Teresa's Birthday Day

Friday was Teresa's birthday! So of course that meant our day was about to be an adventure, haha.. I don't think we knew what we were in for =)

Sakura time is almost over!

Greg's already frustrated because the wind won't blow enough to give him a cool photo in the scattering sakura petals.

We started out the morning by leading our usual team and a few new friends from DK House over to get their gaijin cards and see if we could get our certificates of registration for Sophia and cell phones. We took the fast route we were supposed to take the first time when we weren't in search of post offices, and got there quite a bit quicker with some nice scenery along the way. We went to the Itoyokado mall (the big one where we got our bedding) so the other DK friends could get photos taken at the photo booth for their gaijin card apps. They had to meet some people later on, so we told them the directions to the municipal office from there, while we went in to get some lunch at the food court! I got curry again, haha, and a mitsuya cider (basically ramune in a can) which was not the best combination. Then the guys decided to split a crepe and bubble tea from the CREPE PLACE IN THE MALL (eek! XD ) while we browsed the rest of the mall for a while.

Everybody wanted a photo on this whale we found.



The original Surf Ninja.Our new friend Aaron, with totally awesome hair.

What the heck is this weird statue supposed to be??

On the way to the municipal office, we all bought bananas from a street vendor for super cheap! =D

At the municipal office, we saw that our friends were still there, waiting for their certificates. We helped Jeannette and Hunter get started with their card applications and then our nice friend lady at the desk helped show us that the yellow forms she had shown us (but not given us) last time were the applications for the certificates of registered matters. Whoops! We thought she was saying, get one of these at the cell phone place/etc. and fill it out, then you can get a cell phone. We filled those out, the other two joined us on the waiting couch, and before we knew it we had scored some free (200 yen a copy) tickets to cell phonesville!

We left DK House again at 4:00 to head out to Shinjuku to try and get said phones before meeting up with Teresa for her birthday. I was planning on continuing my AU adventure in Nishi Kawaguchi, but since everyone else was going Softbank and seemed to be getting a good deal, and seemed to be learning a lot more about their plans than I was, and would all be available for information in the end, and would probably be free to call in the same network, I decided to go Softbank as well. I had to pay for the phone (instead of exchanging Sada's old phone for a new one for free, which is what I *think* au was going to let me do?), but I think it will be totally worth it not to be on my own and doing something different than everyone else again. We ended up actually signing up for plans instead of getting prepaid phones, because they told us it would cost us less in the end because it's cheaper for calls (I think) and there is no cancellation fee. I got a pretty green phone that matches my laptop! Hunter was getting green as well, but unfortunately (note to future Japan study abroad kids!) his Visa check card wouldn't work at Softbank! He couldn't pay cash because you had to set it up to bill you for the plan subscription. The Visa check card is supposed to be everywhere you want to be, but Hunter wanted to be buying a cell phone at Softbank. Where was Visa check card? We may never know...
Our cell phones, all lined up.


After much waiting and trading of numbers, we all met up with Teresa and Mia outside the Softbank place to wait for Oh-san to arrive at 8. Teresa got solicited by a guy promising some great deal at a bar or restaurant or something for about a half an hour before she finally sent him on his way per Dan's advice. Once Oh-san got there, we wandered the streets of Shinjuku for a dinner place until Teresa decided on a place whose specialty was beef dishes! I got a hamburger steak which was quite flavorful, and a bowl of rice to make up the difference in filling-ness. Hunter, my only table-mate, got the curry with cheese! I had never seen curry with cheese before, it was quite interesting. I didn't try any, but Greg requested to smell it, at which point he could not conclude exactly what it smelled like, but he did say it smelled like "a good memory," which I thought was a very pleasant thing to say.After the cheese was mixed in, it totally looked like when you make rice krispie treats. Maybe that's the good memory Greg was thinking of.


My meal came with a hat.

After dinner, it was time to search the streets again for a place to drink, as it was Teresa's 21st birthday (although the drinking age in Japan is only 20). At some point in all this, Hunter was approached by a strange-looking older man who talked him up for quite a while and gave him a card with an address on it... they looked like they were having a nice conversation, but when we asked Hunter what the guy had been talking about, he said "I have NO idea!" It was a much longer conversation than any of us approved of, haha, but I don't think he had much of a way out...

