I'm bad at writing

I haven't really done anything interesting. I haven't read Harry Potter. I haven't gone to the beach. I have unpacked my suitcases and realized I had no idea where to put all that stuff, but it's mostly away now. I haven't eaten a lot of the things on that list, but oddly now that I could eat them I don't really have an urge to. Which I guess is good, since the first couple days I ate way too much.

I want to grill something. Or catch marshmellows on fire and burn my tongue eating them. Which sort of requires a grill or some sort of outdoors fire source.

Last night it thunderstormed a lot and this morning there was a good inch of water in the stuff sitting outside. Good for the plants, I guess.

On Monday I think I will go to UIC and do stuff for work. Or maybe not. It all depends. It's also hard to keep track of what day of the week it is.

And I want something to eat.

back in chicago

I was going to write a long account of my trip but I am feeling lazy so here is a list:

Javier and Francisco walked with me and Scott to the train.
Got to the airport around 11 and checked in.
Got on airplane at 1:25. Had window seat.
Asked the flight attendant for rum and coke, had to show my id. Later I was talking to him and another flight attendant and he asked the other one how old she thought I was and she guessed 17 and he told her I was nearly 22.
The food: beef in a "marsala" (ambiguous vaguely tomatoey) sauce with potato wedges, cup ramen (as always not so tasty), and breakfast was surprisingly good, a cheese omlette with a sausage thing and a hashbrown and fruit.
We landed at 11:36 and I was at the baggage claim (after getting my passport checked) at 11:50 and I had all my suitcases and was through customs at 12:20. I didn't know that was possible!
Aaron was waiting because he was super early, my parents were still on the way so they just drove all the way to the airport and picked us up.

I slept for a couple hours but now I am not tired which is bad because it's nearly midnight and I need to sleep more.

heading to the airport

In about 45 minutes I am leaving to go to the airport... My flight is at 2:10pm and I will arrive in Chicago at 11:47 am.

I have waaaaaaaaaaaay too much stuff. I have been asked if I am taking all of Japan back with me...

this is lame.

First the typhoon was pathetic. It just rained a lot Saturday night and was windy on Sunday night and then I don't even feel this giant earthquake.

I have to say I am disappointed in Japanese natural disasters.

party

It rained last night. So we didn't go anywhere. But we still had fun in the meeting room. Even Scott came.

The rain is now almost horozontal when the wind gusts. I was going to go to church in Tokyo with Diana and Arlen but since the main part of the now-tropical storm is supposed to be arriving in the next 6 hours I think I might stay in my room. Too bad I have nearly no food though. I'm down to three packs of ramen, about 10 crackers, two cookies from yesterday and some peanut butter (and bbq sauce). I really should have planned something but I guess if I get desparate I can always put on my poncho and rain pants and go out, or just run to the convinence store and get something more interesting.

its raining so much

I hope this means plenty of people come to my party... I know I am definately tired of being stuck in my room all day (but I was packing). I seriously have no idea how all my stuff can have filled up two big suitcases and one small and a backpack. It didn't seem like that much stuff. And I have a big pile of stuff to give away.

There has been a steady downpour all day, but it's getting heavier as it gets later. And the air has gotten much cooler, which is nice.

And I finished my history paper! It's on the Plaza Accord instead of Japanese cars in America as a result of the oil crises of the 1970's. I'm not sure why, but I just sort of started writing and it ended up not being about cars at all.

Typhoon Man-Yi

We're getting a typhoon! Althought it will only be "a strong tropical storm" by the time it gets to Tokyo on Sunday morning. It's really bad for Okinawa: (from weather.com)

Typhoon Man-Yi (155 mph), churning north-northwestward through the Philippine Sea, will pass just west of Okinawa this evening (U.S. eastern time). This typhoon, has become a super typhoon and will result in very destructive winds, storm surge and waves to the island.

After that, Man-Yi is forecast to recurve and head eastward across the larger islands of southern Japan, although the storm's winds will begin to slacken by then. Man-Yi should be very close to Tokyo by Sunday morning (U. S. time), but probably will be only a strong tropical storm by that point.

more pictures from Mt. Fuji

Luckily, the pinkness on the bottom of my pants came out in the wash.

