It's Finally Over!

I finished my Genji paper!! Whoo!! Yeah!!! I got it turned in a whole day early and everything. While those procrastinators are sitting in their rooms writing their papers tomorrow, I will have my hands held high on some of the sweetest roller coasters in Japan! There is a group of 8 of us going to Fuji-Q Highland (http://www.fujiq.jp/) I will be sure to take tons of pictures if I can. Other than than, not much has happened. I got a warm coat from the RD Don as he was not using it for some reason. I also received lots of info from Michiyo about my trip to Niigata. From the sources, I get to be the first one to work in this new building. Last year the kids worked in a preschool / old-persons home as they were both in the same building. With the completion of this new building over the summer, I will be working in a preschool / daycare for the month. There are supposedly 2 different groups of kids. The preschool kids will range from 0 - 6 years old. This is where I will be spending my mornings. The daycare kids are anywhere from 1st - 6th grade, meaning there will be some older kids too. I am going to be living with Hirai-sensei and her husband. She is one of the top teachers at the school and has been working there for over 25 years. The cool part is that I get to play with lots of kids. The bad part is I have to work 5 days a week from 8 in the morning to 8 at night (possibly earlier and later). Since there are no trains out in Niigata, I have to hitch a ride with Hirai-sensei every day. No more freedom for me >_<

Stuck

The suspense is killing me. I have been leaping through all the Genji material that I have in my room searching for a decent topic to write about. It should not be this hard! I originally wanted to do something about the food in the Heian era that related to Genji. The fact that eating was rarely mentioned in the 1000+ page novel struck me as interesting. I simply could not find any information about the typical diet of aristocrats, on or off the internet. Then I stumbled upon a more interesting topic, smells. 1000 years ago bathing was not done very often, so people often smelled horrible. People who could would make their own incenses and perfumes to cover up the nasty bodily smell. Half of a chapter in Genji is devoted to an incense making contest which shows just how much it mattered to "not smell bad". The only question is can I find enough resources to make a paper about this...

End of the Semester

Ok so technically my semester does not end until Thursday, but can we call it even? My last class was this morning! Finally done with classes!!! Whoo!!! Party!!!! As an end-of-class event I went to a 3 hour karaoke session with Keaton, Cicily, and Sheung Sheung. It was loads of fun. It only the 3rd time I have been to Karaoke so far since I got here, 5th time ever. I was very pleased to find that I could almost do some of the songs all the way through. Before I could only do the lyrics. My comprehension skills really have improved. Our session included some sweet songs like You Can't Touch This (MC Hammer), Lonely Rolling Star (Katamari Damacy), and the Dragon Ball Theme Song. It was a good time.

So now I am stuck with this Genji paper / project to do. I am going to go discuss some topics with my teacher tomorrow. I still have no idea what to write about. Maybe something along the lines of swords or berries. I dunno.

Want... More... Manga....

Yesterday I had my big kanji test for my kanji class going over all 120 or so new kanji that we learned. I think I did pretty well. There were 100 points and then 20 bonus points on the test. I estimate that I got a 90% or so after totaling everything. After my class I was done for the day so I decided to head off to the bookstore again. This time I went to the one near the engineering campus. It is a bit larger than the one near the Waseda-eki, but a bit smaller than the Takadanobaba one. When I was browsing the manga I stumbled upon Maison Ikkoku almost in it's entirety. I skipped through the second volume and decided that it would be a good read once I mastered a few more kanji. I picked up volumes 2-13 for 1155 yen. Pretty good deal as that price would be the equivalent of 1 manga in the states. The only bad part is that I cannot start the series until I find the first volume, bummer. Afterwards I decided that I had to be close to the station between Shinjuku and Baba (the name escapes me at the moment) so I continued down Meiji-dori towards Shinjuku. I ended up walking all the way to Shinjuku station, passing a couple good looking restaurants along the way. I went home, wrote up my Translation Studies essay, and read Ranma for the rest of the night.

Today I woke up pretty late to go to Asakusa. Vaso, Keaton, Shoko, and I planned to meet at 1pm at the Kaminari-mon (lightning gate), but it turned into a meeting at 2pm instead. I went together with Vaso from Shinjuku to get there. Upon arrival, Keaton and Shoko were eating so Vaso and I decided to do the same. We ate at this Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet near the station. It was only 980 yen (cheaper than a lot of the set meals around.) After meeting up, we wandered around as per usual, getting snacks along the way. It was not as exciting as when I showed my mother around, but was still fun. Finally, once again at the end of our trip, we showed up in a coffee shop to chat. Oh Shoko... You and your coffee...

We parted ways and I headed to the bookstore again. This time my target was the Takadanobaba one. I picked up more Ranma (up to 8) and some Deathnote. My Deathnote collection is almost finished!!! Only 2 more and it will be the first set to be completed!

