Lattice, Shibuya, Tokyo Tower

Since I neglected posting the last (incredibly busy) two weeks of my AMAZING trip, expect to see massive blog entries the next few days (or even in one night, if I am still conscious enough to write them...).

The day after watching Ponyo - I went to Kichijoji after class to go back to the store, Lattice, that I went to the day before on the recommendation of my friend Chika. Since the whole department store thing wasn't really working out for my project, I chose Lattice instead. It is an awesome and cute accessory store where all the the necklaces, hair accessories, rings, bracelets, etc. were 315 yen (~$3.00) and the bags, belts, and shoes were 1050 yen (~$10.00).




That Friday, I decided to make a trip to Shibuya to go to the Johnny's Family Club and look for Rachel's b-day present. Initially, it was just me, Nikki, and Andrew. We first went to 109 since Nikki wanted to do some more shopping. But since the sales that were going on the last time we came were gone, we didn't buy much. After ditching the idea of eating at Krispy Kreme (since there always seems to be a line out the door at any one you go to), I lead the way to Johnny's Family Club, which was on the opposite side from where we were.



I was pretty good at following the map I printed out, until to actually finding the right building. I asked a random woman for help and I literally followed her about 3 steps, and it was right in front of us ::doh!::. Granted, the sign was in an unnoticeable silver against a gray, cement wall and you had to go down some stairs to see the actual entrance. Johnny's Family Club is basically a "museum" where various signed objects, personal messages to fans, and memorabilia are on display. There are also LCD screens playing videos of various Johnny's Entertainment groups saying things for the fans. All of the girls in there were just staring at them. Since I didn't understand a word, I took some pictures and skidaddled out of there. Of course Nikki and Andrew waited patiently outside while I fangirled. It was an unimpressive place, but I at least wanted to go there since I had read so much online about people going there.

We then backtracked to a Hawaiian restaurant called Kua Aina we saw and decided to eat lunch there. Why? Because it had REAL cheeseburgers and fries! Yummm! I guess that's what you get for an establishment that originally started in Hawaii...the closest thing to the States from Japan.


Going back towards Hachiko, we meet up with Jen and Rachel. This pretty much screwed up Nikki and I's plan to get Rachel's b-day present. Nevertheless, we suggested going to Tokyu Hands anyways. Nikki and I try to lose Rachel among the aisles and we dashed towards the register to pay for her gifts. We were pretty much freaking out at this point and I'm pretty sure Rachel saw Nikki freaking out, haha.

We leave Tokyu Hands, say goodbye to Andrew, and head on out to Tokyo Tower...finally! Now after having been in Japan, I realized that I have developed a record of leading people in the wrong direction. I guess my sense of direction only works in the States. Or should I say that my guidebook is the one to blame. I mean, we got off at the right subway station, but it is virtually impossible to find your way around Japan based on nonexistent street signs and Tokyo Tower was no where in sight (behind all the skyscrapers I guess...). So we walked around for a good 20 min. before deciding to hail a cab. Once again, it came out to be just a 5 min. ride. But it was worth it since we probably would have been lost for at least another hour.

Us girls immediately forget our worries once we stepped out of the cab and saw this...



Since we were so incredibly hungry (it was about 8 at night at this point, and the place closed at 10), we go to eat at a tempura/curry place and then go around the gift shops to buy touristy Tokyo Tower things. Going up the elevator to the main observation deck kind of reminded me of Top of the Rock in NY with the whole lighting-up thing, except that you could also see outside. Saw some great night views, especially that of Odaiba with the easily recognizable ferris wheel and equally famous Rainbow Bridge. Consequently, that was where Nikki, Rachel, and I planned to go to the next day.

A Sampling of Nihon Terebi

This is just a sampling of me being bored and channel surfing my way through Japanese TV...

Really, most of the channels are boring until you happen to come upon a really "wtf" program. And yes, I still think the children of Japan should not be shown on television...waaaayyy too creepy. I think they are even worse than the overdramatic news features that are on all the time.

Now on to the show!



I swear I can never get away from this infomercial. If it followed me this far (in a different language no less!), I'm sure it can follow me in the afterlife as well...



Yay red bean-filled bread hero!

And finally, last but not least, what Japanese television is all about...crack.

Kichijoji, Hanabi, Zori, Ponyo

So, last week I had my midterms (not too bad, but the speaking test is always annoying). At the same time, I was pretty much getting ready for hanabi (fireworks) in finding accessories and such.

