Wind Blowing Through Tomorrow: Japan, Weeks 15-16

Herp derp I’m late again who’s surprised?!

Schoolwork has been murdering me the last couple of weeks. It has been so hard to come back from work and focus on it, and I’ve been so exhausted that more often than not I’ve shut my eyes for just a couple of minutes to rest and woken up to see it was three hours later. Last week there were two nights I slept not more than maybe two hours at most and I’ve been trying to pay off my sleep debt this weekend.

I’ve received no instruction on most of my schoolwork, plus that sudden here-are-all-these-assignments-not-on-your-contract-do-them thing, so I’ve been trying to get that cleared out while attempting to write papers on books that make no sense. College! Such a wonderful thing. But the semester is drawing to a close, so it must be done.

I think maybe I was trying to make that sound like an excuse.

So we’ll move on.

On the 21 I had my last day out in Ibaraki in Choshi.

The Christmas display in the lobby.

Me waiting for my IC to come pick me up. I am so ikemen.

The view of Choshi out the bus on my way back.

Funny thing about Tokyo Disneyland is that it’s not in Tokyo. In the Greater Tokyo Circle, but not Tokyo.

This has always been one of my favourite views of Tokyo on the bus back.

The 22nd I had my first day of work in Minato-ku in Tokyo.

Very high-class, except for smokers. You’re only allowed to smoke in designated areas, so up ahead was one of those areas where all the smokers huddled together and let off huge clouds of smoke. >>

Thanksgiving was the Thursday of week 15, and while a full-blown turkey dinner might have been nice… it didn’t happen haha. Taylor and I decided to celebrate the day before, since it was a national holiday in Japan and thus we didn’t have to work!

So we went and got pizza for Thanksgiving xD

We were so effing excited, you’ll never even know.

Got the garlic and tomato Brooklyn Kings pizza.

Also, the meat lovers Brooklyn Kings pizza! It was a “buy one get one free” special so we got two and we both ate half of each pizza as we watched Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was a glorious Thanksgiving.

My body doesn’t know how to deal with this sort of food anymore though. That was exciting. xD “WHAT IS THIS STUFF WHAT ARE YOU DOIIIIIINNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGG”

And that night I had a makeup practise party with myself.

I’m ugly lol. Style a bit inspired by Uruha’s makeup.
Unfortunately this wasn’t a very good round, but I liked the look. I’m learning more as I practise. Hopefully when I get back to America I will be able to dress myself up a bit ohohoho.

I also went out the next morning and got this little pie from the bakery. It had bitter caramel and apple inside, so it was like an apple pie for Thanksgiving lolol.

I went to Kawaguchi on a day off to look around and try to buy stuff. It was surprisingly a very nice and busy area around the station.

They had a giant lion. They win.

The following week I just worked in Minato again and didn’t take many pictures… because I suck like that ahaha.

The Tuesday of week 16 I had off, so I went to Ochanomizu because supposedly it had a great deal of music stores and I was looking for more picks and guitar accessories.

Look at this beautiful architecture squished between two regular buildings!

I soooo wanted to go in. Maybe next time.

Music stores? Oh yes.

I went to the ESP Guitar Workshop there and was greeted by one of the craftmasters there. I had a very nice conversation with him and got to play around with one of Reita’s bass models!

Omigoooosh it was so beautiful and a really really nice bass. And they were having a really good sale on it, it was some 8000 yen off and I wanted it sooooo bad haha. ;__; We talked about basses and guitars for awhile, and he told me I should hang around the store more often so I can maybe meet Reita or Uruha or Aoi or Teru or Hizaki, because apparently they (the Gazemen at least) come by often. Noooo don’t tell me that. xD

Then I talked to him about getting a job, and I learned some things from him, some of which I’ll discuss later.

This man, Nakamura san, was very nice to me and very eager to talk to me about music. He showed off his jacket, which was signed by a great many artists (including the Gazemen) and he showed me all the signatures, all the guitars, and moved things around so I could take pictures. He was really very sweet, and he gave me his card before I left and invited me to come back soon.

(All the other employees were staring as I chatted it up with him xD)

GUITAAAAARSSSSS. All the ESP stores were having crazy deals on their guitars, but artist series guitars and basses are already ridiculously expensive so there was no way I could have gotten one… well… I actually could have purchased the Reitabass that I sampled were it not for some other things… it was within price range. But that’s another story. Nakamura san encouraged me to hurry up and finish college and then move back so I could get a bass and come hang out at the store more lol.

