続ける

It is getting harder and harder to write in this everyday.

Basically I only had class on Monday and Tuesday this week. Wednesday I have no class, Thursday Japanese classes were cancelled, and Friday was a holiday. I really should have gone somewhere outside of Tokyo, but that was bad planning on my part. During the days off I just relaxed and hung out with friends.

Saturday I went with Sheung and Keaton to Takaosan. It's basically a popular mountain that you can reach by going all the way to the end of the Keio line. That being said, it is also a very popular spot as it is so close. There were tons of people there. Being the hardcore mountain climbers that we are, we climbed all the way to the top instead of taking the tram. It was well worth it. We got to see so much of nature. A cliff going up to the left of you, and down to the right of you is a pretty cool sight. I was very surprised by the amount of older people climbing the mountain. There were old ladies walking up with their canes! Upon reaching the top we were all famished. Everyone there had brought their own food and were having picnics at the top. We settled for some snacks to tide us over till we returned home. It took about an hour and a half to get to the top, and another hour to get back down. It was a lot of fun.

Today I did some homework in the morning then headed off to visit my old host family. I was very surprised when I remembered how to get to their house. I guess walking it every day for a month will do that. They were all really glad to see me. The first impression was that my Japanese was tons better than it was before. They said that they could speak a lot more freely now that I could understand more words and phrases. We ate dinner together and talked about all the things that have happened between then and now. They have not changed at all. The kids are still studying at school and the parents are still as quirky as ever. I was very glad to see them once again.

My Fun for the Week

First off I need to say that I bought tickets for Daft Punk in December. It is going to be a huge event at the same place where Ceatec was held. I am really excited.

Friday night was insane. The plan was to meet at Shoko's after class, chill for a little bit, then hit up a club. This was all going to be for the sake of Asuka as she is one of the coolest girls we have met. She has also never been to a club as she is still a couple months too young. In the morning I decided that I wanted to buy some headgear. Originally I wanted to get some cat ears so I went to Don Quixote to check out the selection. There were only a couple of different kinds so I decided on some different headgear.



I was the first one to arrive at Shoko's place. We talked for maybe 30 minutes until the rest of the gang started showing up. The pre-game party was a blast. I am truly surprised that we made it out the door. A lot of the people did not really want to leave, but for Shoko and Asuka's sake, they did. We went to Roppongi. I had never been to Roppongi before, but from what I have heard, it is a pretty sketchy place. Apparently it is the hotspot for foreigners as well as all sorts of other bad stuff. We went to this dance club / bar called Gaspanic. While it is free to get in, you are supposed to have a drink in your hand or nearby at all times. I guess that is how they make their money. Anyway, we stayed up all night dancing. The night consisted of a combination of good and bad music. Each hour they changed the style whether it was for good or bad. I left with Steven at around 6 in the morning to head home. By that time, everyone else had left.

Today I woke up at 3ish, surprisingly well rested. I met up with Shoko, Adam, and Nikki for dinner. I just got home on the last train of the night.

勉強したくないぞ！

明日は忙しいなー。たくさん宿題があるし、４つの授業もあるし。今勉強したくない！源氏物語の宿題は一番つまらないだ。火曜日に宿題をしなかった。ローリ先生はうれしくなかった。僕の本はわかりにくい。一枚を読んで、ぜんぜんわからなくて、もう一度読まなくちゃいけないよ。大変だなー。日本語のためにスキットを覚えなくちゃ。１週間があったけれども始めなかった。時間がない！

昨日ヴァソとケープナー先生と一緒に昼ご飯を食べた。原宿でメキシコ料理を食べた。レストランの名前を忘れちゃったでも、その場所を覚えている。色々なことをしゃべた。例えばホーストファミリや生き方など。

その夜、ケースウエスタンレザブ大学の卒業した人の会議を行った。それも楽しかった。

So yesterday I had lunch with Don (our resident director) and Vaso in Harajuku. We went to a Mexican place with tacos, quesadillas, and nachos. Mexican food places are very rare in Japan for some reason. We had a pretty good talk about homestays, classes, and the like.

For dinner I met up with Vaso, Mike, Mieon, and Aaron for the CWRU Alumni Association dinner. I got to meet Dr. Eastwood and a couple other people for the second time in Japan. I also got to meet our president Barbara Snyder. I got my picture with her :)



The biggest perk about going was the excellent food and wine. They had some pretty exquisite crab, nikuman, and sushi. I was very pleased.

Today I have been studying almost all day. I took a break to attend the Super Mario Club at around 3 or so. I got to play Mario Galaxy! It is very nostalgic, but feels gimicky at the same time. The sweetest part was when I played with the Nunchuck and Vaso played with the wii remote. I moved around and crouched, while he was in charge of jumping and attacking. It worked out rather well and we suprisingly did not die at all.

