tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47150865189610409832024-02-21T10:18:43.419+09:00Rocking (or getting rocked by) Japan. Mike's blogElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.comBlogger167125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-61773382432865836902011-10-11T10:34:00.002+09:002011-10-11T15:03:04.159+09:00The ExtinguisherTwo weekends, ago, nothing overly exciting happened so I skipped writing about it. I went to Isesaki (another part of Gunma) and drank there with Emmet. We drank at this place called London Bus which is actually a real British double decker bus which was converted into a bar. They had an all you can eat and drink deal for only 3000 yen so it was pretty worth it. We went to another all you can drink place after that and I did a lot of karaoke which was fun.<br /><br />Last week was a pretty standard week, aside from one thing that happened. On Wednesday, I was gonna go get dinner with some of the other local ALTs. Since we were going to a place where Kelly and Michelle (the newest ALTs in our area) didn't know how to get to, I just offered to pick them up since it was pretty much on my way anyway. They were both at Michelle's place. For whatever reason, the entrance to her building's parking lot was roped off. So, I parked in a small lot right in front of the small shop next to her building.<br /><br />I waited for the girls for a bit, and then they eventually came out and got in the car. As I turned left onto the road, suddenly there was this huge crunching sound as the car came to a sudden stop. I ended up running right into this big tall concrete slab that acts as a divider between the sidewalk and the road. Sort of like a curb but its probably about almost nearly a foot off the ground. The position of this thing was pretty poorly thought out. I seriously just turned onto the road like anyone normally would, but it was dark and really hard to see this thing so I guess I just failed to notice it.<br /><br />I tried to back up but the card wouldnt move at all. I got out to inspect the damage and realized that the front left of the car was being propped up by the concrete slab, and the car was completely wedged in there. The front left tire was no longer touching the ground, so I couldnt back up. I tried to push it off while Michelle sat in the car and hit the gas, but it wouldnt budge.<br /><br />After trying that and failing for a bit, I decided I was going to need more help if I was gonna get this to move. So, I knocked on the door of the building we were in front of. There was an older man probably in his 50s or so. I told him what happened and showed him my car. Luckily he was very friendly and helpful. We tried a few things and eventually we carried over a giant jack and some big wooden planks. We propped the car up with the jack, slid the wood under the tires. Once we put the car back down, we were now able to get traction from the tire on the wood and I was able to back the car out. <br /><br />Unfortunately, we noticed that the car was now leaking oil front where the impact had occurred. The man said he had a friend who was a mechanic a few buildings down the street, so I drove over there and he got his friend to come out and look real fast. He said that the car would be safe to drive as long as the warning light didnt go on. He said I could probably make it home but that I should watch the light and avoid driving beyond that. I tried to call my supervisor (since my car belongs to the board of education) to see what she wanted me to do, but there was no answer. I decided it would be best to just get home and not drive after that. I apologized to Kelly and Michelle for pretty much ruining tonight's plans but they were very helpful and not angry. I ended up making it home fine.<br /><br />I had to walk to work for the rest of the week. Fortunately Thursday and Friday were just days at my main school which is only about a 15 minute walk. I called my supervisor again Thursday morning and she came with someone from the board of education. I told her what happened and apologized. She didnt seem very angry or anything and said that insurance should pay for it. She said it might be over a week until I get the car back, though. So, aside from not having a car for a while, I guess it turned out better than I originally had thought.<br /><br />And so, moving on to the most recent weekend...<br /><br />This was a 3 day weekend since Monday was a national holiday. On Friday, I drank with Emmet for a bit at Joyfull (a family restaurant, sorta like Denny's or IHOP, except they serve alcohol, too.) We drank there for a few hours cuz Emmet wanted to see how it was on a Friday night in hopes there would be some cute girls or something lol. It ended up not being very packed but we drank for cheap and had a good meal. After that, Ryoko picked me up from there and we went back to my place to drink some more and watch The Two Towers (this was her first time to see it).<br /><br />Saturday, I got woken up by Ryoko at about 10:00 am. I was sorta hungover so I started the day with a shot of whiskey to perk me up a bit. Today, Ryoko had plans to go with her friends Eri and Remi and Remi's 2 year old daughter to a small amusement park in Gunma which is mostly for kids called Shibukawa Skyland Park. I had other plans with Ryoko later in the day but nothing to do until then so I said I would tag along. I was sorta 50/50 on going since I wasnt feeling so good in the morning but the 2 year old girl (her name is Au-chan) really likes me, so I didnt wanna disappoint her after she was told I would come, too.<br /><br />Before going to the park, we got Udon at this restaurant that Ryoko told me has one of the 3 top most famous kinds of Udon in all of Japan. I forget exactly what its called but it was pretty good. <br /><br />I had never been to this park before. They had several rides but they were all pretty mild. They had like a tea cups ride and a very small roller coaster. They also had a bunch of ticket redemption sorta games. Ryoko and I played one where you throw balls into a giant plastic hippos mouth with a moving jaw (it totally reminded me of Hungry Hungry Hippos) and we won Au-chan a little stuffed rabbit toy. <br /><br />Thankfully, this park sold beer, so I had one or 2 cans of beer which made it a little more enjoyable. There were go-karts, too, which I rode with Ryoko and Eri, but unfortunately they were really slow.<br /><br />One of the best things about the park was the haunted house. I was expecting it to be EXTREMELY lame since this was just a kiddy park, but it actually was pretty cool. It was hard to see anything in there. I went in with Ryoko who followed behind tugging my shirt the whole time. There were no actors but they had a lot of mechanical stuff that popped out at you and some other stuff like a moving floor and what not. I ended up going through a 2nd time with Eri and Remi while Ryoko stayed with Au-chan. They insisted I go first and did the same thing as Ryo. Since I knew what to expect this time, I made sure they went in front of me during some key parts to scare them more. I don't really think most little kids could handle that haunted house. If Au-chan went in there she would probably have nightmares for a long time.<br /><br />Overall, it wasnt all that exciting but Au-chan really enjoyed herself so I didnt mind going along.<br /><br />After it was over, we headed back and part ways. The plan for the evening was to go to Ryoko's aunt's 60th birthday party. In Japan, people's 60th birthday party is considered to be extremely important. Since I have officially asked for Ryoko's hand in marriage and have been accepted as part of the family, they wanted me to be there, too. Ryoko's father knows the owner of the small izakaya where it was at, so we had the whole place to ourselves. There were about 14 people total. Ryoko, her sisters, her parents, me, her Aunt, her Aunt's friend, and her other Aunt, Uncle, and their daughter. It pretty much reminded me of the enkais we have for work, except for family. The party lasted for 4 hours and there was so much good food and unlimited drinks. Everyone drank a lot and had a lot of fun. <br /><br />After it was over, Ryoko couldn't stay out late because she had to work the next morning. So, I spent the rest of the night drinking with Emmet in Numata. I crashed at his place afterwords.<br /><br />Then next day, we heaeded to Maebashi. Today was Maebashi matsuri. Emmet had plans to meet up with a girl and go see Rise of the Planet of the Apes at the theater and would meet up with me later. I spent about the first hour at the festival by myself but then eventually Andy came and we hung out for a while. This was my first time at this specific Maebashi matsuri (there are a few each year). There was TONS of good food stands. There was also a section where the entire main street was blocked off and tons of people were dancing in the middle. Unfortunately they kept playing the same song over and over but their outfits were cool. <br /><br />Andy had a concert to go to so he left after a while. Around that time, Emmet and the girl came. We walked around a bit more, took some photos. Shortly after, we ran into the bartender from Propeller, the place where we often play poker. He was working at Dickens (another pub which is also owned by Master). He said Master was around so we went and had a beer at Dickens and talked with Master for a bit. One of the other guys we played with was there, too. He owns a snack bar called Chicago right across the street. We all decided that the next poker game would be on the 16th, so that should be fun.<br /><br />After finishing our beers, it was time to head to Tokyo. <br /><br />Tonight was Mogi and Masami's birthday party. Since neither of them work at Current anymore, the party was held at Big Time, which is the bar where Piko works now. This was my 2nd time to go there. Its a pretty small bar, but pretty nice. There was a good turn out and mostly all the people there were regulars from Current. I had a birthday shot with both Mogi and Masami.<br /><br />The bar is sorta separated into 3 sections. When you walk in theres a small section with just one table by the stairs. You can go left where theres a little DJ area and you can go right where the main bar and tables are. At some point in the night, I was sitting at the table in the middle section by the stairs. Suddenly, this huge cloud of pinkish smoke just poors into the rest of the bar from inside the main bar area. I didnt know WTF was going on and was already drunk by then. I went inside there to check it out and to get my backpack, since everyone was starting to evacuate to the outside. It turns out someone had messed with a fire extinguisher devise.<br /><br />As I was going up the steps, I asked this one dude what happened. He said something how his friend was holding the extinguisher. I really didn't know anything or even who he was talking about. I was outside talking with someone else and I said something how I heard that someone said their friend did something. Some crazy drunk white chick that was there suddenly over hears me and shes like "What!? You know who did this!? Come here!" She like grabs my arm and brings me over to where Piko and the other guy who work there are and shes all like screaming frantically, "This guy knows something!" and I explained the little bit I knew (which was really nothing) and then they just said thanks and asked the dude who told me his friend had it. There was talks about having to call the police or something but after a while. People were just sorta standing outside confused. Then this one guy left in a cab. This one other guy was all fucked up looking (maybe over exposure to the chemical, I dont know). I guess it was that crazy white chick's friend. She just started going off on everyone pointing at them and yelling shit about how its each persons fault for various reasons. She pointed at me and said "Fuck you for holding back information!" I was like "WTF I didn't even know anything!" She stormed off and wasn't seen again after that. I mean... I understand she was upset cuz her friend wasnt doing so well. I was also a bit upset since whoever did that fucked the bar up and put the party on hold and Piko is my friend, but id say pretty much screaming fuck you at everyone was a bit out of hand.<br /><br />After a bit more waiting, eventually the smoke cleared and Piko just said it was OK to go back inside. Everyone continued to drink and people helped to clean up the mess afterwords as well. The rest of the night was fine aside from that residue being everywhere, It had a sour taste to it. <br /><br />The party ended at around 5 and then tons of people headed to PSY. I drank there for a like over 2 hours maybe cuz I think I went to bed at around 7;30 am. <br /><br />The next day I was a bit hungover. I mailed Ryoko and she said she was cool to hang out tonight but she had work till 8:30, so I had some time to kill before leaving Tokyo for my 3 hour train ride home. <br /><br />I got some ramen in Shinjuku and then I stopped over at Mikado to play some GG. It was pretty much dead with like one single Millia player playing the computer. I never walked around to see who it as but he had 10 wins. I played him and won the first game but he was really good. We played about seven games. I dont remember but I think it was final score 4-3 in his favor. I then went to play some SSFIVAE. I played the same guy the whole time. He was using Ryu for the first match and I won, and then he switched to Ken and we played a few more. I won a few but he had more wins than I did. <br /><br />After that, it was time to start heading out. On my way out, I ran into Satoshi who was just coming in. I told him I had to go back to Gunma and id see him next time. I walked to the station and then after I bought my ticket, I turned around and Satoshi was there, lol. He said it was dead so he decided to leave. I said bye to him and we got on separate trains. After I got home about 3 hours later, I spent the evening with Ryoko.<br /><br />I still don't have my car back yet, but hopefully I will soon. Next weekend is another Final Roundbats and more poker!ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-57052589445044638212011-09-27T09:50:00.005+09:002011-09-27T11:10:09.984+09:00A Hell of a Lot of Birthday Week Drinking!2 weeks ago I didn't write anything but I will sum up that weekend now.<br /><br />On Sat, the 17th, I had to work because my main junior high school had its sports festival. This resulted in me missing SBO and Tokyo Game Show which landed on the same day. For the first time ever, the 2nd year students won the whole thing (the 3rd year students always win). After that there was an enkai in my town. Matt actually came to visit this weekend (he is now living in Sapporo and working on the JET program). He originally was going to come to visit his girlfriend but they broke up right before he came, so he had a lot of time to kill. He came by my school during the sports festival and I gave him my key so that he could chill and wait till I got off work. After the enkai, I headed home and drank a bit more with Matt. Ryoko came over to hang out as well.<br /><br />On Sunday the 18th, Ryoko, Matt, and I went to a small charity concert in Numata. The guy who was promoting it is friends with Ryoko's father so he gave us 2 free tickets. Matt tagged along as well. The music was mainly played by a duo going by the names of Bob and Taro. One of them is a local ALT who has lived in Numata for many years. Their music style was kinda folky and mostly just acoustic guitar and some harmonic and vocals. Not exactly my style but it as good for what it was. The concert was surprisingly long though (about 2 and a half hours). It wasn't bad, just a bit long. I picked up a couple of CDs afterwords for charity. Hopefully they raised a lot of money.<br /><br />After that, we returned to my apartment. I still had those fireworks I bought in Nagasaki Chinatown like 2 years ago in my closet. I decided that today would be a good chance to set them off, so we brought some beers outside to the lot in front of my house and set them off. Some of them were pretty awsome and some ended up being kinda disapointing but overall it was fun anyway.<br /><br />After that, we went to an Izakaya in Numata to drink with Andy, Ryoko's sister, and one of her friends. Then we did karaoke all night.<br /><br />On Monday afternoon, I dropped off Matt at the station and he headed on his way back to Sapporo. Monday the 19th was a national holiday and since I had to work Saturday, I got Tuesday off as well. This resulted in an epic all night poker game at Kiwi Cafe in Takasaki, owned by Grant, one of our poker regulars. I drove up there with Emmet and Ryoko came on her own later on after work. A bunch of new guys came this time and most of them pretty much had little to no experience and weren't every good. Throughout most of the night we had on average about 8 people playing at once which is pretty good. We played poker from like 6 pm to 4:30 am. One of the guys who brought his pretty cute wife, seemed like was most likely a yakuza. He got pretty drunk and as the night went on, he was playing worse and worse. He was doing ridiculous stuff like betting 10,000 yen pre flop and just kept throwing SOOO much money into the pot. He was trying to be intimidating but I just steered clear of him until I knew I had the nuts or close to it and ended up taking like 20,000 yen off him or something. I won a few big hands. There was one hand where he bet 10,000 yen pre flop and I had Ace/Queen but decided I didn't wanna take such a big risk pre flop in case the flop sucked for me and he actually hit something. By the end of the night, I was up 10,000 yen (about 120 dollars) which isnt bad. Its the most ive made playing in Japan at one game and it also ended my losing streak. Emmet won the most, I think maybe 25,000 yen or something. Ryoko lost about 16,000 yen and the drunk yakuza guy lost over 50,000 yen! LOL! I think he needs to rethink his strategy or at lest drink less next time. Overall it was a pretty epic poker game. <br /><br />Tuesday the 20th I just chilled at home with Ryoko watching Fellowship of the Rings cuz she never saw it before.<br /><br />Wednesday the 21st was my actual birthday. A pretty big typhoon was rolling through Japan and there were strong winds and rain storms in my area. Ryoko wanted to take me out to an all you can eat yakiniku restaurant. We thought about not going because of the rain but went anyway and were fine. I drank some wiskey, beer, wine, and was stuffed as hell. The food was top tier. Great birthday dinner. I also got a birthday apple pie with cream cheese frosting that Ryoko made me at work.<br /><br />Thursday the 22nd I judged the Numata English speech contest for the first time ever. It was an interesting new experience but overall it was a nice change from the usual day of work. <br />That evening we had my real birthday drinking party since Friday was another national holiday. Ryoko, myself, and about 13 other friends got a private room at an izakaya and drank for several hours. I got some amusing presents (even though I wasn't expecting anything from anyone and just wanted to drink) such as some fine imported cheese, a good bottle of red wine, a peppermint nose inhaler, and a bottle of lube that is disguised to look like CC Lemon vitamin drink lol!<br /><br />After the izakaya clsoed, some of us went to another bar and then eventually Andy, Emmet, and I drank all night at another bar. I crashed at Emmets.<br /><br />On Friday the 23rd, I was already into this most recent weekend (another 3 day weekend). Having only a 2 day work week was pretty awsome. <br /><br />I headed to Tokyo by myself cuz Emmet had other plans. Kyle (Stunedge) told me that some foreigners were still in Tokyo after SBO was over and wanted to drink with me the previous night but I couldnt cuz of my drinking party, so I figured id see if they wanted to chill tonight. On the way down there I mailed Kyle and he said most of them had already gone to Nagoya for Nagoya Street Battle (SSFIVAE tournament). I figured id just make the most of the weekend and see how it went. <br /><br />I got to Mikado and was surprised to see Hellmonkey there. He told me he just arrived in Japan a few days ago. He said he graduated and came here looking for a job but was unsure exactly what he will do yet. He says he has enough money to just chill for a while without a job so I guess he might be around for a while. <br /><br />We played a long set of casuals for hours. I started off strong with a big lead and then around the middle it was evening out where I would win a couple and he would win a couple back and forth for a while. Then he ended our session with like 4 or 5 wins with Baiken. I wasnt having trouble with his Eddie or Potemkin but his Baiken was tough. One of the hardest match ups for me. Either way, it was fun games and I enjoyed the session. We also got kebabs at some point which was good cuz I hadnt had one in like 2 months. This was my first time playing Guilty Gear since I returned from visiting the US and it felt good to play again. A few other top players were there as well. <br /><br />After that, the 2 of us headed to Current to drink. It was actually pretty packed int here for a Friday when we arrived. We stayed for a few hours and it started to clear out, but then we headed to GODZ and eventually PSY and that was pretty fun as well. Hellmonkey went home at about 5:00 am. At some point after that, some wasted military dudes who just finished their service period were celebrating their asses off and just roll right in and bought like everyone in the bar free jagerbombs lol! I stayed till about 6:30. <br /><br />The next morning (Saturday) when I woke up at the manga kissa, I was annoyed to find out that the showers there were no longer free to use and they were now charging 300 yen. Lame. I took one anyway.<br /><br />After that, I headed back to Mikado. I played casuals all day. There were 3 foreigners there who I didnt recognize. One of the guys was from Sweden and 2 of them were from France. I talked to and played the Swedish guy and one of the French guys but im not sure if I played the other French dude. The French guy said he was friends with Dream Maker. They all seemed like nice guys. I won all my matches against them but they were pretty good. I invited them to come drinking later but they said they couldnt make it due to having to leave early the next day. <br /><br />Eventually Hellmonkey showed up again sorta late. At this point, I already started drinking a bit. I knocked back a whole 180 ml bottle of whiskey that I had poured into a coke bottle and sipped one while playing. I was buzzed but could still play decently at least. This time I mostly played other various people. I got a nice win against Inoue's Slayer, Satou's Johnny, and Kuni's Baiken. Hellmonkey got some good wins against various good players, too. <br /><br />This time, I left a bit earlier because tonight at Current was a metal event. Hellmonkey was originally going to go drinking with me but decided against it cuz he had plans the next morning. So, I headed out to Current on my own.<br /><br />However, I got a message from Fubarduck saying that he was at NSB in Nagoya but was heading back to Tokyo and would meet me at Current later. He said it was his last drinking night in Japan and wanted to end his trip well.<br /><br />Current was decently packed as most metal events usually are. Lots of metal event regulars came out as well as SPG Chris and some other people. It was cool drinking with Fubarduck. We talked a bit about the recent stuff that went on with SBO and how they made a mistake but its nothing that he hasnt said already online. I pretty much agree that while SBO made a big mistake this year, I still feel like it is a legit tournament and winning means something. The players who are hungry are still going to player their best regardless. I certainly have every intention to participate again if they run Guilty Gear again.<br /><br />We drank at Current till about 4:30 when the metal even ended and then went to PSY. PSY was packed with people who came after the metal event. Not long after we got there, Toru and Natsume realized that it was my birthday recently. Toru went around from behind the bar and brought 2 tequila shots and we drank them together. Then, I turn around and Natsume has the bottle of tequila and poors me another shot. So I take it. Then he poors me another shot... and I take it! And then... another shot! Finally, some dude I dont even know sitting next to me signals him to poor me one more so I drank that one, too! I had just knocked back 6 shots of tequila all in a row within like 2 minutes. I was already pretty drunk but now I was completely wasted! To be honest, I dont even know how I was still standing or how I managed to stomach it! I felt like I was gonna throw up like right after the last shot, and then I tell Mandi whos sitting next to me that I had to go pee. She's like "Yea right" in a sarcastic tone, so I decide to man up and just wait it out. In like 30 seconds the nausea subsided and I managed to stomach it all. Im glad I did cuz I felt great after that. <br /><br />Fubarduck headed out sometime at maybe like 5:30 or so. Lots of people stayed at PSY til really late. I dont even remember leaving exactly but I know for a fact that I actually didn't pass out this time which is pretty amazing! I must have left there after 7 am cuz the next morning when I woke up at the manga kissa, it said that I had checked in at about 7;30. The most amazing part of it all was... I didn't even feel that hungover! I mean... yea I was exhausted but I didnt have a headache really! <br /><br />So, after that, I just headed back home early to spend the rest of the evening with Ryoko.<br /><br />And that concludes about a week and a half of stuff. Within that week and a half, since I only had 2 days of work, so I drank most of those days. I think I need a good break this week. I will probably take it easy this coming weekend.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-42930133823831943492011-09-13T14:49:00.003+09:002011-09-13T15:28:38.201+09:00Laying Down the Wrong CardThe previous weekend, I didn't bother to write a blog post, but I will sum things up real fast. I spent the weekend in my town. There was a big event called summer splash at the Canyons lodge near my apartment. They had live music and lots of people came. A bunch of other ALTs ended up crashing at my place afterwords. We got a late night poker game going that lasted until 8:30 am. I was smashed as hell, and was playing really sloppy and drunk. We actually had a game scheduled for Sunday at 4:30 pm as well, so I only got like 6 hours of sleep and then we played poker AGAIN. It was good fun but I lost money that time as well. Ryoko was super nice and brought over tons of fried chicken, fries, and fruit for everyone to snack on while we played. She enjoyed playing with as as well and actually did pretty good for only her 2nd time playing.<br /><br />Getting to the weekend that just passed...<br /><br />On Friday night, I just stayed home and chilled with Ryoko. On Saturday, I got up and went to Tokyo. Today was the 4th Final Roundbats tournament of this season (I missed the 3rd one when I was in America for summer vacation.) <br /><br />This time, they had a new venue (though they actually had it last time for the one I missed as well.) It was at the Hobgoblin British Pub in Akasaka. Overall I would say I liked it better than Soundstone. They had better drink specials and this time, they actually had pizza buffet again. It wasn't as good as Dominoes and the pizza ran out sorta fast. I think I got like 7 slices but they werent very big. I guess I had enough to feel not hungry but I could have easily eaten a bunch more. <br /><br />Most of the regular crew showed up for this one. Tokido didnt make it this time though. As far as the tournaments go, I did pretty lousy overall. I havn't actually played any fighting games for a whole month, so I was pretty rusty. I didnt show up in time for MK9 (and I dont play it so I didnt care). For Tekken 6 (which I also dont play but entered cuz its free), I lost first round to some guy who seemed like he knew what he was doing. For MvC3 I lost first round to a guy using Ammy/Sent/Spencer. I was dropping all kinds of combos. For SSFIVAE, I played a T.Hawk first round and lost. By this time I had a few drinks and was being a little sloppy and threw out a bad Ultra 1 that got blocked which cost me the final round. I did take one round. The T.Hawk went on to take first place in the tournament against Abelity's Abel in the finals. I did have a lot of fun playing ST vs a lot of people, however. <br /><br />After FRB was over, I went drinking in Shinjuku with Jude AKA Claw, and Abelity AKA Hafiz. We went to Current first, where we ran into Johan and Terrence. It was dead so after a while, all of us went to GODZ and then eventually PSY. Nothing too noteworthy to mention other than the fact that PSY and GODZ both got the new Dream Theater album, A Dramatic Turn of Events, and were playing a lot of songs off it. I've been listening to the album for a few days and overall I think its a good solid album and its starting to really grow on me. I would say that as of now, overall, I like it better than their previous album, Black Clouds and Silver Linings. The Count of Tuscany is still the man though. I drank till pretty late. I think I passed out for about 10 minutes or so. I woke up at like 5:30 and Toru, the bartender of PSY, showed me a passed out picture of me that he took. I wont be surprised if it pops up online lol. After finishing my beer, I headed to the manga kissa.<br /><br />The plan for Sunday was to play poker at the Propeller Bar, in Maebashi. This is the place where we always used to play but its been a while since we had a game there. I took the train there and once I arrived at Maebashi station, I passed an ATM and decided I might want to get some extra cash just in case. I went in the ATM booth and got out my wallet and my ATM card was nowhere to be found. I never lost anything like that before in Japan. Since my ATM card cant be used as a debit card, and I doubt someone would be easily able to crack my PIN number, I wasnt stressing about it too hard, but I called up Ryoko to ask her advice what to do. She said I should call the banks corporate lost and found or whatever to cancel the service on the card. She texted me the number and I made the call. <br /><br />The next like 20 minutes was one of the biggest wastes of my time. The woman who answered the phone probably had the worst hearing ever. The whole conversation was in Japanese and we understood each other just fine, except for one annoying thing. She was asking for all my personal information, so I had to give her my name, phone number and birthday. I can understand that maybe she may have a bit of difficulty hearing a foreign name but I was trying to spell it out for her letter by letter for a fucking eternity. I was like... "my last name is B O C Z A R" and she kept saying it back wrong like " P O C G E R" and im like no its.. "B O C Z A R" and shes like "P O Z D A R". Then I was like ok... lets do this one letter at a time. Im like, "B", and shes like "P" and im like... no "B as in bus" and shes like "P" and I was just literally face palming at this woman's shitty hearing. <br /><br />After what seemed like eons, she finally managed to get my name right. Then she somehow couldnt understand me when I was giving my fucking phone number and birthday. How hard can it be to hear numbers!? <br /><br />Eventually she got that down and finally found my information in the system. Then she put me on hold for like 5 minutes, got back to me, and said she needed like some sort of account number. I didnt have my bank book on me cuz it was in my apartment which is over an hour away. I told her I had an old ATM receipt and she has me read the info on that but then after wasting my time reading all that (and mind you she was having hearing problems with THIS too...) she said it wasnt enough information and said she couldnt help me and that I would have to call back again later. What I dont get is... why couldnt she have just fucking told me that in the first place? She puts me through all this and then finally tells me AT THE END!? After I put up with her deaf ass? <br /><br />Anyway, I wasn't going to let it ruin my day and figured I would just take care of it when I got home at around midnight. <br /><br />I went into propeller after helping a friend find parking, and eventually everyone started to roll in and the game went well. We had 7 people playing throughout the night, and most of the time we were playing 6 handed which is pretty good. Ryoko was gonna come to but she ended up doing something with her sisters and was tired afterwords and went home. The game was fun, but I lost a lot of money. I had 3 all in situations where I lost. <br /><br />The first one, I was up against 2 people. The first guy flop comes up some cards, I dont even remember what they were but they were all diamonds. I had the ace of diamonds in my hand, and some other irrelevant card, I think it was a queen of some other suit. The small stack guy acts first and goes all in for about 1000 yen. I have about 3500 yen at this point and call. What I SHOULD have done is went all in instead of calling him, because Emmet was behind me in the hand with a bigger stack. Instead of calling, HE went all in since technically all I did was bet 1000. I already had a lot of money in there since there were big pre flop raises as well. I had 2 chances to get another diamond which is actually only like a 30% chance, but I decided to just gamble and hope it came up, because if it did I would have the absolute best hand 100% guaranteed. Unfortunately no diamonds came and I lost the hand. I was pretty salty after that but I kept playing and actually won it all back after a while. <br /><br />The next bad hand was I got dealt Jack Queen. Flop comes up 2 Jacks and some low card. 2 other people were in the hand. I was slow playing it and no one was really betting much. The turn comes up an Ace and one guy bets a sorta high bet of like 1000 yen or something. I put him on an ace and figured I had this. Other guy folded and I went all in. He called. The last card didnt matter. I turn over my Jack expecting to get big money and then he owns me with Jack Ace and a full house. Shitty beat. I just couldnt have put him on Jack Ace given the way things went down.<br /><br />The last big hand I lost was the final hand I played. I pretty much just was getting impatient, I had pocket Jacks again at this point and I just got hustled. <br /><br />In any case, I have been on a bit of a poker slump the last few games I played, but I will learn from my mistakes. Its all good.<br /><br />Anyway, I rode the train home and made it back to my place. A little after midnight, I called the bank company again and this time a different dude answered the phone. I did everything the exact same way as last time (except now I had my account info) and the whole thing was done in 5 minutes because this guy WASNT FUCKING DEAF!!! With that done, I went to sleep.<br /><br />Yesterday, I got a call from the bank that someone found my ATM card and brought it to the Numata police station. I went there after work and got it back, and today I went to the bank and had them re activate it. It turns out I simply just left it at the atm at my local bank. Im not quite sure why the person who found it would bring it to the city next to the town I live in, instead of the local police station, but I guess im glad I got it back and that nothing was stolen. <br /><br />Anyway, next weekend is Tokyo Game Show and SBO finals but I cant go this year because my school's sports festival is on the same day and I have to work. Since theres no GG this year, im not as upset as I would be otherwise but it still kinda sucks. Matt will visit Gunma so I will hang out with him a bit, and we have another poker game scheduled in Takasaki next Monday (I get Monday and Tuesday off next week) so at least it will be a fun weekend.<br /><br />Heres hoping next game I know what cards to lay down in poker instead of laying my ATM card down.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-1367877928790706522011-08-30T11:31:00.003+09:002011-08-30T12:14:15.796+09:00Current's 10th Anniversary party, Koenji Matsuri, Beer Garden, and exhaustionWell, its been a while since I updated my blog. As I mentioned before, I went back to the USA for about 3 weeks. I really don't feel like writing a detailed account of everything that happened when I went to the US but I mostly spent time just visiting various family and friends. Ryoko came with me for the first week and then went back on her own ahead of me. Some highlights include, my friends Nate and Sarah's wedding. It was at a brewery and they had a Super Mario Bros cake. Easily the coolest wedding I've been to. I saw a Chinese traveling Circus at Navy Pier which was pretty interesting. I played Warhammer and Warhammer 40k for the first time in like 4 years LOL. It was pretty fun and nostalgic. I got a few poker games in as well. Ryoko played with us and I taught her how to play since it was her very first time to play poker. She actually did quite well and came out with a little money. Ryoko and I also did some planning for our wedding which will most likely be in 2013 Spring. I know it seems far off but we have a lot of planning to do and its no big rush to be honest.
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<br />I also went to EVO which was good times. I mainly went just to hang out with people I hadn't seen in a while. I got to do a lot of chillin and got some casuals. I entered Marvel 3 and SSFIVAE. For Marvel I got DQed into losers cuz I was too busy playing Steve H in a money match and lost track of time. Then I went 1-1 in losers. As for SSFIVAE I went 2-2. I also entered the GG side tournaments. I got 3rd place in singles (losing to RF and AKA) and I got 2nd in teams. I teamed with my friends Jesse Gomez and Rod "Honnou" Delareza. I originally was supposed to enter with Latif and Pozer Wolf but they were both off busy playing other games when teams was starting so I just ended up entering with another team. Overall, EVO was good times.
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<br />After EVO, I was a guest on the Midnight Carnival Guilty Gear podcast. The episode can be found in the archives if you are interested in listening. Despite having some mic trouble it was fun to have the chance to be on the show. Check the link on my links side bar.
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<br />In addition, we had the Chicago Heart 3 tournament event created by Heartnana. I ran the GG singles and teams tournaments. They were both kinda small but a few out of state players came and it was just good times anyway. I got first place in both singles and teams. I entered some other games and didnt do amazing, placing somewhere in the middle for Marvel, and SSFIV and getting peaced out in Soul Calibur II cuz I just randomly entered it for fun, LOL.
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<br />I pigged out on lots of awsome food and drank tons of awsome beer while I was away as well. Despite being told not to by doctors due to having gout, I took my meds the whole time and pretty much felt just fine so I think I have the problem under control. I will take another blood test soon to see how the uric acid level is going.
