June 14

This morning I was having a dream about tuck everlasting. At first I was watching the Japanese version of the movie, but then it changed to American characters but not the ones from the movie. And it ended better with the couple staying young together and swimming in an ocean. I was still waking up when I felt my bed shaking a little. it wasn’t rough, just a little rocking. I thought I was still dreaming. Then I get a call from Brandon and he said he was going to be late because his apartment was shaking because of the earthquake. Crazy! He said he was feeling nauseous from it. So I got up and got ready and found the ironing board in the mini kitchen. Sweet. I left after Brandon said he was on his way.

We met at the daimon station nearest hammamatsucho jr line and off to yokohama we went. We decided to go to the ramuen museum for lunch. It was 300 yen to get in, and it was neat inside. Unfortunately we couldn’t read all of the ticket machines. And because Brandon doesn’t eat pork or beef it was really hard to discern what did or didn’t have those two items. Nearly every picture looked like it had pork. No good. So we decided to leave. We found a Chinese restaurant with A, B, C, D lunch menu with pictures. Easy enough it was chicken, cabbage, carrot, with rice, and egg drop soup. it was ok. It came with this white fruit. I thought it was pears and was excited because I hadn’t had any in a long time, and when I took my first bite it was this weird gelatinous yuck! So we left and it was 700 yen a piece. Brandon put down his in coin and I only had a 1000 yen note. But he picked up 200 yen and put it in my hand so we only turned in 1500 yen. But I only got back 20 yen. I didn’t realize it until we got back down stairs and I was irritated. he shouldn’t have picked up the money. And there was no way I could tell them they didn’t give me correct change. I was irritated but had to get over it or have a terrible day.

We left and started walking to china town. We made it there and found a person dressed up as kung fu panda. We took our picture with him and walked around. China town was huge. Our goal was to take a picture of each of the 9 gates around china town. We went looking in many shops and I bought too many souvenirs. We found some bubble tea, but it was just iced. I got mango and it was pretty good. Nice and cold. Brandon was mad that there was no bootleg stuff. Just souvenirs and many food shops. Lots of steamy buns. We are supposed to go there for dinner at the end of the month. So we were told not to eat there.

We left after we found the last gate, so we think. Some of the gates had different things written on them, so after I checked we have 10 gates. Eeee! One too many. So I’m not really sure if we missed one or not. We headed toward minato-mirai where the brick warehouse was. We were going to eat at the queen’s bund but it was too expensive. We decided to get cheap fish and chips and we got macha for dessert at nana’s green tea. I like the green tea ice cream but it wasn’t sweet enough so I added sugar syrup. A little better. We were going to look at the shops on the 2nd floor but everything was closed down.

So we decided to go find the landmark tower. We were on a deadline. It was after 830 and the tower closed at 1000 and I needed to be back at the dorm by 11pm. We made it to the tower, but we were in the hotel. We went to the 68th floor because 69 didn’t register. We found a matre’d and asked him where it was. He called to see if it was open and he led us all the way there. From one end to the other. It was really nice of him. It was 1000yen to get in. we went up in the elevator which is that fastest in japan? To the 69th floor. And the view was awesome. All the lights in the city was twinkling. It was really cool. It was around 940 and we found the gift shop but It was closing. It was too bad because we probably would have bought something.

So we decided to make a run for it. We found the minato-mirai station and switched at yokohama. It was really confusing because it just said jr line and I wasn’t sure if it had our line, the keihin-tohoku line. But we found it and rode it back. It pulled into hamamatsucho around 1035 and I ran to daimon and the subway for asakusa line. I got to my platform at 1040. BUT the next train wasn’t coming until 1049p. great! So it finally came and when it stopped at sengakuji I ran for it. I had to make it back by 11 or my key wouldn’t work. I made it, whew! I went to my room and grabbed all my shower crap and got in there. There were only 2 girls there. One was naoko. There’s no one here tonight it seems like, either that or everyone came home early. Naoko came by saying that I should meet her in the lobby at 7am. So early. But it’s good because we want to be there by 8am I think. so I will retire and get some sleep!