Sapporo snow festival

The snow festival in Sapporo is a phenomenal event that happens once a year, and attracts (apparently around 2 MILLION) tourists to Sapporo, most of which are Japanese from other areas, but many are also foreigners.



The festival lasts for one week, but for people who live here, the preparations start way before that! The snow plowed off the roads are gathered to be used to make the sculptures. This year however, as it was not near as cold as previous winters, extra snow was needed and brought over from around Sapporo (or so I heard).



I have already uploaded the photos to facebook, but I will upload my favorites again and briefly talk about them.



My favorite sculpture. It is just too cool and no words can describe its awesomeness!



It's so interesting to see how many cultures have similar outtakes of the same subjects. This is an Indonesian sculpture that really reminds me of the Orthodox st. Georges statue fighting the dragon.



You would think that there would be this balance between large-scale and finely-done sculptures but to have both combined is very impressive!



The Lion King musical has been running for a while here so they had a big ass sculpture of Timon and Pumba!



The temperature drops 5 degrees as soon as you get there and stand in front of the HUGE ASS snow statues! However these guys are singing and dancing in half sleeves!!!
Wow!



DOGGIES!!!



Awesome Chinese temple! With all the details that goes with it.



The slope made for snowboarders and skiers jumping around day and night! Too awesome! Mules we need to do this!



Ice jaguar!

A cold cold night...

Last post we left off at how tolerable walking out in -6 degrees is.
But is it the same when standing in -18 degrees? NO! But we'll get there.



Last week, Quijote (who lost his Don because he proved useless in Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles), Alejandro decided to have dinner at a place we like a lot. They got there before me and, realizing that the guy (sexy word incoming -> henceforth referred to as the dude) was in quite a bad mood and rather intoxicated, tried to warn me, but it was too late...

Arriving at the scene, I did not notice anything wrong. The dude explained that it was the memory of his mother passing away, that he was sad because he wasn't on good terms with her when it happened, and that instead of eating (since the kitchen was closed by then) we should drink some wine. Being oblivious to the fact that the dude was already quite drunk, I agreed and went and bought 3 bottles of wine from the nearby conbini (again convenience store).

Thus began the longest night any of us ever had in Sapporo. By the second glass, the dude had become quite violent, and The Eye of the Tiger had become annoying to say the least after the umpth time we heard it. Quijote being the heavy drinker he is (drinking a whopping 1 glass of wine!) made Alejandro and me gulp down our glasses to drink as much as we can, thus minimizing the alcohol intake of the dude...

That is when Jake arrived and I cursed myself for forgetting to warn him not to come either... And that is when the dude really became troublesome. More than once, we thought he'd start a fight over nothing, but Jake was calm and gracious, and eventually, like a master ninja, just got up and left without the dude being the wiser haha.



Next comes the part where we tried to get the dude back home. We got into the taxi and went 'approximately' in the direction of the dude's house. The first part of the taxi ride was when the dude started yelling at the poor old driver for taking a longer route than he needed, and Quijote and Alejandro calming him down. Eventually we reached what the dude initially thought to be his house, and turned out not to be... The second taxi ride was when the dude started yelling at the poor old driver (again) for not having children... and Quijote and Alejandro calming him down.
We finally got off at a conbini (slap yourself if you don't already know this word) near his house, and thankfully the guys working there knew him! So he calls his wife to pick him up, gets in a fight with her on the phone, and hangs up... *Super facepalm is in order* and we run after him trying to stop him from buying beer. We order another taxi and wait 15 minutes or so outside for it, and the following equation became apparent to me:
-6 °C + thin sox + sneakers + walking = OK!
-18 °C + thick sox + sneakers + standing = NOT OK! NOT AT FEKIN ALL!



By the time the taxi arrived, the dude had sobered up and knew where his house was.



So a couple hours drinking wine, 2 taxi rides and a nice refreshing wait in the snow, we were back where we started, much, much, hungrier. So at nearly midnight, our choices of places to eat were limited (everything closes so early here) and so it was off to the yakitori place where the mascot is a chicken samurai(?) carrying a shish kebab instead of a sword... love that place! Cheap beer and fried chicken? Yes please! So not all was lost, and Pen2 even joined us so there was someone other than me drinking something other than water... useless Quijote and Alejandro...

