6 posts tagged “touristy things”
Friday, August 8th
We tried to wrap up as much as we could in Newspaper Club, but in the end, we didn’t manage to finish either my computer version or the accompanying hand-drawn poster/collage that were supposed to be done by the end of today. So, all of us with afternoon classes stayed after class to work on it some more. It was 7pm by the time I finally left.
I was hungry and, above all, tired. I’d still been half-debating going to Yana’s birthday shindig, but when I finally made it home, I realized that I just wasn’t up to it. If I’d had time to take a nap, it might’ve been a different story, but by the time I’d showered and eaten, it was almost 9pm, and they were meeting in Roppongi between 11pm and midnight. So, I decided to forego the party.
Instead, I’m heading to bed early, and I’ll probably go to Odaiba tomorrow, since I haven’t heard back from sensei and my Sunday plans are still up in the air.
Saturday, August 9th
The weather was fairly sunny and bright, so after having breakfast at the dorm, I decided to indeed head to Odaiba today. I left the dorm around 10am.
Odaiba is surprisingly easy for me to get to. You have to somehow get to the coast and then take a monorail from there. I’m lucky in that both the Fukutoshin and the Yurakucho lines stop at the subway station near the dorm, and the Yurakucho line goes all the way to the coast. So, I simply took that almost all the way to the end and then transferred to the monorail from there.
Odaiba is a very touristy place. Attractions range from a small water park to a giant ferris wheel from which you can see the Tokyo skyline pretty well, a scaled-down replica of the Statue of Liberty, a couple of small arcade-style amusement parks, and a lot of malls and shopping centers. I wasn’t there to do anything specific, so I just walked around a lot and took a lot of pictures. I walked around the shopping centers and went into various stores, but not much really caught my interest. I bought a shirt, and that was it. At the Decks shopping mall, they also had a Sony showroom, where you could see and try out all of Sony’s latest electronic gadgets for free. It was really cool, especially since I’m a total Sony whore.
For lunch, I ate takoyaki (fried octopus balls) for the first time. I’d been holding off on trying it because someone had told me that they taste slightly potato-ey, and I hate potatoes. But a stand by the Decks mall was selling them, and they looked too delicious to pass up. They were indeed delicious, and not at all potato-ey. I enjoyed them very much.
After leaving the Decks mall, I headed toward the ferris wheel side of Odaiba. I didn’t end up riding the ferris wheel because I figured it was probably expensive and wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without another person there. However, I did go into Venus Fort, another giant shopping mall. However, this one is special because the interior is modeled after that one street in Venice—I forget the name—where the ceiling is an artificial sky that changes colors to mimic the changes in the sky at various times of the day. It was incredibly beautiful and slightly disorienting, as well as amusing to me because I’ve actually been to the real thing in Venice. I didn’t end up going into many of the shops at this mall because they weren’t very interesting. I just walked around and took a lot of pictures of the mall itself.
Around 4:30~5pm, I was pretty much done doing everything I could think of to do, though. The only other thing I could’ve done was the big Toyota car showroom, which is free, but since I’m not at all interested in cars, it didn’t seem very interesting to me. I didn’t really want to head back to the dorm yet either, though, so I decided to walk around for a little while longer, just to see if I could find anything else to do.
It turned out to be very fortunate that I decided to do that instead of heading for home, because I ended up stumbling upon a tiny omatsuri that had been organized by one of the foreign exchange centers in Odaiba. It was designed as somewhat of a world cultural fair, with different booths representing different countries, as well as a celebration of the upcoming Obon holiday here in Japan. Most of the attractions and booths were being shut down by the time I got there, but they had been saving their main event for nighttime: Bon dancing. Obon is one of the holidays celebrated by going to festivals, usually clad in yukatas, and there are special dances that the festival attendees do together called Bon dances. I had heard of them but never seen them before. The dancing started at 6pm, so I decided to stick around and wait for it.
The omatsuri’s attendees were largely foreigners, so during the Bon dancing, the Japanese people who knew the dances took the time to teach the foreigners how to do it. There are many different dances, but they played every song twice to make sure everyone got to practice a dance enough before moving on to the next one. At first, I had planned to only take pictures, but then I realized—I have the opportunity to learn Bon dancing without being the only awkward foreigner in the crowd. What am I still standing around for? So I joined in, and had a lot of fun, even if the dances were more complicated than they seemed, and practicing each of them twice wasn’t enough time to really commit any of them to memory.
Though the dancing was supposed to go on for another hour or two, after learning 4 dances, I decided to head for home. I was hungry, and I didn’t want to spend money on dinner since there was dinner waiting for me at the dorm. I took the long way ‘round to go home, though, because I wanted to ride the stretch of the monorail that crosses the Rainbow Bridge, so that I could see the city and the bay at night. I got off at Shiodome and had to transfer subways twice, but the extra time out was worth it, because the view of the city at nighttime from the monorail was gorgeous.
Once home, I ate dinner, showered, and did homework. It’s still pretty early, but there’s not enough time to go anywhere or do anything else. I’m fine with that, though, because I want to save some energy for tomorrow. Sensei and I are doing *something*, though we’re still in the midst of working out the details. Should be fun, though.
I’m also happy that I managed to survive the day without getting too emotional about this being my final weekend. I think it helps that the past couple of days, instead of dwelling on the fact that I’m leaving very soon and thinking to myself, “This may be the last time I’m doing this,” I’ve been telling myself, “This is NOT the last time I’m doing this. I’ll definitely be back.” Soon. Hopefully next year. At any rate, I’ve basically decided not to say goodbye. I’m just saying, “See you later.”
Sunday, August 10th
I got up fairly early this morning, even though it’s Sunday, meaning there’s no breakfast. I got dressed and left by around 9, 9:30am. I headed to Ikebukuro for a little bit of shopping. Mom and Debby’s birthdays are this month, and though I’ve bought various souvenirs on many of my little trips, I didn’t have any real gifts yet. I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to buy them, but I had an idea of where I was going to succeed, and luckily all those stores happen to be in Ikebukuro, which is close and an area I know very well. I was right—shopping was a great success, and I was done by 11:30am. I grabbed a bite to eat and then headed back to the dorm to get ready to go out with Fujimura-sensei.
The way my plans with sensei had changed and evolved both amused and confused me. Recall that the original plan was just to go drinking—which probably involves eating, too, but that’s about it. When sensei hadn’t responded after asking me what my weekend looked like, I later sent him another text saying, “So, are we meeting on Sunday? If there are other things you’d like to do, I don’t want to intrude. In that case, have a good weekend!” He’d responded while I was in Odaiba yesterday, saying, “No, no, let’s meet on Sunday. I’m busy until 10, so let’s discuss the details after that. Is there anywhere you’d like to go?” I wasn’t sure how to answer that question because I wasn’t sure if I was just picking an area of town to meet to go drinking, or actually a place to go and visit. I still expected us to maybe meet for dinner and then have some drinks, and that’s all.
Anyway, I’d answered by listing all the places within Tokyo where I have been, and said, “If sensei knows any other interesting places, let’s go there!” I had a sneaking suspicion he was going to suggest Asakusa because he’s always talking about it, and he did. When he‘d asked what time, I told him that I had to do a little bit of shopping in the morning, but after that I was free all day. He’d said, “OK, since you have to go shopping for a bit, let’s meet after noon.” I was like—if I hadn’t said that I needed to go shopping, would we have met before noon? I was surprised, but amused.
So that’s how our planned and often-postponed drinking date had evolved into almost an entire day outing. We’d agreed to meet at Asakusa’s subway station at 2pm. Sensei was a little late—apparently he’d run all over town looking for a bank that would take his card. I’m glad I’m not the only one who that happens to.
The first thing we did was go to a big temple. I hadn’t heard of it, but it’s extremely famous—and quite deservedly so, because it’s both huge and gorgeous. The temple complex also includes a 5-story pagoda much bigger than the one at Ueno. We were also lucky because apparently the temple isn’t accessible to the public all the time, but today was one of the few days people were allowed to go inside. Sensei and I prayed at the shrine, and then we went to buy our fortunes. This temple is so touristy that the fortune papers actually included an English translation, so I could read it this time. Unfortunately, both sensei and I were extremely unlucky; today was supposedly one of the worst days of the year for both of us. All our hard work and plans are supposed to fail, etc. So, in order to try to prevent these bad fortunes from coming true, we folded them up and tied them to these special stands at the shrine. I pointed out to sensei how few other folded up fortunes there were. He was like, “Yeah, why the two of us have such bad luck today, I don’t understand either.”
I’m not sure what bad luck the fortune was talking about, though, because I had a really good day. After visiting the shrine, we looked around the souvenir shops in the area for a bit and then sat down to have tea. The weather was hot and muggy, as usual. Sensei asked me if there was anywhere else in particular I wanted to go. I told him I don’t know Asakusa at all, so he should lead the way.
We ended up going to this tiny little theme park called Hanayashiki. It looked more interesting from the outside than it actually was on the inside. Though there were teenagers and adults hanging around, it was clearly a theme park for little kids, and all the rides clearly reflected it. There were only a couple of thrill rides, and sensei quickly admitted that he’s not a fan of rides and scary things—which is fine by me, because I’m not, either, especially since my tendency toward motion sickness seems to have gotten worse over the last several years.
We started off doing this haunted house ride where you sit in a little car and it drives you around in the dark, and then an actual haunted house where you walk through it at your own pace. Neither were at all scary, and we were both pretty disappointed. After that, we walked around the park looking for another ride to go on. Our eyes finally fell on a ride that’s kind of a cross between a roller coaster and a swinging ship ride. You sat on a large spinning disk, and it basically went from side to side in a half-pipe motion. I felt that that ride was the only one I was pretty sure I could handle within my own limits (the only scarier ride was one of those big tower rides that drops you from really high, which I know I can’t handle) and that seemed at all exciting. So, when sensei asked if I wanted to ride it, I said yeah, let’s go! He seemed a little hesitant, but finally agreed. I asked him several times if it was really okay—I wasn’t going to make him ride it if he really didn’t want to—but he said he was pretty sure he could handle it. I was glad, because I figured that if we didn’t do something at least slightly thrilling that pushed both of us just a little bit out of our comfort zones, we weren’t really going to have a good time at this kiddy theme park. At least now there could be stories.
Sensei wibbled the entire way leading up to the ride and while we waited. When it was finally our turn to sit down, he said his heart was beating really fast and he was pretty nervous. He screamed the entire way through the ride, too, while I just sat there cracking up. I thought the ride really wasn’t that bad. The disk spun faster than I’d expected, and the ride lasted fairly long, but I wouldn’t call it scary. It wasn’t the ideal ride for someone with motion sickness, but since my stomach was basically empty, there wasn’t a big risk of me getting sick. I got vaguely nauseous, but that was it. It was fine.
Sensei had thought it was pretty scary, though, so we agreed that we were done with thrill rides and would just ride a couple more “easy” rides. We went on this ride called the Bee Tower, where you sat in a little house and it took you up really high and then spun you in a circle so that you could get a good view of the area. I got a couple of decent pictures of the Asakusa skyline this way. After that, we went on a fairly boring ride where you sat in a ship and it took you around the little theme park, monorail-style. In a bigger theme park, it would’ve been a fine ride, but the park is so small that the ride was extremely short and not at all entertaining.
We decided we’d had quite enough of kiddy rides after that, and left the park. I was quite relieved. I was worried that sensei felt bad about bringing me here when it didn’t turn out to be very exciting, even though I reassured him that I’d had fun just because it was a cute place. I’d also felt bad because even though I’d paid for the entrance fee on my own, sensei had bought all the ride tickets. They weren’t cheap, and as I mentioned, I *hate* people paying for me. Unfortunately, he’d gone ahead and bought the tickets before I’d even had any idea that they were necessary, and there wasn’t really much I could do about it after that.
Even though it was still pretty early (5pm or so), we decided to go and have dinner. The part of Asakusa we were in has a lot of these little restaurants where the tables extend out into the streets, and they serve various kinds of meat and fish dishes, most of which I wasn’t familiar with. We decided to sit down at a restaurant whose main dish was something called suji, which sensei wasn’t familiar with either, so we both wanted to try it. While we waited for the food, sensei told me that because his second job is in Asakusa, he often rides by these little restaurants on his bike, and every time, he’s jealous of the people sitting there, drinking beer and eating all the delicious food and enjoying leisurely conversations on warm summer evenings. However, he’s never had the free time to be one of those people, so he was doubly happy—both because today had been a rare opportunity for him to go out and sightsee and do fun things with a friend, and because by going to one of these restaurants, he got to do something he’d so often longed to do.
It gave me really warm fuzzy feelings. Recall that I mentioned in an earlier post that though overall I’ve loved every minute of my stay here in Japan, a part of me has felt unfulfilled—the part of me that centers my world around people I love and care for and strives to make them happy. There isn’t anybody I love here, and I haven’t felt like my presence has made anybody particularly happy. Not unhappy, but not happy either. Because I tend to be more quiet, even when I do find myself in a group of other people, I tend to feel auxiliary and unneeded. The group would have just as much fun without me there. Though I try not to dwell on these thoughts, occasionally it does gnaw away at me.
