Monday, November 8, 2010

上野動物園 Ueno Zoo

The gang
So last week we had Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday off from school! Wednesday was a national holiday so Dorothy and I went shopping (that'll be a different post haha) And then Friday was a Waseda only holiday so me and some friends hit up the Ueno Zoo!
Ready to see some aminals obviously.
Outside of the Zoo they had this restaurant that was advertising...."Pizza Coffee!" It reminded me of when I went to New York and saw the "Fried Chicken Pizza Breakfast" restaurant

But also at this restaurant...you could EAT IN SPAAACCE
I don't even know what this is trying to say?
Anyway! THE ZOO. Very very beautiful place, and all the animals were a lot more energetic seeming than like the animals at the Oregon Zoo....Here are some shots I got.
Lions
..Tigers!
Bears! Oh My!

Adorable Japanese child jumped in my shot.
This gorilla was all "hey wanna watch me eat grass?"
Glowing prairie dog..They also had an 'American Buffalo"

Intense Hippo
When you see it....
What a-holes.
HUGE TURTLE.
All around the zoo they had these bronze statues of animals, so whenever we saw one we made Dorothy pose on one, you know, to jump start her modeling career. Because according to America's Next Top Model, posing on animals is basically soooo high fashion. Haha, an inside joke I guess, but we decided "heck. we need to make a calendar out of these or something." so here it is:

January!
So High Fashion
Trying not to look scared haha
Aborable.
Jungle Queen
Emu aka DINOSAUR. AMIRITE?
Lol
Don't worry, I fo sho got some animal posing in too!
I'm a cowboy...imagine a hat in my hand.
Anyway....This zoo, like I said before, was just gorgeous. The next day when I was at home was like the first day I kinda felt home sick and I blame it on the zoo. Because just look at these next shots: so much greenery and it made me miss Oregon a bit. 
BTWs that's totally the tree from Fern Gully (at least in my mind it is)



Just...nature! I miss it. I'm glad the neighborhood I live in has greenery around it. But the city aspect will always be there y'know? 

Other shots of the day:
Besties
Kanako, always cute.
Cats in a basket outside the zoo? Totally cute. 

I want to go back. They usually have a giant panda....but it died a while ago I guess :<

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Fright Night 2010

Halloween in Japan! I didn't think I was going to be able to celebrate it but the kids at Niji no Kai (international student club) had a halloween party on Saturday and it was a blast. After classes me and my friends got all dressed up ( I helped do makeup!) and then went and did Halloween Purikura and went to the Halloween Party. It was typhooning that night...but luckily by 9:30 it eased off!

So I bet you want to see my finished costume? Voila: school girl zombie  (the beginning of the new Resident Evil movie is a zombie in Tokyo haha! So this is reminiscent of that). 

Zombie on a Traaaain (riding the subway to the partay) Don't worry...I wasn't alone and embarrassing: There were like 70 other people dressed up and on the train too! 
Purikuraaa~
Haha we did purikura from this machine that was like "BAMBI GIRL!"
If you can't read what the machine says, here's what it says "Oshyare Bambi-na (fashionable bambi), A cute girl with eyes and legs like bambi"...YES JAPAN

Also, CLUB NOM: (where the partay was at, only open to the members of the international club)
Nick was Waldo (as in Where's waldo) and Kanako was a cat!

Giant pumpkin thing walking around...
Carolyn and Rachel
They were dressed up as Kiki and Gigi from a japanese movie called Kiki's Delivery Service!

And my friend Yuji dressed up as a teletubby cause he's hilarious basically hahah:

These were the scariest boys at the party: (I don't know if it was on purpose or not..but clowns!...and the boy on the right is supposed to be this japanese character called Doraemon which is a robot cat)

My friend Keichi is hilarious and went as a host club member (host clubs are places where women can go and pay to drink and flirt and talk with 'beautiful' men): 

We had bought this tie at the 100en store (dollar store) that says IKEMEN...it basically means like handsome dreamy boy haha! Everyone had fun messing around with it: 

Kanako again <3 She got a hold of Keichi's roses 

Everyone had fun, and I remember as soon as Lady Gaga came on everyone went nuts and danced on tables and the benches and sang as loud as they could haha (as they should!)
After the party me and some friends decided to go to an Izekaya (basically a restaurant...kind of?)
Kanako and Aiko
Me and Dorothy (yeah, I took off my makeup because it was wearing off at this point)
Daichi (background poser) is awesome haha
Ikemen deshou?
Nick may have gotten a bit tipsy? haha
 The next day was Sunday- and the first big baseball game between Waseda and Keio! (rival schools). Unfortunately we lost 2-0 (so it wasn't a very interesting game xD) But it was still interesting to see how cheering worked here. You can buy cheer packages when you get to the stadium which has all this Waseda gear and even comes with a list of the cheers so you can be awesome and follow along.
The thing is though I was so preoccupied with the cheering I didn't really know what was going on in the game! It's not like in America where the cheering reacts to what is going on..they just have certain times and patterns to follow for cheering here. Also it was funny, when I got home my host mom was all "is the stadium loud?" and I had to try and explain to her that my school's stadium (Autzen) is actually one of the loudest stadiums in the world- so this game wasn't loud at all to mee! haha
But it was fun to go and watch. Japanese culture is always polite and at the opening and closing of games the other fans cheer for the other teams (where as in America...we are not so polite to say the least)

Here's a short video I got of the cheering. Everyone would stand up when our team was up to bat, and then clap and sing basically the whole time until we were out.