Wow, there's nothing like packing to really send it home that I'm leaving in a few days.
Tsuki got here safely, and despite me worrying about her like crazy she got to Shinjuku on her own just fine. Since she got here, which was 11 days ago now, we've been running around like crazy. I've been doing my best to fill my entire semester of experiences into her two weeks. Unfortunately, I've been here long enough that everything feels ordinary and normal, so its hard to think of things that are new and exciting for her to see. We need to run to the 100 yen shop in Harajuku now before it closes, then after that the Big Box and then finally Mari's to meet up with Allison for some drinks, so I'll edit this post later with the rest of the updates from the past two weeks.
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And I'm back! It is now Friday the 23rd and I am waiting around in my room for the luggage pickup people to arrive. They said they would get here any time between 9am and noon, but its currently 11:30 and they still haven't gotten here. I really wish they would hurry up since Li and I need to get to Shinjuku to cancel our health insurance and then Tsuki and I are going to Kamakura to see the temples and shrines. It isn't a very nice day out, unfortunately, but its the last day we have so we need to do it now.
Anyways, as I said earlier Tsuki got here just fine. Despite my best efforts I could only keep her awake until 9pm that Sunday. I warned her that if she went to sleep that early she would wake up at 3am and not be able to go back to sleep. I stayed up until 10pm myself but I wanted to reset my sleep schedule to a reasonable time so I went to bed early as well. Lo and behold, at 3am I wake up and look over at Tsuki who is also wide awake, and she says to me "I hate it when you're right." We managed to sleep for a while more, but still got up pretty early. Our plans were to do hanami (cherry blossom viewing on the lawn while drinking sake and eating) that Monday, but unfortunately it was pretty rainy so instead I took her around Takadanobaba and we went shopping in Shinjuku. That night she got to meet Mari, which was quite entertaining. The next day I needed to finish my term paper for Japanese Corporate Structure, so Tsuki went to Harajuku and Shibuya with Kira, then at 4pm Li and I picked her up at the station and went to the Cat Cafe in 'baba. OMG the Cat Cafe was so awesome!! It was basically a room with a bunch of cats in it and various cat toys and cat climbing things and such. Being a cafe you are required to get a drink for each person, so I got some apple juice which wasn't that overpriced. It also costs 500Y for 30 minutes and then I think 100Y for every 10 minutes after that. We stayed for about 40 minutes and played with the kitties. Unfortunately, I think they got tired out from the couple that was there before we got there because they became less playful and more sleepy as time went on. Oh, and they had several Maine Coons there, which were so giant! I want one! If I ever get one I'll need to keep it trimmed though, b/c that long hair just doesn't do it for me.
Thursday I had my Japanese Corporate Structure final immediately followed by my Public Speaking final. Both were pretty easy, as expected. Oh, my term paper ended up being 18 pages double-spaced when the requirement was only 10 pages... >_> After my tests I took Tsuki to the Roppongi Hills building, which was pretty cool. I didn't like the observatory as much as Tokyo Tower though, since it seemed like it forced you in a certain direction a lot more and you were required to walk through several gift shops in the process. It was still a great view though, and we got to see the sunset from up there. We also got a professional picture taken by the people there which I decided to buy because I think its really cute.
Ok, the guy just got here to take our luggage, so its time for me to be off. I'll finish the rest of this later.
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And I'm back once again to finish this up. Friday was another fairly dreary day, so we decided to go to the Shibuya 109 for some shopping. While we were there we saw this absolutely beautiful dress that looks amazing on Tsuki, the only problem was that it was quite expensive. We really liked it, and I told her I would help her get it if she really wanted it since the Senior Ball is coming up soon. After several hours of roaming through the 109 we headed back to 'baba and met up with Li for Tsuki's first trip to the 270en place. This was our night to celebrate the end of classes, so we go fairly into it. After we had finished there we moved on to Mari's to meet up with Allison and thus continue our "celebration". Tsuki definitely liked the fact that she was within the legal drinking age (20).
Saturday was supposed to be our last trip to Akiba (we went two more times >_>), but it was still Tsuki's first and we took her around to several of the major shops. Unfortunately, she didn't enjoy it as much as we did since she was looking for different types of stuff than we were (i.e. not figures). One thing we all loved was the "Turkish Breakfast," meaning a breakfast of the meat-slab sandwich from the stand run by the Turkish guys who are in Akiba every day. This trip also marked Tsuki's first time in a Maid Cafe. We went to the 7th floor of @home cafe and as luck would have it there was a performance happening shortly after we arrived of two fairly famous girls who worked for @home. It was quite interesting seeing the two of them, and it was definitely a great first time for Tsuki. Also, I guess that since there was the performance it counted as two visits since when they gave Tsuki her card they already stamped off two visits instead of one. Oh, and Li and I got to feel awesome when we handed them our Silver cards XD. After our Akiba excursion we took Tsuki to Ikebukuro so that she could experience "Moo Moo Paradise" for herself. Our record for this time was 17 plates of meat between the four of us. We most definitely left Mo Mo Paradise in "Moo Moo Paradise" and Li very nearly went to "Moo Moo Heaven." Once we had finished our consumption and been ushered out into the night we spent about an hour or so waddling around Ikebukuro, which was interesting since it was my first time being there since watching Durarara - which takes place in Ikebukuro - so we ended up walking through a lot of areas that were in the show.
Sunday, which marked the one-week point until my time in Japan would come to a close, was the day I showed Tsuki around Harajuku and Yoyogi park. We were really hoping there would be people dressed up on the famous Yoyogi bridge in Harajuku, but unfortunately it seems it has become a little too famous and there were only a few of them, one of which was a gaijin. In Harajuku we spent a good amount of time shopping and I got myself two interesting button-up shirts and a very "Isaac-esque" vest. Tsuki bought herself some shoes and some gifts for her brothers as well. She also got Neko these white boots from Body Line that she had asked Tsuki to get, which I really hope she pays Tsuki back for since they were not cheap. After our shopping had finished (which in retrospect we should have done afterward) we went off to Yoyogi park for some sightseeing and relaxing. Tsuki really enjoyed the place, and I did as well. There must have been some archery competition earlier since there were people with Japanese longbows everywhere, and it was also Earth Day apparently, since there were some teepees set up and other such festivities. We weren't quite sure what the Japanese knew about Native Americans, but it was amusing nonetheless. Satisfied with our time in the park, we walked from Harajuku to Shibuya since we had decided that we wanted to get the dress. For a large portion of the distance between the two there were booths set up and live music all over the place. It would seem the Japanese really like their Earth Day. Anyways, we got to Shibuya and bought the dress and it is absolutely gorgeous. Having done this, we returned to my room thoroughly exhausted and spent the few remaining hours of the day relaxing.
