Even if I went back, I'd choose the same path

So!  Picking up where I left off on my last post.

TUESDAY, 3/15


I went to Curves in the morning, and then, since Melanie was still around but was about to leave, she, Becky and I went to lunch at Yaoto, the little Japanese place near us.  I got ten-katsudon and also this amazing rice-filled spring roll thing.  I have no idea what they used to flavor it but it was SO GOOD.

And I think the rest of the day was a pretty standard Tuesday?  Becky, Carol and I had our weekly meeting, and Becky and I went to gospel choir, and I probably studied Japanese or something afterwards.  Nothing too exciting that I recall.

WEDNESDAY 3/16

In the early afternoon my time, I had the privilege of talking to my youth group (from Impact Community Church in Sacramento) on Skype!  :D  The timing worked out really well, since they were having Tuesday night youth group.  I was able to talk to them about my point of view on the earthquake and everything that had happened since up until that point, plus it was really cool just to talk to them about Japan in general and listen to some of their questions (including some ridiculous ones, of course).  I love those kids.  :'D  Other than that, a pretty normal Wednesday.  I had a bit of a rough time with one of my students not wanting to do her work, but she apologized the next week for her behavior.  So sweet, and made me feel a lot better.  I hate having to be mean when I'm teaching kids, but it's kinda inevitable sometimes...

THURSDAY 3/17

After my Japanese class, I went to the foreign foods store in my city to pick up my case of Mountain Dew.  Which sounds like no big deal, but I walked and took the train.  So there I was, walking for like 20 minutes, carrying this really heavy, awkward 24-pack of Mountain Dew to the train station, and then another 10-15 minutes from the station to my apartment.  At one point I was really smart and tore the box open accidentally and cans spilled everywhere and there I was at the side of the road picking them up and putting them back into the now-damaged box.  Yeah, I'm special like that...  >_>  When I told my friends, they were laughing really hard at me.  What can I say, I live to entertain.  And I think I'll order from Amazon next time...

The rest of my day was pretty much spent working on stuff for the displays we had at our prayer meeting for the earthquake, which was on Friday.  Oh, and I watched August Rush to prepare for movie night.  So much love for that movie.  <3

FRIDAY 3/18

Busy day.  Becky and I went to Curves in the morning, and then met up with Carol for lunch at Casa Mia.  It was delicious, as usual.

After that was more preparation for the prayer meeting, and then I had classes.  The prayer meeting started while I was still in class, so I missed half of it.  After the prayer meeting, we had movie night.  Everyone loved August Rush, which made me really happy.  The discussion was really great too.  :D  Three girls stayed over at Becky's and my place, and we had a lot of fun drinking coffee/tea and eating snacks and chatting until we finally decided, hey, it's like 2am, maybe we should sleep.  It was a lot of fun!

SATURDAY 3/19

I met up with my friend Michele, who lives in Wakayama Prefecture, in Nagoya!  She's a fellow Arashi fan, so we were destined to have an awesome day.  We decided to check out a Pokemon store (very disappointing, actually) and a couple of other novelty stores like that, then had lunch at a bakery.  So delicious~  After that, we went in search of the official Johnny's Entertainment store (there are only a few in major cities in Japan).  We followed a walkthrough from the Internet, which was a huge help.  It...was not very nice-looking or official-looking.  It wasn't even in any kind of shopping district.  Strange...  But we found it and that's all that matters.

Little sign up on the second floor of this building.

A closeup of the weird logo.

Tiny, really high up sign.  

I have never seen this logo on any Johnny's product ever.  o_0  Even though it's an official store...  And the stairs to the second floor were really shady.  Michele called it "a test of our fandom dedication," and I agree.  Once inside, I was a little surprised: it was a very bare-looking room, with a bunch of pictures on the wall of all the different groups, and you write down which pictures of which groups you want.  You'd think that, with this entertainment company being as huge as it is in Japan, the store would be a little nicer...but anyway.  The Arashi section was, of course, rather crowded, but we eventually chose our pictures and paid for them.  150 yen per picture doesn't sound like that much, but it adds up fast...but enough about that.  :D

From there, we went to Denny's (Michele apparently didn't know that Japan has Denny's, and that it's nothing like Denny's in America haha), where we got dessert and coffee and looked at our pictures and chatted.  Surprise surprise, Amber went for the chocolate.

Since Michele had a long way back home on the shinkansen, we headed back to Nagoya Station, where we parted ways.  It was a really nice trip, and we'll definitely have to hang out again sometime!  I spent the rest of my evening watching tv and chilling at home.  :D

Aaaand I'll stop there for now, because I want my trip to Hamamatsu to see Nick and Shar, my friends from college, to have its own post.  There are many pictures, after all~