More pictures-- Odaiba & Okutama

Long story short, I ended up sleeping from 4 PM until 12 AM today. @_@;; I've been really tired the past two weeks.

Since I'm up, I figure that I might as well post pictures again! It's been a busy weekend. Went to Odaiba, a man made island made by the Tokugawa government. Then today, a couple of us from TMEFC went to Okutama to meet up with the rest of the English department that had a retreat this weekend! We couldn't join them for the whole weekend (it was too much monies) but we were able to be with them today! (Okutama, as beautiful and rural as it seems, is still part of Tokyo. :D)

On the Yurikamome Line. In other words, the monorail to Odaiba! That's the Rainbow Bridge. :D The monorail goes on that!

We passed by the replica of the Statue of Liberty. It's really tiny.

This was actually before we saw the Statue of Liberty. Sorry, the pictures are a tad bit out of order. This is the famed Fuji TV building. We were supposed to stop by and see it but we were really hungry. D: This was taken on the bridge.

On our way to the Miraikan (I will explain what this is later), we happened upon this sculpture outside. There were no signs that said do not touch or do not climb so we figured that we'd climb it! It was really sturdy, so no worries!

The 未来官(Miraikan)! Mirai means "future," as in the distant future. (As opposed to shorai, which means the short future, e.g. the next few years or so. If you ever take Japanese, keep this in mind! It confused me for a while.) The Miraikan is short for "National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation." Hhahaha. It's a very hands-on museum so a lot of parents bring their kids there. There are exhibits on life sciences, space, robotics (there was this cool robot named Asimo! I'll post videos later.), and a whole bunch of other stuff. There was a dome theater too! :D

This really cool globe thing was hanging in the Miraikan. The clouds move! And the earth "rotates!" It was so cool. :D

This was obviously in the life sciences department. Yeah, DNA replication! This is tRNA doin' it's thing.

We left the Miraikan and started to make our way towards food. There was a field of flowers and the girls couldn't resist it. I decided to take my obligatory flower face picture.

This is where we ate. It's a shopping center called Venus Fort. We ate and wandered around a bit, but not for too long. This is how the inside looks like. There are no windows in this shopping center so that the lighting can be controlled. It's very faux European but it's really pretty. :)

Then we went to the Toyota City Showcase. Basically a lot of cars by Toyota. And games like this for free. :D You only get to do one lap, though. And if you can't finish a lap, then you only have three minutes or so? I finished a lap. :D

There was this precious oldman in a suit and sneakers. It looks like he's doing well. Hahah.

We went on the giant ferris wheel. This is us at the top! You can see the Yokohama ferris wheel in the distance (the little white orb on the horizon to the right).

This is us, making our way down. It was a quick ride-- 16 minutes!

This was early this morning at the Ogikubo station. We were very excited about waiting half an hour for the train. (This is a horrible picture. I tried taking it but my face got cut off and we're totally off center. But because it's so epic fail, I think it's hilarious.)

Ah, we arrived in Okutama safely! We thought that this was the bridge that we had to cross. We were very, very wrong. Needless to say, we got very lost getting to the retreat site.

But somehow, we still made it. :D

This is after the service. We were making our way back to the station. That's Amy that you see there. And the Trail of Death. The trail that you need to go up in order to get to the road that leads you to the retreat site is seriously one of the steepest inclines that I've ever walked on. It would make for good skiing/snowboarding. It's a really short trail but it was so, so painful.

Well, that's the end of that. It's now 2 AM and I haven't washed up or showered yet. :D So I need to get crackin' on that and then it's bed time again! :D Bye bye!

Very long picture post.

This is a compilation of photos from the past month or so. Hahaha. I forget to update this thing with new pictures but my parents want to see and they don't have facebook! Some of these pictures, I posted on facebook, but I uploaded these straight from my computer without looking at what I have on faceook. So keep an eye out!

Pretty lights at the Roppongi Station! That station is just a lot of fun. :D

A shop at the shopping mall at Roppongi. Was that Roppongi Hills? Or is Roppongi Hills where the Mori Tower is? I forget. "/ But yeah, this shop sold chopsticks. Mostly chopsticks. Beautiful, fun chopsticks. :D And this is their display window! I tried to get some close ups of the dolls that were on display but it was kinda hard.

