sleepy worky girly

We ended up at the Shoto "museum" instead of the Shoto "Gallery" sooooooo that obviously didn't work out very well. Luckily a friendly cab driver took us to the correct location for free, since he could tell we were business people in need OR RATHER flustered idiotic gaijin.

Ah well.

We got there, to the press thing that is. I met some foreign correspondents and drank champagne or something and ate fancy little hors d'oeurve for dinner. Oh, and looked at games. I still have one article left to write. Basically, we can just say that games on the 360 are capable of having some beautiful graphics and thank god for that!! Infinite Undiscovery this Sept--w00t.

After that I went with some fellow journalists to this foody drinky place themed like a weird gothic church. The devil was leering over us and there were funky chaneliers and things. I took a few pix, but they are lowlight with no flash so as to not attract attn and/or glares from the waitstaff.

I went to the net cafe but ended up applying for a job instead of writing. The writing I did in the morning after I woke up at freaking quarter to six for no reason. Ate a salmon rice ball and drank some peach juice. Three hours of workish time and then hotel check out. Met up with Kayo and we arranged my JR pass and train tickets.

TOMORROW I go to Hokkaido o_o I'm pretty nervous. Bought some little sandwiches and grapefruit juice to have for breakfast before I leave, so I at least only have to worry about what to eat for lunch and snack instead of breakfast, too. The first train I take is a shinkansen, so that should be sweet. I'll probably take video out the window and maybe try to upload it somewhere later. Add to the probable hundreds of entirely too similar footage already available here. It's different when it's your own, though, RIGHT RIGHT? (Maybe.)

Kayo and I ate lunch out in a restaurant in the mall type place that sits on top of Shinjuku station. She had a bowl full of essentially raw tuna and avocado, among delicious rice etc. It was tasty. I got this thing that was sort of like unmade chicken soup. It was like component elements, only arranged differently. You scoop rice, chicken, egg, and mushroom into a little dish, add some seasonings like nori seaweed, sesame seeds, wasabi and then pour broth over the top. Prettttty tasty. The tea at that place was also really good. I forget the name of it.... It was brown, not green.

Kayo's apt rocks. That reminds me, I need to take pix. It's sooooo nice and adorable and brand new feeling. Extremely close to her station Shintokorozawa. All her stuff is shiny and adorable, as is her new laptop, on which I am typing now. I am not paying for this Internet! Keen!

So I actually had a pretty rad afternoon, considering I didn't get to Little Spoon. I got to meet Jean Snow and it turns out he totally rocks. Stumbled my way over to Cafe Pause in Ikebukuro, where he coordinates the gallery exhibits. Had a lot of fun talking with him about videogames, writing, chilling, living in Japan, etc. Drank a delicious Royal Milk Tea. How can you resisit Royal Milk Tea? Iced? With a dollop of ridiculously fresh tasting whipped cream on top? YOU CAN'T. Therefore, SUBMIT. But yeah, it was totally worth almost getting lost to go there. I will go again next time I am in town :D which more and more, I hope is in October for TGS. That's not to say I haven't been hoping to go since last year, because I have, but just that, there seem to be a lot of people to see in Tokyo now--a fact I enjoy.

Let me see, he eventually had to get back to work, which made me feel like an awful slacker. But then, I don't really have a job! I should make my own jobs, I guess. Jean is co-authoring a book at the moment. I dunno if I have the stamina for something like that. Maybe if I were a co-author...but I still dunno what I would write about. I seem to have lots of acquaintances who are writing or have written books.

I decided to go back to Shibuya to see if I could find Little Spoon. Yeah, so the story with that is that I heard Little Spoon had closed down, so when I saw one on the way to that weird churchy place the other night, I wouldn't shut up about it, despite the fact that our ringleader was entirely anti-Little Spoon. He said it made him sick. WELL I can't say anything to that really, but I can say that Little Spoon is one of my favorite curry places. So!

The funny thing is that I even looked up the address sort of before I left. But I didn't actually read the address, much less attempt to remember it or write it down. Maybe I just googled it to make sure I hadn't been dreaming. Anyhow, you can barely get anywhere even if you do have a map, so trying to look for this place when I had no idea what relation its location had to the station's was pure madness. I failed miserably, but then I went shopping.

Yes, I confess to shopping in Shibuya, but let me tell you why. I know I'm not supposed to shop, but I got four quality clothing items for less than 25 dollars. And they are new things and rad things and would probably cost like 30 a pop or more depending on what store they were being sold in in the states. I suppose it's the same anywhere, though. Sometimes fashion is just too into itself and decides prices have to go up for random reasons.

Man, I'm tired. It's because I wandered all over hell looking for Little Spoon hahaha but yeah. This store was called Three Minutes Happiness. The bag says, "Miscellaneous goods that make our life happy and easy. THREE MINUTES HAPPINESS, it creates your happiness." And then, with little icons for each bit, "Just three minutes--Enjoy shopping--A happy feeling" I bought this whole concept immediately. AND THEY HAVE GREAT T-SHIRTS. At least a few. Ostensibly two of these items are gifts. I'm so tempted to keep them, but I did buy two shirts for myself, so I think I will let that be as spoiled as I will get.

First shirt: black with a skull and crossbones. Says, "HAVE A NARROW ESCAPE.

Second shirt: blue with navy bikini girl sketch and white outlined letters. Says, "DON'T GET SO SERIOUS. TAKE THINGS IN A MORE FREE-AND-EASY WAY."

In other words, the shirts I bought for myself are also handy lifestyle reminders.

AS FOR BELATED BIRTHDAY PRESENTS FOR TWO OF MY DEAR FAMILY MEMBERS you'll just have to wait and see later.

Uhhh so I wandered all over hell, as I said. Eventually I decided I had to head back. Since Kayo had given me her key (she was out with friends) I had to be back before her and I didn't want to cause trouble. So I just grabbed some quick food. Turned out to be what I think was vegetarian katsu sandwich. Some kind of bean patty, basically, done up to look like tonkatsu. Tasty! It was only half of a smallish sandwich, though, so I had a smallish spaghetti sauce pizza pocket at a cafe while waiting for one of my trains. I totally approve of this dinner, so don't make fun of me. It was delicious and sort of had food groups.

Man, sleepy.

Uhm, I think I meant to be like...working right now, so I should probably get cracking on that last article. I have to wake up early tomorrow as I seem to be doing lately, and if I don't get any sleep I will be a sadface. I sorta want to actually look out the window on the train and play some video games, not just mess with my sleeping schedule.