time to crash
hey everyone, i'm back in japan and finally settled into my new dorm. its not to shabby but more one that later. first as always a recap on the last two weeks. they've been crazy.
so i moved out of lances which is probably a good thing. love the boy to death but i think we started to get on each others nerves after a while. i'll still miss being close to him and everyone up at school but it's just like a long summer vacation and i'll be back soon. so home was pretty normal. things seem to be going ok for everyone which is good. i bummed around for most of the time. bought more stuff then i really needed which i regret now. but oh well i'll end up using it eventually. i did get to see franz for a bit the night before i left and that was fun. got to play some old school atari. yay for 4bit(?) graphics!
so i barely sleep that night and wake up and get ready super early. mom took forever but it turns out we were almost rediculously early so it didn't matter. seriously though, i'm never flying northwest airlines again. the economy was cramped and crouded and the service was crummy. thank god i brought reading material and i was exhausted. i slept for most of the trip. i was pissed for a long time that my flight was delayed out of detroit so i ended up being late to japan. luckily rachel and latisha were late too so no one had to wait for me.
so on arival i pick up my bags and notice they smell awfully strong. upon unzipping my front pouch i discover my shampoo bottles have leaked terribly and the inside of my bag looks like a messy orgy just took place. lucky all my clothes were in plastic space saver bags and were thus unharmed. everything else though was pretty slimy and it wasn't fun cleaning it all up.
so icky sticky bags in tow rachel latisha and i all head off in search of my hotel. i had forgoten to print a map so we were navigating off my memory, which of course is impecable. on the way we hear from crystal and she's coming to meet us and knows exactly where the hotel is. seems she spent spring break staring at it from across the street in her boyfriends hotel. well we were saved except that confusion over exactly which exit we take got us lost. as rachel latisha and i are walking around we realize we've stumbled into hobo central and imediatly try to back track. we get stoped by some drunk japanese who decide to be helpful and ask where we're going. when we replied "chuo-ku" (hotel chuo) one of them got very confused and exclaimed "CHUGOKU?!?!" (china) at which point his friend whacked him upside the head and corrected him. yes my friends, i got three sad little foriegners lost in the middle of japan when we were looking for china. it would have been much more funny if they hadn't told us that they had no idea where the hotel was and that we were in a bad neighborhood, fallowed by leaving quickly. so back to a less hoboed area and calling crystal who was waiting for us. after much searching by crystal in the rain she spotted us and led us to where we should be. thank got for crystal.
so we get to hotel chuo and what do we find? aparently my reservation was never made. sorry. no rooms. not even next door. you sure your not brad taylor? sadly no i was not so we had to wander on at 9pm in a not so nice section of osaka looking for a hotel. we stop at the very next one. suprise they do have a room and one for 7 nights. i need one for 8 but oh well this will do. this will be great. well maybe not. the room was about 7ft. by 6ft. and was only really big enough for the "western" bed; ie. a bed fram with a board where the box springs should be and a futon on top. not comphy. oh well. hey look there are three other nicer hotels just a few feet away. to bad i already paid. *sigh*
but hanging out with people was awsome. i've missed everyone sooo much. it was like old times except that i had to leave early so i could make it back before curfew.
so the very next day rachel latisha and i head to a doujinshi convention in osaka. doujinshi are fan drawn comics for popular anime, manga, tv shows, movies, games, and just about everything else in existance. oh and most of it is porn, specifically gay porn drawn by women for other women featuring two men doing terribly naughty things to each other. so an interesting chance to look at the stranger side of japanese culture. dr. hester, the teacher of the sexuality class i took last year, was there with a bunch of students from his class. it was terribly amusing watching him purusing some of the most explicit stuff and chatting pleasently with the mortified japanese girls at their stands. hung out with everyone and met several people i knew and it was fun. whent to den den town afterword to get external hard drives and then dinner i think.
i can't remember the exact sequence of events over the next several days but it was fun. i made some new friends and watched the death note movies. couldnt' understand the japanese at all but it helped that i had read most of the manga. L was hot. i was increadably anoyed that he died in the end. oh well. hung out with other people and a trip to za watamis which was good. i decided to go to nara and actually see the big buddha everyone talks about. i have pictures i'll upload later. it was pretty cool though a deer bit my butt and that wasn't fun. oh i also took tammy to get a hard drive and we had to run back because i promised to go to mummys one night. it was good to see everyone being happy and mildly drunk again.
