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.

I bring you... my washing machine!

Are you ready for the most exciting post ever? That's right, it's pictures of my WASHING MACHINE. Also, my LAUNDRY. Thrilling! (Sadly, this actually was the highlight of my weekend. Buying my washing machine.) Also, the sole picture I managed to get of my neighborhood covered in snow before my camera decided it didn't want to take any more pictures, and I didn't have time to fiddle with it because I had to catch the train for work.
It's too cold for sightseeing, so there probably won't be any more pictures for a while. It's too cold for much of anything, really. I don't even like to go out shopping in this cold! I've stopped going out for lunch at work, too, because my goal is to spend as little time outside as humanly possible. I know you people up in Ohio probably have no sympathy, but I am not used to this and I freeze easily! I think it feels colder here than it really is, because you have to be outside so much more. No just hopping in the heated car and driving to your heated destination; instead, it's a ten-minute walk in the cold to the train station, then a wait on the cold platform, then another five minute walk to work after the train ride. And shopping isn't all in one heated mall, it's spread all over whichever district you're in, which means more walking in the cold. Even grocery shopping or just running errands means a lot of walking in the cold, since everything is clustered around the station which is a ten minute walk from my apartment. I seriously can't wait for spring. Apparently Feb. is the coldest month though, which makes me miserable just thinking about it ;.; (Admittedly part of my cold-loathing at the moment is coming from me HAVING a cold, and feeling out of sorts and icky and not looking forward to going to work tomorrow in the cold with a cold.) Who wants to send me some money so I can go vacation in Australia? : p The trains are all full of advertisements for travel to Australia right now, and it is so tempting, or would be if I had any money at least.

We interrupt your regular viewing for a special broadcast

IT'S SNOWING.

This may not be anything exciting to all of you up in the frozen North, but I haven't seen snow in FOREVER. It's COLD. And I have to go out in it! ...pretty soon actually. Off to take a shower! (it's eight in the morning here, gotta get to work soon)

Long overdue Christmas post (beware - LOTS of images)

So I've had pictures sitting on my computer for quite some time now, but I was too lazy to go through and resize them. I finally did, so it's time for some Tokyo illuminations. I don't remember how this state of affairs came about, but apparently some time before Christmas I actually had a bit of free time, and went around to a couple places specifically to see some lights and take some pictures. These are from Shinjuku Terrace City, right outside the south exit of Shinjuku station, the Takashimaya illumination circus (also in Shinjuku; Takashimaya is a gigantic department store also out the south exit), and Tokyo Midtown in Roppongi. The pictures don't quite do justice to the lights, but then again pictures never do, right?

In other news... well, there really isn't much. Settling back into the daily grind after the new years holidays. Looking forward to my paycheck on the 25th. I'm planning on buying a washing machine, first thing. I'll make another post when something noteworthy happens, I suppose...

New Years!

Happy New Year! I had a lot of fun ringing in the new year here in Tokyo! I headed out to Shibuya to meet up with some friends, and we counted down to midnight out in the street, on the scramble crossing with all the big video screens. They stopped traffic through there, and it was really crowded but still really fun. I guess Shibuya is the Tokyo equivalent of Times Square over new years! Afterwards we headed out to a club nearby - on our way there, we ran into a shrine, and it was a really odd location for a shrine since it was right in the middle of the clubbing/love hotel district. We stopped in for a minute (partially because they had a fire going and we were all freezing, haha), and tossed in a few yen and rang a bell for luck for the new year. We left the club around four am and headed for a Sukiya, which is sort of the Japanese equivalent of a Waffle House except with higher sanitation standards. The trains still weren't running by the time we finished, so we decided to head up to Meiji Shrine in Harajuku. It was a little bit crowded! Everyone goes to shrines here on New Years though, it's Japan's New Years tradition. Despite the cold, we washed our hands and mouths at the place where you do that (aunt sam and mom, you remember that ritual right?) and tossed some more yen and made wishes for the new year. Then I bought a souvenir, it's an arrow and I guess it's supposed to protect your home? I just thought it was cool, haha. Check out the PICTURES. I'm spoiling you guys with all these pictures lately : p The little piece of paper next to the arrow is a fortune, there was a place where you could shake a box full of sticks, and whichever number stick came out corresponded to the fortune you were given. I got number 7, and one of my Japanese friends tried to translate it but according to him it says that I should become a person who is better than bamboo. I'm guessing something was probably lost in translation there, haha. After we left Meiji Shrine we split up, some of my friends went to catch the train home but a couple of us decided to stick around and watch the first sunrise of the new year from one of the pedestrian crossings in Harajuku. Then after that I finally came home, and tried to get some sleep but the sun streaming through my giant glass doors onto the balcony made it kind of hard, so I decided to go ahead and write up this post : p