This time was different, though. For the first time since coming here, I had the opportunity to make someone happy just with my company. The language barrier did make conversation difficult at times, but my presence alone also made a difference. Sensei probably wouldn’t have done the things we did today on his own. He admits that on Sundays, his only day off in the week, he rarely leaves the house. He sleeps late, relaxes, cleans, plays keyboard, watches TV, and that’s about it. I really feel for him; I can sense that, beneath the friendly and occasionally strict teacher exterior, part of him is still a 27-year-old, only a few years out of college, living very far from his family in a very, very big city without any real friends. Just for a day, I’d had a chance to brighten this person’s world—and for the first time, that part of me felt fulfilled.
The entire situation was slightly aggravating too, though, because as we were talking about the things I’ve done and seen in Tokyo, and I mentioned that lately I’ve done most of these things on my own because my friends are always drinking and partying, we discovered that many of these things are ones sensei hasn’t done yet, either, and really wants to do. For example, he hasn’t been to Odaiba, or Kamakura, or the museums at Ueno. Had we discovered this earlier, we could’ve (should’ve?) gone together. Why did we have to find this out during my final weekend here? Now, there’s no time.
Anyway, since I’ve strayed from the original topic quite a bit—we had dinner, and tried suji as well as many of the restaurant’s other dishes, ranging from octopus sashimi to fried squid and cold tofu. Meanwhile, we drank beer—finally living up to our promise to go drinking together, though the drinking part was probably the least memorable out of all of today’s experiences.
We left the restaurant around 7pm. (To my aggravation, sensei once again paid the entire tab before I’d even known what he was doing or had the chance to insist that we split the check. Grr!) We briefly went back to the temple to see it lit up at night. The pagoda, especially, is really beautiful at nighttime. Then we headed back toward the subway station. I admit I was a little disappointed that our day was ending so early, but sensei seemed tired and there wasn’t really anything else for us to do around Asakusa, except maybe drink, but while we’d only had 2 drinks each at the restaurant, I get the impression sensei can’t drink very much.
So, around 7:30pm, I headed for home, having to make an effort to blink back a few tears. For the first time, I felt real regret. Up until now, I haven’t really regretted anything I’ve done or not done while here. There are things I haven’t done which I wish I had the time to do, but overall I’d say I’ve done the things I wanted to do most, and I’m content. But now I regret—really, really regret—not getting to know and spending time with this person sooner. The fact that today had been really fun made it even more bitter to discover that so many of the things I’d done alone are once we could’ve done together.
Back at the dorm, I lounged around my room for a while and then started packing. It’s not hard in the sense that at least this time, I’m not having to make difficult decisions about what I may or may not need. It’s simply a question of fitting everything into my two suitcases, which shouldn’t be too hard because one of them was mostly empty when I brought it for just this reason. Packing is hard, though, because it makes everything so final. I don’t want to be leaving, but I don’t have a choice.
Monday, August 11th
I continued packing for a little bit this morning, then left the dorm early to head back to Ikebukuro once again. There were a few more little things I needed to buy which I’d forgotten to get when I was here yesterday. Among other things, I finally got an obi to go along with the purple yukata. I also bought a couple more things at Mandarake. After I finally got that taken care of, I had lunch at McDonald’s. I’d decided that I didn’t want to leave Japan before enjoying the delicious shrimp burger one more time.
Class was fairly normal. We had a grammar test, which was easy, after which we just continued learning new material. Though the exam is on Wednesday (for the people staying here, it’s the midterm, while for those of us who are leaving, it’s the final), they’re not stopping to review or anything. We’re just continuing with the book, even though the exam only covers up to chapter 28.
It was also my last class with Fujimura-sensei. I’d been surprised when he told me this yesterday—I fully expected to still see him on Wednesday, but apparently they’re completely randomizing which teacher proctors which class’s exam. I’d already made up my mind, though, that today wasn’t going to be the last time I saw him. I’m not ready to say goodbye yet, and after class was over, I dashed out of the room as quickly as I could, just in case he’d decided that today was good-bye and tried to pull me aside, or something.
Aside from that, though, I was also in a hurry to get to Harajuku. There were a couple of things I needed to get there for a couple of friends, and I wasn’t sure what time those stores were closing. I succeeded and was headed back to the dorm by 7pm.
I stopped by Ikebukuro station on the way to buy my train ticket to the airport on Thursday. As I’d mentioned in my first post, Narita Airport is very far from the city, and even by public transportation, it’s not the easiest place to get to. There are several different buses and trains you can take, with travel times ranging from an hour and a half to two and a half hours, and fares ranging from about ¥1300 to ¥3200. I’d decided to take the most expensive train, just because it’s the most convenient—it leaves right from Ikebukuro station and then goes directly to the airport, so the only transfer I have to make is from the subway to the train at Ikebukuro. It’s also the fastest ride, and unlike on other trains, I have a reserved seat, so in my opinion, it’s well worth the money—especially since I’m not sending my luggage to the airport by courier, so transferring multiple trains would be a hassle.
Then I headed back to the dorm, where I studied for a little bit and continued packing. The vast majority of it is done now, and I only have little odds and ends left to take care of, which I’ll do tomorrow night. I really need to be done packing by Wednesday morning. I texted Fujimura-sensei earlier asking him if he’d like to have dinner before I leave. I told him that I want to celebrate his birthday, which is on Saturday, when I won’t be here, so I told him to choose between Tuesday or Wednesday night. He chose Wednesday because he wants me to spend Tuesday night studying for the final. I’m fine with that. This gives me something to look forward to right up until I leave.
Tuesday, August 12th
Only two days left…
There was no breakfast at the dorm this morning. It’s summer vacation in Japan this week, and nearly all the Japanese girls are gone. It’s just the 4 of us KCP students and 3 of the Japanese girls. We’re not getting any more meals between now and when I leave on Thursday.
I got up early, packed a little more, and intended to be out of the door early so I could go to FedEx and figure out how to mail my rice cooker home. There is definitely not going to be room in my suitcase for that. However, I ended up leaving too late, so there was no time to both mail the rice cooker and go to the computer lab. Whatever. It’s not such a big deal. I still have time tomorrow.
Anyway, this’ll probably be my last post from Japan. However, considering I still have a couple of days left, there will be at least one more post after this. I just know that I’m not going to have time before I fly back, so my final post(s) will have to come from the States. It may also not be until the weekend, considering the fact that I’ll probably be fairly exhausted and jet-lagged.
So, this is not goodbye quite yet, but just a “see you later”. Pray for me that I have a safe flight!
Something new today: I have two short video clips to post. The quality is by no means great, but it’s something new. However, the files are pretty big, so I’m not sure if I can manage to upload them within my hour in the computer lab. I guess we’ll see by the time I have my pictures uploaded and am ready to post this, whether I was able to or not. If not, I’ll try to upload them at a later date.
Friday, August 1st
Unfortunately, my wish didn’t come true. Evan already had plans for Friday night, so I hoped to talk Soo Young into going. Since he also really wants to go drinking with Fujimura-sensei, I was hoping together we could convince the other Koreans to go. But Soo Young didn’t even come to class today. Finally, I talked to Sang Mook, but he said that even though most people are likely free, they probably wouldn’t want to go if Evan’s not going. The fact that we’d be celebrating my victory at the speech contest doesn’t seem to matter—Evan is the whole reason the Koreans in our class go to these nomikai events, so if he doesn’t go, they don’t want to go.
Couple this with the fact that I had no other plans for Friday night, nor for the weekend in general, and I was once again frustrated and upset, bordering on another breakdown. Cat’s still going out of her way to avoid me. Shaunte still goes along with whatever Cat does. Caslyn, Yana, Kelcy, and Robyn are climbing Mt. Fuji. Evan is renting a car and driving to the mountains with Sang Mook and some of the other Koreans in our class. I knew they’d been planning something all week, but I wasn’t sure what until Ji Young told me. She asked me if I was going with them. When I tried to explain to her that I hadn’t been invited, she looked really confused.
I travelled back to the dorm with a growing sense of dread. I know I should look forward to weekends because I actually have time to explore more of the city, but although I know I am capable of amusing myself on my own, the loneliness that’s been gnawing away at me for a couple of weeks now makes it impossible for me to look forward to the prospect of another weekend spent by myself.
So, it’s been another boring Friday night. I briefly considered going out on my own, but what’s there to do? Most shops still close at 8pm, and anything else wouldn’t be fun without companions.
The only thing to cheer me up was that I had e-mailed sensei earlier to let him know there wasn’t going to be a nomikai tonight, and he e-mailed back a little while ago. We e-mailed back and forth a couple of times. I asked him if he had any fun weekend plans, and he said he’s working the entire weekend. (I think he has a second job, because I can’t imagine he’d be doing work for school all weekend, when the teachers at KCP only teach half days.) He told me to make lots of memories and tell him about it afterwards so that he can live vicariously through me. D’awww.
I know that lately I’ve been sounding like I’m obsessed with him, but I’m not. Okay, well, maybe a little, but it’s not that serious. It’s just that he’s so kind, and when I feel down like I have been lately, I have a tendency to cling on to whatever kindness I receive. I think he understands that I’m not a very chatty person, but when I do talk, he cares about what I have to say. And it’s really nice to feel like someone cares right now.
Saturday, August 2nd
Shaunte and I ended up having breakfast at the same time this morning, and she asked me what my plans were. I told her I had no idea yet, as I honestly didn’t. Two of the main things left on my list are Odaiba and art museums. However, as mentioned yesterday, I also didn’t really want to be by myself the entire weekend. So, when Shaunte said that she was probably going to go with a group of people from her class to see the fireworks tonight, I told her I’d probably go with her.
She said the group was probably meeting around 4:30pm, which meant that I couldn’t really go anywhere or do anything else. I was all right with that, though. Instead, I did homework, so that if I want to, I can go out and do something all day tomorrow and not worry about having to find time to do that. I also just lay back and reflected for a long time, which I guess was nice, other than the fact that afterwards I couldn’t help but feel a little bit annoyed that I’d spent 3 hours doing nothing other than thinking.
Around 4, I started getting ready to leave, but Shaunte texted me saying she was going to be a little late because she was still out shopping with Cat. She told me I could go ahead and meet up with the other people from her class, but since I don’t really know them, I told her I’d rather wait and go with her. She said that that was fine, but that Cat was coming too. Given the fact that Cat hasn’t said a word to me for almost two weeks now, I realized that this was going to be interesting. However, since I’d already given up on doing anything else today, I decided to still go.
We left around 5:30pm. Cat and Shaunte filled out the little forms that we have to turn in if we want to stay out all night because they were fairly sure they were going to go clubbing after the fireworks. I wasn’t sure whether I was invited, or whether I even wanted to be out all night, but I figured it was always better to fill out the form just in case. Doing so doesn’t mean that I can’t come in if I’m back before 11pm like normal. So, I turned in a form as well.
We took the subway and then the train, and met up with the others—Manny and two Korean girls—at Sugamo Station, where we had to transfer to another subway and travel another 15 minutes or so to Nishi-Dai. Manny and the girls were wearing yukatas. I had brought mine in my bag to change into later because I didn’t want to be the one awkward white person on the train in a yukata. You see people like that occasionally, and they always look incredibly out of place, and everyone always stares.
The fireworks were starting at 7pm, and we got to Nishi-Dai around 6:30. Everyone was starving, so we ran into a nearby McDonalds and got some food. I also took the opportunity to run to the bathroom and change into my yukata, which was a little difficult because it was so cramped in there, but I managed. I was wearing the blue yukata I don’t like that much because I still don’t have an obi to go with the purple one, and the red one that goes with the blue yukata wouldn’t look good with it.
The fireworks had already started by the time we left McDonalds, but the show was two hours long, so we weren’t concerned. We just took our time and followed the crowd. The fireworks were big enough that they were visible from most parts of the city, but we still tried to get as close as possible to where they were being shot off. It was a fairly long walk, but it was worth it. They truly were some of the biggest and most impressive fireworks I have ever seen.
We took a lot of pictures. I had unfortunately forgotten my camera at home, so I took a lot of pictures with my phone instead. It actually worked pretty well, although I only belatedly realized that I had the phone’s camera set on low quality with a small size, when it’s actually capable of taking 1600x1200 pictures in fairly high quality. I’m not going to bother posting many of them, though, because I realize pictures of fireworks are not the most exciting thing in the world. I also don’t really have any good pictures of myself in the yukata, unfortunately. Hopefully somebody else will post their pictures, and I can take advantage of that.
The fireworks ended around 9pm, after which there was a massive wave of people heading back toward the station. There were definitely at least ten thousand people there. Rather than get crushed in this crowd, we decided to take our time heading back. There were a lot of stalls on the side of the road selling various kinds of food and drinks, and a lot of them were reducing their prices now that the fireworks were over because they wanted to sell out. So, we sat in a parking lot and feasted on cheap yakitori.
Finally, though, we decided we needed to head back toward the station. However, I was out of money—I didn’t even have enough left on me for the train fare. I tried to find a konbini where I could use the ATM, but I didn’t manage to find one. Finally, Shaunte told me she’d just spot me the train fare. She still owes me money from when we went to the butler café, anyway, so that worked out.
