Hey guys, it's been a couple weeks since I updated but here's what happened since:
So after my last entry, I had a 6 day work week, because of a marathon at my school on Saturday where I had mandatory attendance. So after spending half the day standing in a rice field pretty much freezing, I was able to go home. I got ready and headed out to Osaka. Dan and Toshi went to see Avatar, and I was gonna meet up with them afterwards at Athena. I got some Cheese Curry, and went to Athena and played some AH3. I was doing pretty good, and then Dan and Toshi showed up. We continued to play some more, and Dan played Toshi a bunch. I originally met Toshi because of Arcana 1, so he was interested in AH3, but Lilica, being DRASTICALLY different from how she was in ah1, proved to be very difficult to Toshi, and Dan ended up winning vs Toshi most of the time simply by doing 2BC 236A+B with heart. Good work, Swede.
After that, we headed to that pizza place that I went to the week before. Not going alone makes it a LOT less awkward. We got a pepperoni pizza and some nachos. It was pretty good. A bit expensive of course, but the pizza was good and the nachos were decent. We juts hung around and chatted and we had some drinks, too. After that, Toshi had to head out, but me and Dan stayed at Athena and played around there for a bit. Around 11:40ish, we headed out and went to the 10 hour manga cafe.
We got there and we started to talk about whatever. About 20 minutes after being there, we got a knock on the door from the staff guy. Even though we were whispering, apparantly we were talking too loudly. So instead of just asking us to be quiet, the person got up, went upstairs, found a staff guy, and told him instead. Way to avoid confrontations, Japan. Oh well. Me and Dan ended up talking via IRC even tho we were right next to each other in the booths. Pretty dumb, and I don't think we were even that loud, but whatever, not worth getting annoyed over. Anyways, I went to bed early (1am ish...well...that's early for a sat night). I woke up around 8:30 and wanted to shower. I went to the front desk and asked them if I can reserve a shower. They said nobody is in it right now. I was surprised cause usually there's a long line. I then noticed the price changed from 200 yen to 500 yen for a shower, but includes a few more things. Oh well, I really wanted to take a shower cause if I don't, then my hair looks kinda greasy, and I needed to get it cut anyways, and if it's too long and greasy, it just looks REALLY bad. Man, I'm so metro.
Anyways, I showered and stuff. I don't like how I can't get a hot shower, but rather a lukewarm shower. I mean, I'm paying 5 bucks for a shower, at least give me WARM water. I'll settle for warm, but that lukewarm temperature reminds me of my old apt where I would be shivering, and getting out of the shower was even colder than getting in the shower. I'm glad I don't live there anymore, but back to the real point, I got showered and stuff. Dan woke up a bit later and we hung out at the manga cafe until it was time to go around 10.
We got some cheese curry for breakfast and then walked around Denden town. I traded in Oboromuramasa at A-too and got 4000 yen for it! Considering I paid 5000 yen for it, getting 4/5 back what I paid for it (since that was around June/July) is awesome. We looked around at game prices and at denden in general. Around 4:30ish, after we ate McDonalds at the Bic Camera, we headed out to Andrew's place in Nishinomiya like, 30-40 min away. We got there and he let us in, and we hung out and played games until like, 10PM. We played some DOA4. Dan tried Demon's Souls on Andrew's ps3, and was using Eddys character. He was doing ok, but he got owned by this one boss and killed Eddy's character. It was pretty funny. We watched the pixar movie “Up” on blue ray first, then we played some mario wii for a while, but I forgot my wii-mote, so we ended up doing only 2 player Mario and just taking turns for each level.
After we were done with our fun there, me and Dan took the train back to Osaka and went to Spa World. We spent the night there and went in the baths and the saunas and whatnot. It was really nice. There was this one dude who brought his (what looked like) 7 or 8 year old daughter there. Now I know Spa World is a nice place and it's really cheap and all, but I wouldn't bring my naked daughter in a place where a bunch of older guys hang out. Like, real talk, safe or not, it's just not something that I would want to do if I ever had a daughter. I went to sleep around midnite and slept pretty well. I got up around 8ish and I was just so tired that I didn't even want to MOVE for the first 15 minutes, so I just layed there until Dan woke up. We got up and went through the baths again. We finished and got out of there.
It was 9AMish by the time we got out there, so we just walked to McDonalds and had breakfast there. We didn't have anything else to do for the time being so we just walked on over to Athena. We played some AH2. Dan played some Heart, and I played as some Maori. We then played some BB, and once 11ish hit, we went to Denden Town. Surprisingly, for a monday morning, there were a lot of people playing BB. Dan was gonna buy a PS3 so we hit up a couple stores and he decided to pick it up at A-too. While I was there, I saw Tales of Graces for the wii for 4000 yen. I've been really wanting to play it, but I wasn't sure. I then saw a strategy guide for 100 yen, so I decided to just pick it up, unsure of whether spending 4000 yen on a game that I hear has a lot of bugs is worth it. Dan picked up his PS3 and he was pretty happy it seems. After that, Dan wanted to head back to Tsuruga (for good reason). I already told Andrew that I would have dinner with him in Osaka around 7ish, and it was only about noon at the time. I was feeling really tired but I don't like cancelling plans at the last minute just because I'm tired, so I decided to just go to Athena while Dan went home and then see how I felt after playing some more arcana.
At athena, I started off playing my Maori against some Kira player. I beat him 2 out of 3 times or so, and we had some good matches. There was this Time Lilica player who was doing some crazy combos that had some sick 50/50 resets, but I was still able to beat him by mashing j.A with Maori, so that's pretty cool. I got like, 13 wins total before I ended up beating the game. The new character was unlocked earlier that morning, and so a bunch of people came on like, their lunch break or whatever to try her out. I don't care about her, I like Maori better anyways as a secondary. After a while of that, I ended up seeing this Yoriko player who I call “Nelson” because he has a giganto overbite that looks like Nelson's from the Simpsons. Normally, in AH2, Nelson would beat me, but in AH3, now that Petra is way cheaper...er...more solid, I was able to not only beat him, but get streaks on him. We played for a pretty long time. It died out a bit, so I went and played some Blaz or something. I confirmed my dislike of the game, and then went back to Arcana. This time, there was this one guy there who played as Weiss. I was beating him pretty bad for the most part. There was this one match where he got 2 rounds in a row on me, and then not only did I come back and win the match after being down 0-2, but I did it by getting 3 perfects in a row. I felt like I just trolled him super hard. This Fiona player whose pretty good showed up and played. I played him, but after a match or two, my button broke. I had to get the guy to fix it, and I got a credit free. But like, I was supposed to leave to meet Andrew really soon, so I had to pick Maori predicting I would lose. I won one then lost to his Dorothy, and I headed out after that to meet Andrew.
I met Andrew at Umeda, and we met up with his girlfriend at Juso (really close to Umeda, kind of a shady area apparantly). We went to this Indian resturant that was really good. It was a lot of fun, but it got to be about 8:30-9ish, so I had to head back.
The next week, I was way too tired on Tuesday, so I just napped, but Wed I played a bunch of Tales of Graces. Thursday, I played the new TvC with Bill, and just like that, I was back out on Friday. I went to Sannomiya first, ate some cheese curry and ended up beating this guy in AH3 with multiple double digit winstreaks. The thing is, unlike Athena, where it's 3/5 rounds for 50 yen, this was 2/3 rounds for 100 yen. And those rounds go by FAST. Dude spent like 3000 yen playing against me while I only spent like, 400. Good times. I headed out after that and went to Athena. There was a ranking battle going on that I just missed (didn't know there WAS one going on, oh well). But everyone was there, so I just played a buncha casuals. Around 10:45ish, I headed to the GOOD internet cafe, the 12 hour one for 1900 yen that comes with a free shower. I slept really well and I had a shower and everything. I spent a buncha time just browsing the net and doing whatever. It was around 11ish by the time I got out of there, so Denden was already open. I headed to Sofmap and picked up the Yui/Mio k-on plushies that I was looking at before. It was lunchtime already so I went and ate some cheese curry at the good place across from Athena. I went to Athena after that and just chillaxed and played AH3 until Alex showed up and met me there around 2ish or so. We walked around Denden looking at stuff, and Alex sold a bunch of games that he doesn't play and got a decent amount for them.
Alex actually came planning to meet up with some friends of his from Shiga. We were supposed to go to this Ramen place in Umeda that's supposedly GDLK, but not 30 seconds after we bought our tickets for the train, did they call and go “oh btw, it's closed right now”. We ended up going there anyways and going to Yodobashi Camera. Before we got in, we saw an advertisement for FFXIII with the black guy on this pretty big poster, so Alex went and took a picture next to it. Alex saw a Dedede plush and got a couple waddle dees to go with it too. He had a point card with a ton of points on it so he pretty much got the Dedede plush for free. Pretty awesome, and he was super happy. We went to this place in Umeda, HIPS or something, and ate at a resturant there. After that, me and Alex headed to Monte Carlo to wait for Dan. Alex said he was content watching me play AH3, but then I remembered that they had the Usagi mahjong game there on vs mode. Since it's a team game, both players pick their partner and their character. We played against each other for at least an hour on like, maybe 2-3 bucks each. It was rediculously fun, and I got a buncha crazy hands, and Alex did too, but wasn't used to playing in the arcades, so he wasn't able to finish many of them. Anyways, Dan showed up and then we played a couple more rounds and then went to the nearby Hub in Umeda.
At the Hub, it was mad crowded, typical for a Sat night I guess. I got a Zima and a mojito, and Alex and Dan got some long island iced teas, and a beer or something, as well as food. We just chilled and ate some fries and stuff. Alex had to go around 9 something though, so he could catch his train. Me and Dan then went to Athena after that. We went and tried to play Arcana but I wasn't feeling it. I almost beat guy-girl, but I lost at the last second because the wrong move came out when I had the winning combo. It's cool though, prolly my own fault anyways. I decided that playing BB would prolly be more suited to my current mindset and I was right. I ended up with like, a 13 winstreak before losing to (surprise!) a mashy Tager. Its all good cause it was about time to head out.
We grabbed some food from McDonalds before going to the capsule hotel. We stayed in the one that's a bit cheaper, but has the bath on the 7th floor, with big glass windows of a view that overlooks osaka buildings. So we get to stand there naked and show our nakes selves to the world...from 7 floors up. It's a pretty crazy feeling but yeah, me and Dan just hung out, took a nice bath and stuff. We even submerged ourselves in the cold water bath and then went back to the hot water. That's intense. It sounds easy, but it's extremely hard to do and really takes a whole seperate mindset to be able to do it. Thankfully, we were able to just jump in the hot water bath after that, but it's pretty crazy cause like, after you get in the hot water, its hard to tell whether its actually hot or cold and kinda just gives this weird feeling at first before you get used to it.
After we were done there, we headed to our capsules. The TV was already on and playing some extremely low quality adult entertainment. Everything was mosaic'd out so badly that it was impossible to see like, ANYTHING, much less get entertainment out of it. However, it was the only TV channel that was completely clear. Every other channel had static, which is actually pretty funny. I was mad tired anyways so I just went to bed not soon after. It was really hot in the capsule so I ended up just sleeping naked with no blanket. I slept decent enough I guess.
After we both got up, we went back and took our morning bath. We got out of there around 945ish. We got breakfast at the same McDonalds we stopped at the night before and relaxed for a bit. Naturally, since nothing else was really open, we just went to a couple arcades. We played some of the new Taiko game. They got the new im@s song from the DS version in at Taiko, so me and Dan played that. We eventually went to Athena again. Dan tried out Weiss (sword girl) in AH3. He likes sword characters, and she's fairly simple so he might use her now. After that, we headed out to Denden since it was opened by that time. We walked around all the usual stores. I had some manga I wanted to buy, as well as looking around at just games and stuff in general. We made the rounds, hit up A-too, because Dan wanted to trade in a game he just beat for the ps3. We then went back to Athena to kill time and wait for Toshi because he said he was gonna come down at 4PM. 4PM rolls around and toshi then sends a message saying he can't come. Grrr. Oh well. We go to Mandarake because I haven't been there in forever, and we look around there. It was interesting, but as usual, nothing to really buy except a manga that I wanted.
We headed out and went to Subway after that. We had some food and then we were both kind of ready to go back. I realized that if I went back to Athena, I wouldn't be there long enough for it to even be worth it. I just headed back home and took the train to Sannomiya. I just missed my bus so I had some time to kill before the next one, and I just walked around for a bit. I got to my bus and took it home and got home early enough to talk to friends online and stuff.
Last week, I played more TvC with Bill, and on days when I wasn't doing that, I was playing Tales of Graces, which I really like. I like the new battle system, and the main guy character, as well as most of the side characters are pretty likable IMO. The story isn't too bad either. Not nearly as “epic” as the other ones right now, but still quite interesting nonetheless.
This week, however, I decided to stay in on Friday. I went to Bill's place and a few of us ending up drinking alcohol and watching a really bad movie starring Chuck Norris called “The Forest Warrior” which is one of those straight-to-video movies, and it's directed by Aaron Norris, his brother. It was pretty cool, theres a scene where he transforms from a hawk into Chuck Norris and does a flying kick on these evil lumberjack guys trying to cut down trees and stuff. Not to give away anything, but there is a scene where Chuck Norris turns into a bear. REAL TALK, Chuck Norris straight up turns into a bear. First he was Chuck Norris. Then he was a bear. It was probably the most amazing scene in a film that I've ever seen.
Anyways, that was fun and all, and then we just talked for a while before we had to head out. I went back down to my apartment and stayed online for a while before passing out. I woke up mad early because I have a hard time sleeping past 8:30 thanks to my curtains blocking absolutely no light. I got up and did some stuff, ate some breakfast, cleaned up, etc. Around 11ish, I headed to Sannomiya, like usual. I played some MBAA at Magical space for a bit, then headed out and checked out the Rashabang and Melon books and those kinds of stores. Then, I played some AH3 at Sega Sannomiya Sanx, where they increased it to 3/5 rounds for 100 yen as opposed to the usual 2/3 rounds. I beat this one Yoriko player like, 4 times in a row before he stopped, and I just went on and beat the game.
