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.
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.
Today my anxieties were greatly reduced as I finally found my Japanese textbook from last semester. Hopefully now I will be able to catch up on my Japanese studies and I won’t bomb the placement test. In other news, I closed my Bank of America account and took most of the money out of my Wells Fargo account. Now all of my money is in my new Citibank account, which I’ll be able to access in Tokyo. My brother Patrick turned 24 today, and we celebrated the anniversary of his birth by dining at El Tecolote. I probably won’t be able to eat there again until next July, so the meal was very bitter sweet. Its crazy that there’s only three days left! How did the summer go by so fast? I’ll probably be posting much more often for a while, so more soon. Adios.
