inside the wonderful world of vee

After visiting the main Hiroshima sights, we took a ferry to Miyajima Island. First, we took the bus to get to the area where we should take the ferry. Then we decided to eat at some ghetto little cheap restaurant before we went on the ferry. Then we went on the ferry, where there was a baby with like the most hair EVER. He had such a huge head of hair. Or was it a she? We never could figure that out…

Well, Miyajima Island was only, like, a ten minute ferry ride away. We docked at the tourist station and then proceeded to walk around. Lenny figured out a route for us to go up (with some suggestion by me) and then we were immediately met with deer. MOO!

The deer wants Lenny! MOO!

Poor poor antlerless deer.

These deer will eat everything! There are notes EVERYWHERE telling people to watch their passports and tickets because the deer will eat them! I thought it was a joke… it certainly sounds like one… but one deer definitely ran off with one of Lenny’s flyers, and one can only imagine that it is really NOT a joke, and that it seriously happens ALL THE TIME!!!

The deer was totally facing Lenny til right before I took this photo.

“GIMMEE SOME!”

So we headed to the park first. Sorry, forget names of places here.

I scared of the scary horsey.

Dragonfly! Pretty cool when zoomed in. Unfortunately, this is NOT zoomed in.

Tree root!

One can take the gondola type thing up or hike up. We chose to hike up. Unfortunately, Lenny is much more in shape than I. He got kinda bored of waiting for me at times, I think, but shit, I needed to rest sometimes godamnit! I’m a weakling!

Cool flower I’ve not much seen before!

The view from halfway up. I have to admit, it’s pretty godamn nice.

Mt. Misen is the top. Supposedly, there were monkeys up here. I SAW NO GODAMN MONKEYS. Seriously disappointing. Seriously.

So there’s this guy with beads… but check out the little guys with beads!!!

One lone crane, in a thing of rock.

Not sure what this is for, but it looks freaking sweet!

I’m trying to look sexy. What?! This isn’t sexy at all.

His sexy pose is a little better.

His sexy pose is the best yet.

Again, the deer was looking at Lenny right before this photo was snapped!! REALLY!

A view from the top.

This raven was just chillin for a while.

Descending the mountain. It was getting late. Unfortunately, one of the shrines Lenny wanted to check out was closed ~__~

But at least we got to see the Floating Tori Gate at sunset, which was quite very gorgeous.

It also happened to be low tide, which means we could actually walk out to it. It was a helluva task getting photos where there were no humans around.

Sky and water blend into one.

Giant SPOON!

So on our ferry back, this younger hip-hop dressed type dude was sitting next to me. As it was time to get off, there was a bag next to me. Thought it was his, so Lenny ran after him and tried to return it. The guy ended up explaining that it was, “For you,” even though he seemed surprised by it at first and said, “Thank you.” So… I’m not sure if he intended to leave it there or if it was someone else’s, but we got a whole lot of momijis!! Which are these little cakes filled with different things. Flavors we got included the regular red bean, the green tea, and CHEESE! (Which we thought was cream cheese, but later found out was like… regular cheese… and it was hard whereas the other flavors were like, paste, so it was a little… odd.) I must say I was slightly scared of eating it initially and joked about it being poisoned! But hell, what’s the worst that could happen! Parents tell you not to accept candy from strangers?! We’re living proof that it’s perfectly OK!!!

That night, we ate at a sushi restaurant in Hiroshima, and next to us was this Chinese family. I decided to make conversation with them and ask them where they were from. They were from Northern California, of course. The wife was friendly but the husband pretty much like ignored my ass. The mom asked me if I was on post-graduation vacation, though, and I strangely (because I was nervous, I guess) answered YES. The answer was quite very much… NO. So, WTF.

after work on friday, summer and i headed over to the olympic sculpture park. w00t w00t for one block walk. she’s into experimental music, so i said i’d try and get her in… under the premise that i thought i had a +1. wasn’t sure if i did. apparently i did? though? because it wasn’t a big deal at all. we just waltzed on in. no one really checked. pretty sure if you just walked in like you knew what you were doing, no one cared at all. lollercopters. they barely checked us upon walking in. some girl took a pic and gave summer a card where we could check out the pics online but i didn’t get one and i think she dropped hers T__T

ice carving of a gibson guitar!

waitress spilled some whino. made cool patterns.

free food. of the thai chicken variety. probably the best thing that was there. there were also mini veggie burgers… smoked salmon on cucumber… i would’ve liked more variety. oh well. it was free. who can complain. open bar, too, but i didn’t drink, so that is kind of a waste.

experimental orchestra with 50 local guitarists and bassists. interesting stuff. four parts. first was interesting but kinda boring and not very complicated and was more like droning with slight variations. third was the best, as it was the most experimental and had the most going on, with various sounds coming out of every nook and cranny. i thought it’d end at three but it ended on four, and by four, i don’t know if four was worse or if it just got boring by then, but four definitely did NOT hold my attention.

through all of this, though, was the awesomeness that was the conductor. totally awesome. by the way, the conductor showed up, like, ten minutes late, and everyone in the audience was sitting awkwardly, and the announcer lady who worked for SAM had no idea who he was, either… it seemed no one knew so they were kinda like, “UHHHHHHHHH… GO DRINK SOME MORE! YAY!”

FIN! to part three, i believe.

summer really liked this guy’s sweet stache and beard combo.

so during this whole one our long symphony of guitars or whatever, people were watching from up on the street because they didn’t want to pay the $175 - $250 (which is a bit ridiculous, anyhow). it’s funny, though, that they just stood the whole time, watching through the fence. good thing for most of them — as they were tall — that the fence was short!

by the time it ended, the sun had gone down. finally. initially, it was burning into the retinas. these here are food tables.

by the way they had these uber trippy “royal port-o-potties” that were pretty much just like regular toilets…… had full-blown sink with like, a plastic countertop that was made to look like granite, a mirror, a nice toilet seat, a somewhat real flusher… FREAKISH. it was driven in on a little car type thing, with two women’s rooms and one men’s room for each of them. FREAKISH.

next to the restrooms, we saw some CAKES. they had pink paper boxes full of cake but wouldn’t tell us where we could get cake. we tried to follow them briefly to the magical land of cake, but failed miserably because they would not reveal their secrets… :[

follow the pink-haired maidens…

olympic sculpture park’s new giant traffic cones. more at artandmusic.wordpress.com!!

oh by the way, dj derek mazzoni of kexp was there (i don’t know how to spell his name and i care not to look it up). probably my favorite kexp dj, as i don’t really listen to kexp much. but he’s rad.

robosapiens? who belong to…

... this guy? who bangs on drums and plays in front of a strobe :D he's one of those street musician types, with paint cans for drums. jea jea.

oo yea, night pics of ice sculpture!!

nothing like neon strings for bling, and oh yes, it is a gibson.

more to come, sucka. eventful weekend. although i must say, upon leaving the sculpture park that evening my weekend was very unpleasant. :{

i bought infusium23 conditioner not *too* long ago. the smell in the bottle is good. the aftermath of shampooing and conditioning is good… i get compliments from people saying that my hair smells nice.

