This weekend Reiko and I went to the Ueno Zoo since I had never been there before. And also because I wanted to take her to the Hard Rock cafe since there is one in Ueno and she likes it so much.

First we had lunch at the Hard Rock and Reiko bought me a hat at the gift shop After the Hard Rock we headed over to the Zoo. The Ueno zoo is broken into two parts which are connected by a small monorail system. In the first half we made the usual rounds of the animals there. Reiko particularly likes the Lions. I'm partial to Bats, Elephants, and other less agressive animals. Right after we arrived we were able to see the zoo keepers feeding the elephants fruit and other goodies attached to some bamboo and listen to information about elephants in Japanese.

In the second half there were Giraffes and Alligators but by that time they were starting to bring the animals indoors so our time in the second half of the park was muted.

After leaving the zoo it was hot so we stopped for a bit in a local cafe for some frozen drinks. I took that time to show Reiko the city I was building in the Sim City game on my DS. But, unfortunately, I apparently forgot to put it back in my bag leaving it at the cafe, and have yet to recover it. It's really disappointing that after so many years of forgetting important things that I would still forget something so expensive and important in a public place Given that I bought a matching DS along with Reiko and had many games and saved files inside it's really a physically and emotionally irreplaceable item, and thus puts a damper on the whole weekends activities.

Last Sunday I bought JUMP Ultimate Stars for the Nintendo DS. Since then I've been pretty addicted to the game. The format is that of a melee type game like Super Smash Bros for the Gamecube. But the characters are all from the weekly JUMP comic book in Japan. JUMP is kind of like a weekly book/magazine with various comics. Part of the reason it's so addictive is the number of recognizable characters. JUMP prints comics like "Fist of the North Star", "Dragonball", "One Piece", "Naruto", "Bleach", "Kenshin", and "Yugioh". All of whom have representative characters in the game.

You progress through the game by traveling to different planets that are themed around each of the JUMP comic series. At each planet you advance by winning a number of battles which generally have different objectives like gaining the most points, or collecting symbols, or just defeating all other players. Because the types of matches are limited they do get somewhat repetitive. But usually they change it up by pitting you against different characters from the various comics or forcing you to use the characters from the comic to achieve your goals.

In order to choose which characters you play with, you create a deck or what looks more like a comic page using cards or comic pictures for each of the various battle, support, and helper characters. Each card takes up a specific amount of space on the page so you have to arrange them so they fit. The cards come in 3 types, battle, support, and help. The battle cards are those used for the characters you control in battle. The support cards are for characters you can summon to perform an action and help you fight during the battle. The helper cards give the battle cards extra power ups and abilities. Each character could have any array of cards. For instance, Naruto has 2 different sizes of support cards and 3 different sizes of battle cards. Of course the larger sized cards are more powerful versions of Naruto since they take up more space on your comic page. Of course it also allows full wireless play with those who also have the game and a limited amount of wireless play for those without (they can download a piece of the game wirelessly so they can play). Though I haven't had a chance to check it out with anyone yet.

Happy new year everyone!! Been a while since I posted last. A lot has happened since the last time I posted. I was pretty busy for the holidays. But I spent a lot of time with Reiko so naturally I had a great time.

Reiko and I spent Christmas Eve together (Christmas Day in Japan was a regular working day and I had to work) . We had roasted chicken and exchanged gifts. Reiko is pretty low on cash since she is taking classes finishing up her college degree so we had a low budget Christmas but that's the way it should be anyway. The important thing was spending time together.

New years is a big thing in Japan so I had 4 days off of work. I spent most of that time with Reiko at her house with her family. We went to see the "Mysteries of the Human Body" exibition near her house at the Saitama Arena. On New Years we went to a local shrine to ring the bell but there was a huge line so we opted to just drink tea and watch others for a while. On the 2nd we had a party with Reiko's family and had lots of new years food.

Unfortunately, I had to work on the 4th but I took the 5th off instead so it balanced out. On the 5th, Reiko surprised me and came to my apartment and cooked me yakisoba for lunch. Then we went to Meiji-Jingu (Shrine next to Yoyogi Park) for Hatsumoude (first visit to the shrine in the new year). We went to Meiji-Jingu last year when we met in Tokyo, so we remembered some memories from last year, and made prayed for the new year.

On the 6th, Reiko came over again and we went to the Edogawa-ku Sports Center and played badminton for a couple hours before coming back and watching Piglett's Big Movie :-P My mom gave it to her for her birthday last April but we never got to watch it together.

Sunday, we went to Ikebukuro and returned some DS games that we didn't like. I returned Kanji-Ryoku since it's too hard for me. Reiko returned the Mario Basketball game I got her since it's too hard to play. We got some new games instead, Tales of the Tempest, and an English language game. I stayed at Reiko's house that night and we ate gyoza dumplings. Today we went to eat kaiten sushi with Reiko's family and went shopping.

After such a long break from work it'll be hard to go back. :sigh: I have to work this next Saturday so it'll suck, but I can see Reiko on Sunday probably so I'll look forward to that. Anyway, Reiko and I bonded a lot during the time together these holidays. Since the 30th, we have been together every day except the 4th when I was working. No matter how much time we spend together I don't feel like we've spent too much time together :)