Here's the last of my backlog of entries, from Halloween weekend.

Halloween weekend was a busy time. I definitely needed it to get away from everything else that was going on.

I spent Saturday, Halloween, in Ikebukuro and Harajuku with meepalicious , Greta, and Nicole. We got an early start so we would have time to do everything we wanted. We didn’t have any costumes to wear for Halloween, but Leslie and I decided to dress-up anyways. Leslie wore her frilly lolita skirt and I wore my punky, visual kei-esqe dress. We also both wore heels with our outfits because we were wearing skirts/dresses. We first made our way to Ikebukuro, to go to Saiyuki Festa. Saiyuki Festa was awesome! It was mostly a giant show of Minekura’s Saiyuki illustrations (color prints, sketches, and manga pages). We wandered through the show, fangirling at all the gorgeous illustrations. (“He’s wearing the coat.”) If there’s one thing Minekura knows how to draw, it’s pretty men. I picked up a Saiyuki shirt and a copy of the newest Saiyuki artbook (vol. 6). The illustrations are so pretty! It’s got a lot of really nice Gaiden art in it. After Saiyuki Festa, we unintentionally spent about an hour getting lost in and around the Sunshine City, looking for the exit we had come in through. (Fuck Sunshine City). We eventually found it though. Then we hopped the Yamanote-sen to Harajuku. Leslie and I had decided that Harajuku, with its myriad of awesome fashion, would be a suitable Halloween substitute. We did some shopping at Bodyline and Closet Child. Leslie and I were able to convince Greta and Nicole to buy some cute clothes at Bodyline. I ended up buying a long black Algonquins vest (or maybe it’s a sleeveless jacket?) at Closet Child. It’s pretty cool looking and was relatively inexpensive, since Closet Child is a second hand store. We wandered around some more and ended up at Takuya Angel. I wish I had more money because I love Takuya Angel’s clothes, but they can be quite expensive. I did however buy an adorable purse, made out of kimono fabric there. Still haven’t been able to catch Sisen working at the store though, but I plan on going back and looking around some more before I leave. We may have looked around at some of the stores around Takeshita Dori, but my feet and Leslie’s feet were hurting quite a bit. I guess that’s the price you pay for wearing heels. We decided that we had had our fill of awesome shopping and that it was time to go home.

On Sunday, I had a field trip to the Ghibli Museum with my Anime and Manga class. I ended up grouping up with Leslie, Greta, and Lauren for a day of Miyazaki. The Ghibli Museum was so neat! I loved how you just wandered through it, finding things in no discernible order. It had a whimsical feel. There were pretty stained glass windows, featuring different Miyazaki movies throughout the place. We stopped and saw the short movie that was playing in the theatre. It was about water bugs. Only Miyazaki could make water bugs cute. Then, we went up the fun spiral staircase to the roof and took a picture with the giant statue from Laputa. At one point we went to the café and Lauren got some Ghibli brand beer. It seemed like beer was something you shouldn’t have in the Ghibli museum, but clearly it was okay because they were selling it there. We did a bit of shopping at the gift shop. I got a keychain of one of the soot fuzzies and a Howl pin. The Ghibli Museum was definitely a fun time.

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in America!

Nikko was a really nice trip. On the first day, we went to Toshogu Shrine. This is a shrine dedicated to the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Me and my Japanese history loving self sliently geeked out about this. The design of this shrine was quite different from all of the other shrines and temples I've seen in Japan. It was much more colorful and ornamental. Most of the time Japanese shrines and temples tend to be much more simple in their designs. Toshogu was super pretty and I really enjoyed seeing it. While we were there, we climbed the stairs to see Ieyasu's grave. We also saw the famous carvings of the Three Monkeys doing the "Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" pose and the Sleeping Cat. After Toshogu, the bus drove up some super curvy mountain roads to get to Kegon Waterfall. It was nice, but I was pretty cold. The weather in Nagano was colder then it had been in Tokyo. On the second day of the trip we went for a nice hike through the woods. It was cold outside, but I piled on a few layers so I would be warmer. The scenery was so beautiful, with all the leaves changing color and the waterfalls. We spotted an adorable kitten rolling around in the bushes at the end of our hike and attempted to play with it. Then it was lunchtime. We grilled our own pork and veggies on a stone slab. It was yummy. After lunch, it was time for wood carving. We carved pre-outlined designs into wooden plates. It was pretty difficult. My dragon design ended up looking kind of rough, but not too bad in the end. That was the last part of the trip. Then it was time for the bus ride home, which I attempted to spend sleeping.

