gumogulong na ang itlog

New Orleans!! // PART THREE

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:47:19 GMT

Sunday, December 21, 2008

The last day, was spent on two more tours. First, we woke up early in the morning to go to a cemetery tour at 10am in the morning. The tour went well and our tour guide was very informative. It was kind of cool how much history can be told from such a small cemetery.

Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/cemetarytour/

After that, we did a swamp tour-- I should mention that it was VERY cold that day as opposed to the warm weather we've had all weekend. Cold for California residents, anyways. I was freezing at the swamp tour, but it was so neat to see the wet lands of New Orleans. Our tour guide even had snapping turtles in captivity and was pulling them out of their giant buckets without fear. Even though those things can bite of a human arm very easily. We even got to pet a baby alligator! Here's a couple of snap turtles and alligator videos:

Also, I found out that alligators' favorite snacks are marshmallows!

Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/swamptour

New Orleans!! // PART TWO

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 20:44:34 GMT

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Giselle and I managed to roll out of bed so we can make it to our Oak Valley Plantation tour at around noon. Miraculously, we had time to stop by the famous Cafe Du Monde before our bus was to leave. I had my first taste of their beignets with an ice blend of the cafe au lait. That donut was pretty intense... and very messy to eat!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/cafedumonde/

Then we settled on about an hour and a half bus ride to the Oak Valley plantation; a mansion famous not only for its history but for being used in several movies (i.e. Interview with a Vampire). The area was beautiful and very refreshing. The air was so clean!

Before we headed back, our bus driver stopped the bus again so we could enjoy the view of the Mississippi river away from the city. I'm really glad he did that!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/oakvalleyplantation/

That same night, we did a ghost tour of the French Quarters hosted by the Haunted Mystery tour guides who offer several kitschy tours about vampires, ghosts and voo doo. Even if you don't believe in the paranormal, I think most people will find these tours entertaining and pretty historically informative.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/ghosttour/

In fact, before our ghost tour, we ate at a restaurant called Muriel's which has a room that has a table set up for its resident ghost. Apparently, the restaurant's former owner committed suicide by hanging himself and began to haunt the place. He made food and silverware disappear. Now that he has his own private table, he no longer bothers the other customers and employees. His table gets refurbished with food and wine everyday; supposedly, the food and wine disappears every day! People can actually visit the room with the table, but no one else is allowed to dine on it at all. Just Mr. Ghost himself.

New Orleans! // PART ONE

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 03:57:58 GMT

Thursday, December 18, 2008

We arrived at our hotel, the Maison Dupuy, in the French Quarters in the early evening. Already, I was loving the environment– the old buildings, the gas lamps, the obvious presence of history on the surface of the streets...

We had dinner at the Court of Two Sisters where I had my first taste of barbecue shrimp, New Orleans style. We gave Giselle a hard time on her last night in the state of 'under 21', even though our waitress was generous enough to allow her to partake with a glass of wine anyways. The people there were the friendliest, warmest people I've come across in the United States. It made the whole trip quite pleasant.

Giselle and I wandered around for a little bit after dinner and found a cafe that served white chocolate pumpkin flavored gelato. It was delish!

Friday, December 19, 2008

We woke up and got ready for our breakfast/lunch and made our way to a restaurant called Brennan's. Their breakfast was a three-course meal! We also ordered a round of gin fizz for everyone, which looks a lot like milk so it suited our morning meal. It is officially Giselle's birthday and she is 21 years old. She opened up some gifts from her mom and aunt before our food were served.

After we ate, we rode a horse buggy whose driver doubled as a tour guide around the city. I barely listened to him as he talked though and just took loads of photos of the areas we visited. That night, we had dinner at Bacco's where I ate more barbecue shrimp! Giselle received more presents and I got some too! Her mom and her aunt are both so sweet!

Then, we parted ways as Giselle and I got ready to go out for the night to celebrate her birthday hardcore style. We met up with my friend, Hai, and started our venture on Bourbon St. in a bar called The Dungeon. It was somewhat suiting for Giselle's first legal bar adventure (though no one really checked for ID on Bourbon St...).

We went to Pat O' Brian afterwards, where we ordered our first Hurricanes after we were already loaded with three drinks. That drink is killer! The rest of the night was a big, fun blur! We made friends for the night, too, and they were really nice and fun. We all ended up at a gay bar/club and much shenanigans happened which I probably shouldn't talk about in this public journal. Haha. :)

It was a really cool night though and I'm glad I got to experience the night life on Bourbon. Even though I definitely can not do that every night since I am an old lady at heart.

Photo links:
Photos of when we first arrived:
http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/sets/72157611534146176/detail/?page=24

Giselle's flowers:
http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/gisellesflowers/

Maison Dupuy:
http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/maisondupuyhotel/

Breakfast at Brennan's:
http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/breakfastatbrennans/

Horse buggy tour around the French Quarters:
http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/thefrenchquarters/

Giselle's birthday dinner:
http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/gisellebirthdaydinner/

Our night on Bourbon street:
http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/bourbonstreet/

New Years @ San Francisco

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 03:02:38 GMT

Dec. 29, 2007 - Saturday

At around 10 a.m., the crew managed to gather themselves at my house. We threw our luggage into the trunk of my car and set off on our journey. A little after noon, we arrived at Santa Barbara and had lunch at the pier. I had a calamari steak burger since I've never had one before-- I had to try. It was pretty good, though I think the sauce on it was a little weak. Our resident Brit-Boy decided to try fish and chips to "compare"... After we ate, we wandered around the pier a bit, looking at all the tourist trappy stuff and ate some ice cream.

This is Simon and Nancy's couple tourist shot

We wanted to go inside the museum on the pier but we had trouble finding the entrance since we were all kinda slow. When we did finally manage to spot the front door, we realized that the dinky museum was not free and decided against it.

Instead, we found a ship cruise that advertised itself as a Pirate Cruise-- ultimate tourist trap, but we went for it ($10 bucks a pop). It was a 25 minute boat ride and they took you to see some sea lions and Pelican Island. It was pretty cute.

The rest of Santa Barbara: http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/santabarbara/

A little after 3 p.m., we left Santa Barbara and made our way to the Madonna Inn, which is this tacky hotel and each room has a different theme. Our room was called the Pony Room. Despite the tacky decor, the hotel was actually really nice. Our room was the size of a one-bedroom apartment and we loved it.

big beds!

After all the driving for that day, we relaxed in our hotel room and turned on the television. We watched a little bit of a Bourne movie, eating sandwiches that Nancy packed for the trip, before deciding to explore around the hotel a little. We poked around the hotel shops (all full of tacky but expensive crap) then waited to get a table at their cafe.

The wait was pretty bad and when we finally got seated... no one served us, except for the girl taking drink orders. We stared at the menu for a little bit, and after almost half an hour of waiting for a waiter to take our orders, we decided to leave. We went to little bakery in the cafe and bought two slices of their chocolate cake. We took our loot back to the Pony Room and popped in Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back into my laptop. Then it was lights out.

Madonna Inn photos: http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/madonnainn/

Dec. 30, 2007 - Sunday

We woke up pretty early the next day and reluctantly left our beloved Pony Room. Giselle got on the driver's seat for the day and we made our way to the Hearst Castle via highway 1. We scheduled ourselves on one of the tours and learned what one can do with too much money...

And the rest: http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/hearstcastle/

We enjoyed our tour guide a lot. I felt like he should be in a movie or something, as the awesome-old-guy. We dreamed of a day when we would be rich enough to build our Geek Castle and have parties with our own heroes like Kevin Smith and Bruce Campbell.

We left the castle after our tour and got on the 101 freeway again to get to our final destination, San Francisco. Oh yeah-- for some reason, there were a lot of dead skunks on the freeway. Go figure. It was really smelly though.

For lunch, we stopped by a small town called Greenfield and found a small Mexican restaurant. Inside, one of the locals chatted us up and all of us Southern Californians squirmed in suspicion at the small town friendliness. We got through it though and then made the rest of the way to San Francisco. I fell asleep in the car and got my picture taken, which seems to be a solid law of action when one falls asleep among good friends.

Around 5 p.m., after getting a little lost and confused with all the one way-no-left-turns streets, we pulled up on the Travelodge on Market St. Our room was disappointing in comparison to the Pony Room. First off, it smelt kinda funny. Second off, the beds were tinier and wrapped in plastic. We sucked it up and managed ourselves, then went to the Stinking Rose for dinner. After dinner, we called it a night since most things were closing and went back to our hotel room. We vegged out and popped in Clerks II for the night's entertainment.

Dec. 31st 2007 - Monday

We woke up at a good hour and investigated the public transportation, figured out a way to get ourselves to the Fisherman's Wharf. Once we were there, we found yet another cruise around the bay. Originally, we wanted to take a cruise to Alcatraz Island, but the official cruise was sold out and there didn't seem to be any other ferries that would drop us off the island. We opted for a cruise that took us under the Golden Gate Bridge and went around Alcatraz a couple of times. The ship's narrator was Captain Nemo, who claimed to be a pirate of some sort.

When they dropped us back on the mainland, we immediately went hunting for lunch-- since we were at the Wharf, we wanted clam chowder in sourdough bread, of course. The weather was cool that day, but when we were out in the water, we freezed our asses off. We settled to eat indoors in Boudin's and had a yummy lunch of clam chowder and some gourmet mac and cheese.

From where we sat in the restaurant, I spotted Museum Mecaniqee, which is an arcade, but also a museum of old penny arcades. It was really interesting and funny to see some of the old games people had.

