So I finally managed to find a copy of this game to buy again since my last one was never returned. I've been looking on ebay and checking all the stores but Ebay is fairly expensive and no stores have them anymore because they're not in production and the people who own them don't want to give them up haha.
I just started playing a game called "Yakuza 2". I've never played the first one, but it wasn't in stock and I've heard a lot of good things about the series. It's all in Japanese with English subtitles so I figured it would be an awesome game for Japanese practice too. After I started playing I realized it might not be the best game to practice my Japanese since every character in the game are Yakuza and they all talk the part haha. I haven't really learned too much useful Japanese yet. Most of it is all Yakuza (gang) style. But it's an awesome game - I'm really enjoying it. My newest (and apparently completely useless) sentence 「結構悪いやつだぜ、俺は」 "I'm a really bad guy". I know it sounds cheesy in English, but in Japanese it does sound pretty cool and... ちょっとださい if you're not Yakuza I guess lol.
I also just bought a different game called My Japanese Coach which is absolutely amazing!! I would suggest this game to anybody who is studying Japanese whether on their own, in class, or by any other means. This game is definitely not to be used by itself though, but as a compliment to some other meathod of study. It doesn't really go very indepth into grammar or sentence structure (though, it does skim along the surface). It mainly focuses on vocabulary building through small 10 word (usually) lessons packed with an assortment of different minigames like word search, multiple choice, memory games, flash cards, sentence descrambling and a bunch of others. 10 words a day is an ideal amount for anybody to remember and if you do a lesson a day your vocabulary should increase quite fast. It has options to play all the minigames with the words you've already "mastered" as well, but you don't have the choice of which words those are. I would suggest using this game with Anki as help for memorizing those more difficult words. I've been using Anki to enter the words I think might be a little bit more difficult to remember (since Anki remembers which words I remember whereas My Japanese Coach does not). All in all, this is a wonderful study aid, and for $30 it is an invaluable tool for your Japanese.
P.S. this is my first post from my phone... let's see how it works (*^O^*)
It all started out with a near-finished retirement home going up in flames on the 7th of April. This fire was started around dinner time and wow did it go up fast. The entire construction site was covered in wood and the building was, also, entirely made of wood. As you might have guessed already, it was found to be arson. Three teenagers deemed to be the culprits were arrested at the scene but only one's name was given out in the morning paper (due to the criminals' age). Damn kids nowadays eh.
A week later I expanded the garden in my mom's front yard so it would look nicer and would be easier to mow the grass. My sister and I dug out all the grass around it and dumped it into a big pile. I ended up getting pretty dirty. In the end we ended up with 850kg of sod (grass and dirt) we had to lug up to the dump. 
We were planning on putting down some wood chips the next day when BAM it snowed 10cm overnight. What in the hell? The past few days had been gorgeous! The average temperature was around 16 and it had even got to 22 the weekend before. Now it was -1. Good ol' Penticton - never ceases to amaze me.
My brother arrived home from College and I gave him the some of the souvenirs Hime had bought him in Japan when I was there. Most of it were random different candies and sweets. One of them being a strange honey-looking candy you have to spin up on sticks and then eat after it gets thick and full of bubbles. It's a pretty strange candy but they (my brother and sister) had a lot of fun with it.
On April 27th I went to hang out with a few of my friends I hadn't seen in a long time. We went out for dinner at Anthony's (I think), had some food and a drink then came back to my place to play video games. We played Guitar Hero III, then switched over to the classic SNES and dusted off Mortal Kombat II and Street Fighter II Turbo haha. It was a pretty fun night. It ended a little prematurely but everyone was tired and one of the guys had to work early the next morning so we called it a night.
We decided to give our dogs a bit of a grooming on the 29th because they were getting pretty scruffy haha. Hallie got the nicest job of them all - we thought it would be cool to give her a lion mane and a mohawk down her back haha. It turned out alright. We just didn't shave off anything around her head and we left a strip on her back about half way down. For all those who think this is animal cruelty - I assure you she is completely content with losing as much fur as she can since it's starting to get warm. And we're bringing them to the groomers soon anyway. And she likes her mohawk! ^_^
Yesterday I attended a Japanese Tea ceremony in Penticton at the Japanese Gardens we have here. It was pretty neat. They had one girl from Osaka that flew over here to be here for the ceremony (she doesn't actually live here) I was pretty surprised haha. I believe her name was Mutsuko. She sat there all alone on that mat waiting for water to boil and then meticulously adding and stiring the maccha. 