On Monday, meepalicious and I went to Shinjuku to go to the Volks store. (For those of you who are unaware, Volks is a company that makes beautiful ball-jointed dolls.) Leslie brought her new doll Camui with her. It was really nice to finally get to go to a Volks store. The dolls were lovely. I think I unintentionally fell in love with the F-16 mold. The display F-16 was so pretty! I think he's definitely going down as next on my current dolly wishlist. Leslie bought some clothes for her boys and I bought a pair of purple eyes for my dolly Brynn. After that, we shopped in the Studio Alta. I got a cool shirt that has some little chains attached to it. Leslie and I then went and had some delicious ramen for dinner.

Tuesday was our Anime and Manga class's field trip to Akihabara. It was nothing new though because I've been to Akihabara before. I did however pick up a copy of the gorgeous Pandora Hearts artbook. It's so lovely! It might be one of the prettiest artbooks I've ever bought. Definitely worth the money. Greta also had super awesome luck finding stuff she wanted, like her Neuro and Harlock figures. It was so cute.

Today, I had a fast food approximation of Thanksgiving food. There is no turkey in Japan, so we went to KFC and got fried chicken and french fries (because there were no mashed potatoes). Later in the day we got McDonald's apple pies. Nowhere near as good as Thanksgiving dinner, but it was the best we could do. Leslie and I took Kirsten to Otome Road in Ikebukuro because she had yet to go. I bought moar Gundam doujin. I should not be allowed to buy doujinshi ever again. In my defense though, I spent under 1,000 yen (around $10) on four doujin. We also tried to go get delicious pastries (aka man cake) at the Swallowtail White Rose Cafe (the one that's not the butler cafe you have to make reservations for a month in advance). Upon arriving at the cafe we discovered that the only had adorable maid girls working there, not the hot butlers that are normally found at Swallowtail. We decided to pass on the cake then because it was a bit expensive and there were no butlers to serve it. Maid girls aren't bad, but a little disappointing when you're expecting butlers in suits.

Now, I'm in Leslie's room and we're listening to Christmas music. It is officially Christmas season (even if it doesn't feel like it yet).

It’s about time that I caught up on my backlog of LJ entries, so here's the first one. On October 21^st -24^th I was in Nagano. IES (my study abroad program) had a group trip there. We started our trip by getting on a bus bright and early on Wednesday morning. The ride to Nagano was a bit long but it was broken up by stops along the way.

At the first stop we went to a drum museum. While we were there we also got to take taiko drum lessons. It was pretty cool, even if I did mess up the rhythms sometimes. Our taiko sensei was cute, as well. Later in the afternoon we stopped at Matsumoto Castle. It was an old samurai castle and was really cool to see! It had a lot of super steep stairs though. We’re talking steps at a 65 degree angle. Greta, Nicole, Leslie, and I were joking around about the samurai having tests to make it through the castle in 5 minutes of less. If they didn’t make it they would be thrown down as projectile weapons, lol.

After the castle, we arrived at the ryokan we were staying at. Greta was put in charge of the key for our room. It turned out rather ironically (and awesomely) that we were in the Kotobuki room. Kotobuki is actually part of the name of one of Greta’s characters. This of course really meant that Greta was destined to be our fearless leader, and so we formed the Kotobuki-gumi. We had fun running around in the yukata and geta that the ryokan lent us. After dinner it was onsen (hot springs) time. It was a tiny bit awkward at first because you are supposed to get into onsen naked. They are divided by gender though, so it was only being naked around other girls. And it ended up being no big deal once everyone was naked because it somehow put us all on the same level (if that makes sense). The onsen were very nice and relaxing. They were quite warm though, so you could usually only stay in for a few minutes at a time.

