Saturday December 20, 1997: 10:30pm
Well I am thoroughly stuffed silly. Today was the long-awaited gingerbread house day.. which means lots and lots of candy. Sariya and I went grocery shopping this morning and bought an absurd amount of decorations; chocolate caramels, smarties, gr ape mentos, pocky sticks, marshmallows, chewy jujube-type things... and more. Oh, and we had to buy icing sugar, and silly me, I though this would be quite easy. Uh yeah, whatever. We had to go to 2 stores before I could find it, and then when I finall y DID, it came in bags of about half a cup, each Y110 ($1.30), and I had originally wanted about 7 cups. Uh, guess not. We ended up getting 3 1/2, which only cost me a small fortune. Well, it's for a good cause anyway.
OK so at 3:15 or so I get a phone call and it's some guy, and all he says is "gin-ger-BREAD!" CLICK. Cool, that was the code to mean Jason had arrived safely at the Hino station and we could expect his arrival within the half hour. Gotta love codes .
We started makin' the houses almost immediately after Jason got here - Sariya had brought some pre-made gingerbread from Canada, so all we had to do was stick the house together, and decorate. Oh, and since Jason is only goin to be in town until tom orrow morning, I'd bought him some cookies so that he could make a portable house for himself. So while Sariya and I started to stick our house together, Jason was pondering on the architecture of his structure. He decided to make a pagoda, so that he c ould take pictures of it and send them to Jon, or something like that. Anyway, since a pagoda isn't exactly the easiest or most stable structure, he ended up spending most of his time building it (it was 2 stories) so Sariya and I had finished decoratin g before he had started! Oh and Jason even brought candy with him - chocolate bars he'd gotten from his Canada for his bday!! That was really nice.
Surprisingly, our house didn't fall apart (mine usually do) - but Jason's wasn't so lucky... well, he had high aspirations!
Ooo, I got a phone call from the Von-ster! Like, I really didn't know who would be phoning me - and I surely wasn't expecting a call from Canada!! But it was great! She said it was snowing again in Waterloo...
Later on we went for a walk by the Asakawa. Actually, we wanted to find out what that flashing "Parlour Parlour" sign was for, so we walked towards it. Jason put his money on a pachinko parlour - and he was right. And since pachinko is such a popu lar Japanese game (there are pachinko parlours EVERYWHERE) we decided to go in. At first we were just watching some people play - it seems very similar to pinball except that it's upright and there are many more balls. Oh and plus it's a gambling game s o you can win money from it.
We decided to give it a shot. None of us had played before so that had to be fixed. So Jason took a Y100 coind and popped it in the machine, and we received about 25 small silver balls in return. We then "fed" those into the machine, at first just one at a time, and then later 3, 4, or 5 at a time. Every single one went into the ditch. Yeah, every single one. This could only mean one thing -- we suck. Like, the people around us were doing really wel, but I guess we don't know the secret or som ething.
When we got back, Jason went to sleep pretty soon because he has to leave really early tomorrow morning. And now I think I'll sleep too.
Sunday December 21, 1997: 10pm
This morning we set out for Harajuku, hoping to maybe catch a bit of the Sunday dress-up action before we met up with Wakako-san later on. So we started out with the Oriental Bazaar - Sariya is looking for souvenirs and stuff so that's a pretty good place to go. She didn't find anything to buy (although I think she came close a few times) so after awhile we walked towards the crowded Takeshita Dori, stopping on the way to do a Barbapapa print club (Sariya's first print club) and to be hugged by a p erson dressed up as a horse so that Sariya could get a picture. Then we walked down Takeshita Dori with all its interesting shops and stuff - and then we walked a bit around Yoyogi Koen. Since it was only noon or so, the dress-up, etc hadn't really begu n yet; it starts at 1. But, we saw some dudes dressed from head to toe in tight black leather, with their hair all slicked back in the 60's style - they were setting up their stereo so I figured it was probably going to be another dancing session like t he one Jon and I had witnessed [for that story, go here]. Unfortunately though, we had to leave before they got started because we were to meet Wakako and Toshimi-san at 1 in Shibuya and we wanted to walk there.
So by 1:15pm we (Wakako-san, Toshimi-san, Sariya, and I) were on the train to Jiyuga___ station, and we spent the afternoon walking around there, looking at shops and stuff. Toshimi-san told me about some 30 km race in March - that'd be cool. I wou ld really really like to run at least ONE race in Japan.
At 5 we left to go to Kunitachi - Toshimi-san already had plans so she didn't join us. In Kunitachi we were met by Kon-san, and together we all walked to a karaoke place where Yodashi-san and a couple of her friends were already karaokeing. So we a ll moved to a bigger room and did a bit of karaoke. It was hilarious! Ack, I sang one song but I realized at the start that I didn't really know the tune! How horrible. Oh well, it was so much fun cuz those guys are crazy!
After the karaoke Sariya and I went home - oh, but not before Yodashi-san gave me copies of her pictures of Gumma - cool! I haven't gotten mine developed yet - I'm waiting for Jakarta to do that.
