Summer Sonic

It's in Japan, It's epic, and I'm at it right now. Japanese fans know how to pay homage to their artist. I'll go more into detail about this fascinating event when I get back into america. Until then here's the line-up for this event.

The perfect vegas scenario

Everybody has their vegas story. Everybody has that one spontaneous day they came up and something excited happen. But have you ever had a vegas trip where everything went without a hitch. I mean sure you have your highlights, but is there a time where its truly perfect. Now I've had my fair share of good times, I've also had my share of bad times. Mostly these bad times happen because of stupid reason and a hotel is trying to maintain a image or a profit. But on my way back from vegas this weekend, I was thinking to myself what would be the ideal vegas weekend for me.

So here's my perfect vegas scenario. I'm not going to be too outrageous, but enough to make it seem like it can happen.

To start off it would be a Friday afternoon, I would land in vegas on a airplane in first class. When I immediately leave the airport, I don't need a limo, just a shuttle to get me to my destination. The taxi line would be non existent and a taxi/shuttle would arrive the minute I enter the line. I arrive at my hotel, I check in and I immediately have a good time with my friends. We would have drinks, chit chat a little bit and we would then have a nice meal. Nothing too fancy but still have some class. I'll save the really fancy dinner for Saturday. After the meal, we go too the night club, any night club and get in automatically with little or no charge.

See what I don't get is the whole clubbing deal. It disappoints me that it is always impossible to get into the hottest club. And that the club is really crowded where you barely have room to move let alone dance. The club shouldn't be crowded, it should be very spacious and have music playing, but also have a place where people can talk. It is pretty difficult to holla at someone when you have techno music bumbin on full blast. I understand that you want the ratio not to be a dude fest, but at least let the dudes have a fighting chance of finding girls in the clubs before giving them the cold shoulder. I'm more than willing to pay to enter in a club, but don't charge me $20 for a $4 drink and $50 for admission because I don't have a lot of females in my party.

With that said, clubbing should have good music, decent priced drinks and should be spacious. While in the club, I wouldn't mind meeting a friendly group of people who are down to party like my friends. You know the "tell your friends, to get with my friends, and we can be friends" type deal. None of this, "I know I'm pretty so buy me a drink" mentality.

After the club, we hang out with our new found friends and get a bite to eat. We figure its pretty late, but you still decide to be spontaneous and gamble or do some wild night event. Go back to your hotel room, (or maybe your friends hotel room hehehe) and sleep.

After 6-7 hours of uninterupted sleep, we head straight to a cabana by poolside. The cabana will have a fully stock fridge & bar and unlimited food orders (if I want Pescatora, I want Pescatora dammit). With the pool in front of us, drinks are allowed in the pool but please no peeing in the pool. It's nasty when you go in a pool fool of people and its just oddly warm. There should be some shit to make your urine blue to show who be peeing. Everybody is friendly and they play some hip hop/r&b in the background. Not techno or slow rock. Get a full body massage at the cabana and then get ready for a scrumptios dinner.

Saturday night dinner is the fancy one that won't cost you a arm and a leg. It should be new and surprising, it should also feel familiar and comforting. And if you say the price is $50, the price should only be $50. The dinner should be one of those dinners where you're thinking "this is one fantastic meal, I definitely have to go and recommend my friends the place."

After your dinner, you repeat the club cycle, however after the club, instead of the meal you chill and a nice lounge and smoke some cigars with your friends. Gamble a little bit more and win. Meet some new friends from the club and crash again for another 6-7 hours.

Sunday you wake up to no check out deadline, you just leave whatever time you want. You hop on a taxi which won't cost you a arm and a leg just to get to the airport and you have some Jason Mraz songs playing in the background like it was rolling credits in a movie. And if your driving home, there is no traffic because there are no idiots on the road.

Now that there is the description of a perfect vegas weekend. Keep in mind thats just the mood I have now and it could change tomorrow. But if I just experienced what I just said, I might goal would to have the perfect overseas trip. Maybe I'll think about that for the time being.

Like the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" says... Stay thirsty my friends.

