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It’s Saturday evening, and I’ve been spending most of the day just relaxing and recovering from the last few days events. Let me try and start this out. Thursday was Brian’s last day here in Swinging Nippon, so we went out to Bikkuri Ramen for the second time in the week. On the way there with Yuji, he took too long in the bathroom so I got on the train without him. Also, there happened to be a IES girl on the train so I just let Yuji catch up on the next train. 結構オレらしいな話なんだ…

So for Bikkuri, it was me, Brian, Yuji, Ari, and his brother Josh, who is here for a few days before they head to China. And since pretty much every Japanese person I talked to asks this, YES, Ari’s brother is also very tall. Although it was a very fun and good time, it wasn’t quite up to the gyoza-eating level as last semester’s was. We all started with a Ramen-Gyoza set, and then Ari and I were the only ones who started going with only gyoza. Yuji dropped out pretty quick, Brian ate a lot, and Josh ate a lot of sets. Ari ended up eating 30 gyoza (5 plates) total, and I got 31 since Brian gave me 1 extra. It was a cheap victory, but it didn’t matter because we were all still so disgustingly full of cheap Chinese food. I love Bikkuri Ramen.

After that, on the way walking back, Brian got Yuji with the most solid kancho performance I have ever seen. It was a good job, although let’s not forget how horrible and terrible the kancho really is. I won’t go into detail here. Me and Brian went to go chill in the sweet internet cafe we found, Air’s Cafe, and just like the last time, ended up spending about twice as much time as we meant to in there. The place is so sweet. It’s only like 105 yen per 15 minutes, or 3 hours for 1050 yen. You get your own nice little cubicle with a nice computer/internet, a huge LCD monitor, a leather chair and ottoman that reclines almost fully back, magazines and about 1700 comics you can read, and also unlimited coffee, tea, soda, etc. It’s a marvelous place. If it had video games and showers, I would probably live there forever.

After killing so much time, I got home and realized that I needed to edit the IES Train Instruction video together before Brian left. Brian also had to pack up his stuff, as he was planning on heading for the airport pretty early in the morning. I ended up working on and off, falling asleep here and there. The previous night I didn’t sleep much because I had to go to film the summer Japanese classes at 9AM. Actually, it turned into a disaster because I didn’t get clearance ahead of time, I had to talk to the program coordinator, got confused as Japanese the entire time, and it was just a stressful experience just all together. Anyway, I got the train video done, I think it’s actually pretty decent. It’s only about 8 minutes long, but it covers most of the basics and doesn’t have any retarded jokes like the previous students’ video did. Additionally, I tried encoding Seth and Ari’s IES Sayonara Party video for CD-Roms to give out to everyone. Couldn’t get it to work though, and I didn’t really have much time to do so.

When all was done, I was in pain from having so little sleep, Brian headed to the airport a little before 7AM, and I headed out to school again to tape the summer kids final skit performances, which started at 11. I fell asleep for about an hour, involuntarily, and packed my book bag, which was about a million pounds heavy. I had all my camera equipment because I was hoping to tape some more student interviews, and also my laptop since I was planning on trying again to help encode that damn Sayonara Party video. I checked the trains with my keitai, and I made it in time, but they must have cancelled a train or something on the Musashino Line, because I would have been late to school. So, I decided to just go on Sobu Line and maybe take a cab. I ended up walking from Makuhari station since I couldn’t see a taxi, and was late to the start of the performances. Oh well.

Tried more on the Sayonara Vid, with no luck. I wish I could have gotten it to work, but all in all it doesn’t matter that much. They at least had the copy to show to everyone at the Sayonara Party. By around mid-day, the lack of sleep was kicking in, and I was being reminded all too well of last semester’s Sayonara Party, this past spring at IU’s finals week, and pretty much any “end of” time I have, where I leave work until the last second and end up not sleeping and feeling like death.