Monday Tsuki and I slept in and finally went out to meet up with Allison and Li in the early afternoon. We hunted down boxes to ship all our stuff back home (which we found in a garbage pile and swiped before they could be picked up), got the correct EMS forms to attach to said boxes, and I studied with Allison for a while for my Conversational Japanese class the next day. Overall today was pretty uneventful. We went to the arcade in the Big Box for a little while and then went back to the room so I could study some more and get to bed early.
Tuesday was the day of my two most difficult finals. I wasn't terribly concerned about the Ethics final, since that class was fairly easy and the test was going to be very straightforward. I was definitely concerned about Japanese though, but fortunately I think I did an alright job on the test. Ethics was also unsurprising and I feel like I did well on that one. Tsuki did not accompany me to school today since we all made plans the previous day for her and Allison to meet up and do stuff and then for all four of us to rendevous in Akihabara after Li and I had finished our last tests of the day. The two of them went to the 100en shop in Harajuku, which has a very extensive selection. We met up at the station in Akiba and had a Turkish Lunch, then proceeded to go to whatever shops Tsuki wanted to go to. While going through the Animate, Li and I discovered the recently released Fate/Stay Night Tarot card CCG. It was about 4,000en for a box which contained 10 packs each with 5 cards, so Li and I split a box and later that night traded away our duplicates. Allison had to go to work at 6 or 7pm and Li started to not feel well, so the two of them went their separate ways while Tsuki and I went to the maid cafe again so that we could get a picture of the two of us with a maid. This time we went to the 4th floor, which is my personal favorite. I'm not really sure why, I guess I just like the atmosphere and the outfits more (even though they're almost identical >_>). After we had finished our business with the maid cafes Tsuki and I wandered around Akiba a little bit more and then finally headed back to 'baba. We relaxed for the rest of the night and ended up watching I Am Legend in Japanese, which was quite interesting lol.
Wednesday was quite a long day, but for good reasons. Tsuki and I slept in and then spent a bit of time packing before my last final exam of the semester: International Marketing. I was not at all concerned about this test because I knew no matter what I did we would all do poorly on it anyways because of how horridly incompetent Professor Billore is. Apparently everyone else in the class felt the same way I did, since no one else studied for the test at all either. This exam marked the point where her incompetence sunk so low that it started just being funny. For our final exam, she handed out the test and then left the room, only to return twice over the course of the exam for no more than 30 seconds each time. Very important to note is that there was no one proctoring this test. We were all completely appalled at how irresponsible she was being, and after about 5 minutes we realized she wasn't coming back and just started openly helping the people around us, some even pulling up Wikipedia on their iPhones. I was the 2nd person to leave, and as I did so I announced to the class as I left "and with this steaming pile of bullshit I am done with college" which was met with applause from most of the class. That made me happy haha. After I handed in my test I picked up Tsuki from the computer lab where she was waiting for me and the two of us went back to 'baba to get ready for the night's festivities. Our plan was to meet up for dinner with Allison and Li at 9pm, and by the time we got back to my room it was about 6:30pm, so we decided to take those two hours and start packing. This ended up being a very good decision. At 8pm the four of us met up in Ikebukuro for one last trip to Mo Mo Paradise, which we made a point of eating casually this time instead of trying to eat their entire inventory of meat. By the time we finished and left it was about 11pm, and thus marked the beginning of the real festivities. You see, since Li and I had both finished our last finals that day we wanted to celebrate, so therefore all four of us went out for all night karaoke (11pm-5am) in Ikebukuro. This was quite the experience, and my voice was completely shot by the end of the night (singing Hard Rock Hallelujah in that growling voice didn't help >_>). The highlight of the night was when Li and I sang Cruel Angel Thesis (the OP from Evangelion), which Allison told us she would slaughter us if we sang, and then when we finished we heard the room next to us singing it as well XD! Tsuki ended up passing out around 2:30am and Allison made it until 3:30-ish, leaving Li and I as the only ones left standing. Also, Ikebukuro at 5am is very interesting. As the 3rd busiest place in the country it was still almost completely abandoned at this hour, which even Allison was very surprised about. It was really eerie actually, to be walking through those major streets and only seeing a handful of people the entire time. Definitely not something you see very often at all in Tokyo, and certainly not in Ikebukuro. By the time we got back to my room it was about 6:30am, and Tsuki and I passed right out and didn't get up until about 12:30-1pm.
That brings us to today, the 22nd, which is Thursday. We spent almost the entirety of today packing. I mentioned earlier that it was a good thing that we started packing yesterday, since it took us all day to get everything together and ready to be picked up tomorrow morning. Which reminds me, one thing we did today was call to get our luggage picked up and delivered to the airport on Friday so that it would be waiting for us on Sunday and we wouldn't need to go through the huge hassle of lugging it around all over Odaiba or finding someplace to stash it until we left on Sunday. We barely made it with the space we had. It ended up taking three boxes instead of the two I had planned, but that was still better than a 3rd suitcase which would have cost an additional $225. I was also able to balance out all our luggage fairly evenly, which would hopefully be under 50lbs each or else we would need to pay $100 for every one above that. With all of our stuff our bags were bursting at the seams, and its amazing that we actually managed to get it all in there. Though, we did end up giving a lot of stuff to Allison. Unfortunately I couldn't keep my awesome umbrella, so I needed to leave it in the custody of Allison T_T. Our bags were scheduled to be picked up Friday morning from 9am-12pm, and after that we still had a great deal of things to take care of, such as a few random errands, shipping out our boxes, canceling our health insurance, and getting our Narita Express tickets for Sunday. We ended the night with a trip to Mari's, and then prepared ourselves for our last day in my room at the Weekly Mansion Takadanobaba in Tokyo.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Day 92 - April 8
So today did NOT start out well. Though, while starting off poorly it also started off strangely.
Apparently I had left my phone on vibrate last night, and this cell phone doesn't vibrate with the painfully loud noise that my US cell phone vibrates with, so I slept through my alarm at 8am and didn't get up until 11:15am. I had my last Japanese class at 10:20... Fortunately, all we were doing was the remaining two skits (which we did ours on Tuesday) and exam review, though I do wish I hadn't missed the review...
So on to the strange part about waking up this morning. My biological clock does weird things. Once, I went to sleep at 12:15am and got up at 1:30am feeling as if it were 7:30 (when I was supposed to get up), stopped my alarm (which wasn't going off), took a shower, and then out in the common room realized it was more than 5 hours before I was supposed to get up. I think that happened sometime last semester.
