A few snippets from my weekend thus far:

I went to the Park Hyatt Tokyo, (the hotel where they filmed one of my favorite movies, Lost in Translation) and pretty much completely geeked out the entire time.

The hotel occupies the 39th to 52nd floors of this huge business building, and you're up crazy high - my ears popped going up to the 52nd floor in the elevator. My camera doesn't do it justice, but the view is BEYOND incredible. You can see forever, it's rather moving. It was one of those "Oh my goodness I can't believe I'm actually HERE" moments. I've loved Lost in Translation for a long time, and I had always dreamed of going to Tokyo and walking around the Hyatt just like Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray do. It was unbelievably fulfilling to finally go to the hotel and see everything. I plan to go back with some friends in the near future and relax at the bar and take more pictures.

I also walked around Shinjuku for a while again, which was pretty cool - it's rather similar to Shibuya, but with more department stores.


Another exciting adventure that I had was my friends and I went on a quest to find a "Chiptole-esque" Mexican food place. Don't get me wrong, I love Japanese food, but I was craving a burrito and chips pretty badly, so I was all for exploring in the pursuit of delicious Mexican food!

The place we found was awesome! It's not too far from school, either - I'm sure we'll be going back soon!

I was also able to snap this picture of Tokyo Tower:

A few of my friends went up the Tower yesterday, and they said it was really cool, so that's definitely on my short list of places I need to see this week! I have a four-day weekend coming up (WOO HOO) so my friends and I have a lot of fun things planned - including a trip to Tokyo Disney! I think some karaoke is in order, too, as well as a trip to 'Electric Town" in Akihabara.

This weekend so far has been pretty relaxed - I cleaned my room, did laundry, and went grocery shopping. You know, the typical boring adult stuff :-)

I did get to experience my first earthquake this morning, though - it was pretty wild! It didn't last very long, but I could feel myself (and the rest of my dorm) swaying from side to side as if someone was just sliding the building around. It definitely woke everyone up - we all started popping out of our rooms like prairie dogs!

Okay, it's almost time for dinner - and I have a bento box with my name on it!