The Sayonara Party was really good. There were a lot of people, so having it at the school’s cafeteria Lapas (more like a restaurant, not like a ghetto school cafeteria) instead of Y’s was a very wise decision. This year’s party really did feel more like the “end of an era” than last semester’s, even though back then I didn’t know I would be coming back. It’s weird; I don’t know how to describe it really. After the party, a big group of us went to the Room Deco arcade for purikura and such. We ended up staying there for a long time, probably like 2 hours. Then we stopped by the conbini and went to a park for the rest of the night. By the time we got to the park, I only had about an hour left before last train, so I decided that I would just pull an all-nighter. The park was a lot of fun, had to say goodbye to people as they went home for the night and were leaving this weekend back for the states. Definitely is weird (I’m not going to say sad) to say goodbye to all those people. Either I’ve known them since last August or just since this June, but still, I won’t be seeing many of them ever again. IES/Japan really is a great time, and I’ll miss hanging out and seeing everyone. Things won’t be the same, but all the key people will still keep in touch, so that’s always cool. A-Team banzai.

Around midnight-ish, me, Seth, Mii, Yuji, Tomomi, Minami, and like 3 other Japanese kids walked all the way to Bamiyan since it’s open 24 hours. It was a lot of fun, but eventually everyone either left (if they lived in the area) or passed out. After everything, we woke up around 4AM to catch trains home. So much for the all-nighter, but it was still fun hanging out and sleeping on the Bamiyan table. So that was the end of another one of the longest and greatest finales in the life of Anthony Leong.

Once again, I haven’t updated in quite some time. Things have been pretty busy around here lately. Let me now then attempt, true believers, (anyone get that reference?) to sum up everything that I’ve done of importance since my last post. In summary, I’ve gone to/done: Ghibli Museum, Kabuki-cho, real Kabuki, the Meiji Shrine, Kaihim Beach, Harajuku to see freaks, karaoke a bunch of times, Disney Sea theme park, and the Yokohama International Fireworks Show.

Wow, going through my pictures to summarize all of that makes it seem like I really have been doing a lot of stuff. Nick left a little bit ago, after showing him a good old fashioned Y’s. Brian is still here, after extending his flight by about a week and a half. He’s pretty much adapted to living here like I have, and the only real difference is he doesn’t have a cell phone. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a major handicap here in Japan.

I’d like to sit here and write a blog entry about every awesome place I went, but I’m way too lazy. However, I’m going to try and put up pictures of most of these places soon, and I’ll have (er, try to have) substantial descriptions and captions for them.

Since I only have 1 week left here in Japan, I’m actually getting pretty busy with everything. It’s almost 1:30AM now, and I’m planning on waking up tomorrow around 7AM to go get some b-roll of the summer IES classes. I’ll write another entry sometime soon, and hopefully I’ll get pictures up again this weekend. I will be back in the States on the 28th, and back to Bloomington by August 1.

It’s Sunday evening, and I haven’t left my apartment since last night when I got back (around 7PM) except once to do laundry. Why am I wasting a perfectly good Sunday in Japan? I’m tired! Haha. Summer IES kids got here on Thursday, and ever since that day I’ve been actually doing a pretty good deal of work and running around.

For the most part, my internship is to shoot video and then produce (by August or September) a 50-minute promotional video for IES to use to promote the Tokyo program. That really isn’t too bad, except also the last few days I’ve been helping out with the orientation and various other things associated with the beginning of the summer program. On Thursday I went to the airport to help welcome and move the new kids in. On Friday I sat through and helped kinda with orientation sessions all day long. Yesterday, Saturday, I helped with the lunch where all the kids met their host families and then move in. I guess I haven’t been doing that much especially, although I have been running around a lot between the IES Center, school, the OVTA hotel where the summer students stayed for the first few days, went to Narita Airport, and etc. Last night, I skipped a BBQ at Huston’s because I just wanted to go home and rest. And I’ve been doing so every since, it’s been nice. I took a slight detour last night before coming home to go to the next station and pick up like 10 volumes of the Detective Conan manga. I’ve read a bit, but am skipping the chapters that I’ve already seen the anime of.

The summer kids, for the most part, are the normal batch of IES kids. And IES groups are usually pretty relatable to the kids you will find in a Japanese language class in the US. There are a few cool kids, a good number of huge dorks, some people who seem to be lost, and some who seem to be here to just party. I’ve associated myself with the cool kids as I see fit. I’ll probably hang out with some of the kids I like, and ignore the rest. Sounds like a good plan to me!

