Update is full of updatiness.
Because once again I have failed to write a proper update for like... Two weeks. Guh. And today is an exam day. So now that I've caught up on all my work and done the marking my teacher asked me to do I have time.
Well let's see. I hit up Tokyo Nov. 2nd-3rd with my friend C. She's pretty awesome. If I didn't already love the TF event we attend together I might go just to see her. This time were were smart beans and got there a day early so we could relax and start all fresh the next day. We spend Sunday browsing the French Section (are name forgotten), had lunch at a wonderful, wonderful French creperie, checked out the Kanda bookstores and had dinner at a nice little Indian curry place. Then we headed to our hotel for bedtime because we are both totally old ladies XD
The next morning we got all packed up, found a locker in a Train station for our bags, had brekkies at McD's and then walked to the hotel where the event was being held. We payed our entrance fee (some of the organizers recognized us from last time XD) and then stood in the stairwell with everyone else to wait for the opening. We were pretty early again so we were second in line. We then proceeded to spend several hours chatting up artists (mostly C and her awesome Japanese) and buying dojin. We met the nice English-speaking ladies we made friends with last time and they gave us a map to this huge geek store, Mandarake.
After we finished at the event we went to the Nakano branch of that store. First we had lunch at a little Italian place underground with awesome salad and four cheese pizza. Oh, and card shop Jesus was a few floors above us. We didn't go there.
Mandarake was frickin' crazy. There were three floors of assorted small stores. Everything from dojin for girls or boys, toys, gundams, UFO (claw grabber machine) toys, plushies, capsule toys, antique European dolls... Yeah. That last one confused us, too. But it was awesome. Has I not been at the end of my trip budget I might have not escaped so lightly. Then when we'd finished there we headed to Akihabara and checked out the branch there. Not quite as many things and all one store. But we wandered around anyway and avoided the other foreign geeks and then had some coffee and pastries at Vie de France then headed home on the Shinkansen. Good weekend!
Last weekend was Shana and Keith's birthdays so we did a few things. On Friday we went to Blue's cafe and had food and drinks with Shana and a bunch of friends. It was nice and relaxing. Friday nights are apparently Okinawan music nights.
Saturday was Keith's party so we convoyed out to a paintball place on the edge of Mie prefecture and enjoyed shooting at each other. It might have been therapeutic for some. I am a chicken and prefer to 'camp' (staking out a spot and sniping) rather than being aggressive. But some of the others were pretty cool. P in particular, when his team all ran out of balls at one point he led a charge for the flag, danced out of the way of all of the opposing teams balls, and then outed someone by getting close enough to them to call them out instead of shooting.
After we went for Brazilian-style pizza which is the tasties pizza ever.
On Sunday I went for a picnic with Yumiko, Raven and two of the Japanese boys who'd been at the party. We went up to Tanigumi temple where I managed to catch their Momiji festival for the second year in a row. It was really nice. We ate lunch in the park then wandered around the temple for a while.
Other than all that life's been pretty normal. Everything seems to be on track for Bali. I've been going to study group, knit club and Japanese lessons. I've been skipping on swimming but that bad habit should end next week. Oh, and I have been starting to work on my Nano novel again. But I'm ridiculously slow so I'll be happy if I can just write a little each day :D
Well let's see. I hit up Tokyo Nov. 2nd-3rd with my friend C. She's pretty awesome. If I didn't already love the TF event we attend together I might go just to see her. This time were were smart beans and got there a day early so we could relax and start all fresh the next day. We spend Sunday browsing the French Section (are name forgotten), had lunch at a wonderful, wonderful French creperie, checked out the Kanda bookstores and had dinner at a nice little Indian curry place. Then we headed to our hotel for bedtime because we are both totally old ladies XD
The next morning we got all packed up, found a locker in a Train station for our bags, had brekkies at McD's and then walked to the hotel where the event was being held. We payed our entrance fee (some of the organizers recognized us from last time XD) and then stood in the stairwell with everyone else to wait for the opening. We were pretty early again so we were second in line. We then proceeded to spend several hours chatting up artists (mostly C and her awesome Japanese) and buying dojin. We met the nice English-speaking ladies we made friends with last time and they gave us a map to this huge geek store, Mandarake.
After we finished at the event we went to the Nakano branch of that store. First we had lunch at a little Italian place underground with awesome salad and four cheese pizza. Oh, and card shop Jesus was a few floors above us. We didn't go there.
Mandarake was frickin' crazy. There were three floors of assorted small stores. Everything from dojin for girls or boys, toys, gundams, UFO (claw grabber machine) toys, plushies, capsule toys, antique European dolls... Yeah. That last one confused us, too. But it was awesome. Has I not been at the end of my trip budget I might have not escaped so lightly. Then when we'd finished there we headed to Akihabara and checked out the branch there. Not quite as many things and all one store. But we wandered around anyway and avoided the other foreign geeks and then had some coffee and pastries at Vie de France then headed home on the Shinkansen. Good weekend!
Last weekend was Shana and Keith's birthdays so we did a few things. On Friday we went to Blue's cafe and had food and drinks with Shana and a bunch of friends. It was nice and relaxing. Friday nights are apparently Okinawan music nights.
Saturday was Keith's party so we convoyed out to a paintball place on the edge of Mie prefecture and enjoyed shooting at each other. It might have been therapeutic for some. I am a chicken and prefer to 'camp' (staking out a spot and sniping) rather than being aggressive. But some of the others were pretty cool. P in particular, when his team all ran out of balls at one point he led a charge for the flag, danced out of the way of all of the opposing teams balls, and then outed someone by getting close enough to them to call them out instead of shooting.
After we went for Brazilian-style pizza which is the tasties pizza ever.
On Sunday I went for a picnic with Yumiko, Raven and two of the Japanese boys who'd been at the party. We went up to Tanigumi temple where I managed to catch their Momiji festival for the second year in a row. It was really nice. We ate lunch in the park then wandered around the temple for a while.
Other than all that life's been pretty normal. Everything seems to be on track for Bali. I've been going to study group, knit club and Japanese lessons. I've been skipping on swimming but that bad habit should end next week. Oh, and I have been starting to work on my Nano novel again. But I'm ridiculously slow so I'll be happy if I can just write a little each day :D