Today's Discovery

Class today was pretty pointless. In my Japanese class we reviewed a bit of grammar, then had a mini-party / lunch type thing. It was one of those parties where everyone brings a little something so everyone ends up with a feast. The problem was it ended up being mostly sweets. I think only half of the food got eaten by the time everyone decided to quit. Before lunch I saw Junko inside Building 22 and talked to her for a couple minutes. She went off with 2 of her friends to lunch while I waited for Vaso and Mike to show up. I am still kicking myself about not eating with Junko, she did invite me (although it could be part of the Japanese tradition of being homely (course that has never stopped me before...)) I ate lunch with Vaso and Mike at Building 29. We grabbed some ice creme afterwards and I headed off to find something to do. My original intention was to sit down and play Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, but I couldn't find anywhere to sit. I got to thinking about my Genji paper that is due next week and figured that comparing a manga version to the actual text could be interesting. Therefore, I went to the nearest book off in search of a couple volumes. I ended up buying a bunch of other manga instead because I could not find Genji anywhere. Even the store clerk didn't know if they had some or not.

While waiting for Genji class to start, I cracked open my purchases and started reading Ranma 1/2. It's about this kid Ranma who turns into a girl when he gets wet. He turns back into a boy with boiling water. Apparently there was some cursed ponds in China that Ranma and his father fell into. His father turns into a panda in water... Right. It also features the typical high school life, full of bully fights. It is pretty weird so far, but it is an easy read.

Also of note in the book off; I saw a Panasonic Q for $80 and almost bought it on the spot. For the less enlightened, the Panasonic Q is a Gamecube made by Panasonic that also plays DVD's. It is silver, roughly 2 inches bigger than the Gamecube on all sides, features a sliding CD drive, and comes with a remote. Like I said, I almost bought it. If it were not for that copy of Smash Bros that has my name on it ^_^

I also picked up this weird manga entitled "Super Mario Kun" (Kun is a suffix for Japanese names usually used with young males.) The manga features Mario and pals in a very stylistic way. It was printed in 1993, before Mario 64 was released. I am very amused at the story.

So finally, my discovery! I realized that instead of playing video games and whatnot, I should be reading Manga! OK it is not that big of a deal, but still, I couldn't bring myself to do it until this point. So from today onward, I will not use my DS or PSP (unless used as an MP3 player) until the end of Spring Break. I am doing this in order to keep my Japanese skills up to par (as there are no classes for 2 months) and also for enjoyment. I have realized that I can actually read and understand what is going on without my dictionary! For example, after reading the first volume of Ranma, I only had a page long list of new vocabulary. Most of them are not crucial to the plot (aside from things like 変態 (metamorphosis) and the like.) Also by this point I have built up a library of 60+ volumes from different series. I want to start finishing the collection of some of my series (I'm looking at you Yu Yu Hakusho) and getting to know new ones. I also want to read them too! At this point I have only read maybe 4 volumes. I would love to do one per day, but that may be a bit hard until school lets out.

Snow!!! But I Missed It...

It has been snowing for most of the morning. I first saw it on TV via a live broadcast from somewhere in Tokyo. I didn't think too much of it. Then I happen to look out the window and see these huge snowflakes falling. I would have loved to go out and play in it, but I am still trying to recover from this sickness. I spent the day at home looking at the snow (not really but I tried). I took some pictures out my front door as I did not want to get dressed to venture further in the cold. I wish I could have had some plans for today. It would have been fun to play out in the snow!

The Sick Days

Starting Sunday afternoon I began feeling a bit under the weather. On Sunday I went out to study kanji with Vaso and Nick, but ended up not doing very much. We returned home around sunset and I spent the rest of the day at home. Monday I was feeling about the same level of wellness. Japanese class seemed to pass by pretty quickly, plus we were taken out to lunch by our teacher. We went to Saizeriya (the same place we studied yesterday) and had 800 yen worth of food and drinks. Once parting from that I went and had ramen with Shoko and Keaton, then off to coffee. We had a good time talking, but by that time my condition was deteriorating, and I decided to head straight home. I took it easy the rest of the night by playing mario and going to sleep after dinner. Tuesday I woke up and decided that it would be a bad idea to go to school. I was lazy around the house all day. Today is more of the same. I feel mostly better. I really wanna go out and do something because it is SNOWING in Tokyo! If I could just find somebody to go walk with me around Ueno Park...

Where Did My Money Go?

I could have swore I had over $100 on my Thursday when I ate lunch. In fact, I know I did because I thought I made money on my last transaction by holding up 2, 5000 yen bills. Today when I went shopping in Nakano, my wallet only had 2000 yen in it. How in the world did I spend over 8000 yen in two days? I went straight home Thursday after class, but stopped by the supermarket to pick up some groceries. I must have spent about $25 there on food. Friday I ate lunch at home with the groceries I bought then went to class. Before my song exam, I picked up a drink and cookies for $2. After my exam I went out with Michael and Keaton to Yasubee, which was another $8. Then we went to the arcade where I spent $3. Afterwards we got coffee which was another $3. On the way home I picked up a copy of Famitsu for $4 because Keaton said Smash got a 10/10. Today I traveled to Waseda and ate lunch with Terri at the school cafeteria for maybe $4, then we worked on our skit. I can only account for $50 of out of $80 that has been spent. Where did the other money go? There had to be something else, but I cannot remember for the life of me. I know that I did not go out drinking or partying, did not put any money on my Suica (train card), and didn't owe anyone money. Gah! Give me back my money Tokyo!

