Andie Abroad: January 2007

I love Odaiba :)

Ok so the same weekend as the tokyo car show i met up with michelle on monday...i swear we're inseperable :P anyway it was like 2 in the afternoon and again we just randomly decide to take a trip to odaiba because i had never been there...Odaiba is fairly new and it's known as "futuristic city".

*i have no idea why they have a little statue of liberty*

*kua'aina!*

*fuji tv headquarters*

*the beautiful rainbow bridge*

*the HUGE odaiba ferris wheel which can be seen from miles away*

*in one of the shopping complexes there is a place where there are 6 different ramen restaurants in one area, all specializing in different types of ramen from around japan...the hardest part was choosing which one we wanted!! i forgot which one we ended up choosing but it was GOOD!*

Tokyo Car Show '07

Two weekends ago Chris and I went to Tsuchiura because our friend John just finished his contract with AEON and moved back home to LA. We stayed saturday and sunday night in tsuchiura...on sunday we went to the tokyo car show which was held at the same convention center as the tokyo game show in chiba...it was very similar except this time it was all cars instead of video games. for some reason when i hang out with this bunch we end up going to conventions that i have no interest in but is pretty cool i guess.. here are some pictures:

someone had a roxy car...this one was my favorite because it's so darn cute!!!

i'll have you know that those systems at the bottom is an xbox and a playstation 3 which is connected to the HUGE screen in the back...

6 mini screens in each door!!!

it was like being in pimp my ride...it's not uncommon for japan cars to have at least 2 tv screens. just last night when we were at 7-11 there were a bunch of young people hanging out and each car had 4 screens (one in back of each head rest) and they were playing dvds and music videos...it was crazy.

our friend nam has a car so after the game show we decided to drive over rainbow bridge into shinjuku where we had some pizza and beer! YUM :) haha can you believe that this was my first time having real pizza since i've been here!!?? it was heaven...

bye bye john!

john's family is from LA but they love hawaii so they were there this past winter vacation on oahu...his older brother is living on the north shore and now john is thinking about moving to hawaii one day too.

Michelle and Andrea's Snowboarding Attempt-Take 1

When Michelle and I are together we can always guarantee a very random, unorganized day of fun. So, on our second day of vacation she says, "lets go snowboarding!" and i say..."uhh, sure!" both of us not knowing how, or where...i found a place in fukushima online and so we planned to meet in koriyama at 8:15 am which meant i had to get on the 6 am train...woo hoo! michelle got on the wrong train and got to koriyama just a few minutes too late to make the train that we were supposed to take so we decided to eat breakfast because we had an hour to kill...i also took her to Jupiter which is the foreign foods market in koriyama station. she was so excited that we lost track of time and ended up missing the train AGAIN hahaha so we had yet another hour to kill...and we said that if we missed that train that we just weren't meant to go snowboarding that day. this time we made sure we were there 20 minutes early! haha...we got to inawashiro station and it was just snow EVERYWHERE it was beautiful!!! we found a free shuttle up to the resort and it was just a 15 minute drive to the mountain :)

it was too much fun...i'm addicted now and we're planning a snowboarding trip for next week sunday!! hopefully we'll have a bigger group this time. the weather has been really nice recently and so it hasn't been snowing as much (which could be bad!)...whether it's global warming or climate change it's been a really mild winter in japan. on the news they were saying how this is the first year that they had to import snow into hokkaido for the snow festival because there wasn't enough snowfall this year. crazy huh!? well, i'm not complaining...

A Tokyo New Years

AKEMASHITE OMEDETTO GOZAIMASU!

On New Years Eve Michelle and I decided to go to Meiji Shrine in Harajuku, Tokyo...We waited in line with the other thousands of people and we thought we were going to die from the cold...We waited for three hours in the freezing cold just go walk up to the shrine, clap our hands twice, chuck all of the coins we had in our wallets, and watch a man bang a huge taiko drum. It was an interesting night to say the least, and at least we can say that we were at Meiji shrine on new years...but we both agreed that it wasn't something we would ever want to do again. haha. following the shrine there was a huge festival going on, i ate soba noodles because i couldn't imagine a new years eve without eating soba...it wasn't as good as grandmas though!

on new years day, michelle, kiyo, and i went to check out yokohama!! i LOVE yokohama...it was so beautiful and futuristic looking! we got to ride the world's fastest elevator in japan's largest building, landmark tower. the view from the top was breathtaking!

Yokohama-Chinatown

That night, as we headed back to Michelle's place from Yokohama I got a call from Jake! He was in Japan because he performed on the red and white show on new years eve :) I met him the next morning for breakfast...so exciting! haha.