im not going to lie. i really dropped the ball on this one. its not that i didnt have anything to post, because i did. hopefully, ill eventually get organized enough to put everything together, and then put it up here. i think i might change the domain to michaeloriley.com or something though. something less abstract. i figure it out later. happy thanksgiving weekend.
theres like, snow coming out of the sky. ive never seen it do that before.
My parents sent me the entire country of Mexico in two boxes.
oh hell yeah!
I finally got my new cellphone today. Using its camera, you can translate kanji. Crazy.
If you want to hear the phrase “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” at least seventeen times a day, study abroad. You’ll hear it a lot. I am going to post today’s post, even though I haven’t yet transcribed the two posts previous. So deal with it.
Today I woke up at six thirty and was ready for another delicious breakfast. Today I had lots of corn flakes, ham, oranges, sausages, french fries, bread rolls and more. My newly hectic life is one that makes me very, very hungry apparently. We walked to Waseda again and had some more orientational fun. Three students from previous years explained to us the ropes.
I’m sorry, I have to stop to say that the show that I am watching is the most hilarious show I have ever seen. It seems to be some sort of reality show where an unsuspecting woman’s purse is taken and given to a pervert somehow without her knowing. The next day, the contestant watches in horror in front of a live audience as she watches the day old video of an excitable pervert digging through and fondling all of her belongings with extreme vigor. The live audience roars with laughter at the poor woman, who is now watching in suspense as the crazy man teasingly dangles her toothbrush over his opened mouth, before eventually putting the brush in his mouth completely.
Where was I, ah yes… After the ex-participants finished their speeches I we were split up to go on a tour around Tokyo. First we went to an office where the dorm people had to fill out paperwork. Luckily, I am not in the dorms, so I just hung out with some of the Waseda students and we practiced some Spanish on each other. Next we went to a very tall government building in Shinjuku and I got some good pictures of the city. We finished the tour by going to an Italian restaurant which I can’t remember the name of. It sounded like ‘the gallery’ in Italian or something. I had spaghetti, which had tuna mixed into the sauce instead of ground beef. It was freaking delicious. After the tour I took a quick break at my room before wandering over to the Hub in hopes of finding a group of CSU students ready to drink. I was not disappointed. I had some foreign beers, starting with Guinness and then a Corona (which came complete with a lime slice and all). I talked to some other CSU students, named Sean and Davida, and we are pretty sure we are the three who are going to live at the temple. The three of us went for a walk around in the dark afterwards and talked about our respective academic histories with regards to Japanese language. They have both taken way more Japanese than me, which is not surprising. We came back to the hotel, and with a few extra hours left in the day I decided to throw you guys a bone. I uploaded some pictures to the gallery, so stop hassling me, Patrick.
Grindhouse comes out in a week here, and the previews actually have me really excited again. Sayonara, suckers.
I am alive and well. It seems that now that I actually have stuff to post, their is simply no time to post at all. In any case, I promise this will change soon. I have been keeping audio diaries which I will transcribe here shortly. Don’t worry, guys. The only thing of substance I have to report in this entry is that I am, in fact, staying at the temple (o-tera in japanese)… which is super-badass. More soon. Promise.
Today began with a trip to our hotel’s lobby restaurant, called Timber. The food in their buffet was mostly American, and was very delicious. The bacon and sausage tasted more like ham and hot dogs, but luckily I like both ham and hot dogs. Also, I discovered that corn flakes are just as delicious in Japan. Hey, I ate some Japanese cuisine on the plane, so give me a break.
After leaving Timber, we headed to the streets to peruse the local shops. Having visited many a convenience store I feel comfortable assuming that Pepsi here is available only in the form of Pepsi Zero. Also, pizza and beer are not a delicious duo in Japan, but rather members of a trio consisting of pizza, beer, and potatoes.
