The most boring christmas ever

Well let me get started with talking about how the trip to tokyo finished up. The last day there was still more I wanted to see and do in Tokyo but everyone was feeling pretty tired and wanted to make absolutely sure that we didn't have any problems getting to the bus stop at 1030pm. I was a little tired so I didn't push on any of the things I wanted to do, and I knew this wasn't going to be the only time in Tokyo so I just thought I would go with the flow. We once again ate at dennys, spent a good amount of time at asakusa shopping for souvenirs then finally got to shinjuku. We got lockers for our stuff then started the long quest of finding the square enix store. We met up with Julieane and after probably somewhere around an hour of train, walking, and being turned around we finally found it.

The square enix store is pretty cool. It was a pretty fancy kind of place actually, the staff wore suits and they had a lot of jewelry behind glass. Expensive stuff too, like emily spent $90 on earings and Courtney apparently paid $140 for her necklace when she went there. The big attractions were the statue of Sephiroth in the floor, the costume that Genesis wears in Crisis Core and the helmet for judge galbrather from 12. They also had a giant tonberry and cacutar (sabotender in japanese) plushie. There was also lots of dragon quest stuff that I didn't care about. The pictures do justice for the place so check out my picasa account.

After that we spent a lot of time walking around Shinjuku and Emily was frantically trying to find a Christmas present for her family. People were worrying about time and the long trip was kind of straining our friendship so I think people were getting kind of short with each other. We finally found some food, went to yodobashi (where I bought that perfect grade wing zero custom model. I could have gotten it at Osaka yodobashi any time but since it was my christmas present to myself with mom and dad's money I wanted to have it on Christmas), and tried to make our way to the bus stop. While looking at the map a Japanese person came by and asked in English if we needed any help. He was really nice and actually walked us to the spot. When I looked at the map it was the same spot I thought it was so I felt 100% that it was right, but for the previously mentioned reasons people started to bicker a little about where the spot actually was. It didn't help that the bus didn't come until 1015 but we some how got on the bus home. We really lucked out on the bus though because there were so few people ridding it Pak laid down on the row behind me and I had two seats to try and get a comfortable situation. And it somehow worked I slept moderately well on the way back and felt fine the whole next day. We asked for directions back to Umeda station and from there went home.

From this point on I don't do anything particular. Play WoW, watch some anime, build gundams, thats about it. Christmas eve my host mom gave me a christmas cake which was pretty good but we didn't do anything for it. On christmas day I skyped home, felt kind of down that I was missing all of that, listened to Mathew, Mark and Luke on MP3 while building gundams and played wow. Actually listening to the scriptures while I'm doing something with my hands actually really helps, I really took a lot in and had a good long thought about the true meaning of Christmas.

The next day I knew I had to get out of the house if just for a little bit so I went down to Okamoto to get some money from the bank, looked around the used manga/game store, found a ps2 gundam game in a collectors box with a figure for 480 yen, and by chance ran into Jay. He also ran into Nohea and the three of us ate lunch at Mcdonalds and talked about how amazed we all are that we are in Japan with nothing at all to do. They are doing the same thing, just sitting in their room on the computer or playing DS. I picked up batteries for my wing zero model I'm working on and headed home. Later that evening I got a package. It was from heather, rob, holly and cameron! Oh man I was so happy to recieve a christmas present and the fact they spent $50 on shipping just made me realize how good of friends they are. I was honestly moved to tears by that present it really meant a lot. I put up my little christmas tree and watched walle (loved it).

