Back to Reality

Okay, looks like you guys weren't all that impressed by my attempt at making our trip seem more exciting, so it's back to our much less interesting adventures.

Sunday, we met up with the girls (Courtney, Sara and Katie) again at 7:30 way out in the middle of nowhere (or rather, Hachioji - about 45 minutes outside of Tokyo) for yakiniku! And getting there was an experience in itself. Almost as soon as we had left the station and Courtney declared "At least it's not raining," - you guessed it - it started raining. And it turns out we had gone in the wrong direction from the station, so what should've been a 2 minute walk turned into a 45 minute walk.

But we finally got there! It was a much bigger restaurant than I had been expecting, and even had its own parking lot! (Yes, in Tokyo, this is uncommon. Usually if places have parking, it's in a parking garage). So here we are at Den Yakiniku.

As you may have guessed, it is the kind of establishment where you have to take your shoes off upon entering. It definitely feels weird to be eating out at a restaurant with no shoes on. We had to wait a while to get a table (what with Meat Day being so popular and all), but finally it was time for food! Good thing too, since it was already nearly 9pm.

Here's Courtney showing us how it's done. Basically, your table has this little grill in the middle, already fired up and ready to go. All you have to do is push some buttons on a little electronic screen and a waiter will come and bring you whatever kind of meat (or side dishes) you request! You only have to get up to get your drink. And there are tons of different types of meat you can choose from - pork, roast beef, chicken thigh, sausage, sirloin, even chicken hearts and cow tongue! We stayed away from those.

The little tray on the right has dipping sauces in it: original, sweet, and ponzu. I liked the original and sweet best, as the ponzu was a little sour/tart.

Cinnamon and Courtney are both helping out with the grill, and you can see the little electronic screen there between them.

By about 10:30, we decided we had had enough meat (and there's a 90 minute time limit), so we figured we had better head back to the station so we could be sure to catch the last train. Of course, it was still raining, and someone had taken Courtney's umbrella, so she was forced to make due with a smaller one. But we took the proper way back to the station this time, so it only took a few minutes.

The next night, Monday, we had a party! We went shopping in Ikebukuro in the afternoon (the two of us, plus the other 3 girls), and then all convened at Coco Ichiban-ya in Shibuya at about 6:30.

It's a curry restaurant! And they serve up some super, super delicious curry. I got a half portion of hirekatsu curry, which is breaded, fried pork tenderloin, in case you were wondering.

Susa joined us for this occasion, and we all 6 crammed into one booth in this tiny little restaurant. But it was worth it - and very cheap, too! You get a lot of food for about $7.

Afterward, we headed upstairs for 3 hours of karaoke!

In Japan, you get your own little box in which to sing, so there's less embarrassment than the American type where you're forced to sing in front of a bunch of strangers.

Yes, they even supply you with tambourines! And there are a ton of songs to choose from (as you can see by the phone book-sized catalog of songs there under the little electronic song-choosing device. ...It's under Susa's arm.) They had both Japanese and English songs, but the majority were in Japanese.

And this is precisely why Cinnamon has no idea what's going on. And here I told her to learn at least one song in Japanese in preparation for this, too. But doesn't she look stylish in her new fedora? Also, I don't know what I'm looking at. Probably Courtney, who was holding the other mic.

But after three hours of this, it was getting late, so we all headed back home for the night.

Only to meet up again Tuesday evening for HapiPani 7! If you're wondering what that is, it's the abbreviation for "Happy *pnish* Birthday 7th." It's a one-time-only event *pnish* has every year on July 1st in commemoration of the day the group was formed. I'll spare you all the details, but it was absolutely spectacular and I wish I could see it again right now.

You can see how excited Cinnamon (aka Gigantor) is about her very cool new *pnish* tote bag. It is filled with awesome things, and I also have one... filled with even more awesome things. After the show and demachi, we all parted ways at about 11pm, though Cinnamon and I didn't turn in until much, much later since we were so wired after such an awesome performance. (Yes, you heard that correctly. Cinnamon willingly stayed up until 3am!)

Courtney headed back to Hikone in the morning, since she had to go to work, but we decided to meet up with Katie to help her shop for souvenirs, as it was her last day in Japan. So we took her to one of the big 100 yen shops we had been to, and she went to town~ Then we took the train back to Akihabara, Tokyo's "Electric Town", to look for a few other things.

Then we got hungry, so it was down to Gotanda to Coco Ichi's again for more delicious curry. And to top it off, we hit up Harajuku and had crepes!

