Odaiba

We met Yuki and went down to Odaiba. This was after the usual "getting messed up because we don't know where to meet".  Sigh.   We went to the Miraikan and I was really impressed!  Especially with the Robots and your daily life exhibit.  There is so much that I don't know about Science no wonder I found it fascinating.  All the signs are in Japanese and English so it's easy to read too.    We then walked over to Fuji TV, the large building with the ball in the middle, but it was close to closing time, so I went shopping and bought two One Piece souveniers.  Yay.  This was a mistake, because after we could not find R and C!  We must have spent one hour to look for them!  The good thing is that the guard thought I was in my 20's.  Weird...  We never did find R and C, so Yuki and I went for Okonomiyaki!  Then, Yuki went home with me so she could go say goodbye to R and C.  Wow, I was impressed about that.  She had her yukata worn in a kimono way and must have been so so hot!!

On Saturday, I said goodbye to to R and C and watched an English movie.  I don't know the title, but it was really good.  Then, I worked a little on my psychology class stuff.  After, I went to the Ikebukuro Sports Gym http://www.ikespo.jp/index.htm  It's 600 yen for two hours.  The fitness area is filled with machines and there is not much space to do free weights but I managed.   On Sunday I went at 6 p.m. and that is a much better time because it was a lot less crowded. It is on the ninth floor so, quite a nice view.  It costs 200 yen more for classes so, I just stayed in the fitness area, crowded as it was.  I still got a work out because my thighs are really sore though.

I also got a massage at Te momin.  It was different in that there was not a lot of pressing down but more moving the fingers sideways.  The massage combined with the exercise has really helped my shoulder, of course, it's still sore, but it's not painful any more.  Yay! 

I barely talked to anyone all weekend long.  Wow, this is what it is like to be alone, a lot more quiet, guess I can talk to myself.  OH, yeah, I also made a picture out of chalk on a board for fun.  I wish I could post it, but I'm having problems.

As a treat to myself on my all you can eat Sunday, I had french fries, shrimp burger and zero cola from Macdonald's.  Wow, it was so so good.  The guy in front of me had a hamburger and a soft drink.  I thought he looked really, really skinny.

I miss R and C now that they are back home and actually, I did the worst on the quiz I had today.  I had better stop slacking off with watching a lot of tv and get back to work on the vocabulary and kanji memorizing.  Who knew that when they were gone I would study less!!!  Argh, gotta study more!

First day of Class and Ghibli Movie

コクリコ坂  Saw this fabulous movie for 1000 円 with R and C.  Popcorn was stale and あつあつじゃない！
I did a 模擬 tesuto for N1 shiken and almost passed.  I made one foolish error.  Luckily, yeah, if I study every day, I should be able to pass with the pass mark so low.....  Gotta go study now.

Climbing Mt. Fuji in One Day

Colin really wanted to try to climb Mt. Fuji, so fools that we are, we decided to go with him on Saturday, July 30.  Unfortunately, we could not get on the bus direct to 五合目 so we had to take the earliest train possible.
Wake up time:  3:15, left the hotel at 4:10.

  Ikebukuro:  4:35  Shinjuku:  4:58  Takao 6:00  Ootsuku:  7:00  Bus from Kawaguchiko to 五合目 8:20  arrival at 五合目 at 9:20.

We started climbing at 9:30 and reached 六合目 at 10:00, then we went reached the 七合目 at 10:30.  These first two stations were easy.  七合目 to 八合目 took longer and in total, it took about four hours for us to reach the top.  We got some great pictures of the crater.
Going down was actually a lot tougher than going up for Rodney.  His knees really suffered.  Then, it started thundering and raining, not just a light rain, but pouring rain.  Four hours to get down in the pouring rain.  The volcanic rock pebbles were the hardest part on your knees. We caught the bus back to Kawaguchikou eki just in time:  5:50 p.m.  We had a light dinner so that helped us on the train ride back to Ikebukuro:  7:07 departure, arrival 10:00 pm. I can't imagine doing this climb in the middle of the night.  Fools!  But in the daytime it was actually nice!  Too bad Rodney got a major sunburn, even though I told him to put sunblock he must have forgotten.

  We are so tired today, we are not going to go anywhere...except me, shopping anyone?

Tokyo Day 4

Had my first class today and I have to write a short essay.  Will post it here for fun and for people to make fun of me.  I bought a pair of glasses because they were so cheap.  60 dollars as opposed to the usual 500 dollars!!!


