Japan - Days 63-65

Thursday was a relatively uneventful day. Lab stuff was the usual, so nothing to report there. In Japanese class, I was meant to give my second Daily Speech presentation on 'Things I want to do in Japan', but the teacher forgot and, as me and Mike hadn't practiced our speeches much beforehand, we decided not to call her on it. We were also never given the New Words Quiz that we missed on Wednesday on account of the health check. In the afternoon, in the lab, I was invited to join them for yakiniku, but as I had to save for Saturday, and it would have cost somewhere in the region of 3,000 yen, I decided against going. However, as they all left at around 5.45pm, I was able to bail from the lab just after that, once my experiment reached a suitable stage. I sat in my room for a bit before Derek messaged me and asked if he could come study at my place, to get out of his room for a bit, so we hung out until about 1am ^^' After which I promptly went to bed
Friday was a bit of a bad day, overall :-( There was a Halloween party in the evening, so I was determined to go to that - I even packed my costume in my bag for the occasion. After starting a PCR reaction, I got some help from a girl in my lab about how to get my protein samples to roughly the same tubulin concentration to act as controls, and thought 'Hm, if I can get this done promptly, I'll be able to go through this experiment and still go to the party tonight'. However, once again, best laid plans... For a start, I poured transfer buffer into the SDS-PAGE tank rather than SDS, so I quickly removed the gel and put some SDS into a new tank instead, and set the gel to run. Unfortunately, I used up the last of one tub of SDS and of transfer buffer, so I had to remake the two of them. During the process, the methanol AND the 10x SDS mix ran out, so I had to pump some methanol from a drum into the bottle, then make some SDS mix. Unfortunately again, I made the mix wrong, so I had to start again. By this time, I'd already missed my lunch with Jen and Molly, but as my Japanese class was in 15 minutes, I had to leave the reagent-making until later. I didn't have time to get a proper lunch on the way there, but I stopped for a mochi which was something, at least
In Japanese class, we owned up to Sakai-sensei that we had to do the speech, so, despite not being in the best of moods, I still managed to fare pretty well. During the questions at the end, one of the guys in my class asked 'Is that necklace from Death Note?' rather than asking a question about my actual presentation XD Then he came and asked me where I bought it after class. I met some of my friends when I got outside the classroom, but I wanted to get the experiment done, so I just had time to borrow a couple of eye pencils from Jen (for my costume, as you will see), before jetting off on my bike to the lab. The way I calculated it, I could finish the transfer and put the membrane into the blocking step before heading to the party, getting to the party only a few minutes late. But, no sooner had I put my membrane into the transfer buffer for a few minutes, I was reminded that I had a group meeting, and that it had already started. I went over to that, hoping that it was nearly over so I could start up my transfer (which takes two hours), but as I discovered, it had JUST started. So, for about an hour and a half, I sat there listening to them talk about their experiments, and tried to talk about what I'd been doing, with the others suggesting improvements to my methods and such. By this time, I was really stressed about not getting to the party in time. I started up the transfer when I got back, which took longer than expected because firstly, I used a tank that all the liquid flowed out of, and secondly, because I'd put the lid of the case on incorrectly. Once I finally got it started, I got to work on mixing the 10x SDS solution. It took forever to get the solids to dissolve in the water, and in the process I finished off a bottle of glycine. Things always seem to run out when I use them -_- But anyways, eventually I finished mixing the SDS, ran the gel of my PCR products, and moved my membrane from the transfer case to the cold room, and got the hell out of that lab
I went to the party, paid my entry fee, then swiftly went to the toilet to put on my costume. I forgot to bring my shirt and tie as part of my Seta outfit from Love Hina, so I opted to combine my lab coat with my neko stuff to become a cat-scientist/doctor XD I must say, it went down pretty well. There were some more impressive costumes there, of course, but still, people seemed to like it. Bob came dressed as Obama with a plastic mask which was hilarious XD There was a dance presentation in the middle where a bunch of people from the Tsukuba Uni dance circle showed off some of their moves. Very impressive, especially the break-dancers! After the party drew to a close, we stood outside deciding what to do. I knew I couldn't stay out too late as I had to get up at about 5.15am the next morning to go to Tokyo, and despite what I initially thought, I would never have been able to do it after an all-nighter. There were about 10 different options of things to do, but as always, the first stop was the combini. Before going there however, I got a surprise phone call from my homestay host family from 5 years ago, who I'd received an e-mail from a few days before. I talked to them for about an hour, and it was so nice to hear from them again. They seem to really want to meet me again, so I'm thinking about trying to get up there to see them over autumn break if I can. By the time I got off the phone from them, everyone had disappeared, so after quickly calling them, I found them in front of Coco. I got a couple of drinks to be sociable, but in the end I knew I couldn't go to Cybex with them for the 7 hour package they had planned v.v I headed home, got on my computer for half an hour or so, then called it a night