LET ME TELL YOU KIDS: NICE-SMELLING HAIR COMES AT A COST!!!

so, back when i was living at the old apartment on greenwood ave. it wasn’t really a big deal… i mean, i noticed some fumes from the infusium while i was showering but nothing overwhelming or major — i noticed it primarily AFTER stepping out of the shower and being in the bathroom brushing my teeth or whatever.

now that i moved into a house that has a shower half the size or whatever…………………….. i don’t know what it is but the fumes are killing me!! KILLETHING MEEE! KILLING MEEEEE.

starting from two weeks ago, my throat began aching. i would wake up in the morning with my throat just completely burning.

one day i didn’t take a shower because, i don’t know, sometimes i do that when i know that i’m not going to leave the house for a day or whatever (yeah yeah). i noticed the next morning that my throat didn’t hurt. thought it was a little weird, but went about taking my shower. again, the throataches resumed.

so a couple days ago, i decided to conduct an experiment. i didn’t wash my hair one day, and the next day, i stole one of my roommate’s shampoos. HAHAHAHAHA (hey, it’s in the name of saving my life… it’s okay).

magically, the day after the first day of dirtiness, my throat barely hurt. today, the second day of relative dirtiness, MY THROAT DOESN’T HURT AT ALL. not at all. not a smidgen.

the feeling infusium 23 gives me when i’m in the shower is akin to something like this… have you ever decided to wash a bathtub with bleach or some other cleaning product and then accidentally turned on the hot water???? (or maybe not so accidentally, because it gets the job done faster????) well, the fumes from that shit are pretty fucking intense, let me tell you. alex knows all about this. breathe in too much of that shit and it WILL leave your lungs and your throat feeling raw for the next couple days.

that’s what infusium feels like. IT’S BAD.

BOYCOTT INFUSIUM.

or maybe who knows. one of my roommates might just be pouring bleach into my shampoo every morning. dun dun dun. it did magically start when i got HERE… HMMMMMMMMMM. INDEEEEED.

anyway, alex, lenny, and i went on this park quest this past weekend. i must share delicious pics. my house in greenlake = surrounded by parks and natury goodness. and a zoo! albeit a shitty one. a very shitty one.

i need a bike.

alex… he is enjoying the baboon much too much… T__T

“gimee yer ears!”

“respect the cock! tame the cunt!” (they made me do it… quote from “magnolia”)

i’m a regular photographer. btw, his mouth is right where my penis just was.

doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo.

and now, for the coup de gras…

“yee-haw!”

and now, for the coup de gras-er… to be honest, i don’t even know what that term means…

the dr. seuss-style one-eyed tree!! HE IS GOING TO GET AN EYE A’PAINTED ON ‘IM!

finally getting around to writing this blog post even though it is now after the fact.

saturday, february 23rd, 2008
so, we took the ferry into langley from mukilteo, and went downtowng.

our hotel was on the outskirts, like a five minute walk away from everything. lol. it was weird, though, no one was in the office and it was just towels and laundry and shit.

there was this phone near the door that has a number attached to it, and you call that number to let the owner know you are there. then they give you a code which you type in, and that opens up this lock where the key is stored. and then you use that key to get in! it was the cheapest hotel around, and it was like, i think $80 a night. everything else was at least $100. but the thing is, it was actually pretty nice. fully furnished with plates and stuff. fridges. microwaves. televisions. etc. fantastic!!!!! bed was comfy too. shower was slightly nasty so i didn’t take a shower. because bathrooms that are not 100% clean gross me out >__>

cafe assassiner was the name of the game!

the people of the town who were ‘involved’ in the game were dressed up.

this lady here, however, is not one of those people. she just dressed up for amusement purposes, with her daughter. most amusing.

went from place to place basically, collecting infos. you collect one tip from each location, to get a total of 64. it’s a way of forcing you to enter each store and hopefully buy something. i’m sure it does well for them. the town of langley is actually surprisingly green and stuff. it’s pretty fucking neat. lots of organic foods and local foods!

this is outside the little tiny langley museum, which is largely run by cute old people. ^__^ see that little bucket on the bottom there? it’s a coin jar thing. i asked some old man how they open it and he had no idea. turns out, though, there is a key spot that opens it up. so cool. inside the museum there were old yearbooks and stuff. fun. the old guy was talking to lenny and apparently he said that there’s like nothing to do in langley and that living in freeland was better.

this is the dead body. hahaha hohohoho.

hallmark was there filming something, so we had to sign some release form to say that they can use our image in their show. i don’t know why they were filming exactly, but i guess nbc was also there.

i bought some soap because it was cheap!! what else. i don’t know.

they really liked things that magnify?!!! and so did we?!!

this antique store had a row of these weird figurines, all of whom were just… singing. it was like, trippy.

another cool store with cool imported hats. this is some kind of wedding hat (really long in the back) from turkmenistan.

same store had this awesome chess set from uzbekistan. in this store, i also found out that my fucking necklace that is “moss jade” is really fucking AGATE. that costs like $1. owned. owned so fucking hard.

a neato planter.

oh yes we had this really nice dinner at a restaurant called “fish bowl”… the gnocci was sooo amazingly good. mmmmmm. and my crab cakes were pretty good too. it was probably the most expensive restaurant there but tasty as fuck! MMMM!!!!!

that pretty much ended our night, and then we went back to the hotel and like, watched fucking “forrest gump” because it was on television. lololol.

***

sunday, february 24th, 2008

this bridge was scary as fuck. i could barely cross it the entire time. cry. hahahaa. but finally got to the other side, only to find out that the other side was a dead end essentially. so we had to walk back after a little bit of time. :[

broom-rape. the best flower ever.

yes.

beach beach.

i love this shit cause it looks like a hand!!!

uber mossy.

fisherman.

oh no we didn’t build this oh no.

yes he is alive. we went to this one beach which i thought was disgusting because it was covered with crabs and slugs and blargHHHAGhGHhh. lenny loved it though. there were a lot of little crabs. pics of them to come. and videos. oh yes, the videos are good.

after our day trip to the park, we went back to the middle school auditorium in langley to find out about the murder mystery festival and who did it. here is the culprit. i forget her name even. there were quite a few people there, though.

here is everyone.

the trip back was beautiful. here are some shots from it.

“do not flush foreign tourists down toilets!” on the ferry.

i’m watching… machuca (spanish film).

it’s funny when you live somewhere for too long — you seem to think it’s not important. that it’s the same as everywhere else. i never really paid much attention to san francisco because well, i figured, i lived there. i live in pleasanton. pleasanton sucks balls. therefore, san francisco probably sucks balls as well, even if it sucks less balls. well… truth of the matter is, san francisco has some rather cool qualities. by the way, i notice this in lenny too, because he thinks seattle is so ugly and boring compared to everywhere else… that nature is so far away when in fact that’s the thing i like best about seattle — that nature is so close. but seeing as he grew up here and has not been to too many places outside of here, he thinks seattle is ugly… when the first time i saw seattle from the airplane, i thought it was absolutely gorgeous. one of the most gorgeous places i could remember ever being at that point in time.

anyway, lenny and i went back to san francisco bay area for the first time i’ve been there in about a year. weeee. excursions. i felt this huge need to show him as many things as possible because well, technically it’s my home. so… i should?!!

friday, january 18th, 2008.
arrival in oak-town. oakland definitely in the house!

saturday, january 19th, 2008.
san francisco, bright and early. wake at 7:30, leave, leave, leave!!! pretty much this was the schedule this entire weekend — sleep @ 12am, wake at 7:30am. HARDCORE! EXTREME!!!!

started off by going to alcatraz cruise area at pier 33, but it was SOLD OUT!! sold out all the way until the next day, which we already had plans for! craziness. anyway, so we decided to walk up to fisherman’s wharf and do whatever. bummed around, saw the seals, saw lots of tourists… ate some crabcakes that were kind of subpar… hmmm yeah yeah yeah. fisherman’s wharf was fine fine fine!