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<br />So that about sums up the gist of how I spent my summer vacation. Good times for sure.
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<br />Now... getting back to Japan.
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<br />The first weekend after I got back, I just relaxed around home. I had dinner with Ryoko's family at her house.
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<br />The most recent weekend that just happened was a pretty epic drink-a-thon. I havn't touched any fighting games yet since I left America.
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<br />On Friday, we the Gunma ALT welcome beer garden party. It was pretty much the same as previous years. All you can eat and drink for like 3000 yen from 5-9. I talked to a few new people and some old friends and it was good stuff. After it was over, there was a 2nd party at Yamato izakaya. I ended up crashing at my friend Leo's place with a few other friends after that.
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<br />The next day after everyone woke up, we sorta all just took it easy lounging around having a few more drinks and watching random stuff on the internet. We also got some good lunch at Saizerya.
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<br />Eventually, Emmet and I took the train and headed to Tokyo. This weekend was both Current's 10th anniversary party and also Koenji Matsuri. We got to Tokyo a little after 6 pm and got off at Koenji in hopes to hang out at the Matsuri for a bit to pre-game before going to Current. Unfortunately it ended at 6 and we didnt know. There were still lots of people around though so we just had some drinks on the street in front of a small bar.
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<br />Eventually at around 9 or so, we headed to Current. Just like every previous year I have gone, the Current anniversary party didn't fail to deliver the hype. The place was packed and mostly all of the regulars came out to party. I did a lot of drinking, dancing, talking, and drunkenly sang more metal songs with people than I probably should have, because by the time I left Current with a bunch of people to go hit up PSY after the party ended, my voice we pretty shot.
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<br />As soon as we got to PSY, Emmet and I both ordered a beer. Unfortunately for Emmet, Sachiko was playfully hitting him calling him "baka" over and over as she often does, but this time she sorta got a bit carried away and spilled his beer all over. Emmet looked pretty pissed and just straight up left the bar. That was the last I saw of him for the night. I talked briefly to Sachiko after that and she didn't seem very remorseful about it.
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<br />The rest of the time at PSY I just talked with various people. Towards the end of the night as the bar was clearing out, I was talking to this one girl named Yukina. I wanted to keep drinking and her and 2 of her friends were going to an izakaya to keep going, and Natsu and Toru (the bartenders) said they would catch up to us. I thought Toru had my number but I was mistaken so he never made it but Natsu joined us for a little while.
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<br />I talked a lot with Yukina and shes a really interesting person. She's a professional majong player and she told me that she taught Daigo Umehara how to play majong. She said hes like her little brother. I never even brought Daigo up in the conversation and she just brought him up out of nowhere so I know she must be telling the truth. At that point in the conversation, she didn't even know I played fighting games. Though after she brought up Daigo I asked her if she plays any fighters and she said she used to play Super Street Fighter II Turbo with Daigo back in the day. She said she was a Chun player but shes retired now. In addition to that, she regularly plays poker and helps run regular poker events. Shes been to Vegas like a zillion times and has participated in some pretty big high stakes tournaments. She invited me to come to one of her games sometime and since I never can seem to get enough poker action in Japan, I certainly plan to take her up on that offer one of these days. She said they have some games that are like 100/200 blinds which is perfectly fine with me. They run some higher stakes ones too but I'd probably prefer the 100/200 yen blinds one... at least for my first time playing with them.
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<br />We all ended up drinking at that izakaya until like 10 am which was pretty ridiculous but it was fun. I went to the manga kissa to sleep after we left there.
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<br />3 hours later... I get woken up by a call from Emmet. We had plans to go to Koenji Matsuri again today and I still really wanted to go. It was a REALLY hard decision to make because I was exhausted as hell but I knew this matsuri only comes once a year and it was awsome last time so I just manned up and got out of bed and met up with Emmet outside.
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<br />We showed up when the matsuri was already about half way over but we still got to catch tons of the action. At first we just sorta walked around but eventually I was able to find the spot where I stood last year, right in front of the bar where Pachi's friend works. It was a great spot because all the parade traffic goes right through there and there was room to stand comfortably. Just like last year, endless troupes of musicians and dancers paraded through the streets with tons of energy and awsome outfits. I took plenty of photos.
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<br />I unfortunately wasn't able to find Pachi until the festival was just about to end. He was nearby but was standing in an area that I couldn't get to due to it being to crowded. He was there with a girl who was perhaps his girlfriend, though I'm not sure. I only had time to say high to him briefly due to the parade traffic. He said he had plans to go to Akihabara with the girl he was with so I just told him I would catch him next time.
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<br />Emmet and I got some more drinks and food at a little restaurant nearby after the parade had officially ended at 6. Once again, even though the parade was over, the streets were still flooded with people. After eating at the restaurant, we sorta just kept drinking on the street. We were both drunk and were sorta just hitting on random girls as they walked by LOL. More like Emmet was actually the one hitting on him and I was just playing along as the wingman for fun. Just harmless jack-assery. We chatted with a few random girls but nothing ever came of any of it other than some slight amusement.
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<br />Once 8:30 rolled around, we pretty much had to get going, so we got on the train and headed back. I was exhausted as hell since I was running on 3 hours of sleep and had drank a lot all weekend so I passed out pretty quick. Emmet passed out, too. I did, however, set 2 alarms on my phone so that I could wake up when we got to Takasaki to make sure we didn't miss our transfer. I guess I was just too drunk to notice my phone vibrate... twice, and as a result, we were woken up by the train conductor telling us it was the last stop and to get off the train. There is only a 2 minute interval to transfer to catch the last train to my town, and by the time we were woken up, it had already departed. Fortunately for us, there was still one shinkansen left. It sucks cuz its much more expensive but we could still make it back and I sure didn't feel like sleeping at the station on a bench. So, we got on the shinkansen and then just took a cab from there. Emmet crashed at my place and left early in the morning to go to work cuz getting home for him would be too hard from where we ended up.
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<br />Overall it was a great weekend but I am still feeling tired as hell after that one even now (and its already Tuesday as I type this). The worst part is, my voice is still all horsed and fucked up from so much hype at Current and I had to start teaching classes again on Monday which certainly made things a bit more difficult but I'm managing to get by, and hopefully my voice should be back to normal by tomorrow.
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<br />Next weekend I will just be drinking around my town since there is a lot going on here and nothing in particular going on in Tokyo... so I probly won't write a blog post again next week, but I'll be back eventually.
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<br />Peace.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-32753370194526499412011-07-20T11:43:00.003+09:002011-07-20T13:06:16.897+09:00Johnny-o Cup 2011Alright, well I don't have much time to type this so I'm gonna keep it brief.<br /><br />Friday, I ended up having to work late and didn't end up making it out to Tokyo until about 10 pm. I headed right to Mikado and played casuals for 2 hours until they closed. I had plans to go see the doctor at Takadanobaba hospital in the morning so I decided not to go out drinking in Shinjuku cuz otherwise I would be committed to staying out really late due to manga kissas being full. So, instead I got some food and then just sorta walked around Takadanobaba drinking some wine and listening to music for a bit. I eventually found a small bar and went in there and talked with a few random Japanese people while I was there. I went to bed at around 3.<br /><br />I woke up the next morning and from the Takadanobaba manga kissa and went to the hospital. I got a blood test done to check on the condition of my gout and stuff. I wouldnt know the results until Tuesday. <br /><br />After the hospital, I grabbed some food and headed to Mikado. It was about 1 pm and the place was packed with people playing casuals and they had tones of cabs set up. Today's events were the 2 on 2 and singles tournaments which you could only enter if you qualified in advance. I didn't, so I just played casuals all day to practice for the 23 on 23 tomorrow in which I was playing in. I got lots of good games in and there were a lot of great players I hadnt seen in a while that came out for this event. I didnt watch the tournaments but the results were<br /><br />singles - 1st place Mitsurugi (ZA)<br />2on2 teams - 1st place FAB (PO) Karesedo (ZA)<br /><br />I stayed until about 10:30 pm and then got some food and headed to Current to drink. I met up with Emmet there who was also with Bloodbath and another guy named Nick who I never met before. Current was pretty good actually and there were some good regulars there. However, Pachi wanted to go drinking in Roppongi and so did Emmet and his crew. I sorta wanted to stay at Current but they all sorta coerced me into going with them. I flipped a coin to decide and it was off to Roppongi.<br /><br />We started off at Heartland. It was pretty boring but the guys convinced some sorta old chick to leave with us. Then we ended up back at Gas Panic which I wasnt happy about but oh well. I split a whole bottle of wine with Pachi at the conbini before going in so that I could save money since Gas Panic is too expensive. It was a typical lame night there for me. Within 5 minutes of getting inside I lost sight of everyone I came with and wondered why I even went. I drank til closing and tried to make the most of it.<br /><br />When it closed, I went back to Shinjuku to sleep.<br /><br />Sunday, I woke up and was feeling a bit hung over. I only got like 6 hours of sleep cuz I head to be at Mikado for the 23 on 23. I was told it would start around 1:30. I got there before that. It didnt end up starting till around 3 pm. I was a bit nervous because I didnt think it would take very long to finish, so I had other plans later at night. Today was Ayano's birthday and she invited a bunch of Current regulars to go to an izakaya for her birthday. She made reservations in advance so I had to be there. I just figured id see how things went and hope I could show up on time.<br /><br />So anyway theres really no reason for me to go into a whole lot of detail about the 23 on 23 because im sure they recorded the entire thing and the vids will be online eventually. Ill go ahead and just post the way it went down though. <br /><br />In case you dont know how a 23 on 23 works, heres the gist of it. There are 4 regions (Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa) and each has a team. There are 23 characters in GGAC and each of the 23 players plays one of the 23 characters. For whatever reason, it also seems that there is some sorta representative of the arcade the team had their quals at who is like a bonus member and they can use whatever character.<br /><br />To start off the Tokyo team (my team) fought the Kanagawa team and the Chiba team fought the Saitama team. Both matches were going on at the same time on different setups. For a full list of players on each team, you can go here http://game2d.web.fc2.com/ggxx/<br />click on ランキング and scroll down to the table that shows the team members. The spots that are blank were filled out the day of the event by people who could represent those characters. I dont remember who they all are but maybe the Mikado site will update it later. As for our Jam player (since its blank on there as of now) we had Mike. Our Robo-Ky was Johnny-o cuz I guess イル couldnt make it. Also, Kanagawa team had 2 Fausts (Osaka B and Kishya since Osaka B was their rep) and we had 2 Slayers (Taku and another guy whose name I dont know who was the rep).<br /><br />Heres how our fight against Kanagawa went.<br />Tokyo Kanagawa<br />RO < AN<br />SL(?) < AN<br />BR > AN<br />BR > BR<br />BR > ZA<br />BR > AX<br />BR > CH<br />BR > RO<br />BR > KY<br />BR > MA<br />BR < FA (Osaka B)<br />BA < FA (Osaka B)<br />TE > FA (Osaka B)<br />TE < IN<br />FA(me)< IN<br />AN > IN<br />AN < SO<br />CH < SO<br />OR < SO<br />KY > SO<br />KY > JA<br />KY > VE<br />KY > SL<br />KY > BA<br />KY < ED<br />SL(Taku)< ED<br />MA < ED<br />MI < ED<br />DI < ED<br />JO > ED<br />JO < JO<br />PO > JO<br />PO < MI<br />AX < MI<br />SO < MI<br />ZA > MI<br />ZA > TE<br />ZA > DI<br />ZA > OR<br />ZA < FA(Kishya)<br />IN < FA(Kishya)<br />ED > FA(Kishya)<br /><br />It went down to our very last player vs their very last player and Tsu (or ED) pulled out a great win and took it for our whole team! We advanced to the finals. As for my match, I usually do better vs I-no. The first match was REALLY close and I was playing pretty nervous and not 100% and didnt do so well in round 2 and lost. Oh well.<br /><br />After that, there was an intermission. Time was running out and I knew by this point I wouldnt be able to stay till the end of the tournament if I wanted to make it on time for Ayano's birthday. I figured I would just try to play early on and would have to leave early after I lost.<br /><br />In the finals we played against Chiba and at that time, Kanagawa fought Saitama for 3rd place. Heres out it went down.<br /><br />Tokyo Chiba<br />RO < KY<br />SL < KY<br />FA(me)> KY<br />FA(me)< AN<br />AX > AN<br />AX > MI<br />AX < SL<br />AB < SL<br />TE > SL<br />TE < RO<br />BR > RO<br />BR > TE<br />BR < CH<br />JA > CH<br />JA > OR<br />JA < BA<br />KY > BA<br /><br />After the Ky vs BA match, I had to go. I just explained to my team that I hadnt thought the tournament would take this long and had an appointment that I couldnt cancel and they completely understood and thanked me for playing. Endo actually left right after Mike beat him as well so I figured it wasnt so bad. It was pretty hilarious when Mike beat him too, cuz before the match, FAB was questioning Mike if he could take Endo and Mike was just like... fuck this shit, and went up there and just raped him and jokingly rubbed it in Endos face. Each round he went up to him and put his arm around his shoulder pointing to Endos dead Chipp. It was espessially funny when he IKed him lol. As for my match, I did well against Ky winning both rounds. Vs Anji. I won a round but overall I was playing pretty nervous and not as solid as usual and lost. Im not very good vs Anji. <br /><br />Anyway, I left there and made it on time for the Izakaya. Some Current regulars like Mitchi, Mai, SPG Chris, Sachiko, Johan, Andy, and some people I didnt know were there. Also, Mogi came and it was the first time I had seen him since he quit working at Current. He seemed genuinely happy to see me. Ayano showed up late for her own party unfortunately. The menu was fixed for everyone and they didnt have wine, so I ended up eating some foods Im supposed to avoid and I also drank Gin Tonic the whole time and had quite a bit of it. At one point they brought me a whole pitcher of it lol! The party lasted 2 hours and it was fun talking to everyone and hanging out.<br /><br />After it ended, we all went outside and made other plans. Some people went home, others decided to stay out and drink. I went to this bar called Big Time where Piko works now. Its also in Shinjuku (which is where the Izakaya was as well). I went there with Ayano, NZ Andrew (who was the same guy I arm wrestled a while back in a draw), Michi, Mai, and Mogi. The place was small but pretty decent. They had a big screen TV playing softcore Eastern European porn for some reason which was funny to watch in the background lol. I asked Mogi why he quit Current and he basically said it was cuz Sushi always gets too drunk and does stupid shit and Mogi was sick of dealing with it so he left. Appearently Sushi does it often because I recently also found out that Masami quit 2 weeks ago cuz Sushi was harassing some girl and when Masami tried to stop him, Sushi told him to fuck off and quit if he didnt like it, so he did. Mogi works at a place in Roppongi now. I told him Id like to come check it out sometime and give him a visit. Im sure id have more fun there than Gas Panic lol. Ayano and NZ Andrew wanted to check out Current, and Emmet was there, so I figured Id go with them. <br /><br />On the way to Current, we found a dead crow on the street and NZ Andrew took pictures of it for like 5 minutes cuz he said he wanted to draw it later. Emmet left Current and we ran into him and the girl he was taking back to a love hotel on the way there. He told us the place was dead and when we got there, we saw that he was right. It was Sushi alone and like one other customer. I mainly talked with NZ Andrew about fighting games because he was not so familiar with them and he had a lot of questions about them. The music was boring and the place was dead so we didnt stay long. NZ Andrew and Ayano opted to go to sleep. I left and figured id go check out GODZ. Also, Emmet left his bag at Current and asked me to get it for him so I had to carry it around with me the rest of the night.<br /><br />It turns out GODZ was closed tonight cuz the previous night was their Anniversary Party (which I wanted to go to but got dragged to Roppongi instead). I ran into Jackie out from. He said he was going to PSY so I tagged along, We were the only ones there besides Natsume who was working the bar and one other guy, but it was much better than Current and Natsume played us tons of awsome music. We had some interesting conversations about various things. One unfortunate thing that Jackie told me was that soon the laws will change for manga kissas and they will be open seating only which means no more comfortable flat rooms. Its really going to suck when that happens. Jackied bought me a drink and kept bumming me cigs and Natsume gave me half a pack that someone left there. I managed to stay out drinking with only 4000 yen left and still have enough to sleep. I didnt have time to go to the ATM after leaving Mikado but I just skimmed by on the skin of my teeth. I left at about 4 to go sleep, but the manga kissa was full so I got a salad at the 7-11 and sat out front eating it while some Nigerian dude kept trying to promote his club to me for like the next 20 minutes. I finally managed to get to sleep at 5.<br /><br />The next day at Mikado was the random 5 on 5 team tournament. While I was there, I asked FAB if our team won the 23 on 23 but he apologized saying we lost. I told him there was no need to apologize. I entered and they put me on a team and it ended up being a 6 man team cuz it was like the team of guys who showed up later than everyone else. The tournament still took a while to get started. I figured that once again I would have time to play, but a crisis came up and Ryoko needed me to come back to Gunma tonight so I had to leave before my team even got to play their first match. I was gonna be on a team with Nakamura but I told him I had a situation to deal with and had to leave. He understood. Its ok though cuz now they had a 5 man team just like everyone else so I didnt have anything to really feel bad about. <br /><br />I headed back to Gunma with Emmet who was at Mikado for a bit and got his backpack bag from me. I was really tired, sore, and hungover. Im not gonna get into details about the crisis I had to deal with but lets just say its still unresolved.<br /><br />I got my test results back on Tuesday over the phone and my uric acid level is down to 4.0 which is pretty low so the gout meds seem to be working. Unfortunately I am still having a lot of fatigue and pain from it. I hope that goes away soon and I also hope that the doctors didnt mis-diagnose me.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif<br /><br />Tomorrow, I leave for Chicago and will stay in the US for 3 weeks. I will also be at EVO. Should be good times and I am really looking forward to it. Ryoko is coming with me for the first week in Chicago as well. I wont be updating my blog for probably a month at least. <br /><br />Also, I will be running a Guilty Gear tournament Chicago at the <a href="http://shoryuken.com/forum/index.php?threads/aug-13-2011-chicago-heart-3-mvc3-ssfiv-ah3-bbcs2-ggac-t6-sc2-gnt4-chicagoland-il.138186/">Chicago Heart 3</a> tournament event which is being organized by Heartnana. If you are still hungry for some GG action after EVO or just wanna come chill, please come support the event!<br /><br />LatersElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-29852285502625964612011-07-13T15:01:00.002+09:002011-07-13T15:53:31.893+09:00More Final Roundbats ActionFriday night, I drank in Numata with Emmet, Bloodbath, Phil, and some teachers from one of Emmet's schools. We started off at an izakaya, ended up going to a snack bar, and then went to a few other bars. I crashed at Emmet's cuz he lives in Numata.<br /><br />I woke up the next day after only like 6 hours of sleep. I had to leave to catch the train to Tokyo to make it in time for today's Final Roundbats 2 tournament. I slept on the train most of the way.<br /><br />Once again, the event was held at the Soundstone bar. This time, they had a lower turnout than last time. I think it might have been due to a Tokyo SBO qual for SSFIVAE going on at the same time. Lots of the regulars showed up as well as Abegen, Kusoru, and a few other Japanese players. The even was once again being streamed by GodsGarden.<br /><br />I showed up pretty late and figured I would have already missed MK9 and Tekken 6, but since I dont play those games I didnt care. However, it turned out that due to the lower turnout, they hadn't even started the tournaments yet. I entered all 4 just for the hell of it since the general admission fee covers all entry fees.<br /><br />I played casuals for a bit. I was feeling kind of out of it so I ducked out to the conbini to get some redbull and some red wine. I slammed both of those and chased it with a salad and then went back inside. I felt much more refreshed after that. Soon after, they started MK9. Due to the low turnout, every single match was streamed this time. This was literally the very first time I had ever played MK9 at all. I had to ask Bull410 how to do special moves and throw right before my match lol. I picked Scorpion just cuz I used to use him in MK Trilogy. Obviously I lost my match, though I didn't care in the slightest. <br /><br />The next game was Tekken 6. Last time at Final Roundbats was my first time playing that game, so this was only my 2nd. I picked Jack-6 again and fought against that one robot chick character who shoots the missles. She kept spamming them from full screen and I tried to block it and kept getting hit and realized it was unblockable. So I tried jumping over them and then someone told me "yknow... you can just crouch under those" LOL! So once I did that, he stopped spamming the missles. I ended up actually winning a round but in the end I still got bodied of course. Once again, I didn't care at all. I bet the people watching the stream had a good laugh at that though.<br /><br />For my first match of the MvC3 tournament, I fought someone who doesn't really even play the game at all and won pretty easily. I went with the same team I used last time of Ammy / Hsien-ko / Sent. Recently I started learning Doom like a few days before the tournament but Im not good enough with him yet so I just decided to stick with the team I was familiar with. For my 2nd match in Marvel, I had to fight Abegen. He used his signiture She-Hulk / Thor / Tron team. I actually played well and most of my stuff came out as intended during the first match and I won. Funny thing was that Hsien-ko on point actually ended up doing most of the work after Ammy died. The 2nd match was pretty close but I dropped some opportunities that could have won me the match. The 3rd match I just got raped cuz I failed at blocking and ate death combos. Abegen is really good at Marvel so I did better than I was expecting to I guess.<br /><br />For the SSFIVAE tournament, my first match was against a Japanese Zangief player. I played pretty well and managed to beat him 3 rounds in a row. For my 2nd match, I had to play a guy who was just learning and sorta just came to hang out and watch. He used Guy. I won that one as well. For my 3rd match, I was now already in the top 4. My opponent was Abelity's Abel. He's always tough and we always have some pretty close fights. I won the first round but he won the next 3. I just wasn't doing a good job of getting out of his pressure. I now had to fight Jude's Claw for 4th place. Jude actually had a great first match of this tournament where he beat the guy's Viper who was in the finals last time. It was a really clutch fight. Things didn't go so well for me vs Jude. He beat me and took 3rd, so I ended up with a 4th place finish. <br /><br />I stuck around and played casuals for a bit longer. They delayed all of the finals until the very end of the tournament this time so that everyone would watch. The offical results list will be posted <a href="http://www.finalroundbats.blogspot.com/">here </a>eventually and you can see the entire stream <a href="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/godsgarden">here on the GodsGarden ustream site</a>. I dont remember who won all the tournaments but Abelity pulled out a first place victory in SSFIVAE. Good shit.<br /><br />After the finals were over, Scott told me that the next Final Roundbats will be at a new venue which is actually in Tokyo and in a more convenient location. It will have lots of microbrews on tap and also they make pizza there so hopefully the new venue will be a bit better and the turnout will be bigger next time. I wont be able to go to the next one though because I will be visiting Chicago during that time. I will go to the 4th one though which should be at that place again.<br /><br />I stuck around and played casuals for a bit with Jude's Claw in SSFIVAE. This time, I was doing much better and actually won more games against him than I lost. I wish I played better against him in the tournament. Oh well. <br /><br />Jude decided to come drinking with me so we left together to get on the train. Another guy named Niko, who was in charge of filming and photography at the event, walked with us and rode the train with us as well. He was the one who made the recent mini documentary video about Final Roundbats, which can be seen on their blog site where the results will be posted. It was very well made.<br /><br />Pachi wanted to originally drink with me in Shibuya and Emmet was just there but decided to head to Shinjuku because he picked up some girls at an international party and wanted to bring them to Current. I told Pachi to meet us at Current and said we would maybe go somewhere else from there. <br /><br />When we got to Current, Pachi was already there. Emmet had no girls with him and didnt look so pleased. He said that when he was at the train station in Shibuya, he ran off to buy a ticket without telling the girls (and the random Japanese guy that was with them as well), and when he came back, he couldnt find them anymore. It was really crowded so they probably lost him. Emmet said that one of the girls was really into him, too so he was really kicking himself. He said that the Japanese guy was trying to cockblock him all night and kept telling the girls he was a play boy (which Emmet is lol) so that dude might have played a hand in it. <br /><br />Current wasnt super great but a few people I knew were there. We stayed for a bit and talked to Pachi, but Pachi decided he was really tired so he went back to drink near his place. So, Emmet really wanted to go to Roppongi. Jude and I didnt mind so we ended up taking a cab out there. As soon as our cab pulled up, we got rushed down by 2 massage girls and 3 Nigerians at the same time and this was before we could EVEN LEAVE OUR CAB! WTF!!! We tried going to this one place called first bar that I can tolerate but it was being renovated. Then we tried going to 911 but they changed the name and now didnt allow people in with shorts which I was wearing... so I ended up getting dragged to Gas Panic which I really hate. I slammed a bunch of wine on the way there and before going in, so at least I was pretty wasted. As soon as we got inside, Emmet dissapeared into the sea of people and Jude and I hung out and talked for a while. I eventually went and danced a bit. It was pretty lame overall but oh well... Current was sorta dead anyway. <br /><br />After Gas Panic closed, I took the train back to Shinjuku and slept at the manga kissa.<br /><br />I spent all day on Sunday just playing GG casuals at Mikado. Kunihiro showed up and I played him a bit. A few more good regulars were there, too. It wasnt super packed up there were enough people to get some good practice in.<br /><br />So thats about it. Next weekend is a 3 day weekend as well as the Johnny-o Cup tournament, and I will be playing on the Tokyo team for the 23 on 23. Should be good times.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-40345548358067195082011-06-28T13:07:00.003+09:002011-06-28T15:50:56.873+09:00Wine is Fine?So, I was at work on Friday and about 15 minutes before I was going to leave, the doctor called from Minakami hospital and said that my blood test results were already done. So, after work, I headed to the hospital and talked to the doctor. I was pleasantly (and a bit skeptically) surprised to find that my uric acid level had already dropped as low as 3.9. This is a big jump from 10.7. I guess the medicine was working. The doctor said that I should reduce my dosage to 100 mg a day for the Zyloric. Unfortunately, I still have a lot of pain in my joints (mostly my legs and feet) but he says that the nerves are going to continue to be agitated by the uric acid crystals as my body continues to slowly break them down. Basically, my blood is no longer depositing new uric acid into my joints, but there is still plenty of old uric acid still stored in my joints, so I may continue to suffer gout pain for a while. I told the doctor that I had been trying to avoid drinking and he said that I could drink red wine. He said that red wine wont raise my uric acid level and I should be fine drinking it normally as I would any other alcohol. I just need to make sure I stay hydrated pretty much and I should be fine. I was quite pleased by this news. Even though I don't drink it often, I actually like red wine so im more than happy to drink that over nothing and at least I can still get drunk. <br /><br />The doctor also said my iron levels were still quite low, so he gave me another injection of Fe. He said to come back in about 2 weeks for another blood test.<br /><br />After seeing the doctor, I headed to the store and bought a bottle of red wine for the evening. I spent the night chilling at home drinking with Ryoko. I drank the whole bottle while Ryoko drank some whiskey. <br /><br />When I woke up Saturday morning, I felt fine for the most part. I still had gout pain but it was no different than I felt before I drank the day before, so the wine seemed to have no real affect on my gout. Fuck yea!<br /><br />Ryoko and I had some spaghetti that I cooked together and then she had other plans for the rest of the day to hang out with her lady friends for a girls night out where they will gossip and talk about girl stuff so it was no guys allowed. So as a result, I went to Tokyo alone.<br /><br />After arriving in Tokyo I headed to Mikado. I was surprised to see that they were taking sign ups for a GG tournament. It was a 5 player team tournament. I signed up on the list alone to be paired with a team later. Shortly after, some guys came up to me and asked me if I had a team yet. I said no, so they asked me to join their team and I agreed. <br /><br />My team was:<br />Me (FA)<br />Ojima (FA)<br />Tsu (ED)<br />Robo-Ky player (cant remember his name)<br />Millia player (also cant remember his name)<br /><br />I have teamed with Ojima and Tsu before and they are both really good. The Robo-ky is usually kinda decent but today he was playing extremely solid. He beat me twice in casuals before the tournament. <br /><br />Our first match was vs a team of<br />Kakishi (AB)<br />Gaku (RO)<br />HOS<br />MA<br />ED<br /><br />Gaku and Kakishi are great players and the other guys were pretty good but I dont know their names.<br /><br />Our MI player went first and beat HOS. <br />Then May beat our MI player. <br />Then our RO player beat May.<br />Kakishi beat our RO, Ojima, and myself. I did alright but fucked a combo up that sorta cost me.<br />Up last was Tsu and he beat Kakishi, Gaku, and the ED player for the win!<br /><br />We advanced to the 2nd round.<br /><br />I noticed that while we were playing our match, that on the cab next to us, none other than Shinjn the Swedish Baiken player was there! I was surprised to see him and said hi. He said that he was just in Tokyo for a few weeks and would be leaving for Kansai after that for about a week and then returning to Sweden. We had a discussion about the current state of the European GG scene. He said that there arnt really any majors anymore and people lack motivation to play very hard. He said that his local scene still plays, but that people have no inspiration to really play competitively since there are no tournaments to practice for and that people just sorta play and hang out sometimes. He said most of the European GG players arnt even playing anything else. They just don't have any GG tournaments to keep them motivated. Its a real shame but the US scene seems to be more or less the same as far as people not playing much GG. Hopefully the community can take more initiative to run their own majors to increase interest again. I also hope that <a href="http://www.dustloop.com/forums/showthread.php?11889-The-Midnight-Carnival-a-Guilty-Gear-Podcast-Tuesdays-at-12-Midnight-EST">The Midnight Carnival GG podcast</a> will inspire some people to play again more. I realize that is very difficult to get the scene going again and what it really needs is AC with good online (or a new GG) but until then, hopefully people will come out and support the big GG tournaments that people actually DO throw such as <a href="http://www.dustloop.com/forums/showthread.php?11445-Guilty-Gear-XX-AC-Side-Tournament%28s%29-Evo2k11-Singles-amp-3v3-Teams-%28tentative%29">Evolution GG side tournament</a>, <a href="http://shoryuken.com/forum/threads/ch3-chicago-heart-3-8-14-mvc3-ah3-bbcs2-mb-sf4-tourney-interest-gauge-check.130905/">Chicago Heart 3</a>, and other majors in the US and Europe that people make an effort to throw. <br /><br />Anyway, our next match in the team tournament was vs the team of:<br />Nage (FA)<br />Ochiai (nice PO guy)<br />Hayashi (footsies KY)<br />Ain (KY)<br />JA player whose name I don't know.<br /><br />We found out that their first player would be Jam. They asked me if I could handle Jam. Funny thing was, I played against this guy about 3 times before the tournament in casuals and lost all of them. However, I didn't feel like he was unbeatable and just needed to step up my game. I said I would go first and would handle it. So, I payed really solid and ended up winning both rounds. If I remember correctly I even dizzied him in the final round.<br />Up next I fought against Hayashi. I predicted he would start the round by throwing a stun edge and he did, so I air dashed over it right away and cought him with a string of normals. I was doing alright but I sorta made a few execution mistakes and I could have won the first round but sorta screwed up and it cost me. The 2nd round I lost as well, unfortunately.<br />Hayashi continued his reign of terror and in turn took out our RO player, our MI player, and Ojima's FA all in a row. Finally Tsu's ED came to the rescue and took out Hayashi but unfortunately was defeated by Ain's Ky. Nage and Ochiai just chilled in the background.<br /><br />Unfortunately that as the end for our team in the tournament. We all thanked each other for teaming up and then I went back to playing casuals for the rest of the night. I fought Karun's Jam and beat him on the first try but then he went and played me 3 more times and beat me. Oh well, at least I beat him. It always feels good to do so since he's a hater. I played a bunch of other matches and players as well but dont remember much noteworthy stuff. Ochiai played me once with his Ky (his 2ndary) and beat me. He has a pretty solid Ky actually. <br /><br />BTW... I didn't see the finals but I am pretty sure that FAB's team won the tournament. I forgot who was on it but it was all really good top players like Mitsurugi and some other people.<br /><br />I stayed till closing and then got on the train. Soon after, Ochiai, Ain, and one other guy got on the same car and sat across from me. Ochiai said hi and good game from earlier. I rode 2 stops and then said bye to Ochiai who by that time was already starting to pass out on the train. <br /><br />I then went to Current. Tonight was a metal event. It was a fairly standard metal event. Not as huge as some of them have been but not the worst one either. A few regulars were in and out throughout the night. This one chick got really drunk and her boyfriend broke up with her, so she was sorta being babysat by her friend. One of the DJs was wearing an Iconoclast shirt which was awsome, but he didnt play any songs from it while I was there unfortunately. Also, some chick was wearing wings and devil horns. and had a tight leather outfit with a concealed sword in her satanic looking cane... which was pretty awsome, but I was lazy and didn't take any pictures. I talked to various people and chilled drinking wine. The staff was a little confused at first when I ordered the wine cuz they thought I couldn't drink at all but I explained that wine was OK. Other people were just surprised to see me drinking wine simply because I pretty much never order it at the bar, but it was all good. Unfortunately Current's wine is 600 yen a glass and isn't very good wine but it got me drunk so whatever.