It’s been a while, huh? I guess I’ve been kind of busy–at least, that’s what it seems like according to my planner. Went to Hakone, Ueno Kōen, Meiji Kinenkan, Kanda Shrine, and had some adventures/ errands to run in Jyūgaoka (where I went to a health spa for the first time (//∇//) ), Akihabara and Iidabashi.
Hakone (箱根)
Hakone 箱根 (yes, that’s Mt. Fuji 富士山)
Hakone 箱根 (and yes, that is a pirate ship)
Kanda Shrine (神田明神)
That is not to say that I haven’t been trying to find something to write about.. it’s just that nothing struck me as something I felt I just had to blog about.. until today. Seeing how it’s Christmas Eve, I wanted to relax at home. I guess for me, relaxing means snacking on junk food while watching a walkthrough of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag because that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Acclaimed as the best Assassin’s Creed game yet (not really trying to promote the series, just stating the facts), I’ve been enjoying the experience; but it seems like with anything that you watch online, it’s (almost) impossible to avoid one thing. Yup, advertisements. Thankfully, I can usually skip them after 5 seconds, but every now and then that option is not made available. So, I have grown accustomed to just watching them–especially if I’m doing something else at the time (like eating). Saying all that to say, while I was watching the play through, a couple of different advertisements came on that peaked my interest (3 in particular). Of course since I’m in Japan, they were in Japanese, but I still wanted to share one. And the beauty of it is, you don’t even have to be fluent in Japanese (or really even speak it at all, though it might help to understand a bit about the culture) to get what’s going on in this video. To give a short summary though, it’s called 「通学ダッシュ」(Tsūgaku Dasshu or “School Dash”), and it’s about a female high school student, Misaki, who is usually late to school. However, that particular morning, she wakes up after having a horrible dream where a disciplinary teacher closed the school gate on her (since she was late, naturally), and even after begging and pleading, he rejects her excuses, telling her to give up. To make sure that doesn’t happen, she leaves home early to set out for school. Suffice to say, things don’t really go her way…
Why am I even talking about this? Well, there’s this one part that got me thinking–that first time where she decides to take a different path because she’s scared of a dog. That one choice changed everything for her. And I realized how one simple (or seemingly simple) decision can influence, not only the rest of our day, but maybe even our lives. Okay, maybe I’m being a little overdramatic but hey, that’s what happens when you’re home alone (heh, good Christmas movie) all day and have got plenty of time to think. The point is, sometimes we don’t really give much thought to the choices we make on a daily basis. But have you ever stopped to think how some of those choices influenced who you are today? Again, this may seem like I’m digging too deep just for some random clip, but it never hurts to think like this every now and then… and who knows? You might just learn something new about yourself that you didn’t see before.
What can I say? I’m a One Piece fan (=D)
Whelps, seeing how it is Christmas Eve (and Christmas is only one day away ^^), I would be remiss to not throw in at least one Christmas pic. So, here it is. So, that turned out to be more than one picture, but hey, you know what they say – the more, the merrier! Happy Holidays and a very Merry Christmas!!!
☆*:.｡.\(^O^)/*.｡.:*☆
The Land of the Rising Sun 