LA is a different beast

So I've been living in LA for a good two weeks now. And let me just say that LA is a beast. A really big beast. A beast filled with traffic, potholes and crazy drivers. But their nightlife is crazy, gauranteed there is something going on in this city. Whether its a show or a art exhibit, there's always something going on. Since I left the comfort zone that is known as San Diego, I really do miss my homies and I realized I took some stuff for granted down there. But living in this city just made me realize that life is not always an easy street and you gotta take on some challenges. I'm definitely going to take this challenge head on and make it in this city. I know my homies got my back and with the inspiration from the playlist below. I'm definitely not going to make this just a short-lived stunt. I'm going to make this last for a long time. So if you guys are in LA, give me a holla. I'll show you this city and what it has to offer.

I'm definitely not going to forget my roots and I'm definitely looking towards the future. So my friends, A chapter has closed in the life of da GSC and a new chapter of the GSC has just begun. Thanks for reading.

P.S. Expect the next post to be anime related for all the anime fans out there.

Poster in my room

I'll elaborate on the beginning of this new chapter of the gsc in the next post.

But for now, I want to show everybody what's hanging in my room. Wanting to have a new start in this new chapter, I created a poster to look at to keep me inspired and motivated in dark times.



If you can't read what it says, here's the text:

Work harder than you ever have. Master Japanese. Connect with the unconnected. Never ever give up! Still practice those Bboy poses. There is no such thing as impossible. Play the piano. Compete in a marathon. Write more songs, pieces, spoken word. Get that six pack. You can do this. Stop thinking about the negatives and think about the positives. Cook the meal that will amaze everyone. Learn from the past but don't dwell on it. Always keep your head up. Get on the cover of that magazine. Make Photoshop and Illustrator your best friend. Keep moving forward. Don't sell yourself short. It's your time to shine. Work on more visual art. Make the blog famous. Follow your heart but use your brain. Only you can make the change. DESTINY AWAITS

BE YOURSELF. BE GLORIOUS. BE GOD SENT

GSC

To be honest with you, after typing that again. It just made me more juiced to be successful in life. LETS DO THIS!

Slow Jams and the Rain

It's raining pretty heavy right now. And there are a lot of people who dislike the rain. I actually like it when it rains, it gives you a perfect excuse to stay home and relax. And when I mean stay home and relax, I mean really relaxing and setting the mood right. The ideal situation is watching the rain while listening to some slow jams with a cup of hot chocolate. What's even more ideal is if your doing what I just mentioned with that special someone in your life. You can set the mood even more if your chillen in front of a fireplace. Say what you want, call it corny, call it hopeless romantic-ish, call it whatever. But listening to slow jams in the rain is like listening to the perfect dj set in the club. It just sets the mood.

Now in order for this to work it really has to be raining, not sprinkling but raining hard. It's the sound effects from the pouring rain that sounds calming. Now throw that in with some smooth grooves that you usually hear on those late night dedications on the radio, and you got a really relaxing setting.

Now I'm sure you can come up with a long list of slow jams to listen to while its raining. But for those who want some ideas, here's a quick little "slow jams and the rain" playlist.

Allure- Last Chance
Shanice- Saving Forever for you
Guy Sebastian- How
New Edition- Can you stand the rain
Aaliyah- At your best
Jon B. f/Babyface- Someone to Love
Joe- No one else comes close
Blackstreet- Before I let you go
112- Crazy over you
Boyz II Men- I'll make love to you
Darren Hayes- Insatiable
Janet Jackson- Anytime, anyplace
Marc Dorsey- I Crave
Surface- The first time

Slow Jams in the Rain

Making 09 mine, it's time for a change, My Time is Now!

WWE Themes - John Cena - My Time is Now FULL.mp3 - John Cena and the Trademarc

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, let the theme song above play. Because after countless times of resumes, interviews and false hopes. I finally found a new position. And even better, I found a position that I'm really interested in. I got too comfortable down here in San Diego. And it's time to buckle down and deal with the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles. I dealt with a lot of stuff just to get to this position that I am in today. And in two weeks, will start a new position and work towards my life goals.

What's the position you ask? Well, to put it simply I'm promoting Japanese rock bands here in the US. Specifically Visual Kei bands. So it's the best of both worlds, I get to work for a Japanese company in the music industry. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Like I said before, 08 was great but its time to make 09 mine. 09 is going to be the year of change. 09 is going to be the year where I work on my goals that I lost touch with in 08. A opportunity has opened its doors and I'm going to walkthrough and embrace it. I'm so excited for what's to come I'm not really sure how to react.