Around 7ish, I was done in Sannomiya, and then I went to Osaka and met up with some friends I know from online. They were at Namba parks eating at Kua Aina, the hawaiian burger place. We talked there for a bit, and then headed to this bar in America-mura. We hung out there and saw some interesting people. Since people were feeling sick, they wanted to get back before too late. So me and my one friend, Ahmed (who I went to high school with, and is now a JET in Osaka), walked around some arcades and stuff for a bit before we headed off our own seperate ways. I went to the 10 hour manga cafe and slept pretty well there, too.
I got up, and headed out of the manga cafe. I went to Athena for a bit because it was open. People were playing BB and MBAA. With BB, I had a revelation, and for the first time in a while, I felt like I knew what I was doing with my character and was actually having a lot of fun playing. I played some Melty Blood after that, and I lost every match I played, but it was all against good players, and I still felt like I was playing well, and did pretty good and learned a lot. It was just a lot of fun in general.
Then, I walked around Denden on my own because I had to pick up some stuff for friends and I had to sell a bunch of games I forgot I had/don't play. I got 13,200 yen for the games, and only a couple of them were actually worth anything. (That being, Smash Bros Brawl and Melty Blood Actress Again). It was really nice to get rid of games I don't use anymore, and now I can use that money toward something else that I might want to get.
After that, I went to Athena and played some AH3. I was doing really well, and then this other Petra player who also used her in AH2 played. He did some stuff with her that I didn't even know she could do. It was awesome and I'm gonna try to figure out some more stuff. There was a tourney at Avion after that, and so everyone went. Since there was a lot of prep time, I just played BB:CS in the meatime against this Ragna player who looks like he's about 40, who beat me the week before (who I used to play against in CT and destroy). He almost beat me the first match, and then I stepped it up and started beating him 3-0 almost every match. This Lambda player also came and was pretty good, but I still won. I was on a 6 winstreak and then they called me to play in the tourney. I played Tall Heart Player first round. He won the first round. I perfected him the second, but he beat me the third round. Oh well. It was fun times anyways and I watched the rest of the tourney. I even played some SFIV on the “beginners” cabinet. The guy I played against was a sagat with 11,000 BP. I only have 8800 BP, and that's with my Chun. I ended up actually winning the first match somehow! I lost two in a row to his sagat after that, but they were good matches, and I probably would have won had I had my actual character to use.
This Mei Fang player who made it to SBO in Ah2 ended up getting First. The Clarice player who used to own me, who I now go even with got 2nd, Karate Kenji, the other Petra, got 3rd, and Tall Heart man got 4th. Fun tourney. After it was over, they put it on freeplay. There's this Lilica player who has a really droopy face, kinda like John Kerry. So I'm calling this guy John Kerry Lilica. He plays Rock Lilica, and everything he does is super gimmicky. He just randomly throws out 3Cs, and since it has super armor he gets the hit a lot. He also just jumps and does 5[D] from really far away and then spins the stick so lilica moves all crazy fast and stuff. He also mashes out the stone stomp move a ton. The last time I played him at Athena, he beat me 4 games in a row. I felt like this is the one dude that I just can't beat. A couple of the guys play a match before they leave, and John Kerry Lilica ends up beating them. I play him and use the Ice arcana and I end up winning. He plays again and I try using time twice in a row, but I get owned. This Kamui/Zenia player came and was doing ok too. He beat me one match with Kamui, but then I beat his Kamui. After that, I got 7 wins in a row against John Kerry Lilica and 2A Mashing Zenia before they turned the machine off of freeplay. But for some reason, I'm doing best with the Ice arcana, which is ironically the first arcana I picked for Petra when I first tried her in AH2.
After that, I went and ate some cheese curry. I then met up with Ahmed again and we went Karaoke with him and a few other ALTs. It was a lot of fun, and its always nice to meet new people. After we were done there, I had to head out because it was getting late. I ended up barely missing a couple of my trains, so I had to take the slooooooow train back to Ono. On one of the trains home, this greasy middle aged guy got on and stood next to me (even tho there were open seats). He then started to get drowsy and started to lean on me. The first couple times I just brushed it off. The third time he did it, I nudged his head off of me, and then he kinda woke up and stuff, but then started to do it again. I couldn't really move cause there was a huge crowd of guys ALSO standing there, so I was in the worst part because every other part of the train wasn't this packed. But like, if you're that tired, and you see seats behind you, why don't you sit down? I was about to get off, so I don't know why he wasn't sitting. And like, yeah, if you're a cute young Japanese girl, I don't mind if you lean your head on my extremely bony shoulder, but when you're this greasy middle aged guy, that's unacceptable in the Rob book. However, better than making a scene and getting mad, I just moved as much out of the way as I could. Anyways, the next train I got on was relaxing, and I just played Scribblenauts on the way home. I got home around 10:45, and was in bed by 11:30ish.
Sorry this is so long, but it's such a pain to write sometimes. And these are answers to the comments left last week on my blog:
Lix – Yeah, 650 for a slice of pizza and a drink is mad expensive, but going with friends and ordering a whole pizza isn't too bad. It's really good so it's completely worth it to me.
Mike – Yeah, Nazuna might be your style. Eko (the girl with the crazy drawn guy) might be good for you too. I say give her a try too, but Nazuna (or Furry McWolfback as I like to call her) is still pretty solid. AH3 is really good, and if you're gonna get into a new game, now is the right time for AH3.
So yeah thats all for now I guess...holiday this thursday, don't know what I'm doing, and depending on what other people are doing, I may hang out with them this weekend. We'll see.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
The Misadventures of Rob #ReloadFULL Season 2 - Bathroom surprise
Blog -
Hi guys, continuing from last week, this is my blog. Right now, the internet is down at work, so not only am I not able to keep myself entertained during boring times, I now can't even do work because everything work-related that I need to do requires the internet, so I'm forced to entertain myself through offline means.
Anyways, since Monday was a holiday, my work week started on Tuesday. Tuesday – Friday, I would go to work, come home, and play Star Ocean 4, as my new years resolution is to finish the games I bought. Star Ocean 4 was at the top of the list, so I wanted to beat that one first. I got around to beating it on Friday night, and it felt really good. But it was also good because instead of going to Osaka on Friday and spending an extra day there, I stayed at home where it's nice and cheap.
I went to bed Friday night around midnite, and then woke up around 8ish. I stayed home for a couple of hours just relaxing, and caught the 10:17 bus to Kobe, listening to my new k-on music, and my Eri (from im@s) character CD. I got there close to noon. I went and checked out the Lashabang store looking for railgun manga, or just cheap music CDs or whatever, but I didn't find anything. I checked out a couple more stores, but I wasn't really looking for anything, just browsing, so I didn't buy anything. I decided I was hungry, so I headed over to Osaka and played IM@S DS on the train. I got to Osaka and headed to this little cafe/bar called “Slices”. It's a pizza place and it apparantly has American style pizza (as opposed to Japanese style).
I went in, and there were a few other people there. The people working there just kinda stared for a but and said I could sit down. I sat at the bar and they took my order. I got a slice of pepperoni and an OJ, which was 650 yen. The OJ came half filled with ice in a really small glass. I got the pizza, the slice was a little smaller than average, and there wasn't enough cheese. The sauce burned the top of my mouth p badly, but aside from that, and the expensive prices, and the awkwardness of going alone, it was ok. I started walking toward Namba. I stopped at the import food store along the way because I saw they had skippy extra crunchy peanut butter 16oz size or whatever for 3/1000 yen. I picked up 3 of them, and now I'm pretty set on peanut butter for a while. I was running really low before, so it's really good that I was able to pick some up.
After that, I headed to Athena for a bit. Since arcana 3 came out, I've been having a craving to play it, so I sessioned in that for a bit. Played a bit of BB:CS, too, but AH3 is way more fun. After a couple hours there, I wanted to walk around Denden town again and look at stuff before all the stores closed. I went around to all the different stores, and saw a bunch of stuff I wanted, but knew I shouldn't buy. After however long I spent looking at game/figure stores and whatnot, I settled on buying the railgun manga vol 2, and on a small ritsu (from k-on) phonestrap for my phone. It was like, 2 bucks, and it's nice and small, so my formerly strap-less phone now has a strap.
After that, since I was already up and about, I went and got my usual cheese curry. It was delicious as always. Since the cheese curry place is right near Athena, I just went back to Athena and played Arcana for a while. It went well, and most of the top arcana players in Kansai were there. I played that for a while, played a little bit of BB:Crappy Sequel, and then I looked over to where Melty Blood is. I saw Long Hair Glasses Man (better known to most people as Kou) sitting there playing. We use the same character, and I learned a lot from watching his vids, but nobody was playing against him. I decided to give it a lot and see if I could learn anything. I played him for 4 matches in a row, and won 1 round. He indeed showed me why he is a descendant of some greater power, brought down to this earth to wreck havoc in loli fighting games. After 4 matches, I headed on out and went to the 12 hour manga cafe place. It was 10:45 or so by this point, and they didn't have any mat booths or reclining chair seats. I wasn't about to sleep in an open seat, so I just decided to head to the capsule hotel.
At the capsule hotel, I got there, signed in, did all the necessary things, and then went to the public bath. I took a nice hot bath, which felt really good, and then relaxed in the jaccuzi bath for a bit, too. After that, I was kinda tired, so I headed up to my capsule and just watched TV for a bit before heading to sleep. I was in my capsule but I had to go to the bathroom, so I got up and went to the bathroom. However, right when I got to the bathroom, therewas some dude just laying there in his normal clothes. I was like “aah!” cause I didn't excpect to see some dude laying there. I wasn't sure if he was dead/drunk/etc. But he heard me I guess, so he just got up all non-chalantly, looked at me, and just went over to his capsule and I guess went to sleep there. It was really weird cause I was like OMG IS THIS GUY DEAD? DRUNK? UNCONCIOUS? Not what I expected to run into at like, 11:30PM. I was gonna ask him if he was ok, but from the looks of it, he was fine, but if he was fine, why was he laying on the floor in a bathroom face up? Strange, but I guess it's good that he wasnt dead I guess? I would have prolly had to call someone, tho we did just do a CPR thing at school, so I would have at least been able to deal with it, had he had a heart attack or something. I still kinda want to know what was up with him, but at the same time, it was so weird (especially the look he gave me when he got up, it was kinda like “o hai thar!”) that I kinda just want to pretend it didn't happen.
Anyways, back in my capsule, I kept waking up because people's alarms kept going off at random times. I forgot to bring earplugs, and I wasn't about to pay 3 dollars for a set of them, so I kinda got in a half-asleep half-awake state for half the night. Around 8ish, I got up out of my capsule, took a bath, got washed up etc. It was only around 9AM by the time I was done, so I just sat in a lounge chair playing im@s DS for 50 minutes or so. I got out of there and headed toward Athena again. I stopped by Mr Donuts for a quick bite to eat and then continued on my way to Athena.
I got to Athena, and there was this one tall guy I always see there who uses Heart. He's really good, and so we played a bunch. He said that I got good at the game, and I told him that it's only cause Petra is really good now, and cause j.236A is super good. I played for like, 2 and a half hours, and then headed out to meet a friend. We met up, and after I was done with that, I went to Kobe cause it was on the way home.
At Kobe, I stopped by the Sannomiya Sanx arcade. Apparantly there was a BB tourney that I missed, but wasn't too sad about missing, cause I don't really want to play that game in tourney. However, a lot of the Kobe players were there, so I talked to Kanimiso (best player in Kobe, Hakumen user) and stuff. I played BB and of course got owned by a Tager. Fun. I played some AH3 after that, and beat this one Lilica player a few times. However, unlike Athena's 4 setups, 3/5 rounds for 50 yen, this place had 1 setup, 2/3 rounds 100 yen. Ugh. Good thing I was winning or I wouldn't have bothered. However, people stopped playing, so I beat the game and then headed to Magical Space. I got 5 wins in arcana before people stopped playing me. As usual, I ran into Andre and we hung out for a bit. After talking for like, an hour, I went to my bus and he went home to cook. I JUST missed the bus so I went to Sukiya and ate dinner. I saw that they had a beef bowl with cheese on top. It looked good, but either it wasn't as good as I was expecting, or I wasn't as hungry as I thought. I still ate the salad and drank the miso soup (painfully, as my mouth still had the burns from the pizza) and most of the beef bowl, but I couldn't finish it. I also used the bathroom there so I wouldn't have to go on my 70+ minute bus ride.
I rode the bus and played im@s ds most of the way back. I went home, relaxed for a bit on the computer and then went to bed, ready to start my workweek. I have 6 days this week, but monday off, so my weekend is sun/mon instead of sat/sun. Since I beat Star Ocean 4, the next game on the list was either Happy Dance Collection or Oboromuramasa (demon blade). I opted for Happy Dance Collection since it seemed like it would be easier to beat. I brushed off the dust on my wii and started that up. It's kind of aggrivating sometimes cause it doesn't always read my inputs, but whatever, we'll see if I can still beat story mode anyways. That's my goal for this week. Hopefully I don't give up, but if it gets too aggrivating, then I may have to. I'd like to think I'll be able to stick with it though, because I really want to beat all the games I bought but haven't played enough.
Ok thats all for this week. For next weekend, I don't really have plans yet, but I always seem to find something to do, so it'll be ok. Worst case scenario, I just stay home and grind more of my games. Chances of that are pretty low cause I'm kinda hype for arcana 3, haha.
Hi guys, continuing from last week, this is my blog. Right now, the internet is down at work, so not only am I not able to keep myself entertained during boring times, I now can't even do work because everything work-related that I need to do requires the internet, so I'm forced to entertain myself through offline means.
Anyways, since Monday was a holiday, my work week started on Tuesday. Tuesday – Friday, I would go to work, come home, and play Star Ocean 4, as my new years resolution is to finish the games I bought. Star Ocean 4 was at the top of the list, so I wanted to beat that one first. I got around to beating it on Friday night, and it felt really good. But it was also good because instead of going to Osaka on Friday and spending an extra day there, I stayed at home where it's nice and cheap.
I went to bed Friday night around midnite, and then woke up around 8ish. I stayed home for a couple of hours just relaxing, and caught the 10:17 bus to Kobe, listening to my new k-on music, and my Eri (from im@s) character CD. I got there close to noon. I went and checked out the Lashabang store looking for railgun manga, or just cheap music CDs or whatever, but I didn't find anything. I checked out a couple more stores, but I wasn't really looking for anything, just browsing, so I didn't buy anything. I decided I was hungry, so I headed over to Osaka and played IM@S DS on the train. I got to Osaka and headed to this little cafe/bar called “Slices”. It's a pizza place and it apparantly has American style pizza (as opposed to Japanese style).
