We be burnin'..... cash

It has been a really hot weekend. I tried to man up this year and see if I could resist using the AC until at least the third week or so of July, but this weekend was just too unbearable. The news said that the past weekend broke record high temperatures in Japan. The AC got a month's worth of utilization in the past 24 hours. I know I'm going to see a big hit in the wallet when the electric bill comes.

Speaking of the wallet, this month and next will not be kind to the bank of "moi". I have been spending money like I'm drinking water. Not all my colorful bills have been spent frivolously. I have recently bought some household items that I managed to do without in the past year like a microwave/oven. Before, I used the fish grill below the gas range to toast my bread but 8 out of 10 times it usually resulted in my bread catching on fire and me eating a soggy piece of burnt dough at the end. I have been wanting to get a Blu-ray HDD recorder, but with the way I've been spending money, it will definitely have to wait at least another month. Also there is the iPhone I've talked about in my last entry and now I'm debating whether it is worth denting my monthly budget further. The reason why I need to pay attention to my budget carefully this summer is because my little brother will be here soon to stay for the summer so I definitely anticipate my spending to increase from eating out, shopping and going to places like Disney Sea, Hakone, and Summer Sonic music festival. I hear that people usually get a summer bonus in their salary during this time. I doubt I will get one, but I really really hope that the salary fairy will make a visit and bless my bank account.

Pondering whether to get the iPhone

So next Friday, Softbank will sell the iPhone in Japan. I actually have been waiting for the damn thing to get here since it came out in the states. I currently have AU and am debating whether to make the switch to Softbank to get it. My mobile work phone is Softbank and I have to admit that it doesn't get nearly the same reception as my AU phone. I haven't seen any current and upcoming AU phones that even competes against the iPhone. Docomo has a couple of options like the Sharp touch screen which doesn't look so good and the outrageously priced LG Prada phone (approx 980 USD). I remember when I first came to Japan 6 years ago to visit, I was really impressed with my friends' mobile phones. The full color screen, multi color lights and built in camera really made my monochrome Nokia 6520, which was the "it" phone back then look like crap. Now that I'm living in Japan, the tables have turned and the phones here besides the 1 seg television and mobile Suica functions seem to be less advanced than their U.S. counterpart. Anyways, there is still a chance that the iPhone may come to Docomo which I would be more comfortable in switching to but waiting longer for that to happen, if it does ever happen is harder said than done... This concludes my geek related entry.

No more touch! The group picture

I just received pictures of our entertainment during the "No more touch!" night. This one picture in particular just makes me crack up every time I look at it. Hopefully no one in the groups looks at this blog hehe.

Heavy Rain + Soccer = World Cup Qualifiers Nippon vs. Bahrain

It was pouring all day but that didn't phase anyone who was going to see their beloved Nippon national soccer.. I mean football team take on Bahrain, which I must admit did not know existed until earlier last week. Saitama Stadium was packed and the 20 minute walk from the station to the stadium gave nostalgic memories of RFK stadium when I used to see the Washington Nationals back home. I sported my outdated Nakata jersey inside my rain coat and was relieved to see that not everyone was wearing the new color uniforms. As for the game itself, Nippon miraculous scored a goal in the final minutes to beat Bahrain 1 - 0 when Uchida made a header appearing to pass to his team mate to score but ended up in the back of the net. It was a great experience, if you excluded what appeared to be the endless rain that managed to pierce through my rain coat and successfully drenched my underwear. Anyways, here are some pics of the night.

Eating in the sky

Getting a concert ticket...

at face value is extremely difficult in Japan. At least the ones in Tokyo. Tokyo is the worlds most populated city, or at least is in the top 5 and competition is fierce to get anything desirable (e.g. 45 min - 1 hour waiting time to just enter the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop in Shinjuku). For concert events that I have wanted to go I always had to enter myself in a lottery type of system just to qualify myself to purchase the tickets. If I don't qualify, then I have to battle it out at yahoo auctions to find a ticket that isn't marked up by 200%. Anyways, I have FINALLY won a ticket lottery and got myself Bennie K tickets for their concert at Zepp Tokyo this July. I am totally stoked. Check them out at their myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/benniek

No more touch!

This past weekend was action packed, well at least to my standards. A friend currently working in HK came to visit Tokyo for the weekend. Though we met up on Friday, the action packed night was on Saturday. We all started the night off with a good Yakiniku dinner in Ebisu then headed off to Shibuya for some drinks.

The first bar we went to had a Hawaiian motif. That place was decent. Nothing too special about that place except for the soba like appetizer which kept flying into my eyes when I would bite into them. We moved to a second bar near by that is known for its all red decoration and met up with other people. It started out kind of slow there until an already intoxicated group who just came from a wedding showed up. They were really load and started doing some mentally inexplainable actions. Of course, a bit buzzed, we were intrigued by this and we started communicating with them. One thing led to another and they moved to our next table. They had a chant for everything, from "Obama!" to "No more touch!" when one of the guys accidentally touched one the girls in our group. It was hilarious. There was also another group that seemed to have drank a lot and we saw this one guy trying to do everything in his power not to puke while he was waiting for the bathroom to open up. It didn't look like he made it and we even took pictures of him during his vulnerable moment.

When our entertainment slowly became more sleepy and unresponsive, we headed out to karaoke and finished off our night, or morning at that point eating ramen. The last time I stayed out until the next morning was in early March when M and C came to visit. Actually staying out all night and wasting the following day turned out to be good for us. Had we gone home early to explore more of Tokyo the next day, I was planning to take them to Akihabara, which would have potentially exposed us to the stabbing incident that occurred. It is really sad that the incident occurred, and like I mentioned in my previous post, the increase in violence in Japan is disturbing, especially random ones like what occurred in Akihabara.