I also decided to play some old school Tekken 3 and was kicking butt until the 7th or 8th stage. I'm out of practice.

Since we were completely doing the tourist-thang, Giselle hunted down the wooden trolleys and we rode on one to get to Union Square. When we got there, we went inside a Borders store and the kids gorged on some books and comics. I only bought one thing, the graphic novel version of Artemis Fowl. Afterwards, we hunted down the H&M store. Spent some time inside the store trying on clothes but in the end, I only found one sweater I wanted to buy. One of my fellow ex-JSP friend started texting me, knowing I would be in NorCal that day. We arranged to meet-up for some New Years Eve celebration later that night.

Nancy and I are pretty old-lady and were tired pretty quick. Shops were closing pretty early that night and so we made our way back to our hotel. We stopped by a cute cafe/bakery by our hotel to pick up some dinner. Once inside the room, we popped in 28 Weeks Later, which wasn't really a good movie to watch while eating, but we survived. After the movie, Brett and his friend arrived at our hotel room (and laughed because I had changed in my pajamas). We chilled for a little bit, talking and watching Project Runaway.

When 10 p.m. rolled around, we emerged into the streets again and walked towards the direction of the Castro district to see if anything was going on there. A block from our hotel, we discovered a comic book store (closed for the day) and laughed at the irony since the whole day, we were looking for a comic book store and found none, without realizing there was one next door to us the whole time.

Brett gave the kids a little point-and-look tour of Castro. The crowd seems to be settling inside bars, clubs and theater shows for the night, the first two we couldn't really do because we had a under-21-individual with us. Finally, we jumped into a cable car going to the Fisherman's Wharf. The ride was free for the night and we got dropped off a couple of blocks away from the Ferry Building. The road was closed off for the event.

Jan. 1, 2008 - Tuesday

The crowd was huge! And drunk! And stoned (much to Giselle's excitement)! All sorts of people were there-- from families with kids to unruly college students. When midnight struck, there were fireworks. Our view was blocked by trees, unfortunately, but we saw the ones that were higher and bigger than the trees.

The fireworks went on for about 20 minutes and we hung out for a few more minutes after it, just being silly and whatnot. I was definetely getting really tired by then but we still had to get back to our hotel somehow. Taking public transportation back was almost impossible. We began trekking up the 17 blocks to the hotel... I think we were too tired to even challenge our own crazy decision by that point.

We managed to get back somehow-- said goodbyes to Brett and his friend and promptly collapsed in bed to prep ourselves for the drive the next day. Even though we exhausted ourselves, it was a good way to celebrate the new year!

The rest of the photos: http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/tags/sanfrancisconewyearseve/

New York October 2007

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 00:37:24 GMT

My friend, Missy, invited me to accompany her in New York to stay at her cousin's house in Brooklyn. I decided to go because it's been a while since my first visit in the Big Apple. Mostly, we spent a lot of time with her relatives. Her cousin, Jenna, and her husband, Jhon, were awesome.

On our first night, we went to an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. The restaurant's manager took an interest in our table and gave us free wine (I think each of us had at least one bottle of wine each........), free appetizers and desserts. Holy crap. They had the best pumpkin cheesecake in the world. It was AMAZING. *____*

Bryant Park

Our second day, Friday, turned out to be a very full day. We woke up and got ready to hop on a bus and spend the day and night in Manhattan. First, I went to Hachette Book Group USA's office to meet up with the people of Yen Press. Yen Press' founder took me out for lunch and a few drinks. After lunch, he decided he wanted to go to karaoke and more drinks that night. He sent me off and went back to work, while Missy and I went shopping in SoHo for a little bit. I bought a couple of cute dresses and some pieces from Uniclo... they had the best skinny jeans ever!

Around 6pm, we met up at a karaoke box called Duet 35. Unlike the karaoke boxes in California... this one serves alcohol and food like in Japan! DUDE! Why is the east coast way better than the west coast?!?! Missy was with me, and so was my friend Branden. Kurt and Tanya from Yen press were there and a couple of new people showed up later, and so did my friend, Sean. It was really fun and Kurt was generous enough to pay for the whole thing~ Free things adds to the fun XD XD XD YEN PRESS IS AWESOME!

After karaoke, Missy, Branden, Sean and I ran off to find Serendipity to meet with Missy's friend, Oscar. After about a 45 minute wait, we finally got seated and had some crazy frozen hot chocolate-- I know. The concept confused me too. But all that really mattered was that... it was quite tasty.

Serendipity's frozen hot chocolate

Oh, and the main reason Missy wanted to go to this restaurant was because it was central to that John Cusack movie... they had good clam chowder soup at least.

We staggered back home that night and woke up the next morning to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After struggling with public transportation (aka: buses not showing up), we made it to the museum later than we planned (which didn't leave us much room to do anything else afterwards :( ). We did have hot dogs at the steps of the museum so we could have some energy-- that was the only morning we didn't have bagels. Again-- why do the east coast have BETTER bagels with cream cheese than the west coast?? L.A. sucks!!!

art for the sake of art? to be or not to be??

After the whole bus incident and no breakfast we got to the city feeling hungry. The hot dogs helped bring our spirits back up and we enjoyed ourselves some art for the rest of the afternoon. We couldn't hang out in the city that night because Missy's grandparents wanted to take us out for dinner back in Brooklyn. We went to the dinner; went back to Jenna's house and had some wine... then went to pick up some dark and white cookies, chocolate cake and Italian ice... then we settled down in the living room and watched Will Ferrel's Stranger than Fiction until we were tired enough to go to bed. Though we spent a couple of hours gossipping in the bedroom, of course.

The last day, we saw more of Missy's relatives and did some shopping in Brooklyn until we got picked up to go to the airport to catch our 6pm flight.

I should mention that when Missy and I boarded our plane, Will Ferrell was sitting in the executive business class. Missy and I were amused because we were watching his movie the night before... and suddenly, there he was. We both looked at each other and went "OMG It's Will Ferrell LOL" XD I wished that happened every time I watched a movie and got on a plane.

The rest of the photos are in my flickr account!
http://flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/sets/72157602438551683/

Philippines, Summer 2007, Part 1

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 14:24:49 GMT

Japan Trip 2007, Part V

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 05:10:39 GMT

DAY TEN CONT.
Dessert, cake, and curry party!

my ichigo tiramisu!

Missy was obsessed with the strawberry cakes and we finally bought one for the curry party at Gin's house X3 Curry cooked by Gin's boyfriend, Seobon. XD

Everyone falls inlove with Mabo~

DAY ELEVEN
We're back in Harajuku... and this time, for crepes. And the Meiji shrine.
Also, we went clubbing in Shibuya the same night.

Drink bar at Jonathan's is my best friend. Missy is using her mind powers here.

I've converted Missy into Japanese brandism.

WHOO SHOPPING!

At this point, I decided there wasn't enough pictures of me on my own camera. Therefore, there will be a lot of shots of my ugly face after this...

"Look, Missy! Sailor Marses!"

this guy... made our vacation special. More of him later. But first... Missy and I attempt the mysterious Harajuku bridge cosplays...!!!

Too vogue, Missy...

There ya go, less vogue... more Lolita!

IS DAT SUM LOLI?!
Actually.. that's a Man-Loli.
The number of Man-Lolis has risen since I was last in Japan...

SUM VISUAL KEI POSING
Sultry EXP is 0....

やってらんねぜ。。。！
There are no differences between lolita and j-rock cosplayers here and there. And this is how I feel about 'em in general. :D...!

SULTRY LVL UP!

Trying to emulate my hero and BFF, Gackt.

Okay, now back to this guy... I can't really explain him. You have to watch the video:

what else can I say, right?....

goodbye, Harajuku... we shall meet again.

I miss you, Miki!
I like the bag of chips over our head.
Thanks, Gin <3

Shibuya at midnight!

Chris, the German.

Ice coffee mochaaaaaaa....

We called him Fabio. He spent every Sunday in Akihabara, playing video games and then having tea at a maid cafe. He goes to the same maid cafe to "practice his Japanese" and so the maids will remember him...... yet he told people that Missy and I were "too Otaku" for him. HAHAHAHA! Too awethome. I never did learn his real name. He'll always be Fabio in my mind.

Gene, my Tokyo partner in crime. Who is now an honorary Filipino and is my cousin. w3rd.

HAI GUYZ!
I'm so hot, I don't know how the boiz could resist.

OMG. Shoes.

an alley way full of love hotels.

I just thought it was funny that it looks like people are lining up for the flower shop...

INSERT CRAZY TIME AT THE CLUB IN HERE...!

we emerge from the club at 5AM in the morning... here's Shibuya before the trains are running.

Missy can pretend to look sober for the camera, but Nate looks drunk when he didn't get drunk that night at all XD

DAY TWELVE
Last day. Awwww. Yakiniku, the Pokemon Center, and karaoke.

Super hot. Let's hug it.

picking pokemons is serious business.

Gin showed us her pokemons XD

she showed us THEMS!

Hahaha... Japanese boy.

And that's the end of my pictures of Japan this year~! :]

Japan Trip 2007, Part IV

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:54:46 GMT

DAY EIGHT</b>
Bus trip with my former host family!

cherry picking!

we were hiding from the dinosaurs. in the cherry farm.

DAY NINE
I met Misha in Shibuya.

Hanging out at the TIU lounge before going to Shibuya.

Me and Misha after having dinner at Cafe Christon!

Missy loved Shibuya.

