Sleep, study, and laundry

Spent most of the day doing laundry and had accumulated over the past week and studied a bit for biology.

Work, MTV VMA, and Party

Had work in the morning and afternoon and then headed home really quick to drop off my stuff and then headed out to Saitama for the MTV VMAJ. Some of my friends and I were working as seat fillers. It was pretty cool cause we were the only foreigners working as seat fillers and most of the other people doing the same job were Japanese models. After the event started we all shuffled on a stage where the bands where sitting. It was fun cause people in the crowd just assumed we were important and waved at us when we came in and sat down.

Green Day, Katy Perry, Beasty Boyz, and Black Eyed Peas all did a song as well as the top Japanese bands.

After we got tickets to the after party which was fully catered with all you can eat and drink. Black Eyed Peas DJ'ed part of the party and I was able to meet some of the different bands and celebrities. When we got back to Tokyo, my friend Charles and I were still awake so we headed to Muse and partied there till morning.

School and Star Trek

School like usual. After class some friends and I all headed to the theater and watched Star Trek. It was pretty good, but I still think First Contact is the best. From there we headed to Shibuya and hung out at coins bar for a bit before heading home.

School

Computers and Negotiation class. After school I stopped up at work and submitted my schedule for this and next month.

New Contract and school

Headed to the training center for work this morning to resign my contract. I was dressed for school and the guy who was there tried to give me a hard time about not wearing a suit to sign a paper which took 5 minutes and I wasn't getting paid to sign. He was the only person there too. Just annoying. Anyhow after that I headed to school for Biology and then home.

School

Back to school. Today I had computers and Negotiations. Computers is pretty easy but it's required so it should be helpful to countering the damage done by accounting. The teacher is French and he seems pretty relaxed. Between computers and negotiations I have a couple hours of down time so I just kinda hung out at school till then and then. Negotiations is a good class, but it's almost 3 hours long so it's a little rough.

Getting my visa, cat cafe, and live models

I finally got my visa and was able to get the paper work going to start working again. Good thing too. I made copies of everything they needed and dropped it off at work. Mason and I headed out to Omotesando and checked out some of the stores there. At United colors of Benetton they had live models in the front windows dancing around and getting people's attention in front of the store. I'm not sure how helpful it was in getting people to shop there, but it did create a small crowd in front of the store.

From there we headed to Shibuya and on the way we walked by a "Cat Cafe". Since we neither of us had been and it's super Japanese we decided to go. Before you go in, you have to wash your hands and then the lady sprays a sanitizer on them. It was pretty much just a small room with some seats and a lot of cats that you could play with. It costs $5 for 30 minutes and another $1.60 for every 15 minutes after. Since it is a cafe, you could also buy drinks there.

After that we got to Shibuya and wandered around some of the shops there.

Catching up on sleep

Spent most of the day at home and catching up on sleep.

Work, D1, and Party

Headed to Tamachi and met up with Takehito for his lesson and then went back home to drop off some stuff and get my camera and video camera and headed to Odaiba for D1 Tokyo Drift. They set up a track there and it was pretty amazing to see the professionals drifting at high speeds around the track. It was pretty hot when I got there and the sun was strong so I went to the Combin near by to get some sunblock and drinks before the main event really started. One of the forms of entertainment they had was a guitar solo by a former member of Mega Death. Apparently the original guitarist loved Japan, moved here, learned the language, and now lives here shredding his guitar and playing classical Japanese Enka (country) songs in his heavy metal style.
Anyhow, the drifting was awesome, they started with 16 drifters, narrowed it down to 8 and then had the finals. Although the guys were all professionals they still made mistakes and sometimes hit the foam blocks on the corner and I saw two drifters lose their wings on the wall there. It was pretty cool, cause if a guy messed up they would tape the bumpers back on and just keep going.
Between rounds there were guys who swept the pieces of rubber off the track to keep it clean. They also had a K-car drifting event where they have really small cars drift around the track, which I just found hilarious. There was also an AE-86 which despite the lack of a turbo moved around the track very quickly. They also had a thing there they took the small Japanese work vans, changed the suspension, took as much weight out of the back as possible, and turned off the back brakes and put a big brake kit on the front wheels so when they would hit the brakes the car would go up on its front and then bounce back down. It was hilarious. After it was over my friend Koji gave me a ride home in his Rx-7 and despite there being a lot of traffic on the freeway, the car still amazed me.
In the evening I met up with Charles and some other friends in Roppongi and we hit up Muse.