This morning I was having a dream about something or other, when I get a text message from Tsuki (in the dream). I take out my phone and look at it, and the message says, "It is time for you to wake up." As soon as I see that I instantly wake up. Of course, I know instantly from the look of the room that I definitely missed my alarm, and a quick glance at the clock tells me just how badly. I had 45 minutes until my next class started and I still needed to eat something, gather my stuff, and make the 50 minute trip to school.
I managed to get to school at about 12:20, so I wasn't too late to my 2nd class. After that things were pretty normal. I had my 1-on-1 debate in Public Speaking today, which went alright. Our topic was "violent video games make children more violent" and I was on the Affirmative side. I could write a dissertation on the Negative side, so this was extremely difficult for me and I felt dirty afterward. At least I was able to get through the whole thing using mostly-intelligent arguments and not once invoking the name of Jack Thompson and the circus he brought with him everywhere (until he finally got disbarred, HA!).
After Public Speaking I was officially done with classes for this semester. OK, not really, I still have International Marketing tomorrow and on Monday, but no one is going to go Monday anyways. So today was my REAL last day of classes. As if to celebrate that for me, there was an event in Akihabara that we noticed last Friday was going to be happening today. It turns out that this was a celebration at Club SEGA for Little Busters! selling over 100,000 copies. I think. There were too many kanji. Anyways, over half of the 2nd floor of the new Club SEGA building was full of Little Busters! stuff in UFO catchers. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot that interested me. There were a lot of goods for Kud and that Tsundere-looking blonde girl from the EX expansion, and I'm not a rabid fan of either of them. I did like, and manage to win, a Rin Natsume microfiber towel and a Rin Natsume tumbler, which I am rather pleased with.
Once I felt satisfied with that Club SEGA I decided to go roam Akiba for a bit. Remember, this was my first time in Akiba without someone else there to attempt to stop me. THIS IS A BAD IDEA. Quite surprisingly, however, I managed to exhibit a very high degree of self-control and prevented myself from buying anything despite going into several stores and other arcades. *proud*
The remainder of the night was the usual: Gundam Kizuna at the arcade next to the 'baba station, win something easy from the UFO catchers there, and then head back to my room. Since then I've been talking to Tsuki and writing this. Now I think I'll eat dinner while watching Lucky Star and actually go to bed early (before 2am, hopefully at 1am). I really want to get my normal sleep time down to midnight before Tsuki gets here so that I won't end up wasting the mornings sleeping while she's here.
Which reminds me, in LESS THAN 3 DAYS Tsuki will be here!!! I'm really looking forward to it ^_^.
Apparently I had left my phone on vibrate last night, and this cell phone doesn't vibrate with the painfully loud noise that my US cell phone vibrates with, so I slept through my alarm at 8am and didn't get up until 11:15am. I had my last Japanese class at 10:20... Fortunately, all we were doing was the remaining two skits (which we did ours on Tuesday) and exam review, though I do wish I hadn't missed the review...
So on to the strange part about waking up this morning. My biological clock does weird things. Once, I went to sleep at 12:15am and got up at 1:30am feeling as if it were 7:30 (when I was supposed to get up), stopped my alarm (which wasn't going off), took a shower, and then out in the common room realized it was more than 5 hours before I was supposed to get up. I think that happened sometime last semester.
This morning I was having a dream about something or other, when I get a text message from Tsuki (in the dream). I take out my phone and look at it, and the message says, "It is time for you to wake up." As soon as I see that I instantly wake up. Of course, I know instantly from the look of the room that I definitely missed my alarm, and a quick glance at the clock tells me just how badly. I had 45 minutes until my next class started and I still needed to eat something, gather my stuff, and make the 50 minute trip to school.
I managed to get to school at about 12:20, so I wasn't too late to my 2nd class. After that things were pretty normal. I had my 1-on-1 debate in Public Speaking today, which went alright. Our topic was "violent video games make children more violent" and I was on the Affirmative side. I could write a dissertation on the Negative side, so this was extremely difficult for me and I felt dirty afterward. At least I was able to get through the whole thing using mostly-intelligent arguments and not once invoking the name of Jack Thompson and the circus he brought with him everywhere (until he finally got disbarred, HA!).
After Public Speaking I was officially done with classes for this semester. OK, not really, I still have International Marketing tomorrow and on Monday, but no one is going to go Monday anyways. So today was my REAL last day of classes. As if to celebrate that for me, there was an event in Akihabara that we noticed last Friday was going to be happening today. It turns out that this was a celebration at Club SEGA for Little Busters! selling over 100,000 copies. I think. There were too many kanji. Anyways, over half of the 2nd floor of the new Club SEGA building was full of Little Busters! stuff in UFO catchers. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot that interested me. There were a lot of goods for Kud and that Tsundere-looking blonde girl from the EX expansion, and I'm not a rabid fan of either of them. I did like, and manage to win, a Rin Natsume microfiber towel and a Rin Natsume tumbler, which I am rather pleased with.
Once I felt satisfied with that Club SEGA I decided to go roam Akiba for a bit. Remember, this was my first time in Akiba without someone else there to attempt to stop me. THIS IS A BAD IDEA. Quite surprisingly, however, I managed to exhibit a very high degree of self-control and prevented myself from buying anything despite going into several stores and other arcades. *proud*
The remainder of the night was the usual: Gundam Kizuna at the arcade next to the 'baba station, win something easy from the UFO catchers there, and then head back to my room. Since then I've been talking to Tsuki and writing this. Now I think I'll eat dinner while watching Lucky Star and actually go to bed early (before 2am, hopefully at 1am). I really want to get my normal sleep time down to midnight before Tsuki gets here so that I won't end up wasting the mornings sleeping while she's here.
Which reminds me, in LESS THAN 3 DAYS Tsuki will be here!!! I'm really looking forward to it ^_^.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Day 88 - April 4
Hooray, I'm caught up!
On Friday, Allison was bored and wanted to do something so after Anime Club I met her and Li in Akihabara and we went out to a maid cafe. This time we went to the Kimono themed version of @home cafe, which marks my third visit to an @home cafe and only two more until I level up! While I certainly liked the Kimono theme and the atmosphere was a lot more laid back so it was a nice change of pace, I think I like the standard maid cafe more. Its more moe XD. We didn't get out until about 9:30 I think, so most of the places in Akiba were closing up at that point when we realized we were all pretty hungry. Li and I were, as usual, indecisive so Allison decided upon going to the Royal Host. While the name implies that it might be a Butler cafe or host club, the truth is not even close. RH is just another chain of 24 hour diners/restaurants very similar to Denny's but with a little more focus on Japanese-ish food. I say 'ish' because most everything was deep-fried anyways. The food was alright, not terribly great, but it served its purpose. We made it back to 'baba not long before last train, but fortunately Allison had enough time to catch the train leading back to wherever it is she lives.