Also, can you eat eggplant raw? I've read conflicting reports about it, since it is related to nightshade, just like potatoes and tomatoes are. I know it tastes better cooked, but these Japanese ones are little and don't taste very bitter raw.

Back from Mt Fuji

 
 
 
 
It was very cold and wet and rainy and so cloudy that near the top you could not see anything. We didn't actually make it all the way to the top, but we talked to some people that had been on the bus with us who were a lot faster and they said that they couldnt even see where the crater was because the clouds were so thick. I believed it since we were probably 100 yards vertically but about 5 switchbacks from the top and we could barely see to the end of the path. And since we were cold and wet and tired and hungry, rather than going uphill more to see a cloud we decided to save our energy forgoing downhill. Which was good because instead of it taking two hours to go down it took about 3 and a half. And we didn't stop to rest but two or three times. The path was all little volcanic rocks so it was very slide-y. On the way up there had been some actual rocky patches that required climbing, notjust walking. It wasn't particularly crowded, probably because it was a Monday and raining, but there were a couple Japanese tour groups.

All in all it was fun, though, despite the fact we had awful weather. I can definately see where the saying about how someone who doesn't climb Mt. Fuji once is a fool, but so is the person who climbs it twice.

birthday parties

Kim's party was at Plumeria. We had stuffed tomatoes, taco rice (in the picture it hasa scoop of egg salad on top) and some other stuff, including a cake! I was impressed I got a picture of Kim blowing out the candles. Kind of. After that, for Jose's birthday, Daniel brought his wii and we played with that for a while (I was really bad) and then went to the park and hung out there. Jose bought sparklers, and yet again I was amazed no one got set on fire(the picture is Pejman and Hassibi). It was a very long night, especially since I didn't even take my usual nap before staying up until 5 am.

Today Scott and I went to a conveyor belt sushi place in Chiba with Gene. It was really good. I'm still tired, but I am going to play DDR with Louise for a little while before bed for some exercise. I went running this morning and hopefully combined with not eating so much today will counteract the extreme overconsumption of last night.

happy fourth of july

Today is Jose's birthday so last night at 11:30 we rode our bikes to his house and sang him happy birthday at midnight. He got a nice normal chocolate cake, though, since Javier was in charge and not Francisco.

This morning I worked on packing. I have too much stuff, I think. What I think I will end up doing is mailing home all my notes in small packages. I mean, I guess I could just throw them out, since I'll probably never look at them again, but I used so much energy taking them. But I feel better that I've managed to get the vast majority of the stuff I am not using put away and there is still space in the suitcases.

It was raining off and on all day and I kept putting off going running, but finally I went after I ate dinner and running in the rain wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared it would be. Although I was looking forward to getting chilled and coming home and taking a shower and then crawling into bed under the covers to warm up. I definately was not chilled when I got back. I wasn't as overheated as usual, but I was still warm. The rain here is freakishly warm.

pictures 3: strangely dressed people in Harajuku, giant carp, subway train, lots of torii (gates)

 
 
 
 

more pictures: turtle in Ueno Park, graveyard, white iris in Korakuen garden

 
 
 

pictures: full moon bridge, streetscape near Shinjuku, lake in Ueno Park, white heron in Ueno Park

 
 
 
 

weekend saga

Friday: Did nothing. Went to bed at a reasonable hour (9pm) in preparation for the field trip on Saturday. I woke up at 1:15 to the sound of Jose being extremely loud, even for him. I laid in bed and couldn't fall back asleep because there was so much talking going on outside. I gave up and got dressed and went and hung out in the yard with a bunch of people for a while until somebody yelled at us to be quiet. Then I went back to bed.

