Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Japan Day 11

Today, our plan was to go to civil services office to do our Japan marriage paperwork... but we were missing some items, so we were told to mail them in. *sigh*

Then we headed to Ginza to take our kimono wedding photos.
It took over an hour to get my hair (wig), make-up, and kimono ready... and took じゅるる about 10 mins.

The kimono was really heavy... and I was sweating like crazy.
I could flick sweat off my nose as we posed for photos.

They took about 20 pictures, and we choose 2 that we want printed on these large 9x12 prints. And we had one of them printed for our parents (in a much smaller size). And then selected 13 more to be put on CDRs. They gave us the small proofs for free too.

After the photo taking, we were really hungry cuz we only ate a small sandwich at a coffee shop. So we went to First Kitchen... which used to be a fast food burger shop, but now it's a fast food burger & pasta shop.

I had mentaiko spaghetti.
I love the flavored french fries at First Kitchen, so we had those too♪

We vegged out for the rest of the day.
And went to eat curry at a local restaurant.

They make their own curry at the restaurant... and it was really good, but it was a ton of food & I couldn't even finish half.


Who woulda thought there'd be a restaurant where they serve too much food?

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Japan Day 10

Today, じゅるる was determined to go eat something called 油ソバ (abura-soba). It was something they ate ALL THE TIME during college...

Two friends said they'll tag along for lunch, so we met one of them at a nearby train station & she drove us to the restaurant. The other met us at the restaurant.


It's a small small family owned restaurant in the middle of a residential area. Seats around 25-30?

We waited around 20 mins to be seated.
In light rain...

Abura-soba is basically a ramen w/o soup.
And there's a little bit of sauce on the bottom. And you can add flavor & other things using the condiments.

We had the standard abura-soba.

I had the normal size, じゅるる had the large size. They have a super large size that's even bigger than the one to the left.

You can also request to have green onions, eggs or other things added on top.

After lunch, I went to Nakano to visit client N-san.
Then headed back to the hotel, before heading back out to Shinjuku to meet up w/ じゅるる's college friends for dinner.

They picked an expensive-ish izakaya restaurant, so I didn't order as much. Not that they had a lot of different things on the menu. I guess it's meant to be for drinking & light snacking, and then you're supposed to go some ramen shop to eat your fill.

We got some Okinawa souvenirs from one of the friends, who had gone to the islands for work.

No photos from dinner, tho.

Monday, September 28, 2009

Japan Day 9

Today, we didn't have any plans for the day time.
So we decided to take a lazy morning, and went to a ramen shop near the hotel for lunch. They're open really late at night & it's really good... which is one of the reasons I like to stay in Ikebukuro.

The stick gyoza was yummers too!

After lunch, we headed back to the hotel to rest... before heading out to Roppongi to have dinner w/ the C group. They took us to Outback steakhouse, since Prince K thought we might miss American food after a week of being in Japan. -__-

They gave us a rice bowl & chopstick set for our wedding gift.

After dinner, they were gonna go karaoke or something... but we decided to go home for the night.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Japan Day 8

Today, we headed over to Yokohama to meet じゅるる's former colleagues.

First, they took us to Itoyokado for some personal shopping.
Mostly my stuff, but じゅるる was able to look at some shoes too. But they didn't have the right size in the color he wanted.

Then they took us to Yokohama's famous Chinatown to have dinner.


It was a course meal... which I didn't take any photos.

We walked around Chinatown afterwards & bought a few souvenirs.
And I wanted to eat some pork bao, so we bought two small ones & one giant one (no photos again). Oh, we also bought a mooncake too.

One of じゅるる's friends drove us back to Ikebukuro.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Japan Day 7

Today, we decided to go shopping at Itoyokado.
The closest one to Ikebukuro is at Akabane, which is a 10 min train ride.

I always get excited when I go to スーパーs like Itoyokado & Jusco. I think it's cuz our 田舎 didn't have any stores around & the only exciting thing we did was go out into the city (still in the countryside) to go shopping. Cuz they always have a pretty big toy section & I also liked the stationery stores in there too.

We spent about 2 hours there, then headed back to Ikebukuro to rest for an hour... cuz we had dinner plans w/ じゅるる's college friends at 5pm. Some of the folks who couldn't make the camp/retreat thingie wanted to meet up, so about 20 or so met us for dinner.

