Yay! A royal wedding!

It's absolutely beautiful from what I've seen so far, and it looks like it'd be worth picking up a copy of Hello! to see the details.

I'd make a bad British citizen, since I kind of assumed William and Kate would be the next royal wedding. I can't wait for theirs either!

Whew, what a week.

All of my management was out of the office all week for one reason or another, so I tried to get as caught up as I could. I still have a ton of work to do, though, and got a lot more anyway. Monday I was extra tired from the weekend, but luckily it was a slower day. I came home to study for my exam, but got frustrated with the poorly-worded practice problems and researched photographers for the rest of the night, only to discover that I really, truly, do need a videographer. That was essentially how I spent the night.

Tuesday was my "cumulative" exam for data modeling. Now, I've only had one semester of electives so far, but I haven't actually had an exam during exam week. USC has a "study week" before exams, so you essentially lose an extra week of your semester break because exams are delayed. I almost assumed the professor would move the exam up, but he didn't. It ended up that "cumulative" in his world means "the past few weeks of class." I was mad that I'd wasted the time on studying, but it was thankfully pretty easy. He must have really gotten the hint from the midterm. By 9:30, when I got home, I'd completely lost my voice and felt sick, so I just had ice cream for dinner, watched the Office (oh, how I'm looking forward to Jim proposing!), and went to bed.

Wednesday was rough only because I was tired from the day before, and fending off the little cold that was brewing. I contacted almost all of the photographers recommended by the chapel except for one that was openly starting at $8,000 and one that hadn't been updated since the early 1990's. Call me picky, but it puts me off. After work I went to yoga class, and we went to the Macaroni Grill for a celebratory dinner. I still couldn't have a glass of wine as my voice was fading fast, and they were "out" of anything scallopine. Bummer, but still a good dinner.

Thursday I applied to community college. No joke! They're offering a middle-eastern dance class this summer on a day that I don't already have class, and since my friend liked it so much I thought I'd give it a try. For six weeks and $20, it's a low risk project. They take two weeks to process an application; I hope I get in! Work was a mess because some servers were reset wrong somehow overnight, and everyone was out of the office. The application I work on was almost entirely down, with nothing I could do to help for most of the day. It ended up being a big day because my girlfriends came with me to approve of my dress, and took sneaky pictures for my mom. Seriously, coolest friends ever! After work I went shopping with a friend to South Coast, where we spent about an hour in H&M, and then had dinner at Mitsuwa. I forgot what a cool neighborhood Costa Mesa is; I wish it was more convenient to live there.

Friday people started trickling back in to the office, and I got a couple new projects to work on. After work I tried calling home to see what was going on there (my great aunt had been very ill), tried to read my Lucky magazine (which just isn't my style, but was free), and fell asleep in the heat. We went out to Dave & Buster's for a going-away party where the boys watched the Lakers game and I went with my only female friend there to Steve & Barry's $8.98 sale. Everything was only $8.98! Which included suit jackets and some really nice clothes, but also cheap jewelry and headbands. Sadly, their pants aren't cut for me, but I did get a bunny t-shirt and blue shirt for work. We were home around midnight and totally exhausted.

Ends up the weekend was just as busy as the week ...

A few months ago, at work, we were talking about using anti-aging products. Probably just like most other 20-something women everywhere. Well, it freaked me out enough that I went out in search of anti-aging cream, and settled on trying Target brand "night cream." Literally, that's what it's called. I was going to buy the Olay brand, but I wanted a cheaper trial ($24 is a lot for a pot of cream that might not work!). Of course, I could have bought the two-packs from Sam's, but again, that's a bigger investment than I wanted to make at the time.

It's been a few months now, and I didn't post anything because, well, nothing seemed to be happening. It was a nice, thick moisturizer that wasn't to heavy; as we all know, that's a rarity in moisturizers. It still wasn't as fantastic as my St. Ives anti-aging moisturizer that I used faithfully for years, but I like something a little heavier at night anyway.

