ShabuShabu - all you can eat pork

Weather: Typhoon
mood: relieved

Today I went with the other co-ops to have some all you can eat Shabushabu in the Daiei outside Shioiri station. Aside from the pork, I really enjoyed the AYCE icecream and drinks. They had a wide variety - milk tea, melon soda, calpis soda, green tea icecream, vanilla, melon, chocolate, strawberry. Of course I couldn't try them all... One thing I was surprised at was females are charged 100 yen less than guys. That is, 1580 yen for girls/women and 1680 for the guys. I really don't have anything to say about this, but it's beneficial for me I guess! haha. I'm gaining a bit of weight for sure though. I've been binge eating all of the different types of Japan junk foods ever since I arrived here. There's just so much variety and I don't really get this type of freedom when I'm at home. It's really difficult to restrain myself when I have to go to the grocery store to buy my vegetables fresh every week!!

As for work, I got up extra early to finish implementing the practice portion of my program for the experiments in the afternoon. I was stressing over it last night wondering if I had enough time to finish it. It turned out great, and the two subjects that showed up (one had a meeting and the other pulled a no-show) came and finished the experiment with no problems. One point that was for sure inevitable was that the task was tedious, repetitive and boring. Haha.. as is with most experiments. My questionnaire was all in english and my subjects spoke mostly Japanese... and my english was probably not the easiest to understand so I was trying to explain it in more simpler terms too. I think if I have time tomorrow, I'll try to translate it into Japanese or something bahah. But then again there's a lot of manual data analyzing and sorting.... I rarely rant about work so there you have it. Not very interesting but I'm going to Wakkani, a city in the most northern tip of Hokkaido in Japan!! I'm really excited but I'll probably be really nervous as well since it'll be my first time presenting to a whole bunch of really smart researchers ( my supervisor told me..)

Getting late, heading to bed, good night!

Valleyball, Mosquitoes, mail

Hello! Happy Friday!

Today, I had a somewhat productive day at work.. but I get restless sometimes because I'm constantly staring at the screen @_@. Afterwork, I joined the valleyball game, and it turns out it was the final game for "season 1". And we won! haha although it's mostly my supervisor and the other coworkers getting all the points, I just stand there and get in the way ... seriously lol. So we took a group photo and apparently we're going to have a party next week and there will be food! (yes!)

I;m going to talk about last night... Last night was a nightmare. 4am in the morning, my arms were itching all over... I thought that I was getting an allergic reaction to some food I ate at maybe the all you can eat rice place... When I opened the light.. I see these red patches on my arms... and they are bites. I was afraid they were some type of bug that got into my room.. but the culprit appeared right in front of my face. A mosquito!!! ARGH. I cant believe it feasted on my whole body and I wasn't aware of it. I always hear the mosquito buzzing in my ears in vancouver, and this time I couldn't hear it at all... So on my right arm I have three bites, my left arm has two, under my jaw there's another bite and another is on my toe... When I killed the stupid thing, I only saw a little blood so it makes me wonder if there was another around.. So that makes 7 bites from ONE mosquito... wtfudgeeeeeeee.. *rage* Yeah I hope they heal soon, but really it sucks :(. I'm never opening my window again.. just sticking with the AC even if it costs me.

Finally I just wanted to talk about the mailing system briefly. Actually I dont know much about it but it's pretty annoying sometimes. Like for my bank card I had to wait for it to be delivered and I had to sign something. I guess it's because it's important... Anyway my point is, I missed the first time it was delivered so instead of going to a 7-11 to pick it up like in Canada, I go on the internets and tell them what time I'm available to have the letter/package delivered to me... convienient? Maybe.. sometimes not really because it's normally a range between 2 or 3 hours so you never knwo when it's going to come.... Thus any plans you have, will just have to wait. But yeah! I got to choose when my fridge was delivered and Natsuko told me the time range that her package was going to arrive at my place too. :) Not sure if it's the same in vancouver/canada.. I've only really mailed letters.

That's about it for today. Tomorrow is Saturday so I get to go out. We're planning to head out to ikebukuro.. and do some sight seeing. On Sunday, at 6pm is my supervisor's "invitation" party. Hahah. Love how he named it the invitation party. Before then I think I might just do some local shopping at yokosukachuo station or stay at home and surf the web and do other dormly chores... My room is getting quite messy. Anyway. It's going to be a great weekend! updates soon.

Matcha treat for today!

