Since I last blogged my friend Natasha left on April 4th. I am still a little sad, I miss her a lot. She was awesome, and I can't wait to kick it with her in New York!! The day after Natasha left I took the train to meet Justine, another co-worker friend, in Ueno. It was suuuuuper crowded! Everyone was there to see the Sakura (cherry blossoms). I got some pretty good pics, but when I say crowded, I mean you had to shuffle instead of walk, it was too much. We only stayed for a couple hours.
The following Thursday, April 9th I met Tomo and his two friends (Nuria and Laia) visiting from Spain to go bowling and karaoke. They were so awesome, I am planning to go visit them in Spain next February. The next day (Friday) I was off, so I went with them to a shabu shabu restaurant for lunch. Delicious! You get an assortment of vegetables and thinly sliced meat (we got beef) and there is a big pot of bowling water in the center of your table you cook everything in. You get rice with it, and before you start cooking your food you grind up sesame seeds in a bowl and stir the crushed seeds with a sesame sauce. You dip your food in it. It was really good! After lunch we headed to Kamakura, if you saw the pictures of me with the giant Buddha, that was in Kamakura. When we got there we parked at the beach, I was so excited to see the ocean! There were even palm trees. After about a 30 minute walk to the train station we took the train to the Great Diabutsu(Buddha). It was so cool...and BIG! We got to the Diabutsu 20 minutes before it closed, so we didn't spend much time there. Afterwards, we walked all over the city and saw the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine. It is very famous, but when we got there it was dark, so the pictures did not turn out that great. I want to go back and get better pictures. Tomo went back and got the car, such a gentleman, and after we headed to dinner at his friend's restaurant. It was another very delicious meal, one course you dip different meats and vegetables into a raw egg, I was a little apprehensive, but it was a really nice restaurant so I went with it. It was good, and I didn't get sick. YAY! The next day I worked, but after I got off I met back up with Nuria, Tomo, and Laia for Korean BBQ and karaoke. The Korean BBQ was good. You cook it yourself at the table. Tomo said the restaurant burned down once a long time ago, I wasn't surprised considering the center of every table is a flaming grill. Karaoke after was fun, but I was sad to see Laia and Nuria go. Sunday Dan and Jennifer came over for drinks and hanging out. Nothing super eventful, but a good chilled out night at my place.
Speaking of my place, I have Natasha's old apartment now. I am soooo happy to have an apartment that isn't falling apart. I feel a lot more excited about having guests now that i have a cute apartment. It's the exact same apartment as my old one, but in WAY better condition. There are pics on Facebook if you haven't looked.
I just worked and hung out around the house until the following Friday. In the morning Bujan (co-worker friend) and I rode bikes for a few hours. I discovered some new parts of my town, and some cool new little stores and restaurants. We biked to Murakami (about 15-20 min), one train stop over, and Bujan left to go to work. I had lunch with another friend, and looked around at some of the stores at Fululu Gardens. I was very near completely broke at this point, and I wasn't getting paid until today (10 days later), so I didn't buy anything. Tomo met up and we all got a cup of coffee at Starbuck's. Tomo and I looked at some bike tires because I need to replace mine, and then I rode my bike back home. I worked at Kitanarashino on Saturday, and then I went to karaoke again with Jennifer, Justine and Bujan. We at at Saizeriya first, I love it there cause it's delicious, clean and CHEAP! Karaoke was a blast as usual, then I caught the last train home with Bujan.
When I woke up on Sunday (April 19th) I decided to meet Jennifer a few towns over, Yachiyo-Midorigaoka, on my bike. After we met we were going to ride our bikes together the rest of the way to Kita. It was SCARY! The bike trail is about a foot wide with traffic flying by inches away on the right, and a wall on the left. It's not like that the whole ride, but enough for it to freak me out. Another problem is that you are supposed to walk/ride on the left side of the road, this only really matters in situations like this, because if you come across another pedestrian going the opposite direction there is really nowhere to go except the street. Needless to say, I was running into people every two minutes! EXTREMELY frustrating, I probably would have made it to Kita a lot faster if I wasn't constantly stopping for people. Follow your own rules people! After I met Jennifer and rode the rest of the way to Kita, we met Eun Jong for lunch. Eun Jong is a Korean teacher at my school, she is super sweet. I rode my bike back in the dark, which was even more scary, hahahaha! But I felt bulletproof when I got back. I can ride my bike anywhere after that trip!
I'm going to stop there...Sunday April 19th. I will fill you in again after Lacey leaves.
Miss you!!
Sayonara for now!!