Oh yeah, if some IES kids are reading this (it’s inevitable), it might be interesting. Actually I should go read some summer/spring IES kids blogs (I know a few have them). Might be interesting. I think from here on out, my job is to just go on all the fun trips and film stuff, so probably the heat is over (haha until I go back to the US and actually have to edit this video together).

Hard to believe it, but I’ve already been in Japan for over a week. Since I don’t have internet access at home, I’ll most likely be writing at my apartment from now on, and just posting whenever I get a chance to jump on the internet. Also remember that I’m mega lazy, so that might not happen. I will be putting the date and time in manually, so what you see if when I really am writing the entry in Japan time. Last fall I think I just changed the global time settings for the entire blog, but when I set it back in January it changed them all the Indiana time. This way, the entries for this trip to Japan will all show the correct time and stuff.

I’ve noticed that being in Japan is just old routine for me now. Even after I arrived at the airport last week, and Seth and Tre were there to pick me up, it was like nothing changed at all. This might sound kind of stuck up, and I’m not trying to do that, but I’ve become accustomed to living in Japan by now, so I guess that’s a good thing. In less than a week, I moved into a mansion (er, apartment), got a new keitai (cell phone), got a train pass, and was back to absolute normal routine. I guess it’s only been like 5 months since I was here, but it still seems a bit of a feat the adapt to living in an entirely different country so quick.

Anyways, enough of the philosophical stuff. What have I been up to? Up until like Tuesday of this week, I was pretty useless. It was like a vacation. I went on Saturday with Seth, Ari, and Tre to Kappabashi near Asakusa, which specializes in the fake food models that pretty much every restaurant in Japan has. It was really awesome seeing all this fake food, and also kind of strange. Half of the stores seemed more like museums than stores, with their stuff in display cases. Once you see the prices, you see why. The fake food is about 10 times more expensive than real food! For instance, a small piece of fake sushi is around 500 yen, and a fake bowl of ramen was like 6500! Instead of hollow plastic food, like I always assumed, the models are made of solid rubber-like material and are all made by hand, thus the high price. Yikes.

After that, on Sunday, I went to Akihabara for a few hours in the afternoon. I forgot that on the weekends they block off a lot of the roads there since there are so many people shopping and stuff in the area. There were also a bunch of cool bands playing in the street, including on band that was either Native American or Mexican. Either way, what in the world were they doing in the middle of Japan? Also, right when I got out of the station at Akiba, I noticed a big chance. What I vaguely remember from last year as construction and maintenance has now become a really sweet park-type area and a few new buildings. Japan seems to always be growing, and that was a big shock. Just like the Room Deco building in Makuhari near IES, spots that were under construction a few months ago are now complete. That night I went to Top Run, the yakiniku viking, with Ari, Lars, and Duy. I ate about half a cow and a full pig; Derek would be proud. I even inadvertently adopted Derek’s style of cooking: pile the meat on the grill, and start mixing. Oh man it was good. Oh man I was so full.

On Tuesday, I finally started actually doing intern work, but I’ll write about that later on. Summer kids orientation started yesterday, and I actually have lots of stuff to do now. I’m beat, and I think it’s time to just pass out. I have to wake up tomorrow at like 7AM, even though it’s a Saturday. Maybe this internship isn’t going to be as cushy as I imagined.

While I always tell myself that I don’t want to be “like that,” I must admit that after going to Crestwood Mall today, the differences between America and Japan really hit me. I dunno, just everything seemed different. Maybe it’s because I haven’t really done much since I got back (aside from sleeping at weird times and playing Metal Gear 3), but wow: I’m not in Japan anymore.

Rather than make this some kind of long, boring essay (let’s not forget how lazy I am), here’s a quick list of things that were blatantly different. Actually, it’s a top/bottom 6 list of things, starting with “ya so what” to “oh man lets go back NOW.” It was originally going to be 10, but I can’t think of any more right now. I know it just sounds like a lot of complaints, but c’mon: Japan was a blast and I’m still in that high. Not that I hate America or anything stupid like that, but things are definitley a different world.

6) Things were dirty here. Maybe it’s just Crestwood, but everything was kind of dirty and unkept.