The next morning (saturday) I modded my model to put LEDs in the head so the eye's glow! I am so amazed with myself. In reality LEDs only need a simple circuit to work but figuring out which ends and making it all fit in there smoothly took quite a bit of time. And because I couldn't get 100 yen head phones to work I used a video cable I didn't need. It works great except its kind of a little too thick so the head can't look up very well. I might still be able to fix it somehow though.
*warning more in depth gundam rant*
ok so for this model I wanted to make it look better so I spray painted the peices while still in the runners. The color was perfect, the reds and blues are vibrant and the white no longer has this ugly dull shade it had before, however now that there is a paint texture to the peices I can't do pannel lining the way I used to. Panel lines are grooves in the plastic that make it look more machine like and normally you use a pen in the grooves and wipe away the excess so only the stuff really deep in the groove remains. The problem is that the paint attaches to the ink of the pen instantly so I have these ugly thing lines and to top it off wing zero has TONS of panel lines all over its legs so it stands out a lot. I have to do more research to figure out what I'm supposed to do.
*end gundam rant*

So because I listened to the scriptures on mp3 the other day and I really wanted to get out of the house I decided to go to church, finally! I'm really glad that I did because right when I entered everyone was really nice and the american missionary took me under his wing and showed me around and introduced me to people. I so easily forget how nice everyone is at church. I accidentally went to the japanese language ward but it was really cool experience. I couldn't really understand most of the lessons but I could pick up bits here and there. Aside from a lot of church vocabulary I don't know they use a lot of keigo and teneigo which is that infamous Japanese polite speach. I was taught that in class but they just wanted you to have a basic understanding of it, and I understand the bits that sales clerks will use but its something I'm not very strong in. It seems like really good practice though so that should be good. It was interesting to see people in suits, street clothes and kimonos all together in sacrament.

Well thats about it I suppose I'll try not to go crazy while waiting for school to start January 7th.

---Ben

Tokyo part 3

Okay so today`s main goal was to get to the studio Ghibli museum. We got a late start and ended up eating at Dennys again and then headed off for mikata. We had to transfere to the Chuo line, which was kind of hard to see on the train map we had, but we went to shibuya, transfered to shinjiku, then got on the chuo line. Some how we did a pretty good job at navigating the train lines here in Tokyo. It was about a mile or so to the studio from the station and we decided to walk, it was a really nice suburbian setting along the way. When we finally got there behind the glass was a giant totoro and a bunch of people taking their picture with it. It turned out that we needed to wait until 2pm because they let people in at increments at a time. So we walked around the nice park that was nearby while we waited. The museum wasn`t incredibly huge but was like a really rich person`s house. The whole thing had the miyazaki magical vibe about it. They had one room that was about like the old ways of animation and they had these figures that were the same character but slightly diffrent poses and they spun with the strob light and it looked like they were all moving, very cool. They also had a fake, over the top, old time projector. Like its not how projectors worked back then but it was kind of like a magical way of thinking about it with film being stretched back and forth left and right all over the place. We also a room that was dedicated to the animation process. It had original story boards from movies, original cells, and lots of charts on how cell animation was done. It really make you appreciate the old way of animation, it again just made it feel some how magical. We also got to watch a short film about the kitten bus. The cat bus was a major character in totoro and this was its son. Its a really weird character design. Its a cat with 6 legs, you can get inside of it, its eyes become head lights, and it can turn into the wind if it wants to. This was the first time Erin had seen any studio Ghibli stuff and was pretty freaked out. They also had a cat bus playground thing for little kids and an over priced gift shop.

It started to rain when we got out so we took the bus back and then we ate some cheap donburi place. Then we began our quest for the square enix store. This is where we started to get on each other`s throat. As it turns out square enix store is in shinjiku, NOT shibuya. Both me and Emily looked up the stores location but neither of us could get solid information about how to get to there. Assuming it was in shibuya I was pretty sure we had to go one way but other people thought we needed to go another. It wasn`t until we boared the wrong train that we found out how off we were. We both admitted fault for that then headed back. Becuase we tried to exit the same station we bought the ticket at, the machine wouldn`t take it. Pac some how managed to get pass the gates before the closed but the three of us had to try and explain what happened to the clerk. Thank goodness we spoke Japanese because this guy was so confused as to what we had done.

It started to really pour down at this point and Emily and Erin still wanted to do some shopping. So we got umbrellas and crossed that world famous intersection then headed up a little bit. Me and Pac whent to Tower records while those two were close shopping. We then got some food, rested up, then made the long trip back. I some how managed to get all of my stuff into the bigger suitcase and hopefully emily will help me out and put here three bags into my smaller suitcase and use that one.

got the night bus to look forward to still!