After having my midterm test last Thursday, Friday was our off day. My senseis called it our "project" field trip, but we basically hung out in Kichijoji, haha. It was really cool to have everyone meet outside of class. Even our senseis didn't look like senseis that day, hehe. Sometimes it's hard to see your teachers as normal, everyday people. Then again, my senseis are so much fun in class that it wasn't that much of a change.


We all met up at the station and proceeded to split up into our respective "project" groups. Of course, we head towards the game center first. After a round of purikura to add to our collection, Nikki and I play the Taiko game while Jimmy played a bunch of racing games. I think all the games were 100 yen ($1). It may or may not be a good thing. I'm not sure how it registers against American arcades since most work on a complicated point system. But I think it is worth the dollar since you have more fun and are more satisfied after playing a Japanese game.


Anyways, we went all over trying to fulfill our tasks and do some browsing here and there. After two hours, we meet up with everyone again to have some okonomiyaki! (I'm really doing well on my food list, haha.) That was some expensive deliciousness...I wish they were bigger! Thank goodness the cooks did everything for us, because I, for one, would definitely fail at the okonomiyaki cooking.



Then Nikki and I went off on our own to do some more shopping in Kichijoji and Nakano (one of those "hey, that place looks cool" as we spontaneously jump out of the train). It was possibly one of the most tiring days I have had here, and it was only 4 or 5 in the afternoon by the time I got back home!

Saturday was the much anticipated hanabi at Sumidagawa. Not to say that I hyped it up too much, but I guess all of the positive and negative aspects balanced out. It was worth the experience though and the hanabi were absolutely gorgeous!


Neg. - the place was so damn far, crowded, hot, wearing yukata is taihen, ne? (difficult, tough)

Pos. - awesome place, beautiful fireworks, fun times, pretty yukata, great experience


We left halfway through the show and there was still a huge crowd heading towards the subway station! But, the Japanese have learned from experience and only allowed a certain number of people in at a time, so we weren't packed like sardines in the subway car.


This week, I made zori, which are handmade sandals. Originally, they are made from some sort of straw, but for us, we used strips of fabric. It was a lot of fun, but my back deifnitely hurt from sitting in the position for so long.


I also finally got to see the new Ghibli movie in Kichijoji. Yay! It is called "Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea." We initially came with a huge group, but because the time we wanted to see it at was already sold out, most people didn't want to wait later for the later time. Thank goodness it was lady's day! Albeit, it still set me back 1,000 yen ($10) but it definitely beats paying 1,800 yen instead.

We passed the time before the movie in Book Off (a great discounted manga store that also has used books, magazines, dvds/cds, and video games) and we ate at the Samrat Indian restaurant (never thought I would ever actually get the chance to eat there, haha). We went back to the movie theater and there was already a line just to get in.

The movie was incredibly cute and I actually understood most of it. Or actually, should I say, I understood pretty much everything what the kids in the movie said. The adults...not so much. We actually had a discussion after about who the main kid's parents were since it was really ambiguous. Even our Japanese friend who came with us wasn't sure.


Po-nyo, Po-nyo, Ponyo sakana no ko... damn that cute song!

Ikebukuro

On Sunday, I met up with Nikki, Rachel, Luke and Andrew at Shinjuku station. Well, I got there early and sort of wandered around the small shops there. I even bought earrings, haha. Then, we took the Yamanote line to Ikebukuro.

Once we came out of Ikebukuro station, we saw this truck that was spewing out nationalist propaganda...or at least that's what I thought it was. Am I right?


Anyways, Ikebukuro was surprisingly crowded, given that it isn't as popular a place as Harajuku, Shinjuku, or Shibuya. Of course, our first thought at any place we go to is where to eat. We wandered around this huge shopping/restaurant/entertainment complex called Sunshine City. Oh, what a happy name...


After a while of contemplating our options, we decided to eat at this soup shop (I have to say that the Japanese really do know how to make delicious bread...yummmm) and get some fake bubble tea we spotted earlier. I really don't think there is real bubble tea in Japan. Or perhaps it's in Chinatown in Yokohama...then again, I hear that all the people there are Japanese anyways...