Switching gears, this is the thunder gate at Asakusa.

Me, wafting smoke over my head in hopes of getting smarter. :D

I got a half fortune. It told me to never get married or to get a new job. To thank the fortune, I tied it to the bar and abandoned it. :D Bye bye.

Switching gears again, this was at the Tsukiji fish market! Look at the size of that tuna!

And so I had this for breakfast. From left to right, that's fatty tuna, tuna with avocado, and horse meat. Yes, horse meat.

After that Tsukiji excursion, we hit up Ginza. There were a bunch of these Hello Kitty bouquets! But they were expensive. And I can't take it back to the States.

And we found that the Imperial Palace was close to Ginza. So we walked over there and got a peak at it. The palace is that little bit of building peaking out from behind the bridge.

The Imperial Garden was beeeeautiful. I would've stayed longer but we were sleepy, tired, and hungry, thus making us cranky. D:

More garden!

And more.

We went to Roppongi again. This is near Tokyo Midtown. There was an odd sculpture. So Becky and I decided to take a picture with it. I think of weird poses, don't ask me?

The Mori Tower in Roppongi. All 54 stories of it!

Here's the Tokyo Tower! I wanted to buy Grace a keychain from there but it looks like the Eiffel Tower, so no fun.

Ferris wheel at Odaiba. It changes colors! It was beautiful. :) (We're planning an Odaiba excursion for this Saturday.)

Ah, what typically comes to mind when you think of Tokyo. :) It seems all romantic and stuff but man, don't base your judgments of Japan off of these pictures. I'm just not taking pictures of the mundane. But will soon.

The Rainbow Bridge!

So yes, I went to the Kabuki-za. This is to prove that I was there. And Bernadette's head is to the left. Haha, hello.

The Kabuki-za! I love this place!

A group picture of us. I'm standing next to two of my professors. It was very strange. Hahaha.

I've been seeing this pollack roe (명란젓? Is that how you spell it, 엄마? In Japanese, it's tarako.) crackers and it weirded me out a lot. But I bought it and tried it. And liked it.

Another strange cracker. Ddukbokee! I didn't dig it too much. I got it at Shin-Okubo (aka Korea Town) in some Korean market. Bleh.

And look at what I got in the mail from a certain someone in Santiago, Chile! :D This was taken on the bus. Hahahaha.

Look at my ecstatic joy.

And the goodies! Orly? Yarly. (Thank you, Grace!)

We had to go to the Ghibli Museum. Like, it's mandatory for my core class. The Ghibli Studio is where Miyazaki Hayao does his magic and it's located in Mitaka-shi, where my school is!

We arrived! This is me venturing into the magical forest through the mythical gates. (This isn't the end of the strange poses.)

I can't jump too high, I soon found out...

The museum is three stories tall. It's an absolutely delightful little place. If you're a Miyazaki fan and you're in Japan, you must come here! This is the spiral staircase that leads up to the garden on the roof! There's also a statue of a giant (from one of Miyazaki's films that I'm unfamiliar with.).

Hello, giant. I wasn't sure if he were friendly or not so I figured that I'm better safe than sorry. Hahaha. (I'm totally posing for this picture.)

Well, that's the end of it! I'll probably only upload a couple of the Ghibli pictures on facebook since it's not all too exciting or Tokyo-esque.

That's all for now. This picture post took such a long time. And I lost three games of chess against the computer while waiting for the pictures to upload. Hahaha. Good night!

I feel like trash.

I think that I have food poisoning. Though all the food poisoning cases I've seen have lasted for a week. o_o But when I google'd my symptoms, all the hits that I got back were food poisoning so I'm going to guess that that's what I have.

Btw, the symptoms have been diarrhea and fever. I will not elaborate anymore than that. Hahaha.