Tokyo part 2

So Saturday we decided to let Erin decide what to do and we ended up going to Ueno Zoo. It was actually kind of a disapointing zoo. First of all the big attraction was the giant panda, but it died earlier this year. Besides that the animals all looked really sad and weak. Like I`m no animal rights activists or anything but these animals looked really miserable in that zoo, and some of them not that healthy. We then walked around Ueno for a bit. Tokyo is really a beautiful city. The city scape just keeps going and even though it is a big city it feels so safe and clean. After walking around there for a while we went back to Asakusa. There was a really big area for street shopping and little stores that just seemed to go on for ever. We spent a few hours walking around and ate dinner at a kaitensushi place. It was good but once I ate squid sushi, I was done. Squid is the toughest thing in the world to eat. Its so chewy you can not bite it at all. There was a strong bit of wasabi underneath too so ugh I couldn`t eat anymore after that. The staff there found out we knew some Japanese and they were so impressed. They must get tons of foreigners everyday who don`t know a word so it felt good to kind of show off a little bit. After that we got some ice cream and called it a night.

Today we woke up earlier and made it out of the hostel at a decent time. For breakfeast we went to a dennys which was pretty diffrent. Like they had eggs toast sausage but I don`t think there was thing on the menu that was exactly the same. After that we got to Akihabara!

Now I have wanted to go to Akihabara for years, it was easily the place I wanted to go to more so then anywhere else in the world; and now after having gone it wasn`t what I was expecting but I wasn`t dissapointed. First of all, I could not find cosplayers! I found maids handing out flyers and I saw 1 foreinger dressed as naruto`s sakura but that was it. I don`t know if people don`t do it all year round or what but I couldn`t find the parades of cosplayers I was searching for. However the shopping is incredible. There are TONS of stores, I got so lost and turned around it just drained me. It wasn`t just the anime stores but tons of electronic stores and DVD+CD places. I didn`t actually go crazy with spending though. Osaka and Kobe have some pretty decent anime stores so I knew what was out there and whats normal prices, and truth betold I only want to buy gundams. DVDs wont play on my stuff at home, figures can get pretty pricy and you dont get to build them, and my japanese just isn`t good enough to enjoy reading manga yet. But I did come out pretty well with the Gundams, I got 6 for 8100 yen, all of them close to half off. Two of them are master grades, three of them are metalic reflective coating models, and four of them are 1/100 scale.

Going to Akihabara had been one of the big life goals of mine and now I can check it off the list, how many people can say that? Feels pretty good

Well I`ve got more things to do in Tokyo for the next two days so I`ll update later

Live from Tokyo Japan!

Well here I am, finally in Tokyo. Its been a real adventure getting to this hostel in asakusa. We decided to take the night bus because it is less then half the cost of the shinkansen. We had to board the bus at 11:30 so we met up at Umeda station at 10 and tried to find it, according to the map I was sure it was just over one way pretty close but thankfully we have some girls in our group who are able to ask for directions, I can say all of the japanese words its just a guy thing. So we found out it was best to take the train until the next stop and go from there. So we get on the Osaka loop and we ask a guy working there if that train stopped where we needed it to and he said yes but when we got on it, it passed our station! So then we got off on the next one it stopped and walked to the other side, but we couldn't figure out which train would stop there because JR doesn't put big signs on the trains saying limited express or local it just has diffrent colored trains, which are diffrent from what Hankyu uses. At this point we all started to get a little anxious about getting there on time and some how we got to the station we needed to get to and just started walking down this random street in downtown Osaka. We finally find the bus, it wasn't a station it was just the bus parked there. We didn't have much time left but we tried to find a bathroom. Of course everything was closed but the only things around that area were really fancy car dealerships and hotels. Erin ended up asking a restaurant to use their bathroom and they were apparently nice about it. So we ran back to the bus.