<br /><br />I stayed at Current till around 3 and then I headed to GODZ cuz some people were there earlier and said it was really packed and went back there. Unfortunately when I got there, most everyone had already left and it wasnt so packed. I sat next to Indian dude and chatted with him a bit. One thing that sucks is that GODZ's wine is 800 yen a glass which is really expensive but its slightly better quality than the wine at Current. I paid for my wine with a 5000 yen bill and Kenji put it on the counter under an ash tray while he poured the drink and forgot about it (but he did give me my change). Later, Hide, the other bar tender, came by and asked if it was the 5000 yen that I paid. I said it was. He the proceeded to put it in the register and was going to hand me change (4,200 yen) but I told him that I already got change from Kenji. A few seconds later, Kenji walked by and overheard our conversation and they both thanked me for being so honest saying that a lot of people would be dishonest and try to get the free money. I told them I like their bar and didn't wanna screw them over. They thanked me and played 2 songs off of Iconoclast without me even asking lol. <br /><br />Soon after, Chip showed up. He was at Current earlier. We talked for a bit. He was telling me how he was going to go to the Amorphis show last week cuz the bassist invited him (since he knows him) but he couldnt end up going but at least got to meet up with him in Osaka for drinks (as Chip was traveling at the time). He was also telling me about some sorta new rock bar in Osaka thats run by a transsexual lol. He said its not very good.<br /><br />I stayed at GODZ till about 4;15 when my wine was finished (I sipped it slow). I then considered going to PSY but there was a sign outside that said it was Michael Jackson night and i could hear "Heal the world, make it a better place..." blaring from within the door. I wasnt really in the mood to listen to that so I considered going back to Current, but the problem was that on metal event nights they finish up at 4:30. I walked towards there and someone who was at Current walked by and he told me that everyone was already leaving. I sat down in the smoking area by the McDonalds and had a smoke while I thought about what to do. Then Mandi and this other chick walked by and saw me and insisted I go to PSY with them lol. So... I did. Fortunately, even though it was Michael Jackson night, I guess they got it out of their system and didnt play anymore MJ songs while we were there and took lots of requests, which is what PSY is always awsome about. I had another wine (which is unfortunately also 800 yen at PSY but also better than Current's wine) and chilled for a bit. Other than the 2 girls I came with and myself, there were about maybe 4 other customers in the bar, plus Toru and Natsu. I stayed till a little after 5 and decided to call it a night and went to the manga kissa. <br /><br />The next day I got up and headed to Shinjuku Sportsland because the new fighting game Aquapazza just came out in arcades and I wanted to try it out. I would have tried it at Mikado but they didnt get it. Upon arriving at Sportsland, there was some kind of Gundam game event going on and they had like 20 cabs set up near the entrance of the 3rd floor, and it was really hard to get passed the sea of people in the way. <br /><br />So, Sportsland had 2 cabs of Aquapazza. There were 2 guys playing against the computer, one on each cab, and neither looked like they knew what they were doing yet, so I decided to play against one of them to try the game out. I tried out 3 different characters (I dont remember the names... one was the archer girl, one was the samurai girl, and one was the barbarian looking chick with the sorta heavy lookin sword). The game feels kinda stiff and generic but to be fair, I didn't really know what was going on to well. I havnt really read up at all about the game before playing it. The thing I guess that I liked about the game most were the assist system. It reminds me of MvC1 where you choose your assist before the battle starts (except its not random like in MvC1... but I know there were codes to get passed that in that game). The game only has 10 characters and 4 of them are generic looking school girls. I may have more appreciation for the characters if I was actually familiar at all with the separate series in which they all came from (as they are all from other games/manga) but I am not, and find most of the cast to be sorta boring and generic looking. The guy I fought was using the big sword girl. I managed to beat him in that mirror match and then lost. I lost with the other characters I used. The game could end up being good but I really dont know if I feel like investing time and money into learning it. None of the characters seemed to appeal to me and the engine feels kinda generic. <br /><br />I figured I would check out Club Sega Shinjuku since I hadn't been there in a while. They had 4 Aquapazza machines and they were all being played, once again by people who sorta seemed like they knew what they were doing. I watched a bit but didnt play. I was sad to see that Club Sega Shinjuku now only has 1 GG cab. Also, MIU was there working. I wanted to say hi to him but he was busy announcing a match for a tournament he was running for work so I didn't want to bother him (I dont remember what game it was).<br /><br />After that, I went to Takadanobaba and I got an awsome cheese pizza and salad at Saizerya (which is actually a great meal for my gout) and then headed to Mikado. Mikado was dead as hell as far as GG. Only 2 guys playing. I beat them once each and they left. I didnt wanna wait around since there were no GG players in sight. Actually, Kyle (Stunedge) mailed me earlier saying he was now living in Ikebukuro for about 3 months and invited me to come hang out. He said he would be playing at Ikebukuro GIGO today. I asked him if there were any people playing GG and he said there were, so I headed over there. <br /><br />They had 3 GG cabs and they were all full when I got there. Also, that one Jam player dude who has the hot girlfriend who plays Sol pretty well were there. I gave them a nod hello. They were playing on another cab though so I didnt get to play them. <br /><br />I beat some other Jam and then Kyle challenged me with his Ky and I won. Then some May player beat me twice. At his point Kyle wanted to go check out another arcade cuz he wanted to try Aquapazza. They had 2 cabs at Gigo but they were all full and the people seemed like the knew how to play pretty well already. So Kyle, myself, and his friend who was another BB player that was with him, went to the other arcade, Game Safari. They didnt end up having Aquapazza so we just gave up and went back to GIGO. Shortly after, Kyle said his girlfriend wanted to spend time with him so he left. I continued to play GG. I got a 14 win streak, mostly against some HOS who was very persistant and not bad but he couldnt beat me, and a Baiken, and a Ky. Then, no one was playing me, so I beat the game. I decided I would give SSFIVAE a try. I played some Master Ibuki who beat me up. <br /><br />I went back to play more GG against some Eddie player. I beat him 4 times and then he quit. He was the only one left playing and no there was no one else to challenge me. I beat 4 stages vs the computer and then just gave up on waiting and got off the cab. I watched more Aquapazza and some dude was using the mage chick character and tearing it up. He had 17 wins and was already doing stuff that look broke. She seems like a great zoning character. Maybe I should have tried her out. I didn't really feel like paying 100 yen a game though vs that guy. I played a little more SSFIV and lost to the Ibuki like twice more. Then I fought this one Ryu who was really good and he beat me and he also was beating the Ibuki over and over. I think the Ibuki was starting to get pissed. I fought a Zangief and won and then I had to fight the master Ibuki again and I beat him this time. I think he was getting angry and started to play sloppier. He played me again and I lost. I fought the Gief a few more times and won and then finally lost to him. At some point I went and got more Saizeriya which was right next GIGO, too. Kyle never came back. Once it was time to leave I just headed out and took the train home.<br /><br />Overall it was a pretty fun weekend. Got some good GG games in, and I am very glad that I can drink again (even if its just mostly red wine). I'm unsure about my plans for next weekend since there's nothing going on yet as far as I know but I will post again if something cool happens.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-61890409347984550162011-06-23T11:53:00.004+09:002011-06-23T12:30:55.602+09:00The Gout Battle Continues (plus live Finnish metal and the crazy old doctor)Before I start this blog post I just wanna quickly plug the new weekly Guilty Gear podcast called <a href="http://www.justin.tv/j1ntv">The Midnight Carnival</a>. Its hosted by old school GG players KBNova (Kenji Bliss), J1n (Jason Kim), and Klaige (Travis Nible). Please tune in and check it out!<br /><br />Two weekends have gone by since my last blog post.<br /><br />After I was diagnosed with gout over the phone by the doctor 2 weeks ago, I figured it would be good to get some medicine for it. I went to Tsukiyono hospital (a local hospital in my town) and explained to them that I was diagnosed with gout by a doctor at Takadanobaba hospital. They took my word for it but they did another blood test. They wouldn’t know the results until later but they went ahead and prescribed me 100 mg of Zyloric and gave me about a 2 week supply. (A quick note, Zyloric is a brand of the drug allopurinol which is used to lower uric acid levels which causes gout. Using it while you have gout in the first place can actually make gout worse at first. I found that after starting the drug my gout was a little worse but in the long run it should help.)<br /><br />The follow day (Friday, June 10th) was Andy’s birthday celebration. He was going to have a sorta birthday party in Takasaki at a fairly new restaurant called Kiwi Café. Kiwi Café is actually owned by Grant, the New Zealander who we often play poker with in Maebashi. I decided I wasn’t going to drink to try to get my gout back under control so I drove there. About 20 people showed up (all other ALTs) and we had all you can eat pizza. The pizza was actually excellent and was some of the best pizza I’ve had in Japan. Since I couldn’t drink, I ended up smoking cigs most of the night. We stayed there till about 11 and then about half of us had plans to do karaoke. I was able to leave my car in front of Jen Park’s house (she is another ALT who lives near there). I noticed around this time that I was having another gout flare up. Im not sure what triggered it but it was either the smoking or too much pizza.<br /><br />When we got to karaoke, everyone wanted to get the all you can drink package for the room. I originally wasn’t going to drink but I caved in and ended up getting a glass of red wine… which led to many glasses of red wine. Wine is supposedly the least harmful alcohol for people with gout problems. I was already having a gout attack so I figured a little wine wouldn’t matter much. It’s difficult for me to not drink when everyone else is getting drunk and having fun, plus I don’t really like doing karaoke sober. Also, the karaoke room next to us was like this huge party size room and it was full of like 30 drunk Japanese people in their 20s. They invited many of us to come hang with them and it was just rowdy as hell in there; pretty amusing. Karaoke was fun and because I drank, I couldn’t drive home, but was pretty tired anyway. A few people were already crashing on the floor at Jen Park’s so she said I could crash there too.<br /><br />I got up the next morning and drove home. I spent the rest of Saturday spending time with Ryoko at home and not drinking. Also, the new Symphony X album, Iconoclast, leaked on the internet that day so I DLed it and listened to it a few times. I must say, I think it’s a really solid album and there isn’t a single song on it that I don’t like. I wouldn’t say it’s their best work and it certainly isn’t flawless, but I am really digging it and will be enjoying it for a long time. Ryoko slept over and then on Sunday we went to a petting zoo that has lots of farm animals. It was alright I guess. There was this guy from New Zealand who was in charge of the sheep dog show which I found amusing. He LOVES the sheep! They also had homemade icecream there that they make from their own cow’s milk and we split a cone. For whatever reason, I was having another bad gout attack on the way home. It might have been the icecream that caused it but im not sure.<br /><br />Anyway… skipping ahead to the most recent weekend (June 17th – 19th)…<br /><br />On Friday (the 17th), we had the Gunma ALT seminar in Maebashi which is a mandatory meeting for all the JET ALTs in Gunma. Its divided half into the people who will stay next year starting in late July (which includes me… and this will be my final year on JET since 5 years is the max) and the other half which is the people who will leave JET. The meeting lasted all day and was your typical same old JET meeting with nothing really worth noting. After the meeting was the farewell party for all the departing ALTs. It was at the rooftop beer garden in Takasaki. I decided I would try drinking again to see how things went now that I was on the medicine for a while. Since beer is the worst alcohol for gout, I drank whiskey the whole time. The whiskey ended up getting me smashed pretty quickly since they made the drinks (highballs and whiskey cokes) using large size beer mugs and put 2 shots of whiskey in each drink. I was drinking them at the pace everyone else was drinking beer and by the end of the beer garden (at 9 pm, 4 hours later) I was feeling pretty smashed.<br /><br />The plan after this was to head to Tokyo for the rest of the weekend. I rode the train up there with Emmet and Bloodbath. I passed out on the train at some point but by the time we made it to Tokyo I was feeling much better. Bloodbath had other plans, but Emmet and I headed to Current, Godz, and PSY, where we drank until about 5 am between the 3 bars. Not really much worth noting at any of the bars. It was just a pretty standard night of drinking. I requested Iconoclast at PSY which sounded awesome at the bar. We both passed out near the end at PSY. I woke up and Emmet was still passed out so I just went ahead to the manga kissa to sleep.<br /><br />On Saturday, when I woke up, I was still feeling pretty hung over. I ended up drinking way more than I should have the previous night and was really regretting it. Though I didn’t feel any gout pain last night (probably due to being wasted) I was now feeling it quite heavily. I made myself get up early so that I could go back to Takadanobaba hospital to consult with the doctor about my gout in person for the first time since he originally diagnosed me. He showed me the results of the test and said that my uric acid level was 10.7 mg/dL which is very high. He said that I really should just out right stop drinking for a while. Given that I felt hung over as hell and had pretty bad gout pain, it seemed like good advice. I told him that I went to Tsukiyono hospital and got the 100 mg of Zyloric. He said that that was fine but said I should probably increase the dose to 200 mg. He asked if I wanted more from him. I told him that I would just go back and get it from my local hospital since it would just be easier that way, and I had enough pills to last through Monday, so it would be fine. I should have just gotten them from him, but I will get into that later. He said I should come back in like 2 months for another blood test to check my uric acid levels.<br /><br />I was pretty tired after leaving the hospital cuz I only got like 6 hours of sleep and was feeling pretty hung over honestly. I went to the manga kissa in Takadanobaba and got a 3 hour package and slept for another 3 hours.<br /><br />I got some ramen and then I killed a little time playing Guilty Gear at Mikado. I left at around 4;30 because today, I had other plans. I had a ticket to go see Children of Bodom and Amorphis in Yokohama. I took the train out there. I put my backpack in a locker at the station cuz I knew the lockers at the venue would all be full. It was a smart idea aside from the fact that my umbrella was in the locker and I didn’t realize it was raining until after I left the station. On top of that, the map I printed to see how to get to the venue was also in my backpack. I had to just wing it. It looked a bit far on the map from what I remembered so I asked a bus driver if his bus went there. He (for whatever reason) didn’t even know what the venue was (it was called the Yokohama Bay Hall). I ended up just walking in a direction and spotted a guy walking and listening to his headphones who looked like he would be going to the show. I asked him if this was the way to the Yokohama Bay Hall and he said yes, so I just kept walking that way. Eventually I saw a big group of people who all looked like they were going there as well, so I just kept walking the way they were going and I got there soon after.<br /><br />They forced me to pay 500 yen for a drink ticket after I went inside, which sucked cuz I couldn’t drink alcohol today. I tried to get a redbull with it at the drink counter but they wouldn’t even give me that, so I just got a regular coke. After getting the coke, I turned around and suddenly saw Masami. He said he was here to see the show and that Sushi was here as well. I spotted him shortly after and said hi.<br /><br />Not long after that, the show started and I got closer to the stage. Amorphis was first to go. This was my first time seeing them live. I’m not quite as into Amorphis as I am into Bodom so I don’t know all the song names that well but they played a good hours worth of songs and it was good stuff. The vocalist has awesome long dreads and does wicked helicopter head banging.<br /><br />There was an intermission, during which time I had a quick smoke and talked to Masami for a bit longer. He told me that Sachiko was actually here as well so I found her and said hi. Shortly after, Bodom came on. This was my 4th time seeing Bodom live. They always put on a good live show. I think the latest album is so-so. It’s better than Blooddrunk but still not as good as their first 4 albums which I like the best. Overall, they played a good mix of everything though (except no songs off of the first album which kinda sucks). Here was the set list.<br /><br />• Not My Funeral<br />• Bodom Beach Terror<br />• Needled 24/7<br />• Shovel Knockout<br />• Roundtrip to Hell and Back<br />• In Your Face<br />• Living Dead Beat<br />• Children Of Bodom<br />• Hate Me!<br />• Blooddrunk<br />• Angels Don't Kill<br />• Follow the Reaper<br />• Downfall<br />-------------------------<br />• Was It Worth It?<br />• Everytime I Die<br />• Hate Crew Deathroll<br /><br />Highlights for me were Bodom Beach Terror and Children of Bodom.<br /><br />After the show, I tried to head out quickly to beat the rush of people leaving. I grabbed a quick sandwich and yogurt at Family Mart to eat on the train ride back and headed back to Tokyo. By this point, my gout was starting to get worse.<br /><br />I headed back to Mikado and figured I would play Guilty Gear until they closed at midnight. I got a lot of great games in. There were a lot of good players there. I guess there was another #reload tournament earlier in the day that I missed due to the concert and lots of them stayed after to play Accent Core. I played a few vs FAB but couldn’t beat him this time. Overall, though, I was doing quite well against everyone else I fought. Near closing time, Satoshi showed up and said hi to me. He seemed happy to see me since I hadn’t seen him in a while. He had just gotten back from the US since he entered the recent Revelations tournament where he won both the BB and GG tournaments. We made some small talk and then I headed out since the arcade was closed.<br /><br />So now I was faced with a tough decision. I already was 100% committed to not drinking tonight so my decision would be rough. Tonight at GODZ was Hide’s birthday party so I knew it would be pretty hype and really wanted to go. However, I knew that I wouldn’t have much fun if I can’t drink. I decided I would go to Game Versus (the arcade that’s open all night in Nishi Nippori) and try to play some fighting games at least. This place is known for its 3rd Strike competition (which I don’t really play at all and am not good at) but the last time I went there they had some Street Fighter IV cabs so I figured I could at least play that.<br /><br />When I arrived at Game Versus, I was disappointed to find that they didn’t have a single SSFIV cab (not even Vanilla) set up. No Guilty Gear. They didn’t even have 3rd Strike for some reason! Everyone was playing Super Turbo! I guess they switch their games out pretty often. Don’t get me wrong… I like Super Turbo. It’s a classic game and I enjoyed it a lot back in the day. However, I know I don’t stand a chance against the kinda guys who would be playing ST all night at the arcade until 5 am. I never practice the game and knew that if I decided to stay I would just get destroyed at ST for the next 4 hours straight. So… I decided I would try to catch the train back to Shinjuku. Luckily, the Yamanote line was still running.<br /><br />I arrived back in Shinjuku at about 1 am. I figured I could at least pop into GODZ and say hi. When I got there, it was really packed. Lots of people that knew me were there so I chatted with them a bit. I ordered an oolong tea and just sipped on that the whole time and smoked some cigs. Chris and Sachiko were supposed to be there but they already went home. Hide was WASTED when I got there. He thanked me for coming to his birthday party and then soon after proceeded to dry hump some chick on the floor with her ankles behind her head. I assume they were friends cuz they she was smiling about it and laughing so it was all in good fun, but it was pretty hilarious and random for sure. It was like right in front of the bathroom door, too lol. After being there for like an hour and a half, drinking my 650 yen oolong tea and smoking cigarettes sober while everyone else continued to get more and more wasted, I decided I might as well just go to sleep. My gout was hurting really bad at this point anyway. I said goodbye to the people I knew and headed out.<br /><br />I got to the manga kissa and as expected for 2:30 am, it was already all full. I assumed this would probably happen. I checked about 5 other manga kissas and they were all full as well. Big surprise. I didn’t really wanna go back to GODZ so I decided to at least check Current out. That was a mistake. There were 2 customers at the bar who I don’t really know, and then just Emma, Masami, and Mame working while Sushi also sat at the bar. I ordered a tomato juice, much to Mame’s surprise, and explained to them about my condition. They said I was drinking like a fish last night so they were surprised to hear it, but they understood and felt bad for me. I told them I might have to quit drinking for as long as 2 months (since that was when my next uric acid test would be) but I was actually unsure how long I really needed to stop. In any case, I stayed until about 4 am sipping my tomato juice, drinking cigs, and making small talk. I finally headed out and decided to give the manga kissa another try. It was still full. I went to McDonalds and got a small fries and killed some time eating it and listening to my mp3 player. At 4:30 I tired one more time and was successful in getting a room… finally. I was exhausted and every joint in my body was aching. It felt great to finally sleep.<br /><br />(So you can see how this whole gout thing is really fucking my weekends in Tokyo. If I go to bed early at like 12, I wake up at like 8-9 am when nothing is opened and its boring as hell. If I hang out for a little bit but then try to sleep I have to wait until 5 am cuz the manga kissas are full. If I drink I fuck myself. Maybe next time I should just man up and stay at Game Versus and take my beatings.)<br /><br />On Sunday morning I woke up after 9 hours of sleep. I only meant to sleep 8 but my alarm didn’t wake me up. I took a shower and headed out. I got some spinach curry and then headed to Mikado where I spent the rest of the day playing GG casuals. It was actually pretty much dead at first (and this was already 3 pm… so you can see why I wouldn’t wanna wake up at like 9 am on a Sunday…). Gradually, a couple GG players rolled in. I played against this one HOS player and beat him like 15 times in a row. At some point he started getting pissed and taunting me and slamming the cab. He wasn’t even that bad but I guess he thought I was some random gaijin scrub and was getting pissed at losing to me so many times. He eventually gave up and moved to another cab. I fought a few other people and beat them and then eventually beat the game with like a 25 win streak.<br /><br />I went and played a little SSFIV against a Claw player but he beat me up pretty bad. I also fought a Ken and Juri player who I beat about 4 times and then eventually no one played against me so I beat the game.<br /><br />I went back and played GG for the rest of the day as more people started to roll in and it was finally getting busy. Kunihiro showed up and I played him for a while at first. I played a lot against Kuni’s Slayer as well. We went pretty even. I lost the one match I played against Hayashi. I went pretty even with really good black I-no. I also went 1-1 with Satou’s Eddie. I played a lot of other matches vs various people as well and for the most part did good. It was fun times.<br /><br />When it was time to go I got some quick yogurt and pasta from Lawson for the ride back home and got on the train.<br /><br />So that concludes the most recent weekend.<br /><br />On Monday, I went back to Tsukiyono hospital to get more Zyloric for my gout. I figured everything would go smoothly but I was quite mistaken. When I went in to see the doctor, it was a completely different doctor. (Ryoko tells me that this hospital actually doesn’t have regular doctors on staff cuz they have a hard time finding permanent ones so they just take whoever they can get to fill in…) This guy was really, really old. He started off by trying to speak some broken English and asked me where I was from and how long I was in Japan. I just replied in Japanese and he eventually started speaking Japanese, thankfully. I told him about my gout situation and asked him what the results of my blood test were when I originally went to get the meds about 2 weeks ago (I hadn’t seen the results yet). Midway through explaining my situation he asked me AGAIN where I was from and how long ive been in Japan. I found this a little odd but answered anyway. He got out the chart and struggled to find the information on it. The nurses had to help him out. He eventually found that data and said that my uric acid level was only 5.3 mg/dL. This makes no sense because it’s impossible for your blood’s uric acid level to drop that quickly in a matter of days (it was only a few days between when I took the test in Tokyo and at this place). I asked him if there could be a mistake. I had him call the doctor at Takadanobaba to confirm that it was 10.7 when I went there. He left the room, came back later and said that the doctor there indeed said it was 10.7. So… he decided to do another blood test and urine test.<br /><br />So I got the test done, and after the drew me blood and I peed in the cup, he asked if I could just wait for about 20 minutes to find out the results. I found this to be rather odd since the blood test usually takes much longer but agreed and waited in the hallway. He called me back in about 20 minutes later, saying that the results showed that my uric acid level was now only 3.7. This made absolutely no sense because that’s even extremely low for regular people who have no problems. On top of that, I had no idea how he could have gotten the data so quickly. At this point, we had a long discussion bout gout and he claims I don’t have it and that my joints are sore from working too hard and he said that I should run and exercise every day and it will cure my problem. I started to get a little more suspicious about this guy when he asked me a 3rd time when I came to Japan and how long I have been here. On top of that, within like this 15 minute conversation, he must have asked me how often I drink alcohol about 5 or 6 separate times! And each time it was like he asked as if it was the first time. Ive worked in a retirement home before and this is the kinda thing I would often see with dementia patients. I think this old man wasn’t quite right in the head.<br /><br />In the end, he told me I didn’t need the medication anymore and sent me home empty handed. The last thing he said to me while I was waiting by the front desk to pay the bill was asking me how often I drink one more time…. I was pretty pissed that I just wasted like 2 hours of my day on the shenanigans of some crazy old man and had no more Zyloric either.<br /><br />So… I told Ryoko what happened and she said that Tsukiyono hospital sucks and that I should just not go there anymore. I decided that on Tuesday, I would go to Minakami hospital (even smaller hospital with just one doctor on staff, but he seems competent), I went there and told him the situation about getting diagnosed in Takadanobaba and everything but I left out the part about the crazy old man at the other hospital. He diagnosed me with more meds in addition to the Zyloric and was very helpful in answering all my questions. He also did another blood test and said to come back next Monday to find the results out. Also, according to the doctor in Takadanobaba, I also have iron deficiency anemia, which basically means a lack of red blood cells due to low iron. This is often caused by bleeding from stomach acid problems so I already sorta knew I had this. I told him and he gave me a straight up injection of iron into my blood. He told me that if I stay on the meds and watch my diet that my uric acid levels should return to normal in about 1.5 to 2 months. One good thing was, when I asked him about not drinking alcohol at all, he told me that it was ok for me to drink some red wine. So, it seems like I actually don’t have to give up drinking completely after all. I think im still gonna take a weekend or 2 off for real this time though but at least the next time I go to Tokyo, I can have some wine at the bar and not be completely bored.<br /><br />So, hopefully this gout bullshit will be over with soon enough. I can't believe im only 28 and have so many health problems though. I dread to think how fucked up my body is gonna be when im an old man (if I even make it that far...)ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-28756853621034311592011-06-08T14:02:00.004+09:002011-06-24T13:47:23.072+09:00Soundstone and Kidney StonesI spent Friday night chilling at home cuz I had a doctors appointment the next morning. Saturday morning, after my appointment, I headed to Tokyo. Today was the first Final Roundbats of the new 2011-2012 season. I called Bull410 to confirm the start time. It seemed like I had some time to spare so I got a hair cut. After that, I headed to the venue.<br /><br />The venue is now changed to a place called Soundstone in Saitama. The Skylounge from before is no longer going to be used. I figured it would take less time than it did to get there and as a result, I showed up slightly late.<br /><br />The format of Final Roundbats has now been changed. It used to be just a SSFIV tournament as the main event and sometimes we would play casuals for other games, too. Now, the event would have 4 main tournament games: Mortal Kombat 9, Tekken 6, Marvel vs Capcom 3, and Super Street Fighter IV (this week it was regular Super but it will be changed to Arcade Edition once the patch is released for next time). Previously, we all just paid like 3000 yen to get in, it covered the cost of the tournament, plus all you can eat pizza and some free booze. Since it was now in a bar, the drinks were now to be purchased for 5 dollars each and there was no free food (though they sold some food at the bar). The price to get in was still 3000 yen, but it gave you automatic entry into all 4 tournaments as well as 1 drink ticket. I honestly kinda miss the pizza and bring your own booze but this trade off did have its advantages.<br /><br />Final Roundbats is now partnered with Gods Garden, which means that the entire event was streamed online. It also meant access to more consoles and TVs so we were able to get 4 setups going at a time. The games sorta rotated throughout the day. Mainly 1 or 2 were used for tournament and the remaining were for casuals. Also, since Gods Garden helped to advertise this event using twitter and stuff, tons more people came out this time. Lots of really good Japanese players were there. Among them were well known Guilty Gear players ABEGEN and Kusoru. Also, the number 1 top ranked player on XBOX live in all of Asia for MvC3 was there. And of course, the man himself, Tokido, was there as usual. Unfortunately, Tokido was only able to stay for the first 2 games so he was unable to participate in Marvel and SSFIV. Most of the regular guys from back at the skylounge tournaments showed up as well.<br /><br />I showed up halfway through the MK9 tournament. Scott Popular told me I was already DQed but I didnt care because I have never even played MK9 before lol. I told them to sign me up for all the games just cuz it was free with entry but I have never played MK9 and I have also never played Tekken 6 as far as I could remember. I came mainly for Marvel and SSFIV.<br /><br />Soon after I got there, I played some MvC3 casuals against a few people. I was able to beat all the people I played pretty easily and probably got like 10 wins or something. For now, my team is currently Amaterasu / Hsien-ko / Sentinel. I have been thinking about changing out Sentinel for someone else... maybe Dormammu or Zero but I am still thinking about it. I hadnt played MvC3 for a whole month while PSN was down. I have absolutely no one to play agaisnt offline so PSN is my only way to play matches. I figured I would just stick with the team I have been using for today and if I change it I would wait till next time.<br /><br />Soon after MK9 ended, they interviewed the winner.<br /><br />Not long after, they started Tekken 6. Im pretty sure I have never played Tekken 6 before. I used to play a LITTLE Tekken 5 so I figured I would just pick Jack-6 and hope he was similar to Jack-5 (the character I used in Tekken 5). I fought some Japanese dude and managed to get about half his life off each round but wasnt able to win any. I spend half the rounds trying to find out the commands for moves that were changed lol. I didnt care about this tournament anyway so its all good. After it was over, they interviewed Tokido, who won the tournament.<br /><br />Anyway, after Tekken, I played some more MvC3 casuals. This time I fought a guy who was using Zero / Doom / Tron (I think this was the team). He was tough and I managed to barely beat him. After that game, I said "That was close" to him in Japanese. He didnt seem very pleased and wanted a rematch but this time he picked Zero / Dante / Wesker, which seemed to be his main team. I started Ammy on point and he had Zero. We sorta scrambled around for a bit each of us trying to get the first hit in. Eventually I got tagged in the air by Zero and that one hit led to Ammy dying right out, my next character not even being able to touch the ground and killed, and then finally the same thing happening to my final character. I honestly had no idea WTF to do and felt completely helpess! I straight out got perfected. I felt kinda dumb and wanted a rematch. This time I actually managed to hit him but I dropped my combo on accident and it resulted in me getting hit and the exact same scenario as last time happening. I felt pretty dumb and it really sorta gave me a discouraging feeling right before the MvC3 tournament was about to start. However, shortly after, I asked someone who this guy was. They told me he was the number 1 ranked player in all of Asia on XBOX live. Suddenly I didnt feel quite as stupid. I forgot what his handle is but Im sure if you went on Xbox live and checked, you could find out pretty easily (I dont have Xbox).<br /><br />My first match of the tournament, I fought a guy whos name was Mike (I think.... and he wasnt the GG player Mike). I forgot what team he used but I almost perfected him and it ended pretty fast. Later, I found out that the tournament was best 2/3. I went back and told him that we had to play one more time but he said he just gave up and said its pointless cuz id beat him anyway heh. I dont think he really plays Marvel much. For my 2nd match, I fought a Japanese guy whos name I dont recall. He used Ammy / Dante / Wesker. He beat me the first match sorta bad. The 2nd match, I actually was doing pretty well for a bit. I had his Ammy in a combo with my Ammy and I went for the 236H relaunch bounce but it completely whiffed cuz im not used to doing that combo against Ammy's small hitbox and it resulted in me getting punished and it all fell apart from there. So with that, I was out of the tournament. There were several REALLY good Japanese players there and I felt like I was really behind since I hadnt played for a whole month. Looks like I need to go back to training mode and re-think my team, as well as get more match experience. I went and got a rum coke right after I lost in the tournament. I hadnt really been drinking much today till this point (only had one beer prior to this).<br /><br />I was surprised that another good Japanese player that was there ended up beating the number 1 Xbox live guy in a mirror match with his same main team, taking him out of the tournament. ABEGEN did really well with his She-hulk / Thor / Tron team getting top 4. The finals came down to Kusoru vs the guy who beat Xbox number 1 guy. Kusoru used VJoe / Sent / Akuma. Kusoru has gotten REALLY good at this game. His VJoe was really good at zoning and chipping to start out but once he lost VJoe he was just tearing it up with Sent and Akuma anyway. Throughout the tournament I saw his lvl 3 Xfactor Akuma make so many comebacks (though of course lvl 3 Xfactor Akuma does excel at that). He also had one of the best Sentinels I have seen. In the end, he won the tournament and played extremely solid.<br /><br />I played a few games of SSFIV casuals before the tournament started. At first I completely forgot that it was not AE and was using my Ultra 2 as if it was crappy AE Ultra 2 but then someone reminded me and I started using it like good ol regular Super Ultra 2 again heh. I hadnt really been playing SSFIV much lately ether due to PSN being down and not having gone to Tokyo much (and mostly playing GG when im there lately) so I felk like I was gonna be rusty but I actually was winning almost all my casual games. I was even beating most of the Japanese players there who I played and lots of them said they never fight strong Rose players and were giving me props.<br /><br />The last tournament was SSFIV. My first match was against a Japanese Fei-long player. The whole time the tournaments were going on, they had 2 setups going for the tournaments and the main one was being streamed while the other was not. Until now, I only played on the one that wasnt being streamed but this time I was on the main setup and my match was being streamed. Format was single elim, one match, best of 5 rounds. As usual, I entered with Rose. I won the first round. Lost the 2nd round. 