DAY TEN
We finally made it to Jackson Hole XD

We moved to Gin's place by this time, and I slept with a fuzzball on my futon.

whiny Hachi XD

Japan makes good iced mocha coffee.

we were there when the place opened for lunch hours, and the place did fill up rather quickly during the first hour.

Studying the NANA display-- which was the manga in French for some reason...

The burgers were really... really.... good. X__X Best burger in Japan. You can taste all the flavors with each bite ~DIES~ I want another one!

My hair was doing stupid flippy things that day X_X

Japan Trip 2007, Part III

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 12:10:18 GMT

DAY SIX and SEVEN
Kyoto!

can't see Missy's face.. but you can see the ocean!

I believed this kid was part of a gang or a yakuza in training. You can't really see it, but on his arm, there are some sort of tattoo, or burnt marks shaped into a cross... AIN'T HE BADASS?!

All my pictures are of everyone else, I swear.

o wait! there's my beauuuuuutiFUL faceness!

we stayed at a ryokan, and this was our backyard from our room.

Soooo... Missy and I had a little picture story...

she wanted to give her heart to him!

but he couldn't let it happen... TRAGIC.

Japan Trip 2007, Part II

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 15:58:57 GMT

DAY TWO CONT.
Karaoke!!!

This is my favorite picture of that night... hahahaha.

Whooo! SWEATY!

DAY THREE
Namja Town and Izakaya

This is a shot of Gene's apartment, where we stayed for the most of our trip.

A land of Gyoza is exciting.

Beef flavored ice cream.

Curry flavored ice cream.

Snake flavored ice cream.

The best thing about having friends to come back to in Japan is that there's a gathering at an izakaya at one point... and izakaya nights are ALWAYS a good time. XD

Starting out the night with chugging down beer.

Missy smokes when she's drunk.

At the next table, a group of young uns were having a crazzzzay birthday party.

My Yayoi and Takaki-- best JSP PAs evah!

When I lived in Kawagoe during my study abroad time in Japan, a band named "Futari Boshi" played live weekly at the station near my house. I visited my host parents on day four and guess who were playing there still...

here's a link to my last post about them:
http://gulong-itlog.livejournal.com/6218.html

DAY FIVE
Failed journey to Jackson Hole, Harajuku Cosplay bridge, and Akihabara

Just to explain, Jackson Hole is a bar/restaurant that has been featured in mine and Missy's favorite manga series, NANA. Since we are insane and think of each other as Nana and Hachi, it was our mission to find Jackson Hole and eat there during our trip together in Japan. It was a hard place for us to find... but we did find it... and it turns out, they don't open for lunch on Sundays. D'OH!

Re-enacting some NANA because we are geeks...

Japan Trip 2007, Part I

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:07:00 GMT

DAY ONE
Harajuku and dinner with friends in Asakadai.

We went to heerosferret's home to eat dinner on our second night, and we met little Mabo-chan ^0^

DAY TWO
JUMP SHOP at the Tokyo Dome

San Francisco, September 2006

Fri, 08 Sep 2006 20:31:53 GMT

On Labor day weekend this year, stcolapop, her boyfriend, Saul and I drove out to San Francisco and stayed at miss_elisa's and her roommate's apartment. A very awesome apartment, may I add (perhaps because awesome people live in it!). It was a whoooole lot of fun. The intention of the weekend was to mainly do a lot of shopping-- I wasn't personally interested in going sightseeing, because that's all I ever did the last couple of times I was in San Fran, but we ended up doing a little bit of that too. Which wasn't bad at all (got to see seals!)

Elisa and I heart-ing San Francisco!

We had a late start Friday night, at around 9:30 PM, we left my house for the city. Saul did all the driving and by 5 am (getting a bit lost, but not too badly), we were at Elisa's apartment. We ended up crashing in her living room and sleeping in until about 11am. I wasn't in any particular rush, so we managed to drag ourselves out of the apartment around 1pm. We went to Union Square, and walked around looking for a place to eat. Saul asked to San Fran natives who were sitting around at the park for a good recommendation and we ended up at Mocca and ate some of the BEST sandwhiches I ever did taste. Elisa and I also shared a fruit tart, and Saul and Lisa had a slice of cheesecake.

On the way to Mocca, we spotted the Vivienne Westwood shoes at a Nine West window. We made a little stop to try on some shoes and pretend we could afford them. Oh, Vivienne.. why must you ALWAYS be expensive X_X

Mmm... sammich.

After Mocca, we went to the Levi's store and Lisa and Saul ended up getting pants. I wanted to go to see the machine that tells you what's your perfect jeans fit, but the machine was out of order! Boo!

Then, we hopped onto a bus towards Japantown to catch our haircut appointments at Glam Up at the Peace Plaza. Lisa and I both got a haircut, and while I was getting mine, my friend, Brett showed up. Brett was in Japan with me, one of the JSP kids and there has been quite a bit of photos of him in my Japan entries. It was nice seeing him there and he hung out with us for that night and the next day.

showing off the haircuts!

taking a SERIOUS photo... because Brett complained that we never have a serious photo together. This one is PRETTY serious, rite???

Japantown's LASER BEAM!

We wandered around J-town a bit after the haircuts. Brett and I hunted down a supa, because we wanted some good ol' Japanese drinks. After that, we went to the Kinokuniya and poked around a bit until the store closed. We also took some purikura. Oh, purikura... how I miss thee T_T

We ate a place near Kinokuniya called Fuku Sushi... mainly because they had an autographed picture of Keanu Reeves at their window thanking them for their services. So of course, we HAD to eat some Keanu sushi, man.

The place was actually really good and I had some tuna and yellowtail sashimi. Yum. We had a round of sake too... oh, sake... how I miss thee!

Lisa's serious menu contemplation.

When dinner was done, Lisa and I wanted to do some karaoke. I called up my friend, ziggybecket-- who was SUPPOSED to have been with us there in theory because he told me about the karaoke place in the first place... he gave us directions to DoReMi Karaoke, but when we got there, all the rooms were filled up until 10:40pm and everyone voted to not waiting. We ended up wandering around J-town, looking for another karaoke box place... to find none. By the time we've poked through every nook and cranny of Japantown, we just decided to go back and wait for a room to open up at DoReMi.

It was an interesting wait time. A bachelorette party came in, and they were a pretty rambunctious group. They started singing and dancing while we were waiting and got us to join in with them. When we finally got our room, they would come in and dance to us singing and what-not. They even kidnapped Saul at one point and tried to get him to dance on a table in their room with the bride. One of the bride's friends even flashed us, so we got a booby-show that night too, what do you know!

Lisa's solo act to the YMCA.

We took a taxi home that night and collapsed, rightfully.

Lisa and Saul show off their San Fran bags, haha!

Second day, we woke up earlier that morning with the intention of hitting up H&M at Union Square, since we missed the opportunity on the first day. I have fallen inlove with that store! It has so many awesome clothing and I wished I bought more. At the same time, I'm glad I didn't spend all that much XD I got some new tops and a skirt. yummycoffee, ziggybecket and Brett met up with us again at the store. Brett ended up shopping as much as we did... actually, he spent more than any of us... but poor Meg and Oscar had to wait on us, plus Elisa's roommate.

Oh, before H&M, we went to Castro and had breakfast at Cafe Flore, at the suggestion of Elisa's. It was a good breakfast and a nice place to eat at. We got this cute, Asian, gay waiter-- it was great.

When we finally managed to get ourselves out of that store, we headed for Haight and Ashbury, where there were many more stores to shop at. I just ended up getting leggings and arm warmers at this kooky party store. Half of us were hungry, and Meg suggested a place called Asqew Grill-- I had some thai BBQ beef and it was DELICIOUS!

I wanted to caption Elisa and her roommate in here, because they look like they should be having some sort of funny dialogue goin' on there... Oscar just looks like a supah-model!

those look like man-boobs to me.

what a view!

at Amoeba record store.

I really liked Haigt, it had a lot of interesting stores, though I didn't really feel like buying anything. But it was cool walking around.
Brett decided to go home around the late afternoon when the sun was almost down, because he was up all night. The rest of us ended up in Castro again at a restaurant that Elisa recommended called Nirvana. I was still full from my Asqew meal, so I didn't eat all of my noodles... but it was still really good! We also had some wine and some good conversations. It was a lot of fun.

this picture is the best.

Saying goodbye to Oscar and Meggles!

Then we had some silly time at the station, waiting for the Muni train.

the whole time i was there, this advertisement amused me to no end. So I finally took a picture of it because I'm a nerd. HAHA! I actually watched the first couple of episodes of that show, too...

The last day was spent at the Fisherman's wharf, and we got some clam chowder in sourbread bowls. It was pretty yummy. We wandered around a little and I got a bag of chocolate from the Ghirardelli Square for my parents.

we said hello to the seals.

The pictures are incomplete because I ran out of bandwidth room on flickr X_X If the photos doesn't show up, actually, go to my flickr account to look at them:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oosakinana/

But that was my San Francisco trip... lots of fun and I definitely want to go again!

Hong Kong 2006

Sat, 19 Aug 2006 20:18:32 GMT

Like I said, i went to Hong Kong with my uncle's wife and her friends at the beginning of July while I was in the Philippines. I've been too lazy to put up pictures since then. Currently, I am back in Southern California, and next week, I start classes again at USC... and I really don't want to go back. I don't want to be here, I want to be out somewhere again. XD Haha.

