alicia and i met up at shinjuku station at our usual exit and headed to mcdonalds to get some lunch. of course it was quite tasty! then off to NS7 dept. for my tattoo appointment. the lady who works there booked me early so that she could be told what i wanted (she speaks english too) and then tell the guy in japanese what i wanted. she was booked for the day, but the guy is talented too.

it took about an hour to sketch up the kanji and hiragana sentence then it was off to work. it came out really really nicely, of course it hurt but whatever. during the tattooing time he kept asking me if i was ok, etc. hes a nice guy. the tattoo is sooo cool! i love it so much! then he took some pics of it and i took a pic with him, and after saying our thank-yous, alicia and i headed for home.

got home all bandaged up and ate a large dinner. the grandma was over today and food was tasty. hung out with the family for a while and chatting for a while before going to bed.

good times.

its finallllly donnnnne! YAY

woke up a little later this morning, at about 9:30AM and got ready to go to takumi's halloween party. he was a superhero, pretty cool. they walked around the neighborhood in their little costumes and headed to the nearby park for games, food, and candy. i was there till about 12:00PM and headed to school. mario dressed up as super mario and looked cute with his little mustache and blue coveralls. alicia was kiri from panic channel, and i saw a few other students in costume too. shortly after that headed upstairs to the dean's lunch. (a few of us were chosen to have lunch with the dean of the school and to discuss school matters) dont know why i was chosen, but eh whatever. it was nice and glad that i could be a part of it.

then took my class and then headed home for dinner, which was tasty.

yay

got up at 5:30AM and got ready for the day. jumped onto the yamonote (sp?) line and transfered at tokyo station onto the keiyo line which goes to tokyo disneyland! yay! got there and bought herman and my ticket, and waited for everyone to arrive. everyone (yu, herman, and mike) got there just in time for the park to open. and off we went! yaaay!

the first ride was the little rocket ships. yu and herman were in one, while mike and i were in the other. mike is a tall kid so that ride hurt his legs cause he had to squish up. i took a pic of herman and yu and got yelled at in japanese. well, couldnt pretend that i didnt know japanese since i was laughing. haha!

we rode many rides throughout the day. food is actually cheap at the park so we snacked and ate all day, it was yummy. some of the rides that we went on included 'space tours' 'thunder mountain' (im probably butchering these names..) 'pirates of the caribbean' (no jack), etc.
we also went into the tea cups, with the 4 of us squishing ourselves into a single cup. herman and mike wanted to spin fast, while yu and i didnt. so we were fighting over the spinning wheel the whole time! haha!

since it was close to halloween, and the whole park decorated in halloween - many many people came in costumes. - some soo good that people thought that they were the real deal at the park. cool huh?

we had bad luck with the parades though - it seemed that everytime that we got off of a ride - they would start to close off the main path for a parade - so we would have to figure out in a hurry where we needed to go - or be stuck on a certain side for the whole parade..

the park has fast passes - which we used twice. we must have done it correctly cause we got onto about 6 or so rides throughout the day, even with it being so crowded. everyone got onto the rides that they wanted, with a few extra rides on the side. my ride of choice is the haunted mansion - but was decorated completely outside and inside of the house with nightmare before xmas. the whole ride takes you through the city and scenes of the movie, it was pretty darn cool!

finally at night there was a different parade (we had seen the same parade 3 times) at night. it was a twinkle light parade, it was so pretty! we left the park at 8:30PM to beat the crowds at 10:00PM which is when the park closes. so we were there from 8AM-8:30PM, it was soo much fun! the weather was gorgeous too! yaaaaaay!

today got ready for the day, but we (host mom and boy) had to rush to the JR train station via bikes. made it to our train just in time, and later had to transfer onto different trains. today we headed off to okaasan's (host mom) uncle's house. we got there and had some tea and crackers with the grandma, the great grandma, uncle, boy, okaasan, and a cousin. it was nice and enjoyable, and the house is very nice too.

then off to the grocery store to find some food for lunch, then we went to a pretty park nearby (got to all these places by car) and ate our tastey food there. we had a mix of japanese food, not-so-japanese food, and mcdonalds french fries. hehe. takumi and i played on the weird slide for a bit, then off it was to another park nearby.