3rd round was close as hell and he did his ultra which I blocked and would have killed him, but I mis counted the number of hits in it and stopped blocking to punish too early and got hit by the last hit which killed me. Everyone was like WTF, as was I. I got my shit together though and took the last 2 rounds for the win.<br /><br />The stream was lagging a bit so I was able to see my match on the main computer after it was over. Over 1000 people were watching the stream.<br /><br />For my next match, I had to fight ANOTHER Japanese Fei-long player. This guy was a bit better and he beat me. I beat him once in casuals before the tournament but couldnt pull it off this time. Oh well.<br /><br />The finals were between a really good Viper and a really good Ibuki. I believe the Ibuki player took the win. I ended up getting top 8 which is not bad I guess. I think 24 people entered.<br /><br />UPDATE: <a href="http://www.finalroundbats.blogspot.com/">The full results and brackets can be found here.</a><br /><br />After the last tournament ended and the interview was over, they had casuals for a bit longer and for some odd reason they even had MvC2 and Double Dragon running at some point lol. Originally this event was supposed to last till 4 am with casuals and drinking going all night, but I guess Scott Popular and Bull410 were tired and wanted to wrap it up at midnight. So, I asked the bar tender when the last train back to Shinjuku was and he said to leave around 11:30 and I would be ok. I said bye to everyone and headed out and took the last train back to Shinjuku.<br /><br />I headed to Current. SPG Chris, Sachiko, and Katsura were drinking on the steps outside. I went inside and there were a few regulars but it was mostly packed with people I didnt know. I ordered a beer and was shocked to find out that they raised the prices of the draft Heinekin beer from 500 yen to 600 yen! I guess it had something to do with the Tohoku Heinekin factory getting destoryed in the tsunami. Considering the draft beers at Current arnt very big to begin with, I dont think I will be getting draft beer anymore and will either switch to hard liquor on the rocks (which is also 500 yen) or Suntory Premium malts bottles for 600 yen but are bigger than the draft beers. For the rest of the night while I was at Current I drank some rum on the rocks.<br /><br />I mostly sat outside with Sachiko, Chris, and Katsura talking about various stuff. Some random drunken Australian guy came out and was on the phone right by us. Then at some point his phone call ended and he just started butting into our conversation. He started blabbing on about how he cant speak Japanese but he has been living here for like 10 years and he opened some sort of exporting business. At first he wouldnt say what he exported but then he mumbled some stuff about cars. He kept saying how you just have to "do it" and take initiative to start a business but when we asked him out he couldnt even give us a straight answer. He said crap like "I just made hundreds of phone calls" and seemed so drunk that he could hardly get the words out of his mouth. He even would occasionally just say stuff like "wow im wasted". We were sorta laughing a bit since this guy was so wasted and had like this "im better than you guys and cant even speak Japanese" attitude. He started to get pissed off and went away but we didnt even really say anything and were actually being quite polite to him. Shortly after, Chris, Sachiko, and I went to 7-11 across the street for a snack. When we came back, Katsura said the guy came out and tried to hit on her and ask her to dance, so she said she pretended not to speak English even though she was speaking fluent English when he was talking to us earlier, lol!<br /><br />We got to talking about how lately Current has been going down hill with lots of annoying customers and the staff not playing requests and just playing the same songs every time. We all felt like listening to some metal, so at first we were gonna go to GODZ but then Chris was bitching about how he had to get up early for band practice with his new band. Then Katsura suggested we all just go drink at Chris's place. Chris agreed so we walked there.<br /><br />Chris lives just outside Shinjuku and just moved to a new place like a week ago. He has a conbini right under his building that sells some good micro brews so I picked up a few Aooni IPAs to drink inside. His roommate was there as well. We mostly just sat around and watching awsome metal music videos on his computer (he has a huge screen on his brand new mac) and drank and talked shit. His roommate let me try his 3DS. Ive never played a 3DS till now. He had SSFIV. I was actually very unimpressed by the 3d effects. I thought the 3D on the 3DS would look much better but in all honesty it seems gimicky as hell. Not really sure Id want to buy one until the price goes down quite a bit.<br /><br />I was pretty tired and started nodding off at around 4:30. At around 5, Katsura and I left together to walk to the station. We went our separate ways. I went back to Shinjuku station and then went to the manga kissa and she went home.<br /><br />The next morning I went to get Burger King but was shocked to find that the Shinjuku Kabuki-cho BK shut down. Bummer. I then went to Akihabara cuz I needed some blank DVDs. I was gonna get a kebab there but the good stand by the station was also gone. Bummer again. I ended up settling for some fried shrimp over rice. I got a 100 pack of DVD-Rs for dirt cheap. I then went to Club Sega and played GG for about an hour. I fought against Basara (Ogiwara)'s Testament and beat him for my first match, ending his win streak. Then he went on another cab and I beat a decent Ky a few times. Lost to the Ky once. Beat him a few more times and then beat a HOS. Then some annoying May player came along and beat me like 3 or 4 times. I still fucking hate May with a passion. After that, I decided to play a few games of SSFIVAE. I fought against an Evil Ryu player for the very first time. The guy wasnt very good and I won. I also beat some really bad Claw player. I wanted to catch the next train soon so then I just died on purpose to the computer to get my card back and left.<br /><br />After I got home, I spent the rest of the evening with Ryoko.<br /><br />I got in contact with the doctor about my health checkup on Monday and it turns out I have gout. Gout is a kind of arthritus that results from abormaly high levels of uric acid in the blood. Uric acid is mostly produced from eating lots of red meat, seafood, and drinking alcohol (espessially beer)... so its no wonder I would develop this condition considering I love drinking and eating meat. I started feeling really fatigued ever since I came back from Korea. I guess 5 days of binge drinking and Korean BBQ got the best of me. So, im gonna go on a special diet for a bit and try to cut down on drinking until the pain in my joints subsides. I gotta get that uric acid level down. Once thats over, hopefully I can go back to drinking like normal. Until then, its gonna suck, but oh well. Could be worse. Unfortunately this also often results in kidney stones and problems related to that, so I get to look forward to the excruciating pain that comes with that some day. yay...<br /><br />Not sure what my plans are for next weekend but Ill post if its worth talking about.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-89103613218549977722011-05-30T10:23:00.005+09:002011-06-02T12:00:37.103+09:00Bloodbath #reload<div>It's been a while since I updated this blog. During golden week I went to Seoul, South Korea with Emmet for about 5 days. I considered writing a blog post about it but I decided not to for various reasons. I did updated my photo page with lots of pictures of it though so feel free to look at those. Other than that, the last few weekends have been fairly uneventful and I have been spending more time in Gunma, so there wasn't really much to blog about.<br /><br /></div><div></div><div>On Friday of last week after work, I went to Tokyo for the first time in a month (not counting when I went to the airport to go to Korea. I rode the train down with Emmet and he had other plans, so I headed to Takadanobaba by myself. I got a kebab and then went to Mikado. It was a bit dead. There was only about maybe 10-15 guys there playing GG. Among them was Kunihiro so I said hi to him. Not really much to talk about otherwise. I stayed till about 11 and then headed to Current.<br /><br /></div><div></div><div>Current started off sorta so-so, then some people left on the last train and it was dying down, but then it picked back up later when some regulars came in. Overall it was actually pretty good for a Friday. I saw Chip for like the first time in 2 months. For whatever reason he hasnt been around much lately. I also talked a bunch with my friend Noriko. There was this dude there that I know who was hitting on her pretty hard but she didnt really seem interested so she kept talking to me to try and get him to get the hint. Eventually she asked me to go outside with her and then I think the guy got the hint and left. After that we went back inside. I was also talking with this one German dude whos on Cirque De Soleil. Noriko left around 4 and I left at the same time because I was feeling pretty tired. She got in a cab and went home and I headed for the manga kissa. The ussual one was full so I had to go to another one. They had no flat rooms left but they had big private rooms with small chairs so there was enough room to at least sleep on the floor.<br /><br /></div><div></div><div>The next day I headed for Mikado. It was kinda dead at first. I went to get some food, came back, and it got pretty packed soon after. I noticed they were taking signups for a Guilty Gear tournament. Much to my surprise, it wasnt an Accent Core tournament. For whatever reason, they decided to run a #Reload tournament! LOL! Whats even more strange is that it was a singles tournament and was double elimination which is something rarely ever seen in Japan. I havnt played #Reload in years, so I knew I would be rusty as hell but I figured I might as well enter just for fun since it was only 100 yen. they had 3 #Reload cabs set up for the tournament nad one for casuals. They also still had like 7 other AC cabs running for casuals the whole time. I played a little of both AC and #Reload while I waited for the tournament to start.<br /><br />I also asked the staff about Johnny-o cup. They still have not rescheduled it. Im starting to wonder if it will ever even happen anymore. I also asked when the next MvC3 tournament would be but no one seemed to know.<br /><br /></div><div></div><div>It felt a little awkward playing #Reload after such a long time of not having played it This is the weakest version of Faust which is one reason I didn't like #Reload as much as other versions but I still had some great memories with that game. I cought myself occasionally trying to do AC combos and force breaks out of sheer habbit which kinda messed me up a bit, but overall I guess it wasnt extremely hard to play. I think what actually threw me off more was the differences of the OTHER characters because I am not so used to playing those old matchups anymore. I still managed to do pretty well in casuals.<br /><br /></div><div></div><div>For my first match, I had to fight some Sol player who I dont know. I played him a few times in casuals and I think I went 2-1 with him in my favor. He was doing well against most people. He had a very aggressive play style. I sorta just choked and got rushed down and he beat me. I didnt really care though since its just some random #Reload tournament.<br /><br /></div><div></div><div>After losing, I played more casuals and thent hey called my next match in losers bracket which was against Satou's Johnny. I was actually doing really well against him. The first round came down to the wire but I lost. 2nd round wasnt so bad but I did a brain fart burst like out of no where and got punished for it. I lost that round as well. As I said, I didnt really care, and I hadnt played #Reload in years, so it was no big deal.<br /><br /></div><div></div><div>After I lost, I went back to playing AC casuals. A lot more regulars showed up later on for AC that didnt enter the #Reload tournament. My most interesting set of the night was against this one really good Eddie player. I usually go sorta even with him but this time I managed to get 7 wins in a row on him. Then he got like 3 on me, I got 2 more, then he beat me once and someone else got on the machine while I was getting change so I went to fight someone else. It was a good long session though and we just kept playing against eachother for a good while.<br /><br /></div><div></div><div>I also played a few games against Ain's Ky. There were some guys sitting on the benches behind me sorta rooting for me. I lost the first two games against him but they were both close as hell. I managed to beat him the 3rd try but then he moved to another cab. At least he didnt pound on the cabinet this time.<br /></div><p>After playing for a little while I started to feel a little feverish. I checked my temperature and it was a litte bit high (37.4). I had plans to go drinking tonight but I didnt want to make it worse, so I decided to just stay at Mikado and play until it closed at midnight and to constantly monitor my temperature. It eventually started to drop slightly but was staying mostly right at exactly 37 or just below it which is still slightly high. I figured I would try a beer and see how it effected me. I noticed no difference. I played a few more games until it closed and then I decided I might as well swing by Current and play it by ear.</p><p>Tonight at Current was an event. Today in Tokyo was Finland fest, which is a concert consisting of several bands from Finland. I like tons of Finnish bands but most of the ones on the bill were relatively unknown to me. The line up was Korpiklanni, myGRAIN, Moonsorrow, Lapko, and special guests Outrage (Japanese band). The only band on there I really sometimes listen to is Korpiklanni and the tickets were like 5800 yen, so I decided to pass on the actual show. Plus, I hadnt played GG in like a month so I wanted to spend the day at Mikado. However, I was certainly down to go to Current for the afterparty. A lot of people showed up. Not even all of them went to the show but it was still pretty packed in there. I was also surprised how many regulars showed up that I hadnt seen in a while which was great. I was talking to my friend Mandi (who is Finnish) and she was disapointed to say that there were hardly any Finnish people at Finland fest and aside from her there were only a couple that came to Current. She said the show had a good turnout though.</p><p>Masami had plans to play his guitar and sing live at Current for the afterparty, but he was having technical difficulties with his computer or something and wasnt able to perform unfortunately. Later on in the night, Emmet and another ALT named Nick showed up. They went to an international party earlier and then another party after that and then came to Current. They were both already pretty wasted when they arrived. For a while there was a big group of us talking outside on the steps. I had to go inside to get another beer. Not soon after, I guess most everyone came back inside. Then Indian Guy who was out there with us came up to me and said something like "I made a comment about Jesus and then everyone just got all quiet and went inside. Are they all Christians?" And I was like "Well, Emmet certainly isnt." and hes like "No, that guys HAS to be a Christian! I refuse to believe it." and I was like "Nope, hes and athiest, you can even ask him yourself." He still wouldnt believe me so I bet him a shot that Emmet was an athiest. He tapped Emmet on the shoudler (who had no prior knowledge of our conversation) and asked him. Emmet replied that he was indeed and athiest. The dude STILL was in denial about it but he bought me the shot anyway lol. I dont get why he was so persistant. I think everyone just went inside cuz they wanted more drinks or sometihng. The dude was obviously quite wasted anyway lol.<br /></p>Other than that, there was a lot of dancing going on and people generally having a good time. Emmet was taking quite a liking to one girl there who plays shogi and chess which Emmet finds to be a big plus. She didnt seem very interested in him however, but he tried to keep talking to her anyway. As the night went on, I noticed my fever was completely gone. The alcohol cured it for the time being.<br /><br />When the bar closed at like 5, a huge group of us headed to PSY. On the way there, we were walking through an ally and some random massage girl came up to Emmet and said "Long time no see!" LOL!! Emmet claims he never solicited her and that she just would often see him walking passed her but that didnt change the fact that it was quite embarrasing for him in front of the girls that were walking to PSY with us LOL.<br /><br />PSY got pretty packed pretty quick. I was lucky enough to get a seat at the bar since I was one of the first people to go in. At some point, Emmet went to talk to that girl again that he likes and was so wasted he just spilled his beer everywhere after going up to her before he could say a word. He tried to clean it up and then next thing he knew the girl was already gone.<br />I just talked to a few people and had a beer. I also requested one of the new Symphony X songs, Dehumanized, and it sounded great all loud in the bar.<br /><br />At around 6:30 am they stopped selling alcohol but a lot of people were still there drinking. I didnt wanna stand around without a drink so I just headed back to the manga kissa.<br /><br />I woke up the next day, took a shower, and then Emmet and I headed out. Today, our plan was to go see Bloodbath's next kickboxing match here in Japan! This would be our third time seeing him fight. He kicked ass at both of the other ones so we were looking forward to it.<br /><br />We grabbed a beer and a megamac for the road and then headed to the venue which was in Omori. We showed up slightly late. We were supposed to get there at 3 to pick up our tickets in the front, but I thought we had to be there at 3:30 cuz that's when the fights would start. His girlfriend was outside with our tickets still so we were able to get inside and we apologized for being late. When we got inside, it hadn't started yet. The venue was at a huge Golds Gym. The whole 7th floor was a big ring with seating. Unfortunately they didn't sell any food or drinks there but it was ok.<br /><br />We found a few more ALTs that came to watch and sat with them. There would be a total of 11 fights, and Bloodbath's fight was scheduled to go 2nd to last. To make things more interesting, Emmet and I decided to side bet 100 yen on each match (aside from Bloodbath's cuz neither of us wanted to bet against him). We took turns choosing which guy we wanted to bet on. I just had really shitty luck cuz Emmet won almost every single bet, and in the end I owed him 500 yen. Some of the fights, we both thought I was gonna win the bet but then in the end they declared the other guy the winner... lame. Either way, it was fun to watch them. Last time there were some kids matches but this time it was all adults, and most fighters seemed to be in their 20s or 30s. All the fights were standard kick boxing but the last 3 fights (including Bloodbath's) allowed the use of elbows in addition to kicking, punching, and knees. <br /><br />I tried to take photos but my camera is sorta broken and wont focus well from certain distances. I was able to get a few decent ones though. Between one of the fights, I went to go use the bathroom which was on the floor below this one. When I came back, they wanted to check my ticket stub. I couldnt find it. They werent going to let me back in, so I just showed them my camera and told them I already took pictures of the event. Luckily that was good enough for them and they let me back in, heh.<br /><br />Bloodbath's opponent was apparently some hardcore Japanese national who didn't like foreigners much (or so I heard) and he had no losses on his record. Right before Bloodbath stepped into the ring, his coach encouraged us to all cheer and make some noise, so we did. The first around was looking pretty close for most of the time. Both of them were getting some decent hits in. In the last few seconds of the round, Bloodbath landed a solid elbow hit to the other guys face and knocked him on his ass. The guy looked dazed but he got back up and was saved by the bell. In round 2, it sorta went the same way and looked pretty even for most of the round. Once again, in the last maybe 30 seconds of the round, Bloodbath was able to land a solid knee right to the guys stomach. The guy went down again for a second knockdown. Bloodbath told us after the fight that this knee was extremely satisfying. He described it as soft and mooshy and said he could feel the guys spine through the other side of his body lol. The 3rd round was pretty even. At the very end of the round, Bloodbath went for a lunging forward power punch and whiffed and ended up doing a flip on the mat but got right back up and then the round ended.<br /><br />The judges made their decision and as no surprise to us, Bloodbath was declared the victor! So he is now 3 for 3 in the fights I have seen him in here in Japan. He did a great job and it was a good fight.<br /><br />Someone recorded the entire thing, actually. You can watch it all youtube.<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agveKH3VEOc">Round 1 </a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9kUKO4rsNE">Round 2</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNRFhE0tqjY">Round 3</a><br /><br />After the fight, we took some photos with him in the ring. Then, we all went out to an izakaya to celebrate with his coach and all the people who were there to support him. We had some beers and lots of good food. Emmet and I had to take the last train back so we had to duck out a little early. We said bye to everyone, paid our fee and headed back.<br /><br />That's about it for the weekend. I was glad to find out that PSN FINALLY was restored to Japan over the weekend and was able to start playing fighting games at home again this week.<br /><br />Next weekend is the first Final Round Japan ranbats tournament of the 2011-12 season. I plan to go. It will be at a new venue and the format is being changed. Hopefully it ends up being fun.<br /><br /><div></div>ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-9453525171645818662011-04-11T11:21:00.008+09:002011-04-11T19:19:57.837+09:00Ginza Party / Metal EventOn Friday after work, I headed to Tokyo again for the weekend. I rode up there with Emmet. on the way, we ran into 2 other JETs, Helen and Brooke. We rode the train with them as well. They had separate plans than us though. Both of them were going to be involved in a special fundraising event for the Tohoku Earthquake victims. Basically, a bunch of people would be walking around the permeter of the entire Yamanote line (the busiest train line in Tokyo). I think they had something like 8 hours or something to finish but I cant remember exactly. The Yamanote line just runs in a big circle that goes around most of central Tokyo. I never heard about this event prior to hearing about it from them. You had to be pre registered in order to attend. I think its pretty cool that they are doing this though. I hope the event raises a lot of money.<br /><br />Emmet and I got off at Takadanobaba. I grabbed some quick BK and then we played games at Mikado for a while. Nothing really noteworthy to mention but I got some fun GG matches in. Oni was now unlocked as a playable character along with Evil Ryu in SSFIVAE, so Emmet played a few matches of that. I didnt get around to trying it out.<br /><br />We left for Current sometime around 10:30 I think. From there, we headed to Current. It was pretty dead there tonight but at least Chris ended up showing up. We stayed for one beer and then decided to check out PSY. Unfortunately, PSY was also pretty dead. Chris has been trying to quit smoking but started again today. I kept bumming his cigarretes and finally he just gave me the whole pack before leaving. I hope he manages to quit. I have no nicotene dependancy and I want to keep it that way so I try to only smoke a few on occasion when im drinking.<br /><br />Emmet and I decided that Shinjuku bars were looking pretty dead tonight so I agreed to go with him to Roppongi. We took a cab there. Emmet had some coupons to get into some place called Opera or something. Some club. The coupons were good for 2000 yen to get in with 2 drink tickets which is reasonable. We walked around trying to find the place for ages. I dont know Roppongi that well and all we had to go by was some crappy map on the back of the coupon. I asked a bunch of people and they all kept pointing us in different directions. Eventually we got to a point where peoples answers were pretty consistant as to where to go, but when we finally got to the street that they said it would be on, there was nothing there.<br /><br />We got sick of walking around by this point, so we just decided to give up and go to 911, another club with free entry but over priced drinks. I made sure to bring in a hit flask of whiskey to make up for the over priced drinks. 911 was pretty boring but then again i dont really like clubs much to begin with. Emmet dumped some weird old awkward chick on me that started talking to him lol. I pretended I couldnt speak Japanese and told her I had a girlfriend in English. She still sorta just stood there expecting me to make conversation so I sorta just gradually got away hah. After a bit of time at 911 we decided to just go to Gas Panic even though I dont really like this place at all. However, its also free to get in here and I even got away without buying an over priced drink so whatever. It was already pretty late so I only had to kill like another hour and a half here until the trains started to run. I made a half ass effort to do a little dancing and killed time and it went by pretty quick. Emmet ended up leaving with some chick.<br /><br />Once 5 rolled around I headed back to the station to go back to Shinjuku to sleep. Unfortunately, I fell asleep on the train and missed my stop and wound up all the way at the last stop on the line. As a result of falling asleep so much, I didnt get to the manga kissa in Shinjuku until like 7 something. Good thing I didnt have anything in particular I had to get up for the next day, so I slept till about 1:30 pm.<br /><br />After I woke up Saturday afternoon (I was woken up by Emmet callling me), I waited to use the shower and went online for a bit. After showering, I met up with Emmet at Shinjuku Sportsland and then we got some quick food. After that, we headed to Mikado. Mikado was pretty dead at first so I was a little worried that there wouldnt be much comp today. As the day went on it improved slightly but never got crazy packed. Emmet had plans to go to another international party today. This time it was one of the ones in Ginza. He had plans to go with Jason, one of the guys who goes to Current who lives in the US and works for an airline, so he gets free flights and visits Japan once in a while. He would be around this weekend. He showed up at Mikado to meet up with Emmet and hung out for a bit while I kept playing GG. Emmet was trying to convince me to go as well. I was pretty much 50/50 on the fence about it. On one had, I felt like playing GG. On the other hand, Mikado wasnt too packed, Emmet had coupons to get us in for 2000 yen for all you can drink, and Jason was going too so I figured it might be fun. Also, they would donate 500 yen to the Tohoku Quake charity for every person that went, so it was even more incentive to maybe go. Jason showed up after a while and hung out while I played some GG. After playing GG for a few hours, 6:30 rolled around and Emmet said they had to leave and asked what my final decision was. I was in the middle of playing a match so I told him to just flip a coin cuz I was honestly 50/50 on if I wanted to go or not. After the coin flip, it ended up deciding that I would go to the party (I saw him flip it so I know it was legit). So, I won my last match and we headed out to go to Ginza.<br /><br />We arrived there a little bit late. At first, Emmet couldnt remember where the venue was. Some random Australian dude came up to us asking if we were also going to the party and we said we were. Then, Emmet remembered the way. The Australian guy didnt believe him so he went to ask some random dude and we just kept walking. We arrived at the evavator to go inside and then the Australian guy comes up and Emmet said to him "Hey, we were just making fun of you, you should have trusted me". The guy didnt seem to mind. We got up there and the dude asked if we had the coupons to get in for 1000 yen. We had ones for 2000 yen but were surprised that a 1000 coupon existed. The guy said he gets a special rate for coming so often or something. The coupons are just email text messages you show from your cell phone, so he forwarded the message to Emmet while we stood in line to help us out and get us in for 1000 yen. Then, Emmet tried to forward it to me and Jason but it wasnt working for some reason due to size limitations. So, the Australian guy sent it to me as well. Then, I tried to send it to Jason but it wouldnt work for me either but by this time, Emmet was already inside so he just passed his phone over to Jason over the divider and we all got in for 1000 yen, lol! 2 and a half hours of all you can drink for 1000 yen is a great deal!<br /><br />Since we got there late, the place was already really packed and it was difficult to even walk around. The biggest thing that sucked was that the line to get drinks was long as hell. It took on average about 15 minutes in line to get a drink for the first part of the party. I dont get how it was taking so long since they were only handing out cans of beer for the most part. I pretty much just got right back in line after getting my first drink to get another one fast. Much to our surprise, it turns out that fellow ALTs Bloodbath, Phil, Li, and Nick were there. I pretty much just spent most of the time talking to random people and drinking. I tried to wingman for my friends when I could since I wasnt there to pick any chicks up for myself. By the end of the party I got plenty to drink. I think I got at least like 7 or more beers which isnt bad for 1000 yen.<br /><br />About 20 minutes before the party ended, a nice looking girl came up to me and struck up a conversation with me. I talked to her for a bit. Lets just call her Beer girl cuz she said she really likes drinking lol. She seemed like a nice girl so I invited her to come drinking with us at Current after we left the bar (since tonight was a metal event and we were all going back there for sure). She was actually at the international party all by herself which is a pretty rare thing since girls almost always come with friends. She was happy to come with us. If I was a single guy id be more than happy to try and get with her but im not, so I figured I could try and help out Jason since by the end of the party he didnt have any girls coming with him. Emmet brought a girl along as well. I guess all the other dudes we know who were there had their own plans.<br /><br />So anyway, we get back to Current and it was pretty packed and what youd expect from a good quality metal event. Lots of regulars ended up showing up. I sat and talked with Beer girl for a bit at first but then later I went and takled to tons of other people I know. Emmet left at some point with the girl he brought but im not sure when. At around 3:30, I guess Jason ended up getting Beer girl to leave with him. So, I was glad that it seemed to have worked out. Im not exactly sure about any details about this though and hadnt seen her in a bit before they left. I dont think she saw me when they were leaving. I was busy talking to some other people.<br /><br />Anyway, I stayed the rest of the time till the event ended and nerded it out drunkenly headbanging with all the metal event guys to good songs and stuff. After it was over, I headed to PSY and stayed until closing time. PSY was pretty good. It was someones birthday there today so a decent ammount of people came and lots of people from Current showed up as well.<br /><br />The next morning I woke up to an email on my phone from Beer girl. She asked me if I wanted to go do hanami today sometime before 2 pm. It was probably something like 9 am when she mailed me and I was pretty damn tired so I went back to sleep and woke up again at like 1:30. I mailed her back telling her sorry that I just woke up and its probably too late now. She didnt reply back for a while. I mailed Emmet and Jason asking how their nights went. Emmet hooked up with that girl he left with. However, I was informed that Jason took Beer girl back to his hotel room but nothing happened between then and appearently Beer girl was just talking about ME the whole time... I guess she really must have liked me.<br /><br />I took a shower, grabbed some food, and headed to Sportsland to play some GG for a while. Some Potemkin was there and he had like a 19 win streak. I beat him on my first try. He switched to Order Sol and I beat him again. Then we played a bunch more times vs his Order Sol. It was going back and forth and then he got like 5 in a row towards the end and I was getting a little annoyed. In any case, I was pretty tired and a bit hungover and sorta wanted to just go home early and seee Ryoko so I called her and she said she was free today.<br /><br />So I left sometime around 4:00 to go home. On the way home on the train, Beer girl messaged me back saying sorry for taking so long to reply but she was unable to email me again till just now. I told her I was already going home. She said she was sorry to hear that but then she invited me to come to "play" at her house next weekend if I come back heh. If I was a single guy I would have been down, but Im not, so I just told her that I had a girlfriend and that I appreciate the offer but wouldnt be able to do that. She never replied after that. I suppose I should have mentioned I had a girlfriend to her at some point but it never came up and she never asked. I wasnt exactly trying to lead her on, but I was just trying to help out a friend and just invited her to come drinking with us at the bar. Nothing more. I feel kinda bad though cuz I didnt realize that she was that into me. So in the end I guess it sucks that things didnt work out with her and Jason but I at least tried to help out. Overall it was a pretty fun weekend though. Not sure whats going on next weekend yet.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-64251674587643448902011-04-07T16:49:00.007+09:002011-04-07T17:35:01.302+09:00Silent Hill (spring break 2011)<p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Originally, I had planned to go to Seoul for spring break with Emmet.<span style=""> </span>However, after the quake, Emmet decided to go back to New Zealand instead. <span style=""> </span>I honestly didn’t really want to go there all by myself so I decided to just cancel the trip.<span style=""> </span>Luckily, Korean Airlines issued me a full refund (though the money wont return to my account for like 2 months but I will get it back in full eventually<span style=""> </span>so its not a huge deal.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko was originally going to come with us as well, but unfortunately her dog, Bill, has been very sick lately and had to go to the vet for a few days and the medical expenses were something like 50,000 yen. <span style=""> </span>This is the money she planned to use for the vacation so she unfortunately couldn’t go.<br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">However, now that the trip to South Korea was canceled, Ryoko and I decided to take a small vacation somewhere in Japan.<span style=""> </span>This would cost less so she would be able to afford it.<span style=""> </span>She didn’t want to travel very far away and we pretty much wanted to stay away from the Tohoku region near the quake stricken areas and where the Fukushima reactor radiation was much higher.<span style=""> </span>We also wanted to go somewhere neither of us had been to before.<span style=""> </span>So, we decided on going to Shizuoka prefecture.<span style=""> </span>For those who don’t know, Shizuoka is located west of Kanagawa and South of Yamanashi. <span style=""> </span>It is also the prefecture where Mt. Fuji is located.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span lang="EN-US">Tuesday, March 29<sup>th</sup></span></b></span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span lang="EN-US"><sup><br /></sup></span></b></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Im not sure if I mentioned it before, but for the past year, right next to my old main school’s building, they have been building a brand new school.<span style=""> </span>Well, it is now finished and for the past few week, all of the students and teachers have been manually carrying everything from the old school to the new school.<span style=""> </span>This includes stuff like huge heavy furniture.<span style=""> </span>Just about anything you could think of.<span style=""> </span>By today, most of the work was finished, but we had some last minute stuff to do.<span style=""> </span>I could have taken today and Monday off, but I decided to come in and help move the stuff from the staff room.<span style=""> </span>Originally Ryoko and I were planning to leave for Shizuoka on a night bus (just like I had done so when I went to Kansai and when we went to Kyushu.)<span style=""> </span>However, due to the quake, the highway bus schedule was reduced and we found out that there were no more night buses for the time being.<span style=""> </span>I already told them I would come in to work today but when I found out about the lack of night buses, we had to change our plans to leave on an afternoon bus from 4:00 at Takasaki station.<span style=""> </span>They were nice and said I could leave work early at 1:30 to catch my bus since most of the work we had to do was finished in the morning anyway.<span style=""> </span>So I worked the morning and then met up with Ryoko and we got on the train to Takasaki.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko’s sister, Reiko, was there as well.<span style=""> </span>She had plans to go to Takasaki for unrelated reasons so she got a ride to the station with Ryoko and rode down to Takasaki with us.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">From Takasaki, Ryoko and I got on the bus.<span style=""> </span>At first there was only 1 other person on the bus, but a few more got picked up along the way (but it never got even half full.)<span style=""> </span>It wasn’t as nice as some of the highway busses ive been on, but it was cheap and good enough.<span style=""> </span>Also, the trip to Shizuoka was only like a 4 hour ride so it was no big deal.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">I brought a bottle of whiskey on the bus as well as a few bottles of soda to mix with, so I enjoyed drinking the whole way.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko would have drank with me, but unfortunately a few days before we left for the trip, she broke out into some sorta rash on her face.<span style=""> </span>The doctor said its from stress (I would assume related to her dog being on his death bed, the whole thing with the quake, and some other family problems that have happened recently).<span style=""> </span>The doctor told her that drinking would cause the rash to heal more slowly which was really bad timing cuz she loves to drink as well, especially when we go on trips.