Dinner? No thanks trying to lose weight...

After ending the last post on a food note (kinda sounds like foot note? meh beykha...), thought I'd ride that wave into this next one. So the second night after arriving and finding out about the gas (got the bill for that half a month and it's 120$ or so... ouchies! So visiting me now is not recommended coz I'm making up for it by not using the heater anymore so it's below 10 degrees inside most of the time lal which is fine by me with Jeddak's 3abayeh or robe), realized that 2 weeks outside Hokkaido makes you miss some things. And people maybe, but mostly things, mainly Soup Curry! Soup Curry is best eaten at Picante and Picante is the second home for someone called Ted, so I call Ted and naturally, he agrees to meet up. Jesse and James also come, Jake is stuck at work and arrives after we're done.



Now Soup Curry was a dish I was not particularly fond of, but it certainly does grow on you, especially when it starts getting cold! And cold it gets! But more on that later.

After finishing, went with Jake to Jacksonville's so that he could have dinner. Me having had dinner decided to just go with some chicken wings and a beer (bill was 1010 Yen tihi I love silly numbers).
Then we decided to look for an "apparently" good Russian restaurant in the neighborhood. We did a whole clockwise turn around the block and finally found it across the street from Jacksonville... so had we turned the opposite direction, it would be a 30 second walk lol. But it was not a loss! For while looking, Jake noticed a new Sushi place, and noticed that the prices were quite cheap. So he decided to go in and try it real quick. The bastardo, fully knowing that my favorite is salmon (he prolly didn't but I just wanna call him a bad name), ordered just that! And me being a good friend who doesn't like to let his friend eat alone (I'm not just wanted to taste it too), ordered some too. The plate comes with 2 pieces and costs 105 Yen which is quite cheap! Needless to say it was blissful, and I ended up ordering 3 other plates... flat fish (forgot the name in Japanese), crab and another salmon to wash em all down with! Bill was 777 Yen for me (again with the fun numbers heh).

The other realization of the night (other than Jake sux and Dal was right about me being a little piggy), was that -6 degrees is not a big deal at all, even with sneakers and ankle-high thin sox. The night after that however, was a totally different story, but that is for the next post...

Vacation and back

Too lazy to write about the vacation :) so only gonna say it was a blast! Not nearly enough time to see everyone I wanted to see, and more importantly (yes people FOOD > you in case you didn't know...) I didn't even get to eat a chicken sub at Mike! Nor was I able to go to CafeSho... what a waste of a vacation tbh heh.

Needless to say, 4 hours of sleep accompanied by lots of eating and going out means 2 things: some extra weight and eventual collapse and sickness. Thus begins the story of the trip back. Zo I was supposed to come back on Tuesday, but had high temperature and ended up postponing until Friday to get better. The idea of getting quarantined for fear of bird flu outbreak was not appealing...

So begins the long trip back.
The flight from Beirut to Dubai was awesome. I was sitting on the very last row in the plane, and the whole section was quite empty. The cabin crew was having a party in the back area and would take turns to eat on the seats next to me, so we all became buddies :)
--> Time taken: 3:20 ish (all times will be ish coz I'm too lazy to check mkay)
--> Total time: 3:20



During the stop in Dubai, met Ele, a very nice Aussie going back to Indonesia, and so I had someone to chat with from there on (I NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE! OR SOMETHING! OR MYSELF IF NONE ARE AVAILABLE!). We stayed on board while they cleaned up and waited for the new passengers to embark, so I took a couple photos of the tarmac from the back door. Will post them when I get back home.
--> Time taken: 1:40 (while reading these parts, just imagine each letter getting written as you
--> Total time: 5:00 read along, kinda like in the movies with the typewriter sound effects)



In the next part of the trip, the cabin crew was less pleasant. One (guy) was hitting on me, or just being annoying by asking me to buy him the huge red teddy bear the silly girl 2 rows in front of me had... either way, he was annoying. And another (also guy) was encouraging me to chat with the first one and to give him my PSP meanwhile... aba2ash 7adan yest7eh?! L3ama... Walla for the first time I appreciated the famous quote captain Kanaan Jr. (the useless one) keeps using: STOP HIRING MALE CABIN CREW FFS! Other than that, they had gay ass movies. I had tears in my eyes by the time The Switch was over.
--> Time taken: 7 (a bit less actually but rounding makes addition easier so shush)
--> Time it SEEMED like it took: 12:23 (no addition here so more accurate figures)
--> Total time: 12:00

