L'autre Bout Du Monde~

Hey hey.


So this week, I've managed a grand total of one photo. Goodness gracious, how I have slacked. I do sincerely apologise for that. I guess I could take photos of things that for me have become usual. How about that? I can walk to school one day and take photos along the way; it's a lovely view, really. I just see it so often that I never think to take photos. I'm sorry. 


I had to pay my national healthcare bill for the year this week, so I'm severely short on cash for the next couple of weeks. I guess I'll be getting really frugal henceforth. We'll see how it works out, hm? 
Friday I stayed up super late to watch the Greece versus Germany game with a few friends of mine. It was a lot of fun, but I wound up spending a couple of dollars getting some snacks for game time. Whoops. The game started at 03:45, so I went up at about 01:30 and sat with them and watched dumb videos on YouTube until it was time for things to start. 
I wanted Germany to win as my personal revenge for Greece defeating Russia by the skin of their teeth. Fortunately, for those of you who didn't know, they did. 4-2 win, awh yes. It was beautiful to watch.


Saturday I woke up at about 10:30 after going to bed at 06:00, so I was impressed with myself on that--I do value my sleep quite a lot. I went out to Machida with a couple of friends of mine, and we had lunch.  Went to that burger joint I found a while ago, and I discovered that when I start to panic, I can hardly communicate in Japanese at all. It's frustrating and embarrassing. 
After I overcame my embarrassment and was once more able to speak, though, I found a little vending store selling a traditional Japanese food that I'd been wanting to try for a while now: 

Awh, yay.

The only photo I managed to take this week. Awhhh. Fishy.

At 13o yen, this fellow was actually quite cheap considering how large he was. A waffle batter of some kind, he was filled with the sweet bean paste that I love so very much, and it was still warm and delicious. We came home after a while of wandering around aimlessly, and I returned my room for a much-needed nap. 
After I woke up, I looked at myself in the mirror and decided that it was time for me to pick up some kind of exercise. Sure, the food here is good for weight loss to an extent [as long as you eat in moderation, there is generally less oil and the food quality is better], but there is only so much that eating well will do for you. I decided to pick up yoga again, and so I did a hunt on YouTube for a good online lesson and got down to business. They have a yoga class at my school, but it's during a time that I have a class, so that does me no good. I found a really good YouTube channel for yoga [YogaYak, if anyone is interested], and promptly set to meditating and stretching.
Wonder of wonders, I felt so good afterwards. 
So Sunday, after I taught a spot of English [and got a free meal], I did it again. And it felt just as good as the last time. I took a rest from it so far this week; Monday, my hand was painfully sore, as I think I accidentally bruised it on something, and Tuesdays are my long classes. Today I had a friend over, and I think tomorrow I'm making dinner for some people. I'll definitely be stretching again on Friday, though. My goodness, I felt so good. 


Monday was relatively uneventful, though, as far as I remember. I went to school, came home, took a nap, and then had a friend come over to help me study for my tests Tuesday and Today. Afterwards, even though I had no money, my friend and her boyfriend dragged me with them to go eat dinner, and almost bought me ice cream after it was all said and done, as well. It was only by the grace of the owner of the restaurant giving us free ice cream that I was spared the embarrassment. I promised them tacos tomorrow for re-payment, and tacos they shall have. Maybe I'll stretch a bit beforehand. We'll see. 


So, Tuesday was my long class day. Nothing really fun happened after that. Today I had a friend come over after class and I made dinner for the moth of us, which was really good, because although we got nothing accomplished, it kept me awake so that I could go to bed at a decent time. 