<span style=""> </span>I told her that I wouldn’t drink but she insisted I do so.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We enjoyed playing some DS on the bus.<span style=""> </span>Mostly Puyopuyo and a little Mario Kart. <span style=""> </span>The bus ride went by quickly.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We arrived at Shizuoka station at around 8 pm.<span style=""> </span>First, we found our hotel and checked in.<span style=""> </span>Nothing fancy but a typical hotel and it was clean and nice and had all the basic stuff youd expect.<span style=""> </span>It was only 5000 yen a night for both of us together as well, so it was a great deal.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">There wasn’t really time to do any kind of sightseeing stuff today, so we decided to check out the area around the station.<span style=""> </span>In particular, there was a place called Grow Stock that I found out about on the internet that I wanted to check out.<span style=""> </span>It’s a bar/restaurant that serves all kinds of microbrews from around the world, and I never can get enough microbrews in Japan.<span style=""> </span>The place was pretty packed and pretty nice.<span style=""> </span>They did indeed have a very extensive beer menu with about maybe 10-15 beers on tap and probably like 30 or more in bottles.<span style=""> </span>I got a really good IPA.<span style=""> </span>Even though the doctor had advised Ryoko against drinking, she decided that she would at least have a few but keep it low.<span style=""> </span>I think she ordered something there but I cant remember what it was.<span style=""> </span>We also got a pretty good pizza that they made there.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After that, we walked around some more.<span style=""> </span>The area had lots of bars and restaurants.<span style=""> </span>We found a darts bar that looked pretty good so we went there to drink some more.<span style=""> </span>I felt like smoking so I got a pack of smokes.<span style=""> </span>I kept asking people for a light cuz I didn’t have one on me and eventually the bartender just gave me one for free lol.<span style=""> </span>I just drank beers here (standard stuff) and Ryoko had a high ball or 2.<span style=""> </span>We played several games of darts.<span style=""> </span>This was her first time playing darts and she was surprised how much she enjoyed it!<span style=""> </span>She beat me a few times but I won most of them.<span style=""> </span>One of the games, I had a high score over 500 points and when the staff saw this, they came by and gave me a free set of 3 really good quality professional darts to keep.<span style=""> </span>I think that’s probably the highest ive ever scored heh.<span style=""> </span>Most of the people here playing were really hardcore and you can tell by watching them that they must practice a lot.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After the darts bar, we decided to just go back to the hotel because we wanted to get up sorta early to do stuff tomorrow.<span style=""> </span>I had been drinking since like 3 pm so I had no trouble sleeping.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span lang="EN-US">Wednesday, March 30<sup>th</sup></span></b></span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span lang="EN-US"><sup><br /></sup></span></b></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After getting up and getting ready, we left the hotel and headed to Shizuoka station. <span style=""> </span>Before getting on the train, we wanted to grab some food.<span style=""> </span>There were several restaurants in the station so we had a lot to choose from.<span style=""> </span>Shizuoka is most famous for its good seafood seeing as how its right next to the ocean.<span style=""> </span>We ended up going to a nice seafood place and got this really good Sashimi Donburi (raw fish with some vegetables over a bed of rice with wasabi and soysauce).<span style=""> </span>It was really delicious and Ryoko especially loved it.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Today’s plan was to go to a western part of Shizuoka called Hamamatsu.<span style=""> </span>The train ride down there was about an hour, so its about as far from Shizuoka City as Takasaki is from my town.<span style=""> </span>We played a little more DS on the way, this time some Bomberman.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko always kicks my ass at Bomberman.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">When we arrived, our first plan was to go to a historical museum of musical instruments from around the world.<span style=""> </span>I wasn’t sure how cool it would be but I was surprised how many fascinating instruments there were!<span style=""> </span>I took like a zillion pictures in here so you can see them when they are posted on my pictures page.<span style=""> </span>They had all kinds of crazy stuff like big horns shaped like dragons and drums bigger than my whole body.<span style=""> </span>A lot of the stuff had very intricate details and carvings and truly were visual works of art in addition to being musical instruments.<span style=""> </span>Next to many of the instruments were video and listening station with headphones where you could watch a sample performance of the instruments being played so that you could get an idea of what they sound like.<span style=""> </span>There were 2 whole floors of things to see.<span style=""> </span>Also on the top floor was this little room with various instruments that people were free to try for themselves so we messed around on some of those for a bit as well. When we finally got down to the bottom floor, we realized that we were already low on time if we wanted to go to the next place on our list of places to go, so we sorta had to rush the bottom floor unfortunately, but it was still cool to see.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Our next destination was Hamamatsu Castle, one of the various famous castles of Japan.<span style=""> </span>On our way there, we passed this huge German beer hall that looked good as hell.<span style=""> </span>We decided we would return there later for dinner.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">It was already about 3:30 and we were worried the castle would close at 4 but when we arrived, we were glad to find they were opened until 4:30, so we had plenty of time to go in and look around.<span style=""> </span>The inside of the castle had a huge map of Japan that showed the locations and pictures of all of the famous castles around the country,<span style=""> </span>There were also a lot of displays showing some full body armor and other relics.<span style=""> </span>The view from the top was really nice as well.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After exiting the castle we walked around the surrounding Hamamatsu Park.<span style=""> </span>The sakura was already starting to bloom nicely and a few people were sitting down enjoying hanami.<span style=""> </span>The area around the park was nice, and there was a large bronze statue of the shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After walking around for a bit, we headed back to the German beer hall. The place was called Mein Schloss. We got there slightly early and it wouldn’t open for another few more minutes so we walked around in some shops near there.<span style=""> </span>There was a free art gallery with some really nice photos so we looked at those for a bit.<span style=""> </span>Also, there was a little shop selling souvenirs and some German themed things.<span style=""> </span>They had some pretty hard to find food in Japan, like sauerkraut! <span style=""> </span>Being half Polish, naturally I love sauerkraut but pretty much never have the chance to eat it except for when I visit home.<span style=""> </span>So, I was happy to buy a large jar of it to take home.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Once the restaurant opened up, we headed in.<span style=""> </span>The place was HUGE!<span style=""> </span>It was well decorated too look authentic.<span style=""> </span>Aside from us, there were only like 2 other tables of people.<span style=""> </span>By the time we finished our meal there were a few more customers though.<span style=""> </span>They had an extensive menu of authentic German food.<span style=""> </span>They also had about 6 different beers that they brewed right there in the beer hall.<span style=""> </span>You could see the brewing equipment through a large glass window near the seating area.<span style=""> </span>I tried their ale and their bock and Ryoko tried the ale as well.<span style=""> </span>Both were very good!<span style=""> </span>For food, I got the wiener schnitzel and Ryoko got a plate of assorted German sausages.<span style=""> </span>We shared a bit of each other’s food and everything was really good.<span style=""> </span>My only small complaint was that the sauerkraut wasn’t very good.<span style=""> </span>It tasted too acidic or something.<span style=""> </span>(Note: upon writing this I have tried the sauerkraut that I purchased at the store and it thankfully tastes much better than what was served at the beer hall).</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Overall it was a great place and im glad we randomly found it.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After finishing up at the beer hall, we decided to head back to Shizuoka City.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko fell asleep on the train for a bit.<span style=""> </span>I enjoyed another beer.<span style=""> </span>I had been drinking since we first left Shizuoka city originally so I was feeling really good by now.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">When we got back, we decided to just walk around the area from last night with all the bars.<span style=""> </span>We couldn’t really find anything overly interesting but we found another bar and went there for a few more drinks. We also found this burger join called Boss Burger. The place was going out of business and it was their last day. I got a burger and it was pretty good. Not sure why they were going out of business. They also gave me this random little toy milkshake lol. A bit after that we decided to head back to the hotel.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span lang="EN-US">Thursday, March 31<sup>st</sup></span></b></span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span lang="EN-US"><sup><br /></sup></span></b></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Today, our plan was to head to the small town of Fuji, which I would imagine is named as such due to the fact that it is located not far from Mt. Fuji.<span style=""> </span>We decided to just wait till we got to Fuji to eat this time.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, near the station there wasn’t very many good options so we just opted to eat some Subway.<span style=""> </span>I don’t really mind though cuz I don’t often eat Subway here and its pretty good.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">While Fuji does have a nice view of the mountain, we had no plans to try to climb it or anything.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko and I are both too lazy for that shit lol.<span style=""> </span>Maybe someday id be willing to try it with the right people at the right time but we didn’t really feel like it at the moment, plus it was a bit cold for that right now.<span style=""> </span>So actually, our main reason for coming to Fuji today was to go to the Safari Park!<span style=""> </span>There are only 2 Safari Parks in Japan, and the other one is actually in Gunma, where I live.<span style=""> </span>However, I have never been there and Ryoko says that the one in Shizuoka is much bigger and better.<span style=""> </span>We had to take a bus from the station to the Safari park but it didn’t take all that long.<span style=""> </span>Much like yesterday, I continued to enjoy drinking as we walked around.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">When we arrived at the park, we went to go buy our tickets.<span style=""> </span>They said that it would be about an hour wait till we could get on our bus so we had time to walk around.<span style=""> </span>Fortunately, there were plenty of animals to see separate from the bus tour.<span style=""> </span>We saw some interesting stuff like kangaroos which we could feed and pet, wallabies, meerkats, wild boars, monkeys, and other various animals.<span style=""> </span>It was sorta like a zoo except for some of the tamer animals you could pet and feed them. The biggest bummer was that my camera battery was dead and I didnt realize it beforehand. It must have turned on while in my pocket. Ryoko had her iphone though, so we took some pictures with that.<br /></span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Eventually it was time, and we were able to board our bus. There were several different busses and each one looked like a different kind of animal.<span style=""> </span>Ours ended up being the white rhino bus.<span style=""> </span>The bus had seats going from the center with a row facing each side of the bus.<span style=""> </span>The sides of the bus were open but separated by double cages.<span style=""> </span>Each passenger was given some food in order to feed the animals that we would encounter on the way.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">First we went to the bear area.<span style=""> </span>They had several black bears and grizzly bears.<span style=""> </span>We fed them carrots through the bars of the bus using a long metal tool to hold it out to them.<span style=""> </span>Ton of bears came to the bus right away once we stopped and surrounded us, waiting for their food.<span style=""> </span>They even came up and stood on their hind legs putting their front paws up against the bus cage.<span style=""> </span>It was pretty sweet.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After that we saw the lions.<span style=""> </span>Just like with the bears, they surrounded the bus for their food.<span style=""> </span>This time we fed them raw meat.<span style=""> </span>The lions were much more aggressive than the bears.<span style=""> </span>The dominant lions would roar at other lions who came close to getting their food.<span style=""> </span>Many other lions just lazily lounged about behind them watching.<span style=""> </span>It was pretty awesome but im glad that those bars were there cuz I have no doubt in my mind that they would have been happy to eat every last one of us on the bus lol.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Up next were the tigers.<span style=""> </span>We didn’t get to feed them anything but we could see several of them around the bus as we drove by slowly.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Then we went to a section with various other types of animals such as hippos, giraffes, elephants, deer, yaks, and other herbivorous animals.<span style=""> </span>The last group of animals we encountered were camels.<span style=""> </span>We got to feed them as well, but this time we just threw these brown pellets into a sorta receptacles that was able to be pushed out threw the bars so that the camels could eat out of it.<span style=""> </span>Just like with the lions and bears, they surrounded the whole bus.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">The whole tour lasted about an hour or so.<span style=""> </span>It was pretty cool and is easily the closest ive ever been to just about all of those animals.<span style=""> </span>I had a lot of fun.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After that, we had a bit of time until our next bus would come to take us back to the train station, so we decided to go to the house of cats.<span style=""> </span>Its pretty much just like youd expect; a house full of various breeds of cats from around the world that you could just go pet and stuff.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately, most of the cats weren’t very friendly aside from a few.<span style=""> </span>Most of them just ran away when you went near them.<span style=""> </span>It also smelled really funny in there.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After that, we went to the gift shop to look around at the various things they were selling.<span style=""> </span>I think all I bought was more beer though lol.<span style=""> </span>They even had some microbrews there that ive never seen before but unfortunately they only came in packs of 3 bottles and were unrefrigerated and I don’t like drinking warm beer so I passed up on that for some regular refrigerated Asahi.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After a bit more, our bus came and we got on and headed back to Fuji station.<span style=""> </span>On our way to and from the Safari Park, we saw yet ANOTHER great looking huge restaurant specializing in microbrew beers!<span style=""> </span>We decided to go there to eat dinner.<span style=""> </span>Another bus went directly to there from the station so we boarded it and arrived.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Just like the German beer hall, this place was fucking huge!<span style=""> </span>However, unlike the German beer hall, it was packed full of people.<span style=""> </span>There were Spanish flags all over hanging from the ceiling, though the food seemed to be from all sorts of different cultures. <span style=""> </span>This place also brewed their own beers in house and had about 6 to choose from.<span style=""> </span>I tried 2 different ones; the dun</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">kel and the seasonal honey wheat ale</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">.<span style=""> </span>They were both delicious.<span style=""> </span>I ordered a slab or BBQ ribs and it rocked pretty hard.<span style=""> </span>Once again, Ryoko decided to order a big sausage platter except this time it was in a huge spiral shape that took up the whole plate.<span style=""> </span>She also got a beer.<span style=""> </span>At this one table, someone had ordered a HUGE tall long cylinder of beer.<span style=""> </span>I forgot how bit it was but it had its own tap on the bottom.<span style=""> </span>I took a picture of it.<span style=""> </span>(The people at the table told me it was perfectly fine, I didn’t just ninja that shit).<span style=""> </span>Overall this was another great place that I would certainly recommend to anyone.<span style=""> </span>Im pretty sure this was the Fujiyama beer company, though I could be wrong. I dont quite remember.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After that, we went back in front of this hotel that was across from the restaurant because that’s where the bus was supposed to come that we could take back to the station. <span style=""> </span>We waited inside for a bit in the lobby.<span style=""> </span>Im not sure why, but for some reason there were huge, life size statues of the Aliens from the “Alien” movie series.<span style=""> </span>Random, but pretty cool.<span style=""> </span>However, when the bus didn’t come when it was supposed to, Ryoko went and asked the hotel desk why the bus wasn’t there and they said that there were no more buses coming tonight.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko was starting to panic because now it meant taking a cab back was our only chance.<span style=""> </span>It seems we weren’t the only ones who thought there was supposed to be a bus, because there was a man who was saying goodbye to what seemed to be some relatives staying at the hotel and asked us about the bus as well.<span style=""> </span>When we told him it wasn’t coming he offered to split a cab with us.<span style=""> </span>We agreed.<span style=""> </span>We chatted with the guy about various things on the ride back and he seemed like a nice guy.<span style=""> </span>When we got to the station, the cabbie told us the final fare. <span style=""> </span>It was something like 2500 yen I think.<span style=""> </span>The guy handed the cabbie 2000 yen and told us thanks for helping him out and just took off before I could even argue with him about it.<span style=""> </span>So Ryoko and I only had to pay like 500 yen.<span style=""> </span>Pretty nice guy, but I felt a little bad.<span style=""> </span>But I guess it was his choice so we got lucky there.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After the whole bus thing, Ryoko was in a bit of a bad mood and we had a little argument about trip planning and what not.<span style=""> </span>Ill be the first to admit that I don’t plan things so great all the time when it comes to going somewhere brand new.<span style=""> </span>She did a lot of the planning herself so she felt a bit stressed out.<span style=""> </span>I wanted to help plan more things but it’s a little more difficult for me to do so since navigating and finding a lot of Japanese tourist websites is a lot more difficult for me and English ones are a bit limited compared to some of the information you can find on Japanese ones.<span style=""> </span>I felt bad.<span style=""> </span>We ended up falling asleep sorta early.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span lang="EN-US">Friday, April 1<sup>st</sup></span></b></span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span lang="EN-US"><sup><br /></sup></span></b></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We woke up early.<span style=""> </span>I got ready pretty fast and Ryoko took a while.<span style=""> </span>While she was getting ready, we talked more and made up, so from then on everything was cool.<span style=""> </span>Today we had to check out of the hotel because we didn’t have a reservation for tomorrow night.<span style=""> </span>Originally our plan was to go back to Gunma tonight on an overnight bus, but as I mentioned before, there were no more overnight busses.<span style=""> </span>However, there was supposed to be a huge festival today in Shizuoka so we figured we would just enjoy the festival and stay up all night drinking and then just get on our bus in the morning.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We checked out of the hotel and headed out to the station where we found a locker to put our stuff in for the day.<span style=""> </span>After that, we went looking for another good restaurant in the station.<span style=""> </span>We found a new part of the station we hadn’t looked at yet that had even more places.<span style=""> </span>While looking, we stumbled upon a great little grocery store with all kinds of imported stuff. They had a TON of great imported beers and micro brews!<span style=""> </span>We wanted to eat first so we said we would go back to this place after we found a good restaurant.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We ended up going to this one Lion beer restaurant.<span style=""> </span>I ordered the Ox tongue with a really great sauce and some veggies, pasta, and rice on the side.<span style=""> </span>The best part was they had a kind of Yebisu beer called Creamy Top Stout which I had never seen before.<span style=""> </span>I got one of those and it was fucking great!<span style=""> </span>Ryoko got some Korean bibinba (this place had a random menu with all kinds of shit), and she enjoyed it.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After that, we went back to that store we found. <span style=""> </span>I got a cold can of Aooni IPA (it means Blue Demon).<span style=""> </span>Ive had this before but its so good and Ive only seen it at like one or 2 places ever.<span style=""> </span>Its brewed in Nagano but Ive only seen it at ONE place in Shin Okubo and one place in Sapporo.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko got this little blueberry cocktail thing that shes never seen before.<span style=""> </span>I tried a sip and it wasn’t bad.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Next, we got on the train and headed to a station a few stops away called Shimizu.<span style=""> </span>From there, we got on a bus and went to this really big shopping mall called S-pulse Dream Plaza. <span style=""> </span>Ryoko wanted to go there because it had this store/exhibit dedicated to an old famous Japanese anime character called Chibi Maruko-chan.<span style=""> </span>I didn’t really have any interest in it but she wanted to see it so I didn’t mind.<span style=""> </span>There were also some other cool stores there.<span style=""> </span>We went in a pet store and looked at some dogs.<span style=""> </span>We also found that this place ALSO had a super market inside with MORE great micro brews!<span style=""> </span>This time I got a frosty can of Yona Yona Ale and later went back for the Tokyo Black Porter.<span style=""> </span>These are also made by the same company in Nagano. <span style=""> </span>Ive had these beers before as well but just like with the Aooni IPA they are hard to find so im happy to drink them when I have a good chance.<span style=""> </span>They are also not expensive either which is the best part.<span style=""> </span>Also, in this supermarket there was this giant fake sushi mountain display and it had faces of all the major world leaders surrounding it with a giant fish on top.<span style=""> </span>It was pretty impressive so I took a picture.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Also in this mall, they had a food court with Dippin Dots.<span style=""> </span>This is the only time ive seen it in Japan.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko tried it when we went to Six Flags Great America together when we visited Chicago 2 years ago, so she wanted some.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We found an arcade inside.<span style=""> </span>I was down to play some fighting games but unfortunately the only fighting games this crappy arcade had was the newest Virtua Fighter, and an out of order Blazblue cab, so I didn’t end up playing anything there.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Also, outside the mall there were play areas for kids.<span style=""> </span>They had this giant bubble that kids could go into while floating on a pool of water and run around.<span style=""> </span>They also had a one of those big inflatable bouncy castle things that kids go inside and bounce around in, except this one was shaped like a giant Mario instead!<span style=""> </span>It was pretty awesome looking.<span style=""> </span>I told Ryoko that the inside was probably full of mushrooms. <span style=""> </span>There was a Sasebo burger outside there too but it was closed.<span style=""> </span>We were surprised to see it cuz I didn’t know they had them outside the Kyushu area.<span style=""> </span>Also, there was a huge Ferris wheel.<span style=""> </span>This mall was right next to the ocean in a harbor with tons of ships and stuff, so we decided to ride it to get a nice view of the area.<span style=""> </span>It was pretty cool.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After riding it, we checked the bus times and the next bus back was coming pretty much any second so we rushed back to the bus stop and got on just in time.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We headed back to Shimizu station and decided that next we would go check out an aquarium they had there.<span style=""> </span>Next to it was a dinosaur museum and they had a special rate where you could go into both of them for a really cheap price.<span style=""> </span>However, it was getting late and we were having a hard time finding which bus we needed to take.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko was stressing out about it a little cuz she didn’t know where to get on the bus, so I asked a random bus driver and he told us we were at the bus stop on the wrong side of the station and that there were more busses on the other side.<span style=""> </span>We thanked him and then made our way over and got on the right bus.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">When we arrived at the aquarium, there was only like an hour left.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko doesn’t particularly care about dinosaurs so we went to the aquarium.<span style=""> </span>I personally think dinosaurs are pretty awesome but that’s ok.<span style=""> </span>Sharks and stuff are pretty cool, too.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">When we walked in there was like this little open tank area with live starfish that you could pick up and a bunch of kids were playing near it.<span style=""> </span>Then we went to this science area that had all kinds of stuff that talked about the physics of ocean currents and water pressure and things like that with various exhibits.<span style=""> </span>They also had robots that showed up certain sea creatures move such as crabs and lobsters.<span style=""> </span>You could control them with a remote.<span style=""> </span>There was also a full size, huge whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Then, we headed to the area with all the actual animals.<span style=""> </span>They had many kinds of exotic fish, jellyfish, an octopus, some sharks, eels, coruscations, and various other cool stuff.<span style=""> </span>As the place was just about to close, we managed to see the very last of everything there.<span style=""> </span>Unfortunately there was no time to see the dinosaur museum next door but that’s alright.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko enjoyed the aquarium.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After that, we rode the bus back.<span style=""> </span>There was some weird chick who probably had some mental illness or something who kept talking to herself out loud and shouting random stuff.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After we got back to Shimizu station, we then rode the train back to Shizuoka station.<span style=""> </span>Upon arriving, we were disappointed to find out that due to the earthquake, the festival had been cancelled.<span style=""> </span>That pretty much killed our plans for the night.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We ended up going to another good local restaurant near the station.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko got the unagi (eel) donburi, and I got a shrimp tempura donburi with a beer.<span style=""> </span>Everything was really good.<span style=""> </span>We stayed there for a while and talked and Ryoko enjoyed some tea.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">A little after leaving there, Ryoko got a really bad headache suddenly. <span style=""> </span>We walked around a new area of Shizuoka that we had not yet been to, trying to find some drugstores to buy headache medicine.<span style=""> </span>We found a few stores but they ALL were closed.<span style=""> </span>I don’t know why, but I guess after like 9 pm, nowhere at all seemed to sell headache medicine, so Ryoko was forced to just tough it out.<span style=""> </span>I felt bad for her but there was nothing I could really do.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We walked around a bit more and found a pretty decent looking arcade.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko wanted to sit down for a while so she told me I should just go play some fighting games while she relaxed.<span style=""> </span>I had no problem with this.<span style=""> </span>This arcade unfortunately didn’t have GG, but it did have SSFIVAE, and there were some guys there playing so I got some casuals in.<span style=""> </span>At first there was a Dan player and I beat him.<span style=""> </span>Then a Ryu player I beat 3 times in a row.<span style=""> </span>Then he beat me once and I beat him 3 more times.<span style=""> </span>Then I beat a Juri player and finally I got beat by a really good Makoto.<span style=""> </span>I figured I had been playing for a while so then I went to check on Ryoko.<span style=""> </span>She was feeling slightly better but not fully better yet.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We left the arcade and figured that there was no way we were gonna bother pulling an all nighter and we had no hotel to stay at, so we began to look for a manga kissa.<span style=""> </span>After walking for a while, we found a few and decided on the best one that had a good rate.<span style=""> </span>Now that we knew where we were gonna stay, we got our stuff back from our lockers and then decided to go to one more izakaya for some more food and beers.<span style=""> </span>We stayed for a couple hours and she was starting to feel a little bit better.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Eventually we left and checked into the manga kissa.<span style=""> </span>We got a double flat room to share.<span style=""> </span>This was Ryoko’s first time to stay in a manga kissa.<span style=""> </span>Unlike most manga kissas I stayed at, this one wasn’t a major chain brand, and instead of having like a soft mat on the floor, it was just some tatami mats with a few cushions scattered around.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span lang="EN-US">Saturday, Apirl 2<sup>nd</sup></span></b></span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><b style=""><span lang="EN-US"><sup><br /></sup></span></b></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><sup><span lang="EN-US"> </span></sup></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">I ended up sleeping pretty well but felt hungover as hell when Ryoko woke me up.<span style=""> </span>She said we had to get going soon and that if I wanted to shower id have to do it now.<span style=""> </span>It took me a good 5 minutes to think about it but in the end I decided to just man up and take a shower.<span style=""> </span>After the shower I felt a bit better.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko said she only slept for like 3 hours so she was still tired, but her head felt better.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /><span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We checked out and went back to the station and ate at this begal sandwich place that had a lot of really good flavors and ingredients to choose from.<span style=""> </span>It was pretty decent.<span style=""> </span>After that, we shortly got on our bus and took the 4 hour ride back to Takasaki.<span style=""> </span>Both of us were pretty much asleep the whole time.</span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">Shizuoka was pretty cool. If for nothing else, it certainly has a lot of good fucking beer.</span></p><p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">After arriving at Takasaki we both felt better.<span style=""> </span>We had time to kill till the next train so we went to a bakery in the station and ate some good bread.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">We eventually made it back home on the train.<span style=""> </span>The rest of the days plan was to go to Ryoko’s friend’s new house.<span style=""> </span>Her name is Remi.<span style=""> </span>Her Husband Tomo and her just got a new house so they were having a small dinner party.<span style=""> </span>They also have a 2 year old daughter named Aone.<span style=""> </span>We brought over a case of Yebisu and some snacks.<span style=""> </span>Ryoko’s friend Eri was there as well as 2 other dudes that Tomo knows.<span style=""> </span>We mostly just talked and ate a lot of food and drank a lot of beers and had fun playing with Aone.<span style=""> </span>Shes really cute and seemed to take a liking to me.<span style=""> </span>Im glad she didn’t think I was scary. <span style=""> </span>Im the first foreigner she ever met.<span style=""> </span></span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;"> </span></p> <p style="margin: 0mm 0mm 0pt;font-family:arial;" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:100%;">That pretty much sums up my spring break.<span style=""> </span>I had a few more days off but no real plans so I spent the next few days being super lazy around the house playing video games and watching shit online.<span style=""> </span>There was also another enkai to welcome the new teachers to my school. Now, im back at work and the next weekend already starts tomorrow!<span style=""> </span>Sweet.</span></p>ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-77817772602651586942011-03-28T09:43:00.001+09:002011-04-07T17:14:28.387+09:00Return to the CapitalThe following takes place on Saturday, March 26th and Sunday, March 27th...<br /><br />So I havnt had a chance to write my blog for a while but on this weekend, I finally went back to Tokyo for the first time since the quake. On Friday, March 25th, we had an enkai for work because it was the last day of the school year before spring break.<br /><br />On Saturday, I woke up and headed out to Tokyo at around noon. I got there a little after 3 pm. Despite the quake, things seemed more or less the same. I didnt notice any noteworthy physical damage to roads or buildings. Trains seemed to still be running frequently enough if not just slightly reduced. The main difference I did notice were that in most places the lights were much dimmer and less lights were being used in order to save electricity. The other main difference I noticed was that bottled water was pretty much sold out everywhere. Every conbini I went to had zero water bottles and also just about every vending machine was sold out of water. This didnt really affect me at all since I brought a bit bottle with me from home in my backpack and otherwise I mostly just drank sports drinks and alcohol.<br /><br />Of course, the first place I went when I got to Tokyo was Mikado. I was itching to play some GG since it had been several weeks since I last played. At first it was pretty much dead as hell with just 2 guys playing who looked like they were either just fucking around or didnt really know how to play well. I didnt really wanna play against them and be stuck playing the computer if they didnt rematch me so I decided to play a little SSFIVAE since there were more people playing it. I was a bit rusty at this game and got beat up by a T Hawk but then I rematched him and won. I also beat someone else but I forgot who. Eventually I lost to the T Hawk again and noticed a few GG players were watching for whatever reason. I think they wanted to play GG but no one else was playing so they were hesitant to play or something like that.<br /><br />I was getting hungry so I got some Burger King. When I came back, there were a few more people playing GG so finally started playing that. Gradually as the day went on, more and more GG player showed up and in the end it got fairly packed. Kunihiro came and I talked with him and played him for a bit. Also, Ryan (Letbloodrun) is back in Japan currently and came to play 3S. There was a 3S tournament going on earlier actually when I arrived but he said he had stuff to do in the morning so he missed it. He came to play casuals though. We talked a bit. He asked where Emmet was and I told him he went back to New Zealand after the quake hit. I played a ton of GG casuals and had a lot of fun.<br /><br />Towards the end when it was starting to get late, Ryan had to go soon so he couldnt come out drinking but wanted to have a beer with me so I drank with him for a bit while playing GG. He eventually left. I stayed a bit longer and played a little buzzed GG as I continued to sip on a little whiskey. Eventually it got pretty late so I decided to go hit up Current. Before going to Current I grabbed a kebab for the road.