Japan - Days 114-126

Shit, it's been almost 2 weeks since my last update. To everyone who reads this, as well as to myself when I read this in the future, I apologise. There's no way I'll be able to remember every minute detail, but I'll try to summarise the more interesting things that happened in some sort of order.
On Saturday 18th, the day after I went to karaoke with the large group, I went to Cybex again with Derek and Mirria. Jen had considered coming but she backed out. On the way there, Derek gave me a Christmas present - a Pokémon plushie (which completes the set of 3 Unova region starters of which I already had 2) and some Charizard stickers from the Pokémon Centre in Tokyo ^^ We got a 7 hour package, and stayed for about 6-6.5 hours. As the karaoke was all booked when we first arrived, we played a 3-way game of pool (well, after a fashion), which we had a 3-way tie on. Once we finished, we were assigned the same family room I had been in the previous night. For the first hour or so we had to put up with a screeching microphone, but after multiple attempts to stop the squealing one of the staff came and fixed the problem at last. By the end of the evening we were falling asleep; I'm pretty sure Mirria fell asleep in Derek's lap for an hour or two ^^' Still, it was great fun, though 7 hours for just 3 people was perhaps a bit much
On Sunday 19th, I had dinner at the Chinese restaurant with Derek and Mirria, though as I was trying to save some money I went for ramen as opposed to karaage. After finishing dinner, we sat in the restaurant for an hour or two just talking, which was fun :-)
I think it was on the night of Tuesday 21st that Derek asked if I'd like to come eat dinner with him and Mirria, as she was doing some home-cooking. In the evening, we met up at the Hirasuna community centre, and I gave them both their Christmas gifts, which I think/hope they liked. For dinner, we ate some star-shaped potato bites and Pikachu-head-shaped riceballs. Very good ^^ Afterwards, we sat and talked for a few hours, during which time Derek decided that, as Mirria was there and could look after him, him and me could have a drink together.
I think it was on Wednesday night that we had our drink, as it was the day before a National Holiday, the Emperor's birthday. We bought some vodka, cola and plastic cups from Coco, then sat on the bench outside and proceeded to do shots. Mirria's waiting until her 21st birthday to drink (the legal age in America), so she just sat and talked with us as me and Derek got a little drunk. We finished half of the (admittedly small) bottle of vodka, but as Derek was already fairly gone after that, he decided we should save the rest for another night, plus the two of them were going into Tokyo the next day so he actually had to be able to get up in the morning.
On the 23rd, I was woken at about 9am by a knock at the door. It was a deliveryman with a Christmas package from my friends in Yokohama :-) I decided to save it for Christmas Day, though, being traditional. I don't remember what I did on that day, but I probably went and cycled around a bit, before retreating back into the warm ^^'
On Christmas Eve, I still had lab and Japanese class. Derek and I discussed what we could do to welcome in Christmas, and we decided on okonomiyaki followed by Cybex. After messaging around a bit, the three of us, plus Michael and Molly, went to Kuraudo for dinner. On the way there, Mirria gave me a Christmas present - a phone charm and a key chain from the Pokémon Centre, with the phone charm being the counterpart to the one I already have ^^ Me, Derek and Mirria ordered the gyoza-flavoured okonomiyaki, which Derek had been excited about trying since I mentioned it to him. However, there was a snag - I didn't know the difference between 'Hiroshima style', 'Kansai style' and 'Korean style'. Turns out, Hiroshima style is a massive mound of okonomiyaki, whereas Kansai style is the flatter one, which is what I normally think of when I think 'okonomiyaki'. Therefore, my gyoza-flavoured one filled me pretty well, but the others struggled. In the end, Derek had 1/4 left and Mirria still had 1/2 left, in addition to about 1/4 of Michael's being left (Molly still can't eat okonomiyaki after the Spiritus incident, so she had a croquette instead). Even with my reputation as the human garbage disposal, I was only able to eat half of Mirria's leftovers and a sliver of Michael's, just to try, before I too was defeated, though the others applauded my efforts nonetheless, for making them seem less wasteful ^^' Afterwards, Molly and Michael bailed while me, Derek and Mirria went to Cybex. It was about 9pm by this point, so we got a 4 hour package which would see us nicely into Christmas. After the clock ticked over, the first song I sung was 'Christmas Is All Around' from Love Actually XD Also, we came up with a classic moment - in the song 'Welcome To The Black Parade' by My Chemical Romance, there's a line which goes 'Because one day, I'll lead you, a phantom...', but for some reason the word 'phantom' was in block capitals on the words on the screen. This prompted me to shout the word 'phantom' in an otherwise quietly-sung part of the song, causing all 3 of us to burst out laughing for a good minute XD Ah, good times
