Hay guys haaaaaaaaaaay.

Thanks to the great ancient Chinese secret COLD MEDICINE my professor gave me yesterday, I'm feeling soooo much better! And of course, thanks to the fever-reducer-forehead-sheet things and vitamin water and fruit cups from Micchan. みっちゃんありがとう～！

Thus, this blog is back in business! But to be honest, compared to other student's blogs, I post waaaaaaaaay more often. Yeah, I'm looking at you, Kelli and Chloe. ;D

Anyway, what do I have left to recap? A ton of stuff? Ok, well let's start...

...OH WAIT. Right. Last week's mystery item... will not be revealed in a blog post. Due to the fact that some reader of this blog might be... well, not offended, but maybe they'd be uncomfortable. SO! If you want to know what the mystery item is, send me a message on facebook!

OK SO last Thursday was another national holiday! For the Autumnal Equinox. So I went with Ayako and Cassie and Brenna to Shibuya! Which is a part of Tokyo. The first thing we did is go to the famous Shibya 109 mall, which had tons of shops with cute clothes, and some awkward clothes too. Rather... interesting fashion overall. A bit too hooch-y for my taste.

After the mall, we went to...
...A CAT CAFE!!!

It was the most adorable place ever. A room with cat toys and about seven extremely adorable cats, how could I not have fun? Sadly, KC hasn't uploaded the pictures yet, and since she's the only one who took pictures, I'll have to wait for a future entry to post those.

So after the cat cafe, we went to this great store called Zara, which sadly doesn't exist in the US. I was somehow under the impression that Zara was just like H&M, but when I looked at the price tags I saw that I was sadly mistaken. I ended up walking out of there with a shirt (that came with sweet suspenders) and a blue cardigan with red/orange flowers, and about 6500 less yen. Ho hum.

After Zara, we went and got food at Sweets Paradise, a buffet specializing in, you guessed it, sweets! It also had proper food, like salads, sandwiches, pasta, etc. It was, in short, amazing.

Plus, doesn't the restaurant just look cute? Good times.

After this, we decided to go to Asakusa, a different part of Tokyo. Asakusa is a very 'This is Japan!' type of place, and when we got there it had started to get dark, so it had a really nice atmosphere. Here are some (cell phone) pictures:


It was also here that I bought an amazing and huge Kiyoshi calender. Look forward to that being on my wall all throughout 2011!

Aaaaand then we went for dinner at this great tempura restaurant. Sadly, our table was SURROUNDED BY CHILDREN-RIDDEN FAMILIES. Ayako asked me if I was ok, I told her it was like being in hell. With delicious food.

SO! That was Thursday. Last Thursday. I'll post the Cat Cafe pictures tomorrow!! KC is currently uploading them, but... I still have to study tonight.

Let's see... last Friday, I had plans to go drinking/karaoke-ing (verb) with a friend, but due to my cold I couldn't. So, I stayed at the seminar house and did nothing. Heh.

But then on Saturday, we met with our host families! My host mom and sister came to meet me, and they seemed really nice! They were impressed with my language ability, especially since the 80-year-old can't speak a word of English and was apparently really worried about not being able to communicate with me. But yay, I can speak Japanese well, they said. Before we actually spoke with them, we had to do self-introductions in front of everyone, and apparently some of the other host families asked about me; as in, which one was the one who introduced herself so well? I am bragging like an awful person at the moment, but I was just really happy to hear that.

After meeting with them, I went to Ayako's! We had ice cream and watched Harry Potter and then she made me dinner! It was a lot of fun. We decided that since she has a really difficult English exam coming up （土曜日だったね？あやこ頑張って～！）we decided to watch HP in English with Japanese subtitles. It was interesting seeing the differences between what the subtitles said and what was actually being said. There were a lot of differences. It was kind of cool noticing those, though!

Then on Sunday... oh. That was my homework day. And my chat-with-Eron-on-Skype day. I hope your knee is feeling better!! ♥

Then the following Monday we had class, blah blah, but afterwards I helped Ayako a bit with her test-prep. Well, I hope I helped! Then Cassie, Brenna, Nicole, Misato and I went to one of those revolving-sushi restaurants! It was sooo delicious. Then we got ice cream. Then we went to Daiei and I bought the cutest pajama sweater! It's gray with bows on the pockets and hood and... I'll have to post a picture tomorrow. At the moment, it's in the dryer.