<br /><br />Current was actually busier than I would have thought it would be and nothing seemed to have changed. As soon as I walked in, lots of people were glad to see me saying how they were wondering if I was ok and stuff. I assured them I was and quickly ordered a beer and sat at the bar. I talked with a few regulars and the staff. Eventually Sawa mailed me saying she wanted to meet up with Heidi and drink with us tonight. Heidi said she was at PSY so we said we would join her there later. Sawa didnt remember the way to PSY so I told her to come to Current and id go there with her later. She eventually showed up and we just kept getting beers at Current cuz we were having a good time there.<br /><br />I dont remember exactly but probably sometime around 4 pm we headed to PSY. I dont remember much there honestly lol. From what I do remember it was a pretty typical night at PSY and I stayed passed 6 am. Manga kissa was the same as usual.<br /><br />The next day I got a haircut and then I bought a new PS3 arcade stick at Yamada Denki in Shinjuku. The left direction cherry switch on my stick at home is broken and I dont have the tools to fix it here with me in Japan and im too lazy to bother finding new parts and tools here so I just decided to buy a new stick. Nothing fancy, just a 5000 yen Hori, but it does the job. After that, I went home a bit earlier to spend the rest of the evening with Ryoko at home.<br /><br />Pretty typical weekend but it was good to finally go back to Tokyo after so long.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-87213095848705269982011-03-18T08:39:00.002+09:002011-03-18T08:45:15.744+09:00Johnny-o Cup tournament put on holdWell, for those of you who were looking forward to the Johnny-o cup vids, unfortunately it has been delayed until an undetermined date. In all honesty, I am glad it was because I doubt I would be able to go there anyway seeing as how the regular JR trains are still not running in my town. The constant black outs in Tokyo would also make it difficult to run the event. Mikado is currently open for business but the event is being put on hold.<br /><br />This weekend will be a 3 day weekend. Theres not really anything I can do. I need to conserve my gas supply and trains are not running, so I pretty much am going to sit on my couch for the next 3 days with a few bottles of whiskey and will be checking the news constantly for updates on the Fukushima reactor situation. As of now, radiation levels in Gunma are not dangerous. Many foreign embassies are advising citizens to evacuate Japan. I am going to stay until things end up extremely bad. If need be, I can drive to the Shinkansen station in about 15 minutes and flee to Osaka with Ryoko. I honestly hope it doesnt come down to that but for now they SEEM to be keeping the problem under control. I will be watching things carefully in the next few days. I hope everyone who was affected by this bullshit is doing ok and wish them the best of luck.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-3237455599258249222011-03-14T09:30:00.002+09:002011-03-14T09:38:03.227+09:00QuakeAs I'm sure everyone already knows, Japan was hit with the largest earthquake in its recorded history on Friday, March 11th at about 2:30 pm. When it happened, I was in the staff room at work at my desk. The epicenter of the quake was in Miyagi prefecture, which is far enough away from where I live (Gunma) to where the damage in my area wasnt severe, but close enough to where I could certainly feel the quake. It was about a 5 or so on the scale where I live. When it was happening, I had no idea how powerful and devistating it was. I went outside the staff room with some other teachers and we waited for about 2 whole minutes until the quake finally stopped. Smaller quakes and after shocks continued throughout the day. Train services were suspended and high ways were shut down. As you can probably imagine, I just ended up staying home all weekend drinking with Ryoko. Currently gasoline supplies are pretty much completely out around here. Hopefully they will get more soon. I am also quite worried about the nuclear reactor in Fukushima that is having a melt down... Fukushima isnt all that far from where I live, but I live far enough so that at the moment I am not in any immediate danger.<br /><br />I just figured I should type something on here to let people know that I am ok. I just hope that the people that I know who live in north eastern Japan are ok...ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-56956658250928399092011-03-08T10:01:00.004+09:002011-03-08T11:06:44.208+09:00The Tokyo 23Friday after work I headed down to Tokyo with Emmet. I was feeling slightly stressed due to some work stuff that theres no point in getting into so I had a little extra beer than usual on the train. When we got to Tokyo, I still wanted to play fighting games for a bit but didnt really feel like going to Mikado cuz I was a bit drunk, so we went to Shinjuku Sportsland. I wasnt playing at the top of my game but still won a few GG matches but lost some that I shouldnt have. I also played some SSFIV and beat some Akuma player once who rematched me and beat me by a hair.<br /><br />We didnt stay very long and decided to just go knock back some drinks outside and then hit up Current a little before 10 pm. For a Friday, I guess it wasnt decent but still not very packed. A group of people in the back consisting of Johan and some other people he knows were sitting at a table. We joined them for like an hour or 2. Some girl that Emmet met last weekend came to drink as well. Eventually they wanted to go to karaoke so we decided to join them.<br /><br />We grabbed some whiskey to sneak in and got the 2 hour package. It was a pretty standard karaoke session and for some reason the songs I was requesting took forever to show up. I think people were just going nuts with requesting songs. Either way, I got pretty smashed and I think I fell asleep for just a little bit towards the end but woke up and sang more. It ended at around 4 and by this point I was already pretty smashed and tired so I just decided to go to the manga kissa and sleep so that I could get a lot of rest for tomorrows tournament.<br /><br />So I woke up Saturday at around noon or something, grabbed some quick food and headed to Mikado. I got there pretty early with plenty of time to get some practice in. I was doing so-so in casuals. Today would be the very final Johnny-o cup singles ranbat to qualify for the 23 on 23 Tokyo team at Mikado. Going into the tournament, I had the highest amount of points among allt he Faust players who were trying out for the Tokyo team, so basically, even if I didnt place at all, I would still make the team as long as another Faust didnt win first place today, which would have allowed him to take the lead by one point. The only noteworthy Faust player who entered today was Nage, so as long as he didnt win first place I would be on the team.<br /><br />I checked the brackets after they posted them and unfortunately my first match was against my old team mate, Gaku, the Robo-Ky player. I asked him if he checked the bracket yet and he said no. He went to go look and then after seeing it he turned around and gave me this WTF kinda laugh sorta face palm combo thingy cuz we didnt want to have to fight eachother since were friends. I just told him to do his best and wished him luck. Gaku usually beats me a bit more than I beat him in casuals. It could go either way but I didnt have a good feeling about.<br /><br />So eventually they called our match and we battled it out. Gaku ended up winning. It wasnt increadibly one sided or anything but I made some stupid mistakes. I wasnt really upset or anything though. At this point, all I could do was just wait and watching, hoping that Nage wouldnt clinch the win.<br /><br />Nage ended up winning his first match. I cant remember who it was against cuz I didnt see it, but I looked on the bracket and he had advanced. His 2nd match was against Satou's Johnny (the guy who fucked me up at the last qual and ended up getting 1st place). Now, I am pretty sure that Nage and Satou are friends and sometimes I get the impression that Satou might not like me very much, so I was a bit nervous that Satou might throw the match and let Nage win since Satou already has lots of points. The match ended up being really close and went down to the 3rd round. Satou was dropping some stuff and just didnt seem like he was on point with his game a little bit. In the final round, Nage had a big lead but then Satou made this really crazy comeback and won with a sick combo, eliminating Nage from the tournament. With that, I had officially qualified for the Tokyo 23 on 23 team! I am unsure exactly who else is on the final team at this time. They have a list on the <a href="http://game2d.web.fc2.com/ggxx/">Johnny-o cup website</a> but it isnt updated yet to reflect the results of this current weekend's results. In any case, some really good players like FAB, Mitrurugi, Satou and others will be on the team, so its cool that I get to team with those guys.<br /><br />After that, I pretty much just played some various casuals. I got some fun games in with Roy and Basara and beat his Testament. Had some other good matches with this one really good I-no and some good fights vs Melon's SL and ED. At some point, Johnny-o came by while I was in between matches and asked to confirm if I could make it for the Final 23 on 23 tournament on the weekend of the 19th. I told him I would be there so he checked me off the list.<br /><br />I stayed and played for a bit longer but I had other plans for the rest of tonight. Normally I dont care too much about going to international parties unless I have a good reason and today was one of those days. Today, Phil, Bloodbath, and 2 other guys I know would be coming down from Gunma to go to the same international party with Emmet so I said I would go to hang out with everyone as well. The only problem was this one was at Tokyo Loose. I didnt really wanna go back there cuz I dont like the place but since the international parties are completely different than what its like normally, and I felt like drinking, I decided to go.<br /><br />I grabbed a quick kebab for the road and then headed to Shinjuku. I met up with those dudes in front of Tokyo Loose and soon we went inside. We were some of the first to arrive but the place filled up pretty fast. I was the very first one to order a drink at the bar once they started serving a few minutes after we entered, lol. Normally Tokyo Loose is full of skanks and shady people blasting crappy top 40s club music but this time they kept the music lower and the people there seemed pretty cool generally. We talked to several girls (for me its just for fun), and I also ended up talking to a few pretty cool dudes there. This one guy was a pretty big metal head so we had a good chat about bands and live shows and shit.<br /><br />The people at the party were cool but the thing that sucked about it was that the drink line was WAYYYYY to fucking long! First of all, they wernt serving beer for free (you had to pay 500 yen), but since they had full open bar of spirits, I didnt mind, and mostly just drank tequila cokes. The thing that sucked though was that the cups were really fucking tiny. They only had ONE guy mixing drinks at once, so the line would que up like 20 fucking people and the guy took forever to mix drinks, and it ended up being like a 15 minute wait in line every time you wanted a drink. This doesnt sound that bad but when the drink only takes like 10-15 minutes to finish when you are sipping it slowly it makes it a pain in the ass. The other thing that sucked is they didnt have all you can eat... just a few random plates of some crappy chips and stuff, but I knew this before hand (which is why I ate the kebab) so it wasnt really a big deal for me.<br /><br />There was this one girl in particular who really seemed to take a liking to me. She was pretty hot, too. At the end of the night she wanted to exchange numbers with me to maybe drink somewhere else with us later (she was working as a voulenteer at the check in desk by the door for like the last hour of the party and had to stay and clean up so she couldnt leave with us). She seemed like a nice girl, and while I had no intention of actually trying to sleep with her or anything, I figured there was no harm in exchanging cellphone email.<br /><br />After exchanging info I headed outside in front where a bunch of people were gathering. Emmet was with these 2 girls that wanted to go with us to Current. We were still waiting on a few other people to come out. Some of them were getting some last minute phone numbers and it was taking a while. Emmet and the girls were getting a bit impatient so I told them to just go on ahead without me and that I would wait up for Phil and whoever else wanted to come with us. Bloodbath and the other guys we were chilling with ended up going somewhere else with different girls. Eventually Phil came out and suddenly like this big crew of like 10 people (a mix of Japanese girls and some guys) decided to all go with me to Current so I lead the way and took everyone there.<br /><br />Current ended up getting pretty packed, espessially with all the people we brought in. I talked with this one girl I know there named Chiho for a bit at the bar and then just mingled with various people who came with us from the party. Chris and Sachiko came later as well and I drank with them for a bit, too. We drank for several hours like this but over time, the people we all came with all eventually cleared out and left before the last train. The girl that Emmet was trying to get with had to get up early but otherwise would have stayed out.<br /><br />Once it got dead, we decided to just go head to Shibuya and go to Camelot since the trains were still running and Current wasnt looking very promising. On the way to the station, we met up with Bloodbath and Li (one of the other guys we came with), as well as this one Japanese dude who was at the party. They had no girls with them saying all the girls had to go home.<br /><br />When we got to Shibuya, I asked one of the staff if trains were still running when we got there since it was pretty late and some of the guys didnt believe they still were. He told me it was. Then I went to buy a ticket and went through the gates but the other guys were already like way ahead of me (they just didnt bother waiting I guess). I ran up the steps to the train and the doors were just about to close. I didnt see any of them but assumed they got on the train so I just piled in the packed train right in the knick of time.<br /><br />I contacted Emmet soon after and he said they were all on the train so I told him Id just meet them outside the Hachiko exit.<br /><br />I got out first and no one was around. I waited for a few minutes and then eventually a few of them came out. I asked where the rest of them were and they said that Bloodbath was like in this mode where he just decided to start hitting on like every good looking girl he passed by right ont he station platform just cuz he was drunk and didnt give a fuck lol. He eventually came outside but unfortunately his plan didnt work for the moment. From there, we all headed to Camelot. We stopped at Family Mart first to grab some whiskey to sneak in though.<br /><br />We got inside and I put my stuff in a locker and split it with Bloodbath. Not long after, we all sorta get split up a bit but some of us ran into one another periodically through the night. I was with Emmet most of the time. We also ran into our friend Leo there. He rocks up to us with a 700 ml bottle of whiskey in his hand! He said that when he ordered his last drink, when the bartender wasnt looking, he just stole the whole fucking bottle from the bar counter! LOL!!! That takes some fucking BALLS! For a while we were chilling by a small table near the bar with no seats and Leo was sorta holding the bottle slightly under the table. Eventually he got a little sloppy and a staff member came by and saw the bottle. He got questioned about it but just lied and said he found it here on the table and he just gave it to the staff guy. The guy actually believed him (or at least decided not to do anything about), took the bottle, and just left us alone, lol! He got lucky as fuck, but it was still hilarious. Emmet and I were a bit smarter about our snuck in whiskey and we knocked it back in the bathroom without notice.<br /><br />I also ran into that Italian chick who used to go to Current with Fracheska all the time, too. I guess she comes here all the time now. Also, Phil and Bloodbath decided to leave a bit early so I had to get his stuff out of the locker.<br /><br />Other than that it was just a standard night at a club with crappy music and me dancing badly but not caring cuz I was pretty drunk. I guess overall I had fun, but I wish Current was as consistantly good as it was back in the day. Lately its just been kinda dull. My biggest regret actually was that Heidi mailed me at some point during the night asking if I was coming to PSY cuz it was Natsume's (the owners) birthday party tonight! I didnt know about it or else I would have much rather went there but I was already stuck in Shibuya so oh well. <br /><br />At the point when I left the club, I had no idea where anyone I was with went so I just left alone and slept at the manga kissa. They were out of flat rooms but they had a double room with a couch that they said I could have for the same regular price so I got to sleep on a couch lol. It was fine.<br /><br />The next morning I woke up at around 12:30, grabbed some quick Sbarro pizza for the ride home, and got on the train. I told Ryoko I would spend the rest of the day with her. There was no reason to go to the Saitama team qual since I had already made the Tokyo team.<br /><br />So thats about it. In 2 weeks from now is the Johnny-o cup final tournament. It will be a 3 day event since its a 3 day weekend in Japan with that Monday being a national holiday. There will be a 23 on 23 just like in the past at other G3 events with one team each representing Saitama, Kanagawa, Chiba, and Tokyo. I will be the Faust player for the Tokyo team. Hopefully I can get some good wins in for my team! Im looking foward to it. There will also be a 2 on 2 which I didnt qualify for. Also, there will be other events which anyone can enter the day of the event without having to qualify for, so I will enter those as well. And of course, Mikado will be packed with all of the best players in East Japan, so there will be plenty of awsome casuals to be played on Mikados 12 GG cabs (and they probably will even have more for the event setup).<br /><br />As far as next weekend goes, I have no particular plans and will probably just lay low around Gunma and try to save some money. I doubt whatever happens next weekend will be interesting enough to warrent a blog write-up, so the next one will probably be in 2 weeks. Peace.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-86558642441760623872011-03-01T14:08:00.003+09:002011-03-02T14:20:16.793+09:00End of Final Roundbats 2010-11I stayed home on Friday night and just chilled and drank with Ryoko.<br /><br />Saturday I woke up and headed out to Tokyo and Emmet got on the same train. He had plans to go to another international party and I was going to the last Final Roundbats tournament so we parted ways upon arival in Tokyo.<br /><br />I got off at Shingawa and headed to the skylounge. This would be the last Final Roundbats since Final round will be coming up very soon. Tokido already had enough points even before this tournament to where it didnt matter so he will be going and getting a fully paid flight to Atlanta. I mainly just went to hang out and drink and I also wanted to play some MvC3.<br /><br />When I arrived it was pretty early and Abelity and Bull410 were chilling in the lobby. Soon after, they got the key and I headed up to the sky lounge to open the door while Abelity went to help Scott Popular unload his car and Bull410 got some stuff from his apartment.<br /><br />Soon after people started coming. Lots of regular guys were there. Tokido showed up but he had to leave early so he didnt even enter the SSFIV tournament. As I said, it wouldnt matter anyway for him.<br /><br />I was doing well in casuals and went undefeated aside from one loss until the tournament started. I think my first match was against a Juri player and I won. My 2nd match was against a Ryu player and I won that as well. There was a low turnout for SSFIV players (lots of people showed up but didnt bother entering SSFIV cuz I guess they just wanted to play Marvel. I was the same but I figured I might as well enter SSFIV anyway). My next match was already the finals. I had to go against Abelity's Abel. We played something like 4 times before the tournament and I won every match. The finals were 2/3 matches, 3/5 rounds. I won the first match 3 straight rounds. Then he answered by winning the next match 3 straight. The final match went down to each of us having 2 rounds and in the 5th round he pulled ahead and won. I guess it would have been cool to win but I wouldnt have actually gotten anything and I didnt even really care about that tournament so whatever. It was fun though I guess.<br /><br />After SSFIV was over, they busted out the Marvel. At first they were talking about running a tournament for that game as well just for fun but in the end they just opted to run casuals all night. I got lots of games in against various people. My team last time I played was Lei Lei/MODOK/Ammy but I dropped MODOK cuz hes just too awkward to control right now and id rather just learn the game and have fun. I picked up Dante for the time being so I ran the team Lei Lei/Dante/Ammy. I will probably eventually replace Dante with someone else but hes fun enough for now and not too difficult to use on a basic level. I won every single match I played except for 2 matches I played against this one dude who had Phoenix on his team and killed me in the end with Dark Phoenix both times in close matches.<br /><br />Of course, I was drinking the whole time (I started drinking on the train ride to Tokyo and never really stopped, lol) so I was good and buzzed and had a fun time. I ate a good ammount of pizza too.<br /><br />Since this was the last Final Roundbats of the season, they will be taking a break for a couple of months and reboot it sometime in maybe May or June. They might have some other events during that gap but im not sure. Scott was talking about trying to get a drunken flag football game going in Yoyogi park. While im not too much into playing sports, if I have nothing else to do on that day I might go just to hang out and get drunk and get a little excersize for once, but its too early to say cuz I might have more important things to do whenever they run it (like GG tournaments or something).<br /><br />The party lasted until 10. Jude, the Claw player, decided to go drinking with me. We headed to Current where we met up with Emmet who rolled in with a group of people from the international party. One was a girl he was trying to get with and then there were like 2 other guys or something who sorta just tagged along to come drinking I guess. A few regulars were there, too. After not too long, some other random girl who was at the same international party that Emmet and them were at came and sat with us... except she didnt even go with them. We figured she must have followed them there like some sorta weird stalker but she claims that she has been to Current before and that it was just a coincidence (though I have never seen her there before and I am there almost every weekend). We sat for a bit at the tables in the back and chilled but then Emmet's crew all left after like an hour or 2. The strange stalker girl stayed. We still had time before the trains stopped and Emmet had some discount coupons to get into Camelot in Shibuy for 2000 yen with 2 drinks, which isnt a bad deal, so we decided to go there.<br /><br />When we got to Shinjuku station and were waiting on the train platform, Emmet, Jude, and I were doing most of the talking and the stalker girl just wasnt really trying to make an effort to be part of the conversation, even though I remember some of us at least saying something to her here and there to try and include her. Suddenly she just starts crying and says shes going home and just leaves. It was random as hell. Soon after, the train came and we headed to Shibuya.<br /><br />I went to Camelot once a long time ago with some other people and it was pretty nice for a club. Im not much of a club guy but Current wasnt that booming and I dont mind a change of atmosphere sometimes. So Emmet, Jude, and I just drank at Camelot all night. We talked with some random girls and all that and got good and drunk cuz Emmet and I snuck in some small whiskey bottles that we slammed in the bathroom. Emmet was talking with some girl for a really long time and eventually we didnt know where they went. Im still unsure if he went home with her or just got lost somewhere else in the club. When 5 rolled around, the place closed so Jude and I just headed out. He went back home and I crashed at the manga kissa in Shibuya.<br /><br />The next morning I woke up and headed to this one nice book store in Shinjuku. I wanted to buy a new Japanese study book cuz I have been a little lazy and unmotivated with studying ever since I took the JLPT N2 (which I failed as expected, btw). I found a book that looks pretty decent which is designed to help study for the JLPT N2. I havnt used it yet cuz I was pretty busy at work yesterday and today but I will start using it either after im done typing this or tomorrow. Hopefully it ends up being decent, but it wasnt very expensive so whatever. Hopefully it will motivate me and help me study for the next time I try to take the JLPT.<br /><br />Anyway, after buying the book, I went to Shinjuku Sportsland to kill a little time playing GG. I decided I wanted to just go home early today and chill with Ryoko cuz there wasnt really anything special going on. I played there for about an hour while I waited for the next convenient train time. I went undefeated the hour I was there playing. It was mostly some Chipp player who kept playing me but there were a couple other guys like some Sol, a Johnny, a Testament, and a Dizzy.<br /><br />After I left Sportsland, I just got on the train and headed up and spent the rest of the evening with Ryoko.<br /><br />So, next weekend is the final singles ranbats for the Johnny-o cup tournament series. If I place high enough theres a decent chance I may actually be able to play in the final even but im just gonna show up and play and see what happens and have fun and maybe something cool will come of it. (At the time of writing this blog they still havnt updated the Johnny-o cup sight from last week where I got 4th but hopefully they will do it soon.)ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-3700474332399220632011-02-22T13:25:00.004+09:002011-02-23T14:26:49.492+09:00I'm Gonna Take You For a Ride... at Mikado!The previous week when I didnt write a blog post, I was pretty busy and it just wasnt very interesting of a weekend. Basically it was a 3 day weekend and 2 of those days I stayed in Gunma and drank at home with Ryoko and also went skiing with Ryoko, Andy, and Cameron. The Saturday I went to Tokyo but it was pretty standard and nothing really worth mentioned except basically Tokyo Loose sucks and I probably wont go back there anymore cuz the manager was being a dick.<br /><br />Anyway, moving on to this past weekend....<br /><br />Friday night I had an enkai so I just stayed and drank in Numata and after it was over I went home with Ryoko and we drank at my place.<br /><br />Saturday I woke up and headed to Tokyo.<br /><br />There was another Johnny-o cup singles qualifier at Mikado. I arrived about 15 minutes before the tournament was scheduled to start. Lots of people entered. I took a picture of the bracket and will upload it later. I got a few practice matches in before the tournament started and soon they called my first match.<br /><br />My first match was against an I-no player. The funny thing was, I just happened to JUST beat him in casuals like RIGHT before they called our match. I didnt even know he was my opponent. I wonder if he challenged me knowing I was his next opponent or not. In any case, I beat him in the tournament as well.<br /><br />Around this time, I noticed that they were hooking up an Xbox360 with MvC3 on it to a viewlix cabinet. They also had another setup just hooked up to a regular LCD with sticks next to it. I asked what the deal was and they said that after the GG tournament was over at around 5 pm they were going to take signups and run a MvC3 tournament for the hell of it.<br /><br />Shortly after, my next match was called, and it was against "my favorite player in Japan" (please read with 120% sarcasm) the portly Ky player, Ain! I played pretty solid against him and won the first round. The 2nd round ended when he locked me down with an EX floating lightning ball over my head and I threw him right away but after the throw the ball hit me and I died from having like no life left. 3rd round I dont remember much about but I played well and I beat him! It felt very good to take him out since is isnt exactly the nicest guy... lol.<br /><br />After that, my next match was against a HOS player. For round 1, I dizzied him and he was about to die. I could have killed him with a foward HS into pogo but I did the foward HS into random item to try and bait his burst. He didnt burst but I just ended up killing him like right after anyway. During the match, Satou, FAB, and Ain were like standing right behind me watchin. Satou gave me this like wtf look after I didnt kill him from the dizzy and I pointed to the guys burst and he just sorta like did this hand motion like "gtfo" implying that the guy probably wasnt gonna burst anyway but whatever. I lost round 2. It went down to round 3 and in the final round he was in the corner and I rushed him as meteors were coming out and he got hit and died.<br /><br />I had now advanced to the semi finals and got top 4. My next opponent was Satou. The last time I played him in an SBO qual I beat him but lately in casuals he was beating me up. He pretty much just got in my head and stayed there the whole match and it was pretty damn ugly. He just read me well and hit me with brutal combos and put me into that damn corner mist loop and I lost both rounds.<br /><br />The other semi finals match was FAB vs Roy. Roy won, so I had to fight FAB next for 3rd place.<br /><br />The first round started out well and I was doing a good job keeping him out and picking away at his life. However, I was doing some FDC floats and I ran out of meter without realizing it and ended up doing a down kick drill move sorta near the ground, but it whiffed and FAB punished it pretty hard and I ended up losing the round. The other round wasnt as good and I did a bad burst when he had me in a ground chain. He predicted it (as he usually does, so I was better off not bursting but was just being stupid) and canceled into the mirror super just as I bursted and fucked me up hard.<br /><br />The finals were Satou vs Roy and Satou won. So in the end I got 4th place which isnt that bad considering there were lots of big name players in this tournament, and beating Ain felt good, but I wish I did better vs Satou and FAB. 4th place gets some ranking points at least though so at least I have some sorta rank now and im not just another guy piled up on the bottom of the list.<br /><br />There is another Johnny-o cup qualifier in 2 more weeks. If I do well at it I might even be able to make it on the Tokyo team (as thats what the Mikado tournaments are for).<br /><br />They took all our pictures after the tournament ended and it will be on the Johnny-o cup website.<br /><br />All the matches should have also been recorded so I will update this blog once all that is posted.<br /><br />After the tournament, I chilled for a bit playing some GG and then I played like 3 casuals of MvC3. I won 2 and lost 1. I decided to enter the tournament for the hell of it since it was free to enter and it looked like fun.<br /><br />A few GG players entered such as ABEGEN, but most of the big top GG players just kept playing GG and lots of other random guys entered as well. Im still not very good at the game and have only had it for a couple of days. Some guys there were already busting out tons of crazy combos though. Most of the people there seemed like they just played the game for the first time though or something. I entered with the team Hsien-ko / MODOK / Amaterasu.<br /><br />First match I fought Wesker/Ironman/X-23. You can see the match <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8eFWPCQGyBQ">here</a>. I won. For my 2nd match I fought a team of Super Skrull / She Hulk / Dormammu. I lost. This guy already knew good combos and stuff (which I hadnt even had the time to learn yet lol) and he was pretty good with Super Skrull. I kept getting thrown out of all kinds of stuff from like half screen. You can watch the match <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li24bHiEbsE&feature=player_embedded#at=803">here </a>if you go to 13:25. The 2nd match was sorta close but I got screwed when I tried to tag out my character and got an assist attack instead. Holding that button down to tag out is sorta annoying. <br /><br />Im quite aware I suck right now but once I have time to practice some stuff and play more matches im sure Ill get decent.<br /><br />Once i lost I didnt stick around to watch the rest cuz I was low on money and needed to get money from the ATM at 7-11 before 8pm cuz my bank sucks and thats when it cuts my card off from being able to make cash withdrawls. I got the money and then headed back to Mikado. When I got back, they tournament was over but they were still letting people play casuals. I asked the guys running it if they were going to ever do it again and they said the cab wont be set up here all the time but they are going to run monthly MvC3 tournaments at Mikado, so who knows... maybe the Japanese will actually try to develop a competative tournament scene for this game. I havnt heard about any other arcades running MvC3 tournamets but there very well could be since I never even checked into it.<br /><br />I stayed and played for a while until a little after 10, mostly playing GG casuals with a couple matches of SSFIV in there. I beat these 2 random foreigner guys there a couple times who were using Guile and DeeJay and then some random Blanka beat me. In GG I had a lot of good matches and gomes some small streaks and stuff. I also played a long set with En-Slayer and won about 40% of the matches which isnt bad considering its En-Slayer.<br /><br />So after 10, I headed out and went to Shinjku to drink. I started off at GODZ where I drank with SPG Chris, Sachiko, Ian, and some other people. We stayed for like a drink or 2 and then headed to Current.<br /><br />Current was pretty good tonight compared to how its been lately with lots of regulars. Unfortunately about half of the regulars that were there left before the last train but enough cool people stuck around to make it fun. The big dude, Ted, was there and he had this dude and this chick who he met at some show earlier and brought them to Current. The girl was pretty hot and was pretty amusing. I guess the dude was like her ex but she was still sorta like making out and snuggling with him but then she was being all flirty with Ted too. Also, i was sitting with these 2 Swedish chicks I know and the girl comes up to the table and says how like she goes both ways and things the Swedish chicks are hot and then she like runs off all shy right away and just starts dancing with a bunch of people. It was pretty funny. Other than that, I drank with several other regulars and had fun.<br /><br />At around 3 something, a bunch of us went to PSY. PSY was pretty packed considering its size so it was fun as well. I only stayed till about 5 though cuz I decided to be responsible this time about making it to tomorrows tournament at Magmax in Kawagoe (the same place where I was 5 mins late 2 weeks ago and couldnt enter).<br /><br />I went to the manga kissa and checked for a good train time and then went to sleep.<br /><br />The next day I got some 100 yen filet-o-fish (cuz they were running the deal this weekend) but sorta regreted it cuz they tasted kinda shitty. I got em to go and took the train down to Kawagoe. This time, I made it there about 20 minutes before the tournament so I had plenty of time to register and got a couple practice games in.<br /><br />All the usual guys who show up to the Kawagoe ones were there but this time Limekey, Kawin, and Ka2 also came. Maruken was there too but he didnt enter for whatever reason. Also, like half the signup sheet was Eddie players and Testament players<br /><br />My first match was against... wait for it... an Eddie player! *gasp*<br />Im not sure who he was but I beat him up pretty bad getting a perfect and not losing any rounds.<br /><br />My next match was vs Limekey. Im honestly not very good or confident against good Anji players and Limekey is arguably the very best Anji player. Despite that, I played really solid and won the first round. The 2nd round wasnt that bad either but I sorta fucked up when I didnt capitalize on a hit I scored that could have turned into a big combo which instead sorta disoriented me and he came back agaisnt me. 3rd round I lost as well, but I felt like I put up a decent fight at least. I gotta get better vs Anji.<br /><br />I dont remember all the details for the rest of the tournament but the finals ended up being Melon (ED) vs Takare (ED). Takare is that young kid who really likes Latif's ED. The finals wernt very exciting since I dont really like watching Eddie mirror matches but in the end, Melon won. Congrats to him. I thought Takare would win but Melon brought the hurt.<br /><br />Sometime during the tournament, Woody asked me why I entered both the Saitama qual (this one) and the Tokyo qual (Mikado). I told him cuz Johnny-o said it was ok when I asked him and I just like competing. Plus I said since I live in Gunma I cant really rep my own prefecture (since it has no team, its just Tokyo, Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa) so I just figured I play for whichever one I can get on. Woody said he was in the same situation sorta since he lives in Tochigi. Plus, Melon was at the one yesterday, too so its not like I was the only one who entered more than one.<br /><br />I spent the rest of the day just chilling, playing lots of GG casuals and some SSFIV casuals. I played against Limekey in SSFIV as well and he has a Master rank Adon! He is pretty beastly at that game and beat me up. I did well for the most part in GG casuals though. I took a game on Takare and also took a few games on Hayashi (though he beat me more than I beat him).<br /><br />I got the last train back home and thats about it.<br /><br />This coming weekend there is another Final Roundbats tournament at the skylounge. I will probably go since I have nothing else planned and it will be fun to play some Marvel with those guys. Hopefully by then I will get a bit better of a grasp on the game. I heard Tokido is gonna pick the game up so I look forward to seeing what kind of shenanigans he busts out. Getting drunk will be fun as always, too.<br /><br />Until next time.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-82657522250826591222011-02-09T14:17:00.005+09:002011-02-09T14:58:48.709+09:00Too LateJust gonna sum this one up kinda quick cuz I dont feel like typing right now.<br /><br />It's been 2 weeks since I last wrote. Matt is back in the US again now. Last weekend we just stayed and drank in Gunma so I didnt bother typing cuz there was nothing really interesting to mention.