Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Well, It Has a Blythe On the Box, So I Trust It

Today, I woke up with my copy of A Feast for Crows (4th in the Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones) book in bed with me. I thought I put it on the table before I went to bed...I think it's a sign that I either really love the book or it's telling me to finish its last 4 pages. This one is really a battle to get through, but then the last three chapters really get you. Ughh.
Wahahaha.

This past week has been full of chocolate, bleach, and a church rave. Awesome combo, really.

On Saturday, I went over to meet up with Grant in Shinjuku. Apparently, there was a 7.4 earthquake by Fukushima that people felt all the way over here in Tokyo. The station must be pretty darn sturdy, because I didn't feel a thing at that time. I did feel the one the night before though, which only last about 10 seconds.

Anyways, Grant and I were really hoping the care package from his family came and when we got to his apartment, it was sitting outside his door. YES.

Grant told me that his family said that we should open the package together. Ohmygosh. =]
 Half chocolate, half non-edibles. There were 2 packages inside for each of us!
There was so much chocolate. We tried a piece (or 3) of everything XD. SooOOo goood. MoMo and Bethy - you would really like the Rum Nougat by Ritter Sports. It looks like it's a limited edition, so go get dat!
They also sent Grant's beer recipe book. He went to go get it signed by a ton of brewers, who make beer that he loves, at a beer party the next day.
 We got hats and gloves!
I'm so happy Grant has gloves now ^____^.
And we each got books!
I'm super pumped to read this, which will probably be today since I'm almost done with GoT. Thank you again, Mr. and Mrs. Mark! I love eet all. ^____^

While mass eating all of the chocolate, his roommates were taking food from the freezer and fridge that were left behind from people that moved out, and cooking it all together. It smelled like Thanksgiving turkey and stuffing. XD They shared the crazy awesome potluck-ish meal with us.
It was fantastic. There were probably about 5 different meats in that pot, along with some veggies, all cooked in a delicious broth. After, they brought out really thin slices of chicken that we dipped in another broth.
You swish around the meat and it cooks almost instantly. This kind of cooking is called "shabu shabu." No, not "jabu-jabu."
There was no annoying princess you had to carry around. lolol.
Grant shared his chocolate with his roommates and some even tried the Tim-Tam-cocoa-eating method. SoOoOOo good.

Grant and I escaped away in the kitchen and tried the Haagen Dasz that we bought earlier. They were a bit more expensive, but way more fancy than your typical ice cream.
I really liked the raspberry one O___O. There were even gold flakes dusted on the top. REAL GOLD. Well, probably not. It was so good, though. The chocolate one was pretty decent, but the raspberry...woof.

Anyways, it was really awesome sitting and talking a bit with Grant and his roommates. Who would have thought we would be eating and talking with people from all over the world.

The next day, I got a phone call from Grant early in the morning, telling me that Carter, his brother, and a friend were hit by a drunk driver during the night. Thank all that is good that everyone was okay. We found out that Carter really was okay after he went to get checked at a hospital. Ugh, very very good news. We're pretty pumped that he's coming here to visit soon ^___^ and that luckily this incident didn't change that.

Grant stopped by to do some homework here since his internet went down, before he went off to the beer party. When he got here, he realized he forgot his homework XD. A lot must have been going through his mind. Toats understandable.

Instead, we bleached my hair. lolol, nearly the same thing, right? Grant helped to bleach the back of my head, which I realized after we had the bleach in, that we should have started in the back first. It didn't turn out quite as dark as I had hoped.
After walking with Grant to the station, I stopped in a local pharmacy-Walgreens-like-store and bought some more bleach.
It had a Blythe on the cover. I had to trust it. And there was a #1 sign by it, so I mean, I had to.
Of course, all the directions were in Japanese, but it's all basically the same thing and the illustrations are always great. lolz.

I was talking with Lauren and Beth while the bleach was burning my skull. Nah, it wasn't that bad. ^___~ And it turned out way better the second time. So much, that I decided to put off putting the dye in and keeping this bleach color for a bit. A.K.A Until I get bored - Not at least for another 3 days.
Look, Mommy! Blonde-ish-orange-pink.
In the evening, I met up with Daan and Wendy. Evan invited us to go to his church in Roppongi.
The Roppongi area is apparently the party area, especially for foreigners. We didn't explore at all, but met up with Evan right away.
Yeah, this is church. It seriously looked like a rave. It started off with a few songs, in which we all went to the front for. They had the lyrics in English and Japanese on the projector screens. Concert lights were swirling about. There were about 4 singers on stage, jumping around, while everyone in the crowd was singing and jumping around, too. I was like thinking, "where am I..." and then thinking of church back home. In 2 minutes, I already preferred this "service."