Yeah... this week's been painfully uneventful. Sorry, guys. I'm broke. 
My healthcare bill was 17,000 yen, roughly 200 dollars, thereabouts. Mind you, it's for the year, so that's actually really cheap, and it's nice to have healthcare again, but still and just. It's a bit chunk of change to give away all at once, and it damaged my bank account pretty well. 
But after doing my skimpy grocery shopping for the week, I do have a couple of things that I can tell you all about. 
Melons and fruits get cheaper in season--well, all the vegetables and fruits do, really.
But if you absolutely cannot stand a life without melons and apples, wait until they're in season. The prices on them now are much more reasonable. Still ridiculous, as far as I'm concerned, but much better than the price they were when I first got here. 
Don't forget to look in the sales bins just to see what might be newly available. 
Make those friends! I got a free steak out of being friends and the promise of tacos on Thursday, which I already have most of the ingredients for. Japanese sense of amae [dependency on friends and family, literally means "sweet"] is a lovely thing sometimes. Really, though, I've noticed that it seems to exist just about everywhere. It's just that these people have a term for it, and that's what I'm approving of at the moment.
Finding free hobbies are good ways to pass time without spending any money. I'm going to be doing a lot of stretching and drawing this weekend, I think.


If you do find yourself stuck in a rut and in need of money, such as I am, and you're over twenty, look into this website:
http://www.findstudents.net/
In it, you can offer your services as a foreign language teacher to people looking to learn whichever language you offer, and you can even set the price you want.
I won't be able to do this until September, but it's worked for the people I know who already can. You can also look into: http://www.gaijinpot.com/.
In there, you can find jobs [full-time or part-time], apartments, classifieds, and just about anything else in there, and in English. 


Sorry it's short this month, but maybe this post will be useful.
I'll try to find more to talk about next week.
See you later, guys.

-RD

I'm Making a Note Here: Huge Success.

Well, the title's song is way too over-quoted.
But I'm feeling really good today, for whatever reason, so because of this happiness, it seemed appropriate. 
How is everyone feeling? If you need some happiness, I will be happy to share with you some of mine. Perhaps it's caused by lack of sleep, but whatever it is is all right with me.


Time for the weekly re-cap! 
Friday was spent with more time for self-reflection, as well as a trip to the park with an aquaintance of mine, and I got some lovely photos from it. I may go there a little more often, once it stops raining so much. 

Swans!

I can't seem to get away from azaleas. They were everywhere when they were blooming in massive amounts.

One of the pathways that there was. It wasn't the biggest park ever, but it was spacious and comfortable.

And there weren't many people there yet, so that was nice, too.

I really liked that tree.

... Yes.

There was a hilltop with some very lovely rocks and such, but I didn't get a photo of the hilltop itself. Oh, well. Perhaps later?

Lily pond!

~

I thought it was happy-looking.

After that, I headed back home and took a short nap before my friend came and woke me up to sit and talk about any and everything. It was fine, though, as I had expected her prior to. Afterwards, she left for a short while just before inviting me over to eat dinner with her and a few others, after which Mario Kart was played and much trash was jokingly talked. It was a good night, but I went back to my room at about 12:30AM so that I might be able to wake up in the morning to talk with my family. 


Saturday, I briefly went to Yokohama to catch up with a friend after he went to the cinema. Initially, I had been planning on going with him and another friend to the film, as well, but due to some difficulties, both the second friend and I had to back out.
I had almost been able to make the film, but just as I pulled into Sakuragi-cho, the film was likely beginning. I found myself, then, with an hour and a half to kill and an empty stomach. I was still a little gloomy at this point, so I decided to treat myself to a special lunch at a ridiculously overpriced [but good] Friday's restaurant, the same TGIF as the one in the states. To be employed in the TGIF's in Japan, I believe one must be bilingual in both Japanese and English. It was lovely, though, to be in a place that felt a bit familiar. Helped me quite nicely to cope with my homesickness. 
After eating lunch as slowly as possible, I went to Starbucks and spent the rest of my time sitting out on the Starbucks patio, text messaging a friend, and watching it rain. 

This was a nearby hair salon.

I don't know that I ever want to go, unless it becomes a bakery.

Even then, I might be a little bit apprehensive.

Eventually, though, my friend got out, and we went to my main reason for going: there's a PokéMon Centre in Yokohama. 

A store devoted to PokéMon. My life is nearly complete.