Supposedly, there are daily flights from Kuala Lumpur (all the cool people call it KL so from hereon that's how we'll refer to it) to Tokyo at 11:00 (AM)... except on weekends yay! And as by then it was already 6:00 AM Saturday, the next flight was at 23:00. This meant I had... 17 hours in KL! Awesome. The good thing is that there are faaaaar worse airports to be stuck in for 17 hours. KL airport is just awesome. Walked around duty free area for an hour or so lugging around the baklava and arak I bought from Beirut duty free (more on that later) until I reached the airport hotel. The cheapest room goes for about 50$ for 6 hours. But it was fully booked. They told me to come back at 10:00. But by that time I had found... the movie lounge!
Right next to Starbucks (not that I buy anything there but for those that do it's cool), the movie lounge is a bunch of couches around 4 TV screens, where there are plugs and free internet (there's actually free WiFi everywhere). There was Good Luck Chuck on (or a censored version of it at least hehe didn't watch so donno). I took over a couch and one 4th season of How Ah Met Yo Mama and two meals later, it was already boarding time.
--> Time taken: 17:00
--> Total time: 29:00

Final stretch of the journey. Lots of Japanese people (the best people to be in large groups with, as opposed to Mediterranean people...). Lucky as I am, I had an empty seat next to me in all 3 flights that day(s). And there was a very nice Saudi family behind me. The father works in Japan so they all live there. Good choice imo. Slept most of the flight.
--> Time taken: 7:00 (also 6:45ish but rounding up again)
--> Total time: 36:00 ish

That's ofc without the hour and a half+ it took to get to Beirut airport in taxi, the 50 minutes or so it took from Narita to Zoya's using the skyliner train. COOL ASS TRAIN! And what's even cooler? Me not getting lost! Oh yeah! Then there's the 40 minutes to get to Haneda and hour and a half from there to New Chitose airport, then the 40-minute train ride to Sapporo station, and finally the 25-minute walk home. Usually takes 15, but I underestimated lugging my luggage in the snow! Mountains of snow you have to navigate around! Next time I'm taking a taxi...



Before the long walk though, as I came out of the station, there was a group of volunteers raising awareness for... something... I think it was related to the police coz there was a big mascot in police clothes? But I still have no clue what the sweet old lady told me.
She walked up to me and was like: bla bla bla bla bla. Kyoo wa (today is) bla bla bla bla bla.
Me: soo des ka (is that so)...
Sweet old lady (with a shine in her eyes that not only did this foreigner understand what she just said, but he also seems interested): blablablablablablablablablabla. Kyoosekete kudasai (please take care).
Me: hai! Wakarimashita (OK! Understood).
She gives me some fliers and free tissue (for the people that always have a runny nose, allergies, or are just cheap, Japan is an awesome place for you! Everyone gives out free portable packs of tissue with ads on them!) and sent me on my way. When I attempt to read the fliers and have an idea what the hell that was all about, I'll let youz know :)

Finally back home, I open the door, (and this is why Mules (that's Nadim) and I always vie for the leadership of the Mules club) and am pleasantly surprised by the warmth of my place... until I realize it's because I forgot the heating on... two weeks ago... nice big fat gas bill incoming :( Opened the tap, and the water came out nice and... brown hehe. Good thing I switched to mineral water after starting to smell metal in the tap water lol. Took the obento (lunch box) I bought from the combini (convenience store) and went to sit down and eat, and bumped my elbow on the stupid handle on the side of the bed. And down went the chicken and noodles face first onto the carpet... sigh. First signs of frustration arose then! Dirtiness will not be tolerated! And I was hungry... Now being a scout for 20 years, grabbing what I could with my hands and putting that back in the lunch box for eating later was not problem. It's the cleaning that was a pain, especially since cleaning delayed the aforementioned eating!! Did I mention I was hungry? Did I mention I'm hungry now?

Guess who's back? Back again?

Tah is back. Tell a friend. Guess who's back? Guess who's back? Guess who's back...
TADADAM TAM TAM TAM.