And that's all I'm going to recap for now!!

For future blog posts:
Cat Cafe pictures,
My recent purchases,
Our trip to the Tokyo Edo museum,
Anything else of interest since then!

Ok! Until then~

Oh wait, here's an amusing sweater I saw at Daiei:

Showin' my pride!

Ok, now I'm off to study! I have a test and two quizzes tomorrow...

Real quick like

Just real quick like. Yeah, that's a phrase.

Yes I'm still alive!!

I still have so much to blog about, but due to an impending kanji quiz/oral presentation, it won't happen tonight! Maybe it'll happen Thursday morning...

The cold still rages on! Well it's not really raging, but it's still there. Worse at nights than morning/days.

Alright, I'm off to study!

Three day weekend!! ...which was last weekend!

First order of business: Last blog's quiz! And the winner is...
NO ONE.
Nope, no one guessed correctly :(
Now that that's out of the way, let's recap last weekend! As you already know from my last blog, we went to Harajuku on Saturday! Then last Sunday, Emily and I ventured back to Akiba and I bought my fabulous game! ♥ What I didn't mention last week is the amusing store we went to... you can ask me about it in the comments if you dare.
THEN last Monday, I went to Odawara with a friend! Here are some pictures...
Oh wait first of all, we went through my friend's home town and found the high school where SMAP's Nakai-san went! So here's me outside of it:


Ok now for pictures from Odawara! Let's just start with the coolest one:

The castle! We were able to go inside, where there was a museum with various historical artifacts. It was cool, but we weren't allowed to take pictures from the inside. Untill...

We got to the top and were able to go outside again! Damn, I'm too short to see over the gaurd railing...

Another one~

We were pretty high up!

Oh, I forgot! This sign was at the entrance to the castle:

Isn't one of your suppliers called Don-Jon, Dad? Haha...

Outside of the castle, there were other things to see as well:

They had this cage that had some monkeys in it! But urgh, with my zoom and the wire cage, I couldn't get a good picture. Oh well, they weren't that cute anyway.


They had some sort of.. demonstration, it was interesting. Maybe one of you knows what they're doing? Other than riding horses, obviously..

There were loads of people dressed up in costume doing intense looking photo-shoots. I manged to sneak some shots too >:D

And this one:

Intense.

Afterwards, we went for dinner and had Okonomiyaki!!

Okonomiyaki is basically... a (not sweet at all) pancake with whatever you want in it. We had seafood okonomiyaki, which was delicious! And Tokyo-style okonomiyaki, which was delicious too but... kind of tedious to eat. But still good!

みっちゃんありがとう！！すごい楽しかったよ～

It was a really good trip!!
Recently I came down with a cold, and by recent I mean yesterday D: Thus I'm really tired right now and will have to continue this tomorrow! Tomorrow I'll try to recap the following:
My trip to Shibuya and Asakusa on Thursday,
My first meeting with my host family, and
Purchases I've made recently!

Why yes, that was just an excuse to use those little ribbon gifs.

Well goodnight for now!!


PS: Mom, Dad, Grammy, Papa: I am feeling a lot better than I was this morning! Sorry I wasn't very fun to talk to :(

Utter fail, etc etc.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I haven't posted in years. Sorry!! But let's recap really quick:

OH WAIT NO! I have to announce last blog's winner!
And the award for what-was-my-mystery-gift goes to... RIK! Congratulations, you get an internet high-five!

The gift from Ayako was indeed speakers:

They can also be used for my computer~
I also received these:

They're little flashcards in the shape of Mickey and Minnie! These will come in handy for studying kanji. Which reminds me of something I need to do...

OK! NOW let's recap!

Dessert from a few days ago!

As in, I took a picture and ate this a few days ago, not that I had this laying around for a few days. That would be gross. Anyway, it was super good :D

Then yesterday, Brenna, KC, and I went to Harajuku!

Cool train shot. I'm loving Brenna's WTF face.