* musee mecanique *
this is a museum on fisherman’s wharf that features old penny, nickel, dime, quarter machines of all kinds. very interesting. not limited to arcade games, and you will soon see! i love love LOVE this museum!!!

this is a little boxing game. lenny was on the left and i was on the right. his guy wouldn’t stand up! ARRR!! waste of money T__T

did you know rosie the riveter was this buff? I SURE DI’INT.

as we were leaving fisherman’s wharf, we saw that holy shit! there was a pro-life parade. SUCK. they had these signs saying “women deserve better than abortion.” i didn’t know it was a pro-life parade initially since there were pro-choice people mixed in there as well, so i was like, “what does your sign mean? can someone please explain to me? what does your sign mean?!” and no one said shit. they just stared at me. half those people were like, under 16. ghetto as fuck. they are not even old enough to decide what they would want to do in such a situation. way too young. give them a couple years and they’ll be whoring it up, i bet. anyway. i took a lotta pics.

unfortunately for the pro-choicers, the number of pro-choicers that showed up was merely a handful, and naturally, it was the more militant types of people, since more passive people would not bother to show up and protest in a pro-life rally. so… therefore, all the pro-choice people at this rally were either butch dykes, crossdressing men, or just women who were shouting really angrily and loudly… while the pro-life people were, i hate to say it, calm and relatively normal. but i attribute that to the sheer number. unfortunately, i think that perhaps the media would not attribute that to sheer numbers, although i didn’t really get a chance to see coverage of that parade or anything. but yeah, a lot of them were representing some catholic station, 1610 am, and soon i discovered that fucking station had billboards EVERYWHERE in san francisco. it was fucking ridonkulous. +__+

* chinatown *
chinatown was a bitch. i hadn’t really been there and i regret wasting time going there, because it was thoroughly unexciting. T__T there were soooo many people. i had a map with bike parking lots on it, but i forgot to consult it before we got into chinatown. by the time we got into chinatown, though, it was ridiculously crowded and navigating around was much too difficult. >__> it was difficult while riding a bike, but just as difficult when we got off and WALKED with our bikes. it was truly “ren shan ren hai” — truly ridiculous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and as far as excitement goes, there really wasn’t much exciting, other than well, live chickens that they would slaughter for you. poor little chickens, they were completely cooped up in their cages.

* italiantown *
if you can really call it that…

* golden gate *
were going to bike on it, but like, not enough time and stuff. and the roads were confusing.

terrible pic, but you know, whatever.

* japantown *

i bought this hat for roxanne, although i pretty much wanted it really badly.

sunday, january 20th, 2008.
hiking in mt. diablo with xinlei, matt, lenny, and sherry. never really been before!

cool ground ^_^

this tree was a toilet… it had a big hole underneath my ass here.

the view! this was on our way up the waterfalls… hahaha “waterfalls.” but uh january was not the best time to go see the waterfalls, and they were practically just minor trickles. we weren’t the only ones, though… people coming up asked us how the waterfalls were and we gave them an honest answer (”sub-par”).

xinlei had massive problems making it down the hill. more than once ;D i have a video. that’s definitely better.

after this (around 1pm) we went to the new ufert’s center and had dinner with my parents. sherry came too. we had ramen. it was rather good, actually!!! weird having an asian center in dublin, though.

after that, i took lenny to amador. oh, how it has changed!! eeeek. it’s so kind of weird. here are some differences. this is my first time back since i don’t know… 2003?

these things are the same.

these things are different.

last time i came back, this place had run out of $$ on the top floor and was empty or something, lol.

since when did the don look like a crazy mexican!?!!

that night, my godparents came over and we like, had a fucking feast. MMM FOOD. and then i was reminded that i hate family conversations as they are all about money and stocks and bullshit i soooo do nooooot careeeee aboooooooouuuut. so boring. lo lordy.

i pulled out my old videos and had lenny watch some of the er, terrible home videos. i used to be a fucking spaz. nancy [yu] used to be even MORE spazzy but that doesn’t mean i wasn’t. haha. oh man. good videos. and very painful to watch too. i will never be able to live down singing whitney houston’s “greatest love of all.” X__>

monday, january 21st, 2008.

ferry to alcatraz! because it was full the other day.

ahhh so *this* is what agave is!

after that was home time (seattle)… well, my license was expired, so i had to go through special security. it was like i was a criminal! certainly much easier in washington than in california. but yeah. things were fines. but i think this image is interesting as each separate pen mark basically represents a different check.

i’m writing this and it’s january 2008. oh well, need to recap it SOMETIME. even if it is a little late ^__~

sunday, november 18th, 2007
took the fucking AGO-NIZ-FUCK-ING flight to taipei and it was well, agonizing. i stayed a day later and left a day later than i was originally supposed to (which was friday), because i was sponsoring artifakt event the night before and yair was playing a show! well, people really liked his performance, so yay. the show itself was alright, some decent art, some okay. but yeah.

first evening i got there and daddy couldn’t go anywhere cause his leg was injured (from playing the wii), so mom, phil, roxanne, and i went over to the night market. had to take a taxi as it was too far to walk to. ate niu rou mian (beef noodle stew) but it was kinda gross. meh. it wasn’t gross. just okay.

some taiwanese fashion. long shit with leggings is all the rage there right now.

monday, november 19th, 2007


mom and dad had to visit the doctor, so phil, roxanne, and i got up early and just went to walk around. lotta shit was closed. we went to taipei 101 (the current tallest building, although soon to be not… why do people find the need to build as tall as possible anyway? it’s so freaking weird)… but it wasn’t open yet. so we walked around, in search of food. we bought some stuff at the convenience store. pretty much we are lucky i can read a bit of chinese — at least enough to get a basic idea of foods — so i got us picked out some onigiri stuff. that was really hard to open. and ooOoooOooOo green tea milk, you are so yummy. <3 finding food in foreign countries — it’s seriously the funnest part >_> spicy chicken onigiri up there. it was actually really good.

taipei 101. oh yeah, taipei 101?? you think you’re cool because you reach into the clouds? PFFT. inside, it’s pretty much just a mall for rich people. you know, the usual.

common sights in the taiwan, with taxis and all that jazz. women riding mopeds with high heels. okay, so it’s not THAT common but it’s not uncommon either.

slightly more uncommon sights. man with ladder while riding moped. what a pimp. and a naked mannequin.

magazine in bookstore in taipei 101 that’s dedicated to all things “BLANG BLANG” — i would have bought it but it cost ten fucking bucks. no thanks. i guess they figure those who want to bling will be willing to pay money for a guide on how to bling. as lenny pointed out, though, unfortunately they have the wrong idea — sticking rhinestones onto everything does not equal bling. bling = diamonds and jewels and shit. you got the wrong idea, AZNZ.

after we were done with 101 we took a free shuttle to… where? i don’t remember. hahahahahdoaishdads. the train station. oh yeah. the subway. that’s where we went. taipei’s subway system is still small and new, but they copied practically everything from japan. unlike americans, though, taiwanese people listen to signs on the ground and shit.

since we didn’t have much to do, we took the train station to “taipei da che zhang” (main station) and walked around. there was massive shopping there, which is why we went. because the truth pretty much is like this: there ain’t shit to do in taiwan except for shop. it’s pretty much… what’d i just say? the truth. >_> this little cutie was from one of those vending machines where you pay money to operate a claw and then you can win it. thing is… THIS SHIT COSTS $4 PER PLAY. what the fuck? we didn’t want to pay the money, so we haven’t yet decided whether it is “play until you win” or “$4 for one play and if you don’t get it, you’re a chump.” i guess the world may never know. because who plays that shit? there were a lot of those machines, to be sure, but i must say — never saw anyone playing any of them. hahaha. this is also copied from japan, their little arcade places. of course.