We then split up, as one group went to Nekobukuro and the other group (or should I say pair) went shopping (for the cat allergic and not cat-crazy ones, hehe). Nekobukuro (a play on words with neko -cat- and Ikebukuro) is located on the 8th floor of the Tokyu Hands store that is right next to Sunshine City. It is basically a place for those who are unable to own cats or just love cats in general. Cats are free to roam around two rooms, however, most of the cats were sleeping on the ledges. Rachel was convinced (and soon I was, too) that the cats were severely drugged, haha. People could poke and prod them and they wouldn't be bothered to react. On the whole, it was an interesting place to visit and it was cute seeing kids try to pet the cats.





Afterwards, we reunited with the others. Since we didn't have time (this seems to be a recurring theme nowadays) to go to the aquarium, we did what we always do...go to karaoke! We got a pretty nice room, with a nice view and eveything. If only we had more pople and were there at night. Lots of songs were sung, including me pretending to know how to sing Japanese songs that I've never heard before and an interesting rendition of the Tokyo Drift song since none of us could really do the rapping parts.


p.s. I finally bought my yukata! Yay! Got the accessories and everything...I can't wait for hanabi on Saturday!

p.p.s. Here's an interesting type of food we just had to buy from the food court on the basement floor of a department store. Guess what they're called? (By the way, the food found on the basement floor of any department store is freakin' ~~~~heaven~~~~).


Smile Potato! :)

p.p.p.s. I saw a boy on the train wearing a UF T-shirt. Strange...

Akihabara

School this week went by pretty fast. A few highlights were the matsuri, hanging out in the CP lounge making origami, playing fun hand games in global house (Diane kara hajimaru, ri-su-um/rhythm ni awasete... patclapthumbthumb), and doing ikebana with my host mother as the teacher.



On Friday, my host mother and I went to look for some yukata at Olympic supermarket (where we also ate delicious takoyaki and so-fu-to ku-ri-mu/soft serve ice cream), but they were still a little expensive. Since we didn't have time to look for more, we decided to go to Uniqlo on Monday.

Today was an interesting day full of geekiness, awkwardness, and tiredness...not to mention getting lost most of the time and stalking maids...yeah...

So, I met Nikki and Rachel at Kichijoji. But since they came late, I ended up waiting a bit. After seeing so many trains go by, I saw a strange, older rapid train going to Tokyo. Of course, I then see Nikki peering out the window as I try to run towards wherever her train car stopped. At one point while on the Yamanote line towards Akiba, school boys sat across from us and begin to look at us and talk about us. After they left the train, we decided that, next time, we should just stare at them and see what happens, hehe.


After reaching Akihabara, we got lost trying to find the place we wanted to eat at. On the way, I tried to ask a maid if we could take a picture with her, but she said no. Man, these Akiba maids are so stingy...or perhaps they didn't want other people to know that they are working as maids, haha. We reach the restaurant of choice (not mine though), and Nikki and Rachel wanted to take a picture of me in front of the sign. Why? Because the restaurant was named Miami Gardens. Haha....no...Why an italian restuarant is called that, I don't know. Also, it seems that most "Italian" restaurants in Japan have the same color palette, with goldenrod as the dominating color. Afterwards, we headed into a capsule machine ("store"?) that we saw earlier and bought a bunch of capsules. For some reason, throughout the day, we always gravitated towards any capsule machine we saw. Some of the stranger contents included busts of classical musicians and human anatomy parts (Nikki got a model of the ear for her Dr. dad).











While trying to find a place to meet up with Jen and another friend, we ran into the cutest thing ever in front of Club Sega. A life-sized Rilakkuma!




We then proceeded to go to Radio Kaikan, which was about 8 floors of total otaku goods. We spent a lot of time in there, even though I didn't have that much interest in the whole otaku culture. On the manga floor, there were so many books and it was hard to decipher how they organized it all. We'd walk down and then, suddenly, all the book covers would start changing to half naked cartoon girls with disproportionate, over-sized chests and we would be like "Crap! We're in the dirty section!" and start back-tracking. Man, there are a lot of geeky men in this town...The 6th floor was Rachel's haven - Volks. It had all of these gorgeous dolls and accessories for them. I, of course, persuaded art student Rachel to write in their guestbook and draw a picture.



Then, we went to a tempura-udon restaurant where you had to order from a ticket vending machine. The food was good, but I just couldn't bring myself to eat the carb-overloaded meal. It was already late and we just wanted to at least see a maid cafe. So, while browsing a multi-floor Don Quixote (there was so much crap to buy here I was getting dizzy from looking at all the goods packed into the tiny space) we reach the 5th floor and peer into a maid cafe. It wasn't as exciting as we thought it would be, but it probably would be better at a bigger (and of course more expensive) place somewhere else.