The ride on the bus was not so good. Like the seats were pretty comfortable and you had a decent amount of space but I just can not sleep in a situation like that. I don't know if I actually slept or not. All night I was kind of concious but my mind was going all over the place and I could move if I wanted to but my body felt heavy. Anyways it just didn't refresh me enough because when we finally arrived in Shinjiku I felt like crap. We spent a good amount of time walking around Shinjiku just trying to get our barrings. The government office section of shinjiku had some amazing buildings, the architecture is really out there. Emily and Pak got the special edition dissida PSP system at bic camera, and its a really cool. I feel so special being able to get a final fantasy game right as it comes out in Japan.

We planned to get to the hostel at 3 so that we could all just take a well deserved nap. I figured out the infamous tokyo subway line even though its really something else. In Osaka all of the stations are within each other so if you buy a ticket that you have to transfer somewhere you never go outside. Here we had to leave the station and walk a block to transfer. Also I've noticed that on the escilator in Osaka people stand on the right but in Tokyo people stand on the left. Its intersting that there are these little differences between Kansai and Kanto regions.

The hostel is actually pretty nice. For starters it was only 7200 yen for 4 nights and they have a big area downstairs for showers, TV, computers, or just general haning out. The room is a basic dormitory set up with 3 bunkbeds. There are 4 of us, one girl that we saw and someone's backpack that was sitting ontop of one of the beds but we never saw whos it was. The bed has a really nice memory foam pillow but the matress is really painful. Anyways when we got there I passed out and at around 8 we went to a ramen restraunt and talked slightly about what we were going to do today.

Going to tokyo tomorrow!

Right now I am kind of out of it. On the 18th (today) Final Fantasy Dissida came out. Its a really cool fighting game for the PSP that has the villains and heroes from FF1-12 (although 11 and 12 only get one character each while 1-10 gets a hero and villain). So anyways some other foreign exchange students said they wanted to get it at midnight and even though I wasn't super crazy about getting it right away, I love midnight releases, so I emailed them asking what was up last night and they said they were all heading down to Umeda. So ok I thought I'll head down too. We get there and yodobashi is closed. No body actually took the time to find out if there was a midnight release. So we are all sitting there kind of stupefied with ourselves. And we decidced to do all night karaoke and get it in the morning. We walk around for a bit, first trying to find a bathroom for Courtney, then we check out an arcade for a bit and I played a really crazy version of half life 2. It was an arcade game and you sat in a chair and you had a mouse like joy stick on your left hand and a flight stick on your right. The game was heavily edited to be more of an arcade game but the controls just didnt work. In some of the wii shooter games you have to move the cursor to the edge of the screen to move the character, it was the same thing. It just didn't really work out, and controlling a human by using weird joysticks like that didn't make it feel more realistic or anything.

We then tried out a kaiten sushi place. Kaiten is that conveyor belt thing where they just have plates of sushi going around and you pick up what you want. The plates all cost 130 yen so they just counted the amount of plates you have at the end to pay. It was really obvious however that no one there liked their job. The plates were not very clean and the chef had this tube of mayo that he uses on some of the sushi (mayo is diffrent in Japan and usually really good on japanese food). But he just squirts some on the floor! Its like what the heck that is NOT sanitary at all. And then when we called over the cashier, she was definitely not the super spunky clerk you see everywhere else i Japan. So we then go to the karaoke place and spend so long there. The tiredness was getting to me at the end and you know how your throat gets kind of acidicy if you are up really late drinking soda? I had that pretty bad. I've come to really like singing only Japanese songs. Most of them are a challenge just to get the words out in time but its fun.

