What is he doing all the way over there ? [01]

Ladies and gentlemen, let me FINALLY welcome you to this first episode of my "Japanese Adventures". I know, I know. It sounds a little pretentious, and it's more of a relaxing vacation than a full-fledged adventure, but whatever.

So, what have I been up to ?

Day 0 [27-28/04] : Wanderlust

Before one can enjoy life in a far-off country, one first needs to get there. And oh boy, was this travel long... Just to break it down :

5 hours spent waiting in Zaventem Airport;
1 hour to fly to Munich
2 hours waiting in Munich before...
11 hours and a half to get to Narita Airport.

But Narita is still far away from Fukuoka, so you need to add to that more than 6 hours of train... So you can imagine how happy I was to FINALLY meet Pascale... Who didn't want her photo taken, apparently.

This one looks like a commercial picture

After that long-awaited reunion, we went to the the creepy building I would be staying in for a little more than 2 weeks. And it was really creepy, with the wind making strange noise with the windows, the eerie silence and the slightly run-down appearance of it all...

Okay, now you tell me. WHERE are the zombies ?

But, you need to know that I could have agreed on sleeping anywhere at that point, because I was hungry as hell. Because, you see, I was asleep when they brought the meal in the plane. Then, with all the trains and so forth, I didn't have the chance to grab anything to eat. So I put down my stuff, and we rushed to the nearest "Joyfull". Now laugh all you want, but the double "l" is not a misspelling on their part... It's some kind of 24h/24 semi-fast food that serves all kinds of hamburgers (not in buns like "typical" fast-foods, though), pizzas, and also some japanese dishes. And that double-hamburger with cheese was more than enough to fill me up. Not sure if I was full with joy, though...

Day 1 [29/04] : Past times with good company

The next day was the day my sister took me to what was supposed to be a ginormous electronics store with everything I could ever want in it. I won't comment on that, but let me say that she was "also surprised, [she] thought there was more in it". But anyway, that was cool because then we got to eat some Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki. And even if that contained a lot of cabbage, it was still delicious. A little difficult to eat, but it tasted awesome.

This is where the delicious food gets eaten.

The evening of the 29th was something I couldn't wait for : I was to meet the group of students that came to Louvain-la-Neuve at the end of winter. This year again, seeing them go had been a sad moment, so being able to reunite with at least some of them was something I was really looking forward to.

And what a night it was ! First, we went eating in a restaurant where we had a reserved room, and where we could order as much drinks and food as we wanted to. I'm sorry, I can't remember what we ate exactly though, there was just too much different plates... Anyway, we moved around quite a bit, changin places so that everyone was able to talk with pretty much everyone, which was really fun.

As you see (maybe), some other international students where there too (as was my sister). The more the merrier !

Afterwards, we went - of course - to an arcade to take some crazy "Purikura" pictures, then off to the karaoke we went ! And seein as we (as in, Pascale and I, because she was falling asleep) left at 3:30 in the morning, you can guess how much fun we had !

And I sang 2 Backstreet Boys songs... Not alone, but still. At least I compensated with Stratovarius and Enter Shikari !

All in all, that was an awesome way to kick off this trip, I was so glad to be able to catch a first glimpse of Pascale's universe in Fukuoka, and of course to see everyone again ! Now, this will do as a first batch of "news", because the internet connection is acting up here, so I'll wait until later tonight when I can upload pictures more easily... Stay tuned for more news almost-live from Fukuoka !

...from this building, in particular.