this place is huge with pink and white wild flowers or whatnots. the day was absolutely gorgeous, we spent a lot of time in the land of pink. then we went to the uncle's hobby garden - which is quite huge. we dug for different vegetables for a while and headed back to the house from there. then it was off (via train again) for home and dinner.

good day! gotta get up early tomorrow for disneyland!

got up early to go to school - even though we had the day off. a bunch of us american kids signed up for a cultural and english exchange with warabi highschool. the first thing we did was, breaking into groups and talking with the students. our group (me, naomi, victoria, and jesse) was pretty shy, only the same few girls answered questions or asked us questions. afterwards the US students were read a traditional story, taught to make the crane for origami, and a traditional japanese ceremony by the japanese students. it was fun! then we ate lunch with everyone, and then jesse, ben and i headed towards a train station - to meet up with their class at the ghibli museum. that place is so cool! could not take hardly any photos inside, but it was fun.

then jesse, jess, john, and i bummed around the area and headed to roppongi. shortly after jesse left and the rest of us went to don quixote for random halloween costume parts for the upcoming international halloween party in roppongi. a lot of students and friends from my school came in random costumes, everyone looked awesome! the party was a lot of fun with free food and drinks. and a cool costume contest too. hung out for a while and got home around 12AM.

today was really busy but a lot of fun!!!

KAYA <3 ( Read more... )

mishkuu's Halloween party:

amberxenon dressed as a junior corporate spy department janitor.
angryface03 dressed as Ashlee Simpson riding a camel.
djnaughty dressed as Barney Gumble.
horse2424 dressed as something drunk, but what, specifically, you can't tell.
kodokumousou gets drunk, strips naked, and somehow emerges dressed as a new superhero: Elasti- Android.
kotsuki dressed as an external hard drive.
koyasuslave dressed as Madonna.
kumathebear dressed as the spirit of their dead grandmother Kelley.
kuroiyokan dressed as a zombie.
maddogg2216 dressed as the Duke of West NotusCity.
redrabbitaf dressed as Karl Rove.
ricecakeburner dressed as a character from Harry Potter and the Dwarf of Darkness, and it suited them all too well.
screwbuddah dressed as Al Pacino, though it looked more like a new superhero: Snow -wave.
spookeydonkey dressed as a 1990's grunge child.
sugoi_sakura dressed as a character from "Duck Soup".
tatinthehat dressed as the love child of Tom Cruise and Janet Reno.
vamp_dust dressed as Optimus Prime.
xenosg dressed as Moltar.
yuuwaku dressed as Captain Kirk from "Star Trek".

Throw your own party at the Hallomeme!
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yesturday classes went well. talked to mom, nicki in between classes. it was pretty cool! i hadnt heard them in a while, i could hear my mom calling my sister a dumbass. haha, i miss it. (and got a MEH from a de kat) got lunch (alicia, jess, satomi, and i) at our little japanese cheapy place, 'twas tasty. then hung around school for a bit, watched a movie in the library 'supersize me', pretty good. did some homework, and then headed home. dinner was a noodle thing with pieces of carrots, sausage, cabbage, and stuff. tasty! (yukitori i think its called) then from there i played with the kid for a while. it was a lot of fun, he made up random little games (pretty good games at that) and we played for a few hours. then i took a shower and a hot soakey in the tub, felt nice. japan is getting cold now, so it felt gooood. around 8:30PM they went to bed and i watched 'the squid and the whale', then 'the birds' before going to bed late at 2AM. shh.. dont tell anyone! lol! the semester is winding down, dont have a lot going on now. can only study so much at this point - so it was a movie night. yay!

got up and wondered around the neighborhood exploring, found some neat little places that i didnt know existed before. then around 11AM dad and teresa called me - i hadnt heard their voices in so long. it was nice to chat. we chatted for abit, then it was off to meet alicia in shinjuku station. man, that station is confusing!! took us almost an hour to figure out where we both were in relation to each other. she was in a station thats almost connected to shinjuku station, took a different line than me, etc. finally figured it out. crazyness.