I think we boarded the subway around 9:50pm. It was jam-packed full of people. There hadn’t been time to take off my yukata, but since there were lots of people on the train wearing yukatas, I didn’t feel so terribly out-of-place. We got off the subway at Sugamo and boarded the train. Shaunte, Cat and I got off at Ikebukuro, while Manny and the Korean girls were heading toward Shibuya to go to the club. Shaunte and Cat were going as well, but they wanted to stop by the dorm first. Manny had invited me, but I’d decided I wasn’t in the mood. I wasn’t opposed to the idea of staying out all night, but since Cat had been continuing to ignore the fact that I even exist, I realized I probably wasn’t going to have too much fun if I went. Instead, I’d tried to get in touch with Soo Young, since he’s been insisting that he wants to go drinking or dancing with me sometime. However, he wasn’t answering his phone or his texts, which meant he was probably at work, where he often doesn’t get off until 1 or 2 am. Since it was about 10:30pm, I resigned myself to the fact that I was just going to head home.
Unfortunately, as I may have mentioned before, Ikebukuro Station is huge, and I got separated from Cat and Shaunte. This wasn’t a big deal until I reached the ticket gate for the subway line I always ride and realized… my subway pass was gone. I checked my bag several times, taking everything out at least three times. Still, it was nowhere to be found. I was incredibly frustrated—especially because I knew I’d brought it because I’d used it on the way to the fireworks, and I’d put it in the inner pocket of my bag, from which it’d be hard to disappear. But no matter how much I searched, it was gone.
Still, this would not be a big deal, because I could just buy a regular subway ticket… except that I had no money. I had, at most, about ¥60 on me, and the fare costs ¥160, so I was at least ¥100 short. My agitation increased when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to get home until I found an ATM—and if I didn’t want to stay out all night, the clock was ticking. It was already 10:40pm.
ATMs are not too terribly hard to find, but the big problem is that the vast majority of them don’t accept any American debit/credit cards except for CitiBank. The only places I’ve found where I can consistently use my card are at CitiBank, 7-11, and Lawson ATMs. I tried a couple of the ATMs at the station, but none of them worked. I ended up going into Ikebukuro city to search for a CitiBank or a konbini. I found several Sunkus and FamilyMarts, but the ATMs there didn’t take my card either.
Meanwhile, I was still wearing the yukata and getting funny looks and occasionally whistles and cat-calls from men hanging around the city. I was hot, sweaty, angry, frustrated, panicked about the prospect of possibly not being able to get back into the dorm, and I still couldn’t locate an ATM I could use. I finally decided I should head for the part of Ikebukuro where I knew there was a Lawson—but it was way on the other side. I had to walk very far, which was a pain because the yukata restricted my motion, and the shoes I was wearing are not ones I can walk for very long in. My legs and feet ached.
At long last, I managed to find a 7-11, where I finally managed to be able to use the ATM and withdrew money. It was now 11:05pm. I dashed back to the station, bought a ticket, and got on my subway.
I had texted Shaunte earlier explaining my situation and asking her, before she and Cat headed out again, to let the dorm mother know I was intending to come back before 11pm but was stuck at Ikebukuro. I hadn’t really received a positive confirmation, though, so I wasn’t sure what I was going to find when I got back and was still pretty panicked. In my head, I tried to figure out a back-up plan—what to do, who to call. Since I only got my phone a couple of weeks ago, the only phone numbers I have are Shaunte’s (who was now on the way to Shibuya), Evan’s (who had gone to the mountains), Tyler’s (who lives two hours away), Soo Young’s (who hadn’t been answering his phone or texts), and Fujimura-sensei’s. So, none of those were really usable. I finally decided that my contingency plan, if I did find myself to be locked out, would be to go to an Internet café, pay for 6 hours of time, and spend the night in one of the booths there. It wasn’t the optimal solution, but it would be cheaper than a hotel and relatively safe.
Luckily, when I arrived at the dorm (around 11:20pm), the door had been left unlocked and the hallway light was still on. Utsugi-san herself was nowhere to be found—I had planned to apologize to her and explain the situation if needed—but after I had gone to my room and came back into the hall, the light was off and the door had been locked and bolted, so I know she’d been waiting for me. I guess the situation had been explained, and everything was all right.
The final frustration of the night was that, because I’d come in after 11pm, despite how sweaty and gross I felt, I couldn’t take a shower because of the stupid 5:30-to-11 rule.
I suppose all’s well that ends well, but I did realize once again that although I don’t really want to go back to the U.S., I also couldn’t stay here with the way things are now. If I’m going to live here, I need my own apartment, where I can come and go as I please, and where it’s okay to take a shower after 11pm or in the morning.
Sunday, August 3rd
Since I hadn’t really done too much yesterday, I was determined to do something today. Sundays (in my mind) seem to be well suited for museum visits, and since the weather was nice (if a little too hot for my liking—the high of the day ended up being around 35°C), I decided to head to Ueno, where most of Tokyo’s major museums are located.
Ueno’s not too far from where I live. I had to transfer from the subway to the train at Ikebukuro. Total travel time was less than half an hour. It wasn’t very hard to make my way to Ueno Park and the museums, either. It’s a very popular place both among tourists and regular Tokyoites.
I had previously read up on the different museums in Tokyo and decided that the one I’d most like to visit was the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. It features mainly contemporary work, including Japanese modern art and graphic design, which was what I wanted to see. I enjoy older Japanese/Asian art, too, but those are more accessible in the West, and I have studied them a lot. I really wanted to have a chance to see some work that I might not otherwise find out about in America.
The TMAM (as I’ll call it from here on out) has special exhibitions as well, and starting yesterday, they were holding a highly-marketed exhibition on Vermeer. Yes, the Dutch painter. I’d seen the posters advertising the show around the city, and it was clear when I got to Ueno that the vast majority of the visitors were there for that exhibition.
Unfortunately for me, once I got inside the museum, figuring out where to go was difficult. There was some English signage, but the vast majority of it was Japanese, with way too many kanji I didn’t know. The problem was that I wasn’t really interested in the Vermeer exhibit, but rather wanted to see the museum’s permanent collection. They were selling tickets for the Vermeer exhibit, but I wasn’t sure if that included the permanent collection or not. There was only one other register selling tickets that weren’t for the Vermeer show, but from the signage, I couldn’t tell what exactly those tickets were for. I’ve usually found that in these situations, you just follow the crowds. So, I got in line behind everyone else and bought a ticket for the Vermeer exhibit. Besides, I recalled the time when I’d gone to the Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum in April, and tickets for the special exhibition had included the permanent collection as well. Since these tickets were slightly expensive—¥1600—I figured this museum likely worked the same way.
After buying my ticket, I made my way over to the Vermeer exhibit, intending to take a quick walk through it and then find my way to the rest of the museum’s exhibits. I’m not claiming to be extremely knowledgeable about Vermeer, nor have I seen very many of his works in person, but it’s just that I didn’t come to this museum to see Western art. It was pretty cool to see such an extensive homage to my countryman, though. They only had about 8 or so of Vermeer’s works to display, but the exhibit also included a lot of works by several of his pupils and contemporaries—all of them Dutch. It was a pretty nice exhibit, even though I breezed through it.
However, after making my way to the end, I found myself at the museum exit instead of at a point where I could access the rest of the museum. Confused, I headed back toward the lobby and wandered around for a while, trying to figure out where to go. I finally found an entrance to a gallery that looked interesting, but they were taking tickets. That’s when I realized I’d gotten in the wrong line earlier after all, and really should’ve gone to the other register. I went back, bought the other ticket (another ¥800, after spending ¥1600 on an exhibit I hadn’t wanted to see—I was pretty frustrated), and went to the other gallery.
On the bright side, this second exhibit was definitely worth it. It featured a mix of contemporary Japanese art, ranging from paintings and drawings to photography, sculptures, collages, and even calligraphy. Not all of it was necessarily good, or I didn’t always like it, but a lot of it was work that I knew would likely never go on display in the West, or at least not outside of New York City and LA, so I had gotten my wish of seeing something special, seeing art unique to Japan.
I spent quite a long time checking out this collection. When I was finally done, I found myself back in the museum lobby. However, the museum still had other galleries I wanted to check out, but I didn’t see them selling any other tickets. Once again confused, I walked to one of the other galleries to see what other people were doing. There were museum staff sitting by a table near the entrance, but it turns out that they were only handing out informational flyers, not taking tickets. As it turned out, the rest of the museum—aside from the Vermeer exhibit and the gallery I’d just come from—were free.
Both relieved that I wouldn’t have to pay any more and angry that I’d already paid much more than I’d actually needed to, I found my way to a calligraphy gallery. Or, rather, one of the museum’s five calligraphy galleries. I think Asian calligraphy is beautiful, and it was interesting to see all the different styles and approaches, but by the time I reached the end, I realized I’d had quite enough.
After that, I made my way over to two adjacent galleries that were both displaying landscapes and sumi-e paintings—paintings done solely in black ink; you’ve probably seen them. There’s a strong relationship between calligraphy and this style of painting. I love this style and studied it a lot in high school, so it was nice to see the real thing. It was also nice to see so many different views of Japan and Japanese culture. In the contemporary gallery I’d gone to earlier, many of the paintings were of Japanese artists’ views of Europe, especially France, so I was delighted to see more of Asia. I also enjoyed having the galleries mostly to myself, since everyone else was apparently just here to see the Vermeer exhibit.
There was a very small gallery showing more modern works and a bit of graphic design. Unfortunately, they were apparently getting ready to change the exhibit, because they were already taking down a few of the artworks.
There was only one more gallery left after that. I was tired and needed to sit down, take a break, and eat lunch, but since I was so close to finishing seeing everything there was to see, I figured I would do this one more gallery and then go eat. It was mostly more ink-brush painting, but some of the paintings had more modern twists and used color. My favorite was a painting of three penguins done in black ink, with just a little bit of yellow for added detail. Very realistic, and very beautiful.
I kind of breezed through that last gallery, though, just because I was so tired. The museum didn’t have the air-conditioning turned up high; the temperature was all right, but the air wasn’t circulating very well, so I found it stuffy and hard to breathe. I was happy when I was finally back out in the park, even though it was extremely hot and humid, just because there was a light breeze.
After eating my lunch, which I’d brought from home with the foresight that everything sold at the park would likely be ridiculously overpriced, I needed to decide where to go next. It was around 1:30pm, and the museums all close around 5pm. The other major museums at Ueno include: the Tokyo Western Art Museum, a natural history museum, and the Tokyo National Museum. Out of all of them, the latter was the one that interested me the most because it boasts the largest collection of Japanese art in the world, but most of it is historical/non-contemporary art, and besides, the museum is so vast that I feel like you should take out an entire day just to visit that museum alone. I also felt like I’d drank my fill of Japanese art and was sated for a while. No need to overdose.
So, no more museums. I was fine with that, but it did mean I had to decide what to do instead. Aside from the museums and the park itself, Ueno is famous for its zoo, but although I like zoos (and the Ueno zoo definitely has penguins), I didn’t much care for the prospect of going to one by myself. Also, it was just much too hot to spend that much time walking in the sun.
Instead, I decided to go explore Ueno Park a little, taking lots of breaks in the shade to relax and watch people. There are several shrines in the park, and even though by now I feel like I’ve drank my fill of shrines and temples, I decided to check them out, just because they’re always interesting to see. No two look exactly the same. The park also includes a beautiful five-story pagoda which is not accessible to the public, but I did manage to see it and take pictures from fairly close by.
Other than that, there’s a large pond where you can rent various kinds of boats. I suppose it’d be a nice thing to do on a date, or something, but even if I hadn’t been alone, it was far too hot. (Yes, I know I’ve said that several times now, but I’m going to keep emphasizing it because it was disgustingly hot—quite possibly the hottest day I’ve experienced here thus far.)
In the end, I walked a lot. Apparently there’s a recommended walking/jogging route at Ueno Park, and I walked that route and more, which meant that in total, I probably walked some 3km. Of course, I did take a lot of breaks. I took a lot of pictures, sketched a little, and spent some time listening to a couple of street musicians. It was a satisfying and relaxing afternoon.
By 4pm, though, I had to get out of the heat, so I boarded the train and headed back to the dorm, where I took a much-needed shower. I lay in bed and relaxed for a while, half-considered napping, then walked to the suupaa to buy food for dinner. I ate, studied for a while, and started on the next chapter’s homework.
At one point, I was transferring everything from my “weekend bag” (which I take when I go shopping, exploring, etc.) to my “school bag” (the messenger bag I take to school with me every day) when I came across a pack of gum in the inner pocket of my weekend bag. I decided I was in the mood for gum, so I slid the tray out of the package (it’s the Japanese version of Eclipse gum, called Excel here, if that gives you a mental image of the packaging) only to find… my train pass had been stuck inside! I was, of course, elated to find that it wasn’t gone after all, because otherwise I would’ve had to fork over ¥380 every day just to get to and from school, though I really wish I would’ve found it on Saturday and been able to save myself all that trouble I went through to find an ATM.
Even though it’s only 10pm, I’m pretty damn tired, so I think I’m gonna hit the sack.
Monday, August 4th
I almost cried when I woke up today and saw that it’s already August 4th. The time is going way too fast. Are there really only 10 days left? It’s still a little hard to imagine.
I went to school early to do more of the e-learning stuff. Then I went to class as usual. Fujimura-sensei’s class was fun, but I think everyone was suffering a little from a Monday slump. A couple of people fell asleep in class. It was probably also partly due to the weather. It was gloomy and dark all day, and it looked and smelled like rain, yet it didn’t rain. Nothing is worse than when it looks exactly like it’s going to rain, but then it doesn’t. Something about days like this just saps all your energy.
