Kristen and Shawn Visit: Part 5: Tokyo aka THE END! :-(

After Korea, we hopped on a plane to Osaka, where we then hopped on a Shinkansen to Tokyo for the last part of our trip together (SOB!! They should just move here, I think, and I should never leave).

When we got to Tokyo, we immediately brought Kristen and Shawn to the capsule hotel in which they would be staying. I was staying with Martin in Shinagawa, so I had booked them a place close to there, and it turned out to be a host district
(if you don't know what a host is, use the picture for reference. It's like the Japanese dude version of a hostess, and they have awesome host hair and are super suave) - the place was literally crawling with hosts. I thought it was a great introduction to Tokyo for Kristen and Shawn! :-)

The next day, while Kristen and I slept, Shawn woke up super early and went to the fish market (apparently, he got kicked out about 5 times for being a foreigner there so early). When we finally all met up, we headed over to Akihabara for some doughnuts from the Doughnut Plant (and, of course, for them to check out the electronics distric).


I of course had to bring them to Super Potato to see all the old school games and to sit in the chair made of famcom games (which, unfortunately, was way smaller than it used to be - I guess it went through some trouble).

So, then we headed over to the Meiji shrine by Yoyogi Koen, and there just so happened to be two weddings going on. Guess we were lucky!

Martin and I of course had to make goofy poses outtside of the shrine. I feel certain that Kristen and Shawn also made goofy poses, but I don't seem to have those pictures.

After the shrine, we headed into Harajuku, where there were unfortunately no cosplayers. We really didn't get lucky on the cosplay/lolita front.
We did, however, get very lucky on the Takeshita street front. Sure, there were tons of people there, but SO MANY LESS than there ever have been before.
We were actually able to walk down the street and breathe at the same time. I even felt comfortable enough spending the time necessary to pop into a couple idol shops to look for hot visual kei boys (I found none. Sadness).

We then headed over to the Shinjuku/Shibuya area for a delicious (at least to me, maybe not so much to Krist and Shawn) vegan lunch at Pure Cafe, the Aveda cafe.
And then delicious chocolate soy shakes from Mr. Bean.

Since we were in the area, we of course had to go check out 109 - I feel like it's a total waste to go to Tokyo and not at least check out the insane awesomeness of it.

We made some new friends in front of the store who posed in our picture with us!

Kristen and I had been wanting to buy matching somethings, and we found some adorable t-shirts, so I officially made my very first 109 purchase (and not even from JSG, my favorite store there).

Us having fun in 109. Please note that I almost killed myself on the escalator trying to get this picture.

Making Mary-Kate and Ashley lips in the train.

That night, Martin and Shawn went to kaiten sushi for dinner while Kristen and I ate spaghetti chez Martin. It was so nice to eat in a house again, oddly enough, instead of hopping around from restaurant to restaurant.

Kristen and Shawn wanted to see the sky tree, so the next morning we woke up and headed over to Asakusa. We walked around a bit looking at the shrine and the fun other Japanesey stuff, and then we headed over to the bridge to check out the sky tree.

Kristen and Shawn think it's going to be a tourist success, but I'm just not so sure. I mean, it's ugly. And it's whole purpose is to be a tourist attraction. I don't get it. Maybe I'll have to walk up to the top and see the view if I ever want to eventually get it.

And there it is, right to the left of the really cool building that's supposed to look like beer.

Then Krist and I headed over to Loving Hut for (what I thought was) a DELICIOUS lunch! Shawn and Martin walked around Shinjuku and ate something else. Then we met up and got doughnuts (!!!! I'm seriously doughnut obsessed) and headed back to Martin's for a few minutes of down-time before getting back on the shinkansen to head back to Nagoya.
We ate delicious (once again, to me) Indian food, then Kristen and Shawn headed to their hotel by the airport, and I headed back to Okazaki for my first night sleeping with my home stay family.

Our stay in Tokyo was super short but super fun. Their stay in Japan was super short but super fun. I'm so sad they are gone!