One of the more memorable stores we visited, which I know I will be buying gifts from eventually, is a DVD store which sold various classic DVDs in Japanese cases. I only had time to take a picture of one, so I took a picture of The Whole Nine Yards. Or maybe its The Whole Ten Yards. Looking at the picture now I am not sure because Bruce is standing right in front of the most important word. But I digress…
After returning to the hotel after a fairly short but very exhausting walk, I spent the rest of my day confirming my theory that Japanese TV is very entertaining. The language barrier is not really a problem when you are watching a game show about flower arrangement professionals who must pick a random piece of garbage which they must then decorate with flowers better than the other contestant. If flower arrangements aren’t your cup of tea you might instead enjoy watching an hour long program devoted to four people walking around a city, trading objects for slightly more valuable objects at random businesses, with the apparent objective of ending up with a large portion of Kobe beef. The commercials are awesome, too. Especially ones starring random A-list celebrities like Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, or Orlando Bloom. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to watching small bear like creatures eating leaves.
Good evening, friends. I write you from the future. You see, here in Tokyo it is 8:55 PM, so technically I stayed up all night last night partying. And by partying, I mean sleeping. One of the perks of having a mom who was a flight attendant is that you get to fly in leftover empty seats for dramatically low prices. Consequently, my mother and I flew from LAX to Narita, Japan in style. Just before the flight, two people dropped out of first class and we were forced to take their seats. The cool thing about the front row of first class is that the seats fully recline, and by fully I mean you are lying flat on your back. It was from this position that I fell asleep, and the day technically ended as we flew away from the sun. I woke up today and watched the tape of Disturbia I had accidentally neglected before taking my long nap. Shia steals the spotlight once again.
After the flight we took a bus to Shinjuku station. After searching for 10ish minutes for any hotel that might have taxis lined up in front of it, we were lucky enough to find an empty taxi in the busy traffic. I asked the driver to take us to ‘Takanobaba’ to the ‘Sunroute Hoteru’ which he did not seem to know the location of, so instead I asked him to take us to ‘Takanobaba Eki’ which means Takanobaba station. According to my papers, our hotel is supposed to be right across the street from there. The driver still seemed pretty confused, but began driving and entering lots and lots of data into his GPS unit. At first I was able to keep track of where we were heading by comparing my map to his GPS display, but eventually I lost track completely, and began to panic. My mother remained blissfully ignorant of my fears for the next fifteen minutes, as I silently prayed that we were not heading in the opposite direction of our destination. My fears were soon eradicated as my mom pointed out the Shinjuku Station to our right. The taxi driver pulled over and pointed at the fare. I put his payment in his little payment tray and took my bags out of the trunk. As I closed the trunk, I was surprised to see the taxi driver getting out of the car and walking up to a guy standing at the corner. He talked to the guy briefly before the guy nodded and started walking down the street, and the taxi driver signaled for us to follow the guy, who took us to our hotel. The taxi driver helped us out after he was already paid! If you are not surprised, go to New York and see how often that happens.
Once we got settled, I went off to find internet access since there was no wireless access in our room. I ran into three vending machines at the end of the hall. The first machine had a bunch of watery looking sports drinks, the second machine was filled with Japanese beers, and the third machine had various heated dinner options, such as spaghetti. I took some pictures of the machines and headed to the lobby, where I found a computer with internet access. Just one lonely computer. Whoops. Mom just found out we can get an LAN cable at the front desk, so now I’m typing directly onto the internet. This is much better. Well, my dogs are barking, so I’m going to sleep.
I just ate my last Round Table Pizza of 2007. All of my bags are packed. In less than 24 hours I will be in Japan. I haven’t been away from my home town of Camarillo for more than two weeks before, let alone ten months. My whole life I’ve pretty much known what the next year would be like, and my predictions have always been fairly accurate up to this point. Not today. Today I have absolutely no idea what to expect of the immediate future. All I feel comfortable predicting at this point is that the next year of my life will be very very difficult and very very enjoyable. Now I am going to try to get some sleep. My next post will be in Tokyo! Freaky, right? Sayonara, amigos.