I wound up spending a bit too much money, as I fully expected in a place such as this. I bought myself a coffee mug and t-shirt, as well as a bunch of small charms for me and a few others. Fortunately I had enough money to get back home, but after that, I was broke. Glad I've been so frugal up to this point, though. After that, my friend and I went past a Shounen Jump store, which is a store based off of comic series' in the Shounen Jump comic book magazine. It was interesting, but as I have no favourite series' in it, there was nothing I felt compelled to purchase. 


Oh, here are some really nice views from Yokohama. It was cloudy, so it kind of seems a little dreary, but regardless. 

The Nipponmaru.

One of the more famous ships around here, if I'm not mistaken.

You can see the Ferris Wheel in the background. I've been there. Yay~

A different angle.

I loved the clouds in this one.

Just the Ferris Wheel. I enjoy looking at it.

Sunday I kept to myself. Let me think... Have I done much this week..? 
Monday I slept a lot--there's been a change in the weather, and it's been very abrupt, so I haven't quite adjusted yet, and it makes it a little difficult to sleep at night sometimes, although I have no difficulties with napping, for whatever reason. Monday I napped and went to the grocery store. 


Yesterday was a blast, though. I was invited to a rather impromptu curry party, to which I almost didn't go. At the last moment, though, I decided to be social and went up. I'm really happy I did; I had a very good time, and made some new friends. Hopefully they'll last. I'm going to do my best, because they all seemed like very interesting and exciting people.
However, last night, I could not sleep. At the moment, I've been going all day on perhaps about three or four hours of sleep. It's been difficult, but today was full of serendipity, so it must have been meant to be. Hopefully tomorrow will be just as pleasant. 


Any money saving tips this week?
- Just, primarily, an emphasis on what I've talked about before: Make friends.
- I had expected to pay for part of the curry last night, but no one let me. It was a very generous expression, and I am grateful, but I am also selfishly happy because of the money it saved me. 
- Pay attention to sales--I even saved a little bit of money at the PokéMon Centre. There were a few discounted items and some sales going on, such as a "buy x amount, get 10% off" on some items. It was very exciting for me, and no matter where your interests lie, there are bound to be some sales that you can find. 
- Hang dry your laundry if at all possible! I did the math, recently, as best I could. I've saved at least 4,000 yen now. That hanger I bought has paid for itself ten times. 
- Look for substitutes. For example, fruits in Japan are relatively expensive. A single canteloupe will run a person somewhere around $12-15, or more, depending on the season. However! Cucumbers are cheap. You know what else is cheap? Honey. Mix the two together, and you get something with a mildly melon taste. Substitutes might not be the best ever, but it suffices.
- My pepper plant grew one pepper so far, and has many more promising blooms. If you can, perhaps try growing something like growing your own peppers or tomatoes or whatever fruits or vegetables you like that can be grown in a pot.


That's all for now, though. I'm sorry for the abrupt-ness of it, but I'm very tired.
Have a good week, guys~!

-RD

You Can Like the Life You're Living, You Can Live the Life You Like.

Hey hey. 

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. My introspection time was quite good, though, so we'll see what I can do today.

It may be brief--things haven't cleared up 100%--but I made it a point to take a lot of photos, so maybe that will compensate.

Let's see...

I may just skip straight to this weekend, guys, I'm really sorry about this--I'm really flighty and forgetful right now.

So let's start with Friday instead of Thursday. I can't remember Thursday at all right now, except for my classes. Oh wait. I made dinner and ate with several friends. A lot of fun, but nothing really useful to or interesting to you, I'm sure. So, Friday.

On Friday, I went to a place that I discovered is an awesome way to save money. 

It's a place--a chain restaurant--called Kappa Sushi. I hadn't seen a friend of mine for several days, so when she asked me to eat dinner with her and said the place was pretty cheap, I jumped at the chance. All of the dishes, save a few, are 105 yen a piece. Each dish is two pieces of sushi. If you're careful and not terribly hungry, you can easily keep a meal under 700 yen, which is really not bad. 

Also, as a pro-tip, it is perfectly acceptable to eat sushi with your hands, which is really nice. Sushi is the one food that I cannot eat with chopsticks, for whatever reason, so when I discovered that people can eat sushi with their hands, well... Yes. That's what I do now. Apparently it's how professional food-tasters eat sushi, so I felt very fancy while I ate dinner. 