I stayed after class for a little while to talk to Fujimura-sensei about Newspaper Club stuff. We want to put out our first issue on Friday so that those of us who are leaving next week still have a chance to see and read it before we go. That means that I need to work on the layout and put all the articles together before Friday. The newspaper’s only two pages, but that actually makes it harder on me because there are a lot of articles that need to be entered. Takahashi-sensei told me I can cut out text at my own discretion, but I feel a little bad for the author(s) if I do. It’s going to be a challenge, but I’m up to it.
I had nothing to do but go home after that. I’d already finished tonight’s homework, so I continued to work ahead for a little while, sent out a couple of e-mails, and started on the newspaper design, even though they haven’t sent me the articles yet. I have a feeling Takahashi-sensei probably sent it to my Gmail account, even though I told Fujimura-sensei that my Softbank account is better. I can just transfer the attachments to my laptop using Bluetooth. But if she sent it to my Gmail account, I can’t get the articles until tomorrow morning.
Tuesday, August 5th
Yet another day closer to my departure. A sickening sense of dread is settling in my stomach. I know I’ve been feeling conflicted, between my desire to stay here and my recent loneliness and sense of isolation, but in the end the desire to stay here wins out. Unfortunately, I don’t have any choice in the matter. I have to go back.
I went to school early again to use the computer lab, for posting my blog and pictures this time. I’m also trying to upload my videos that I took at Ueno Park, but the files are pretty big (about 100 megs each) so I don’t think it’s possible to do so within my hour in the lab. If I can manage to post them at some point, I will.
Other than that, I have class, and then my oral proficiency test that’s part of my final grade around 5:30pm. I’m not a big fan of oral exams, but there isn’t really a way to prepare for them, so I’ve managed to not really stress out about it too much. No use worrying about it until it happens.
On a bright note, today could be the day I go drinking with Fujimura-sensei. Everyone had agreed that Tuesday works for them, although we didn’t really iron out the details yesterday because everyone was so brain-dead, so there’s a small chance it might not happen. Hopefully it will, though, because I’ve waited long enough. The other problem could be that sensei said that he usually doesn’t get off work until 7pm at the earliest, possibly 8 or 9. With my curfew, depending on where we go drinking, I can’t really stay out past 10. Given how long I’ve waited for this, it’d be hugely upsetting if we get to spend less than an hour drinking together. Damn curfew! I’ve been getting really annoyed with it this past week.
Friday, July 25th
After my last post, as mentioned, I went to Newspaper Club. A lot of people didn’t show up; it seems like our membership has dropped by almost half. The bad news is, they seem to have given up on the idea of the small groups going places together, so the suggested outing to an omatsuri probably isn’t happening. The good news is, everyone approved of the idea of me writing an article about the butler café. No one had heard of it before, and I had to give everyone a brief explanation. When I tried to explain that it’s similar to a maid café, Fujimura-sensei asked if you had to dress up to go to the butler café. When I explained that, no, regular clothes are fine, he said something along the lines of wanting to see me in a maid outfit. I wasn’t sure how to take that comment. In my opinion, I’d look pretty terrible in a maid outfit, or any kind of Lolita-esque clothing. I’m too tall.
Anyway, after that, we had class as usual, with Iki-sensei, the Friday teacher everyone hates. Today seemed to be a particularly bad day, because not only was she as boring as usual, but she kept making these awkward mistakes when she was writing on the board. Watching a teacher repeatedly screw up gets to be pretty painful. After a while, I even stopped feeling sorry for her and just wanted class to be over with already. Luckily, she ended class pretty early (around 4pm or so) so everyone could work on the ouen.
I had speech practice again after that, but luckily it was with Takahashi-sensei instead of with Iki-sensei. At first, she was busy working on various things, though, so I worked on memorizing it and had it all memorized by the time she had time to listen to me recite it. She seemed extremely pleased; it seems that I’m ahead of schedule, so now she wants me to work on using more gestures when I speak. I don’t normally speak with my hands, so it’s very unnatural for me and will be pretty difficult. I do have almost another week, though, so I can try to make it work.
Overall, speech practice went more quickly than usual, and for the first time, I was out of there before 6pm. The bad news was, I had no plans. Shaunte hadn’t even come to school today because she was still out with Cat and her college friends. For as far as I knew, Evan had just gone straight home after class. Kelcy, Caslyn, Yana, Kevin & co. seemed to have been talking about plans to go out earlier, but nobody had filled me in or explicitly invited me. I started walking to the station when I ran into the awkward situation of being only about 100m behind Kelcy & co. and being headed in the same direction. In other words, I had a choice of joining up with them. However, I didn’t want to seem like I was inviting myself along; since they hadn’t filled me in, that probably meant that they didn’t particularly want me along, and I didn’t want to force my company on them. So, I ended up purposely walking slowly so they wouldn’t spot me and ended up going home by myself.
Once there, I didn’t really do too much. Shaunte was finally home when I got there, so we had dinner together. Then I showered and spent some time e-mailing a few people. Overall, I’d say buying the phone was a good idea after all. Feeling connected to the people back home makes the moments of loneliness much more bearable.
Saturday, July 26th
When I saw Shaunte at dinner last night, she had been in her PJs, so I had assumed that she was staying in. Besides, she’d been complaining about being tired. However, when I woke up in time for breakfast, I saw Cat’s slippers weren’t by her door, and when I went to go check, I could tell by the name sign board downstairs that both she and Shaunte had spent the night out again. I was a little annoyed because I’d been hoping to convince Shaunte to go to Odaiba with me today, since she’d said earlier this week that she really wanted to do some more touristy things.
However, I wasn’t going to let that stop me from doing something today. The list of things I still wanted to do included going to Odaiba, visiting a few art museums (probably around the Ueno area), going to an omatsuri, and (if time permitted) going to Kamakura. There are more things on the list, but these are the things that require a whole day, i.e. not things I can do before/after class sometime.
I had heard yesterday during Newspaper Club that there’s an omatsuri in Asakusa today, complete with fireworks. Asakusa is pretty close to Ueno, so I briefly considered combining that with a museum visit. However, omatsuri within the Tokyo city limits are usually attended by tens of thousands of people. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with that many people on a day that was bound to be hot and humid enough already, so I decided to scrap that idea. I also didn’t feel inclined to head to Odaiba because from what I’ve heard it’s not really touristy in the sense of actual sightseeing, but more browsing/shopping, hanging out by the sea, and going on attractions like the famous ferris wheel there. In other words, it seems more like the type of place you want to go with a friend. So I’d rather hold off on that and see if I can still manage to convince Shaunte to go with me sometime. I’d also prefer to go to Odaiba on a sunny day; today the sky was overcast.
So, Kamakura it was. At any rate, out of all of the things on the list (except maybe the museum visits), it’s the one that most lends itself to a solitary visit. I didn’t know much about Kamakura, but from what I’d heard, it’s mostly temples, shrines, and nature. Lots of sightseeing, walking, and maybe a little reflection and introspection. I decided I was quite in the mood for such a journey, so I got dressed, packed a backpack with a bottle of water, my sketchbook, camera, and wallet, and set off by myself.
To get to Kamakura, I had to take the subway to Ikebukuro and then take a train from there. Kamakura is located pretty far outside of the Tokyo limits, south of Yokohama. (For those of you who aren’t familiar, the relationship between Tokyo and Yokohama is somewhat comparable to the relationship between Houston and Galveston.) Even though the train didn’t make too many stops, it still took well over an hour to get there. Also, because it’s far, the train fare wasn’t cheap—¥890 for a one-way ticket.
I’d left around 10am, so I got to Kamakura around 11:15~11:30. So far, I’ve been navigating Tokyo without any sort of tourist maps or guide books, and since I’ve lasted this long without them, I don’t feel like getting any now. In any case, the idea of exploring places on my own appeals to me much more than following a tourist guide book’s instructions, and I’ve always had a passion for traveling by my own instinctive sense of direction. However, it’s true that when I arrived at the station, I had no earthly idea where to go. Luckily, there was a map just outside the station which I spent some time thoroughly examining.
I had known that Kamakura’s main attraction was the large number of temples and shrines, but I’d had no idea just how many there are. As it turns out, there’s a good 30 or so, and they’re not just regular shrines—many of them are very old, and some have a distinct place in Japanese history. I also had not known just how close Kamakura is to Sagami Bay. A large number of the people on the train, as it turns out, were headed for the beach. I ended up following a group of them, because as soon as I realized that the sea was within walking distance, a wave of homesickness washed over me, and I longed to splash my feet in the water.
I spent almost an hour walking along the beach, enjoying the water and the breeze and a bit of people-watching. The sight of the sea always calms me, and soon I felt happy and at peace, my troubles of the past week or so forgotten. It was an excellent start to the day; when I headed inland again, I felt ready for an afternoon of visits to temples and shrines.
The first shrine I headed to didn’t turn out to be anything too special, and I left pretty quickly. After that, I was smarter and followed large groups of tourists who were all headed in the same direction. There’s a very large temple near the center of Kamakura that seemed to be the first place everyone goes. The complex was very large, and the buildings were beautiful. I prayed at the shrine—my first time doing so, because previously I’d never known what to ask for.
I probably spent a good hour or so at this one temple alone, because the grounds were so large and contained a couple of beautiful gardens, including one with the most massive water lilies I have ever seen. I took a lot of pictures and sat in the shade for a while, soaking in the beauty.
Afterwards, I had a choice of either heading east or west of this temple. The east side of Kamakura appeared to have more temples and shrines in slightly closer proximity to each other, while the west side, which is more mountainous, features a more natural setting, including a hiking trail that leads to the large Buddha statue, called the Daibutsu, which is one of the things Kamakura is most famous for. Rather than trying to cram in over 10 different shrines and temples in one afternoon, I decided I would much rather do a couple more shrines and temples and then take the hiking trail to the Daibutsu. So, I headed west.
I visited three more temples. The first, En-noji Temple, was rather small, but the cool thing about it was, it was built to worship the god(s) of the underworld, and inside the main shrine (where we couldn’t take pictures), they had statues of these gods which were quite interesting to see. The second, Ken-choji Temple, was much larger and spread out. I had to pay ¥300 to get in, but it was worth it. It was another temple with a long history, especially with regard to Zen Buddhism, and included several famous artifacts, like a large bell that bears some importance in Japanese history and some really famous juniper trees. It also had a beautiful temple garden whose sight alone was well worth the entry fee. I saw several Zen Buddhist monks who had apparently come on pilgrimages here, which also reaffirmed that I had picked a temple worth visiting.
The last temple, Chi-oji, was located right by the start of the hiking trail. I got close to it and took several pictures but didn’t actually go inside. They, too, charged an entry fee, but I didn’t see any other tourists there, so I didn’t get the impression that it was worth the money or the time. So, I just took a few pictures of the outside and then headed for the woods to begin the hike.
The hike wasn’t particularly difficult, but it was satisfying. The trail was fairly clear—there weren’t many signs marking the path, but there was usually only one direction you could go, and even if the path split, eventually they would all end up in the same place, so I didn’t really have much trouble finding my way. It was also much cooler up in the woods than on the sidewalk along the road, making me doubly glad that I’d chosen to take this way to get to the Daibutsu.
As an aside, let me just mention that I was not at all dressed for hiking. Because I’d known I was going to visit many shrines and temples, I’d decided to err on the side of being slightly dressed up. After all, they’re religious places, and I didn’t want to be the ugly tourist in a T-shirt and jeans. So, I was actually wearing a skirt. As for shoes, I was just wearing regular canvas flats. Perfectly fine for walking long distances, but not exactly designed for hiking. I got a few weird looks from people I passed along the trail—probably due to the combination of being a young female hiking a mountain on her own, and not at all being dressed for the task.
After about 1~1.5km, I arrived at a park near the top of the mountain. At least, they called it a park, though it wasn’t particularly park-like (how do you designate a park when you’re already in the woods?) aside from the fact that it had restrooms, a water fountain, and a few vending machines. They also had a shrine, though it wasn’t a particularly interesting one to see, so I only took one picture of it. In addition, the park included the grave of Yoshitomo, some important historical figure from Kamakura—do not ask me his significance, because I do not know. I only know the broad outlines of Japanese history.
Luckily, they had an area map and more signs here, because beyond the park the road split into several directions. Though there were several other shrines nearby that I would’ve loved to visit, the hike was taking longer than I’d expected, and I decided not to tarry and head straight for the Daibutsu. The trail headed a little further upward, and at one point, the trees cleared enough that I could see the town of Kamakura below. It was a very satisfying sight, especially because I could clearly see the beach I’d walked along that morning, and realizing just how far I’d walked since then gave me a sense of pride and accomplishment.
After that, the trail was mostly downhill. Another kilometer or so in, there was a rest stop with a café that sold expensive drinks. The scenery was lovely, though, so I decided to invest, and was particularly gratified when the little girl helping out at the family-owned restaurant brought me mosquito repellant and lent me her paper fan. She called me oneechan (big sister). It was cute.
Feeling invigorated after my brief respite, I headed down for the last leg of the hike. The trail came to a pretty anti-climactic end—it led to some stairs which led to a normal sidewalk. The last 300m or so to the Daibutsu were along the road. At this point, there were a lot more signs pointing the way.
