Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year everynone!

Didn't really do much here in Japan.
Decided to go have some gyoza tho. Went to some of the street vendor-looking shops near eki-mae after booking my bus to sapporo. One lady came out and said Annyeong to me... im like.. wth... :S

Had my Ika sumi gyoza. Squid ink gyoza. It was very nice! and only 450 yen.

I want to try the other gyoza there next time. The owner came and chatted with me.... and asked me if i was korean....
So japanese(which i get around 70% of the time).. sure.. i'll understand since im in Japan... but where are they getting korean from? :S
A family came in shortly after and i heard them speaking english. Turned out they are from Singapore. Started a nice chat with them and the little girl was very talkative. Her mom told her to eat but she kept wanting to talk to me haha and would not let me go ^^" i didn't mind. It was very fun talking to her so i sat back down and chatted with her for like 30 minutes. The parents have been to Mauritius before. It's nice to meet people and have them compliment our lil island :).

It turned out that this family was touring Hokkaido and Hakodate was their last stop. They said they really enjoyed their trip and i was glad they did... maybe cauz i've been living here for a while. Anyways.... fun fun.

Sapporo

So Nicole arrived in Hakodate on the 12th and i had a bus & hotel ready for the next few days in Sapporo.
The day we had to leave, i thought i knew where we were getting picked up. We went to goryokaku eki and went in front of the soba place and waited. Turned out i was wrong cauz by the meeting time, we were not sure what we were waiting for. Nicole figured we should ask and i did. Turned out there was another ramen place around the corner and a bus stop in front of it. Just as we get there, the bus arrives. That was a close call.

The seats resembled air plane seats a little bit. They were really nice. Nicole did not know the bus ride to Sapporo was 5 hours but i think she managed to sleep through it.
I was surprised to see that much snow but i heard stories before.
We arrived at the Sapporo station and ran around trying to find the hotel. We had to ask a few twice but managed to find it.
The hotel was bigger than the one we got in Tokyo. It was pretty clean and the shampoos and soaps smelled really nice.

 For the first night, we ended up just having dinner and wandered around Sapporo. Of course, we had to go get desserts somewhere.

The next day, we went to visit a chocolate factory. I was really nice! reminded me of Charlie and the chocolate factory. It was also the factory of Shiroi KoiBito. Upon entering the factory, we also got a shiroi koibito :p.
Since i was already there, i figured i may as well get the Shiroi Koibito parfait. It was really nice!

 It was slightly odd but the factory also had several displays of toys. There was that giant face on the wall that we saw at the trick art museum in Tokyo again except instead of worms falling on your hands, it screams. It freaked out Nicole.. was very amusing.

Outside, there was a lot of christmas lights, decorations and the factory let out some puppets that started singing. Nicole seemed to really dig it.

I really wanted to go to Susukino after so we took the Metro there.

It was really nice & there were a lot of entertainment around that area as well as some very questionable invitations from some very questionable hotels(they had pictures of the hotel guests.... and "staff" on the bed).
We also checked out the park where they will hold the Yuki Matsuri. There were only "Molds" of the snow statues and i was looking forward to it since i will be going to that too.

We went back for dinner.... at the Sapporo Eki again.
It seems we always go to the station for food but the food was good so i didn't mind.
After dinner & desserts, we went to an izakaya to have some drinks. Nicole started with a korean rice wine called makkoli. I started with Japanese rice wine. and after a few drinks, we were laughing and playing drinking games.

We left later because Nicole looked a bit dizzy and then... if you saw her status on facebook... you know what happened next :p.


Next day we had to catch the bus at 3 pm and we decided to go check out the Sapporo Beer Museum. It was very interesting & i learned a lot about Sapporo beer. I was unaware that the building next door had all you can eat lamb. :(... Next time i suppose.

I dont need to mention where we had lunch... we went back to the station and found a nice ramen place in the basement. They had a cheese tan tan men and the eggs were free. Nicole & I finished all of them as they were "service".

Overall, very nice experience & i am already looking forward to going again.

Unofficial Host Family

This entry is after Tokyo. The Tokyo blog entry is TOO long so while i'm working on it, i will post this one.

