Above we have the delicious MELON BREAD, which tastes like a giant macaroon. MMMMM. Below that is Strawberry-jam-filled bread, not to be confused with strawberry-flavored bread. The latter tastes kind of bad, in my opinion. Too cake-y. The former was strawberrylicious, but also kind of too sweet for me. Below is a shot of the bread aisle in a konbini near my dorm. Some of the more savory breads. Cheese bread, sausage bread, etc.
A lot of large department stores in Tokyo have basement floors like this. Many food vendors will have small displays. The selection is vast! Many traditional Japanese foods, like tempura, bento lunches, and sushi were out on display like works of art. It smelled amazing. There was also a wide variety of pastries and bread! One place even had a glass-window kitchen, where two pastry chefs were making strawberry shortcakes (see Shibuya Part 3.1).
At Shibuya Station, the Hachiko exit leads you to a small square packed with people! In the center is this statue of the famous dog Hachiko, who faithfully waited for his master at the train station every evening for over 10 years after he'd pasted away. Now it's a popular meeting place! And a tourist hot spot. I was one of maybe a dozen foreigners who walked up to take a picture of him. After wards I sat for a while and observed the scenery. There were a lot of high school kids and trendy people standing around and walking by. Just behind me was the famous crosswalk. And, closer to the station entrance, is the entrance to the Tokyu Food Show, a basement floor food market with dozens of specialty stores selling all kinds of food and desserts.
The lonely vending machine. There are about 20 vending machines within a 100-meter radius of my dorm. This one is positioned in a parking lot. It's creepy (and eerily inviting) at night.
Shinjuku Station on my way home. Shinjuku-eki is CRAZY during rush hour, and this isn't even it. People line up neatly to get on the train.
Making a mushroom parley omelette on my new, 100-yen frying pan.
This is my dinner from Mos Burger, the most delicious fast-food chain ever. It's pretty posh for fast food, and more expensive, but even so. This meal was only around 650 yen. And White Grape Soda! sugoi oishii!
Pizza face kawaii~!
First we hit this Sanrio store, as Fay is a fan of Hello Kitty. It was all pink and frilly and they had cute cake-making supplies!
Our main goal for going to Ikebukuro was so that I could track down some boy's love vendors. And oh boy, did I find them. There are a few streets surrounding a skyscraper called Sunshine City (aptly named) that are chalk-full of anime merchendise, mostly catering to female fans. Plenty of pretty boys, romance comics, and doujinshi. here's the first place we hit, one of the many K BOOKS branches. It had a lot fo merchendise but no comics, so we moved on quickly. Not before I dug through some Sengoku Basara keychains, though. As I was oogling over them, a girl next to me was like, "You like Sengoku??" and I said yes and she got so exited! It was amazing. We oogled over the keychains together. Ashley, I think you would die of happiness here. So much Gundam 00 and Hetalia, among others.
The next place we hit was Animate, a 6-floor anime store, 3 floors of which is wall-to-wall manga. This wall in particular was completely boy's love novels.
And here's one of the many sections devoted to this manga artist, Ono Nastume, who Abby showed me and I keep seeing! She's hot stuff right now, which is great because she started out as a doujinshi(fan-comic) artist. Some of her stories have been scanlated already, I suggest looking them up. The one I linked to is also a cute anime now.
By Suzuki Tsuta, one of my all-time favorite artists! The above comic ("The Guy Three Doors Down") is a sweet story of a man who gets a second chance at his first love. This comic was only 315 yen. That's dirt cheap, folks. The other comic I really want to buy is Otomen, which is a shoujo comic about a manly boy who secretly likes romance comics, cooking and sewing. I recommend both to anyone who likes romance comics.
Stickers (on of many rows)
A wall of markers. I got too excited after this point so no more pictures for now. Just imagine rows like this, for every kind of art supplies imaginable. Going on and on forever.
This is a sweet japanese brush pen!!! It's actually a *brush* as opposed to a felt-tip brush pen. So beautiful.
And finally...a shiny new flip-phone, complete with phone charms. Everybody, from kids to old surly men, have cute phone charms here.
Two varieties of red bean bread, one with the beans less mashed and the other with them very mashed. Think crunchy and smooth peanut butter and you're close. They aren't crunchy though, just delicious. "koshi-anpan" (the smooth kind) and "(something-something)*anpan" (the less-smooth kind)
Curry Bread (karepan), with a bite taken out of it because I couldn't resist.