UPDATE: I also picked up a magnetic Shogi board from Don Quixote for $10.

The Perfect 10

I know this has already been on the web since yesterday, but I got my hands on scoop. Legendary gaming magazine Famitsu gave Smash Brothers X (Brawl in the States) a perfect 10 out of 10. I have heard that recently Famitsu has been pressured to raise the scores of games that were not all that good in order to boost video game sales. Whether or not Smash Bros deserves the perfect 10 will assessed by me personally next week ^_^ Here is the shot of the perfect score:



This weeks magazine also came with a little booklet explaining everything that is available on the current website. It also has a brief history page of all the characters. Sadly it does not reveal any secret stages or characters. As for Ness appearing in the new game, it still does not look likely. The book mentions Ness being a secret character in the first game, and Mister Saturn being a throwing item in the second. There is no mention of him appearing.... But there is still hope!!!

In other news, I got the high score on the Super Mario Bros arcade game at Big Box last night. Sure the rest of the scores are the default, but it still made me feel special ^_^

Long Day

I woke up this morning with more vigor than usual. Surprisingly I was up before my alarm, got dressed without to much complaining about the cold, and made it to school on time for the first time in ages. Everything was going great until I looked in my bag and found that my Japanese folder was nowhere to be found. Great, a 0 for my homework grade for the day. Once class ended, I ate lunch with Mike, Vaso, and Kyle. Kyle started spitting out Smash Bros news which I will save for below. I had a nice set lunch with curry rice, udon, fried potato, and extra rice. It was amazingly filling for only 400 yen. Vaso and I left early to get to our Translation class; we had an exam today. We met up with Joe along the way and proceeded to take seats way in the back. Vaso had lost his papers that we were allowed to use on the exam so I figured he could "borrow" mine during the test. Turns out that the "exam" was just a long essay question on the stories we had read. The stories had absolutely nothing to do with translation, but I pulled up some lines and made some connections that didn't really make any sense. On top of that, there was a time limit that I did not know about until it was over. Yay for writing in complete thoughts. After the test I asked around and nobody knew what she was looking for in that essay. Good, it means I was not the only one. After class Vaso and I grabbed some milk from the coop and headed home. I had decided on the way to school that I was going to skip Genji today; I hadn't read the material anyways. When I got home I started studying for my Modern Song Class test tomorrow. I have been looking at lyrics and listening to songs all day so it has not been that bad.

So on to video game news. I got my PSP and DS firmwares updated today. They both really don't do much, but it is nice to know that my systems are up to date. I also played a little Mario and Sonic at the Olympics and thought I was going to destroy my DS. I can understand button mashing to make your character run the 100 meter dash, but rubbing the screen back and forth with the stylus? Come on Nintendo, you can do better. I am hoping the Wii version will be! Secondly, the new Advance Wars is coming out next week and I am really excited. Lastly, Kyle told me that Smash Bros X is coming out at the end of the month... Weird, because last I heard it had been delayed until March. Taking a look at the website sure enough it was delayed. But wait, that is the English version of the site... The Japanese version displays differently, January 31!!! You can bet I will be out braving the cold to get my copy!

Reading

I just finished reading Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. For whatever reason, finishing it put me in a really good mood. I spent all day reading in various positions around my room. From the sofa to my chair and under my warm blankets on my bed, it was a wonderful experience. The story was amazing. There are two main characters and every chapter alternated from one characters story through the other. I thought it was really cool that you could for instance read every odd chapter and have a perfectly good understanding of what was happening in the book. Reading them like this sounds confusing, but it is a really light read and very easy to understand. The way you begin to realize how the two stories are connected really gets you thinking. I have to recommend this book to anyone that likes a good read.

成人式

Monday I woke up early to go to the Seijinshiki held in my neighborhood. This is a festival held every year on the second Monday of the year. It celebrates the people who came of age in the previous year. When I registered for my alien card, I think I was entered into a database of all the people living in the area. Therefore I got a letter inviting me to the party. My host family told me I should attend because it is basically a once in a lifetime event. The attire was supposed to be formal so I ended up wearing my black pants and my blue blazer jacket. It really doesn't count as a suit, but I'm a foreigner so it's alright. In any case it was cold outside so I wore my hat, scarf, and coat.

When I got to the town center I saw tons of girls wearing very expensive kimonos. The guys were not so dressed up at all (a suit or something here or there) so I did not feel out of place in that respect. I did feel out of place by the fact that I was a foreigner and did not know anybody. I must have heard "hisashiburi" (lit. it's been a long time) probably 50 or so times throughout the day. It seemed that everyone was traveling with a group of 20 or so people which made it hard to butt-in and talk to them.