But I'll tell you this much. What's going on in my life will definitely be tracked on this site. Playlists will still be on here, new discoveries I will put on here. Anime reviews and other related stuff will be posted on a new site that I'm going to create. But I will also post them here for those who don't want to go to 2 different pages for me. I probably should go more in detail of what's going on for the next couple weeks, but know this, its a new city, new people and new goals.

This year started off with a rocky start, I'll probably post about it another day. But yeah, it's time to run towards the sunset because this time will forever shine.

Looking back in 08

I would just like to recap a couple of things that happened in 08 so I have a little reminder when I reread this blog like rereading my old xanga.

Barack Obama becomes president.  Yes we can, change the world.  

Bush gets some shoes thrown at him.

Pacquiao wins not one but two matches this year.

The economy goes down the drain

Surprisingly gas prices go down by the end of the year (This didn't last long)

Kanye West comes out with a autotune album, with lyrics that sound emo.

Traveling to Japan will never be forgotten.

My brother graduates from college

Planet Bboy was in the theaters

It is difficult to find a job for anybody.

Layoffs were inevitable

A lot of companies went out of business

Semi Pro's Jackie Moon was a very popular costume

Facebook is better than myspace

Crunchyroll.com becomes legit

The trips to vegas, the bay and... need to venture to other places

Nike world race with Kanye West performing after a 6 mile run

Attending The Spike Scream Awards 2008 and being that close to wes craven

The Red Bull Drifting World Competition

The 09 new years countdown to midnight that will leave me scared

The christmas party that everyone enjoyed

Weddings, clubs and birthday parties

I probably should've went more into detail about each.  But this blog will be more enticing soon enough.  Thank you for sticking close and checking out GSC's Blog.  To all the faithful readers out there.  I make promises, it may take awhile, but I won't break them.

The "Just Friends" playlist

So you've been talking to someone for awhile. Say you feel like its going somewhere. You tell this person how you feel. And then boom, that person gives you phrase you fear the most. "Let's just be friends." Feel like the planet just crashed on you? Well my friend don't feel too down, this playlist is designed to help you though that down phase before you get to the up phase. So cheer up my friend, listen to these toons and let it marinate.

For those who can't see the imeem here's the playlist

Musiq- If U Leave
Evanescence- My Immortal
Stain'd-Outside
Stain'd -It's Been Awhile
Dashboard Confessional- Screaming Infidelities
Dashboard Confessional- This Ruined Puzzle
Augustana- Boston
Sum41- Pieces
Green Day- Wake me up when September ends
Michael Andres- Mad World
The Starting Line- Cheek to Cheek
Papa Roach- Scars
System of a Down- Lonely Day

Just Friends

Let me ask you something...

If you would ask someone what would best describe you. How would they desribe you? Would they say you are the nicest person in the world, or the biggest jerk they ever know. Are you someone they can rely on in a time of need, or don't even bother contacting you because they know you won't answer. Will they say your two-faced, have some issues or too hard to deal with? Are you fun, boring, wierd or just plain?

How would they describe you?

Take a minute to think about it... now let me ask you another question.

Do they way people think about you affect your actions in life? Do you act a certain way in order to have the people around you perceive you in a certain way? Or are your actions purely made by you and you alone.

Take a minute to think about it... now one last question.

Do you care what other people think? Because you really shouldn't. I know some people are self concious, but really, you shouldn't care if people perceive you as wierd, dumb, stupid, good, bad whatever they think of you. The only thing that matters is that the actions you made were purely made by you and not by the influences of others. The minute you stop concerning yourself what people say behind your back, the less stress you have to deal with in life.

Take a minute to think about it.

New Goals in Life

So I got some goals that I would like to obtain by the end of the year:

-Burn at least 2% of my body fat and obtain a flat belly.
-Have this blog up and running again and update more than just once a week.
-Create a new blog solely on reviews
-Be able to conversate in Japanese without struggling

A good way I figured to obtain these goals is to try to be one up than a person higher up than you. My motivation right now is to be one better than the best. Like Busta Rhymes showed in his video with Linkin Park:

"Destroy your enemies with success"

Know more friends than the next guy, be on that magazine cover before the next guy, be more wealthier, more skilled, more better than the best so you can become the best. Settling equals to defeat so never settle. If you get success, all the haters can do is hate. Now I'm not saying that you should be big headed when you become the best. But to be the best, you really do got to beat the best. I know I sound like a cheesy cliche right now, but its true. I'm tired of seeing these "what I did this past weekend" bloggers, blogging about partying at the biggest events and having access to places people can only dream of and basically saying you'll never get there and shoving it in your face.

