Picture Group 7/10

      That's how far behind I am. Four folders of pictures! And that's not four days, that's four spans of time between uploading photos. Luckily for me, I don't have billions of pictures per folder, so technically that's not SO much work, but looks like I still have plenty to do, no? I'll also have plenty of photos to share after the trip when I steal everyone else's from my class and stuff. [guffaw]
      The first group has all to do with the weekend that my friend Kohei came to visit from Hiroshima which was... a long time ago. May 16th, my camera says. Jeez.
      For all of you who have never met him, here's Kohei, my Japanese friend who homestayed with my family and me this summer. He doesn't normally look like that, but at the time he was frustrated with a weight puzzle that he was trying to solve on my Nintendo DS from the game "Professor Layton and the Curious Village". When playing the game, I often wear that kind of face, too, and it's usually on the trains. It's cool to know that he could read many of the puzzles' descriptions enough to solve them. I myself could buy the 2nd "Professor Layton" game in Japanese, but there would be no hope for me.
      Anyway, we went off to Yoyogi park to show Kohei Tokyo. Yoyogi (which I think I've talked about already.. it's the park in Harajuku with the people that dress up and stuff) may be an extreme of Tokyo, but it's fun for people to go see, I think. It wasn't Sunday (the traditional day to go), but luckily for us, even Saturday that weekend was full of unusual happenings. It started with happening upon this giant thing. I don't know what it is, but it's hilarious looking, and it must have been important because there were enough people there that were interested in worshiping it. Or at least move it around... that's like worshiping it because who would want to move that thing around, right?
      Kohei was the first person that I heard say that Tokyo "is not Japan". He first commented on Yoyogi itself, but think he may have said it again after we did more stuff that weekend. Yoyogi people especially scared him, though I think everyday Tokyo fashion did, too. But, it seemed like he found it amusing, too, especially when we were in the area of Yoyogi that's full of a bunch of bands playing even though are clear signs that say "no playing allowed". Take note that the sign is also in the first picture in the back.
      In the park itself, Kohei, Dan, Jen, and I sat around and talked. Kohei taught me a lot of useful words in Japanese that I can use to make friends, we wrestled and raced a bit, and then happened across a bunch of elementary school kids that were racing themselves. It was actually a televised event that was being hosted by a famous Japanese television personality, though I don't remember his name. We ended up cheering for some kid who, when asked to speak some English, actually spoke some. (海の) Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hopefully we got on TV : )
      Basically that day we just walked around. After Yoyogi we went to a Reggae festival because they happened to have one there across the street. I bought a taco there. It was awful.
      Oh yeah, and while walking to the park, I talked a little to Kohei's aunt who used to be a famous comedian in Japan. I'm not really sure where she's living right now, but she was living in Hawaii until she decided to take a long vacation to China and, I think, India. In fact, she told me that she was there around when the earthquake happened. Luckily, I think that she was out of the country before it hit.
      Like I said, we basically walked and talked that day/night. When we went back to Dan's I remember that we played Free-For-All Super Smash Bros. Melee. I have to regain all of the skill that I gained at home all over again, boooo. It was the first time Kohei had played, and he got very determined to win so we gave him a bit of a handicap and I think he may have one once, haha.
      When we woke up the next day we went to Shibuya to eat at an Indo-curry tabehoudai restaurant (all the nan I can eat??? wooooo!) and then went to Tokyo Dome City to ride the roller coaster there. It just so happened that on the day we got there there were a bunch of cosplayers prowling the city. The word "cosplay" means to dress up like a character of some show or video game and run around like them. Take, for instance, these really good Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children cosplayers. The Cloud one was especially good, we agreed. Even the sword he had was bad-ass realistic. The Sephiroth and the two clones there weren't as good because they didn't have the face for their characters, but their costumes still were quite cool. There weren't just Final Fantasy cosplayers there, though, of course. I saw some people dressed up like Evangelion characters, people from Gundam 00, Darth Vader, some girl dressed up like an E.S.F.S. girl that I don't know (Warning: XXX), etc.. Hey, we even joined in the fun at the park! BAM!!! Not only were we members of the End of the Century Heroes Go Renji, but we also all took our turn becoming Forrest Gump.
      Kohei and I ended up having a blast on the roller coaster, even if it cost $10 to ride once. Neither of us had been on a coaster in a really long time, and I'm glad to say it's invigorating for me once again. Afterwards, we some some musical duo play on a stage that had this birthday song... oh man, I wish I could remember it. It was hilarious. If Dan and I can remember, I'll record us singing it and everyone can use it for everyone's birthday in the future. I think they said "Happy Birthday Song" over and over in the actual song.
      In the end we ate okonomiyaki lead by master chef Kohei, who was actually confused at first because the way that Tokyoians make okonomiyaki is different from the Hiroshima way. Of course, it's a well known fact that the taste is different (the Kansai area's okonomiyaki is famously better, starting, I believe, with Hiroshima and going down from there), but he didn't know that the actual production was, too. And, truth be told, the first time I made the stuff here in Tokyo I thought something was wrong, and I was right (in USHSD I made it in a restaurant in Hiroshima).
      After dinner we watched Kohei go off and planned on meeting again in the future. And, I plan on making good on that this month when I go to Osaka, which should be good, clean fun.

      Time to continue to bust through my homework load. Hopefully I'll be back to cover more of the photos soon because I really want to talk about the details of this actual weekend asap.

Until next time..!!!

*Edit: While adding more photos from Jen's album on here, I realized that I totally mixed up the chain of events. In reality, it was Yoyogi, Tokyo Dome City, Okonomiyaki, back to Dan's to sleep, then Indo-curry and Kohei's departure. Maybe you noticed how I did, which was by looking at Kohei's shirts.
** Edit Two: Have fun, Japanese readers. タワーレコードという店の外で、有名じゃなくて女が二人いるバンドはこうこくした。車の「おしり」の上でグラスの函の中に座って、俺は、新しい単語を使うために、携帯で「ムラムラだよ。赤外線をしたい！！！」というメッセージを書いて、女を見せた。でも、その女の表情は変化してしまわなかったんだ。残念だな。。。
*** Edit Three: If my Japanese is off, that'd be embarrassing, but I'd appreciate you telling me. I know I can count on you, James! But, Akira reads this, too, so...