Bye Bye Japan!

The bags are packed, the room is clean, the time is not here yet. I managed to shuffle my things around so both of my bags are just under the 23 kilo limit (by about 0.4 kilos!) Hopefully the person who checks my bags will be kind enough to overlook the fact that I have a ton of stuff in my backpack. I have to carry my 2 pillows, hat, and business suit jacket (or wear them >_<) onto the plane. I don't know what to do now. I have about an hour before I want to catch the train to the airport. I should be arriving at about 2pm, almost 3 hours before my flight.

And now my words have ended...

Packing Woes

It's not the size of the stuff I have, it's the weight! All of my stuff easily fits into my 2 suitcases, but each one is overweight by about 2 kilos. It looks like I'll be carrying some books with me onto the plane. The other problem is that I have too much random stuff and not enough clothes to provide padding. I will get it!!!

Scaling the House

I just went into town half an hour ago and when I came back the door was locked. On top of that, I had forgotten my key and nobody was home to let me in.

Great.

For the first time since I got here I had to break into my own house. It just so happens that my window has been open 24/7 to relieve me from the heat. The bad part is that I live on the 2nd floor. It actually wasn't that hard to climb up to my room. Houses are so close together here that I used the adjacent house as a balance and climbed my way up. getting over the balcony railing was the hardest part.

Anyways, back to packing!

Yep

So I have to finish the rest of my food and sake before I leave. I have a lot of sake. That means I will be super hungover by tomorrow morning.

I also need to find a home for my beetle before I leave. The problem is I don't know anybody that wants one.

So Very Very Tired (and not ready to go home)

Quick update. I will try to do a full update later (most likely on the plane ride home.)

Wednesday - Skipped my last anthro class and stayed home. Rented movies
Thursday - Last class with Okuhara Sensei.
Friday - Last class with Oto Sensei (last class ever). Finished my books at book off. Had dinner with Kishi Sensei and Hajime san. Skipped dinner with Mieon,
Saturday - Graduation ceremony. Said goodbye to everyone at the afterparty. Walked with Steve and Sonja. Hung out with Sonja till 6pm.
Sunday - Disney Sea with Lisa

Monday plans - get something nice for my host family. Send pictures to Niigata.
Tuesday plans - Sushi with host family. Finish packing.

Last Week of School

The last week of school started today. I went to Japanese class as per usual and nothing particularly exciting happened. I did however, decide to start renting movies. More on that later.

For lunch I met up with Steve, Kyle, Milton, and Daniel for some noodles at the nearby restaurant. Good times. Zaru-soba tastes even better when the weather is really hot like this.

I met up with Ryota for the last time today too. He is busy this week studying and things so we probably won't be able to meet up again before I leave. This time Vaso showed up in the middle of our conversation. Chika (Mile's girlfriend) also showed up a little later. We all talked mostly in Japanese. We played with Vaso's dictionary. It has a feature where it will say English words out loud in a computerized voice. There is something really satisfying about having a dictionary curse at you ^_^

On my way home I stopped by the local Tsutaya and opened up a rental account. It sure took me long enough to do it! I want to rent/burn some dvd's before I go home for future watching enjoyment. The reason for doing it here is for the Japanese subtitles instead of English ones. If I watch a Japanese movie with Japanese subtitles I can understand exactly 50% more than without them. It really helps that much with the listening. Today I got L: Change the World and also watched my Tales of Symphonia bonus disk that I received. Tomorrow who knows what I will get!

Winding Down

I got my stuff shipped today!!! It was a total of three boxes instead of the original four. I woke up early this morning to pack up everything and clean my room. Once I got everything out and put into the final box to ship, I realized that I didn't have anything left to put in my luggage. Therefore I threw the box in one of my suitcases (yes it fits) and proceeded to fill them up with clothes and things. After putting everything in it is still underweight and good to go. Japan postal has a really good service where they will come to your house to pick up boxes for free. This guy came to our house, weighed my boxes, put on the packing labels, then gave me the payment slip. It was easy and painless. All I had to do was carry the boxes down the stairs and give him my money. Speaking of which, it was cheaper than I was expecting by about $40.

This weekend I have not been doing much. On Saturday I went with Nathan and his friend to the Square-Enix store in Shinjuku. It was pretty small but they had some cool merchandise. I would have bought tons of stuff had I had the money and room for it. Instead I settled on a cheap key holder and a figure. Sunday I went to the luncheon for all the exchange students. Only about half of the people showed up. They were however 5 or 6 little kids running around. They were fun. Steve got to be the bus and I got to be the demon. There was pizza for lunch and tons of desert. I ate my share of donuts. Afterwards I went walking with Milton, Sonja, and Steve down to the Tokyo dome. We had a nice walking chat. Near the Tokyo dome we sat down at a California Kitchen pizza restaurant. Steve and Milton splurged on beer and pizza while Sonja and I were content with the endless supply of water that the waitresses kept bringing out. At the end of our meal we received coupons for 500 yen off our next purchase. We asked our waitress if we could use them now to get desert and apparently it was alright. Sweet! I got some sort of brownie / ice cream type desert for only 400 yen! It was probably the best desert since I got to Japan.