To everybody out there striving to be better, my props go out to you. Keep your head up and fists held high. Scream out on the top of your lungs that your going to make it. Because if you keep thinking your going to make and actually plan it out, you will make it.

Thoughts and interests for the week

Part 1: Bboy crews

Ok for those who are fans of Super Cr3w. There are bboy crews out there that are way better than the finalist of America's Best Dance Crew.

For example the Extreme Crew from Korea



These guys are my idols.

There is also the Gambler crew hailing from Korea and their going to be in a movie with Omarian in the future



the Mortal Kombat crew from Japan, one of them members of Mortal Kombat beat Do-Knock in singles competition at the red bull bc one 2006 competition



Out of super cr3w, the only guy I give props to is Ronnie. Ronnie was Red Bull BC one champion last year. And he was part of that "battle" between the Jabbawockeez and Supreme Soul (Soul Sector).

Ideally, once I get all my ducks in order, one of my goals in life is to do the elbow spin. Just like these guys.



Part 2: It's wedding season

Back in the day, the formal event my friends and I would look forward to is debuts. Now as we get older, its now Weddings. And for some reason, September seems to be the month that everybody wants the ceremony to happen. This past week I received 3 wedding invitations all in the same month. The game is on, I gotta get my Sunday best on and find me some wedding dates. Because the downside about San Diego weddings is that you basically know everybody at the ceremony. So there really isn't going to be a moment where you happen to meet someone new like in Hitch or Wedding Crashers

Part 3: What did I do this weekend blogs

It seems that blogging appears to be a mainstream trend. Everybody and their dayam momma has a blog nowadays. And the blogs I've been seeing lately is not about opinions or points of views. It's all about "What I did this past weekend" blogs, and thats it. I mean lets be honest, not everybody in the world is going to be interested in you partying it up in a club, getting drunk and hanging out with a bunch of folks on a Saturday night, every Saturday night. Smack me if this blog ever becomes something like that.

Just remember before this blog there was the myspace blog, and before the myspace blog there was the Xanga blog which I hate to admit but it was a "what I did this past weekend" type of blog. So before anybody says I've jumped on the bandwagon, I've been doing this before the blogspot days.

News about anime posts will come up soon. Peace out.

Disappointed with myself

So its been awhile since I posted something. And to the five readers out there, I truly apologize. A lot has been going on, and a lot of stuff has been running through my mind. And for some reason it feels like its just not working for me right now. I made a post sometime last year about feeling like your just existing. Your not making a difference, you not affecting anybody, your just there. In your mind you want it to change, but it just doesn't. You just think about the situation your in and how it will never change. And you start to take everything as a personal hit.

Example, this past weekend I had a great time with my friends. But there was one thing that bothered me. If you want to know what was wrong, I'll be glad to tell you if you ask. But I won't type it here. I'll say this though, I had a golden opportunity to make a good night into the best night ever. And I really think I wasted that opportunity. I'm really disappointed in myself

Trying to stay positive in a negative world is a hard thing to do. I hear a lot of people tell me to keep my head up. But its hard to keep your head up when you feel like you have somebodys foot on the back of your head keeping it down.

I need to find my motivation again.

Til then, I've had this song on repeat for awhile...





P.S. For now, I'm going back to post some regular posts, the rest of my Japan trip will be covered sooner or later.

Day 7: Shibuya and Harajuku

With a couple major cities under our belt and the trip half way done. We decided to check out some of the shopping districts that Tokyo had to offer. Now here's a couple things about the shopping districts in Tokyo:

1. It's pretty expensive
2. All the stores are 7 stories high
3. The fashion is on point
4. You will see a lot of brands you can find in the U.S.

With that said, our first stop was Shibuya. Now if you've ever seen a movie that features Tokyo's busy streets, it is most likely taped in front of Shibuya station. With its 6 directional crosswalk, it gets pretty busy once those lights turn green. Another thing to take notice if your ever in Shibuya is the Statue for Hachiko the dog. Hachiko is a dog that waited for his master at Shibuya everyday when he went to work. Faithful to his master, he continued waiting at the station for 9 years after his master died. In honor of his devotion, they built a statue of Hachiko in front of the station where I hear a lot of celebrities like to drop by and take a picture with the statue.

