Day 19-29 - Jan 24 - Feb 3

This is part 2.

For the week of the 24th I didn't do much aside from schoolwork.  I got my health insurance on Wednesday, and watched "Vexille" at the movie night on Thursday.  Vexille was very interesting, and not really what I was expecting it to turn out to be.  I liked it.

Saturday the 30th was quite the eventful day to end a quite uneventful week.  We had plans to go to Akihabara for some shopping (Archer bag? oh, and Ar Tonelico 3 came out on Thurs the 28th, maybe there's stuff for that too?).  We casually went into this store that looked pretty good and was almost directly across from the station exit we went out from.  Little did we know that this place had around 6 floors, and not a single one of them the same.  I think I made it to the 2nd floor before the spending began (the first floor was SO tempting, but I didn't know what lied ahead).  We left that store 5 hours later and about $200 poorer.  I wanted to pick up some stuff from Spice & Wolf or maybe something else, but I ended up buying entirely Fate related items.  Not disappointed about that in the least though; it just means I need to go again!  Tom wasn't as interested as us rabid fanboys, so he left us to head home after about 2 hours.  We finished our shopping around 17:30, and then went on to find our second reason for coming to Akiba that day: the Gundam PODs.  These are for a game called Gundam Kizuna, where you pilot a gundam and fight other players in the arcade and over the internet.  The draw to this game is the PODs.  It is a complete Gundam cockpit that you climb into with a massive panoramic display surrounding your complete peripheral vision.  You first need to go to this terminal outside the POD and create your pilot and choose your faction, which is then printed onto a card that you enter into the POD.  All your player data is kept on this card, so the more you play the more mechas you unlock as well as other various upgrades and enhancements.  Its very cool.  Here is the wikipedia article on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kid%C5%8D_Senshi_Gundam:_Senj%C5%8D_no_Kizuna
By the time we left the arcade it was about 21:00...  We had heard that the arcade in the Big Box building (which is right next to the station we live near) had some of these PODs, so we went there to find out.  Well, as luck would have it, they do.  After about an hour of thoroughly testing the facilities, we decided that we'd spent enough money that day and should head home.  Though, we did say we would try to stop by this arcade and play at least one round a day, which, so far we have... (btw I have pics of these pods that I will be uploading to my facebook soon)

Sunday the 30th and Monday the 1st were pretty uneventful, I spent most of both of them doing work.  I was up until 4:00 Tuesday morning preparing my 10 minute speech for Public Speaking that I was gave later that day.  Tuesday was very long and I was very tired throughout most of it.  Oh, but it snowed on Monday night!  It was snowing lightly Sunday night but it was melted by the time it hit the ground.  Apparently it stuck Monday night though, since when I opened my balcony door to see how cold it was outside I noticed the roof across from my balcony was covered in snow, and so were all the other roofs I could see!  I know, I live in Western NY, I shouldn't be excited over snow, but still, it was cool.

Finally, we're up to today!  Today is Wednesday, February 3rd, and it is day 29 of my time here in Japan.  I can't believe its already 1/4 over... x_x.  I've been wanting to get a long coat for a while now, and Li said the best place to go is Harajuku.  Well, I had time today but I was going to have to rush since I have class at 16:50 on M/W/F.  Luck was on my side though, since a couple minutes before I was leaving (at about 14:00) I got an email saying that class was canceled today!  Li and I went to Harajuku searching for a coat for me, and even though I've heard the prices here were crazy expensive, I found a lot of coats for really cheap.  Most were around 15,000 yen, but there were some that were even as low as 4,000!  Since I've heard from too many sources that Harajuku is expensive to not believe them, I have to imagine that the rest of their clothing is ridiculous, especially the women's stuff.  After a little searching I was able to narrow it down to three coats of varying lengths and designs in one shop, and then after trying on each one several times I finally decided on one.  I'm very pleased with it, and it was only about 17,000.  Since I had money left over (I was expecting to pay a little over 20,000), I decided to look at some other stuff.  Li and I saw some nice hats in the men's floor of this one store, so we looked at them for a bit.  After being faced with so many man-bags in this country, and seeing them displayed everywhere throughout all the men's sections, I finally decided to actually look at some.  I tried hard to find the least gay-looking man-bag (trust me, not easy) and actually found one that I kind of liked, and it was only 4,000 yen.  This bag has so many pockets.  My mom will laugh when she reads this, since she knows how much I love excessive pockets and compartments.  Well, the more I looked at it the more I started to actually kind of like it.  I mean, the coat I just got didn't have any inside pockets, just the two usual outside ones.  Sure I can hold more in those than I can in my leather jacket, but still... what about all the extra little stuff I want to carry around with me?  I mean, I don't want to bring my backpack everywhere because its annoying and gets in the way.  So... why not get this man-purs--I mean man-bag?  It is only 4,000... and look at all the pockets...

So said my internal voice.  Yea, its the same voice that's usually telling me I gotta' catch 'em all, so you can guess where this situation ended up.  Well, the more I've used my man-bag so far the more I've started to really like it.  I mean, its just so convenient!

Maybe I should staple some bacon to the outside just to assure people of my manliness...