March

What's Saint Patricks Day without a parade and lots of green beer? Well, there was big hype about this parade in the English magazine, Metropolis. So, after a long night at Eurohouse (like usual), a couple of us met up to go to this parade. We made it about half way through, but really it was just groups of people circling around the street with banners. I guess that is what a parade is though, isn't it?


There were masses of crowds however, and I'd say about 70% were foreigners. Most had on green and the silly hats and such that we are accustomed to in the states. But, after the parade, everything just died out. It was kind of weird.


So, we decided to pack up a few beers and head to Yoyogi Park. It's a great park in the center of Tokyo. Sunday afternoons are great here because there is live music, heaps of people, and little ones running around. Being at this park sorta makes you forget that you are in the hustle bustle of Tokyo.


Rie, John, Lisa and I found a little chunk of grass to drink our cans of beer on. The sun was out but it was still a bit chilly.


We got to see a beautiful sunset between the tree's.


Next up for March, was bellydancing night at our local gaijin bar, Ocean Deep. Every Thursday, they have the event, where from like 7 - 8:30 you can take a bellydance lesson with a group of japanese women, for something like 1,000 yen (which includes a drink). Then, after the class, from about 9pm, they have a bellydance show. I LOVE it!

I asked my Japan family to come with me. They are a family that I teach on Monday nights and occasionally do other things with. When I first came to Japan, I taught their daughter, Aoi, at Little Garden Preschool. After I left the school, they asked me to come to their home and teach. Since then, they have become my family away from home. I love them!


Bellydancing here is a bit different from the dancing I have seen back home. However, the teacher is from a country (Morocco maybe), where the dance is probably more authentic that that I have seen in America.

After Bellydancing, we went out for a night of karaoke. It was so fun. I think it may have been my best Karaoke yet in Japan. We had a blast!


Above is Yoko (Aoi and Ai's Mommy) and Kikuko (Yoko's sister). I teach Kikuko and Yoko's husband, Satoru. They were so much fun at Karaoke!


Kyoko also came along. She is always fun to have at Karaoke. And, she always busts out the tamborine! She is my longest term student. I met her in February, about a month after I arrived in Japan and we have been good friends since.


After a few hours of Nomihodai (all you can drink), it was about time to go home :)


Satoru is the one on the left (Yoko's husband) and Masahiro is on the right (Kikuko's husband). We had SOOO much fun!


The next day, we went to Oasis. Oasis is Jeremy's favorite (one of the top 5 I guess) The concert was in Kaihin Makuhari at the Messe hall. It was a fun concert, but kind of a shitty venue. The only reason I say that is because it was standing room only (two sections of general admission) and the floor was all level, so if you were in the back, like we were, you couldn't see anything unless you got on your toes, and that was only because we were like 6-8 inches taller than most of the others there. Jeremy loved the concert. He knew all the songs. I knew like 5, so I wasn't equally impressed. But, I had a good time busting out Champagne Supernova when they sang it.

The next Friday night, we had Josh and Lisa come over for dinner. We made Sushi!!! it was a lot of fun. I hadn't tried making sushi since we first got here. It's quite expensive to buy all the goodies that you need to make a good piece of sushi (nigiri or roll style). Though, we had a lot of fun, trying out different things.

Since our kitchen is the size of a ritz cracker, we brought the assembly line out to the living room. It is here, where we made our artsy rolls and such.


Lisa came a little later, but she still got to help out a bit.

One of our 3 plates of finished products. We made WAYYY too much and had quite a bit leftover. Who would have guessed I would overdo something of the sorts??? ha ha!


Lisa had organized a Birthday party for Josh at an Izakaya in Funabashi that same weekend. It was an all out drinking extravaganza! Unfortunately, I decided it would be a good idea to have some hot sake AFTER all the beer and cocktails. I was not happy the next morning for sure!



However, I had a great time while we were there. You know I've had a bit to drink when I start busting out the self portraits. I'll only torture you with one or two :o).


Josh wore a sash that said "special guest" in Japanese. He wore it proudly.

Meghan and Josh's friend Aaron.


Towards the end of the night, we got all mushy, thinking about Josh and Lisa leaving soon. It happens.


Thank goodness for my little daily planner, which I have learned to record everything I do in. Because of it, I can still write these blogs, months after the events have happened. I'm trying to get up to date with my trip home (April ish).

February

February started out with a 'Girls Night'. I met Rie and Lisa for wine at an actual wine bar called, "Pub Jack", in Gyotoku. First, we went for dinner to a Hiroshima style okonomiyaki restaurant. It was different, but good.

After dinner, we went to the wine bar and left the place with purple lips. Needless to say, I woke up with a headache the next day that could almost kill a person. I haven't been wine-drunk since.

It was nice to get to know a couple of new girls... We were chatty and talked about boys. It was great fun!


As part of Jeremy's Christmas present, I bought him tickets to Coldplay, one of his top three favorite bands. He was very excited, and this concert was AWESOME! It was up in Saitama, Jeremy's old playground (from his first trip to Japan), and the concert arena was great. We were up in the nosebleeds, but still had a great view of everything, and they really knew how to put on a great show.


The band played for a couple of hours and played all but one of Jeremy's 'favorite' songs. I think it comes in a close second for the Green Day concert I went to a few years back with Cari. That was an AMAZING show!


Also in February, I went to a beer festival in Asakusa, with the folks below (Lisa, Josh, Rie, and John) It was like $30, and they gave you 10 tickets and a glass. We could try 10 different beers. In Japan, the typical lineup is Asahi Super Dry, Kirin, and usually one other that tastes about the same as the other two... However, at this festival, we got to try locally brewed micro's that were great. It was like a taste of home.


We had a good time.


After the beerfest, we went to Ocean Deep to watch John perform with his band. The night before beerfest was full of excitement as well. It's the night where Jeremy and I joined Marta and Cody for dinner to celebrate their Birthdays and whatnot, we ended up going to Karaoke and then to Eurohouse, and on the way home, Jeremy found out a guy he used to teach had just committed suicide. On top of that, Marta crashed on her bike in some gravel and really tore up her knee, but didn't want to go to the doctor and didn't have any medicine... so I had to hike it up to 7Eleven and then play doctor. She was very grateful, and 3 months later I hear it has healed nicely.

Meghan planned a surprise Birthday party for Marta on one of the weekends. I went with them, and then Lisa came later. The next morning we were getting up at like 5am to go snowboarding in Gunma with Kyoko and her big group of people. However, knowing that, we still drank too much and traveled to Gunma with hangovers.


Gunma was a lot of fun. I wish I hadn't been so stupid in drinking so much, but I did and so I didn't get to enjoy the trip as much as I could have. However, the hotel was amazing, the food delicious, and the company was very friendly. We had a drinking party one night after dinner, which resulted in this fashion show of sorts...



John, Lisa, and Josh joined Jeremy and I with Kyoko, Tadahiro and many of their friends.