Day 106 - April 22

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.