First day of school

Headed to school today and got my semester sticker and was able to transfer my cash over for tuition. The banks here in Japan are still in the 60's so I had to fill out a special form to allow me to transfer the money via the ATM. I made some adjustments to my schedule and headed home.

Getting ready for school

Went through some of my books and organized my school stuff. Played some games and watched some TV as well.

Meeting up with friends

Cleaned my apartment in the afternoon and then met up with some friends in Shinagawa in the evening. One of my friends told the staff that it was my birthday so a bunch of the servers came over and sang happy birthday to me. It was fun.

a New Student

Spent most of the day at home as usual and then headed out to Shinagawa in the evening where I met up with my new private student. She is pretty cool and I think she'll improve quickly.

Another day

Spent the day playing games and watching more of the Terminator TV series.

Hanging out

Spent most of the day at home just studying Japanese and watching Terminator.

Work, festivals, and party

Headed to Takehito's for his lesson like usual and then headed to school where I helped give a tour of the school and talk about my experience there with future students. When it was over some of the people who worked the "open campus" and I walked back to the station and passed a festival in Shirokane where they had a ton of different food and a stage with a lady teaching Hula dancing. So after grabbing some food there and hanging out for a bit, I headed home and saw another festival near my station. Checked it out for a bit and then headed home and took a nape before heading back out. We met up with my friend Josh and went to a club. I hadn't been to a club since last year so it was kind of interesting to see how some of the places have slowed down or gotten busier.

Day off, again

Slept in today cause I didn't have any work and in the afternoon I made some calls about different jobs. Only problem, is that since I'm in the process of having my visa renewed, I can't really apply anywhere. So, once again, I spent most of the day around town and went out in the evening for a bit.

Quiting

Today when I got to work I met the girl who is now staying with my old host family and we talked for a bit in the morning. The training and I learned more about how the job works and what is involved. When I got home today I thought about it some more and realized that it's not the type of work I want to do, so I mailed and let them know I wouldn't be coming in tomorrow.

New job

Got up early and headed to the office. It's a smaller office with about 40 employees or so. About half of the people working there were chinese but there were also some french and Spanish speakers as well. My trainer started telling about the job and how it's all based around trading Forex. He told me about the company and the advantages they have over other companies. Pretty much spent the day going over the basics and headed home at 6:00. In the evening I didn't do much cause I had more training the next day, so I went to bed early.

Interview and watching movies

Got up earlier than usual today and headed to Higashi-Ginza for an interview at an investment firm. The interview went pretty quick and then I headed back home. Rest of the day I watched movies. In the afternoon I got a call from the company telling me to come in at 9:30 tomorrow to start orientation.

Cleaning, Shibuya, and hanging out

Morning I cleaned my room and did some laundry and in the afternoon I headed out to Shibuya in hopes of getting some new pants but all the jeans that I liked had button flys which I don't like, so I didn't get anything. On the way back to the station I saw a guy set up there with a mic, singing and dancing around with maracas. You can see the white Rolls Royce parked on the street behind him so somehow this guy is really rich. He has his shows name on the side of the car and those professional signs made up. His driver who you can't see in the picture just stands there and waits for him to finish his routine. The banner on the left says "Japan Smile Party" but party, like a political party. Kinda weird. They guys has a music company and a smile therapy company which explains his cash.

In the evening I met up with a friend in Ikebukuro. We were gonna go to Namjatown but I'm not really familiar with the station and it's poorly labeled so we wound up wondering around for an hour and finally getting there once it closed. After that we went to an Okonomiyaki place for dinner and then to the game center nearby.