Once again, I had to pay to enter, but it was well worth it. They weren’t lying when they said the statue is large; it was pretty imposing. The most interesting thing about it, though, is that the statue is hollow. You could actually pay another ¥20 to go inside (which I did), where you could get a better view of exactly how it was constructed. It was interesting to see, though I didn’t stay inside for more than 5 minutes because it was so hot.
After leaving the Daibutsu, it was already after 4:30pm. Most of the larger temples and shrines—the ones actually worth visiting—close to visitors around 5:30pm, so if I wanted to see anything else, I needed to do it within the next hour. However, there were no other temples or shrines within the proximity, and the only other shrine I’d really wanted to see, Sasuke Inari Jinja, was too far to walk to in less than an hour. Besides, I was beginning to grow very tired, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk much further, so I ended up heading toward the train station.
I was a bit disappointed to be leaving so early. I’d been planning on spending as much of the day outside the dorm as possible. However, with the shrines closing, one of the only other things left to do would be to head back to the beach, and even that would quickly grow boring. I was also quickly running out of steam and decided that above all, I really wanted to shower. So, there wasn’t really anything left to do except head home. However, I was growing hungry, and knowing it’d be another 1+ hour ride back to Ikebukuro, I stopped by a suupaa and bought some bananas before boarding the train.
By the time I’d make it back to Ikebukuro, crossed all of Ikebukuro station, took the subway, and walked back to the dorm, though, it was almost 7:30pm. I took a long and satisfying shower, ate dinner, and headed to my room. Shaunte and Cat were still out; from the looks of it, they hadn’t been back all day. By 9pm I was already ready to go to sleep, but I’ve forced myself to stay up until at least 11pm. I’m still not used to getting more than about 6 hours of sleep a night, so I don’t want to risk screwing up my sleep schedule.
Sunday, July 27th
I woke up around 7am and just lay in bed for a couple of hours, relaxing. My body was pretty sore from the day before. I probably haven’t walked that much since I went to New York City in April.
Mom called around 9:30am, and we spent a while catching up. After that, I got dressed and ready to go. Shaunte and Cat still weren’t back (surprise, surprise), but I wasn’t going to let that keep me from going to Harajuku today, since the weather was dry and I felt reasonably energetic.
Rather than taking the subway and then walking to Harajuku, I took the train from Ikebukuro that stops at Harajuku station. I figured that would give me the best starting point, since I wasn’t sure exactly where to go. Like any other neighborhood, Harajuku is fairly large, but it seems that the touristy area it’s famous for is concentrated around one little street they call Harajuku St. It’s a very narrow street, with mostly clothing stores running along both sides. It was around noon when I got there, and the street was completely packed with people. The sight of the mass of people crammed into such a small space almost made me want to bolt, but I pressed on.
For those of you who aren’t familiar, aside from the shops, the reason Harajuku is famous is the Japanese youth who frequent it on Sundays. Clad in the strangest outfits inspired by music and/or otaku culture, they basically hang around showing off their style and artistic skills. It’s hard to describe if you haven’t seen the pictures. If you Google something like “Harajuku fashion”, I’ll bet a few will pop up. If you’re very interested, you may want to see if your local Barnes & Noble carries a copy of Fruits or Fresh Fruits. It’s usually in the photography section. Anyway, though the shops at Harajuku are open every day, these youths only come out in these strange outfits on Sundays, which is why I’d been so determined to go. I own both Fruits books and have seen many other pictures, but I wanted to see them for myself.
It took me a long time to find any, though. At first, I just walked down the little street, checking out a few of the shops on each side. The clothing isn’t cheap unless you can manage to buy something on sale. T-shirts, for example, cost, on average, ¥2000-¥2500, but if you hunt for sale items, you can find them for ¥500-¥1000, which is about as much as I’m ever willing to pay for a shirt. I didn’t have much cash on me, so I couldn’t really shop much, but I did find a shirt I really liked. It’s a green and pink tube top with yellow lettering that says “Ambition makes people diligent”. I liked the colors and the text, and it was only ¥399, so I couldn’t pass that up.
I’d almost reached the end of the street and still no sight of any weird people. The only people with slightly out-of-the-ordinary dress were a few Lolita girls, whom you’ll occasionally see around other parts of the city as well, so I didn’t consider that a particularly unusual sight. There were also quite a few tourists who had come dressed up, with several girls in their own Lolita dresses. In my honest opinion, I don’t think non-Asians can pull off Lolita clothes, especially if the girls are not short, and it kind of aggravates me that they’re completely oblivious to that. But, rant aside, it was an amusing sight.
I eventually wound up at the Omotesando without having seen any weird people. The souvenir shop that sold lots of yukatas happened to be right across the street, so after detouring to an ATM, I went and bought the purple yukata I’d seen last week that I’d been considering buying. I still wavered for a little while, but eventually went through with the sale.
I wasn’t sure where to go after that. I didn’t want to go back to the dorm without having seen any weird people, but it was swelteringly hot, and I didn’t think I could endure the masses of people for much longer. Still, I told myself that I would press on. So, I went back to Harajuku St. and started from the beginning.
I had just stopped to buy myself a crêpe when two very distinctively oddly clad girls walked by me. With my crêpe in one hand and my shopping bag in the other, it was impossible to reach for my camera without risking dropping the crêpe, and at any rate, they were gone in a flash. After I finished the crêpe, I walked down the street to look for them, and successfully managed to locate them sitting down on the left side of the street near the end. I don’t really know what the protocol here is with pictures, so I ninja’d a photo and quickly walked away. Since they were sitting down, you can’t really see their full outfits, but you can still get a good idea of their interesting fashion sense.
On my way back toward the station, I began to notice more strangely-clad girls. A few were picture-worthy, but since they were moving along with the crowd, it was impossible to grab a shot unless I decided to stalk them, which I wasn’t in the mood for. There seemed to be more oddly-clad people around now (it was after 3pm already), so I considered sticking around for a while longer, but I was growing faint and realized I had to get out of the heat. In the end, I decided to return to the dorm. I have two more Sundays left here, so I can always come back.
Back at the dorm, I didn’t really do too much the rest of the day. I napped for about a half hour, briefly talked to Shaunte, who was back (Cat had gone out again), and went to the suupaa to buy food for dinner. Since I was in the mood, I decided to buy myself a can of beer to go along with dinner. When I get back to the U.S., I’m going to have to get used to not being able to buy alcohol again. The prospect is slightly frustrating.
I showered, did my homework, worked a little more on my article about the butler café, and just relaxed. My legs are still sore, and lying in bed feels very good. I’m not at all tired, though, so I think I’m going to go read for a while. Ja, mata.
Monday, July 28th
I went to school a little bit early today to use the computer lab, though not for the usual purposes. One of the other things we’re required to do as part of the program is something called e-learning, where we use the TUFS website to supplement what we’re learning in class by doing reading and listening exercises. They log our hours, and those of us leaving in August are required to do six 45-minute sessions before we leave. I’d been putting off starting on it, so today was my first time going. Honestly, though, I’m not sure if I’m going to do all six sessions. The software is not very interactive, so it’s not nearly as useful as it could be. I’m not convinced it’s really helping me learn.
Anyway, after that, I headed to class. I really hadn’t been in the mood for school today, but we had Fujimura-sensei, so I quickly cheered up. He was especially funny today because he acted out a lot of the things he was trying to say. He’s so fun! I really want to take him back to America and have him be my Japanese teacher forever, hehehe.
During class, the class ironed out the details of another nomikai we’d planned to have tonight. We agreed to meet at Shin-Okubo at 7pm. Shin-Okubo is kind of like Tokyo’s Koreatown, and several of the Koreans in our class who wanted to come have part-time jobs around there, so we agreed to meet there so that they could join us after they got off work.
After class, Soo Young, the boy who sits next to me, talked to Fujimura-sensei, I’m not sure what about, but Fujimura-sensei ended up writing his cell phone number and e-mail address on the whiteboard. I asked Soo Young if he’d invited sensei to the nomikai, so Soo Young went back and asked. He sounded like he really wanted to go, but since he has to teach a morning class tomorrow, he decided it was not a good idea.
I once again had speech practice. Takahashi-sensei was busy again, so Fujimura-sensei took over the job of practicing with us, which was just fine with me. While we were in the elevator going up to the 3rd floor to find an empty classroom to practice in, he asked me if I was going to the nomikai with everyone else. When I said that I was, he said, “Dangit! I really want to go!” and he did this thing he sometimes does where he stamps his foot and looks like a little kid about to throw a temper tantrum. I told him we were going to dinner before we were going drinking, and that he could always just join us for dinner, but he said that it still wasn’t a good idea. He sounded genuinely upset that he couldn’t go, though, and said that if only we’d gone tomorrow, when he doesn’t have a morning class the next day, he definitely would’ve gone with us.
We finished around 6pm, but I ended up sticking around until 6:30pm because I was having so much fun talking to him. I love hearing his stories about his time in Europe, and I really want to hear him speak German. He’s too embarrassed, though. I wonder if I can get him to speak German if he goes drinking with us.
Speaking of which, at one point, Kuma, the Chinese kid, asked him if he likes to drink, and he said he does. He said that if we invited him out on a weekend sometime, he’d definitely come. Then Kuma asked him, “How about after the speech contest?” To which Fujimura-sensei actually said, 「ああ、スピーチコンテストの後で、みんなでお酒を飲まなければなりません。」 Translation: “Ah, after the speech contest, we have to go drinking with everyone.” Yes, he actually used the phrase “have to”. I asked him if that’s a promise, and he said yes. I’m pretty damn excited. This actually makes me want to do well in the speech contest. It’d be awesome if we actually have something to celebrate.
I had to leave for the train station at 6:30pm. Shin-Okubo is only one stop away, and I timed it perfectly, arriving at exactly 7pm. Mi Hee came a few minutes later, and together we waited for Evan, who had brought along Brad, Miguel, and Yosh, his high school friend. Then we walked to the Korean restaurant where the others were waiting for us. They had already started eating, and the table was too small for all of us, so we had to sit at another table. This meant that we basically got split into the American table and the Korean table, until several people moved around and Ji Young invited me to come sit at the Korean table. It ended up being just me at a table full of Korean women. It was interesting.
The Koreans took care of ordering all the food again, and just like last time, it was delicious. The others seemed surprised at how much I liked it, especially kimchi. They told me that I’m a Korean at heart and that I need to come visit them in Korea as soon as possible. They promised to show me around and take me to all the best restaurants to try all the food. I’m totally game. Korea is definitely on my list of places I want to visit, though I don’t know how soon I’ll be able to make it out there.
Along with the food, everyone was drinking soju. Though at one point I really did like it, and can recall on one occasion doing 15 shots of it, for some reason, it didn’t sit right with me today, even after I ate. I was afraid I might get sick, so I didn’t end up drinking a lot. The original plan, at least, was to go to a bar after dinner, so I decided I’d much rather wait for that and drink something else.
Soo Young joined us around 9:15pm, after he got off work, and seemed especially delighted that I was there. He encouraged the others to speak less Korean and more Japanese, and we had a good time talking. Soo Young is particularly upset that I’m leaving in August and says that he wants to go clubbing together before we leave. I do still want to go to a techno club, so maybe I’ll go. I don’t know. We’ll see.
Because we were still waiting for Sang Mook to get off work, we were still at the restaurant at 10pm, at which point I unfortunately had to part with the others. I knew it’d only take me 30 minutes at the very most to get back, including walking, but I wanted to make sure I had time to take a shower tonight. I was slightly disappointed that I hadn’t been able to drink much, since it was supposed to be a nomikai, but I’m also not sure if the others still planned to go to a bar afterwards. A few of them, Hee Jeon especially, seemed to be pretty gone after the soju alone. Soo Young was disappointed that I had to go so soon after he got there, but there wasn’t really anything I could do about it.
Tuesday, July 29th
So once again I’m at school early to use the lab. I’m trying to fall into a Tuesday-Friday posting pattern, I guess, to try to keep my entries from getting too long. This one still ended up being fairly long, though. My apologies, and thanks to everyone who stuck it out this far.
As far as class today goes, I don’t think we have anything too special planned. I do need to recite my speech in front of the class to practice with a larger audience, so hopefully that will go all right. I’m guessing I’ll be heading straight home after speech practice so I can get in some decent studying, but you never know what will happen.
So I learned from my mistake from last week and am posting an entry now, to avoid having to wait until Monday or Tuesday and potentially having another extremely long entry. Not too much has happened, but there’s nothing wrong with a short post, I guess.
Also, since I guess this is the announcement section of the post, since I realize not everyone may want to read the entire thing—as you may go on to read, I did end up getting a cell phone. The main benefit is that I can now send and receive e-mails all the time. My cell phone’s e-mail address is nara.chan@softbank.ne.jp so feel free to use that to pop me a note if you like.
Tuesday, July 22nd
The test didn’t end up being very hard, or very long. Aside from that, we spent class time learning some grammar and then working on the ouen for the speech contest. The fun thing about being chosen for the speech contest is that everyone else in my class has to do some sort of elaborate cheer, called an ouen, of about 1 minute in length, before I come on stage. I had already heard from Lane that these are usually highly choreographed affairs, because all the classes want to try to outdo each other with their crazy antics. For my cheer, the class decided that since my speech is about the Netherlands, it’d be good to use the ouen to introduce the students to a little bit of Dutch culture. One idea that they seem to be interested in pursuing is that all the guys in the class are going to be wearing blonde wigs and then dancing to Dutch techno music, which I’m supposed to bring in.