We started the next day with making tofu. The place we went to make the tofu was freezing inside. Dear Japan, please invest in central heating. Despite not really knowing what we were doing and freezing our asses off, I thought our tofu turned out pretty good. We spent the afternoon exploring the town of Obuse. There were a lot of little shops there, and a few art museums. There was a Hokusai museum, with some of the prints he made later in his life. I really enjoyed seeing those.

On the third day we went to Zenkoji, a famous Buddhist temple. It was pretty cool. The most notable part of Zenkoji was the maze we went through. There is a short maze under the main temple that the monks used to use. It only has one path, but the maze is literally pitch black. And you’re not supposed to talk as you’re going through. (Do you hear that little old Japanese ladies? STFU.) I spent most of the time with my had on Greta’s back, to insure that I wouldn’t be walking alone, and Leslie was behind me, with her hand on my back. The maze was only about 5 minutes. It was simultaneously pretty neat and a little terrifying. After Zenkoji, we went and made our own soba noodles for lunch. They were quite delicious. For whatever reason, the place we made soba at also had a giant slide outside that we went down. We then spent the afternoon hiking. We hiked through some gorgeous scenery to get to Togakushi Shrine. The leaves on the trees were just starting to change colors. And after Tokgakushi, we went to the awesome ninja museum. There was a super cool ninja house there, with secret doors, tilted rooms, and moving staircases that we made our way through. There was also a fun area to run around in outside, with walls to climb to prove that you were ninja.

On the last day we went to the monkey onsen. These are famous onsen in Nagano that monkeys like to go in. There were a ton of monkeys there! The baby ones were so cute! You still had to be careful around the monkeys though. Leslie accidentally got a very frightening looking monkey picture, when the monkey decided it didn’t like its picture being taken, lol. After that we went to another place, where we made some pottery. We molded the pots, and they are going to bake them and send them back to us. Then it was time for the bus ride back home. They put on some movies for us to watch during the ride. The first one was Handsome Suit, a hilarious Japanese comedy about an ugly man who turns into a handsome man when he puts on a Handsome Suit. And the movie was filmed in Makuhari. Part of it was even filmed on the campus at KUIS! The second movie was Ponyo~. I love Ponyo. By the time the movies were over, we were nearly home.

Some of my favorite quotes from the weekend were:

-It’s like vertigo, except fish.

-It all makes sense once you get past the dinosaurs.

-He could take Matsumoto castle.

-They ate mostly in science.

-"Stop punching our lunch."
"I eat lunch for breakfast."

Here's a link to my Nagano photos on Flickr. (I'm too lazy to upload them through LJ.)

I am exhausted, sore, and my ears are ringing, but I'm so happy. First of all, the Nagano trip was a ton of fun. Then, I rocked the fuck out at the V-Rock Festival today. It was amazing~. I finally got to see Gazette perform, which makes my life that much more complete. I love them. <3 The other bands were pretty awesome, as well.

Now, it is time for me to go to bed. After I survive Hell Week, I'll post the details of my recent adventures.

Right now we are in the midst of Silver Week in Japan. This means I get five days off. やった！

Today I met up withmeepalicious. We were heading to her dorm when we got pulled into a matsuri (festival). A large group of old men were carrying a small shrine down the street on their shoulders. Leslie and I intended to follow the procession to the shrine. Instead, the old men decided that we should help them carry the shrine, so they stuck us right up in front. That way everyone would be able to see the gaijin who were helping them carry the shrine. They gave us the same scarves that they were all wearing tied around their heads and off we went. Leslie and I kept looking at each other laughing, in complete disbelief of what was actually going on, lol. It was a little hard to follow along with the steps of the procession sometimes. A shrine is not an easy thing to carry. It was pretty fun though, in an 'I can't believe this is happening' sort of way. At the end of the procession they gave us bags filled with food to thank us. I'm going to be snacking on this bag of food for the next week.

Tomorrow I'm meeting up with Eri in Shinjuku! I'm excited because it's been around two years since I've last seen her.

So, this past week it really hit me. Before it just seemed like everything was so far away, but...

Two weeks from today, I will be on my way to Japan. For a whole semester.