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...

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.