After dancing around, we sat down for the sermon. They had someone speaking and then there was a man that translated it to Japanese right away. And I paid attention! What is this place....

After the sermon, there was more singing and dancing to close the mass. Then, a few people came up to welcome us and introduce themselves to me, Daan, and Wendy. One girl gave me a small Bible that is in both English and Japanese, which I thought was pretty awesome. Oh, and it has sheep on it. Double win.

I'm not sure when I'll be going back, but it was definitely the coolest church I've ever been to.

On Monday after class, I met up with Yuuki for Track. He told me that the season was ending after Sunday. >___< bOoOoOo. Since it was pretty darn cold, we trained inside again. I asked Yuuki if he could teach me a new exercise using the Barbell, so he taught me barbell squat jumps. It's pretty much the squats I've been doing, but with a jump at the end.
I started off with 30 Kilo. Nope, too easy. We added weight in increments of 10 kilograms. I asked what weight he usually did, and he said 70 kilograms, so I tried to match him. I was happy to say it wasn't challenging enough XD. So, we added 10 more and it became challenging at the 9/10th rep so we didn't add any more. That's still 10 more kilos (a total of 176 lbs) than I was used to squatting - and with jumping!

Okay, done bragging <___<. lolz. Yuuki and I started to playing Dragon Quest 9. It's a lot tougher than Animal Crossing is in Japanese. =[ I felt bad that I was taking so long to read what the characters were saying. Bah! Yuuki didn't seem to mind and helped me to translate some of the sentences. We'll be playing it again today after 2nd period ^___^.

I came home to find that I had missed the package that Diane sent me. By five minutes. GAH. I shouldn't have taken so long translating XD. That was okay though, because then I had something to look forward to the next day.

Evan and I went swimming again after class yesterday. I'm feeling a lot lighter in the water now. I really appreciate all of the help that Evan is giving me on swimming because I was never really crazy about the sport. Now, I'm starting to enjoy it ^___^. We did a few sprints. It's weird being out of breath from exercising, but not sweating. Anyways, it was a pretty awesome workout. Plus, it keeps me off my joints and gives them a rest. So many wins.

Before meeting up with Grant to look for a winter coat, I picked up the package from Diane.
Lauren and Beth were on video chat with me as a I opened the package. It had some pretty amazing stuff in it. Chocolate, Salted Pistachios (I didn't even know I liked these...), a serpent ring (which I wore right away), hello kitty pencil, scarf, pretty keychain, some cute Japanese-doll style pins, a candy cane, a letter, and even a present for Grant (which I started opening until I saw that it had a note that said "For Grant" attached to it - oops ^___^').
Which he opened right away when I met up with him outside of his class. It was a Julius Caesar coin/pendant. Grant seemed to really like it! =^.^=

Another awesome package. I feel so loved ()(T.T)()

Since Grant and I wanted to go shopping in Harajuku, we decided to go to Subway to eat for dinner instead of cooking, since shops close super fer eeking early and it was already 5.
It was a bit more difficult ordering from here in Japanese XD.
We wanted to try subs that you can't get back home. They might have these in the US now though. No idea! I got some kind of salmon sub with wasabi/soy sauce and Grant got a Tandoori chicken sub with some kind of pepper sauce. They were pretty darn good. Even if the US had a salmon sub, I probably wouldn't trust the fish, haha.
The Subways here have only 4 types of breads to choose from and also less veggies available. You also seem to get less meat. I did like how the worker only put 1 line of sauce on the sub instead of 10 like back home. Anyways, It was pretty delicious.