Christmas Day wasn't too bad, though admittedly, I do prefer family Christmases. Jen was busy drawing, so she didn't want to hang out, and I didn't think fair to intrude on Derek and Mirria, so after Skyping with Maria and opening my Christmas presents, I cycled to WonderGoo and bought myself a Pokémon Special Manga (yes, even on Christmas day, everything was open), before coming back and watching Youtube videos for a few hours before dinner. Me, Jen, Derek and Mirria met at gyoza for a slightly unconventional, albeit VERY tasty, Christmas dinner. Afterwards, Derek and Mirria invited me back to their hotel room (they stayed there a few nights to avoid the workmen who had to invade Derek's room to inspect the water pipes) to watch a movie - Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. Jen declined, but I went with them. The hotel they were in was VERY snazzy. Anyway, the movie was really good. It's about a guy whose life is basically a video game, so of course I was going to like it XD Afterwards, I decided to head off to see if anything was going on with anyone else that I could take part in; I knew some people were going to Shein's, but I wanted to check who else would be going before I went down there. As it transpired, some people were going to Cybex, so I went there too. It wasn't as fun as the previous night, but still, it wasn't too bad, as I got to try a couple of new songs :-) These included the Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh theme song, and 'Back In Town' by Matt Dusk (Brad, be proud ;-p). So all in all, not a bad Christmas ^^
On Monday, I checked with my supervisor what time I was allowed off from the lab - I booked off from Wednesday 29th until the following Tuesday, so I get a week off. On Tuesday, my last day before the end of the year, I was taught a new procedure - homogenising tissue samples. This essentially involved me making mouse organ milkshakes using a very phallic-looking device, which even one of the guys in my lab commented on with the Japanese word ちんぽ (chinpo). However, I underestimated the time this was to take, so even though I'd made plans to meet Derek and Mirria for gyoza, I only got out at about 7.20pm despite agreeing to meet them at 6.45-7, so I texted them to let them know I wouldn't get to go. However, as the orders for gyoza stop at 7.30, I cycled with all my speed towards the restaurant, and arrived at about 7.29. However, it turns out they stopped taking orders about 10 minutes early, so I wasn't able to order; I still got to sit with the others though. Although I told them I'd just get some food from the combini afterwards, they nevertheless allowed me to share their gyoza, despite my protests. Afterwards, as it was my last day of labs for the year, Derek and I decided to finish off the vodka from the previous week. I also had a bottle of Chu-Hai left from Christmas-night karaoke, so after the vodka was done, we mixed the Chu-Hai with coke and drank that, which made the taste less vile. Derek had one large shot of it, whereas I finished off the remainder of the bottle. We also bought another bottle of vodka, which we drank half of as vodka and coke shots, so we were, to quote Derek, "shit-faced". Still, it was very fun, despite the fact that, as we'd started drinking early, it was only about 10pm at this point. At one point, after coming back from a run to the 100 yen shop, Mirria managed to knock over a bunch of bikes while she was parking up, and SHE was the sober one XD When we decided to call it a night, at about midnight, as I had further to walk to my dorm than Derek and Mirria, Mirria walked with me to make sure I got there safe, which I'm grateful for, though I did say she should've gone with Derek. Apparently Derek did find his way back to his dorm safely on his own, thankfully. As I lay down to go to sleep, I felt really rough, and ended up throwing up over the side of the bed before falling asleep :-(
