ok so quick update. Im back in Tokyo and so far its been great. Seen some hot Cosplayers hahaha and bought myself a new citizen watch. My laptop bust again so Im using the internet at an internet cafe. All that means is that I will definitely not have any more blogs from now till I get home and get my laptop fixed. no worries I still got tons of stories to tell and will put them up when I get back.

So as you probably guessed it, I'm here in Hiroshima for the next 2 days or so before heading off to Fuji and then back to Tokyo. Right now the front desk clerk who checked me into my hostel is really cute. I'm just trying to work my stuff to try and get something going :lol: My trip to Miyajima was awesome. Staying in a traditional Ryokan is definitely an experience to remember, but it wasn't cheap :S. I've got a bijillion more pictures taken and I've uploaded like 376 of them on my Kodakgallery. I'm going to set up an account for the SKS so we can all see them and upload our own pictures of our trips or whatever. I'm also making a SKS hotmail account as well. I'll keep you guys updated and I'll be home in a week or so.

Peace,

-J

Ok, so here's a quick update guys. I'm here in Kyoto for the next 5 days or so and already I've done a bunch of stuff. I went to Nara yesterday to meet a couple friends and then I went to Todaiji Temple ,

one of the biggest wooden temples in the world and then acosted by deers hahah. I have over 100 pictures so I'll upload them on my photobucket or kodakgallery and link it to you guys so you can see all of them.

Today I just went shopping and bought two pairs of glasses and saw a Noh play. I've been on the go from like 4am till like 12am everyday so I'm pretty beat. Tomorrow I have no clue what I'm doing, but it's going to be something fun most likely. I swear all the girls here are just drop dead gorgeous and it's going to make my move here all the more sweeter. I'll also try and get some pics of them for you guys as well, it's just hard to get my camera out in time because I'm usually walking on the street and they just pass by long enough for me to gauke at them with my tongue hanging out :lol: Well I'm off to bed so I'll see you guys in a bit.

-J

So I'm here in Tokyo at the Hostel we're staying in. I have a lot of pictures from my phone and not a whole lot from the camera yet. I won't be able to get the pics from my phone onto my computer until I get back to the states, so you'll all just have to sit tight for a while. Japan so far is really great. The people are nice, but it's pretty humid over here. Right now I'm just doing some laundry and trying to get situated before tomorrow. I'm probably going to be insanely busy for the next 3 weeks so I can't guarantee timely updates, but I will try and get them in as soon as possible for you guys and hopefully some pictures. I'm pretty hungry right now and exhausted so I'm going to hit up a ramen shop, take a shower and then go to bed for tomorrow. See you guys in a bit.

-J

Just a quick update on the trip. I'm here in Canada, more specfically Vancouver. Not really any good pictures to take around here but the airport is pretty empty for an international airport. I guess not a lot of people from Canada like to go out of the country? Anyways, I still have about 1 and a half before my flight to Japan really begins. Then it'l be a very long, long, long flight that I'm sort of not looking forward to aside from the insane amount of sleep that I will acrue, almost like a self induced coma. I'll be sure to post up the new next blog once I hit Japan.

Peace,

-J

Hey everyone,

I know this has been a while since my last blog, but Ive just been pretty busy with all the site seeing and everything. It's only been two days since I got here to San Francisco, but I got a hell of a lot done. As promised I got as many pictures as I could with more on the way since I still have three more days here. So for now I'll post up what I've taken so far.

So here begins the journey with a ride in the BART from Oakland to SF

wasn't too crowded and it was filled with somewhat "normal" people as compared to the people in SF. The guy to the right seemed very uncomfortable sitting next to me and my friend :lol:

When I finally got to SF it reminded me of a cross between New York and New Orleanse (pre-Katrina). Just like anyones thoughts or preconceptions of SF they all came true with this interesting side of beef hanging in the air.

It's the now extinct CheetahCow! The very last one was snatched up by some local Vegitarian activist who would rather see this cow stuff and displayed for the world to see than to be eaten by everyone else.

Here's a shot of the skyline from my friends apartment:

Pretty nice scene that looks just like any other skyline. Didn't have any good shots of the Bridge or any other landmark, but I thought it was cool.

