Monday, December 22, 2008

Merry Christmas! (Almost)

Merry Christmas everyone!

It will be especially merry for me! I can't wait!

Now for the quick update about my trip to Tokyo a while ago...

We took the Shinkansen there and it was SO cool. There's tons of leg room and they sell special "ekiben" train lunches/dinners that are quite delicious. Unfortunately, we rode it at night, so I didn't get to see Mt.Fuji out the window like I'd hoped. Next time!
We checked into our business hotel in Ueno pretty late that night. It was actually pretty nice for the price. We even had refrigerators!
The next day, we explored Akihabara, the anime/manga/electronics/strangely-dressed-people capital of Japan :). It was really fun! I even found a Studio Ghibli store and the PERFECT gift for my dad for Christmas (I won't post what it is until after, just in case he sees this :)
After Akiba, we went to go see Wicked in Japanese. Very cool! Having seen the English version of the show 3 times or so, I found it really interesting to compare the lines in the English version to the quick translations of the Japanese lines I was doing in my head. The English and Japanese version's characters were slightly different in the different languages. It really caught my attention. Very, very interesting.
Afterwards, we walked around Ginza, the Michigan Avenue of Tokyo, and looked at all the (really expensive) window displays and the pretty Christmas lights.

The next day, we explored Harajuku, a famously popular shopping...town, almost. It has a long, narrow main road that is always ridiculously crowded and people wander in and out of the shops. If you're claustrophobic, I suggest you avoid that street ;)

We wandered around some famous Tokyo places the next day. We went to the statue of the dog Hachiko. The story behind it is really sad. Hachiko used to walk with his owner to the train station every day and then meet him at the station to walk back when he came home. When the man died, Hachiko kept coming to the station to wait for him...for nine years until he, too, died. So they built a statue of him there.

That night, we ate at TGI Fridays, not very Japanese, I know, but the Japanese restaurant we wanted to go to closed right when we finally found it. TGI Fridays was nice, but really expensive. A plate of a bunch of appetizers was $20! It was weird to have American-sized napkins and drinks again :)

We tried to go to Disney Land the next day, but it was full to capacity when we got there (because of the holiday), so we couldn't get in :(
So we ended up going back to a different part of Harajuku that had a store called "Kiddy Land" that was just an electronics wonderland. It was crazy! :) I bought lots there :) Then we rode the Shinkansen and the subway home again. It was about a 3 hour trip, so not bad at all :)


Also, I found a church with an English Mass about 30-45 minutes (depending on what train you catch) away. It was really nice to hear Mass in English again. I've been going for the past few weeks. They even had a Christmas concert! It was great :)

Finals were tough, but now they're over! Yay! I also had to write a short story in Japanese and read it out loud to my teacher with emotion, as a writing and speaking test combined. It went really well! (Thank you drama and Creative Writing!) My teacher really liked mine, I think. :) I ended up being quite proud of it :)
I also had to write a newspaper article style interview of a friend for another class. That ended up being really fun too. I'd forgotten how much I like writing things that aren't research papers!
The last thing I had to write was a paper, so...not so fun. It was a bit confusing for us students because the paper topic (Controversial American art and the National Endowment for the Arts in America) had nothing to do with the class (Japanese Art History). It was a bit weird.
But now I'm done! Hooray! And next semester's classes (E Class Japanese, Japanese Cinema, Modern Japanese Literature, and Language in Japanese Society) all seem very promising. I'm quite excited.


In other news, the DS (;)) game Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is pretty much the best game I have ever played...ever. I know it sounds really dorky because it's about lawyers and court and everything, but it's got an amazing storyline, characters you really come to love, and great animation! I love it! I'm on the third game right now and it's just the best!
If you have a DS, you should definitely give it a try!


Anyway, I'm off to go clean my room. No, really. :)

Merry Christmas to all and to all an Oshougatsu Omedetou! (Happy New Year!)

Love and Christmas Wishes,
Christy

P.S. - Truly, I wish you all the best Christmas you've ever had. I sincerely hope that next year is ten times better than this year for all of you! (If that's true for me, then next year will have to be pretty amazing to beat everything wonderful that happened this year! :)