Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Izu 2

Alright over a month later I have decided to update. Told you I would. This blog, once again, kicks ass.

So carrying on from where our brave protagonist left off, Alex was hungry for some dinner (yes it is third person perspective now) So the group and I (back to a narrative) decided to grab some munchies. Me and Keith throw on some clothes and waited for the girls, who I thought were going to be dressed to the nines. They just threw a dress and some make up on. The plan that night? Eat and Drink, duh.

We did a little hunting and found an Izakaya again.



Like the karaoke pictures, from one of the earlier posts, the chronological posting of pictures will show some wicked dive into drunken madness.








Beer and Food!



Empty Mugs



Rumiko's first experience with whiskey



I am deadly handsome

Then somehow after drinking and eating a bunch and waiting a really long time at this crappy Izakaya (food was good service was sub par) we somehow ended back at our Ryokan and more drinking ensued. The following was done:

Rock Climbing



Arm Wrestling



Beer Drinking



There was an episode involving an Onsen where we tried to change the hot water into cold water. We all tried to get in but only got parts of our bodies in. We thought that was no fun so we started a soap fight and hilarity ensued. Unfortunately it was one of those spur the moment things and no pictures resulted. Needless to say, everyone was pretty tired after the soap fight so it was time to crash. The next morning we actually did things! First stop, the shores of Irozaki.





Our mighty vessel












MONKEY! Side note, people bought yams to through at the island, from the boat, to lure monkeys into the spot light. Except most people who bought them had the worst throwing arm ever, so most of the yams went into the ocean. The best part was when the monkey excursion was over, people with left over yams just threw them into open water, hoping monkeys would swim for the yams







Next we went to an Aquarium. We had ice cream again. Steph got the Brown Algae which wasn't too bad. I had the Arbutus. It tasted like absolutely nothing. Much like Keith's mysterious flavor in Okinawa. The aquarium was pretty rad, much like all aquariums.



















So the ultimate twist of the day comes form in a random cafeteria of this aquarium. Instead of selling usual Japanese cafeteria stuff like Tonkatsu-don or similar I had this for lunch.



Sushi Rice. And Steph has that shell, hopefully still with a piece of meat inside it. So the food over all was wicked, this is what everyone else had







Delicious. After chowing down, we decided to finish off our trip at the beach. Shriahama beach in Shimoda to be exact.







Between falling asleep and people taking pictures of me falling asleep, we killed a good couple hours. We grabbed dinner at a local resturant where I order some seafood thing, but got hamburger rice instead, delicious. We headed back to Atami where Keith and I got home successfully via train. And Steph and Rumiko got stuck in Nagoya again. You will have to see Steph for that story, I was asleep in my Atsugian bed when her events were unfolding.

Stay tuned for more , alot more

Thursday, September 11, 2008

This blog sucks

Hey,

to anyone who reads my blog, I know the frequency has dwindled immensely. Between work, going to the gym, and taking care of my house I have very little time during the week to sit down and blog. However, expect one huge update soon. I`m not gonna say when, just that it`ll come. Adventures still to be logged:

Izu Part 2
Hakone
Obon Week
Kamakura
Ochanomizu

Blogrolls will include:

My fridge
My guitar
My bike

Oh yea I got a guitar. And I`m going to Disneyland this weekend and Hakone again this weekend. Jealous?

Alex

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Izu

The weekend of August 2-3, Keith, Rumiko, Steph and I planned to head to Izu. For the guys, we live maybe 2 hours away from where we were going to meet, Atami. But the girls lived across the country. They had several options, Shinkansen, night bus, or local train, the last being the stupidest option since it takes a million hours and more transfers than I care to count.

The girls took the last option.

The initial plan sounded good on paper. They would get there at 3am, since that`s how the trains ran, and Keith and I would meet them at 9ish. So waking up at 6, I got everything ready, only to find my cellphone had a text that said the following:

We will be there at 10.

Well not exactly, but thats the gist of it. So after killing some more time, I grabbed my bike, rode down to Hon Atsugi, and just as I was going to buy my ticket, I get another text:

"Theres orcs and balrogs all over Hamamatsu, the trains have stopped, we don`t know when we`ll be able leave."



Rumiko sent me this photo of Steph fighting a balrog at Hamamatsu.

Now, if that was the reason, it`d be legit. Balrogs and Orcs are scary as hell. But truth be told, the trains were stopped because of rain.

Being in this perdicament, I rang Keith, and we decided we`d head to Atami first and just wait.



When we got there, we searched for some food, but decided to just go with coffee. After that we went to Atami beach to catch some rays and enjoy some water.





Around 12, Steph calls and reports she`s at Atami. We wait a bit and eventually see the girls. Seems as though they had an adventure of their own. But it was beach time, not story time.







That beach ball was fun for about 15 seconds. But with the wind and all, it kept flying out of bounds. I was long distanced X`d by the lifeguards while fetching it. After some swims, we were famished, time for food. We strolled back to Atami and picked a random place.





Please note the following:

I have no food
Weiner coffee is on the menu

With our stomachs filled, we decided to head to Shimoda, our main destination. We saw some good views on the way.







When we got there, we needed Ice Cream and a place to live. Somethings are more important than others.



There were actually two flavors, but by the time anyone took a picture, only matcha was left.

After getting ice cream, it was time to head to our Ryokan.









At the Ryokan, we all settled down, took a shower, then decided to get some dinner and decided what to do for the night...