Huuuge trees.
Right after I walked inside the main courtyard, some security men came along and parted all the crowds to either side, and a wedding procession walked through.
At the heart of the shrine, everyone lined up in a huge mass to pray. It's one of those toss-in-a-coin-and-bow/clap-twice shrines. Having studied the procedure somewhat, I lined up with everyone else and tried it. I think I did everything right, except I only clapped once before I prayed. Also, I forgot to take my earphones out, and I forgot to wash my hands (there's a place to wash them before you enter the main courtyard). Does this nullify my prayer? I was so nervous that I couldn't concentrate well anyway.
After leaving the park, I decided to wander around the main alley in Harujuku, and came acorss this small shop that sells merchandise of Japanese boy bands. Below is one of the many walls of ARASHI necklaces.
I have a runny nose, and since it's rude to blow/wipe your nose in public in Japan, I used one of the facemasks I bought. I wore it the entire time I was out, hoping that it would hide my gaijin-ness from at least a passing glance. By the way Sid, I forgot to tell you I stole your glasses-frames.I woke up wayyyy early again, close to 6 AM here. So I got on the internets and chatted with my bros! It was awesome hearing from Marc, Mike, and Babs. Oh, and I skype chatted with my family last night, I forgot to say. That was nice.
When I realized that my teeth were probably growing things, I logged off and went to get ready. Unfortunately, there were still no towels to be found, so no shower. HOWEVER! I went down to the kitchen to learn the ~*~MAGIC~*~ of the Japanese microwave. It’s not too hard to figure out, but all the directions are in Japanese, which makes it slightly more precarious. I made one of the pork buns I got at Jusco (our grocery store) last night and drank nummy Peach Tea. While I was microwaving, I met Joe, who is a cool dude and knows how to cook. I’m hoping that sometime we can have a cooking lesson party, or at least learn how to use the rice cookers properly. I sat down to eat and met Katie, who knows super a lot of Japanese and was very sweet. She had toasted bread and jam and yogurt for breakfast that looked so good I wanted to go get some like right then.
SO I decided to go out to the 100 Yen store and Jusco with Lisa, who lives down the hall from me, Keisha, and Maria. They took a while getting ready so I made a cute door decoration, which I will post later. At the 100 Yen store I picked up some gloves for ice skating (they required us to have closed fingered gloves, so I couldn’t wear the ones Kim gave me), a basket for my toiletries, a strap for my bento, and a pink hand towel so I don’t have to keep wiping my hands on my pants when I wash them. There are no hand towels in any bathrooms in Japan that I’ve seen. They all have air dryers to stay eco-friendly. We went to the marvelous second and third floors of Jusco next, which are like a department store. I got a towel finally (YAY), but did not find my other two essentials—an alarm clock and a robe (for the walk of shame between the showers and my room). I decided to wait on the bread and cheese for a little bit, but Lisa and Keisha wanted to shop still, so Maria and I left on our own ~*~ADVENTURE~*~!!!
We walked past the Jusco, past the convenience store, all the way to a big intersection, where we turned right and walked under a bridge to UniQlo, which is a Japanese clothing store! AWESOME! It’s a little bit like a more conservative H&M. There were some totally rad leggings that had the texture and look of jeans and some super duper rad teeshirts and sweatshirts. The clothes were really cute, but luckily we managed to escape with our money in tact with the promise of shopping another day.
On the way back, I bought an ice cream bar at the convenience store (vanilla covered in chocolate with hazelnut mmmm). Then we ran into Lisa and Keisha again, who were struggling with a huge bag of rice, and since Maria and I are strong male body builders, we helped them carry their groceries back to Ontakesan. We got back close to 2 PM and as I started to unpack and eat my delicious ice cream bar, Aki came through the hall asking for anyone who was going ice skating to go downstairs because they were leaving RIGHT NOW. So I panicked and ran downstairs with ice cream in hand to put my shoes back on, unknowingly leaving my door WIDE OPEN FOR THE MASSES but luckily when Maria ran upstairs to get socks she found it and closed it for me. And so we began our expensive adventure to Akasaka.
The train tickets cost SO MUCH MONEY TOTAL. Almost $10 both ways, I think. The train lines are very confusing and I’m really worried. I don’t know how I’m going to get to class on Tuesday morning. There are so many places to go! And tickets to buy! Once I figure that out, I’ve heard, things will be a lot easier. Also with my commuter pass I can go on that line for free, though I’ll still have to buy tickets for the other lines, like the main Tokyo line, the JR.