My nightly ritual for the past couple of months has been to clean with Burt's Bees rosewater toner and then putting on the night cream. A couple of days ago, I noticed a difference! It sure looks like I have more even tone and fewer creases.

I'm almost out of my Target night cream, but it seems to have worked well enough that I should probably replace with the Olay from Sam's. Since I like a lighter daytime moisturizer in the summer, when everything feels greasy anyway, I might even invest in the daytime anti-aging cream too.

Finally! Finished with Spring 2008!

Yatta!!

{Sigh.}

I'm a little melancholy this week. As you should all be aware (hint hint!!) Sunday is Mother's day. I sent my mom some tulips that were apparently very pretty online, but didn't deliver quite as expected. Most of all, I wish I could just hang out with my mom for Mother's day. Last year, my parents came out to visit, and we went to try on dresses at David's Bridal, because I thought that was a fun, girly thing to do (my dad might have had a different opinion). This year, with all the Mother's day sales, advertisements, and people acting put out by the plans they're making to spend Sunday with their moms, I'm just a little bummed. I'm seriously considering hopping a last minute plane home one of these weekends (soon), because most of all, I want to try on my potential "the dress." I want to see it on at least one more time, and I have reinforcements (seriously, how cool are my friends??), but I still have that little fantasy of trying on dresses and coming out of the room and my mom and I realizing it's "the one."

Honestly, it was easier finding the husband.

I'm also a little bummed that my college roommate can't make it to our other roommate's wedding. What she's doing is awesome, but I miss them!! We had so many good times. I so hope they're wanting to make a spring vacation to California next year ...

My last spring semester final isn't until next Tuesday, then I have another week or so off, then it's back to the grind. On one hand, I tend to less frivolously work late during the semester, because I'm so crunched for time. On the other hand, I'm liking my current job. I feel like I'm doing so much good, helping train people to use the particular system I work with! I saw the syllabus for one of my classes this summer, though - ouch. Ah well. Time to make dinner, and get back to studying.

Japan VI

Thursday

We found out, not long before the trip, that Thursday was a national holiday during our trip (I still don't know what holiday, but I'll take a day off any time!). One of my classmates and I had arranged for the free shuttle to take us to the Disney resort at 6 in the morning. I'm not kidding. But we were so excited!

We had a quick breakfast at the "American" buffet, and met the shuttle in the lobby. The "shuttle" was actually a charter bus, and it ended up only us and another couple took the hour drive to the resort. The only bad part was, for the whole drive, we kept praying it would stop raining! At times, it was even raining pretty hard. I was fine with sprinkling, but full-on rain??

In all honesty, I am so, very, glad we went (we both were!). We were there by 7, had our tickets for only 58,000 yen, and waiting for the gate to open at 8. After a long, wet wait, some warm tea out of the vending machine, and a chat with a lovely woman who made some recommendations for lunch and shopping, we were in! Despite the weather, there were still a lot of people.

In the entry plaza, there is a huge, fantastic fountain. Then, there's an almost mini-Main Street with stores. Through that is the Mediterranean plaza, which looks like a beautifully recreated Italian city. Really, truly, amazing and beautiful. People streamed in the left and right paths, and it was almost like a solid canopy of umbrellas. We took some pictures trying to pretend that it wasn't raining. On looking at the map, we realized that the park wasn't really like Sea World - instead of a train that circles the park, a waterway with a boat goes around.

Our first stop was the Mysterious Island, a fake volcano that houses some rides in the center of the park (rather than a castle). The first sign we saw was for Journey to the Center of the Earth, and with a short line and it's warning that it was a thrilling ride, we were game! At first, it was pretty calm going through the track in the roughed-up looking car. Thrilling? I suppose some of the creatures were a little creepy. But the car turned the corner, a huge monster appeared, and it took off! Altogether, a pretty long and fun ride.

