Bill In Japan: maj 2011

I've booked my ticket home, it's plannes on the 10th of July. I'll be going on the same plane as Erik, and we'll change planes in Beijing, China. Before that, I've plans on going volunteering in Sendai, the city struck by the tsunami earlier in Mars.

I also dropped my wallet the other day but I got it back :)

I'm following a tv-show called Game of Thrones, and it might be the most awesome tv-show I've ever seen! Finally people who know how to make awesome fantasy.

School is going well, I've entered a conversation course, taking 2 hours from my tuesday and thursday school days. On tuesday we're going to Yoyogi park to interview people about awesome places in Tokyo. Every group has it's own theme, and we picked awesome places.

Here're some pictures from when I and Jerim went to Ichijouji park:

After this picture of those cool birds the battery on my camera died.

It rained like... like it was falling lots of water from the skies!

Some tempel in the park.

Some sticks bound together, floating in the water.

Me and Jerim in front of the Ghibli museum.

Me, chillin' with Totoro. (What's up?)

Studio Ghibli museum from the outside.

This is the kind of building you would've wanted your school to look like when you were a kid.

The big Iron Giant watched silently. I think I have a picture of me standing under him. I'll post it later.

Jerim outside of studio Ghibli. I was really good at poking trees so she got water over her all the time, but unfortunately she had an umbrella.

Studio Ghibli.

Trees.

Jerim holding a small cat bus from Studio Ghibli.

I've ridden one of them! In Ueno park though. It rained too much to use them more than 15 minutes in this park.

Jerim! :D (Don't hit me!)

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So we had a holiday called "Golden Week" last week, or actually from the friday before that week, until tuesday this week. It was great to start the new school week with just 3 days of school!

So, firstly, me and some friends went to a big river between Kawaguchi (means river opening) and Akabane (red wing / feather) and just relaxed and played around. The day after was an awesome Swedish BBQ at the Nishikawaguchi (west river opening) guesthouse where my friend lives. I got home late but since I had plans to play airsoft with Birre (Wille) the day after I had to get up early. The airsoft game was really fun but almost every time I was hit, I was hit on the fingers! Not really fair play!

On monday, I, Marcus and Erik went to Nikko to watch temples and stuff, and it was the nicest trip this far in Japan. I really loved the nature and the countryside feeling of it, and people were much more friendly and open than in Tokyo. If you walk past someone in Tokyo, mostly even on small streets, they mostly try to avoid eye contact. In Nikko they said hi, even if you weren't even looking their way!

Tuesday I made pancakes for a Korean friend and we went for a long walk. She lost her ring at a small temple during that walk, so I went there the next morning to pick it up. It was the best weather we'd had for a long time so I didn't mind a walk. After giving the ring back to Jerim, the Korean friend, I met up with Flink, Marcus and Erik at Ikebukuro (Pond bag?) and went to Shinjuku to go to a katana museum. It was cool to see several hundred years old katanas. But since the museum was quite small, we went on to hang out in Yoyogi park, where I and my friend were attacked and chased by ravens, but also met some new friends who were really nice.

Thursday and friday were mostly just chill days, and I had pizza for dinner with Erik both nights, speaking about important things like, metal and warhammer.

Saturday I studied most of the day and in the evening I met up with Ayako and her friend in Shibuya and went to a café. We ended the evening with playing pool, and I lost three games ^^

The next day I met up with Jerim again and hung out in Warabi (bracken) park, watching children playing around and just enjoyed the great weather. After Jerim went home I went to play soccer with the guesthouse (I SCORED A GOAL!) and that was about it.

Monday, I, erik and Marcus went to Studio Ghibli museum, the animation studio that made, among others, Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro and Ponyo. It was AWESOME! So many funny children playing around and there were just super nostalgic feelings wherever you went in there, and the museum was located at the edge of a big park, so it was almost surrounded by nature as well. Every visitor got to see a short animated movie as well, which haven't hit the cinemas. Maybe because it was about 10-15 minutes long? And you also got a small piece of film from a random Ghibli movie together with the entrance ticket. My piece of film was from Kiki's Express Service.

We were planning to go see Thor on the movies that evening, but Japan is pretty late with movies so it doesn't get out until July over here. So I watched the latest episode of Game of Thrones instead (awesome show) and had an early night :)

Last day of Golden Week, I mostly studied, read manga and walked. It was all in all a really nice week!

On top of that, I'm thinking of going to Sendai to volunteer a few weeks after school is over, so I'm trying to get some information from a guy who lived at the guesthouse but is now up there and helping out.

pictures! (In backwards order, but whatever ;D)

An apparently famous restaurant we had dinner at, before leaving Nikko. They even had a vegetarian menu, that was pretty rare for being in Japan!

A wall full of notes people've left at the restaurant.

Our note we left at the restaurant. Sorry Birre, You weren't there but we only had your card to write on ^^

Erik's hand (in the shape of a dog?) and a nice small waterfall.

A small... thing in the middle of a 400 year old garden. We thought it might be some wishing thing, so I wished that Erik would miss the thing with a coin, and he did, so I guess it works. I didn't put in any money though :)