Ueno! And all the cherry blossoms!

Today was my first official day off. Planned to go to Ueno with Jody and check out the huge cherry blossom park there. It ended up being pretty cool.

Left at around 12:00, Kristen and her friend Sarah were leaving for the same place to look at this Prado exhibition, some famous dude named Auguste Rudin (Gates of Hell, the Thinker, etc. I'm very uncultured, I dunno this stuff). The Prado exhibition was from Madrid in Spain, so this coming to Japan was a big deal apparently, and Kristen and Sarah are big art buffs, so we travelled together to Ueno.

Jody was having a pretty bad day. Just in general, things didn't seem to be going too well for her. Shortage of cash, trouble with train tickets, unable to find stuff within her bag, all very amusing but at the same time, I'm sure it was frustrating for her. Anyway, when we got to Ueno, we met Jody's best friend here in Japan, a girl named Trang, Vietnamese from Brisbane (everyone's from Australia) and her boyfriend Eric (Minnesota). Its cool being able to meet people from all over the place, except Japanese people, hehehehe.

Most of the photos I took today were at the cherry blossom park. You can see a picture of Jody, Trang and Eric sitting on some park bench. We strolled around and around until we exited the park (that's where you see the Gates of Hell pictures) and then met up with another of Jody and Trang's friend (Trang's roommate) Madeleine. She's from Scotland, and has been teaching at Nova for about a month. We walked around the city a little more, actually that's when we walked into the toy store, it was very cool. After we got out of the toy store it suddenly became really really really cold. The wind chill factor was massive; that was the main source of the cold. We trundled around a bit more, the purple building I took a picture of and the photo of Eric and Jody cleaning their glasses was around the last of what we did today together.

Side Note: In Japan outside glasses shops (like OPSM), they've got these cool little stands which have a steaming hot pot of water and a cold one. You dip your glasses into the steaming hot pot of water, and it cleans the glasses for you. Then you dip it into the cold one to cool it down so I guess you can wear them. Its a free service; I've seen people around Tsunashima do it as well, great advertising tool :)

Jody and I travelled back to Tsunashima and it was getting late, around 6ish. Oh by the way!! On the train ride into Ueno, Jody helped me download Sudoku from Vodafone Live! service, I'm gonna have to pay extra for that :( But I played it all the way on the train ride there, and back home again. AWESOME!!!! If you've never played Sudoku, you need the exposure. The greatest logic game ever. Anyway, once back in the 'Nash (Tsunashima), Jody took me to Book Off, which is a great place where they sell tons and tons of used books. Except here in Japan, the books look full on new. And all kinds of manga, like each volume for 130Y, which is $1.50 AUD. I'm gonna get one of those massive One Piece ones, and maybe a couple of Bleach ones, just so I can practice reading hiragana and katakana. Anyway, I bought a USED GameBoy Color for...350Y, and a game for the same price!! Bomberman! Hahaha, its antique, but its cool. So all that for $10AUD, but now I'm running out of money. They were selling used Ps2s as well, and a used PS for like $25, hehehe. Tempting, but no.

The day ended with four of us going to Saizeriya (the local supper hot spot, non-japanese food) at about 10:30 for supper. Its actually 2:30am right now, am I'm eating some instant noodles. Goodnight!