I need some hot pink sweat pants!!!!!

One of the big things at Japanese universities is being part of a club or circle. Well I finally broke down and joined one that I had several of my friends in and it's a “walking club.” Know I know what you are thinking . . . old women in hot yellow or turquoise sweat pants swing there arm furiously, while hold there 1 or 2 lbs weights in their hands. This is nothing like that! Last Saturday, the 11/17, I went on my first walk. The theme for this walk was to visit most of the official government buildings in Japan as well as some other important landmarks. We broke down into about 3 groups of 10 people and walked a total of about 14km. It started at 9am and finished at about 6pm that night. I got to see a lot of cool places and was pretty mad my camera was broken. This weekend they went on an overnight stay at Mt. Fuji and were planning on walking about 14 km for both days. I really wanted to go but it was a little expensive because of hotel cost. That and its starting to get butt cold here.

I don’t think the next walk is till mid-march but they have some really cool walks schedule and there are a lot of gaijin in the club and the Japanese students are really cool. Actually I got to practice my Japanese a lot that day and everyone was really cool. If I can when my friends get back I will see if I can get some pictures from them for the website.

Also its been hard to really get a scale of how big Tokyo is because I go everywhere by train. Walking allowed me to but things in a little more perspective!

No More Pictures

Yes I am alive. I was not kidnapped by the yakuza and made into a sex slave in Kabuki-cho for all of you that were worried. Well nothing really has been happening. I broke my digital camera and I am pretty mad about it. I sent it today to Erin to take it into Best Buy because we paid for that extended warranty thing. I probably won’t get it back till I see Erin again for Christmas, which sucks.

Last Monday I went to go see Noh and Kyogen. It was really cool and the tickets were free. I was really excited to see it. Also went to Mori Tower, which has the Tokyo Contemporary Art Museum on the 52nd floor. Yeah . . . 52nd floor. They have a viewing area where you can walk around and you can see all of Tokyo. You can see Tokyo tower and a lot of the city . . . I would show you pictures but my camera is broken. I will say how amazed I am that no matter how many times Gojira (that's Godzilla for you gaijin) tears down Tokyo Tower they just keep rebuilding it.

Okay well that is about it!

An example of Noh

What part of Noh do you not understand!

Old Skool!!!

Some of us spent most of the night looking for videos to songs we knew back in the late 80's early 90's . . . most of the guys I was looking at videos with are only 20-22 and were like 7 when they happened. Here is some of the cool vids!! Some of the guys never heard this song either . . . can you blame them!!!

I cannot believe I had this tape!

The pardoy which is funny as heck!!!!

Weekend of First!!!

My first typhoon - I have never seen it so windy and rainy in my life. I have also never seen so many jacked up umbrellas, the street was cover with jacked up cheap umbrellas. Mine got a little beat up.

My first piece of cheese - Yes I ate my first piece of real cheese since I have been here not counting that real fake stuff they call cheese that they put on hamburgers. It was so good.

My first marriage proposal - My boss does they international parties and he invited me to for free. That is where they had the cheese. They also had roast beef and other goodies he got from Costco. Yeah they have Costco here but it is really far away. So this Taiwanese girl started talking to me and must of been clueless about the ring on my finger and basically told me she wanted to marry a nice Westerner and I looked like a nice person. Yea . . . FREAKY!!!!!!!

My first gas station - Yes I saw my first gas station it was really weird had not seen one since I got here

My first car ride - got a ride home from a member after church. Was really weird driving on the other side of the road.

My first wedding anniversary away from Erin – yeah that one sucked! Not a fan of that one . . . she went to the Melting Pot without me . . . again! But I love her and miss her a whole heck of a lot.

Cake and DEATH!!!!!!!

Well today a friend and I went to this place that is like a buffet, but it is mostly all deserts and it’s all you can eat for 90 minutes and cost about 1,400 yen or around $12.00. It was really good! They had some spaghetti, dumplings and curry rice, but after I had a small plate of that I went straight after the cakes! Yeah . . . Erin would have been in heaven. It was funny cause you can tell that most of their clientele are girls as they have two women’s bathroom and one restroom that is shared. Also, I was one of three guys there the whole time.