Yesterday, Saturday, I had plans with Li, Kira, and Allison to go out to Mo Mo Paradise for all you can eat sukiyaki. I feel like I've talked about Mo Mo Paradise, but a quick glance back to my previous posts and it doesn't seem that I have. If I'm repeating myself, then I apologize. Sometime in the past month (before Kyoto) Li and I went to a restaurant in Ikebukuro called Mo Mo Paradise, which is supposed to stand for "Moo Moo Paradise" since they specialize in sukiyaki tabehoudai and shabu shabu tabehoudai (tabehoudai = all you can eat). When we went before it was only the two of us, and by the time our 90 minutes was up we had each consumed six plates of meat and at least two bowls of rice. The two of us could barely walk by the time we left, and were barely able to maintain consciousness for the two stops back to 'baba. Thus, I decided that "Moo Moo Paradise" was a state of being (which we were in at the time) and coined the phrase, "You go to Mo Mo Paradise and leave in Moo Moo Paradise."
This time we had four people instead of just two, so Li and I were hoping we would be able to pace ourselves better and do more than six plates each. Unfortunately, the girls didn't help much and we only ended with 15 plates consumed with around 5-6 for Li and I each. Still though, it was a good time. During dinner Allison added on the concept of "Moo Moo Heaven," which is where you go when you die from "Moo Moo Paradise."
After eating the girls decided they wanted to walk off the food by looking around Ikebukuro a bit. Li and I disagreed, but didn't have enough energy to oppose them. We passed several arcades with UFO catchers and the girls had to physically restrain me from entering. Our goal was to make it to the Animate store before it closed, which we managed to do with around 5 minutes to spare. The spirit of consumption consumed me once more and gave me the strength to cover all 6 floors within the time allotted. I saw things in there which made me very sad, but also very happy that I didn't have enough money to procure at the time. Once we were kicked out of Animate we made our way back towards the station, but this time they let me go into the arcades and check out the UFO catchers. While there were some things that were appealing, nothing really demanded my attention. Li and I stopped to play a few rounds of Melty Blood on the really nice cabinets they had in this one arcade, and I finally realized why none of my combos were working: I wasn't returning the stick all the way to neutral >_<. Unfortunately I didn't figure it out until our last game, so Li and his button-mashing repeatedly beat me down.
We had planned with Allison to go out to Mari's once we got back, but Kira needed to get home to her host family so we parted ways at the station. Mari's was fun, and as usual our "only one drink" turned into several. Since we were all having a good time and didn't want to leave just yet, Allison decided she would stay with one of us (it ended up being Li) instead of leaving early to make the last train. I didn't really notice it until we left (and apparently neither did she) but Allison got totally smashed. Li and I could both see her throwing up as inevitable, which by his account the next morning we were correct about. Overall it was a really good time and I can't wait to take Tsuki there when she gets here.
Today I was supposed to be getting work done but failed miserably. At least I beat Infinite Space and watched all of Durarara, and now that I'm done updating my blog there isn't anything to get in the way of me being productive!
On Friday, Allison was bored and wanted to do something so after Anime Club I met her and Li in Akihabara and we went out to a maid cafe. This time we went to the Kimono themed version of @home cafe, which marks my third visit to an @home cafe and only two more until I level up! While I certainly liked the Kimono theme and the atmosphere was a lot more laid back so it was a nice change of pace, I think I like the standard maid cafe more. Its more moe XD. We didn't get out until about 9:30 I think, so most of the places in Akiba were closing up at that point when we realized we were all pretty hungry. Li and I were, as usual, indecisive so Allison decided upon going to the Royal Host. While the name implies that it might be a Butler cafe or host club, the truth is not even close. RH is just another chain of 24 hour diners/restaurants very similar to Denny's but with a little more focus on Japanese-ish food. I say 'ish' because most everything was deep-fried anyways. The food was alright, not terribly great, but it served its purpose. We made it back to 'baba not long before last train, but fortunately Allison had enough time to catch the train leading back to wherever it is she lives.
Yesterday, Saturday, I had plans with Li, Kira, and Allison to go out to Mo Mo Paradise for all you can eat sukiyaki. I feel like I've talked about Mo Mo Paradise, but a quick glance back to my previous posts and it doesn't seem that I have. If I'm repeating myself, then I apologize. Sometime in the past month (before Kyoto) Li and I went to a restaurant in Ikebukuro called Mo Mo Paradise, which is supposed to stand for "Moo Moo Paradise" since they specialize in sukiyaki tabehoudai and shabu shabu tabehoudai (tabehoudai = all you can eat). When we went before it was only the two of us, and by the time our 90 minutes was up we had each consumed six plates of meat and at least two bowls of rice. The two of us could barely walk by the time we left, and were barely able to maintain consciousness for the two stops back to 'baba. Thus, I decided that "Moo Moo Paradise" was a state of being (which we were in at the time) and coined the phrase, "You go to Mo Mo Paradise and leave in Moo Moo Paradise."
This time we had four people instead of just two, so Li and I were hoping we would be able to pace ourselves better and do more than six plates each. Unfortunately, the girls didn't help much and we only ended with 15 plates consumed with around 5-6 for Li and I each. Still though, it was a good time. During dinner Allison added on the concept of "Moo Moo Heaven," which is where you go when you die from "Moo Moo Paradise."
After eating the girls decided they wanted to walk off the food by looking around Ikebukuro a bit. Li and I disagreed, but didn't have enough energy to oppose them. We passed several arcades with UFO catchers and the girls had to physically restrain me from entering. Our goal was to make it to the Animate store before it closed, which we managed to do with around 5 minutes to spare. The spirit of consumption consumed me once more and gave me the strength to cover all 6 floors within the time allotted. I saw things in there which made me very sad, but also very happy that I didn't have enough money to procure at the time. Once we were kicked out of Animate we made our way back towards the station, but this time they let me go into the arcades and check out the UFO catchers. While there were some things that were appealing, nothing really demanded my attention. Li and I stopped to play a few rounds of Melty Blood on the really nice cabinets they had in this one arcade, and I finally realized why none of my combos were working: I wasn't returning the stick all the way to neutral >_<. Unfortunately I didn't figure it out until our last game, so Li and his button-mashing repeatedly beat me down.
