Monday, May 12, 2008

No pictures, but a post nonetheless.

So, this past month I've been pretty busy. Parents visited in early April, for my birthday! and it was fun. We went out to a restaurant in Shinjuku for a birthday dinner, and it was quite good actually. We never did have 900 yen parfaits, but we did have crepes from a crepe stand in Shibuya, which, while not quite living up to mom's, were still pretty delicious. We took a day trip to Kamakura to see the Great Buddha, and also took a day trip to Nikko to see Ieyasu Tokugawa's mausoleum. We got to Nikko on a rickety old train that rivaled the Fujikyuu from last May; however at least on the Nikko train we actually had seats, and were not packed in like sardines (that only happened in Tokyo, almost every day). Nikko was a nice break from the city, all mountain air and trees and quiet. The mausoleum (we ended up touring Ieyasu's grandson's mausoleum instead of Ieyasu himself's, because it was cheaper, haha) was pretty fantastic, despite all the stairs. I have pictures... in theory, anyway.
Then I had about a week of rest after my parents left, before my friend Jon visited. He timed his visit for Golden Week, so I didn't have to take any more time off work. With Jon, we went out to an izakaya and to karaoke with some of my coworkers, and we also went clubbing with a couple of my friends. We hit a couple of museums and galleries as well, and walked around the Imperial gardens. Did some shopping in Shibuya and Harajuku, poked around Ginza. Oh, and we went down to Yokohama and walked around Chinatown, and thought about going on the giant Ferris wheel until we discovered it was like 1000 yen to ride it.
Now, things have slowed down and I'm not really doing a whole lot... just relaxing and hanging out at home, watching some Japanese dramas and being angry at the weather for still being cold even though it's already May. I'm thinking of trying to take a vacation soon, I have a friend who wants to go to Guam so I might try to see if she wants to go ahead and do it in June or July.