then headed off to closet child (where new cds, used cds, and used band merchandise is sold) and played around there. i bought a $2 plastictree fanclub book, its pretty old but neat. then went to a store called 'like an edison' nearby, didnt buy anything there - i was good. hehe! they have both new and used cds as well. (mainly new) artists usually come here for album promotions and such. saw a few signed boards by plastic tree, sid, kaya, and and oldie from psycho le cemu. nice. from there we found the tattoo place, NS7. the place is very tiny but nice. the lady saw me and welcomed me right away, speaking perfect english. i told her of my idea and she proceeded with many but great questions for me. she even showed me a book showing different styles to write kanji and hiragana - which i must look into now. just all good ideas. shes pretty booked up for a while, but a guy she works with can help too. i looked through their artwork, very nice stuff. going to try to get an appointment for nov. 10th or nov. 11th. got her business card and headed to the other tattoo place.

dont remember what area of tokyo it was in, it was a JR train station away from shinjuku station. the people at this place (inkrat tattoo) spoke a little english but were helpful. alicia and i went back and forth using our japanese, it worked out ok. although i was not asked a lot of great questions as i was by the first lady. both places charge about the same amount, not too bad actually. think im going to go to the first place, i really hope i can get an appointment!

from there headed back home, got back home and the grandma was there again. yay! they had all been to a toy store, and the boy was excited to show me. dinner was tasty again, and later that night the grandma headed off for home. we all hung out for a while, and went to bed.

today worked out great! yes!

went to school early (8:45AM) to go to a talk - given by the same guy who owns the 'how to draw manga' series, and my 'manga de kanji' books here in japan. the drawing books have been used a lot by me, and the kanji books used often for practice and quizzes for school. it was a nice talk, learned a lot about the company, globalization of anime/manga, etc. i was invited to the company sometime before i leave to speak with the company and the important people - possibly about future ideas for books, my opinions, etc. im really looking forward to it!! :)

around 1:00PM met up with christy and headed off to akihabra, the geek's paradise. we got there pretty well, we found the district on our own etc. i went looking for cheapy but nice headphones, and a kanji game thing for my DS. christy was looking for an mp3 player. we wondered around the area, got KFC for lunch. (NO MASHED POTATOES, WHYYY) but it was alright tasting though, we both had never had it here in japan. then we found our items and walked around some more. lots of girls in maid outfits walking around, etc. accidently walked into some anime/manga porn stores, ya that was interesting.. lol. then we headed off to shibuya to kill some time. she bought some shoes, and i checked out a tattoo place that i was curious about. the 2 guys in there didnt welcome us or anything, left right away. no thanks. good job guys, you could have just lost some money and recommendations.. whatever. then i left for home while christy waited in shibuya for her date. got home in time for dinner.

the grandma was over and spent the night. we had a big feast, so tasty. had homemade onigiri (rice balls) for the first time, soo good. and i was fixed my own special plate of niku (meat) and green peppers, a fav. of mine. the rest of the family ate a late lunch so they nibbled here and there. (my host mom doesnt like niku - which is either chicken or pork. she likes seafood best. so sometimes i get my own little plate of goodness) after dinner i showed the grandma some pictures, which she loved. and then my hostmom mentioned my japanese book, so i went and got it from my room and showed the grandma. she then proceeded to quiz me in kanji (just messing around) i got about 80% right, yay! she was happy and so was i, it gave my confidence a boost. then a little later everyone went to bed.

fun dayyyy! :)

around 5:30PM or so, john and i headed to the bus stop near school to get to shibuya. while waiting for the bus, a little old lady sat down next to us and started to talk in english. i learned so much about her in that 15min, wow. hehe. her daughter went to this country, etc. while she studied conversational english for 5 years, etc. then we switched into japanese which was fun too. i was relieved when i heard her say that sometimes she needs to take out the kanji dictionary when she reads the newspaper. what a relief! - that a fluent japanese person has troubles with the language too, she laughed when i said that. lol! then onto the bus, then meeting jesse and mike at the hachiko statue. from there we headed to a mexican restaurant, but with no luck. the whole restaurant was booked for another 2hrs for a private party. boo. then we saw fridays nearby and went there instead.

