Last blog of 2006.

So here we are at the end of the Japanese semester, and I'm leaving tomorrow for Mustique. As excited as I am, I just got home, and must say I'm actually a little sad to leave Japan, even though it's only for 2 weeks. It makes me wonder if I'll ever be able to leave Japan (at least anytime soon) for an extended period of time. It's just too awesome here. Still, I miss home, the family, the ol' friends, and of course, Leo (my dog). God, I miss Leo.

Anyways! It's been a while since my last update. Last weekend was pretty relaxing, but Manami and I made sure to eat a special dinner. We decided on a kobe beef joint in Kashiwa, Chiba. Here's a couple pictures...food, what a surprise right?


This ain't no Nippon's. This is the real deal.

Yum. The filet was especially tender and awesome.



Good dinner. Manami got me some kick ass kicks for Christmas. They're Nike Court Force Low Premiums featuring a purple/blue/light blue colorway and two different colored nike swoosh logos on each shoe. Pretty loud and badass. I would upload a picture, but they're already in my suitcase.

The next day we went to Shinjuku, one of the more lively areas in Tokyo. We just kinda walked around all day, shopped for Xmas gifts, and I ate one of the better pizzas i've had in Japan. It had salmon and salmon eggs. Salmon eggs are called "ikura" in Japanese. Additionally, "ikura" means "how much" (as in "how much does this cost"). So there's a japanese joke- "Ikura wa ikura da" (how much do the salmon eggs cost). HOW FUNNY IS THAT?? Right, uh yeah...anyways...My students taught me a bunch of other similar "jokes" like that. They're fun to use and impress Japanese people thoroughly.



This week, I had a pretty relaxing week of classes that required little to no work. Tomorrow is the end of the semester ceremony, and I think I'm going to have to give a goodbye speech in Japanese. That should be totally awesome, as I enjoy butchering the Japanese language whenever possible. The last two nights I hung out with Nam, the JET in Tsuchiura. Tonight we went to four, count em, four arcades. Took some pictures and shite. Maybe I'll upload them here in 2007. Oh yeah, we also ate pretty decent mexican food, thereby popping my "Mexican food in Japan" cherry. Good stuff. Also, I ended my night with my first Japanese microwbrew. I think it was called "Heart" or something like that. It was actually really good, and i'm slightly buzzing. It was a big bottle.

I hope you all have a very awesome Christmas and New Years. That's all for now.

If my plane goes down, play "Don't Dream It's Over" at my funeral. Thanks and I love all of you!!!

-ryan