Tuesday December 23, 1997: 10:30am
Hahaha, I've just been looking over the Olympic volunteer info Jason brought me on Saturday - info he'd gotten at the meetin I'd missed. It seems as though I'm going to be working for IBC (International Broadcasting Centre), as I'd originally thoug ht, but for transportation services!! Hahahaha. but wait, it gets better - I got a morning shift , and the morning shift starts at *5 AM*. HAHAHA!! But wait, it gets even better, it says that my mode of transportation is "by foot and by bicycle"!! Li ke, out of the 20 volunteers for IBC, all but 3 get the shuttle bus, and I'm the lucky one who gets to bike around in the snow! This is so funny! Actually, although my initial reaction was one of slight apprehension (as I remember biking to Corel everyd ay last December in the snow - complete with ice, snow, and a few complimentary flips), I kinduv like the idea of biking around at 5 in the morning. Could be fun. (Could be NOT fun too). Especially if there's snow - I love a good flip.
Of course, Jason got an afternoon shift (3-11pm) and shuttle bus as transportation.. wimp!
And there are pictures of the uniforms and they're pretty neat. I hope we get to keep them and all.
Sariya has gone off to Nikko today, despite the questionable weather. As a matter of fact, we saw *something* small and white occasionally falling onto the room of the clinic outside my balcony. There were only a couple, but I swear to God they wer
e there. We couldn't decide if it was snow or hail... funny, it was over 15C earlier on this weekend. Oh, today is the emperor's birthday (a holiday) and Epson had a holiday yesterday, so I've been enjoying a lovely 4 day weekend. I started and finishe
d Galbraith's "The Nature of Mass Poverty" which was, surprisingly, a nice easy read. Well, time to go for that run of mine, and see if it really is snowing!!
Wednesday December 24, 1997: 9:30pm
Christmas Eve number one - since I won't be in Jakarta until the 27th, we're celebrating Christmas on the 28th - hence I have 4 Christmas Eve's to go through. So THIS Christmas Eve Day was spent, well, at work, while Sariya packed, or did something equally as interesting. Anyway, at 5:45 she came by work to pick me up to go for our Xmas eve dinner. There's this Mexican place by the station that looked kinduv neat, so we had planned to go there for our Xmas Eve festivities. So we get there, and it is *just* opening - Cool, and since the place is so small (in Japanese style) we were obviously quite a sight. Well, we were excited about the Mexican food! So we look at the menu and see that, um, their idea of Mexican food is pasta and pizza... isn't that *Italian*? OK fine, at least it's the right continent... well, we both like Italian anyway, so that was fine.
The meal ordered (one onion n' basil pizza, one pasta & veggies in white sauce - to share), I started opening this mega envelope I'd recieved from Jon today. Now he had told me I could open the envelope before Xmas because the things inside were wra pped - I wasn't supposed to open the actual gifts 'til tomorrow. Cool, it didn't matter because it's so fun just to open the envelopes and see gifts, and shake them, twist them, that stuff. And he even put in a gift for Sariya! Neat.
So after the envelopes, Sariya dug into her knapsack and produced a big plastic bag filled with... Christmas Crackers! Cool! And she'd hidden them from me this whole time! So we proceeded to crack all 8 of them - making quite the scene I'm sure, with our POPS, hysterical laughs, yells at the cheezy gifts, and boisterous reading of the jokes. We, of course, put on the paper crowns for the whole meal (which the other customer undoubtedly thought was even *stranger*). Oh, I got a great joke:
Nit: Woah, it's raining cats and dogs! Wit: No kidding, I just stepped in a poodle!
hahahaha, we laughed loud and hard at that one!
Anyway, this restaurant was really good - the food was tasty and the price was right... Unfortunately, after the scene we put on tonight, I don't know if I can ever show my face there again! hahahaha
Now we're back at the apartment and packing, ew. We're trying to figure out how heavy 40 pounds is - like I know - this could be interesting.
Thursday December 25, 1997: 10pm
Ho ho hoho, Merry... merry Christmas Eve Day number two! Oh, I'm getting good at this now!
Man, I'm tired. Got up at 5:40 this morning to get Sariya to the Hino Station - she caught a flight to Jakarta at 11 or so. Mmm, I went for a great run starting from the station - it's been a beautiful day, complete with a red sunrise and Mt. Fuji.
We opened the gifts from Jon before Sariya left, and woweee! Purdy cool stuff, I'm excited! And there was a tape, so I listened to it on my run.
And when I went to work I had 2 surprise gifts!! One was from Sariya - she'd snuck an "Airplane Survival Kit" (contents: CANDY!) when I wasn't looking yesterday. And the other one was maple syrup from Margaret, that was so cool! Made me extremely tempted to have pancakes for dinner, except that I knew Mom would phone, and she'd ask me what I had for dinner... (well, she didn't appreciate my curry rice answer in the end) anyway, it made my Xmas Eve number 2!
I worked a bit late, came home, cleaned up the apartment a bit, and packed.. exciting eh! But actually, quite a fine Xmas for me! Now though, I'm hittin the sack!
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