First off, I've added a little widget on the side of the blog that tells you what time it is in Japan! Totally awesome!
So today I didn't really do anything! Some of the gang was going to Harajuku for shopping, but in the interest of saving money, staying out of the rain, and resting up for the first day of classes tomorrow, I opted out.
Greg and I ran to Yaoko around lunchtime to get groceries and lunch. I got my standard tonkatsu on a bun with some good sauce, with a weird bread thing with hot dog in it.. and a chocolate-filled croissant for dessert! Dessert is becoming more and more important these days.
I also got an umbrella while it was there to replace my broken one since it was raining! I figured I would end up with a super girly cute pink polka-dot one, but the pickings at Yaoko were slim and I ended up choosing a classy sort of old-lady one that has pale green flowers and a tan handle. I'm actually quite fond of it.
I wanted to pick up a sketchbook while I was there, but my choice was limited to either individual sheets of nice drawing paper, or cheap ones with cartoon characters on the front. I opted for the cheapest, which is like a little kids coloring book and has pictures of babies on the front or something, until I find a place that isn't a supermarket to buy something a little better. When I got home, I wanted to draw some, so I curled up in bed to do so. After sketching one small picture, I decided to lay down instead ^^; Originally I had vowed for no naps today so I can get up early tomorrow for class, but, that just didn't work out. I took about a two hour nap with some wild dreams about flying houses!
The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful. I spent a while doing some stretching and exercise though. I can do a two-minute plank at the end of my workout, which is good for me =) Maybe I'll have it up to three by the end of the semester! That would be something. I want to start keeping track of how close to touching my toes I get over the semester if I keep up my exercise and stretching. For those of you who don't know, I'm very very unflexible. There's never been a time in my life that I can remember being able to touch my toes. That always sucked in P.E. class. I blame it on my uncommonly long legs. My toes are just too far away! But... studying abroad is a time to reinvent yourself! I'm going to try and become the girl who isn't unable to touch her toes!
I met Greg and Hunter in the kitchen for dinner, which was basically us heating up all of our frozen/instant items, haha. I had a package of what I'm assuming were read as "Niku dongo" which I took to mean meat dumpling. They were basically meatballs. I put them with some instant ramen and it wasn't half bad. Nothing special. I'm not a big instant anything, except for the ramen that you actually cook in a pot because you have a little bit more control over how good it's going to taste. We all just watched delicious meals being cooked on TV for celebrity guests, including a three-egg katsudon....zomg....
Now it's time for head to bed since we'll be leaving for Sophia at 7:45-7:50 for our 9:15 class tomorrow! Sorry this post was a little dull. Next time it's a dull day, I plan on starting a new line of posts that focus on a specific part of life here, like the way they deal with trash sorting! There just wasn't time tonight as I need to go to bed. But if you're looking for more study abroad thrills and chills, head over to Greg's blog and check out episode 2 of our podcast (it's a little ways down in the posts now)! It was recorded on our third day here about, so it's a little old, but it's quite entertaining. Goodnight everyone!
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Dance Day
Today, three of the dance groups were performing on the main street at campus, so I definitely wanted to go since I had only seen G Splash yesterday! I was planning on going over with Greg when he left at 11, but unfortunately I caught the beginning of shower cleaning time AGAIN, so I decided to shoot for leaving at 12 instead.
