Expo and Travels

This weekend was quite a busy one! I racked up a pretty big amount of miles on the trains, that's for sure. Friday night, I went out to an arcade in Kabuki-cho near Shinjuku Station. My Korean friend Su-hon brought me there, so it wasn't my thing to go to that part of town, we just ended up there. Oh well, we played some gameage and of course had a Yakuza or someone trying to get us to go into some sex place, but of course we refused and just kept moving. Saturday, I went with a couple friends to Makuhari Messe Convention Center, which is in southwestern Chiba City. We attended Japan's arcade expo there, and it rocked! My next post should have a picture gallery up of those pictures. We played all sorts of games and such that aren't out yet. All of Japan's insane crane and ufo-catcher games were free there. We played some team Half-Life 2 Arcade, which was interesting. I also was undefeated in Virtua Fighter 5, which was amazing, considering I was surrounded by Japanese... some of them being Otaku. Afterward, one friend and I took like 3 different trains throughout Chiba Prefecture, trying to get to my friend's house in Yachiyo. It was crazy, but we finally got there and played some Naruto on his Gamecube, then raided an arcade there. Afterward, I started panicking and caught the local train at 10:50pm, afraid I'd miss my train home. I ended up on the LAST one once I got on the Chuo Line in Ochanomizu. It was exactly a 2-hour train trip from his place in Yachiyo to Nishi-Kokubunji.

You'd think I'd be "trained" out by then, but I went and met up with another group of friends up in rural Saitama Prefecture north of Tokyo on Sunday. We played some Smash Brothers, MarioKart Double Dash, and a Pac-Man multiplayer game for a bit on the Gamecube. They went somewhere else, but I had to make my 2-hour or more trip back home so I could do homework and clean up and such around my place. I put some hours on those trains. It's a good thing I have a sweet metrocard that allows me to come from anywhere on the minimum fare, hehehe. The trip from Yachiyo should've cost me about Y2000, but it was only Y200. Hahaha. I have to go renew the card this week as well.

As far as plans for this week... Tomorrow, my Korean friend that lives just a couple stops away on the Chuo is meeting me after class for some pizza at Shakey's near here. The rest of the week is basic, until Saturday when we pull out for Aizu-Wakamatsu for the overnight trip into the mountains. That should be quite an experience, I think, and I'll take lots of pictures and probably have stories to tell. Unfortunately, though I technically was out and about all weekend, there's not much to tell, except that it all involved riding on trains, eating Japanese fast food(well... we also went to Wendy's once in Ikebukuro), and playing lots of games. I did rather enjoy playing the heck out of the taiko drum game with the DragonQuest VIII music on it. I think I may hit up the arcade for that game 'till I master those songs, hahaha. I'm going to go nuts if I go back to Baton Rouge to finish school and there aren't any arcades anywhere for me to go to... I don't remember any but the little Japanese one in the Mall of Louisiana, but it was quite small..

I'm starting to really tear up kanji in my studies. I suddenly have a love for them for some reason and want to know as many as possible. Maybe I'll even study Chinese one day just because their language is nothing but. Who knows... Anyway, I'm up to like, 600 or 700, I dunno. I have a long way to go though. I know a lot of characters, but some I may not know every reading and word they go in, so sometimes I'll see a sign and know the characters and can probably figure out what it means, but maybe don't know how to say it.. or the opposite sometimes. Well, I'm gonna go now so I can study more! I have lots of vocabulary that is hurting me for not knowing it, so I better get to it!

