I LIKE MONEY I LIKE MONEY

Today was our mid-term.  As I said before, I went into the thing not entirely sure what was going to be on it, but I did my best to understand what we'd gone over in class.  It turned out okay in the end, though the vocabulary part was a little hard because we were never told to study that.  The interview, however, was really great, and if the grade were based on that alone I would get an easy A.
For lunch I sat with my normal group, one of whom I'd already been talking to for about an hour after the test.  They're all very normal, but are easy to talk to.  They also share many of my interests, so we have a good time.
After that, I went home to see if my new card arrived.  IT DID.  I HAD MONEY.  FINALLY.  TAKE THAT, GUY IN TEXAS.  I had a concert ticket to buy (they'd been on sale since March, so time was running out), so I hurried over to Lawson and made that happen.  While I was there, I picked up the food below.  Lunch had just been a banana, so I was still very hungry.  On the left are some K-On-themed rice crackers (K-On is an anime about a music club), and then there's tea and some bread.



I felt like celebrating having money again, so I went over to that used book store and picked up Clock Tower: The First Fear.  More on that later.
I went back to school after that and spent some time talking with Japanese students.  Everyone around here seems to know the game I bought pretty well, which makes me really happy because in America it's barely known by anyone.  Anyway, some of the other foreign students were going to see Men in Black 3, so Welsey and I decided to join them.  We talked with more Japanese students while we waited, and it turned out that the international students had left without telling us.  My heart was set on a celebratory movie, so Welsey and I decided to go by ourselves for a later showing.

Here's a picture of Daiso.  I'm not really sure how you'd describe this store -- it's sort of like a gift store, but they have everything from craft supplies to cold drinks.  It's a little like having an entire store dedicated to everything they have at the pharmacy that isn't medicine.

In Japan, cats say "nya" instead of "meow".  That being said, it's one of the world's easiest ways to make an animal pun, so it happens a lot.  See above.

This is the movie theatre.  It was enormous and very, very fancy.  I'm almost sure you can't see much, but I felt like I had to take a picture of how big this thing was.  There was even a stage in front of the screen.

This is a picture of  the seats, probably.  They were so well-cushioned that their comfort makes the softest car seats feel like wooden planks.  There's no reason we can't do this in America, so it baffles me that we don't.

Empty Japanese mall at night!

This apartment building was completely dark except for this window.  I don't know why.

Here's the ticket I bought today.  I am just silly with excitement to see this woman perform.  For those still unaware: yes, I do listen to things that don't have guitars or idol singers in them.  My philosophy is "If it's Asian I want to hear it", and Mika Agematsu is my most favorite of these unexpected musicians.  She plays the arpa -- the Paraguayan harp -- and she's fantastic at it.  Unfortunately for me, that means her American presence is negligible at best, and her overseas performances are mostly limited to South America.  VERY fortunately for me, however, is the fact that her birthday concert will be happening while I'm here, and I'M GOING TO IT AHHHH.  I was hoping she'd do something while I was here, and this is probably the best thing that she could do.  It's also happening at this delightful-looking cafe in Roppongi, which just sort of compounds my excitement.  Sometimes I can't fall asleep without one of her CDs playing, so I'm really looking forward to this.
Here are some videos.  I would consider your watching them a personal favor to me, because Mika Agematsu is great.

Umi no Kanata
Kaze
Her rendition of "Moliendo Cafe"
Cielito Lindo (You've probably heard this tune before.)

This is probably also the only concert I'm going to that will have other foreigners in the audience, because every Hispanic person in Roppongi is probably going to it.

So here's that copy of Clock Tower that I bought.  Truthfully, the only game in the series that I have played so far is the most recent one, and there's a very good reason for that.  In the one I've played, you have full control of the main character, meaning your button input corresponds directly to actions taken by said character.  The first three games, however, are not like this, and instead utilize a more "point and click" interface.  This means that you move the cursor to an object, press a button, and your character either moves to that spot or investigates the item you just clicked on.  However, I love the fourth game enough that I decided to try and buy all the previous ones while I'm here and while they're incredibly cheap.

Also in the picture is a keychain of Luigi from the Mario series dressed as a fox.  I don't know why, because I haven't played Super Mario 3D Land, but it's Luigi so I went for it.  It actually came with the tea from the first picture, the same as that Mario keychain I got the other day.  The Luigi one seems to be the rarest, because the one I bought is the only one I've seen so far.  The rest of the set is common enough that when I go to buy tea, I'll just get that brand and eventually collect them all.

Tomorrow I get to wake up early and buy MORE concert tickets!  I don't think you guys understand how much time I've spent in America NOT going to concerts that has to be made up.  Since nearly everyone I care about performs somewhat regularly in Tokyo,  I'm going to make the most of the opportunity.