Found a cool shop not too far from the Harajuku station that had Mario and Luigi hats!

Brenna as Luigi and me as Mario. Aww sad day, you can't see the logos.. :(

That same shop had the most AMAZING selections of skirts for sale:

No, sadly I didn't buy any. But I can always go back!

AND this hilarious backpack:


After that shop, we walked a little further and came across the famous Takeshita Street, which is home to a million little shops with cute clothes and some interesting fashion.


After window-shopping for a bit, we went and had lunch at an Indian restaurant:

KC and Brenna!


Brenna and I!

Aaaaaaaaand walking a bit further, we came across a famous store I had heard about:


After a visit to that shop and a quick purchase, we went back through Takeshita Street, and happened across these fellows:

Everyone was taking pictures of them, not just us. We're not creepers, or anything.


Another one.


And the best one I took. I certainly see a Linfield photo contest winner here. I have no idea what these guys (yes guys) were doing. I'm pretty sure they just dressed up for the heck of it.

Afterwards we went to Kanazawa-bunko and met up with Ayako for dinner! We also went to Mister Doughnut for dessert:

Soo good. There's one left now, but I'm sure it'll be gone soon.

At a certain shop, I bought a mystery item! Can you guess what it is?

I bet you can't. This one is difficult! Another prize to the first person to guess what it is!

Then today Emily and I went back to Akihabara. Why would I want to go back there, you ask? Well...

THE NEW POKEMON GAME JUST CAME OUT ON SATURDAY!! Don't judge me. It's sooo amazing. AMAZINFF if Kelli happens to read this. So anyway, I spent a fairly decent amount of money on this. But it was definitely worth it.

Afterwards, we threw an "American" food party for our buddies! I use quotes, because the main thing we made was quesadillas. Yeah... whatever, it was good. Afterwards we went out for karaoke again, and this time there were drinks involved! I had two fuzzy navels and a kalhua...something. No, I am not turning into an alcoholic. It just made karaoke more fun! We finally got to sing our Arashi song! Followed by Matsuura Aya and ending with the group's theme song, 'End of the Road' by Boyz II Men. I forgot my camera, but I know Kelli took a lot of pictures which will be on facebook... probably tomorrow. If I get around to it, I'll post them here too.

And since tomorrow is a national holiday, we don't have class!! It's Respect for the Elderly Day. I'll be going to Odawara with a friend! Odawara is home to this:

So expect some good pictures!

Alright then, goodnight!

Wow I'm bad at this whole blog-a-day thing...

Sorry people! I'm not so good at this blog-a-day thing! Mostly because after class I get busy with homework, etc and not have time to blog. Also because nothing really interesting happens when I just have class... but let's recap at least yesterday!

OH WAIT NO, here's a picture from a couple days ago...

Strawberry short cake! Soooo good.

OK! So yesterday we had Japanese class, which went well! I got 100% on my kanji quiz, 93% on my other quiz, and my presentation went well too. After class, we had a 手巻きすし (temaki sushi, make-your-own sushi) party. It was delicious with lots of raw salmon, etc. Sooo good. Here are some pictures from the party:


Brenna, Nicole, Yinzhou, KC, and Emily.


Emily laughing and crying at the same time. Apparently she tried to kick the table with just her shoe, and ended up kicking it with... her foot? I don't even know.


Brenna's terrified face! Why were you so scared again?


Hagi-san being a scheming creeper.

Then afterwards we went to karaoke!

Oh jeez, karaoke. First of all, just because I am not singing solo into a mic does not mean I am not having fun. I wanted to type that in caps, but decided not to. I sang (with others, of course) some Lady Gaga and Michael Jackson, etc. Sadly, Ayako, KC, and I were cheated out of our Arashi medley because our time was up. Whatever, next time it's an Arashi party!!

Yeah I failed and didn't get any pictures from the Karaoke party. Ho hum. Next time!

Aaaaaand yesterday, Ayako gave me a late birthday present:

Adorable! But can you guess what it is? I'll leave you guys to guess in the comments what the mystery bunny gift is!! Maybe you'll get a prize... (probably not)

Anyway, today I have politics again! I'm pretty sure nothing exciting will happen today. Oh, but it is raining!