Akasaka was amazing. The rink was pretty small and already super uneven and covered in ice shavings, but it was in the middle of the city in the open air, and there was a huge Christmas tree next to a huge TBS piggy (their TV station’s mascot). There was also a huge TV over the rink showing new dramas, and lots of beautiful lights. There were also a lot of people, and a lot of really cute Japanese kids falling on their butts everywhere. To skate it was $15, and we figured out the shoe sizes pretty quickly. For future reference, my shoe size is 23 cm. By the time we got there, Becca and the kids from Takadanobaba (her dorm) were already there and had been skating for a while. I met Ai, Li, Long (whose nickname is now Short), Meiti, and Jed. All very cool kids.
We had a grand old time skating, but soon it was time to go. I made plans with Becca to have dinner tomorrow night and then went back to the train. I was SO THIRSTY, so I got a Coke at the vending machine, but it’s rude to walk and eat/drink, so when we had a 4 minute wait between trains I CHUGGED THAT COKE LIKE THERE WAS NO TOMORROW. On the train ride back, we stopped through at Harajuku and saw this old dude with a HUGE HAT covered in lights and knick-knacks. Awesome. Sunday is the day that people who like street fashion dress up in their new outfits and promenade around Harajuku. Tomorrow is Sunday. IT IS TIME. We’re totally gonna go.
When we got back, I tried to make my soup, but I couldn’t figure out how to work the hot water dispencer, but Aki showed me. J I talked to Dan while I ate cause he was in the massage chair right by the hot water dispenser, and apparently their group found a whole bunch of cool shrines right by the campus, so I might try to find them one day.
Maria and Minh wanted to go out to Shibuya (we convinced Minh not to go to Roponggi because it is super dangerous), and a bunch of people in my hall wanted to go to an onsen (hot sring bath), which sounded excellent, but we were worried about staying out too late and missing the train back from Shibuya, and Minh wouldn’t be able to sit with us in the hot spring cause he’s a dude, so we rounded up some folks and went in search of a local bar.
Sora and Chad came with us, they are very cool folks. Sora is 28 and Chad is from Hawaii and was freezing the whole time we were out. Not too far from our dorm is a cute little bar that is American/Hawaiian surfing themed. The lady was very nice and helped everyone order. There’s a discount for anyone in Sakura House that makes all the drinks a flat 500 yen. Nice. I didn’t get anything, but it was fun watching Mihn slowly descend into a tipsy stupor. When we realized that Jusco was about to close, we booked it over there and I bought some BREAD AND CHEESE YES! The only kinds that they seem to have are cream cheese and camembert. They had one thing of bleu cheese and some slices of Kraft Cheddar and American cheese, but I trust that that is a “cheese product” and not actually cheese. The rest of the gang bought a six-pack of super cheap beer and drank it outside of the Jusco like hobos. It was pretty fun, except that it was FREEZING and poor Chad only had on a sweatshirt. When we were done, we recycled the cans. It’s eco-friendly, and our dorm is very, very dry. If you so much as walk in the door with an empty can to recycle it they’ll send you home. You have been warned.
Some of the food I've bought! Clockwise from top right, fried chicken yakitori, semi-dried soba, rosu hamu, frozen o-den, and strawberry yogurt. :))) My bidget for food here is a biiit bigger as long as I do mostly grocery shopping and not eat out a lot, so I'm really enjoying myself. I also bought the most delicious clementines (a traditional new year's food).
My purchases from the 100 yen shop. I need face masks because I have the sniffles and I'll be squeezing in with morning traffic on my way to school. Clockwise from the masks, there's envelopes to send things to people, a mini cutting board, body wash, soap, and food containers. :)
My stationary store purchases. A ledger book (very good for a sketchbook, and only 450 yen), and those adorable red-and-blue envelopes.
On the subway to Akasaka for ice skating. It was the kind of train that is open all the way down. My favorite! People are really quiet on the subway.
Ice skating! That's Jed and Meiti on the left and the boy in the back was so nice and taught me how to ask for someone to take our picture (the victim was an unassuming little girl who said "hai chiizu"), and I forget his name. And that's the TBS mascot in the background. TBS is the big public television station here.
