However, let me rewind for a bit. On Tuesday, my first years went to see a kyougen play. It is a play where they teach you a bit about the art of Japanese style plays and then they show like two short skits. I went to it last year too and I thought that maybe this year I would understand better. Alas, I think I understood just as much as last year. The first play was about a robber going into the house to steal something, but then kinda gets caught when the owner returns home. However, the owner plays along and asks if it could be a dog, monkey or bird? The robber, panicking, prentends to be all of those animals...something like that. Guess it was supposed to be comical. The second one was called "Busu", which I guess is very famous in Japan. The master tells his two disciples not to touch the pot, because it contains a great poison. Well, they get curious and end up opening it, and finds out that it is not poison at all, but something very delicious. They end up eating it all and when the master returns, they try to tell them that they didn't obey his command and opened it and then tried to eat it to commit suicide, but they couldn't die... Anyway, it was interesting, but I wish I could understand more. What really interested me was the comment that the host made at the beginning of the kyougen. He mentioned "Final Fantasy" and something about games... my students, of course, had no response. Then suddenly, I had this strange thought that, "What if this guy played FFXI?" and that he could be someone that I knew! The host had said that he had came from Tokyo on the Super Hitachi and had a great sense of humour. Just that, I remembered a friend in FFXI told me that they were "kinda famous", but that I would never see them on TV. And just all the things pointed to him, because the age, the references to FF and to America, and the humour suddenly made me think!! ^^ Anyway, it was enjoyable.

So, Wednesday was the "Haru Ichiban" and then on Thursday night, my friend suddenly told me it was snowing! Like lots of it!! I looked outside the window and sure enough it was snowing! I was sooo fascinated by it (coming from CA when it doesn't snow in San Francisco or Los Angeles) that I watched it for several hours... didn't realize that time went by that fast. I finally couldn't resist and went outside to see the snow and it literally covered the floor in front of the stairs to my apartment. I was sooo excited and squealing like a little girl! It was kinda romantic and kinda sad... I wish I could better convey that feeling...

Actually, I can remember up to last Friday. On Friday morning, I took the train down to meet my friend Joe in Tokyo. We were going to do the Tokyo run. I arrived around noon and we set off to find this Vietnamese restaurant that one of my co-workers had told me about that was near the Tokyo station. Well, I never found this "huge" Maruzen, but we did find a Maruzen. I think that they are everywhere... As a result, never found the Vietnamese restaurant either. We ended up eating at a sandwich shop on the 5th floor called something West Park?

They had pretty good sandwiches that were too big for me to finish. Joe said the hamburger was good too. While there, there was this guy who sat in the table next to us. He was with 4 other people, but the guy, for some strange reason, reminded me of someone from FF. I hope I wasn't staring too hard though... he might have thought it was strange. ^^;

Afterwards, we headed to Akihabara where the streets were closed off because of Foundation Day. We also looked at the Yoshinoya there, but didn't notice the massive lines we were expecting because Yoshinoya was offering a one day only - beef bowl day - since they discontinued serving beef bowls due to the mad cow scare. Anyway, we wandered through many of the shops and I bought some things at Animate. Also, I have to say, my luck is pretty crap. I inserted some money into the capsule machines with the intent to get Itigo from Bleach. Instead, I ended up with 2 Orihime!! >.< So, I handed the next 200 yen to Joe and guess what the machine spat out? Yes, it spat out Itigo.

Towards the end, we headed to this place that had the claw machines and I saw a machine with the FFXI plushies!! OOH!!!! Me want! But I have never been good at claw machines, so I didn't really want to try. Well, Joe is the expert on claw machines. I think on less than 1000 yen he got 2 chocobo plushies and he gave one to me! Thanks Joe!! ^^ There was only one gob left and it was hooked to the chocobo. It would have been cool to have gotten the goblin, but I'm happy with my chocobo.

Afterwards, we headed to Odaiba to eat at Zest - the place that Leah and I had stumbled upon. It was good, though I think next time I will stick to the Fajitas. The chicken wings were good, but not quite what I had expected for chicken wings and they were a bit too dry in my opinion. It was Joe's first time heading to Odaiba, riding the monorail. Then we headed back to his place in Koga and crashed there.

The next morning, we got up early with the intent of getting to Yokohama around noon. I am not sure what exactly happened, but we did get to Yokohama at noon, but somehow, lunch ended up being almost 4 hours. We ate a dim sum place and oh my gosh, I am soooo going back there. Everything was just like it was back home - so it was authentic as I imagine it to be. We ordered so much food, but it was worth it. And the deep fried custard rolls that we had, I think it's the restaurant's specialty, was good. I ordered everything that I wanted and Joe got to try some new Chinese dim sum. ^^ After lunch, we glanced at the watch and went yikes and headed to Kamakura, which fortunately, was not too far away. However, the directions were not clear as to where we should have gotten off to see the Daibutsu and thank goodness for the Furikipu. It meant I could walk in and out of those gates without having to worry about paying. hehehe

Anyway, Joe and I find out that it's the private line that would take us near the Daibutsu so we hopped onto that line. By this time, it was nearing 5pm so it was getting dark to see much of the Daibutsu. Afterwards, we headed back to Shinjuku and I bought a FFXI guide book. It was not the newest one, but it had some maps and stuff. Then we headed to Ueno to the toy store, Yama?, across from the Central exit at Ueno Station. Again, we were drawn to the capsule machines; this time it was Kingdom Hearts figure keitai straps. I don't know how many we go, but I did get the main characters, Sora, Kairi and Riku. Then, I bought a cute Totoro plushie to stick to my car window when I get back to the States.