I went in, and there were a few other people there. The people working there just kinda stared for a but and said I could sit down. I sat at the bar and they took my order. I got a slice of pepperoni and an OJ, which was 650 yen. The OJ came half filled with ice in a really small glass. I got the pizza, the slice was a little smaller than average, and there wasn't enough cheese. The sauce burned the top of my mouth p badly, but aside from that, and the expensive prices, and the awkwardness of going alone, it was ok. I started walking toward Namba. I stopped at the import food store along the way because I saw they had skippy extra crunchy peanut butter 16oz size or whatever for 3/1000 yen. I picked up 3 of them, and now I'm pretty set on peanut butter for a while. I was running really low before, so it's really good that I was able to pick some up.
After that, I headed to Athena for a bit. Since arcana 3 came out, I've been having a craving to play it, so I sessioned in that for a bit. Played a bit of BB:CS, too, but AH3 is way more fun. After a couple hours there, I wanted to walk around Denden town again and look at stuff before all the stores closed. I went around to all the different stores, and saw a bunch of stuff I wanted, but knew I shouldn't buy. After however long I spent looking at game/figure stores and whatnot, I settled on buying the railgun manga vol 2, and on a small ritsu (from k-on) phonestrap for my phone. It was like, 2 bucks, and it's nice and small, so my formerly strap-less phone now has a strap.
After that, since I was already up and about, I went and got my usual cheese curry. It was delicious as always. Since the cheese curry place is right near Athena, I just went back to Athena and played Arcana for a while. It went well, and most of the top arcana players in Kansai were there. I played that for a while, played a little bit of BB:Crappy Sequel, and then I looked over to where Melty Blood is. I saw Long Hair Glasses Man (better known to most people as Kou) sitting there playing. We use the same character, and I learned a lot from watching his vids, but nobody was playing against him. I decided to give it a lot and see if I could learn anything. I played him for 4 matches in a row, and won 1 round. He indeed showed me why he is a descendant of some greater power, brought down to this earth to wreck havoc in loli fighting games. After 4 matches, I headed on out and went to the 12 hour manga cafe place. It was 10:45 or so by this point, and they didn't have any mat booths or reclining chair seats. I wasn't about to sleep in an open seat, so I just decided to head to the capsule hotel.
At the capsule hotel, I got there, signed in, did all the necessary things, and then went to the public bath. I took a nice hot bath, which felt really good, and then relaxed in the jaccuzi bath for a bit, too. After that, I was kinda tired, so I headed up to my capsule and just watched TV for a bit before heading to sleep. I was in my capsule but I had to go to the bathroom, so I got up and went to the bathroom. However, right when I got to the bathroom, therewas some dude just laying there in his normal clothes. I was like “aah!” cause I didn't excpect to see some dude laying there. I wasn't sure if he was dead/drunk/etc. But he heard me I guess, so he just got up all non-chalantly, looked at me, and just went over to his capsule and I guess went to sleep there. It was really weird cause I was like OMG IS THIS GUY DEAD? DRUNK? UNCONCIOUS? Not what I expected to run into at like, 11:30PM. I was gonna ask him if he was ok, but from the looks of it, he was fine, but if he was fine, why was he laying on the floor in a bathroom face up? Strange, but I guess it's good that he wasnt dead I guess? I would have prolly had to call someone, tho we did just do a CPR thing at school, so I would have at least been able to deal with it, had he had a heart attack or something. I still kinda want to know what was up with him, but at the same time, it was so weird (especially the look he gave me when he got up, it was kinda like “o hai thar!”) that I kinda just want to pretend it didn't happen.
Anyways, back in my capsule, I kept waking up because people's alarms kept going off at random times. I forgot to bring earplugs, and I wasn't about to pay 3 dollars for a set of them, so I kinda got in a half-asleep half-awake state for half the night. Around 8ish, I got up out of my capsule, took a bath, got washed up etc. It was only around 9AM by the time I was done, so I just sat in a lounge chair playing im@s DS for 50 minutes or so. I got out of there and headed toward Athena again. I stopped by Mr Donuts for a quick bite to eat and then continued on my way to Athena.
I got to Athena, and there was this one tall guy I always see there who uses Heart. He's really good, and so we played a bunch. He said that I got good at the game, and I told him that it's only cause Petra is really good now, and cause j.236A is super good. I played for like, 2 and a half hours, and then headed out to meet a friend. We met up, and after I was done with that, I went to Kobe cause it was on the way home.
At Kobe, I stopped by the Sannomiya Sanx arcade. Apparantly there was a BB tourney that I missed, but wasn't too sad about missing, cause I don't really want to play that game in tourney. However, a lot of the Kobe players were there, so I talked to Kanimiso (best player in Kobe, Hakumen user) and stuff. I played BB and of course got owned by a Tager. Fun. I played some AH3 after that, and beat this one Lilica player a few times. However, unlike Athena's 4 setups, 3/5 rounds for 50 yen, this place had 1 setup, 2/3 rounds 100 yen. Ugh. Good thing I was winning or I wouldn't have bothered. However, people stopped playing, so I beat the game and then headed to Magical Space. I got 5 wins in arcana before people stopped playing me. As usual, I ran into Andre and we hung out for a bit. After talking for like, an hour, I went to my bus and he went home to cook. I JUST missed the bus so I went to Sukiya and ate dinner. I saw that they had a beef bowl with cheese on top. It looked good, but either it wasn't as good as I was expecting, or I wasn't as hungry as I thought. I still ate the salad and drank the miso soup (painfully, as my mouth still had the burns from the pizza) and most of the beef bowl, but I couldn't finish it. I also used the bathroom there so I wouldn't have to go on my 70+ minute bus ride.
I rode the bus and played im@s ds most of the way back. I went home, relaxed for a bit on the computer and then went to bed, ready to start my workweek. I have 6 days this week, but monday off, so my weekend is sun/mon instead of sat/sun. Since I beat Star Ocean 4, the next game on the list was either Happy Dance Collection or Oboromuramasa (demon blade). I opted for Happy Dance Collection since it seemed like it would be easier to beat. I brushed off the dust on my wii and started that up. It's kind of aggrivating sometimes cause it doesn't always read my inputs, but whatever, we'll see if I can still beat story mode anyways. That's my goal for this week. Hopefully I don't give up, but if it gets too aggrivating, then I may have to. I'd like to think I'll be able to stick with it though, because I really want to beat all the games I bought but haven't played enough.
Ok thats all for this week. For next weekend, I don't really have plans yet, but I always seem to find something to do, so it'll be ok. Worst case scenario, I just stay home and grind more of my games. Chances of that are pretty low cause I'm kinda hype for arcana 3, haha.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Misadventures of Rob #ReloadFULL Season 2 - America Trip + First Japanese weekend of 2010!
Blog from the states:
This will be a blog tracking the past few weeks. The day before I left, I went to Sannomiya because I had to get to the airport the night before. So I met up with a friend of mine from High school, who's currently an ALT in Osaka named Ahmed. So we meet up, and we head to Cocos, so I can get one last cheese curry before I have to go home. We eat and hang out and stuff. Then we were like “ok, what should we do?” so we go around to some arcades and just hang out and stuff. I played some Majhong for a bit, and after a while, we head to the Sannomiya Sanx arcade and I play a bit of Shining Cross. We went to Magical Space and I played some JuBeat, too. After that, it was about time to head out, so I went to the bus station and talked to Ahmed until my bus for the airport had to leave. It was a huge pain having to carry around all my luggage anywhere I wanted to go, but it couldn't be helped, since I didn't really feel like putting it in a locker for just a couple hours.
After about an hour or so on the bus, I got to the airport. It was roughly 10:45PM by this time. I sat around and played some PSP/DS for a bit. I was trying to connect to the internet on my netbook, but there was no place to do it. I couldn't get in the terminal because they didn't open up until 5:30 or something like that. However, they had an internet cafe there, so I ended up just eating the 3000 yen cost for 6 hours, and went there. I woke up from my half-asleep state (couldnt sleep that well) and the gates were open, so I went and got my boarding pass and whatnot, went through security just fine. It was a domestic flight from Osaka to Tokyo, so it was pretty much all Japanese people and me. That flight was easy, a little over an hour. They didn't have OJ on the flight, so I ended up with apple juice instead. Ugh. After that, I was in Haneda airport.
From Haneda airport, I had to transfer to Narita airport, which is a little over an hour away. No problem. I looked to see how much prices were on a limo bus. 3000 yen! WOW, expensive! I had no choice but to take it though. First, I decided to use the bathroom. There were people changing and taking forever. Ughhhhhhhhhhh. So annoying! Finally, after like, 5-10 min of waiting, I got in a stall. After I took my time, I went and got on my bus. After like, an hour I was already at Narita airport! Cool, so it was around 10AMish. However, united didn't open up until like, noonish. So I now had 2 hours of nothing to do, but not yet in the terminal. I got some OJ and found a little spot where I can plug in my computer to the internet! However, either the internet didn't work there, or the $1 lan cable I bought didn't work. I ended up just spending the $5 to use the internet for the day. After a couple hours, they finally opened up the United counters. I got in, got registered, etc, went through security no problem, and headed inside. The first thing I did was go to the shower area. For 500 yen, you can get a shower for 30 minutes. They provide 3 towels, and all the things you would need, body soap, shampoo etc. I went and showered, shaved, brushed my teeth, all that good stuff. It was great, and I looked nice and fresh and felt great after that.
After that, I went and got a hot dog at the food place that was closeby. For being made in Japan, it was pretty good. I sat down and just used the internet, killing time until it was time to board. Near me, there was some woman with a kid who I think was named like “Malekai” pronounced Mal (rhymes with pal)-i (the I sound in icky)-kai (rhymes with pie). The kid was like, 2-3 and obviously didn't care about anything his mom said. So this entire time, the mom is sitting there doing that half-yelling thing, and that whole “don't go too far, malekai” thing. But every 5 seconds, I would hear this mom yelling out this poor kid's dumb name. The kid didn't look too bright either, and he obviously knew that he could just ignore his mom and be fine.
However, behind me, there was another mom and two kids (prolly 5 and 7). She bought chicken nuggets and fries for both of them. However, the daughter dropped her nuggets and fries all over the floor. The mom picks it up and then goes to throw it out. The boy is like “I'll share with you! I'll pick out the ones you can have!” and then he grabs the box, but at the wrong end, and all the nuggets and fries spill out of THAT one, too. I had to try not to laugh, because that would be mean, but as a bystander, it was pretty funny.
Anyways, after killing a buncha time online, I got on the plane and survived the trip. It felt like it took forever, but thats how it goes when you've been en route for over 20 hours before you even get on the long flight.
Anyways, I got home and my parents picked me up! Everything that happened in the US was pretty standard.
However, the first night we were back, as we were driving to the local mall like, 2 miles away, some lady driving a mercedes ended up crashing into some car that was making a left turn in front of us. We were like, right next to it when it happened. It was pretty crazy. First day being home, and already I saw an accident. Nice.
On my 2nd day, while we were shopping in Target, suddenly ALL the lights go out. I'm not talking like, dim and romantic, I'm talking pitch black. My first thought was to use my cell phone screen as a small light. I was all “alright, now it's my time to shine” but like, by that time, the emergency lights already went on. Oh well. It wasn't quite my time to be a hero.
Aside from that, there were just a lot of family gatherings, and gathering at friend's places, plus a few tournaments.
On the way back, I got a ride to O'Hare airport from my dad, and everything went smoothly getting to San Francisco. I even ran into a friend I knew from Shiga-ken! However, once I got to San Francisco, I noticed that I didn't have a boarding pass. I went to see what it was all about. Turns out they overbooked the plane back to Japan. I happened to be one of those people without a seat. They offered people $200 in travel vouchers to take a different flight, and when I said I would take that, they said “sorry, your luggage is already on the plane, we can't change flights for you.” So pretty much, I HAD to get on that plane, or all my stuff would have gotten to Kansai without me. They then offered people $600 in travel vouchers to stay another day in SF (hotel and meals paid for, too). A family of 4 ended up taking that. If I didn't have work the next day, and if Icould do that, I totally would have. I would have just walked around SF where it was like, 70 degrees out, and just relaxed and whatnot and gotten 600 bucks toward a trip.
Anywho, after waiting for a while, they called my name to the front and I got my boarding pass and got on the plane home. The flight was pretty good. I just fell asleep for most of it, and woke up when it was time to eat, then went back to sleep. I got to the airport and I got a text from Dan saying he was at Kansai airport. I was like “wow, I just got here, too!”, so we ended up being able to meet up. Pretty big coincidence if you ask me.
Anyways, we departed and then we each went our seperate ways. I got on the limo bus back for Sannomiya. There, I took the bus that goes back to Ono, however, I'm carrying 2 bags on my shoulder, rolling my suitcase AND my laptop bag on top of my suitcase. So I get on the bus a few minutes before it leaves. The bus is completely packed tho, just about every seat is full. Ugh. So Im kicking my laptop bag across the floor while pulling my suitcase sideways and everyone is just kinda staring. Ugh. Then I was able to get the suitcase and one of my bags in a seat, and then get the other two bags in the space above. However, I still didn't have a seat, and I was told I can't stand so I had to pull down a seat in the middle of the aisle, meaning I was blocking anyone who wanted to get off the bus, and I then had to pull the seat up, and stand everytime someone wanted to get off. It was a huge pain. Finally, the guy sitting next to my luggage got off, and so I sat next to that and was fine. Then I had to get off the bus, so I had to get my suitcase, and then pull that off the bus before getting back ON the bus and grabbing my other things. I paid and then walked back to my apartment.
It was a huge pain overall, but at least I'm done for a while. I just found out after that event though, that I can pay to have my luggage shipped to my apt from the airport. So if I got 2 of those bags shipped, it could have been way easier as opposed to carrying those on a bus. However, the bus was the cheapest option and even though it sucked, it wasn't that expensive.
Anyways, I had 3 days of work before the weekend. I went to Saty on Friday, and they had a bunch of sales because it's after new year, and I guess they're changing stock or something. Either way, I got some good deals.