at night, we walked to nai nai’s place. lotta construction going on. my grandma is like 95. she’s funny. on a later date when we were at her house, she kept showing me to her little display cabinet where there were pictures of many people — including me!! and there was a photo of me, her, and this other boy who liked me. she said, “that’s you! that boy kept trying to get closer to you but you told him to go away!” then i would sit down, and five minutes later, she would be like, “mei mei ah, your photo is in this cabinet!” this happened three times… haha. >_> within the span of like, fifteen minutes. har har har. oh nai nai. she doesn’t cook for herself anymore since she fell… it’s messed up how falling at an old age (grandma used to always wear high heels) fucks up old people so hardcore. >_> it’s sad. but yeah, now she has a live-in servant who is from singapore. nai nai taught her how to cook for her and she cooks instead. i miss nai nai’s niu rou mian. i don’t think i’ll ever get to eat it again. T__T awww nai nai why are you so old! my mom knows how to make it but it isn’t the same at all. T__T sad.

i should also mention that my alcoholic uncle went crazy too. he used to be a REALLY nice guy but was just a fuck up and would get drunk all the time. well his liver is completely shot now but what’s worse is that his mind is shot. T__T he doesn’t even recognize my dad anymore. it’s pretty fucked up. i guess he has pulled out knives and threatened to kill people before. anyway, he lived with my grandma and my brother / mom / dad / roxanne got there before me so they saw him, but yeah, he didn’t recognize any of them. so they committed him to a mental institution. so that’s that. i didn’t see him. it’s a shame, because he’s a nice guy.

around grandma’s place are a lot of really small food stands and stuff — but unlike the night market, these are places people go to on a daily basis just when they’re leaving to and from work and shit. very convenient. this above is zou tou fu (stinky tofu). i don’t like the shit. but my momma does. my momma likes everything. as you will soon find out. it’s actually rather traumatizing. as you will soon find out.

dad, grandma, and phil. we are making our way to a restaurant!! that had EXTREMELY small dishes (i’m talking… mmm… the size of a coffee saucer plate thing) but they were really good, and probably the only real eating of vegetable i had the whole time i was there. so that was definitely a plus.

here’s what is not a plus. around grandma’s house, my mom bought some la mian xian (spicy noodle… thingies) because she didn’t know we were going out to eat dinner. not a fatty to waste foods, she, of course, brought the food into the restaurant like a fucking savage. it was pretty damn savage as she was scarfin gthe shit down in front of the waitresses. >_> in the latter pic is grandma with my auntie and uncle. the uncle came to america to live with us a while, and he still now insists on speaking english to us whenever he gets the chance to. his english isn’t bad but he does have an accent, and he’s just kind of goofy in general (we compare him to droopy), so him speaking english like droopy = funny.

apparently, when i was younger, this mall used to have a top floor that was all rides and arcades for little kids. i used to come here with my dad every day after he went to work or something. ahhh, good memories in taiwan. good memories indeed. i only lived there for a year around preschool age, but it doesn’t matter!

tuesday, november 20th, 2007

subway station. lots of boring time to spare, so yeah.

my timeline is actually kinda screwy so i don’t know if this is right, but whatever. the general gist is enough — a day by day play isn’t THAT important, is it?!!!!!!OIJ!OIJI!JOIAJSDOIAS! so, my mom booked us a trip via some tour train or something to go to hualian, which is in like, southeast taiwan. which is somewhat exciting because this was our first time outside of taipei in taiwan!!! porko rosssssso!

when we got there, some pony driver guy picked us up for the ride. not a tour guide — just a driver. but he kinda was weird and had a bad attitude. but err. doesn’t that sky look fake?!!!

first stop — a wonton place. supposedly famous — they had pictures of a former president eating there. i mean, it was okay. nothing to write home about though. or maybe it is. i don’t know. i never was much for wontons. but compared to most wontons they were pretty good. so okay, i change my mind, i guess they were good.

drive-by photo of a funeral. woooooo!

for the unacquainted, welcome to the world of the squatter.

so this guy dropped us off at all of these random, not particularly exciting places the first day because we didn’t have an itinerary for him and it was already the early afternoon. dad and brother and roxanne didn’t enjoy it at all but i didn’t really care — i think anything is pretty much a lot more interesting when you have a camera… even the most ‘boring’ of places. anyway, this place was a place that was formerly occupied by the japanese and they cut trees down there… blahblahblah. evidently the former logging caused all of the current rivers to dry out really easily, because when it rains, there aren’t as many old trees to soak up the water… instead, all the little, newly planted trees barely soak up any water, causing rivers to rage big, but for a short time… as opposed to being around year-round.

this was another random-ass place, but while we were there, some professor was there with his elementary school class. kids in taiwan pretty much take field trips all fucking day. no matter what day of the week it was or where we were, there were kids out on field trips. the other alternative is that even during weekdays people in business outfits are playing hooky or taking their work breaks to go SHOPPING. it’s ridiculous. apparently it hasn’t changed since my parents were growing up there, either. taiwan has a lot of streetside vendors which sell cheap wares, and apparently since the beginning of time people would pass by and say, “oh no, it’s so cheap! i have to have it!” even though they didn’t. this hasn’t changed. all taiwanese people do is fucking buy shit. it’s ridonkulous. i mean… do they really waste more than americans? i actually find that hard to believe. i’d say they probably are up there also. except they don’t have the big houses. but as far as buying trash goes — i think they are pretty high up there. also, none of their streetside restaurants use rewashable silverware or plates or bowls. they all fucking use disposable shit. it’s atrocious.

anyway, i went off on a tangent. that picture above is some weird bug larvae or mold — we couldn’t figure out what it was. :/

at another random place we stopped off at to eat “famous ice cream” (which was disgusting), you could feed koi. i don’t really care much for koi, but you must admit — their mouths are pretty dope there.

this is our bombass last stop of the day, which we probably should have spent MORE time at. it was a farm / zoo. i really wanted to ride a bike but i was not aware that they rented bikes until later. so i was a little bitter. instead, we rented this car which my dad drove around since he was injured. at first i had no idea what that place was but it soon revealed itself to be a crazy ass haven for birds of all types… and it made me very happy to see a MANDARIN DUCK IN PERSON!!!! i’d been waiting for that moment, for all my life! well not really. but yeah… my dad was also driving in the wrong lane in the wrong direction for a very long time. lol.

monkey island excited me on paper, but it was actually pretty weak sauce. sigh!!!!

there was a dairy farm. we were allowed to walk inside. erm, scary?! poor poor cow cows :[ here you are, a more intimate look at a cow being milked than you probably wanted!

this place was really fucking weird. pretty much this rich guy didn’t know what he wanted to do with his money, so he bought a bunch of shit. at least it’s cool shit, though. but still. there are a lot more pics i have of the bird collection that i didn’t upload to picasa, but he had soooooo many birds. it was insane. didn’t get a good chance to view any of them enough because we were in a rush and shit, so that kinda sucked. but it is what it is!

that night we stayed at this hotel. phil kept bitching about how ghetto it was going to be because it was in the city and not this super expensive one that was up on a hill (i told mom to get the city one because what’s the point? a view only lasts so long). anyway. he was bitching and moaning and when we finally got there, the place was fine. maybe even nice. a little bit unconventional, but i liked it. anyway, they had these windows that pulled open and were really high off the ground so you had to climb on bed to climb out of it, but all of the patios were connected. so i tried to scare my mom by going over to their window and being like, “BOO!” but she wasn’t scared at all. she was just like… “what are you doing there?”