After that, my friend and I went to Starbucks (I could read the instructions on the billboard, hurrah!), where she bought me a frappuchino in exchange for an artwork commission that I have yet to do, but will do soon. We sat in Starbucks for an hour or so, talking about a lot of nothing, and it was very nice. 

That was what I recall of Friday.

Saturday and Sunday were sweet, sweet Harajuku. I went two different times with three different people. Initially, I was just going to go on Sunday, but an acquaintance of mine that I had not seen since the first time I went to Yokohama invited me to go look at things with her, and we decided that Harajuku would be a good place to go.

This was the first thing that I saw off of the station. Tamagotchis. 

Oh, childhood.

Here's my big tip for Harajuku: Stick to Takeshita Street for main purchases if you're going to go shopping. Besides the fact that that's where all the notorious fringe fashion is, articles of clothing do not go over 13,000 yen at most. Usually, the clothes range anywhere from 2,000-5,000, which, considering location, is really cheap. 

That street. Photo courtesy of a friend.

Of course, Takashita Street is very very busy, considering that's where both the cheap and the fringe clothing are.

And I do mean busy.

Takeshita street is good for things like punk, goth, visual kei, lolita, and discounted items. As I like the punk-rock fashions in Japan, there were a couple articles of clothing that I found and bought for myself. I'm a little on the taller side, though, so I have a very difficult time with girls' clothes [and shoes] here, so I stick primarily with boys' attire. However, if you're a girl and smaller, there are a lot of girl clothes available, too. Here's what I got: 

The vest and shirt are two separate, detailed pieces, and all of it is quite comfortable, now that my boots have broken in a bit better.

The two-piece was 1,000 yen discounted, so it cost about 3,000 instead of 4,000. The quality is good, and since they are two entirely separate pieces, I did not mind. The boots were 4,000, and they seem very sturdy. What's more, if you go at the right time, you can find things like jackets and coats on sale for about half off. I'm sure the same applies to summer clothes in the winter. I will investigate when winter comes around. 

So, what do you do in Harajuku with the money you save? Harajuku is famous for crepes, and for very good reason. They were the best crepes I have ever had. If you fancy sweet foods, I highly recommend trying a crepe from Harajuku. On both Saturday and Sunday, I bought myself crepes, and they were absolutely delicious. 

This fellow was making them from the dough. I found the photo to be charming.

This was my first crepe. It was tiramisu flavoured. 

With cream cheese, too. Goodness.

Sunday's crepes involved strawberries and bananas and chocolate. You cannot go wrong with that elaborate combination.

My friend had ice cream, caramel, and cinnamon in hers.

If you're careful and buy basic ones, they are not terribly expensive--around 350 yen. Mine were very elaborate, though, so they were a little more expensive. However, if you find you can spare the money, go eat a crepe in Harajuku. 

After crepes, both times, we went to Meiji Jingu, which is one of the more famous shrines in Tokyo. It really is a place beyond words, so I'm just going to upload a few photos for you all, all right? See you at the bottom. 

Main Entrance

A really long road that you walked down to head towards the shrine.

The reflections are raindrops. I accidentally had my flash on, but I really like this photo.

View from the bridge.

Washing station. you have to wash your hands and rinse your mouth before you're allowed to pray or make a wish at the main shrine.

Walking up to the entrance to the shrine proper.

Entrance to the shrine proper.

A view from the side.

The actual shrine.

Another shot of the entrance, but from the inside.

Bonsai. All of them are real.

It was incredible to contrast the shrine from the main part of the city. You could even see the difference in the streets. There's a bridge to cross over a road between the shrine and the city. 

Cityscape versus forest. It is really interesting to see both of these side by side like this.

On the side of the trees is the station, which is surprisingly charming for the location and size. 

I find it precious and lovely.

After Meiji Jingu both times, I headed back home. Saturday night, I went straight to bed and woke up at 2:30 in the morning so that I could watch the Russia versus Czech Republic Euro game. The time difference between Japan and Europe is really inconvenient for a European-soccer loving lifestyle. I've had to be picking and choosing the games I've wanted to watch, rather than watch them all, like I would normally do back home. 