I'm actually headed back to Tokyo this weekend again, though, to hang out with another friend coming into town. And then, Guillaume comes, and we're headed to Kyushu then Okinawa. So much traveling, so little money!

And thus, THE END of my adventures with Kristen and Shawn!

以上です。

Happy Halloween!!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

I know it's a day early, but still, YAY!!!! :-) I love Halloween! And I have been having a fabulous weekend to celebrate! :-)

On Tuesday, it was Joanna's birthday, so Friday night she had a dinner at her home stay family's house, and it was absolutely lovely! Her host mom made vegan tempura for me, and it was absolutely delicious, and it made me wish that I were capable of making my own tempura. I made cupcakes, and people seemed to like them, which made me happy. :-) It had been a long time since I'd made cupcakes and let other people eat them. I'm always afraid they won't like them.

After dinner, we went to karaoke, and, as usual, it was super fun. Since I might be leaving Japan in December, I've decided that I need to take advantage of awesome Japanese karaoke while I'm here and go lots and lots!

Joanna, Vickie, and Cesar at karaoke

Then Saturday, after a very hard day at work, during which I had about 30 students between the ages of 9 months and 10 years old for an hour straight in a very small classroom with no room to move - すごく大変だった! - Martin and I went shopping to find me a costume so that I could be a mormon missionary with him. I was originally going to go as a visual kei band singer, but in the end it just seemed too much like my normal clothes. So, a mormon missionary.

Me, Martin, and Miho, the Native American

We went out to dinner and then we went bowling with a bunch of friends.

It was super fun, even if I reverted back to my usual terrible bowling self. I think I must have bowled, like, 72 or something. Still, I managed to do better than Chiko and Miho. :-)

I didn't stay out too late, though, because this morning I had to get up super early to run a relay marathon I was doing with some friends.

Cesar, me, Yumi, Nathaniel

I am NOT a runner, nor have I ever been a runner, and I'm not sure that I'd ever actually run an entire 5 kilometers (= 3.1 miles) in my entire life. At the gym on the treadmill, when I make myself run, I usually go about 3 km, and then it's usually more of a fast walk than a run. Yet, for some reason, I agreed to run 5k in the relay today. I wasn't sure if I could do it, and I was certain it was going to kill me.

Somehow, though, I managed. In 30 minutes and 23 seconds. Which for me was amazing, given that I had told everyone to expect an hour, as I just knew I was going to have to stop and die many times. I only stopped to walk for water. :-)

Me after running - proof that I survived

Notice how red my face is and how slumped my shoulders are. Who knew that 5k could be so long?

I was thinking of going to a concert tonight, but running always gives me a headache, so instead I came home and got immediately into a bath so hot it hurt to touch. Wonderful!

Tomorrow, I might try to wear the visual kei costume to school, since it is actually Halloween.

So that's what I've been up to. Oh, last Saturday, I spent the entire day watching Ouran High School Host Club - I literally watched the entire season in one day. It was super rainy, so I didn't want to go out, and I fell in love after the first episode. Totally my new favorite Japanese drama. I highly recommend it. And, um, Yamamoto Yuusuke - totally hot! How did I only sort-of notice when I saw Paradise Kiss?

And then Sunday I went to one of my old students houses to carve pumpkins. Super fun! I think the last time I carved pumpkins was when I was in Montreal.

Next time, I'll try to write about the rest of my trip to the states - Louisiana and Colorado! :-)

Cathryn Visits: 長島スパーランド (Nagashima Spa Land)

Despite our waterfall exhaustion, we decided to wake up early the next day and head to the theme park in Nagashima with Martin and Zack!

We got there a few minutes before it opened at 9:30, and we were a bit nervous, as no one else seemed to be there. We were assured, though, that the park would be opening as per usual. Relief.

Because of the lack of people, there were practically NO lines to get on the roller coasters, which on the one hand was AWESOME, but on the other meant that we didn't really have any breathing time between roller coasters. I get motion sick.