Saturday morning - 5am. I woke up while it was still dark outside, and it was raining. I'd prepared most of my things the night before, and luckily my warm coat and raincoat had enough pockets for everything. I set out for the station at about 5.30, and managed to get the 5.51 semi-rapid to Akihabara. This got me to Akihabara very early, so early that all the shops I intended to browse in to kill time hadn't even opened yet. So, I opted for Starbucks, where I had a green tea frappucino while I tried to eavesdrop on some Western woman speaking English to the attendants, asking for their customer service number because something was apparently wrong with the coffee she'd been served -_- Anyway, after I finished my coffee, I went down and got the Yamanote line to Tamachi. The nostalgia was immense! As I arrived about 30 minutes before I was due to meet Laura, a friend from 6th Form who's also in Japan right now, I decided to take a quick walk in the direction of Keio to see if I remembered the way - I did :-D I got as far as the University before I decided that, yes, I could find my way to the middle school, before coming back. Funnily enough, I remembered a lot of the landmarks - the combinis (though I'd forgotten which chains they were), the crossroad, the McDonalds and the little shrine. Just as I was almost back at the station, I saw Brad coming the other way! As I got beside him, I said 'Ohayo', and he gave a little nod and kept walking. For a start, I thought he was trying to be funny, but as I had my hood up, he actually hadn't recognised me! He was shocked when he found out it was me, but it was so funny XD I told him I'd meet him in a bit, then went and met Laura at the station, before heading all the way down to the school
Before I go on, did I mention it was raining? I'd been warned by my host mother on the phone the night before that there was a typhoon on the way, so I'd made sure to be waterproofed, but my shoes were still letting in water. We were pleased to reach the shelter of the entrance to the school, where I called Mr Gdula, my old Japanese teacher and Brad's current teacher, to show us where they all were (speaking in Japanese, of course :-p). He guided us through to the library (I was speaking to one of the Keio teacher's I'd originally met at the Avon Tyrrell summer camp on the way), where I met the Hockerill group and gave my brother a biiig hug XD
As the typhoon was coming in, the itinerary for the day was up in the air, so eventually it was decided that we'd go to Asakusa and then take it from there. After a short train journey, we arrived at Asakusa station, and walked along to Kaminari-mon (Thunder gate). After a few group photos, we were given an hour to go shopping along the markety street leading up to a temple. I went with Brad and his friend Olly, and we got pretty wet walking around, but it was still quite cool. I bought myself some Death Note trading cards (I got a shiny L :-D) and a shuriken necklace (though it's got a clip fastener rather than just a long cord, annoyingly). Once we'd all met up again, we went for lunch at a small restaurant off one of the side streets. I had katsu-don and a melon soda, which was very tasty
During the meal, Mr Gdula got a message saying that, due to the typhoon, the Keio students would be leaving school at around 3pm (yes, they have Saturday school too :-O), so we had to go back early rather than staying out until 6 or 7. On the way back, we took a detour to a mall in Roppongi called Tokyo Midtown (I think), where we did a bit more shopping and looked at some tech exhibition that was going on. Me, Brad and some of his friends had a shadow photo taken (basically a silhouette), which we posted on the wall at the exhibition with a speech bubble with all our names on it. After this, we headed back to the school
At this time, my plan was to meet some other friends and go drinking either in Tokyo or on the Yamanote line (a foreigners' tradition of some sort, around Halloween time, which the Japanese really don't like, for obvious reasons XD), so I wanted to hang around in Tokyo a little longer to find out what was going on so I didn't have to go to Tsukuba and back again. After checking with Derek, I found out the location of the Tokyo Pokémon Centre, and decided to go there and to Akihabara to kill time. Laura said she'd come with me until about 5pm, when she had to leave to get to a party of her own back in Yokohama. However, as Brad's exchange's mum didn't arrive at the school to pick them up until about 4.30pm, Laura could only come with me to the Pokémon Centre. After mine and my brother's farewell, we got the train (going the wrong way for a start ^^') to Hamamatsucho. From here, it was only a 2 minute walk to the Pokémon Centre. As it was smaller than I thought, I would've kept walking had Laura not pointed it out XD However, I wasn't disappointed!
For a start, I noticed that over the sound system, they played the video game Pokémon Centre music on a loop. Then I was hit by a visual overload of Pokémon stuff :-D Plushies, stationary, food, books, clothes, so much stuff! After walking around for about 5-10 minutes, I finally settled on - a little Pokémon Black pocket guide book, a Reshiram phone charm and a Pokabu plushie :3 I guess it was a little expensive, but I left the store a happy bunny ^^
After saying goodbye to Laura at the station, I got back on the train to Akihabara, where I planned to hang around for a few hours and wait for the others to get there. However, on the platform, I got a message from Kat - her and Molly were going to Mo's apartment on account of lack of money and the weather (which had turned wetter and windier throughout the course of the day), so wouldn't be coming to Tokyo. As they're my two favourite drinking buddies, I decided not to go drinking after all. On reflection, given how much money I'd spent in the day, this was probably a sensible choice. Therefore, I quickly looked in Book Off, Shosen Book Tower and Yodobashi before coming home. I used the wi-fi in Yodobashi to check my game sync to the Dream World in Pokémon Black. As it turns out, my Gigigear and Oddish hadn't disappeared, so I was able to get those back. In addition, my Pokabu had been successfully traded for a Zorua ^^ I uploaded my summer-forme Shikijika to the Dream World before heading back to Tsukuba, where I was very tired and almost falling asleep on the train ^^'
When I reached Tsukuba station, I bumped into Ciaran, Cenk and Asoon just heading into Tokyo, armed with copious amounts of drink. After saying a quick hello to them, I went up to Seibu, grabbed some dinner and then took the short cycle back to my dorm. As it turns out, the weather wasn't so bad here, so I got home before the rain started to get heavy. Once I got back, I changed out of my wet clothes and put up the curtains which mum had sent with Brad; now I can walk naked around my room without worrying XD I went onto the Dream World, and tried doing a few things, but after about 20 minutes, it started telling me once again that I didn't have a Pokémon uploaded, so I dunno why it doesn't like my game -_-
Now, one last point for the day, as this has been a very long, detailed entry - as Brad went to the Studio Ghibli museum last week, he bought me a little soot spirit from My Neighbour Totoro (and Spirited Away, but the label said Totoro), as well as one for himself. His idea was for us both to take pictures of our spirits in different locations and send them to each other. So, for starters, I've taken a picture of it on my pillow. I guess we'll see where this leads XD
Anyway, I'm about to head out with Derek to take a walk to the combini - night all ^^