so the next morning i find that i've lost my wallet. shit. double shit. double fucking shit. not a good day. i go to school and pretend to still be a student and have them call around to the places i whent to see if anyone had turned it in. no dice. everyone was so helpful though. people asked around and contacted mummy and offered me money and general sympathy. i kind of started to feel bad that people were doing so much for me. i love my friends. so lots of calls, a few days serching, fooling kansai gaidai, and a police report later i still don't have my wallet. my parents are sending me a new card and hopefully it gets here before my money runs out. i ended up barrowing a lot from ericka and now i feel bad for owing her money but there was no way around it.
despite the lost wallet. i had fun. i hung out with ericka for a good portion of friday and she helped me find a hotel for my last night in osaka thought the hotel was in kyoto and thats fine. then we all whent to spa world! well most of us did but some had to stay behind for a dnd game that didn't end up hapening. oh well. but spa world was great. i loved the european floor just as much as the asian floor. it was great. even rachel, who we had to almost drag along loved it. we hung out most of the evening and had fun trying out all the baths. it was kind of a rush thing though since we got there late. still it was fun and i had a good time.
the next morning i had to check out and take my insanly huge amount of luggage to the train station and lug it all the way to kyoto. i spent the better part of 4 hours getting there and finding my hotel. i was soooo late to meet everyone and i felt like an ass because i had told them we should meet at this time. well after i drop off my bags i hope on the trian and go to kiomizudera to meet everyone. we were planning to look at the cherry blosoms but there were almost none in bloom. so we wandered around for a while and met up with other people to hang out for a bit before going our seperate ways untill we met up that night. i rushed back to kyoto station to get to my hotel and check in. then i rush back thinking i'm giong to be terribly late and miss everyone at our favorite pub, the pig and wistle. turns out i was the first one there and so i staked us a spot and eventually everyone arrived. it was fun being tipsy and telling funny stories and talking in bad accents with everyone. eventually i had to go and i rushed back to the hotel to make it there before curfew. i got there and jumped in the shower right before they closed. after that i collapsed into my super comphy bed and conked out.
woke up repacked and headed out again. this time to catch the shinkansen to tokyo. i thought i was going to have to wait all day but they had a seat available after only an hour. the ride up was ok. i cat napped for most of it because carrying those bags everywhere really tired me out. got to tokyo and luckily found the right station for my hotel. after what seemed like forever walking down the street i finally found it. i was pretty nice and had free internet and a personal shower. i was so tired from the last few days i just napped for the rest of the day. i could have gone to ueno park and looks at the cherry trees but i couldn't motivate myself to move. i was sooo sore, and still am.
so this morning i wake up again and pack again and check out again. drag everything back to the station and try to find sophia. end up getting lost in one station and haveing to buy a second ticket but i get there ok. however its 11:30 and i have to be there at 2. so i wait. first i have lunch at the station. then i wander over to the school. i find a picnick tabel and settle down for the next two hours alternatly reading and people watching. the new school term starts soon and they were welcoming the new japanese students. it was interesting watching it all happen. so at two i head to the overseas liason center and meet jun-san who introduces me to eriko who's going to show me to my dorm. at that point i discover my biggest and heavyest bag has lost a wheel so i'm litteral dragging it around now. eriko was very patient though and helped me find everything. it took about 40 minutes by train to get to the station for my dorm. after walking for a bit we finally found it. joy! eriko was really nice and translated for me with the desk assistant. i finally got moved in and i'm sooooo happy. i still have to get everything put away correctly but i don't care. its good to not have to be up and packed to move again for the fourth day in a row. i have little blisters all over my fingers and the palms of my hands from carrying that stupid luggage around.
anyway i like my room. its a private and its close to the laundry and toilets. i have to go to the third floor for the shower but thats ok. i even have a little balcony to hang my clothes out to dry on. and the bed is pretty comphy. not as soft as i would love but deffinatly not a boad . as of right now i'm doing laundry and chilling. i'm about to go have dinner cus they provide it and breakfast for us. pretty cool.
anyway this post is insanly long and i applogize. i have pics that i need to upload and i'm going to try to get the back log of photos from last semester up. well i'm going to wander off now. i'll be in touch later.