LUNCH:  Yoshinoya:  beef bowl with salmon and miso soup and rice, C:  beef bowl Large size, R:  beef bowl regular size.

Snack:  luna bar and chestnut cake roll, C:  meron pan and bun  R:  coffee only.

Dinner:  Ishi yaki Set from the Ishiyaki Club Restaurant.  I thought it was good at first but the karaage were way too salty and I got really thirsty.  C barely finished his so I ate it for him.  I had way too much rice so I walked the 22 stories to my hotel floor to try to burn calories.

I finished writing my short essay, but I can't type it in now because I'm still working on my report for school.  I'll do it soon though.  Or not.

Tokyo Day 3

I did not do anything but work on my essay for the whole day. I was hoping to finish but am far from it.
C and R went to Shibuya, Asakusa, and Akihabara.  They came back exhausted.

Lunch:  7-11:  Salad Maki, Natto Maki, Coffee Jello with no cream
Dinner:  Prego:  C:  Fettucini Gorgonzola, seafood mix, salad, pork chop, gnocchi porcini, foccacia, bruschetta
  I was still hungry after it, but I controlled myself.  Small earthquake at 4 a.m. made me wake up.

Tokyo Day 2

Today we did everything Colin wanted to do.  Being 14 Colin's main aim for the day was to shop for earphones/headphones. So we walked over to the East side of Ikebukuro Station, but everything was closed till 10, so Colin really wanted to eat a hamburger from Mos Burger.  He ordered at 9:30 a.m. (!) a teriyaki hamburger onion ring set with a Lassi drink.  We watched him eat and observed people on the street.

First store:  Lab 1 (Yamada Denki), Second store:  Bic Camera, Third Store:  Lab 1 (Yamada Denki main store), Fourth store:  Kiddieland.  The choice and selection of earphones and headphones was incredible.  Monster, Audio Technica, Sony, and sumimasen, can't remember because well, I was almost tempted to get one, but did not.  Especially the ones with shiny jewels and anime characters.  Sadly, these stores did not carry Urbanears or WeSC.  Well, me thinks these brands are not popular in Japan right now.  Audio Technica has the most presence in the stores.  But, it blew me away the racks and racks of earphones and headphones.  Who knew?

Food:
Breakfast:  food from 7-11 including Apple Yogurt.   home made oatmeal I brought from home, tokoroten (only 27 calories!), hard boiled egg, milk, instant coffee.

Lunch:  Matsuya Gyudon:  Beef bowl:  me:  pork beef bowl with miso soup, raw egg, and veggies.
  Rodney:  same, Colin:  Pork Curry with salad (I ate it) and miso soup.  I tried not to eat too much rice.  Super cheap, less then 6.00 per person.

Snack:  starbucks in Harajuku  there was a small demonstration against the use of nuclear power with full police escort.

Dinner:  Salvatore restaurant with Ayako, an old student that used to go to school in R.D.  Two pizzas and two salads.  Pretty pricey considering the pizza was not that big, was very thin, and did not have a lot of filling.

Dessert:  fruit ice balls.
After dinner, we went to the supermarket for more food like fresh fruit, coffee jello (my favourite!) 

 The front desk person gave us a futon for Colin's use for free!  Yay!

Pictures to follow if I ever figure out how to do it quickly.

Tokyo Day 1

We made to Tokyo and Duplex Apartment Hotel in Ikebukuro.  It took 2 hours from the airport.  I slept all the way on the bus.  Big Traffic Jam.
On the plane I watched:  Jane Eyre, Adjustment Bureau, and Lincoln Lawyer.   Rodney:  Adjustment Bureau, Just Go with It.  Coin:  Diary of a Wimpy Kid 2, Just Go With It. I was going to work on my paper but ran out of power.  I worked on posting replies for my course in Seattle Airport, where I was going to use the Airline Lounge but decided not to because it costs 50 dollars.  I got a pedicure from Butter:  really clean and he really did a good job with my callouses on my roughened feet.  40 US Dollars.

Made it late to the hotel and no one was there.  He eventually showed up and we paid up front for the month.  Here is a picture of our studio apartment.  The futon was not ready upon our arrival :(

Breakfast was home made oatmeal, apple yogurt, boiled egg, sald and tokoroten.