fridays in japan boasts 'AMERICANS BEST BBQ!' with some corn-on-the-cob and random porkchops and such. (and tons of pictures of americans having CRAZY FUN at fridays... lol!) some of the things on the japanese menu were the same, or close. the cheesey fries appetizer melted a hole into my soul - cause it was so tiny and barely had any cheese on it, along with some bacon bits. yay. i ordered a philly steak sandwich, wasnt too bad. my bill came to about $25, cause i ordered a drink that cost about $5... ya.. but it was a hilarious time. a little later jim called my cell just to say hi, that was cool.

then we wondered around outside and there randomly in the center of a giant sidewalk, was a large cage with a random beer in it. it apparently was an ad for a new bar opening up nearby. so we got in the cage and took a pic, it was amusing. then john showed us this totally random place underneath of a bunch of nice restaurants. you go in and its a tiny tiny little haunted house. you walk by this one part, and this dummy gets electricuted in an electric chair, then you walk on squishy floor. then it leads you to this little restaurant or something, cause after we left that tiny little hallway of terror (lol) a woman with batwings and cutsey black costume welcomed us and was about to open a door for us. uh, ya we left. haha!

then more random bumming around looking for other random treasures in shibuya. found some really funny signs, and so on. everyone left around 11:00 to get home before the last train at 12AM.

today was a ton of fun and very random, haha!

last night was cool. studied in my room while takumi was there with me drawing pictures and such. nice.

just finished with my human rights/trafficking midterm, think it went rather well. i studied a lot last night and today for it. mainly refreshers cause i take so many notes all the time in that class and its a very interesting class. yay! earlier, got lunch with mario and alicia, hung out with them for a bit. then went to the library to study for about 2hrs or so, then to the lounge to hang out with peoples and played some super smash bros on the good 'ol N64.. hehe! then from there went to class and got ready again for the exam. now i be sitting here next to my friend herman in the computer lab. hi herman! (he says 'whats up?' to me) also earlier looked up classes for next spring for akron u. if things go well, that will be 17 credits. eeep!

humanities in the western tradition (one of my final gen-ed requirements)
evolution and human behavior
qualitive methods of anthro
individual reading in japanese (? still curious about this one.. not sure if i will take it or not)
exploring music: bach to rock. (this also fills the last few of my gen-ed. but the pre. req. for this class is humanities.. maybe my advisor can get me into this one. i want to get rid of these gen. eds asap. hell i have 71 credits in my name..)

thats my list so far.. we shall see.

will go home around 5:30/5:45PM like i usually do for dinner and the such. currently is 5:05PM Tokyo TIME. tonight i need to finish up my powerpoint for my anthro-manga class tonight (over american anime/manga fandom) and study my kanji for a quiz tomorrow. and if there is time i rented from the library 2 movies - and i shall watch one of those. (really doubt that i have much time for that.. oh well) one i have seen a lot and is a classic, blazing saddles. and the other i have yet to see, the 40-yearold virgin. when i can watch them, i will watch them all cozy in mah bed on mah beast. (laptop)

tomorrow heading to shinjuku after class at 12:30PM - never been there before, and will be going with alicia. and we might stop by harajuku cause she wants to buy something there.

random: im so glad that im doing a homestay cause buying 3 meals a day would be expensive - buying lunch no matter where you go is about $5/$10 or so, then the cost to go anywhere ranges about (of course depending on where you want to go) about $5 too. so even that sort of stuff is expensive. i need to get money out again.. bleh.

morning started off crappy, eh whatever. so i called alicia and we hung out for a few hours in harajuku. there were soo many foreigners there, geez.. since i have been living here for a few months and im not on a tourist visa, it feels weird seeing tons and tons of random old american people with their fanny-packs, large cameras around their necks, etc. (i dont feel like a foreigner too much now..) thankfully they mainly frequented one part, which we left. hung out elsewhere for a while, then hit the JR station to go to a nearby station to meet up with some of her friends. dan, ren, and chris are really cool :) from there we went and got dinner at the cheapy, tasty, italian place, then from there we went to 'area' to see panic channel and 6 random bands.

