SUPER SIZED!

It’s the MEGA ADDITION!! Well only because it’s been a while since I last blogged, and let me tell you there have been tons of stuff that went down these few weeks. Actually I attempted to blog about some of the stuff that happened but I did it on a school computer and forgot to transfer it onto my thumb drive. Well anyway lets see how my memory recall is…

The Pub Quiz- Is a trivia game played while in a bar. Participants make teams who answer a few questions on the topics given by the quiz masters and have beer and drinks at the same time.
The last Pub Quiz we participated in I was a Quiz Master. At first being up at the front was a little nerve racking since we weren’t sure if the trivia we got was going to be too easy or too hard. It turned out that the quiz we made was really hard. But the inarguable part was that all the teams thought it was hard. If it turned out that one team was dominating then a riot would probably break loose. Anyway it was a success and we got lots of praise for a healthy, thought provoking quiz.

That week was spent cleaning and getting ready for the arrival of Jacob and Lauren. Mad cleaning, as in dusting, vacuuming, wiping, airing out, and clutter eradication was put into motion. But after a few days all was well and we were ready for guests.

3/17: The Arrival- Jacob and Lauren finally came!! We thought it would start smoothly but it turned out that their first experience in Kyoto would be frantic and stressful memory, at least for Lauren. Krystal and I booked an airport shuttle for J&L that would bring them straight to our front door. Arrival time was about 5-ish so at 5 I went downstairs and waited for them. I actually waited a while and started to worry because the shuttle service is pretty good and its hard to mess up. They have our address and phone number so if anything went wrong I’m pretty sure they would all us and let us know. So anyway I just passed it off as Friday afternoon traffic. Krystal and I waited outside the front door that had a good view of the side door as well and waited. Still no Jake and Lauren. It was about 5:45 when we see this girl walking and I make a comment to Krystal that the girl looks like our friend Nicola, when the girl looks our way and starts screaming. It turned out to be Lauren!! Turns out that the shuttle guy came on time but dropped them off at a completely different corner of the apartment complex with no door!! WTF!?!? Anyway WE FIND Jacob and Lauren, Lauren who is flustered carrying a Japanese Travel Book and her address book. We help them up to the apartment have a laugh and headed out for our first meal of many. We took them to Denshichi, the awesome sushi place in Kyoto. It seems like we made a tradition if guests that come to visit us we take them straight to the sushi place. We totally ate until we were stuffed as well as down a few beers. After dinner we decided that we better head back so we could get an early start for the weekend.

The gang enjoying one of the many meals in Japan.

3/18: First Day of Vacation- It was raining. And not any old rain, but cold icy blasts of wind mixed with semi-slushy rain/snow. We originally wanted to take Jake and Lauren to temples and the historical sites of Kyoto but due to the rain we decided to take them into town to teach the how the trains and subways work, cardinal directions, and downtown. We basically walked all over downtown going into various stores and shops. Of course I took Jake to an anime store where he totally went wild and blew over a hundred dollars! Well most of it was for people back home but Jake did find out that Visa was accepted in Japan! Whoo hoo!! You know what that means right. We also took them to a katsu place that is known for making your own katsu sauce. Well you don’t actually make your own sauce but they do give you a mortar and you grind your own sesame seeds to put into the sauce. Oh and you also get as much soup, rice, tsukemono, and salad as you want. Ever since the first time I went to that restaurant I always told Krystal how awesome it was and how much Jake would love it. And sitting next to Jake eating our third bowl of rice, it was like a dream come true. We also introduced them to Wonder Tower. It’s an evil place where you may spend 20 dollars to win a stuffed animal that probably would cost 5 dollars to buy. But it’s an arcade center where they have lots and lots of crane games. This would be the start of an addiction that would last the whole vacation.