After class, I walked to the main building to look for Shaunte and Cat. They were both still there this time. Cat was talking to a couple of people but Shaunte didn’t seem to be doing anything in particular. I waited for them to finish, but even when Cat was done talking to people, she didn’t seem to want to leave. Finally, Shaunte said, “Okay, we’ll just go.” We walked to the station and went home by ourselves.
When we got to the dorm, one of the first things we did was go to the dining room for dinner, as usual. Cat walked in just minutes after we got there and sat down. Now, let me explain a little bit about our dining room. There are two separate tables, with 3 stools on each side. However, the stools are very close together, so it’s customary not to sit on the stool directly next to someone unless there are no other places to sit, because you’d just be butting elbows with them the entire time. Also, since the beginning, we’ve made it a habit of always sitting at the same table at mealtimes. Sometimes one of the Japanese girls will come sit at our table, but it’s not common. Usually, we sit at one table and they sit at the other. Not that we dislike each other, and we’ll still talk to each other across the dining room. It’s just become our habit.
When we came in and sat down, Shaunte and I sat at our usual table, in the same spots where we often sit. (On my little diagram below, ‘s’ is Shaunte and ‘n’ is me.) There was also one Japanese girl sitting at the other table (marked ‘x’). Then Cat walked in. There was a spot open (marked ‘*’ on my diagram) on my side of the table, across from Shaunte, where Cat normally would’ve sat down. But this time, she very demonstratively sat down at the other table, next to the Japanese girl.
s o o
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|%%|
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* o n
o o o
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|%%|
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c o x
It was a very obvious way of saying that she was angry at Shaunte or I, and I’m not stupid—I realized that it was far more likely to be me. I thought about calling her out on it and forcing a confrontation, because I still don’t know exactly what her problem with me is, but her action was just such a totally middle school way of handling the situation, I couldn’t even find words to express my frustration and disappointment. I finished my food quickly and went back to my room. I just didn’t even know what to say anymore.
While I was working on my homework, I made the decision to buy a phone tomorrow. It’s becoming very clear that Cat wants nothing more to do with me, and I don’t know where Shaunte stands, since she ultimately generally winds up going along with whatever Cat does. I tried to get her to tell me what exactly Cat’s problem is, since I feel like she knows, but she couldn’t/wouldn’t say. On the other hand, Cat wanted to go party again tonight (even though we have school tomorrow) but Shaunte refused to go with her. I’m glad she stuck by her decision not to party anymore for a while. Cat ended up going alone.
Anyway, point being, I’m getting a phone. True, we’re down to less than three and a half weeks left, but if I spend another weekend like last weekend, feeling so incredibly lonely, I would die. I feel like my heart’s being torn in two. I want to be here, in Tokyo, and I can easily picture myself staying here forever, but I also long for the people back home. I’ve fallen in love with this city, but in the end, home is where the heart is, and my heart is always with my family and the people I love the most. Maybe that’s why I never feel at home anywhere—because the place where I want to be and the place where my family and people I love are never seem to coincide.
Wednesday, July 23rd
Shaunte and I went to school pretty early. I wanted to use the computer lab before the how-to-wear-a-yukata session, and Shaunte had to retake a test. When we left around 10am, Cat still wasn’t back.
We had already made it to Shinjuku station when I realized I’d forgotten my yukata at the dorm, even though I’d had it sitting in a plastic bag next to the messenger bag I use to carry my books in for school. I had a choice of either going back for the yukata or using the computer lab, and I ended up deciding to go with the latter. I was really determined to use the computer lab today, not to check e-mail and such like usual, but to research some of the places I still want to go and things I want to do before I leave.
One of the things I still want to do is go to a butler café, the girl-oriented version of a maid café. Maid cafés are coffee shops and little eateries found commonly in Akihabara (there are a few in Kabuki-cho as well) where the waitresses all dress up as maids, mainly geared toward guys and the otaku culture’s obsession with young girls in French maid outfits. There isn’t anything really sexual about these places though. You order coffee and maybe some food, and the maids will come and chat with you a little and maybe play a game of jan-ken-poi (rock-paper-scissors). At the one Alex and Robert went to several weeks ago, the maids drew little pictures with chocolate syrup on top of their coffee. At any rate, these are perfectly acceptable places for girls to go, but in the end, they are very clearly guy-oriented.
Because of this, a few years ago, a woman decided that it was about time that there were equivalent places for girls to go, to be waited on and get their share of eye candy. So, she opened the first butler café, where the waiters (all male) take on the roles of butlers, costumes and all. Because these are a lot less common and not often known about by Westerners, it took me quite a bit of research to find out where they were located. It turns out that there are only 2 legit ones, one in Ikebukuro and one in Akihabara.
The one in Ikebukuro, as it turns out, is pretty famous—so much so that they require reservations (which you can make at their website) and, except for a few random open time slots, are essentially booked full until the end of August. The random open time slots were mostly on weekdays, around 3~4pm, when we have class. But they just happened to have a time slot open tomorrow at 11:15am. Realizing that this might be the only chance I have, I decided to just go ahead and make the reservation, not even knowing for sure if Shaunte would be up for it (though I was fairly sure she would be). It took me ages to figure out the registration site because it was all in Japanese. It turns out that registrations need to be for groups of 3 or 4, and you need to come with as many people as you signed up for, or be charged ¥1000 for every extra/missing person. I signed up for 3. I figured I could get Shaunte to come, but I wasn’t sure if I could find a 3rd person. Still, I figured that I might not get another chance if I waited, so I just went ahead with it.
After my hour in the lab was up, I went to the how-to-wear-a-yukata session. They didn’t have any extra yukatas for you to try on, so, since I had left mine at home, all I could do was watch. I tried to etch the process into my memory as best I could, but tying the obi is going to be difficult.
Before heading to the other building for class, I went to look for Shaunte to tell her about it, and to ask her to ask around for a 3rd person as well. This was also partly my way of saying she could invite Cat, and then it’d be up to Cat to decide which she’d rather do—continue to be angry at and ignore me, or be waited on by cute Japanese guys in butler outfits. Her choice.
Class was not too eventful. Fujimura was fun, as always. Other than the class working a little more on the ouen and picking a song from among the music I brought in, nothing too out-of-the-ordinary happened, so I’m not going to waste space talking about it. During the break, I asked the other girls if anyone was interested in going to the butler café. Robyn seemed very interested, but she has to come in early to practice her speech. (She’s also in the speech contest.) Bummer!
I had to stay after class for two things. First, I had to take an ondoku test, where they check your pronunciation and whether you put accents in the right places. Japanese is not a tonal language, but the placement of accents, I’ve learned, is very important. We didn’t spend any time on this at all at CMU, which is one of the many reasons why some days I feel like I don’t ever want to take Japanese at CMU again. Our program is so completely unbalanced, it’s not even funny.
Then, after that, I had to practice my speech for the speech contest. The good news was that practice was with Fujimura-sensei as well, so it wasn’t a huge punishment to stay after class so late. It turns out that he lived in Germany for a while, so in between practices, he told me stories about trips he took and things of that nature. It was fun.
It was 6pm by the time I got to leave, though, so I was hungry and tired and no longer so sure I still wanted to go and buy the cell phone. It’s a fairly long walk to Don Quixote, and it was hot and humid, so I was half-tempted to give up on the idea. However, remembering how miserable I’d been feeling and my resolve from last night, I decided that I needed to just do it.
There was a fair amount of paperwork involved, and to my chagrin the price had gone up since I was there with Cat and Shaunte (from ¥5900 to ¥8900), but in the end, I succeeded in getting the phone. I couldn’t wait to play with it and ended up testing it out on the subway, not even waiting until I got home. Cell phones here are just so crazy. They can do things cell phones in America can’t even dream of doing. And I just have a regular, cheap prepaid phone. I can’t even imagine what the top-of-the-line models can do.
I’ve ended up spending most of the night playing with my new phone. With Shaunte’s help, I managed to get e-mail set up, so now I can e-mail people at home. I sent out a few test e-mails but no one’s responded yet, so I don’t know if it’s working. Then again, it is very early morning there.
Addendum: I had just finished writing this entry and logged off and was lying on my bed playing with my phone some more, when everything started rumbling and shaking. It lasted long enough—maybe 45-60 seconds—that there was no doubt in my mind this time that I was experiencing another earthquake. It was by no means violent, but it lasted long enough that I wondered whether I needed to get under my desk just in case. Just as I was about to, the earthquake stopped. I doubt any damage was done.
Thursday, July 24th
When I went to have breakfast at 7:30am like usual, Cat walked in a few minutes after I got there. She sat across from me and started talking to me like normal. I have no idea what’s going on anymore. Girls are so fickle. Shaunte and I had to leave around 10:15am to get to Ikebukuro and look for the butler café. Shaunte had asked Cat if she wanted to come, but Cat said she wanted to sleep in. Her loss.
We didn’t end up having any trouble finding the place because it turned out to be very close to the Ikebukuro Mandarake, so we were in familiar territory. We were quite early and had to wait a while. At 11:15am, we went to the man waiting by the entrance and checked in. We had to wait a few minutes and were then ushered into a long hallway, where we were introduced to the steward and the butler who would be taking care of us. The butler insisted on taking our bags, after which we had to follow him to the tea room.
The room was decently large, with maybe 20-25 tables of various sizes, though none seating more than 4 people at a time. Everything was done in a Victorian style. All the furniture was (or at least looked) antique. There were mirrors along several of the walls, chandeliers, old clocks, and several of the booths were curtained. Everything, including the butlers themselves (who were dressed in full tuxedos), walked the fine line between tasteful elegance and gaudiness.
We were seated at a 4-person table (probably because they’d been expecting 3 of us). The butler pulled out our chairs for us and even placed the napkins on our laps. Then he gave a brief explanation of all the menu items, most of which was lost on us because it was all in Japanese. I doubt any of them speak English, but that didn’t surprise me, because I doubt Westerners know about this place. It made the experience even more unique and exciting; I’m fairly sure none of my friends at home, even though a fair number of them have been to Tokyo, have ever done the same thing.
It turns out that, unlike a maid café, where it’s perfectly acceptable just to get something to drink, they expect you to order a full meal. They don’t even sell drinks separately. The tea is included in your meal. The menu was rather expensive—I didn’t see any meals under ¥2500. Shaunte and I both ended up ordering afternoon tea sets, because those included a mix of different sandwiches, scones, and desserts and seemed like a lot of fun.
While we waited for our food, we checked out the butlers and observed what was happening around us, occasionally bursting into giggles. It was hard not to giggle in this environment. The guys were just so cute yet so formal, and the entire thing just felt like something straight out of a manga. Almost like Antique Bakery come to life. It’s also funny because they seem very determined to imitate European styles and manners, but the experience was still completely Japanese. I am fully convinced that you couldn’t experience this anywhere but in Japan.
When our butler brought out our tea sets, which came in a rack that could stack three plates one above the other, we couldn’t just take the plate we wanted—we had to indicate to him which one we wanted, and he would take it and set it in front of us. He also poured the tea for us. Before he walked away, he gave us a little golden bell that we were told to ring if we needed anything. Shaunte was tempted to a couple of times, just to try it, but I was more hesitant, not wanting to make him feel like he was doing something wrong by not waiting on us carefully enough.
Because we were sitting at a 4-person table, our butler had placed our bags on the other 2 chairs, but at some of the other tables, where all the seats were filled, the girls’ purses were placed in baskets on the floor. If a girl wanted her purse, she couldn’t just take it herself—she had to let her butler know, and he would get it for her. Neither Shaunte nor I needed the restroom, but the girls who did had to ask their butler to lead them there, and the butlers would discreetly ask whether the girls needed their purses before leading the way. Again, the butler, instead of the girl, would carry the bag.
The nice thing was that although they clearly have long list of reservations, nothing about it was rushed. Every reservation is entitled to an hour and twenty minutes, unless you choose to leave earlier. It turned out to be plenty of time to eat, drink our tea, watch the scenes around us, and just enjoy the experience. I don’t normally enjoy being waited on—it makes me extremely uncomfortable—but I had tons and tons of fun. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any pictures at all. This was not a big surprise because it is the case at many maid cafés as well, but it’s still a pity. I do realize that lots of flashing cameras might distract from the elegant ambience a little, though.
After we finally left and were back out on the street, Shaunte and I could not stop laughing. It had all just been so bizarre but fun. We both agreed that despite how expensive it was, it was worth every penny we paid. We had to hurry to get to school, though. It was a long walk to Ikebukuro station, so it was 1:15pm by the time we got to Shinjuku. I had to leave Shaunte behind and power-walk because my building is further than hers. It was difficult, because it was extremely hot and humid, but I made it on time.
The only notable thing that happened in class was that we got our compositions from last week back. I’d gotten a 98/100. It was apparently one of the best in the class; Takahashi-sensei said that she wanted to read it to the class, but there wasn’t time. It made me happy, though, because there are days when I feel like I suck at everything, so it’s nice to be the best at something again. And it’s nice to find that regardless of which language I’m using, I can always write well.