So after i got back from Tokyo, i was feeling a bit bored. The person who takes care of the gas at our apartment came to do regular checkups one day. He came back a 2nd time to give me a calendar and some fruits. I was happy to receive them :p. After that he invited me to dinner with his family. Needless to say i was somewhat iffy. Truth be told, i was feeling melancholic after leaving Tokyo so i thought.. why not. He took me to his house and i met his wife & his daughter.

They were really talkative so i thought it was really nice. I noticed they used Hokkaido-Ben so i was really trying to learn from them. Eventually their friend came & so did their 2nd son who has a family of his own. They have 35 & 36 year olds sons & their daughter is 18. For dinner they prepared nabe & sashimi.

There was soooo much seafood. i was very glad i went :p. I dont even need to say that they made me drink. i did not intend to but i think i had 3 beers & 3 glasses of wine. They kept pouring for me. Or rather, Azuma(the guy who invited me) kept making his daughter pour for me ^^". We talked a lot.. especially about Canada & Japan. Azuma kept asking me if i intend to come back to Japan. ^^" i could only say yes. He invited me to more events and they even gave me their work & house phone numbers. I exchanged keitai mail with their daughter since we both seem to like karaoke :).

 Then they dropped me off at my apartment. I was glad i went & he said i was part of the family from now on haha :) and thats how i got myself an unofficial host family ^^"

The Rising Sun in Tokyo 2012!

So Nicole & I have been planning to meet up in Tokyo for a lonnngggg time. And we finally did. I decided to go with the cheapest way to get there so i took a ferry & the nightbus that i have been hearing so much about. Ready? ok here we go.
Finally all packed up, Ramin told me to bring a bigger suitcase since i'll be receiving a package from Canada in Tokyo. At first i was iffy but after how much i received, i was grateful that Ramin made me bring the bigger suitcase. Dragging that thing to the ferry was no easy task... but i eventually got there.

It was a bit questionable.. the boat looked like a cargo ship. haha. Eventually got on and they had an area where we could sleep... so i did...

Arrived in Aomori in no time... and i don't know why but i was expecting not to see snow... Contrary to my beliefs.... Aomori had crazy amount of snow. I originally planned to walk to the station from the ferry terminal since that was where the night bus was picking us up. From the map, it seemed like a short distance... boy was i wrong... on top of that... there was no sidewalk... just 180 cm of snow.... I was panicking.. they didn't have buses at that time. i did not know what to do... I ran into 2 students from kyoikudai.. but different campuses that were also trying to get elsewhere and they were calling a taxi. i decided to ask if i could tag along... and they were really nice. The girl let me come along. The cab fare cost around 2000 yen... & the ferry was around 1300 yen... The JR train straight to Aomori cost 3100 yen.... I took the ferry to save money... and now you see why that was a stupid idea. Thank god the nightbus back to Aomori would drop me off at the ferry terminal.
So we finally boarded the night bus and i was getting excited. i did not sleep until 2 am. someone had a wifi connection on the bus and i kinda stole some of it. i opened my map and i could see us heading towards Fukushima... i was kinda freaked out to be honest but eventually fell asleep. Around 5 am, the sun was rising... I was not sleepy at all... i was so excited to be close to Tokyo so i stayed up filming the buildings. I was glad to see the snow disappearing as i was moving down Japan haha.

Tokyo Day 1
So i arrived in Shinjuku and i was meeting up with Akira. I stayed at his place for 2 days. Unfortunately, my phone AND my iphone died so i couldnt contact anyone. I wandered Shinjuku looking for an outlet but couldn't find any. I even went to starbucks, bought a coffee and looked for an outlet.. but they had none... money well wasted. I eventually ran into a store that had outlets but the guy said "Dame" to me... so i left. After an hour of searching, i found ONE outlet and used it.
I managed to call Akira and met up with him at the JR station. It was pretty cool seeing him again. I was also impressed by Tokyo's train system. I was SOOO confused the first few train rides.