Warm Weather... For a Day

As the title suggests, today the weather was actually *almost* warm... but it will only last one day. We'll be back to the usual coldness tomorrow. It's a little bit colder where I am because though I live in Tokyo, I'm in the Tama area, rather than the central 23-ward area, so I'm up there getting away from the ocean and into the mountains. BIG NEWS people.. if you look over to the right in my "links" section, you'll see the "Picture Gallery" link, so all the ones I've uploaded to my friend's server are there for you to check out. At the moment, there aren't any new photos there. I'll probably toss up a couple of random shots from life up here on the blog from time to time of course. Speaking of photos.. one thing odd that sucks in this country is that you can usually NOT take photos if you're in a place. It's forbidden in most places like stores or arcades or whatnot. Oh well, just gotta use the spy skillz. I had my horrendously long midterm today from 1:30 to FIVE, but I survived. I couldn't believe the retarded couple of kanji I messed up on it though, my GOD... I know I screwed up the one for "warm, but not warm air" and I got the ones for "park(recreational)" and "wide; spacious" mixed up like a freakin' idiot. If you know Chinese or Japanese, you'd see why I did that. Oh well.. such is life sometimes. I just know so many that well they get jumbled.. hahaha. I do know a boatload.. but I have many more to go, sadly. I like kanji though.

School is kind of a pain in the (insert body part here) this week, but eventful. We just had this test, and now tomorrow I get to meet some of the people in the US Program way the heck up north of Ueno(a northeastern part of Tokyo) BY 7:45am to visit a sumo beya. That's freakin' cool, but um..... that's going to be like a 1.5 or 2 hour trip possibly.. I dunno. Anyone who's made the trip, let me know in the comments. I'm riding the Chuo-sen from my place out here in Nishi-Kokubunji, which is relatively close to Tachikawa, then switching to the Yamanote-sen in Shinjuku and riding it around the northern half of the loop to juuust before Ueno. After that, I get to go back to Shinjuku for morning class, and then after lunch go to normal class with my most boring teacher for a good 3.5 hours. Saturday, I have a morning culture class that talks about the place we're spending the weekend at next weekend. It's just one of those weekends, I suppose.

My friend Mike has a birthday party on Saturday at a MASSIVE club in Shibuya, but I'm torn because I really really want to go to this amusement/games expo in Makuhari that day. I'm still not sure what to do. I gotta be kinda cheap as the money well isn't flowin' like it used to, lol. I want to have enough money left over for the end of the trip so that I can do some fun things while hangin' out with Mark before I leave. I also obviously am still planning to go to Kamakura. I guess whenever I get cabin fever, I'll hop the train one stop over to the bigger station in town and hit the cheap(ish) arcade for a bit and stomp some Japanese tail at some fighting games(I actually hung in there the other day, unbelievably. I had the guy whipin' the sweat from his brow, haha).

Alright, that's it for tonight I suppose, 'cause I have to wake up so early. See you folks later!

Regular Posting

Howdy folks! Okay, I will no longer ONLY post when I have a massive batch of pictures to put up. I'll just keep filling everyone in on my daily stuffs going on here. Today is an EXTREMELY boring day, but it's also kinda nice. I slept probably half the day and am just listening to some Dave Matthews Band, listening to the crazy wind blow by my window, and surfin' the web while drinkin' some apple tea. I'll probably study in a bit, since this week is full of difficult tests in school and well... I might as well do something with my time worthwhile.

Last week was normal until... Thursday night I got a hellacious fever when I laid down to bed. It kept me up all night with bad chills, cramps, and even like some convulsions. I got up feeling just really sore and tired on Friday, so I took some Advil and went to class. I slowly got around, but halfway through class I felt it again. The teacher was like, 顔がとても赤くなりましたよ！大丈夫ですか？ (Wow, your face is really turning red! Are you alright?!) I took a walk for the break in the middle of class and took more medicine. I felt "okay" after that... enough to make it to my "date" or really just friendly dinner with a Korean girl from class, but afterward I had to dodge a tea/coffee invitation so I could get home, 'cause as soon as I got on the train, I thought I was going to die. I made it on the train, but after I got to my station, I really really should've taken a cab, but walked the whole like 25 min. trek down the hilly road (I'm not far from the mountains) to my building, and probably could've cried with happiness upon getting to my room. Anyway, this all made it probably the best/worst day in Japan, 'cause the Korean girl, named Kan Jon-Son, was really nice and we'll hang out a little more later since she promised some Korean food, but I was so extremely sick that it balanced the day out.