We had planned with Allison to go out to Mari's once we got back, but Kira needed to get home to her host family so we parted ways at the station. Mari's was fun, and as usual our "only one drink" turned into several. Since we were all having a good time and didn't want to leave just yet, Allison decided she would stay with one of us (it ended up being Li) instead of leaving early to make the last train. I didn't really notice it until we left (and apparently neither did she) but Allison got totally smashed. Li and I could both see her throwing up as inevitable, which by his account the next morning we were correct about. Overall it was a really good time and I can't wait to take Tsuki there when she gets here.
Today I was supposed to be getting work done but failed miserably. At least I beat Infinite Space and watched all of Durarara, and now that I'm done updating my blog there isn't anything to get in the way of me being productive!
Day 83 - March 30
I've almost caught up with the updates!
So today, Tuesday, was the school-sponsored baseball game trip. Well, it wasn't so much a school trip, more like the school subsidized the cost of the tickets so we could go to the game for 1/2 price. The baseball game was between the Yokohama Bay Stars and the Tokyo Giants. Since the game was in Yokohama, we were rooting for the home team.
I must say, I don't think I'll ever be able to go to an American baseball game again. I have never experienced a sporting event with so much energy in my life before this game. It was only one of the first games of the season, or even pre-season (I don't know about these things), but everyone in the (packed) stadium was acting like it was the finals in the World Series. I took some video footage with my camera to show how insane this was, but I doubt it was able to capture the energy in that stadium.
Since Temple bought the tickets all the Temple students were clustered together to create our own gaijin section. I do believe the two guys behind Li and I were drunk by the time we got there. They were good guys, but a little too extroverted in their drunkenness. Sitting smack in the center of the Bay Stars territory, they were rooting for the Giants just b/c they shouldn't have been. They were funny enough baka-gaijin so that most of the people around just laughed at them, but there were still some who you could tell did not like it. In between innings they would put the jumbo-tron camera on different parts of the stadium for different themes. Once or twice it was a "Dance Contest" so of course the more rambunctious of the two got out into the aisle and started dancing like crazy, at one point very nearly stripping.
Another amazing thing about Japanese baseball games is the food service. Aside from the beer girls (of which there are enough of so that one walks past every several seconds) there are also girls selling popcorn, soba, udon, and other assorted foods. Not the kind of things you would see at an American baseball game haha. Of course, the area under the stadium was just like an American one; chock full of food shops and gift shops. Possibly my favorite thing for sale here was the can of self-heating sake. I screwed it up on the one that I bought so I had to drink it at room temperature, but I figured it out afterward. Still though, that is pretty freaking awesome. I also bought a 2010 Opening Series Bay Stars baseball hat which was 3,500Y. Very expensive, but I think it was worth it as a souvenir.
As for the game itself, it was deadlocked at 0 until about the 4th inning when the Giants got a home run with no one on base. In the 6th inning the Bay stars got 3 runs, but then at the top of the 7th the Giants managed to get another two runs. They were both tied at 3 and it looked like they would go into extra innings until the top of the 9th when the Giants barely managed to get one run in, thus putting the Bay Stars a run behind. Now, I'm not entirely sure, but I thought that when there are two outs and a runner reaches home before the batter gets tagged out at first the run still counts. Well, this is exactly what happened to the Bay Stars. It was the bottom of the 9th and they had men on 3rd and 2nd with two outs. The batter hits a line drive between 1st and 2nd, 3rd makes it home right before they tagged the batter out at first. The crowd was going insane by this point and Li and I both cheered even harder when this happened because we both thought that was how the rules worked, but apparently not since the stadium went fairly quiet moments later.
The two drunk guys had been cheering on the Giants the whole time and asked a friend how to say "we won" once the game was over. As everyone was gathering their things these two were standing on their chairs (as they had done often throughout the game) cheering "we won" in Japanese. Most people ignored them, a few drunk guys were laughing at them, and a couple young guys several rows down yelled out "go home fuckers!" as they left their seats. I was very embarrassed for us since this was just taking it too far. Those guys also took several pictures with the beer girls and were trying to talk to them. The lesser drunk one knew some Japanese while the more drunk one knew absolutely none. As one of them walked away after serving them he was calling out "kawaii" to her, which sounded a lot more like "kowai" to me. The former means cute and the latter means scary; there's kind of a difference.
Despite the fact that we lost, this was an amazing experience and I am extremely happy that I decided to do it. If I ever go to another American baseball game any time in the near future I will be very disappointed lol.
So today, Tuesday, was the school-sponsored baseball game trip. Well, it wasn't so much a school trip, more like the school subsidized the cost of the tickets so we could go to the game for 1/2 price. The baseball game was between the Yokohama Bay Stars and the Tokyo Giants. Since the game was in Yokohama, we were rooting for the home team.
I must say, I don't think I'll ever be able to go to an American baseball game again. I have never experienced a sporting event with so much energy in my life before this game. It was only one of the first games of the season, or even pre-season (I don't know about these things), but everyone in the (packed) stadium was acting like it was the finals in the World Series. I took some video footage with my camera to show how insane this was, but I doubt it was able to capture the energy in that stadium.
Since Temple bought the tickets all the Temple students were clustered together to create our own gaijin section. I do believe the two guys behind Li and I were drunk by the time we got there. They were good guys, but a little too extroverted in their drunkenness. Sitting smack in the center of the Bay Stars territory, they were rooting for the Giants just b/c they shouldn't have been. They were funny enough baka-gaijin so that most of the people around just laughed at them, but there were still some who you could tell did not like it. In between innings they would put the jumbo-tron camera on different parts of the stadium for different themes. Once or twice it was a "Dance Contest" so of course the more rambunctious of the two got out into the aisle and started dancing like crazy, at one point very nearly stripping.
Another amazing thing about Japanese baseball games is the food service. Aside from the beer girls (of which there are enough of so that one walks past every several seconds) there are also girls selling popcorn, soba, udon, and other assorted foods. Not the kind of things you would see at an American baseball game haha. Of course, the area under the stadium was just like an American one; chock full of food shops and gift shops. Possibly my favorite thing for sale here was the can of self-heating sake. I screwed it up on the one that I bought so I had to drink it at room temperature, but I figured it out afterward. Still though, that is pretty freaking awesome. I also bought a 2010 Opening Series Bay Stars baseball hat which was 3,500Y. Very expensive, but I think it was worth it as a souvenir.