We planned to go to Tokyo Tower, but realized that it was a bit too far from where we were and it would have been close to closing time by the time we got there...we'll save that for another day...

Mitama Matsuri @ Yasukuni-jinja

Today was so much fun! After class, we were originally going to go shopping in Harajuku again and check out Omotesando Hills. But then, information about a matsuri (festival) was posted on the Global House whiteboard, so we decided to go there instead.

So, after finishing our homework for tomorrow, everyone gathered around 5:00 to go to Musashi-Sakai station. Some people had bikes since they are staying at ICU for the year, so the rest of us took the bus and met them at the station.

We pretty much had no clue how to get there so fortunately Mami, Daisuke, and Lihwa came with us. After several train and subway transfers, we finally walked out to our destination and was greeted by the Red Bull car.


A few more steps led us to the Mitama Matsuri held at the Yasukuni shrine. It was amazing to see all of the lanterns and stalls lined up all the way down to the shrine. There were a ton of yakitori, some sort of intestines dish, yakisoba, okonomiyaki, takoyaki, snow cones, choco-banana, baked potatoes, and even bubble tea (which we didn't realize until the end of the night - the different drinks were mango, coconut, milk tea, strawberry milk and calpis!).
















I loved seeing the girls wear yukata (going to buy one this Friday, yay!) and the little children playing the games. Even I tried one game, which consisted of a small hook on a string and you had to hook the rubber bands connected to balloons filled with water. I was able to get two balloons by the time my hook contraption fell apart. The balloons, in fact, turned out to be yo-yos. We were contemplating going to the haunted house as well, but we decided to spend more of our money on food, of course.



In the middle of the festival were women in yukata dancing. Nikki, Mami, and I tried to copy the dance moves as well...I probably looked like a fool, hehe. Getting closer to the shrine, there was a taiko drum performance as well as a another dance.



Before the shrine, there is a place with water and ladles where you can purify yourself (i.e. washing your hands). We headed towards the shrine, took some photos, and then went back to where we started to meet the rest of the gang and head home.

Shibuya

I met friends again in Shibuya. I got there early since my homestay is closer and waited by the infamous Hachiko statue. The story behind Hachiko is that everyday, Hachiko would wait for its master at the Shibuya station when he came home from work. Even after its master's death, Hachiko contiued to wait at the station. So, a statue was erected by Shibuya station with respect to the dog's great loyalty. Today, it is a very popular meeting spot for people in Shibuya.




We first stopped by the Yoshinoya beef bowl restaurant for lunch and then proceeded to Shibuya ichi-maru-kyu or 109,　which had around 8 floors of women's clothing and accessories. Of course the boys headed towards the male-oriented stores elsewhere in Shibuya. While shopping, us girls also met up with three regular ICU students. I had always wondered why you aren't allowed to try on tops, but then I was told that since Japanese girls tend to wear a lot of make up, it would dirty up the clothes. Even when I went to the fitting room to try on a dress, the store clerk gave me a sheet of tissue paper meant to cover your face. I didn't use it. I'm sure I don't wear as much make-up as the typical Japanese girl, and I stealthily avoided rubbing my face over the garment, hehe. Lots of money was spent and again we met up with the boys.



We perused other various shops including another freaking Condomania, haha. Then we spent a lot of time in Tokyu Hands...an ginormous store full of games, toys, plants, costumes, crafts, etc. Apparently, it is dubbed "The Creative Life Store." I got a souvenir reminiscent of a Hard Gay episode (I will not give the surprise away.) and these gorgeous beaded rings with instructions on how to make them. Looking at them now, I'm not sure I have the talent to make them or even decipher the Japanese instructions/diagrams...



We then headed into a huge arcade place to do some purikura, cramming four girls and four guys into the tiny booth. There was this amazing guy playing the Taiko drum game in the front, as a crowd gathered behind him. He even brought his own drum sticks! I tried my hand at some UFO catchers, but stopped after two tries, since I'd rather spend my money on other things.


Around dinner time, we decided to eat at an udon restaurant. You basically pick out your tempura sides and then order what type of udon or rice you wanted. If you pick the right place (having locals with us helped a lot!), you can easily get a lot of delicious Japanese food for less than 10 bucks. Then again, my meals tend to be around 5 dollars.


With karaoke becoming expensive at night, nothing else to do, and school the next day, we headed home...