Fashion Day

Today we went to Harajuku! Dan and Jen met up there this morning while Greg and I were only just getting the wheels turning, so they said we could try and meet them at the Harajuku station at 1pm. Harajuku, from what I understand, is sort of a sub-culture hub with a focus on craazy fashions. It's kind of well-known for those who are into anime or Japanese rock music.

Anyway, once we got going (which was kind of late in the game, thanks to me and my slow goings this morning), we decided to get lunch at the money-devouring festival again. I got a chicken kabob that was pretty good (but 500 yen oh my gooosh >_< ), and Greg got some ridiculous squid legs or something, I don't even know. Quit eating weird things Greg. He got some more takoyaki after that and I got another ChocoBanana from our vendor friend who remembered me from yesterday! We ate our new foods on the way to the station and lamented the lack of trash cans (we didn't find any suitable ones until we were inside the station!!) and the difficulty of separating trash into its appropriate bin (more on that in a later post).

We had a little train confusion on the way, but we did make it to Harajuku. Unfortunately, it was almost 2:00 so Dan and Jen were nowhere to be found, so we just explored on our own. First we saw what I can only assume was the well-known bridge where people dress up in crazy goth/lolita outfits and stand around and tourists take photos of them, cause that's what was happening. I was surprised how small the bridge was though, and how not really that far-out the outfits were. I felt like I could out-crazy dress those kids if I wanted to. Come on, kids.

We didn't spend long there and instead started looking for Takeshita street, where I knew there was a big hyaku-en store called Daiso. Turns out that's where aallll the clothing stores are crammed into as well. It was kind of a winding street with shops on both sides and people absolutely everywhere. We described the first steps down that street as "diving in" because you just kinda had to fall into the flow of people going in and out. We picked up a few fun things at the Daiso and then had a nice time browsing all the different crazy clothing stores. Greg continued his eternal pursuit for the perfect socks, but concluded that Japan might not be the best place to find socks for size 14 feet. One highlight of my shopping day was that I bought an umbrella from a store called Shazbot.We felt like we had seen about all we wanted of Harajuku and it was starting to rain, but I still wanted a sort of rain/wind/why-is-it-still-cold-in-springtime jacket, so we started back from the beginning of the street to try and find one. There were even more people than before, so it was a task to try and even get into the street, but I found a store pretty quickly that had a nice selection of coats like I wanted! I found a light yellow windbreaker material one that caught my eye right away, because I'm starting to really love that color, but it was kind of flimsy for $50. With a little more browsing and trying on, I found a lovely and classy cream colored jacket of the same style! I still had to deliberate a while on which one to get, but in the end it had to be the cream one. Oh, and much thanks to Greg for holding my stuff/saying "that one looks good"/not saying "just pick one already."

Dan and Jen had mentioned planning on going to Yoyogi garden for flower viewing near Harajuku, but since it was so much later than they had talked about and we had little or no chance of actually meeting up with them, AND it was starting to rain for serious, we decided to head on home. Getting into Harajuku was easy, but trying to get out was ridiculous! We got our train tickets and then stood in a slowly-moving line for about 20 minutes as tons of people tried to get in the station but even more tried to get out to Harajuku! Craziness! Finally we got on a train (after having to let a full one go on) and made it back to home sweet Nishikawaguchi. With the rain and the cold, we decided to get some 7-11 takeout for dinner instead of planning on walking back out to the station later. After a lot of searching, Greg won first prize by finding some spaghetti plates for cheap. He got regular and I got super cheese I guess. They even heated them up for us before we left! One more stop at the Shop 99 so I could give in and get some ugly cheap slippers of my own instead of continuing to borrow DK's, and we were on our way home for serious.

We ate our lovely spaghetti dinners down in the communal kitchen, and after a while an American-looking guy came in and sat down on the couch. We struck up a conversation with him and he came over and sat with us while we ate! His name is Hunter and he's from Texas and will be going to Sophia as well! I think he said he's a Theatre and Japanese major. What a combination! He just got here two days ago and hasn't been out much yet, so whatever we do tomorrow I think we'll definitely see if he wants to come with! I'm sure we'll start meeting some actual Japanese people soon enough, but for now it's interesting to meet other Americans or international students as well =)

The rest of the night has been blogging, trying to get FAFSA done before the deadline, putting away clothes and things, and sorting trash. Haha...that last one doesn't sound so good. Oh, and of course there was the part where I had myself convinced that because 1) I couldn't find my key card for the front door, and 2) I remembered feeling like someone had taken something out of my back pocket on one of the packed trains today or yesterday (though I couldn't find that anything was missing), that my key card had been stolen and I would have to explain it to Uzuki-san and pay for a new one. Turns out I had put it in a zippered case in my purse for safe keeping. Dur.
Harajuku put Greg down for the count.

Now I am quite sleepy and I think I'll head to bed. I'll plan on adding photos to this post tomorrow, though not too many I'm afraid! *yawn* Goodnight!