Shortly after Sonja went to Ikebukuro to meet up with a friend, but we stayed and chilled a while longer. On our walk to the train station I spotted a park and we decided to investigate. They had one of those jungle gyms with a bunch of metal bars intertwined to create a fortress-like structure. We sat on top and talked about life for at least an hour.

Today I finally got a hold of Hirai Sensei down in Niigata. It seems that this years kids are doing good. She really wanted me to come down to participate in some sort of camping trip with the kids as well as a festival next week, but sadly I can't make it. I've thought about that place every single day since I got back to Tokyo...

This week is the last week of school! Things are finally winding down. I have all of my exams over which means I don't have any class besides Japanese. The last thing to do is a speech about Takabashi Rumiko Thursday. Should be fun.

Not Again...

Back to the 'ol studying habits. The semester is finally winding down and I am getting ready to go home. All of my free time is occupied with my DS instead of much needed Japanese study. I'm back in the "I don't want to study" stage.

In final exam news, I have been reviewing everything for my Buddhism class exam tomorrow. I got together with some people in my class yesterday to exchange notes and study. Supposedly the exam is a fill-in-the-blank exam with no word bank. I think as long as I remember all of the important terms it should be an easy A. Tonight I'm gonna make up a review sheet with all the terms and definitions on to study from.

As for my other Buddhism exam on Friday, I have not even looked at the material. First things first you know.

Also on Friday I have a report due too. I just finished typing it and am going to have Ryota check it for me. I never realized how good it is to get a second opinion on reports and essays. He checked my speech for Japanese last time and I got a perfect grade on it. Hopefully this report will turn out to be the same way. Thanks Ryota!

Oh and did you know? It is going to be my birthday tomorrow. The big twenty-one. As of tomorrow I will be legally allowed to consume alcohol in the States and gamble in vegas. The only problem is, I have been able to do that since I arrived in Japan as the law is set for 20 here >_<

My real birthday is going to suck. Classes all day, an exam, and another exam to study for the following day. I get no time for myself!

I think I am going to have a party when I get back to the states. It will be a birthday / coming home party for anyone that wants to join. I am going to send out invitations through facebook I think.

Packing, Homework

I went to the post office today and got 3 large boxes for the rest of my books. Instead of using the super large box (which is un-liftable after filling it with books) I settled on some smaller ones. I spent the morning tearing up my room and packing things into boxes. I have 3 large boxes with books which weigh about 18kg each. I checked on the post office web site and found out that it will be about $80 to ship each one. The fourth box will hold my super famicom and various other things that I do not need immidiately when I get home. I hope to get them all shipped on Wednesday afternoon.

While I was out I also asked about canceling my cell phone. It seems that the easiest way to do it is to go in the day before I leave and cancel it. Then I can pay the remaining balance and early-cancellation fee and be done with it.

I then spent way too much time playing video games when I should have been doing homework. Trauma Center and FFTactics A2 are way too addicting. After dinner I started doing my homework. I finished everything for tomorrow, a scholarship essay, and am currently halfway through my keigo report which is due on Friday.

This week I also have to study for 2 different Buddhism exams on Thursday and Friday. I am meeting up with some people tomorrow to review. After this week I am pretty much done with class!!!

Look at all the Pretty Flowers!

Today I set my alarm and woke up by 9. I skipped out on the Nikko trip with Don and the rest of the exchange students and instead went to Komagome in order to meet up with Junko. I will probably not make it back to Nikko by myself which is a real shame, but I got to spend the entire day with Junko instead. It is probably the last time I will see her before leaving Japan.

So we met up at Komagome (she was 30 minutes late) and found a nice place to eat lunch. It was ramen at a pretty famous place. After that we went over to Rikugi park to check out the flowers. Sadly, there were not very many flowers. Upon entering we saw a bunch of bamboo stalks with paper tied to them. It is for the Tanabata festival held on July 7th of every year. Before the festival people write their wishes on a piece of paper and hang it from a bamboo stalk. I wished for a safe trip home and a safe return to Japan in the future.

We wandered the rest of the park together which featured a fairly large pond and tons of trees. Japanese people really know how to make nature look good. Afterwards went out for ice cream. It is still blazing here in Tokyo at a scorching 88 degrees! We went to Baskin Robbins (which is called "31" in Japanese for some reason) and shared a triple scoop chocolate cheesecake, blueberry, and ramune mix. It was delicious.

The next stop on our tour was another nearby park which featured an extensive rose garden. There were roses of all shapes, colors, and sizes (most of them in bloom!) all around the exterior of this beautiful victorian house. I think Junko took at least 3 pictures of every rose in the garden... Anyway, we wandered around her as well ending up back at the house for a tour of the inside. The upper floor had a combination of Japanese style and Western style rooms which was very interesting.

