DAY 11: HARAJUKU

just another adventure day. this time we explored the harajuku district of tokyo. again, nori was busy studying for finals, so we were out on our own. supposed there is a bboy shop that taisuke works at somewhere around here. too bad we couldn't find it. we found a "condomania" shop though hahaha. day started out with food and ended with food. what more could i ask for. 

DAY 10: MT FUJI (PART 2)

i didn't take a lot of photos of the hike itself. it was way too dark, and i was too focused on just moving forward and not freezing lol. but here are some photos of the top and our hurried hike back down. me and lucio literally ran down the whole thing in under 2 hours. we just wanted to get off the damn mountain and go home ...

you can see though why people take the trouble to make the arduous hike up. beautiful view. no place quite like it. 

DAY 9: MT FUJI (PART 1)

mount. freaking. fuji.
this was definitely, in my opinion, the most memorable part of the trip.
just looking at the photos brings back a lot of feelings and memories haha.

i've begun to realize that pictures say more for me than most words. they're also more fun to look at than my awkwardly constructed sentences haha. but anyway, i'll give it a bit of context. basically, we left early in the morning for our long journey to the peak of mount fuji. we had to take the subway, train, and bus to get the the 5th station, which is basically the starting point of the hike. we were basically doing the sunrise hike, so that meant hiking ALL NIGHT to see the sunrise in the morning. we arrived at around 5ish, messed around at the "base" camp and started our hike a little after 7pm. was really fun, and we started out on a very light and positive note. we had our bags packed, food, water, pocari sweat, extra clothes, and our cameras out and ready. little did we know that the journey would become more of a fight for survival then anything else ... danng. we didn't make it to the top till around 4am ... over 9 straight hours of hiking through the night in freezing weather ... i dunno how we did it. honestly, i feel like i should write way more, but it was more of an experience than anything else. i'm glad we did it, but i'm not sure i can say that i'd like to do it again. maybe i'll write more later ... i'll just let the pictures do the talking for now.

DAY 8: LUCIO ARRIVES!

our first morning in japan. we got up a bit later than usual (we were kind of tired from our long day of traveling) and went out in search of breakfast. just in case you haven't yet noticed, we do a lot of "searching" haha. nori had to leave early in the morning to study for his finals, so we were on our own. we found a decent place to eat that had fake versions of the sets they served so we just pointed out what we wanted ... i got a curry and ramen combo:

and like the title says ... today was the day lucio arrived! he was running a bit late, but we decided to meet him in front of kfc outside of ichigaya station.

after we got this sexy man, we went back to nori's place to plan out the next couple days. we were supposed to go straight to mt fuji that night for our big hike, but we decided to postpone it for the day after ... let lucio rest. nori also wanted billy to teach a workshop for his university breaking club. so yeah, we did that instead. i finally got to session! practice spot here at sophia university is really nice. it's a little sticky but its soft and pretty big ... supposedly it's one of the hottest session spots in all of tokyo. a lot of famous bboys and bgirls from all around japan go there to practice. issei and found nation actually were there only a few days ago. was a lot of fun. finally starting to get my airflares down ;D amy, ron, and david took the opportunity to take a short nap lol. 

afterwards we went walking around with nori as our guide. got some food first. was an interesting bbq place that served all kinds of cow parts i guess you can say. was pretty pricy though, so we were still hungry after ... night went well though. nice to have everyone together at last! :)

SECOND TO LAST

have only today, tomorrow, and part of wednesday left. can't believe this trip is coming to a close lol. me and lucio are with nori at his university's computer lab ... went to the tsukiji fish market this morning. we were supposed to go early - like at around 4 or 5am to see them auction off the fish ... but we couldn't wake up lol. went to sleep too late i think :p so we left later at around 7 or 8ish just to walk around and see whatever there was left to see ... and find something to eat. started raining pretty much as soon as we left the house. fish market was aiite. saw a lot of fish ... got to eat some fish haha. i got a tuna, egg, and okra rice bowl that i thought was pretty yummy. kind of hungry now though again. idk what else we got planned. we're just kind of chillin' and doing whatever till we meet up back at nori's place at 5pm ...

DAY 7: ARRIVAL IN JAPAN!

yay. so this is the day we arrive in japan! woohoo :D i'm with nori right now at his university using his physics lab's wifi to write this. so much to write, so little time. anyhow, here goesss ...

yo. so basically we left korea in the early morning ... got up at like 6am or something to catch our flight over and arrived in japan at narita airport sometime in the early afternoon. me, ron, and david shared a flight and billy and amy shared a different one. we met up at the airport mcdonald's and then took a bus from the airport to tokyo, and then the rail/subway to ichigaya station ... near nori's place. was raining ... like always ... haha. not everything went as smoothly as we had hoped or planned, but we made it. by the time we met up with nori, at the station, it was like 6pm ... 12 hours since departure.

but who cares? WE MADE IT! we were in motherfucking japan!!! haha. we took the long uphill walk (in the rain) to nori's place to drop off our stuff and then went out in search of japanese food with NORI! motherfucking NORI! dannng, too hype lol. he took us to this crazy ass place where we could actually fish for our own food. like they literally gave us all fishing rods and bait INSIDE the restaurant, and we went out to try and hook our own sushi. depending on what you caught, it was a different price.

david and billy ended up being the bread ... i mean, fish-winners of the night. once you caught the fish, they took it to the back and prepared it into sushi for us to eat ...

forsure one of the more fun dining experiences i've had. japan is looking up. 

OUT OF ORDER

sorry if some posts are out of order. trying desperately right now to catch up with my blog postings. fell way behind during the week we literally had no internet access ... hopefully i can get back on track and up to date sooner rather than later lol. there is just SOO much ... in the meantime, bear with me pleaseeeee :P

KYOTO "THE DARK ESCAPE" 2013

footage from lucio's go-pro. day 12 in kyoto. him and ron are playing a scary 3d first person shooting game. shit was scary. yeaaaaaah ... hahaha

DAY 6: INSADONG

our last day in korea was spent at the historic city of insadong. first thing on the menu for breakfast: KOREAN BBQ! ... oh the realness lol. meat in korea is hella expensive. no wonder kbbq in california is so popular. for one small tiny ribeye, it was like 40 bucks! ... the price of two all-you-can-eat full course menus at manna. daymmmm.

samgyup sal was a little cheaper ... but still pretty pricy. we each had like a couple bites of meat and the bill still came out to over 25 bucks per person. aside from the ribeye and pork, we got some raw marinated meat and a some denjangchigae. wow, culture shock for sure.

then it was exploration time. we went in search of some palaces and temples to wander ... unfortunately a lot of them were closed. we did a bit of sight seeing and shopping though in the area, so our time wasn't a complete waste. we also got to try some traditionally made makkoli, yakju, and soju. we spent just a lot of time walking around and looking at stuff ...

was pretty fun. got to see a lot of interesting structures and scenery. here's a cool panorama of one of the sites we visited. my first iphone panorama! haha

here's a funny photo i caught of my ron, amy, and david ... drama much? 

just kidding. was a moderately successful escapade. although we didn't quite get to see everything we wanted or expected to, we had a good time looking around the city and checking out small shops, bakeries, and such ... some of the more historic viewpoints were really nice.

before we knew it, we had to start heading home to pack up and get ready for our flight to tokyo the next morning ... 

stopped off at the local lotte mart next to seoul station to pick up some food and drink. got some watermelon, chips, and mochi. japan here we come!