took a series of long-exposure shots from outside that window on that balcony. this is maybe? the best of them.

that night we went to yet another night market. this place supposedly had famous… xiao long bao (small dragon buns HAHHAAAHHAHAAUSD)… seems like everything is famous. bizarro. they were pretty good but not as good as crab xiao long bao i’ve had — and other things. they were just okay. again, i don’t like xiao long bao, though, so yeah.

a thing full of intestines and shit. i asked the lady for permission. haha.

quantity of heat — 60c
fattiness — 25g
power — 86k
fibrin — 16n
DOGIPEE HOT DOG STORE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i mean really, wtf?

wednesday, november 21st, 2007



the next day, we went to taroko national park. yeah. apparently chinese people don’t like to hike, because there weren’t really any trails at all. haha. all there was was this paved (like, for cars to drive on, only cars weren’t allowed to drive on it) road for people to walk on. which is kinda weaksauce. all the campsites (all one of them, i think) were also closed because of the time of year. the weather in taiwan at this time of year is so bizarre. it’s like… hot but cold at the same time. it’s a sticky cold that brings heat in its humidity. never knew how to dress because if i wore a jacket i’d get hot in a few seconds and if not, i’d be cold. blech.

there was a lot of construction going on, which nearly resulted in a crisis. generally they would only let one side of the traffic on the construction road at a time, but they messed up once and let both go at the same time. and there was a bus involved. so therefore, it was messy. so ghetto. they would only let a certain amount of people every hour, so if you missed the cut off point, you had to wait another hour. lol.

apparently, falling rocks are a huge problem here this area is known for these white, marble rocks. lots of quarrying and such >_>

this thing was on a long set of stairs. no one squished it… yay? i don’t know if it was dead or alive. i reckon dead, because roxanne got the same exact picture almost (which i thought was really interesting, because that means she’s looking around on the ground, like i do too!), and she went up those stairs way ahead of me. so… it was probably sitting there dead (or alive) for a while. i reckon dead.

this guy is definitely dead. i actually rather like taking pics of dead things. they just look so… interesting.

one stream is gray and the other is blue! together they make gray!!!! YAY!

low-hanging clouds.

we then went to this beach. this xiang chang (sausage) vendor had a cool sign. i thought his xiang chang tasted like charcoal, though, so i gave it to mcdoggy. then i tried to take a photo of myself with mcdoggy, and failed miserably.

almost as great as YAHO– wait, they probably got sued. same font and everything.

at the subway station, they featured some artwork made by fourth to seventh graders which warned about the dangers of the subway / train. ahhahahahraohrahrar. this is fucking great.

thursday, november 22nd, 2007



went to this… place. that was an old city… yeah. this was after taking the quick train (2 hours instead of 3 hours) back to taipei. the train was very rickety, and in it, they had a squatter bathroom. it was the first time using a squatter actually MADE SENSE. had it been a regular toilet, it would have been gross and i would have probably touched the communal nasty toilet seat. but since it was a squatter — and a clean one at that — it was perfect for the bumpy ride! insanity. anyway, this is the next day. we got the guy who picked my parents up from the airport to drive us around. mostly just little shops in this area — nothing too exciting to me but whatever. i got to sit in the middle of the road and be scary and stalk people with my camera

some kids i stalked.

then we moved onto the next place. yet again, i have no idea what this place is. eh, i’ll find out and add it in later. lots of antiques and junk. yeahhh.

garden, in honor of a former chinese president. errr. yeah. errr taiwanese president. i have no idea. it was pretty boring.

then we went to another street market. this one had awesome foods. unfortunately, i did not get to eat as much of it as i would have liked T__T

what we did eat though was this. i don’t even know. it was like, strawberry mian xian in a tofu pocket. pretty interesting tasting. not good, but not really disgusting either. but definitely everyone just ate a bite and was done with it. lol. i think this area of taipei was where my dad went to college. i can’t be sure, though.

i bought one of these for lenny and one of these for sherry >_> they’re so cute haha.

then we went to this harbor place. i don’t know where any of these places are, lol. they’re all within taipei, though.

then we went to another market. and my parents went INSANE and bought a fuckload of this black sesame and peanut candy. i mean, the shit is really good but not THAT good. they went insane. two big bags. and now i still have a bunch (and it’s two months later)… and probably will never finish it!!!!

friday, november 23rd, 2007

went to ximending, the top freaking shopping center in taipei, that’s for sure. some breakdancers — who i later talked to and found out were from MATHAR RUSSIA — were there… breakdancing. cameraman got me on camera!!

one girl, three guys. the girl sucked. she did this butt shaking mood every time. she couldn’t even breakdance. couldn’t pop… eh. she just seemed out of place and repetitive. i was not the only one who thought this. as far as the breakers go — one guy was really good… the other two guys were pretty mediocre. guy pictured above in the pose is *not* the good one.

phil had wanted to go to this restaurant but we didn’t know where it was. it’s a chain store, but we just happened to stumble upon it. the seats in the restaurant are toilets. the table are sheets of glass over old sinks. showers hang from the walls. your food comes to you in toilet-shaped thingies. yeap. the food? it was just okay. my crappy chinese failed us here, because i misread some things for other things, unfortunately.

candies shaped in pad-like packaging. i think they are marshmellows. i’m not sure. haven’t opened. queer aid, phil bought for aberoo.

i didn’t expect to find much graffiti in taipei but there was a lot around ximending… and a lot of it was really quality stuff. here’s one.

masturbation bear in the two story stationary store that i used to go to every time i went back to taipei. i even had a birthday discount card which worked around your birthday, but my mom forgot to bring it T__T

roxanne and her face mask! those things make it very hard to breathe — as cool as they look. >_>

you might know what a buddhist monk looks like… this is what taoist monks look like!

this toothpaste was in our hotel. larry king is a whitemen. i started using this toothpaste when we first got there but then i saw that it was made in china and got scared and no longer used it, cause that’s scary. i wanted abe lincoln instead of larry king (he was in this book at the hotel), but roxanne said that was inappropriate. she said using bush would be inappropriate too, but larry king is somehow okay. i don’t really understand.

home!

september 22nd, 2007
xinlei came today so i picked her up and we headed straight to canada cause we’re fucking hardcore, biatch.

the border crossing going INTO canada. when you’re going into canada it’s all fucking nice and pretty — coming into the united states, however, it looks like a piece of shit.

RICHMOND NIGHT MARKET

richmond night market. this is funny, but only if you think about it. a little. just read the text and laugh. they did get “ray ban” right, though, i guess, so i suppose i should be impressed?

hahahaha. so photoshopped are their tattoos.

feed… my… tummy!?

some terrible dog show / karaoke contest / badness abound.

nothing like a sea of bras to make you feel right at home. richmond night market, you think of everything.

HOOKAH, OR AS THEY CALLED IT, SHEE-SHA


hookah with random hostel people. say hello to random german man with camera. i like german english accents, for some reason. this korean chick named molly met us at the hostel and she was drunk and we were drunk and she was like, “YAY! THERE ARE NO ASIANS HERE BUT YOU GUYS!” so she invited us along but we didn’t talk to her the whole time rofls. her friends were cool, though — they were also people staying at the hostel long-term.

SAMESUN BACKPACKER LODGE


the hostel we stay at every time we go to vancouver, pretty much. we usually always get brazil on our door, but unfortunately, this time we got a fucking hockey flag. not even a real country flag. a hockey flag. i took a photo of brazil’s flag before, but hockey flag was just so lame i didn’t even take a pic.

—

september 23rd, 2007

vancouver has a lot of homelessness. like… a lot. this entire street was like, homeless people. at least, it seemed that way.

