An evening in Toritsudaigaku

So last night, I met up with hunbun again in Toritsudai because I had to work there this afternoon, and she lives around there, so I can stay with her and just walk to work, oh my it's nice. A 10 min walk is a bit better than my usual 40 min or so commute to work walking and on the trains everyday. Anyway, we went to my fav curry spot, coco ichi! Good stuff! as always! Anyway, hunbun didn't get the squid ink curry, so it was a bit dissapointing, but maybe next time... After dinner we went for a walk and stopped by a fruit and veggie store where I saw, for I think the first time, the famed square watermelon. Quite the spectical I must say. Anyway, I hate watermelon, so didn't get it, but it was still kinda cool to see.
After our walk we also stopped by our favorite spot in Toritsu called "Stallion." It's kinda a tex-mex style place with an old west/ native american theme. It's not too expensive, and it's fairly good food. You can get some taco stuff, or fajita style things, along with steak and a varitey of other food type things. They've also got a whole bunch of taquilla as well. Also, we battled at a couple of games of bowling on the DS. I got a game which is called "daredemo asobi taizen." Somewhat difficult to translate, but I guess you could say "The complete games for everybody." It's just a bunch of little games in one, like: chess, othello, Go, Shogi, card games (blackjack, poker, solitare etc.) and some other stuff like bowling, and darts. It's pretty cool, and the best part is that up to 8 people can play all of the games from one single game cartridge, as long as 8 people you know have a DS of course.

A whoopin in Saitama...

So last night was my big visit to the Seibu Invoice dome. It was really cool, I was surprised, normally domes don't really do it for me, but this place was cool because it's a dome, but you can see outside as the bottom of the dome is open. It used to be a regular open air stadium (and you can see one of the old lights on the right hand side of the top picture) but they added a dome to it in recent years, and it's very, very cool. Also, the most interesting feature of the stadium is that in the outfield there are very few bleacher seats, because most of it is just a sloped surface. Most people put down blankets, or towels or something to stake their claim to the area. It's cool, kinda a picnic like set-up. Anyway, the fans were really into it, it's a real good atmosphere, and they've got some good cheers and such.
Also, again, I tried a beer an inning challenge at the game, but this time, I went with tall boys, and calculated it out so it's 6.3 tall boys = to 9 regular beers. But I just rounded it down to 6 and I won. It was a bit easier this time because there were about 25 hits in the game yesterday in a 13-6 beat down of the Lions by the Orix Buffaloes. It was too bad that it ended that way, but it was all good, really interesting experience. Probably my new 2nd favorite stadium, and my new 2nd favorite team as well. Go Lions!
The only real problem with the stadium is that it takes about 2 hours of train riding to get there. But it wasn't too bad last night becuase I got seats on the way home on 2 of the 3 trains that I had to take, and slept for more than an hour of the trip back, and at one point I actually had all kinds of room and stretched out using my bag as a pillow, that was very nice, something very rare here in Tokyo, SPACE!

So an American, Canadian, and an English guy walk into a bar...

That was the situation for last night's good times. And I feel it this morning for sure. We had (I think) 2 big bottle beers, and 2 "Dai-jokki" (giant mug beers) each, in about 2 hours. And of course, I came home and had another one, so today, the morning has been rough. It was a good place, about $12 for 2 hours of all you can drink excitement, plus pretty good food also (that was not included). Best part were the stories, my-o-my, Bry has the best stories in the world. Anyway, we all ended up there beacuse Futsol had been cancelled for the night. Usually we go out to Yokohama, and play Futsol (mini-soccer) up on the roof of a department store. Last weekend we played in torrential rain, and it was wickedly fun, but I guess the guy who normally reserves the place had some party he had to go to, so we went drinking instead too. Here's what the place looks like:

drizzunk, beyond recognition

drizzunk I am, but I wanted to put up something for my fans, ha! Anyway, tonight I went out drinkin with Matto, and Bry, it was fun. We went to an all you can drink (for 2 hours) place in Shibuya, and drank quite a bit. Got our money's worth! Anyway, I wanted to post this pic, cuz I took it at well after midnight, and look at how many people are on the train... on a monday night... or tuesday morning, it's truly remarkable, I wish I could capture the whole feeling of being drunk riding the train home with hundreds of other drunk ass people as well...

DS style baby!