But, now I decided to put up some of my Hong Kong pictures.
It's not much, since we don't visit the city to sightsee. All we do is shop when we're there. X3 I love shopping there. Even though it's mostly designer clothing I'm not really into. I am amused to find a Vivienne Westwood store, right across the Versace store, and things like that. Hong Kong is such a fun place to shop though-- the electronics are cheap!

The hotel we stayed in was attached to a giant mall. So the moment you walk out of the hotel, you're already inside the mall. We spent most of the time exploring that one mall, especially since it was raining too, so we had no incentives to go elsewhere. So much fun!!!

wrapping up chopsticks for costumers.

I think it was interesting for me to go to Hong Kong, right after spending some time in Japan. My host family makes regular trips to China to visit their daughter, and they were telling me how they thought Chinese people were somewhat "rude"-- during the time, when I thought about it, thinking about my last trip to Hong Kong, I don't remember how Chinese people were rude.

This time around, I realized what my host family was talking about. Compared to Japanese people, Chinese people are much more aggressive and crass. For example, in the restaurant we ate at, the guy serving us gave as the wrong dish. Instead of apologizing and taking it back (which is what will happen elsewhere), he told us to eat it anyways. XD They practically throw the food at your table, and they don't make a show about being good and polite service.

I did notice how much less polite the culture was in comparison to Japan's.
I thought it was interesting.

Odaiba again and sayonara party

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 03:45:11 GMT

Oh, the Ikebukuro station. I knew it well. It was our portal to the other parts of the city from Kawagoe. It also has a lot of good stores and things to look at. There's that giant mall called Sunshine City, Namja town, a street that's full of anime/manga/doujinshi related stores starting with one of the best Animate building ever. Plus, a little cafe known as 80+1 XD My favorite cafe eeeever~~! I'm going back to Japan and I'm going to OWN that cafe. Mark my words... MARK MY WORDS!

Odaiba Again!
A couple of friends and I went to Odaiba because I wanted to see more of it, and I thought the train ride there is always pretty cool. We ended up spending our short time there in Palette Town, mostly, and really realizing there's not much to do in Odaiba really. XD

Venusfort-- one floor in Palette Town, designed to look like a European town under a moonlit sky. It's pretty neat! Except, it's all designer stuff and really expensive. Not the kind of things I would buy either, so I did mostly a lot of looking. XD

Then, we found a Ghibli store... with a CAT BUS WE COULD PLAY IN! T_T The one in the Ghibli museum, we weren't allowed in it, so this was quite awesome...

Mah poo-hat is hot.

These were taken the next day, when I had one last lunch with my friend Kendra at Ikebukuro..

I'm gonna miss Kendra lots.

Sayonara Dinner

I had one last dinner with my host family, and they made my favorite. Sashimi! The good stuff. Oh man, it was soooooo good, I was so stuffed T3T Also, my host brother and his wife gave me a summer kimono/yukata as a goodbye gift. So we all played dress up and took pictures.

I don't really know what else I can say about my host family-- they're awesome. I want to see them again, as soon as possible. :]

And I'm gonna miss Gigi too!

This is my last post about Japan. There's nothing much to post about anymore, though I still have tons of pictures and videos I haven't shared-- but that's pretty much it. I wished I knew how to close things up in a witty and memorable way, but I don't. So there you go-- that's my experience in Japan in the JSP program.

Tomorrow, I leave for Hong Kong and I'll be there for three days. So expect some sort of post about that too here!

Closing Ceremony

Tue, 04 Jul 2006 14:14:01 GMT

Well, we had closing ceremonies on June 24th, Saturday morning, starting at 10:30am. My host parents, my host brother and Meg came with me-- we were about five minutes late, and we're the last ones to arrive. But no one seemed to mind, except for Lorenzo who wanted to roll us into the room as fast as he could. I could tell. XD I love that man. Haha.

There were speeches from JSP/international staffers that I wasn't really familiar with. They weren't hand ons and directly involved with all of us-- but I'm sure they did a lot for us behind the scenes. At least I am assuming so. XD

Takaki did a speech to represent all the PAs, and he talked about how when they first left us JSP kids to our own devices, they felt like parents-- worried and nervous for us. It was a really sweet speech. We had the best four PAs possible, all of them. Thank you, Takaki, Takuya, Yayoi and Minami-- you guys mean so much to me and my experience in Japan.

Then Mike and Lindsey motherf*in'-Nelson did speeches to represent the JSP group. Lindsey gets a motherf*in' before her last name because she's THAT awesome. XD Our lone E-class girl.

One of the sensei did a speech, and so did a couple of host parents-- Chris's and Katie's host parents.
Somewhat, it made me realize that I didn't really involve my host family with my friends too much-- when their host parents started talking about the other JSP kids they knew. I feel a little bad about it, but I was never quite sure how to go about it, really... I think they really wanted to meet my friends, but at the same time, I wasn't sure. I think it's more fun when your host parents get to know your other JSP kids, so I hope future JSP students read this and keep that in mind. ^_^

After all the speeches, we received our certificate saying that we've completed our JSP studies. When the official ceremony was over, we were all ushered outside and we got our group photos taken. I wonder if we're going to receive copies of those?

Then I filmed Gene run through the school fountain. :D At least we accomplished ONE of the things we had on our list-to-do...

They fed us lunch after that, and we had a kanpai. My family and I sat with Brooke and her family and Sean and his family. It was fun. Even though Brooke's parents thought Meg was Toru's wife... HAHA!

Most of the time was spent taking pictures... which I will now share with all of you!

...JSP Angels? Lorenzo's Angels. Haha!

me and Meg :3

Lindsey motherf*in' Nelson!!!

Ari and I decided to do some cosplay poses, which we are masters at, as you can tell. Mmm hmmm.

Ari and one of her host siblings. So cute!

My whole class, with the exception of Jonathan who went home right after the finals that week.
But that's Date-sensei, Angie, Sarah, Oskar, me and Uemura-sensei. :3

Me with my JSP soulmate. :]

Well, Sean tried to pimp us.... he tried.

My host brother is awesome.

My okaasan is even more awesome.

Yayoi and I-- she looks so professional. XD It's so funny whenever the PAs dress all professional.

Brett's dreams came true for five seconds. ;]

Gene and I in our ultimate myspace pose.

A day can't end without killing Angie.

Minami's such a babe, yah?

I can try to explain, but I don't think I want to...

Our Tales' teacher. Angie got ushered into the picture even though she didn't take that class XD

Our angel, Lorenzo!

Now Chris and I myspace it up.

The other awesome Lindsey seemed confused when I tried to get her to myspace it with me...

Mike attacks me for a picture.

So I obliged him. X3

Satomi and Kurosawa from the art club greeted me as I was leaving and gave me gifts and letters from the whole club. They are so sweet. I'll miss having such a cool club to hang out with... even though I was a terrible person and didn't go to any meetings during the last two weeks I was there x_X; I got a little busy... but that's no excuse e_e

After that, there was a party at the usual izakaya, the Uotami near the Kasumigaseki station, of course!

Naomi, Suiza, me, Yoshio, Katie and me again!

Japanese girls confuse Eric?

So silly is everyone.

Takuya, me, Meg, me (whee!) and Angie. Mmmmm... ume boshi drink.. so gooooood...

Sarah, my number one (and only) German friend, and me. Linus, who always makes me laugh, and me.

The coolest Japanese peoples ever, chya.

And a completely drunk Melissa with Kent.

"Ike! Ike! Ike!"

And thus, that was the last I saw of an izakaya in Japan... FOR NOW. XD

Things I'm Missing...
- Izakaya, with all the JSP kids. It'll never be the same without all of them filling up an entire room and getting loud and drunk.
- getting to watch NANA every Wednesday at midnight, in my little television in my room at my host parent's apartment...
- Karaoke, where I can sing REALLY bad and no one cares! :D

Geeking and Kamikochi!

Sun, 02 Jul 2006 13:40:04 GMT

Jump Shop
This is for my fellow fans of manga-- namely, manga found in the wonderful world of Shounen Jump. The Jump Shop by the Tokyo Dome is worth visiting. It's a small store, but they have some merchandise that you can't find at your local Animate. X3 I went to the store with my friends from the US, who came to Japan the last two weeks I was there. At least, Christy and I especially geeked out.

oh yeah, we're hot.

Kamikochi
My friends and I went on a bus trip to Kamikochi with my host parents. My okaasan and I were afraid that it was gonna rain during the trip, since it has been raining every past weekends. But amazingly, the weather decided it would be nice to my friends and it rarely rained while they were there. On the way to Kamikochi, it was raining a little, but before we entered the area, the sky suddenly cleared... and it was an amazing blue sky the whole time we were there!

... a giant bug on the bus window.

we had several "jidohanbaiki meetings" as my otoosan decided to call them during the break stops.

My okaasan~!

We're one with nature.

And Meg is unsure of nature... XD

WE SAW MONKEYS!.... but not kappas, unfortunately. Weep.

At one point, Christy and I saw a couple of black swallowtail butterflies and started a very sad conversation referring to our favorite manga (see Jump Shop entry above)... we're such geeks, it's fantastic. XD

Apparently, Kamikochi is known for kappas-- a folktale animal, known for pulling people underwater and killing them. But! In the true Japanese way, they decided to turn kappas into a cute character, and sold irrestitable kappa merchandise. I may not have seen a REAL kappa, but I did walk away with an awesome cellphone strap dancing kappa. Oh yeah. It rules.

For more information on Kamikochi, here's a couple of websites:
http://web-japan.org/atlas/nature/nat07.html
http://www.gosenjaku.co.jp/english/hikingmap.html

A good day of hiking in nature should always end with karaoke.

