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
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