Umare no hi.

Friday the 13th was the real celebration day of my birthday, even though my birthday was sunday. So, here's the rundown with pictures. First, I went with Manami, Seth, and Johann to an izakaya for two hours of all-you-can-drink, pretty good food, and acting gay. Here's some pictures to illustrate.





I guess maybe I should correct that, because after looking at these pictures, looks like I was the only one acting gay. I swear that's not how I remember it though.

Next we met up with some more friends, including my good, somewhat tiny French buddy Francois and his girlfriend Wakana (I'm pretty sure thats her name). We went to everyone's favorite standing-room-only-bar Tasu Ichi. Not many pictures from that excursion, but here's Manami and I being cute as usual.


Then we went to Sakura house, the gaijin house where Seth and Francois live, and where Johan used to live. Someone there, can't remember who, busted out god knows what alcohol. It was black and tasted like what I would imagine a mummy's butthole would taste like. Here's a couple reaction shots of Johan and myself following that disaster of a mistake.



Honestly, I dont know what the deal is right now, but my armpits smell like the Barbados airport. No joke.

Anyways, here's a group shot from the Sakura house.


Here's a picture from Womb, the club. You can't really tell, but one of the two DJs who totally kicked ass that night (Dex Pistols) is holding up a Daft Punk shirt out of respect and because they were playing the DP. It ruled. I danced my sexy ass off till around 4:30 or so.


Word, so Saturday the 14th it rained all day. ALL freaking day thanks to a passing typhoon, which is a Japanese word, but they don't say the "n" at the end. I don't know why it got tacked on in becoming an english word really. Anyways, Manami and I decided to order some pizza because the local place near me had a half-off (hanbaku) discount day. This pizza was awesome. So awesome that here's a picture. And the fries were free.

LOOK AT ALL THOSE TOPPINGS! That one in the back has squid, octopus, shrimp and other sea goodies on it! YUM!
Yeah, did I mention it rained all day? So we slept most of the day.

Sunday, my actual birthday it rained more, but eventually let up a little bit. Manami and I went shopping in Omiya (the biggest area in my city) and had a little snack. Here's why Japanese fast food restaurants kick ass.

What's that? It's from a restaurant called Lotteria, a fast food chain here, and this is a tandori chicken sandwich. How awesome is that? The bread is nan!! Like Indian bread Nan, ya dig?

Then we went to yakiniku dinner with her family, but she had work Monday so I went to Tokyo and met up with Seth. We drank till about 2, thereby missing the last train, and I fell asleep until about 5 at his place. Woke up, went home, fell asleep around 7 and then was awoken by the crazy earthquake. Friday was crazy, but my actual birthday was pretty chilled out.

Finally, I just went to the post office and had an "only in Japan" moment. Basically, I don't know the ATM number to my new bank account, which is actually run through the post office. I went about 2 weeks ago to get my new number, they said they'd mail it to me, I got a phone call because there was a problem last week, so I went in today. I know it's confusing, but basically I had a whole lot of runaround. I think the post office lady could see I was a little frustrated, so what did she do to reciprocate? She gave me a hand-towel!! Does that happen in America? I don't think so, anyways.

See you in 6 days give or take.

After the earthquake...

Hey this is just a quick update to let everyone know that everything is fine where I am. I felt the earthquake, the most intense one i've felt since i've been here. I've felt a lot of small ones, but with this one things in my room were shaking around a bit. It was a very slow kind of "chugging" feeling all around and it made me dizzy. Not to mention I stayed up all night drinking with some buddies in Tokyo.

No problems here though.

Full update soon.

and I'm 23 now.

Press Release

Dated July 11, 2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

This notification is to confirm that, as of 7 PM on the tenth day of the seventh month of the year 2007, one Little Miss Manami bought a plane ticket to O'Hare International Airport. She will be with us August 13 through August 21, and therefore will be accounted for at one Miss Mom's 60th birthday extravagana*. Let's all be excited and looking forward to this monumental event.

*Please note, it's not really an extravaganza, but more of a family affair. This footnote provided in the event of any Mustique readers wondering if it's a huge party they weren't invited to. I assure you, it's not.

In other news (and in a less fabricated format), I have pictures from last weekend. So let's see em shall we?