Continuing on, if your traveling on a budget with barely enough to buy stuff, you're basically window shopping around these areas. These shopping districts are not cheap. On average, a pair of jeans is minimum $100 and a T-shirt with a design is usually around $45-50. Another thing I found interesting was, it was pretty hard to find Japanese brands, a large amount of shops carried brands that you would normally find in the US. But unlike the US, instead of many big complexes of strip malls and department stores. There are a lot of small mom and pop shops. So you can find a treasure here and there.

Harajuku pretty much offered the same type of selection, but with the shops more scrunched up together. If your really into youth fashion, you can definitely find it on the streets of Harajuku. You can for sure find the next trend going to the US in the streets of Harajuku. One thing I did notice about Harajuku is that there is a street with nothing but Expensive American brands, this includes Gucci, LV etc. etc. In fact, you can find all those high end stores all over Tokyo. It ain't that hard to find.

Now hard to believe, but with all the walking and traveling. Our day was pretty much consumed with those two shopping districts. With myself feeling under the weather, I had to call that a day. FYI, Japanese medicine is not that strong compared to US medicine. So try not to get sick if your out here.

Day 8-13 is coming really soon. So stay tuned folks.

Day 6: Yokohama

Originally this day was suppose to be the day we go to Osaka, but after reading my guidebook on the Subway. I noticed Osaka was more of a shopping, nightlife town and not a day trip. So after a couple train swaps thanks to our JR rail pass. We ended up in Yokohama.

You hear about this city mentioned in many shows and movies. I've come to find out that this city does a lot of importing and exporting. Yokohama being a seaside city, the nice cool ocean breeze was a different pace to the concrete jungle of Tokyo. Now the distance from Yokohama to Tokyo is not that far. It's like going from Downtown San Diego to Oceanside. At this point of the trip, my buddy and I have come to start taking advantage of maps instead of wondering around. So the first thing we hit up in this city is Yokohama Stadium. Baseball is pretty big there, unfortunately I wasn't able to attend one. But that just gives me another reason to come back to this town. Since cars isn't a big thing, the stadium was surrounded by a park and not a parking lot. Which is definitely a good thing. So the area looked nice. Granted it wasn't a big park, but still it was cool seeing green surrounding a stadium instead of asphalt.

After seeing the stadium, we headed towards the "bay area" of the city. Now I really wanted to check out this statue of the water god that was mentioned in the guidebook. Upon arriving at the statue, we come to discover that the statue was donated by San Diego. So it was a piece of our home placed in their home. The statue was given to them as a sign of good relations between the US and Japan. This whole area was beautiful, being from a town surrounded by beaches. Seeing the ocean reminded me of home.

After being reminiscent, we hit up the one thing that we kept hearing from locals about Yokohama. That Yokohama had one of the biggest Chinatown's that I've ever seen. I know I know, I know what your thinking. Why are you visiting a Chinatown in Japan. I was a little hesitant to check this out. But this place was huge, I mean really huge. Not like a block like the Chinatown in London. This was like a small suburb size in a big city. It was pretty cool checking this place out. There were temples, souvenier shops, meat buns and roasted chestnuts all over the place. If you ever wanted to ride a rickshaw, this place has it. If your looking for a martial arts outfit, this place has it. And you know its pretty cool to check out Chinatowns all over the world, so far I hit up Chinatowns in Japan, England, France and the US.

That pretty much sums up the day. We got back from that city around 7:00 PM. Had some dinner and just called it a day.

Til next time.

Day 5: Kyoto

One of the deals that you can get being a travelor is a JR rail pass. With the JR rail pass, you basically get access to all JR trains, buses and ferries across Japan. Since I didn't want to stay in Tokyo the whole 2 weeks I was there. We decided to check out some of the shrines in Kyoto. Now the distance from Tokyo to Kyoto is about the same distance from San Diego to San Francisco. Now here's the cool thing, we took the Shinkansen to get to Kyoto. And the Shinkansen is the really fast bullet train, so we got from Tokyo to Kyoto in 2.5 Hours. Now while riding the train, we were able to see Mt. Fuji, unfortunately I wasn't able to take a picture because I was on the wrong side of the train.

