The Future

So, the polls are closed and the votes are in! I had 3 people vote (かなしい) and the verdict is 2 for Daily Life and Personal Life and 1 for Japanese Study.

I'll start with my Japanese (since it hasn't got too much better). I've still been playing this "My Japanese Coach" game - which is awesome. And it helps a lot... But I don't play it enough for me to remember what I'm learning くそ. So I'll need to step that up a little bit!!

There is less than 3 weeks until I leave and it's starting to feel like I'm going soon. Today I told my boss my last day of work will be the 2nd. I want to have a couple week days to be able to do anything I need to do (that I can't do on the weekend). He said it sounded like fun going overseas to teach, so he wasn't upset at all... I don't think haha.

And it was Hime and my 2 year anniversary on the 18th!!! Can you believe it??? 2 years hehehe. I'm sad I'm not in Japan right now though. Hime and I decided not to send each other presents in the mail (since I'm going there so soon), so we'll be exchanging presents when I get there, so probably expect some kinda update about our "anniversary" stuff around the 8th-10th of December. I hope she likes my present hehe.

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain in Penticton. I'm not looking forward to that hahaha. I guess I'll need to bring something to work that won't get so wet.

Well, that's it for today!!

大神 (Okami)

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.

So the other day I was in Electronic Boutique and there it was!!! Sitting on the wall! So I grabbed it and carried it around with me while I was looking at the other games. I was so excited to be the owner of this marvelous game once again. My heart has been pained since it's been gone haha. I probably won't have much time to play it since I'm going to Japan soon but I don't feel so guilty for losing a game my brother gave to me now (even though it's not really the same). It's also been reased for Wii (though I've heard it's better on PS2) but go give it a shot (if you can find a copy).

I also finally got my Class 5 drivers liscence so now I gotta apply for an International liscence so I can drive in Japan. I hope I can get it :) I'll be doing that after work on monday probably.

Hime and my anniversary is coming up soon too. Two days from now! This year I'm not sending anything from Canada, I'll be giving it to her when I arrive in Japan. I hope she likes it!!

Ralph Lauren

My first piece of real brand name clothing (or accessory I guess). Hime sent this to me from Japan for our anniversary. I've been using it but I always have this sense of "what if I lose it?" haha. The wallet is worth more than what I keep inside it probably lol. It's a super nice gift though and I'm glad she gave it to me hehe. It's not exactly like in the picture to the left but its the same color and a really similar style. It's really cool haha. Thanks hunnie!!!! I hope you like my present as much as I like yours ^_^

About the poll I got going on. If you read my blog, you've probably seen it (unless you read it via RSS). Anyway, please vote!! You can vote for more than 1 thing too if you'd like. I just want some kind of idea what people like reading about so I can better tailor my blog. I see right now the only vote is for "Daily Life" which I like writing about the most anyway (even though this post isn't about daily life at all hahaha).

So yeah uh.. that's it! I've been really busy lately. I'm working on something special at the moment and it's taking up quite a bit of my time. Okay, see you next post!!

It's been a while

Wow, a long while! I got a job doing labour for a landscaping company here in town so I'm getting pretty good exercise everyday :) The pay is pretty decent too, more than I thought I'd be able to get trying to find a job at such short notice. My plans of going to Japan might have been shifted a little bit too. Right now I'm deciding between late November/early December or sometime in February haha. Hime said she would come visit Canada again if I was still here in February so I guess we'll see. I haven't decided on anything yet but I'm going to have to pretty quick. I know I always say I'll update again soon and I don't... But I hope to update again soon haha. Next month is Hime and my 2 year anniversary! Time goes by like *that*!! Well, 'till next post.

P.S. Sorry for the lack of updates!

Return to Canada

Goodbye Japan! Home of the rising sun and the love of my life. Some day I'll be sure to return ^_^ I still don't feel like I've left. These pictures I took on my way to Narita airport.

Well I've been back since the 6th and though it's nice to be back I really miss Japan and my girlfriend. Today, we've been together for 16 months. Sadly, we're not able to spend it together. It'll be that way until I go back to Japan which will probably be in July or August. It all depends on my money situation and how soon I can find a job in Japan and get a work Visa.

This is the last picture we took together in the airport before I had to go through customs. So sad :( I made a video of what I did in Japan but I'll have to get her permission before I post in on here ^_^ Maybe I'll put it up next blog post if I get the go-ahead.