<br /><br />Friday I headed to Tokyo. I was expecting Emmet to get on at his stop but he didnt and instead Bloodbath got on. He was heading to Tokyo to visit his girlfriend so he rode the rest of the way with me. Emmet mailed me saying he just missed the train and would catch the next one. On the way there Bloodbath's girl mailed him asking if he wanted to go to a yakiniku tabehodai and nomihodai. He asked if Emmet and I would be down. After a bunch of confusion about schedules, we all finally agreed that the 4 of us would go.<br /><br />We waited for Emmet to arrive in Ikebukuro at a bar and got a beer. Then when he arrived I went to get him and we met up with the others at the restaurant. The food was good. I had a lot of beer. It was a 2 hour package.<br /><br />After we left there, Emmet and I went to Current, which ended up being dead. Then we went to PSY and it was a little better. We stayed till closing. I wasnt planning to stay out any later but Mandy and the Indian Guy wanted to go to Tokyo Loose and Emmet hadnt been there in a while so they convinced me to go for one beer.<br /><br />Loose was pretty lame as always. Full of skanks and people I probably wouldnt like. After that we went to sleep at the manga kissa.<br /><br />I didnt get much sleep at woke up JUST in time to make it to Mikado in time for today's Johnny-o cup singles tournament. Emmet went with. Lots of the big name heavy hitters were there today. I got a couple practice games in and shortly after, they called my match. My first match was against some Dizzy player I dont know. I beat him up and advanced to round 2.<br /><br />I played a few more practice games against various people. I was doing pretty well but felt a bit rusty. My 2nd match ended up being against Taku's SL. We were gonna play RPS to determine sides but then he just told me to pick a side cuz he didnt care. The first round was going well and i had a lead starting out. I got him down to about less than half life and was zoning pretty good but eventually he got in and I died to some big combos. 2nd round I pulled out a win. 3rd round I just got raped after he started the round out with a connected gold burst and I ate some huge combos. <br /><br />I think in the end, Mitsurugi ended up winning the tournament with his Zappa.<br /><br />After that, I just played more casuals. Emmet left to go meet his girlfriend in Shibuya. I played more casuals and then suddenly Emmet showed up like an hour or 2 later. I asked him why he was back and he said he just broke up with his girlfriend. I dont know all the details but I guess he wasnt too happy with her and she said she would be really busy from now on and wouldnt get to see him much so they broke up. After a little more casuals, Emmet left for Roppongi to go to an international party. I played some more casuals of GG and like a total of 3 games of SSFIV. I fought Ririko a bunch and was doing well vs her. I fought Satou like 3 times and couldnt beat him.<br /><br />Eventually Bloodbath messaged me saying he wanted to go drinking with us and his girl. Around 9 pm I headed out and waited for them in front of Tokyo station. They were taking a while to get there and I ended up drinking a whole 180 ml bottle of whiskey while I waited. I also grabbed an Idaho burger from McDonalds (this burger is legit as fuck, you should try it if you get a chance). I met up with them and then we headed to Current.<br /><br />Current was dead as hell. We stayed for like 2 beers and then went to PSY. At PSY it was packed all night cuz it was Yukio's birthday party. They were playing AKB48 music videos with the sound off on the big screen most of the night on loop, lol. Bloodbath and his girl stayed till about 11:30 or 12 and then decided to go home before the last train. Emmet showed up a bit after that after I told him there were girls at the bar lol. Pachi also showed up to drink with us for the night.<br /><br />PSY was fun times. However, Emmet wanted to go back to Tokyo Loose to try to pick up chicks and Pachi agreed so I just tagged along. This was pretty early (maybe around 3 am). Loose wasnt as bad as some nights, and we discovered the fact that they have hookahs there! I love smooking hookahs so we got one (it was only like 2000 yen so split 3 ways thats not bad) with some apple tobacco. I was buzzing pretty hard off of it.<br /><br />Eventually after we all agreed that Loose sorta sucked, we went to some izakaya which ended up also being dead. Pachi went home at like 5:00 or something and then Emmet decided he wanted to give PSY another try. I went back with him and was only planning so stay till the usual closing time of 6. There were still TONS of people there and they ended up staying open till passed 7. I lost track of time and by the time I ended up going to sleep at the manga kissa it was like almost 8 or something.<br /><br />This resulted in me not getting much sleep and I also didnt feel very good. I was sorta hungover and had a bad stomach ache. The problem was that today's Johnny-o cup tournament was in Kawagoe which is like an hour train ride away. I timed it so that I figured I would pretty much make it just on time. As I was on the train about one stop away with 5 minutes to spare, I decided to mail Woody the TE player cuz hes always there. I asked him if he could sign up for me. Then, when I got to Kawagoe I ran from the station to the arcade. I got inside and the tournament had JUST started. I tried checked the signup sheet and my name was not on it. Then I tried to sign up but the staff dude said I was too late. Then Woody came up to me apolagizing saying he tried but that by the time I mailed him they just stopped taking sign ups and he said next time I should mail him sooner. Hes probably right. I just figured they would be more lenient on the time since Mikado always starts shit like 10-15 minutes late. I guess I have no one to blame but myself, but the fact that I came all that way and missed the tournament and was already feeling like shit left me feeling pretty salty. I tried to play a single game of SSFIVAE against some Chun-Li player. I took him down to the last round and lost by like one hit and then I suddenly just lost all desire to play anything. I decided I might as well just go home early.<br /><br />I tried to email Ryoko to see if she could meet up with me. She didnt reply till I was already on the way home but it turned out shes having a sort of family emergency and her father is very ill, so she couldnt meet up with me. So, I just got home around 8 pm, ate dinner, and went to bed early cuz I still felt like shit.<br /><br />Ive had a bad cold all week and even had a minor fever on Monday. As of now (Wednesday) my cold is getting better and I think I should be back to normal by the weekend. I still have no actual plans for the coming 3 day weekend so I guess Ill see how it turns out. I just wish I could have entered that one tournament, and I need to stop staying out so damn late drinking when I know I have stuff to do the next day.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-83835569371287689412011-01-28T13:25:00.007+09:002011-02-01T11:02:12.926+09:00Guilty Gear x Blazblue MUSIC LIVE! 2011This blog post is a bit late cuz I was busy all week but I managed to squeeze it in before the next one started. This post refers to the previous weekend of Feb 22nd.<br /><br />After work on Friday I headed to Tokyo with Matt and Emmet. Laura (another ALT) also rode with us as far as Takasaki. We enjoyed drinking some good micro brew US beers that Matt brought to share with us from Oregan.<br /><br />Today we would celebrate Matt's birthday (his actual birthday was on Tuesday). We went to the same izakaya that we went to, to celebrate his birthday last year. That place has awsome American and Mexican food so I never mind going. We met up with 2 of Matt's old friends from back in the day; Eriko and Mari. Emmet's girlfriend Natsu also joined us. We got nomihodai for like 2 hours and ate lots of good food.<br /><br />After that we headed to Current for a bit, followed by PSY. Emmet was having a little fight with his girlfriend so he left early. At PSY, everyone kept buying tons of rounds of Jager shots. We all got trashed as hell. Then after PSY closed, Matt rounded up a group of people to all do karaoke and it was already like 6:30 am. We were gonna do it earlier but it kept getting put off.<br /><br />We got in the karaoke place and Matt sang like one song and then said he wasnt feeling well and split like right away. I also only sang one song and then just passed out. Someone decided to order nomihodai for everyone at that time in the morning which was a pretty bad idea. At like 8:30 am I wake up and everyones leaving. We go to pay and it was like over 4000 yen a person. I only had like half of one drink and sang one song, so I wasnt too happy about that. Also since Matt left I had to pay his share too. Luckily I still had enough money to afford the manga kissa.<br /><br />I woke up the next morning after only getting about 5 hours of sleep and with one of the worst hangovers I have had in recent memory. I would have just kept sleeping, but today I had tickets for what would possibly be a once in a lifetime event. Today we would go see the official Guilty Gear and Blazblue live music concert at Club Citta. I had to get up to meet up with Kyle (Stunedge) in Akihabara cuz he currently had my ticket. Matt and Andy were also going, too.<br /><br />Matt and I headed to Akiba, found Kyle at club Sega, and then met up with Andy at the station. After that we headed out on the train to where the concert would be. My head was still pretty much throbbing with pain at this point and I hadnt eaten anything yet.<br /><br />We arrived in front of Club Citta and there was a sea of people waiting outside to get in. We had a little time and I was still hungry so I went to a nearby Family Mart. Unfortunately, much to my surprise, whey I walked in, I saw nothing but a bunch of mostly bare shelves. I guess this particular Family Mart was about to go out of business. I just bought a bottle of water for the time being. I then returned to the front of the venue.<br /><br />They were letting people in by the order of their ticket number instead of having people form a line. Kyle and I had tickets with a low number so we got in sorta quickly but Andy and Matt had higher number tickets so they had to wait a bit longer.<br /><br />Kyle and I stood in line for a bit cuz Kyle wanted to buy some merchendise. They were selling stuff like t-shirts, cds, posters, pins, and more. I wasnt particularly interested in buying anything but I waited in line with him. Eventually Andy and Matt came in and the merch line was still pretty long ahead of us so I just went ahead with Matt and Andy to go find lockers to put our stuff in. We got lockers and then headed to the main room where the show would be.<br /><br />It was an all standing show. They had a mandatory drink ticket they made us buy at the door so I just got a redbull with it cuz I didnt feel like a beer yet since. I also got a nan hot dog at the food stand. After eating and drinking, I started to feel a bit better.<br /><br />Eventually Kyle came in. we ended up standing sorta near the back and to the left near where the food stand was cuz people were already flooded into the main room.<br /><br />The show was divided into 3 parts. Part 1 was a long set of songs. Part 2 was a discussion and Q/A session from the hosts. Part 3 was more songs.<br /><br />The band had 6 members. A bassist (who was their leader), a drummer, 2 guitar players, a keyboardist, and a violin player. Some of these guys had other bands that they were plugging such as the keyboard player who is in a progressive metal band. I wanna check them out but I forgot the name. Ill search for it later.<br /><br />I dont remember the exact set list. For the first half they mostly played BB songs. In fact they only played 2 GG songs for the first half (Moontide - Sol vs Ky, and Suck a Sage - Chipp theme). Suck a Sage was particularly awsome, espessially that killer bass solo. They also added a little extra soloing from some of the other instraments. They had about 4 vocal songs from BB. 2 were sang by Noel's voice actress. The other 2 sang by Bang's (one of them being the Bang install super music). The Noel chick was wearing a pretty nice outfit she said she made to look similar to Noel's. The Bang guy had a cool scarf and a pimp hat.<br /><br />Then for the 2nd part they had a bunch of talks by all the hosts. Daisuke Ishiwatare was there, as well as the main producer of BB, and the voice actress for Makoto (in addition to the 2 singers that performed earlier). They answered some fan submitted questions about various things about the BB and GG series. No ground breaking new information was revealed. It was mostly stuff like "What is Mr. Ishiwatare's favorite GG theme (its Millia's)" and "What game had the hardest music for Mr. Ishiwatare to compose (GGII Overture was)" They also showed some trailer for BBCS for the PSP and 3DS but everyone already knew that was coming out so it wasnt a very big surprise.<br /><br />After the talking they finally got down to the next set. This one had more GG songs which made me happy and was overall much better than the 1st set IMO. They played Still in the Dark (Millia vs Eddie GGX) which is probably my all time favorite GG song so that made me quite happy. They played Ky's theme, Holy Orders, which was cool but it was the overture version so it had a different violin intro. It was still pretty cool. They also played one of the "ending credits" songs from GG Izuka. Honestly GG Izuka is a pretty crappy game but it has one of the best game soundtracks ever IMO. I was totally happy they played that song cuz GG Izuka music is the fuckin shit! They also played Order-Sol's them, Get Down To Business, which was awsome. During the "chorus" (or whatever you wanna call it) everyone was raising their fists in the air yelling "Get down get down!" which was pretty sweet. I was also really enjoyed Lust Sin from BB and they even played the Nu-13 / Lambda-11 theme from BB with a real opera singer, and that was pretty fucking epic. She even looked like your steriotypical sorta chubby opera singer chick but she was Japanese. She had a great voice and it was a good performance.<br /><br />Overall I think they played something like around 18 songs or so but im not exactly sure. Either way it was totally worth my 5000 yen and I really enjoyed the show. This is the only show they had planned any time soon so I was really lucky to have had the chance to go (you couldnt even buy tickets unless you won a raffle for the right to even purchase them in the first place and luckily Kyle won 2 and Matt won 2 so Andy and I were able to go).<br /><br /><a href="http://star-jam.com/ggbb0122/index.html">For more information about the concert, check this page out.</a><br /><br />After the show as we were walking back to Kawasaki station we passed a store with like some of the craziest manoquins I have ever seen so I got a picture of Matt posing with them. When we arrived at the station we split up with Kyle cuz he had other stuff he had to do. Andy and I got in a dispute over what the fastest way back to Takadanobaba from Kawasaki would be. Andy figured just taking the Yamanote from Shinagawa would be faster. I figured taking the Chuo line express from Tokyo to Shinjuku would be faster and then transfering to Yamanote for 2 stops. I didnt even look at the map at the time but was going by memory. So, we made a wager that whoever gets there last buys the other guy a kebab, though Andy decided not to do the wager right before we left. So we rode the train to gether until it was time to transfer to the Yamanote line at Shinagawa. Andy got off the train and Matt and I rode to Tokyo and took my route. By the time Matt and I got to Shinjuku, I received a mail from Andy saying he arrived in Takadanobaba so I lost. I only lost by like 5 minutes. I should have taken into account transfer times even though my route has less stops.<br /><br />We then went to the usual kebab place. I bought the woman that works there a keychain from Chicago cuz she gave me 1000 yen to get her one since she collects them. She seemed pleased with it. We ate our food and headed out. I paid for Andy's kebab even though he called the bet off. He said he was gonna pay me back later but I think he forgot to. I dont care either way.<br /><br />After that we went to Mikado and I played a little GG for a bit. It was already really getting late so after a while, Andy decided to go home. Matt and I made plans to go to Gotonda where Emmet's girlfriend lives and do Karaoke with the 2 of them.<br /><br />We go to Gatonda and met up with them and got a karaoke booth. This time we didnt get nomihodai and just snuck our own booze in. I was pretty much completely sober when we got there and I never do karaoke sober. Thankfully Emmet let me have some swigs off his vodka bottle and I brought a few beers so I got buzzed pretty quick. We did a lot of the usual good songs, in particular my karaoke staple, Holy Thunderforce, which never gets old. One of the best things about this karaoke session was when for whatever reason, Matt had a bottle of lube with him. I dont remember exactly how it happened but for whatever reason, Emmet mistook the bottle of lube for hair gel and rubbed a big wad of lube all in his hair, lubing up his entire head. we had a good laugh at his expense as he spent the remainer of our time at karaoke singing with a lubed up skull. We sang for about 2 hours and then decided to go to bed a bit earlier cuz we were all pretty tired. Emmet went with Natsu and Matt and I stayed at a nearby manga kissa.<br /><br />The next day was a Johnny-o cup singles qualifier ranbat. There was one yesterday at Mikado as well but I skipped it for the concert. Today's was at Magmax in Kawagoe where I went right before leaving for the US. Matt went with me.<br /><br />I think only about 14 people entered the tournament. Some known players there were Melon, Woody, and the young Eddie player who really likes Latiff whom I havnt seen in forever. I was doing really well in casuals before the tournament. My first match was against a Chipp player. Unfortunately he beat me. I hadnt gotten any Chipp practice since before I even left Japan to go visit home so I was a bit rusty on the matchup and he played very well. Oh well.<br /><br />After losing I just played some SSFIVAE for a bit. In the end, Woody won the tournament with Testmanet against Melon's ED in the finals. I missed it cuz I was playing AE but Matt said Woody was on fire and was just blocking EVERYTHING Eddie threw at him and pulled off a crazy comeback in the first round as well.<br /><br />After that, Maruken randomly showed up and he was playing some AE against Woody. Woody came over to me earlier while I was playing and talked to me a bit about AE saying he uses Adon. I played him in a match later and won. He told me that he doesnt have any Rose matchup experience afterwords.<br /><br />Eventually Matt and I got some BK and then after that Emmet showed up. We spent the rest of the day just playing GG and AE casuals. I did overall very well in both games in casuals. For AE the only one who was giving me major trouble was a Gief player who I kept trying to beat but kept losing to. I got a nice like 12 win streak though vs other people.<br /><br />After that, we rode the train home, and thats about it. This coming weekend (which at the time of me writing this blog starts as soon as I get off work in a few hours) I am just gonna stay around Gunma so I dont know if there will be worth anything blogging about but I will type something up whenever I feel something interesting enough happens.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-4803443723122479032011-01-21T11:41:00.004+09:002011-01-21T13:35:39.594+09:00Lolis and Diahrrea<span lang="EN-US"><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p><span style="font-family:Century;"> <p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0mm 0mm 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia', 'serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Pゴシック'; mso-bidi-: 0ptfont-family:arial;" lang="EN-US" >I dunno what it is, but I always seem to get sick around this time of year....<br /><br />I had a great time back in the US. Did a lot of the things everyone who knows me would expect me to do and saw mostly all the people I wanted to hang out with. Frosty Faustings III was a big success with a huge turnout and I won the GG singles tournament again and made a little money which helped to pay for my plane ticket. Thanks to everyone who made it out. <a href="http://shoryuken.com/f6/frosty-faustings-3-results-shoutouts-thread-jan-8th-2011-nickel-city-261902/">Full results can be seen here.<br /><br /></a>I got back to Japan and Matt was already at my house cuz I left my key with Ryoko so that he could stay there for a bit while I was away. He will be staying with me for the next couple weeks.<br />I picked up Arcana Heart 3 last week when it came out. I dont know how seriously I will end up playing the game and this is the first Arcana game that I really will have tried to even play at all so its quite new to me. Originally I was going to main Nazuna, but then I discovered Yoriko and really like her long range pokes and she has some interesting specials so I think I will give her a try. Also, I was reading up on the character descriptions and I didnt even know her demon god staff is actually named Mike, so I would say it fits me well enough. And... if you flip the first to sylabils around in her name Yoriko pretty much becomes Ryoko. So Ryoko and Mike seems like a good combination to me, heh. I still have only played the game like one day basically but so far its interesting and very different than other fighters than I am used to. I suck right now but hopefully I can at least get decent at it once I get more used to it and play more. Ill still main GG for life though (as long as theres still comp for it).<br /><br />My first time back to Tokyo was good for the most part. Friday I went there with Matt and Emmet. Matt and Emmet wanted to just go drinking so we had a few beers on the train and then we went to an izakaya along with Emmet's new girlfriend Natsu.<br /><br />We stayed there for a few hours and then after that we went to Current. Emmet and Natsu ducked out early. It was pretty average and died down quick so Matt and I went to GODZ and PSY as well. After that, we went out to get some Udon at like 6:00 with Jackie and the girl Yui, of whom he is the manager. I knew she was the singer in a band but I didnt know she also did voice acting. Infact, she is the voice actress for the very character I decided to main in AH3, Yoriko. She always seems like the type who doesnt want to attract attention and was sporting her sunglasses at 6:00 am so people wouldnt recognize her so I didnt ask about a bunch of details and stuff about her acting career but I thought it was kinda cool that I know the voice actress for the character I am going to main, lol. </span></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0mm 0mm 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia', 'serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Pゴシック'; mso-bidi-: 0ptfont-family:arial;" lang="EN-US" ></span></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0mm 0mm 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia', 'serif'; mso-fareast-: 0ptfont-family:'MS Pゴシック';" lang="EN-US" >After eating with them, Matt and I went to Tokyo Loose and some old, not-hot Spanish chick was like trying to kiss me and grab Matt's junk but neither of us wanted any part of that and left after one beer lol.<br /><br />Saturday we woke up and got some quick BK. I also got a haircut at those 1000 yen 10 minute quick cut places. Today the plan was to go to the next Final Roundbats in Shinagawa. Emmet and Natsu were originally going to go watch a Sumo tournament but it was sold out so they opted to join us. We met up with them at Shinagawa station and then took the bus over to the Sky lounge building.<br /><br />This was my 4th Final Roundbats. The turnout was pretty average. Some old regulars were there as well as some guys I never met before. Everyone seemed pretty chill. Everyone brought some booze and we all sorta shared. Tokido came again as well.<br /><br />The tournament ended up getting 10 entrants. I won my first match against Scott Popular who picked Rose so we played a mirror match. I won all 3 rounds and in the 3rd round we got into a little Rose ball match which was pretty funny. Matt had to fight Tokido first round and got peaced out. My 2nd match was vs Jude's Claw. He usually beats me in casuals but I took him out in the tournament this time which was surprising cuz I dont usually do very well in that matchup. I think Emmet won his first match and then lost his 2nd match but I forgot who he lost to. My 3rd match was vs Tokido in the Semi Finals and this time he just tore into me pretty good and i didnt win any rounds (and he was rocking his new Murder Face T-shirt with the off center </span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'MS Pゴシック'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'MS Pゴシック'; mso-font-kerning: 0ptfont-family:Georgia;" >天</span></span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia', 'serif'; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Pゴシック'; mso-bidi-: 0ptfont-family:arial;" lang="EN-US" > on the back). Then I had to fight the battle for 3rd place against a guy I just met today but his name escapes me. For some reason my mind is drawing a blank but I think he used Guile or T Hawk or something. In any case, I won, so I got 3rd place. The finals were Tokido vs umm..... once again I forgot but Tokido won, and with this victory, he now had too many points to be contested and will oficially be going to Final Round 2011 for free. Im sure everyone is extremely shocked (lol...)<br /><br />After the tournament was over, lots of casuals were played, lots of alcohol was consumed, and lots of pizza was eaten. It was fun. Also, someone showed up who I hadnt seen in a long time. There used to be this white dude named Ryan who used to play Bridget at Las Vegas game center all the time back in the day when that arcade still existed. I hadnt seen him since it closed down but he just randomly showed up to this thing. After Matt and I realized who he was, we convinced them to let us play a little GG and take a break from SSFIV for a while. I rocked it out with Faust and went undefeated for the time we played. It was fun but the TV was just a little laggy.<br /><br />At 10 pm we packed the party up and everyone headed out. A couple of the guys went with us to Current after that. It was packed at first and then died down after a couple hours so we went to PSY. PSY got pretty packed actually and it was fun times. Right before PSY closed Andy showed up with this one other ALT guy who I dont really know and they said they just got back from drinking in Roppongi all night. Andy just showed up cuz he had pre ordered Arcana Heart 3 special collectors edition in Akihabara and he wanted us to pick it up for him tomorrow cuz he was about to go home. So he gave us the pre order ticket and headed out.<br /><br />Then Matt and I went to Tokyo Loose after PSY closed with Mandy and Indian dude. Matt was getting sleepy but I wanted to keep drinking cuz I wasnt tired at all for some reason. Some random Candian dudes were there and were being cool and bought Matt a Redbull which woke him up and then we chilled there for a bit longer. Some fat Korean chick who didnt speak English OR Japanese was trying to hit on me and trying to get me to type stuff into her iphone so it would translate into Korean lol. Some other girl tried to get me to buy her a drink and i just kept messing with her asking her why I would want to and she was bad at convincing me. Also, some chick like stuck her whole entire head inside antother girls shirt for like a good whole minute so it looked like the other chick had one giant boob and one normal boob and it was pretty funny.<br /><br />In the end, we stayed at Tokyo loose until like 10 am which is rediculous. Matt was hungry so he convinced us to get some Indian food across the street with Mandy and Indian dude. At this point I started falling asleep while eating but I finished it and then we split and headed to the manga kissa.<br /><br />This might also be a drinking record. The Final Roundbats started at like 4:30 pm and we started drinking when we got there. We finished drinking the next day at 10 am... so thats like around 17 and a half hours of drinking. Probably not very healthy but somehow I didnt pass out the whole time until eating the curry at the end and somehow the next day I didnt wake up with a hangover.<br /><br />After waking up, Matt and I headed to Akihabara. We didnt eat yet so we wanted kebabs. We could have gotten the good ones we always get but they are at and out door stand and it was cold, so we tried finding an indoor kebab place cuz I could have sworn I saw one there before. We walked around a bit and eventually the only other kebab place we saw was another stand. At this point we just wanted to eat so we just said fuck it and ordered there. This place had all kinds of weird stuff like tortilla kebabs and kebab burgers and kebab subs and stuff. Matt ordered a mashed potato kebab which I had never seen before. I just got a classic one. One thing that bothered me was the meet towards the bottom of the bit kebab chunk of meat thingy where they shave it off (whatever the hell you call it) looked a little under cooked. I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and just got it anyway. We ate our food on some steps nearby and then we went shopping for a bit.<br /><br />Matt was looking for a PSP cuz he wanted to buy one but after going to like 5 stores they were all sold out. I guess Monster Hunter raped everyones PSP supplies. I also picked up Andy's AH3 for him.<br /><br />After that, we headed to old Club Sega to play some SSFIV AE. Emmet joined us there eventually as well. I did good for the most part and the only guy that was really giving me a lot of trouble there was this annoying Seth player. I lost to him like 7 times or something and just couldnt beat him but kept getting really close. I was beating most other people up that I played though. Also, Isa was just randomly there playing BB and said hi to me briefly.<br /><br />Eventually it was about time to go home so the 3 of us headed out and rode the train back together. We ate some combini food on the train.<br /><br />Late that night at like 3 am or something, I woke up with a bad stomach ache. I went diarhea a bunch of times and threw up and so I knew something was wrong. I woke up the next morning to go to work with a fever so I called in sick. Ryoko took me to the doctor later that day and he said I had a norovirus. I felt like shit for the next couple days. I ended up taking the whole week off of work mostly just bumming around the house and sleeping for the most of it. Today is Friday as I type this and I am finally back to 100% health and am back at work again.<br /><br />I dunno why but I just always seem to get sick around this time of year. I dunno where I got sick from but it was probably the Indian place or the kebab place in Akiba. Either way I wont be going to either of those places again. Hopefully I wont get sick again for a while.</span></p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0mm 0mm 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"></span> </p><p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0mm 0mm 0pt; mso-pagination: widow-orphan" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Georgia', 'serif'; mso-fareast-: 0ptfont-family:'MS Pゴシック';" lang="EN-US" ><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0mm 0mm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:times new roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style="MARGIN: 0mm 0mm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"></span><span style="font-family:georgia;">Today after work I will be heading back to Tokyo again with Matt and Emmet for another weekend of fun.</span></o:p></span></p>ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-66328439374909566952010-12-20T17:02:00.002+09:002010-12-20T17:36:13.168+09:00Another One Bites the DustWell, this is it. The final post of 2010. It was a good year.<br /><br />Friday night, I promised the other English teachers at my main school that I would go drinking with them at an izakaya in Numata, so I did. Drank a good amount, ate some good food, and then Ryoko picked me up and we chilled at my place for a big and I drank some more.<br /><br />Saturday I got up around 10:30 and headed out to Tokyo. This weekend was the final 2 Johnny-o cup 2 on 2 qualifiers. Today's Mikado tournament was scheduled to start at 3 as usual. I got there and signed up my team (once again entering with Gaku, the Robo-ky player). I got some good practice games in and the turnout was good with lots of top players showing up. <br /><br />Our first match of the tournament was against a team of Faust and Slayer. I dont remember their names but I had never heard of them before. Gaku went first against the Faust player and won. Then he lost against the Slayer. I went next and I beat the Slayer player. <br /><br />For our 2nd match, we had to fight Ain (Ky) and Kishya (FA). This time I went first and my opponent was Ain. I managed to beat him last time so I was feeling pretty good about it. It was a pretty good match and I would have won the 2nd round, but I got impatient when he had like almost no life left, did a sloppy pogo force break that he was waiting for, he counter hit me with crouching HS and I died from the following combo. Up next was Gaku vs Ain. Kishya and I are both Faust players and we both brought a Ky player along, except my Ky player is a Robot Ky, which means hes made of METAL! Gaku rocked that shit out and took out Ain. Unfortunately Kishya's Faust is just too good and Gaku was unable to take him out so that was the end of the road for us today.<br /><br />Around the time we lost, King Low Tier showed up. He was playing some SSFIV Arcade Edition (which just came out on Thursday). I hadnt even played it yet cuz I was waiting for the GG tournament to finish but now that it was over I wanted to get some games in. Mikado got 2 SSFIV:AE cabs. KLT was rocking his Mokoto. We each played a game and then we decided to get some quick McDonalds cuz they were running the 200 yen bigmac deal all weekend. <br /><br />We got some food and then came back and played some more. I got my card registered and my username is ElvnShadow (theres a 10 character limit unfortunately). Overall, I started off losing a few but in the end I did really well that day at Mikado with my biggest win streak being like 21 wins, and I didnt even lose, I just beat the game cuz people stopped playing me. We also went to Big Box for a bit and I didnt fare as well over there. I made sure to play plenty of GG in between playing SSFIV and Mikado as well. I ended up staying till about 10:00, so I got a good long day of games in. <br /><br />After that, I grabbed some more big macs, knocked back a 180 ml flask fo whiskey and headed to Current. Tonight at Current was Emma's birthday party. First I sat with Kyla and a few of her friends for a bit but Kyla had to leave to go to some xmas party. Gradually lots of Current regulars showed up and it was a good turnout. Emma got a nice birthday cake. She also did some pretty sexy dancing on top of the bar (shes a professional dancer, not the stripper kind though). At some point I went outside with this one dude and we split another 180 flask of whiskey. Everyone also got free shots of jagermiester from the bar, and with all the beers I had throughout the night I got pretty smashed. <br /><br />At some point I got hungry so we ducked out for a sec to walk to McDonalds and get a quick bigmac. On my way back, suddenly like out of nowhere, the bottom of my boot came loose from the rest of it from the front of the shoe to about halfway in the middle and was flopping around when I walked. It was seriously just out of nowhere and really bad, so I went to the conbini and bought some tape and wrapped it around my boot. It looks ghetto as fuck and it looks like I need to get new boots now.<br /><br />I dont really remember much about the night after a certain point but from what I do remember and looking back at all the pictures I took, it was a good night and went well. I am pretty positive I went to PSY after the party with some people as well. LOL<br /><br />I woke up in the manga kissa and forgot to set my alarm. Fortunately it was only like 1:30. I didnt need to be at the tournament today until 3 (thats when it starts), but it was in Kawagoe (part of Saitama) and would take a bit of time to get there so I had to leave ASAP. I got some more bigmacs for the road and headed out.<br /><br />I was cutting things really close but in the end I pretty much made it to the arcade like at 3 pm exactly. They hadnt started yet so I was on time. Gaku already signed us up. The thing I was shocked to see was that this time, only 6 teams showed up. All the people there were good though such as Inoue/Nage team. Melon/Ina team, and a few other people. <br /><br />Our first match was vs this one Robo-ky and a Millia player. I forget their names but they are around all the time. The Millia player I usually can beat. I went first this time vs the Millia player. It started out pretty well but then once I got put in the corner I was just blocking the mixups really badly. He kept using standing dust. I probably got hit by it like 3 fucking times! No one ever uses that shit lol, but its my fault for not blocking it. It was pretty much just a big brain fart on my part and since I didnt get any practice matches in I wasnt feeling very warmed up but oh well, I have no one to blame but myself on that one. So.... I lost. Up next, Gaku went, and he beat the Millia player. Next was a Robo-ky mirror match. Honestly Gaku is way better than the other guy IMO (based on my personal experience fighting both of them several times), but since mirror matches can sometimes be random as hell, Gaku lost....<br /><br />I was pretty bummed cuz it was only a 6 team tournament and we only had to get top 2 to qualify, but somehow we still fucked it up heh. It was also the last chance so I wont be in the 2 on 2 at Johnny-o cup. The singles tournament quals will start when I get back from Chicago (actually they will have already started and I will miss the first week of it, but oh well) so im gonna try for that as well. <br /><br />Since I was already out that way and had no real reason to go back to Tokyo, I just stayed at Magmax game center all day where I was already at. They got 2 SSFIV cabs and had 2 GG cabs set up and lots of people were playing both games so it was fun. I played more SSFIV but the wait to play was long cuz lots of people were there. Inoue was playing SSFIV as well. He just bought a card for it and was playing Yun. I fought him in his very first match and I beat him, too. Unfortunately, he seemed to learn fast (or he had already played before) cuz he didnt lose another single match the entire day. The only loss on his card was the one he took from me. I played him like 2 or 3 more times, and they were close games, but I lost. In general I was doing fairly well though. By the end of the day, I had about a total of 60 something matches on my card. 40 something of those matches were wins and 20 something were losses, so I guess I didnt do too bad. The game is a lot more fun to play in arcades than at home online. I guess its just the environment but thats pretty much the case with any fighting game.