to this point. I've missed updates, I've slacked off. Some of the updates are just messages telling you there won't be any.

But I've also stopped caring, so that that's a big factor in this.

In fact, today's is late even! But that's due to photobucket not working for me for some reason.

FINALLY the weather was good enough to go hiking in the mountains today. And we didn't hike far, considering it's a lot more difficilt than we thought it would be, but we did get some cool pictures and found a really nice spot.






After you hop off the road there is a nice little path, and at the end of the path are some concrete steps that are much safer (though just as steep) than they first appear. Then there are some rocks, and a little stream with some mini waterfalls and such. Really nice little alcove that I had no idea was just underneath the bridge from campus. So that was really cool, and I might check that out.

I actually took a video of it for you guys but eeeeh, did not come out well at all. So no go for that. Too bad, JM was aggravatin the river god in it. Ah well.

Tomorrow I'm getting some more delicious ramen because I've been craving it. I may need to learn some good ramen recipes for when I come home to the states, because it is something I will miss dearly. I can already make donburi, that's easy as sin. I'd say easy as pie, but making pie from scratch is a bit more difficult.

That's all. I know I said I'd make the saturday update something special, but I'm also a pretty good liar, and that's something that you should really take into account.

I mean, I did stuff and I got you pictures of a pretty little secret place. What more do you people want from me? Blood? Do you... do you want me to bleed for you?

Nah, of course not. Then there'd be nobody uploading the blog you never read.

Why won't you love me?