Well after a long but amazing 10-day-trip to Tokyo (more on that in other posts), I'm back to Sapporo! I was surprised by how good it felt to be back to familiar grounds, kind of how I felt driving back home, after a long day at work in ugly Beirut, when I reach the Monsef highway. If it feels like this to come back to Sapporo after 10 days away and only 6 months living here, I wonder how it'll feel to go back to Monsef after 8 months away and a couple decades living there haha. Will find out at Christmas :)

Finally got my modem on Wednesday, plugged it in and no connection (unknown network blabla). So called the internet company customer service and the woman speaks impeccable English yay! It seems however, that customer service is customer service no matter where you are... After 30 minutes on the phone trying different stuff (eh Joujou ana noob khales shimmo):

Me: do you have an IP I can ping to see if I'm even connected to you somehow?
Her: no you get an IP automatically
Me: yes, not mine, yours
Her: we may have connected your phone box to another broadband internet provider, I need to send you some engineers to check it out then come over to your place and test it
Me: ...
Her: oh and we can't send them before the 8th
Me: ...
...

Bicycle business

So, it's really late, but I'm feeling quite generous tonight and as such will give the common people a quick update, basically about my bicycle lol. And of incoming changes!

Last week, I opened Google maps, and traced the route I take everyday from my dorms to the university, and learned that it's approximately 4km each way. Doing very simple maths (nijma3!), this amounts to a minimum of 8km a day, around 16ish on days I go to the gym (which hasn't been happening much though).

8km à pied, ça use, ça use.

8km à pied,ça use les souliers!

Only I'm not walking, but the concept remains unchanged, and so I use that fact to make myself feel less bad about the 3rd bicycle I've so far kinda broken or ruined...

First one was the old crappy one my very nice friend gave me (I'm really not being sarcastic here), didn't take me much effort to ruin the chain so that it came off every other block. Returned it and she actually was nice enough to give me another one.

Condition was better, but not much... it wasn't ME riding it when the chain actually broke, but I paved the way for it.

The last one, which I bought second hand from the Co-op, seemed more promising, in much better condition. It seems however, that it is a bit small for me. I should have realized this when my feet would brush the ground when I would be banking right or left lol, but I just assumed the road was uneven.

Last week, the main suspension (under the rear seat) actually broke... Seems it wasn't meant to carry me + my books + my laptop for a total of 80something kgs. Go figure.

Asked the nearest repair shop, turns out it costs nearly as much to change it as it would to buy another second hand bike... So I fixed it myself. It's not a very good job, but it seems to be holding out for the time being. I just need to make sure everything's still in place every couple of days, and avoid carrying my laptop with me lol. And maybe stand up when there's a bump in the road. And maybe not jump off the sidewalk when there are many people there. That might help a little haha (no seriously wasn't doing that, maybe only once or twice. Now I just avoid streets with many people).

Good thing is however, that this long ride is amazing exercise. Especially since I'm always late in the morning! When I first started making the trip maybe 2 months ago, I'd get there tired, now I can very easily go full speed the whole way back and forth one go. So I started to find other ways to make it a challenge, like standing as much as I can (while avoiding straightening the knees of course), or not using my thighs and stuff like that.

There are days however, when all this is unnecessary. Days when the wind is more than enough challenge! Days like today.

Once the wind was so strong, it actually stopped me in my tracks, from nearly top speed! Had to walk my bike... but this only happens at the riverside for some reason. Maybe coz of lack of buildings that shield you.

Well anyway enough of silly and uninteresting stuff. Winter is coming (Song of Ice and Fire reference... if you don't know what that is, shame on you! But worry not, you do not need to read them, HBO is making a series based on the books! Books will be better of course, but I digress again). Therefore, bicycle riding will be somewhat hard. Add that to the million reasons living in these dorms (or any other dorms) sucks, and you get enough incentive to move to an apartment! I say apartment, but it's basically a bigger room lol...

Et voila! My new apartment. A couple minutes away from my lab (on foot!) and on the 8th floor (8 being my favorite number). I'll be missing out on the daily workout but I can think of many many more positive sides to the move. Like: hotel Tah is now open for visitors! Well not yet, but as of August 21st (or a week after that). Come one come all! I won't pay for your ticket :P but you'll have a place to stay, and a guide for the bestest foodz hehe.