I went to the auditorium for the 11am presentation. Some guy started off the presentation by talking about how great it is that we are all adults, that we can now he considered legal, and that we need to start figuring out what to do in the future. Afterwards the higher-ups in town introduced themselves and also made a little speech of similar intentions. A video was shown next with 3 famous people who came from the neighborhood wishing us good luck. I did not recognize them, but could tell that they must have been famous by the "awe" feeling in the crowd. Finally, there were a group of cheerleaders from the local university that put on a show. They were really good. We are talking holding someone up 3 girls high good. I would have taken a video, but the battery in my camera was starting to go dead.

After the presentation was over, there were booths handing out various things to the kids congratulating them. Some of the better gifts were mochi and donuts. I ate them both by myself trying to scout out some people to talk to. While sitting down some people sat next to me and I started up a conversation. They were floored that 1. I could speak Japanese fairly well and 2. I was also legitimately attending the party. On the way out these two girls took my picture so I had to return the favor ^_^



Sadly I did not actually make any friends at the party. It was just so hard to meet people that already had a huge group of friends!

Afterwards I headed to Shinjuku to meet Mike. He wanted to hang out while we still had a chance before finals. We picked up a quick bite to eat at the eki and went to Ueno. Once there we visited the Museum of Science and History. They had all the animal skeletons, space exhibits, and activities. It was really fun, but by this time the battery in my camera died so I only got a few pictures. We really wanted to go to the robot exhibit next door, but it was approaching closing time and was really crowded. I plan on going next week when I have free time.

We also went out to rotating sushi afterwards. Ueno has some really good places that are 128 yen for every single plate on the belt. It was delicious. We wandered the streets of Ueno for a while before returning to Baba. I wanted to play Aquarian Age for a bit. I ended up convincing Mike to get a Konami card as well. It's a little red IC card that saves your data on a bunch of the arcade machines. I got home around 9ish and ate some delicious Oden with my host family.

Today I had class again. Ugh. I failed to read the chapters for today in Genji as I had a paper to write for the same class. This caused me to pay even less attention than normal. She is expecting us to read over 200 pages to finish the book this week! Impossible I tell you! I also picked up a copy of Haruki Murakami's book "Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World" for my song class. He said there would be an essay relating to the book (probably 30% of the test grade) so I figured it would be good to pick up. I was planning on reading a couple of books by him anyways, so this gives me a good excuse to start.

Of Study and Notecards

I ended up not doing anything today. I woke up feeling a little not genki so I decided it would be best to stay home. Besides, it was cold outside. For the first time in a while I sat down and watched some good old TV. One Piece was on in the morning and after that there were various programs that interested me a little bit. During the off hours I did some studying. I got my Genji reading done for last week and still need to write the paper for this week. I also made quite a few flash cards for use on the train. My original intention was to make a DS program to study, but that quickly failed as the programming environment will not work with vista... I also made some flashcards for my JPop class as there is a test this Friday. If it is anything like the last test, it will be a lot of memorization. I also have a test in translation Thursday that I just remembered about.... Our teacher was absent last week so class was canceled. I have no idea what is going to be on that test. Lots of work this week!

New Housemate

This week a new house-mate moved in with my host family. I first learned of this last weekend when I was abruptly woken up by the sound of a vacuum cleaner. My father was cleaning the empty guest room at 8 in the morning when he should have still been sleeping. He told me that I was going to be getting a buddy who doesn't speak English. I nodded and went back to bed.

So I have not written about my new house-mate because of lack of info. I was really busy this week and just got to know him little bits each day. He moved in Wednesday and has been eating breakfast and dinner with me every day. His name is Aaron and he is from Sweeden. He does not speak English or Japanese very well at all. He says that he has been studying Japanese for a year and a half, but I find that really hard to believe. He doesn't know the short form or te form... His vocabulary list seems pretty limited too. In any case, it reminds me of when I first came to Japan last year. I know for a fact that I had a really hard time communicating.

So Aaron is going to be here until the end of March studying at an international school somewhere. Near the end of his stay he said he was going to go traveling around Japan. As to why he is studying Japanese I do not know, but it will be interesting to see how far he advances in these 3 months. I am really beginning to realize how far I have come in my own language skills.

Today I went with Toshi to the Waseda vs Keio rugby game. It was my very first experience ever with rugby and I must say that it is pretty cool. It is like American Football but much much better. For one thing the clock is always running. There is no stopping it when a penalty comes up or other BS like that. This made the game feel really intense and fast. There are also no plays per se. The ball is always moving back and forth. Whenever someone is pulled to the ground, a group of 5 guys or so from each team fight for the ball. Really intense stuff. The game is 40-45 minutes per half. You score 5 points for making a "touchdown" and another 2 with the goal kick afterwards. You can also do a penalty kick for 3 points. I thought it was really interesting that wherever the touchdown is scored, that is the position that from where the goal must be kicked. So potentially they could be kicking from the sideline! In any case, Rugby is a sweet game!

