So this weekend was pretty incredible :). It all started with an amazing Thursday night. I was one of the few people selected to attend a curry cooking class with other Japanese students. It was a lot of fun and the curry was extremly delicious. While eating the curry, we were able to see fireworks being shot off in the distance. It was really cool :). I was also finally able to talk to this Austrailian girl in my study abroad group and she was really interesting. She informed me that kangaroos are similar to deer -- their purpose in life is to run into cars and create wreckage! I was really suprised to hear this at first, but then I thought about it, and kangaroos do look similar to deer...
Friday night I went to Ginza with my friends Branisha and Tomo. We first ventured off to the Sony Building and it was a dream :). We were able to play around and experience many of the 3D TVs and I got to mess with their really expensive cameras! They had an unnderwater one for 20,000 yen that I wanted to get on the spot, but sadly after many shopping ventures on this trip I did not have the money for. Oh well. Their video cameras were beautiful. There was one camcorder that was perfect for documentaries. You could actually zoom in and out the sound! I know that I was taught this is impossible in my film class, but I don't know what else you could call this! When you zoomed into the camera, the sound condensed, and when you zoomed out more sound was let in. It was just incredible.
After that, we went into the 11 story Abercrombie & Fitch. It was the best A&F ever, and currently is my dream job (and I don't even like the clothing they sell!). You walk up to the black building, and there are 2 6'5'' Japanese boys that definately work out everyday and spoke perfect English. If I didn't have a boyfriend, I probably would have swooned. Then you enter inside and to your right there is the 11 story mural of practically naked steriod-induced men with statue to match. Before you can even get a closer look at all of this, a girl with a very nice polaroid camera whisks you away to take a picture with a guy that is quite possibly a model with no shirt on. The model today was 1/2 Japanese and he also spoke perfect english. It cracked me up so much. I now have a souvenir :p. Well after the fiasco that was the entrance, we all went up the stairs. The 2nd floor had people whose job was to specifically dance and sing along to the music. I want this job. This was also when I realized that the guys and girls were in coordinating attire -- the boys wore red plaid t-shirts and jeans, while the girls wore navy tanks with a red plaid skirt. Something you'll probably never see in America...
The rest of the store was just a giant rainbow coordinated A&F closet. I was afraid to take anything down and look at it because I feared it would mess up the rainbows.
Saturday I stayed at my friend Emi's house, who I met at UNT when she studied abroad to Texas :). I had the most incredible time. Her house was in a suburban area outside Yokohama, which is a neighboring city of Tokyo that sits by the ocean. I have to say, I wish I had been to Yokohama more, because it was far prettier than Tokyo. If I even move to Japan, this is the city I'll move to :D. After meeting Emi's grandparents and talking to her dad some, we went to a fireworks festival and it was a lot better than the one in Asakusa. There were smiley-face fireworks! I also was able to try to potato that was ever-so famous at the last festival. It was the most delicious potato I've ever eaten. Fried and slathered in butter and salt...I don't think any potato in America will ever compare to how this one was made. After the festival, Emi took me out to karaoke while we waited for her dad and her younger brother to finish shopping. I was so excited I finally was able to do this! I sang to HSM, Lady Gaga, Muse, and even some Taylor Swift (which was harder than it sounds because I don't listen to her often). So much fun :). When her dad picked us up, he drove us around Yokohama. He took me to parks where you could see the beautiful skyline, that included a rainbow ferris wheel! After a lot of driving, we ate Chinese food and I was able to talk to Emi's brother and the friend he brought along. They reminded me a lot of Zach's brother Alex, so I had fun talking to them (in Japanese!). They were shocked that I loved horror movies. It was a great late-night adventure.
Sunday Emi took me to a BBQ her friends were having at a beach. It was a lot of fun. The sand at the beach was black! So bizzare. The food they made was really good too. I had a lot of fun, but a sad thing happened at the beach. This is where I realized my camera auto-focus was fritzing :(. Currently, it is not fixed and it breaks my heart. This didn't ruin my whole beach experience, but I did spend a good 30 minutes freaking out about my camera in my head, which took away from all the fun.
