Finally, some fun~

This past weekend I FINALLY went out to drink and be merry! I've been in Japan a month and I'm kind of sad that the whole earthquake/tsunami/genpatsu-kun thing put a damper on such activities*. But there are many more weekends ahead of me where I'm sure I can make up for it.

On Sunday I went with two of my fellow trainees to Harajuku. Wandered around, bought a lucky bag at Liz Lisa that I probably didn't need (was only 5000yen and I got at least 15000yen worth of stuff!), almost got lost outside of the Meiji Shrine. There were some interesting prayer boards around the tree:

Most of these mentioned the earthquake and tsunami.

I hope that doesn't say anything bad.

I thought the KEEP IT REAL was funny.

Later I met up with my long lost relative! For a number of reasons, I've come to the conclusion that we are actually not related. I'm not sure how much information he'd like me to post about him on this blog, especially since he probably can't read it. He lives in Tokyo with his family though he's originally from somewhere else in Japan. He's older than I expected him to be, but I'm terrible at guessing ages.

We met up in Ikebukuro (since that's where he saw my tattoo three years ago) and I told him to take me to a good restaurant that served some kind of alcohol. We ended up at a little izakaya, where I promptly put my DS and some scratch paper on the counter so we could have some way of communicating. I don't speak a lot of Japanese and he speaks even less English, yet in spite of the language barrier I had a good time. He's a cool guy so I'll be keeping in touch.

On Monday I met up with more fellow trainees and hung out in Ikebukuro again. They showed me a little sports/amusement center with darts, billiards, a bowling alley, and batting cages, which was really cool though absolutely packed so we didn't get to do anything there. Instead we ate a late lunch and hung out for a while. I caught the wrong train to Yokohama and went drinking with Tracy, her co-worker, and a friend of a friend from Hawaii. SO FUN. I miss going to little hole-in-the-wall izakayas and getting kinda rowdy late at night. But I'm totally lame and forgot to take pictures. OH WELL.

And remember how my dear mother sent me 29 cans of tuna in the mail? Got that box this week.

It's now 28 cans of tuna.

*In case you were wondering, TOKYO IS FINE. STOP TALKING ABOUT RADIATION AND IODINE. There are way bigger problems up north. Last I read, there are 26,000 people dead or missing as a result of the double-catastrophe and still almost half a million people without homes. There are a lot of great organizations trying to do good, but it seems that the infamous Japanese bureaucracy is bottle-necking a lot of it with red-tape and RULES RULES RULES. Please keep donating money or buying shirts or whatever, this situation is not going to be resolved for a long time. I've been jolted awake by some pretty strong aftershocks the last few days and Sendai is still getting hit with earthquakes. Don't forget about those in Tohoku.