mata ne!
so i moved out of lances which is probably a good thing. love the boy to death but i think we started to get on each others nerves after a while. i'll still miss being close to him and everyone up at school but it's just like a long summer vacation and i'll be back soon. so home was pretty normal. things seem to be going ok for everyone which is good. i bummed around for most of the time. bought more stuff then i really needed which i regret now. but oh well i'll end up using it eventually. i did get to see franz for a bit the night before i left and that was fun. got to play some old school atari. yay for 4bit(?) graphics!
so i barely sleep that night and wake up and get ready super early. mom took forever but it turns out we were almost rediculously early so it didn't matter. seriously though, i'm never flying northwest airlines again. the economy was cramped and crouded and the service was crummy. thank god i brought reading material and i was exhausted. i slept for most of the trip. i was pissed for a long time that my flight was delayed out of detroit so i ended up being late to japan. luckily rachel and latisha were late too so no one had to wait for me.
so on arival i pick up my bags and notice they smell awfully strong. upon unzipping my front pouch i discover my shampoo bottles have leaked terribly and the inside of my bag looks like a messy orgy just took place. lucky all my clothes were in plastic space saver bags and were thus unharmed. everything else though was pretty slimy and it wasn't fun cleaning it all up.
so icky sticky bags in tow rachel latisha and i all head off in search of my hotel. i had forgoten to print a map so we were navigating off my memory, which of course is impecable. on the way we hear from crystal and she's coming to meet us and knows exactly where the hotel is. seems she spent spring break staring at it from across the street in her boyfriends hotel. well we were saved except that confusion over exactly which exit we take got us lost. as rachel latisha and i are walking around we realize we've stumbled into hobo central and imediatly try to back track. we get stoped by some drunk japanese who decide to be helpful and ask where we're going. when we replied "chuo-ku" (hotel chuo) one of them got very confused and exclaimed "CHUGOKU?!?!" (china) at which point his friend whacked him upside the head and corrected him. yes my friends, i got three sad little foriegners lost in the middle of japan when we were looking for china. it would have been much more funny if they hadn't told us that they had no idea where the hotel was and that we were in a bad neighborhood, fallowed by leaving quickly. so back to a less hoboed area and calling crystal who was waiting for us. after much searching by crystal in the rain she spotted us and led us to where we should be. thank got for crystal.
so we get to hotel chuo and what do we find? aparently my reservation was never made. sorry. no rooms. not even next door. you sure your not brad taylor? sadly no i was not so we had to wander on at 9pm in a not so nice section of osaka looking for a hotel. we stop at the very next one. suprise they do have a room and one for 7 nights. i need one for 8 but oh well this will do. this will be great. well maybe not. the room was about 7ft. by 6ft. and was only really big enough for the "western" bed; ie. a bed fram with a board where the box springs should be and a futon on top. not comphy. oh well. hey look there are three other nicer hotels just a few feet away. to bad i already paid. *sigh*
but hanging out with people was awsome. i've missed everyone sooo much. it was like old times except that i had to leave early so i could make it back before curfew.
so the very next day rachel latisha and i head to a doujinshi convention in osaka. doujinshi are fan drawn comics for popular anime, manga, tv shows, movies, games, and just about everything else in existance. oh and most of it is porn, specifically gay porn drawn by women for other women featuring two men doing terribly naughty things to each other. so an interesting chance to look at the stranger side of japanese culture. dr. hester, the teacher of the sexuality class i took last year, was there with a bunch of students from his class. it was terribly amusing watching him purusing some of the most explicit stuff and chatting pleasently with the mortified japanese girls at their stands. hung out with everyone and met several people i knew and it was fun. whent to den den town afterword to get external hard drives and then dinner i think.
i can't remember the exact sequence of events over the next several days but it was fun. i made some new friends and watched the death note movies. couldnt' understand the japanese at all but it helped that i had read most of the manga. L was hot. i was increadably anoyed that he died in the end. oh well. hung out with other people and a trip to za watamis which was good. i decided to go to nara and actually see the big buddha everyone talks about. i have pictures i'll upload later. it was pretty cool though a deer bit my butt and that wasn't fun. oh i also took tammy to get a hard drive and we had to run back because i promised to go to mummys one night. it was good to see everyone being happy and mildly drunk again.