CHINATOWN



gotta love chinatown. it’s my gecko on a stick!

this is honestly, like the funniest thing ever.

ALL HAIL THE SHABUSEN!

STANLEY PARK

so ever since going to japan and biking around tokyo i’ve been obsessed with biking in foreign cities, so… i made lenny and xinlei rent bikes with me to bike around stanley park. we didn’t have much time to do it but it was pretty much the best time of their lives, they said. well not really but close to it!!!!!!!!!!! BIKE IN FOREIGN CITIES. YOU WON’T LOOK FLATTERING BUT THAT’S OKAY.

this guy, like the guy in fremont, stacks rocks. he’s awesome. unlike the guy in fremont, though, he’s not very talkative. i tried to make conversation and got one line out of him, but that’s about it.

THE VICTORIAN HOTEL

new place to stay for night #2! the victorian hotel. we had originally opted for a cheaper room but the guy gave us a free upgrade so we got a giant king-sized bed!! i’ve never been in a king-sized bed. anyway, lenny and i checked in and xinlei snuck in. we’re ghetto.

september 24th, 2007

more chinese marketness. how lame.

so i’m like, obsessed with these winnie the pooh toys. i think i satisfied my lust for it for life on this trip though. i kept saying, “ANYTHING BUT PIGLET” and i would get piglet every time. godamnit. like, i started saying it jokingly thinking it didn’t matter — certainly i am not cursed — but quite the contrary. i am cursed.

FERRY TO VICTORIA


it was fucking expensive. do *not* take your car on the fucking ferry. seriously.

VICTORIA

darth vader of the violins. he even played the like, march song. i dunno what it’s called.

i should mention that in addition to spending made loads of money buying a ferry / car ticket to victoria from vancouver, uhhhhhhhhhh we were just going to take the ferry all the way back to seattle from victoria but we just missed it. by like, five minutes. all because i said, “what’s the worse that could happen?” sooooo. we had to rush to take the last ferry from victoria back to vancouver (might i add that whereas the way from vancouver to victoria was a normal ferry, the one from victoria to vancouver was a fucking luxury ferry. it was literally like an airport. two arcade rooms and one GIFT STORE. i shit you not. ridiculous!!!!). anyway, once we got to vancouver i had to drive the two hours back down whereas everyone else got to sleep… woohoo! awesome! *_*

march 26th to april 2nd, 2007 (nippon!)

11:32 pm — before i start, some conclusions:

1) japanese women cannot walk with heels on.
2) japanese people don’t fucking eat vegetables other than regular salad (which, nutrition-wise, doesn’t really count).
3) japanese food you can think of off the top of your head (teppanyaki, sushi, yakisoba, tonkatsu, ramen, etc.) pretty much is japanese food, period.
4) japanese women say “gozaimasu” as a kind of formality meaning thank you or whatever, and say it SUPER nasally. amuse.

i’m not really all that impressed by tokyo, actually… although it is a great place to hang out when you’re young and robust, i imagine it’d be kind of boring when you’re older. and… there really isn’t that much to do anyhow. i think we only had fun cause yuki was there and his friends were there and miko’s friends were there… had we not known any japanese people there, it’d probably have been a helluva lot lamer…

now for recaps… oh my god i am so tired. this will probably have to be finished later since there’s so much shit to say.

monday, march 26th
lingo picked me up in the morning… i basically stayed up all night. slept like 3 hours. maybe. this pattern will soon be repeated, as you will find out soon. we headed over to tony’s house in issaquah and tony had JUST woken up basically and was not at all ready lol. nor had he really planned anything for us to do… lol. so we left in a hurry to go to the airport. got on the plane. “the fountain” was on as well as “stranger than fiction”… i was super excited to watch “the fountain” but unfortunately the audio on lingo and i’s consoles were not working. motherfuckers. united gave us some form we can fill out to maybe get some miles. but yea.

taking pics in the seatac airport… why not!?

sleeping in the seatac airport… why not?!

sleeping on the plane!!!

gag…

wednesday, march 28th — akasuka


got off the plane at like, i dunno, 3pm or something, and we had slept a lot of the plane ride and were mostly rested up. took the overground train to our place in asakusa… khaosan tokyo akasuka annex hostel. it was kind of hard to find at first but was then okay. the overground train seemed like the longest ride ever. seemed almost longer than the plane ride to japan lol. also, like, i kept sleeping with my head resting against the window behind me, and unfortunately, every time the train from the opposite direction passed by it’d scare the shit out of me and wake me up heh, cause it’d make the window rattle. anyway, we got to the hostel, put our shit down, and decided to go cash in on one free drink that our hostel offered daily at the location of their other akasuka hostel (khaosan tokyo smile). i got a white russian or whatever. it was good, as there was like no alcohol in it. lol. we were like the only people in there at first, although some people showed up later!

afterwards, went to eat some ramen at a corner shop in akasuka. had to cross a bridge to get there, and saw lot of dinner boats that people ate on. ramen was okay. we were the only tourists in there. tonkatsu ramen — i had miso-flavored one, and mine was the best. everyone else just got plain meat ones… and mine had like veggies and corn and stuff, so it was automatically better :0

after we ate it was like eight and we just walked around akasuka at night and looked at all the temples that were lit up by lights. looked good. yeahp. then we went back to the hostel and went to bed essentially. cool place. note: these photos are a culmination of everyone’s photos, so… yeah. i cannot take credit for most of these.

everyone else got a kick out of this. i actually didn’t even get it at first. lol?

our roommates for that night were a couple from australia and they were both graphic designers who had huge packs that were like, as big as me. they were going to india afterwards, and the girl had just come from china. lucky.

thurday, march 29th — akasuka, ueno, and akihabara



the next day, we all woke up at like 5am and decided to go rent bikes at 7am. had a difficult time finding the bike rental place at first, because we found a bike parking garage and assumed it was NOT in there even though it was. the bikes you could rent cost only 200 yen to rent a day (like, $1.50), and had these cool ass locks. if your key wasn’t in, you couldn’t rotate the bike tires. it was neat… the tourist map we had also had this giant pagoda logo which was an “information center” so we were looking for a big ass pagoda building — in reality, it was this little tiny thing that was like 10 feet tall only. lol. godamn tourist maps…

got our bikes and biked around the area cause lingo and i were super fucking rusty. scary man… very scary… to bike in the city cause there is just so much fucking shit around all over the place.

it was still early and nothing was open yet.

porn movie theatre in asakusa!!!!

anyway, ate lunch at yoshinoya, which is a cheap chain store type place that sells basically beef dishes with cooked onions over rice. pretty good and definitely cheap. everyone says shit in japan is sooo expensive, but it’s not really — maybe if you compare it to like, china, but compared to the u.s., not really.

after eating there, i had a massive nosebleed in their bathroom and was in there for fucking ever, bleeding all over the chair and floor and crap like that. after that day my nose pretty much hurt like a bitch :/ like, up in the nose cavity, not on the surface…

went to an arcade we found and allllmost beat “time crisis 4″, because i had exchanged $10 USD for 1,000 yen. unfortunately, though… i lent tony a couple hundred yen to play, and he died real fast, and so i was halfway through killing the final boss when i fucking died. godamnit. and no more money to beat it. UGHHHHH.

after that, we got our bikes which we parked on the side street and biked over the ueno. about a… 30 minute bike ride or something. it was kind of scary because of the huge amount of people X___X massive dodging required… almost killed myself and a few pedestrians um, a couple of times.

walked over the land bridge in ueno and went to this six story anime store (unfortunately, it had no naruto stuff — tony and lingo were looking for it, and i was looking for a rock lee to buy lenny since he looks like rock lee — or any katamari stuff, which was super sad!). yeah.