I left Japan on the 29th, my plane left on 9:30am. Currently, I'm in the Philippines-- I'll be posting up pictures of the Closing ceremony and my last days in Japan next.

Things I missed...
- Akihabara, there's still so much to buy there. SO MUCH. Next time, I want to get doll things. And more video games. And mangas. >_>...
- Harajuku and Shinjuku. Need I say more?
- My host brother's silliness.

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 14:59:12 GMT

The next two weeks is going to be incredibly busy for me. I have finals next week, and a whole lot of things to do before I leave Japan... while getting ready to leave the country, too! I'm trying not to think about it too much, or else my brain would probably explode. I'm sure things will go smoothly in the end and everything will be fine, and I'll leave Japan unscathed. Got tons of updates for this post though, so I'm gonna try and do this really fast so I can sleep.

Kabuki Trip
JSP took us to see a Kabuki play, and it was amazing. Photos weren't allowed inside, unfortunately. People told me it was gonna be boring, even my host mom! Though some of the stories were a bit boring, I enjoyed a couple of them. They were a lot of fun to watch, and I was pleased when I understood some of the lines of the actors.

I highly recommend this trip to future JSP kids. I think it's really worth it... of course, I love anything that is bright, colorful and moving, so...

JSP Dance Party
Well, the dance party was certainly interesting. It felt like a high school dance-- but with alcohol and people getting extremely wasted. Haha. I was mostly disappointed that the music wasn't that great, but I can dance to anything. It was actually pretty fun, I thought.

Although, it was so hot in there and I just sweated so much, it was gross. ~_~ But watching Japanese kids go crazy and dance is the best.

But before the dance, Katie, Angie and Melissa and I went to an Indian buffet restaurant in Shinjuku after class for lunch. It was the BEST! For those who looooove spicy, yummy curry, the Raj Mahal is the place to go. Japan's opinion on what is spicy doesn't exactly align with mine or the other girl's... we like it SUPERSPICYHOTBABY! We enjoyed ourselves in there and certainly stuffed our faces, while watching Bollywood movies.

Angie left to find an ATM so she could pay for her food... we decided we had rummaging rights to her stuff and found this and made a shrine for her. "It's like she's dead or something!" Melissa said.

oh noes! it's the ghost of Angie!

Angie and I found our anime-guy-boyfriend. YAY.

the beginning of the dance.. everyone is just sitting around... Gene is weird, ya?

this is Suiza! My filipino friend :3

...not really sure what's going on.

Yoshio ruined that fourth picture XD hahahaha.

I stole Suiza's hat. :D

the dance ends... but the night is just beginning, it seems.

drunk boys.

Sean was drunk and was assaulting people with his ass. He would stick his butt onto people's hands or whatever... and of course, i got victimized.

Laughing but terrified. XD It was just another one of JSP's crazier nights...

Onsen Time!
Chris invited Mike, Melissa and I to visit an onsen park in Gunma with his host parents. It was a three hour drive and we took two cars-- though the four of us were still smushed into one car. Haha, why? Who knows. His host mom told us to do it.

we left Kawagoe at 9am in the morning. here's the first picture of that day, taken by Melissa who got the shotgun seat.

a glass shop we went to.

Stuffed tenukis that smoke and play cards.

that old man wants to jump into the sulfur onsen, I just know it.

Onsen eggies!!!

the boys are trying to decide whether buying the doorway curtains for public onsens is such a good idea.
and yes, they did end up buying them. XD I encouraged it quite a bit, because I think it'll be funny if they actually put them up in their dorms back at USC.

eating free food. that's always the best kind.

More Japanese Elementary Kids
This time, everyone in JSP had to go and we didn't teach English. It was a chance for us to just interact with 5th graders this time-- practice our Japanese with them. Man, it's harder to talk to kids their age in Japanese... but it was a lot of fun. We played games and they asked me questions that I answered very badly. I'm sure they think I'm pretty strange... I hope they were amused by me, at least.

playing a game where you pick up small dried beans with chopsticks... try it sometimes. XD

they had to draw a salad for class that day, and describe what they would put in their own salads... man, i wished school was still that easy.

The World Cup!
Brooke and Takuya invited a bunch of us to go to the Saitama Stadium and watch the world cup game, Japan vs Australia, that was broadcasting live from Germany onto the big screen inside the stadium. I thought it would be good fun, so I agreed to buy a ticket and go. The game was on at 10pm in Japan time, so it meant we had to miss our last trains... crazy sounding, right?

Japan news team decided to interview the gaijins, of course XD

A blur of Sarah and rock star, Takako!

Can't have a soccer game without a legion of Ultramans...

The crowd that night was extremely energetic and happy to be there. It was a lot of fun going crazy and being loud with all these Japanese soccer fans.

For those of you who don't follow soccer... Japan lost. REALLY badly. In the first half of the game, Japan was ahead, 1-0, and they had such a good chance of winning. But in the last 15 minutes of the last half, Australia managed to score three times. It was a bit maddening at the time. Melissa and I believe we are truly cursed because everytime we go watch a Japanese game together, Japan loses.. it's all our faults.

Looking back now, it's quite funny how Linus and I were going crazy and screaming, but we both really don't fully understand how to play soccer. XD He kept asking ME questions, like I knew stuff.

But seriously, I think Japan has some flaws in the way they play that needs a lot of improving. They're really good-- especially Nakamura and Kawaguchi, but they have a lot of holes in their game play. Of course, I can't really talk about it since I am not a soccer intellect and I really don't have any idea of what I speak of. XD Although, that says a lot when even I see the problems.

I have faith that Japan will just keep improving though, and they'll be kicking ass in the future.

Of course, after that saddening lost, the stadium became rather gloomy. I felt so bad! By that time, it was around midnight and I was a bit tired. The stadium lights and noise was a bit much, and they were about to show the American match. Sarah and Leona decided they wanted to leave, and Melissa and I decided we wanted to go with them.

It was a fairly random night. We decided we wanted to walk to the next station, because the station near the stadium had nothing-- not even a conbini (which is what they call convenient stores out here), but we did not know the way.

Random event number one: Outside the stadium, a bunch of people had stands, selling shirts and knock-off jerseys. One of them was a regular seller at Crea Mall, which is the mall strip here in Kawagoe, and I live near it. This guy was also a foreigner, and happened to recognize Sarah. Apparently, according to Sarah and Leona, he had wanted to go drinking with Sarah and what-nots-- so we joked about finding him and asking him to give us back a ride home to Kawagoe.

Well, we did find him and somehow, he started asking Sarah if she had a ride back home and what is her plans on getting home. Sarah told him that she didn't have a ride and he offered to give her one. Which Sarah replied by asking if he could give ALL of us a ride in his sketchy, white van. He told her he'll try to make room for everyone and for us to come back in an hour. We went off and giggled about this, and at first, we seriously considered his offer out of desperation to go home... but thankfully, in the end, we decided it was a VERY bad idea. XD The guy creeped us out and we didn't want him taking advantage of Sarah later on.

Although, Sarah can't go to Crea Mall anymore because he'll spot her easily. Hahahahaha!!!

Instead, we tried waiting for a taxi to take us to the next station, but that didn't quite work out. We found a map that sorta pointed us to the direction of the next station, and we ended up walking with a bunch of Japanese kids who were doing the same thing.

The best thing about Japan is that you can walk around with one or two people in the middle of the night without worrying about getting assaulted or hurt or something. It's fairly safe and common for kids to be out so late, wandering, because they missed their last train. We stopped by conbinis to pick up food and drinks along the way, because the walk to the next station turned out to be almost an hour long.

Random event number 2: Sarah is one of those people who is too nice and talks to anyone who talks to her. Which resulted in a creepy, old, Japanese man who started to follow us, talk to her... and we thought he was gonna follow us into an izakaya. We managed to loose him though, thankfully.

Random event number 3: We stood in waiting at an izakaya, but realized that everyone who were filling up the tables at the place were people from the soccer game. The chances of them leaving and giving room for us was low, we thought, since no one is gonna leave until the first trains start running again. There were even kids sleeping in the streets.

Leona and Sarah decided to check other izakayas, while Melissa and I held our place in the waiting. After a few minutes they came back with new friends--- three men, who were just out randomly for no reason. They had a car, but I guess they rather be hanging around all night than go home and sleep... XD We believe they were gay. They were so sweet and cute, really. In the end, we managed to get places in the original izakaya we were waiting at.

Us girls didn't even drink alcohol. We just ate food and drank iced tea, and talked about a lot of things. I hardly ever get to hang out with Leona and Sarah so it was really nice just talking to them outside of the school. It was really interesting getting to know them, and I'm glad I got to know them both a little more than I did. Especially Leona, since I don't think I've ever had a conversation with her before that night. Sarah and I have spoken and talked in the past-- she's such a sweetheart, even though she's German and thinks Americans are dumb. But who can blame her, really? XD

our new friends were tired.

and so were Leona and Sarah...

this was taken the next day in the 2nd lounge at school. Yoshio went to the game with us, and he just kinda tends to pass out on the couches sometimes. XD isn't he adoreeeeble? Awwwwwww XD Hahaha. Too bad he's only 19 and still illegal under Japanese laws... I mean.. what?

and this is just Mike being strange during Tales class. I suppose that class can drive people crazy sometimes.

Studio Ghibli Museum
Our Japanese movie teacher took the class to a field trip to the Ghibli museum, which Katie, me and a bunch of people were very happy about. The museum was on our list of things to do, but it was even better if the school paid for us to go there!

