Sum up of my time in the US

The US is boring. That's why I haven't been posting anything. It's boring, no one cares. Japan is way more exciting, but I have actually been traveling a bit, and this is a travel blog, so I thought I'd just sort of sum things up here.

First, I flew back from Indiana with my mom, slept over one night in California, and then took a red-eye to Burlington, Vermont for school. I go to the University of Vermont, not the most exciting place, but me likes it.^^

I had a wonderful fall semester. I started learning Mandarin. My school teaches Beijing Mandarin, but I watched a ton of Taiwanese dramas so I'm also learning the Taiwanese dialect. Also, my school teaches simplified characters, but I decided to learn traditional as well on my own so I won't die if I go to Taiwan. haha. And of course still studying Japanese and Korean. Also, I got to meet a ton of really nice international students! I met 2 from South Korea, 1 from Taiwan, 1 from Thailand, and including my friends from last year, 6 from Japan!!

One day we all climbed up the fire escape on the tallest building on campus to watch the sunset. (The picture's a little West Side Story, don't you think?)

That's the view from the top of the fire escape. It's what most New England looks like for those of you who've never been. It's really cute, actually. Really pretty in the fall when all the leaves turn and a really wonderfully tiny place to study.

That's me and all the international students as well as some other college friends down by the waterfront of Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont. I've mentioned earlier that I'm a sunset whore, well here's another great sunset for you over the lake.

I traveled to Boston a few times this fall. Boston is a great city if you don't have to drive. It's only about a 4 hour bus ride from Burlington to Boston and it's a beautiful route down highway 39, especially for a Californian like myself. Lots of green.^^

I also went apple picking in both New Hampshire and Vermont! The one in Vermont was actually for the りんご祭り or "Apple Festival." They had taiko drums and everything...

After the fall semester, I've come back to California for winter break + 3 months because....drum roll please...I"M GOING BACK TO JAPAN!!!!! I'll be studying abroad for a year at 青山学院大学 or Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo!!!! But, the calendars of my American university and Aoyama Gakuin (which I will refer to as Aogaku from now on) clash meaning that I've been stuck in California until the spring semester at Aogaku starts in April.

But my wait is almost over; my flight is on March 23rd. So, starting now, this blog with now be updated hopefully weekly or so with my doings in Tokyo. I also plan to go to Taiwan and South Korea over my summer break, so this blog will (finally) no longer be only about Japan, but also about China and Korea and their respective languages. Yay, languages!!

Much to look forward to...

(p.s. all these pictures are courtesy of facebook, and most are from Akane. I stole them. haha.^^)

Chasing the Sun

So I had this great plan to go spend the day in Ikebukuro shopping and whatnot and then catch the sunset from the top of the Sunshine 60 building, but the electric company had other plans for my day.

I went around the corner to a small bento place, bought my sushi lunch, turned around, came home, maybe spent 15min total, returned, flipped on the light, and nothing happened. How is it possible that of all the 15mins there are everyday, the electric company sends in their sneaky little worker right when I'm out?! 15min!!!!

So I called up my landlord and he fixed it. I'm not sure exactly why they switched off my electricity, but I think it has something to do with the mail that I was receiving addressed to a Onodera Teruo. I'm thinking maybe he was the person living in my apartment before me and didn't pay his electricity bill and they decided to turn off my electricity to make him pay. I don't know. I haven't received a bill yet, so I'm cool.

Anyways, my landlord got it all sorted out and in the afternoon a cute, little man with a happy smile came by and turned on my electricity. It took him about 8mins. I'm guessing it took about 8min to turn it off too, right? So some sneaky guy timed it just right so that he would be in and out in 8min with 7min to spare before I returned. I think he was watching from around the corner waiting for me to leave. This was a premeditated and well executed conspiracy. I'm sure of it.

Anywho, that's where my day went. The electric company stole it. They told me they would be right there to turn my power back on and subsequently made me sit in my apartment for an hour and a half with no air conditioning and no internet waiting for them. Very boring and sweaty. I was not amused.

After everything was all fixed, I decided to go to Ikebukuro anyways just to see the sunset from the Sunshine 60 building and do the shopping later, but when I got to the train platform at Nakano, the sun was already beginning to set!