Enough rambling for now, so much to write about, so little "jalad" to do so :)

Uploaded many pix on FB though so check them out.

Moo.

Big ass bruise!

Since I'm on a roll and uploaded all the photos I've been too lazy to upload for the past month, I'll accompany them with a quick explanation here. Won't be uploading same pix though.

Yesterday's post was a short one and I'll not consider it as the "return", so since THIS is the new beginning, I decided to make it special, and kick off with a rather humorless and pretty rude pun. Thus the title.

Now we all know the best way to get someone to do something is to tell them NOT to do it.

"Don't look down!"

And you went and did. Obviously. So I'm sure my next few words will have the opposite effect but I'm just gonna say it: at the end of this post I am posting a photo of a big ass bruise I got a couple weeks ago... on my ass! Get it? Haha. Ehm ya SO you were warned! If you've known me for more than a month, chances are you've already seen my ass ;) but in case you aren't yet of the few [un] lucky people here's your chance. Basically I slipped and landed on a step and had to share the pretty pic hehe.

On to other news. Those that read my last post about my new earphones, will be delighted to know that I just found the ones I "lost" today... and now I feel a little less good about buying the 40$ ones, but am not gonna return them coz they're just too frikkin awesome.

Soooo actually I find myself too lazy to write anything about Hokkudai sai (food festival at our uni), Yokasoi (dance festival in Sapporo), Maruyama zoo and mountain (with the breathtaking view of Sapporo), and Zenibako (beach), since the photos are more than enough info me thinks, and I'm quite lazy.

With that out of the way let us begin with the miscellaneous things:

Saw these guys while going to class lol. Stuck around till they finished thinking they'd climb up when done, which was pretty silly of me in retrospect, since they basically just went down a meter or so and were on the ground lol... ah well...

This is a gorgeous house right outside uni, with an old woman always gardening. Might have posted a photo of it before but it's definitely worth seeing again :)

Another gadget I wouldn't have thought I'd ever see: a USB fan... yes lol. Very cool :D

This is pure genius! Ever eaten ice cream or anything wrapped in paper and had to gradually tear the paper while you ate? Well this little baby is already ready to very easily tear in a spiral, conveniently uncovering the important stuff: the FOODZ!

Now on to less random stuff. A Shinto shrine: quite old.

Very gorgeous.

So you go to the altar throw some money and pray for something, then ring the bell so the gods can hear you. Then you can pay the equivalent of a dollar and get your fortune. If you don't like it, there's a place where you can tie it and it won't come true. So take someone who can read it with you. Don't know if you take it and have someone translate it, then don't like it and come back to tie it, if it will still come true since you took it out in the first place :P Not that I really think it will come true anyway.

Outside the shrine. You can see summer in its full effect. I'm pretty sure I have the same photo in the winter somewhere but I can't be bothered to find it and compare :)

Finally, was riding my bike back home, and had my earphones on full blast listening to something loud, however, I still heard something. Took off my earphones, and the sound was pretty low, surprising with the volume of the music (probably the silence between songs), so I went in the general direction of the music and found this:

Asked, and seems (correct me if I'm wrong) this is an Omikoshi (Mikoshi but the O is added for respect in Japanese), which is basically a vessel used to transport the deity from the nearby Shinto shrine around the neighborhood, so the deity can check it out. I felt very lucky to have wandered there by mistake. A very pleasant experience.

Of course can't keep the tone very serious! So this is me in flashing mini mouse ribbon yay!

And this is me posing for my new haircut yay!

And this the sheep dog again! I just love it!

Saw it down by the river and sprinted to take another photo of it. And it just walked up to me and started sniffing and licking me! So cute! And huge!

Finally, would like to talk about the school visit last week. Each year, in this intensive Japanese course we're taking, the teachers organize a trip to a nearby Japanese middle school. The aim is to see how the Japanese educational system works, and have a nice Japanese experience. The school benefits from an international exchange, since we all prepare presentations about our countries.

We can't post photos online because of Japanese regulations regarding the schools, regulations I'm surprisingly very comfortable following (!!!) I'm sure they have their reasons, but if anyone wants some, just let me know on FB or drop a comment (with a name or email address if your nickname is something vague!) and I'll email you some. Sharing photos with family is OK but not posting them publicly. And believe me it's worth it! I chose the youngest class, 6-7 year-olds and they were TOO. FRIKKIN. CUTE.