5) Arcades here suck. I instinctively went to checkout what games they had, and the place was totally empty, with lots of empty room, no good games, and only like 2 crane games (can’t hold a candle to the UFO Catchers).

4) Stuff’s a lot cheaper here. I was used to seeing CDs for 3000 yen and DVDs for 5000. I walked into a place today and the cheap DVDs were like 10 bucks. Score one for USA.

3) Stores are huge here. I guess the stores in Japanese malls like LaLaPort really were smaller than here.

2) Drinks are huge here. I ordered a regular from a coffee shop and it looked like I ordered a barrel of coffee. I ordered the large in Japan and it was about half that size.

1) No hot Japanese girls in skirts and boots! Even though like half of the time in Japan, they were ugly from the front, it was always nice to see that everywhere.

I’m home now (in St. Louis). Actually, I had written a fairly good post before I left Japan, but for some reason it got erased or something. Nevertheless, I’ll try to remember most of it and assimilate it into this post. Originally I wanted to put some closure to the semester. I’ll do that with this too.

This past fall really has been one of the best semesters ever. If it weren’t for the people and friends I met there, it would have been totally different and definitely not as fun (go A-Team!). It sounds really stupid, but when I first found out I was going to go to Japan for a semester and stuff, one of my main worries was the people I’d be going with. I knew that there would be a lot of social inepts, a lot of huge anime freaks, and a lot of the type of people that I just in general don’t like. Oh, and I was right. However, aside from these, I also found a good group of people who were just as twisted as I am, and thus the A-Team was formed and life was good. We took the place over (both figuratively and symbolically; need I mention the Nagano Bus, meals at the ryokans, and Y’s bar/Sayonara party). Yeah, we were just that awesome.

I definitely want to go back to Japan sometime soon. Maybe after graduating and finding a job that will send me over there. I’m pretty certain that I don’t want to do JET, but something else, peferrably marketing or business would be great. Willing to relocate? Definitely, at least for a few years. Actually, if I can find an internship or some kind of paid thing to go there next May, then I’ll do that also. Seth and Ari will still be there, so it will be fun times. I’m interested to see what kind of people those guys get for the spring IES semester. Most likely, it will be a bunch of scabes and a few good guys.

I’ll be posting the final set(s) of IES Japan pictures within the next day or two. I also have a feeling that more people from IES are probably reading this Blog one way or another. Good or bad, I don’t care. Actually, I’m thinking of posting a full list of nicknames. Maybe just the nicknames, and not the real names. I don’t think I’d get any slack for that, bwahahahaha. Ari, Seth, Bryan, Mikey: what do you think?

I really got used to living in Japan. The whole living part isn’t really as different as you would think. Maybe it’s because my Japanese is semi-usable, but other than that, it’s just like moving to any new city. Sure there are trains rather than cars, stuff is more expensive, food is smaller and tastes strange sometimes, but living is living. That really didn’t strike me as hard or different. I think I’m happy and capable of living in the US or in Japan. They really are about the same to me. Too bad I have friends and all of that in both; I can’t BE in both places, so I might have to spend my life as a traveler. Doesn’t sound bad, if I could make some money.

When I flew back into Dallas this morning before my connecting flight back to St. Louis, it really didn’t seem like it’s been that long since the morning when I took off. Man it really has been a long time though. A lot has happened, a lot has changed. I guess I’m still the exact same as I always have been. Studying abroad is supposed to be a life-changing experience. Yeah I guess kinda. But there’s also supposed to be all that “culture shock” BS that they talk about, and I don’t go through any of that. Probably because I’ve been here and back 5 times. Either way, it’s been a blast.

Now it’s time for Christmas with the family, my birthday (turning 21), and a few days hanging out at home before I have to pack up and haul out to IU and my new apartment. I have a feeling that this spring at IU is going to be one of the best semesters ever also. Maybe I’m just getting to the point where I can enjoy life more. OK nevermind, that sounds retarded. I think it’s going to be a good semester just because I’m awesome. Yeah, I think this post turned out better than the original that I wrote and lost. It’s certainly a lot longer. From now on the blog posts will be a bit more mundane, more full of complaints and weird observations, and will probably be less frequent. Oh, and I’ll set the timezone back to Indiana time now…