We headed off to Harajuku after.
I'm constantly trying to sneak random shots of the clothes here. I got some pretty balla pants and hoodie at this shop XD. The first purchase I've made this month! Not bad.
Grant bought me Hello Kitty frame lens-less glasses, which I wore around all night =^.^=. And they don't hurt my big head!
This just made me think of Gwen Stefani:
 BETH:
We found no winter coat. Wahahaha. We'll probably have to go shopping again. Oh darn. Of course, we walked to Shibuya for some Fro Yo.
SO GOOD.
After Fro Yo, we went to Craft Heads so Grant could try a new beer. I accidentally called it Crack Heads one night and now it's probably going to be forever known as that.
The brewers that he met on Sunday left a message on the table we were sitting at:
The second one says "U're not Japanese," I think. Wahaha.

It was getting pretty late, so we walked to the station. The train I wanted to board was overflowing with people. Instead of taking the next train, I squished myself in and felt pretty successful. Then, 8 more people followed me. I love Japan. But really, I thought it was hilarious. I looked out and saw that even a Japanese guy standing outside, waiting for the next train, had a surprised look on his face.

Today is a pretty chill day. =^.^= I should start going over old material, since I found out one of our classes, rumored to have a take-home final, is actually having a cumulative exam this year. BAH. Bye bye! =^.~=



4 comments:

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  2. Hahaha. I really, really like the title of this blog post. It might just be my favorite so far. xD Like I said during our chat the other day, lots of people have posted photos of that same box! It seems to be a popular brand that pops up in a bunch of stores there. So it HAS to be good then, right? Lolz.

    Ooo, a church rave?! Now you've got me intrigued.

    I was glad to hear that the earthquake didn't affect you too much there. Mom had a minor freakout though, ha. I'm glad you emailed her to let her know you were alright!

    That looks like a fun package! Was it the first care package that Grant received? I bet he was jealous of all your packages. xD I don't think anyone I've ever known has received THAT many care packages-- and such super-packed ones, too. O__O

    I want to try that rum nougat Ritter, toooooooooooo.

    That hat looks great on you, bb.

    Whoa, that meal looks amazing. You've had such great opportunities to try all different types of food. I'm really proud of you for diving in. Not many people would take advantage of all that cool sounding/looking food.

    Bb, I think I'm even more proud of you for snacking on that ice cream. xD Haha. Oh, bb...

    I'm glad to hear that Carter wasn't hurt from the accident! It sounded like he was fine when we were vid chatting the other night, but we never heard back from you about it after that. Both Mom and Shawn asked about him later on and I couldn't give them a straight answer. Now I can!

    #1 on a box of bleach = A sure thing, of course. Duh.

    I really like that orangey look on you, bb. I didn't think any of us would be able to pull off the color, but you do very nicely! Then again, my lighter red in the front is turning more orange now... and I actually look decent with it. o_O Who knew?

    That church "service" is CRAZY! Crazy AWESOME. Sheesh, I've never seen one like that before, although I have heard they exist-- even in the US, believe it or not. I think a lot of people need to think about converting to other religions though, haha.

    A sheep bible? How cool is that... Shawn needs to do some research on that religion. xD

    I know I told you this already, but I'm so impressed by all those kilos you could lift while squatting. Sheesh, that's amazing. I still have to tell Shawn about that.

    As difficult as it might be reading the lines for Dragon Quest, I'm just glad that you're giving it a go. If anything, I bet it's helping you learn the translations faster. It helps that you have a friend there to back you up with your translating, too. You lucky girl, you.

    Oh bb, you are more than loved. Just think about all the love tackles you're going to get when you come home! As you know, Mom and I are already planning them. ^___~

    Omg, I'm so jealous that you got to try a SALMON sub. Ugh, that's so unfair! I hate that most US people don't like fish. And yes, I agree with you about not wanting to try a salmon sub in the US. I tried Subways Seafood Sub here and it was horrible. US food chain companies really have no idea what they're doing with fish most of the time.

    Aw, I want HK glasses frames! I NEED THEM NOW. ARE THEY IN MY CHRISTMAS PRESENT PACKAGE?

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  3. I love this blog! Your life seems so exciting.I feel like I'm right there when you open your packages.Those Beth shoes are so cool, especially the ones with the leopard bottoms. Hello Kitty glasses? Too cute. The church must have seemed really different. I'd like you to tell me more when you get back. It was so nice of Diane to give you the package. Did you notice that everyone sends you chocolate?--lol.

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  4. I forgot to tell you that hair hair looks beautiful! I would definitely keep it for awhile. Love the pink ends.

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