yay for cultural festival. my kids are so on the button it's scary. got to get some good eats, watch exciting shows, and our english club movie was a success! meaning more outside people than english club members came to see the film haha.

advertising (posters etc.) was very exhilarating too. behold!



did i come to see what this class had to offer? heck yea.

tomorrow is supposed to be sports day, but since it'll prolly rain and regular lessons will be carried on, im going to do a 'words of encouragement' kind of theme for my classes.

O. M. G.

i finally used the Aspir scroll i've had in storage for like 4 long years...

cause my dark dark knight is finally lvl 20!!!

on a totally different note, we're going to a local onsen this afternoon yay.

it's cultural festival season, and the english club movie is done and done! subtitles and all hehe. i hope people come watch it ;_; there are like 3 showings so im hoping thatll give folks enough time to do what they want and then come burn up a whole half hour with us haha.

anyway, im excited cause Tokyo Game Show 2008 is officially less than a month away now! oh baby oh baby.

oh a totally different note, i heard it through the grapevine that theres gonna be this devastating earthquake in japan tomorrow morning, saturday Sept. 13th. as a matter of fact mr big and cool prophet dude? also predicted more earthquakes and pinpointed all the big ones around the world...

so just in case i totally get owned by this crazy earthquake, i just wanna say these 23 years, almost 24 years, of life have been grand. i have no regrets, and i just wanna thank everyone who i can call my family and friends. if my life gets claimed, my corpse will probably still be clutching my psp or ds or something lol. i would have gamed on it til the very end to ease my pain lol. im turning off all the gas etc before i go to sleep tonight... i'll put the 2liter bottle of water + rope and shoes at the side of my bed...

anyway i tried out the Valor brand cup noodles and theyre not bad... theyre not as good as nissin curry noodles, but the regular flavor and seafood flavor are almost identical in taste and quality. the curry one just doesnt have that thick, curry-like texture of the nissin brand! i got another mosquito bite today. it was while i was riding my bike... i totally felt it happening too but there were too many people behind me and in front of me (and it was in the dark next to the river) to stop and grind ms mosquito into a paste. that meant this mosquito had to have been flying like the same speed as me like in Speed, park on my foot and stay latched on as i was pedaling. why me? i think thats a lot of useless effort. the bug should have just gotten some junior high girl idling on her phone or something... but no, it goes for me... i really want to know what is it about my smell + taste and other chemical stuffs about me that makes the mosquitoes so crazy... i dont know my blood type... maybe its super cool and rare! ... which would kinda suck for me if i ever needed a transfusion or something...

yunessun.

the actual site can explain a lot better than i can:
http://www.yunessun.com/english/

...and we just wanted to take a bath in the wine one... we had NO IDEA what we were in for lol. yunessun was very satisfying as an onsen/ water-themed resort. theyre open 365 days year! =D i think yunessun's got the right idea. itd do well in vegas =D

oh there's this crazy thing they got called Dr. Fish where they let these special fish eat the dead skin on your feet + legs maggot style haha. that was the most bizarre feeling like ever lol.

NPC action.

feeling rather adventurous we decided that we wanted to go to an onsen somewhere in hakone right after the last day of gasshuku. when the others asked us where we were staying we were like, "... somewhere in hakone." some of them were like 0_o! and others were like, /palmFace "you mean you havent made reservations anywhere? ... amazing..."

honestly i didnt think we were doing such a crazyMan kind of thing. hakone is littered with onsen right? meaning if you ask someone "hey, where is the onsen?" they will ask you, "which one?" right? anyway, fairly confident we head set off on a non-shinkansen towards that area. at this point we learn that it's raining cats and dogs allllllllll over japan and trains are getting delayed by more than 15 minutes left and right. we acquired a 777yen potato apple pie to eat on our ride towards the hakone area. to our surprise we met a fellow gasshuku-er and pressured her to give into temptation with a slice of the pie hehe.

we get to our destination and it's still raining like crazy. as we're talking, this NPC engages us into conversation outta the blue. after talking with him, he tries to convince us to stay at the hotel where he works. after a bit more dialog, we agree to follow him - but on the train as he tries to book us in, we find out that there arent any vacancies! but as we were winging it anyway, we agree to have a takoyaki snack (which turned into more of a dinner) at this takoyaki place/ bar he frequents.

NPC introduces us to his older man friend/ co-worker who turns out to be a very strange, shy, and socially retarded kind of fellow. we have a nice round of drinks and the bartender helps us out trying to find some place for us to stay that night - which was totally awesome of him. as it was nearing midnight, he tells us that he hooked us up with a place to stay around the station and on top of hooking us up, he actually offers to drive us there too - which is like WHOA because gas is expensive and the station was a 20 minutes drive away... in the pouring rain.