Recently I've been studying Japanese a lot since there's not really much else to do here in Penticton and I need the practice. I think I'm getting a little bit better but I still can't carry on a conversation with any sort of competence. Compare it to French-class conversations in Grade 8: "How are you?" "I'm good, and you?" "I'm good also". Stuff like that haha. But for practice I've started a Japanese blog so I'll be trying to translate these posts into Japanese after I write them in English. If you can read Japanese and notice any problems, send me an email or comment on the post and let me know! :)

When I travel to Japan next time I also hope to travel a little bit to see my friends Ayane (彩音さん), Kenji （けんじさん), Ming (フラミンゴさん） and Ryu (隆). Most of them live in Osaka (I think) except for Ryu haha. ^_^

If you want to see some information on Penticton you can go here and read some. It's also the sister city of Ikeda (池田町) in Hokkaido, Japan (click the Japanese name for the Japanese website). One day I want to visit Ikeda also ^_^ If you know someone who's coming to Canada, tell them to visit Penticton =D It's a beautiful place if you like the countryside.

I Lost Takoyaki

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*.

We chitchatted for a while (an hour and 1/2) and then we arrived in Sapporo. Time to find souvenirs. We went for food first though and it was pretty tasty. We went to a really small rice restaurant. Apparently it used to only be inside massage parlors since it's a healthy restaurant but it's popularity grew and people wanted a stand-alone one... so it was made! And that's where we went. After we left we went to get some souvenirs haha.

During our hunt downtown I made a couple videos and took some pictures of Sunday in Sapporo - it was a lot busier than the last time we came but still not so crowded. And then I saw it!!　ウサギちゃん came back to me! One time in Asahikawa I saw a bunny girl and I wanted to take a picture but I didn't think it would be very prudent but now I had found one on the other side of the street. 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 train was packed and sadly there were no empty seats so we had to stand between 2 trains where it was cold *lame*. After a few minutes we decided to eat our takoyaki because we were hungry and it was probably still kinda warm. But... it was gone!! We lost our takoyaki. It was in a plastic bag that I was holding. I was also holding a bag full of garbage and all our souvenirs but somehow the bag with takoyaki in it was missing. We tried to figure out where it could be - where we could have left it but I noticed something... After we bought it we never stopped and I never put the bags down. I held all 3 from when we bought it until when we boarded the train. The mystery of the missing takoyaki. My gf was angry - takoyaki is her favorite food and this takoyaki in particular is her favorite takoyaki - it's kinda expensive too. ５００円 for one takoyaki boat (8 peices). No seats and no takoyaki *sigh*. After about an hour we finally got seats and we were able to sit for about 20 minutes haha. Then we arrived in Asahikawa.

Hime emailed her mom to say we arrived but she said her brother just got home. Apparently he had been waiting at the station for us since he knew there was no 9:20 train so he had no idea when we would get there. We felt pretty bad so we decided to take the bus. We walked down to the bus station. It was 10:20 - the bus left at 10:15 and the next one was 11:00. Missed by just a few minutes again!! We decided to walk to the spa her dad goes to since he was there at the time. We hoped we could get a ride. Luckily he hadn't left yet so we got a ride home with him and she explained our whole day to him and he laughed haha.

Sapporo

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 lucky 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).

Otaru & 15 Months

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 & Valentines

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.

A Winter Wonderland

I've done a lot since coming here and I've almost assuredly forgot some things but I'll try to recap as best I can. I've been trying to take pictures but I keep forgetting my camera or else I'm enjoying myself too much to remember. In any case, I've captured some moments on camera. I hope it will suffice for now.

I'll start off with the weather. It's cold here, as I've mentioned in my last post, but I don't think I put a picture... maybe I did but whatever, here's a picture of near my gf's place. We were walking to the grocery store at the time. There's snow piled everywhere!! It's great. It really makes me want to go jump in the snow like when I was a kid. It's cold but not unbearably cold. Sometimes my nose gets kinda frozen but that's about it. Nothing to complain about =D

Downtown Asahikawa 旭川 is pretty interesting too. I've only been on a couple of the streets but there's a main street meant for walking only. There's walking paths on both sides and the street in the middle is also for walking... does that make sense? Probably not. Actually the picture on the right is a picture of a different street... so maybe forget what I said until a little bit later. It's nice though. Inside this small mall there is a giant statue of the castle from Howl's Moving Castle. In Canada I would never have expected to see this kind of display but in Japan I don't see it as out of place - just cool. Actually the place that it's in is just about deserted. There's 2 restaurants, a place where you can buy bus tickets.. and that's all I've seen haha. So I'm not really sure why they chose here to put this piece. Maybe it's cheaper to keep it here or something. In any case, I'm not complaining. It's cool.

The other day my gf and I went to the Asahiyama Zoo (In Asahikawa). Apparently it's pretty famous in Japan - one of the most famous I think. And for good reason... it was really cool!! They had so many interesting animals I had never actually seen before. Like penguins!! and lots of them too. Some were swimming, some were running around, some were getting ready for the daily "penguin walk". It was really a pretty interesting thing to see. The walk way through the penguins "area" went underground and under the water that they swim in so I took a few pictures from underwater.