First, we went on the Steel Dragon!

As you can see, Zack is totally Steel Dragon ready!

Then we went on the water ride (whatever it was called, I don't remember), and after much hesitation, we finally decided to go with wearing the ponchos.

Turns out this was a smart plan as

the splash looked something like this before it was even at its' largest.

The ponchos, though, of course didn't stop Zack and Martin from getting soaked.

After several more rides, I was feeling extraordinarily motion sick, so Cathryn and Zack decided to go on a spinny ride while Martin and I tried not to die. Turns out the ride was awesome, though, so Martin and I had to check it out. Super fun, indeed! It might have ended up being my favorite there.

We checked out most of the rides in the park, and, aside from Cathryn who was feeling totally fine, we were needing a break.

I was dying of motion sickness, Martin's knees were killing him because the rides aren't made for people with long legs like his, and Zack was having neck issues!

So, after a brief lunch, with one of the more adorable caterpillars I'd ever seen, we decided to hit up the ferris wheel.

Great view of the whole park from the top!

Then Zack and I decided to go for a little boat ride.

Then a little cable car ride around the park, which Cathryn and I seemed to enjoy way more than Martin and Zack.

After that, we did a couple more rides, and we'd pretty much finished with the park. Earlier, though, we'd seen this pink monkey stuffed animal, and everyone was all "Audrey, that's SO you! You have to try to win it!," and I was all "eh. . ." But then everyone was walking around with them, and it turns out they had these HUGE heads and ridiculously long skinny arms, and I fell in love. So we had to go back and get me one.

Luckily, the game involved throwing a ball into a jar, and I had a Martin with me. His arms were practically long enough to touch the top of the jar, so very little throwing was involved. After three tries, I had a new pink monkey!

Me and Cathryn and きらっづちゃん(Kiraddzu-chan)!

Isn't she cool?

And with that, our day at Nagashima Spa Land came to an end. It was super fun and once again super exhausting! This didn't stop Cathryn and I from getting up early the next morning and walking through the pouring rain to eat Martin-made delicious vegan Belgian waffles with maple syrup! Yummy!

Disaster

The other day I was saying something about how my favorite kind of music is really sugary, bubblegummy, poppy punk rock, and Alexis replied with something like "I don't believe you. Every time I hear you listening to music, it's that folk metal or whatever."
And I realized she was right. I'd been listening to so much metal that bubblegum punk was slowly taking the backburner, and this saddened me.
So since then, I've been rocking out to the awesomeness of bands like the 20 Belows, the Yum Yums, the Riverdales, the Queers, the Ergs!, Screeching Weasel, etc. . . And not to be forgotten, of course, the Unlovables.
And I was reminded that, like there is a Southpark episode for every life circumstance, there is an Unlovables song for every Audrey life circumstance.

And right now, the song that describes my life is Disaster, even though, for me, my life is totally not a disaster.
Go here and listen to it, and I assure you, you will be rocked.

Anyhow, things have been fairly uneventful since the last time I wrote.
On Wednesday, we had a big test that was the same as the placement test that we took when we first got here.
We got the results back on Friday.

That orange circle that you see is where I was when I first got here. The pink circle is where I am now. I feel happy because I super advanced a lot (more than the other people in my class, as their original circles were all way bigger than mine). I missed one question from the things that we did this qusarter, and I feel really stupid about having missed it. Immediately after turning in the test, I rethought about it and knew I got it wrong. As for the things I wasn't supposed to know (i.e. that we didn't cover this quarter), well, no shocker, I didn't know them.

Wednesday, after the test, I had dinner at the student village (that's, like, the real Yamasa dorms) with some people I know over there. Laura made the most scrumptions vegan spinach quiche, and I wanted to eat ALL of it, but unfortunately I had to be nice and share. Also unfortunately, the last one got burned to a char. :-(


Laura with delish quiche!