I had to stay after again to practice my speech. I was there until almost 6:30pm this time. I ended up being so hungry that I couldn’t wait to go home and eat, and ended up grabbing a bite at the first fast-food place I could find. Then, since Shaunte had texted me that she and Cat were going out for the night and I didn’t have much homework, I headed to Shibuya to look for the souvenir shop with the purple yukata. Mom says she wants the blue one, so I can get the purple one. Unfortunately, the store was already closed when I got there. Most stores here are open until 8pm, sometimes 9pm, but for some reason, this one closes at 7pm. Kiddy Land was open, though, so for lack of anything better to do and not wanting to have completely wasted a subway ticket, I ended up walking around there for a while before heading back.
Friday, July 25th
Nothing much to say about today. As usual, I’m at school early to use the lab. I also have Newspaper Club after this. I’m going to ask Takahashi-sensei if she’ll let me write an article about the butler café. It is probably the most fun experience I’ve had in Tokyo, so I really want to share it with others and encourage them to go.
As for the weekend, I have no idea what my plans are. Evan said that hiking is probably not happening, so maybe this weekend I can head to Odaiba. I also really want to go to a couple of museums before I leave here, so maybe I’ll do that. And I still haven’t been to Harajuku on a Sunday, because it always either rained or we were passed out from partying all night the night before. Hopefully I can go this week. That should be fun.
Monday, June 30th
After my last post, we had our afternoon class with Takahashi-sensei. The fun thing was that we got to do calligraphy for the second half of the class. We had to pick a word with at least one kanji character and draw it, using real calligraphy brushes and ink and everything. I decided to write「静か」which is the Japanese adjective for “quiet”. Aside from feeling like it describes my personality, I really like the kanji character because it includes「青」which is the kanji for “blue”. It’s one of those times when I feel like the Chinese were brilliant when they came up with some of these characters. How shall we depict “quiet”? We use the image of “blue”.
After class, Shaunte and Cat wanted to go to a store in Kabuki-cho called Don Quixote because they’d heard that they sell prepaid phones there. I’d been to the store with Susan on Friday, so I went with them to show them the way. Anyway, it’s not like I really had anything else to do. It turns out that they do sell prepaid phones, and for much cheaper than at the actual retail stores. It cost ¥5900 total—¥2000 for the phone and ¥2900 for a prepaid time card. It’s fairly cheap, but I still held off on getting one because I don’t really see the benefits of having one. It’s free to receive calls in Japan, even international calls, but mom can’t really call me for cheap, and I don’t really have anyone to call within Japan. Shaunte and Cat and I are pretty much always together anyway.
After that, we just went straight home, had dinner, showered, and tried to motivate ourselves to do homework but failed. Everyone’s pretty tired, and anyway, with the trip coming up, no one really wants to do work right now.
Tuesday, July 1st
We had to be at school at 8:30am today, and we got on the bus around 9am. Since we had about 50 students and teacher chaperones, the bus was completely full. I was lucky enough to nab a window seat, so I spent most of the drives throughout the entire day looking outside and occasionally snapping some shots of the landscapes we drove through.
It was about an hour-and-a-half drive until our first stop, 小田原城 (Odawara castle). It’s actually a replica because most of the original castle got dismantled in the Meiji era, and then the remains got destroyed by the big earthquake in 1923. The life-size replica buildings looked extremely real, though, and were very cool to see. Inside the castle was a museum which actually wasn’t as interesting as it could’ve been because they didn’t actually have that many artifacts, but they’d spread them out over 4 floors to make the museum seem bigger than it really was. The top floor served as an observatory from where you can see the surrounding area all the way to Sagami Bay, and on a clear day we would’ve been able to see Mt. Fuji. But it was very cloudy, so it was hard to see the mountains, though we did see the ocean. The weather didn’t make for pretty pictures, though.
Back down on the castle grounds, one of the shops sold green tea soft-serve ice cream, so of course I had to have some. It was quite possibly the best soft-serve ice cream I’ve ever had.
From there, it was a little less than an hour drive to 大涌谷 (Owakudani), an old crater from a volcanic eruption. There’s not that much volcanic rock, but there’s a lot of steam and natural hot springs. The entire area smells fairly strongly like sulfur. Aside from seeing the springs, this area’s main attraction is a local delicacy called「黒たまご」or “black egg” (or, as Tanaka-san puts it, “brack egg”). Basically, while these eggs are being hard-boiled in the hot springs, the sulfur and iron reacts with the egg shells and turns them black. Aside from the shells, though, they really are just normal hard-boiled eggs. The myth says that eating one of those eggs will extend your life for 7 years. You had to buy them in bags of 6 (for a reasonable ¥500 each), so even after I shared them with Shaunte, Robyn, Kevin and Evan, who each chipped in, I was left with 2 for myself. Supposedly that means I extended my life for 14 years.
After eating the eggs, we went back down to the gift shop area and had lunch, which we’d brought with us because the food at the restaurant was extremely expensive. We walked around the gift shops, but they didn’t sell anything particularly interesting.
After a fairly extensive break, we got back on the bus and headed for 河口湖 (Lake Kawaguchi), one of the 5 lakes surrounding Mt. Fuji. It was another fairly long drive, during which most people slept, but I used the time to take a lot of pictures from my window seat on the left side of the bus. The sun was finally coming out so I managed to get in a few good shots, including one pretty good one of Mt. Fuji. It was my first time to see the mountain and there’s a slightly interesting story attached to it. We were driving along and all of a sudden I noticed we passed a sign that said “Mt. Fuji Visitor Center” or something to that effect. I hadn’t even realized that we were close to the mountain, so I immediately looked out the bus’ front window and to the right to try to find the mountain. Turns out that at that very moment, the mountain was immediately to my left, framed perfectly in the window next to me—a golden picture opportunity. I even had the good luck that there were very few clouds, and that the top was actually visible. This was, of course, followed by an epic scramble for my camera, but I managed to get in one good shot of the full view of the mountain before the bus turned to the right.
The place where we stopped, by the lakeside, wasn’t particularly interesting, other than just having a good view of Mt. Fuji. It was cloudy again, though, so the top of the mountain wasn’t visible and it was hard to take good pictures. Aside from that, there were a couple of gift shops, which weren’t too exciting.
The interesting thing about the gift shops at Japanese tourist attractions, at least out here in rural Japan, is that the vast majority of what they sell consists of food. Usually there’s some fruit or other ingredient that the area specializes in, so much of the souvenir stocks consist of snacks and cakes made from that ingredient. This area, for some reason, seemed to specialize in blueberries, so instead of capitalizing on their great view of Mt. Fuji, they had all sorts of blueberry pies and candy and whatnot. I didn’t get anything because food souvenirs are pretty impractical things to try to bring back home. I did have blueberry soft-serve ice cream, though, and it was delicious, if not quite as good as the green tea one earlier.
After our lakeside stop, it was only about a 10-minute drive to our hotel. We were spending the night at a traditional Japanese hotel, with real tatami rooms and futons and several onsen (natural hot springs). The dinner buffet was a mix of Japanese and American food and wasn’t too exciting, but bathing in the onsen was nice. We had a choice of either going to the bigger, communal bath or taking short turns in the smaller, private one. Since communal baths here involve getting naked in front of strangers, which I’m not too keen on, I opted for the private bath. I had 15 minutes, but it was more than enough time because the water in the onsen was extremely hot, and even though it was very relaxing, I couldn’t stay in it for very long.
Aside from that, our rooms were equipped with TV, so we enjoyed our first opportunity to actually watch Japanese TV, which at this hour consisted mainly of a lot of strange game shows. We were so tired from the long day, though, that most of us passed out around 10pm. The futons we slept on were extremely comfortable.
Wednesday, July 2nd
After pigging out on the breakfast buffet, we left the hotel around 9am and headed for 西湖いやしの里 (Saiko Iyashi no Sato), a nearby small replica village where the buildings are built in the traditional style with “Kayabuki” (straw and reed) roofs. This was the stop on the trip I had assumed would be the least exciting, but it actually wasn’t that bad, especially because in one of the buildings we could try on Japanese armor or kimonos. Shaunte and several of the girls and I all tried on kimonos, which, of course, was followed by a lot of picture sessions. It was also a fairly clear day so we got to enjoy Mt. Fuji as a backdrop.
After that, it was another hour-and-a-half drive to 武田神社 (Takeda Jinja), a shrine to Shingen Takeda, the famous guardian feudal lord of Yamanashi. It was one of the more interesting stops on our trip. We had to wash our hands before approaching the shrine. They were having some sort of ritual dance/performance outside. Several people prayed at the shrine. I myself bought a fortune, which I had to ask Suzuki-sensei to translate for me. They also had a lot of interesting souvenirs, so I bought a couple of things for my mom and my sister.
Following the shrine visit, we went into the nearby city of Koufu for lunch. We split up into groups depending on what/where everyone wanted to eat. My group went to a conveyor-belt sushi restaurant. It was my first time going to one of these, so it was a very fun and exciting experience. I especially enjoyed how, whenever you special-ordered something, it was brought to you on a shinkansen. I also, of course, loved how cheap everything was. It was only ¥94 a plate, though a few items were more expensive. I had 6 plates and dessert and paid only about ¥790 total. You could never eat that much sushi for that cheap in the States. I love Japan!
We got back on the bus and drove about 20 minutes to 恵林寺 (Erinji Temple), which was possibly my favorite stop on the trip. We didn’t do anything but walk around the temple, but it was just so damn pretty. The traditional architecture was amazing, and the temple contained a gorgeous garden. It’s one of those things that’s hard to describe in words. You just have to go there and enjoy it for yourself. I only wish that we could’ve spent more time there, slowly enjoying the surroundings and soaking up the zen.
Our last stop, Chateau 勝沼 (Katsunuma), on the other hand, was quite possibly the most disappointing stop of the trip. As the name might suggest, it’s a winery. I wouldn’t have thought that the climate here is good for cultivating grapes, but apparently it is. Anyway, they gave us a tour of their factory, and then we were allowed to go in and taste five of their wines. Officially, you’re not supposed to drink in Japan until you’re 20, but none of their personnel were carding, and none of the teachers said anything to me, perhaps because I’m turning 20 next week. (Evan, who isn’t 20 for another couple of months, did get pulled out of the line by Utami-san.) So, I got to try the wines. I wasn’t impressed with any of them, though. They had three wet wines (white, rosé, and red) and two dry (white and red), and with the exception of the dry white, which just tasted watery with a strong alcoholic aftertaste, they were all extremely sweet. They also had a plum wine and some sort of liquor, again, both of which were too sweet. Their regular grape juice was actually the best-tasting drink they had. I was disappointed because I figured a bottle of wine would’ve been an excellent souvenir for my parents, but I knew neither of them would enjoy this wine, so even for the (I thought) reasonable price of ¥1200 a bottle, it wasn’t worth it, and I didn’t buy anything.
After that, it was another 2-hour drive back to Tokyo. They decided to show a movie on the bus but I didn’t watch it. I just listened to music and took some more pictures from the window. As we entered the city, I also managed to (finally) get a few good shots of Shinjuku, since this was my first time in the city while the sky wasn’t overcast. We didn’t linger after getting off the bus, though, and headed straight home. Again, everyone was exhausted.
Thursday, July 3rd
We only had a half-day of class, so after we were done, around 1pm, Shaunte and Cat and I decided to go to Akihabara. Its nickname is the “electric town” because it’s the place to buy electronics as well as video games and animanga merchandise. Electronics are extremely cheap here, especially because most stores are duty-free. We saw 2G microSD cards for ¥790 and 8G flash drives for ¥2940, so I might just have to go back and capitalize on that. Merchandise isn’t necessarily cheap here (I was surprised to find that there are actually many things I’ve seen for less at cons in the States), but they do have a lot… if I were looking for anything rare, I’d probably find it here. We didn’t end up going into too many of those stores because Cat isn’t interested in them, but I’ll probably be going back at some point to buy stuff for friends back home. Aside from one PC game for myself, I didn’t buy anything here yet.
We had lunch at this amazing crepe place where you could get basically anything sweet mixed into a crepe. I had one with tiramisu, whipped cream, chocolate, and caramel sauce. It was pretty damn awesome.
We got back to the dorm fairly early—around 5pm or so—so I decided to try installing my game (which took a few tries) and then played it for a little while before doing homework and studying for the test. If we want to try to get into level 2 (which I do), we have to take a test tomorrow. They haven’t told us at all what to expect to see on it, so I probably do need to study up a bit, even if I’m fairly sure that I should be in level 2.
Friday, July 4th
So we had another half-day of class, the first half of which was a final review of random grammar things, and the second half of which was the test. The test wasn’t too bad, but it was more difficult than I was expecting. I didn’t expect them to expect us to know as much vocabulary as they did, especially since a lot of the words we’d never really used in class, and I was lucky that I knew most of the words we needed to use. (For example, we’d never really used or gone over the verb 「のぼる」which means “to climb” as in climbing a mountain, which we needed to use and I luckily remembered, but many of the others in my class later complained that they didn’t remember the word because we’d never really used it in class before.) Aside from the grammar section (which was where they also pounded us with vocab), there were questions we needed to respond to in Japanese, and then there was a short essay which wasn’t too bad.