I loved it.

it was a small museum, but you could spend a whole day there. It was a lot of fun, and the rooms where the walls were just covered in Miyazaki's sketches and paintings were amazing. I could have spent the whole day in those three rooms. the way the museum was constructed was a lot of fun, because you can't go into a direct route and you have to pretty much "loose your way" in there. It's very cool, and it's right next to this beautiful park that felt like it was straight out of one of Miyazaki's films.

I felt like such a little kid!

it makes me want to watch more of his films. Admittedly, I haven't seen most of them, and I only REALLY enjoyed a couple of them so far-- plus the short film we got to watch inside the museum. I really liked that one. I love Howl's Moving Castle the most though. I think I need to watch Totoro one of these days... I feel like I fail as an anime fan since I haven't watched that one and it's a classic. XD Haha.

I hope I can update again before I leave the country... otherwise, my next update will be when I am back in California!

Nikko to beer fights

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:38:50 GMT

Nikko
Brooke invited me to go to Nikko with her host family this past Saturday-- I wasn't planning on going anywhere that saturday, because i wanted to work on my paper for film class... but I didn't want to pass up the opportunity either. So I dragged myself out of bed and met Brooke and her host parents at the Kawagoe station at 7:15 in the morning. Brooke and I were both very sleepy XD

We rode the trains until we met with Brooke's host brother, whom she never met, since he lives about a good two hours away. He lived an hour drive away from Nikko. So he picked us up from the station whose name I've already forgotten, and we rested a bit at his house. His wife and son weren't there because his wife is currently pregnant so she went back to her hometown to have the baby there. After talking and resting a bit at his house, we went off to Nikko.

Unfortunately, the weather was pretty bad that day and it was rainy and foggy, so we didn't get to see much of the sights. But I still had fun getting to know Brooke's family-- her otoosan is so funny. Her parents were really silly, and her host brother was really nice.

We also talked alot during the trip-- even found out that Brooke's all time favorite movie is the same as mine... which was Ever After. We both spazzed when we found out because it's hard to meet people who says Ever After was their favorite movie... let alone enjoy watching it at least three or four times a year XD I knew Brooke and I were meant to be.

climbing up a gazillion steps.
Brooke's otoosan: "。。。また???" (translation: "...more???")

everyone resting after the climbing. XD

unfortunate foggyness...

We also ate at this restaurant that used to be a real western house that was built in the Meiji era for foreign traders to stay in. So it was really neat and interesting. they put us in one of the private rooms on the second floor, and the room still had the fireplace, and two old dressers. Plus, a photograph of a couple... it was really interesting. I wished I could remember the name of the place so I can look up more about it. I'm so bad at names and such out here... x_X

Basketball and Beer Fight
Then, on Sunday, I had to play basketball for the art club. There was this event where all the cultural related clubs had to play basketball against one another, and the art club asked me to show up. The other clubs, such as the dance club and the Tiny Love music club had most of their members show up, so they were able to rotate players on each game.

Unfortunately, the art club had exactly five people show up for it, so we all had to play all three games we were in. Of course, we lost all of it because we were so bad XD None of us really knew what we were doing, and since we never practiced for the event, we had no team work whatsoever. it was awesome. But we had a lot of fun.

Afterwards, the Tiny Love club put on a show in one of the cafeterias. I was hanging out and talking to Anna, who is a member of the club, when they were setting up and Anna warned me that there was going to be a beer showering of some sort. Hence, why the ENTIRE cafeteria was covered in cardboard and tarp. I'm not kidding-- I've never seen this before so I was fascinated. I've never seen a whole room covered in cardboard, you see...

At first, they gave each club gifts and did little speeches and whatnot, then they set up for the great beer showering.

And let me tell you, there is nothing like Japanese people going crazy and spraying each other with beer.

After that, the beer showering crowd became a mosh pit as the Tiny Love bands started to play. It was mostly the sempais playing (oh, and how beautiful some of them were, let me tell you me... <3_<3). I was hoping Anna was gonna sing that night since I want to see her perform, but she didn't. But I did get to see Takako sing and Oskar play the drums, which was awesome. After they performed though, I decided to leave and go home. I did participate in the mosh pit for a bit, and got showered in beer a little. Though Japanese girls in mosh pits just plain out scare me, because they get really violent and are stronger than you think. The Japanese guys just tend to strip down to their underwear, drenched in beer and slip and slide all over the place.

It was quite an experience. ;]

I also find it funny that girls in school fangirl over the Tiny Love people. Though, admittedly, some of them are rather "kakkoi" (translation: "cool" in that it implies they're awesomely hot and whatnot). XD

No, June, why

Sun, 04 Jun 2006 14:58:02 GMT

Takaki stole Brooke's sweatshirt, which was a sin because he wasn't born in Alaska and raised there. Brooke has much of the Alaskan pride, you see. ;]

a couple of shot of the classroom we use everyday for Japanese class. I get there way earlier than most people and I like to see by the open window till everyone starts trickling in.

Japanese Class, Happyokai
On the last weekend of May, we had our happyokai, which is pretty much how TIU tortures JSP kids--- by making us perform skits or speeches infront of our host family and other willing Japanese people and students. It's good fun, I tell ya... but not really. XD My class, the B2/B3 class, consists of Angela, Sarah, Jonathan, Oskar and I. For most of the semester, we had this "inside joke" in class... well, we had several of them... but the main inspiration for our skit was Jonathan's class nickname: Banana-chan. Hence, there was, "The Tale of Banana-chan"

In Japanese it was, バナナちゃん物語り (Bananachan Monogatari)

And in the skit, we just threw in all the stupid things that has been mentioned or has happened in class... plus, taking inspiration from the movie, Female Convict Scorpion, which we watched a part of in our movie class. You need to see the opening of that film to even remotely imagine how we parodied it. It'll be difficult to go into too much detail about our happyokai, because it really won't make sense... I'll just say that it was a big hit and people probably think we're hella weirdos. XD

...and we had a giant banana.

once upon a time, Banana-chan met his beloved banana.

Banana-chan loves his banana more than women.

Lorenzo must be saying shocking things to Banana-chan and his banana.

Working as a tissue-hand-out person with his banana.

serious work on the script.

Me giving my paragraph long opening speech at the beginning of our skit. Man that was a bitch to remember, but at least I got to wear an eyepatch and be evil. My Japanese friends afterwards were like: "ダイアン、こわいけど。。。かっこい！！！" (:"Dianne, you were scary but... you were so cool!!!") XD

"I lost my banana, Mr. Police Officer!"

"I'm not the pervert, that guy is the pervert!"

Ninja Restaurant
I decided to tag along with a group and we went to the Ninja Restaurant in Akasaka. It was so cool XD The restaurant people were dressed like ninjas... and you had to go through crazy passageways before entering the actual restaurant. the place looks like a ninja village.

The only not so cool thing were the prices. My one drink cost 1000yen, and the food were all over 1000yen. x_X You definetely do not go there to pig out, unless you have much money to spare on ninja food.

ninja napkin and chopstick.

Kim and I, yay!

Angie, Gene and Mike partake in the ninja feast.

Elementary School Volunteer
Eight of us JSP kids got to volunteer to "teach" English at a local Elementary school.

It was a lot of fun, though I think the whole thing could use some improvements. We got to play games with sixth graders that lets them practice their English, but not really... First, we played Rock, paper, scissors. Before we play, they introduce themselves like: "How do you do? My name is Minako. I like soccer."

But when I try to take the conversation any further than that, or even say something simple like: "I like books too!" They get these deer in headlights look and doesn't say anything more. You could tell they don't really understand English when they hear it. Which I think is really weird, because when I was studying English back in the Philippines, at the THIRD grade level, I can at least say more than three simple sentences. Plus, I understood more and could probably hold a conversation.

Which is why I'm somewhat interested in WHAT THE HELL Japanese education is doing wrong with teaching English. I would consider the fact that maybe Philippines are more exposed to American culture, but I think that may be a wrong assumption... considering that Japanese kids love American pop culture. But I don't know... I find it slightly strange.

After, we played fruits basket!!! I was so excited about that one actually. It was a lot of fun, and the kids got to practice yelling out fruits' names in English then. Then when that was over, we had lunch with them in their classrooms. They have a set, cooked meal and the kids get into hats, masks and a little white serving uniform and serve the food. It was really cute and awesome. The food was so-so, I thought, but it was a neat experience. The kids didn't talk much, especially not in English, that's for sure. Ari and I were sitting with the same group, and the most amusing part was when the kids were teasing each other about their crushes, one of the girls flipped off the boys. Ari and I were both shocked and amused, then tried to tell the kids that they shouldn't do that, but I don't think they understood... or really care. XD;

I really wished we got to work with the younger grades. We saw them when we were leaving, and they were so much more enthusiastic about trying to talk to us in English. The sixth graders, I thought, were a little cold. A lot of them warmed up when we were leaving though XD Especially the group I was in during Fruits basket. Ironically, I was in the Banana group. Haha.

Even though the games are fun, I think less time should be spent on them and more time actually sitting down with the kids and encouraging them to use English with us. It might help erase their fears about using the language at an early age when they see that foreigners aren't going to eat their heads if they happen to make mistakes.

setting up chairs for fruits basket!