Next, we got fast passes (they have them there too!) for 20,00 Leagues Under the Sea, and wandered over to the Mermaid Lagoon and went on Flounder's coaster. Cheesy, I know - it was a roller coaster designed for really small children. But it was still a good time! If you remember in the Little Mermaid, when they first show the underwater kingdom - the land was designed just like that. It was truly impressive with all the different colors and spires. We didn't go in the building, though; neither of us were too anxious to meet Ariel. We then walked around the Lost River Delta, which is obviously popular with the Indiana Jones and Raging Spirits rides. The lines for each of these was almost two hours, with a near hour wait just for the fast pass, so we skipped them and went through the Arabian Coast. Even there, the details, decoration, and architecture were amazing. It was mostly shows there, so we went back for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

The cars (or pods, I should say) for the ride were tiny, but they were somehow not claustrophobic either. The seats faced left, right, and straight ahead; each sat two and was equipped with a flashlight that you could move around to check things out. The Atlantis creatures creeped me out some, but it was altogether a fun ride. Afterward, we ran around the "fortress" across the Mediterranean Harbor from the gate - and that's when tragedy struck. With all of my enthusiastic picture-taking on the trip, I had filled what I thought was a 2 gb memory card. I tried to delete as many pictures as I could on the way to Port Discovery, without losing too much. But what a time to lose your camera!!

Once at Port Discovery, we tried some chocolate-covered popcorn and got fast passes for Storm Riders. Instead of Autopia, they have Aquatopia, where little boats stop and spin around on random tracks in the water. It was greatly entertaining for me ... maybe I'm just a little simple. But it would be a great ride for the California Adventure lagoon ...

We strolled around the American Waterfront next, and tried to take Titanic-style pictures on the SS Columbia (which I swear is a copy of the Queen Mary, but a little smaller), and got to look out over the ocean (hello California!). At the information desk, they'd recommended we have lunch at a restaurant with a show, and that was our plan for lunch. But, we realized that the show was entirely in Japanese, so it would be kind of a waste on us. We instead got lunch at an Italian restaurant, which served mostly seafood pasta dishes. Italian food seems extra popular in Japan!

Before our fast pass time, we started shopping. We both had intentions of spending a lot of money on gifts there, but there simply weren't any souvenirs that mentioned Tokyo Disney, or even the standard Mickey and Disney stuff you find here. On a recommendation from lunch, we left the park and paid 150 yen to ride the monorail (!) to Bon Voyage, the "biggest" store at the resort. The ride was nice & dry (and worked just like the Tokyo train), but even after a very long time in the crowded store, we couldn't find anything, and it was getting closer to our shuttle pickup time. So, we headed back in to the park to go back and buy some of the things we'd seen earlier, much easier said than done. We managed to pick up a few things, and with time to spare, decided to use our Storm Rider fast passes.

The ride itself was a neat experience. It was a lot like Star Tours, but a bigger theater. Before you enter the theater, a cast member explains that we're all getting on a special plane that drops storm-diffusing bombs into the storm's eye. How do I know all this? An LED sign that scrolled the translation in English. Since everything was in Japanese all day, it was kind of nice to know what was going on. But the translation stopped there - in the theater, the entire dialogs was in Japanese. Surprisingly, the story was still easy to follow. And yes, I'm aware that it was simple to begin with. All I could understand was "Cap-tan Davis!" One thing though - the ride was a heck of a lot scarier and surprising not knowing what was going on at all. At one point (and I'm going to spoil it for you), this giant beam comes crashing through the ceiling. I screamed, my classmate laughed at me, and the little boy next to me probably thinks that all white ladies are crazy.

All in all, we didn't go on too many rides, did a lot of shopping, and it was totally worth it despite the rain and being soaked and cold all day. I think a few classmates were jealous even - I'm so glad we went!

When we got back to the hotel, I decided to really cap off the perfect day, in my opinion - a trip to the Hello Kitty mecca. I changed into some drier clothes and, in the lobby, ran in to another classmate who was just kind of hanging out. Instead, he decided to come with me (again, the crazy white lady). It ended up the store was only a couple of blocks away, and the rain mostly stopped. It was on Yasukuni-dori in Shinjuku, which is famous for all of the neon lights. And, I would have missed it, if I hadn't seen a sign on a building that said "Gift Gate," and it hadn't been right down the steps off the street! Unfortunately, it was a lot like the Sanrio stores here, but much more expensive (as one of my classmates had warned me). I did buy a couple of things, but stopped at the $30 t shirt. Really??? I was happy with my tiny tote, cookie cutters (which turned out to be rice forms) and shinkansen cup for Andy (which the shopkeeper kindly filled with jelly candy for me, since I couldn't read the sign).