Very interesting - I don't think I'd be able to sit there that long. Atsuko was the one playing the instrument. I didn't get to hear her play much since I forgot my camera at home and had to go get it but from what I heard it was also really nice. It was a beautiful day to have a Tea Ceremony. I'm so glad I was able to go.I'm not sure how, but suddenly it was gone. I'll start from the beginning:
Yesterday hime and I went to Sapporo together to go shopping for souvenirs together and to enjoy our last trip there before I left but it turned out to be quite an unlucky day. Mr Murphy followed us everywhere.
In the morning she asked her dad for a ride since he was going somewhat in the general direction of the train station and her mother complained we are too dependant on them jokingly. It was the start - we felt not so good but it was already too late so we got a ride from her dad. In the car my gf noticed she had forgot her watch and bracelet so she was pretty upset since we needed to use her cellphone for the time for the rest of the day (but, whatever, right?). So it was all good after that. We went to the station and with moments to spare ran to board the train *phew*.
I could take a picture without her ever knowing. Bunny girls (it's just my name for them - they don't actually wear ears or something. I just think they look like bunnies) are kinda rare I think. Most girls dress kinda weird but not very many dress like the girl in the picture. We visited a mall that was full of ギャル (gyaru) (image image) it was pretty fun but I really don't know how these girls can go outside dressed how they do but well... culture is culture I guess, and fashion is fashion.
So we bought souvenirs and then ate giant parfaits and a nice dessert restaurant. They were really good and super filling (and also they looked really nice) haha. A little on the expensive side, but it's just one time so that's fine. Just look at it! Doesn't it make you want to eat it? I know I wouldn't mind another =D Mine was ８００円 and hers was ７８０円 I beleive... more expensive than our lunch (around $15 total) but it came with a complimentary drink which is awesome since their drinks are also expensive. If we had ordered a drink seperately it would have been.. ３８０円 for my coffee (which is $3.50) and about the same for her tea. So it kinda makes it feel like it's worth it.
Anyway, after we finished our parfaits we went to go play some medal games (as usual) but we had really bad luck. (the pictures on the right are of downtown Sapporo at night - on our way to get parfaits. Same intersection looking different directions) We stocked up a couple times since we kept running out of metals. I kept saying "if we keep going, we'll have to get lucky sooner or later" (I'm the optimist in our relationship haha) but we never seemed to get lucky. There's sort of a "roulette wheel" in the middle of the game where you play "bingo" and not very often you get the chance to "spin the wheel" I guess... but 5 out of the 6 first times we did it we got the number 9. Every freakin' time! What are the odds!? Seriously!? Anyway - I'm stubborn so I didn't want to quit. Which is good because eventually we started to win and we won a lot. We won back just about all the money we spent (in metals though) so we put them into the "bank" and left. Actually her brother wanted to play pool together and Round 1 so we had to hurry home. He said "either's fine" (we come home soon or stay out) but we thought we could go home soon and play.
We stopped to buy takoyaki and then it was off to the train station. One of the subway stations is named "Pole Town"... I'm not sure who had the idea to name it such but I found it pretty hilarious. In any case, we had to take the subway because we'd miss the train if we didn't.. but we missed our stop on the subway, instead, and had to go back one stop. When we got off my gf noticed she didn't have her ticket any more either so we had to talk to the security who, luckily, let us past without having to pay extra. But all that hassle ended up causing us to miss the train by about 10 minutes so we had to wait another hour -_-' We checked the sign and it said the next train wouldn't be until 9:20 so we decided to do some more souvenir shopping. at 8:50 I said we should go back so we started on our way back. We got to the boarding station at 8:55 and the giant sign that shows the times said 9:00 so we ran.
The other day we went to Sapporo because I decided to go back to Canada earlier than I had expected and I had to speak to JAL to change my ticket and pay a little money. I'll be coming back to Canada on March 6th now (and no, we didn't break up so don't have to worry). The picture on the right is out of the train window on the way to Sapporo - I have no idea which city it is.