ueno

walked over to ueno park afterwards where there were a lot of cherry blossoms and stuff, but we were a week early for the cherry blossoms to be completely bloomed… lots of people and lots of of stairs, and i was quite sore the entire trip.

saw some kids being attacked and swarmed by pigeons and all that good stuff…!! lingo and miko got some good pics of that shit. lol.

after that, it was about, like 4pm and we had to meet yuki and miko’s friend tetsu at akihabara at 5pm, so we rode over there. took forever to meet up with both of them cause it was a crowded station and yuki was late and stuff, but yeah. this chick in this photo up here was promoting for a maid cafe!!!

went to eat at some nice restaurant and tetsu treated us. the place was nijumaru, and was a izukaya, which serves drinking food and snacks…)

walked around and went to don quixote, which at the upstairs of it (well, 5th floor or so) had a maid cafe, where girls dress up and talk to lonely guys. you pay them to talk to you. pretty fucking stupid. anyway. 6th floor had some weird thing where you can dress up and they take pics of you. i have no idea. japan is fucking weird, man.

random girl singing. not sure where!!!

after that, went to tully’s and met up with yuki/lingo’s friends from the united states. tetsu treated us yet again to ice cream and coffee. their ice cream had hot coffee on the bottom of it. kind of interesting…

it was interesting to see the shift between customs for the japanese dudes who had lived in the u.s. — they lived there for like 5 years so they had like really good english and not even their accents were too bad, but like… they would be talking to us and it’d just be like, what’s up, yoyoyo… and then they’d introduce themselves to tetsu and would all of a sudden be super formal, with like bowing and giving him their business card with two hands and stuff… lol. most amusing.

one of the guys who was there drove the jr transit trains. lol. he’s not a conductor, though! apparently conductors do the announcements over the intercom. hm, that’s news to me!

headed back to asakusa in a hurry so that we could return the bikes by 12am. got stopped by the police. they started off by asking me if i was okay or something and i obviously didn’t understand, so they talked to tony. and said some shit. and they looked at our passports and stuff. and we barely made it back in time.

went to bed after we got back to the hostel. i bought some towels from 7-11 prior to coming home and FINALLY took a shower for the first time in three days. it was a nice push-button shower that saved water and shit. wee!

attempted to sleep and COULD NOT SLEEP. AT ALL. the new roommate that night was from singapore and he slept right next to me in an upper bunk and was SO LOUD. it was INSANELY loud.

went downstairs for a while cause tony was down there and looked at some pics of tokyo, but then tony wanted to go to bed so i went too. there was this super fucking annoying guy downstairs who was talking about fucking his girlfriend in the hostel beds, in the shower stalls, in the toilet stalls, etc… when she came to town, and the same guy like, hit on every fucking girl around. he was annoying as SHIT. anyways.

went back to sleep at some point, and i spent the whole night up wishing to die or wishing it was morning so it would all just fucking end lol. at some point, tony started snoring too, and would basically snore at the intervals the other guy was not snoring. there was quite a pattern going on, and i remember thinking that compared to this guy’s snoring, tony’s was hella soothing, lol, cause it was like 1/3 the loudness.

i usually clap loudly to make people wake up from snoring, but with this guy, it was unpossible. lol. he would not even fucking stir. asshole.

woke up at 5am after a night of NO SLEEP AT FUCKING ALL. wee!

friday, march 30th — tsukiji, ginza, shibuya
once again, got up at 5am and got ready to leave to the tsukiji fish market sometime soon. a guy from the hostel, sarub, went with us. he had gone to the fish market the day before (wednesday), but the fish market was closed on wednesdays, so pwn the noob!!!!!

anyway, took most of my pics at the fish market because i’m weird, and SQUID ARE SO CUTE!!! there was lots of cutting of giant tunas.

we had lunch at a sushi place, and looked around for a place that had a line with japanese people, but not a HUGE line like some places had. i had whale nigiri, aji, anago, amaebi… anago was OK, not as good as unagi, and aji was kind of good… amaebi was eh, okay… whale was fucking nasty… kujira, it’s called. anyways. i also had a cooked tuna shioyaki that was pretty not good and looked nothing like its respective photo.

afterwards, we walked to ginza and looked at buildings there, in an attempt to find a citibank. sarub had a book which detailed where all the citibanks were, which was helpful, as citibank was like, the only bank in japan that allowed atm withdrawals from mastercard and visa.

lingo and i were in desperate need of a toilet, so we walked into one tower and happened to explore it. downstairs had some genmaicha soft-serve ice cream there, MMMM! tried toilet with ass spray action, and it was okay i guess, but couldn’t figure out how to FLUSH the toilet, rofls. lingo loved the ass spray cleaner and got addicted to it, rofls.

ginza sucks. these statues were the only fucking good thing about it.

okay fine this clocktower is KINDA cool but all these things are situated in the mall so that makes them lamer.

anyways. went to shibuya to meet up with yuki and he took us to a korean-influenced restaurant with small dishes again. sarub came with us, and then left to go meet up with other people afterwards (from some website called sofacrashers or something, which basically allowed people in foreign countries to go online and say, hey, i’m alone in this city for a week, who wants to show me around?). interesting.

afterwards we went to some department store or something and came across these weird exercise machines that were supposed to simulate horseback riding when really they were nothing like that… didn’t feel like a workout at all, really. interesting. lingo got addicted to these too. rofls.

then we went to karaoke at big one — two hours of karaoke at 1,000 yen an hour each for all you can drink. i was drunk after three. lol.

after singing, we went out to the hallway where lingo was talking to people, and joined in, kind of. lots of random shit was talked about, like…

- fat girls and pussies.
- homo! homo! homo!
- miko’s bus announcer voice.
- “funniest shit ever…”
- took lotsa videos…

videos sum it all up better, though, so yeah. no need to write about all this, as it is quite difficult to capture the greatness with just writing.

we had to hurry to leave to catch the subway, since it closes @ 12:30 or whatever. this is soon to be a pattern.

at this point, lingo was like a walking zombie… lol. ALSO soon to be repeated.

got back and hung in the hostel living room lounge for some hours, talking to some swedish people and stuff. they were watching south park. and they looked super old but were only like 20 and 22 — one guy had been there for like a year. tony was like, “don’t swedish people make awesome watches and stuff?” and i was like, “dude, that’s swiss not swedish!” and a bunch of european dudes had a real big laugh about it. lol. but apparently it is a common mistake lol…

we went on a midnight 7-11 run so miko and tony could get more beer. lingo passed out early and before we left tony went up and threw a tripod at lingo LOL in an attempt to wake him up. then threw everything in his pockets at lingo trying to accomplish the same. rofls. i bought a hentai mag at 7-11. tony and miko didn’t even remember going to 7-11 in the morning. lol.

went to bed and got about three hours of sleep. the roommate was still snoring loudly, but this time it was somewhat tolerable.

thursday, march 29th — mizue, shinjuku, akasaka
woke up at like, 8 or something ridiculous. i woulda slept more, but tony had told me to keep my key outside the door so they could pick it up before they came to bed, but they weren’t in bed in the morning, so i figured they never got the key. so… i kind of freaked out in my head because i was wondering if it was lost or not, so i had to wake up… turns out tony was passed out on the sofa downstairs and he HAD picked up the key — lingo and i spent two hours watching bad music videos on tv instead.