That was the good part of the game. The other part consisted of us freezing our asses off in the rain and coldness. Upon reaching the stadium, we bought some lunch (onigiri) and I bought a raincoat. I was told that umbrellas would not be allowed in the stadium, which turned out not to be true. In any case I was still grateful for the extra protection from the rain. I thanked Toshi over and over again for coming prepared. He brought towels to wipe off the seats, plastic to sit on, and handwarmers. I feel forever in his debt for keeping me much warmer than I would have been.

I am glad this week is over, it was pretty busy. It seems that from now until the end of the month I will have quite a few tests and papers due. It is nothing compared to being back at school, but not living 5 minutes away from campus really puts a dent in the time I have to do things!

Visit to Keio University

This morning I woke up at my usual time not to commute to Waseda, but to instead visit their rival university Keio. The Keio campus is separated into different campuses based on what kind of things are studied. I went to the engineering campus and met up with my old host brother Toshi. Keio is about 30 minutes from Shibuya on the Tokyu-Toyoko line near the Hiyoshi station. I arrived about 10 minutes early which was perfectly fine with me, and waited by a giant silver ball for Toshi to show up. He came at exactly 10am (our proposed meeting time) with his bag and a stuffed rolling luggage suitcase. He told me he was traveling somewhere to give a presentation and take a test (graduation stuff). He pulled that thing all around campus and refused to let me help.

My first impression of Keio was that the scenery is much more pretty. The main walkway had trees on both sides (albeit without leaves) that would be gorgeous in the fall. There was also a serious lack of school based advertisements. I don't know if it is like that at our Engineering campus as well, but I saw slim to no boards with school events on them. This made it feel much more like my home campus. Next he showed me the library and a couple buildings. I was surprised that all the insides were furnished very nicely; some even had places to sit! From the Hiyoshi camups we walked to the Yamane campus where the older students have class. I was told that Hiyoshi campus mainly consists of first and second years, while Yamane is third, fourth, and graduate students. The trek was really short between the two, but there is a huge valley in between. I don't know how many steps we walked down, but then we had to climb this huge steep hill afterwards too! Good practice for sports I guess. When you get too far outside of Tokyo everything is not flat anymore. Next I got to see the research lab where Toshi does research, and meet a couple of other people there. Since it is still close to winter break, I was told that many people had not returned yet. We ate lunch at the local school cafeteria which was about the same as Waseda's. Finally we parted ways and Toshi caught the bus to the airport.

I stayed at Keio for another couple of hours and met up with a girl named Alisa Yamasaki. She has Japanese parents but has lived in America all her life. I met her at the bridging scholarship reception a couple months ago and we never had a chance to hang out again. I figured that since I was already at Keio it would be a good opportunity. We ended up exploring the campus a little, checking out a few department stores, and getting some coffee. A little before 4pm we parted ways and I headed back to Baba. I wanted to play a few games of cards before I went home for the night. Now I am regretting that decision as I have a paper to finish for my song class, a paper far Japanese class, and some Genji to read all by tomorrow. It is already midnight and I am almost finished with my song paper >_<

Back to Class

Today was the first day back to class after winter break. It feels really weird not starting off with a new semester. It is back to the same old boring classes. First of all it was pretty tough getting up at 7:30 again. I have gotten used to sleeping in until noon lately. The commute was packed as always and once again I got shoved off the train at Meidaimae. I knew that it was not going to be a good day.

At Shinjuku I had to walk a kilometer to get to my station. The train I caught went all the way to "New" Shinjuku station which only has 2 lines going to it, and not the one I want. I somehow managed to get to class on time, although I was sure I would be at least 5 minutes late. Japanese class was the same old stuff. I have begun to realize how much I miss Kishi Sensei back at my home University. After thinking it over a little bit I figured out why I do not learn anything in class. It is pretty simple really, and most of it is not the teachers fault. My class is for whatever reason split into 2 sections: beginner and intermediate. The beginner people fail every single test that our teacher gives them. It doesn't matter if it is kanji, grammar, vocab, or even oral, they just simply cannot do it. The intermediate people always get A's on all their tests, do their homework, and have no problem speaking in class. We are being held back! Next semester I will not take it if I have class with the same people. I will move one way or another.

For my Genji class I decided to try out the Sidensticker translation. As to why I did not sample all the translations at the beginning of the semester is beyond me. I quickly found out that this translation is much much easier to understand. All the characters have a constant name throughout the book (instead of being called by their rank) and the language is much simpler. I was tempted to go back and read Genji from the beginning again, but I don't think I have enough time between now and the end of the semester. Our teacher also was kind enough to push back our essay originally due Thursday to next week. Yes!

Finally, in my song class I learned that we had a paper due today. That's right, a paper due the day we return after our 2 week long winter vacation. He cannot possibly expect quality work from us. I knew there was a paper due "sometime in January" as according to his last lecture, but had no idea that it was the day we came back!!! Needless to say that just threw off the rest of my night. I am currently procrastinating on doing it as I am not sure how much (if any) credit he will give to papers being late. Teachers here seem to be really strict about that. Also, I think half the class was absent today as well. I wonder why?