Afterwards, we had dinner at Hard Rock Cafe where I had a seafood alfredo thing. It was pretty good, but considering it was 10pm before we had dinner, anything would be good! Then we headed back to Joe's place, where I watched the DVD from my FFXI book. It had a lot of the videos from BCNMs. It was interesting seeing the Japanese players win/lose the BCNMs. Most notable was one where they fought these lizards in La Theine. One person kited the main lizards away as the other players focused on one. Then they had to catch up to the other guy who was bringing back the other lizards and in that instant, one of the lizards casted petrify. Essentially it was the end of the battle from there...oops...why am I talk about FFXI stuff on here? -_-;

The next morning, we ordered pizza and played a bit of Crystal Chronicles. Then we went across the street to the bookstore where I picked up "Howl's Moving Castle" and "Sekai no Chuusin de, Ai wo Sakebu" (this was influenced by my students who could not stop talking about it ^^;). Then we ordered Pizza Hut and shortly afterwards, I was on my way back to Tokyo and then on the train back to Hitachi...except the 4:30, 5:00 and 5:30 train were all sold out! I ended up on the 6:00 train in the smoking section... I think I officially have lung cancer now.

Monday was Valentine's Day..nothing special except for giving the usual chocolate to all teachers. Then Tuesday was meeting day and you are looking at the webmaster for the site again. Hmm... Then I headed to Joe's place at night where we ordered pizza again from Pizza Hut and played FF: Crystal Chronicles. It was fun!! ^^ Then since he had work the next day, we crashed around midnight.

Around 4:30ish am, I was rudely awaken by an earthquake. It felt pretty strong, but I didn't know what to do and was half awake..so I just sat it out. Joe thought I didn't feel a thing. As morning approached, I also found out that it was snowing!! It was snowing a lot too! As I make my way to Tokyo to go to the US Embassy, I found out that the Joban line was closed due to the earthquake. Woah... good thing I crashed at Joe's place, otherwise, I would have never made it to Tokyo. Apparently, it was centered around Tsukuba/Tsuchiura, so it was pretty nearby. While it was snowing in Koga, it was raining in Tokyo. The rice fields on the way to Tokyo were cool though as they were covered in a layer of white. ^^ I made my way to the Embassy and then met up with a friend at Yuurakucho for lunch. He took me to the Fed Ex place as well. That was really nice of him! Then I made my way back to Ueno as I didn't want to deal with sold out trains again.

I booked the 3:30 train and had just enough time to run to the bakery to get some bread for dinner. Then I decided to run to the Tokyo Banana booth near Doutor's. It would not have been a problem had the 2 Chinese customers in front of me not been such a pain. I was waiting in line, but I had to rush as I had 10 minutes and had to get my bag out of the locker and still, they took their sweet time thinking what they wanted to buy for omiyages. I wouldn't have minded as much if I wasn't in a rush, but I was and they were being annoying - saying, "One this, no two this....no, ok... umm... one more this..." And then talking to each other in Cantonese, which I understood, and then not having enough money so one of them had to run back to her boyfriend or whatever and when he came, he was like, "Oh it smells really good." And Lady B, "You should buy some too, they aren't expensive." And I'm thinking, are you going to cut in front of me?! And he says to her, "Oh, let her go first (me that is)." And Lady B, "Why should we have to?" And I'm like, you f@*(&5ing cut in front of me! All this time, they thought I was Japanese, naturally, but in fact, I could understand everything they said!!! I wondered if I should have said something back in Cantonese, but in the end, I pretended that I was Japanese, made my order in Japanese and ran like a madwoman to the coin lockers and then back to the platform to catch my train back home.

Then when I got home, dead tired, I suddenly get a ring on my doorbell. Thinking it was the NHK lady, I ignore it. It rings again and I think that it was too obvious that someone was home (music blasting, lights are all on). I tiredly make my way to the door, pretending to be woken up from a nap. Turns out to be a newspaper salesman. He hands me a towel and starts going off about some campaign and then starts bowing and kneeling at my door to buy newspapers. And I'm like, I can't read enough Japanese to have it be useful to me... He continues bowing and kneeling and I don't know what to do. In the end, I ended up with a bunch of towels and detergent and a 3 month subscription. AUGH!!!