Katie and I had "ice cream, chocolate and whipped cream" and Cinnamon had "banana, caramel and whipped cream." They were super good, super filling and also pretty cheap. I will definitely be eating those again.

The picture's pretty self-explanatory, I think. Mmm... crepes. Also in Harajuku, I bought a cute new pair of sandals for about $30, and they're working out so far! I was sick of wearing tennis shoes. They don't go well with skirts and dresses.

Around the corner from Harajuku, near Aoyama, we walked down by Omotesando Hills. I'm pretty sure I mentioned it before, but it's basically a very upscale shopping mall. Looked pretty neat all lit up, though.

Sadly, it was getting late, so we said our goodbyes to Katie and headed home. Today we took it easy, only going to the grocery store and to Shinjuku to pay rent. Also, we got a leg up on the pile in our room, since it was getting pretty messy. Looks much nicer now. Tomorrow, we're off to visit Roppongi Hills!

PaniSuta and Cheese Fries

Okay, on to PaniSuta! Still wondering what it is? Allow me to explain. For the past 3 1/2 years, the four guys of *pnish* have been hosting a radio show in Kiba every Saturday from 5pm to 6pm. The studio is really tiny, but one of the walls is a huge window, so people can come by and watch what's going on and listen to it outside. They recently announced that Saturday's show would be their last, so we knew we had to go watch.
And watch we did!

That's the studio right there. Just that tiny little area in front of the window. We knew there would likely be a lot of other people coming to see the very last show too, so we got there extra early - around 3:30. Luckily, Cinnamon and I had planned for all this waiting and brought a mini picnic in our new bento boxes! It was full of fruit and veggies and cheese and crackers, all arranged in a visually appealing display.

There were more tomatoes, but we ate them before I remembered to take the picture.

We also had a container of plum slices and cherries, one with 3 different kinds of sliced cheese, and one with various snacks (more Pucca, some mini Oreos and two mini fruit jellies), but they weren't super attractive, so we didn't take any pictures of them. But it was delicious~!

Finally, the show started, and luckily Courtney was there with us to help translate some of what they were talking about. At the end, one of the guys came out to sing a bit of one of his songs (he's put out 3 mini-CDs), all the guys were given flowers by the radio station staff, and they all came out to thank everyone for coming.

But we decided to wait around for a bit in the hopes that the guys would come out and maybe shake hands with us or something. (You can't pass up an opportunity like that. It's like shaking hands with a celebrity!)

There's me and Cinnamon waiting around, clearly very happy to have had the chance to see the guys in person again.

And the other girls we came with! From left to right, there's Sara (from Spain), Katie (from Kenucky), Gigantor, and down in front, Courtney (originally from Louisiana, but is currently teaching English in Hikone, Japan).

Luckily, our waiting paid off! One of the guys came out a few minutes later, but was in a hurry because he had to get to rehearsals for a play he's doing. Probably ten minutes after that, the rest of the guys came out and shook every single person's hand who was in the line that formed (and there were probably close to 100 people). Needless to say, we were incredibly happy to have been able to shake hands with 3/4 of *pnish*
Then we headed back to Shibuya for dinner. And you'll all be thinking "Why would they go to Japan to eat there?" but that's what Courtney wanted, and neither Cinnamon nor I were particularly hungry after our picnic.

So yep, we went to the Outback Steakhouse! It was really good, and almost like back home, except the bill for the five of us was about $100 (and none of us even had steak). After that, it was 9:30, so we called it a night and went our separate ways.

Today, we'll be meeting up with the girls again in Hachioji (about 30min outside Shinjuku) to eat some genuine Japanese yakiniku! It's all you can eat night, so we're taking advantage of it. Yakiniku is essentially different kinds of meat you grill at your table, accompanied by various dipping sauces. According to Courtney, it's a really fun experience (I'm assuming something similar to fondue, perhaps?) We'll let you know how it turns out!

Ever-busy Shibuya

So, as continued from my last post, we got back on the Yamanote Line and headed to - you guessed it - Shibuya! Somehow, there's always something to do here, even if it's just walking around and people-watching. And after about four weeks of being in Japan, I finally have some pictures of the neon lights to show you!

I will admit, they could've been better, but we were tired from walking around all day. You take what you can get. But we're in Shibuya often, so there'll be other opportunities to photograph it at night.

While we were walking around, we spotted this little shop selling some interesting and exotic merchandise - including these weird shoes.

It's sort of hard to tell from the picture, but a couple pairs of these shoes (the ones on the ends) have curled toes like elf shoes. No clue why. I think they're pretty ugly myself, and look uncomfortable.

