Like this:

I woke up at 8:15am after getting back at 1am the night before. We had a girls night out where we planned on going shopping at Harajuku but two people were on time (8pm), I was late half and hour, and two people were late one hour. And the shops close at 8pm and 9pm -_- So we decided to grab some food and play cards at the Seventies American Diner (SAD). We sat there and played President/A-hole till 12am and caught the last train back. I’m really getting tired of that game…

Anyway, I woke up super early (in my book) Saturday morning cuz I realize I never exercise except the 10 minute walk to work and even though I have ample time to do so, I have absolutely no self-discipline. Thus, since I really wanted to learn a martial art while I was here, and after 3 weeks of searching on the internet for a nearby and English speaking place, I discovered that the American Embassy in Tokyo has a Judo club, targeted toward international families. It was like the hardest thing to find because they’re not allowed to advertise because of security issues. So it’s every Wednesday and Saturday, which means I have to sneak out of work at 5pm on Wednesdays, which is unheard of in Japan. Ah well. Anyway, it was super fun, really different from Taekwondo because it’s more focused on throws and grappling instead of punching and kicking. And the sensei was super awesome; the class isn’t that big so everyone gets a lot of individual attention. And the other students seemed nice, though, I asked a woman whose name is Vladamir if she was Russian. I think she was a bit offended (“You’re the 107th person who has asked me this”) and said she was from the Czech Republic, oops.

So after, I went to Waseda University to meet up with my coworker, Kin-san, and my Japanese friend who goes to Waseda named Seisei. I had told my coworker that I was interested in learning Go, and he happened to be a 6th dan so he offered to teach me. Seisei is a 4th dan so I invited him along. In case you don’t know anything about go, any rank in the dan divisions is really really good. So Kin-san takes us to this go salon on Waseda campus. I walk in and two things catch my eye: one, I’m the only girl. two, the three of us must be the only people in the room below the age of 50. So Kin-san plays the two of us at once, teaching me on a 9×9 board and playing Seisei on the regular 19×19 board. The rules of go are much simpler than chess, but there are so many freakin possibilities every move that it’s way harder (in my opinion). So we played for two hours, and then Kin-san invited us to see his lab. There were students there even on a Saturday, and they showed us a tree climbing robot and a wheelchair with a remote controlled hand. They were so cool!

At 7:30, I went to Roppongi, to meet up with a bunch Americans to eat at TGI Friday! Haha, they have everything here, from Hard Rock Cafe to Denny’s to naturally, McDonalds and KFC. I figured it would be nice to go to TGI Friday since I haven’t been to an American restaurant or fast food place yet and what better way to celebrate the 4th of July? There were about 12 of us, half from MIT, a few people from UC Berkley, and a few other random people. There were so many Americans in that restaurant; the Japanese people were probably wondering what was going on. I got a Mushroom, Onion Cheeseburger, something I would never order in the states, but I figured I couldn’t get more American than that. And it also cost $18. The full rack baby back ribs cost $30. But whatever, it was totally worth it; it must’ve been the first burger I’ve had in years, and I had obviously forgotten how good it tastes. And all the food was actually pretty authentic, which is pretty hard to find around here.

At the end of the meal, the waiters and waitresses started singing Happy Birthday and put a huge ice cream sundae in front of one of the Berkley guys. Haha, apparently, when the reservation was put, they were surprised at the number of people and asked if it was a birthday. So why not? free ice cream; the guy’s birthday was actually a month ago. But the thing was, Jess Kim’s birthday is this coming Tuesday which was way more legit so I told a waiter so and 10 minutes later, we sang Happy Birthday to Jess and ate more ice cream. Good thing there wasn’t a 3rd birthday or that would’ve been a bit suspicious.

Afterwards, we went to this club called GasPanic, lol, which was clearly targeted towards foreigners. Inside there was a sign that said “You must be drinking to stay inside GasPanic” and near the dance floor there was sign that said “You must be holding a drink or you must leave”. LOL. But the music was good, all the good stuff from the US, and the dancing was fun, though it was kinda awkward, holding my huge bag (stuffed with my judo uniform) in one hand (because the stupid locker ate our 200 yen) and holding the ice remnants of my cranberry juice, hand at the bottom of the glass, of course, in the other hand. The club was super serious about their policy too. There were girls hold flashlights weaving in and out of the dancing crowds to make sure that everyone was holding a glass. I saw her make someone buy a shot for $5 because he wasn’t hold anything. Crazy. Anyway, we left at 11:45pm hoping to catch the last train. That’s when things started to fail.

So we hoped to save money by not taking the JR line which is super expensive and instead, navigating around the smaller subway lines. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the subway station that would take us directly home, it was already 12:20am and our particular line had stopped running except for the last train that stops at Ikebukoro, miles away from my stop (Wakoshi), and about a 40 minute walk from Chris and Jess’s stop which is between Ikebukoro and Wakoshi. So we made it to Ikebukoro, which was lucky, cuz otherwise we would have been screwed. We took a cab from Ikebukoro to their Sakura house ($14 for like 3 miles, seriously), and I crashed on the floor next to Jess. A cab to Wakoshi would’ve cost me another $20 and would have been totally not worth it. Lesson learned: getting home is more important than a few dollars, specially if we end up spending that money anyway, on a cab. Except for this incident though, I’ve been pretty good at catching the last train home.

Also, I survived the weekend on $50! I have one yen left (that’s .1 cent), after buying apple juice today. I forgot to exchange money last week. This brings my four week total to $600 which is really not bad at all. Though it’s going to go up quickly, cuz I really need to buy a camera. I’m going to Akihabara next Saturday, Tokyo’s “Electric Town”.

Happy Independence Day!

Also, if you want a better account of last week’s Kyoto trip, check out Jess Kim’s admission blog here (there’s a picture of me!)

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