Japan - Days 101-108

Wow, I haven't blogged in over a week :-O I hope I remember everything.
First off, Sunday. I went to go shopping with Jen, getting on the bus as I didn't feel much like cycling. I was going to meet Jen on the bus when it looped round to Ichinoya, but she was about a minute late, so we ended up walking to Tsukuba Centre. First off we went to Dayztown so Jen could get some vegetables, then we walked down to WonderRex to start Christmas shopping; I managed to find a plushie for one of my friends, and Jen browsed some figurines. Next, we decided to go to WonderGoo, and I thought 'Hey, let's take a shortcut', as I thought I'd figured out the orientation of the area between WonderGoo and WonderRex. However, I hadn't counted on the winding roads, so we walked for about half an hour through some fairly rural, out-of-the-way streets before coming to an area I recognised on the way to WonderGoo. Whether or not it was faster or not, I'm still not sure. Anyways, we looked around for a bit and I found a present for one of my family. Heading out again, we walked up to Tsukuba Centre, browsing around the stores and buying a few more Christmas presents, before going and getting groceries. On the way back, we stopped at the bakery (which was closed v.v) and Bulldog, where I bought the remainder of my family's presents, as well as some cards and wrapping paper. I don't even want to think about how much I spent altogether on that day... Anyways, at about 4.30pm, a bunch of us met outside the library, from which we went to Jon's goodbye dinner after about 2 hours of waiting ^^' Jon got me to transport one of his friends from Tsukuba Centre bus station to Hamazushi on the back of my bike, which wasn't too bad, even if she does look like a younger version of my Japanese teacher from last semester ^^' Anyways, once we got to the sushi place, we had to wait for a while as our group was so large. During this time a random guy from Dubai started speaking to me (in English), which was... random ^^'. The sushi was good, though I only ate half of what I normally eat, for reasons which I will explain in a few sentences XD After we finished eating, Jon's friend asked me to take her back to Tsukuba Centre bus station again, and from there we cycled back to campus. I passed through Oikoshi, however, and headed to Book Off, where I picked up the 500 yen copy of Tales Of The Tempest, using the money I would otherwise have spent on sushi; at least a game lasts longer, right? Then I headed back home and worked on my presentation some more before bed
On Monday morning, I went to the post office to mail my family's Christmas presents. After trying to get them all to fit into a box in such a way that they didn't rattle around, I realised I'd made a grave error when I saw the postage cost; again, not something I really want to think about, it's done now. After lunch with Jen, I practiced my presentation in front of a few people from my lab to make sure it sounded okay, and got a few pointers from them on how to improve it. In the evening at kaiwa club, we went to Fuji-sen. As Jen decided to come along this time, I wanted to show her the cat I'd seen last time I was there, but unfortunately it didn't show itself v.v Still, the meal was nice ^^
On Tuesday, I worked a bit more on my presentation, then went to meet Jen. While I was waiting for her, one of the organisers of AsOBiNet, the conference I was going to on Wednesday, came over and asked if I was able to go and eat lunch with the members who'd arrived the previous day. Unfortunately I was going to Japanese class orientation, so I was unable to. When Jen arrived, we headed to the ISC to find our class placements. Everyone was assigned to the next class up, so I was put into J400. We had an hour to wait until orientation began, so me, Jen and Molly went to grab some lunch; to save some money after the horror of Monday's postage, I opted for the bakery. At orientation, I got myself moved from the 10.10am class to the 1.45pm class, like last semester, and explained to my teacher that I'd be unable to attend the first 3 classes on account of the seminar, so I have to get my sheet signed off on Monday. After buying the workbook for J400, I headed back to the lab, and then to the mouse room where I cleaned out the cages, as I wasn't going to be there on Wednesday. After checking with Michael, I decided to go to the welcome party for AsOBiNet, so I left the lab a little early, once I'd finished up my experiment, and took a shower so I was presentable for the party. It was an hour late starting, and then when one of the organisers said to meet him at the 7-Eleven, me and Mike went to a different 7-Eleven following a misunderstanding, but in the end we got there - it was the same izakaya I've been to several times before. It was a nice party; it lasted a couple of hours, I got to meet the guy from Manchester who was attending, and the head of the conference spent about 10 minutes trying to help me work out some possible kanji for my name (during which time I noticed the previous Pokémon opening theme playing over the sound system, to my amusement XD). After the party was over, we headed back, and I finished packing my things for the trip into my rucksack, before sleeping.
