... even though I had to spend the night in a Tokyo porn shop coming back from the Versailles concert. xD

Thank you all for your well-wishes. I guess I'll just mass-reply here. :3 Japan is truly a wonderful, beautiful place: clean, safe, and the natives are friendly. xD Kanazawa is large city with a lot to see... there's even a large Kera store here. :3 Kanazawa has a lot of artistic and feudal history... one of Japan's most beautiful gardens is here (Kenrokuen). The school is... okay. It's good for the classes I'm taking (which are separate from all the others), but I don't think I'd want to go here for school or anything.

I'm really learning a lot. My Japanese speech still sucks and my understanding sucks harder (it's not my fault that all the words sound the same -_-;; ), but I'm ganbatte-ing my best! xD

Against the better judgement of my professors, I made the four hour shinkansen (bullet train) trip to Tokyo to see one of Versailles' last indie lives. Honestly, it wasn't the best concert I've been to (even though it was really good), but it's probably the most "valuable" concert experience I've had so far. I'll probably never get to see Versailles like this ever again (i.e. almost able to hold their hands from the pit) since they're going major... and it was a lot of fun to see Teru kind of... *stare* in my direction the whole time. xD (It was probably the fro and the fact that I've met them before, but... yeah. :3) After the concert, me and a bunch of the other international fans were interviewed by NTV for a late-night special. And we got a free dinner out of it! xD I'll let you guys know when that's coming on.

The *real* fun started when I was trying to get back to kanazawa... *sarcastic face*. I mixed up Shibuya and Shinjuku station and I ended missing my bus. After two very stressful hours of wandering around Tokyo asking maybe 20 people where I should go or what I should do, I landed in front of Tokyo Station, almost ready to resign to my fate of dropping $100 to stay in a hotel for a few hours. >_< At the last minute, I asked some slightly inebriated ladies if they knew of a manga shop or internet cafe nearby (pro tip: if you're poor and in Japan, they're great places to stay. $10 to $20 can get you a comfy, slightly entertaining place to crash for the night). One of them kindly led to me one, which I was very grateful for, until I climbed the stairs and quickly realized that this was a very... ah, special kind of manga shop...

so, Yeah. Only in japan is a porn shop with private viewing rooms a reasonably safe, comfortable, and cheap place to stay for a night. xD

I know, great story for the grandkids. Really, if you'd asked me to stay there an hour before, I would've refused, but I was exhausted and desperate. I got back okay, but I missed my first class... but missing a quiz, staying in a porn shop, and dropping about a total of $300 dollars was worth it for this concert... almost.

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To those who want to see pictures from my time here so far, I'll add them soon. :3 Just remind me if I don't over the next few days.