Well it has been raining the past few days and it's a little depressing.

I want to go off on a tangent today because it really chapped my hide. When you are on some of the trains they have two little televisions above the doors that tell you where you are going, how long to the next stop, other information but also about train delays. On a side note the one next to it generally run commercials. Okay, so occasionally you see information about trains being delayed and the reason the listed most of the time is “accidents.” I recently just found out that 95% off these “accidents” is because some idiot decided to do a freaking peter flipping pan in front of the train. Yeah . . . if you are gonna kill yourself I think jumping in front of the train would be a rather painful way to go. Okay so back to my point . . . me and Brian just barely got on and had not even gotten to the next station and our train line goes down for “accident” reasons! This has happened before but what chapped my hide is that its rush hour its so crowded I cannot even raise up my hands and I have to stand there for an additional 30 minutes while they take care of stuff. Please if you are even thinking about it maybe I can get you a self-help video, like “Get Confidence Stupid.” And if you really need to jump in front of a train you might as well tick as many people off as possible so go jump in front of the Yamanote near Shinjuku.

What I think is kind of jacked up is as a deterrent to stop people from doing, they send yoru family the bill to clean up the mess! Yeah!!


Okay so I am glad we had this talk.

I am giddy as a little school girl

DESSERTS!!

Krispy Kreme

Okay so today a friend, Yo, and myself went to Krispy Kremes in Shinjuku. No one else wanted to go because during the evening and the weekends the wait can be as long as 2 to 3 hours. There are only two Krispy Kremes in Japan both in Tokyo. We only had to wait for about 40 minutes to place out order because it was the middle of the day. Yo is Taiwanese, goes to school in Connecticut and is a foreign exchange student in Japan . . . go figure. One of the things she loves about the States, and why I think she went to school there, is because she loves donuts. She says she has a poster of Dunkin Donuts in her room at home.

They were so good and tasted like the ones back in the states and has the cool process of making them. I bought a dozen glazed originals for 1,500 yen or about $13. The first 7 were pretty easy to get down, I had a hard time downing the rest and had to give them to a homeless person cause I could not eat any more.

It was really fun going there and just pigging out on something that was not rice!!

Blogger is having problems with pictures at the moment so will post them later!!!

The end of the lien for Krispy Kreme

OINK!!!

Things I am willing to give up a testicle for

Cheese, 4X4 from In-N-Out, Erin's yummy tacos, buffalo wings, a decent pizza under 3,500 yen or around $30 American, Cheetos (I ate all the ones Erin sent me . . next time buy the three bags from COSTCO), Muncher's cream cheese donuts, a cherry coke (yea!!!! I know!!!! I am suprised I can survive), being ablg to find out what the heck is going on with Heroes and a hug from Erin . . . maybe a a little more then a hug . . . . okay A LOT more then a hug . . . may even give up two for that, but that defeats the purpose.

Things I would like to have and only willing to give up pocket lint for:

Hearing Mariah go "oh dear," argueing with Jason over which is better Macs or PC, having Erin ask me to get up out of bed and go get her a drink of water (that just barely made the list BTW), hear someone say "Chuckle McMuffin," and grabbing someoenes butt and not having them freak out (Japanese don't seem to know how to handle it).

Things I am leaving in Japan

Crowded trains (I'm tired of praying that thats someones umbrella grinding my hip or leg), pop-a-squat toilets, McDonald's double cheeseburger (I hate paying 400 yen for something I get for $1.00 in the States), and small bathrrom slippers that my feet cannot even fit into.

Things I now HATE!!!

RICE!!!!!!!! But I keep eating it twice a day!!!! They but it on your plate and you have to eat everythign on yoru plate!!!


Things I like now like

Beday (don't knock it till you try it, seriously), sweat towels, and public baths (its nice to just relax in the big tub)