it was raining this morning really heavily and we were like super bummed, because we had to check out this morning. rain would have gotten us and our luggage soaked. luckily for us, however, when we were ready to leave, the rain stopped. we subway’d over to our new hotel in mizue (which is between the airport and asakusa… and btw, NO ONE knows were mizue is)… and we couldn’t check in until 3 because they were cleaning, so we walked around and explored the area.

went to eat italian food at some restaurant because italian food there is different — like, they put seaweed or salmon roe or random stuff on some dishes to make them more japanese. all italian restaurants have tabasco sauce readily available as well. i got doria. it was good. this restaurant had a cool self-service drink area and a buzzer that you could press when you were ready to order.

afterwards went to a ghetto ass fucking arcade to play the lamest fighting game ever (forget the name). mostly, we went there to kill time. it worked, i guess!

then we went to eat dessert at some cafe, and it was good times.

then we checked in, some people took showers after not taking them for so many days, and then we went to shinjuku to like, go clubbing. met up with yuki and walked around for a while — miko and i were going to fob it out on sunday, so we bought some socks, but no luck, cause there was no time to buy any other clothes :/

we went to eat teppanyaki / okonomiyaki and stuff…

then went to don quixote to buy lingo a sweatshirt since he was freezing his ass off. lol. he bought one and then takeo showed up. they all bought some sake at the store and drank it up in the street. drank up A LOT.

then we went to 747 karaoke to pre-funk it up for an hour. they sucked. didn’t give us more than three rounds of drinks. they were stingy! left quick since they no like us, and everyone else bought more sake for more prefunk. BAD IDEA.

we went to mcdonald’s to eat some food and drink. everyone was okay at this time. yuki treated us all. sat downstairs in a corner, and got soooo many looks! takeo sang happy birthday a few times to tony, and that was the start of having people stare at us. then we like, poured sake in a mcdonald’s pudding cup and made chairs fall over, and were loud and english-speaking, etc. got ready to leave and people were STILL staring.

but then tony started talking to some autistic-type girl and we stayed longer. she had pics she took from turkey or something. while waiting, we met a guy who had won a million dollars (USD, i think), and had given it all away to charity. he showed us photos of him next to the money.

he kept talking to me and i didn’t understand. made yuki/takeo translate. the dude drank 20 cups of coffee daily and he was droolmaster flex :0

lingo left after going to mcdonald’s since he was like, a zombie… lol. we met with raver richie around 11:30pm to go to ageha, and when we got out of the first subway train, yuki puked when we were coming up. he started not walking very well. lol. and it took forever to get from train to train since takeo and tony had to carry him!!

then yuki got on a train and puked all over the place (it was HUGE) and fell in his own puke :/

then at some point we ended up somewhere weird, and all the subways were closed. we talked about taking a cab, but yuki could not be moved, and the place we were standing just so happened to be a place that made it “illegal” to hail a cab.

first yuki passed out, then as tony was having some heart-to-heart with me, he passed out.

and then takeo passed out. lol. before that, though, takeo was trying to hail a cab while half asleep and it was quite scary. his eyes were like, closed as he was trying to hail the cab. lol.

then like… we tried to get tony and takeo up at the same time, and they were both like hella out of it, and just both were like, “okay! let’s get up!” although they had been like passed out, and both stood up all of a sudden together and ended up stumbling all over the place. but they were like, excited to get up, although they seemed not to know what to do with themselves after getting up, lol. eh, hard to explain. had to have seen it!

miko, richie, and i stayed there for forever, til like 4am. then we moved the three of them to a different corner where we attempted to hail a cab. sat for a while cuz it was hard to hail cabs, and yeah. takeo woke up at some point but was like a zombie! he kept saying, “samui! samui! samui!” then would go inside the store to get some food. then would come back out, eat the food, and keep saying, “samui! samui! samui!” then go back in the store. he tried paying for two empty bags of food at some point. HAHAHAHHAHA.

at 4am, some security guard dude helped us hail a couple cabs. the first said that he could only seat 2 people and that no one could sit in front. i think he was lying. then we got 2 other cars, and tony, takeo, and yuki took one to yuki’s apartment, and me, miko, and richie took the other to “shinohashi” (#4 bridge or something, where yuki lived, across from the iranian embassy, lol). suddenly, when we got out, yuki and tony were both all full of energy, lol. wth. we went to yuki’s and it cost about 2,000 yen, and everyone was confused. it was cheaper than we had expected.

tony and yuki had thought it was still like 12am and had no idea why we didn’t go to the club. lol. motherfuckers. yuki had a mean anti-social cat that hissed at epople. anyway, some people played on the computer but i went to bed pretty early and slept on yuki’s bed… there was some down blanket and i wrapped myself in it. at some point tony woke me up and carried me to sleep on the couch for some reason, and the down blanket was still wrapped around me (above and below). when i woke up, i was sweating like hell. lol. hot as balls. went to bed at 6am, woke up at 9am. gg.

saturday, march 31st — shibuya, mizue
called lingo when we woke up in the morning and said we were almost leaving. what a lie. lol. we were watching tv for like, ever, and basically left in like, an hour and a half. lol. takeo came with us. we got back to mizue and showered, got ready, and ate lunch at some french-influenced restaurant, then left to meet yuki in shibuya at hachiko. also met up with miko’s friend, yuji!

tony’s finger was rotting off from infection!

i had to go to citibank in shibuya to pick up some cash for miko and tony, since none of them had any money.

yuki took a lot of long exposure pics with all of us in that shibuya intersection (the busiest intersection in the world?) and it was quite boring…

then we all went to eat at a restaurant, kinda americanized again… i had some spicy chicken, miscellaneous asian stuff. kind of good.

after that, went karaoke yet again, at a new place… for 1,000 yen an hour. we stayed an hour and a half. again, there were limits to drinks, but it was better than yesterday. probably cause there was no crazy drinking today — it was fairly reserved.

it started raining when we left, and there was a guy pissing in the corner near hachiko. yeah. we waited for there a little bit. met up with richie and had to take a shuttle bus to go to ageha. takeo went home because he had to dj in the morning.

loud guy on the bus was screaming about being a gai-jin and a teacher in japan, but i guess he had pretty good japanese.

got to ageha. tony lost his wallet and found it. 35,000 yen cover. hi-tech lights, sound, and good music… reggae room — first time i’ve seen such a thing in a club!! it started out good then turned super bad. all the “hot girls” were there, i guess. tony almost got beaten up i think, cause he was freaking some guy’s girl.

richie kept saying something about how since we candywalked, we danced like we weren’t from japan. i don’t see why it matters, though — not everyone needs to look the same.

yuki lost his locker key cause he was breakdancing for a little while, but he found it because someone turned it in. karma, i say, because tony had found someone’s lost wallet and was trying to find a credit card in there to use it. grrrr.

also, ageha had like, a side room that had food vendors!! nice touch! yuki bought some stuff that was like jambalaya. it was kinda good i think. we fell asleep outside for a little while, waiting for the club to close at what we thought was 5… turns out it closed at 6… we ended up leaving at 5:30 because tony wanted to dance for a little longer. haven’t seen tony dance like that in, like, forever?

walked to some convenience store where some african dude offered to carry my food, saying that i was too small to carry it all. and one reached for my money, but i was like, “that’s my money!” i don’t know what that was all about, but then they bid me good day and left…?!

then we went to eat at some place where you pay first in a vending machine… had some curry stuff and some lady who worked there was incomprehensible. spoke in mumbles and crap. even japanese people didn’t understand her!

after that we went home because the trains were open, and slept in for the FIRST TIME! til 1:30pm.

there were so many people getting on the trains at 5:30am… asked yuji where they were going / coming from, and even he had no idea! and he is japanese!

sunday, april 1st — harajuku