Hasaam Desu Ne~~~

Day #111
Funds: Y25000
Michael got snowed on again. And is in desperate need of Rudd Money.

So I paid all my accomodation off and splurged a little on stupid presents for some of you but not most of you, unfortunately my budget just cannot accomodate for that sort of thing. Also, I lost a little bit of my savings to uh, clubs and bars and cafes and random things you have to go to say you can say you went? I did a handstand in said club, and some random guy clapped and gave me bananas. This made me very happy. But yeah now I can afford food for the week, the trip to the airport, and maybe one more little something. This was very well timed. If I planned on staying, I would have not bought presents, and then I would have taken up one of the jobs I turned down and survived quite comfortably until my next paycheck, by also working in a hostel for free accomodation. So in my mind, I'm very pleased with how my plan worked out, all the possibilities were sort of accounted for, even surprises. I already have a couple plans for when I get back, ahah. If I learned anything on this trip it's that I gotta be able to go with the flow more, and although I'm unable to really turn my brain off, the way I'm thinking has been sort of changing bit by bit. My plans are quite different now. ^^
Me and Shannon have mostly been hanging out with hostel people, and I'm fairly certain I've waffled about how cool those guys n girls are. Way too many of them are from Aus though, we have pretty much invaded this country. I think it's probably because of our holiday season being so different to everyone else's, but also we are a bit closer. There have been lots of really cool personalities pretty much all over this trip from start to finish, and I keep getting excited about writing stuff these days, all these different characters keep popping into my head already half-formed ... will have to do SOMETHING with them, won't I?
EVERYONE'S language abilities put me to shame, it's woeful. I've pretty much interrogated everyone I've met on how they got so good, what they do to practise, and all that stuff. Shannon'd tell you, she was there for 90% of those conversations, probably bored her silly. But I now sort of have some ideas about how to go about kicking arse back home. Most of these guys have gotten so good at their second language that they can be spoken to by native speakers totally normally, but I'd say only half of them have actually spent a large amount of time in the country whose native tongue they kick arse with. I think I need a fairly decent computer to accomplish some of my ends though. Ah well we'll see what happens.
Saw Maxine, which was cool. Maxine was on the Shanghai program with me and the rest of them, and we were actually both talking about riding the same Ferry into Japan (she's been here before, her Jap is really really good) but we both found cheaper flights from other places anyway. We tried to find eachother using Facebook, but the fact that I don't have a working phone in this country really hindered our ability to organise anything. So ... me and Shannon went for a walk last Sunday and randomly heard somebody yell "Michael!!!" I think this is Pure Awesome. We basically bumped into eachother, randomly, in TOKYO. (Is Tokyo the biggest city ever or top 3? Whatever, made my point =P) Maxine spotted me because I was a) white and b) in a t-shirt, haha. It made me wish that we'd never discussed Japan even in Shanghai, because bumping into eachother like that was totally unrelated and would have happened anyway. We hung out for the day and went up Tokyo Tower and stuff. It was good fun.
Oh yeah and Ghibli Museum was awesome. Studio Ghibli is basically Japan's Disney (you may have seen Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, something like that), and the place was kind of small, but pretty much awesome in every way. It walked us through the basic processes as well as being contained in a really weird building that really did capture the vibe of one of their movies. My favourite doowhacky was this round table, that had a bunch of statues on it, each one identical to the last except it was in a slightly different pose. Then the strobe lights came on the table spun around really fast and it looked like every statue had come to life! I stared at that thing for like 20 minutes. Actual 3D animation, I mean, come on!!!
Saw a Japanese Scienceworks kinda place too. Digital gadgets galore! Erm there were a bunch of TVs set up with cameras on em so when you stood in front of them you could see a bunch of special effects happening to you on screen, like shooting fire or whatever. Oh and one that was supposed to run on facial recognition software so little anime-style cartoons would appear around your head depending on the emotion you expressed. That one didn't work so well but the idea itself was kind of cool, I'm sure they'll get it right someday. After all, they're JAPANESE.
Beyond that there has been AMPLE eventy-type goodness, thanks to Shannon I've been like, a Super-Tourist, and I couldn't begin to name all the places I've been and seen. That's what cameras are for though, and that's why Facebook is nice. Shannon got far more photos and actually knew what places were called and famous for and all that, so much sure if you are interested you check out her Japan albums too. See most of you quite soon!