But before we left for Sapporo we went to the speediest noodle restaurant ever. You order your food, instead of from a menu, from, what looks like, a vending machine, at the front of the store. It prints you out a receipt, you hand it to the waitress that is running around like a crazy girl, and within minutes you have your food. My gf and her brother got their food mere moments after we found a seat and sat down. I was really suprised. It puts McDonalds to shame in every respect. It's faster, tastier, healthier, more filling, cleaner, employees are more friendly, and the price is almost the same (a "combo" I guess it would be referred to as, is about $7.00 - What I ordered was $4.50 and I was pretty full after). Iced green tea is a complimentary drink for every customer so you don't have to worry about buying a drink either.
Sapporo is a really nice city and it's downtown really feels like Japan - much more than Asahikawa. Sapporo is somewhat similar to Vancouver population wise but is more crowded. In the picture it doesn't look very crowded but I think it's mainly because it was snowing like crazy and windy to boot. Chilly chilly. But check out the cross-walks! Notice how they crisscross all over the intersection. In Japan pedestrians all walk at the same time at busy intersections and cars wait. It's kinda neat.
Japan is really... unnerving. There are call girls everywhere and advertisements for them posted all around the place. In Japan, they say "T-Back" for "G-String" so you can try reading this advertisement on the left and see if you can guess what they're trying to say. There are Japanese/English advertisements and signs everywhere also - most often they have some kind of spelling mistake or the grammar just doesn't make sense haha. Actually... I was just watching TV and found out that the highest paid "Hostesses", as they call them in Japan, get paid upwards of $10,000 a month. The highest they had on the show is paid $30,000 a month which is $360,000 a year. It kinda makes me sad that these girls, whose only job is to talk to desperate guys, have a higher salary than almost everyone who has gone to school for years and years and has, what we think, a high paying job. I'm happy this sort of work is illegal in Canada. Actually there are "Hosts" in Japan also - and you guessed it, they're males who chat to girls for a fee. Weird eh? Whatever happened to meeting people on your own? In Japan you can just buy temporary friends - saves the trouble of making real friends haha.
But besides that, Sapporo is really pretty. We changed my flight time first and then we went to this giant covered stripmall. It's 7 blocks long and has shops along both sides the entire way. Cars can't drive either - just for walking. But each block there is a cross street which cars drive along. Also each block is numbered so its easier to figure out which "mall" your favorite shops are in. 
First we went to sing some karaoke, as usual haha. The place we went to had a beautiful entrance but the rooms were cramped and kinda old. Also one of the microphones smelled so disgusting we couldn't even sing with it. But it was fun none-the-less =D We stayed for about 2 hours and then it was off to find something to eat. Actually we got sidetracked by an arcade and decided to play some medal games since they're so fun. They had our favorite machine but we weren't so luc
ky that day and our medals were depleted a lot sooner than usual but I finally have a picture of a giant medal machine!! hahaha (because I know all of you are so interested in it -_-'). There are... 12 stations I think? or 16? I can't remember. And there's a giant rotating screen in the middle and there's balls all over the place and metals flying this way and that and music and lions dancing and pounding numbers which creates more flying metals and balls. It's really fun.
For dinner we went to an "all you can eat" bbq. Each table has a hot plate in the middle of it which is used to fry your food! Who would have thought =D The table was pretty small though... so it was difficult to eat haha - but tasty! and cheap. It was １５００円 per person for all you can eat with no time limit. We ate our fair share. Both of us were pretty stuffed before we even finished our food. I wanted to drink beer for some reason so I ordered a beer. There were 3 sizes to choose from. Small, medium and large. I thought large would be fine - that it wouldn't be large... but I was wrong. I've never seen such a big mug before... nor so much beer in anything except a pitcher. I know in the picture it doesn't look that big, but trust me - it is. Compare it to my hand or to your hand. It's about 3 fists high. Make a fist, put it on the table. Make another fist and put it on top of your first. Now move your bottom one above the 2nd one and there you have it (it's about the height of a pitcher of beer).