so the next morning i find that i've lost my wallet. shit. double shit. double fucking shit. not a good day. i go to school and pretend to still be a student and have them call around to the places i whent to see if anyone had turned it in. no dice. everyone was so helpful though. people asked around and contacted mummy and offered me money and general sympathy. i kind of started to feel bad that people were doing so much for me. i love my friends. so lots of calls, a few days serching, fooling kansai gaidai, and a police report later i still don't have my wallet. my parents are sending me a new card and hopefully it gets here before my money runs out. i ended up barrowing a lot from ericka and now i feel bad for owing her money but there was no way around it.
despite the lost wallet. i had fun. i hung out with ericka for a good portion of friday and she helped me find a hotel for my last night in osaka thought the hotel was in kyoto and thats fine. then we all whent to spa world! well most of us did but some had to stay behind for a dnd game that didn't end up hapening. oh well. but spa world was great. i loved the european floor just as much as the asian floor. it was great. even rachel, who we had to almost drag along loved it. we hung out most of the evening and had fun trying out all the baths. it was kind of a rush thing though since we got there late. still it was fun and i had a good time.
the next morning i had to check out and take my insanly huge amount of luggage to the train station and lug it all the way to kyoto. i spent the better part of 4 hours getting there and finding my hotel. i was soooo late to meet everyone and i felt like an ass because i had told them we should meet at this time. well after i drop off my bags i hope on the trian and go to kiomizudera to meet everyone. we were planning to look at the cherry blosoms but there were almost none in bloom. so we wandered around for a while and met up with other people to hang out for a bit before going our seperate ways untill we met up that night. i rushed back to kyoto station to get to my hotel and check in. then i rush back thinking i'm giong to be terribly late and miss everyone at our favorite pub, the pig and wistle. turns out i was the first one there and so i staked us a spot and eventually everyone arrived. it was fun being tipsy and telling funny stories and talking in bad accents with everyone. eventually i had to go and i rushed back to the hotel to make it there before curfew. i got there and jumped in the shower right before they closed. after that i collapsed into my super comphy bed and conked out.
woke up repacked and headed out again. this time to catch the shinkansen to tokyo. i thought i was going to have to wait all day but they had a seat available after only an hour. the ride up was ok. i cat napped for most of it because carrying those bags everywhere really tired me out. got to tokyo and luckily found the right station for my hotel. after what seemed like forever walking down the street i finally found it. i was pretty nice and had free internet and a personal shower. i was so tired from the last few days i just napped for the rest of the day. i could have gone to ueno park and looks at the cherry trees but i couldn't motivate myself to move. i was sooo sore, and still am.
so this morning i wake up again and pack again and check out again. drag everything back to the station and try to find sophia. end up getting lost in one station and haveing to buy a second ticket but i get there ok. however its 11:30 and i have to be there at 2. so i wait. first i have lunch at the station. then i wander over to the school. i find a picnick tabel and settle down for the next two hours alternatly reading and people watching. the new school term starts soon and they were welcoming the new japanese students. it was interesting watching it all happen. so at two i head to the overseas liason center and meet jun-san who introduces me to eriko who's going to show me to my dorm. at that point i discover my biggest and heavyest bag has lost a wheel so i'm litteral dragging it around now. eriko was very patient though and helped me find everything. it took about 40 minutes by train to get to the station for my dorm. after walking for a bit we finally found it. joy! eriko was really nice and translated for me with the desk assistant. i finally got moved in and i'm sooooo happy. i still have to get everything put away correctly but i don't care. its good to not have to be up and packed to move again for the fourth day in a row. i have little blisters all over my fingers and the palms of my hands from carrying that stupid luggage around.
anyway i like my room. its a private and its close to the laundry and toilets. i have to go to the third floor for the shower but thats ok. i even have a little balcony to hang my clothes out to dry on. and the bed is pretty comphy. not as soft as i would love but deffinatly not a boad . as of right now i'm doing laundry and chilling. i'm about to go have dinner cus they provide it and breakfast for us. pretty cool.
anyway this post is insanly long and i applogize. i have pics that i need to upload and i'm going to try to get the back log of photos from last semester up. well i'm going to wander off now. i'll be in touch later.
mata ne!