get a move on

It's a brand new office! Still workin the whole full-of-boxes look a bit perhaps, but it's bigger better and roomier! It's like a real office building, I have to ride up in the elevator with other people and everything. I'm definitely feeling the lack of fantastic yummy lunch places around every corner--don't get me wrong, there are some, but it's not the same--but it's actually not that far of a walk to get to the Omotesando area, so I foresee going to my old lunchtime haunts rather a lot actually. The only downside is the morning commute, which is now 20 minutes longer and involves a bus from Shibuya station. Bleh.  But it's really only a pain in the morning--evenings I've been walking from the office to Shibuya, which actually only takes about 15 minutes. It's kind of a nice walk, especially after spending all day sitting on my butt in front of a desk, it's nice to move around. Of course, we'll see how long that lasts once it gets colder. But I can always take the bus if I want.

Sunday I went to the school festival 浜大際 at 横浜私立大学. (same thing we went to with IUC last fall, where I met Jacky and Naoko and Ai-chan). Didn't get to see Ai, but Jason and I headed over and met up with Jacky and Naoko, and hung out with them at the festival for the afternoon. Much fun to be had! ^_^

There we are at an Alice in Wonderland theme cafe that one of the clubs was putting on.  Jacky was quite interested in the cat-girl.  ;-P Not the best picture, but I didn't take it, so. Anyway, it was awesome, and then we went to Thrash Zone after--my first time since like, June. Yum!

This issue of Metropolis-- my bar review! The Belgian beer bar I went to with Jason, Ben and Felicia is running in this issue. A little on the expensive side, but definitely worth it--well, except for that Pink Killer thing, that was just...gross.
Oh, and slightly awkward, but I'm in the podcast too! Yeah, Metropolis has a podcast, who knew. Well, I knew but I have to admit I never actually listened to it before now. Kong comes in every Tues afternoon and Hiroko and Beau always go in to record segments of it, but this week they asked if I wanted to come in, too! I was kind of nervous, I didn't really know what I was sposed to talk about--mostly just ended up being Keeping Tabs. Anyway, go to the Metropolis main page and scroll down to the Tokyo Metpod-- I'm on the most recent one, Nov 5. You can listen to the whole thing, or fast-forward to my part, which is about 3/4 of the way in maybe? Anyway, it's ok but it's SO WEIRD listening to it, I'm like "that's not what I sound like." lol.

finally (phew!) new PV. apologies to Rei & co (it's been a little less than a week for them) but my favorite wacked-out visual kei band, Acid Black Cherry, has a new pv out, called Jigsaw! Incidentally, this is not it. This is their second-to-latest PV, 20+∞ Century Boys, which only just got a decent version of it posted to youtube. (Jigsaw isn't posted at all yet, aside from the 30-second preview version)
anyway, enjoy! The setting is the band (dressed up as dorky high school girls) is staking out a concert waiting to meet...well, themselves...but there are three "cool" girls who keep getting in the way.  it's love.

Hanami...but not

Molly, Marshall, Ben and I met up again Saturday to go to a party in Yoyogi Park, in Tokyo. Basically the same type of deal as the hanami party, only without the excuse of pretending to be there to look at flowers, since there aren't really many sakura left anymore.
The party was hosted by "Amazon," one of the people we'd met at Satoshi's hanami party last weekend. That's obviously not his real name, but he'd lived in Brazil or somewhere for a while, and so now goes by "Amazon." lol. He's part of a samba-drumming team, so that was the ostensible purpose of the party. Although really, it just ended up as a drinking picnic.
And we weren't the only ones with this idea, either. ^_^ I took these pictures pretty early on in the day, so it was still fairly empty--it got a *lot* busier later on. Amazon and some of his friends broke out the drums and started playing for a good chunk of the party. That's "Amazon" on the right. And yes, he seems to usually dress like that. It got pretty active, too--they were giving drumming lessons, and several people came over to dance. It lasted for a while--until some self-important grandma decided we were being a nuisance and called the equivalent of the park security to come over and hush us up. (we knew it was her, because we saw her gesturing and shaking her finger at the security people after, lol).
Rikako was at the party, too, as were several other people who'd been at hanami last week. Although Satoshi was MIA, off "being an idiot" as Rikako surmised. "Baka" seems to be her favorite way to describe Satoshi (lol).
And of course, true to form, there was a 二次会 afterparty as well, although I didn't go. Had to get up pretty early to get to Yoyogi, plus I stayed up pretty late Friday night cause we had a donuts-hot cocoa-movie party at Felicia's. ^_^
But then, we actually ended up having an "afterparty" of our own, lol. Jeff's old college roommate was visiting, and Jeff wanted to show him Thrash Zone. Of course, Jeff hadn't been there yet himself, and as the place is absolutely impossible to give anyone directions to, Molly, Jason and I went along to show them the way.
Fun!