As for the game itself, it was deadlocked at 0 until about the 4th inning when the Giants got a home run with no one on base. In the 6th inning the Bay stars got 3 runs, but then at the top of the 7th the Giants managed to get another two runs. They were both tied at 3 and it looked like they would go into extra innings until the top of the 9th when the Giants barely managed to get one run in, thus putting the Bay Stars a run behind. Now, I'm not entirely sure, but I thought that when there are two outs and a runner reaches home before the batter gets tagged out at first the run still counts. Well, this is exactly what happened to the Bay Stars. It was the bottom of the 9th and they had men on 3rd and 2nd with two outs. The batter hits a line drive between 1st and 2nd, 3rd makes it home right before they tagged the batter out at first. The crowd was going insane by this point and Li and I both cheered even harder when this happened because we both thought that was how the rules worked, but apparently not since the stadium went fairly quiet moments later.
The two drunk guys had been cheering on the Giants the whole time and asked a friend how to say "we won" once the game was over. As everyone was gathering their things these two were standing on their chairs (as they had done often throughout the game) cheering "we won" in Japanese. Most people ignored them, a few drunk guys were laughing at them, and a couple young guys several rows down yelled out "go home fuckers!" as they left their seats. I was very embarrassed for us since this was just taking it too far. Those guys also took several pictures with the beer girls and were trying to talk to them. The lesser drunk one knew some Japanese while the more drunk one knew absolutely none. As one of them walked away after serving them he was calling out "kawaii" to her, which sounded a lot more like "kowai" to me. The former means cute and the latter means scary; there's kind of a difference.
Despite the fact that we lost, this was an amazing experience and I am extremely happy that I decided to do it. If I ever go to another American baseball game any time in the near future I will be very disappointed lol.
Day 82 - March 29
Today, Monday, we had our big International Marketing presentation. I don't think I've mentioned on here how incompetent the professor is in that class, and also how terrible she has managed to make it. This is very disappointing to me because I really like marketing and this was the class I was looking forward to the most. Our professor is an Indian woman who's research focuses on Japanese banks and does not have a degree in marketing, has never worked in marketing, and I don't think even has a degree in business at all. Most of the time a good professor can get by with only one of those three, but she has none of them and its painfully obvious.
Here is what our 1 hour class that meets three days a week consists of: she puts up a powerpoint on the projector, says, "please have a look at this slide," or "here is a slide, please read it," and then proceeds to stand there silently for a couple minutes until she thinks we've finished reading it. Then, she will ask, "so what does this all mean?" Silence from the class as she stands there looking around while we all think, "I don't know, maybe we would know if you actually TAUGHT us instead of just having us read off slides." Now, instead of responding to this awkward silence with instruction, she simply asks another question, usually along the lines of, "well, how do you think this might affect the [shipping] company?" Once again, awkward silence as no one in the class knows how to respond. From here, she will attempt to evade the situation by saying some very general statements that are usually just paraphrased from the current slide, and then she will move along to the next slide and repeat the process. This is why, even though there is mandatory attendance imposed by the school, on average only 12 people show up for class out of the 30 students actually taking it.
When it comes to group presentations, a half-competent professor would at least have some idea how to treat the situation fairly. Since there are five groups in the class, we are spending the last five days of classes doing one presentation a day with commentary after each one. Now, since the first group gets screwed and the last group gets an extra two weeks to work on the project, not to mention gets to see where everyone else before them has failed, even a half-assed professor would take measures to make that more fair. Usually, this comes in the form of randomizing when the groups present and giving preferential grades to the ones who went earlier. Well, Professor Billore is horribly incompetent, so she just said, "group one presents first and group five presents last," and when asked if she would be giving preferential treatment to the earlier groups, she responded with, "oh (surprised), I guess maybe I could think about that." The class heaves a sigh of frustration, especially my group since we are group one. To top it all off, our topic was how Japanese Banks have handled expanding abroad. Remember how this is her research topic? Remember how incompetent she is and how our group is going first? She tore us to shreds in the commentary. Many of my responses to her (obviously biased) critiques subtly pointed out how inappropriate her comments were, which she didn't seem to notice but most of the class did. Its pretty much unanimously agreed that she is the worst excuse for a professor that any of us have ever had. If I had the time I would talk to the Dean about her, but I dislike the situation so much that I just can't wait to get away from it.
As an aside, I have seen two other groups present at the time I am writing this, and she gave them very constructive feedback in a very nice way; the complete opposite of what she did to us.
Here is what our 1 hour class that meets three days a week consists of: she puts up a powerpoint on the projector, says, "please have a look at this slide," or "here is a slide, please read it," and then proceeds to stand there silently for a couple minutes until she thinks we've finished reading it. Then, she will ask, "so what does this all mean?" Silence from the class as she stands there looking around while we all think, "I don't know, maybe we would know if you actually TAUGHT us instead of just having us read off slides." Now, instead of responding to this awkward silence with instruction, she simply asks another question, usually along the lines of, "well, how do you think this might affect the [shipping] company?" Once again, awkward silence as no one in the class knows how to respond. From here, she will attempt to evade the situation by saying some very general statements that are usually just paraphrased from the current slide, and then she will move along to the next slide and repeat the process. This is why, even though there is mandatory attendance imposed by the school, on average only 12 people show up for class out of the 30 students actually taking it.
When it comes to group presentations, a half-competent professor would at least have some idea how to treat the situation fairly. Since there are five groups in the class, we are spending the last five days of classes doing one presentation a day with commentary after each one. Now, since the first group gets screwed and the last group gets an extra two weeks to work on the project, not to mention gets to see where everyone else before them has failed, even a half-assed professor would take measures to make that more fair. Usually, this comes in the form of randomizing when the groups present and giving preferential grades to the ones who went earlier. Well, Professor Billore is horribly incompetent, so she just said, "group one presents first and group five presents last," and when asked if she would be giving preferential treatment to the earlier groups, she responded with, "oh (surprised), I guess maybe I could think about that." The class heaves a sigh of frustration, especially my group since we are group one. To top it all off, our topic was how Japanese Banks have handled expanding abroad. Remember how this is her research topic? Remember how incompetent she is and how our group is going first? She tore us to shreds in the commentary. Many of my responses to her (obviously biased) critiques subtly pointed out how inappropriate her comments were, which she didn't seem to notice but most of the class did. Its pretty much unanimously agreed that she is the worst excuse for a professor that any of us have ever had. If I had the time I would talk to the Dean about her, but I dislike the situation so much that I just can't wait to get away from it.