I timed my journey to Sophia today to see what my pace was. It took around 14 minutes to get to the station (NOT the 12 promised by DK House, mmmhmm), and then by the time I got to Yotsuya station it was about an hour and four minutes. That was with no packed trains or missed trains or whatnot, and not any particularly long waits for trains, so probably an hour and 15 to an an hour and 30 is about how close I'd be willing to push it for class days. Unfortunately that's going to mean leaving for school at 7:45-8:00 for us intensive kids x_x
Today was my first time riding the train by myself. It was kind of nice to have some alone time on the walk to the station, but being around only other Japanese people at the station and on the train was a very different experience. Normally I'm traveling with Greg and Hunter, sometimes Jen and Jeannette, so there's always been at least one other foreigner with me to diverge my attention to, and to diverge attention from just me. This time, I could only focus on my appearance to others, and my relationship with each person around me. It was a little weird at first, because even though nobody's really watching you, you just feel like every move you make is being watched. Which ad should I stare at, which way should I face, hands in pockets? Look at my cell phone? How can I look normal... After a while it became less of an issue and I got more comfortable with just doing whatever the heck I wanted =)
I ran into Hunter and Teresa as soon as I got to campus, but they were off to see about getting some stuff Hunter had shipped from the states, so I went on to wait for the dance performances! First up was the Sophia Modern Dancers. It's an all girl group, and they had a wide variety of styles. There were a couple upbeat, dance team-esque numbers, one that was just sort of expressive and ballet-like, and one that was a little more...latin? A lot of the dances kind of reminded me of the way I dance in my room when nobody's around, haha. They seemed like a nice, easygoing group.
Next was... G Splash! Wooo! Now, yesterday I was a little unimpressed/unsure about this group, but today I got to see two groups perform that I missed yesterday. First was Lock (which I totally thought was "Rock" until I saw it on a piece of paper...oof). They did a suuuper exciting and entertaining routine. It was really well-choreographed and every moment had something going on, it was really fun to watch and they seemed to be having a good time. I'm not sure what the other new group I saw was, but it was all guys, and they all wore business suits with dark sunglasses and did this ridiculous but amazing routine to a techno version of the theme to Neon Genesis Evangelion. It was sooooo super entertaining and the crowd loved it. On the one hand it was really silly, and there were goofy moves like hopping around like birds and things like that, but on the other hand it was so well-done and you could tell they worked really hard on it, the dancing was so skilled, and they were so confident and serious-acting about it that it was really impressive. The rest of their performances were the same as yesterday, but I had a little bit better of a view this time.
Last was Beyond, the Jazz dance club. Their dances didn't seem much different than the dance team-esque ones that the Modern Dancers did. It was kind of like.. music video background dancers I guess? Lots of smiling, lots of songs about shaking butts (well, that was true of all the groups, but this group actually danced to the thong song at one point), and LOTS of costume changes. Japanese dance groups understand the importance of costume changes, that's for sure. Their routines did seem a little more polished than the Modern Dancers though.
After they were all done, I met up with Greg and later Jen! Jen was also interested in getting information from G Splash, so we hesitantly went over to the area where they were talking to potential members. After kind of puttering around for about 5 minutes with nobody coming up to talk to us, and people even seeming to avoid us, Jen finally tapped a girl on a shoulder and we told her we were interested. After that, everything was great! She was super nice and had another girl go get us some info sheets, and she told us our Japanese was really good and that she was surprised. (We felt that she was just using particularly simple Japanese compared to what we were used to dealing with). She also said it was ok that we were foreign exchange students and would only be there a semester, which was our main concern. She explained how the auditions (!!) will work. Starting Monday, they'll have practice every night and teach everyone a different style each night, and those rehearsals will last two weeks. At the end of those two weeks, according to the sheet, you have to collect everything you've learned and perform in front of everyone. It's not clear as to whether this means they'll teach you a routine or something to do, or if you're supposed to make something up on your own... It seems pretty intimidating, but I want to give it a shot!
We also got info from the Sophia Modern Dancers, in case G Splash doesn't work out ^^;; The sannin got lunch together at a closer, but not as awesome, vending place before we all parted ways. Greg was off to meet up with a Jazz group, Jen was off to see Dan, and I was headed back to the DK House.