Anyhow, that night was terrible with me laying in bed from about 8:30, falling asleep about 1ish, and then I woke up at... 10 or 11 Saturday. I felt sooooooo much better. All is well now. I ended up going to the XBox Cafe with some friends in my building over in Kita-Aoyama, and we walked through Harajuku(fashion hipster area) and Omotesando(another fashion place). I noticed when we were in these areas that it felt like I was in an American or European city with all the ENGLISH on everything instead of Japanese, and the Western-looking (non-Asian anyway) people everywhere. I figured they put the Japanese flags all down the street not only for the national holiday but to remind you that it is indeed Japan. Maybe that's why the XBox Cafe was in this area as well, because Japanese in general don't care for American video games. I didn't realize that the area we were in wasn't terribly far from Roppongi and Azabu-Juban, which are VERY foreign. Oh well, you learn something new everyday I suppose. I live out here in the hillz with the Japanese family types, so I don't EVER see non-Japanese except for the handful of Americans and Canadians that live on my floor in this building. It's nice actually, 'cause it's quiet here. Being in Shinjuku everyday can wear on you, but returning to the quiet of Kokubunji (meaning "country temple") is not bad. It still is rather inconvenient. It does keep me sometimes from going somewhere, I think mainly because I'm not close to the train station and so I'm just like.... naaaaaaah, I don't really want to walk a mile or two just to go to some store or whatnot. HOWEVER.. because of the massive massive walking/jogging I do here and the obvious diet difference, I've lost like 25 pounds already. My pants don't fit and I need to go buy a belt somewhat fiercely. New diet plan for all people who want to lose weight... move to Japan! Hahaha.

For you people reading this that are into games/technology/other nerdy stuff, yes I have bought some Japanese manga and have been enjoying it, mainly for the purpose of helping my lowsy reading skills. Books are insanely cheap here at sometimes less than a dollar, but CDs and related media are about double the American price sometimes. I got a *cheap* $33 CD here a few weeks ago... If you really are a geek like me, then you owe yourself a trip to the Akihabara area of Tokyo before you die. It is the holy temple of all that is geeky. It's like a whole city of games, manga, computers, robots, anime... ... and of course there are these maid-girls and anime-costumed girls everywhere in the street that are pretty freakin' easy to look at (in a very normal, mature and innocent way.. at least for me, maybe not for most of the guys there), which call you ご主人様, or Master/My Lord, in Japanese and serve you food and whatnot. There are also usually girl bands performing music on the side of the street that are pretty good actually. I've been there... 4 times thus far I think. I went there to buy this laptop, I went there to help a friend look for a job, went there to waste time at a camera store while waiting to meet up with someone, and I can't remember the other reason, oh yeah, to shop for this laptop but I didn't buy it the first time I saw it.

There are certainly other interesting places in Tokyo, but that one was on my mind at the moment and so I typed it. If you're into fashion and such, you can probably go anywhere here, but the places that will destroy your bank account with all the big Western names are probably Ginza, Omotesando, and the area near Shinjuku Station. Shinjuku Station is THE largest and busiest train station in the world, with something like maybe... I dunno almost 30 train platforms (I don't know if that counts the subways too or what), around 70-something exits, and I think I've seen FIVE shopping malls in it. Millions of people go through this place just in one of the rush hours alone. It's quite a zoo sometimes. I actually hate the place, but there IS the only Mexican restaurant I've seen so far in Japan near there just outside the South Exit by the Odakyu Department Store. I don't know what my favorite part of the Tokyo area is yet. I felt at home in Tsukiji because we were at a fish market on Tokyo Bay, and I felt like I was back in New Orleans or something, with that fish smell, the water running out of the river right there with big buildings all around it, and fishing ships... I'm told Shinjuku Gyoen (the city's largest park) is awesome, but I walk a block from it every day and haven't been. It's so cold that I usually don't feel like sitting or walking through a park and just want to go inside.

