The Tokyo Experience

Long in the waiting, here are the pictures from my weekend trip to Tokyo to meet my friend from back in Stillwater, Grace. It was a lot of fun, and I learned that big cities are full of interesting sights, sounds, and people.

The inside of my capsule. I stayed in a capsule hotel in Shinjuku for two nights. For full details/explaination, please watched the later posted link.

Interesting looking puzzle building thing. I thought it was pretty cool looking.

"Be Safe" Outside of Condomania in Harajuku

The crazy shopping street in Harajuku. There were more people there than in any place I have seen.

A shrine just around the corner from my hotel. The day I took this picture, there was an outdoor flea market going on.

A giant-moving crab sign that was in Shinjuku.

At this restaurant, you buy the ticket out of the machine that you see in front of me, take the ticket to the counter, specify want you want, and within a minute you have a bowl of hot and delicious noodles.

These were the noodles I bought for a very reasonable price.

Typical shot of a big city at night. It was really weird venturing alone to one of the biggest cities in the world. I had a great time.

Grace and I at a "Cat Cafe", where urban dwellers who are not able to own cats, can pay a fee to sit in a room full of couches, read books, and pet cats that are pathetically lazy. We just went for the experience.

I never did research to find out what building this is, but I thought it was really interesting.


Link to my capsule hotel stay video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9emfUp1b6o

New Years Day: Kiso-Fukushima

This is just going to be a quick post of my New Year's Day trip to the Kiso Valley with Hyoon Wu and Soo Jeong. We started the day out by making our lunch at Soo Jeong's apartment (I think the picture is crooked on my blog), and then set out by foot to the train station where we caught a train to ride to the Kiso-Fukushima area, which probably took a little over an hour our so.

The area is very beautiful, and it snowed a little almost the whole trip. The countryside on the way there was beautiful, and the snow-covered mountains made the effect even more stunning. When we arrived in the town we set about to exploring the streets and the sights of Kiso. We found our way to a covered bench area, where we ate our lunch and played around for a while.

After lunch we found some temples, took some pictures, play around some more, and then caught a train back to Matsumoto. It was a wonderful trip that I will never forget, and I hope that I can go back to visit when the weather is warmer. I would like to hike to the waterfall then.

I am sorry for such a short post and lack of blogging, with starting my new OSU course two days ago, I have been trying to balance 9:00-2:30 classes, 2.5 hours of OSU work, 1-2 hours of Japanese study on top of homework, and having time to eat and spend time with friends. When I have the chance I will post my pictures of Tokyo, etc. Until then, I am trying to make a 5 month long class, take only 1 month so I can enjoy my spring break. I hope everyone is well. Enjoy.









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Birthday

My birthday this year was amazing. It started out a midnight knock at the door from my wonderful friend Soojeong, who had made me a cake, lit the candles, and delivered it to me. That meant so much to me, and I will always remember that night.

Later on in the day, I met with my good friend Jake for a run along the river. Exercising always makes me feel like a better person, especially when I have been lazy during the holiday season. After our run, Jake treated me to a hot spring visit for my birthday gift. It was so relaxing, and it was great to just sit and talk with my friend about life and how things are going. I am lucky to have such wonderful friends here in Japan.

While I was at the onsen, Soojeong had filled decorated my apartment for my birthday with balloons. There were a ton of them! It must have taken her a long time to do all of that, and that meant a lot to me. Later that night, she fixed me a full course Korean birthday meal that was delicious. I was very spoiled that day with birthday wishes and gifts from friends (delicious chocolate from Bregt and a really cool little red Daruma from Suzan) here in Matsumoto.