Wednesday, the first day of AsOBiNet. After deciding against taking my laptop on account of space, I met up with Mike and we got the bus to the train station, where we met the others. After a rapid train to Akihabara and a Yamanote line train to Tokyo Station, we grabbed some lunch and then got the special express to Shimoda, which took about 4 hours all in all. Once at the train station in Shimoda, we got the bus to the Shimoda Marine Research Centre. The first thing I noticed about Shimoda as a whole was that it was a bit out-of-the-way. The buildings looked old, and it was very quiet once we got away from the bus station. First off at the centre, we dropped our bags off in our rooms (I was sharing with Mike, the other Manchester guy, and two of the Japanese guys who helped organise the trip), then took a walk into the city while we waited for the dinner party to begin. Again, the place looked a bit run-down, and apparently this was because it's now cheaper to go abroad than to stay in Japan for holidays, so the place hasn't had much tourism in a while, and consequently little income. We stopped at a little sweet shop where I bought some dango, then at a cozy little cafe where I got a 'Perry Ice' (chocolate and raisin ice cream). We walked around the city for a little while, before me, Mike and the professor decided to head back while the others went a bit deeper into the city. After resting up for a few hours, we got to use the showers before the party started. Now, as it turned out, the showers were traditionally Japanese; that is, multiple people, going in naked. Me and Mike bagged the shower first, and it was a little bit awkward, but we kept our eyes up and the hot water was sooo good after being out in the cold all day, though we did have to add some cold water to the little bath because it was scalding hot at first. Then was the party. The food was really good, and I finally got to try natto - I could personally go either way with it, it's not as bad as people say, but it's not something I'd buy myself. There was plenty of alcohol flying around too; I had a couple of beers. At about 10pm, as we were both shattered, me and Mike opted to head to bed as other people were also bailing out at this time. I went to sleep on my top bunk :3
Thursday was another early start. After breakfast, we headed to the meeting room where our presentations were going to be held. After sitting through a few hours' worth of these (with lunch and some coffee breaks in between), we put on some life jackets and went down to the beach a few minutes' walk away to collect some seaweed for observation. I found a really pretty shell which I thought I'd keep to give to one of my friends as a souvenir (there wasn't really a souvenir shop nearby), and spent most of the time searching for more shells ^^' Once we'd spent about an hour on the beach, we headed back inside, to a room which looked suspiciously like a classroom, and spent a few hours observing seaweed and little animals through microscopes. Me and Mike saw a hermit crab which looked like it was about to change shells, but after 10 minutes it was time to leave and it was still just sitting there v.v Then we went for dinner, which was again very tasty, and then me and Mike went for the showers again. This time one of the other guys walked in while we were in there, which resulted in awkward silence as the three of us were washing in what was essentially a 1-2 person bathroom. Anyway, after the shower, I worked on my presenation for a while before going to sleep.