Two days ago my gf, her family and I went to Otaru to do a little sight seeing and pick up some seafood. It was a pretty cool place. The area we visited was, I think, one of the main tourist places. Most of the buildings looked so old and some were definitely historic or semi-historic at least. There was one restaurant/bar that was in an old train station. Down the middle of the building there was a hallway from one end to the other of the building with train tracks running along it and to one side there was a beautiful restaurant and to the other, a bar. Probably half of the shops were souvenir stores. Some of them were really cool. I bought some souvenirs for some of my family and friends and a couple for myself. I bought a "Kiki's Delivery Service" card holder. It's really cute and it's one of my favorite Miyazaki movies so I thought it would be a good souvenir.
My gf and I bought a 2 peice magnetic keychain with a guy's face and a girls face kissing haha. It's so cute. I think I'll bring back the girl side to Canada with me and she'll keep the guy's. And then we bought these little gems that were quite expensive. I chose 白 and my gf chose 緑色. Every color has a meaning and mine's kinda... everything. I guess they ran out of ideas or something. My color is supposed to adapt to the wearer's feelings or problems to fix them I guess. My gf's color, green, is supposed to help build a big heart and help with money I believe. They're kinda interesting... but expensive. For the 2 of them it was １７０００円 o_O but well, it's our anniversary so what can you do right? haha.
We also bought the most expensive chocolates I've ever seen hahaha. We only bought 2 because well... it was too expensive to buy more. Each peice of chocolate was ２４０円 so for 2 peices it was almost $5. We got a tiny little bag with pretty tape though. But sadly the chocolates weren't all that amazing. Sure, they were tasty, but what $5 chocolate isn't going to be tasty right? I wouldn't say it was worth $5, but maybe if I meet a chocolate fanatic I can tell them I ate Le Tao chocolate and they'll be impressed... if they know it hahaha. I believe it's only a small Japanese company since it doesn't have a link on Wikipedia and google only brings back results of Japan... Otaru specifically. It was good though.
Yesterday was our real anniversary day so we went downtown. We wanted to go for dinner but it was too early at the time so we went to an arcade to play some "metal" games. I took a picture of the one we played today the most. At this arcade there weren't really any interesting ones or big fancy ones so we decided on a cute little one that had a lot of minigames. It was really loud though and started to give us a headache after a while even with our scarfs stuffed infront of the speakers. We moved to a new one after a while but our coins disappeared pretty quick and we left haha.
We found what looked like a nice Izakaya and went in to eat. It was pretty good but nothing amazing. After dinner we went for some karaoke. I'm really starting to enjoy karaoke a lot. Maybe my singing is improving even! Still terrible, but now only... kinda terrible - I hope haha. I've been trying to sing some Japanese songs but it's hard to read Japanese so fast. But I'll keep trying =D so far my favorite song is 胸がドキドキ from the anime Detective Conan. It's fun to sing and I know the tune ^_^ Karaoke in Japan is much nicer than in Canada, as I've said before, but I have a picture to prove it now haha. In this room that we were in yesterday it's $3/h during the day and... $6/h at night. 
There's big flatscreen LCD TV and the karaoke machine has pretty lights (I know, completely useless, but if you like Apple computers you'll appreciate the pretty stuff like completely useless lights). You choose songs by 2 remote control LCD touch screen displays. Both English and Japanese interfaces (and Chinese too I believe... but I've never investigated the chinese button) and best of all... 2 large Bose speakers which pump out gorgeous karaoke sound. Actually the Bose speakers are kinda a pain because you realize how terrible you really are since you can't blame your terrible singing on sound quality hahaha.
Round 1 is an arcade kind of place that has all sorts of stuff in it. You pay $15 and you get to stay for 3 hours and do whatever you want. They have a Tennis court, curling, batting cages, pitching practice, minigolf, volleyball, badminton, soccer, bowling, mini bowling, billiards, fishing and basketball for sports. Also there are massage chairs, manga, karaoke, rollerblading, a big arcade you can play as much as you want, a kids area with lots of balls and stuff and one of those electronic "bulls" which is in the background of the picture to the right. It's really cool. Fantastic idea and tonns of fun. For $15 you can't go wrong.
I went there one time with my gf and her brother and a few days ago I went again with her and her friend Kawa. 
