Kanazawa

My aunt had a thing to do in Kanazawa, Ishikawa prefecture, I went there together. We stopped by a cafe, the patissier of which is famous in Japan, and ate some pastries. It was good enough. 

And then we moved to the downtown of the city for lunch. After lunch, we were at Starbucks to wait for our bus. I noticed that Wifi of Starbucks in Japan is not "Free and Open," so I have to register the service which any communication company provides in advance. It  really inconvenient!! We just went back home at the evening.

Boteyan, Office work, Unnecessary tablet PC

My aunt took me a old restaurant of the okonomiyaki, a traditional Japanese food, in our city. I have eaten the okonomiyaki of this restaurant since I was in high school. It was still same quality and quantity. I was satisfied.

In the afternoon, I helped the office work that is back up old date from a computer of Windows 98 (what the hell old is that!). It took really long time, so I was staying the office almost all afternoon until evening.

I went to a mobile carrier shop to see a latest model of the tablet PC because my father tried to buy it. But we found out he doesn't need such a tablet PC, so we just left there.

Hometown Local Friends

Long time no see my local friends of my hometown.
They brought me a seafood Izakaya because our hometown is famous for lots of seafood.

After eating and chatting, we moved to an old Japanized-Chinese food restaurant. It was great!! I had never known such a nice restaurant in my town. But it was almost midnight. We would have gained our weight...

Sushi of hometown

I ate lunch of a lunch box.

My family and I went to a sushi restaurant which we used to go. It was awesome as usual!

Hometown visiting

I left my apartment in the morning and got a shinkan-sen to go to my hometown.
By the way, I found an interesting water bottle which looked like a train.

When I arrive at the station in my hometown my mother picked me up, and went home. After that, aunt and my mother went to a dinner show, so I met up my relative for dinner. They buy me a local Japanese food. It was awesome ;p

Friend's meeting up with Monja

One of my friend booked a Monja-yaki, a traditional Japanese food, restaurant named "The Inn of Sparrow (すずめの御宿)" in Shibuya, Tokyo.


I met her at the Freshness Burger and talked for a while, and then other friends came there. The Monja restaurant was located in very complicated place but the exterior was a typical traditional Japanese style.



The taste of the Monja was pretty nice!!

Actually, one of them will marry next February, so we celebrated it with a cake. Congrats!!

Drink and Pool

This Friday night, I met old friends who met in Arizona.

After drinking, we went to the pool place (billiard).

It was so fun!

1st visiting of Tokyo Sky Tree

Suddenly, my friend who will be an actor called me, we decided to hang out. We went to a famous Ramen restaurant called Ikaruga and tasted the good Tokyo-tonkotsu ramen. And then, we went to the Tokyo Sky Tree, which opened just three days ago. We went to fourth floor and looked around some Japanese souvenir.

At night, I met another friends' group. One of them has not seen since we said good-bye eight years ago. After three hours meeting, I moved to another place to meet another friend group. It was the oyster bar.

Combine friends

I went to Takadanobaba, the famous town for the location of Waseda Univ., for eating a specific ramen restaurant named "Tsurugi" because there was a baked ramen, which I found on the ramen website. It was very better than expected!! It was great!

By the way, I have friend who I met in Tucson and Phoenix in Arizona. But they don't know each other. I had a good opportunity to meet each other introduced by me. We went a nice Izakaya dinning restaurant "Umu" located in Ebisu. We talked about Arizona again. It was really wonderful.

Update driver's license

My driver's license was about to expire, so I needed to update it. This is the main purpose I came back home because I had to go to the center of the updating driver's license.

Before going there, I met a friend and ate lunch at a fried rice fast food restaurant he recommended. It was nice, taste was more than expected. We stopped by Hikarie, a new shopping and business building in Shibuya. It was huge building. Most floors are designed for women. But there are some unique shops.

After that I went to update my driver's license. It took only 30 minutes. I updated my residence registry and address at the city hall in the morning just in case. It didn't need for updating the driver's license.

Short returning home

On Saturday, my Taiwanese friend picked me up in the early morning for the airport. I took over a hour and a half, so I really appreciated her to drive me off.

I used San Jose airport, which I had't used before, and it was very clean and nice airport. There was a Japanese restaurant in the airport. It looked owned and run by Chinese people though... I flight to LAX first for transfer.

My flight was about 10 hours. I watched three movies. I watched a very impressing movie but I forgot its title...

I departed from LA at 19th but arrieved at Tokyo at 20th because of the time lag.　I met my old friend, who has been friend since I was in elementary school in my hometown, and went to a Izakaya, a Japanese style dinning bar, soon after I came back. I after chatting with drinking, we just went home.

But before midnight, another friend who I met in Arizona sent me a message, "Let's meet and watch start all night, and then see the eclipse in the morning!" I answered, "Yes," and headed to Shibuya. We talked for four hours at Kinnokura, another Izakaya chain.

When it was the time of breakfast, I proposed that we go to Tsukiji market and eat a fresh seafood bowl. We moved to Tsukiji soon. We tried to go to a famous seafood restaurant but it was so busy. I saw a very long line in front of the restaurant despite it was at five in the morning. We gave up and change to another restaurant Ooedo that is also well known as a good restaurant.