On Friday night, I went over to Lyn's again, and she made a delicious cabbage potato stew, and it was DELICIOUS. I seriously love having people cook for me. We watched Naussica in the valley of the wind, and it was fabulous! It's one of my favorite Miyazaki movies (maybe they all are one of my favorites?), and I was happy to watch it again. Especially as it was super rad to understand some of it.

Saturday, I skipped French teaching (I know, I know, I am horrible) and instead went shopping with Martin for a bday gift for his lady friend. And then we took pictures of us jumping around in the rain.



Apparently Martin and I love taking pictures of ourselves. It reminds me of hanging out with Josh back at NYU, and it is fabulous fun!

Saturday night, Alexis, Jenny-Lyn, Lauren, and some others went over to Aoi Hall/Zig Zag (the school bar to which I can't really go because you're allowed to smoke inside), where they had screens set up and were playing the Japan/Netherlands World Cup game. The game was pretty much boring and actionless (well, until the last 20 or so minutes), and Japan lost (::sob::) but good times were nonetheless had.


Jenny-Lyn, Lars, Laura
I know, I know, I suck at taking night pictures!

It was weird to ENJOY going out and being out and talking to people I don't know again. I feel like I turned into this weird anti-social hermit while I was living in France, and living here is turning me back to myself, when I had previously just thought I was getting old.

And that is all.
(Except that I also apologize for the ridiculous size of these photos. Picasa is STILL not working with my connection, which is ridiculously annoying, and photobucket is screwy. Can anyone think of a better photo hosting site?)

I kind of love onions

Last weekend was, once again, kinda crazy.

Last Friday, our class had a Bar-B-Q on the beachish thing by the river (the same place Martin and I discovered while biking and then where Martin, Alexis, and I hung out last weekend).

back:Uri, Alexis, me, Martin, Chin, Yo
front: Andrea, Matan, Ken, John, Ii

It was, oddly enough, the first time I really actually talked to some of the people in my class (other than about class things).


Don't ask what Alexis and I are doing, because I do not know.

It was a lot of fun (even if I, not at all shockingly, didn't eat anything). Someone from the class had brought a ball, so we played at throwing it around while standing barefoot on the rocks in the river. And I determined that not a single person in our class (with the possible exceptions of Martin and Matan) is athletic.

Ken's birthday was Sunday, and the bar-b-q was sort of like a birthday party for him. They threw him in the river (from what I understood, it is a Taiwanese tradition to throw people celebrating birthdays into bodies of water - I don't know if this was made up or not), and, because he was so cold, he fell asleep afterward.


Ken being tortured while asleep.

me being too cool for Martin and looking like a blue-lipped man in the process

It was fun hanging out with all the people from our class. I'm glad I decided to go, as I was sort of hesitating in the beginning.

Then Saturday morning, Alexis and I went to the special farmer's market that was in town. Onions were so cheap that I might have bought at least 15 of them. I've still got some left over! Man, I love onions! And here, they are so huge that I only have to use one.

On Sunday, Alexis, Martin, and I headed over to Gamagori. It's this cute little town on the water about a 20 minute train ride from Okazaki. It was a LOVELY day, and we had a great time walking around and exploring.


Me and Alexis with Gamagori behind us!

There was this really cool island a bridge walk away. The trees puffed out of it in a funny way, making it completely adorable and making it resemble the turtle island (that was actually a turtle) in the Swamps of Sadness in the greatest movie of all time, the Neverending Story. It was love for me.


Us with the adorable turtley puffy island behind us!


We also saw this little statue thing on a rock that I thought looked like an oversized fat duck-billed platypus. Alexis and Martin thought I was crazy.


Do you see it? If you can find it, it's really cute!


Oh, and on the walk to attempt to find a grocery store, I came across the weirdest thing.



I don't know why they decided to hang their onions out, but it was kind of awesome. I want to do it now, too!

Fabulous times were had. Can you tell that I am absolutely ADORING my time here in Japan? This weekend has been great, and I will write about it soon. This week is looking to be pretty test crazy, though, so I'm off to read fiction and sleep to prepare for it (sounds like a great review plan, right?)