Can't Stop the Party

In Japan, there will be days when absolutely nothing happens, and then there will be days when everything seems to happen.  This was the latter.  Though I had a slow start (I left the house around 12), it was just non-stop business from there.  To begin, I went to Popora to look for another old game.  They didn't have it.  I stopped in Geo to look at something, then I went to Tsutaya to see if they had Denkare's Gig Grimoire CD that came out today.  They did not.  I then went way, way out of my way to go to that one used book store where I bought Clock Tower.  They also didn't have the game I was looking for today, but that's okay because I don't need it and I bought something else anyway.

I went to school to wait for people until it was time for Sophie's birthday party, but I remembered again that Denkare's CD came out today, so I decided to take Wesley and go to Mandai Shoten (that tremendous anime store).  I knew they'd have it.

I didn't end up having the go that far, though.



Because the Animate in Kawagoe on the way there had one copy.  I bought it, and also took a picture of the store.  Animate stores are delightful for some reason.

Even after I found it, we wanted to go to Mandai Shoten anyway, so we kept walking.  We found where Kawagoe Castle used to be!  It's not much to look at anymore, but at least we found it.

This is just the street near Mandai Shoten.

And here's a parking lot.

We took a taxi back for whatever reason, so here's the inside of that.

Once we got back, it was time for Sophie's birthday party!  She's twenty-five now.  Or tomorrow.  At some point between now and midnight.

Noemi, Sophie, Evelyn, and Sona were there, as were Dominik, Lucas, Wesley, and myself.

I forgot to take a picture of my food (yakisoba) before I started eating it, so that's why it looks a little sparse.  This place had really good yakisoba.

Sophie is very, very hard to catch on film.

BUT I DID IT.

This is her birthday face.

And this is her birthday cake.

This is my piece of her birthday cake.  It was really good.

Birthday sister picture!  There's frosting on Sona's face because Sophie came around and did that to everyone.  It may or may not be a Korean thing.

And cake was good.

Matt, the program coordinator (this isn't him, this is Dominik) was also at the same restaurant entertaining some guests from a school in California.  When he heard it was Sophie's birthday, he bought her a giant beer that she probably didn't need.  She and Sona were positively goofy the rest of the night.

At karaoke, Lucas was also goofy.  But that's just how he is.

Sophie is helping Lucas sing.

Dominik does songs in German because he is German.  His English is just fine, but he still has an accent ("wegetables"), so this is interesting to hear every time.

Sona was at this point staring into space and breaking mid-song to read the back of a bottle, so that was pretty funny.

But she and Sophie also did a funny song in Korean.

After karaoke, we all squatted outside and talked about things.  Sona kept asking questions like if Wesley's heartburn medicine was "for your tummy".  Her accent had also gotten heavier.  Oh, Koreans.

Here's the stuff I bought today!  On the top is the thing I bought at the nameless book store where I got Clock Tower, a Japanese guidebook for Super Mario Sunshine.  There's very little merchandise from that game, so a guide was really the best I could do.  It was really cheap, so it'll be fun reading material on the plane I guess.
Under that, from left to right are Days of Memories 2, Denkare's Gig Grimoire live CD, and I've Sound's Regret.  Days of Memories is a silly game that uses characters from games made by the company SNK, and Regret is an old CD by the now-famous I've Sound collective of singers and composers.  Kotoko started with them, if anyone knows her.

So yeah, busy day.  And there's school tomorrow!  Whoo.  That will be fun.