Upon arriving to Kyoto, we first went to the Fushimi Inari Taisha. A little background on this shrine thanks to Lonely Planet, this shrine was dedicated to the gods of rice and sake by the Hata family in the 8th century. Upon arriving to the shrine, its a custom to wash your hands and drink the water at the entrance. I believe it was a form a cleansing before entering a place to pay respect. This place was pretty big, covering a whole mountain, so it was definitely a hike. But the view was just beautiful, the whole mountain felt like it had a lot of history in it. This was one of the biggest shrines they have in Japan, so it had a lot of graveyards and mini shrines honering the dead. You will notice along the walkways hundreds of wooden "torii." Now Torrii's is like a gateway, once you walk through one, its like cleansing your spirit before paying your respects. And with the amount of shrines they had in this one area, it was no surprise why they have so many.

Now we were suppose to go to another shrine that day, but we didn't know that most of the temples and shrines close at sundown. And we arrived in Kyoto 3 hours before sunset. Since we were only able to hit up one temple, we decided to hit up one more spot before we ventured back. And we definitely got the otaku out of us when we checked this place out. It was the Manga Museum in Kyoto.

Now the manga museum is exactly a Manga Otaku's dream. It has a collection of all the manga's ever made. And the best thing about it is, you can pull the books off the shelf and read them. Of course you have to know Japanese, but dayam all the manga at your fingertips. You can read anywhere in the museum, and there is a park area outside to read at if your that type of person. I admit man it was crazy holding the first volume of initial D in my hands. There was also some interactive area's where you can create your own characters and pretend to be voice actors. If that wasn't enough, the museum use to be a school back in the day. So we were walking in the halls of a Japanese school.

At this point, it was getting late, so we got a train back to Tokyo. Now thinking I would still be able to see Mt. Fuji, I asked for seats on the mountainside. Now I was on the right side, but it was already night and I couldn't see nothing because it was pitch black. We got back to Tokyo around 11:00 in the evening. And it was cool to see that the city was still running like people were just getting out of work. The funny thing is, that people were still getting out of work. So much to learn about this place, so little time.

Til next time.

Day 4: Shopping at Akihabara

*Warning: For those who dream about going to Akihabara all the time, I wouldn't read this post. It might shatter your perfect image of the place.

Ok so its a Monday, we have another 10 days in Japan. Might as well go shopping, and what better way to start than at Akihabara. Now check this out, like I said before there are rows and rows of shops that are nothhing but seven stories or more. Each having a specific theme whether it would be games, anime, electronics, or all of the above. If your going to seriously check out everyshop, your going to need a couple days. Did I forget to mention there are arcades galore? But I gotta give those fighter genre players out there, the competition is fierce out there. If your a novice, your not going to get a single hit on these cats. Believe me I know, and I thought I was a pro at Guilty Gear XX too.

So pretty much the majority of the day was trying to go through all these shops. Checking out so many random anime shops, it was crazy to see all the dvd's they had and random items that were on sale. But here's the downside for all the US shoppers. All the dvd's are region 2 and unless you know Japanese, there are no english subtitles. Unlike american dvd's, tv show dvds have only 2 episodes and each dvd is about 30-40 bucks each. Everything is pretty much expensive in Japan, so if you want a good time, think of a budget that you want to bring and increase that by 50%. But if your looking for a quick souvineir, than the capsule machines got your back. For about 200 yen, you get a figurine that'll probably cost 5 bucks here in the states. And they got miles and miles of these machines everywhere. Now I didn't come home empty handed, I actually came back with this beauty right here that you'll rarely find in the states.

After Akihabara, we ventured into Roppongi a little more. Now this time we ventured into Roppongi Hills, which is a mixture of business, mall shops, and hanging out at the same time. Get what I'm saying? So basically you got a mall, business building and a open park area all scrunched up into one. It's a nice area. Crazy thing about this mall is the gap between the shops, the walkways are literally a yard wide. So all the shops are close to each other. So close that you could hear the other shops talking ish if they want to. We got lost walking around in this condensed area, so we called it a day there.

That night, we ended up at Sam and Dave's. Our homie brought a wii there, and we ended up playing some Mario Kart and Guitar Hero up in the same bar we first partied at. I thought that was pretty cool.

Nothing too exciting, but its still shopping in the anime and electronics wonderland.

