sendai

let's start at the beginning. it's much more fun that way.
my working holiday visa was extended. jason's working visa was extended. what does this mean? day trip to sendai to get our passports violated. deciding to go on a day off we made it out to be a day-trip. in all jason said it was less exciting than he thought it would be. and i think it was more exciting (and fun) than i thought it would be.

so, i woke up at 6am and got prettied up (purple makeup to match my purple track jacket) and caught the train into yamagata at 8:30am. we met, got on the bus. and here, you dont put your ticket in at the beginning, you put it in at the end. ha ha. (why didnt anyone tell me?) so i put my ticket in and the driver was looking at me in his early morning shock. so, i reassured him it was just me on the ticket, and everything was okay.

we pulled into sendai around 11am and wandered around the eki looking for a city map (so we could find the immigration building) and used the loo (i actually didnt pee on myself while using the japanese toilets. but i did have to take my pants and underwear off. ha ha). then we set out towards immigration, did a circle, got somewhat disoriented and showed up just after they closed for lunch. ha ha! so, we got our numbers, went and got juice, onigiri, and ice cream from the convenie and then ate our snackies sitting on an ant hill. the visa stuff was taken care of, and then we set out back towards the centre of town, looking for book stores and music stores, and finding both. but we did not find guitar stores. hmm.

we went to ayumi books and i bought a Taschen Icons book called Japanese Beauties. I've been wanting it for a while. then we went to tower records and listened to crazy amounts of music on their listening booths. i finally got to hear the departure and the bravery. and i got to decide that the departure needs to grow on me and i fucking love the bravery!!! but i couldnt will myself to buy it. but i did buy a demo tape from this sendai pop-punk band called school. and the demo is called emo class. how classic. and awesome. love love.

after that we wandered around the major shopping mall (kinda like robson, but not a street and with this big overhang) and went to a video game parlour (5 floors! one whole floor dedicated to those picture booths where you can dress up in costumes and take pictures with your girls!)

i had fun playing this shooting game with jason. but well, i dont really like shooting games. hmm.

we were hungry and bored and just wandering around so we decided that we needed to start drinking beer. so we wandered around looking for an izakaya and ended up sauntering down a side street, i was attracted to these motorcycles and scooters parked along it. anyway, we found this little soba shop, with beers for 360yen and soba for 320yen. and well, you buy your "meal tickets" from a machine. which was new for me. and it was actually pretty good soba, and the shop was full of these old japanese people. this one ojisan started talking to me (and jason) on two occassions and it was really funny b/c jason's japanese is stellar compared to mine, but the old guy just kept talking to me about how he has family or something in canada. the first person ever to guess canada too! usually im seen as american or brazillian. so kudos to him.

then we went to maruzen books and i bought david sedaris' book dress your family in corduroy and denim.

then we decided we should head back to yamagata (7pm-ish), but that we should drink more beer on the bus. so we did. and then when we got back to yamagata we decided to go drinking. we went to a gaijin-owned bar, J's bar, neither of us had ever been. and we drank two more beers, i shook my booty in my seat-ee to crazy in love, mrs. robinson, and shake your tailfeather, and then we met two of jason's friends and went to an izakaya and drank 200yen shochu and juice (liquor and juice) and ate food and got pretty blitzed.

i decided not to catch the last train home and crashed at jason's, slept for maybe 4 hours, woke up, jenny called (so nice to hear her voice!!) at 6am, and then went and took the first train (7:14am) back to akayu. now im nursing a horrible headache, a sore body, and a nasty case of gut rot. ha ha. (ive had juice, genki-sauce-vitamin-magic-in-a-vial, and some jelly juice to stop hangover from happening all day). now i just have to drink water, have a shower, and nurse my blisters from those hours of walking yesterday.