Later that night my friend and I went to a a really awesome Italian Resturant that's actually a front for the Mob called Mona Lisa:

The quality isn't so great since it was taken with my camera phone and I caught her off guard :lol: It was great food though.

Next morning was the beginning of what would be a very interesting and eventful day, but before we really got started we had to eat breakfast. The Asian inside me insisted we go to eat breakfast at an Asian resturant so we went Vietnamese.

This was really great fried rice which cost me only $5, but it was almost too much for me to finish on my own.

After breakfast we headed off towards the Asian Art Muesum and on our way I decided to snag a picture of City Hall which I thought looked really cool.

I happen to luck out of this day for the Asian Art Museum because they were displaying the very famous Osamu Tezuka who because of him we now have Anime.

After the art museum our next stop was Chinatown. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get any pictures here, but I plan on going back in a couple days and I'll get some pictures then. After that was Fisherman's Warf which we got to by this:

When we got to the Warf I happened to bump into a very famous celebrity. Only problem is that this guy really let himself go and is now working for the Post Office. I really felt bad for him, but there's only so much you can do for a robot:

Fisherman's Warf is just like any other Warf, just filled with street performers, chuds, and homeless people. I happened to see a very funny display from the guy called the bushman. This guy "hides" behind a bunch of branches with leaves and literally surprises people as they pass by. I'll be sure to get a pic or even video of this guy and post it because it was almost too funny when he surprised this small kid and he literally fll to the floor with everyone, including myself, pointing and laughing at the kid. Including his own family! :lol:

From there we found a world music shop where they have all the world instruments all localized in one building. It was realy cool and surprisingly I found the one instrument I've spent a few years looking for:

my Melodica! Of course I had to try this out so we went to a coffee shop to rest a bit. All the people that kept walking in thought I was a street performer and they actually gave me money. I made about $5 but hey, it's $5!

From there we decided to go visit DJ Tanner and the rest of the family of Full House.

From there we did a lot more, but again I wasn't able to get as many pictures as I wanted to but boy did I see some really crazy people. Like this one guy on the bus he kept yelling at random people at the bus stop and on the bus. Then there was this one guy dressed up as an indian with the ceremonial stick and whatnot trying to kick down the door of the bus and all this craziness. I then bumped into a few filipinos and we all started talking and laughing about the crazy people on the bus, but no one knew what we were talking about :lol:

So that was what happened yesterday, but I promise you there will be more to come with pictures of all the weird and crazy people of San Francisco.

-J

Hey everyone,

So this is the beginning of my Tokyo Blog which I will try and update as much as possible with my trip chaulk full of pictures and details of my daily activities. I leave for San Francisco

starting tomorrow and I'll be spending a week there. So technically my Japan trip won't start until the 18th, but I'll post pics of my stay in SF. I'll be gone for an entire month so if you are wondering where I am on the unions, now you know! I'm pretty excited and those of you that I've known for a long time here on GS already know that I've been planning this trip for over a year. Well now it's here and I can't wait until I set foot on Japanese soil. They won't know what hit them once I make my invasion and take them for everything they have :lol: Well Sayonara for now and I will keep you updated!

Peace,

-J

PS. Here's a vid to start off my trip: Tokyo, I'm on my way! :lol:

Well after one long, arduous, week without my laptop,I finally got it back in working order. What originally was going to cost me around $500 to fix ended up costing me Free dollars! That's right, it cost me not a freaking thing except time and stress. Even though my HP laptop has given me problems in the past, I have to admit that the HP customer service was really great. Sure I had to talk to Sanjeev who lives all the way in India, but the guy was generally nice and even talked to me about Bruce Lee (because of my email address). I knew there wasn't much they could help me with over the phone, but they tried anyways with some basic trouble shooter stuff. They basically told me that the HDD was kaputt and that I had to send it in, but just to see if my info could be saved I gave it to my friend who owns his own PC repair shop. He basically told me the same thing so that very day I called HP again and arranged for a new HDD to be sent. The very next day I got my HDD in the mail, free of charge and I was just shocked that it got there so fast. HP literally overnighted my HDD and all I had to do was repackage my old one and send it to them. So after about spending 4 hours getting my Laptop to it's last state, before it took a major dump on my chest, I finally got to enjoy using my own laptop for once rather than using my mom's crappy Vaio. That thing is literally a piece of junk with no useful features. I mean I love Sony and all, but their laptops suck. Everything is ass backwards on that thing. You got the CD drive on the left and only 2, count 'em 2 USB ports. Plus it has that annoying feature where everything on the desktop is set up like the internet with one click links. I kept double clicking everything get 2 of the same thing I only wanted one of. Then the speakers on that thing were God awful. Very tinny sounding and weak. Anyways, it's great to have my old friend back and if it stays a good laptop I'll buy it another gig of Ram and maybe not replace it with the Fuijitsu that I've been wanting to get.

