Hanami and Good News!

Good news first, though. For those of you who I haven't talked to yet, or weren't the ones who told me the news (haha)....

I've been accepted to University of Massachusetts Amherst! Yes no more Marlboro! I am unbelievably happy about that, haha. I don't know what I would have done if I had to go back there. Probably be miserable. XD But now I won't have to! It also sounds like I'll be going in as a junior


Today I finally was able to do hanami. I've been stuck in school all week, and so I've missed the best of the sakura. I'm really angry about that, but oh well. Can't have everything. At least I got to see a tiny bit of it as I passed Meguro River every day. We went to Ueno-koen (Ueno Park) today and looked at the sakura for a couple hours before wandering down a really long street of shops by Ueno station. Afterward, everyone was going to go see Cloverfield, but I just wasn't very interested, so I went home and then had some really good food at a restaurant called Cafe and Cake Mozart with Marina. She bought my dessert as a congratulatory thing for me getting into UMass, lol.

On to the pictures! (Don't forget that you can click on the pictures to see bigger, clearer versions!)
Here's Emily and my plushies decorating the tv. Mine is the Totoro in the middle. ^_^ They're from the Ghibli museum.

Yesterday was my last day of meeting with my culture exchange partner, Yumika, so we took pictures together and exchanged little gifts. On Thursday I had given her a drawing of Tetsu, the bassist and band leader of L'Arc-en-Ciel...and her favorite member. She got so excited when I showed it to her, and she kept going, "Kyaa! Similar! Similar!" It was very cute. Then she gave me a little phone charm with my name on it (though she said she couldn't find one spelled with a "c" and I told her that was fine because it was the Japanese spelling, lol) and a giant double-sided poster of Hyde (vocalist of L'Arc-en-Ciel for you unknowledgeables). Seriously, one of the sides has a huuuuge picture of his face, and it scares me. I'm definitely not putting that side up, haha.

After I left school yesterday, I met up with Emily in Shibuya, and we got some dinner...and they had ramune! ^_^ Yay for it getting closer to summer.

Heres the miso ramen I had. (My favorite kind.)

From today, in Ueno-koen. These are the food vendors. I had chicken, shaved iced, and I wanted cotton candy but didn't get any because I forgot. XD

A pretty duck, swimming in sakura petals.



The obligatory me-with-the-sakura picture, lol. You can see there's another woman getting a picture, too! *laughs*

I love this picture, because when we were all taking pictures of the sakura, these men noticed us and got really excited, and were making V signs and yelling to be in the pictures. I was looking away when they started, though, so I only got the last part of their posing. At least three of the guys are looking at my camera, haha. The guy in the middle back with the two peace signs makes me laugh.


Aah the passed out drunk guy. I didn't get his face because we were walking and I didn't exactly stop to take the picture. I kind of like it this way, anyway, lol.

I love this picture! At every single tarp, there were rows upon rows of shoes, but this one was the best, because it has the cool shoes lined up perfectly (whereas most peoples shoes were scattered around).

While looking around the shopping area, Emily and I went into Mister Donut, because neither of us had ever been there before. I just got the little tray of donut hole samples, but they were really good. It's been ages since I've even eaten a donut, so they were enough for me!