On the way back we stopped to eat, meaning, I said "Let's try this place!" It was a little diner-style restaurant with a counter and a couple of booths, a little run down but still exciting. Again, they were kind enough to show us the English menu, and told us to order from a vending machine. This is apparently pretty common, but so fun! {ed: I heard later that franchises do this, to make sure all the money goes somewhere controllable.} I ordered a pretty simple beef bowl, around $5, and it was perfect for a rainy day. A few other classmates popped in a little later, and were just excited about the vending machine, the quick service, and excellent food. We exchanged stories from the free day - they'd experienced the subway at rush hour - and then headed back to the hotel. I caught up with my roommate, who toured the city, and we went to bed.

Japan V

Wednesday
Since we were getting the next day off, one of my classmates and I were looking for ways to get to the Tokyo Disney resort. The Keio Plaza happens to be one of the resort's "Good Neighbor" hotels, offering a free shuttle to the resort on a set schedule. My classmate went to the front desk and asked for tickets, but they said we couldn't take the shuttle since we were with a separate tour group. I called the front desk and asked, but they told me the same when I gave my room number. My classmate called from her room, and they would let her get tickets, but suddenly there were no spaces left on the 9 a.m. shuttle! We analyzed tons of different bus, subway, and JR maps, and found ways to get there by train, but it was confusing and time consuming. We called one last time, for the 6 a.m. shuttle so my classmate could make her dinner reservations, and they finally gave in! Within minutes a hotel employee was at the door with two tickets. Score!

Now, with a group of six of us, we headed out to Roppongi to a recommended sushi restaurant. The restaurant was in a huge shopping center that reminded me of the mall on the Las Vegas strip. It was cool and rainy, but we borrowed umbrellas from the hotel. The restaurant seated us at a private table toward the back - to get in, we had to take off our shoes and put them in a small locker. I had to make special note of where I put them, because even though they were numbered ... they were numbered in Japanese! OK, not really sure if they were numbers, but certainly not marked in Roman characters. At first, I thought the tables were very traditional, since the table was almost even with the floor. Instead, the floor under the table was lower, so the booth was normal. There was a conveyor belt on one end of the table, and all sorts of sushi rolling by. Some of the sushi was looking a little ... old ... but we could see the chefs, and they watched for plates that had been out too long. The best part of the meal was getting our check. Just like my first sushi dinner, the plates were color coded for price. But the waiter simply stacked the plates, scanned them with a handheld scanner, and it printed a receipt! The waiter was good humored about our astonishment, and let us take pictures.

We strolled around Roppongi, but the stores in the shopping mall closed around 8 p.m. A couple of people in our group wanted to meet up with some other people in our class at a bar, while the rest of us went in search of the Hard Rock Cafe for souvenirs. It was tucked back from the main street, but we found it, and headed for the train station to get back.

At the train station, our platform was practically at the bottom - many floors underground. It was crowded, but people suddenly started to leave. We couldn't understand any of the announcements, but waited in hopes that the train would come anyway. When a few times passed (and the trains are amazingly on time), we finally asked a group that were speaking English nearby if they knew what was wrong with the train. Only one in the group could sort of speak Japanese, and told us there was an earthquake and the trains were being inspected. Way underground is not the place to be if there's an earthquake! A little further down, we found a conductor who told us the train wasn't coming, but the reason was lost in translation. Although he tried helping us find an alternate route, we gave up, went upstairs for a refund, and caught a taxi. On the way out of the station, one of the monitors said "accident" for our train, so at least it wasn't an earthquake. With the four of us, the taxi was about $5 each, and the driver had a CD of old American music. He didn't say much, but was kind helping us figure out how to pay!