We eventually decided on a place called Kachi Kachi Yama that seemed to be offering good deals, and was a pretty nice-looking place once we got inside. Everyone (minus me) got shots first, and toasted to Teresa! I made out pretty good by only dropping about 450 yen on a beautiful dessert the whole night! It was labeled as a "Pine (pineapple) Choco Brownie Parfait", but here's what was on the plate:


A scoop of vanilla ice cream, a scoop of raspberry, a tall wafery thing, some strawberry and lime drizzly stuff, some chocolate sauce, a cherry (with a pit??), whipped cream, 4 small frozen pineapple chunks, and four tiny brownie pieces. Hahahha. It was delicious though.

We finished up there something between 1 and 2 am I think, though when the bill came nobody was too happy about it. They had charged ridiculous amounts for things like, service charge, limes, and random other stuff that made the total way off from what everyone had chipped in for their individual drinks. They finally got it worked out though, and resolved never to return to the Kachi Kachi Yama.

The fellows. The prompt was "Look tough." Notice the varied interpretations.


The ladies

Now, at this point it's important to be aware that the Japanese train system closes at midnight and doesn't open up again until 5am. This means we were pretty much stuck in Shinjuku. We had chosen to go ahead and stay out all night because another thing Teresa wanted to do for her birthday was go see this place called Tsukiji, where there is a fish market where all the Japanese chefs and stuff get their fresh fresh ultra fresh fish right out of the ocean early in the morning. So we needed to find a place to hang out for the next three or four hours. We wandered around looking for a cheap karaoke place, but everything off the main street was too expensive, and everything on the back streets was closed.

At one point, we were talking about trying to find the Shinjuku Denny's instead, and suddenly we hear a slurred voice say "I want some Denny's!" I think this guy was a foreigner because his English was fluent and he had kind of a slang-ish accent to it. He chatted drunkenly with us about Denny's for a while, hilariously, until his businessman friend (we think, or maybe just a random upstanding gentleman) moved him along.

By the time we found a reasonable place for karaoke, we decided we had already spent too much money that night and nobody really felt like singing anyway, so we'd be better off to find a cafe or something. After a brief stint at the "24-hour" McDonalds (which closed at 3am for cleaning), we ended up at a real cafe for the next few hours. Time passed pretty slowly and we were all starting to feel the lateness by then.

Once it got to be 5am, we headed for the metro line to Tsukiji. On our way, we met up with our Denny's friend again, who recognized us of course! He still seemed pretty incapacitated and chatted with Greg all the way to the station, tried to talk us into going to Denny's or karaoke or something instead of going home, and christened Greg as his homeboy a few times. We said goodbye and got on the train to Tsukiji.

By the time we got there, the sun was coming up. That was a really weird feeling. We made our way to the fish market, which was unbelievably busy and bustling with all the people working there. There were small truck things driving everywhere, weaving in and out so fast, and then inside the actual warehouse where all the fish-preparation takes place, it was all super close and cramped with everyone moving and carrying things around. We saw a lot of cool things, like really big fish and crazy sea creatures sitting in boxes, but for the most part, for me, I just felt an overwhelming feeling like we didn't belong there. I think it's a pretty famous tourist spot, and there were people with cameras and tour groups going through, but I still just felt like every time I turned around I was in somebody's way and keeping them from doing their job. One of my very least favorite feelings is the feeling that I'm inconveniencing someone, and in this case it was inconveniencing them just for our entertainment, we had no business there, so I felt a little uncomfortable for the whole experience.Now does this really look like someplace we need to be?


These guys put the tako in takoyaki.

Huge fish!!



We made it through the entire market and out without getting hit by any trucks (barely), and made our way back to the station. We thought if we took the metro back to Yotsuya, we could just use our school route for free to get home. Well, we got to Yotsuya and on our platform and we waited, and waited, and waited. We waited about 45 minutes before we decided that train wasn't coming, and tried another platform. That train wasn't going to show up either, so we went up to the gates, and there was a guy telling incoming people that the line was down! >_I'm not sure what Greg said, but it looks like he's about to get smacked..

Nearly empty platform, this should've been our first sign that the trains weren't running.


We were all about to reach critical mass..


We could see the school from our platform, I thought that was pretty neat.


We were all just total zombies by the time we got back at around 8:45am. I think everyone pretty much just crashed for a while (except Jen, who had DK House orientation), and I slept til about 1:00pm. Unfortunately, between the bar and the cafe, our clothes and purses were reeking with cigarette smoke, so I know Jen and I at least had to put a lot of stuff out on the balcony, while Greg, who is balcony-impaired, quarantined his off in the lower part of his room right in front of the door. I think the sakura air got most of the smell out of my new coat, but I might still need to leave my purse out there today.

I'll post again later on to cover what happened for the rest of the day after I woke up at 1:00!