When I got back, Emi's dad drove me back home to Tokyo and it was the scariest car ride I've ever experienced. Japanese people drive like mad people! And they all hate traffic. I know I will never drive in Japan...ever. It was really cool to also see Tokyo through a car's POV. It was a very good way to end the weekend :).
This week is my last, but I probably won't do much. I plan on going to my favoreite Indian restaurant one more, but other than that it's studying all the way for me. Sigh. Wish me luck on all my tests! There are so many...
Sayonara Tokyo...I will miss you truely, madly, deeply.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
花火 Fireworks
So last weekend was a lot of fun! Friday night I went to the Absolute Ice Bar in Ginza with Cameron and it was a little expensive (高い！), but it was worth going to because I had a lot of fun there. We were given little cloaks and gloves and with our "free" drink we also recieved a frozen treat :). It was a really good 45 minutes spent! Also, the drinks came in giant ice glasses, how cool is that?!
Saturday was the Hanabi (firework) Festival and I dressed up in my purple yukata and looked all pretty and fancy. I went to the Ueno Zoo before the festival, which was amazing fun. The only downside was that my pictures lacked in light because the day was so cloudy and dark due to the rain earlier that day. The zoo also made me a little sad because they had rhinos in cages that were smaller than the monkey's cages, and I felt that was really wrong :(. Rhinos deserve bigger cages than that. I'm not usually a person to be sad at zoo either, but I just thought that they needed to reorganize the room they gae some of the bigger and smaller animals.
After the zoo, I got on a very packed train to Asakusa (where the festival was located). I had never been on a train so squished at night! It was insane!
The festival was a lot of fun. I think my favorite part about it was the food stands. I tried some stuff I liked, and I tried some stuff I didn't like. There was this one treat the looked like a homemade lollipop around a piece of fruit, and it was really gross. I regreted getting it automatically after my first bite. There was also these potato stands that sold, well obviously potatoes, but they were slathered mayo and people would stand in forever long lines to get them. I'm pretty sure if the potato stand was even in a ring of fire, these people would walk through it to get their potato. I of course didn't get it because I was frightened about trying weird looking things after the treat I purchased. I continued to buy normal looking foods after that (my favorite being the straight up melon on a stick...おいしい！).
The spot I got for the fireworks was a really good one. I was able to see them perfectly :). I tried to take pictures, but there were too many people and me without my tripod made is difficult. I got some good ones of the fireworks, though :D.
Sunday was unfortunately not a lazy day. I got up pretty early and went to the Asakusa Shrine, which was packed with tourists. I had some white peach ice cream there that was very much delicious :D. After the shrine, I went on the Tokyo River Cruise, which was very relaxing and pretty good for picture-taking. Later that night, I craved pizza so I went to a Jonathan's chain that's here in Ikebukuro and ate pizza and vanilla ice cream with a cup full of blueberries served with it :D. All-in-all it was a great weekend.
Today at school we got our "how are you getting to the airport?" sheets and I kind of got excited to see it. I never thought it was possible to be this excited to go back to the USA, but here I am :). I miss a lot of things that I haven't been able to get here. Mainly they are food items.
1. Pizza. Cheap, delicious pizza.
2. Mexican food. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Salsa! Jalepeno!!
3. Cranberry Juice. I'm so juice deprived here.
4. Waffles with peanutbutter.
5. Cow! Steak, hamburgers, you name it!
6. BBQ sauce. Oh how you are very much missed...
7. Whole-wheat bread.
8. Sandwiches.
9. Spicey food. Food w/ bold flavors.
10. FRUIT! It's like they don't have any here and if they do they cost an arm and a leg!! Japan needs to get with the program and get more fruit!