SIGNATURES.

Aoi’s.

Reita’s.

Uruha’s.

Teru’s (upper) and Hizaki (lower).

Mana 8D lol

Look at this beautiful guitar! ;____;

And afterwards I went to the Russian Orthodox Catholic cathedral for awhile.

It was a really beautiful cathedral. I couldn’t take pictures inside, unfortunately. I went in and looked around and drank in the beauty and the atmosphere and the smells and then sat down and prayed and pondered for a very long time. It was very comfortable and quiet and I was finally able to clean out my mind and think things over for a bit.

Cathedrals like this are very familiar to me, and they’ve been dear to me since I lived in Europe. I’ve always felt much more spiritual inside one, more at peace, more able to think and calm. I wish I could have stayed all day and just soaked it all in, but unfortunately after awhile I had to make myself get up and leave so I could go home and get some work done.

But it was nice to be there in the quiet and the spirituality, and I lit a candle when I was done.

I brought picks home with me!

Sugizo’s.
I got these mainly because I thought they would make amazing earrings. xD

Reita’s.

Teru’s.

Hizaki’s.

Masashi’s.
This is rare, because Masashi is not an ESP artist but he has picks. But who cares! Masashi picks! xD

Sukiyaki with chicken, kabocha, asparagus, and enoki. (Never again will I do enoki.)

I watched X JAPAN’s Summer Sonic digest on WOWOW.

They are a very impressive group and it’s easy to see why they were and still are so influential, and Yoshiki is an amazingly talented drummer. Unfortunately their music is not my type. xD But I don’t mind listening to them every now and then.

the GazettE was on the next day and it was a pretty decent performance. It sounded like Ruki might have been sick though, unfortunately, and everyone seemed kind of genkinai. And they didn’t show Reita or Aoi nearly enough… in fact Aoi actually quadrupled his time in the last song because he happened to be doing acoustic and for some reason that was interesting enough to garner him lots of screentime. xD I’ll be trying to catch the rebroadcast next week also.

On Friday I was in Minato-ku again. I had one class in the morning… and then I had a three and a half hour break before my next job.

So we passed this awesome building and I went to the Bookoff/cafe combo to spend my time. x3

The Bookoff wasn’t quite open, so I went into the cafe for awhile. I got a white hot chocolate and a chocolate doughnut. :3

Yoshiki books galore! xD I was actually really tempted to buy one just for reading, but they were both more than I was willing to spend on a biography I might or might not have been interested in. When I get my next paycheck, I am thinking about going back and getting one of them though.

They also had this. xD

AND THEY HAD THIS BOX WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY AND IT WAS ONLY 400 WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Also, I have no clue if this picture has anything to do with this fantastic thing, but:

LINDA LINDAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
LINDA LINDA LINDAAAAAA-AAAAAAAA-AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The Tokyo University Medical Institute was right by the station.

And then I had to go to Roppongi and I got lost xD It was really amazing though. I want to go back and explore when the weather is better.

Oh, what did I buy at the Bookoff? xD

You thought it would be GazettE stuff, didn’t you?

I FOUND IT FOR SUCH A GOOD PRICE. So I got it xD

I found this so I bought it for reading. :3

Also I finally found some Anne Rice books in Japanese! Unfortunately I wanted either Interview or Lestat and they didn’t have either of those, but I saw no reason to not get another one when it was as cheap as it was, lol.

Finally I found Luna Sea’s “SINGLES” collection in the 250-yen section, so I got it and I’ve quite enjoyed the music on it. Again, not really my type, but I don’t mind listening to it. :3

Now, for the random.

Ah, a nice Saturday breakfast: miso soup, rice with curry furikake, and sausages.

Akiba as I went by on a train xD

WHY DIDN’T I TRY THIS HOT CALPIS AAAHHHHH xD
Oh yeah, because I got shoyu ice cream xD

Yu-Gi-Oh still lives on in Japan. Look at this lovely Blue-red-eyes black dragon that a child in an elementary school drew. x3

My friend sent me these presents! x3 An Arena 37 Special covering NLSB GazettE and a Ruki interview and poster from when he was LITTLE(R) AWWWWW xD

I FOUND PRINGLES EVERYONE

Random really cheap chocolate bars! But the tiramisu and strawberry cheesecake ones tasted EXACTLY like tiramisu and cheesecake, respectively. The Tiramisu one was actually really strong. I regretted eating the whole bar in one sitting for a couple of days xD