So I've decided to follow and watch Russia, while also keeping tabs on Spain and Germany. It's been lovely, but I really would rather just watch all of the games.

Sunday night after coming home... I stayed in my room and fought with my internet. The server had apparently done something wrong, and so IT had to come down and see about fixing it. For the longest time, I either had absolutely no internet at all, or I only had half of my internet [it's very technical and boring to explain--basically, I only had Skype and messenger services], and it was really frustrating and tense for a while, as a couple of my classes are internet-reliant. Finally by Monday night, I had my internet back, and all was well.

But, I haven't been doing much this week--it's been really rough for me. Yesterday I went grocery shopping--looked for my sales, as per usual, and I actually found ground beef on sale this week! I bought myself some, and intend to have tacos some time in the near future. Today I went back to the sushi restaurant with some people because I really needed to get out and about, and then I helped a girl switch rooms, because her old one is going under construction to have a door added. 

But this week, I've kept largely to myself and have done nothing of consequence, so Harajuku and cheap dining were really all I had to tell you all about. I'm sorry.

I hope you enjoyed the pictures, though.

Maybe I'll give you a song, too? How's that? 

Here you go: 

Enjoy it, okay? It's an end theme for a really good anime, but I like the song just by itself, too. Their voices are beautiful and fantastically complimentary. A little slow, but very well put-together. 


I'll talk to you guys next week--sorry for being so brief and rushed this time around. I'll be back in full-swing next week. I think this weekend involves cinema and PokéMon Centres, so I'm very excited to tell you all about it next Wednesday.
'Til then.

-RD

Update Postponed

For personal reasons, I'm taking a bit of a break today from my responsibilities in order to have some time for introspection. 
I'll be back tomorrow with the weekly update.


'Til then, loves.

Have some Engrish.

-RD

ただ僕はずっと愛してた。

Hey hey, all. How goes it? I'm actually writing this on the WordPad programme on my computer at the moment. For some reason lately, my internet has been extremely fickle. It's really quite frustrating. But in case of me having to post this late, I am writing it on the sixth of June, Wednesday. I promise, and I apologise in advance for any inconvenience this may have caused. I've sent a couple of text messages to friends who may be able to help me, but thus far, none of them have replied. Have you ever noticed that sometimes people never seem to be around when you legitimately need them? 
EDIT: Turns out that my friend was generous enough to lend me her internet, so yay! I can update~!


I write this with a full, happy stomach, having just invented what is possibly one of the most delicious desserts ever. I fried up one side of a piece of bread [buttered, of course], then added a layer of apple jam and cinnamon on it. And with some coffee to wash it all down? My goodness, I felt like a genius. 


Honestly, I don't know how many money-saving ideas I'm going to have this week--I've got a couple, but I guess we'll find out as we go along, won't we? Another sparce week on pictures, I'm afraid--my camera batteries died and I haven't yet replaced them. But lots of interesting things, and the photos I do have, I enjoy. I'll figure out something to post at the end again to make up for things, and I'll definitely be buying batteries before Sunday [I'M GOING TO HARAJUKU, GUYS! FINALLY.].


Starting off with Thursday, then, which I remember beautifully this week.
"Why," you ask? 
Well, let me tell you all about it! 
I told you a while ago that I bought tickets for a concert for my friend and I, right? I want to say that I did--it was back in April. 

These here beauties. 

Those tickets were to see one of my favourite musicians ever, a wonderfully talented fellow by the name of Miyavi.  

This guy. 

I would happily marry him if he weren't already married. 

Perhaps I would marry him twice. Maybe three times.

And Thursday, beautiful May the 31st, was the day of the concert. 