We then wandered around the rest of Komagome before getting tired and thirsty. The next stop was Sunshine city in Ikebukuro. We got some bubble tea and talked for another hour. It was nice being able to sit down in the air conditioning.

We parted ways and said our final goodbyes on the Yamanote train. Back at home I refused to do homework and instead spent the rest of the night playing DS with Nathan. It's good to have a gaming partner.

In the house, Off with the clothes

It is soooooooo hot these days! It must be around 80-something but I am getting to the point where I cannot stand it. There is no air-conditioning and everything is so sticky and gross. I guess I only have do deal with it for a little longer...

Yesterday I participated in a special ICC group outing. We went to Shin-Okubo to check out the minorities living there. It is one of the few places where non-Japanese people gather and live. Very similar to any China-town-USA. There were 2 groups of about 8 people each who each had 3 tour guides. My tour guides just happened to be the coordinator Nathan and best friends Ryota and Marie. They took us to a couple ethnic stores, supermarkets, and buildings. We got to see that there are more than just Koreans living in Okubo. Once it was all over, all of the participants went home and the guides all had dinner at a yaki-niku place. I was the only one of the participants left... Anywho, the food was pretty good. It was my first time having real Korean yaki-niku. The Japanese version is slightly different in that they use a lot of beef instead of pork. Yum yum!

Today right after I woke up, Nathan and Andrew showed up. Andrew wanted me to put custom firmware on his PSP. He paid me some $$ and I did it for him. This time only took about 45 minutes. Getting faster! After that I hopped in the shower and headed over to Milton's house for a party.

The party was really weird. Milton's host father is apparently some sort of professor at a nearby university. He had invited some 40 students that are in his class for a party. Then there were the typical group of 8 foreigners from Waseda huddled in a corner playing Go-Fish. For food, the students had made 1000 gyoza. You heard me, 1000!!! I ate way more than I could count! There were also various drinks around that we helped ourselves too.

I think my tolerance for alcohol has gone way up since I got here. At the party I had 4 beers over the course of an hour and a half and did not feel drunk at all. There was no dryness of the mouth, no noticable loss of moving skills, and no getting tired. It makes me wonder if there really was booze in them... I dunno what will happen when I return and party with my friends. I'll be the only one not drunk!

When the party was beginning to end, Kyle invited people over to his house to play Smash. I, of course, jumped at the opportunity. It turned out that only Laura and I went to play. Kyle lives on the Chuo line about 30 minutes out of Shinjuku. His host family is really nice and welcoming. We played for a good couple hours before heading home.

I Thought He Was Dead!

My beetle is alive!!! He finally changed from a gross looking white larva into a beetle!!! For the past month or so I could just see the shell underneath all of the dirt. I thought he had long since died and was rotting down at the bottom of his cage. When I got home today I noticed that the soil was looking a little different in the cage and sure enough a full grown beetle was crawling around!!! The little guy must be hungry though. I don't have any solid food to give the little guy at the moment. Tomorrow I will make a trip down to Nakano and grab some snacks for him. The problem is I don't have too much time left here in Japan. I need to figure out what to do with the little guy before heading home.

In other news, I ate dinner with Hiro, my old homestay brother from 2 years ago. He graduated from graduate school this spring and is now working at a company doing research. He told me that he is working about 14 hours per day! That is insane! As such, he has lots of money and no time to use it. He treated me to a meal and we caught up on old times. It is really too bad that I have to go home so soon. People are finally wanting to get together with me again...

20 Days

I can't believe it. In exactly 20 days at this time (5:30) I will be on the plane heading back to the states. I can't believe it.

Exhaustion

I just woke up from my nap. Yesterday I had to work on my final project that is worth 50% of my grade in Anthro. You know? That one about Shimokitazawa that I have been mentioning for ages. Well we finally got it done. It only took us from 8pm Tuesday night to 9am Wednesday morning. That's right, 11 straight hours of video editing, picture collecting, and sound sampling. We had to take all of our video footage including interviews and random shots, cut all of it down, and edit it into a video. That, however was not the problem. Putting the video together only took about 4 hours or so. The rest of the time was spent subtitling the interviews. I never knew how much work subtitling was. Actually translating the interviews only takes about 1/4th of the time spent on subtitling. The rest was spent typing it all in and getting the words to time up with when the person was speaking it. It was a huge pain. I think I got an hour and a half of sleep while the other group members took over. Luckily, Nick did most of the work, Seth provided his apartment as a place to stay, Jay gave suggestions, and I worked on the picture portion.

We got it done 20 minutes before class started. Rather, we had to go and present what we had finished. The movie still needed a lot of polish around the edges, but got the point across. After presenting we stuck around for the other 3 presentations then went home. I then immediately went to sleep.

Why do American college students like to wait until the last minute? I don't understand... If we had just started on Monday we wouldn't have had to pull an all-nighter...