3 Days of Relaxation

I finally got around to doing my laundry. It took all day Saturday, but it is finally done. Now everything is hanging all around my room. Every inch, or should I say centimeter, is covered in drying clothes. I hope they are all dry by the time I need to go back to school. I gotta say that I am really liking the TV right by my desk. It makes watching it so much easier. Now I just need to figure out when stuff is on. That night Vaso and I decided to go to Cold Stone for desert. The bad part was it was closed by the time we got there... We were only 10 minutes late! I guess places close at 10 so the workers can make it home by last train... But I could see them cleaning up!! We ended up having soft cones at a nearby Mac.

Sunday I started playing a few of my Super Famicom games, mainly Star Ocean. I have to look up the characters every couple of minutes so it takes a really long time to play. However, it is a lot of good practice. I already have a page long list of vocab words that I intend to remember!

Today was more of the same. I was planning on going out today, but there ended up being 2 things wrong with that. First of all I could not get anyone to have fun with me. Secondly I realized that I had homework to do. I spend half the day reading Genji, the other half studying Japanese, and the other half playing games. I managed to get everything done by 9pm. It is gonna be tough to get back into the swing of things again!

Of Woes and Worries

So I am a bit concerned about my laptop. It seems that for some reason the wireless card is acting up. Usually when I turn on my computer for the first time, the wireless card is not detected at all. It does not show up on network connections or even in the device manager. The weird part is that after I restart, the card is detected fine... Or so it seemed. This time it took 3 entire restarts before my card was detected. Something is not right. I need to go buy a small screwdriver so I can open it up and re-seat it.

In other news, I ventured to the Big Box to play at the game center. I mentioned the card game Aquarian Age yesterday and would like to go into more detail. It seems that the game consists of a couple of different modes. There is story, single battle, and online. You can actually play against people in real time from anywhere in Japan. The great part is that because it is electronic, it is impossible to cheat or "misunderstand" the meaning of an attack. I also found out that there are special "events" where for a period of a week you can play under special rules for prizes (promo cards, figures, etc.) I ended up playing for a couple of hours and it was pretty cheap all things considered. I received a couple rare cards which improved my deck a lot. I also am getting the hang of what my characters are doing on screen with respect to where the cards are placed on the table. It is really cool. I even met some other guys who were playing beside me. They tried to give me pointers, but it was really hard to understand all the technical card talk.

I also want to mention how clean that particular arcade is. More than once today I have seen the workers there go around and wipe the screens and controls on various machines. It is good to know that they like to keep their games in tip-top condition. I also made up my mind that someday I will have my own arcade. I will bring those card games to the states, have all those bemani games, get some of those interchangeable cabinets, and open up a huge arcade.

I proceeded to go to Nakano to search out more elusive Super Famicom games. A couple of rarities were Super Mario Kart and all 3 Go Go Ackman games. I also picked up Metroid 2 for the black and white Gameboy, and the original Super Mario Bros on the Famicom. I was also tempted to get a Famicom (5000 yen for the 2nd version!) and a N64 (2000 yen!) I decided to pass on the N64 because most of the games were released in America. Only Animal Crossing, Puyo Puyo, and Doshin the Giant are games that I would want for it, and those are all on different systems. The Famicom on the other had has a ton of Japan only releases. Moreso than the Super. The only problem is that the games seem to be more expensive... All the Rockman games for example are over 1000 yen each!!!

Am I Missing Out?

I have been spending the majority of the morning doing laundry and reading Brendan's blog. He went to Japan in 2002 - 2003 on the GLCA/ACM study abroad program (the same one that I am on.) At first I was really in awe at the sheer number of things that Brendan did at the beginning of his stay. I was feeling jealous and thinking about how to make my trip better when it finally struck me.

I have been to Japan before.

This simple fact completely nullifies the "new experience" factor that a lot of the kids had. I previously figured out the train systems, knew my way around Baba and Shinjuku, been to many of the tourist places, and even had much experience with the language. I was feeling that my level of knowledge was way behind Brendan's and even my good friend Vaso's, but in reality it is about the same. We all just experience different things. My big interest lies in video games, therefore I spend a ton of time searching for them and checking out game centers. Therefore, my Super Famicom collection consists of a spanking 49 games with many more to go. My manga collection is a bit lacking, but I still have around 50 volumes. Brenden's interests lied in literature so his manga and book collection was huge (probably twice the size of mine at this point.) I also realized that the biggest difference between our two experiences is the host family. My family doesn't take me anywhere whereas Brendan's did. It is a good and a bad thing. I get to go out with friends adventuring, getting lost, and learning more about Japan, but I don't get the full on explanation of things or places that my family would give me.

I finally realized what has been happening, and I feel much better about my experience so far.