After we played sports for a while we went to the kids area to check it out and were pleasantly suprised. There were 2 different small rooms full of balloons and fans. One had a tonn of small balloons and one had a bunch of giant balloons. The giant balloon room was a lot of fun so we took some pictures in there, as you might have noticed above ^_^. After, we went up a bunch of stairs and took a slide down into the "kids area"... and it was really staticy. I went down a big spiral-ey one first and I could see lightning bolts flying off my shoulders to the slide. It was also fairly noisy. The two girls didn't seem too inclined on going down the slide after that but I managed to convince them to go down the shorter, straight slide. My gf went first with the same result. She touched a metal railing at the bottom and got zapped pretty good haha. Her friend, I think, was a little more cautious about the railing but was overly cautious of the slide. She hugged herself and flew down it like no tomorrow, slamming into a padded wall at the bottom hahaha. The whole area was pretty full of static. We climbed through a little maze-like contraption which had metal bolts in it... 危ない。 My gf got zapped again from the bolts.
And then there were tricylces... It's been a long time since I tricylced, that's for sure. It was a tonn of fun too. We were there at around 11pm or 12pm so there were no kids so we had the whole place to ourselves haha. There was a path around the "kid area" for the trikes so we went around a couple times. 
It was pretty difficult for me to petal though - I think I'm a little too tall. My gf and her friend had some troubles too but they managed it easier than I, I think. Those are the massage chairs in the background of the picture of my gf and her friend. After we triked for a while we sat down to relax for a few minutes there.
We played some arcade games but didn't have very much time so we decided on a game of mini-bowling before we left. Almost every time my gf wins at bowling but for some reason today just wasn't her day. It was pretty fun though. The whole night was pretty fun. Canada should get a Round 1. I have no idea why it doesn't actually. I bet it would make a tonn of money. I think Canada's problem is they charge too much for everything. If it was cheaper, this stuff would be a lot more popular. Sucks.
For Valentines day my gf and I went to a different arcade and movie theatre and watched 28 weeks later. It was fairly mediocre. Nothing too amazing or fantastic - it was a little too busy for most of the movie. The action never ceases - never lets up - it gets a little tiring after a while. After that we played some coin games. In Japan they're a tonn of fun. In Canada it's a lot more expensive and the return is almost nil so the fun ends quite soon. We spent $20 and got 240 coins and played for 3 or 4 hours. At one point we had more than doubled our original coin count but in the end, of course, we ran out. Then it was off to Gusto. It's kinda like Denny's but a little bit tastier and a little less oily. Still expensive like Dennys but what can you do. Actually it was really cheap in the end... Actually Gusto paid me to eat there haha. I paid for our dinner with ５０００円 but the girl mistook it for １００００円 and gave me change accordingly. I actually wasn't sure myself who was at fault for a while. I also had a １００００円 bill in my wallet and a day or two previous I had 2 of them in my wallet so I had to do a little detective work to figure it out. At the time her mom was waiting for us so we had to hurry out so after we were in the car I started asking questions. I figured out that I, had, indeed, given her ５０００円.. Our dinner was ２７００円 so she gave me ７３００円 change for the ５０００円 I had given her. So in the end she more or less gave me ２３００円 to eat there which is roughly $22CAD. I feel really bad.. their register is going to be pretty off and we were already too far away to go back (it's nowhere near where she lives). Maybe some day we'll go back and buy a lot of food to kinda make up for it... or something.In this post I'm going to talk about what I've done so far and not what's different. There are a lot of things that are different so I'll save that for another day =D
My friends Ming and Ryu saw me off from the Vancouver airport in the morning. They both came down with me at 7:30 to say bye. Ryu was even hung over o_O crazy guy haha. It was really nice of them though. I showed them this neat trick you can do with your hand over your eye and we had a good laugh for quite a while doing that hahaha. I'm not sure if I should put the video up... maybe some other time though =D It was pretty sad saying bye to them though since they'll go to Japan before I go back to Canada. Actually almost all my friends in Vancouver I won't be able to see again for a long time so it's pretty sad. I'm really going to miss Vancouver after I get back to Canada. But I'm going to see my Hime and that's what's important now ^_^
When I arrived in Narita (Tokyo's Airport), I was kinda surpised - it's a lot like Vancouver's airport... Except that everyone spoke Japanese. But then again almost everyone spoke enough english to get by also. Twice I had to ask for help. I needed to transfer to a domestic terminal for my flight to Sapporo but I wasn't sure which sign said "Domestic" so I asked the girl at the information desk and she showed me the way. Then I need to call my gf from the payphone and i do know her number but only when calling from Canada so I tried as many possibilities as I could think of involving the area code and prefix (since I wasn't sure which was which) but nothing seemed to work. So I ended up asking one of the employees that happened to be walking past and he explained how to do it 難しい～。 But in the end it was all good. I bought a couple of things in the little shop they had. I was really hungry and thirsty as well so I bought a can of coffee and a rice ball. 