The whole class (both sections) sang "We Are The World".

That's us practicing the night before at one of the dormitories.

So we got there and were each greeted by a student and led by the hand to the gym, where all the students and parents (?) awaited our arrival. We entered to a Michael Jackson song lol (forgot which though) and after lots of talking (in Japanese of course), they started with the interviews. I naturally forgot to read up on the questions they would ask us, and messed up mine by answering something totally different but humorous (I think meh).

After that we sang, then they sang, then we all danced... the MACARENA lol!

Then it was off to the classes and the presentations we prepared (all in Japanese of course...) Mine was about famous places in Lebanon. Took me a while to prepare it, since I had to download a trial version of Office 2010 to get PowerPoint, and learn how to use it since the last version I've used was 2000. Add to that the fact that it was all in Japanese, and you have a recipe for hours and hours of work for 10 minutes of presentation lol. It was fun as hell though, and except for the last couple slides (where I became lazy), I mostly had the full attention of 7 year-old children. A feat in itself!

We then began playing games, none of which I fully understood, all of which I was running and screaming and being all-out-silly in though :D

We had lunch with the students. They have lunch in their classes. Carriages are left in front of the class, with food and milk cartons, and of course utensils. The students then wear the funniest looking hats and clothes and assorting table cloths on their desks, then make lines to have the ones on duty serve them food. Too cool. Very cute pix here :(

After lunch, more games, dancing, singing and lots and lots of fun! The extra attention is a bit annoying, especially for my class, where it's the first time for many of them to see a foreigner. And so they were all over me, touching me and trying to get my attention, and of course I couldn't understand 90% of what they were saying. It was even tougher for our African friends haha, since their skin is even stranger to the kids than mine! And were even asked many times why they were black.

Finally we drew big notes of thanks to the kids and were on our way after a long and exhausting, but very very fun day.

Oh and nearly forgot the promised photo! Haha.

Overview

So been kinda busy for a while.

And lazy! Let's not forget lazy...

Much easier to just upload photos on FB than to write here too :)

And the more I procrastinate updating the blog, the more depressing it is to think what to write next...

So since I have a midterm tomorrow that I have not started to study for, I'll just use that as an excuse to get away with only writing an overview of what will be discussed soon:

1. Summer! Yesterday was first day you can stand in the shade and still feel kinda warm.
2. Food festivals at Hokudai (my uni) last week: many many countries had tents in which they were selling their traditional foods. This was for 4 days (Thursday-Sunday) which meant we had a long weekend, and I had tentloads of food, and paid too much for it :D
3. Yokasoi which means "follow the night"? Forgot. Basically this weekend was also a 4 day festival for... DANCING! Ya 4 days of people dressed in costumes and dancing as teams all over Sapporo. Very cool.
4. Basketball. Football (not world cup of course).
5. Midterms!
6. Big ass bruise! Explicit material incoming...

As for the midterms, I had kanji exam today, finished it in half the time! Did great in it too. Studied for a hour or two yesterday for it yay.

I find myself very strangely really really enjoying kanji. What I thought was stupid (sorry I mean illogical and not quite efficient) and complicated, I now regard as very interesting and complicated hehe.

Still have the grammar exam tomorrow so I guess I'll go study for that now :'(

I even shaved so as to postpone studying... and those who know me can tell that means a lot!

Ah well off to study...

Shopping: part I

OK so much shopping done this week!

First item on shopping cart:

Photo was taken using second item on shopping cart, my new Sony Cybershot touch screen waterproof slim camera yay!

I've had my eye on that camera for a while now, and after rafting, where I couldn't take my own photos (especially in the water hehe), I just had to go get it!

Once there, saw an unbelievable offer, for only one day, on a Nikkon camera. Most specs were better than mine, but it was bulkier, worse off with low light, and not waterproof. However, its price went down from 42,000 to... 18,000, just for that one day! WAT ZA FAK!?

Told some friends about it and I think 2 ended up buying it lol.

Last but definitely not least:

MUGIWARA KAIZOKU! むぎわらかいぞく！One Piece yay!

If you don't know what that is, then you suck hehe. If you do, then my good friend Michal showed me this shop where you can bring out the geek in you :) they have all that is related to manga! Toys, figurines, cosplay costumes, DVDs, comics, the whole works!