Saturday: Got up. Ate breakfast and went to the field trip. We met at 7:30 in Inage and then took the train to meet the teacher at 9am in Tokyo. We started at a cemetary that has a shrine to the first Tokugawa shogun. Then we walked to Ueno Park and walked around there a lot. Next we took the train to Iidabashi, where we ate lunch at an Italian place (I had a pasta with a tomato-cream sauce with crab, it came with salad and a mini piece of quiche, which was really good. Even the quiche was okay, and I don't actually like quiche.). Then we walked around a redeveloped area that used to be railroad shuntings. I am not sure why. Next we walked to a garden that had what was supposed to resembles famous landscapes in Japan, and it was really pretty. Until mosquitos started biting me. Then we took the train again to Shinjuku where we went to the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office - the 45th floor is an observatory. It was interesting to see all the little clusters of high rises. And I got a hello kitty with daniel phone thing. Then we took another train to Harajuku, where we walked through the Meiji Shrine and looked at the trees there. Then we went out and the teacher said we could go, but only Kim and one of the Japanese girls left. The rest of us stayed with the teacher and we walked around and ended up in an izakaya (pub-type restaurant) with the teacher. The Japanese people ordered a bunch of things for us to eat. The strangest thing we had was a bone from the head of a tuna that was grilled. The meat was really soft and moist. Even I liked it and cooked tuna is very low on the list of things I will eat. At 7:30 Sari and I managed to escape by claiming we had to go to another party in Inage. We got back about 8:30 to the dorm. Louise and I had been talking about going to Upper Float, a bar in Chiba, but it was sort of raining and stuff, so we ended up not going. Instead me and Louise, as well as Diana and Arlen and this friend of Louise's did the puzzle I brought back at Christmas and never got to making. It was hard, since it was one of those mystery ones where you don't know what it is of, and I had kind of forgotten the theme, and it turned out to be sort of a collage, so that made it harder. It was around 750 pieces we figured out. We had some snacks and that was nicer than going to a smokey bar and standing up (after walking literally from 9 am to 6 pm) would have been. It was quite late when we finished the puzzle, around 1 am, but we didn't start until 10ish.

Sunday I got up late and went to church in Nishi-Chiba because the first Sunday of the month they have mass in English. Afterwards, I was standing around with Diana and Arlen and some Filipino kids and Noran sent me a message that they were going to go swimming at 2. Since it was 1:45 I left right away and rode back super fast and got my stuff. Swimming was a lot of fun, it was just me, Noran, Jesse, Javier and this Germankid named Andres who goes someplace in the north for months at a time doing research. Later Francisco and Antonio came, but we were getting ready to leave at that point. We had a race to the farend of the pool (50 meters) and I was second fastest, which surprised me. Jesse and I had a little race but he gave up after about a quarter of the pool. After we left, Javier was like, let's ride through the park. So we are ridingand decide to stop and walk around this big pond. We're about halfway around when these two white guys start talking to us and invited us to hang out with them for a while at their picnic blanket. It was sort of weird, but they were very nice (english teachers, one from Scotland and one from California). Eventually we left and walked back to the bikes and rode home. Well,Javier and I went home, Noran, Jesse and Andres went to eat. I had to go back because I was going to watch a movie with Diana and Arlen and my phone battery was dead so I didn't know what time I was supposed to go, and since it was about 7:15 I was worried they were waiting for me. Luckily, it was at 8, so I wasn't late. We watched "Laws of Attraction", which was a romantic comedy about two divorce lawyers in New York.

I think when I go back I will slightly miss the weekends in Japan.

Today I went through all the stuff on my bookcase and sorted it. I'm unsure what to do with the mostly unused toiletries, like lotion. I already gave the shampoo to Emily about a month ago when she was saying she was running out (I did add a little to my first set of bottles, but they still had plenty in them). I can safely throw away the expired sunblock, but what about the new one? Although Javier and Nora both said they would happily take anything I didn't want, but I think I might offer other people stuff too.

more pictures later.

coming soon to a theater near you

The epic saga of my weekend.

Friday: 2 am pajama party
Saturday: All day field trip then puzzle
Sunday: church, swimming, meeting other gaijin in the park, movie.

Read about it on Monday, July 2.