I havent posted in awhile but a lot of stuff has been going on.
Fall 2010 semester is coming to an end, so projects and last minute rush to catch up in class is starting to kick in. Also been apartment hunting for a little over a month now. Pretty much secured a pretty nice place so once we have settled ill make a whole post about that. Ive been kept pretty busy with just stuff. But to show good faith that this blog is not forgotten, I present "JDM CARS part 2"
So of course one of the benefits of living in Japan is that some of my favorite dancers are here. Naturally I will take advantage of my time here and learn as much as I can before my return. Good friend of mine Goki, told me and took me to this place called Noa Dance Academy in Ikkebukuro and this place is NICE. I mean look at the pictures of the facility (from their website Noadance.com) and you can see how nice this studio is.
Also the japanese really like to offer a variety of hip hop styles besides choreography and being a freestyler/funkstyler this is very welcoming.
Its also very interesting to see who takes these dance classes. You have little girls probably age 13 or so taking popping classes and hitting pretty damn well. Its not surprising to see how Japan has some of the best dancers in the world. These kids take it young and take it seriously. Its funny also to see them (like me) starstruck over their sensei. I mean who wouldnt when you have this guy teaching you:
yes that is Popping KITE! I am super stoked to be learning from one of my biggest inspirations in popping. Super nice guy, talks to me in english (lol) Lets just say on my overall mission in Japan....one of the main objectives just got completed. Naturally I joined their academy.
They also have some other amazing lockers/poppers that I know of here (like popper Fishboy) so Ill most likely take their classes every now and then.
I'll of course keep updates of my adventures at Noa as well.
anywho lots happened this week it deserved a double post.
This festival has been the biggest and most enjoyable that ive been too so far in my 3 months in Japan. This festival stretched three days (11-13) and was to honor a Buddhist monk's death.
The festival had a TON of food that I of course had to splurge on. Okonomiyaki, Squid, Beer, Gyro (i know no japanese), caramel popcorn, chocolate banana and shaved ice got my money. And the japanese fishing game as well.
Enjoy the video it pretty much shows the experience.
So Japan being the one-upper it is... has also considered kicking America's idea of a family fun center in the nuts. Where i'm from the only family fun center we really had was boomers(formerly known as bull winkle's). This place was meant for kids probably to about 13 tops. These places had mini putt putt, small ferris wheel, rides as exciting to an adult as a washing machine and bumper cars, boats and go-karts as fast as my friend's RSX (slow i know).
But Japan has taken the name family fun center...and literally applies to the whole family!
This particular place: Round1 is a giant entertainment building with UFO catchers and gambling on floor 1, bowling floor 2-3 and floor 4-roof was Spo-Cha, which is what we did.
Spo-Cha consisted of Arcades, mini bowling, mini putt, roller rink, pocket bikes, random sport games, fishing, bb gun target shooting all on the 4th floor. the roof, which unfortunately we could not go too because it was raining, consisted of soccer, basketball and archery.
all for 1500 yen for 3 hours!
so as you can see this place is pretty awesome.
well enough talking enjoy the video it pretty much sums it all up.
So my hair was getting uncontrollably long (5 months of lazyness?), so I decided to get it cut. Now Japan and the street I live on in particular literally has a hair salon every other store. But you know Japanese (even men) and their hair, so these places specialize in styling and 40 dollar cuts. There is a 1000 yen quick cut place near school so I made the plunge and went to get my hair buzzed number 4 as I always do.
Now giving the lady benefit of the doubt..theres know way she coulda have misheard my japanese when I said number 4 all around (hand sign too). But the first cut was short.
yeah...thats more of a number 1. so it leaves me to assume that japanese number clips are also smaller than american. next time I think ill just tell them length instead (3cm.)
but im not mad. I usually wear hats and its getting colder now so ill be makin the transition into beanies anyway....although my heads so cold now I practically NEED them.
Looking at the menu there wasnt any vietnamese under the writting it was all japanese so i was wondering if it was legitly vietnamese or not. But after awhile I noticed most of the staff were vietnamese. I ordered in japanese but after confirming I said "thank you for the food" in vietnamese. Maybe ill flex my vietnamese muscles next time.
Overall It was a bit expensive. About 10 USD a bowl and 5 USD for a vietnamese ice coffee. The portion also considerably smaller than back home (i lived near little saigon/had big homemade bowls). It was gooood but again not compared to home. Overall I can see this as a once in awhile occasion since its a bit expensive.
PS. Bringing my own bottle of sirracha next time too...they didnt have any! wHat!?
So, I havent been really updating the blog or making videos as frequently as I first intended before arriving in Japan. That is because....well nothing really worth noting has happened. With school 5 days a week from morning til evening, my days are pretty busy. On top of that Im pretty tired most of the time so when I have a chance to lounge a bit at home I take it. So I really havent had much time to go do touristy things that would be exciting enough that I can show you all.
What I can do though is just post a few things here and there just to get a small peak of what I'm up too. nothing big but its something right? Although this post will have a couple pictures in it.
Teaser of my room. Like ive said before...I think I will dry my clothes like this now. since it smells nice. haha that and I learned how to use the dehumidifier on my aircon.