this time at area it was packed, eh whatever, no probs. when panic channel finally played we were dancing along and trying to follow along with the tricky hand/arm motions that the singer was doing. dan got a little confused and the singer (meguru) noticed and in english said 'hey whiteboy! you OK!?'. it was hilarious!!! the singer loves seeing foreigners at the show, he was smiling at our 5 foreigner wall the whole time. hehe!

the whole concert was a lot of fun! we met a confused guy from brazil and invited him to hang out with us. he likes japanese music, but this type of show is very confusing for any first-timer -dealing with the girl fans mainly. they are fun to watch dance around, headbang, and so on. we explained the different hand motions (like the certain one for a guitar solo, etc) to him. hes a nice guy and hung out with us for the rest of the night. after the concert i headed home by the subway. from there took my shower and looked over some school things before bed. glad that i finished my project on sat. (thats due on monday) yaay me!

well the day started off crappy. i was making good time though before school - just didnt get a lot of sleep last night. somewhere along the way (probaby yesturday) i lost my makeup pen, which upset me cause i was already kinda grumpy anyway. got to japanese class and things got a little better - cause we did listening comprehension for the whole class, but it was fun cause we all made fun of the people on the cd, even the teacher joined us. hehe. classes went alright from there. just started to talk about evangelion for my one class. we will pull the series apart and look thru it from an anthropological view, nice. then my other class was alright. got back 3 grades from the previous classes. got a B on my kanji quiz from weds. B+ on my midterm exam for anthro: manga from weds. and an A (95/100) on my midterm essay for practical asian society and culture from last friday. so happy me! i have one more midterm thing next week, in my human rights/human trafficking class. not worried about it cause i take so many notes in there and havent missed a class. (havent missed any for all classes this semester so far) i will study of course, nothing wrong with a refresher. its a good class.

after class alicia and i hit up the bakery down the road. we tried some new things here and there. theres this pudding bread that tasted like french toast, then cake, then pudding. it was amazingly good. we shared it and was tasty. afterwards we started talking about me going to another plastic tree concert before i leave for the US. the one thats the closest to us in tokyo - is on nov. 5th in yokohama. but it got tricky. - cause on that day i will be coming back from kanazawa late, i would miss it. then there were other shows available as well. some too far away, and some already sold out. that just left nagoya on the 24th of november. its about 2hrs by shinkansen (still not too far away). the show is on a friday and we decided to make a weekend thing out of it - so cool! she has friends in nagoya, even if we can stay with them that friday night, and maybe a hostel later - it could work out. and we would leave that sunday early for tokyo. never been to nagoya, im excited. that would make 10 cities visited in japan - yaaay! and its plastic tree, so hey - thats awesome. alicia was so happy cause she wanted to see them, but had no one to see them with. this will be her first plastic tree concert, im so glad that it worked out! she gets to go and i get to see her get teary while they play her favorite songs - like how i did when i first saw them. hehehe!

so from there we went to the local lawson's store and bought the tickets from the ticket machine. tickets are in our hands, its final. just gotta research the other stuffs. her friends that live in nagoya may go with us too, pretty cool.

afterwards hit the atm in the postoffice and went and paid for the school trip to kanazawa. that was about $260 - which includes practically everything. transportation there and back, dinners and breakfasts, museum/temple fees, etc. not bad and its for nov. 2-5th. a nice long stay in a japanese ryokan. (traditional inn)

got home around 5:30PM and ate dinner around 7:00PM or so. sorry i dont know what it was really, some kinda stir fry with shrimp and broccoli with miso soup and rice. tasty. then it was a good tv night.

saw a small commercial for the nintendo wii for the first time, it comes out here in japan on 12.2. we watched 'music station', which had its 20th anniversary special. (which i think they already had a special anniversary of something else? these music shows have anniversary specials for everything it seems like..) ty, a clip was shown that you may like.. it involved a certain pretty lady in a nurses outfit.. ;)
cryssi, l'arc en ciel played their new song 'caress venus' - pretty good. horse, koda kumi sang a song live as well. sorry cannot remember the name. ayumi hamasaki sang too and she sang her new song 'jewel'. eric, utada appeared on the countdown numerous times. like 'can you keep a secret', and so on. the countdown was strange cause for like #45, they showed 4 groups/people singing between the years of 1996-2006, etc. so im really confused on how they ordered it.. eh whatever. it was fun to watch. x-japan was on there for 'say anything'. all the countdown was, was live performances on the show dating back 20 years or so. then after i finished watching that. i watched the movie that i had rented from school, men in black. sweet. i havent seen that movie in years, so funny and so good. the graphics - even though from 10 years ago - are still really good. impressive. watched that in bed on my laptop till about 12:30AM or so and went to bed.