Saturday, Bill and Maria planned on going to Kyoto to meet Maria's former host family around like, 9:30, so I was like “well, I have to go there and meet people by noon for the tourney” so I figured I would go with them and get up a little earlier, but have company for a roughly 3 hour trip. So I got up around 6ish so I could meet up by 6:45 so we could catch our train. More importantly though, I really wanted to play arcana heart 3. So I got to a-cho around 10ish or so. It took forever, but finally I get to play AH3! I look around the arcade, and I don't see it. I walk around some more, check out everywhere, and I don't see it. They seem to have every game BUT arcana 3. So I was kinda disappointed. I played MB and BB, so it wasn't all bad, but I was just really in the mood to at least TRY arcana 3. Oh well. I got a big mac for lunch, and then came back and met up with Jeff (Azrael), Andrew (reno) and Eddy (kunai). We all entered the tourney and we all got peaced out first round by players we all had a chance of beating. Jeff almost beat KOK, a high level Sagat player, KOK was down to only a little bit of life, Jeff had about 60% life left, but then Sagat landed a tiger uppercut FADC ultra and it was game over. The crowd was pretty sad about it, but it was still a great fight. Wish I recorded it. I played a blanka player who had 25000 BP and like, a 50+% win ratio vs my 35% win ratio 8000 BP chun. I ended up getting the 2nd round. I ended it with an airthrow that looked mad sexy. I actually played really well, as far as me and chun is considered, but I don't really use her, nor am I particularly good at her, so I'm not disappointed with how I played.
We got free drinks, so we went to the maid cafe part of a-cho and drowned our sorrows. After that, we went to Shakey's pizza for all you can eat pizza. We hung out there for a while and then went back to a-cho and played more games. I was doing decent in MB, Tekken, and BB. After that, I went to Kyoto station to meet up with Alex. We met up and went back to Maibara. We met up with Dan there (we got there at like, the same time) and then went back to Alex's place and went to go Karaoke. However, there were people there when we got there, so we opted to not go in. We headed back and hung out for a bit. I went under the kotatsu and pretty much went to sleep. Dan and Alex played Mario and Modern Warfare 2. Dan was up at 7:30 or something, I got up too, and he played call of duty, and I played PSP idolm@ster. Around 11, Alex woke up, so we played mahjong and mario. We were each 1-1-1 in mahjong, and Dan won the tie breaker. We were doing good in mario, and then Dan had to go to home cause he had work on Monday even tho it was a national holiday.
I went to bed after eating and getting back to Alex's place, and then woke up and left early from Maibara to get to Osaka by 10. I got to Osaka and went straight to Athena. I played some AH3 finally, and it was awesome. Then I played a bit of MBAA. After that, I went to go trade in some games. I went to A-too and traded in the following:
Ace Combat 6 US 360 – 1500 yen
Tales of Phantasia PSP – 1800 yen
Tekken Dark Ressurection PSP – 1500 yen
Tales of the World US psp – 500 yen
Melty Blood Act Cadenza ps2 – 200 yen
1000 yen just for trading in 5 games.
So for trading in 5 games I don't play and wouldn't play again even if I owned them, I got like, 6000 yen. Not too shabby. So now, because of all the Christmas money I got, and because of all the money I won from the tournies I played in, and because I sold some games, I now have some money, so I was ready to go on a spending spree.
However, I wanted to go play more arcana first. So I played some Arcana, and then met up with Andrew and Eddy again in Namba. Andrew said “meet at Namba Hills”, which is an arcade. I said alright, and went there. He said he went up to the 6th floor. I was like, “umm, there's no 6th floor?”. I was really confused and walked around for a bit looking for buildings that it could be at. Finally, we talked on our cell phones, and he meant Namba PARK, which is in the opposite direction that I just came from. Ugh. So I went back there and met up with them. We then walked around Denden town and went to some game stores, like sofmap and a-too. Eddy bought a couple games, and so did Andrew. We all got DOA4, so we're gonna play that online against each other (hopefully soon). It got to be 4PM and they had to head out, so I went to Athena and played more Arcana. I got a winstreak, and then people stopped playing, so I beat the game and left. I went to go around Denden on my own to go buy stuff, but I didn't see too much that I wanted. Plus I was being super super cheap about everything, and so I only spent a little and only bought stuff if it was rediculously cheap. I got:
K-on Don't say lazy single – 200 yen
K-on Fuwafuwa time single – 400 yen
Railgun vol 3 manga – 400 yen
Eri (from im@s) cd – 800 yen
Phantasy Star 0 DS – 700 yen.
So I spent like, 2500 yen on stuff. Not too bad. I got new music now, and I think I'll sign up for Japanese Itunes and pick up the rest of the K-on songs that I don't have (as the CDs with those songs were far too expensive). I guess I'll save my money for the next time I see something I really want. I refused to buy any games until I beat star ocean 4, and even then, I still have some other games that I really should be playing more, so I dunno.
Anyways, I headed home after that, took some cold medicine because I had a cold and went to bed. However, because of that, waking up Tuesday felt almost impossible. I got up and went to work and somehow made it back awake. I stopped off and bought some stuff for the house at Saty before I headed home, and got McDonalds for dinner (been craving big macs recently). I went home and played star ocean until I went to bed around 11:15. I'll probably do more of the same tonight.
That's all! Please leave comments or whatever! Positive, negative, I don't really care, just leave comments! Thanks for reading!
This will be a blog tracking the past few weeks. The day before I left, I went to Sannomiya because I had to get to the airport the night before. So I met up with a friend of mine from High school, who's currently an ALT in Osaka named Ahmed. So we meet up, and we head to Cocos, so I can get one last cheese curry before I have to go home. We eat and hang out and stuff. Then we were like “ok, what should we do?” so we go around to some arcades and just hang out and stuff. I played some Majhong for a bit, and after a while, we head to the Sannomiya Sanx arcade and I play a bit of Shining Cross. We went to Magical Space and I played some JuBeat, too. After that, it was about time to head out, so I went to the bus station and talked to Ahmed until my bus for the airport had to leave. It was a huge pain having to carry around all my luggage anywhere I wanted to go, but it couldn't be helped, since I didn't really feel like putting it in a locker for just a couple hours.
After about an hour or so on the bus, I got to the airport. It was roughly 10:45PM by this time. I sat around and played some PSP/DS for a bit. I was trying to connect to the internet on my netbook, but there was no place to do it. I couldn't get in the terminal because they didn't open up until 5:30 or something like that. However, they had an internet cafe there, so I ended up just eating the 3000 yen cost for 6 hours, and went there. I woke up from my half-asleep state (couldnt sleep that well) and the gates were open, so I went and got my boarding pass and whatnot, went through security just fine. It was a domestic flight from Osaka to Tokyo, so it was pretty much all Japanese people and me. That flight was easy, a little over an hour. They didn't have OJ on the flight, so I ended up with apple juice instead. Ugh. After that, I was in Haneda airport.
From Haneda airport, I had to transfer to Narita airport, which is a little over an hour away. No problem. I looked to see how much prices were on a limo bus. 3000 yen! WOW, expensive! I had no choice but to take it though. First, I decided to use the bathroom. There were people changing and taking forever. Ughhhhhhhhhhh. So annoying! Finally, after like, 5-10 min of waiting, I got in a stall. After I took my time, I went and got on my bus. After like, an hour I was already at Narita airport! Cool, so it was around 10AMish. However, united didn't open up until like, noonish. So I now had 2 hours of nothing to do, but not yet in the terminal. I got some OJ and found a little spot where I can plug in my computer to the internet! However, either the internet didn't work there, or the $1 lan cable I bought didn't work. I ended up just spending the $5 to use the internet for the day. After a couple hours, they finally opened up the United counters. I got in, got registered, etc, went through security no problem, and headed inside. The first thing I did was go to the shower area. For 500 yen, you can get a shower for 30 minutes. They provide 3 towels, and all the things you would need, body soap, shampoo etc. I went and showered, shaved, brushed my teeth, all that good stuff. It was great, and I looked nice and fresh and felt great after that.
After that, I went and got a hot dog at the food place that was closeby. For being made in Japan, it was pretty good. I sat down and just used the internet, killing time until it was time to board. Near me, there was some woman with a kid who I think was named like “Malekai” pronounced Mal (rhymes with pal)-i (the I sound in icky)-kai (rhymes with pie). The kid was like, 2-3 and obviously didn't care about anything his mom said. So this entire time, the mom is sitting there doing that half-yelling thing, and that whole “don't go too far, malekai” thing. But every 5 seconds, I would hear this mom yelling out this poor kid's dumb name. The kid didn't look too bright either, and he obviously knew that he could just ignore his mom and be fine.
However, behind me, there was another mom and two kids (prolly 5 and 7). She bought chicken nuggets and fries for both of them. However, the daughter dropped her nuggets and fries all over the floor. The mom picks it up and then goes to throw it out. The boy is like “I'll share with you! I'll pick out the ones you can have!” and then he grabs the box, but at the wrong end, and all the nuggets and fries spill out of THAT one, too. I had to try not to laugh, because that would be mean, but as a bystander, it was pretty funny.
Anyways, after killing a buncha time online, I got on the plane and survived the trip. It felt like it took forever, but thats how it goes when you've been en route for over 20 hours before you even get on the long flight.
Anyways, I got home and my parents picked me up! Everything that happened in the US was pretty standard.
However, the first night we were back, as we were driving to the local mall like, 2 miles away, some lady driving a mercedes ended up crashing into some car that was making a left turn in front of us. We were like, right next to it when it happened. It was pretty crazy. First day being home, and already I saw an accident. Nice.
On my 2nd day, while we were shopping in Target, suddenly ALL the lights go out. I'm not talking like, dim and romantic, I'm talking pitch black. My first thought was to use my cell phone screen as a small light. I was all “alright, now it's my time to shine” but like, by that time, the emergency lights already went on. Oh well. It wasn't quite my time to be a hero.
Aside from that, there were just a lot of family gatherings, and gathering at friend's places, plus a few tournaments.
On the way back, I got a ride to O'Hare airport from my dad, and everything went smoothly getting to San Francisco. I even ran into a friend I knew from Shiga-ken! However, once I got to San Francisco, I noticed that I didn't have a boarding pass. I went to see what it was all about. Turns out they overbooked the plane back to Japan. I happened to be one of those people without a seat. They offered people $200 in travel vouchers to take a different flight, and when I said I would take that, they said “sorry, your luggage is already on the plane, we can't change flights for you.” So pretty much, I HAD to get on that plane, or all my stuff would have gotten to Kansai without me. They then offered people $600 in travel vouchers to stay another day in SF (hotel and meals paid for, too). A family of 4 ended up taking that. If I didn't have work the next day, and if Icould do that, I totally would have. I would have just walked around SF where it was like, 70 degrees out, and just relaxed and whatnot and gotten 600 bucks toward a trip.
Anywho, after waiting for a while, they called my name to the front and I got my boarding pass and got on the plane home. The flight was pretty good. I just fell asleep for most of it, and woke up when it was time to eat, then went back to sleep. I got to the airport and I got a text from Dan saying he was at Kansai airport. I was like “wow, I just got here, too!”, so we ended up being able to meet up. Pretty big coincidence if you ask me.
Anyways, we departed and then we each went our seperate ways. I got on the limo bus back for Sannomiya. There, I took the bus that goes back to Ono, however, I'm carrying 2 bags on my shoulder, rolling my suitcase AND my laptop bag on top of my suitcase. So I get on the bus a few minutes before it leaves. The bus is completely packed tho, just about every seat is full. Ugh. So Im kicking my laptop bag across the floor while pulling my suitcase sideways and everyone is just kinda staring. Ugh. Then I was able to get the suitcase and one of my bags in a seat, and then get the other two bags in the space above. However, I still didn't have a seat, and I was told I can't stand so I had to pull down a seat in the middle of the aisle, meaning I was blocking anyone who wanted to get off the bus, and I then had to pull the seat up, and stand everytime someone wanted to get off. It was a huge pain. Finally, the guy sitting next to my luggage got off, and so I sat next to that and was fine. Then I had to get off the bus, so I had to get my suitcase, and then pull that off the bus before getting back ON the bus and grabbing my other things. I paid and then walked back to my apartment.
It was a huge pain overall, but at least I'm done for a while. I just found out after that event though, that I can pay to have my luggage shipped to my apt from the airport. So if I got 2 of those bags shipped, it could have been way easier as opposed to carrying those on a bus. However, the bus was the cheapest option and even though it sucked, it wasn't that expensive.
Anyways, I had 3 days of work before the weekend. I went to Saty on Friday, and they had a bunch of sales because it's after new year, and I guess they're changing stock or something. Either way, I got some good deals.
Saturday, Bill and Maria planned on going to Kyoto to meet Maria's former host family around like, 9:30, so I was like “well, I have to go there and meet people by noon for the tourney” so I figured I would go with them and get up a little earlier, but have company for a roughly 3 hour trip. So I got up around 6ish so I could meet up by 6:45 so we could catch our train. More importantly though, I really wanted to play arcana heart 3. So I got to a-cho around 10ish or so. It took forever, but finally I get to play AH3! I look around the arcade, and I don't see it. I walk around some more, check out everywhere, and I don't see it. They seem to have every game BUT arcana 3. So I was kinda disappointed. I played MB and BB, so it wasn't all bad, but I was just really in the mood to at least TRY arcana 3. Oh well. I got a big mac for lunch, and then came back and met up with Jeff (Azrael), Andrew (reno) and Eddy (kunai). We all entered the tourney and we all got peaced out first round by players we all had a chance of beating. Jeff almost beat KOK, a high level Sagat player, KOK was down to only a little bit of life, Jeff had about 60% life left, but then Sagat landed a tiger uppercut FADC ultra and it was game over. The crowd was pretty sad about it, but it was still a great fight. Wish I recorded it. I played a blanka player who had 25000 BP and like, a 50+% win ratio vs my 35% win ratio 8000 BP chun. I ended up getting the 2nd round. I ended it with an airthrow that looked mad sexy. I actually played really well, as far as me and chun is considered, but I don't really use her, nor am I particularly good at her, so I'm not disappointed with how I played.