On the platform in the station they have a huge display for the Sokenbicha, which is a tea that is supposed to be good for your skin. It's made by Coke and was originally marketed towards girls. They changed the formula slightly and are marketing it towards guys as well now.

Some work and movies

Met up with Takehito in the morning. He was back from his trip to Okinawa and brought back some good Okinawan candy for me. I was glad to be up and working for a change so it was good. When I got back home I watched movies and played video games.

Hanging out with friends

Met up with John, Mason, and his girlfriend in Shinagawa to hang out.

Meeting a friend

At home most of the day. In the evening I met up with a friend in Shinjuku. We had dinner at Issa and then checked out the metropolitan government building since she had never been there. Then we went to a Izakaya near by and hung out there for a while. From there we hit up Taito Station and played some games before taking the last train home.

Movies and games

sat around all day and played games and watched movies. Can't wait to start working again, this no work stuff is killing me.

Rain

It was raining today and no one really felt like going out including me so I just stayed home and cleaned my place.

Onsen

Played around on my computer today and then headed to Daiba where I met up with my old host family and we all went to the Onsen. I hadn't been there since I got back to Japan this year, so it was good to go again.
Usually the first week of May is a string of holidays called Golden Week which were made to give Japanese people time off from their jobs. While most people take trips overseas, many people opt to stay in Japan because the travel companies often raise the prices of travel during these times. As a result of this Tokyo is more empty than usual but the fun spots are usually more crowded than normal. The Onsen was probably the most packed I've ever seen it.

Kawasaki and driving around

Met up with some friends in Shinagawa and we went to Kawasaki and walked around Bic Camera. After we went to CPK for lunch and then back to the one friend's house for a bit.
I headed back home to grab some stuff then back to Kawasaki where I met up with Mason and we headed out on the freeway. We met up with the guys that we met on Saturday but this time they had different cars. Saki, the first guy to meet us drove a Silvia S14 with light performance mods and some suspension work. Koji showed up about an hour later in his blue Mazda RX-7. This car was turning heads all night! All the body mods alone totaled over $5,000 and the engine I'm sure was well over that. He had a fuel regulator in the back to help maintain fuel presure to the engine when cornering and the battery was relocated to the back. He had a massive turbo which he ran at a lower PSI to keep the engine in good running condition. The car looked and sounded awesome but when he took us on the freeway, it showed that it had the performance to back up the looks. The suspension is a tripple spring setup which combines 3 springs of varrying rates giving it an awesome feel. There was no body roll in the car at all and it cornered like it was on rails. The entire time I was inside the car I could not stop smiling because it was so awesome.
Despite it being a Monday night the cops had closed down most of the parking areas so we wound up exiting the freeway and hanging out in Ginza for a while before heading home.

Party

Met up with John and we headed to the Kawasaki area for a party there. It was pretty fun. The guy who was hosting the party had a pretty nice apartment with a big balcony that overlooked the city so it was cool to meet a lot of people and hang out there.

Ikea and Tokyo streets

Headed to Ikea in the afternoon and picked up a few things for my place. In the evening I met up with Mason and we headed to Daikoku-futo. Since it's Golden Week the lot was packed with cars and we had trouble finding a place to park. We got some food at the McDonald's there and then walked around a bit more before the cops closed the place down. The cops had closed down the other main parking areas that we usually go to so we headed to another one that we know about and met some guys who are trying to start their own export business. We talked to them for a bit and then drove around. They showed us a exit in Ginza that allows free entry and reentry for 40 minutes which is great. Then we drove around some more and talked about the changes in the car culture in Japan. One of the guys told us how there used to be hundreds of cars all over the spots that people go to until about five years ago when the cops started cracking down. It's really shrunk the scene down from what it used to be.

school thing and hanging out

Headed to school today again for day two of the potential student English camp thing. Ryu and I headed to Andrew's place in Daiba which is my old place. We all hung out there for a bit and then headed home.