So, I'm sure it's needless for me to say, I was a ball of energy and excitement on Thursday, and pushing through my two classes was torture--to make matters worse, I had an exam that day in my Japanese class, and I also found out that day that I had another exam the next day. Still, I managed to make it through the classes, and I even accomplished a bit of studying for the next day's exam. 
It was during lunch time, though, that I found out that the friend that I'd asked to go with me the first time would be unable to make it. She had warned me in advance that she might not be able to go, but she wouldn't know for definite whether or not it would be the case until the day of, which is exactly how it turned out. I'd told another friend of mine that he was on standby if it proved that she couldn't go, to which he agreed--until he found out about our exam the next day. When I gave him a call, he said that'd he'd have loved to, but he wasn't going to be able to, because he really needed to study. Fair enough, I suppose, but now I faced the problem of finding someone to go with me. 


After scrambling around and asking about five different people and letting them know that I had a spare ticket if anyone wanted to go with me, finally a timid girl from Vietnam that I hadn't really spoken with before stepped up and said she'd like to go. She hadn't heard anything by Miyavi except for what I'd played for the class in a presentation the Friday before, and she also hadn't been to a concert [or just a club] before, but when I asked, she said she was sure that she wanted to go. I was a little shocked, especially after I said that it was a rock concert and, to be honest, she didn't seem like the type to like Miyavi all that much.


Wonder of wonders, I made a new friend on Thursday, and was forced to re-learn the fact that looks aren't all they seem. She speaks English very well, so we were actually able to have some splendid conversations, and I came to realise that this shy girl from Vietnam is really awesome. I didn't really doubt that she was, to be honest--our paths had just never had the opportunity to cross before, and as such, I hadn't gotten the chance to know her. We walked home from school together, as we finished classes at the same time, and met back up after about thirty minutes to leave for Shibuya to go see the concert. My new friend seemed to know where she was going, and got us on all the right trains, only panicking briefly when we had been having some sort of conversation about something that I can't recall--we weren't sure for a while if we had gotten on the right train that went straight to Shibuya, but after checking, she had been right. About an hour after leaving Fuchinobe, we arrived in Shibuya.


Earlier, I'd had a friend of mine look up instructions to get to the club for me from her smartphone, since I wouldn't have the time to look it up when I got home. She wrote out which trains would save me the most money, and drew a map for when I arrived. Fortunately, the club was very close to the station, so I assumed that finding it wouldn't be a problem. 
I was semi-right, at least. 

This is Shibuya, though.

There are people in Shibuya.

And a lot of things to look at and get distracted by.

Things like this. Hahaha.

And this.

I've seen the real one! It made me really miss New Orleans.

We arrived about an hour early, thank goodness--following the map that my friend had drawn, we got to the right area, but afterwards we couldn't find it. So, we were on the right block, but beyond that? I was expecting the club to be, like a lot of the clubs in Japan, in the basement floor, and most things in a basement have some kind of flag hanging off of the building to let you know it's in the basement. We stopped and asked one person where the club was, to which she admitted she did not know, and suggested we ask the police. 


So we went to the police. He knew where we were going, and he told us, so we went that way. We still couldn't find it--so we asked for directions again, and this time the person again didn't know where we were going, so we wandered around some more. Finally, we backtracked a bit and started over, combing through a new part of the street and asking yet another person who did not know. 
Getting frustrated, we looked around just a little more and finally stood under a building, examining the map my friend had drawn and considering asking for directions. 


I looked up out of exasperation and want of a change of scenery, and lo and behold, what do I see?

The very place we wanted to go. It was an absolute miracle, and a really funny one at that. Turns out, the club is the fourth and fifth floor of the building, and they just had a sign directly on it rather than sticking out from it. After my friend and I had our nice, stress-relieved laughter, we went in and waited for the doors to open. 


I didn't hear whether or not I could take photos, but let me tell you. The Japanese stereotype of someone polite and calm at all times is a complete lie. On the surface level and in formal situations, sure, they're calm and polite. But once you put them in a place where they know they can let loose and let it all hang out? They are just as rambunctious as any American. I had heard that Japanese concerts weren't at all like US ones--instead of bouncing around and having a mosh pit, they would, supposedly, just stand still and behave and maybe wave their hands a bit. 