Dinner ended at 7:30pm, then we headed to another restaurant for a 2次会. And we probably stayed there until 11pm... but it seems like the rest of the group stuck around a little bit later than that.

Oh, we got a pretty bouquet of flowers from one person & the group gave us two shikishi w/ photos & messages from everyone.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Japan Day 6

Friday.
Second day of TGS business day.

But I was dead tired & slept all day.

じゅるる fed me stuff from the コンビニ like peanut bread & green tea (since I couldn't leave the hotel room).

He went out to explore Ikebukuro & found a C&C Curry shop on the other side of the train station. I guess it was one of his favorite curry restaurants when he lived in Japan. He bought 5 packs of レトルト curry too. All different flavors. Now he can have his favorite curry back in LA.

By night time, I was feeling a little bit better.
So we walked around Ikebukuro to find a place to eat. We went into 大戸屋, a chain Japanese bento type restaurant. They had broiled fish meals, which I was kinda craving.

I also ordered steamed veggies, since we were lacking veggies during this trip.

We also ordered dessert at the end.

I think it was tofu based, but I don't remember.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Japan Day 5

First day of TGS business day.

We were hoping to leave the hotel around 10am, but we ended up leaving after 12pm. It takes a whole hour to get from Ikebukuro to Makuhari, so we get to the area past 1pm. By then we're really hungry, so we end up eating at a plaza near the train station.

We were tempted by Subway (I think they have a different menu), but we ended up walking into a オムライス restaurant.

Curry sauce om-rice, medium size.
We shared this w/ the corn ポタージュ soup.

At TGS... we entered from Hall 2.

We passed by the Level 5 booth, and since there was no line to watch their video, we sat down. Watched their new release video for about 10 mins, walked in to play their demo for 10 mins, and got a special DS sampler at the end. じゅるる and I both ended up w/ the same one (platinum), which is a playable demo of three games.

We headed towards the other hall to meet up w/ Prince K. We met at the SE booth, but it was too crowded, so we moved over to the other booths. I forget which ones. But none of them were that interesting.

We also walked over to the retail/selling booth area & said hello to a few people.

TGS closed at 5pm, which was a bit early to head to Ginza for dinner at 8pm... so we stopped by a small station that had a large 100yen shop. I took care of a lot of my 100yen needs here.

Then we headed out to Ginza to have dinner w/ the BV group.
Mr. K had picked out an udon place. I didn't take any pictures of the food, but everything came in little portions and was very yum.

They gave us a digital photo frame for our wedding gift :D

Forgot to take a group photo too... -__-

PS. After we got back to Ikebukuro, we did our usual コンビニ rounds. We saw a group of people hanging out by a ramen cart, so we decided to eat one bowl there. It wasn't good at all, but my first experience at a ramen cart.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Japan Day 4

We cleaned up & left Nasu around noon.

When we got to the train station, we found out that all the shinkansen tickets were sold out. So the only tickets available were the open seating ones... which probably means we're stuck standing. Gah!

But there were a few seats open, and I was able to sit.
Four others were stuck standing, tho...

After we got back to Ikebukuro, I had a massive headache & slept for 3 hours. So much for our planned shopping trip.

But I was craving manga so much, I forced myself up and went to buy 8 books. Eight... because that was the most I could carry at my weakened state. I'll have to go back and buy more later on. My want list is about 30 books long.

PS. Dinner was Italian food on the 8F of Seibu. Cheesy creamy bread appetizer, ham pizza and tomato sauce pasta. Yum!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Japan Day 3

Today is the day of the うたげ (=performance).
Everyone is still practicing. I participated in the Thriller dance... -__-

For lunch, we had 流しそうめん (nagashi somen).


It's where you wash somen noodles down a bamboo slide w/ water, and people line up next to the slide & scoop up the somen. It was fun.

The afternoon was filled w/ more practice.
Then they started prepping for dinner (shumai & pork ginger), and the performances started. Most of them are around 40 years old, but some of the older kids are now participating... so now it's a two-generation band camp.

Plus they had some older people participate (those in their 60s), so the age range for the band camp went from 2 to 60.

The performances ended around 11pm, and we retired around 2am.

My Thriller performance?
Eh, I realized why I usually like to work backstage... Plus I have no sense of rhythm. I suck at Rhythm Heaven!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Japan Day 2

Woke up early in the morning to catch the shinkansen to Nasu.
じゅるる's sempai met up w/ us at Ikebukuro, so we won't get lost getting there.