Right now, I've got 2 trips planned out with the school and one I'm setting up on my own. One trip is with my classmates that are the Chinese and Koreans, and it is to some big farm in Chiba Prefecture. They say it's beautiful and there are lots of animals(though if you know me, this is no attraction or anything at all new to me, lol), and then some rides like go-karts, a big ferris wheel, etc. The US Program students in a couple weeks are taking a trip up to Aizu-Wakamatsu in Fukushima Prefecture, which is to the north and in the mountains. We're staying at a traditional inn where there's an onsen and other such olde skool Japanese cultural things to check out. My independent outing I'm getting people to go on, is out to Kamakura, which is southwest of Yokohama and Yokosuka, on the Pacific Ocean. It's an oooold samurai town that is supposed to be beautiful and a huge tourist attraction. It's on the beach and has lots of shops and restaurants, and of course castles, temples, and the Daibutsu(big buddha). I'm definitely going there next month.

Well folkses, I guess I'd better stop typing for the moment and get back to doing some studying. I hear my neighbors moving around, so we'll probably head out for some dinner soon, since there's no cafeteria food on Sundays. See ya'll later!

One more pic... Fuji-san!

I just wanted to post this pic of a view of Mt. Fuji from my neighborhood. I thought ya'll would appreciate it. You may have to look hard because the camera didn't pick it up so well because of the lighting at the time. This pic is in the gallery I posted below, but I wanted to make sure everyone saw this. Just click the picture to enlarge it and get a good look. I see this every morning going to the train station.

Eureka! I'm back on the blog, peeps!!

Wooooohooooooooo it's been a long time and I'm very sorry.... Japan is just so cool and I'm so busy all the time that I've neglected this blog. Well, it's been that and my sometimes spotty internet connection at night. I just uploaded a TON of pics. I've been all over the place. There are night pics of Shinjuku, pics of my snow-covered part of Tokyo, pics all over Tokyo such as Ginza, Tsukiji, Kokkaigijido(governmental area), Imperial Palace, etc.. I'll have some Yokohama Chuukagai(Chinatown) pics as soon as my friend sends them to me, since my camera batteries died that night and I forgot to bring more with me. I can't believe I didn't run into my friends at japanyears.blogspot.com because I saw in one of their pictures that I was at that very same spot. Oh well...

Things are going great here in Japan right now. I've become accustomed to it now and will probably be in a bad mood when I get home, lol. There are so many things that are really nice here such as the cleanliness, niceness of people, customer service, convenience, safety, cheap restaurants, and HEATED TOILET SEATS! Even a lot of public toilets have heated toilet seats, it's crazy! I've got friends I only speak Japanese with here('cause they're not American, of course, DUH) which is great fun and practice. Class is going well at the moment I think. I'm taking extra conversational concentration classes as well. I'll definitely be practicing Japanese with my Japanese friends back home when I get there so that I continue to get better now that I've gotten into it hardcore. I'd hate to lose the progress I'm making here. I'm learning like at least 6 new kanji(Chinese characters) every day on top of all this. I'm up to like 500 or 600 or so. These are the MOST useful ones of course, so I'm getting around pretty well on them at the moment. There are still times when I want to order something that has a lot of kanji in it and no pictures, and I just have to ask them what it is sometimes. The goal now is to become fluent at Japanese. I'm definitely coming back here and at least doing something like teaching English for a while just to keep studying the language and experiencing Japan until I'm excellent at it and get a bilingual job. This will be even more motivation to work to finally get out of that hellhole, I mean LSU. By hellhole, I just mean 'cause I'm sick of college and well, there are cool people there but I hate the classes at LSU.