NPC says bye to us at the takoyaki bar and we get into the bartender's car! when we got to the hotel, he helped us get registered and said goodbye. he totally saved us! one hero of a bar master.

as i was sitting on my hotel bed later that night, it was all playing out in my head like an RPG event, haha. help from strangers! oh yeah!

the next morning (monday) we go to the station and pick a random ass gimmiky place from a travel guide and go for it! armed with a map and compass (yes we totally used them both too! they took pivotal parts in getting us to where we needed to go, lol) we took a train up to this mountain stop and walked 20 minutes through the mountain forest towards the red dot on our map, lol.

when we got to where we wanted to go it was kinda like... bam! it was kinda like a high school just rose out of the forest or something. this place was HUGE. considering all the other onsen places we were passing by on the way, this resort was a whole village itself. the place we went is called YUNESSUN.

gasshuku.

we got on a 716am kodama from toyohashi and was able to sit down to a literally last-minute lunch at the shinbuden at 1159am.

friday >> practice was... nice i guess? not as hardcore as i or anyone else (team USA) was expecting. no major injuries, everything was executed on time. the study session was talk about the gods. no BBQ, no legalized drinking in the shinbuden... which made everyone all closed up and stuff. no smiles anywhere - i kid not. no mosquito bites yay! =D

all girls locker room talk and girls dormitory talk that you think only exists in anime and manga totally is real hahaHA. it's so cute when you hear college girls talk about boys in the way you and your girlfriends talked about boys in uh middle school lol.
"so he turned his head around as he was backing up his car, and and and i was sitting in the seat right behind him and our eyes met, and and and..." /squeal
"i like a kind guy who goes at my pace" /squeal

lol one of the girls was complaining that her guy took her on a lame date, so we were like 'tell us tell us' and she was like, "nnnnnnnnnnnnn well he was driving and we were talking and before i knew it we were in front of a book store. then then then, we went in together and got like a bunch of manga and i thought we were gonna proceed with our date after leaving the store, but in the car he was totally driving back home and i didnt want to say anything, so we got home and then he was like, "come inside!" so i couldnt say i wanted to do something more because he was so excited so we went in and we spend the rest of the day inside reading manga together ;_;"

then i was like, "dude thats a quality date!" then one group of girls were hella laughing at me >_> but the other group was like, "oh yes oh yes! very love love! together reading! he must have been holding you at the same time right?!" and she was like, "well yea, but..." and everyone was all teasing her and acting out the situation and stuff lol.

saturday >> more normal-paced practice. schedules were really in the pocket. enbu was very interesting to watch. saturday night was very... exciting LOL. mister Headmaster is a very amusing drunk. and there are just some things you cant unsay - things you cant unhear.
/hand entends forward from body and clutches the air, balling hand slowly into a fist.
i cant quote from mister Headmaster, but i can quote from another dude!
"gomen nasai" /vomit in wash trough
illegal drinking? highly possible~ huhuhu~
no mosquito bites this day either! =D

girls shower room talk is also very surprisingly accurate to anime and manga. they really WILL compare breasts 0_o! no one is left out of the magic circle in a shower room either. not even in the corner lol. >_> so there's this one girl who has a normal asian body rite, but like her boobs are outta control - you wonder where she hides it during practice. but theyre massive - and she was all jumbling them with her hands in the shower and stuff - it was nuts! 0_o! and it looked exactly like this style of Amazing Nurse Nanako. lol, google it real fast and you'll see what i mean if you dont know what the nanako style is lol. anyway. i kid not. they really were shaped like that.

sunday >> beginning to feel tired and more and more dirty from putting on a sweat drenched judogi ;_; but i was still healthy and got in good practice and actually a lot of praise from the higher ups i worked out with /tailSwish ^^ the enbu was nice to watch again. one of the members had this fatty camera that sounded like something outta Speed Grapher hahaha. it made the enbu more epic because people were being thrown around and right before the landing and rolling youd hear these camera shutter sounds haha. felt like a fashion show hehe. the rag-upon-ground floor cleaning race was amusing as ever hehe. then at the shrine i got this cute jangly charm bell thing for 'good luck.' i just got it because it was pink hehe.

we said our thank yous, goodbyes, walked to the train station, and that was that... sorta =3

osaka.

i went to osaka a while back for a mini training camp thing, but never got to really wander the streets. i didnt even get to eat takoyaki ;_; but a few days ago i did! =D it was blazing, but we chowed down on some nice takoyaki and parfait =D we were wandering through several shopping malls and game centers, all around entertainment shops, gay towns, etc. haha.

at the end of the day we went to eat at this fatty steak house. the meal was divine~~~ =D and it also was officially the most expensive meal ive ever paid for myself in my life. >> 4800yen... oh wait i paid $45 at the wynn buffet, which is almost the same. anyway, the meal was cash money, but it was worth it.

shochu.

my teacher buddies are the crazy lol. their conversation with brother always goes something like:
"so how long are you staying?"
'2 weeks'
"oh thats great. where have you been to so far"
'tokyo, osaka, nagoya..."
"ah nice vacation. DO YOU LIKE SHOCHU!?!?!?!?"
and they get all enthusiastic suddenly and stuff lollollol. this is SUCH an alcoholic country.

shinbashi.

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=jI0pzt4oTZk
i know it's old, but passing by the actual shinbashi station, you cant NOT think about this lol.

bicycles.

ive really been missing my pink stallion these several days. ive had to walk cause there was no bike for brother to use too. but yea, SO. MUCH. WALKING. and id always be thinking - darn it, itd be totally sweet right now if i could ride my bicycle. especially when walking down a big ass hill haha. other than electronics, pink stallion is hands down the best investment ive made out of everything else ive purchased in japan haha. i'll be happy to ride it to school tomorrow. then, it shall take me 13 minutes and not 30 minutes to arrive at school.