The rest of last week

WED-Carly, Krysta (Carly's friend), and Katie (the new English teacher) went to Tokyo Tower. Carly didn't go because she was really tired. Originally we were all going to go to the hotel/bar that the movie Lost in Translation was filmed in, but we found out there was a $20.00 cover charge after 8:00pm to get in and we decided we didn't want to spend that much money, so that's why we opted for Tokyo Tower instead. These are some things I've learned about it: The tower stands 333 m meters tall, it's taller than the Eiffel Tower which is only 320 m high, and is used to transmit radio and tv signals. We went to the second observatory at 250 m high. It was really amazing to see the city lit up at night. I read that if you go in the day time you can see Mt.Fuji if it's clear out!

Krysta and I in front of the mini Toyko Tower in the lobby.

THUR-Carly, Krysta, and I headed off to Fussa station, which ended up being over two hours away on the train! Our destination: U.S. air force, Yokota air base. Carly and Krysta went to high school with this guy Chris who was stationed in Japan, so we went to visit him. After making it to the base, Chris met us and we had to get checked in. We had to give them our passports and they did full background checks on each of us. Then they took our picture and gave us a sheet of paper that was basically our permission slip to be there. The base itself was basically just like a small city, complete with four lane highways and street lights. There were small houses, apartment buildings, and the dorms for the soldiers. Chris showed us his room, which he gets all to himself. He said all of the soldiers get their own rooms, but two people have to share a bathroom, which is between the two rooms. The best thing about the base is that they have American things there, including fast food places like Taco Bell, Baskin Robbins, and Subway. They also had a grocery store with American foods, but it was closed when we got to the base, so that was a little disappointing. I did, however, manage to snag a bag of peanut butter M&Ms from there!

The air base.

SAT-Everyone went out to dinner for John's birthday at Sakura to eat okonomiyaki. I got to try two new things: sake (don't worry, I'm 20, which is the legal drinking age in Japan) and takoyaki (which is fried octopus.)


This is a picture of me helping to make the takoyaki. On the griddle was something that resembled a muffin pan. First the lady next to me in the picture put this kind of batter down in each little section. Then I put a piece of octopus in each one, as well as some other ingredients like lettuce and some spices. Then you turn them around as they heat up and little balls form. When they are brown you eat them. The octopus was better than I expected and it wasn't too chewy or anything. The inside batter stayed very moist. I liked it a lot.