Fun with Friends and Rail Passes

Sunday, May 17, 2009

This weekend was relaxing but relatively uneventful. It is now almost 6 PM on Sunday, and I still have to pack to leave early tomorrow morning for our week-long trip.

Yesterday was a lot of fun. I got up and talked to Andrew while I got ready to meet with Yasu and Emi at noon. Yasu met me a little after noon at the entrance to my campus. He apologized and said that Emi would meet up with us later because she was home with their father…I guess he was not feeling well again.

Last time we met up, I had told them that the thing I miss most about America was the Mexican food. So yesterday, they took me to El Torito for lunch. Yes, that’s right. They have El Torito in Japan. If you are at all interested, we went to the one near the Ikebukuro Station and Sunshine City in Tokyo, but there is another one near Shinjuku Station. The food was good, but different than what I’m used to from California. The sauce was lighter and the portions were definitely smaller, which is not really a bad thing at all. Kumi and her boyfriend met up with us there for lunch.

After lunch, we wanted to go play table tennis, and Yasu found a place nearby that we could play at. It was interesting because the tables were in the back of a convenience store. We got there and the room was full…and full of people who were taking the table tennis way too seriously. Kumi and I were a little intimidated, and I’m pretty sure that I would have embarrassed myself if the room hadn’t been booked for the rest of the day.

Instead of playing ping-pong, we went to Starbucks and got some coffee. We were talking about the differences between the US and Japan, and I was very happy to learn that they get Gingerbread Latte’s in Japan during the holidays too…those are just too delicious.

We met Emi at the train station and then said goodbye to Kumi and her boyfriend. Yasu, Emi and I then went back to the area around their house. We went to a karaoke place called Big Echo for an hour. It was a lot of fun. We even tried doing a few songs all together, which was incredibly funny but pretty awful.

After that, Yasu had to leave us to go run some errands, and Emi and I went to get dinner at a Yakitori place. If you don’t know what yakitori is, it is essentially random parts of chicken that have been cooked and put on a stick. There are things like cartilage or liver or hearts…some of them are really good and others…not so much. We had a few different kinds and to be honest, I’m not really sure exactly what I was eating, but it was all good. There was definitely some liver in there and some chicken skin, which is fatty and delicious lol. We also had a couple drinks and another dish that was two patties of some sort of ground meat, with raw egg. I told Emi that I had never really eaten raw egg before and she seemed a little surprised that we don’t eat it in the US. It’s amazing the things you never really think about as being unique or different until you go to a new place. The dish was actually really good, and I’m still alive…so no problems with the raw egg.

After dinner, Emi took me to her old gym where she used to practice Kendo. I got to watch the warm up and the practice and it was really an amazing experience. The sport is pretty intense and with all the gear they wear I’m surprised that they can move at all, let alone how quickly they do. I was thoroughly impressed. I also found out that during a match, if you win against one opponent, you have to immediately play against a new one. That is so intense because you could be standing up there fighting for a really long time with no break and no water. Emi said that one time she actually passed out because she couldn’t take a break. I don’t think I could handle it.

Finally, I had to head home because I needed to try to get some work done. We are all so behind on the work that Don is assigning that it’s almost futile at this point. Emi took the train back with me and I showed her around the campus, and my small and really dirty room. She also met a couple of my friends who were around. She is so sweet and I had so much fun with all of them again. I told them that when I get back to Tokyo that I’d like to invite them out to karaoke with me and a few of my friends. They said that they would invite some friends too, and I am really looking forward to it.

After Emi left, I did a little work and tried to upload and organize my pictures. I was so tired though that I didn’t get much done.

Today, I slept in until 11, which was much needed. I talked to Andrew for a couple hours, which was nice. The first time we’ve been able to have a long conversation in a while. After that I had to go to Shinjuku Station to get my rail pass for our trip. I also reserved seats on the train while I was there. I got some curry on the way home and ended up talking to Chris for a little when I got home. I hadn’t heard from him in a while, so it was good to catch up. We were talking a little bit about Ashlyn’s wedding and it just reminds me how much I am missing out on. I really can’t wait to get home and plan out Ashlyn’s big day. I’m so excited for her.

Anyways, the rest of my night is going to be pretty boring. I’m planning on packing and maybe working on a paper and uploading some pictures. Tomorrow I am going to Sendai early in the morning. I don’t really know what is in Sendai, so I’ll have to write about it after I go.