Classy

      I'm on a time limit right now (ala leaving in about half an hour), so I'm going to try to be quick and stuff. YEAH!
      I don't really remember what necessarily inspired the first couple of pictures, and most likely nothing really INSPIRED them, but anyway, one day after class, my classmate friend Nate and I decided that we were going to drink after class around Sophia. Cool thing about Japan is, you can drink in public, so don't worry about us getting arrested. Also, you can be drunk in public, too, and it actually is seen as good because it's showing that the salarymen are actually getting out there and having some kind of fun in their lives. It probably keeps the suicide rates down a little bit more by allowing them to not have to care how much and where they drink.
      Anyway, originally we were planning on going to sit in a park, but then we ultimately decided that it would be kind of fun just to be around school. So, we went to 7-11 and bought the two items that Nate is displaying here, some crackers, and some cheese. Basically we labeled it as a wine and cheese party with that $6 or so bottle of wine (one per person) and string cheese. I think it's kind of bad when I can safely say that the Ritz crackers were the classiest thing about this wine and cheese party.

... egh.

      It was good, though, and we even drank some of these babies, too. They're called Oni Koroshi, or "Demon Killer"s, and while they look like innocent juice boxes, they in fact are not. I think they were recommended by Matt Pollard to Jen Doo. But, keep in mind, Matt downs the worst of 40s and drinks gin out of the bottle, haha. Oh, and he also recommended the One-Cup, which I haven't had yet just out of sheer principle and respect for myself, haha. Don't worry, Matt, I'll probably try at least one before I leave, heh.
      They weren't as good as the wine, p.s.. But, after everything, we cruised down to the actual campus part of Jouchi (where we drank was the Sakura-dori, just outside of campus), sat, chatted, and went home. I remember being really sleepy at that point, and that mixed with the alcohol actually made me take the train in the opposite direction to get back home. So hooray for adding another 15-30 minutes to an already really long train ride!
      Speaking of riding the wrong train when I had already been in Japan for two months, I actually ended up riding the wrong train during midterms! Call me retarded and it's totally valid, but call me unobservant and, well, I would appreciate it. At the Akabane station, there are two orange lines. One is the Shonan-Shinjuku line, which is blue and orange, and the other is the one that I accidently rode that day. When I looked at the arrival schedule in the station, I noticed that the Shonan-Shinjuku line wasn't coming for a long while, so I headed to get on Saikyo. But, when I passed a certain gate, I heard the fateful mamonaku ___ban sen ni kakueki teisha blah blah the train is coming. So, thinking that maybe I looked at the wrong board, I ran up there and dashed on the train! "Tsugi wa, Ooku" 'Ooku, where the hell is that...' Turns out Ooku is a desolate wasteland with about 12 train tracks, all of ONE that is being used. Excellent. The next stop was Ueno, but forgetting where exactly Ueno was, I rode back to Akabane and rode to school, getting there a tad 10-15 minutes late. *sigh* I tried to take that track again one day because I thought it may be faster than taking Saikyo or Keihin-Tohoku all the way to Kanda, but yeah, of course it wasn't. I got to Ueno and lines to get on the Keihin were backed up from the train, all the way up the stairs, and out into the station hallway. Bah!
      Looks like I'm out of time. Next post will be about the Tokyo Blue Note, the greatest night of karaoke I had in Japan (thus far!), more baseball, my illness, and one more night of USHSD-ness.

Until next time...!