So we went to his house and dropped off my luggage. His house was reaaaaallllyy tall. Then we went to meet up with Vivian & Yasu. It was so nostalgic.
We went to the Tsukiji fish market. I was amazed how long the lines were for the restaurants. It was crazy. We went into one. I ordered a chirashi bowl and ootoro.

I was soo happy finally tasting ootoro. it was superb! Then we went to Roppongi. There was that giant spider that i see a lot of people taking pictures in front of. I was speechless to see so many buildings.. さすが東京。
Akira had to leave us to go to work so we wandered around town and eventually met up with Chris(Johnson). It was nice seeing him again. Apparently, he also lives in a Leopalace but his is way more expensive since its near tokyo. We went around town and visited a graveyard and a park. Eventually we met up with Nicole who was arriving later that night. We ran around the station looking for a locker for her... and managed to find one. Close by was a hidden outlet... so me and Chris charged our phones.. secretly.
Eventually Chris left and Nicole finally arrived. The rest of us went for a nice teishoku restaurant in Shibuya.
Later that night, Akira came and we headed back to his place. Nicole was also staying at his place.

Tokyo Day 2
We woke up early and if you know Nicole... it was not easy for her :p We were supposed to go to the public baths but it was closed ^^" so we went to 7/11 to get some oden. Met up with viv later and we went Shrine hopping. There are like 8 shrines around the city and we set out to find them all. They were pretty interesting. we were exhausted running around. Had some abura soba for lunch. It was weird... all the sizes were the same price... why not go big? It was noodles sitting on oil with spices and stuff. gotta mix'em and it was really good and spicy. :)

We later met up with Mayumi who had all the stuff from Canada for me. Sooo thankful and really sorry i made you carry them around. It was great seeing her again. We went to the illusion museum.. or w/e it was called. It was really nifty. Most of the things there were flat objects but it taken a picture of at a certain angle, they look 3D.. and it was really nifty. :)

Akira met up with us again that night and we had dinner in shinjuku. I had a crab risotto. Mayumi said she was really hungry after finishing her meal... i recognized the "Mayumi moment" and felt like it was nostalgic. :)
When we went back, we passed donquihote to buy some snacks and drinks to have at Akira's house. Nicole was saying how "nice it was to not get IDed" and guess what happened... hahaha she got IDed xD
We got back to Akira's house, had some drinks and watched southpark haha.

Tokyo Day 3
So we woke up and had to move out of Akira's house that day. It was new years eve and Nicole wanted to "do something exciting" but refused clubbing cauz it was too expensive. Little did i know that not going will haunt me for a while. Nakada Yasutaka was playing at Clubasia and i REALLY wanted to go... :( Anyways, thanks to Akira for having us :). Was really nice seeing him so i hope we can meet up again one day! We went to where our hotel was located to see if we could check in early. Turned out we couldnt but as i thought, they let us leave our luggage there.

We went to meet up with Vivian who was leaving that day to go to Hakodate. She kept saying "Damn i dont want to leave this place" haha poor Ramin :p. It was interesting with lots of food places. We found a small restaurant somewhere. I got my unagi don with eggs there. was tasty :).
We then went to look around the gates & the shrines. They had a whole garden with carp filled ponds and everything. It was quite nice.

A lot of street vendors and all the takoyaki ones were closed. poor Viv. We did get some matcha soft serves tho. those were good :). We saw Viv off and went to wander Ginza. Nicole wanted to buy expensive stuff in Ginza and somehow... it was me who ended up spending there. :S We met up with Chris(Johnson) that night and he took us around the shaddy parts of shinjuku. He told us stories of black guys trying to recruit him to their sketchy bar and funnily enough... it happened again. Apparently lots of hosts in kabukicho and i got to see some. It was interesting. Seeing how we weren't going clubbing.. we decided to stay in Shinjuku to wait for some sort of countdown. We decided to quickly go do purikura before the countdown.. literally before.. the countdown.. it was a few seconds off...

We rushed outside after purikura and... there was nothing outside :S i was quite disappointed.
Nicole added a "We should have gone clubbing after all" to ease my regret... lol
We had to go home but all the metro stations were closed. We started panicking. We ran around trying to figure out how to get home by walking and found out that if we take a cab it would cost quite a lot. In an attempt to find a way to walk back to our hotel, we found an open metro station and ran in to catch the last metro of the night. Boy, was that a close one.
I was slightly annoyed so i decided i should drink on new years. We went to the conbini to buy some wine & beer. Got tipsy that night and went to bed.