This place, however, always catches our interest. Unfortunately, every time we pass by, neither of us are hungry. But one of these days, we are going to go get ourselves one awesome dessert. How could you pass up food that looks that good?

The next day, we went to Kinshicho (which is on the way to Funabashi, but much closer) and hit up the Tokyo Arcakit Kinshicho Daiso store. As you may have guessed, it's another 100 yen store, only this one was half the size of the other one. However, we still didn't leave without buying anything. Such is the beauty of 100 yen store shopping.

Since the store was on the 7th floor of a big department store building, we checked out some other stuff on the way down and I was again unsuccessful at finding shoes. After that, we chilled (quite literally!) outside for a bit while Cinnamon ate her Pucca snacks. They're essentially like chocolate biscuit cookies (shaped like fish and octopuses) filled with vanilla cream. ...I know you were wondering.

We checked out a few fruit stands in the area, then headed back home.

Thursday was surprisingly COLD and overcast. Seriously, I think the high must've been something like 72. Compared to the warm weather we had gotten used to, it felt pretty chilly! So dressed in pants and armed with jackets and umbrellas, we set out for Harajuku, in search of the last Daiso store on our list. It was disappointingly small, but luckily the street it was on was chock full of interesting shopping places and Cinnamon came away with a new hat.

Then we were off to Shinjuku to search for the Sanrio Shinjuku Gift Gate, as it was the only Sanrio store in the Tokyo area that we hadn't been to. We found it with a minimum of trouble and I came away with a couple of things you'll see in a later picture. From there we walked back to Harajuku and hit up Lotteria for dinner. Finally, a genuine Japanese burger chain, hahaha! Someday, we'll make the rounds to Mos Burger and Freshness Burger too. Cinnamon was disappointed that the burgers pictured on the menu didn't look at all like the ones we got, but they were still really good. And they had melon soda there! I wish we had that in the US, because that stuff is really good.

Yesterday (Friday), was the last day our rail pass was valid, so we used it to go back to Funabashi and hit up the 100 yen store one more time. (What? You can't argue with good quality, cheap goods!) Cinnamon and I both ended up buying several really cute bento boxes (essentially Japanese lunch boxes) and accessories. Here's that picture I promised you, of the things I bought at Sanrio and my bento boxes.

That would be a set of 4 nesting Cinnamoroll containers and a little set of Cinnamoroll picks (to use with the containers... for picking food).

From Funabashi, we went to Kinshicho (again) and actually bought some fruits and veggies from one of the grocery stores we had passed before. It was surprisingly cheap (for Japan)! So it's too bad Kinshicho is so far away from us or we'd go there more often to buy our fruits. It was an absolute pain (quite literally) to carry them all the way home, but that's what we get for buying all the heavy fruits.

Why all the fruit? To bring with us on a mini picnic at PaniSuta today! I know you're all dying to know what PaniSuta is (I'll give you a clue - it has to do with *pnish*), and I'd be more than happy to tell you, but I am dead tired after our busy day today, so I'll let you know how the picnic went in my next post. Two is enough for one day, I think. So look forward to it soon!

The Great Gain Hunt

Yesterday, Sunday, Cinnamon and I decided to take a trip to the grocery store to buy some food to make ourselves. The one we went to is about 7 or 8 minutes away and is called PoroRoca. It's not a very big store, but they have a pretty good selection of various foods. We ended up with some bananas (5 for about $1.80), yogurt, Ritz crackers (which were expensive), cream cheese (which was also expensive - about $4.80 for a box), pasta and sauce, mini pizzas and some other stuff.

Also, we bought some cup ramen and I just don't understand why it's so expensive! This is the country that created cup ramen! Why is it $1.50? Even a little 6 pack you have to cook on the stove is something like $3.00! I think it's very strange. And as I expected, fruit is very expensive. A single lemon will run you about $2.50 and a cantaloupe the size of a large grapefruit will set you back $7.

Anyway, moving on~ After we got back from the store and had lunch, we headed off for Shibuya. For some reason I always thought of Shibuya as more of a financial, business-type area, but it's full of trendy clothing stores and big name international stores like the Gap, Apple, Nike and Adidas!

Here we have Shibuya Crossing. It is considered to be the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world. Right in the center of the picture is Shibuya 109, a super trendy shopping center. The glass building you see on the very right side houses one of the world's busiest Starbucks. Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of it from the corner we were standing on.