We got free drinks, so we went to the maid cafe part of a-cho and drowned our sorrows. After that, we went to Shakey's pizza for all you can eat pizza. We hung out there for a while and then went back to a-cho and played more games. I was doing decent in MB, Tekken, and BB. After that, I went to Kyoto station to meet up with Alex. We met up and went back to Maibara. We met up with Dan there (we got there at like, the same time) and then went back to Alex's place and went to go Karaoke. However, there were people there when we got there, so we opted to not go in. We headed back and hung out for a bit. I went under the kotatsu and pretty much went to sleep. Dan and Alex played Mario and Modern Warfare 2. Dan was up at 7:30 or something, I got up too, and he played call of duty, and I played PSP idolm@ster. Around 11, Alex woke up, so we played mahjong and mario. We were each 1-1-1 in mahjong, and Dan won the tie breaker. We were doing good in mario, and then Dan had to go to home cause he had work on Monday even tho it was a national holiday.
I went to bed after eating and getting back to Alex's place, and then woke up and left early from Maibara to get to Osaka by 10. I got to Osaka and went straight to Athena. I played some AH3 finally, and it was awesome. Then I played a bit of MBAA. After that, I went to go trade in some games. I went to A-too and traded in the following:
Ace Combat 6 US 360 – 1500 yen
Tales of Phantasia PSP – 1800 yen
Tekken Dark Ressurection PSP – 1500 yen
Tales of the World US psp – 500 yen
Melty Blood Act Cadenza ps2 – 200 yen
1000 yen just for trading in 5 games.
So for trading in 5 games I don't play and wouldn't play again even if I owned them, I got like, 6000 yen. Not too shabby. So now, because of all the Christmas money I got, and because of all the money I won from the tournies I played in, and because I sold some games, I now have some money, so I was ready to go on a spending spree.
However, I wanted to go play more arcana first. So I played some Arcana, and then met up with Andrew and Eddy again in Namba. Andrew said “meet at Namba Hills”, which is an arcade. I said alright, and went there. He said he went up to the 6th floor. I was like, “umm, there's no 6th floor?”. I was really confused and walked around for a bit looking for buildings that it could be at. Finally, we talked on our cell phones, and he meant Namba PARK, which is in the opposite direction that I just came from. Ugh. So I went back there and met up with them. We then walked around Denden town and went to some game stores, like sofmap and a-too. Eddy bought a couple games, and so did Andrew. We all got DOA4, so we're gonna play that online against each other (hopefully soon). It got to be 4PM and they had to head out, so I went to Athena and played more Arcana. I got a winstreak, and then people stopped playing, so I beat the game and left. I went to go around Denden on my own to go buy stuff, but I didn't see too much that I wanted. Plus I was being super super cheap about everything, and so I only spent a little and only bought stuff if it was rediculously cheap. I got:
K-on Don't say lazy single – 200 yen
K-on Fuwafuwa time single – 400 yen
Railgun vol 3 manga – 400 yen
Eri (from im@s) cd – 800 yen
Phantasy Star 0 DS – 700 yen.
So I spent like, 2500 yen on stuff. Not too bad. I got new music now, and I think I'll sign up for Japanese Itunes and pick up the rest of the K-on songs that I don't have (as the CDs with those songs were far too expensive). I guess I'll save my money for the next time I see something I really want. I refused to buy any games until I beat star ocean 4, and even then, I still have some other games that I really should be playing more, so I dunno.
Anyways, I headed home after that, took some cold medicine because I had a cold and went to bed. However, because of that, waking up Tuesday felt almost impossible. I got up and went to work and somehow made it back awake. I stopped off and bought some stuff for the house at Saty before I headed home, and got McDonalds for dinner (been craving big macs recently). I went home and played star ocean until I went to bed around 11:15. I'll probably do more of the same tonight.
That's all! Please leave comments or whatever! Positive, negative, I don't really care, just leave comments! Thanks for reading!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The Misadventures of Rob #ReloadFULL Season 2 - More of the usual
Ok since I've really not felt like writing my blog, it's been a couple weeks since I last updated.
Two weeks ago, I went to Osaka friday night, hung out with friends and then went to Namba and stayed at the new manga cafe that just opened. It was pretty sweet. Here's a rundown:
1)They had a 12 hour pack, so I could stay there pretty much as long as I wanted, get a full night of sleep without worrying about having to wake up early and get out of there. The best part was that it was only 1900 yen or so, which is pretty awesome for being able to stay somewhere for 12 hours straight.
2)For the 12 hour pack, they give you a free 20 minute shower with it. Normally a shower costs and extra 240-300 yen or so, but since you're doing a 12 hour pack, they give it to you. I got to take a shower, and since it was a 12 hour pack, I didn't have to worry about running out of time to take a shower. With the shower, they clean it after each time someone uses it, so it was clean, there was a fresh towel there with shampoo and body soap, and a free toothbrush etc. It was pretty great.
3)I was in a mat booth, and I got a free blanket to use, a pillow, and a computer with high speed internet. It was big enough where I could stretch out my legs so I didn't feel constricted.
4)Free soft drinks and free soft serve ice cream. They also had some other drinks like milk, tea etc that they made themselves.
So yeah, it was pretty awesome. I stayed there from about 11:15 PM to 11:15 AM.
Now it was Saturday and I was in Osaka. I played some BB:CS for a while at Athena and ended up getting a big winstreak. After I lost, I went and got some cheese curry for lunch. Since I was in denden town, I went and walked around, but got kinda bored, so I just went back to Athena. There was a tourney going on at Ko-hatsu, but I didn't really feel like going, so I just stayed at athena and played there until about 11ish.
I stayed at an internet cafe again saturday night. I stayed at the 10 hour place. I got up. I forgot my razor, so I was completely unshaven, and felt really dirty because of that. I just played at Athena for a bit, ate some cheese curry, and picked up Fate: Unlimited Codes and Melty Blood: Actress Again for the PS2. I headed home after that and played some Melty Blood for the rest of the night while just relaxing.
Fast forward to Friday, and I'm scheduled to meet Alex in Kyoto. I go to Sannomiya and get some dinner, play a bit of melty blood, and do some shopping. I get to Kyoto station and I kind of went into the whole thing not really knowing where anything is. I check a map and kinda just start walking. I take a couple of wrong turns or whatever, but I fix myself. Eventually, over an hour of walking later, I get to where I'm supposed to meet Alex. I meet up with him and we walk to A-cho afterwards. I play for a bit and get a small winstreak and then we head out to Maibara. We get back there around 1 something, and then we kinda just go to bed.
Sat we go to Minami Hikone, which is pretty close to where Alex lives. I pick up some clothes and stuff, and we check out a few game stores. I get a couple CDs and then we stop by his local arcade. Someone is playing the new Blazblue there, so of course I challenge him. The guy wasn't bad, but was really bad at using bursts, so he wasted them instead of using them smart and ended up losing. I won 2 matches in a row 6 rounds straight and then he left and I beat the game. After that, we headed back to Alex's place and got ready for Karaoke.
We went and met up with people at the station, and then went to the ramen place for dinner. We got Ramen, and then me and Alex left to meet up with Dan. We met up with him, and Dan went to get Ramen, and me and Alex went ahead. Apparantly the place was only usable until 9PM because of a reservation, and it was like, 7:35 at that point. Me and Alex sang a few songs until people got there around 8. We continued for about and hour and then went back to Alex's place. A buncha people were there and we played card games and told stories and whatever. After that, everyone left except for me, Alex, Dan, and Tyler (another ALT). We played Mahjong for a bit and then went to sleep. In the morning, we woke up, played mahjong and then we left around 2ish.
It was still early so I stopped by Denden town. I ate some delicious cheese curry for lunch, and then went to the Cospa store and picked up the Etopen plush that I reserved. I played some BB and MB at Athena after that, and when I was finished/bored, I went home and relaxed.
I got a small cold from Alex, so I'm just taking it easy this weekend. Either way, less than a week before I go back to the states!
Two weeks ago, I went to Osaka friday night, hung out with friends and then went to Namba and stayed at the new manga cafe that just opened. It was pretty sweet. Here's a rundown:
1)They had a 12 hour pack, so I could stay there pretty much as long as I wanted, get a full night of sleep without worrying about having to wake up early and get out of there. The best part was that it was only 1900 yen or so, which is pretty awesome for being able to stay somewhere for 12 hours straight.
2)For the 12 hour pack, they give you a free 20 minute shower with it. Normally a shower costs and extra 240-300 yen or so, but since you're doing a 12 hour pack, they give it to you. I got to take a shower, and since it was a 12 hour pack, I didn't have to worry about running out of time to take a shower. With the shower, they clean it after each time someone uses it, so it was clean, there was a fresh towel there with shampoo and body soap, and a free toothbrush etc. It was pretty great.
3)I was in a mat booth, and I got a free blanket to use, a pillow, and a computer with high speed internet. It was big enough where I could stretch out my legs so I didn't feel constricted.
4)Free soft drinks and free soft serve ice cream. They also had some other drinks like milk, tea etc that they made themselves.
So yeah, it was pretty awesome. I stayed there from about 11:15 PM to 11:15 AM.
Now it was Saturday and I was in Osaka. I played some BB:CS for a while at Athena and ended up getting a big winstreak. After I lost, I went and got some cheese curry for lunch. Since I was in denden town, I went and walked around, but got kinda bored, so I just went back to Athena. There was a tourney going on at Ko-hatsu, but I didn't really feel like going, so I just stayed at athena and played there until about 11ish.
I stayed at an internet cafe again saturday night. I stayed at the 10 hour place. I got up. I forgot my razor, so I was completely unshaven, and felt really dirty because of that. I just played at Athena for a bit, ate some cheese curry, and picked up Fate: Unlimited Codes and Melty Blood: Actress Again for the PS2. I headed home after that and played some Melty Blood for the rest of the night while just relaxing.
Fast forward to Friday, and I'm scheduled to meet Alex in Kyoto. I go to Sannomiya and get some dinner, play a bit of melty blood, and do some shopping. I get to Kyoto station and I kind of went into the whole thing not really knowing where anything is. I check a map and kinda just start walking. I take a couple of wrong turns or whatever, but I fix myself. Eventually, over an hour of walking later, I get to where I'm supposed to meet Alex. I meet up with him and we walk to A-cho afterwards. I play for a bit and get a small winstreak and then we head out to Maibara. We get back there around 1 something, and then we kinda just go to bed.
Sat we go to Minami Hikone, which is pretty close to where Alex lives. I pick up some clothes and stuff, and we check out a few game stores. I get a couple CDs and then we stop by his local arcade. Someone is playing the new Blazblue there, so of course I challenge him. The guy wasn't bad, but was really bad at using bursts, so he wasted them instead of using them smart and ended up losing. I won 2 matches in a row 6 rounds straight and then he left and I beat the game. After that, we headed back to Alex's place and got ready for Karaoke.
We went and met up with people at the station, and then went to the ramen place for dinner. We got Ramen, and then me and Alex left to meet up with Dan. We met up with him, and Dan went to get Ramen, and me and Alex went ahead. Apparantly the place was only usable until 9PM because of a reservation, and it was like, 7:35 at that point. Me and Alex sang a few songs until people got there around 8. We continued for about and hour and then went back to Alex's place. A buncha people were there and we played card games and told stories and whatever. After that, everyone left except for me, Alex, Dan, and Tyler (another ALT). We played Mahjong for a bit and then went to sleep. In the morning, we woke up, played mahjong and then we left around 2ish.
It was still early so I stopped by Denden town. I ate some delicious cheese curry for lunch, and then went to the Cospa store and picked up the Etopen plush that I reserved. I played some BB and MB at Athena after that, and when I was finished/bored, I went home and relaxed.
I got a small cold from Alex, so I'm just taking it easy this weekend. Either way, less than a week before I go back to the states!
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The Misadventures of Rob #ReloadFULL Season 2 - Blazblue: Continuum Shift release!
Ok guys, its been quite a while since I've written in my blog. 2 weeks or so? Anyways, writing it is kind of a pain, so thats why it's kinda turned into every other week now.
So 2 weeks ago, I hung out with a friend Friday night, then went to namba and played some melty blood at Namba Hills. I beat this arc player, but then he left after I beat him. I played the computer and used it for combo practice. I went over to Athena after that and played some people. I got mostly owned, but I wasn't doing too bad overall. I went to the internet cafe and took my rest there.
Saturday, I got up and went to Athena. I played a buncha Melty Blood but since I'm still learning, I was losing a bunch, and it was getting to be a bit expensive. I played some blazblue and during my 20 game winstreak, Dan and Toshi came, so I lost on purpose to this one Jin player and we headed out. BNK and his friends showed up during my streak and played me a bit, but they had plans it seems, so the headed out.
Me, Dan, and Toshi then walked around the Den. I had to run an errand and once we did that, we continued to walk around a bit more. Dan traded in some games, and picked up some other games. I saw some cool stuff, but after thinking about it, I decided against buying it because I don't need more junk around the apt.
After we were done, I wanted to eat some cheese curry, so Dan and Toshi went ahead of me to the Hub (a chain of bars). I ate my cheese curry, and one of the guys who worked there was like “oh, long time no see!” I told him that I've been busy, and he was like “We haven't seen you in a while, so we were a bit worried” I then told him that I lived kinda far away, but when I can, I try to come and eat there. I said bye to him, and then headed out to meet up with Dan and Toshi.
We chilled at the hub for a while, and I inquired about Dan's plans for where we're gonna stay. He was like “actually, I was thinking of heading to Alex's place and crashing there” I was in a good mood, so I was like “man, im totally down!” but I told him to tell Alex that I wasn't in the mood for it. Toshi obviously never took a DARE class cause he caved in under our peer pressure and came out to Shiga-ken with us, too.
We took the train there and got to the Red Velvet Lounge, and Alex was there along with a few other shiga-ken ALTs that I know. Dan walked in, and then me and Toshi came in and Alex was super happy that he not only got a Dan, but a Rob and a Toshi, too. We then did karaoke for a while and then headed back to Alex's place. We watched some survivor and just chilled before heading off to bed.
We got up and ate some of alex's home cooked french toast for breakfast, and then played some smash bros. We played majhong, too, and then we played some Naruto. After that, we went and got some Ramen and then me and Toshi headed out. We took the train back, and I got to sannomiya after like, 2 hours. I wanted to relax before taking the bus for another hour and a half, so I played some melty blood for a bit against the computer to practice combos. It was about time for my bus, so I left and took the bus back home.