The shirt however is from the clothes shop on the floor above. They also have many others, but unfortunately no Fullmetal Alchemist :(

Speaking of the geek in us, kinda took a wrong turn somewhere in the convenience store when looking for the camera section and ended up at:

Lol annoying ass character but still cool usher to the DVD section imo!

Right inside, there was an old school section:

Behind the glass, some all-time favorite series on DVDs!

The original Star Trek:

MacGyver lol:

The original Mission Impossible!

Golden week? Hey here's a homework :)

So golden week's basically over, good week it has been though!

The good:

Went out a lot. Photos I took are really bad coz of the dark, except for this one... of the stairs to the Cuban style bar where there was Salsa night:

Ate a lot (naturally).

Proof that choosing where to eat based on the hotness of a waitress is not always a bad idea!

Octopus pancake (unfortunately can't read the menu well to order it without mayo...):

Potato to go with that:

Fillet, spaghetti and omelet on rice... that been said, that meal was tough. Took all my willpower and strength not to look like a barbarian since I was so hungry :(

Last but not least, the other night, was hungry and it was really late, my fridge naturally only has liquids in it :P so decided to finally try the burger chain they have here, Mos Burger, since everything else was closed anyway, and well I gotta say it wasn't bad at all. But more importantly, the waiter suggested the new restaurant next door.

Tried it today, and this happened:

By far the most fatty meat I have ever eaten. Doesn't really show in the photo, but there's a whole layer of fat in-between layers of meat. And it's kinda hard to remove it with chopsticks :'( So I gritted my teeth and took it like a man! And it was much better than expected. Took a photo of the menu so that I drill the kanjis into my brain, in order to avoid trying it again, but all in all, wasn't that bad. If anyone can translate this, it'd be nice of you :) I'm too lazy to use the kanji dictionary, and I'm not really sure I really wanna know anyway hehe.

After that, this is a must. (Eh moz I actually bought fruit...)

Also, was walking around and came across this shop:

I've noticed the huge crab (gotta be blind not to) more than once but never walked near the shop. Yes Sherlock, they have crabs (err that came out wrong):

There's even fresh crab! No idea if you can just pick one and take it though :S

Finally, studied a lot... wait. No that's not right. Wrong section, and well, that didn't really happen anyway...

The bad:

This actually started before. What happened was that the zipper on my favorite black pants broke in the suitcase on my way here. Being the optimist that I am (and seeing how much experience I've had with gluing my fingers together with super glue), this was a simple job for me! Or so I thought... *enter dramatic music* TAM TAM TAAAAAAAAM!

So although I actually put the zipper back together, something is still missing, the zipper no longer locks when you close it and lower the handle, and so eventually it just opens by itself...

Now I am not a shy person, and wouldn't really give a rat's ass if my zipper were open, but I think I'm already scaring the native Japanese people enough without this.

So I went and asked a tailor how much this would cost to fix, 30$... I think I'll leave it like this for now lol.

More bad!

Japanese teachers it seems are more similar to French system teachers, who also believe that vacations should mean more studying, instead of less hehe. That been said, we don't have THAT much extra homework, just for me, ANY homework is a pain. But ya I'm guessing anyone reading this already knows that. So I guess I should finish this quickly and finish my last homework...

The ugly:

I haven't had the chance to talk about Japanese TV:

IT IS F**KING WEIRD!

That been said, if you can get over the occasional disturbing image, even someone like me (who can barely understand a couple words) can laugh his/her ass off at how absurdly funny some shows can be.

Take this for example, the Japanese take on "Biggest Loser". Donno if it was directly influenced by it, but the idea is basically the same. These guys come in and do some exercising to lose weight. But...

Yes they're wearing red tights.

Yes they're training to dance on "Thriller".

YES this guy is TEH AWESOME!

Yes their teacher (who was really hot by the way) was crying by the end.

The dude in the jacket was the one who lost the least weight in the last weigh-in and had to ride around the city on bicycle while they danced. Or so I could make out...

The fluffy:

Couldn't really tell where to put this photo, so I made a new category for them. Was walking around, and saw this guy with these 2 fur balls, couldn't help myself. Asked him if I could take a photo and he agreed. Lol.