Hard Rock Cafe \m/

I went to Roppongi last night following my friend Emi's text message saying to meet at this certain station exit, I didn't know if she meant the subway station or not because that's what i took to get there. When I got there a bunch of Japanese people were waiting around and they looked at me but I didn't see Emi so I didn't think that was them but it was, and I saw the kid I met before when I hung out with her.
Hard Rock Cafe was pretty cool, it's really expensive a burger is like 1,900 yen. We shared food though and I didn't notice at the time but they paid for me...
I helped the girls order cocktails since it was in English, Emi got a sex on the beach and I recommended a mojito to this guy's girlfriend. She reminded me a lot of another girl I know.
We did self introductions, two of the guys that could speak English gave theirs in English for me. I gave mine in Japanese, I was really nervous but they said my Japanese was good.
One guy's major was like Nuclear Fission or something lol, so I didn't know that in Japanese but he knew the English word.
This other girl had gone to Paris so she gave a box of cookies to everybody. She invited me to do something with them on the 14th, but Emi said she couldn't go.
They made me try this meat stuffed mochi thing since I said I'd never had it, even though I said I was full. It wasn't bad.
I woke up at like 6 am today ugh. I had like 4 or 5 beers I don't remember. When I went downstairs at 7 to get water the grandma was like you woke up early! Are you going (somewhere)?
The mom and grandma make fun of me because I get up at like 12 usually. One day she said "Osoi ohayo!" Late good morning!

Translation Fun

I was originally going to translate Stairway to Heaven into Japanese and I got maybe 3/4 of the way done and I hit the BACK button on Firefox my accident, UGH.
I did however translate a Beatles song, if your Japanese is good enough, why not guess which one.
I translated this as best I could, but I'm sure I've no doubt made mistakes because my Japanese is still in the learning stage.

今日ニュースを読んだ。まったく
ラッキー男の人が基準に達した
ニュースは大分悲しいけど、笑っちゃった
写真を見た
車に彼は頭を撃って自殺した
信号が変えたのを気づかなかった
人ごみが立って凝視していた
先に彼の顔を見たことがある
誰にもが彼は貴族院の人きっと知らなかった
今日映画を見た、まったく
イギリスの軍隊が戦をあっ勝した
人ごみがから目を背けた
でも私は観らなければならない
英語の本を読んだから
私があなたに影響を受けるのが大好きだよ
起きた、ベッドから出た
髪をなでつけた
下へ降りて飲んだ
チラッと顔を上げて、遅くのを気づいた
コートを見つけて、帽子を得た
バスをきっかり間に合った
上へ上ってたばこを一服吸った
誰かが話した、私は夢を見ていた
あ～
今日ニュースを読んだ。まったく。
ブラクバン、ランカシャヤには四千の穴がある
穴は大分小さいけど
全部穴を数えなければならなかった
今度は彼らは何穴アルバートホールを満たすためにそれが

取
るか知っている
私があなたに影響を受けるのが大好きだよ

My Family

僕の家族は５人いる。僕の他に、双子兄と弟とお母さんと

お父さんもいる。
お母さんの仕事は心理学ので、学校で子供を手伝ってあげる。だから、お母さんで自分の考えを関わられた。お父さんは４０年前日本で米海兵隊に徴兵した後で、色々なコンピューターの会社に勤めた。最近無職者だけど、景気が悪いも、大変だ。厳しい態度があるけど、心の中にとても親切だ。双子兄と僕の顔は一寸似てるけど、僕たちの性格は違う。例えば、子供の時、僕は時々恥ずかしい的だ。僕たちの興味は同じばかりだけど。子供の時から興味に分けた。彼はコンピューターのことほうが面白いんでいる。コンピューターを直すのが上手だ。高校生の時、僕たちと一緒に日本語の授業を取ったけど大学に進んでから一人だけ続いた。彼はコンピューターの会社で働いている。兄は僕のベストフレンドだ。
弟は１６歳だ。彼の興味はスケートだから、凄く上手だ。 一杯トーナメントに勝った。最近レコーディングほうが興味だけど。
これでお分かりでしょう。

English translation:
There are five people in my family. Aside from me, there's my twin brother, younger brother, mother, and father. My mom's job is a psychologist so she works at a school helping children. Because of this, she has affected my way of thinking.
My dad was in the US Marine Corps 40 years ago and was stationed in Japan. After that, he worked for various computer companies. Although recently he has been unemployed, and the economy is also bad, so it's a tough situation for us. He can be kind of strict sometimes but he's a nice person inside. My twin brother's face and mine look somewhat similar, but our personalities are different. For example, when we were kids I was shy. Our interests are the same though for the most part. From our childhood our interests sort of went in separate directions. He is more interested in things like computers, and is really good at fixing them. When we were in high school, we took Japanese classes together, but when we went on to college only I continued with Japanese. My brother is working at a computer company. He is my best friend.
My little brother is 16 years old. His interest is skateboarding, and he is really good. He's won a lot of tournaments. Recently he's more into video recording, though.
And now you know!!

Star Trek-Like Star Gazing

I read an article on a new system developed for looking at stars and galaxies in 3D at an auditorium of the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in the Odaiba ward of Tokyo.

The system, called Atmos, projects 3D Images based on the latest scientific observations of our galaxy to the audience who wear special 3D goggles.
It's only 500 yen and I was thinking of going to Odaiba anyway so I am definitely going to check this out.

It reminds me of the Astronomics room in Star Trek Voyager.

The Halfway Point

We've reached February almost. It's hard to believe I've been in Japan six months.
I thought I'd take the time to look back into the recesses of my memory and see what I can remember. It's a little hazy, but here we go.