Sadly the rice ball I chose was one of the only kinds I don't like... but they didn't have any pictures and I wasn't sure what it said hahaha. I guess I'll have to study some more. While waiting for my plane to depart, they had Sumo wrestling on TV in the terminal so I ended up watching that for about 40 minutes I think. The pictures here are of the Domestic terminal in Narita.
We went back to her grandparents house the next day to talk to them and we ended up talking Izakaya. He asked me if I was a strong drinker and I said I was kinda mediocre. Then he asked if I'd like to try some shouchu? I'm not sure how to write it actually. It's kinda like Sake. I said "sure, I'll try it" so he poured me a small glass of it (straight) and it wasn't as bad as I expected it. Actually it was kinda tasty. But it was pretty strong. I drank about half the glass and then he asked me if I'd like to try the kind of souchu that he drinks (he drinks a little bit weaker stuff) so I accepted and he poured me a 2nd full glass. He also poured himself a glass. So now I had 2 glasses of it in front of me. I thought "I'll be okay... maybe a little bit intoxicated but I'll be fine" So I continued drinking the strong one first but he refilled my glass for me when I got just a little over half finished haha. The weaker stuff was a little bit better but almost the same taste... just less of a burn. But I wanted to finish the strong first so I could relax a bit more. But it was really strong. I could feel I was getting a little bit drunk. In the end he said I could keep the bottle of Souchu. He said it was from the most southern part of Okiniwa... actually I can't remember the city he said so I'll have to ask Hime but I was pretty suprised. I thanked him a lot and took it back to her place with me. But he had these really tasty peanuts too! They're Japanese peanuts. Usually peanuts are made in China so they're bigger (like probably all the peanuts you've ever eaten) but these peanuts are a little crunchier and longer and skinnier. Like not so big around. Man were they ever tasty.
Merry Christmas everyone!! =D I hope everybody had a good day today. And if you're not Christian then Happy Holidays to you! haha.
That's my sister, me and my brother from front to back. My brother and I are wearing our TMNT toques that we got in our Christmas stockings.
I got some really nice presents including an Ipod Classic 80gb, FujiFilm A820 8.3MP Digital Camera, a new suitcase for my trip to Japan, GT4, the new Tolkien book, the next book in the series I used to read!! (My sister randomly chose the book thinking I might like it and it just happened to be the next book in the series I was reading. She didn't even know I had any of them), a gift certificate to The Gap, some cash, a t-shirt and some other presents ^_^. Thank you to everybody!!
For the rest of the day up until dinner we were pretty busy with our gifts that we got. My sister got Guitar Hero 3, my brother got WoW, and my mom got a karaoke machine. Actually my mom was most busy making us food so thank you mom!! We had cheese and crackers for lunch and a wonderful turkey dinner as is tradition =D I ate so much and was totally stuffed after that too. Today was a pretty good day for food actually! I really can't complain hahaha.
Today it snowed also! So I got my wish, we had a white Christmas here in Penticton. It was pretty clear out for most of the day but in the evening it started snowing quite a bit - windy too. But it was really nice. Today was one of those days you don't really go outside so who cares if it's windy ^_^ This evening we played a game called Mad Gab - it's super fun. You have to try to read these seemingly nonsensical sentences but really you're saying something else... It's kind of hard to explain. Maybe check the wikipedia for more help. It was really fun though. We played with my whole family and my old baby sitter from when I was a kid. 
It was nice seeing her again. I haven't seen her in years! I won't put a picture of her because I'm not sure if she'd want me to but it was really fun. We played 'old vs. young' or "parents & babysitter" vs. "kids" and we won!! Take that adults! But in all honesty, it was a really close game. We played to 25 and we only won by 1 or 2 points. I don't remember exactly. This, on the left, is my Donatello toque I got in my stocking. It was an awesome day.