Thoughts, part 2

Tue, 30 May 2006 15:08:16 GMT

Right now, I'm working on my final paper for one of my classes-- and it seems, old habits die hard. I can't write papers without getting distracted on the internet. This paper, thankfully, is proving itself fairly easy to write-- though I'm sure it's not the best paper in the world, but at least I'm actually working on it.

Well, it's less than a month now till I have to go back home.

A part of me is completely ready to pack my bags and head home.

A part of me is ready to say YES! if someone offered me a chance to live in Japan a little longer.

It's a terrible mental dilemna to be in right now, and I believe most of the JSP kids are dealing with it. My closer friends out here tend to notice when I'm not quite myself (it's actually kind of scary, because even some people I've known for years would never be able to tell when I'm feeling down), and lately, this has been the case. I have the thought of leaving everything I have out here riding on my mind; having to go back home, getting back on track on my education and career; and many other things.

Right now, I'm not quite sure what I've learned about life out here. So far, I've learned the joys of drinking for fun, but I still have way too much pride to allow myself to get drunk. I've had my "heart broken"... but not really-- but I think I learned a little more about men that would help me find a better one on the next round.

I do know that I learned a lot about Japan and the Japanese people. They are wonderful and I will be sad to leave them behind.

Naomi - this girl is a SWEETHEART. Out of all the freshmen girls, she's the most... laid-back and down to earth. Although, a lot of the girls are VERY nice and down-to-earth too, Naomi is different in a lot of ways. I can't explain it, but I can just feel she's honestly a good person. The kind of person I can possibly open up to.

Suiza - she's half-Filipino, half-Japanese. She can speak Tagalog. We were instant friends-- we just had that connection right away. I enjoy taking a break from my broken Japlish and being able to communicate in a language I am comfortable in. I wished I had met her earlier instead of just this past weekend. She's so great.

Yoshio - this kid is so cute. Lately, all he does is fall asleep on the couch. He's the nicest guy and lets me borrow his expensive Japanese music CDs.

I will miss those kids and a whole lot of other people.

Sadly, I have regrets. things I wished I could have said or done earlier in my time here... but I think all the experiences and the good times I had on the path I chose that led me to where I am now are stronger than those regrets. Which makes me very content and happy about all the decisions I've made.

I only gained while I was out here, and I haven't lost anything. I've grown up a bit more, learned more, made more friends, and made memories that I can treasure. I lost nothing to Japan-- not my self-confidence, not my beliefs and good judgements. I haven't fallen into any traps and I've kept my stance against any pressure that will lead me to regret my own actions.

And to be honest, in ALL my life, I've never been so pressured to smoke marijuana until I came to Japan--- Japanese kids are so silly! XD They honestly can't accept the fact that I'm just not into puffing anything that's been rolled up in paper-- whether it be tobacco or weed. No thanks, guys, no thanks. I'll take the sake, but not the crack.

When I first came to Japan, I was afraid because I didn't think anyone would want to be my friend because I am not foreign looking enough. I read so much about the stereotypes and discrimination against Filipinos in Japan, and I know Asian people will always be divided by their self-identities... but in the end, I realized, that I've never been cooler than I am out here. So many people out here think I'm the best thing since sliced bread, that I'm beautiful, that I'm actually fun, that I'm awesome--- I still don't think I'm all that great, but it's nice to know that some people actually think I am. I'm more than flattered, and all my negative expectations have been shattered.

I know this is because I didn't give up easily, and I put myself out there.

which is what I think JSP students shouldn't be afraid to do so. Sure, there's a language barrier and everything-- but it's not impossible to get past those little complications. I think it's important for the gaijins to take a deep breath, push all their fears away for even a second, and just step up into the light and say... "BRING IT ON JAPAN!"...

... or something like that. XD

Oh boy.

Sun, 21 May 2006 14:48:55 GMT

It's been a while, I think, since I updated-- I've been a little too busy to sit down and do this journal thing. I need to dump some pictures now, or else I'll never get around to them. XD But first off...

my host cast rules.

BLEACH Geek-ing
This was actually during Golden Week after the Kansai trip-- the Animate in Ikebukuro put up a Bleach display on one of their floors, and of course, I had to go. I didn't get to go on the day when Ichigo's VA was going to be there-- I'm not too sad about it, since I read the manga more than I watch the anime. For those of you who doesn't know, this is also one of my most favorite manga recently X3 So even though I was pretty tired after the Kansai trip, I dragged my butt to Ikebukuro... all by my lonesome.

I got chikkan-ed. But that's a story for another day.

oh the drooling.

Soccer Game
Brooke is a big fan of soccer and she invited me to go to a game with her. Brett, Takuya, Melissa, and three Japanese girls whose names I've forgotten all went together. It was a lot of fun-- we got pretty good seats, but we weren't with the crazy fans. The view of the game was great though, and I really enjoyed it.

On the other hand, I thought Melissa was gonna fall asleep. XD

And just like when we went to the baseball game... our team lost.

The following are just more pictures from yet another izakaya night-- a night that I thought would be spent with just friends, drinking and possibly complaining and whining and what-not about life problems... but alas, most of JSP ended up going and we took up one whole room in the izakaya. So I, once again, did not get drunk, but definetely enjoyed watching other people get drunk and semi-socializing it.

Melissa drinks beer way too fast and gets wasted waaaaaay too easily. We messed with her head a lot that night. XD

Woulda been a cute picture of Takaki and Brooke if Angie wasn't doin' the Zoolander thing.

Oh, Melissa...

Sumo Trip
Our school took us to a field trip to watch Sumo. It was a lot of fun to watch. Katie, Melissa and I made bets against ourselves (picking a wrestler in each round, to see who wins or looses)-- we all lost. So now, Katie has to get a haircut. Melissa is limited to two glasses of beers next time we go to an izakaya. While I am forced to drown down two glasses of beers next time we go to an izakaya-- I'm not a big fan of beer. I'll drink if it's there, but if I had a choice, it's Japanese sake or other things for me. XD

So, we'll see how that one goes.

We had nosebleeds seats, so my pictures for this one are pretty bad. I didn't take a lot either.

and this was a store name in Harajuku.

Sanjo Matsuri in Asakusa
Finally got to go to a matsuri out here! It was pretty neat-- wasn't as crazy as I expected it to be, but we did leave early since we were all tired old farts and had homework to do or something. XD I went with Brooke, Takaki and Angie :3

Asakusa station-- I thought this picture turned out neat.

one day, I'll have to order that.

YEAH BANANA-CHOCO!

Japanese Calligraphy
Tonight, my host mom attempted to teach me some calligraphy XD Toru and Eriko messed with it too, because they said it brought back childhood memories. Apparently, during their winter vacations from before, they had to practice writing the characters about 100 times.

PARTY!

Sat, 13 May 2006 15:54:43 GMT

Party pictures! Last weekend, Brett had his birthday-- he turned 28, that old fartface! But we all love him anyways. XD I had a lot of fun, of course.

Eric is ninja-like.

First, we went to an izakaya-- an izakaya is pretty much a Japanese version of a "bar"-- but this one was neat, because we got our own room with a karaoke machine inside. Oh baby. Nothing like alcohol and karaoke in one place, I tell ya.

Kent, Yuki and Oskar.

The birthday boy looks like he's having fun.

Melissa got so wasted that night. I have MORE embarassing drunk pictures of her, but I'm not posting them up because... well, they're too embarassing for her. XD All of us who were there can just be in "the know" and laugh about it. XD

Naomi invited me to her house to make Thai food. YAY! i don't know how to cook, but it should be fun. XD

the boys sings to "Bye Bye Bye"... and here's a small clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9rXC0mYqsk

After Izakaya-karaoke... we went to an actual karaoke place and did MORE karaoke. Thus, I missed my train home from having too much fun and had to spend the night at Yuki's place... with everyone else who missed their train. Haha.

Kim's birthday was last Wednesday, and these flowers came to the school for her-- they were from her boyfriend back in L.A.-- it made her cry which made all of us go "D'awwww!" I love how the boquet is two-thirds her size too.

And this is just the best picture of Angie and Gene ever. XD

Observations
... Japanese girls do not like to expose their shoulders, for some reason-- and therefore, you will rarely see any of them wear a tanktop without anything over it. Even the "gang" girls wear a shirt/sweater over their tank tops. It amuses me. Only the toughest girls wear tank tops... which makes me super-tough, yo, because I love me my tank tops. I need to buy more out here, actually... it's supposed to be hot this month, but right now, it is cold and rainy. Next month is typhoon season though, hooray!
... although they think tank tops are too crazy, they still wear shorts that practically exposes their buttcheeks. The logic? There is none.

Nara , Osaka, and the last day of Kansai

Wed, 10 May 2006 03:36:21 GMT

On the fourth day of the Kansai trip we had "Free day", and the majority of the group decided to go to Nara together. it was a really neat area with lots of tourist-y things to see. Nara's also famous for the deers, but they were bigger and less friendly than the Miyajima deer. They were still tamed though, so it's not like they attack people. Unless you have deer food. Then they'll come after you XD

We saw one of the biggest buddha statue in Nara too, and went to a couple of really cool museums. I wished I got to spend more time in the museums, but the unfortunate thing about Kansai is that there is SOOOOOO much to see, but so little time. I didn't get to see everything I wanted to before I left-- but I guess that means I'll just have to visit again one day. :3

I liked these pagodas. I think they're neat looking.

it was a rather warm weather that day in Nara--- well, it was pretty hot. Not so hot, but Brook was dying. We stopped by a little place that served some iced macha. Mmmm. Iced macha X3

we were served by deers. isn't that amazing?!?! XD

Yes. Melissa did buy a deer headband.