Then there was a tiger!! At least I think it's a tiger... If it's not please leave me a message and let me know what it is haha. Well, whatever it was, it was pretty neat to see in person. To be honest it was one of the most boring animals we saw in the zoo. It walked around in circles the entire time we watched it. Hardly interesting. We tried to take a picture with it behind us but it didn't really work out... you can only see a really small part of its back between our shoulders haha. So I won't put that picture on here.

And polar bears!!! Now that is something I thought I would never see. Penguins.. I thought it possible, but not polar bears. They're a lot bigger than I expected they would be.. and a lot tougher looking. There's two polar bears at this zoo and both of them have a lot of scars - one a lot more than the other though. Sadly neither went swimming while I was taking pictures but I still snapped a few good ones. I'll post up one to see.

We went to visit chimpanzees and orangatangs. Here's a picture of Hime saying hello to one of the chimpanzees who came to visit us and the little kid beside her. Don't worry, we let the kid say hello first before we took pictures ^_^ We didn't have very much time so we had to leave soon after that. We're going to visit again sometime. I want to watch the penguin parade. Actually we had planned on watching it but we ended up getting pushed back from the front and we had to wait another 15 minutes for it to start so we gave up since we were on a tight schedule. There's a picture of all the people lined up waiting to watch it. Actually, the reason I took this picture is because the view was nice and there was a giant ferris wheel haha.

After the Zoo we went downtown and found the ice sculptures had been started. There were sooo many sculptures and soo many people working on them. It was on the street I mentioned earlier in this post. All these sculptures are in the middle "walk way" or whatever you might call it on snow pedestals. Some of them are amazingly beautiful. We got downtown at around 4:30 so the sun hadn't gone down and I was able to take 1 picture with the sun up. All the other pictures I took are after the sun went down and so are kind of dark. I'm not really sure but it seemed to be a 1 day type of competition. At 4:30pm most of the sculptures were really starting to shape up and all my pictures around 6pm-7pm were almost complete. I really want to go down there again soon during the day to take some pictures of the finished peices of work =D

And today for lunch we made Takoyaki. I think I mentioned it in a post a long long time ago... But at the time only Kenji was reading my blog I believe. I really like Takoyaki and Kenji was the one who introduced me to it when we went for dinner and drinks together at an Izakaya restaurant on Davie street in Vancouver. So thank you Kenji for introducing me to Takoyaki ^_^ I'll explain what Takoyaki is. Tako is Octopus and Yaki is "fried" so thus the name. Even though there's a lot more too it and the Octopus itself isn't fried at all haha. First you take the Octopus as seen above and cut it up into small peices that would fit inside a 1 inch ball. Then you heat up your Takoyaki plate (like a hot plate but with half spheres) and mix up your Takoyaki mixture. (Now I know these instructions are useless but I want to explain how anyway) Next, pour the mixture into onto the tray, filling all the half sphere things. Add in some green onions, tempura bits and one peice of tako. Wait for the inside of the sphere to heat up and get.. more or less cooked. Then, using an extra long toothpick (forgive me for not knowing this word haha) spin it around so the previously exposed upper side can also cook. Spin spin spin until it's done. One package of this stuff makes a lot of Takoyaki balls... Like 50 or something. Man, is it ever filling. Her mom and dad ate some but they didn't want many. The last batch (the one I'm making in the picture) we gave to Hime's grandparents to enjoy. Actually It's kinda fun to make them but after you get full you don't really have that... drive to continue making them hahaha.

After we ate we decided we needed to take a walk to try to walk off some of the weight we most assuredly put on during lunch. We walked to the shrine near her place. The vew is amazing. This picture is overlooking the area where she lives. I have no idea which is her house but it's probably in there somewhere haha. I didn't take any pictures of the actual shrine itself because I feel it's kind of rude. But I really like this type of gate they have over everything. The style is absolutely wonderful. It's a little disappointing our culture doesn't have this kind of "style". After we left the shrine we took a different route back to her place that walks over the main road in the above picture. It's also pretty but I wanted to the show the snow piles along the side of the road. It's actually quite difficult to walk side by side along this path due to the snow. In some places it's high enough to brush my elbow while I'm walking. I'm not sure when I'll stop enjoying the snow... probably never ^_^ I really like snow, it's so pretty.

Also... my Japanese is not really coming along as well as I had hoped. I'm still not able to speak Japanese. I'm going to have to redouble my efforts... or more than that haha. I'll try to update this blog often but my first priority is going to be learning Japanese.

Ryu and Ming, I hope you guys are having fun in Vancouver. I really miss it (>_<) we're going to have to hang out in the future some time for sure. Thanks again for coming to the airpot with me ^_^ It really meant a lot =D