That must have been for some other concert for some other musical genre, because this mosh pit was just as rowdy, if not more, as any of the ones that I've been in during my concerts in the US. I almost felt bad for my new friend, as she'd never been to a concert before (much less a real rock concert)--it seemed a little like baptism by fire to me--but when I looked over after it had all begun, she had the biggest grin on her face, and was just as lively as anyone else in the room. 


I had wanted to take photos, but once I realised it was a moot point, I finally gave up and put my camera back in my pocket, and just let myself enjoy the music. I haven't seen Miyavi since my first time seeing him back in 2010, so I was very happy to have the opportunity to not only see him again, but to see him in Japan. He gave, like always, a wonderful performance, and he looked and sounded so happy. It seems like he's got a new single coming out next month; I'm looking really forward to it. There is also going to be a "premium" concert some time next month, which I had initially planned on going to as well, but when I finally mustered up the willpower to look up the tickets, they were already sold out. Japan doesn't play around when it comes to selling tickets, it doesn't seem. My goodness. 


After the concert, I found a little stand for pita sandwiches run by a guy--I think he was from Turkey. He seemed really pleased when I knew the song playing on the TV--it was Tarkan's Simarak, or however that's spelled, and a really good song. Maybe I'll attach it and a song by Miyavi to compensate for this week's lack of photography. Anyway, I bought myself a beef pita sandwhich, which was delicious, and my friend and I headed back towards the station. We got back home at around 10:30PM, after which we said our good-nights. I headed back to my room and wound myself down for the night. 


What a beautiful day it was.


Friday, I hadn't had anything planned, and classes were average at best. I met up with my conversation partner again, though, at our usual time, and she invited me to go with her and a couple of her friends to a place in Tokyo called Roppongi, which is known for its bars and clubs.


I'd nothing better to do, and I wanted to meet new people, so I agreed. We met up again later that night, dressed and ready to go--it was going to be my first all-nighter out and about. 

This is one of the more famous areas of Roppongi; it's a shopping mall, apparently, or something like that [I'm really not sure, not going to lie]. I didn't have the chance to go in and explore, but my friend did get this lovely photo for me, as my camera had died by this point. 

Here is where we get to the only money-saving tip that I can really think of for this week: Roppongi is notoriously expensive, but if you're a girl and you know where to go, you can get in for free on certain days of the week/weekend. My friends knew where to go, and this saved about 2,000 yen right away. Also, get dressy, girls. Japanese guys seem to like buying girls drinks, and it doesn't matter the cost. I'm not a heavy drinker, so I didn't really ask for much, but the moral of the story is, the only money I spent in Roppongi was for travelling there and for breakfast at the ramen shop the next morning. 


Saturday, I got back home at around 6:30 in the morning. I took myself a shower, messaged my friend so that she would know to wake me up at 1:00 PM so that we could go out and do some shopping. My friend did indeed call me, and I groggily climbed up to her room on the promise of coffee waiting for me. We met up some of our other friends in Machida and did a bit of shopping and wandering around, also going by the burger spot that I went to before with a friend previously. I bought myself a new shirt for under 1,000yen, as well as a belt loop chain for 400yen. Not terrible, but a bit of a splurge, since I hadn't bought anything at the concert like I had planned to. There had been CDs, but I have everything of his already. 


Sunday was a birthday party of a friend of mine, one of my Dutch friends, and so I went to celebrate with that and a soccer game. It was quite fun.


Monday, I started getting sick, so I didn't much feel like anything. Sunday night's sleep proved to give me a neck cramp because the pillow the dorm gave me does not give me good sleep all of the time, so I decided to buy myself a new pillow--a pillow shaped more like the ones I'm used to. It's lovely, but by the time I got to my dorm on Monday evening, I felt terrible.
Turns out, I caught myself a lovely little virus, and so for Monday and Tuesday, I was feverish and sore. 
So I stayed home from classes and anything else on Tuesday, and today I returned to class.


So not much new.


And really, that's all for now. 
Ready for some new stuff?


Here goes:

This is Miyavi. He is my darling~

This is the song that I knew at the pita sandwich shop.

Apologies for the crazy screenshots.

Have a good week, all! I'll be telling you how Harajuku went, definitely, and what I discover~

Take care, all! Have a good week!

-RD