Every time I come around, you're ready for The Letdown.

hey everybody!

i hope no one has died (or had some other rather unfortunate thing happen to them) in my absence. actually, i'm still in jersey, and i don't go home until tomorrow. to be honest, however, i'd rather stay here.

anyway, it's been a total blast so far! i'll post pictures when i get back to joplin.

on the plane ride over, i was sat next to a lady who lived in japan, but was traveling here (i assume.) i told her i'm going there this summer for a month-long study trip and she gave me her contact information. hopefully, if i remember to contact her, she'll remember who i am!

yuki and i spent my first night here staying up until about 2am, which meant that i was going on 22 hours of being awake after only having had about three hours of sleep. fun stuff! we took some random videos, then finally went to sleep.

on saturday (i think), we went for a drive through the woods with yuki's parents. we also found the forbidden forest from harry potter.. pictures to come. i had a really great time, especially when yuki's mom had us roll up the windows and we would plow through mud puddles. good times!

let's see. we went to haddonfield, which i absolutely fell in love with. while wandering around, yuki and i chanced upon an authentic japanese restaurant called fuji. we got a really good lunch for less than $20. the waitresses were so adorable! i wanted to try out some japanese phrases i had learned, but i was too shy about possibly making a mistake and saying something offensive, so i just stuck with english. (i'm pretty sure yuki was in the same predicament.)

we also went to stratford diner. for me, this was a totally awesome experience. while we have things like johnny rockets in california, there aren't any diners in los angeles like there are in jersey. not that i know of, anyway. and there definitely aren't any in joplin (which is really not so surprising; there's nothing in joplin.) we went with yami and corey, then we went to blockbuster and rented four pokemon movies. yuki and i have been on a pokemon kick all the time i've been here; it's tres fun. corey bought the 10th kingdom for me, then we went back to his house and watched three pokemon movies in a row. yami, yuki, and i did the guilty pleasure dance to the pokemon theme song. i have a video of that, but it's not going to leave my facebook account. ;)

we also went to philly for the mummers parade. oh, it was so wonderful being in an actual city! i miss cities so much. we walked along broad st. for a bit, got some hot cocoa (it really needed some whipped cream or milk, but it wasn't too bad) and a hotdog. i got a cheese steak from a street vendor, which is most definitely the way to go about having a philly. the mummers parade was very fun to watch, even if the only brigade we saw was that of the comics. yuki said the fancies are the best part of the parade, but they were nowhere in sight, and it was starting to get dark, so we had to head home.

on thursday, yuki, gio, corey, and i went over to the mall for dinner, then to old navy for about five seconds, then to best buy, where i acquired both thursday's "war all the time" cd and pokemon fire red for $35. could i have waited until i got back to joplin and gotten the game/cd for cheaper? probably. did i want to? no. besides, they were my christmas presents to myself. booyah!

today, we're going to atlantic city. i told this to my dad last night and he started asking me if i was going to gamble. i think he forgot that i only brought a small amount of cash with me, and that i'm not really all that into gambling anyway. i think the plan is to go along the boardwalk and then go to harrah's buffet for dinner. yuki says it's really good, so i'm pretty excited to see what's up there.

all in all, i've pretty much decided that i definitely have to come back here and visit again some time soon, if i'm to retain what sanity i have living in joplin.

next on Joey's Travel Agenda: kansas city 2/3 for cobra starship's Really Really Ridiculously Good Looking tour, then los angeles in march to catch up with the gang and eat korean food.

fangs up,
holly/joey.