Nakano

I went to Nakano again today for some Super Famicom shopping. I ended up buying a whole bunch of games. I found 3 different shops that had varying numbers of old games. It seems that if a shop only has a shelf of Famicom games, they are usually 100 yen or so cheaper than the huge stores. It really pays to look around! Speaking of which, there are a couple of games that I have not spotted yet. The biggest one being Mother 2. I need to buy that game. Period.

In other news, I got my cell phone bill recently. For the entire month it was 3,500 yen. Not too bad if you ask me. From here on out, I will not be using any of the extra services (internet, music, etc.) I am hoping that I can cut that bill in half for next month.

I have been going to the supermarket a lot in the past week or so. I cherish the moments at home when I can just get out a piece of bread and start chowing down. On the instant side of things, I found my new favorite food: instant yaki-soba. In theory, it sounds like a terrible idea. Since it is instant, the noodles cannot be fried which is the whole point of yaki-soba. I believe it is better than ramen because there are twice as many noodles, and it is a lot more flavorful. After making the noodles, you put in some sauce, green flakes, and mayo. It tastes nothing like actual yaki-soba, but whatever the strange taste is, it is really good. I picked up a bunch of them for my lunches when I stay at home.

Trying Not to be Lazy

It has been a while since I posted anything decent. Life has just been going on.

Yesterday was really fun. After class I played my PSP in the lounge. I finally got the firmware flashed so I can play old PS1 games on my PSP. It is so nice to be able to play something like FF7 on my way to school every morning. Keaton joined me for a little bit with his DS. Afterwards I took Shoko to the best Tsukemen shop in Tokyo. It is called Yasubee and I have probably mentioned it somewhere before. Surprisingly, it was not at all crowded, very weird for a Friday night.

After dinner Shoko had to leave and I had 1 hour to kill. Needless to say, I went to the Big Box in Baba to play some games. 250 yen kept me occupied for the entire hour with a game of gundam, DDR, and Pop'n Music. I met up with Micheal and the gang in Baba station to head toward Shinjuku. The destination, Kabuki-cho theaters. The reason, Resident Evil 3. It is a very good thing that I know my way around Shinjuku. Nobody else had any clue. The price to get in was only a little more than what it would be back in the states. The reason for this is the Japanese subtitles I believe. In any case, the movie was pretty bad. There was no plot until the last 20 minutes or so, which is also the highlight of the movie. There were not too many zombie encounters, which is the entire point of the series.

I also ended up going to Shibuya all night clubbing with Vaso, Rienzo, Kyohei, and Shun Shun. It was my job to round up people to go with us, but nobody from my group wanted to go. They just went home instead. It was probably for the better. We ended up going to Club Asia. The music in all 3 rooms was a techno / trance / drum'n bass mix. I absolutely love that kind of music, but the DJ's were really bad. Two of the rooms were not loud or dark enough to have a good time, and the other had way too much bass. On top of that, there were simply not enough people. We danced for a good 2 hours or so and then decided to leave. I would like to go again, but to a different club with more people. Rienzo is going to work something out with Ageha (supposedly the most famous and biggest club in Asia). I got home this morning and slept.

サボった

今朝日本語の授業へ行ったけど、５減の授業をサボった。

Too tired to type this in Japanese. Actually, I think I am really too tired to post much at all. I am going to do some homework now.

Squall

Hamamatsucho Project

Everyone needs to watch this video. During orientation everyone was forced to do a presentation of an assigned place in Tokyo. My group of Shoko, Adam, and myself were assigned to Hamamatsucho. Instead of doing a lame presentation, we created a video. Please note that this video has absolutely nothing to do with Hamamatsucho (It was just filmed there).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCchh8GOZNg

天国

今天国にいる。友達と大事なことを話したし、すき焼きを食べたし、宿題がないし。

I am totally in heaven right now.

And life is good.

やった！

Saturday was amazing. I slept in until almost noon, piddled around until 3, then went to Waseda-sai. Personally I didn't think it was the greatest thing ever. It felt like a county fair or a town jubilee. I am not a fan of either of those. I walked around, caught a couple of shows (they were mostly dancing with music), and grabbed some stuff to eat. I met up with Vaso and Nick during that time as well.

After Waseda-sai was over for the day (about 6pm) I headed to Shoko's apartment for a housewarming party. Now her apartment is pretty small. I have no idea how we managed to fit 12 people in there and still have room to eat and drink. Adam and Josh made some really good food consisting of curry rice and quesadillas. It was really cool to talk with some people from the program. I have not seen most of them since the Nagano trip. We ended up playing a couple of drinking games and then going to sleep. Some people went home, but most stayed overnight. Being selfish (or smart if you will) I staked out a piece of the bed for my sleeping purposes. Josh slept in the kitchen, Kanjina and Vance shared a futon, Nikki and Adam shared the fold out couch, Austin had his own futon, and Shoko also got the bed. The entire place was filled with people sleeping everywhere. It was really bad because if one person got up, they ended up stepping on everyone else to get to the bathroom. In the morning everyone woke up really early as Shoko had to go to work. Adam made some quick breakfast for everyone. The apartment was a mess, so before leaving, everyone helped out by cleaning up.