Enough ranting about that.... I've been to Akihabara now a few times, 'cause it's cool and everyone wants to go there. I got this laptop there in fact. I'm going there again Sunday with a friend because she wants to get a better camera and well... that's the place to get anything that runs on any electricity, in the whole world. I'll get some pics this time of the girls dressed up in the skimpy anime costumes and the street bands and such to show ya'll. Saturday, I'll meet some people at the theme park I went to last time and then go where ever... I don't know yet. Friday(I'm going backwards...) I have class at a shrine in Ochanomizu and have to write a stinkin' paper on it, but it should be fun. Next week, I plan to go to Kamakura and check out all the feudal stuff there, like the Daibutsu(even though the biggest one is in Nara). I also need to get down to Harajuku and hit up the XBox cafe. I just have too many things to do here!! They're great though! The Americans in the school have an overnight bus trip to Aizu, in the more northern Touhoku Region, up in the mountains in March. My class itself will be going to some "Japan's Hawaii" thing with an indoor waterpark and an onsen sometime in February or March as well.

The pic you see above isn't on my friend's pic server 'cause it doesn't fit into any of the categories I've got on there at the moment, but it's a pic from going out with someone else's class in Shin-Okubo, or what is really known as Korean Town. All of the people in the picture besides us obvious Americans, are Korean except for the two sensei there. On either side of the American on the left, the one close to the camera is Tanaka-san, who is the English-speaking guy that gets things done for us, like translating in business transactions, or paper-work, or anything else we need. The lady on the other side of the American is Kagesawa-sensei, who is one of the teachers for the beginner classes, and also is my teacher in my morning conversation session. The American guy there is Liam, who lives across the hall from me and is well... actually Canadian, so I don't know why I was saying American. The American girl on the right near the back, is Kasi from Maine. I think she is staying in Yokohama. All of those students are in the beginning class, so speaking with them was well... painful, since they're all Korean. One guy spoke English, but he was taking this pic, so he's not in the picture. This is from like 2 weeks ago I think. I need to get a pic of my class soon. I'm sure I will as we do lots of stuff together in the future.

Here is a rundown of pics and the corresponding links....
Here are some pics from my building and out of my window here in Nishi-Kokubunji.

More pics of my place, but with SNOW!

The area my school is in, Shinjuku, at night.

This is Kokkaigijido, or the area where the Imperial Palace and Governmental Buildings are.

Here's some of Ginza, where the old downtown of Tokyo used to be before the place expanded.
You'll see the GHQ building in there that I took several pics of, where MacArthur had his American occupation office after World War II. It was the ONLY building like that left standing after the bombardment, except for the Emperor's castle.

Tsukiji area, where the fish market supplies the world's largest city with fish every day.

I made a few videos during the snow, but dangit if I still am having video upload problems... Hopefully that will get fixed in due time. Anywho, have fun with that and it's late, so I'll head to bed and start putting info and new pics as I get them from now on. PEACE OUT!

Currently Updating!

Just in case someone happens to check the site right now, I'm uploading pics to my computer and getting things straight and posting at the moment. I'm sorry for the delay, but I'm very busy here in Japan right now. There will be some things I don't have a pic of at the moment, 'cause my batteries died in my camera the other day and I didn't bring the batteries with me, so I'm waiting on them to be e-mailed to me from a friend.

Just a few more days...

Hey guys, quick post from friend's computer. I'll have internet access on my new laptop in a few days and will start posting like a madman the pics and experiences. I'm sorry but I've had techinical difficulties since I got here, but it will all be good soon and such. Until then, peace out, maybe 'till like Friday or Saturday if I'm fortunate :p

Pictures!