Jack & Thrash

That sounds like it ought to be the name of some kind of band.
Nevertheless, last weekend! Jack Cafe, for the 3人 joint birthday party was lots of fun. turns out Jack Cafe is this 50s-style American hamburger joint. or, the Japanese conception of what a 50s-style American burger joint would be like. there were a lot of us, so Jeff just arranged a bunch of appetizers and stuff, for a flat fee. Hence, no burgers, but the rest of the food was surprisingly good. they served chips with actual guacamole, which totally made my day--and the fries were really good, too. but just in case anyone started to forget we were in Japan, there were about 20 jars of mayonnaise stacked on the counter.
なるほど。
then Saturday was 久しぶりのThrash Zone (yay!). the place was really full, so we ended up standing down near the end of the bar, but that was ok. It's always a really neat crowd in there--lots of people who seem like regulars and friends of the bartender, and very relaxed. Misa was adorable, though. she was totally staking out the tv, waiting for the end of whatever music dvd they were playing, because the instant it ended, she jumps in with "So what DVD are you playing next?" and the bartender, a man who clearly knows a hint when it hits him over the head, goes "Did you want to pick something?" to which Misa replies "AC/DC!!" and points at the shelf, to the dvd she's clearly been eyeing since we arrived.
LOL.
anyway, it was fun times as usual. b(^_^)d

on the way out

So, last night at Jack Cafe was lots of fun. About to head out to Thrash Zone right now, tho, so I'll write a more detailed update on the weekend's events later.
This is just to give a shout out, and also because I'm updating the video.
This week is a sort of alt-rock style band that I've recently come to like a lot, called Kelun. They just made their major-label debut, and this is their first song, called "Signal." I like the album a lot. There's another song of their's, "Heartbeat," on the music player I added over there in the new left column.
<---

love,
~sarah

weekend!

For the past couple weeks I've been hearing, "So, what are you and your friends doing this weekend? You're not going anywhere? Just staying at home? Well, you and your friends sure have been boring lately."
So, Mom, this is for you. I'm actually going to get out and do some things this weekend.
Tonight (I have to leave in about 10 minutes, actually), I'm going to a joint birthday party for Jeff, Andre, and Aragorn, who all have birthdays within the next week or so. There's a bunch of IUC-ers coming, so from what I understand, they basically rented out this place, Jack's Cafe, for a flat rate for about 2 hours. There'll be appetizers and drinks, and lots of people, so I'm looking forward to that.
Then, tomorrow night, I have plans to go with Molly, Jason, and Misa to....Thrash! I'm very much looking forward to this, as I haven't been to Thrash since...the night before I flew home for Christmas. Which is another story. Lol. Molly actually went back there with Andre on Christmas eve, but I don't think she's been back since. Wonder if the bartender will remember us? ;-P I think probably. I mean, it's not exactly a gaijin-trap, and I'd bet we're the only group that comes barging in there on a regular basis.
The rest of the weekend will probably be consumed by homework, as we've got rather a lot at the moment, especially in bungaku.
Oh! Speaking of which, business japanese. We've been doing these practical, work-related conversations, that sort of continue on with the same characters, &c. And last week we Ari-sensei had us string them all together and film them. Today in class we watched the video, which was sufficiently embarrassing for all involved. Lol. But Ari-sensei has promised to post it to the IUC server, so as soon as she does, I'll figure out some way to upload it here for all to see.
So, お楽しみして下さい、ねぇ～

and this will be an even busier one...

I go home for Christmas on Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, now that's out of my system...
Lol.

But this will probably be my last post before I go home. I'm going in to Shibuya tonight to meet Rebecca's' friend from UNC, who's in Tokyo doing research. So we're going to have dinner somewhere around there, and that should be a lot of fun.
Then, tomorrow, bright and early, I have to haul ass over to the budokan for the 月例会 monthly kyudo tournament. Since it's a morning one, it will probably last all day--I wouldn't be surprised if I don't get home until around 5pm?
Then, I'm most likely meeting Molly, Misa, and perhaps some others for an okonomiyaki dinner, and then potentially another trip to Thrash Zone?

Oh, right! I forgot! So last night (Thursday), in honor of being done with class and all the tests, I went out with Jason, Molly, Katie, Felicia, and Tim to this place Molly found near Yokohama eki called "Thrash Zone."
Molly wanted to go there because, according to the description online, it was a "thrash metal bar" with a "cozy atmosphere," wood paneling, and a plant in the corner.
.... and that appealed to her sense of humor.
It's also a microbrew place, which is fairly rare in Japan, so we were looking forward to getting the chance to try some truly yummy beers, as well. And we were not disappointed, in any respect.
Thrash Zone turned out to be this absolutely tiny place on the 2nd floor of a rundown building. It was certainly cozy though, and apart from lots of Iron Maiden-esque record covers decorating the walls and Ozzy playing (very quietly and politely) in the background, it wasn't terribly "thrashy." The place was also mostly salaryman-types--including this one 社長 who had lived in Boston and was very excited about speaking English with us. Felicia got stuck talking to him (sorry!) but Molly, Jason, and I ended up down at the other end of the bar and had a really interesting conversation with these two thirtysomething guys who seemed to be somewhat regulars. They were really nice, though, and didn't make any attempts to speak English with us, so it was good practice.

So anyway, it's been a busy several days, and will continue to be so, right up until I leave, I feel. But I'll try to post again a couple of times when I get home--though it will be break, so don't expect much.


One last thing:
this week's video!
Takky & Tsubasa, "Samurai"

not exactly "traditional" in that sense, but...
Lol.
feel the love. i know you do.