Oh no! So I got on the special super fast Chuo line, ran through Shinjuku station to make my connection, and booked it out of Ikebukuro Station. I had never been to Ikebukuro before, but google maps is really handy. They have this street view feature that lets to virtually walk from point A to B so I knew exactly where I was going and got to Sunshine 60 pretty quickly, but the sun looked pretty low.

Then you have to take an elevator up 60 floors. Note: make sure to swallow a few times to pop your ears otherwise your head will hurt. The elevators in the Sunshine 60 building are really cool though. They turn the lights way down and then the walls start to glow with constellations and sea creatures. I know it sounds odd, but it's really cool I promise.

I finally get to the top and what do I find?

Waaaaaaaaa!!!!! Sunset isn't until 7 pm, but tomorrow's rain clouds are blocking my sunset view!! Even though I ran and actually made it on time, the sun escaped me...

So sad...

But it was still an incredible view! I really liked watching the sky get darker and darker and the ground get more and more twinkly. Would have liked the sunset better though...

There is a nice little cafe at one end. I just got a melon soda. It had a really nice atmosphere up there though.

The stars are on the wrong side of the horizon.^^

Then the moon came out and made up for the lost sunset. None of these pictures are even half as pretty as the real thing. I don't know why, but my camera was having difficulties. Maybe it was just too spectacular. Couldn't handle the spectacularness. tisk, tisk.

I am a Sunset Whore

To make things even more confusing, in Tokyo the capital city there is an area called Tokyo. The Japanese named it that on purpose because they have an over developed sense of humor and find confused looking gaijin hilarious.

Even so, it's a pretty cool place. Sam's back from her romps throughout all of Japan and is now living in Kanda, which is really close to Tokyo. So, for the last few days, we have been exploring that area. We both didn't know anything about it, so we just picked a direction and went with it.

We ended up in the middle of something called the "International Forum." Tokyo (the district in Tokyo the city) is mostly filled with high rises and what seem like businesses and department stores. The "International Forum" was a collection of tall buildings with a little plaza connecting them and a big mochi rock just chilling out in the middle of it all.

Doesn't it look like a big tasty mochi? There's no red bean inside though. I checked.

Then I saw this wavy-looking building when we were walking around aimlessly and thought it was cool. It gives you a pretty good picture of what the rest of the area looked like. It was kinda San Fransisco-esque if that helps. Minus the hippies. You know, around that section of Market where all the sort of government and major cooperation buildings are? It's like that.

A few blocks down from that we found a park. I think it was called Hibiya Park, which is also the name of the nearest subway line and the only reason I remembered the name. hehe. The sun was setting behind the trees and I couldn't resist.

It was a very pretty park, but the best part was all the cats! Let's play a game: spot the cat! Ready....go!

Did you find it? It's ok, I took a close up of it. Count 'em:

There are five cats! Just chillin' out at the park.

Then I found this cool church type thing with that gorgeous sky behind it.

And then here is where I lost my senses. I really am a sunset whore. I can't help myself. It seems Guuzen-sama again randomly stumbled upon some sort of old castle grounds in the middle of this skyscraper city, and managed to hit it right as the sun was setting behind it. Therefore, please again indulge me while I spam my blog with sunset pictures.

I'm not really sure what that is behind me, but since I was in Tokyo, Tokyo and the "kyo" part of Tokyo means "capital," I'm thinking that was maybe the old capital/castle from ye olden times? I don't know. All I care about is that it had a moat! haha. Moats are cool because they reflect the sunset quite nicely. ^^

Then we ate thai food and had this lovely delicacy:

Along with this tasty goodness:

And walked back to the station because it was dark and I wanted to see Sam's new place. So, we walked through Tokyo at night, which is pretty cool, and went to Kanda. The End.

Except it's not really the end, because the next day, we went back to the same place. We wanted to check out Daimaru (which I think is a really weird name. It literally means, "big circle."). Daimaru is a 13 story department store. It was quite the experience. I was also kind of curious about the floor with plus-size clothing. I'm kinda pudgy and had resigned myself to not buying any clothes in Japan because I'm a huge American, but if there is such a thing as plus-sizes in Japan, maybe there is some hope. But the bottom floor where all the cakes and sweets were was the coolest. (haha. I like cake and sweets. That's probably why I'm pudgy, but hey, one should enjoy life and all it's offerings.) I didn't get any, but they were so cute! And a lot of them had edible gold on top!