Hey everybody! I finally got pictures hosted. I have a good video clip, but I have failed many times this morning to get them up. Anyway, I've had an eventful two days. On Saturday, I spent the afternoon at Naritasan, checking out Omotesando Street, Naritasan Park, and Shinshoji Temple. It was crazy there, with people all over the place. It may have been some sort of special holiday there or something, but there were monks at the temple, seeming to offer blessings to people, and there was food EVERYWHERE. It smelled sooo good. The water in a lot of the areas there was still frozen and this was late afternoon, so it was quite cold.
Pics of Shinshoji: http://www.hova.org/gallery/Shinshoji-Temple-at-Naritasan,-Japan
Pics of Naritasan Park: http://www.hova.org/gallery/Shinshoji-Park
Pics of Mark's town, Yachiyo: http://www.hova.org/gallery/Yachiyo

Last night, we were out pretty late in Tokyo. Mark wanted to meet his girlfriend Yuki near the Tokyo Dome at the amusement park, but didn't want me to be left out, so he had her bring her friend Michiko with her. We had a lot of fun riding rides, getting some good food, and being silly. We went in a haunted house, rode roller-coasters, and made fun of Japanese comedians. It was really nice meeting them, so now I have a friend in Japan that I can probably exchange language with and hang out with sometime. Mark sort of treated it like a date, so I let him and Yuki talk and I talked in half-Japanese half-English back and forth with Michiko the whole time. We stayed at some Japanese restaurant 'till closing that was off on some side street, before having to catch the trains back home. It was a shame the night had to end, but it was late, we were tired, and it was cold. In the pics, Yuki has the hat on. The video I'm still trying to upload is from when they had the Japanese music and dancers, and of course I put the camera on us too. Hopefully I'll get it on here eventually, but if not, it's still on my camera, so all's not lost yet.
Pics from Suidobashi: http://www.hova.org/gallery/suidobashi

Live from Yachiyo

Hello folks! I'm sitting in my friend's apartment here in the Kayada neighborhood of Yachiyo. He's still at work and I just got back from walking about 3 miles for the heck of it. The scenery didn't change much, but I did find a couple cheap-looking places to grab some yakitori, ramen, and udon later when he gets in. This is definitely a suburban place... nothing interesting unless you like LOTS of houses. I'm mainly sparing everyone the big introductory post, or at least the major details, as I've e-mailed everyone already like crazy pretty much. Anyone who doesn't know though, here's a few things:

My trip here was extremely long and began with a 6.5 hour ride with Aaron from Baton Rouge to Houston. We were up kinda late at his grandma's house and ate at Applebee's before sleeping for a few hours and getting up at 4am to get to George Bush Intercontinental Airport in time. I had to fly from Houston to save a ton of money since flights have sky-rocketed in Baton Rouge and New Orleans since the hurricane. Anywho, the airport in Houston was eeeeeaaasy, even though it's freakin' massive. I just push a few buttons on a touch screen, hand over my bags, toss my backpack and shoes on a conveyer, and wa-la... done. I get a biscuit at McDonald's and get on the plane. It takes off, and into Detroit in just over 2 hours. Now the fun shall begin....

Welcome to Detroit, I say! The airport there is like the Great Wall of China in that it's long beyond imagination. I've never seen such a long hallway in my life. There's a freakin' monorail indoors there to get you across it from gate 1 to like gate 100 or whatever... and this is just one terminal for THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND DECENT! Hehe, anyway, I get something to drink, walk around a bit to stretch the legs and onto the next plane I go. I had noticed also that there was like a Japanese part of the place where the announcements were in the language as well as the signs, so that's where my flight was of course. I'm sitting there watching the Chinese tourists cram as many bags of crap as they can get on that plane in the compartments. One Chinese lady was yelling out Mandarin at me for 5 minutes before I calculated that she wanted to sit by her kids and needed me to switch seats, so I did. We get taxied out to the runway and the pilot comes on and says the engine's eff'd up, and we gotta go back for a few minutes to check something. TWO hours later, we're sweating our brains out on the plane and they say it's not going to Tokyo or Shanghai, so we go stand in the airport again. There just HAPPENED to be a spare 747 just hangin' out there for some reason, so 3 hours after that, we got to board again, with the Chinese complaining they will NOT stay the night in Japan, but giving up eventually since it's free and they can shut up about the World War II crap for a night. So I was delayed 5 hours, fun stuff. My legs were hurting like heck when I got ON the flight, nevermind how they felt later. I took some Ibuprofen about 4 or 5 hours into the flight though and that helped. I had cool people sitting by me though, a Japanese dude about my age and a guy from California on his way to Bangkok. I had a US Soldier behind me that I chatted with during the delay and he's got my e-mail address. That stuff made the 12.5 hour flight more bearable. Anyway, I got to Tokyo 7 hours after Mark got back here and he was still waiting for me at the airport, freakin' AWESOME! We took the trains home and yeah, here we are. That was a long day and I've had a couple days to recuperate. We've done some neato stuffs and I have a few pics. I'd like to show them, but I'm waiting on a reply from Aaron to see if he's going to have me some hosting space, and if not, I've got a place to use, I just gotta see what he's got first.

