New Years Eve, Day, and the following day!

Wow... All I can say is wow...

For weeks we had planned to visit my friend Neil who was in my training group in Yokkaichi, and the day was finally upon us. December 31, 2007!

Sayaka and I were lazier than expected (if you know us, it should be expected) and we stayed around the house until 2 hours before we should be boarding a train to Yokkaichi!

We headed to Meiki (Nagoya station area) and ate at Pepper Lunch for early dinner! Pepper Lunch is this place that does a type of fried rice with either steak or thin cut beef to mix in with it. We showed ourselves why we should eat there more often!

We boarded the train to Yokkaichi at the time it said we should, and took our first Kintetsu to Yokkaichi! The train said it would arrive at 6:17, but we got hung up 4 stations before Yokkaichi and got there 20 minutes later!

When we arrived, Neil and Stuart met us and we went to go shopping at Apita for some beer and things we would need the next morning.

We went to Neil's apartment which is twice the size of mine (but he is farther from Nagoya, which has its cons) and drank a bit to save money we would need on drinking at the Jazz bar!

We ALL (Sayaka included!) drank a tall can of Kirin and a small can as well before it was time to head to VeeJays for some Live Jazz until the new year clocked in! We walked over through the immense cold and made it less than 5 minutes. When we arrived, we saw Ryan (also from our training group), his coworker Susan and friend/girlfriend/? Atsuko (maybe that was her name, of 4 of us, we all had 4 different names...). They had awesome seats near the front where people would perform all night long. As soon as we sat down, Stuart paid for all of our cover charges and first round! We were shocked! Interesting enough though (things were crowded so it happens) I had to pay for my first round and my drink, Sayaka didn't. Oh well! The night was filled with amazing live jazz, a man who spoke ZERO English, but rocked Ray Charles' Georgia on My Mind, and loads of alcohol! Midnight came and went while we continued to drink, shout, clap, and so on throughout the morning. Ryan, Susan, and Atsuko (tm) had to leave because Atsuko was heading to Yosemite the next day! This was around 1 or so. 2 hours later, I found myself so drunk, I had to leave, because I was just way too dizzy! (I have seriously drank twice as much with NO results. Alcohol, go figure!) Neil, Stuart, Sayaka and I headed back to get me to a bathroom (yes I spoke to god (errr threw up)twice that night), drinking some water, and into a nice warm futon. Sayaka was AMAZING and took care of me until we both headed to sleep. Our hosts, the Brits, went back for more! They got home about 6:15 or so.










Around 11AM, we woke up and Sayaka showered. We said our goodbyes and headed back to Nagoya, where we got our day pass for the subways (600 yen!).

We headed to Sakae to see if they were doing any fukubukuro at Bathing Ape, but that wasn't until the next day. Everything else in Sakae was closed! This is strange, because this is the most popular shopping area in Nagoya! Luckily The Gap was the only store open, and we made our way there to buy Sayaka a new knitted cap and me a new scarf (I left my old on in the izakaya, Sayaka, Naoko and I went to at the start of the vacation!). We called it quits for any other shopping potentials and headed to Atsuta shrine to go pray for the new year. Atsuta shrine is one of the biggest shrines in Japan, and very popular for the near year. When we got there, there were TONS of people, stands selling food, masks, and various other things! We made the walk to the shrines entrance, stopped holding hands (Sayaka said this would make this God jealous, since it is a woman god), and walked under every Torii gate in the shrine. During the walk to the largest, most popular shrine, it began to rain. The rain continued to grow harder, and it even began to snow a bit! First day of the year, and we have snow! We made it to the large shrine, threw 5 yen, and made our prayers! We quickly made our way out and headed for Aeon JUSCO to go do some potential shopping, look at the dogs/cats and eat.

When we arrived, I picked up a new knitted cap from the winter sports store (my old beanie is too thin, and this new one protects more of my ears and back of my neck). We looked for other things for Sayaka and I but couldn't find anything else. We found a ramen shop she really wanted to take me to, and I was super hungry, and was cautious about eating ramen now. Lucky for me, this was THE BEST ramen I have had in Japan so far! We got 10 pieces of mini gyoza, and I even got 2 refills of noodles for the ramen and was proper full after that! Sayaka finished with some black sesame ice cream, that I really didn't like!

After that we headed to the pet store to watch the dogs and cats like we always do, and eventually made our way home, after some SUPER light grocery shopping. It was SUPER cold today and we were happy to be home!