Alright, Friday was my Saitama buddy Blair's birthday. Blair never drinks, EVER, he's never been drunk. Power to him. The reason I mention this is because, well, we didn't get drunk for his birthday. We went ramen eating and bowling!!

This was some of the best ramen I've had in Japan, seriously. It's ridiculous how good ramen is in japan, while in america, if an average person thinks of ramen, they think Cup O' Noodle (which, by the way is just called "Cup Noodle" in japan and has a ton more flavors, like curry). There's gotta be some money to be made in America with that, eh?


Okay, I lied, we drank a little bit. But check out the spectrum of Asahi you can buy. From small to big.


Then we did the bowling thing. But who wants to see pictures of that? NOT ME! Instead, look at how cool the bowling shoes in Japan are!

Of course, those are Manami's legs on the right, mine on the LEFT.

Here are my two buddies. Their names are dave and dave. Dave is from Canada and Dave is from England. You try and figure out which one is which. You'll notice that Dave is also modeling a small Asahi, in addition to the wonderfully named "Hope" cigarettes. Because we all know, tobacco and its associated poisons give everyone hope!


Fairly early night, next day came around, went shopping, spent too much money on two badASS t-shirts. Then Manami went off to a wedding party and I met up with my Shibuya friends Seth and Johann. Seth is a buddy from studying abroad last summer, while Johann is a Swedish lad who used to live at the same gaijin house as Seth when Seth came back this winter. Confusing? GOOD! We walked around a bit then Manami met up with us and we flew to America...see? look in the picture?

GOT YOU FUCKERS! They have wendey's in Japan too!

Then we went out. In Japan they have things called "tatsunomiya" which means "standing drinking places." They're bars with no seats. Everybody stands and they usually get crowded. The one we went to in particular is a gaijin-friendly standing bar. Do they have standing bars in America?? Can anyone help me out here?

Met some nice dudes from Zambia who were studying in Tokyo. English is their native language, and they were happy to communicate with other English speakers. They were big fans of Lucky Dube and Third World, so we had a little bit of a singing session. Good times.


Here's some Japanese dudes, me, Seth, and Johann. No story here really.


Here's Seth and Johann again with adorable, cute, drunk little Manami. How cute is that!?


And finally, a kick ass store I found recently has tons of t-shirts by the artist who does all the Ed Banger Records artwork, a man named So Me. In this store they have these awesome Daft Punk dolls. The guys who work there are really nice to talk to and were totally cool with my taking pictures.


That's all. See many of you 12 days!! Amy and Nikki, PLEASE BRING THE Nintendo Wii!!!!

Slackin' off.

No pictures again. Been SERIOUSLY slacking in that department.

Can anyone tell me how old Billy's Boot Camp is? Random question right? Well, I ask because it is absolutely sweeping the nation of Japan right now. Manami has it, all my students joke about it, housewives talk about it like they're having an affair with the big beautiful black man. It's crazy. At least 3 years old right? It's kind of amazing though, because all they did was throw some Japanese subtitles on the pre-existing videos and the man has made millions more (i'm assuming) off the same core product. Makes me wish I could do something like that, but I'd rather not exert any energy into anything ever...though I do want to get me one of them Billy Bands to work my guns.

In other non-Japanese-but-in-Japan news, after years and years of wondering what those glorious restaurants seen in the ads of in-flight airplane magazines where beautiful Brazillian men bring huge slabs of meat on sticks to your table were like, I ate at one in Tokyo. Manami and I kinda splurged and hit Barbacoa Churrascuro (is that right?) in Aoyama, right off Omotesando which is like the um Champ-Elysses or Rodeo Drive or Michigan Ave or what have you of Tokyo. It was delicious. Seriously, it lived up to all my expectations and wasn't even that expensive. 4200 yen (about $40) for all-you-can-eat of various meats and a massive salad bar. Let's just say I took a huge poop a couple hours after that one. And again in the morning.

I'm leaving the country for a month in 17 days. Even though I was home in March, I'm soooo excited to see everyone and Leo...and Daft Punk....and Crowded House! And I'll be 23 by then. Fuck that, but what can you do?

See ya'll soon. Sorry this update sucked.