After a short accidental nap, I vacuumed my floor and did some exercising for a while. I figure those two weeks of rehearsal will be murder if I don't go ahead and make myself sore and recover first. When I work out on my own, though, I never feel like I exert myself enough. Nothing compared to the workouts we used to get in athletics class in high school, or how I'd feel after track or cross country. Those were the days =) Of course, trying to work out in my cluttered room at home, or in this spacious but with-downstairs-neighbors-and-hardwood-floors room also creates limitations on how much I want to do. If I have free time between classes when I'm not studying, I might check out our gym at school. I never end up going to any of the gyms at UVa because our campus is just too darned sprawling. With Sophia, I'll probably leave in the morning with everything I need for the day, stay there all day, and come home, so I'll plan on bringing work-out clothes sometimes.
I think there's probably a good chance I won't get into G Splash because it seems like such a high-skill club, and I have zero dance experience (minus ballroom), so I'm not even sure this is something I can really get the hang of or not, but I do intend to try my best and work really hard for the next two weeks! I'd really like to be able to have come to Japan and become a lot better at Japanese, but I'd also like to take this opportunity to do something I've wanted to do for a while, but never can make the time for at UVa. Here, I don't really have any outside responsibilities like work or basketball band or other projects to take up my time. I don't mind ending up having to be at school at 9:15am and not leave until 7:00pm, I think I might enjoy that kind of schedule for a semester. The way it's looking now, I'd have a lot of free time between lunch and my second class on Mondays and Thursdays, and a ton of free time between lunch and club meetings on the rest of the days. Since I'm at school, I'll probably be able to totally focus that time on studying! I'm really excited for school and clubs to start =)
Sorry there are no pictures or videos of today's amazing dances, my camera battery was totally dead! I should be better about charging it... Tomorrow I think all the girls are planning to go shopping in Harajuku, so I need to decide if my quest for a new umbrella (the one I just bought there last week got broken in the mighty winds of yesterday's storm.. *sigh*) will justify me risking spending money on clothes/accessories I don't need while I'm there... although, my wardrobe, despite its cuteness by American standards, is so far off from the current trends in Japanese fashion that I don't think I'll even be making the effort to fit in, haha.
I think that's all for tonight. I'm going to try and get a more decent night's sleep tonight so I don't feel quite so sleepy in the morning! Can't wait to get into that 7:00am wakeup schedule, for serious!
I timed my journey to Sophia today to see what my pace was. It took around 14 minutes to get to the station (NOT the 12 promised by DK House, mmmhmm), and then by the time I got to Yotsuya station it was about an hour and four minutes. That was with no packed trains or missed trains or whatnot, and not any particularly long waits for trains, so probably an hour and 15 to an an hour and 30 is about how close I'd be willing to push it for class days. Unfortunately that's going to mean leaving for school at 7:45-8:00 for us intensive kids x_x
Today was my first time riding the train by myself. It was kind of nice to have some alone time on the walk to the station, but being around only other Japanese people at the station and on the train was a very different experience. Normally I'm traveling with Greg and Hunter, sometimes Jen and Jeannette, so there's always been at least one other foreigner with me to diverge my attention to, and to diverge attention from just me. This time, I could only focus on my appearance to others, and my relationship with each person around me. It was a little weird at first, because even though nobody's really watching you, you just feel like every move you make is being watched. Which ad should I stare at, which way should I face, hands in pockets? Look at my cell phone? How can I look normal... After a while it became less of an issue and I got more comfortable with just doing whatever the heck I wanted =)
I ran into Hunter and Teresa as soon as I got to campus, but they were off to see about getting some stuff Hunter had shipped from the states, so I went on to wait for the dance performances! First up was the Sophia Modern Dancers. It's an all girl group, and they had a wide variety of styles. There were a couple upbeat, dance team-esque numbers, one that was just sort of expressive and ballet-like, and one that was a little more...latin? A lot of the dances kind of reminded me of the way I dance in my room when nobody's around, haha. They seemed like a nice, easygoing group.