That night we got a text from Sayaka's mom that she would be in the city shopping and she invited us to go with her and go to the Aquarium too! Can't pass that up! I kept tossing around the idea about going to Bape to try for fukubukuro and finally decided I would let Sayaka sleep in and go check it out, then meet her and her mom later.

I woke up extra early in the morning and headed to Sakae to line up. I got nervous as I exited Sakae station and saw tons of people lined up for Matsuzakaya, Mitsokoshi, Parko, and Lachic! I swear they looked like lines from Disneyland! The day before we read that Bape would be holding it's line in a big park behind the store (in front of the store would be too small). When I was close to the park, I saw many people wearing Bape clothes, running towards the park. I kept my pace, but was in complete SHOCK when I saw the length of the line! It was about 8 rows deep, with roughly 25 people per row! I got in line and waited patiently, with my headphones on, since of course, I was alone, and no one would even talk to me anyway, just stare, look, point, laugh. Welcome to Japan.

Eventually one of the store staff came and stamped my hand, and my number was 207... This was going to be a LOOONG wait. Once 10AM hit, we were guided throw the line to receive raffle tickets. These tickets would give us a new number and order to get into to line, to enter the store... Complicated? Yes. Confusing? When you speak little Japanese, yes. Fun? Well, I have to admit, kinda!

My new number became 85, and I made my place in line and waited! During the wait, I came across a few interesting things. One, the age and sex of people into Bape amazed me. I typically see guys get a few things for their girlfriends, but in line, I saw girls by themselves, with 100% Bape clothes on, head to toe! I saw men and women in their 50s, dressed the same! I also heard some guy who was speaking English, and obviously from the US or Canada, and he was SUPER annoying. He was with a Japanese girl who spoke excellent English and I can tell even she was annoyed. The stuff he was talking about was super petty, uninteresting, repetitive, and annoying. I was blessed when the security moved them out of line because it was too long. They had to go wait on these huge steps while the rest of us stood in the shade, in the freezing cold... Hey better than listening to him! I finally started talking to people as my ipod died, and I found the 2 guys next to me's conversation funny. They saw me laughing and figured I understood Japanese, and began talking to me. We had some fun conversations about Bape, movies, music, and America, and eventually 4 other people joined us, and it became a Tommy interview.

It was finally my turn to enter the store! 3.5 hours later! I went in with one of the guys I was talking with and we had hopes to find certain things we wanted. When I got in, I didn't see anything that caught my eye on the first and second floor (third is for women). I went back to the first, and found that my new friend had already collected 5 or 6 items!!! I looked at the shoes and one pair caught my eye. I had never seen them before I tried them on in my size, which they only had one of. That fact, plus I just waited for almost 4 hours to come in here, I was going to buy something! So I bought the shoes, and the new season's magazine!







After my shopping, it was time to meet Sayaka and her mom in Osu. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was because Sayaka gave me a great description of where they were, and I have a great memory of where certain stores are in Osu. Osu is a HUGE shopping area, with smalls stores placed throughout, with restaurants and different things thrown in for flavor. We met at a jewelry store that had fukubukuro and her and her mom bought a big bag! After that we headed to one more store where her mom bought another bag, and a small case. We were pretty hungry so we headed to an all you can eat and drink Italian food place! Their pizza was GREAT as was their cesar salad! I wasn't impressed with their pastas, but was more than happy with about 9 slices of pizza and 3 salads! After we finished, we headed to Aeon JUSCO to go find something for Sayaka's dad. We found him a nice shirt, then went to go find a calendar that her mom wanted. After a lot of shopping, we headed to go get a smoothie after a day of hard shopping! Her mom was shocked to see it was 7:30 when we prepared to leave!

We headed to Akaike via subway and helped her mom get all of the bags to her car. She drove us to the nearby game center (we call it arcade in America), and her mom gave us money to play air hockey twice! We played after what felt like a year since we played last, and I won both times! Sayaka gave me her sad face, but I still had to win! After this, it was time for the long subway ride home. I think we literally went to sleep less than an hour after getting home, which is VERY unusual for us.

This vacation has been expensive and tiring!

Oh yeah! If you want to know what fukubukuro is, it translates to Happy/Lucky Bag/Box! It is a tradition in Japan where stores throw a bunch of random stuff into a bag or box, and sell it for much less than the total of all the items. Some stores even throw in a random GRAND PRIZE of sorts, like a car (keys to the car)or something, so people love going shopping for those items. Last year Bic Camera gave everyone a Nintendo DS Lite in their 10,000 yen fukubukuro, at a time when Nintendo DS Lites were sold out everywhere in Japan. So going shopping for these items is a great deal and a chance at some cool stuff!