The next morning, Wednesday, I stepped around the puddle of vomit on the floor, luckily, as I'd forgotten it was there. It reeked something awful, so after opening the window and going to buy some tissues, as well as borrowing the dustpan and broom from the kitchen, I finally managed to clear up the mess, though the smell remained for the rest of the morning until it had aired a little. I messaged Derek at about 10am, figuring he should be awake by then, and asked if he wanted me to show him WonderGoo, as I'd been meaning to for months, ever since he got that puncture. He said he'd pass, but then called me an hour later, just as I was going to head out, and said we could meet in Tsukuba Centre at 12.30 and head up there then. So, I cycled up to Iias, used the McDonalds wi-fi, then headed to Tsukuba Centre in time to meet the others. After looking all around WonderGoo for an hour or two, during which time I bought 5 cheap Pokémon manga (I now have the whole RBY, GSC and RS arcs, most of the FRLG arc and the start of the Emerald arc), we went to Tsukuba Centre for a little. Mirria bought some bread rolls from Seibu so we could all feed the carp in one of the ponds just off Tsukuba Centre. The ducks kept getting closer and closer, competing with the carp for bread, so at one point I clapped my hands together and scared the ducks away, which was funny, though they became wise to it after the first time, and barely flinched on subsequent attempts. On two occasions, three HUGE ducks swam up and started eating the bread - seriously, they were at least 3-4 times the size of the other ducks in the pond, which surprised the hell out of all 3 of us the first time we saw them. After we ran out of bread, Mirria took pictures of Derek in a 'glass cage of emotion' (i.e. a phone booth; apparently a joke from Anchorman but I've not seen the film in such a long time I've forgotten that part), before we headed back to campus. As it was to be Mirria's last night in Tsukuba, we all decided to go for gyoza after they'd done some packing. After we agreed on a meeting time, I went to my room for a few hours before taking a quick cycle up to Ichinoya to give Jen back some money she lent me, then zoomed back to the gyoza place, which Derek and Mirria had already arrived at. As always, gyoza is a great dinner, and apparently the traditional way to make an exit from Tsukuba, as Jordan did it too on his departure. Afterwards, we decided to partake of another departure tradition - Cybex, making it the 5th time in 2 weeks I was going to be heading there (not that I'm complaining :-D). We got the 4 hour package, and ended up in a room on the left-side of the building, whereas every other time we've been on the right. The room felt bigger, however, so it was a nice surprise. As always, great fun ^^ As we were leaving, Mirria knocked the handset-charger off of the table, causing a loud crash as you'd expect, and prompting me to yell 'Shit, run!' as a joke. This caused some laughs, and Derek said, "We should come here more often - we get great quotes from you when we do" XD After leaving, we sat outside Coco for a while before heading inside. I said my goodbyes to Mirria, and wished the pair of them a good time in Narita for New Year, before heading home for some sleep.
Today, after a bit of a lay-in, I went up to Iias to use their wi-fi and buy some wrapping paper to wrap some gifts for my Japanese friends who I'm staying with for the next few days, did my rounds of the used-book shops (no new Pokémon Special v.v), then came back to my room. During the rest of the day, I did my laundry, played Pokémon, watched Youtube videos, wrapped presents and translated a chapter of my first Pokémon Special manga.
Well, that should bring you pretty much up to speed about my last few weeks. It's damn cold here, and since most students have gone home for the holidays, the central heating is off, leaving me with just my portable heater, which Jen has asked to borrow while I'm away. She was going to come borrow it tonight, but she wanted me to go out of my way to give it to her, and as I'd have frozen my ass off tonight without it, she eventually got the picture I'd been trying to allude to and asked to borrow it tomorrow morning instead, before I go into Tokyo. I've had a lot of fun hanging out with Derek and Mirria the past few weeks, even if I did feel a little awkward at times ^^' Still, it's nice that I have some friends who seem to enjoy my company and who are thoughtful and considerate. Just a shame that Mirria's leaving and Derek may leave in a couple of months too v.v My life is full of irony, ain't it?
Anyways, plans for the next few days - tomorrow morning I'm leaving early to get into Tokyo, where I'll spend a few hours before meeting my friend in the afternoon, and then go on to Yokohama to meet the rest of my host family from 5 years ago, and then stay with them until Sunday evening. Hopefully it'll be good fun ^^ I think a lot of their family is going to be there, so I hope my Japanese will be good enough to get me through. Anyways, I shall report back sometime next week and let you know all about it. Until then, adios, and sorry for the looooong update