I'm not sure where I got the food poisoning from (as I'm assuming that that's what I have). I ate at a sushi-go-round last night in Shibuya (which I will have pictures of) but no one else that I ate with got messed up. Haha. I denno. But that's ok, I think that the brunt of it's over. I got so much sleep today. I had to skip church too, 'cause my fever was running too high and I didn't know when diarrhea would hit me again. The safest place was my room.

I made some rice porridge and am slowly eating it right now. Good thing, my body's not having an adverse reaction to it.

Anyway, enough with my whining. Here are pictures!

Kirin Lemon! My favorite soda in Japan thus far. It's a lemon soda, if you haven't figured that part out already.

For all you curious about how it looks like inside the train. This was pretty late at night so there weren't too many people on the train. I believe that this was the Chuo Line.


I had soondubu! It was tiny, though. My hand's there for a size comparison. Hahaha. Just look at how the spoon juts out of the bowl. It was tiny. But it was filling.

Don't believe that my school's surrounded by a forest? Take a look at this! It looks like you could just pitch a tent right there!

But the trees to make the campus look pretty. :) This is the entrance into the school.

Where people eat lunch. We have a lunch period! It seriously feels like high school. Hahaha.

So, where do you suppose this is?

Sweets Forest! Yep, the trees are indoors.They're obviously fake but they're so pretty. *-* This was in the outskirts of Shibuya, I think? It's such a couples place. x_X But yes, Sweets Forest is a whole bunch of dessert stores. Think of a mini dessert mall. Mmm...

On the other side, they even had a whole autumn theme going on!

There's this cute little well in the... forest.

I got a crepe. It was preeetty good. But very expensive. D: The coolest thing, though, was the utensils! They're made of wood! Hhaaha. Eco-friendly utensils. :D The downside is that you could taste the wood when you ate your food. That was a little weird.

Hahahah this one cracked me up so much. Emo Cafe! I bought something here, just because of the name of the store. Hhahahaa.

Yes, they also sold Emo Blownies. Mmmm. Blownies...

I got this little orange chocolate... blob. It tasted pretty good but I was expecting more. Oh well.

Shibuya! This is what I saw as soon as I got out of the train station. Craziness!

Took a picture with Hachikou. So Hachikou was a real dog. Its owner got him when he was a puppy back in like, the 1920s or something. Hachikou would walk with his owner to the Shibuya station every day and then walk back home afterwards. When it was time for the owner to come back home, Hachikou would go wait at the station for its master. The crazy thing is, after the owner died, Hachikou stilled waited on its master every day at the station for 20-some years. He became a minor national celebrity and they raised this statue to remember his loyalty. He was there for the raising of his own statue. Haha. But yes, that story made me go ;o;!

Yes, I am walking the famous scramble crossing! We wanted to go up on a higher level to get a picture of it but alas, we couldn't find a place to do it. D: Whatevs.

A glimpse of a crazy Shibuya street.

Ah, this is at the sushi-go-round. We have to eat a minimum of 7 plates. The plates are 120 yen each. It's not too bad. This was probably my favorite there, aside from the tuna. Yes, it's just beef & onions. I can't get away from beef. *-*

Gochisosama deshita. Haha. I took pictures of all of my dishes (except one, I got too excited and ate before I remembered to take the picture... -_-;). This is the end result.

Oh, and I threw a melon on there last minute, just to kind of leave a refreshing taste in my mouth.

Yes, the famous Shibuya 109. Eight floors of shops! Crazy shops!

I was diggin' the fur. Apparently, fur's the "in" thing right now.

Some crazy 80's wear store.Yes, the girls you see are workers. A couple of my friends had more guts to ask them for a picture. Hahhaah.

A square watermelon! And yes, it is ~$120!

And a pyramid shaped watermelon. This one costs ~$150, I believe.

Oh, and just to prove that I was there. Yeeeeeah.

Some crazy, big screen. o_o There are three of them overlooking the scramble crossing.

The monstrous screen on the Q-Front building. And yes, that is a Starbucks Coffee that you see at the bottom of the picture. I had a matcha frappaccino there.

Ok! This picture post took me nearly an hour and a half to do. Hahahaha. Time to do more important things. Good bye!