From Lawson's.

Dinner in Yokosuka, and arcade

Today, after work, I met up with a few japan co-op friends, went out for dinner and walked around a bit.
Sooo full. We ate at a restaurant called Yayoiken and it had all you can eat rice. I chose a dish with ...fried meat and ... an egg... etc. Lol. I dont think I would go again. I have rice all the time =_=.

All you can eat rice at Yayoiken

matcha cakes from candy land.

After dinner, we were all full and it was still 8 pm so we walked around for a bit. I wanted to go to my favourite candy shop near the station so I can get my chewy candy for work.. haha (to keep myself awake in the mornings/after lunch). I also bought myself another one of those mini cookies (like yesterday's matcha cookies, this time it's chocolate). Finally, another item to add to my matcha collection, matcha cakes! they're all packaged and neat, nto that great tasting in my opinion tho. Only 198 yen for 6.

okashi no machioka - candy!!!!!

Arcade
While walking around I wanted to check out an arcade because they're everywhere. the one we went to was about... 5 floors?! first two were game machines where you try to grab prizes.. with the grabbing thingy. hahah. Yeah... most of them were 100 yen, but it seems impossible to win anything. We saw a guy testing the machine, and one of the co-ops i was with (who was also here last year) told us that they do that so it's impossible to win anything lol. What's the pointttt!!! ARgh. The next floor was more of a casino floor, you buy tokens and you try to win more tokens... There was horse racing, slot machines, and coin pushing machines... and mario party!!! it was awesome. The next floor was an arcade, where most people were... the games were pretty cool. One game you actually have cards.. and yeah not going into details because I don't really know but it was awesome.

Mario party - win!

TONsss of one piece prizes

Calorie mate?! how random can they get? X_X

Monday, June 13 2011
Backtrack. So this day, a lot of my coworkers finished their important presentations etc. so we went to celebrate at an izakaya at yokosukachuo station. Before that.... I had to go home and wait for my bank card.... (i dont understand why they cant just leave it in my mail box =_=) Anyways, when i got it, i forgot that I needed keys... the thing is with my dorm, there are 2 doors I have to pass before I get to my own room... and those doors lock automatically... sooo basically I was locked out of the second door... and I had nothing but the stupid bank card. I had to wait for someone to come back so I can get back to my room. (where everything is!!!) I thought I would be locked out for at least 2 hrs because I dont really hear anyone come home till 9 or something. But I was lucky and someone came back and I only had to wait around half an hour.
The izakaya was awesome... old fashioned, traditional! The company paid for my drinks ( i didnt know that until afterwards..) but I had some pretty cool drinks lol. I had this strawberry... soju? not sure supervisor said it was a korean drink. Then I had a matcha milk alcoholic drink, then a coffee jelly drink yummy. hahah. Before I came I actually had udon, and there wasnt much to eat anyways. My supervisor brought me around the room and I met a few people from a different floor in our office. I already forgot most of their names.. all except one or two .. one of them told me he would lend me his rice cooker from the US. lol!

Kyoto, Harajuku, Kamakura

お久しぶりです！！！！
It's been a while! I've been busy exploring Japan... After work I'm normally tired or it's already really late. I stay after work sometimes to play a "valleyball" and on Tuesdays I go for Japanese lessons from 6 - 7:30pm. Sooo I get back at 8, eat, shower and it's already time to sleeepp!! (and some facebook.. haha)

Japanese lessons - they're great, wish there was maybe at least 2 classes a week but oh well. The sensei's really nice, and it's good conversational practice. There's about 5 or less people the last two times I went... It varies. sometimes people don't come. But yeahh I didn't do my homework last week but borrowed my friend's which had the answers XD so I just answered questions that day with his answers lol. But no more! because I bought the textbook which was 2600 freaking yen. agh. This book better be helpful.. and I better read it and make good use of it =_=. I just got my reimbursement money though. So I took out 100 bucks and went to the grocery store and bought myself some treats!!!!! wahahha! I wanted to buy everything but I restricted myself. So that's where all my money goes!! Anyway I have decided to blog about what matcha things I find and buy. :D Because I love matcha! all things matcha!!!! I'll see if I get tired of it after 7 months..