As an aside, I have seen two other groups present at the time I am writing this, and she gave them very constructive feedback in a very nice way; the complete opposite of what she did to us.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Day 81 - March 28
Today I went to Nakano Broadway entirely against my will. Nakano Broadway is a street/mall place that is like a cross between Harajuku and Akihabara, and it also has the highest concentration of non-current anime merch. in Japan. Akiba for the most part has everything that is new and currently popular, and then once they need to free up store space for newer items the old ones go to Nakano Broadway. This makes Nakano Bdwy. home to many gold mines of merchandise.
Now, as for how I got there against my will. You see, I had been spending this Sunday working on my International Marketing group presentation which we were going to be doing the next day and no one in my group had done the slightest bit of work for, despite having all semester. Kira starts talking to me on Facebook saying that she is bored out of her mind and wants to do something, like go to Nakano Bdwy. I respond that, "sorry, I'm too busy, etc., I can't go. That is, unless you want to do the project for me." "Sure," she says. Now, this is not the response I was expecting. No one ever says yes to that proposal, ever. Kira then proceeded to send me and Tom a skeleton presentation that only required us to add in the actual meat of our research. While it had not been explicitly agreed upon, I was pretty much obligated to go with her at this point. Not wanting to be dragged into the depths of hell alone, I convinced Li to give up procrastinating on his work and just come with me.
We got to Nakano Bdwy. around 6pm, and most of the stores close at 8pm (at least on Sunday), so we did our best to cover as much of the anime-related stores as possible in the allotted time. Thankfully I only had 14,000Y on me, so even if I lost control (which was inevitable, especially since the lack of merch at the Tokyo International Anime Fair yesterday) I wouldn't be hurt that badly. I don't remember exactly what I bought, but I do know that I've tried my best to delete my memories of that place since there were many more things that I wanted but didn't have the money for...
One thing I remember buying is something I'm very excited about: Shakugan no Shana car decal kit thing. I posted a pic on facebook from one of my Akihabara trips where a guy's car was covered in gigantic anime decals. Well... now I can be one of those guys XD. I'm totally going to be the koolest kid in skool. I was torn between the Shana set and the Little Busters set, but I decided against the little busters one since it was very brightly colored, had multiple stars, and was overall quite girly, while on the other hand the Shana one is very dark, has flames, and looks badass. Well, it looks badass to me, other people might not find an anime girl with long red hair and a flaming sword very badass but what do they know anyways?
I also remember that Li and I emptied a gatchapon machine which contained Negima figures. Fortunately there weren't a ton left in the machine when we started, but still... Of course I didn't end up getting the one I wanted the most and got several copies of the ones I wanted the least >_<. *sigh* looks like I have yet another set to finish hunting down...
As all the stores started closing we made our last few rounds as quickly as possible before heading back to the station. Oh, another reason why I try to forget that Nakano Bdwy. exists is because its only two stops away from 'baba on the Tozai line, which is significantly closer than the ~35 minute trip on the Yamanote to get to Akihabara. With those horrors behind us we returned to 'baba, performed our daily ritual of Gundam Kizuna, and then returned to the Weekly Mansion where Li could continue procrastinating and I could meet up with Tom to try and pound out the rest of this project.
Now, as for how I got there against my will. You see, I had been spending this Sunday working on my International Marketing group presentation which we were going to be doing the next day and no one in my group had done the slightest bit of work for, despite having all semester. Kira starts talking to me on Facebook saying that she is bored out of her mind and wants to do something, like go to Nakano Bdwy. I respond that, "sorry, I'm too busy, etc., I can't go. That is, unless you want to do the project for me." "Sure," she says. Now, this is not the response I was expecting. No one ever says yes to that proposal, ever. Kira then proceeded to send me and Tom a skeleton presentation that only required us to add in the actual meat of our research. While it had not been explicitly agreed upon, I was pretty much obligated to go with her at this point. Not wanting to be dragged into the depths of hell alone, I convinced Li to give up procrastinating on his work and just come with me.
We got to Nakano Bdwy. around 6pm, and most of the stores close at 8pm (at least on Sunday), so we did our best to cover as much of the anime-related stores as possible in the allotted time. Thankfully I only had 14,000Y on me, so even if I lost control (which was inevitable, especially since the lack of merch at the Tokyo International Anime Fair yesterday) I wouldn't be hurt that badly. I don't remember exactly what I bought, but I do know that I've tried my best to delete my memories of that place since there were many more things that I wanted but didn't have the money for...
One thing I remember buying is something I'm very excited about: Shakugan no Shana car decal kit thing. I posted a pic on facebook from one of my Akihabara trips where a guy's car was covered in gigantic anime decals. Well... now I can be one of those guys XD. I'm totally going to be the koolest kid in skool. I was torn between the Shana set and the Little Busters set, but I decided against the little busters one since it was very brightly colored, had multiple stars, and was overall quite girly, while on the other hand the Shana one is very dark, has flames, and looks badass. Well, it looks badass to me, other people might not find an anime girl with long red hair and a flaming sword very badass but what do they know anyways?
I also remember that Li and I emptied a gatchapon machine which contained Negima figures. Fortunately there weren't a ton left in the machine when we started, but still... Of course I didn't end up getting the one I wanted the most and got several copies of the ones I wanted the least >_<. *sigh* looks like I have yet another set to finish hunting down...
As all the stores started closing we made our last few rounds as quickly as possible before heading back to the station. Oh, another reason why I try to forget that Nakano Bdwy. exists is because its only two stops away from 'baba on the Tozai line, which is significantly closer than the ~35 minute trip on the Yamanote to get to Akihabara. With those horrors behind us we returned to 'baba, performed our daily ritual of Gundam Kizuna, and then returned to the Weekly Mansion where Li could continue procrastinating and I could meet up with Tom to try and pound out the rest of this project.
Day 80 - March 27
I've been taking way too long to get these updates written, so I hope I haven't forgotten anything >_<
Saturday was the Tokyo International Anime Fair, which Li and I had heard about a couple weeks prior and decided to attend. What made things even better was that it was being held in the Tokyo Big Sight, which is in Odaiba, and this was the weekend we had planned to reschedule our Odaiba onsen trip with Allison for. Unfortunately, Allison just got a new job as a waitress in a bar in Takadanobaba and had to work, so once again we had to call off our plans for the onsen.
This was my first time actually getting up close and personal with the Tokyo Big Sight, and I have to say, that is an awesome building. Well, the main building is, the rest of it is just a series of very large halls in normal-looking buildings. Sadly, the Fair was being held in one of those very large halls that was not part of the main building, but oh well I still got to walk through the place. It only cost us 1,000Y to get in for the day, but that is mostly since this isn't an anime convention, its more of an industry trade show. Practically no one cosplays for this aside from the 'booth babes' and the handful of gaijin wearing some horrid excuse for cosplay. People like that make me feel embarrassed for being a foreigner.