A New Hobby

Today was a sad day. I had to wake up really early again (6:30 come on!) to get some grub and head on over to the hotel. I must say that I was dead tired. By the time I got there, mom was all packed and ready to head to the airport. I got to drag her small bag behind me so that made the day a little better. We made the 1 and a half hour trip to Narita Airport and got there around 9:30ish. I almost fell asleep a couple times along the way. Mom got all checked in and ready to go, but there was a slight problem. After taking a second look at the itinerary, we discovered her flight did not leave until 2 in the afternoon! We thought it left at noon... That is a whole 4 hours to kill! Since I had had a very small breakfast this morning (a piece of bread) we decided to eat lunch. Mom has been getting away from the whole "lets eat new and exciting foods" phase so I settled on the local Subway. I had the cream cheese roasted chicken and mom had the cajun chicken. We also ordered some potato wedges, something which would catch on in America if you ask me. I also found out that the subs are about the same as in American Subways. Everything is metric, so the normal sub is 15 centimeters long which translates to 5.90551181 inches. Very close to half a foot. I also admired the subs with hot dogs in them... Seriously >_<

Mom eventually decided to go through the final security checkpoint which queued my departure. I said my final goodbyes and headed back to Tokyo. Instead of going straight home I skipped the stop at Nippori and headed to Ueno Park. Once there I found that the place was insanely crowded. Today was the first day that shops were open after New Years, but a lot of the businesses are still closed so many people had the day off. I really wanted to visit the Robot Exhibit at the Science Museum, but the wait was over an hour just to get in! The other museums in the area were also packed, so I decided it was best just to leave. Since the day was still young, I headed over to Akihabara to do some game hunting.

Akihabara was also extremely crowded. What made it worse was the fact that the road was not blocked off to traffic so all the people crammed onto the sidewalks. There is also a tradition on New Years to sell "grab bags" of random stuff for cheap prices. Most of these are categorized by digital cameras, electronic dictionaries, laptops, etc. I was tempted to buy one, but I figured that it was probably just the crappy products that they couldn't sell. In any case, I managed to find a new retro game shop that is hidden down a back ally and on the third floor of a suspicious looking building. They had every single super famicom game I could ever want. They were also organized very nicely by the hiragana syllabary and even had the name on the side of each game so you didn't have to sift through all them! The only problem was that they were a bit more expensive than Mandrake over in Nakano. Most of the games were between 1000 - 2000 yen which is out of my price range. But in any case, I did manage to find some good deals and picked up some 500 yen games. Back on the streets I explored all the backroads and found a couple more tiny shops with a few retro games. I picked up around 10 total from a few different places. On my way back to the train station I spotted a vendor with tons of different wires and connectors. I remembered that I wanted to move the TV in my room by my desk so I can "study" and watch TV at the same time. The way it is set up now, the TV is on the other side of the room. I talked to the guy and got 7 meters of cable for 480 yen. Nice.

Back in Takadanobaba I climbed up the Big Box and went to the arcade. There was something that has been bothering my for a while, and I had to try it out. There are these card games at the arcade where you place different cards on a playing field, much like any other tabletop card game. The only difference is that the game registers where the cards are placed and correlates them to characters on screen. When you move the cards around, your characters on the screen move to correspond with them. There is one called Aquarian Age Alternative that is half the price of the other ones but still looks like a lot of fun. I ended up buying a starter pack and playing through the tutorial. It turns out that every time you finish playing a game, the machine spits out a new card for your collection. So not only do you get to have fun, but you get more cards for next time as well. I currently have a pretty crappy deck, but I plan on continuing to play for a period of time.

After about 6 games or so, I finally returned home. I got my TV hooked up on the other side of my room and cataloged my new games. It was a good day.

Ueno Park

On Sunday morning I got to sleep in (finally!) It had to be about 2 or so before I finally made it to Baba to pick up mom. It was New Years Eve so the shops and places were starting to close down. It was weird that everything shuts down for New Years instead of Christmas. It was also very weird seeing half of the city closed for the holiday. The trains and convenience stores were open, but that was about it.

Anyway, I dragged mom to Ueno Park to see whatever was there. I had also never been there so I thought it would be a good experience. My original intention was to visit the Robot Exibit which was going on at the Museum of Natural History. When we got there though, we found out that all the museums were closed. Even the Ueno Zoo was closed. The only thing open was a shrine and a children's amusement park. We tried these free samples of Yaki-panda (literally "fried panda") on the way to the shrine, then on the way back we stopped and bought some. It was basically Taiyaki but with panda shapes instead of fish.

Next I figured that at least some of the shops in the black market district should be open, so I dragged mom to the other side of the train station. The main street vendors were packed with people. I have never seen that many people that close together before except on the train! Everyone looked like they were trying to get a deal on some fish and lobster products. We ended up stumbling on a cheap clothes shop and mom bought a yukata among other things. I then dragged her around Ueno until we ended up back at the station.