The all night karaoke ended at 6 am. But yodobashi didn't open until 9:30! We walked back to yodobashi and so a place seling the game at 7am. However the other people were buying the special edition psp bundle so they had to get it there. I wanted to be a good friend and wait with them but for the life of me I just couldn't sit around for 3 more hours. I got mine at 7am and tatsuya put out a folding table just outside of thier store and a cash register and boxes of the games. A few people started to gather but I got mine pretty early on. I hurried back to the train station and started to play but I was falling asleep playing it, I was so tired. I did what I could to get home and crashed in my bed. I set my alarm to go off in 3 hours because I wanted to go to class and turn in my paper in person but my alarm didnt go off, or didnt wake me up and I slept until class just started. I then went back to bed and got up at around 3pm. I emailed the teacher then spent the rest of the day packing and playing dissida. I'm pretty tired right now and I have to board the night bus at 11:30 tonight. Hopefully, fingers crossed, I'll just passout and be all genki for tokyo friday morning. We all did a really bad job of actually planning this trip so it'll be interesting to see what we end up doing. It's all pretty cool finally going to akihabara and seeing what all of the fuss is really about.

Well I'm going to head off back to umeda soon so I'll write back when I return from tokyo.

---Ben

byoki

Well this weekend was really not that exciting. This week I have my Japanese history final and my Japanese language finals. Also I didn't have any plans so I thought it would be best just to stay home and do as much studying as I could Saturday and Sunday. I slept in a lot Saturday, tried to skype home but the internet was bad, then around noon I decided I needed to go out to get some food since my host mom was gone. So I headed off to Sannomiya and tried to find a Wendys because I was really longing for some regular American food but couldn't find anything so I ended up getting some curry at some little place. The other reason I went to Sannomiya was to play that gundam arcade game. For my conversation test we had to pick a piece of news and talk about it and I picked an article about how that game is getting a firmware upgrade and the features it was adding so I thought I should know what I was talking about. I'll rant on about that game later in this blog because it will be a lot I'm sure. After words I decided to just check out gamers because they have random sales that are really good. I ended up picking up another gundam model, which I will also hold back on talking about until later.

So I went home and from that point until Sunday night I was just going between playing DS, watching Gundam Seed Destiny on youtube, messing with my PSP to get new programs isntalled, and a little studying here and there. By late sunday I was really regretting staying home all day and was really looking forward to going to school just to get out of that house. For dinner we had this hamburger thing, it was just the meat with some sauce on it. It tasted fine but my stomach started to hurt right after I got about half way through. It was pretty light and it was more like a pressure so I thought I was full. After dinner I just laid on my bed but slowly it got worse and worse and when I tried to go to sleep the pain kept me up pretty late. It wasn't excruciating or anything like that it just felt like there was a lot of pressure on my insides.

In the morning I felt like crap but I had to go to school because I had two finals. I was barely able to eat some yogurt and headed off to school. The walk to the station felt so terrible. I really didn't want to go on anymore. On the train wasn't too bad because I could find some sort of sitting position that didn't hurt as much. At school I just felt really bad. I kind of bombed the conversation test because I just didn't know the new vocab I needed to talk about the story and I could use notes but looking at that totally throws you off. I got an 82 on it which is much better then I thought. I tried to eat some ice cream and fruit for lunch but couldn't get it all down. The history test wasn't too bad I thought. If this was a real class I would have worried because I didn't put college level answers to the questions but since this is make-believe-joke-of-a-college class and there was extra credit I'm sure I'll get a good grade.

Right after I turned in the test I hurried home and the walk from the station to the house was so terrible, I wanted it to be over so badly. I some how made it and fell right asleep. I woke up for dinner and had enough of an appetite to eat dinner. I messed around online for a bit then went to sleep at like 11 or something. The next day I felt better but still had some discomfort so I called in sick and just layed in bed most of the day. I watched like 20 episodes of gundam seed destiny I think, I'm almost done. I didn't take a nap just sat around all day. When I went to school this morning I was really happy to finally get out of that house.

So the semester is really close to being over, here is what I have left; Thursday: kanji test and reading comprehension, Friday: grammar and listening test, Sunday: field trip to Kyoto, and Monday and Thursday: meaning less Japanese history class since the final is done. Then it's off to Tokyo to take lots of pictures and spend lots of money.