I attempted to go to Waseda-sai again Sunday but decided that I was too tired to
attend. I ended up going home and sleeping / studying the rest of the day.

Today my class went to the disaster relief center where we learned all about earthquakes, fires, and the like. It was really cool as we got to do the whole simulated Earthquake thing. There was this room with some stuff in it, and the guide cranked it up to a magnitude 7 earthquake. The room was shaking so much that it was near impossible to stand. Everyone cowered under the table until it stopped. I got some rugburn on my knees because we were forced to kneel. We also did 2 fire simulations. In one we got to use a fire extinguisher to put out a virtual fire. In the other, we had to navigate through smoke filled corridors. If you stood up too high, a sensor would go off and that person would be penalized. It was really fun.

Finally, the biggest excitement of the day was going to Nakano. Brendan told me that there are a bunch of used game shops there (I need to get him to explain where some more are btw). I ended up buying a Super Famicom with Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger, and Bahamut Lagoon. うれしくなった！

大変

It has just occurred to me that it is November. Wow October just flew by. I noticed it today when I was heading out of the house. There is a Lawson convenience store right outside my train station that had all sorts of Halloween stuff in it. When I walked by it today, there was a huge sign that was promoting Christmas! I cannot believe that it is only 2 months away.

This morning when I woke up, I finally got around to asking my host father to call the shipping company for our area. I had ordered a memory stick for my PSP last Sunday, and it had still not arrived. The tracking website said that I had the wrong address and I received a call on my cell phone on Tuesday informing me about the mistake. When I inquired to my host father about this, he assured me that the package was on its way. I had to fight with him to finally make him understand that it was sitting at a warehouse somewhere. I learned that my Japanese skills were still pretty bad when dealing with this sort of stuff. My vocabulary is just not up to snuff yet. Anyway, I finally got him to listen to the voicemail to make him understand. After a few times of listening, he called them up and sorted everything out. Apparently, when you use a shipping address in Japan, you also need the family name. I had everything right, but instead of putting 臼井　スレバー　ジョン, I just put スレバー　ジョン. It still boggles my mind that you need to put the family name. Each house has its own house number! Why in the world do I need a second confirmation that this is the right house?

In any case, I received my memory card a couple of hours afterward.

At 4pm I headed off to 日本大学 for a "The Brilliant Green" concert. I am really getting in to this whole concert thing. It is really cheap to go and all the bands I like will play in Tokyo sometime during my stay. In any case, I made it to the concert and had a blast. Nihon Daigaku is a couple of blocks away from my home. I walked over there and again felt like a complete outsider. I am sure I was the only foreigner there. This concert was completely different from UVERworld. It was much more mellow. The crowd reflected this as they were not as energetic. It was all very well though, I still had a blast.

After the concert I went to Takadanobaba to meet some people at the HUB. It turned out that there was a private party going on and everybody ditched to go to Harajuku. I hopped back on the train and backtracked to Harajuku. I finally met up with Kanjina, Nikki, Adam, and Austin at the Takeshita exit. We went to this bar / resturant and chilled for a couple of hours. Next we headed to Shibuya to go to a club. Adam is keeping in contact with this guy who lives in Harajuku. He was telling us about a new club that was only charging 1000 yen ($10) as a cover charge. Even if the DJ's are not good, its still really cheap. This was all fine and dandy until we found the club. It turns out that the club opens tomorrow night. Sad and dissapointed, everyone returned home.

日本語で

なぜ日本語で書くかというか、練習したいよ。これから日本語に書かれた日記がほしいんなー。英語がわかる人がいっぱいから、英語を使った。別の日記を書きたいけれども時間があまりないね。宿題やパーティや会など、たくさんある。

この日記を書くことは難しいと思っているが、いい経験でしょ？多分、毎週に一回ぐらい日本語を使う。なれた時もっと使う。

今週は楽しかった。もっと勉強すればよかった。今日の文保クイズは難しかった。悪い成績を取ると思う。

昨日は僕の休み日だった。何もしなかった。少しだけ源氏物語を読んだり、漢字を書いたり、ゲームをしたりした。PSPのためにメモリカードを注文したでもまだ着かなかった。ファイナルファンタジーCCをしたい！カードがなればセーブできない。

今朝父は電話した。びっくりした。電車のりばにいるので一分しか話さなかった。父はマイクロフォンを注文した。インターネットで話すといいんですが。G-TalkかSkypeを使うつもり。

じゃまたね