The pictures I do have are some random ones from the streets in Yachiyo. They're just pics of houses and a few neato buildings really. The terrain here is pretty too. Right now, I'm listening to System of a Down's new CD set, drinking some cold green tea I got at a vending machine on the way back here, and snacking on some peanut M&Ms that I'll miss once I'm done with them, since I haven't seen them here yet. I just walked about 3 miles, checking out the blocks and blocks and blocks of houses and houses... I will say that something interesting here is that people act like you're just another Japanese, even though I'm obviously a W.A.S.P. Hehe.. at least they know about the "W" in that acronym, but still... They talk to you in Japanese the same way they talk to each other, and don't stare at all. I kinda figured it'd be a bit different, but they act like there's nothing out of place at all. It's kind of annoying sometimes because I may not know what in the blue %#&% they're talking about, but a sales clerk is going to explain the usage of some random item to me anyway though I just want to complete the transaction and get the heck outta there. You probably can't buy a toothbrush here without them making a brushing motion with it over their mouth and explaining it. I'm just kidding there, just sayin' I've had them kinda go on about something and I'm just like, "hai, wakarimashita, arigatou gozaimashita," or "yeah, I getcha, thanks a lot." I'm of course thinking "urusei" or "shut up." LOL, but they're just being nice, so that's actually a good thing compared to a bastard clerk back home. This area may lack massively in neato things to do, but I will say it is very pretty. The houses are great, I want one. They're VERY nice, yet not very big. They just look comfy. Everything is new here because Mark says they just started building here, as it was recently very rural. The contrast is sometimes visible, as in my pictures, where you've got a cool house with olde skool Chinese architecture and a nice little field of vegetables surrounded by interesting-looking trees... and then BAM, a skyscraper or something. It also seems they don't have the concept of zoning here, so things are kinda mixed up. I of course HAD to get a pic of a string of vending machines right before bagging some green tea from one.

Tomorrow, I might go to the town of Narita and/or maybe the city of Chiba just to walk around some more and take in whatever sights I can while Mark works. I *MIGHT* go to Akihabara myself and look at laptops or something, or else wait because he plans on taking some girl out to a park next to Tokyo Stadium, so we could go then, but I think the electronics places in Akihabara aren't so lively then. I want to check out Makuhari as my aunt Satomi recommended, but it's a pain in the rear end from here, even though as the crow flies, I'm not that far. I'll wait 'till I move and then just take one of the JR lines there instead of changing trains like 3 or 4 times from this silly place. It'd be more fun to go there with someone anyway, walking around alone is kinda boring right now. Monday, I get to move into West Tokyo, YAY!!!!! That place looks much more lively to me, plus it's not too hard to get places from it. I'll be near Nishi Kokubunji-eki(station), which is supposed to have a huge mall on it with 9 floors, and then there's Tachikawa station a stop away. I'll be passing through Ogikubo and Shinjuku a lot, so that's got LOTS of stuff to do and see. I may have already posted all of this.... Anyway, I'm getting long-winded, 'cause I hadn't posted since a while before I even left, so yeah. I'll be working on getting those pics up on here within the next day or so, so just sit tight for a liiiitle bit longer. It's 6pm on the 6th here, so that means it's like 3am on the 6th back home... Well, I'm out. 'Till next time, Jaa ne!