After filled my stomach, we moved back Shibuya. I remembered that I forgot carrying my shoulder bag when I left Kinnokura... I went back to there and asked an employee about my bag but I couldn't find it at that time. I was shocked because there was my smart phone, which I'm using in the U.S., in the bag.

Anyway, we walked to the main point of the morning of the day. It was the day of the golden annular eclipse! We couldn't find a special glasses for seeing the eclipse at all in the city, I bought a snack because the bag of the snack is very good enough lens as substitute to the special glasses.

7:34 am, gradually sun was completely covered by the moon. It was epic and marvelous!

It was nice as a first day of returning home.

Final Exam of the first semester

Finally, I finished all of the finals of this semester. I think I did well. I guess my score of the grade is around 90%. Before the last final, I even thought my friend about a complicated problems.

Anyway, I'm done. I packed my bag for my short visiting back to my home country.

By the way, I joined a local's lunch with my international friends at a Chinese restaurant. After that, an international student from Norway said, "Maybe this is the last time to meet you. Nice seeing you." I was surprised but I could just say, "me, too." She was smart and nice girl. I hope I will go to Norway someday and meet her up again.

Final Portfolio and presentation

I turned in my portfolio of assignments of a class. It was needed to get a credit of the class.

I finished the final presentation in this semester. I was relieved even though it was not perfect.

However, I still have two more final exams on this week... I want to return home early.

Study Sunday

I went to a city where I've never been before on Sunday. The city is located at north east from my neighbor city and about 40 minute north from my city. I drove to south west from the first city and arrived in another city which I've never been there as well. On this day, I stopped many Starbucks and McDonald's.

I had to study for the final exam coming next week. But I felt I should have studied more...


By the way, my old classmates seemed to start new program in Prague, Czech. The time lag is nine hours from California. I have been there long time ago. But still I'm a bit jealous.

Coit Tower and Golden Gate Park

My Japanese friend, who is studying Interior in New York now, visited California. We met in San Francisco on weekend. We had not seen since we met in New York at the day of New Years Eve.

I drove to Pleasant in the morning, and then I took BART as usual. We met at Moscone Center at 10am. We headed to Coit Tower where there was a nice observatory. It's located on Telegraph Hill.

In fact, the view from the observatory of Coit Tower was really nice. I was able to see 360 degree view of San Francisco. Luckily, I was the Golden Gate bridge covered by fog(cloud?).

Then we went to Pier 39 for lunch. The restaurant we enter was Pier Market, which is the one I probably came eight years ago. I believed that I have already ate the clam chowder, I tried a crab cocktail dish and a cram pasta. It was very good. The taste was totally more that expected!

Next place we visited was Japanese Tea Garden which is located in the Golden Gate Park.

In my opinion, the Japanese Tea Garden is very "compact" but too "packed" to see a composed Japanese garden. The bridge over a small pond represented such a density. However, overall, the garden was beautiful.

There was a big museum named "de Young" besides the Japanese Tea Garden. Because I know Jean Paul Gaultier and saw the letter on the wall of the museum, we decided to go the special exhibition. It was so cool.

Plus, the design of the museum was really sophisticated.

Actually, the Golden Gate Park was so huge that it reminded me the Central Park in New York.
We moved to downtown by bus, #71. I showed around Union Squire and some places.

For dinner, I went to China town and enter Imperial Palace Restaurant. It was typical Chinese restaurant, maybe owned Chinese, and the service was just as I expected... Dinner meal was very reasonable for the size. But we waited a dumpling for a hour,,,

It was nice visiting because I was able to see a lot of new places.

BD Party for Norwegian friend

On Friday night, I joined a birthday party for Norwegian friend. It was BBQ style party at my friend's home garden. I arrived there on time as usual while only a few friends showed up.

We played the "Beer-pon" as general American party. One of my American friend told me that the beer-pon is relatively new game in the U.S., the history of the game is just about 15 years. I thought it was much older game, but the fact is not. While some were playing the beer-pon, others were playing a Norwegian wood throwing game. I tried the Norwegian game. It was first time but the game is not so difficult and is quite interesting.

We also played the cup turn game. I remember we played at least 10 games, so a player was really drunk. We stayed there until late at night. Even though I left late night with my friends, I have no idea when the party finally ended. Anyway, it was a great party. The point I think that American parties are better than my country's is that there are so many opportunities to meet new friends.

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

This was the first time I visited Santa Cruz. It took about tow and half hours from  my city. I got up a little early in the morning, and picked up my friends at their dorm. After 2.5 hours drive, we arrived at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

There were so many attractions and rides. By one-day pass, we rode on almost every screaming attractions, especially the Fireball was awesome!!

The longest and most exciting roller coaster was 87 years old, which is the 6th oldest roller coaster in the U.S.

Also, we used a rope way like a lift of a ski resort. The view from the rope way was fantastic. I felt that was ideal beach.

We played the Laser Tag as well. We ate lunch at Falafel Hut, and I ordered Falafel sandwich. It was...interesting taste (^^;

We were chilling for a while on the beach. We played arcade games, ride the Fire Ball again, and ate junk foods. We left the beach and the theme park at 8pm, We saw Supermoon during going home.