Overall the fair was pretty sweet. There was less stuff for sale there than I was expecting, but I did find a few things worth buying: an event-only Senjogahara fan, a Garden of Sinners day planner, and several little pencil board things of Fushigi Yuugi (these are gifts for Lisa). I was especially amazed about the last part, since that show came out a long time ago and they had a ton of different designs of these pencil board-ish things. Also, the main highlight of the fair for me: the debut of the new Rin figure from UBW!!! It was unpainted (being a prototype and all), but holy crap I will pay WHATEVER THEY ASK when that comes out. It is one of the highest quality figures I have ever seen in my life, and I will buy the sh-t out of that thing when it comes up for preorder. They also had the previously unannounced new Saber Alter figure debuting here, which was unpainted as well and looked absolutely amazing, but I am less interested in that than the new Saber figure (much less the Rin) coming out later this year.
Aside from that I can't really remember any specifically memorable things I saw at the fair, just lots of new stuff coming out soon. Also, they had a huge display for these new Black Rock Shooter figures, which looked awesome enough for me to become interested in looking into the show.
Once we had finished with the fair content we grabbed some food from the several food stands in the corner of the hall. Li got some French hot dog thing while I got two corn dogs, or as they're called here "American Dogs." There was this little open area behind the food stands where a lot of people were sitting to eat in their little groups since the tables in front of the stands were very full, but also possibly because it was out of the way and much quieter. We sat down in a little open spot somewhat close to one of the tall temporary walls they had set up to eat our food. While we were eating Li (who was facing the wall) started to exclaim something but was silenced by the EXTREMELY loud crash caused by a section of the temporary wall falling over and towards where everyone was sitting. The top of the wall came at most an inch away from slamming right into this sitting guy's spine. I myself was no more than 2 feet from the thing. Everyone in the immediate area just froze and looked around as if to say, "holy shit, that could have been really bad." Fortunately, the guy who had been sitting directly under it had gotten up and left a few minutes before, otherwise, that would have really bad. With this, we quickly finished eating and then got the heck out of there lol.
On our way back to the station we stopped by the arcade that has Gundam Kizuna for only 400Y per play. As usual we played 5 games in order to reap the maximum benefit of the discount (ie 5 for the price of 4), and then finally left for 'baba around 7pm. Since the all you can eat stakehouse doesn't exist in Odaiba anymore, we altered our plans and instead tried out Shakey's, a pizza place in 'baba that is directly under the 270Y bar. The pizza was quite good, and so far the only place in this entire country I've seen that has regular pepperoni pizza. I don't know what it is with these people and their apparent discrimination against pepperoni pizza, but I find it very upsetting. Shakey's isn't too expensive either; a little less than 2,000Y for a full pizza (about the size of a large in the US). I definitely think we'll be going back.
Saturday was the Tokyo International Anime Fair, which Li and I had heard about a couple weeks prior and decided to attend. What made things even better was that it was being held in the Tokyo Big Sight, which is in Odaiba, and this was the weekend we had planned to reschedule our Odaiba onsen trip with Allison for. Unfortunately, Allison just got a new job as a waitress in a bar in Takadanobaba and had to work, so once again we had to call off our plans for the onsen.
This was my first time actually getting up close and personal with the Tokyo Big Sight, and I have to say, that is an awesome building. Well, the main building is, the rest of it is just a series of very large halls in normal-looking buildings. Sadly, the Fair was being held in one of those very large halls that was not part of the main building, but oh well I still got to walk through the place. It only cost us 1,000Y to get in for the day, but that is mostly since this isn't an anime convention, its more of an industry trade show. Practically no one cosplays for this aside from the 'booth babes' and the handful of gaijin wearing some horrid excuse for cosplay. People like that make me feel embarrassed for being a foreigner.
Overall the fair was pretty sweet. There was less stuff for sale there than I was expecting, but I did find a few things worth buying: an event-only Senjogahara fan, a Garden of Sinners day planner, and several little pencil board things of Fushigi Yuugi (these are gifts for Lisa). I was especially amazed about the last part, since that show came out a long time ago and they had a ton of different designs of these pencil board-ish things. Also, the main highlight of the fair for me: the debut of the new Rin figure from UBW!!! It was unpainted (being a prototype and all), but holy crap I will pay WHATEVER THEY ASK when that comes out. It is one of the highest quality figures I have ever seen in my life, and I will buy the sh-t out of that thing when it comes up for preorder. They also had the previously unannounced new Saber Alter figure debuting here, which was unpainted as well and looked absolutely amazing, but I am less interested in that than the new Saber figure (much less the Rin) coming out later this year.
Aside from that I can't really remember any specifically memorable things I saw at the fair, just lots of new stuff coming out soon. Also, they had a huge display for these new Black Rock Shooter figures, which looked awesome enough for me to become interested in looking into the show.
Once we had finished with the fair content we grabbed some food from the several food stands in the corner of the hall. Li got some French hot dog thing while I got two corn dogs, or as they're called here "American Dogs." There was this little open area behind the food stands where a lot of people were sitting to eat in their little groups since the tables in front of the stands were very full, but also possibly because it was out of the way and much quieter. We sat down in a little open spot somewhat close to one of the tall temporary walls they had set up to eat our food. While we were eating Li (who was facing the wall) started to exclaim something but was silenced by the EXTREMELY loud crash caused by a section of the temporary wall falling over and towards where everyone was sitting. The top of the wall came at most an inch away from slamming right into this sitting guy's spine. I myself was no more than 2 feet from the thing. Everyone in the immediate area just froze and looked around as if to say, "holy shit, that could have been really bad." Fortunately, the guy who had been sitting directly under it had gotten up and left a few minutes before, otherwise, that would have really bad. With this, we quickly finished eating and then got the heck out of there lol.
On our way back to the station we stopped by the arcade that has Gundam Kizuna for only 400Y per play. As usual we played 5 games in order to reap the maximum benefit of the discount (ie 5 for the price of 4), and then finally left for 'baba around 7pm. Since the all you can eat stakehouse doesn't exist in Odaiba anymore, we altered our plans and instead tried out Shakey's, a pizza place in 'baba that is directly under the 270Y bar. The pizza was quite good, and so far the only place in this entire country I've seen that has regular pepperoni pizza. I don't know what it is with these people and their apparent discrimination against pepperoni pizza, but I find it very upsetting. Shakey's isn't too expensive either; a little less than 2,000Y for a full pizza (about the size of a large in the US). I definitely think we'll be going back.
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