3/19: The Monkey Park- This day was much better weather-wise then Saturday. We decided that it might be cool to go to the Arashiyama and the Monkey Park. In the northeast part of Kyoto there’s a park where wild monkeys live and you can hike up this mountain and feed them and stuff. They also had a few temples and shrines. The first stop was the bamboo forest. It looked just like the bamboo forests in the Chinese kung fu movies. We took some really awesome pictures as well as some ninja pictures. After the bamboo forests we went to the Monkey Park. Actually it my first time there too. The last time Krystal went up was with Lisa the weekend when I got really sick last year. So it was a pretty ok hike up the mountain and when we first saw the monkeys there were creaming and chasing each other up the side of the mountain. It was kind of scary, it was the first time I realized that they were indeed “wild monkeys”. All the signs that told us not to look into monkeys’ eyes were also a little nerve racking. Anyway when we got to the top, there was a rest station set up, like a small little house. In the house all the windows were fenced and the monkeys would hang on them sticking their hands in begging for food. It was kind of weird because it was very human like. They would just stick out their hand and when you give them a piece of fruit or something they would just grab it. After a break we headed back down and it started to snow! That was kind of cool, just really cold. While walking down we talked about what to do the next day since we took a holiday leave and could do whatever. Some how we got to the idea that it would be kind of cool to go to Universal Studios Japan in Osaka. We justified it as a cool idea since it would be a work day for everyone else therefore it wouldn’t be too crowded and if you go early enough to get the fast passes it would be a cool Japan Theme Park experience.

3/20: Universal Studios Japan- We woke up at 6 in the morning to get an early start since the train to Osaka would be about an hour. This way would be able to get the tickets and get the limited fast passes and have a good experience. (On a side note Krystal and I needed to get to the Chinese Consulate to get our entry Visas for China. We decided to get the Visa while J&L ate breakfast and chilled for a while at USJ. It was a trek all by itself trying to find that damn place. First of all thinking of a consulate a nice building comes to mind with the country flag and everything. But the Chinese one in Osaka has to be on a side street behind a forest of huge office buildings. Anyway we found it only to be turned off by the “warm hearts” of the Chinese government. Comi-bastards. Anyway long story short we got them and headed back to meet up with Lauren and Jake.) So we finally got back to USJ and the day was AWESOME! One small discrepancy when we bought the fast pass tickets on the flyer it said that if we use all the tickets we could go on any ride as many times as we want. Which is a plus right? After the first ride I re-read the flyer and the fine print said that it was only during January 10th – March 10th. Seeming that it was March 20th that kind of sucked. But going on each major ride in the park without waiting was pretty awesome. The longest line that we had to wait for was the line to get a turkey leg. But the whole day went very smoothly with no troubles. We ended the USJ trip by eating on the Studio Walk restaurant strip, Chicago Ribs. It was a crazy meal and with meat, meat, and more meat. Totally AWESOME!

A picture of us after we went on the Jurassic Park ride. It was cold...

3/21: Slap Fatty Tuesday- The next day still exhausted from shopping, Monkey park, and USJ we headed back to Osaka but this time it was for the Osaka Sumo Tournament. Jake and Lauren came right when the Sumo Tournament started to we thought it would be cool to go and see it live. After you understand the rules and the techniques, it’s not JUST a sport where fat dudes push each other. It gets really intense. Another reason for the intensity of the sumo tournament was that Krystal and I have a group of friends that bet money on the tournament. We gather on the first day of the tournament, choose wrestlers and then see how ca Anyway we were able to spend the whole day in Osaka and then come back to Kyoto by dinner. Our friends Kevin and Val also had guests in town so we decided to merge parties and go to a restaurant that was known for the LONG LONG LONG Sausage. It literally comes out on a vertically pole with a hook. The sausage is about a foot and a half long. It was pretty funny watching Lauren’s reaction when the sausage came out. Yeah, it was pretty good. After the long four day weekend, everyone was pretty beat up.