We had decided to go to Daimaru because it was indoors and the weather report said it was going to be thunder and lightning storms all day. They lied. It was slightly cloudy, not much, and didn't even drizzle. So, in a spur of the moment decision, I convinced Sam to go back to Roppongi Hills with me so we could go to the top and see the 360 view of Tokyo! (I mean Tokyo the entire city this time) Who knew how long before it rained again? So off we went. I was very happy with myself for being able to get there without the help of google maps.

So we went up to the top. It cost 1500円 ($15) for a ticket that got you to the 52nd floor with the art museum and the 360 view of Tokyo THROUGH GLASS. That was obviously not good enough. So, Sam and I spent the extra 300円 ($3) to go to the "Sky Deck" which is a fancy name for the roof.

It was so cool being up that high! Like flying with your feet on the ground. And, of course, we went up at sunset and then stayed until it got dark and got to see Tokyo at night too. Yay! Sunset pictures! I don't have nearly enough of those!

We only left because they kicked us off. One of the really cool things about being up there is all the different people who are up there with you. I don't think any of us were from the same country. There were a few people from Japan, obviously, but then there as a couple from China, Korea, some Middle Eastern country (maybe India?), a few from different European countries, and then Sam and I from the U.S. We were quite a collection and I thought it was quite fitting that the name of the exhibit in the art museum was called "Kaleidoscope."

We finished the night off with a very tasty experience in a milk bar. Didn't know those existed, but apparently they do. They were having a "campaign" which means sale, and this crazy mango raspberry desert was 33% off.

Look at the cute little chocolate spoon with the place's name on it in gold! It broke when I tried to eat the ice cream with it though and, alas, did have to resort to the metal one.

This guy was chillin' out by the cash registar.

And this guy was enjoying the evening air at the entrance.

Then, a great tragedy befell me. My glasses completely broke. I mean, they hard-core, fell-to-pieces broke. But that's ok. I am a resourceful spy lady and Macgyvered them back together with floss. haha. My glasses look horrible! The left side is being held together with floss and the film on the lenses is pealing! But the upside with this is that I will have glasses from Japan! If I can figure out how to translate the prescription that is...

Hawaii!!

I just got back from Hawaii yesterday. I had such a great time!! It was so beautiful and I have a love affair with sunsets, and Maui was full of beautiful sunsets. You can also see more pictures on my flickr page.

And then there's my dad, sister and I on the same beach. We were so busy meeting relatives on Oahu, that the first beach we made it too was 4 days after we had arrived in Hawaii!! Craziness.

The main reason we went to Hawaii was to meet some relatives that we never knew we had on my dad's side, but it turned into a Hawaii vacation too. We flew into Honolulu because my dad's cousins live in Aiea on Oahu, but then we flew to Maui to visit my dad's friends too. We ended up going all over the place, even though I was really sick the whole time and couldn't stop coughing. I didn't get much sleep either, but you can't really tell in the picture, right? I look happy, right? not like I want to die? good.

There's my sister, Katsumi, and I on the beach in Maui when we were visiting some of my dad's old friends who live there, Mike and Roz.

It was so gorgeous. I mean, look at that:

And the water was so warm!

We saw a turtle and when it came up for air I got a picture of its tiny head.

And there's its butt.

Here's zoomi losing her composure. I'm totally cool. Before:

After:

We also went hiking a little and took a break in the river. The picture below is me and my dad with our feet in the stream. I forget what the name of this place was. oops.

There was also snorkeling and much merriment. Hawaii is really a great place, but I don't know if I'd want to live there. I like Japan. I like Tokyo more specifically, and I'm glad to be back. But Hawaii is definitely a really great place to visit and now we all have a wonderful excuse. I met so many people! And they are all related to me!! It's weird. I used to be able to count my blood relatives on one hand, now it's challenging just to keep all their names straight. And they are all so nice, and the kids are adorable, and they know things about my dad's family that none of us knew, they have pictures of my dad when he was really young, and they are nice. I like nice; it's nice. (^_^)

And now, indulge me while I spam my blog with sunset pictures.