Thank you Sanjeev! 

Well just to let you guys know the HDD on my laptop got messed up somehow today and I have no clue how it happened. Already it's been a huge inconvenience mainly because I have a lot of papers to write that are due this week and the next. My main concern is being able to transfer my data from my old HDD to a new one although I honestly don't know how to do it. If any of you know how I can do this please share it with me because I do not want to pay $200 dollars to have best buy transfer it for me. These guys wanted to charge me $500 to replace my HDD, run a "diagnostics scan", do a full system backup and install a new OS on my laptop. How ludicrous is that? I can easily reinstall my copy of XP on my laptop and I definitely don't need some stupid scan to tell me my HDD is all messed up. Anyways, I'm taking my laptop to my friends repair shop to see if he can work his magic for a more affordable price and then I can just buy a new HDD or have HP take my laptop and fix it for me for free. In the mean time I'm on my mom's laptop so I'll periodically stop by throughout the week to see what's goin on in the unions.

As some of you may already know I recently sliced my hand and had to go to the ER to get it fixed up. You're all probably wondering how did you manage to pull this off? Well it was a Sunday afternoon and I just finished cooking some lunch. The kitchen was pretty dirty at the time so I decided to clean up. I got through all the dishes until I came upon a glass jar that I use for the excess oil left over from cooking.

Well apparently there was a crack in the glass which was created by the hot oil, but I didn't notice it. So I'm scrubbing the jar when suddenly the bottom pops off

and the next thing I know my finger is nothing but a bloody mess spewing blood everywhere!

I quickly grab some paper towels

and apply a makeshift bandage to my wound as I make my way to the first aid kid. Thinking the kit would be my savior I am deeply disappointed when I find out there is nothing in there that can possibly stop the profuse bleeding coming from my finger.

So I decide that Brawny will just have to do for now and I call up my friend, Tip.

Me: "Hey man, so I cut my hand pretty bad and I can't seem to stop the bleeding."

Tip: "Oh S&*$, ok dude, I'm on my way."

Ten minutes later, he arrives at my door ready to take me to the ER. We get there and surprisingly it was pretty "dead" in the waiting room so I got admited pretty fast. While in there I decided I would play a prank on my friends and so I texted them saying they had to amputate my finger. Of course they all started freaking out and what made it even more believeable was that it literally took them four hours to prepare a bed for me.

When the doctor finally saw me he said he couldn't sew up my wound and tried to glue the remaining skin back. Unfortunately it didn't work so well and he ended up ripping off the skin with the glue make my finger bleed even more! Well when they manage to control the bleeding they put a pressure dressing on my finger.

So basically I have to keep this monstrosity on my finger for the next two days to wait for the bleeding to really stop and I can then let it scab over. Now back to the brilliant scheme I had. When all was said and done I walked out of the ER holding my hand with my head hanging low when my friends all waiting anxiously to see what happened to me. Unfortunately the ploy failed because Tip decided to check up on me while I was still in the ER room. Oh well, can't win 'em all. :P

Other than that I finally made it to the level I've been waiting to get to for the last three years.

Level 24: I Feel Asleep!

This great line came from the game that started it all, Metal Gear. Most likely due to a translation error, this line will forever be remembered by all MGS fans, both new and old. I wish I could stay at this level forever but alas it will only last for so long. So I will enjoy it while it lasts.