New post coming soon!

Promise!

More cherry blossoms

We've been getting a lot of little earthquakes recently here; just small tremors that sometimes wake me up at night. Just had one a minute ago, actually.
In other news, I went to Ueno Park a couple days ago for some more cherry blossom viewing. Ueno Park has a ton of cherry trees lining a couple paths, so as you walk through you're under a canopy of blossoms. It was really pretty, and it was kind of funny to see all the salarymen having picnics underneath the trees, haha. Picnicking under cherry trees is quite popular here, but there's just something slightly incongruous about seeing a bunch of suit-clad businessmen sitting on tarps having yakisoba and takoyaki under the trees! I'm planning on heading out this Sunday myself with a couple friends to do our own picnic under some trees, in Shinjuku Gyoen.
Here are some pictures from Ueno; I forgot to get batteries for my camera before I went, so they're just phone pictures again. I have a couple pictures of the salarymen and some more of the trees, but they'll have to be a different post.

Concert and cherry blossoms

Yesterday I went to a TOKIO concert. My first concert in Japan, whoo! It was at the Budokan, a pretty big arena in central Tokyo that was originally constructed as a sumo stadium; lots of artists have played at it through the years though. The area that the Budokan is in turns out to be absolutely gorgeous in spring - it's right next to a moat lined with cherry trees that were all in bloom. Lots and lots of sakura overhanging a moat, it was soooo pretty. So before making my way over to the stadium, I first walked around and took a bunch of pictures of the sakura; lots of other people were doing the same thing though, so I had to fight my way through. The place was incredibly crowded, because three groups of people were all converging at the same time - the people going to the concert, people just there for the cherry blossoms, and people heading for nearby Yasukuni shrine. There were police all over the place trying to keep order.
And here are some pictures! Aren't you all excited? They're all pictures from my phone; I tried to take some pictures of the cherry blossoms with my camera, but it was out of batteries and I didn't have time to try to run to a convenience store to pick some up. So, I picked up a couple uchiwa at the concert; these two are of Nagase and Taichi, my two favorite members. The Taichi one is actually going to be for a friend, though. Uchiwa are traditional for Johnnys concerts; generally you wave them around to show support for your favorite members, haha. And then, sakura! These are just a small taste of the scenery surrounding the entrance to the Budokan. I had no idea before that it was such a pretty area; the stadium itself is pretty cool too. I guess I'm just used to American stadiums that are surrounded by parking lot, not cherry trees and a moat.

My Fridge!

Check out my tiny fridge! Isn't it cute? Well, kind of drab actually... I looked for other colors but all they had was grey. Oh well, it's the perfect size for me anyway. That pink bag next to it is non-burnable garbage that I think should go out on Thursday... have to double check that. I should post a picture of the garbage schedule next; separate days for burnable, non-burnable, papers, PET bottles, glass bottles, and hazardous items (like broken glass etc). No dumpster to just toss it all into whenever, and it's frowned upon to leave garbage in the little wire cage designated for it (to keep the crows from attacking) more than just the night before. If we didn't have that little cage, it wouldn't even be the night before, it would have to be the day of so that the crows wouldn't get in and make a mess.
And you get a bonus, too - the inside of my fridge! Nothing terribly exciting, just some apples, an orange, leftover pasta (I can have leftovers again! whoo), eggs, yogurt, green peppers, part of a red pepper, carrots, and some leftover store-bought mabodofu (which is this spicy tofu dish that I've become rather fond of since I've been here). On the arm is orange juice, coffee, and pasta sauce.
Then finally, a picture of the storage unit I just bought from this place in Shinjuku. It's a household goods store, and everything in the place is 1050. It borders another store that sells smaller goods for 300. Unfortunately everything in the smaller store seems to be decorated with cutesy hearts and rubber ducks. No thank you. I can probably pick up the same sort of things at a 100 yen store anyway.

MORE pics!

I'm on a roll! I actually just took some of these last night though, I went out with some friends to Roppongi and we met in front of that giant spider sculpture in the picture. It's right in front of the Roppongi Hills Mori tower, which is the building pictured. The 52nd floor of that building also happens to be where Mado Lounge is located, the club I believe I blogged about before in which there are giant windows and a fantastic view of Tokyo. There's actually a "Tokyo City View" that you can you go up to and look out over Tokyo, like an observation deck or something (I guess, I haven't actually gone to see for myself). I may try to go at some point, although since I've been here I've seen Tokyo from the top of the Tokyo Tower, from the Mado Lounge, from the bar in Shinjuku that was in Lost in Translation (that one was the 47th floor I think, although I could be remembering wrong...), from the Rainbow Bridge both in daytime on the monorail and at night on the Ageha shuttle, from an observation deck in Odaiba... I do love me those Tokyo city views, haha.
The balloon snowman is from Christmas, it was up marking the entrance to Takeshitadoori in Harajuku over the Christmas season.

In other news, I got a fridge today, yay! I'll post a picture of it once I get around to taking one. It's tiny, but yay for being able to keep perishable foods again!

やっと携帯電話の写真！

or, at long last, pics from my phone! Watch out, this post is picture-heavy.

So, what have we got here? A packed train in Shibuya - note the salaryman squeezing himself on even though there is no room. He will MAKE room and catch that express.
A whole crab, painstakingly put back together for this photo op. This was at a sushi restaurant, where we ordered a crab-flavored miso soup. Little did I know that crab-flavored meant there would be an actual CRAB floating in there! Yes, that thing was merrily floating in our soup, limbs and eyes and all.
A couple pictures from a taiko demonstration in Machida a couple months ago. I couldn't really get close enough for good pictures, sadly - it was pretty crowded all around where the street was blocked off. You can see a little though.
Purikura pictures with various friends. Purikura is the quintessential high school girl activity - basically you go into a booth with some friends and you can choose from various backgrounds and things to take a picture on, then after you're done you go out and decorate the pics with sparkles and ribbons and accessories and all manner of things. It's pretty fun for college graduate foreigners too : p
Shot of the roller coaster from Tokyo Dome city. It was a really fun coaster, you could see over all of Tokyo at the top, and at one point it actually goes through the middle of a Ferris wheel.
And finally, a pic of a building I thought was pretty cool in Ginza.

アパートと隣

There hasn't been a ton going on here lately, so have some pictures of my neighborhood in lieu of anything more exciting ^^; I went out last weekend and got snowed on, but fortunately I haven't gotten sick again despite walking home in the snow in the wee hours of the morning, haha. I've been trying to start studying Japanese a little more regularly; found an application for my phone that'll let me review kanji and vocab while I'm on the trains, and I found a kanji game for the DS that looks like it might be good, so I'm probably going to pick that up sometime soon as well. I've been poking around Japanese forums as well, and watching some Japanese TV shows without subs. I'm going to try to go out this weekend with one of my Japanese friends; he said he might be free if he manages to finish what he's working on by Friday.