Next was... G Splash! Wooo! Now, yesterday I was a little unimpressed/unsure about this group, but today I got to see two groups perform that I missed yesterday. First was Lock (which I totally thought was "Rock" until I saw it on a piece of paper...oof). They did a suuuper exciting and entertaining routine. It was really well-choreographed and every moment had something going on, it was really fun to watch and they seemed to be having a good time. I'm not sure what the other new group I saw was, but it was all guys, and they all wore business suits with dark sunglasses and did this ridiculous but amazing routine to a techno version of the theme to Neon Genesis Evangelion. It was sooooo super entertaining and the crowd loved it. On the one hand it was really silly, and there were goofy moves like hopping around like birds and things like that, but on the other hand it was so well-done and you could tell they worked really hard on it, the dancing was so skilled, and they were so confident and serious-acting about it that it was really impressive. The rest of their performances were the same as yesterday, but I had a little bit better of a view this time.
Last was Beyond, the Jazz dance club. Their dances didn't seem much different than the dance team-esque ones that the Modern Dancers did. It was kind of like.. music video background dancers I guess? Lots of smiling, lots of songs about shaking butts (well, that was true of all the groups, but this group actually danced to the thong song at one point), and LOTS of costume changes. Japanese dance groups understand the importance of costume changes, that's for sure. Their routines did seem a little more polished than the Modern Dancers though.
After they were all done, I met up with Greg and later Jen! Jen was also interested in getting information from G Splash, so we hesitantly went over to the area where they were talking to potential members. After kind of puttering around for about 5 minutes with nobody coming up to talk to us, and people even seeming to avoid us, Jen finally tapped a girl on a shoulder and we told her we were interested. After that, everything was great! She was super nice and had another girl go get us some info sheets, and she told us our Japanese was really good and that she was surprised. (We felt that she was just using particularly simple Japanese compared to what we were used to dealing with). She also said it was ok that we were foreign exchange students and would only be there a semester, which was our main concern. She explained how the auditions (!!) will work. Starting Monday, they'll have practice every night and teach everyone a different style each night, and those rehearsals will last two weeks. At the end of those two weeks, according to the sheet, you have to collect everything you've learned and perform in front of everyone. It's not clear as to whether this means they'll teach you a routine or something to do, or if you're supposed to make something up on your own... It seems pretty intimidating, but I want to give it a shot!
We also got info from the Sophia Modern Dancers, in case G Splash doesn't work out ^^;; The sannin got lunch together at a closer, but not as awesome, vending place before we all parted ways. Greg was off to meet up with a Jazz group, Jen was off to see Dan, and I was headed back to the DK House.
After a short accidental nap, I vacuumed my floor and did some exercising for a while. I figure those two weeks of rehearsal will be murder if I don't go ahead and make myself sore and recover first. When I work out on my own, though, I never feel like I exert myself enough. Nothing compared to the workouts we used to get in athletics class in high school, or how I'd feel after track or cross country. Those were the days =) Of course, trying to work out in my cluttered room at home, or in this spacious but with-downstairs-neighbors-and-hardwood-floors room also creates limitations on how much I want to do. If I have free time between classes when I'm not studying, I might check out our gym at school. I never end up going to any of the gyms at UVa because our campus is just too darned sprawling. With Sophia, I'll probably leave in the morning with everything I need for the day, stay there all day, and come home, so I'll plan on bringing work-out clothes sometimes.
I think there's probably a good chance I won't get into G Splash because it seems like such a high-skill club, and I have zero dance experience (minus ballroom), so I'm not even sure this is something I can really get the hang of or not, but I do intend to try my best and work really hard for the next two weeks! I'd really like to be able to have come to Japan and become a lot better at Japanese, but I'd also like to take this opportunity to do something I've wanted to do for a while, but never can make the time for at UVa. Here, I don't really have any outside responsibilities like work or basketball band or other projects to take up my time. I don't mind ending up having to be at school at 9:15am and not leave until 7:00pm, I think I might enjoy that kind of schedule for a semester. The way it's looking now, I'd have a lot of free time between lunch and my second class on Mondays and Thursdays, and a ton of free time between lunch and club meetings on the rest of the days. Since I'm at school, I'll probably be able to totally focus that time on studying! I'm really excited for school and clubs to start =)
Sorry there are no pictures or videos of today's amazing dances, my camera battery was totally dead! I should be better about charging it... Tomorrow I think all the girls are planning to go shopping in Harajuku, so I need to decide if my quest for a new umbrella (the one I just bought there last week got broken in the mighty winds of yesterday's storm.. *sigh*) will justify me risking spending money on clothes/accessories I don't need while I'm there... although, my wardrobe, despite its cuteness by American standards, is so far off from the current trends in Japanese fashion that I don't think I'll even be making the effort to fit in, haha.