3/22: Day of Work?- So we had to go to work but Lauren and Jake used their Rail Passes to go to Himeji and see the famous Himeji Castle. It’s the most unchanged castle in Japan I believe. For example the Osaka Castle looks like an original castle on the outside but inside is completely changed to be a regular building. The Himeji Castle although changed into a museum-ish building, the original stairwells and posts is all the original ones. We got a chance to go to Himeji Castle when we first came to Japan. But yeah Jake and Lauren went there while we worked. That day Krystal decided to make dinner for everyone which turned out to be awesome. She prepared her famous Sushi-bar dinner. She basically prepared all the different sushi fillings and had us make our own original pieces. That was a fun night stuffing ourselves with original sushi pieces and watching Arrested Development.

3/23: Lauren and Jacob took a day trip to Kobe where they went to the Spice Museum and see the Kobe Harbor. Too bad that it was kind of overcast and foggy. But I heard they had a real good time. They got to ride the gondolas that we ride when we went to Kobe for our re-contracting conference last June. Back in Kyoto, we had work again but by work it meant hanging out with other ALTs fooling around until lunch and then after lunch doing the same.

3/24: Day of Rest- As we went to work for one more day, Jacob and Lauren decided to take a day to recuperate before we went to Tokyo for the weekend. Well since it was Friday, they had been doing stuff non stop for about a week. So we let them sleep in and met up with them after work. Because we needed to wake up early for the Shinkasen to Tokyo early in the morning we decided to stay in and play Apples to Apples. Its this new game that has got all the foreigners in Japan crazy for. Well it is an American game but it gets really addicting so we asked a friend if we could borrow it and stayed in. Next Stop Tokyo…

3/25: TOKYO- We had some trouble getting reserved seats on the train so we decided to get their realty early and bum rush in to get the seats together. The plan worked and we were sitting in a group of 6 chairs that we made into ours because no one wanted to sit with four English Speaking people. It was going to be an exciting day since we were on our way to Tokyo and we were going to meet up with Lisa and Jessie. We passed the time on the train by playing a few simple traveling games likes “categories” and such. Anyway we got to Tokyo Station and saw Lisa and Jessie. The last time I saw Lisa was back in Hawaii during the winter break so it was good to see her. The first day we had Daiba and Akihabara planned. Daiba is kind of like a new city place they built that i\was built over a harbor. Everything was really new and the place had a huge mall kind of place that we decided to check out. It also had the Fuji Television studio. It’s one of the bigger studios/channels in Japan. I was looking forward to seeing some anime stuff since that channel plays some good ones but it was more about variety shows and stuff. We took a small tour and we got see some props that I’ve seen on TV and got to peek into a show that was being filmed at that very moment. After Daiba we headed to Akihabara. Which is kind of a Mecca for me and Jacob. Akihabara is mostly known for its electronic stores and computer shops but because of those specific products its also become known as GEEK HEADQUARTERS. All the nerds of Japan especially in Japan view this place as movie stars’ Hollywood. From anime to computers to video games to costume shops. It was pretty geeky but I was really psyched. It is also the main setting for a TV drama called Densha Otoko, “Train Man” which is about a super geek that helps a woman on a train. The woman is of wealthy background and is flawless physically. He then tries to win her heart while trying to be true to himself… a super geek. Anyway the show takes place mainly in Akihabara and were checked out the places that were seen in the drama. It was kind of walking in a movie studio or something. The girls mainly got into the crane games while Jacob and I went to video game shops, anime figurine shops, and computer stores. Unfortunately not everyone was interested in that particular place and we decided to go to the hotel. The hotel we found was on the loop line in Tokyo, connecting to all the major cities around Kyoto. Our hotel also happened to be only one stop away from Akihabara, so that was another plus. And we were literally a one minute walk away from the train station, but far away enough that we never heard the train while we were in hotel.

My Mecca...

