tokyo, tokyo, tokyo

Well, these past few days have certainly made me appreciate how close Chiba is to Tokyo! Somehow I've made the trip four out of the past five days, which now that I think about it is probably a little ridiculous, haha. But worth it!

On Wednesday I headed over for my first Tokyo Swing Night in a while, which was awesome as usual. Every time I go there I meet some new people, which is always exciting. And then on Thursday I actually went to exactly the same place, but this time for west coast swing! I was super excited to find an event just for west coast, which is arguably my favorite dance, and it was so much fun to be able to dance it again.

And then on Friday I went to LaLaport with some friends to watch The Hobbit! I was worried about tickets running out (since it was opening night) and so I went straight after work to get tickets, but it turns out I needn't have worried and probably didn't really need to show up 3 hours early, haha. But we were in a mall after all, so we shopped a little and got dinner before seeing the movie, which I thought was awesome! I got so into it that I was physically tired when I came out - definitely worth seeing (though maybe not in 3D).

Yesterday I headed back to Tokyo for my first Carleton alumni event, which was just a lunch gathering at an alum's house. I met some brand new Japanese freshmen who had just finished their first fall term (aww) and a lot of other alums, and even ran into a couple of students that I actually knew at Carleton! It was pretty interesting talking to people from all different years at Carleton and figuring out what was the same and what was different for everybody.

After that I went back to Chiba and met up with some friends to celebrate a birthday! We sang karaoke for a couple of hours, which is always a blast, and then just hung out at Ocean Deep for a while until everybody had to catch their last trains. I was a little tired from the past few days, but it was super fun!

Then this morning I got a last-minute invitation from my friend Chris to go shopping in Akihabara, which I actually haven't been to since getting to Japan this time (though I did go when I studied abroad). We wandered around for a bit before meeting up with one of his friends for lunch in Harajuku, after which I finally came home! It's been a busy few days, but I'm sure this next week/weekend will fly by, too! :)