Oh also I'm hanging out with one of my penpals tomorrow. I don't know if it is a date or not though. I've seen her pictures and she's really cute and were having dinner and seeing the lights for the luminaria festival. It's always hard to know what is and isn't a date. I think as long as you don't call it a date there isn't much pressure. Oh well heres hoping things work out.

Now for the rants. First that Gundam arcade game. The game is called Mobile Suit Gundam: Bonds of the battle field (kidou senshi gundamu: senjou no kizuna) and it is a giant dome pod that you enter in and sit inside. The game uses a projector to give you a giant hemisphere view from within the mobile suit. You have two flight sticks and two peddals. The flight sticks control movement, left, right, forward, turhing, etc and the buttons on the sticks control lock on and meele or long range weapon. The peddals control dash and jump. It is really easy to get the hang of the controls and it really feels like you are piloting a giant robot! The hemisphere view really brings it all together as you will see stuff in your peripheral vision and since the controls are the way they are you do more normal movements, none of the crazy stuff that main characters do in the show but things that the regular troops do, which is what you play as. I don't think I'm doing a very good job explaining it but the way the whole presentation comes together it feels like you understand what the anime characters are actually doing.
But this game has some huge problems. The first is the graphics suck. Like you can play the game online with other arcades across Japan, so the graphics are held back for that but this really looks like a dreamcast game. I never understood why they can't just put a freaking PS3 into these are arcade games to get decent graphics. Second the projector is pretty low quality. I mean it is kind of understandable since they are high mass production and run pretty much 24/7 but its a really low resolution image, making kanji nearly unreadable, and it has really bad screen door effect which takes away some of the experience. The game is also kind of pricy. Its 500 yen for 2 plays and each play lasts for 3 or 4 mins, so compared to other arcade games its not a terrible yen to min rate but its not something I think I could justify playing everyday, atleast with all of my other vices. Also you have to buy an ID card to play. The ID card is cool because you choose your character's costume, voice and default mobile suit and it prints out this card with your name and an emblem and stores all of your win records on it. But at 300 yen it means your first play costs 800 yen.
Now more gundam rants. At gamers what I decided to buy was the 1/60 scale wing 0 gundam. I kept going back and forth on this because I am going to tokyo and didn't want to waste all my money before I went but these 1/60 scale are kind of rare and Gamers has a sort of ware house or budget store kind of vibe in their gundam section so I thought when that thing is gone its gone for good. So going with that mind set I HAD to buy it. I've yet to start it but I am glad I bought it because for 2500 yen it has a light up chest. Whats really cool is that you build the little light circuit yourself they just give you some wire pieces already bent the right way. I'm really looking forward to having that one finished. With this one I also decided that I'm finally going to start buying spray paint and painting the models. I sprayed some of my completed ones with this top coat stuff which adds a hint of flat metalic look to them in addition to protecting the decals. With wing 0 I can get by with just buying white, red, blue and gold. And white red blue are colors that tons of gundams use so it won't really be a waist.
The problem with spray painting them is how do I keep the pieces organized. What I plan to do is cut out all of the pieces, trim them, sand them (since I am painting them the extra scratches wont show up) spray them, ink them then assemble them all. On the 1/60 models the pieces are simple and big enough it should be ok but on the 1/100 master grades there are somewhere around 200 pieces and a lot of them are really small. Just digging through a box of parts could take forever.
Lets see what else do I have to rant about. I'm playing castlevania order of eclessia on DS right now. I like the main character being a strong non girly female and the weapon system is really good but I'm at the end game part right now and I'm just stuck with nothing to do but keep leveling up, and leveling up in this game usually breaks down to you running into a room killing 1 monster running back out then back in so that he spawns once more. Normal castlevania games make mosters lower the amount of exp the give as you level up but in this one they stay the same. Which is good and bad. It kind of encourages me just to kill the same thing 1000 times. At any rate once this is done I'm going to try and burn through Phoenix Wright 3, so that I can do nothing but Dissidia when that comes out on the 18th.
Well theres another long blog for you all, bye