Also, I don't know why I'm so bad with directions... why am I so directionally challenged?  I got lost going to my japanese class yesterday too... Made a wrong turn, but found it in the end. At least it didnt take me an hour to find this time. Yeah... And when I was coming back from Kyoto, I had to bus back alone from shinyokohama station... I had trouble understanding the station attendant... and he sounded annoyed cus I didn't understand what he was saying... so I ended up asking this old guy and he brought me to a station that I knew (he was going to the same station). :) so Daijoubu!!!! I really need to get used to it though, one of these days I'm going to go shopping alone, far away from my own station.. and I better know how to get back. *sigh*

Kyoto:
So I went there for an Open House, where I walk around and talk with researchers about their research. Haha. You know, one of those poster sessions. The topics were pretty interesting, and I knew what some of them were actually talking about because I learned them in school! 8D yey. and some of that psychology material came up too. Yeahhh, only catch about this trip was I have to make a presentation about it tomorrow. Anyway, as you may or may not know, Kyoto is THE place for matcha things!!! I wasn't there for long but my supervisor fufilled my wish of having matcha icecream there. We went to this well known restaurant/cafe and had a nice meal with matcha chocolate, matcha ice cream, and matcha jelly. It was deeelicous! Also it was my first time riding the shinkansen so it was pretty exciting for me. It felt like I was on the plane! Too bad I didn't get a window seat... Also Kyoto is the place to see Maiko and maybe Geisha :D There's this street my supervisor brought me to and told me that if we're lucky we might see Maiko-san. haha.. We didn't but what I did see were lots of photographers. Im pretty sure they were searching for Maiko-san too!! But the street was kinda old fashioned and nice. I took a video but it didn't turn out as nice as I wanted it to be.. Also, my supervisor really wanted to eat at a restaurant by the river side.. so we did!! There were two types of set meals.. One was 60 CAD, the other set was >30 CAD. I of course got the latter and my supervisor the former.. He was one happy kid =/ haha. It was a nice experience. Most of the food was fish related and pretty delicious.



omiyage
Love omiyage! In Japan, they have a tradition of giving coworkers etc, a gift from somewhere if they went some place far... (I think). Yeah, so for example, my supervisor, another coworker and I went to Kyoto so we pitched in to get omiyage for the rest of our team. Omiyage is most often food items. We brought back (more like my other coworker..) green tea pocky and matcha flavoured dango!!! Can't wait to go back in August.. The manager of our group, I don't know where he went but he gave each of us a longgggggggg shinkansen chocolate cookies thingies.. ahhh so good. It's sooo cute too.




Harajuku, Kamakura
Sooo Saturday! Went to tokyo again - this time Harajuku, fashion district! There were sooo many clothing storesss I wanted to shop soo bad but I didn't get my money yet and all of us were pretty close to being broke haha... So just went window shopping... In the morning wholy crap.. It was raining cats and dogs!!!!!!! I was using an umbrella but it's useless!!! It's so windy the rain rains sideways anyways! why not just run outside without anything! I was soaked... but dried up quickly surprisingly.. Maybe because it was humid.. Oh that day we also went to see the imperial palace.. It actually wasn't that cool. But next time we'll actually go in. Didnt go on cus there was a fee and one of us had to leave... Yeahh.

                          Kamakura - Daibutsu!
Ohhh and one of my friend knew a Japanese friend who knew another friend who was performing at some place in tokyo.. so we went. It was pretty awesome. 500 yen for a drink and entrance because we knew someone.. otherwise it's 3500 yen. At first I thought it was weird.. the woman was singing about fish and meat.. it was pretty hilarious... Then after her, there was this huggee group of people who came up to the stage and sang various ENGLISH songs, such as Where's the Love. I filmed a few of them.. not sure if I should post, dont even have a video editor.. =/ heh.

Kamakura, was great! There's so much to see... temples everywhere and the great Daibutsu!! I got to wash my money.. apparently if you wash your money there, it doubles... pretty neat experience. Also there was a lot of holy water hand washing haha.. WE're probably going to go again.. not enough time in one day to see everything...

Harajuku!

Mini-concert

Matcha cookies I bought today, they're pretty goooodd

Other junk food I bought from the supermarket in celebration of my salary and reimbursement money

Caramel corn - vanilla flavoured, RAMUNE drink 88 yen!, coffee jelly 98 yen!

Tonight's dinner, broccoli, other veggies, udon, canned eel(?).
I found worms in my broccoli, I was grossed out... but of course I only had the ones without the worms!

Yummy, coffee jelly. Same price and packaging as the pudding I had the first week. Both are good, depends on my mood