027 Turning Japanese + Enkai

Spent most of Wednesday at home, until Clint came home after work around 4. We headed to Elm to meet up with one of the school's nurses/teachers, Suwa sensei, to pick up a yukata for Clint! Yay. Once we found her, we headed straight to the kimono/yukata shop, and got to the work. The shop attendants were super excited at the prospect of dressing up a white person, so it was a lot of fun. The attendants picked out a few patterns for us to choose from, and we had fun playing dress up. Putting on a yukata is a lot of work, hokay?

Learning how to tie an obi. You can bet your
bottom dollar we've already forgotten.

Ta-daaaa!

The teachers at Clint's school all donated some money to help get Clint a farewell gift, which was really awesome. So, not only did Clint get a badass yukata, he also received a jinbei with matching shoes, and a nice fan. 

Boom. My boyfriend is spoiled!

Went for dinner at Kappa Zushi after we finished shopping - our diet is so varied, no? Headed home later and watched endless episodes Star Trek. STORY OF MY LIFE. Thursday was Clint's last day at work, so as usual, I spent most of the day at home watching TV and Redditing. That being said, Clint and I discovered some buttons on his TV remote that have unlocked at least 40 new channels...even channels in ENGLISH, so I've been watching a lot of that. I think they're cable TV channels...? The only catch is that they have this obnoxious signage that takes up about 30% of the screen telling us that we need to subscribe to get rid of it. Herpderp.

Magical buttons! 

Clint got home after school, and we headed back to the middle school to meet up with one of his colleagues as she would be taking us to Clint's enkai/farewell party. The original plan was for us to drive to the bar
in Hirosaki, but that would mean Clint wouldn't be able to drink a lot, which was NOT ACCEPTABLE. So we got chauffeurs instead. Boss. Got to the bar after a somewhat awkward 40 minute drive, and it was really nice. We got there right at 6, so people were just getting in.

The personalized menu!

Salad - this was SO GOOD holy goddd.

Oh, just some sashimi as an appetizer, no big deal.

Fish...stuff? Idk. It was good.

Egg + eel, seaweed, and green beans covered in WEIRD STUFF.
Do not want.

Us! :D

Got some beer. Nomz.

So part of Japanese culture requires people to NOT start eating until the person of the highest rank at the party starts, which meant that we couldn't start nomming until the principal got there...30 minutes later. It was horrible with all the food on the table and I was starving. He finally got there at around 6:30, and lucky for him, he's an adorable old man.

Yakitori. Score.

Trying to decipher this, we got: bamboo bird thing language.

Some famous Tsugaru dishes...yeah. Did not try them. 

Clint had to give a farewell speech near the end...

And then there was more food, ahmahgah.

Yakisoba!

Fried rice.

Too much sake!

Soba!

Mochi and cake! 

Clint ended up drinking my beer. I was trying to get him drunk.
No luck.

People hanging out.

Dessert was ice cream. Yaaayy.

 We finally left at around 9:00pm and got home and went to bed! 

026 Karaoke + Sushi + Star Trek

Monday was a holiday here in Japan, Marine Day, which meant that Clint got the day off work and we lazed around the house doing nothing of actual value. But that's what holidays are for, amirite? There is a sumo competition going on in Nagoya right now - it started on the 10th, and will last till the 24th - and the two of us now greatly enjoy watching the coverage, trying to figure out who's who and what the traditions/rituals are. There have been quite a number of wrestlers from Aomori, so we've been cheering them on (though they keep losing, wtf), and surprisingly, there have been a number of foreign sumo wrestlers that have been holding their own. If I'm not mistaken, currently the highest ranked yokozuna is Mongolian. Go figure.

After indulging in an afternoon of sumo, we remembered that we had a karaoke date in Tsugaru with some of Clint's students from Tsuruta's eikaiwa or English class. I was convinced that it would be super awkward, seeing as I only knew Clint and had no idea who else would be there, but it turned out pretty okay, no lie. I was hungry, but Clint promised food post-singing so I tagged along for the awkwardness-extraordinaire. Turned out I was half right - the start of the night didn't look too promising, but everyone warmed up to each other soon enough, and I think we all actually had a lot of fun. Attendees of the night were Clint and I, Emma, Michael Eastwood (a JET in Tsugaru), Shoko and Junichi Igarashi and Shoko's friends, Tomoho and Mayumi from eikaiwa. 