I was hoping we'd get to eat eki bento on the shinkansen, but nothing seemed to entice my tummy. So we had bread instead.

Japanese bread so good!

So we get to Nasu.
We had another sempai pick us up from the train station & drove through the countryside to a private camp site. That's where they have their annual band camp *snicker* ...er, retreat.

I met a lot of people, but at this point I don't know most of their names. But there are a lot of kids running about.

I decided to take a walk... and ended up walking for an hour.
They have signs for all these amusement(?) parks.


I wanna go to the monkey park.

That night, they made pasta. But I had already eaten the curry they made for the kids, so I didn't eat any.

So far about 30 adults and 10 kids.
There will be about 50 people by the end of the retreat.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Japan Day 1

Arrived safely in Tokyo.

I haven't been on Singapore in a while, but you sure do arrive late. Even though the in-flight entertainment is awesome, I would still recommend Korean since you arrive much much earlier.

Checked in.
Went to MatsuKiyo to buy snacks & shampoo. Unfortunately じゅるる's shampoo of choice wasn't available.

So went to コンビニand found it there. Also bought additional minutes for the cellphone & activated the email service. Now I can keep in touch w/ people w/o using air minutes. They should have this service in the US, man. $3 for unlimited emails in a 30-day period.

Went to the JR station to buy Shinkansen tickets.
They were sold out of the regular reserved seats, so we bought the Green car seats. I always feel Green car seats are like business class (= too expensive for us regular folks), but the price isn't that different. Next time I won't freak out, then.

For dinner, we went to eat ramen at Koh-men in Ikebukuro.
They had a campaign for a free upgrade to the "large portion," but we opted out. じゅるるhad tonkotsu & I had shio. Aaah, Japanese ramen is so good.

Tomorrow, we head off to Nasu early in the morning.
And we probably won't have internet access at all. Egads!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Getting Ready for Japan

じゅるる and I are getting ready to go to Japan next week.
We're going for a reunion camp thingie his college friends hold annually, and also to go to TGS.

I haven't done much shopping... nor much contacting about making appointments.
Eeek. So much to do this week.

If anyone wants anything from Japan... give me a list (& money, if it's anything expensive).

Thursday, September 10, 2009

TV Arrives!

Whoops, I forgot to write earlier...
But we got our new TV! Yay!

The delivery was scheduled for 8am - 12pm.
So we woke up at 7:30am and waited for the delivery guys.
じゅるる dozed on the couch, I dozed on the floor.

And the delivery guys didn't show up until 11:50am!
Grrr!

They brought the TV in, opened up the package, b/c the delivery rules require us to inspect the TV right when it's delivered.

Once we signed off on the papers, we set up the TV stand, set up the antenna.

Oooh, we get the HD channels.
But we don't get channel 11 nor 13.
Oh well. No American Id*l for me.

Now I don't have to go to Koge House to watch TV anymore.
And we wait for the PS3 slim to arrive at our house.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Now Ready for the TV

We went to IKEA Burbank to buy the TV stand.
Yay! All the parts were there.

But I really don't like Burbank IKEA... so crowded & so hard to load your car. *mumble mumble*

Anyway, we are now ready for the TV to arrive tomorrow.

PS. I finally got the Amazon gift card (refund) for the PS3 exchange.
Will be ordering the slim ver tonight.

PPS. Got message from Prince K. He got a new cat. A Bengal. Cost a lot too. Kurosaki is already friends w/ it. Mmmm. I want another cat.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

TV Stand Purchase... Mission Failed

We went to IKEA Carson today to buy a TV stand.

I've been eye-ing the Besta series.
They have shelves of different sizes & heights, so we were thinking of going for one that's 25-inches tall, instead of the standard 15-inches tall TV stands.

That way the LCD TV would be higher off the ground.

So we decided to get the 25-inch tall shelf. And ready to buy feet (5 of them). And glass doors (2 of them).

And we go down to the first floor to look for the various parts.

200.021.005....
OUT OF STOCK!

Gah!

So we left IKEA empty handed.
*sigh*

We will call IKEA Burbank, Covina & Irvine to see if they have any in stock.

TV is coming on Tuesday, so we need to have the TV stand ready by tomorrow night...