The flight was long. I couldn't sleep and my laptop died so that just made matters worse. Sure there were movies you could watch but I didn't want to ruin my appreciation of the Indiana Jones movies by watching what I knew would be a crappy sequel.

When we got there I had expected some kind of feeling/realization that I was in Japan that would somehow come over me instantly but that didn't happen. It helped that I was on a group flight with people in my program.

We took a bus from Narita to Tokyo. Everyone was too excited to sleep. When we arrived we set our stuff down in our hotel rooms and then left immediately to go eat at Shakey's.

Then the now infamous Julien made his dramatic appearance by being obnoxious and loud and generally annoying.

Our opening ceremony also sticks out in my mind for being Harry Potter-like. It was held in the 200 year old Okuma Auditorium, which by itself is already a grand thing.
There were fancy curtains and an orchestra and a British dean, who gave a memorable speech and then gave the same speech in perfect Japanese...

A few months later the excitement of being in Japan faded, as school started and things became routine. I feel like my Japanese has gotten better, or at least my listening comprehension. I didn't particularly like my classes this semester, the lecture classes felt like a waste of time.

My host family has been awesome. I've heard countless horror stories about other people's host families, so I feel lucky in a way. I think choosing a host family was a smart decision in the end, because I like being able to practice Japanese with them. Also, having breakfast and dinner cooked for you as well as your LAUNDRY done for you is the best thing in the world.

So I'm content here, even though I was getting a little homesick during Christmas. My mom will visit me in two weeks so that'll help.
My goals for this year are to study Japanese harder, and to make more Japanese friends. Somehow I feel like I haven't made that many friends at my school. The majority of my Japanese friends I had met back home and they returned here.

Time is going by fast. Before I know it I'm going to be back home, so I want to enjoy my time here to the fullest as much as I can.

Now, for fun, here's a Japanese translation. Note I didn't bother with the whole thing, nor did I try to make it a literal translation. Japanese is not often translated literally because it just doesn't work that way:
今なんか気づいた。 　二月だ！　僕は６ヶ月日本にいた！信じられない！
懐かしいね。
ちょっとイベントを思い出そう！
飛行機に乗っていた時、めちゃつまらなかったのでパソコンが死んだし、なかなか寝られなかったし、見た映画は最悪だったし。１０時間ごろ！最低。。。
始めて着いたら、高田馬場のホテルに泊まった。　荷物にチェックしてからレストランで夕ご飯を食べた。　所にはピザ食べて、私たちが自己紹介をした。　
そして、悪名高い人が会った。"ジュリエンさま”と言う名前。。。
その人はすごく煩いし、乱暴だったし、みんながびっくりした。
入学式も思い出深いだ。　超ハリー・ポッター感じだった。　オーケストラがあったし、 オーディトリアムはグランデだったし、それに 学生部長はイギリス人だったし。。。
彼の日本語はぺらぺらだけども。
ところでホストファミリはとても親切だ。よく手伝ってくれる。ご飯を作ってもらうのが最高だと思う。　
　楽しい時は時間が早く過ぎるね。

Mother 3 Impressions.

The Mother 3 English translation is out!!!!!!!! Take that NOA! (well it came out in October, but I just started playing it, so sue me)
Wait WHAT...you don't know what the best videogame of all time is ?????X(
If you don't know what the Mother/Earthbound series is, go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_series

If you haven't played the game yet but intend to you probably shouldn't read this since I'm going to talk in detail about what I like/dislike about the game.

I've gotten to chapter 3 in Mother 3 and I'm really starting to like the game. It definitely has the same "Feel" that Earthbound (Mother 2) did. Thanks no doubt due to using some music from Earthbound and having similar graphics and overall quirkiness the series is known for. Thank god it wasn't released for the N64DD like they planned with god-awful first-gen 3d graphics.

The graphics are tried-and-true 2D. The battle backgrounds have the same wacky seizure-inducing effect that EB had.

I'm not sure how I feel about the game changing characters every chapter. I felt more connected to Ness in EB because you played him for the whole game.

The battle system is the same as the previous games only with a twist- you can get combos if you attack in tune to the rhythm of the music.

I really like how each enemy has their own battle theme, like the bat enemy having the batman theme. AND the inclusion of the weird creepy dungeon music from EB is a VERY smart choice.

Chapter 3 is an interesting change of pace. I liked the dancing minigame and I felt that having the guy shock the monkey if he fails makes me care about the monkey lol. I didn't like having to carry the boxes to the different houses, that was dumb.

I wish Nintendo would add gameboy advance games to the Virtual Console and include this game. I don't think it'd be too much to ask. AHEM...speaking of which when is EarthBound coming to VC? Why does Nintendo hate North American EB/Mother fans so much?

http://starmen.net/

Decorated my Laptop

So I got Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume 6 from my bro for Christmas, and it came with stickers of all the characters :)
I put them all over my laptop, along with Gamma Ray and Judas Priest stickers and some purikura. Photos can say more than words in this case though:

I went pretty all-out on the front of the laptop. Here you
can see the pixellized guys' spaceship and some stupid century media stickers and gamma ray stickers. I tried to make
a triforce from Zelda (I had no idea what else to do with
3 triangles) but I kinda messed up. I like the face I made
and the skull thing I put on the H of ATHF.

Regrettably, I put the Meatwad sticker on my phone, so Frylock and Shake are by their lonesome. There's yet MORE Gamma Ray stickers and some Purikura. No I'm not really a Gamma Ray fan lol. I WILL FLY, BEYOND THE GATES OF SPACE AND TIME! Kinda corny lyrics if you ask me lol.


My favorite are the pixelized guy stickers, It's too bad
the pink guy isn't flipping you off. I was ripping Anthrax
Persistence of time in case you're wondering. Reviews
of those 3 albums coming soon.