I decided that ice cream would be good at that point so we ventured off to Harajuku to get some Crepe action. Takeshita-dori was packed with foreigners and locals alike looking for some sweet gothic clothing. I ignored all the stuff and made my way to the Crepe shop. The one I had was strawberry cheesecake with vanilla ice creme and sprinkles. The true path to my heart is with awesome food and that is exactly what I got. After that we then weaved our way through the crowd to the end of the street. At the very last store before we got out onto the main street, mom spotted a rack of belts. She ended up buying one that looked a little short, but could still be worn.

The path to Shibuya took us by all sorts of cool places. We skipped out on visiting Omotesando (which I got shot down the next few days by my host family) and arrived in Shibuya. Basically I wanted to show mom the biggest intersection in the world and the Hachiko. After seeing those two we ventured down a random street out of that part of the city. We passed a fugu (blowfish) place on the way there (which I want to return to at some point). Upon reaching a large intersection with no more Christmas lights, we decided to turn back towards Shibuya. On the way back I found a Cold Stone Creamery! I have yet to eat there, but will most definitely make a date of it in the near near future. We also got a good view of the intersection from that building.

Upon arriving at the train station we headed back towards Baba. I made a quick stop in Shinjuku to pick up some DVD-R's and while I was there showed mom around Kabuki-cho. I also made her play the 10 yen claw game which she managed to lose 4 times in a row. We finally returned home around 10ish. At that point I was hungry so I took mom to experience Japanese fast food (aka Yoshinoya aka cheap beef on rice).

It turned out to be a bad idea. Mom just had the green tea that they give you and apparently it made her sick. The next day I arrived in Baba around 2 again to find mom half asleep and looking horrible. Apparently she had gotten an upset stomach probably because of a combination of jet lag, weird food, and inconsistant meals. We chilled around her place. I ended up going to the arcade for a couple of hours to kill some time. I am getting pretty good at that gundam game!

Once mom was feeling better we headed off to Yokohama. We started off by walking outside from Yokohama station to Chinatown but quickly regretted that decision. You see, Yokohama is by the bay so the wind is very strong. That coupled with the fact that neither of us had a hat or gloves made it a very cold day. We got to see the amusement park and large hardware store, but that alone was not worth the coldness. As soon as we found a train station, we got on and headed for the actual station.

Yokohama was not as cool as I remembered it. Most of the stores were food places, and most of them were selling roasted nuts or some sort of Manjyuu out front. I bought an an-man which was plenty for me. There was not too much shopping left to do so we skipped most of the shops. We did manage to find a really cool temple and then a demonstration with the paper dragon thing. Feeling a little down, we headed home.

Back at the hotel we waited for New Years to roll around. Mom took a nap and I headed down to the bar for a couple of drinks and a chat with Kanjina, Adam, and Josh. Once 11 came everyone gathered outside for the Niji-no-kai New Years Bash. The meeting place was near the East exit of Shinjuku, but we all met in Baba first to go over together. I got to see some old friends that I never get a chance to talk to. It was basically a meeting of all the foreign students that don't have a family to spend New Years with.

The party ended up being really lame. New Years came and went with only a little cheering and stuff. As for the after party, Niji-no-kai wanted 3000 yen to attend the nomi-hodai. That wasn't gonna happen. Everyone parted ways and I ended up going home early.

On New Years Day I figured nothing would be open and I was right. The city was almost shut down. For breakfast I was woken up at the ungodly hour of 10 and ate a traditional New Years meal with my host family. I took it slow once again and eventually made it to Baba around 2. I wanted to take a walk to see what was open so I made the trip to Nakano on foot. Mom accompanied me (although she was not pleased by the distance we walked). On the way there I found a Super Famicom 4 player adapter for only 280 yen! Score! At Nakano, most of the things on Broadway were closed (most notably Mandrake). We had the creme filled pancake things and then hopped a train back home. We ended up watching tv the rest of the night.

Today most of the shops were still closed. However, this is the only day that the imperial palace interior is open. The emperor and royal family make an appearance in front of their citizens. I really wanted to go, so we did. Even though there were thousands of people there, I ran into non other than Eric McEver and his host mother. He was one of the few really tall people there. We talked while waiting in the hour long line to get into the palace grounds. Along the way there was a security checkpoint and tons of guards everywhere. Once inside, we squeezed our way to the front center and waited another 50 minutes for the royal family to make their appearance. It was pretty spectacular. The emperor made a little speech about how he was glad everyone showed up, wished everyone a happy new year, and stated that we should all work together to make the world a better place. Everyone waved and then the family disappeared. Sadly, because of this event the gardens were closed. Mom and I instead walked to Tokyo Tower, took a couple of pictures, then went to Hamamatsucho station and back to Baba.

Mom got changed, grabbed her stuff, then followed me home. I got to show her where I have been living for the past 3 months. We got to have dinner with my host family (which was excellent) and talked for quite some time. I got to be head translator for the night. It was a lot of fun trying to decypher what my host parents were trying to say and actually turn it into English. Once dinner was over I escorted mom back home and then returned home myself.