The lot of us sang English and Japanese tunes (LOL I DIDN'T SING ANY JAPANESE) and it was pretty fun. Karaoke culture in Japan is way different than karaoke culture in America/China. People here actually try to sing solo while everyone else just claps/plays tambourines to the beat (yes - they provide tambourines) so there were a lot more ballads as compared to the group-friendly songs you normally hear back home. Twas interesting. 

And of course, there was FOOD.

We finished up FOUR AND A HALF HOURS later, wtf, at around 11pm that night. Out of control. I know it doesn't seem like a lot of time, but if you divide that by eight people, that is a lot of singing. A lot a lot. 

Clint, me, Tomoho, Michael, Mayumi, Junichi, Shoko, Emma

Clint and I grabbed a late dinner at Mos Burger and headed home to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation. HAHAHAHA. Yes. More on that later.

Clint had to go back to work yesterday, sad times. So as per usual, I watched TV, stayed on Reddit, and napped caught up on some reading. Yeah. That. I decided yesterday that I'm going to work on being healthier hurr durr - we'll see how long that lasts - so I ate healthy all day! The goal for now is to cut carbs and up protein intake, which means no more/only a little bread, which actually makes me sad inside. :( Fingers crossed on seeing this through for longer than like, two days! 

After Clint got back, we watched more sumo and cheered on one of our friends' cousin, Hochiyama, who is from Aomori. I can't believe I can say this but I KIND OF KNOW A GUY WHO DOES SUMO PROFESSIONALLY SORT OF A LITTLE I KNOW HIS COUSIN SO THAT COUNTS RIGHT? Yeah. He's a boss. 

We ended up cycling to Kappa Zushi (trying to be healthy!), which literally is my favorite place in all of Japan because of 100 yen conveyor belt sushi OH MY GAWD. Ate our fill there, and bought some groceries before heading home. Mind you - it's two miles one way, so I cycled four miles yesterday! A+ for effort lol. 

At least it's pretty here.

Cycled to a nearby Lawson which is a convenience store after we got home, which is like a 7-11 but less trashy and without Slurpees, to pay bills. Yes - such glorious things do happen in this country. Got home and watched more Star Trek...sad to say I was actually excited at the prospect. Not sure if the boyfriend is turning me into a sci-fi fan (the horror!) or if I just miss watching TV in English. 

Headed to bed after an episode, and I've basically watched Star Trek all day today. Awww yeeeaaaahhhhh.

025 Leaving on a Jet Plane...Again

I’m sitting in LAX now as I write this – about to board the plane headed to Tokyo! As my sister would say “Boom Skalakalaka!”. She says it incorrectly. We haven’t been very good at blogging lately, but I promised myself I’d actually be consistent this time, so here I am. The past few days have been pretty busy, but I’ve been with family, so it’s been a lot of fun.

The day after we went for Korean barbecue, Christine, Laurence, my brother, and I took my grandma to eat dimsum again! We wanted to take her out to eat to thank her for being awesome and for looking after us, because she’s a boss. It was good to see and talk to Laurence cause I hadn’t seen him in forever…when he’s with Chris, our cousin, they become gay lovers and forget about everyone else’s existence. Laurence came over at around 11 and we took the bus to the Lincoln Plaza Hotel for food.

That's my brotha.

I am absolutely in love with the fact that the area where we live is SO CHINESE.

The food (which we thought would be questionable…we don’t like new places) turned out to be really great. As always – have a billion pictures of awesome Chinese food.

Initial spread. Bomb diggity.

THIS WAS SO GOOD. I don't even know what it was.

Good food is shockingly good.

The kids and I had to be really sneaky about the bill. My grandma kept insisting on paying for us because she believes we’re completely broke (which is close to true, but not quite), so the second the waiter came by with our check, I had to grab it and give him my card, stealth-like. My grandma didn’t know what hit her. It was awesome.

Awwwwww Yeeeeaaaaahhhhhhh

Me and grammy. :3

After brunch/lunch, we headed to get some boba at a local boba place, Quickly. Apparently Quickly is a chain boba place. Idk. California is weird. Laurence and Chris both got boba milk tea, and I just got a peach slush. Legit.

Boba is grosssss. Trufax.

After we got home, courtesy of Christopher, I got a package in the mail. SNOW LEOPARD! Now maybe my computer will be less fail. Excited.