After Nara, Brooke, Angie and I trekked it out to Osaka. Brooke met up with a Japanese family that she did homestay with ten years ago. Angie and I roamed the city a bit, but didn't really find anything interesting. We ate some o-sushi, then found a cafe to have some dessert at.

Unfortunately for me, my cold was at its peak that day, so I didn't really taste much of the yummylicious parfait we ordered ;_; woe. But we were both sooooooo tired that night already-- I'll just have to explore Osaka at another time!

I slept in a little on the last day, but woke up early enough to make sure I'll have time to visit a couple of new places in the city. Plus, I didn't want to miss the "free" breakfast buffet. X3 After I ate breakfast, I ran into Melissa who has been up since 5am in the morning (that girl is crazy, I swear) and she already visited a couple of temples that morning. I wanted to visit Nijo-jo, and coincidentally, so did she. So she went to eat breakfast and I went to get my stuff ready so I don't have to worry about it when we leave at 2:30.

the hotel room I shared with Rebekah. :3

I like this picture-- it looks like you're about to enter another world, doesn't it?

contemplating the way of the samurai!

then we went to the Heian Shrine.

And this is me when we were riding the train back to Kawagoe. SOOOO TIIIIRED. XD

Kyoto

Tue, 09 May 2006 16:34:45 GMT

After Hiroshima, we got on another shinkansen for another three hour ride towards Kyoto. The shinkansen is pretty neat-- it's like riding an airplane. Except you actually have comfortable leg room. And it's on the ground, but going hella fast. I slept for most of the rides though. XD

Gabe and I try to figure out where we should all go on our first night in Kyoto...

We got to Kyoto earlier than scheduled, at around 5 pm and checked into our hotel, then us kiddies went out for some exploring.

Well, as it turned out, we didn't really see much of the city as I hoped we would. We ended up circling the same two or three blocks since the majority of people were drawn to the bar district. Since it was Golden Week, it was crowded everywhere. We were all hungry and wanting to just sit somewhere but all the places we went to were already full. I wasn't quite sure what my companions were looking for, but I was THIS close to ditching them and finding a freakin' McDonalds, really. I love the JSP peeps, but man! Not when I'm hungry and they're making me waste time by going round and around the same blocks of bars and restaurants. We did finally pick a place-- one that charged 700 yen for a single can of beer. XP

Our second day in Kyoto was a group tour around some of the more popular temples, which I very much enjoyed. The best thing about Kyoto is that you get the night life and everything Tokyo has, really, but you also get a lot of the culture too. I really enjoyed it. I love getting to sight-see during the day. Then at night, after we watched the Maiko dance in Gion, Angela, Melissa and I decided to go off on our own and explore the areas we didn't get to explore the day before.

I was particularly looking for the Sexy Dynamite London Kyoto store. We turned into a street, and I saw two girls who looked like they would know eating their crepes. So we went up to them and asked, and they decided to escort us all the way to the store. thank goodness they did because there was no way I coulda found that store by myself-- it was in this dark alley. When we turned into the alley, I thought the girls were gonna try and mug or something. XDDD! Hahahaha. I found a pair of pants I really wanted and so I bought it :d Mwahaha. I love it so.

There was this creepy foreign guy wearing a suit inside the store and I think he wanted to talk to us, his fellow gaijins, but he creeped me out by just constantly standing next to me and pretending he's perusing at the merchandise when he was obviously just... checking us all out or something.

Okay, enough babbling, on with the photos...XD

Ryuanji zen garden. there's 15 stones in this garden but in whatever angle you look at the garden, you will on see 14 of them. they say that when you reach enlightenment, then you will see all 15 at once.

Melissa: "WAIT! I only see 12!!!"
Me: "Then you're way below un-enlightenment..."

I bought an ink rendition of the kanji engraved on that stone fountain-- well, two renditions. One was for my host family and the other one is for me~! I really liked it.

The following two pictures are my ABSOLUTE favorites that I took during the tour. I can't describe how beautiful the sight was in person...

it was snowing petals. i loved it so much.

and I loved the turtles too.

this is the love rock-- from another rock to this rock, you have to walk with your eyes closed and reach the love rock without bumping into anyone or stumbling. and if you can accomplish this, you will find your true love. it's a hard thing to do when it's really crowded, I tell ya-- Jonathan and Angie attempted to help me by shoving people out of the way. but i ended up PASSING the rock, so i guess i'll never find my true love... X3

but the love rock has worked for all these people!

you can either drink and get luck for health, love or knowledge. you can choose one or two, but if you choose three, it means you are greedy and will not get any of the luck!

these are the nameplates of the boarding houses for Maikos in Gion. Maikos are Geikos in training--- Geikos are geishas, but they are no longer called geishas because of all the bad connotations associated with the word.

Angie and I are nerdo-s!

that night, the restaurants all closed on us so we were forced to buy food from a conbini and we were soooooooooo hungry we just sat outside and ate. XD And weirded out the people passing by. lesson learned-- when you're hungry in Japan, don't postpone eating.

Miyajima and Hiroshima

Mon, 08 May 2006 13:53:33 GMT

Just to warn you people, this post is going to be filled with a bajillion pictures.

We had our Golden Week break, and the first half of it, I went to the Kansai Trip, sponsored by the JSP program. It was a really awesome experience as I got to see the more traditional aspect of the country, and I saw so many beautiful things during the trip. I recommend any future JSP kids to go to Kansai Trip. It's really tiring a lot of times, but I think when you look back on the pictures and you forget about all the stupid things that happens during the trip, it's a worthwhile experience.

On the first day, we met at Ikebukuro station at 7am in the morning. That kinda sucked as I had to get on a train at 6:30am to make it in time. At 7:30, when everyone was accounted for, we went to Tokyo and rode the shinkansen (the bullet train) from there to Hiroshima.

Tokyo station, waiting for the shinkansen to arrive.

My seatmates, my lovely Brooke and the awesome Gabe.

Angela and her onigiri, sitting infront of us.

and our good ol' chaperone, Lorenzo, behind us.

from Hiroshima, we took a train to where we could hop on a boat and get to Miyajima.

the dock!

Linus on the boat! ooooh, ahhh!

all mighty Lorenzo!

look, ma, I'm on a boat!

and our first view of the Miyajima torii (gate).

Miyajima
Miyajima is a sacred island in Japan, with a very rich history that I probably will not be able to tell properly, so I'm not even going to try. XD This island was definetely my favorite part of the trip-- it was so peaceful and nice there. Unfortunately, I was a little sick for the majority of it, but I survived and still enjoyed myself.

the Miyajima deers were so cuuuuute!

From the dock, we walked to where our hotel/ryokan was.

our hotel.

playing with gun keychains at the hotel store while waiting for our group to leave for our tour. I'm a loser, I know. XDXDXD!!!

Biggest rice scooper across Asia... or biggest paddle to spank some hella-tushie.

Growing oysters! Mmm... oysters...

our tour guide.

People digging for clams.

even the deer knows I'm a loser... D:

The torii, when the tide is low and people are digging for clams around it.

A ceremonial dance during a wedding we were lucky enough to run into while visiting the temple.

the bride.

offered the year of the rat statue some moolah. I wonder what it'll give me back?

oh those crazy, crazy deers!

Our other chaperone, Junko!

All six of us girls had to share one tatami room together. How cozy. XD

we had a ryokan style dinner--- and I ate everyone's oysters who didn't like them. Mmmmm... oysteeers...

After dinner, we bought tickets for a boat ride. The tide was in and so the torii was submerged in water.

the torii at night.

our boat went under the torii, it was amazing. I just kept thinking about all the people in the past that went under that gate to be purified so they can land on the island. That thought just left me in a wonder...

we were FREEZING during that boat ride though and Brooke and I were both very sick, so it probably wasn't a very good idea--- but I'm glad I did it anyways. XD

Getting ready for bed!

The next morning, I was the second girl to wake up-- Melissa woke up before everyone at 5:20am. I wanted to get up somewhat as early, but ended up waking up at 6:30 instead. I finished getting ready at 7am, because I wanted to see the torii in the morning. Breakfast was at 8am.

only the deers were getting up and about...

approaching the torii-- the tide was high again. :3

attempting to take my own picture...

I found Melissa peacefully sitting and looking at the torii--- so I decided to bother her, of course!

everyone was up and about when we got back for breakfast.

and Linus's hair was amazing....

Hiroshima
We left Miyajima-- hopped on a boat, then a train again and went back to Hiroshima. It was a Saturday, the weather was nice, and we spend our free time in Hiroshima at the Peace park.

this was the Genbaku Dome (aka the A-bomb Dome). when the nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, it exploded directly above this building. Everyone inside died immediately, but parts of the building survived, amazingly. The city preserves it as a standing reminder of the event.

Japanese students studying English approached Brooke and Anna for an interview. :3

paper cranes are symbolic of hope and peace. there's a story of a Japanese girl who survived the A-bomb and grew up healthy. but she contracted leukemia as a result of the nuclear exposure. she believed that if she made 1000 cranes, her wish of getting better would be granted. she died before she could finish, and children and adults today offer paper cranes to the statue that commemorates her in the park.

Brooke and Anna, making a couple of paper cranes.

We only had about three or so hours in Hiroshima, and we spend most of it at the Peace park before we had to meet up with Lorenzo and Junko again to hop on another shinkansen. We made our way to Kyoto after that, and I will save it for another post, because I think I have waaaaaaaaaaaay too many pictures to post... XD