<br /><br />Overall Rose feels exactly the same except Ultra 2 is nerfed. It still seems useful but there were lots of times it got stuffed by shit. My biggest problem with it now is that before, Rose could safely use Ultra 2 against Zangief to get him away from her and jump away after the ultra if Gief tried to SPD. NOW.... if I do ultra 2 within grab range of Gief, he can do an SPD on reaction and just straight up throw me out of it before I even can jump away after ultra. It sucks... I got ultrad by Gief a few times as a result of that scenario. I guess I just need to get used to playing with the ultra modified. I guess I could also try to use Ultra 1 more but I am just so used to Ultra 2. We will see though.<br /><br />Anyway, after I left the arcade and was heading home, I suddenly noticed that my vision seemed to be a little off. Actually, i never mentioned it last week but my eyes have sorta been hurting lately. It started when I fell asleep with my contacts in after passing out as soon as I got to the manga kissa last weekend without taking them out. I woke up and it hurt pretty bad, espessially my left eye. Sometimes my left eye is like that and my left eye is pretty shitty anyway so I dont really care, but my right eye never had problems like this and its starting to worry me. I was just wearing my right lens only for the past week but even so my right eye was starting to feel agitated. Now, I suddenly feel like my vision in that eye is getting weaker. Stuff is just blurrier in general and it almost seems like its more sensitive to bright light. I really hope it ends up being ok... kinda has me worried a bit.<br /><br />Anyway, tomorrow, I leave for Chicago and will be gone for 3 weeks. Ill be doing lots of chilling with my friends and family and drinking and other stuff and I cant wait to eat some good burritos again. Also, Frosty Faustings III will be going down so that should be fun. I wont bother updating my blog while im back in the US but I may type some stuff about it when I get back. I hope everyone has good holidays and good new years. Make sure to get wasted and play lots of fighting games. Peace!ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-25818449846821916042010-12-15T15:18:00.003+09:002010-12-15T15:46:14.040+09:00Xmas Shopping in AkihabaraNot the most eventful weekend ever but I figure I might as well write a quick update.<br /><br />I went to Tokyo last weekend with my main goal being to get xmas shopping done. On Friday night, on the way to Tokyo, I road down with Emmet. Our train got delayed by a bit so we got to Tokyo sorta late but whatever. We were hungry so first we went to the usual Kebab place in Takadanobaba and got some kebabs. Then, we headed to Mikado and played there for a few hours. <br /><br />I started off with mixed results, getting a few wins. but mostly having trouble against a Baiken and an Axl. Also, this one HOS player, I played only one time, and he snuck in a win on me that should have been mine, and then when I got up to get more change to rematch him, he just straight up got up and ran out of the arcade! I was like.... wtf. Sorta pissed too cuz I really wanted a rematch. Other than that, I did really well and won tons of games.<br /><br />After that, Emmet and I headed to Current. On the way there, I slammed an entire 180 ml hit flask of Whiskey in less than 3 minutes lol. It hit me on the way there and felt quite good, lol.<br /><br />When we got to Current, there wasnt many people there, as expected for a Friday. There was a table full of people though that were celebrating a birthday. Among them was my friend Notch. The girl who's birthday it was, was her friend. So, Emmet and I sat with them. Later on, this really big dude named Ted, who is Japanese but was raised on a US military base so he speaks perfect English, showed up and sat with us too. He had fun fucking with Emmet cuz Emmet kept questioning him if he was an American or something. <br /><br />We drank with them for a while and then they wanted to do karaoke and invited us along so we all went and did karaoke for a few hours. Johan joined us as well. We all snuck in whiskey bottles. I was chasing my whiskey bottle with a rum coke that I ordered at the karaoke place lol. I got pretty hammered. We sang lots of metal songs (except Emmet who sang Hit Me Baby One More Time, much to the disapproval of Ted). At some point the night became a blur but we stayed there pretty long. Emmet said I passed out towards the end for maybe a half hour. <br /><br />I woke up the next morning at the Manga kissa. I went online for a bit and waited AGES for the shower and finally the douchebag who was in there for like over and hour finished so I could take a shower. After that, I left to go do some xmas shopping in Akihabara. Emmet was gonna come with but he wasnt answering his phone so I just left by myself.<br /><br />I got a declious kebab and then I started off going to Super Potato (an awsome retro game store) cuz my brother Tony (Mr. Chu-hi) and some cousins wanted some stuff from there. I got Tony an old still factory sealed copy of one of his favorite Super Famicom games, and I got a bunch of Nintendo character plushies for my younger cousins. Emmet finally mailed me back while I was there saying he over slept. I told him to just meet up with me later.<br /><br />After that I went to this Duty Free shop to get more presents for the rest of my family. I found lots of good stuff there but I didnt feel like carrying around stuff that wouldnt fit in my backpack all day so I decided I would just go back there the next day before heading home to Gunma on the train.<br /><br />So after that, I went back to Mikado and played for several hours. I got a lot of good practice in. The place was swarming with Baiken players, including Maruken. I got a lot of practice vs them. My first game vs Maruken, I actually would have beet him but I fucked up. I dizzied him and it would have been the kill hit, but I was stupid and back dashed for a second to pick up a doughnut that was behind me (I dont know why I bothered), thinking I would have time, but he mashed out so fast that he blocked my attack and came back to kill me. I felt pretty robbed but it was my dumbass fault for getting the doughnut. I dont remember much else worth mentioning there that day but it wasnt really all that packed. The reason being was probably that BlazBlue CS II had just came out in arcades this very weekend, so lots of people were probably playing it, and for whatever reason, Mikado didnt get it. They might eventually but they still had regular CS running.<br /><br />Eventually around 10 pm I left, got some Curry, bought another whiskey flask, and I decided to head to Current. There were more people there than last night. Tomoko and Mai were sitting at a table in the back and invited me over to sit with them. I hadnt seen them in ages. It was cool to chill and talk with them. They went home on the last train but I talked to a bunch of Swedish people, Chris, Sachiko, Rob, and eventually Emmet and this one girl he was at an izakaya with showed up later, too. So, it was a good drinking night. Afterwords, I went to PSY with some people and it was good times. Not much really special to talk about though.<br /><br />The next morning, I noticed that Burger King had a brand new NY Pizza Burger on the menu. I figured I would give it a try. Im not sure if this is in the US Burger Kings too, but its basically a GIANT burger and you can buy the whole thing for like 1600 yen or by the slice for like 300 something yen. I got 2 slices. It wasnt as good as I was hoping but it was ok I guess. I guess they should have made a Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza Burger instead hah.<br /><br />After that, I headed back to Akihabara and bought those presents I was gonna get the day before. Various cliche Japanese stuff like geisha dolls and wall scrolls and stuff that my family wanted. When I bought the doll, they didnt have a box for it so they had to get one from another store down the street and it took forever so they gave me some free purfume (which I gave to Ryoko) and some pocket binoculars (random) for waiting so long.<br /><br />After that, I popped into the old Club Sega and decided to try BBCS II real quick. I was interested in trying out Platinum. I think her design is dumb but I like her play style. The machines were all full so I had no choice but to fight someone. I fought a Jin player hoping that maybe I would be able to try some stuff out since I didnt even know her move list, but this damn Jin player was rushing me down all hard and serious and shit. I hardly got to try anything out and decided I would just try her again some other time. I went to the other side to see who it was, and much to my surprise it was none other than Kyle (stunedge)! I gave him shit for trying to beast so hard on someone who obviously was just trying the character out and he just sorta shrugged and laughed lol. <br /><br />After that, I played a few games of GG, got a small win streak, only lost once to some Eddie player, and after a while no one was playing me so I decided that with the last 2 hours of my day before I have to go back, I might as well go to Mikado and play.<br /><br />Unfortunately at Mikado, it was dead as hell. There were only like 4 guys there playing. Among them was R1, the top Millia player. I beat him on my first try somehow, and then lost like 5 in a row. After that I was getting sick of playing Millia and needed a break so I fought some Chipp and won. Then some Anji challenged me like a zillion times and I beat him every time. Then no one was playing me so I decided to get a Kebab.<br /><br />I went to the usual Kebab place. The waitress who always is working there saw my bags and asked me if I bought souvenirs. I told her they were for my family when I go home for xmas. She then suddenly told me how she collects rare keychains and gave me 1000 yen and asked me if I could buy a Chicago keychain for her and bring it the next time I go there. I agreed and will get a nice one for her. I guess I must eat at that place way too much if they would trust me to give me 1000 yen when im leaving the country knowing that I will surely return because I cant resist their top tier kebabs lol. <br /><br />After eating I went back to Mikado and fought some Bridget player like 10 in a row and won every time. Then I had to go so I told the guy it would be our last game. I won and then said good games and left.<br /><br />Thats about it. Next weekend is my final weekend in Japan before I go back to Chicago for 3 weeks. Next weekend will also be the 2 last Johnny-o cup GG 2on2 Team Tournament quals. I will enter both of them with Gaku once more. It will also be Emma's birthday party at Current. should be a fun weekend, and hopefully Gaku and I can qualilfy.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-63130969525177743812010-12-06T13:32:00.007+09:002010-12-08T16:51:57.697+09:00How the JLPT N2 killed my SundayI didnt have time to write a blog post last week so I will quickly summarize the previous weekendbefore I get to the most recent one.<br /><br />Friday I went to Mikado for some casuals and then went to Current and PSY. Big surprise! Then Saturday, I went to a thanksgiving international party with all you can eat Turkey and stuff and open bar as usual. It was in Shinjuku so after that, we went to Current for Sushi's 51st birthday party. Most of the regulars showed up and it was a good sized and fun party. After that I went to PSY for Toru's birthday for the last hour. Sunday, we played poker again in Maebashi. This time only 5 people played cuz some of the other guys were busy. Once again Emmet was the big winner, this time winning over 20,000 yen. I came in 2nd and won about 4,800 which is the best ive done so far. I had one really bad hand where I lost 3,000 in one hand so I could have won way more if I wasnt a dumbass but oh well.<br /><br />Now, moving on to this past weekend. I started off by going to Shinjuku. Right outside the East Exit of Shinjuku station, there was a giant monster hunter statue. A new Monster Hunter game just came out for the PSP and for whatever reason its popular as hell right now in Japan. Ive only played one Monster Hunter game before (Sam gave me it for free cuz he lost his PSP) and while it seemed kinda fun, I dont get the big craze over it. I only played it a little so maybe I should give it more of a chance.<br /><br />In any case, I needed to pick up some cigars for my dad for Christmas. Meanwhile, Emmet tried to go to this one book store that has a big English book section cuz he wanted a travel guide for when he goes to Thailand over the holidays. He couldnt find it so after I got the cigars I met back up with him and showed him how to get there. I helped him find the book and then while he was paying for it, there was this pretty hot Japanese girl who looked at me with this huge smile. I just sorta nodded and smiled back. Emmet made a comment how someone seems to like me lol. If I was a single guy maybe I would have went to go talk to her but theres no point in hitting on some girl at the bookstore. Then Emmet got the idea that he would start trying to hang out here and "shop for English books" more in hopes to meet Japanese girls who are interested in learning English or getting with foreigners lol. Im curious to see how that ends up working for him.<br /><br />The store was about to close so we left after getting the book. I wanted to go to Mikado to practice a bit but it was already getting pretty late and I didnt feel like going to Takadanobaba so we went to Shinjuku Sportsland. I brought a small bottle of whiskey in there with me and already had a few beers on the train. I played against 2 guys and they both kicked my ass pretty hard. I probably shouldnt have drank so much so far lol. So, we didnt stay there for very long and decided to go check out Current.<br /><br />Emmet was taking a while to finish the booze he bought so we sat down outside a bit before going into Current and I picked up another beer. While we were drinking, Jason, a guy who sometimes drinks at Current, was walking on his way there and stopped to talk with us for a bit. Jason works for an airline and gets flights so cheap to wherever he wants, they are practically free. So, even though he lives in the US, he comes to Japan quite often.<br /><br />After finishing our booze, we got to Current. Unfortunately, it was quite dead tonight. We stayed for one beer and then decided we would go to Roppongi. Jason had plans to go to Shibuya so Emmet and I headed there.<br /><br />We passed the crazy Roppongi girl on the street that Emmet was banging for a while. She was walking the opposite direction with 2 guys. We then went to a club I had never been to before called 911. Surprisingly, Jason (the same guy we saw earlier at Current) was there. I guess Shibuya didnt work out or something. So we chilled with him for a bit. Just like Gas Panic, its free to get in, which is one of the conditions I have for going to clubs usually cuz I hate paying expensive cover when i dont really like clubs to begin with. To offset the cost of it being free to get in, drinks were rediculously expensive... like 1000 yen and up, but I got pretty smashed before we went and drank more whiskey on the way there so I only got 2 drinks the whole time we were there and one of them was a long island iced tea so I was ok. I dont remember much about the club except that it was crowded and seemed like it was at least better than gas panic.<br /><br />We stayed till after 5 until the trains started running again. Then, Jason said that we could crash on the floor in his hotel room in Shibuya for free so we took up his offer and saved a little money.<br /><br />I woke up the next morning and I heard the shower running. Jason was asleep and I couldnt see Emmet. I figured it was probably him in the shower but I wasnt sure. In any case, I had to get going so that I would be on time for the GG Johnny-o cup at Mikado so I just left.<br /><br />As soon as I arrived at Mikado, Emmet mailed me asking where I went and I told him to just come meet me at Mikado.<br /><br />I got a few practice games in before the tournament started and did fairly decent and got a win vs Machaboo's Eddie again. This time, not as many people entered the tournament. I asked Gaku (my teammate again today) why he thought the turnout was so low and he says he blames it on the new Monster Hunter game lol.<br /><br />Just like 2 weeks ago, this time we were once again in the zero taisen bracket (meaning we had to fight an extra match), so we were one of the first ones to play. Our opponent's were Machaboo (ED) and Ririko (BR). I won RPS so we got to see who their first character was. Gaku says he hates Eddie, and the first character ended up being Ririko's Bridget, so this time, Gaku went first. The videos for all our matches will be uploaded eventually and I will link them here once they are. For now ill just say, Gaku beat Ririko and then he went on to pull a close win against Machaboo as well! So, we advanced and I didnt need to play.<br /><br />Our 2nd match was vs Ain (KY) and Roy (SO). We lost RPS this time so we had to declare our first character. Gaku requested to go first again so I told him to go ahead. He had to fight Ain's Ky. It was a pretty good fight but Ain beat Gaku. If you read my blog often enough, im sure you know how I feel about Ain, so I really wanted to beat him. And... I did! I won the first round, lost the 2nd, and won the 3rd! Now I just had to beat Roy, which I can usually do in casuals and consider the Sol matchup one of the ones I know better than most. Yet... for some reason, I lost. My biggest problems were just falling for command throw tick shenanigans and not FD volcanic vipers enough. I probably could have stood to play a bit more careful but oh well. Would have been nice if we advanced but tough shit I guess.<br /><br />After we lost, Gaku said he would like to team with me again for the last 2 tournaments which are on the weekend of the 18th. So, hopefully we can pull out a win next time. I left Mikado after that because once again, today was another Final Roundbat tournament in Shinagawa. Today was the German player named Ken's birthday.<br /><br />I brought my own booze thinking it was BYOB but Ken was awsome and brought a ton of alcohol to share with everyone so I didnt even really end up having to drink any of my own. This time, the tournament only had 7 people enter. A few other people showed up to play casuals and hang out.<br /><br />My first match was against Scott Popular's Dudley. I won. Up next, I had to fight Bull410's T.Hawk and I won again. With that, I had made it to the grand finals and as expected, my opponent was Tokido's Akuma. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/SCOTTPOPULAR#p/a/u/0/ykgxX5yS-tE">You can see the match vs Tokido here.</a> While I was sorta expecting to get fucked up really bad, somehow I actually did really well. The grand finals were 3/5 rounds 2/3 matches. The first match, I won 2 of the rounds and took it down to the wire and Tokido only had like 10 percent life left when I lost. The 2nd set I didnt do as well but I still put up a reasonable fight. After the match, Tokido said my Rose gets better every time we play, which is odd cuz I havnt even been practicing SSFIV at all lately. I hadnt even played since the last Final Roundbat tournament. I guess I just played smart. <br /><br />After the tournament, I won a free One Piece calendar that I will give to Ryoko cuz she really likes the One Piece manga. I also drank a shit ton of alcohol. They had all you can eat Domino's Pizza again this time and they got a TON of pizzas. There were probably like over 15 people there and they wound up having 3 whole pizza's leftover. I straight up pigged out. In fact... I ate way too much pizza. I was pretty drunk so I didnt really know when to stop and I felt bloated as hell afterwords. The doctor told me not to over eat cuz of my stomach problems and I probably should have listened.<br /><br />After the party ended, Ken invited a bunch of us to go to an izakaya near Shinagawa station to have a few more drinks for his birthday. He also will be moving back to Germany in a few days so this would be the last time we would see him for a while (or ever?). So, I went with to the izakaya for a few drinks. I was still feeling extremely bloated so I went into the bathroom and made myself throw up a bit cuz it seriously was in my best interest and pouring more beer over it wasnt gonna help much lol. I just threw up a little bit and I felt much better after that. I had 2 beers and Ken ended up paying for the cuz he was being really cool. Some of the guys stayed longer but I went ahead and left cuz I needed to get to Current before the trains stopped. Jude, the Claw player who came with me to Current last time, came with me again.<br /><br />I pretty much couldn't stay out at Current very late, because Sunday, I would be taking the JLPT (Japanese Langauge Proficiency Test) in Maebashi. I was going to take the N2 level (which is the 2nd hardest one). Since I had to take the test in Maebashi and it started at 12:30 (meaning if you werent in the room at that time you CANT take the test) I pretty much would have to wake up at like 9 am. So, I told myself I would stay at Current no later than 2 and that way I could get 7 hours of sleep which is enough for me.<br /><br />Well... things didnt work out that way. Current ended up being pretty awsome that night and lots of friends were there. I spent a good amount of time drinking with SPG Chris and Sachiko, and talking with Joanna and several other people. Emmet also showed up with a girl he met at the international party last week (the Thanksgiving one) but she was already shit faced when they got there so he said he would probably have to send her home in a taxi lol. So yea... I told myself "OK fine, Ill stay till 3, one hour wont kill me." And... I stayed true to my words and left at 3. Unfortunately, when I got to the manga kissa, it was full. I went to a few more and they were all full too. So, I figured if im gonna wait around I might as well just go back to Current and hang out some more. I ended up staying till pretty much 5 when they closed. So... I didnt get to sleep until around 5, which meant I only got 4 hours of sleep, cuz I did end up waking up at 9.<br /><br />I got a whopper for the road, ate it, and passed out hard on the train the whole way to Maebashi pretty much. I still felt drained and tired as fuck but there was nothing I could do about it except drink some Redbull. I met up with May (another ALT) at the station, who was also taking the JLPT (but she was taking the N4) and we agreed to split a cab cuz it was being held at Gunma University which is quite far from Maebashi station. So, I got a Redbull and another quick cheeseburger, we hopped in the cab, and I made it on time to the test.<br /><br />So, this was my very first time to try taking the JLPT. I wasnt really sure if I was ready for the N2 cuz its pretty advanced, but I didnt wanna bother starting with the N3 cuz pretty much anything below N2 is worthless. You can actually use N2 and N1 to get a job in Japan but no one gives a fuck if you have N3 or lower. I also hadnt really been studying very hardcore. I pretty much would just study some vocabulary and kanji readings at work when I could find a little time, but somehow ive actually been fairly busy at work lately so I would often be lucky if I got an hour a day to study and some days I didnt even get that much.<br /><br />The test is broken up into 2 parts. The first part is like 2 hours long, around 75 questions, and its all reading comprehension and vocabulary and kanji. It started off... not good and pretty much ended up getting hopeless once I got to the big long paragraphs at the end. There would be just page long blocks of kanji and I had to read it and answer like 1 or 2 questions and then go to the next page long block of kanji and there were tons of these. I didnt bring a watch and there was no clock in the room (WTF) so I had no idea how much time was left, but I sorta glanced over at the chick sitting in front of me to the left (not to copy her... which I didnt, but to see how far she was along) and she was like 10 questions ahead of me. So I started to panic and just skimmed the paragraphs really fast and half ass. At the time, I didnt take into account the fact that she was Chinese and probably knew the kanji pretty damn well as a result, so I shouldnt have panicked so much. Next time I need to bring a watch. I managed to answer all the questions but honestly guessed on a lot of them. There was actually a ton of vocab and kanji on there that I never even studied at all, which is strange cuz I followed the official kanji list on the JLPT site and made sure I at least learned the meanings of ALL of them but they busted out kanji that wasnt even on there. It was pretty annoying.<br /><br />After the reading part of the test, there was an intermission. I went outside and chilled and talked with some other ALTs like Phil and Bloodbath about the test. I found that I wasnt the only one who felt like the test was ridiculously difficult. I felt bad for Bloodbath and Phil cuz they were cramming a ton recently but still said it was extremely hard and they felt lost. It just makes me feel even more hopeless about it.<br /><br />Anyway, the listening part of the test still remained so it was time to go get that shit done. The listening part was something like 30 questions and it was just straight up listening and choosing the best choice. Im pretty sure I fucking rocked this part of the test. The listening part was SOOOOO much easier for me than the reading part. I guess it makes sense because I consider my spoken Japanese and listening comprehension to be fairly good, but my reading skills are kinda bad. Probably because I talk to Ryoko all the time and all my other Japanese friends and constantly hear the language, which you can learn a lot that way from not actually doing much active studying, but I dont try to read nearly as much stuff as I probably should. I would say I at least got 90% on the listening. After the test, the other guys also agreed that the listening part was much easier.<br /><br />The results wont be released until February but im pretty sure I wont pass. Even if I aced the listening, it wont matter, cuz if you get less than 60% on the reading part, you auto fail regardless of how well you did on listening.<br /><br />After it was over, a bunch more ALTs all sorta just stood around talking about the test and stuff. Andy was there too and he took the N3 level but said he wasnt sure how he did. Eventually we all decided we would go out to eat. Everyone had a car except Bloodbath, Phil, and me, so we said we would walk and meet them there. It turned out that the place they were going was farther than we thought so we just gave up and went somewhere else but it was good anyway.<br /><br />After eating, we took a cab back to the station. Bloodbath went his own way and Phil and I rode the train back together cuz we live in the same town. We got on the wrong train and didnt realize it split off onto a different line at Shibukawa (ive never even ridden that line before) and we wound up at like the most middle of nowhere ghetto station I have ever been to. Luckily another train came sorta soon.<br /><br />When we got back to Shibukawa (we only passed it by 2 stops before we realized the train changed lines), we waited for the next train for a bit. While we were there, there was this drunk old man who was straight up POUNDING LOUD on the glass window of the gate entrance counter trying to get the staff's attention. The guy didnt come out for a while and this old guy was just making a fucking racket over nothing. Phil and I were having a good laugh over it. I dont even think this guy knew why he was angry. He just kept babbling and eventually the station staff guy came out and the old man just called him a bastard and stuff a bunch. The staff tried to quiet him down but he acted up again. Eventually some young woman entered the station and just straight up told the guy to STFU. The old man went from being all pissed and crazy and apologized normally but then just went right back to shouting a bunch of crap. The woman came back and just went off on him LOL! Our train came soon after that, but it was certainly entertaining while it lasted. Im just glad he was some stupid drunk old man and wasnt getting violent.<br /><br />When we got back to my town it was already like 9:30 and I was tired as hell. I dropped Phil off and then went home and just went right to bed and slept for like 9 hours, but I still felt really tired this morning and my stomach feels really bad. Probably from over eating that pizza. Hopefully it will start to heal soon but it doesnt feel so good.<br /><br />Anyway, I will try to take the JLPT N2 again in the summer (its offered twice a year) and hopefully will be able to study more this time, but that shit fucking kicked my ass. It's pretty discouraging.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4715086518961040983.post-22377482192837369912010-11-22T14:26:00.006+09:002010-12-01T19:41:29.720+09:00Super Turkey Fighter IVOn Friday night, I originally had no plans in particular. Another ALT who lives near me named Phil invited a bunch of people over to his place for a small party and street fighter night so Emmet and I decided to go. I brought over some sticks and Super and we played on PS3. Most of the guys there were pretty much just casual SF players but it was still fun. I was mostly dominating all night and Emmet was probably doing the next best after me. As I got drunker I wasnt playing as well but it was fun. I knocked back lots of beers. Also Phil and his friend from back in NY were showed us some old demos and stuff they recorded in their bands back in the day. They were good. I also showed them an old demo I recorded way back in Junior High School with my old band. We all stayed up drinking till about 5 or something like that.<br /><br />I was expecting to wake up at around maybe 10:15 to catch the train for Tokyo but everyone got up at around 8 cuz they were all planning to go to a wine festival in Tochigi. I have no idea how everyone got up so easily but I manned up and got up too cuz I pretty much had to heh. Emmet originally had to go apple picking with some of the teachers at his school but didnt really want to so he decided to make up some BS excuse and not show up so that he could go to the wine festival with those guys. I would have gone with them but today I was planning on entering the Johnny-o cup GG tournament at Mikado.<br /><br />So, we got on the train together and then split up around ShinMaebashi and I rode the rest of the way to Tokyo myself.<br /><br />I got there sorta early so there werent that many people there yet but there were enough to start playing casuals. Gradually more and more came and it got really packed. I was actually playing pretty well for most of the casuals. I took a couple games from Machaboo's Eddie and stuff. This time I entered the tournament with Gaku, the Robo-Ky player again. I didnt check how many teams entered exactly but I think it might have been 33, cuz there was a full 32 man bracket on the wall and only one extra team which had to do the zero-taisen match. Unfortunately for us, my team WAS that team, so we had to play an extra match.<br /><br />So we played the first match of the tournament. Our opponents were a team of Jam and May. The JA player's name was Takeda and the May player's name was Yamamoto. I despise May and Gaku said he hates Jam so I said I would go first if it was Jam and he could go if it was May. I own RPS so we decided to see who they would put first. It was Jam, so I went first. I cant really put my finger on exactly why, but it didnt go so well. The guy just beat me as far as patience and footsies for the most part. I was playing really well all morning but didnt quite do so well vs the Jam player and lost. The 2nd round was pretty close and i could have had it but oh well. It was my first time playing against Jam all day. I actually probably would have done better vs May cuz I fought a crap load of Mays all morning and was actually doing fairly well. Anyway, Gaku went next and put up a good fight but he also lost to the Jam player, and with that, we were already out of today's tournament. You can see the video <a href="http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm12835039">here</a>.<br /><br />As soon as we lost, Kyle (Stunedge) showed up. He was gonna originally enter but showed up late. It sucks that we lost but it did have one benefit. I had other plans today to go to the Final Roundbats Thanksgiving party/tournament. You may remember when I went to Final Roundbats the first time about 2 months ago. It was in a big lounge in an apartment building in Shinagawa. This time they were doing it again but would have an all you can eat Thanksgiving feast along with tons of alcohol. The tournament was scheduled to start at 5:30. I asked Kyle if he wanted to go and he said he was interested but then I told him it was like 4,000 yen and he lost interest and decided to just stay at Mikado and play one more game of BB. I saw him play 2 matches against the guy who won TvC at tougeki this year (he uses Litchi, and his name escapes me at the moment). Kyle did fairly well against him but lost both games.<br /><br />I left Mikado at around 4 and made it to the lounge where the event would be taking place a little before 5 pm. There were already a good amount of people there and gradually more rolled in. In total, I think about nearly 30 people were there but only 9 of them entered the SSFIV tournament. Most of the guys who were there last time were there again, including Tokido.<br /><br />So for the SSFIV tournament, my first match was against an Adon player. I dont remember his name unfortunately but he was a cool guy. He told me how hes actually a real amature Muay Thai fighter in real life and he was actually at Differ the same day as the fight I was at last weekend, except his fight took place later on at night so I wasnt around for it. Pretty funny. In any case, I won all 3 rounds straight and beat him to advance in the tournament with my Rose. My 2nd match was against Abelity's Abel. The rounds were fairly close and it was a good fight but I lost. In the 3rd round, we both had like zero health and I threw a slow soul spark from full screen and for whatever reason he did a whiffed anti air command grab and just took the fireball in the face lol. Everyone was laughing. In the final around, I had about 5% life left and he had maybe 20%. I activated ultra 2 and was blocking, waiting for his EX flip kick move cuz Abel players always use that when I have orbs out, and I forgot it was an overhead and was blocking low and got killed like a dumbass lol. Oh well. So the finals were going to be Abelity vs Tokido. However, since this was single elim (3/5 rounds, 1 match), they had me fight a battle for 3rd place against Scott Popular. He also uses Rose but instead of going for a mirror match he picked Cody on me. I won all 3 rounds so I ended up getting 3rd place which pretty much means nothing lol. The finals were 2/3 instead of one match. In the end, Abelity lost but he actually put up a really good fight taking a few rounds off of Tokido and even getting a perfect. He was playing really well tonight. So, Tokido continues to lead in points for the ranbats and will most likely be getting a free trip to final round. There will be probably like 3 more tournaments since Final Round is in March.<br /><br />After the tournament ended they started prepping a lot for the food. The games got shut off for a while and the table got covered in all kinds of traditional thanksgiving food. They had a 22 kg Turkey and this thing was a fucking monster. A lot of people showed up so at first I was sorta worrying they would run out of food, but in the end there were actually way more leftovers than I was expecting and I even ate 4 plates of food! I also drank a ton of beers, a mojito, and a bunch of rum cokes so I got good and buzzed. It was expensive but I got my money's worth for sure and it was good times. After dinner was over they hooked up the xbox back up and put on Tekken 6. Ive never even played Tekken 6 before so I wasnt really too excited about that and just kept drinking a lot. I played one match of it and lost for the hell of it. Then they hooked SSFIV back up towards the end but I only got one more match in before it was time to start packing up.<br /><br />The party finished at around 10 and everyone went down and waited in the lounge. One of the dudes who I just met for the first time there had no other plans so I offered to let him come with me to Current to drink cuz he seemed like a cool enough guy. So, we headed to Current.<br /><br />When we got there, it wasnt very packed but a few regulars were there. I went and sat at a table in the back with some people I knew like SPG Chris and Yuta. There was this other girl there sitting with them who I never met before named Kyla. She said it was only her 2nd time at Current. We talked a lot and shes actually really cool. Shes from Michigan and has lived in Japan for like 2 years or something. We have a ton of things in common from similar music tastes and also similar taste in movies and games and stuff like that. I can see us becoming good drinking friends for sure if she starts showing up at Current more.<br /><br />Eventually Emmet showed up with this one girl who he met a long time ago at an international party. They were drinking at an izakaya earlier. Then, me, Kyla, and the dude who came with me went to the conbini and knocked back a bottle of whiskey and then went back into Current. We drank there for a while until near closing. Then I heard that tonight was Nozomi's birthday party at Zin and tons of people were going so a bunch of us headed there.<br /><br />Zin was fucking packed. Even Sushi, Masami and (of course) Mami showed up after Current closed. Lots of other people I know went, too like Chip and Rob. Zin stayed open for quite a while, I think maybe till 7. We stayed until the party was over and then Kyla and I went to Tokyo loose for drink some more. I think we were drinking till at least 8. I dont really remember much from there heh.<br /><br />The next morning I was supposed to get up and go to another Johnny-o cup tournament in Saitama but my dumbass set my alarm for 1 am instead of 1 pm on accident and I overslept. I was woken up to Gaku mailing me at 2:30 (and the tournament starts at 3) asking when I would get there. I felt really bad cuz I just totally fucked up. Theres no way I could make it on time now so I just told him the truth and apologized and he understood and found another dude there to team with us its ok. He said despite me fucking up he still wanted to team again for the next time so at least thats cool. I later mailed him and asked him how it went and he lost to Hayashi (footsies Ky). He told me the winning team was Karun and Chonari and 2nd place was Basara and Tourio. BTW, I didnt stick around to see the results of the Mikado one from Saturday but according to the <a href="http://game2d.web.fc2.com/ggxx/">Johnny-o cup website</a> the winning team was Consome (PO) and Hotaru (KY) and 2nd place was Mitsurugi (ZA) and FAB (PO).<br /><br />So, the next quals will be in 2 weeks from now and I will be going to those for sure, and this time ill make sure to not be a complete fuckup and sleep through the damn tournament.<br /><br />Next weekend is Sushi's birthday party at Current, which always tends to draw in a big crowd so that should be quite fun. We will also be playing poker again in Maebashi next Sunday so next weekend should be good times as well.ElvenShadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10338381685083058680noreply@blogger.com4