The kids and I just hung around the house for the rest of the day, playing Tetris Friends. I am an addict, and it’s upsetting. I found out that you can play frickin’ AGAINST people on Tetris Friends, so I hijacked Christine’s computer and vegetated for like, three hours.

Hahaha. We are all awesome and lazy.

Grandma made dinner for us as usual – Chinese sausage rice and ABC soup! She is so awesome. She is easily my favorite person on Earth.

YEEESSSSS.

:D

After dinner, Chris and I went to get some Baskin Robbins…we’re Grade A fatties. Trufax.

Fattie.

Also fattie.

The next day (yesterday!) was a lot of fun and super busy. Chris and I got up at around 10 and ate some zhong that my grandma made, which is a type of sticky rice with meat, mushrooms and beans. Omnomnom.

Boss.

We had to get up early (hah – I use the term “early” very loosely here) because Laurence, Christopher, Christine and I were going to Los Feliz to check out a laptop for Laurence he had seen on Craigslist.

We met the seller at a Starbucks there at around 12, and did a pretty decent check on it. The laptop was a 2008 Macbook Pro, with all the bells and whistles, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, still under Apple Care, ladida. All for $1,000. SKETCH, NO? But it checked out in the end, and we went across to the street to the bank to get the moneh. Very gangster-like. The seller guy said that he would meet us there (wut) and once we got the money, we double checked the computer since we had let it out of our sight once. We were not about to be cheated like Luan Legacy. Bahaha. Everything looked good, so the purchase was completed, and Laurence was disgustingly happy. Yay for happy endings!

Got Christopher and Laurence to drop Christine and I off at Atlantic Square so we could get her nails done and do some shopping.

After nails, we went to El Pollo Loco to get some churros. El Pollo Loco is so legit. And I’m not a fan of Mexican food at all.

We headed for some real lunch after at Taco Bell. I was basically trying to eat my fill of American food before going to Japan, where, according to my boyfriend, it is not legit. Got a crap ton of food, yadda yadda. Nothing new.

SO MUCH FOOD! Holy god.

IN OTHER NEWS: TACO BELL’S CHEESY BEEF BURRITO IS SO GOOD. Omg omg omg. Five stars to Taco Bell for KEEPING IT SIMPLE. Beans mess EVERYTHING up. Cheese + Meat + Rice + Tortilla + 99 cents = YOU CAN’T GO WRONG.

We move on.

Went to Fedex-Kinko’s after lunch to get my itinerary/boarding information printed for my flight. Yay! Chris wanted to get some new shoes – Oxfords and gladiators, so we shopped around and of course, mission accomplished. And I shopped too. And got my hurr did. Boom.

Went home after grabbing some Starbucks (AMERICAN FOOD OKAY?) and paying with my Starbucks gift card. Let me tell you – Starbucks gift cards are so legit. If you ever want to get me anything and you’re like, “hmm, I don’t know what to get for Stacy.” It’s easy. Get me these. 

Yeah. Chris had to drink some Pei Pa Koa, which is a magical Chinese medicine that cures everything. She is down with the flu or cough or something.

Stay away from me, sick person!

We ordered some pizza for dinner (MORE AMERICAN FOOD), which my grandma was sweet enough to pay for. Chris and I split a stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut. Bahaha. We’re done eating, I swear.

SOOOOOOO GOOD I DON'T EVEN.

Had a Skype call with Hannah after dinner and we discussed the parallels between boys regardless of age and location. It was awesome. And that same night, my grandma made some essence of chicken soup for Chris and I to drink, which is super, super great for you. She's awesome.

Chris and I went to bed after we played Tetris Friends and I packed.

Intended to wake up this morning at 8, which I did, and spoke to my boyfriend before going back to bed. Yeah. I do that. My grandma came to wake Chris and I at around 10 (whoops) and we ate Chinese noodles and some herbal soup since Christine is still kind of sick. Christopher and Laurence came to pick us up at around 11:15 and we headed to the airport! Got there about 40 minutes later, and said bye to everyone. It was sad times! I’m going to miss everyone!

I got in line at the Singapore Airlines counters, which weren’t open yet wtf, after saying bye. When they finally started checking people in, I was surprised at how long the turn around time was for the checking in...Singapore Air is usually on top of things. Ehhh. Grabbed some McD's for lunch pre-flight (I was like, three hours early), and am waiting at the gate for departure.

Bye, real American food!

My next post will be in JAPAN.