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! =^.~=

They Must Go Through a Ton of Candles

Two days ago, I went to a park in Sagamiko to see their Winter Illuminations with Mitchell, Anthony, Evan, Aroma, Moe, and Chihiro ^____^.

In one of the train stations, I finally saw a stranger vending machine.

Coffee and tea? I guess that's not so strange...Bah, I'll keep searching.
But this sign was pretty awesome:

You know. Just fishing for hats today.
Oh, and this guy was just chilling:

I nose, right?

After a few train rides about an hour away, we were picked up by one of Aroma's friends.

The ride there was kind of insane. Aroma's friend was nice enough to drive us there. The road we were taking had so many small, sharp turns. It felt like we were driving up a mountain. The road was also extremely narrow and the exchange students thought it was one way, until there was a car coming our way. "Wait, it's two-way?" Hahaha.
I'll be honest, the way there, I was thinking "What have I gotten myself into? We are totally going to drive off this winding road." When we got there though, my anxiety went away.

It was probably as fascinating to me as it was for the Trolls to see New York City for the first time.

Minus the whole claiming and naming the land with battle axes part.

So many lights...

The music playing sounded like a music box, so it was a very magical feeling while walking around ^___^.
Lauren Hill:

 Chihiro, Aroma, Moe, Evan, Anthony, and Mitchell =^.^=

 Like a fairy-tale T___T.

 Cathedral-like "building"

 They played epic-Zelda-cathedral music in here. It reminded me of MoMo.

The lights kept changing. ^___^

 This is Evan attempting to touch the star and me attempting to take a picture at the right moment XD.

Win!

The lights turned back on right after he jumped the last time. That could have been awkward if it was during, lolol.
These stars were everywhere and if you pushed a button, the star changed to a different color, which indicated your fortune.

 I got rainbow! =^.^= It means happiness. WAHAHA.

 I was excited as Ash when he earned the rainbow badge.

Evan mentioned how difficult it was not to frolic while walking around, which was completely true.

We stopped for some warm foodies ^___^. Udon!

They even had a carousel, but no one was running it X___x. One day, I will get the dragon!

After eating, we rode the skylift to the top by the ferris wheel.

The ferris wheel ride was pretty awesome because you could see so much, even Shinjuku, from the view. (Hi, Grant!)
Then, there was this magical tunnel...

On the way to the bus stop, Evan and I were singing some Christmas songs. He didn't appreciate that I kept on singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" on loop. lolol.

We had to wait about 30 minutes for the bus and we tried to figure out what the lyrics of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" were. Evan looked them up in the end. I usually hate Christmas songs to be honest, but being here makes me feel like I should be singing them. What is. This Life?

We have a new game amongst the exchange students: Take a picture with Mitchell when he falls asleep (which is very often).

Oh yeah, Seijo has their own bottles of water that they sell:

Possible future advertisements.

It was definitely a beautiful night. Yesterday, I went swimming with Evan again and he started to teach me how to do the butterfly, breaststroke, and sidestroke. His mum teaches swimming and gave him a few pointers to teach me. I plan to grow fins before I return to the US. I have a lot to work on before then.

Last night, there was a pretty decent earthquake. I woke up and though "earth...quake..." and then it happened.

 Earthquake powers.

Tonight, Grant and I are hanging out ^___^. We'll be shopping around 'cause I need a winter coat. I left my winter Wisconsin skin at home.