I never realized how much of a typical "American" I was until I started craving things like pizza and hamburgers. Now I realize why their pretty much stereotypical American foods. The downside is that I know I'm really going to miss Indian food once I leave here (I know right? So random to miss from Japan...). I'm also going to miss all the sugary breads they have and the heat-up giant fried potato things that I get myself once a week. Eating with chopsticks will be missed a lot too.
I've started going ahead in my book so I can be fully prepared for my Japanese class back home, seeing as how we won't be taught the full chapter because I was on the short-term program. I'm kind of angry that 2 weeks of our time was dedicated to review and placement testing, but I'll get over it. I got to be in Japan for 7 1/2 weeks and I'm totally okay with that :D.
Saturday was the Hanabi (firework) Festival and I dressed up in my purple yukata and looked all pretty and fancy. I went to the Ueno Zoo before the festival, which was amazing fun. The only downside was that my pictures lacked in light because the day was so cloudy and dark due to the rain earlier that day. The zoo also made me a little sad because they had rhinos in cages that were smaller than the monkey's cages, and I felt that was really wrong :(. Rhinos deserve bigger cages than that. I'm not usually a person to be sad at zoo either, but I just thought that they needed to reorganize the room they gae some of the bigger and smaller animals.
After the zoo, I got on a very packed train to Asakusa (where the festival was located). I had never been on a train so squished at night! It was insane!
The festival was a lot of fun. I think my favorite part about it was the food stands. I tried some stuff I liked, and I tried some stuff I didn't like. There was this one treat the looked like a homemade lollipop around a piece of fruit, and it was really gross. I regreted getting it automatically after my first bite. There was also these potato stands that sold, well obviously potatoes, but they were slathered mayo and people would stand in forever long lines to get them. I'm pretty sure if the potato stand was even in a ring of fire, these people would walk through it to get their potato. I of course didn't get it because I was frightened about trying weird looking things after the treat I purchased. I continued to buy normal looking foods after that (my favorite being the straight up melon on a stick...おいしい！).
The spot I got for the fireworks was a really good one. I was able to see them perfectly :). I tried to take pictures, but there were too many people and me without my tripod made is difficult. I got some good ones of the fireworks, though :D.
Sunday was unfortunately not a lazy day. I got up pretty early and went to the Asakusa Shrine, which was packed with tourists. I had some white peach ice cream there that was very much delicious :D. After the shrine, I went on the Tokyo River Cruise, which was very relaxing and pretty good for picture-taking. Later that night, I craved pizza so I went to a Jonathan's chain that's here in Ikebukuro and ate pizza and vanilla ice cream with a cup full of blueberries served with it :D. All-in-all it was a great weekend.
Today at school we got our "how are you getting to the airport?" sheets and I kind of got excited to see it. I never thought it was possible to be this excited to go back to the USA, but here I am :). I miss a lot of things that I haven't been able to get here. Mainly they are food items.
1. Pizza. Cheap, delicious pizza.
2. Mexican food. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Salsa! Jalepeno!!
3. Cranberry Juice. I'm so juice deprived here.
4. Waffles with peanutbutter.
5. Cow! Steak, hamburgers, you name it!
6. BBQ sauce. Oh how you are very much missed...
7. Whole-wheat bread.
8. Sandwiches.
9. Spicey food. Food w/ bold flavors.
10. FRUIT! It's like they don't have any here and if they do they cost an arm and a leg!! Japan needs to get with the program and get more fruit!
I never realized how much of a typical "American" I was until I started craving things like pizza and hamburgers. Now I realize why their pretty much stereotypical American foods. The downside is that I know I'm really going to miss Indian food once I leave here (I know right? So random to miss from Japan...). I'm also going to miss all the sugary breads they have and the heat-up giant fried potato things that I get myself once a week. Eating with chopsticks will be missed a lot too.
I've started going ahead in my book so I can be fully prepared for my Japanese class back home, seeing as how we won't be taught the full chapter because I was on the short-term program. I'm kind of angry that 2 weeks of our time was dedicated to review and placement testing, but I'll get over it. I got to be in Japan for 7 1/2 weeks and I'm totally okay with that :D.
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