Tokyo Day 4 New Years.
So on new years, i wanted to go to a shrine in the morning. I ended up waiting for nicole who didnt get up until 1 pm :p and we ended up just laying around and talking when.. all of a sudden. The building started shaking.... Nicole thought i was shaking the bed. I witnessed an earthquake in Hokkaido but that was the first time i experienced the building moving. To make it worst, we were on the 6th floor so i was slightly worried. It turned out ok and it was interesting in the end. we woke up later and went to a restaurant called Gasuto and had a meal there. It was already dark around that time so it felt like a wasted day. We then headed to ikebukuro which as quite interesting then Akihabara. Akihabara was very sketchy. We spotted an "Adult amusement park".

Needless to say, we went in to check it out and it was quite interesting. There were a few Maids standing around for their Cafes and we decided o go take purikura somewhere.

Tokyo Day 5

Woke up somewhat late.... again. We decided to go to the pokemon center. Forgot exactly where it was but we walked in.. past all the kids.... feeling young as ever. Found some pokemon hats that we regret not getting.

 We then went to meet up with Mayumi. :) We found another pokemon center in Yokohama.... but did not have time to go into it.

We went for chinese food & it was delicious :).

Dylan contacted me that day to go clubbing and since we had to wake up early and go to Disneyland the next day, Nicole decided to go back to the hotel room. Saw Nicole off at the station close to our hotel then went to meet up with Dylan and a few others. They were really fun. Went to an izakaya for all you can drink then went to the club. DJ couldn't remix very well and it was very crowded but i loved the experience. We then went to Karaoke after where we got kinda crazy & ended up with videos i wish not to upload.

Tokyo Day 6
So i was sitting outside the hotel room at around 6 am since i got back from being out all night. Woke up Nicole and then we headed to Disneyland. It was super crowded but we managed to get through. It was almost exactly like the Disneyland in L.A o my surprise. Still fun especially since unlike LA, i managed to go on space mountain this time. Duncan met up with us later and it was nice hearing that he had fun in Hokkaido.

Tokyo Day 7
Last day in Tokyo. I was slightly sad to leave this whole scene. We checked out from the hotel and it seems Nicole forgot to exchange her internet cable for her 100 yen back. We ran around Shinjuku to find a locker but couldn't find any. In the end we went to starbucks and later, Nicole left to go catch her plane. I wanted to see the Meiji Shrine so i found a locker in a mall far from the JR station. i, then headed to Harajuku where i went to the shrine. It was fabulous & i enjoyed the food vendors. Managed to get some Tacoyaki and chocolate churros. Too much food and i couldn't get my hiroshima okonomiyaki. :(

I kept wandering around Harajuku afterwards. It was fantastic. Every shop had big sales. I saw some nice winter jackets usually for 7500 yen being sold at 1200 yen. I was so tempted but ended up not getting it. I later decided to go get some kebab. The meat was exactly like Mauritius's kebab and i also got some peach calpis bubbletea. It was really nice. In the end, i got a bag from puma & headed back to Shinjuku. When i got to the mall, it was locked down. I started panicking. I was thinking i only had 5 minutes to go catch my bus and i was not even sure where to go catch them. I ran around like a mad man and every entrance were locked down. I ran into the only open store i found and there were some businessmen in there that directed me to security. At first they said i should just pick it up tomorrow.. but i explained that i had a bus to catch in 5 minutes......  He let me in the backdoors and after i claimed my suitcase, i ran down the streets of Shinjuku like ... a madman.. again. I literally ran circles around several buildings since i wasn't sure where the bus terminal was. I was afraid i would miss my bus but when i finally got there, i realized i had 1 hour to spare.
Hopped onto the nightbus which was less pleasant than the one to Tokyo and the ferry ride was nowhere as pleasant since i was sad to leave Tokyo and i had to drag my huge luggage back.