Yakiniku Night in Shin-Okubo!

Sorry for the delay; I'm in my last three weeks as a student here, so things are getting crazy busy in terms of papers and tests and assignments. As a result I haven't been doing much in the way of fun, thus resulting in having nothing to write about. I'm sticking around Japan for two weeks after I finish my semester, though, so hopefully I'll do lots of fun things and write lots of posts to make up for the delay. Based on how behind on things I tend to get when it comes to writing posts these days, I'm fully prepared to be writing posts well into August even though I leave Japan on the 25th of July. So don't worry. I'll keep you updated, albeit a bit late, because I love you.

Golden Week, or That Time I Went to an Anti-Nuclear Power Protest

Sorry for the delay! This week has been really busy, and it's still only Tuesday! There isn't much going on here, really, except homework and room repairs. My water heater broke (again) last week, and right after that got sorted out, my bathroom decided that it would be really cool if it would flood completely after using the shower or sink for only 30 seconds. It's great. I meant to talk to my dorm head today about that, but I was so drained after class that I just came home and crashed, then did homework until 10:00 PM. I'll talk to him after class tomorrow. I'm home earlier, anyway, so there will be more time to take care of it in case it's a major problem. Yaaaaaaay.

Last week was Golden Week, so we had all week off from school. I didn't do much for the first part of GW except for homework and knitting, which was nice and relaxing, but my friend Jenny came to stay with me for the second half of vacation, and that was lots of fun! On Friday we decided to explore Okachimachi, particularly Ameyoko, which used to be the big black market in Tokyo during World War II and the American occupation until around 1953.

Shabu-Shabu in Shibuya!

Hello! I hope everyone's been having a nice week! It's the start of Golden Week, a week with 4 national holidays, so I have the next week off of school. It's rather nice, but this will be my only vacation for the entirety of this semester, and we're only a month in as it is, so that's kind of a bummer.

Even the Best Laid Plans...

So I'm back from my little trip to the US. It was really nice being able to see my family and my dog, and then being able to go up to Seattle to see my friends was one of the best things -- I hadn't seen most of my school friends in almost eight months! I'm glad I'm back in Japan, though! Most of my friends from my program are still here -- many people have decided to travel during our two-month break instead of going home to visit their families. Though some people have been lucky enough to have their families come to visit them!!

January 2012: A Brief Summary (With Pictures!)

I am DREADFULLY sorry about the long absence; January was the last month of our semester, and I've pretty much been doing nothing but studying all day every day. As such, I didn't really do anything interesting this month. I think I left the dorm on the weekends... twice. And that was to go to the grocery store. Surely, I am the most interesting woman in the world.

Hatsumode at Meiji Jingu!

Happy New Year! I hope everyone's had a good start to 2012! I spent my first day of 2012 doing 初詣 with Margaret, eating pancakes, and then spending the rest of my day in bed because I definitely did not sleep enough the night before, and being tired doesn't really mix well with early mornings out.

Oh yeah, also there was an earthquake. It was kinda big, but I'm okay. No damage here! Though next time we have an earthquake of that size, I should probably remember to get under a desk or something instead of staying in bed...

OMFG DISNEYLAAAAAAAAAAAAND and also some other things

So I know it's been a full 5 days since we went, but it seriously has taken me this long to fully recover from this epic day-trip.

Let's go to the Tokyo National Museum -- Again!!

Friday was the first day we had off for the school festival, so I decided to show Eric and Margaret my most favorite place in the world -- the Tokyo National Museum! I love this place so much; it's basically the Metropolitan Museum of Art of Japan, in my opinion, and you definitely can't see it all in one day. Since the pieces on display rotate every few months and admission for college students is only about $5, I plan on coming here quite often!

Let's go to Akihabara

Thursday was a national holiday, so we had no school, and we decided to venture to Akihabara, the electronics district of Tokyo. Akihabara is... an experience. I have a lot of FEELINGS about Akihabara, and not all of them are good, but I don't think I'll go into that too deeply here because this is primarily a picture blog and also because I feel like some of these pictures can illustrate the reasons for my feelings fairly accurately.

TREAT YO SELF and Baseball!

Sorry about the delay in updating! I've had a bunch of tests to study for, and tonight is the first time I've actually had a free night during the week, so I figured I should get a post up about what I've been up to for the past few weeks!

Last Sunday, we had our very own Treat Yo Self 2011 in Harajuku! What is Treat Yo Self, you ask? I'll just let the cast of Parks and Recreation explain that for you!

お台場に行こう! Let's Go to Odaiba!

First off, it was brought to my attention a few days ago that the typhoon video wasn't working; it has since been fixed, so if you'd like to see a bit of Typhoon 15 in action (note that this video was taken before the storm REALLY got started -- it was dark by then), by all means please do so! I've also added cuts to the previous posts -- now you don't have to scroll down the page forever. To read the rest of the post, all you need to do is click the link that says "read more..." in the body of the entries.

Friday was a holiday, so we had no classes, and as a result, Inga and our friends Eric and Aspasea decided to take advantage of the free day and explore Odaiba! We visited the Tokyo Takoyaki Museum (basically a conglomeration of several different takoyaki stands combined with a gift shop and stuck on the fourth floor of a mall), where we had a delicious, cheap meal, the Fuji Television building, which features a really interesting observation deck, Daikanransha, which was once the largest Ferris wheel in the world, and Venus Fort, which is this really odd Venice-themed shopping mall. All in all, it was a successful, if not incredibly busy day!

Beach Trip! Also Typhoon!

On Monday, Inga and I visited the area around Enoshima, and we went to the beach! We didn't visit the island itself -- we may save that for another trip -- but we had plenty of fun eating and swimming and relaxing in the sun.

Tokyo Adventures

On Saturday, Inga and I decided to try to tackle the Ueno Zoo and Tokyo National Museum. Being the ambitious, SMART planners we are, we decided to hit the zoo around noon on the hottest day of the week. But it's okay because we saw a billion animals... including PANDAS!

What, you've never seen a black and white before?

And I know it looks like the panda enclosure is TERRIBLE from the picture, but I promise that that's just the inside part and also only a REALLY small bit of the inside. It was a terribly hot day so they were (understandably) keeping the pandas in the air conditioned spaces -- regardless, they seemed really happy and active!