The next week, I had 3 days in Ono, and then a conference in Sannomiya Thursday/Friday. Awesome! The 3 days flew by and then it was time for the conference. I got on the 8:14 train to sannomiya, and got there around 9:45ish. It started at 10:30, so I was plenty early. Not gonna talk about the conference, but afterwards, I went to one of the arcades and played some melty blood there. It was pretty fun, but people stopped playing after like, an hour and a half. I had some time to kill, so I went to the Loft, which is like, an arts and crafts store of sorts, and bought some stickers for my students. I went and met up with Andrew and his GF after that.
We went and got some indian food at this resturant that Andrew knew. When we got there, we were the only people there. The food was really good. A tad expensive, but it was really good so I was satisfied. We went to the really nice starbucks after that. It's an American style house (from the days when Americans lived there because it was near the ports where they would do trades or something like that) converted into a starbucks. It's really nice, and we were the only people there. We got our drinks (Andrews GF paid for us, very nice of her), and on my hot cocoa, the starbucks girl drew a little smiley face. And then when I got it from her, she said in English “Thank you!” It was really cute. We talked there until it closed, and then as I was leaving, I waved to her and said “Goodbye!” Too good.
After that, I played at magical space against Naaga until it was time to go, then I went to the manga cafe and slept there. It was cheaper to stay in sannomiya overnight than to go back home and come back. That way, I was able to wake up around 9 (which is sleeping in as far as im concerned) and still make it with plenty of time to spare. Now it's 11/20 and the new BB is out as of this day.
I walked on over to the seminar hall, and did the first half. Now for lunch, we get 90 minutes. I used that time to walk 20 minutes to the Sega Sanx, and play the new BB for like, 45 minutes before walking 20 minutes back (I grabbed some convenience store fried chicken on the way, and ate that while waiting).
For the 2nd half, it was over after an hour and a half and I went back to the Sanx. I played there for a while, but Noel was feeling kinda weak. I couldn't really figure stuff out and I was just losing to spammy Ragna players. I got kinda sick of playing and went to magical space and played some arcana there for a bit. I had to go back home to change and stuff for the weekend, so I caught a bus back home, went on the computer and then went to sleep.
I woke up the next morning and headed to sannomiya again (after a shower, change of clothes etc). I saw Kanimiso (a hakumen player) there. He was doing well, and we played a bit. Other people were playing, so I went to the other cabinet next to him and played there. We were both sitting there getting streaks. I figured out some interesting stuff for Noel that might make her ok. At one point, he must have heard me go “What the hell?” or something, and he started joking around and was going like “oh my shit!” when he was getting hit. It was pretty funny. Around 1:30 or so, I headed out. I went to Umeda and went to Monte 50. I met up with Andrew there and played some games for a bit. I played some Melty blood, and then a few games of BB:CS before heading out to meet up with Eddie (Kunai). We then walked toward Ko-hatsu for the tourney and stopped at Coco's Ichiban along the way for some curry. I got cheese curry of course, and after we ate, we walked to ko-hatsu. I wrote a tourney report on dustloop, so you can check that out in the BB:CS information and news thread if you want.
After ko-hatsu, we went to Namba and went to Denden town and checked out a couple game stores there. We then went to Athena and Sega Avion for a bit. After that, we got hungry so we went to this one hawaiian burger place. It was really good and I got too much food so I wasn't able to finish it, sadly. もったいない！
After that, we went back to Andrews place and stopped at the arcade near his place along the way. It was a small place that smelled bad, but had people playing Melty and SFIV, so we played there for a bit. We headed to Andrews place and just played games and stuff till we went to sleep.
Sunday, Jeff (Azrael) came over and we played SFIV a bunch. We went out and ate some Yakiniku and it was mad delicious. I was completely stuffed after we were done. We went back and played more games and hung out. Jeff headed back home somewhere at night, while me, Andrew, and Eddy stayed there and played more games till we went to sleep.
Monday (because it's a holiday, I was still out), Eddy headed back early, and I stayed a bit later. After showering and whatnot, I headed out and Andrew went to the Gym. I went to Umeda and played at monte 50. I just played there pretty much all day from like, noon to 8:30PM. Mostly BB:CS, but some melty blood too.
After that, I got some subway for dinner and headed home.
That was it. Not much interesting, but BB:CS is fun so far. We'll see what develops from it, haha.
So 2 weeks ago, I hung out with a friend Friday night, then went to namba and played some melty blood at Namba Hills. I beat this arc player, but then he left after I beat him. I played the computer and used it for combo practice. I went over to Athena after that and played some people. I got mostly owned, but I wasn't doing too bad overall. I went to the internet cafe and took my rest there.
Saturday, I got up and went to Athena. I played a buncha Melty Blood but since I'm still learning, I was losing a bunch, and it was getting to be a bit expensive. I played some blazblue and during my 20 game winstreak, Dan and Toshi came, so I lost on purpose to this one Jin player and we headed out. BNK and his friends showed up during my streak and played me a bit, but they had plans it seems, so the headed out.
Me, Dan, and Toshi then walked around the Den. I had to run an errand and once we did that, we continued to walk around a bit more. Dan traded in some games, and picked up some other games. I saw some cool stuff, but after thinking about it, I decided against buying it because I don't need more junk around the apt.
After we were done, I wanted to eat some cheese curry, so Dan and Toshi went ahead of me to the Hub (a chain of bars). I ate my cheese curry, and one of the guys who worked there was like “oh, long time no see!” I told him that I've been busy, and he was like “We haven't seen you in a while, so we were a bit worried” I then told him that I lived kinda far away, but when I can, I try to come and eat there. I said bye to him, and then headed out to meet up with Dan and Toshi.
We chilled at the hub for a while, and I inquired about Dan's plans for where we're gonna stay. He was like “actually, I was thinking of heading to Alex's place and crashing there” I was in a good mood, so I was like “man, im totally down!” but I told him to tell Alex that I wasn't in the mood for it. Toshi obviously never took a DARE class cause he caved in under our peer pressure and came out to Shiga-ken with us, too.
We took the train there and got to the Red Velvet Lounge, and Alex was there along with a few other shiga-ken ALTs that I know. Dan walked in, and then me and Toshi came in and Alex was super happy that he not only got a Dan, but a Rob and a Toshi, too. We then did karaoke for a while and then headed back to Alex's place. We watched some survivor and just chilled before heading off to bed.
We got up and ate some of alex's home cooked french toast for breakfast, and then played some smash bros. We played majhong, too, and then we played some Naruto. After that, we went and got some Ramen and then me and Toshi headed out. We took the train back, and I got to sannomiya after like, 2 hours. I wanted to relax before taking the bus for another hour and a half, so I played some melty blood for a bit against the computer to practice combos. It was about time for my bus, so I left and took the bus back home.
The next week, I had 3 days in Ono, and then a conference in Sannomiya Thursday/Friday. Awesome! The 3 days flew by and then it was time for the conference. I got on the 8:14 train to sannomiya, and got there around 9:45ish. It started at 10:30, so I was plenty early. Not gonna talk about the conference, but afterwards, I went to one of the arcades and played some melty blood there. It was pretty fun, but people stopped playing after like, an hour and a half. I had some time to kill, so I went to the Loft, which is like, an arts and crafts store of sorts, and bought some stickers for my students. I went and met up with Andrew and his GF after that.
We went and got some indian food at this resturant that Andrew knew. When we got there, we were the only people there. The food was really good. A tad expensive, but it was really good so I was satisfied. We went to the really nice starbucks after that. It's an American style house (from the days when Americans lived there because it was near the ports where they would do trades or something like that) converted into a starbucks. It's really nice, and we were the only people there. We got our drinks (Andrews GF paid for us, very nice of her), and on my hot cocoa, the starbucks girl drew a little smiley face. And then when I got it from her, she said in English “Thank you!” It was really cute. We talked there until it closed, and then as I was leaving, I waved to her and said “Goodbye!” Too good.
After that, I played at magical space against Naaga until it was time to go, then I went to the manga cafe and slept there. It was cheaper to stay in sannomiya overnight than to go back home and come back. That way, I was able to wake up around 9 (which is sleeping in as far as im concerned) and still make it with plenty of time to spare. Now it's 11/20 and the new BB is out as of this day.
I walked on over to the seminar hall, and did the first half. Now for lunch, we get 90 minutes. I used that time to walk 20 minutes to the Sega Sanx, and play the new BB for like, 45 minutes before walking 20 minutes back (I grabbed some convenience store fried chicken on the way, and ate that while waiting).
For the 2nd half, it was over after an hour and a half and I went back to the Sanx. I played there for a while, but Noel was feeling kinda weak. I couldn't really figure stuff out and I was just losing to spammy Ragna players. I got kinda sick of playing and went to magical space and played some arcana there for a bit. I had to go back home to change and stuff for the weekend, so I caught a bus back home, went on the computer and then went to sleep.
I woke up the next morning and headed to sannomiya again (after a shower, change of clothes etc). I saw Kanimiso (a hakumen player) there. He was doing well, and we played a bit. Other people were playing, so I went to the other cabinet next to him and played there. We were both sitting there getting streaks. I figured out some interesting stuff for Noel that might make her ok. At one point, he must have heard me go “What the hell?” or something, and he started joking around and was going like “oh my shit!” when he was getting hit. It was pretty funny. Around 1:30 or so, I headed out. I went to Umeda and went to Monte 50. I met up with Andrew there and played some games for a bit. I played some Melty blood, and then a few games of BB:CS before heading out to meet up with Eddie (Kunai). We then walked toward Ko-hatsu for the tourney and stopped at Coco's Ichiban along the way for some curry. I got cheese curry of course, and after we ate, we walked to ko-hatsu. I wrote a tourney report on dustloop, so you can check that out in the BB:CS information and news thread if you want.
After ko-hatsu, we went to Namba and went to Denden town and checked out a couple game stores there. We then went to Athena and Sega Avion for a bit. After that, we got hungry so we went to this one hawaiian burger place. It was really good and I got too much food so I wasn't able to finish it, sadly. もったいない！
After that, we went back to Andrews place and stopped at the arcade near his place along the way. It was a small place that smelled bad, but had people playing Melty and SFIV, so we played there for a bit. We headed to Andrews place and just played games and stuff till we went to sleep.
Sunday, Jeff (Azrael) came over and we played SFIV a bunch. We went out and ate some Yakiniku and it was mad delicious. I was completely stuffed after we were done. We went back and played more games and hung out. Jeff headed back home somewhere at night, while me, Andrew, and Eddy stayed there and played more games till we went to sleep.
Monday (because it's a holiday, I was still out), Eddy headed back early, and I stayed a bit later. After showering and whatnot, I headed out and Andrew went to the Gym. I went to Umeda and played at monte 50. I just played there pretty much all day from like, noon to 8:30PM. Mostly BB:CS, but some melty blood too.
After that, I got some subway for dinner and headed home.
That was it. Not much interesting, but BB:CS is fun so far. We'll see what develops from it, haha.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Misadventures of Rob #ReloadFULL Season 2 - New Clothes
Ok last I left off was after the random Tuesday holiday (Culture Day). Andrew's girlfriend gave me advice on what kinds of clothes I should wear to look better. Recently, I haven't really been spending much money, so I decided to splurge and get a new wardrobe that looks appropriate for going out. I headed to Saty after work on Wednesday, and went to the area where all the cool clothes are. Here's what I picked up:
2 pairs of jeans, one dark, and one with those beige stains on them.
2 white hoodies
a striped button up shirt
new shoes (NOT gymshoes, brownish/greenish walking shoes)
A new bag
I figured that was enough to carry. I got back, and then Bill texted me and asked if I was free to hang out. Since I live in Ono, and it's a weeknight, 99% chance of “yes, I'm free”. I was looking for a new Jacket, too, so we went over to the used store and checked them out there. There wasn't really anything there, so we just headed back and hung out at my place for a bit. I dont think we played any games this time, but we just chillaxed. He headed back around 9ish or so, and I just hung out on XBL or something.
Thursday, I wanted to still pick up a few more things, so after work, I headed back to Saty to get more stuff. I got:
a black winter jacket
a new belt
another striped button up shirt
That should be enough for now I suppose.
I headed back home, and just did whatever. I found out that I had no plans for the weekend, and Alex said that he was having a big Karaoke thing at the Red Velvet Lounge on Sat, so I was like “oh snap, can I head over Friday night, and we can hang out Fri-Sun?” and he was down.
I decided to test the waters with my nice new clothes on Saturday, so I packed some up and brought them in my bag, while wearing my normal cothes on Friday. Right after work, I dashed home, got changed, and ran to the bus stop. The bus was late AGAIN, but it finally came after 10-15 min of being late. I got on, and I hear “ROBAATO?” and it turns out that because it was open high school at my school, a ton of 3rd year students of mine were on the bus from whatever high school they went to visit, along with the girls basketball coach. I waved and stuff, but it was a bit embarassing since they caught me in casual clothes going out. They got off at the next stop, and because there were so many of them, it took forever to get off the bus. (Its the opposite of America with buses, in Japan, you pay as you're getting off, because the price you pay depends on how far you went). I now understand why the bus was late.
Anyways, I moved seats to near the back and started to doze off while listening to music. I napped for a bit, and then finally got to Kobe. I got there around 6. I had plenty of time to kill before the 9:30 train for Maibara (where Alex lives), so I decided to have some fun. I headed to where the Rashabang was, but I didn't see anything there. Honestly, that sort of stuff doesn't really appeal that much to me anymore. I actually went to that area for a different reason tho. There's a small arcade there that has 2 Melty Blood cabs, 3/5 rounds 2 credits for 100 yen. I got there, and there was this mech hisui player playing. Nobody was plyaing against him, so I played him. I beat him, and then a couple other guys played me. I beat them, too and got like, 5 wins in a row before losing a match to this Len player. I played him again and beat him. I played a few more, and got a few more wins, then lost a match to this Ciel player. I played him again and won a few matches. Then this Riese player goes against me and absolutely destroys me. I play him one more 100 yens worth, and he beats me bad again. I decide it's not worth it because he's just way too good, and I wasn't really learning anything because I was just getting owned perfect after perfect, pretty much. I was getting hungry anyways, so I walk on over to the Cocos Ichiban and get my usual Cheese curry. I went around 7:30, which is about an hour after I usually eat there. It was pretty empty, so instead of having to wait a while for my food, I got it really quickly. I ate and then decided to head to this arcade to play some arcade majhong. I wanted to practice for the weekend, since we were probably gonna play at Alex's.