3/26: Shibuya and Harajuku- On Sunday we went to Shibuya and Harajuku. Shibuya is known for the really huge crosswalk/intersection that they always show in movies. The most recent movie would probably be Lost in Translation. Anyway in Shibuya we were on the hunt for a store called Tokyu Hands which is kind of like a giant variety store. The store has everything from electronics to lumber, cosmetics to furniture. Jacob and I bought cool luchador wrestling masks, which later became a big hit. That was pretty much what we did in Shibuya. Then later in the afternoon we were on our way to Harajuku. It was a Sunday and Krystal said that Sunday was when everyone comes out and they sure did. We saw some crazy people. There is this one bridge right in front of the Meiji Shine and on one side you had the gothic/glam rock and on the other side you had the cutesy/maid people. It was quite and interesting show. They basically sit around and pose with tourists. We came to the conclusion that it was a competition to see who can get the most attention. We saw some weird ones. We even saw a guy that dressed as a female maid character. After the sun started to go down we were right in front of the Meiji Shrine so we decided to check it out really quick. Only thing was that it smelled like a liter box so we never made it to the actual shrine. We ended up at a crossroads and decided to make a small home movie. Lisa had brought her video camera and we re-enacted the opening theme for another drama we all watched. It was pretty weird just doing a make shift play right in the middle of the walkway with people passing by watching and snickering at us. But it was done pretty well after we watched it. We also met up with one of Lauren’s friends from back home named Kyle. I don’t know what I was expecting but I found out that he’s a pretty cool guy. He lived about 45 minutes away from Harajuku so we met in front of the Harajuku Station. While waiting for him we got to witness the public promotion attempt by a new girl band called Kisty. There were about 5 really petite girls all in white minis and white boots. They were playing their new single and trying to get people to buy their first CD. I was really tempted to buy the CD but the only thing that was making me want it was the fact that if they ever got BIG then I could say that I met them when they just started promoting themselves in front of Harajuku station. Anyway Kyle finally came and we went to a highly recommended restaurant called Copa Tokyo, it’s a Brazilian Meat Swords place. Basically you go to the restaurant and then a guy comes around with a certain type of meat on a sword and he/she cuts a filet right on to your plate. And the place was all you can eat in addition to a buffet table where you can get your starches and salads. We ate until we were completely stuffed and rolled on back to the hotel after that.

This is the picture of the famous intersection in Shibuya.

Some Harajuku girls... honestly I don't know what Gwen Stefani is talking about.

3/27: Roppongi and Shinjuku- Today was the last day that we all got a chance to hang out with Lisa and Jessie. Originally we were going to go to the Ghibli Museum. The animation studio that did all the movies by Hayao Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Totorro, and etc. But the thing is that you have to by pre-reserved tickets and when we tried to get tickets they were all sold out. It was one of the highlights of the trip so it kind of sucked that we couldn’t go but we still got to around to Roppongi and Shinjuku. Roppongi is supposed to be the area where you can find the famous Tokyo Tower. We just happened to come across another TV studio so we went and checked it out. In front of the studio there was a semi-park place that had lots of cherry blossoms in bloom so that was a nice treat for everyone. After the studio we headed to Shinjuku that is another huge city within Tokyo. We just kind of walked around and saw the big city lights and neon signs. It was kind of nostalgic for us since that was the first place we visited when we first came to Japan two years ago for the orientation seminar. We were about 5 minutes away from the hotel we stayed at. But other than that we just walked around and looked for lunch. We found a Subway where there was this really crazy guy there. He apparently left his bike right in the entrance of the store so the store keeper moved and when he came back he was really pissed. He started yelling at the two sandwich artists and stuff. He even went and got potted plants to place in front of the entrance so that it was closed off to more customers. Finally the manger came out and told they guy he was going to call the cops and the man’s attitude changed and started moving the stuff back to where it was. After he moved everything back he started proclaiming that he did nothing wrong and that the manager should call the cops so he the MANAGER would be taken away. It was pretty weird. After lunch we headed back to station to go back to the hotel so that Lisa and Jessie could head back to Fukuoka. We got back to the hotel and then send Lisa and Jessie off the best we could. I was a little worried about them getting back to the main Tokyo station and getting to their train but they seemed to have found their way just fine. After the departure of K-Vo and her little sister we made plans to have dinner with Lauren’s friend Kyle. Kyle decided to bring one of his friends and we decided to dine somewhere in Akihabara. We found a really cool Izakaya where they had electronic menu and GIANT drinks. After talking about lesbians, smoking out, and home we headed to a karaoke place to sing to our hearts content. It turns out that Kyle is somewhat of a loud rock guy and he belted out hit from Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and Queen. After about 2 hours of singing we headed back to our hotel for our last stay at the Business Hotel.