So hunbun and I met on saturday and once again went to our favorite resturant called "AnAn." It's a Yakiniku joint, and this is what the basic set-up looks like. You get your own little grill and then you order meat, and other such food type things. Best part is that they have really cheap beer, about the 3rd of the price of alot of places! Anyway, we usually order a couple plates of meat, and then get a big bowl of sliced cabbage, the "yamamori" size, which means, "mountain of," with some cesar dressing, and make our own little bite sized grilled beef salad type things. D-licious! If you come visit me, we are going there, just ask dude? and tigger, they can attest to it.
Anyway, at dinner I also recieved my b-day present, and for those who don't know, I was born in October, it's July, my present was late.... but it was good, it was a navy blue nintendo DS, and it's pretty cool I'd have to say. Thanks hunbun!







Here's a piture of her walking away from me...









And also I'd like to introduce you to one of my best friends in the whole wide world, his name is "Kirin Ichiban Shibori," and he's great! We've had some good times together and he rocks! Costs a pretty penny, this can runs about 270 yen, or roughly $2.50. Too much, I know, but all beer is expensive here. They do sell some stuff called "happoshu" which is kinda fake beer, but not like the non-alcholic stuff back home, it'll actually get you drunk, just tastes crappy, and is brewed different so they don't have the same tax on it, and so it's cheaper. They also have a 3rd category beer, which, I'm not exactly sure what it is, but pretty sure it's crap, and even cheaper than the happoshu stuff. Anyway, nothing like the real thing baby!

CoCo Ichi is No. 1!!!

So, here's a picture of one of my favorite restaurants around Japan. It's called "Curry House CoCo Ichibanya." It's a curry house, and it's great. You can choose the kind of curry, the toppings, the amount of rice you want, and the spicyness of the sauce! It's like a dream world! I usually go for #4 or #5 spicycraziness, which is hot, but not really bad, but I was talking to a student one day, and he told me that he had challenged all the levels, 1-10, and he was a real low level student, so it sent me into a fit of laughter when he told me that he woulnd't do #10 again because, as he put it, "ass fire!" F'n halarious! Anyway, my favorite is the stewed chicken, 400g of rice, and 4 spicipication.
There is also a new curry out called "squid ink curry." Seems a bit iffy... I'm waiting to go with hunbun, and try her's when she gets it. Here's a pic:
so yeah, from upper right to bottom left, counter clockwise, the ingredients are as follows: onions, tomatoes, squid ink, wine, brandy, almond, olive oil, garlic... I'll let you think about that...

keppin' it rollin'

yeah, one more post today, this one is just cuz I'm onna roll. This picture is one I took on my morning commute one day at Shinagawa station. Lucky for me I don't usually go to work in the morning on the weekdays, but this was when I was working an early overtime shift, it's crazy folks, I tell you.
Anywho, next week I'm going to another baseball stadium here (it'll make 5 for me). I'm heading to Tokorozawa to watch a Seibu Lions game on tuesday, so I'll put up some pictures of that later. And the week after I'm going to Kamakura to visit the "Daibutsu" (big buddha) and some temples and stuff with Hunbun for the day, so I'll have some good pictures to put up from that on the blog, and on the Flickr account. I'm also gonna put a link the Flickr account on the blog after this hopefully if I can figure it out...
peace for now, have a good day all!

Osaka suckaz!

So last week I went out to Osaka and visited Dude? for a few days. It was good times. The best part was visiting Koshien Stadium and playing a round of "beer an inning." We both made it through the 9 beers that we smuggled into the stadium (in addition to some beer that an old guy in front of us bought for us, and about 5 or so tall boys that we finished off before the game too) I was real drunk, but as for dude? he ended up super dehydrated with some unfortunate results. But all-n-all it was a good trip, drank some beer, played some Xbox 360, traded some music, and went to some place called "bikuri donkey," which means (for some reason) "surprise donkey." Yeah, and the place looked like a pile of garbage that landed on top of a Family Mart, as dude? said. pics'll be up on Flickr tomorrow. Anyway, it's a hamburger steak restaurant, which, for some reason is a popular food here... It was ok, but too expensive. But it was good, first time out of Tokyo since I arrived, and it was really nice to get out of here, and not so good to come back...

The first day of the rest of my life....

So, here it is, day 1. First blog off myspace, and really it feels liberating! I just wanted to put something up to get the ball rolling, and I will put up something more after I get back from Osaka for sure.

peace bitches