I go to this one arcade that's owned by the same company that owns Magical Space, but it's a few blocks away from magical space. I got there, and it was 2 credits for 100 yen! Alright! There were like, 8 machines, and only 3 guys playing, so I just sit down at a machine and play. I put in 100 yen, register my e-amusment pass (I bought one for 300 yen, and am using it for the first time with majhong). There's now two options of types of games I can play. One that's life based, where I get a certain amount of life, and one that's a full game, where until the game is over, I keep playing. Generally, the full game is 2 credits, and when it's 2 credits for 100 yen, it's totally worth it. I played that mode, and got wrecked. I tossed out tiles I thought were safe and ended up getting owned. Oh well. I put in another 100 yen to play another full game, and when I looked it said “credits – 3”. I was like “WHAAAAAAA?” I did the “full game” option again. It only took up one credit! Score! I play another game, and this time, I get wrecked AGAIN. I don't even know why, but that's two games, with two 4th place finishes. Ugh. I still have 2 credits, so I play another game. This time, I get 1st place! Rock on! This gives me a free credit, so I get a free game. I get 4th place AGAIN. And then for my last credit, I get ANOTHER 4th place. Needless to say, I got wrecked, but it's all good. I can only go up from here, haha. It was still fun, and a lot more relaxing than like, fighting games.
After that, I went to play some Jubeat, cause they have 4 machines there (2x as many jubeat machines as any other arcade ive been to). However, they normally have 3 songs for 100 yen, which is average. BUT it was a special day, it was like, the 6th of the month, therefore 2 credits for 100 yen! That's by far the best deal I've ever had. So I got to play two credits of JuBeat for 100 yen, which was awesome. I would have played another 100 yen worth, but like, I had to go catch the train. I got on the train for Maibara, got there FINALLY (it felt like forever, but I just played idolm@ster DS most of the time). I got there, and Alex commented on my nice new jacket. Awesome. :D
We got back to his place, played some Naruto and then went to bed.
Saturday, we got up, played some games, and then headed to Minami Hikone for shopping and food and stuff. We went to Coco's and I recommended the cheese curry to Alex. He got it, but with a lot of spiciness, too. I love Cheese curry, and so eating it 2 days in a row felt great. We met up with CJ and Maureen there, too. We ate and then walked over to the mall. I got some shirts and a couple of pairs of socks (since I only had white socks, I need other colors to match my new shoes). I brought the socks to the register and the cute girl working the register was like “if you buy two more, its 980 yen for 4 pairs!” when its normally 300 yen a pair. I was all about that so I grabbed another couple pairs, which actually ended up being good cause I need the extra pairs anyways, now that I think about it. The shirts are really cool tho, and were really cheap. We were looking for shoes, but my feet are way too big, so I ended up not finding any, which is a shame. I played a bit of tekken at the arcade, and then we took the train to Hikone. Instead of just taking the train to Maibara, we got off at Hikone, and for the sake of exercise, we walked about 10KM (6.2 miles) back to Alex's place. It was cool and a good workout. We got back, showered up, and I put on my new clothes, and looked pretty snazzy, and Alex put on a suit.
The reason why we're dressing up is mainly because Dan always comes right after work, and he always is wearing his work clothes, so he comes in dressed better than Alex. Alex wanted to not be outdressed in his town, so he said he was gonna wear a suit. I personally didn't want to be the only one of us three dressed down, and I got a buncha new clothes anyways, so it was good to see what they looked like. So we met up with everyone at the station and then went karaoke. We stayed there singing for like, 3 hours, and then we went home. Alex and Dan were both really tired, so we all went to bed, which is good cause I've been lacking sleep recently (well, more like always).
I slept later than Dan and Alex (which is rare), but we got up, and watched a couple eps of survivor. We played some Naruto EX3, and then after about an hour, we played majhong.
I started out really well with my east round hacks. But then it got to Dan's deal on the south round, and he won like, 6 hands in a row. It was absolutely rediculous, but he pretty much obliterated me and alex and because that ONE game took so long, we only got to do one game, when we normally do like, 2-3. Oh well. Alex cooked us some food, and we watched Naruto after that. After we watched Naruto, we really wanted to play, so we played until it was time for us to go. Dan had to leave a bit early, and then it was time for me to go. Alex went with me to the station and then I went to buy my ticket, but the ticket selling place was temporarily closed! DOH! So I ran to the vending machine where they sell discount tickets and got one there. I ran for the station and luckily made my train. Things ended up working out. However, I got kinda nauseus on the train, and I got really really hot. I got off at Sannomiya and was doing ok, I walked around for 10-15 minutes before my bus. I got on the bus, and then I started to feel REALLY nauseus. I took some dramamine, and it helped a little, but it was still a crappy bus ride. I FINALLY got home and once I was in and sitting down, I felt a lot better. The dramamine's side effects were kicking in, so I was pretty much ready to go to bed around 11. I went to bed, and got up for work on Monday at 7, and that's that.
This weekend, I plan on meeting up with Dan on Saturday and doing...whatever...lol. I want to play more Melty Blood, so that'll be on the schedule, but aside from that, I don't know what we're gonna do, but who knows, maybe it'll turn out interesting anyways, heh...
2 pairs of jeans, one dark, and one with those beige stains on them.
2 white hoodies
a striped button up shirt
new shoes (NOT gymshoes, brownish/greenish walking shoes)
A new bag
I figured that was enough to carry. I got back, and then Bill texted me and asked if I was free to hang out. Since I live in Ono, and it's a weeknight, 99% chance of “yes, I'm free”. I was looking for a new Jacket, too, so we went over to the used store and checked them out there. There wasn't really anything there, so we just headed back and hung out at my place for a bit. I dont think we played any games this time, but we just chillaxed. He headed back around 9ish or so, and I just hung out on XBL or something.
Thursday, I wanted to still pick up a few more things, so after work, I headed back to Saty to get more stuff. I got:
a black winter jacket
a new belt
another striped button up shirt
That should be enough for now I suppose.
I headed back home, and just did whatever. I found out that I had no plans for the weekend, and Alex said that he was having a big Karaoke thing at the Red Velvet Lounge on Sat, so I was like “oh snap, can I head over Friday night, and we can hang out Fri-Sun?” and he was down.
I decided to test the waters with my nice new clothes on Saturday, so I packed some up and brought them in my bag, while wearing my normal cothes on Friday. Right after work, I dashed home, got changed, and ran to the bus stop. The bus was late AGAIN, but it finally came after 10-15 min of being late. I got on, and I hear “ROBAATO?” and it turns out that because it was open high school at my school, a ton of 3rd year students of mine were on the bus from whatever high school they went to visit, along with the girls basketball coach. I waved and stuff, but it was a bit embarassing since they caught me in casual clothes going out. They got off at the next stop, and because there were so many of them, it took forever to get off the bus. (Its the opposite of America with buses, in Japan, you pay as you're getting off, because the price you pay depends on how far you went). I now understand why the bus was late.
Anyways, I moved seats to near the back and started to doze off while listening to music. I napped for a bit, and then finally got to Kobe. I got there around 6. I had plenty of time to kill before the 9:30 train for Maibara (where Alex lives), so I decided to have some fun. I headed to where the Rashabang was, but I didn't see anything there. Honestly, that sort of stuff doesn't really appeal that much to me anymore. I actually went to that area for a different reason tho. There's a small arcade there that has 2 Melty Blood cabs, 3/5 rounds 2 credits for 100 yen. I got there, and there was this mech hisui player playing. Nobody was plyaing against him, so I played him. I beat him, and then a couple other guys played me. I beat them, too and got like, 5 wins in a row before losing a match to this Len player. I played him again and beat him. I played a few more, and got a few more wins, then lost a match to this Ciel player. I played him again and won a few matches. Then this Riese player goes against me and absolutely destroys me. I play him one more 100 yens worth, and he beats me bad again. I decide it's not worth it because he's just way too good, and I wasn't really learning anything because I was just getting owned perfect after perfect, pretty much. I was getting hungry anyways, so I walk on over to the Cocos Ichiban and get my usual Cheese curry. I went around 7:30, which is about an hour after I usually eat there. It was pretty empty, so instead of having to wait a while for my food, I got it really quickly. I ate and then decided to head to this arcade to play some arcade majhong. I wanted to practice for the weekend, since we were probably gonna play at Alex's.
I go to this one arcade that's owned by the same company that owns Magical Space, but it's a few blocks away from magical space. I got there, and it was 2 credits for 100 yen! Alright! There were like, 8 machines, and only 3 guys playing, so I just sit down at a machine and play. I put in 100 yen, register my e-amusment pass (I bought one for 300 yen, and am using it for the first time with majhong). There's now two options of types of games I can play. One that's life based, where I get a certain amount of life, and one that's a full game, where until the game is over, I keep playing. Generally, the full game is 2 credits, and when it's 2 credits for 100 yen, it's totally worth it. I played that mode, and got wrecked. I tossed out tiles I thought were safe and ended up getting owned. Oh well. I put in another 100 yen to play another full game, and when I looked it said “credits – 3”. I was like “WHAAAAAAA?” I did the “full game” option again. It only took up one credit! Score! I play another game, and this time, I get wrecked AGAIN. I don't even know why, but that's two games, with two 4th place finishes. Ugh. I still have 2 credits, so I play another game. This time, I get 1st place! Rock on! This gives me a free credit, so I get a free game. I get 4th place AGAIN. And then for my last credit, I get ANOTHER 4th place. Needless to say, I got wrecked, but it's all good. I can only go up from here, haha. It was still fun, and a lot more relaxing than like, fighting games.
After that, I went to play some Jubeat, cause they have 4 machines there (2x as many jubeat machines as any other arcade ive been to). However, they normally have 3 songs for 100 yen, which is average. BUT it was a special day, it was like, the 6th of the month, therefore 2 credits for 100 yen! That's by far the best deal I've ever had. So I got to play two credits of JuBeat for 100 yen, which was awesome. I would have played another 100 yen worth, but like, I had to go catch the train. I got on the train for Maibara, got there FINALLY (it felt like forever, but I just played idolm@ster DS most of the time). I got there, and Alex commented on my nice new jacket. Awesome. :D
We got back to his place, played some Naruto and then went to bed.
Saturday, we got up, played some games, and then headed to Minami Hikone for shopping and food and stuff. We went to Coco's and I recommended the cheese curry to Alex. He got it, but with a lot of spiciness, too. I love Cheese curry, and so eating it 2 days in a row felt great. We met up with CJ and Maureen there, too. We ate and then walked over to the mall. I got some shirts and a couple of pairs of socks (since I only had white socks, I need other colors to match my new shoes). I brought the socks to the register and the cute girl working the register was like “if you buy two more, its 980 yen for 4 pairs!” when its normally 300 yen a pair. I was all about that so I grabbed another couple pairs, which actually ended up being good cause I need the extra pairs anyways, now that I think about it. The shirts are really cool tho, and were really cheap. We were looking for shoes, but my feet are way too big, so I ended up not finding any, which is a shame. I played a bit of tekken at the arcade, and then we took the train to Hikone. Instead of just taking the train to Maibara, we got off at Hikone, and for the sake of exercise, we walked about 10KM (6.2 miles) back to Alex's place. It was cool and a good workout. We got back, showered up, and I put on my new clothes, and looked pretty snazzy, and Alex put on a suit.
The reason why we're dressing up is mainly because Dan always comes right after work, and he always is wearing his work clothes, so he comes in dressed better than Alex. Alex wanted to not be outdressed in his town, so he said he was gonna wear a suit. I personally didn't want to be the only one of us three dressed down, and I got a buncha new clothes anyways, so it was good to see what they looked like. So we met up with everyone at the station and then went karaoke. We stayed there singing for like, 3 hours, and then we went home. Alex and Dan were both really tired, so we all went to bed, which is good cause I've been lacking sleep recently (well, more like always).
I slept later than Dan and Alex (which is rare), but we got up, and watched a couple eps of survivor. We played some Naruto EX3, and then after about an hour, we played majhong.
I started out really well with my east round hacks. But then it got to Dan's deal on the south round, and he won like, 6 hands in a row. It was absolutely rediculous, but he pretty much obliterated me and alex and because that ONE game took so long, we only got to do one game, when we normally do like, 2-3. Oh well. Alex cooked us some food, and we watched Naruto after that. After we watched Naruto, we really wanted to play, so we played until it was time for us to go. Dan had to leave a bit early, and then it was time for me to go. Alex went with me to the station and then I went to buy my ticket, but the ticket selling place was temporarily closed! DOH! So I ran to the vending machine where they sell discount tickets and got one there. I ran for the station and luckily made my train. Things ended up working out. However, I got kinda nauseus on the train, and I got really really hot. I got off at Sannomiya and was doing ok, I walked around for 10-15 minutes before my bus. I got on the bus, and then I started to feel REALLY nauseus. I took some dramamine, and it helped a little, but it was still a crappy bus ride. I FINALLY got home and once I was in and sitting down, I felt a lot better. The dramamine's side effects were kicking in, so I was pretty much ready to go to bed around 11. I went to bed, and got up for work on Monday at 7, and that's that.
This weekend, I plan on meeting up with Dan on Saturday and doing...whatever...lol. I want to play more Melty Blood, so that'll be on the schedule, but aside from that, I don't know what we're gonna do, but who knows, maybe it'll turn out interesting anyways, heh...
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
The Misadventures of Rob #ReloadFULL Season 2 - New Blazblue Loctest + going home for xmas
Ok it's been a while since I wrote, but I'll try to keep this short.
10/23 Friday – I finished up work and went to Osaka right after that. I stopped at Kobe to get food, but I wanted to play Arcana at Athena, so I went there. I played Arcana for a while against Kouya's Akane, but he was pwning me with Gier cause of Akane's crazy teleport mixups and stuff. Anyways, after enough time with that, I played some Blazblue. I finished the night playing some Melty Blood and picking up a new character that I'll use at Frosty Faustings.
Around midnite-ish, I went to the 8 hour manga cafe. I really wanted to get to the blazblue CS loctest early. I slept there, and while it was good sleep, I had to cut it short obviously because I wanted to get out of there on time.