A little further down the street is a huge Tower Records. A lot of these buildings have big video screens showing ads for new movies, CDs, concerts and video games. Many also have audio and often you'll hear two or three different things playing at the same time right next to each other. Total auditory overload. Also, I'm slowly learning that Japan really loves Avril Lavigne. I hear her music in TV shows and commercials all the time. That Tower Records screen was advertising a concert of hers (coming in September!) when we passed by later.

This picture is overlooking a street running parallel to the one in the last picture. It was also taken from a pedestrian crosswalk.

This is just a shot of the left side of that same street. There are always lots of people walking in the city - no matter the time of day or day of the week.

Down a side street, we came upon this place. Don't know what it is, but it had some interesting signs, so I snapped a picture.

But what we had really come to Shibuya for was to seek out this store here - Gain (the green and white sign in the middle, if you can't see it right away). I had to figure out where it was so I could come back today (which I did) to buy a $135 jacket (which I also did). But the jacket is not for me, so don't worry! Yamashita-tenchou, the guy who runs the store, is very nice, though I didn't get to talk with him much. I also didn't get to see any quasi-celebrities, which I was almost hoping for, if only to have a story to tell about it. Ah well, maybe next time.

And lastly, across from Gain was this interesting graffiti that Cinnamon made me take a picture of. It's... kinda creepy, haha!

Today we spent mostly wandering around Shibuya again and we went to KFC (the 500th store!) for lunch. ...The Colonel would not be proud. Seriously, the chicken was batter-dipped! We all know the Colonel's secret recipe is breaded chicken. Breaded. It was still pretty good, though.

But it started raining while we were walking around Harajuku, so we walked up to Yoyogi Station and just headed home.

I almost forgot! Here's a picture of a street address sign down the street from where we're saying. (You pronounce that word "cho-may", so you know).

And this is looking left down the street in front of where we're staying. It's in a pretty quiet residential area with a n elementary school nearby. The houses all seem to have paper thin walls, because we can occasionally hear our neighbor's toddler having a tantrum. Also, there are lots of crows. Everywhere. And they are loud. But they must all be up high, because while I can hear them, I very rarely see them.

Cinnamon is napping now, so it'll likely be another quiet night for us. One day we'll get to see the neon lights of Tokyo at night. For now, we're still trying our best to get adjusted to things here. And hopefully you all are enjoying vicariously experiencing Japanese culture! Look forward to more interesting things in the near future~

Tokyo is full of hills

So here we are at 3pm on Monday, sitting around our house not doing much. Why? Well we just got back home after being out and about for 6 hours - most of that walking. But the good news is we have pictures this time!
Friday, we went out and decided to explore some of the city, starting with figuring out how long it takes to walk to Meguro Station (around 25 minutes). Meguro Station is on the JR Yamanote Line, which is the main JR line that goes in a loop around Tokyo, hitting all the major metropolitan areas. So basically it's the easiest way to get to most anywhere.
Well, we decided to explore the Meguro area and kept on walking... and walking... and walking until we got to Shibuya (about 2 miles away). Unfortunately, we took a wrong turn and completely bypassed the entire main shopping section and wandered around in what I guess is just the business district for what seemed like forever. Eventually, about a mile and a half later, we came upon Yoyogi Park, so we wandered through there.

We ended up in Harajuku where we proceeded to trek through Omotesando and Omotesando Hills (a very upscale shopping center), then through Minami-Aoyama (minami means south) before we finally got on a train to head back home.

These pictures were taken from a pedestrian crossover on... some street I don't know the name of. (Seriously, I'd say 75% of the streets in Tokyo do not have names. Makes it really hard to figure out where you are.)

This one is looking to our right.

And this is to our left. Also on the left and just off the very right side of this picture is a Japanese Subway sandwich shop. Only because it's Japanese, it's more than just sandwiches! It's a Subway Sandwich & Cafe. We didn't go in, but it looked like it had a juice bar and everything!

Needless to say, by the end of the day we were very hot and sweaty and tired from our 6 hour trek in the Tokyo sun. My poor feet did not take kindly to the hills - or my shoes- so they had blisters and were generally very unhappy. So we just took it easy on Saturday, only going out for dinner... where we had McDonald's. I had a bacon lettuce burger and Cinnamon had a chicken sandwich. Both came with lots of mayo, because the Japanese seem to really love the condiment for some reason. Also, compared to the US, the portions are quite a bit smaller. What the Japanese consider medium is what we would consider small. The price was about the same, though.
That sums up our first two full days here. I'll add the next two in another post so this one doesn't get too long. ^_^