Friday's schedule for the first half of the day was very similar to Thursday; breakfast, presentations, fieldwork. Today was the day of my presentation, which all in all went pretty well I feel :-) Today's field work involved going out on a boat, and pulling nets behind it to catch plankton. On the way back, we saw a dead sunfish floating in the water v.v Back at the centre, we looked at the plankton under the microscope, which is always fun ^^ Took a few pictures down the microscope lens, which didn't come out amazingly, but still, I got a few okay ones. After this, before the showers opened up, me and Mike went down to the beach to hunt for some more shells, finding a few nice ones. Once the showers opened up, I went in when I thought it was free, spending half the time in there with the organiser, which was, again, a little awkward. Then was the leaving party. Once more, great food, and once more, copious alcohol. Everyone ended up doing sake shots, which was amusing, and combined with a few beers, I was pleasantly buzzed. At about 10pm, I decided I needed to get some sleep, so I headed up to bed
Saturday morning, we packed up and cleaned up our room, before getting breakfast and then heading out to the bus waiting to pick us up. Why we couldn't get the train into Tokyo I don't know, but we bussed in instead. The trip to Tokyo itself took about 3 hours, plus a few comfort breaks, before we reached our first destination - Shibuya. Me and Mike walked around for a couple of hours, finding Book Off, a sign for a Shakey's Pizza restaurant featuring an Oreo, marshumallow and strawberry pizza, and a pretty epic-looking Disney store, but otherwise nothing too exciting. After meeting the others, it was on to Ueno, where we went to the Tokyo National Museum. Once we got inside the special exhibition about the Todaiji Temple, I realised that this was the same museum where I'd been on the homestay, when they had the Hokusai exhibition. There were some suited-up guys with bodyguards walking around the museum at the time too; I don't know who they were, but my first thought was 'yakuza' XD. As we spent so long in the Todaiji Temple exhibit, we didn't have time to look around the rest of the museum before meeting the others ^^' However, after a short bus ride (during which time I saw an English pub :-D) it was on to the place I'd been waiting all week for - Akihabara! :-D We only had an hour and a half to walk around it, so I had to move fast. First stop was, naturally, Book Off, where I found a copy of Pokémon Special 4, which fills a gap in my collection; I think I have all of the first arc of the manga now. I tried looking for a couple of books that Jen requested, but to no avail v.v Then, I moved on to the main street which I only discovered on that day - I scoured the whole place, stopping in every shop which mentioned the word 'accessories' on the front, and a few others besides, looking for either a core drill necklace, Ash Ketchum's gloves or hat, or an Ocarina of Time. I found nothing except a £100 core drill which didn't even look too much like the real thing colour-wise. Anyway, with about 15 minutes to spare, I dashed to Yodobashi and grabbed myself a Mijumaru plushie (they didn't have a Tsutarja, though I saw a triple-pack of starter plushies for a reduced price, but as I already had Pokabu it seemed pointless getting another). I made it back to the meeting point with a few minutes to spare, before we got on the bus and made our way back to Tsukuba. Once there, me and Mike got out of Sunday's campus tour (it seemed a bit pointless as we know the campus already) before heading back to the dorms. As I expected, I found that the package from my family had arrived while I was away, so I decided to pick them up on Sunday. After checking my messages and taking a shower, I went to bed.
Sunday. I got up at about 10am (after so many early mornings I needed a lay-in), and texted Jen; she said she wanted to go into town at about 1.30pm, which was a bit late for my liking, but it gave me time to scrub clean the shell I wanted to give her. I even went down to the 100 yen store to buy a toothbrush to help with the scrubbing, as the seaweed was stuck on very tight. Anyway, I got on the bus, and this time she was there ready for it. We got to Tsukuba Centre, and first of all headed to WonderGoo, where I managed to find another plushie for another friend, and Jen got her brother's present. We then headed to Dayztown for Jen's vegetable shopping, then to the international food store where I got some noodles, then Seibu and finally the post office, where I collected the packages from my family. We got on the bus to campus, got off at Oikoshi so I could dump my stuff in my room (Jen decided to buy the spare big box from me to send her family's presents home), then we headed out to a couple more shops. Firstly, the recycle store by Oikoshi, again with a nice array of stuff which I'd love to buy if I had some spare money, like little figurines, retro video games and a few manga. Then we tried the bakery again but it was closed v.v After waiting for the bus a little while, Jen headed back and I went to my room. I'd just poured the water on my noodles when Derek called me to ask if I wanted to go for dinner with him and his girlfriend, who arrived on Saturday, so I opted out. He said he was going to come and fill up some bottles of water from my tap later in the evening (his water's off until next month now, due to maintenance -_-), but later called again to change his mind as they were both tired. I uploaded my pictures from Shimoda, and did my laundry.
And that's about it for my past week. If I've forgotten anything important, I'll go back and edit. And sorry for the long post ^^'