I left the manga cafe a bit before 8 and got to namba hills a little after 8. There was already a really long line for the loc test. I got there like, 2 minutes after it opened, and there were like, 20-25 people in line before me. I waited about 45 minutes and then I got to play. I wrote my thoughts and stuff on dustloop.com (check the noel forums), but yeah, it went well. I got 3 wins my first time playing, and then the machine kicked me off (3 winstreak max). I saw braces noel kid, and his friends there, so I waited in line with them.
I played again and got 2 wins, and then lost in the last match (which is fine, cause if I won I would have been kicked off). I definitely got a good feel of the game, and it was a lot of fun. I started practicing some Melty Blood, and then Kilvear, an arcana player from Singapore showed up. He was in Japan on vacation and has a friend with him. We all played the loctest a bit more, and he played MB against me and pretty much owned me. It was good practice tho. Overall I played 12 matches of the loctest before I got tired of waiting in the line.
After that, I got some food at Matsuya and then I went with Kilvear and his friend to Athena and we played some Arcana. He uses Catherine, who is pretty bad in AH2, so I was beating him. We then went and played Demon Bride, and I think he won like, one match and I won like, 7 or 8. After that we walked around Denden town. We headed to sega avion and I met up with Andrew (reno) and Eddie (kunai) there, so I said bye to Kilvear and his friend. We went to A-too and the two of them picked up some games and stuff. After that, we went and met up with a few friends and went to an izakaya. It was all you can drink for like, 1200 yen or so, so pretty cheap. It was really fun and after that, we parted and went back to Nishinomiya. Me and Eddy crashed at Renos place. After we all got up and stuff, we got ready and went and played some SFIV. Jeff (Azrael) came too, and we all played for a while. Jeff pretty much owned us, and the other three of us went even against each other. After that, it was time to head back, so we went back home and I started my new work week.
…
Fast forward a week. Even tho I wasn't really spending much, I got hit with my school lunch bill, my school “misc expenses” bill, and my internet bill all at the same time, so all the money I was saving for having fun just got tossed out the window for bills. Soooo sad. :(
However, on a good note, my school prinicipal approved my request to go home. Normally, teachers here wouldn't be able to take off until the 22nd, but that would be after my Mom's side of the family celebrates Xmas, so I wanted to go before then. He said something along the lines of “Other teachers normally wouldn't be able to do this, but because you're doing a good job, I'll let you go early.” Nice! I ended up finding good plane tickets for only like, 881 dollars round trip! It's a somewhat strange schedule on the way there that involves a lot of waiting at the airport, but I get to Chicago thursday, Dec 17th at 2PMish, so it works out well. I'm glad I'm gonna be able to come home for a vacation, as it'll be nice to see everyone again. Anyways, back to how my was.
Friday night (10/30), I had a drinking party with my coworkers from one of my schools. It was the “under 35” one, so there were only like, 7 of us there. It was mad fun and we were there for like, 5 hours. It was kind of expensive for one dinner (6500 yen) but it was really fun, so I'm glad I went.
I went back home and went to sleep promptly. I woke up and just relaxed around the house. I headed to Kobe after I got the urge to play some games. I played some games and after I got bored there, I went to Osaka and walked around Denden town. I looked around, but I only bought a small magazine. I'm just not finding anything I want, and when I see something cool, I second guess myself and always end up deciding that it's not worth it. I guess it's good, I can save more money and not have so much junk, but yeah...
Anyways, I went to athena after that and played more arcana and BB and stuff. When it got close to midnight, I headed to the 10 hour manga cafe and passed out. I got really good sleep there surprisingly. I got out of there and headed to Athena for some early morning Blazblue. Of course, BNK was there, and this one bang player was there, and this is the guy who picks like, every character and does so-so with them, instead of just sticking to one and getting really good with them. He beat me a couple times and then I got used to him and won like, 24 in a row against him. I wanted to play other games after that like Tekken and MB, so I played those for a bit. I headed out around 3ish to Nishonomiya and hung out with Andrew at the Nishinomiya mall. We got some food, and I got some clothes at uniqlo. We hung out at Starbucks after that and just had coffee (I had hot chocolate), and we just chilled until it was time for me to go home.
After I got home, I stayed up a bit late cause tuesday is a holiday!
Monday I got up, went to work, came home, and had a nice busy night:
Came home, put laundry in the washer, relaxed online for a bit. After one load finished, I took another load, threw it in the washer (my washer is small, keep that in mind), and then biked out in the unusually cold weather to Saty (local dept store) and got a haircut. I got a big mac at mcdonalds there and brought it back home. I got back, ate the big mac, and by that time, the load finished. I took that load out, put another load in, and then took the 2 loads to the laundromat in freezing weather on my bicycle. Wait a half hour for it to finish, take it back, throw it on my bed, take the new load that just finished BACK to the laundromat and then wait 30 minutes for that to finish, bring that home, take it back, take my clothes, fold them, and put them away. Before I knew it, it was 9:30.
After that, I just relaxed, but got hungry around 11, so I ran out YET AGAIN into the cold to get some convenience store food. After that, I went to sleep cause I was exhausted.
Tuesday, the holiday, I set my alarm to 8:30 and woke up to it. I went on the computer a bit to wake myself up, and then took a shower and got ready to go. I got all my stuff, but I realized I took too long in the shower, so I might miss my bus. I ran to the bus stop from my apt, and right when I got there, the bus was already there stopped (thankfully someone else was waiting there I guess). It waited for me and I got on, thankfully. Phew. I got to Kobe, and then transferred there to go to Osaka. At Osaka, I met up with Andrew, his GF Ibuki, and another mutual friend of ours. We went to this Thai resturant (I heard wrong, we went to a japanese resturant that served a fish called "tai", thanks to Andrew for correcting me), and I didn't know what they had there, but I just ordered what everyone else did. Out comes this fish head and like a fish tail. Not only is it a fish head. It's a BIG fish head. Teeth, eye, everything. Now those of you who know me well enough know that I'm not good with fish. At all. Like, I've upped my tolerance to the point that I can eat fish that doesn't LOOK like fish. As in, no head, tail etc. But thats exactly what this was. It was a big giant fish head, tail etc. I tried to play it cool, but I guess somewhere along the line, my face gave it away, and it was all over at that point. I still ate as much as I could cause while it was good, I wasn't used to poking at a fish head and going OMG I CAN EAT THIS PART.
Anyways, after that, we went to Namba and went to the movie theatre. We went there to see the Michael Jackson movie. It's only in Japan for 2 weeks before it gets pulled for good, so we wanted to see it on time. We watched it and it was really good. I don't watch movies often, but I would suggest it. After the movie, we went to Umeda and to the Seattles Best Coffee there. We got coffee and stuff there (I got an iced chocolate, which was a mistake because it ended up being 70% ice...JAPAN...), and then after we were done, we headed to this import stuff store right near the station gate. We looked around there, but everything good was expensive so whatever. I'll be home soon enough anyways.
Anyways, I don't quite have plans for this weekend yet. We'll see how it goes...
-Rob
10/23 Friday – I finished up work and went to Osaka right after that. I stopped at Kobe to get food, but I wanted to play Arcana at Athena, so I went there. I played Arcana for a while against Kouya's Akane, but he was pwning me with Gier cause of Akane's crazy teleport mixups and stuff. Anyways, after enough time with that, I played some Blazblue. I finished the night playing some Melty Blood and picking up a new character that I'll use at Frosty Faustings.
Around midnite-ish, I went to the 8 hour manga cafe. I really wanted to get to the blazblue CS loctest early. I slept there, and while it was good sleep, I had to cut it short obviously because I wanted to get out of there on time.
I left the manga cafe a bit before 8 and got to namba hills a little after 8. There was already a really long line for the loc test. I got there like, 2 minutes after it opened, and there were like, 20-25 people in line before me. I waited about 45 minutes and then I got to play. I wrote my thoughts and stuff on dustloop.com (check the noel forums), but yeah, it went well. I got 3 wins my first time playing, and then the machine kicked me off (3 winstreak max). I saw braces noel kid, and his friends there, so I waited in line with them.
I played again and got 2 wins, and then lost in the last match (which is fine, cause if I won I would have been kicked off). I definitely got a good feel of the game, and it was a lot of fun. I started practicing some Melty Blood, and then Kilvear, an arcana player from Singapore showed up. He was in Japan on vacation and has a friend with him. We all played the loctest a bit more, and he played MB against me and pretty much owned me. It was good practice tho. Overall I played 12 matches of the loctest before I got tired of waiting in the line.
After that, I got some food at Matsuya and then I went with Kilvear and his friend to Athena and we played some Arcana. He uses Catherine, who is pretty bad in AH2, so I was beating him. We then went and played Demon Bride, and I think he won like, one match and I won like, 7 or 8. After that we walked around Denden town. We headed to sega avion and I met up with Andrew (reno) and Eddie (kunai) there, so I said bye to Kilvear and his friend. We went to A-too and the two of them picked up some games and stuff. After that, we went and met up with a few friends and went to an izakaya. It was all you can drink for like, 1200 yen or so, so pretty cheap. It was really fun and after that, we parted and went back to Nishinomiya. Me and Eddy crashed at Renos place. After we all got up and stuff, we got ready and went and played some SFIV. Jeff (Azrael) came too, and we all played for a while. Jeff pretty much owned us, and the other three of us went even against each other. After that, it was time to head back, so we went back home and I started my new work week.
…
Fast forward a week. Even tho I wasn't really spending much, I got hit with my school lunch bill, my school “misc expenses” bill, and my internet bill all at the same time, so all the money I was saving for having fun just got tossed out the window for bills. Soooo sad. :(
However, on a good note, my school prinicipal approved my request to go home. Normally, teachers here wouldn't be able to take off until the 22nd, but that would be after my Mom's side of the family celebrates Xmas, so I wanted to go before then. He said something along the lines of “Other teachers normally wouldn't be able to do this, but because you're doing a good job, I'll let you go early.” Nice! I ended up finding good plane tickets for only like, 881 dollars round trip! It's a somewhat strange schedule on the way there that involves a lot of waiting at the airport, but I get to Chicago thursday, Dec 17th at 2PMish, so it works out well. I'm glad I'm gonna be able to come home for a vacation, as it'll be nice to see everyone again. Anyways, back to how my was.
Friday night (10/30), I had a drinking party with my coworkers from one of my schools. It was the “under 35” one, so there were only like, 7 of us there. It was mad fun and we were there for like, 5 hours. It was kind of expensive for one dinner (6500 yen) but it was really fun, so I'm glad I went.
I went back home and went to sleep promptly. I woke up and just relaxed around the house. I headed to Kobe after I got the urge to play some games. I played some games and after I got bored there, I went to Osaka and walked around Denden town. I looked around, but I only bought a small magazine. I'm just not finding anything I want, and when I see something cool, I second guess myself and always end up deciding that it's not worth it. I guess it's good, I can save more money and not have so much junk, but yeah...
Anyways, I went to athena after that and played more arcana and BB and stuff. When it got close to midnight, I headed to the 10 hour manga cafe and passed out. I got really good sleep there surprisingly. I got out of there and headed to Athena for some early morning Blazblue. Of course, BNK was there, and this one bang player was there, and this is the guy who picks like, every character and does so-so with them, instead of just sticking to one and getting really good with them. He beat me a couple times and then I got used to him and won like, 24 in a row against him. I wanted to play other games after that like Tekken and MB, so I played those for a bit. I headed out around 3ish to Nishonomiya and hung out with Andrew at the Nishinomiya mall. We got some food, and I got some clothes at uniqlo. We hung out at Starbucks after that and just had coffee (I had hot chocolate), and we just chilled until it was time for me to go home.
After I got home, I stayed up a bit late cause tuesday is a holiday!
Monday I got up, went to work, came home, and had a nice busy night:
Came home, put laundry in the washer, relaxed online for a bit. After one load finished, I took another load, threw it in the washer (my washer is small, keep that in mind), and then biked out in the unusually cold weather to Saty (local dept store) and got a haircut. I got a big mac at mcdonalds there and brought it back home. I got back, ate the big mac, and by that time, the load finished. I took that load out, put another load in, and then took the 2 loads to the laundromat in freezing weather on my bicycle. Wait a half hour for it to finish, take it back, throw it on my bed, take the new load that just finished BACK to the laundromat and then wait 30 minutes for that to finish, bring that home, take it back, take my clothes, fold them, and put them away. Before I knew it, it was 9:30.
After that, I just relaxed, but got hungry around 11, so I ran out YET AGAIN into the cold to get some convenience store food. After that, I went to sleep cause I was exhausted.
Tuesday, the holiday, I set my alarm to 8:30 and woke up to it. I went on the computer a bit to wake myself up, and then took a shower and got ready to go. I got all my stuff, but I realized I took too long in the shower, so I might miss my bus. I ran to the bus stop from my apt, and right when I got there, the bus was already there stopped (thankfully someone else was waiting there I guess). It waited for me and I got on, thankfully. Phew. I got to Kobe, and then transferred there to go to Osaka. At Osaka, I met up with Andrew, his GF Ibuki, and another mutual friend of ours. We went to this Thai resturant (I heard wrong, we went to a japanese resturant that served a fish called "tai", thanks to Andrew for correcting me), and I didn't know what they had there, but I just ordered what everyone else did. Out comes this fish head and like a fish tail. Not only is it a fish head. It's a BIG fish head. Teeth, eye, everything. Now those of you who know me well enough know that I'm not good with fish. At all. Like, I've upped my tolerance to the point that I can eat fish that doesn't LOOK like fish. As in, no head, tail etc. But thats exactly what this was. It was a big giant fish head, tail etc. I tried to play it cool, but I guess somewhere along the line, my face gave it away, and it was all over at that point. I still ate as much as I could cause while it was good, I wasn't used to poking at a fish head and going OMG I CAN EAT THIS PART.
Anyways, after that, we went to Namba and went to the movie theatre. We went there to see the Michael Jackson movie. It's only in Japan for 2 weeks before it gets pulled for good, so we wanted to see it on time. We watched it and it was really good. I don't watch movies often, but I would suggest it. After the movie, we went to Umeda and to the Seattles Best Coffee there. We got coffee and stuff there (I got an iced chocolate, which was a mistake because it ended up being 70% ice...JAPAN...), and then after we were done, we headed to this import stuff store right near the station gate. We looked around there, but everything good was expensive so whatever. I'll be home soon enough anyways.
Anyways, I don't quite have plans for this weekend yet. We'll see how it goes...
-Rob
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