Day 3 Asakusa and Harajuku

So day 3 comes around, my time clock has been adjusted and today was packed with stuff. To start off we met up with Laurie and Nathalia from Sam and Dave's and headed down to Asakusa to check out the Senso-Ji temple. Now coincidentally there was a festival going on at the same time. So this place was packed with people. The festival is called the Sanja Matsuri. Now during this fetival you get to see about 100 portable shrines being paraded through Asakusa. So you see groups of people all wearing the same clothes and start chanting out stuff. But it looked like each shrine was individual, so each group was showing their pride. I was personally happy to take a visit to a temple during a festival because I always wanted to try the food at a festival. So if your looking for authentic japanese stuff. Definitely this would be the place to get it. There were so many items such as kimonos, yukatas, sake sets, anything you think is Japanese they got it here.

Asides from showing your respects at the temple, there were also little activities that you could partake in. Activities included fortune telling, carnival games, and trying all the various festival food. Now if you want to imagine what kind of food they had out here, its definitely not fair food. You would find things like Okinomiyaki(Japanese pancake), Takoyaki(Octopus balls), various bbq sticks, roasted chestnuts and the list goes on and on. Dealing with the crowds was difficult at times, but its all part of the experience.

After enjoying this festival, we all went to a totally different festival down at Harajuku. Harajuku is one of the many fashion districts in Tokyo. Here Tokyo's fashion is on point. If you want to know whats the next trend going to the states in 2 years, you'll find it in Harajuku. Now you can guess the theme of the festival by checking out the title: One Love. Before checking out the one love festival we checked out Yayogi park. Yayogi park has a wide variety of characters and performances. Here you can see everything from skateboarders, Dixie bands, jugglers and even dancing elvis's. It was a really big park, so you see a lot of people enjoying themselves. Now at Yayogi park was the One Love Festival. So there was one love spread everywhere. I never seen so many Japanese Rhastafarians in my life. Let me tell you, there was beer and tequila everywhere. Aside from the drinks and the jerk chicken, there was a collection of Japanese Reggae performances. And let me just say that japanese reggae is off the hook. Look it up sometime. Now I noticed during the concert that everybody had two fingers in the air saying "blap blap blap". Now basically thats their version of showing love. Shooting imaginary guns in the air. It was still a great festival though. It was tight to see how one love is spread throughout the world.

Now how did we conclude the night? Our host with the most cooked a Adobo Dinner for all of us, throw a little wii action in it, and you have a dope night.

Normally I would insert some pictures at this point, but our homegirl Laicie actually made a video of that day.

Till next time.

Day 2: Akihabara and Tokyo Midtown

After a night of drinking and being in the same clothes for the past 36 hours. It was due for a change of pace, and my homie decided to take us to the Otaku Paradise. Thats right folks Akihabara. And yes, the rumors are true. Anything and everything electronics and anime can be found in this part of the city. There are shops that are 7 to 9 stories high with nothing but electronics or anime. Sometimes even both. You can find them all over the place. Their electronics stores there make our best buys look like nothing. I mean, there was a 160 inch HD Flat screen there. Try and top that. There are huge advertisements everywhere, and you see workers promoting maid cafe's on the streets. There is also a wide variety of street performers depending on the day of the week. Now keep in mind, everything in Japan is expensive. So if you were planning on copping the new Evangelion DVD, plan on spending $50 on it. Also keep in mind that if you want to get DVD's here, its region 2, so you need a region 2 player. We were only able to check out Akihabara for only a moment because it was about to rain and we had no umbrellas.

After checking out the land of anime and electronics, me and my homie decided to venture into the city on our own. So we ventured into one of the many rich malls in Japan. This one being called Tokyo Midtown. Now if you want to imagine what kind of stores are in Tokyo Midtown, think your richest mall and add $100 more than you can afford and you get Tokyo Midtown. This mall had the top of the line brands from all over the place. Remember you need the dough if you want to shop here. Keep in mind that Japanese fashion is on point. If their not sporting the latest urban trend, then they got the top of the line brands. This mall had some good stuff though, like cooking classes on demand, bougie restaurants, and a food court where you definitely gotta know your japanese to order. But don't be afraid, remember, they do speak english.

Now I wish I could say I did more that day. It was our first Saturday out in Tokyo. But the jet lag got to me. So the minute we got back to our friend's pad, I just crashed. But that will be the only night that I crash prematurely. Till next time.