様々

Big Groups
I saw the whole relationship between ease of satisfaction and # of people in a group rear it's ugly face this last Saturday. Before, I had been to Tokyo in groups of 1-4, and it was very manageable, very fun, and incredibly meaningful. Saturday we went with about 10, who all wanted to do different things, and making everyone happy even in 2 separate groups was a near impossibility.

We did get to see Shibuya though, during the day, and damn was it alive. I'd love to go back but I don't know if I'll get an opportunity before the 30th.

Roppongi
My classes are finished on Wednesday, 2 days before everyone else's and 3 days before I have to fly back. yes, 米国に飛ぶ三日の前 :P I will probably go back into town Thursday night and maybe spend the night if it's cool with my host mother, because I did wanna see Roppongi and Shibuya at night Saturday, even though we weren't able to. I saw on the train that there's a Monet exhibit at some museum there, whose tickets have a student price(!), so maybe that will be part of it as well as riding the Tokyo subway and eating expensive 和食 (Japanese food).

Chiba Park
But anyway, because of the soon to be critical mass of social confusion that was happening in Tokyo on Saturday, 7 or 8 of us just went back to Chiba and chilled in the park there.

I learned through experience what I had been told what the most common gaijin mistake in Japan is: trying to use any kind of wit or trying to be funny. I kind of hurt someone dear to me by accident, and while everything seems fixed now, I still feel really bad. I know though that I won't do anything like it again because I experienced it instead of just hearing it. Just having heard it obviously wasn't enough :(

At the park though, we wrote and acted out a lot of incredible poems. In Japanese. My first one was

世の中は。。
大変だね。

And the ensuing ones were great. I also was coerced into comparing abs with Ry and then as we were Johnathan came over and slammed his hands into both of our stomachs, turning them a bright candy apple red. It was pretty cool aside from some mishaps with some people calling their host parents.

Exploring a lot more lately, accostations
The first couple of weeks I was here I felt that not being fluent was really restraining, but now (unfortunately sort of too late), that's gone. I approached so many random people and said things like この場所をまったく知らないけど楽しみたいだから大学生がたくさんいる場所はどこですか or simpler things like 渋谷はどの方にあるの？ (i don't know this place at all but i want to have fun, do you know a place with a lot of college students) (which direction is shibuya?). Doesn't sound very exciting but the rush is quite sweet. I've had some really interesting conversations with women smoking next to the subway entrance.

また居酒屋かよｗｗｗ
We went to another chain Izakaya and had a really good time. The atmosphere was incredible as it was last time, but the CD that was playing over us seemed like Magic 96 from 10 years ago. We didn't go 飲み放題 (all you can drink) so it was a more quiet, more tight knit, and more deliciously memorable.

自動販売機で富士山から来た水をのんだよ。広告みて、天然水ということがあった。でも天国から来た意味をわかってしまったので、買ったよ('～')
I drank water that came from Mount Fuji at a vending machine. I saw the advertisement, which said it came from natural springs. But it had the kanji for heaven and I couldn't read the rest so I thought the meaning was that it came from heaven. So I bought it.

I've been thinking a lot about the future, and been getting a lot of advice from various important people. I had that list of shapers (in the Beowulf sense) on my website a few years ago, and if I could find it now I'd add at least 10 new people to it.

That stuff can go up later though. I'll arrange some pics too. For now, ぺらぺらにならなければならないよ！