yay.

hi( Read more... )

after class at 12:30 headed over to the area before roppongi to meet up with hatsui - she is tomita sensei's friend (my akron u japanese teacher's friend), and wanted us to meet. hatsui met tomita sensei in akron, and she lived there for 4 years. we found each other and walked a ways into roppongi for the restaurant, it was nice. the rest. is called 'gonpachi', and is apparently very popular for foreigners, they even have one in CA. the food was soo good. she made me order things that i had never had before, hehe. it was all so delicious! the rest. is so large and friendly, it was a nice time. we chatted till 2:30PM or so and headed out cause she had to go back to work. she then invited me to a small matsuri near her house at 9:00PM, then we split into our own ways. ate a yummy dinner at home and then headed out in the drizzly rain bound for her station. when i got there she was waiting for me and we took a small taxi ride to the area. the place wasnt very crowded because of the rain and it was almost over. there were stands selling foods, little games for kids, etc. she bought me some food that i ate the next day - soo good.

there is an event at this matsuri. food (wrapped in plastic - you can bake it or put it in soup) is usually tossed into the crowd, and from there people will fight to get the most. but since it was raining, we just did big lines and such. eh it was alright. i met hatsui's daughters who had gone to akron public schools while they lived in ohio. they were cool. i was there for about an hour and had 7 little foods in my collection. hatsui saw me off to my next train and i headed home from there.

fun fun day!

after class i met up with junko - an advisor for my school. we caught a cab to roppongi and went to this little venue where a japanese coverband of the beatles frequently plays. the whole area is all decked out in everything beatles, and so is the menu. junko treated me for the night (thank you so much!) and my first drink was a pineapple alch. drink called 'yellow submarine', very tasty! we tried many different foods, sushi, friend chicken, potatoes, and a small pizza. then the band came and they are soo cool! they played so many songs throughout the night, and they sound like the beatles and everything! woooow! and the guy who was playing as lennon, sounded and looked just like the real deal! i think hes half japanese, hes pretty cute. i requested some songs and they played my song that i was named after, michelle my bell... hehe. later we had to share our table with a couple from london. (it got pretty packed) they were nice though and junko helped to translate the band, what they were saying when they would talk between sets of songs. (cause we didnt really know) the couple was on holiday in japan for a week and even bought us a drink. i ordered 'strawberry fields forever', very sweet and good. we were there for about 2.5 hrs and caught a cab home.

junko invited me out after seeing the spelling of my name on my alien registration card and invited me out. i had so much fun!!! thank you for the awesome night junko!!! :)

as of Sept 23rd, i am offically aunt miechelle to 2 baby girls!! madeline and emily, very very cute! (pics coming soon!)

that is SO COOL! so excited

i got pics today, so happy!

-me

took a while to get there by train but finally got to the area of chiba. the tgs is freaking huge! it took up 3 big buildings filled with booths, displays, and big screens all promoting new games, systems, boot babes, etc. i bumped into a bunch of kids from school at random points throughout the day, but since it was soo crowded - it was extremely easy to lose someone in 1sec. i tried the psx3, very nice. and yes.. i touched a xbox360, but i had my zelda jacket on so it didnt burn as much. haha! i played a samurai game and a game called 'trusty bell' on the system. there were a ton of cool cosplayers dressed up as videogame characters, a lot of them were really good. there was also a line to stand in to get into a small enclosed theater to view the trailers for the new final fantasy games, wow those look sooo sweet! i was there from 10-4:30PM and ended up with so many free things (mainly flyers, books, and fans) a lot of cool things are coming out fairly soon. yaaaay!

(the show was open to the public sat 23. and sun 24th. a bunch of school friends went sat. and some of them went on sunday. the ticket was only about 10 bucks, but were only good for one day. it was so cool though)