3/28: Last Day of Tokyo- On our last day we decided we didn’t get to see the imperial castle in Tokyo so we headed over there. We first found some place to eat called Chowders. It was a restaurant that served different chowder recipes from Seattle. It was really good especially with really awesome bread stuff from the bakery place down the hall. After that we went to the Imperial Castle only to find that none of the Cherry Blossoms Trees had bloomed yet. So we went back to Akihabara where they had a Edo-Tokyo museum. When we got to the building it was a huge architectural building that kind of looked like a pyramid on top of another building. When we got in there weren’t a lot of floors, it was just a giant hall with huge life-size exhibits of what Tokyo looked like in the past. They even had a huge bridge in the museum. We felt kind of bad because the day before with Lisa, we kind of just walked around town but she would have really liked the museum. A lot of the exhibits were hands on too. We spent practically all afternoon there and only at about 4 or so headed back to the hotel. We did one last round of the Geek Mecca and then got our bags and headed back to Kyoto. Krystal and I got off at Kyoto while Jacob and Lauren continued their trip to Fukuoka to visit Lisa.　The crazy four day excursion to Tokyo had come to an end.

For the next two days Krystal and I tried to clean up and get the apartment ready for Lauren and Jacob’s last leg of their vacation. We were just as pooped out as they probably were so we stayed and tried to resuperate.

3/31: Last Leg of Vacation- Lauren and Jacob came back on Friday and we took them to another all you can eat place. But this place has a specialty, which is to make your own drink. You can make whatever drink you want as long as they got the alcohol. You can even make it as string as you want too. The food was also pretty good. So we ate until we were all stuffed AGAIN, and headed back home but not before one more stop at the Wonder Tower.

4/1: Omiyage- We used this last full day to do some last minute omiyage shopping. For example they wanted to take some tsukemono home but it can spoil so we waited for the last day so it can stay fresh longer. We even bought some Jenrgish shirts. By Jengrish I mean English shirts with Japanese grammar. Its always funny to get a shirt that has a whole bunch of English on it but nothing that makes sense. So weird these Japanese people. We didn’t get a chance to hang out with our friend on JET so we decided to have a drinking game night at Kevin and Val’s house. They were kind enough to invite all of us and we just palyed Apples to Apples and Cranium with drinking rules. It was pretty funny, especially because our friend Pat was there who didn’t know of Cranium. He was very skeptical at first but after a few rounds he got into it and really got into it.

4/2: Departure- We kind of slept in on Sunday. But Krystal was working hard to make a nice home cooked breakfast for everyone. She made pancakes for everyone and we all kind of just stayed in. We had Lauren and Jake finish a Japanese drama they started when they first got here and I started them on a new one. Kind of evil but I guess now they have something else to look forward to when I come home. Anyway we sent them off and the apartment felt totally empty. We always get that feeling when guests are in town and stay for a while. But after they left we were so pooped we just sat in front of the TV and vegged out for a couple of hours. I don’t think we even had a proper dinner. Krystal just made some awesome Mac and Cheese and that was it. I got to catch on some of the anime I missed while Jacob and Lauren were here. We didn’t even attempt to clean up.

So it’s been about 2 days since they left and we still haven’t really cleaned the place yet. The weather was nice yesterday so I aired out the futons but other than that we could really use some vacuuming. I guess were still coming down from the two weeks of non-stop activity. Then next thing to look forward would be the Golden Week trip we have to China. I guess my passion for it is slowly coming on me. It’s another chance to hang out with Lisa and this time it’ll be just us three. I don’t think we’ve taken a trip just us so I’m getting excited for it. Sorry for the uber long blog but hopefully I can make it bigger by adding some pictures.