Konno-sensei had told us prior to starting the test that there would also be interviews with her at the end. But, when our time was up, it was already 12:40pm and the school day officially ended at 12:45pm, so she said she was only interviewing part of the class. Kevin, Evan, Brad, Jana and I were the only ones called today. I was up first, and, to my surprise, the interview wasn’t even really an interview. By this point, Konno-sensei had already graded the grammar section of the test. I’d made a 90/100, which I later heard was the highest score in the class. She asked me some questions about how important my grade for the program is to me, and she said something vague about moving up and how it will be difficult but how she’s confident I can handle it because I’m me. Since long tests completely wear me out mentally, I just smiled and nodded and said 「はい。」(yes) a lot. I later heard from Jana that her interview had basically been the same, but she had understood that Konno-sensei was talking about moving up beyond level 2—as in, level 3. That made me wonder if Konno-sensei was talking about the same thing with me, and since I just nodded and said yes, I’m not sure what I agreed to. Level 2? Level 3? I guess I’ll find out on Monday or Tuesday…
Shaunte and Cat’s class had been told that there’s going to be a level 1.5, so they had to take a test to get into that class during regular class time, and then if they wanted to take the level 2 test, they needed to stay after class. I waited for them, after which we met up with Evan and the other people in my class. Evan was holding a 4th of July party at his apartment, and we’d all been invited. We took the subway and the train to get to his neighborhood, where we first stopped by the supermarket. He’d taken care of the meat (he was barbequing) so we needed to provide snacks and beer. Since Shaunte and Cat and I agree that tequila is our poison of choice, we chipped in on a bottle (after an epic hunt to find tequila, which ended when we took the liquor store’s one and only bottle of Cuervo Gold). The tequila was actually a reasonable ¥2000, but the limes we bought were horridly expensive—most fruits in Japan are, because they have to import pretty much everything.
Then we went to Evan’s apartment, where he fired up the grill and the rest of us sat around and chatted and later played a couple of drinking games. Everyone got a little tipsy, though I don’t think anyone got full-out drunk. The food was delicious. I’m not a big meat-eater, but after so many dinners of rice and vegetables and a little bit of fish, the steaks and burgers did taste damn good. I was also happy that I got to know the people in my class better because they hang out together a lot, but because I’m always with Shaunte and Cat, I’ve kind of missed out on that. They’re good people, though. I like them. I hope most of us will end up in level 2 together.
When we left, it was not even 9pm yet, so there was talk of going out and maybe going clubbing in Roppongi. We decided to stop by the dorm first, though, to freshen up. When we finally made it back (we took the wrong train and ended up having to backtrack from Ikebukuro), we decided to just stay in. Everyone’s tired and Shaunte says she’d rather go out tomorrow night. I guess we’ll see what happens tomorrow.
Saturday, July 5th
I was up around 7am like usual, so I had breakfast have been hanging out in my room ever since. It’s been unbearably hot and humid since Wednesday. I read in the newspaper that it’s supposed to be 31°C today. I have the a/c on and I’m still sweating just sitting here.
I think Cat’s a little hungover; she hasn’t left her room except for breakfast. Shaunte’s been in and out of my room, as we’re trying to figure out what to do today. I’m hoping we can head to somewhere with an Internet café so I can upload my pictures and post this. (If you’re reading this, I guess that means I’ve succeeded.) I’m not much in the mood for exploring, anyway, and I should probably stay away from shops to try to conserve my money. I have no idea if we’re going clubbing tonight. I don’t think we’re going unless other people are going with us, so we’ll have to see if anyone else is up for it.
Still not really any pictures worth sharing. I’m having trouble motivating myself to take lots of pictures because we’re here for so much longer that there’s really no reason to hurry. The weather’s also continued to be pretty craptastic, and for outdoor pictures at least, it’s worth waiting for a sunny day.
Thursday, June 26th
After I posted during my lunch break, we went back to class and had another 3-hour afternoon session. Takahashi was back. Among other things, she explained that if we want to get into the second-level class, we have to know and fully understand 6 of the ~12 verb forms (conjugations). That excited me, because it sounded like we might eventually learn something new, but when I later checked my grammar book, I realized that I probably already know all 6. There’s dictionary form, ます form, my grammar book even considers pre-ます form a separate form, ない form, and て form, which we went over in class today. I didn’t expect た form to be considered a separate form because it’s just て form with one letter difference, but apparently it is. And then there’s the potential form. The only form we might need to know that I never officially learned but do know is ければ form, because in class we only covered -たら for “if”. Still, I’m fairly certain that I’m in good shape, and once again I’m annoyed that they couldn’t simply put me in level 2 but that I need to “prove” it to them.
After class, we decided to head to the Internet café in a slightly more touristy section of Shinjuku. We spent an hour there, in separate booths, with bean bags and leather seats. It was super nice. You could even order food and drinks. It cost us ¥600 for an hour, which isn’t really much, either. I checked e-mail and things and then looked up directions to a few places I want to go.
We went back to the dorm after that, and had to do our own dishes because we didn’t get done eating dinner before 7pm, but that was fine. We did homework while watching My Sassy Girl on Cat’s laptop. Such a cute movie!
Friday, June 27th
Today, we had another full 6-hour day of class, but we also had a traditional tea ceremony during the afternoon session, so we had to be at school at 9am instead of 9:30 for an explanation. Our lunch break was also shortened to a half hour so the afternoon session could resume at 1:15pm instead of 1:30. The tea ceremony was lots of fun, although it was clear that it was a very shortened version of the real thing. They basically gave us a taste of what it’s like and the customs that are observed, while picking up the speed a lot to make sure all the classes got a chance to go. They didn’t let us take pictures inside, unfortunately, because they didn’t want us to distract the ceremony, but if we ever do anything like this again, I’ll be sure to try to sneak in at least a couple of shots.
As far as class goes, nothing much happened. In the morning, we had a different teacher again, this time a man. He warned us that he normally teaches advanced classes, so he might speak too fast, but he was back. Konno-sensei was back for the afternoon session and went to the tea ceremony with us, but we did still have more than 2 hours of regular class with her. I finally sort-of learned something new; we made sentences with [verb]-なければなりません, which is another one of those never-formally-learned-it-but-could-understand-it things.
After class, we had an information session about the Yamanashi field trip next Tuesday and Wednesday. I’m actually pretty excited, although the info session was unnecessarily long and everyone got pretty annoyed with Tanaka-san. It was a Friday afternoon, after all.
I had planned to meet up with Susan, my longtime LJ friend who’s here on vacation until Sunday, at her hotel in Kabuki-cho at 6:30pm. Shaunte and Cat wanted to walk with me because they wanted to see Kabuki-cho, so I had to wait for them while they planned out going clubbing with a group of other students. We were joined by a guy in their class who claimed to know where Kabuki-cho is, but it turned out that he didn’t really have a clue. We had to stop at several konbini along the way to ask for directions. Eventually, I just told the others I would find it on my own because they were walking very slowly and I didn’t want to be late. I managed to find the hotel just fine after that.
Susan and her boyfriend and I went to dinner at a little place in Kabuki-cho and then walked around the area and went into a lot of the arcades. I was busy being dazzled by all the lights and sounds—you have to realize that I still hadn’t seen Tokyo at night, much less touristy Tokyo at night. The touristy part of Shinjuku and Kabuki-cho are where they filmed much of the movie Lost in Translation. I didn’t realize this before, but even the Park Hyatt Tokyo is in Shinjuku. Anyway, most people seem to have seen that movie, so that should give you some idea of my surroundings—and the face of Tokyo that I hadn’t gotten to see until now. This was much more like what I’d been expecting to find. This is what I meant when I wrote that my experiences thus far have been far too normal.
Anyway, like I said, we mostly walked around the arcades. Susan’s boyfriend won us both big cat plushies, and I tried the game with the taiko drums, which is more complicated than it might look. (Of course, I’ve never been particularly talented at these Guitar Hero-style games.) They also had one that looked like the turntable/synthesizer version of Guitar Hero that looked pretty awesome, though complicated. Maybe I’ll come back and try it. I’ll probably be back, anyway, to try to win my sister a duck.
We also did picture/print club to commemorate this possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet, and it really was probably the most fun you’ll ever have for ¥200. Print club is where you take silly fobby pictures with crazy backgrounds, and then afterwards you decorate them with sparkles and text and hearts and all kinds of silly stuff. The pictures were pretty hysterical.
Around 10pm, they walked me back to the subway side of Shinjuku Station. I believe Shinjuku Station is one of the biggest and busiest stations in the world. They say that if you come during the afternoon rush, you’ll see more people in one place than you’ll ever see at any other time or place in your life. The station itself is spread out and often very confusing. It was a good 15-minute walk to my subway line.
I got back around 10:30pm. Shaunte and Cathy had indeed gone clubbing and decided to stay out all night. Although we have keys to the front door, the gate closes at 11pm and doesn’t reopen until around 5:30~6am, so they needed to either stay out until 5ish or find somewhere to crash. I have no idea what they decided to do, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re partying all night.
Saturday, June 28th
Shaunte and Cathy did indeed party all night. I think it was the combination of them coming home at 6 AM and our dorm mother and her husband making breakfast that woke me pretty early. Knowing my friends would be sleeping until pretty late, I just spent the morning reading.
I had just been debating heading to Ikebukuro on my own to explore and to try to find Mandarake (a doujinshi store), when Shaunte came into my room at around 1pm or so asking me if I wanted to go somewhere or do something. She was thinking of going to look for a movie store to buy some DVDs. We got to talking about entertainment things, and we discovered that among other things, we’re into the same kind of manga. I asked her if she was interested in doujinshi at all and she said she’d never heard of it, but it definitely sounded interesting to her. Then I told her about Mandarake, and she got so excited, she said she wanted to go today.
We asked Cat if she wanted to go with us, so after she got dressed, we got on the subway and headed for Ikebukuro. I knew that Mandarake was somewhere near the Sunshine City mall, which wasn’t too hard to find, although it was a fair walk from the station. It was extremely crowded in Ikebukuro. Apparently all the shops were having big sales, so everyone had decided to go to shopping today.
Sunshine City is one of the most ridiculous places I have ever seen. Not only is it a shopping mall, but it also has a movie theater, a museum, an aquarium, a planetarium, and a mini-amusement park all in one. We spent some time walking around and just marveling about all the different things collected in this one place. We then left the mall, had lunch at a ramen shop, and found Mandarake.
If I died and went to Heaven, I wonder if this is what it would look like. I had to suppress squeals of delight and resist the urge to spend way, way, way too much money. Not that anything at Mandarake is particularly expensive, but that’s actually kind of a bad thing because it makes it hard for me to stop myself from buying too many things. I ended up buying 11 doujinshi. I didn’t even have time to check out all the sections I wanted to because poor Cat was getting impatient waiting for us to finish.
Neither of the others really wanted to do anything else in Ikebukuro, although we decided we’ll definitely be back to check out what exactly the deal with the amusement park is.
When we got back to the dorm, we had dinner. Just as we were finishing up our food, sirens sounded outside, and in a matter of minutes, 4 firetrucks drove past the building. It turns out that a fire broke out in the next block, and they posted a firetruck on every street corner surrounding the block containing the fire. Everyone went out into the street to look, but we couldn’t really see anything. It was kind of crazy though. I’ve never had a fire happen so close to me before.
After that, we went to the nearby supermarket to buy some snacks and ice cream. It turns out that they sell green tea ice cream (my favorite flavor, which is really hard to find in the US) in 1-person bowels for ¥68 apiece. That’s 68 dollar-cents. Reason #73478 why I could live here forever.
We ate our ice cream, and Shaunte and I had a reading party and watched Sweeney Todd. Cathy went to bed early because she was still tired and hungover.
Sunday, June 29th
We had been planning to go to Harajuku today, but I had heard from Susan on Friday that there’s no point in going if it’s raining because the crazy people don’t come out. When I woke up around 8am, it was pouring, and it was clear that it wasn’t going to let up anytime soon. So, no Harajuku.
We ended up going to Shibuya again. Cat wanted to buy a phone and Shaunte, having totally caught onto the doujinshi craze, wanted to check out the Mandarake there with me. We didn’t have any luck with the phone. Prepaid phones are in short supply, for some reason. We tried 4 different stores, but none of them had any in stock. One said we’d probably have to wait another 2 weeks at least.
We did manage to find the Mandarake store, which is even bigger than in Ikebukuro. Shaunte and I once again went crazy. I didn’t spend as much money though. 3 mangas and 2 doujinshi. Really cheap.
We headed back to the dorm, ate dinner, showered, had another reading party, and did homework. No fires or other crazy happenings tonight.
Monday, June 30th
Today is our last full 6-hour day of class. Tomorrow and Wednesday we’ll be gone on the field trip, and Thursday and Friday are only half-days. I’m really happy, because 6-hour days are positively exhausting when you’ve spent most of the summer doing a lot of nothing.
I’m really excited about the field trip. Yamanashi sounds like it should be pretty. The historical sites should be interesting, and I’m glad that we’re getting to see a bit of Japan outside of Tokyo. Not that there’s anything wrong with Tokyo, but I feel like we’re not getting the full picture here. I really wish we could go to Kyoto (and Nara, for obvious reasons, hehehe). It’s only 2 hours by shinkansen, but tickets are $180 or somesuch ridiculous amount, and anyway, we’re not supposed to leave the city on our own. But if I had the money, I would totally do it.
My Groups
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Tokyo Gourmet Updated: Oct 30, 2009
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Japanese Fashion Updated: Oct 23, 2009
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俳景 Photo&Haiku Updated: Sep 27, 2009