I think that's all for tonight. I'm going to try and get a more decent night's sleep tonight so I don't feel quite so sleepy in the morning! Can't wait to get into that 7:00am wakeup schedule, for serious!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Club Day
ATTENTION!: This post is HIGHLY ENTERTAINING. Please enjoy the many videos I have uploaded today =)
Today, Greg and Hunter and I decided to go back to campus to check out the clubs some more! A friend of Hunter's was performing in the gospel choir at 11:30, and Greg wanted to see the New Swing Jazz Orchestra at 3:00, so that set our timeframe. Everything was in order, except the weather! It was cold and rainy and disgusting outside, and the wind was blowing and making awful sounds! I considered not going since I figured most of the clubs wouldn't be outside, and it was so gross out I just wanted to curl up and stay in, but I decided to go after all, which turned out to be a good decision =)
First, we found the room for the gospel choir. None of us really knew what to expect from a bunch of Japanese students claiming to sing gospel music...especially one named SAfro FAmily, hehe. We all got settled in, the club made some introductions, and then they started their first song: Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee. THE SISTER ACT VERSION! It was sooo amazing, we were all totally blown away! They had such a great sound! They also had some instruments on backup that sounded fantastic as well! After that one, I recorded all of their songs on my camera! I think, if I get into a dance club (or not) and still have time, I'd love to join this group! They all just seemed like they were having such a great time singing this gospel music! It looked like the most fun club of the day and the easiest to fit in with =)
Videos! Please excuse the fact that most of the time it's not a very good shot... I was trying to be somewhat discreet about filming, because I wasn't sure if they wanted me to or not (and I wanted to clap) so most of the time the camera was sitting in my lap.
Hallelujah
Sing a Simple Song of Freedom - beginning
Sing a Simple Song of Freedom - ending
"We Are Family" - You can't really see it, but you can hear at the end after each section does its own part, they put them together and it sounds really cool! This was a great performance and there's also a feature of all the instruments in the back.
After that, we wandered the halls of the same building for a bit, since there were a few other music groups practicing/performing (including the "Folk Song Club", which doesn't play folk songs, but actually plays rock music, hahaha) before going outside under a covered area where all the clubs seemed to be today. I found a dance flyer or two while Greg got whisked away to a Jazz performance and Hunter searched for Judo. I eventually found a gym where the dance groups were performing! Hunter was there already and we got to watch most of the performance for G-Splash. They're a reeeallly big hip-hop group split up into 5-7 smaller groups by genre of dance. I couldn't tell most of the genres apart, but one was all girls and was pretty racy I guess, and another was a lot of tricks-based. A lot of them seemed reeeallly gangster, with super baggy clothes and their arms all over the place, I was surprised. None of them particularly looked like the group I was hoping to find, but maybe I'm just spoiled by clean, precise, choreography-based groups like I saw on America's Best Dance Crew. There are still two other dance groups I missed (Sophia Modern Dancers and Beyond Jazz Dance Unit) that might be more my style, so I think I'll try and check them out tomorrow.
My only halfway decent video of G-splash. I think this section must've been the breakers. They seemed to focus on small groups doing tricks and floorwork while the rest watched.
After that, we went and found Greg watching the small Jazz combos. Some of the people from the gospel chorus backup band were in one of the combos, the one we all thought was the best combo! Greg thinks he might join one of those.
By the time that was over, we were all ready for lunch so we headed to our favorite place again! I got Oyakodon this time, which is chicken and egg on rice (Oyako means parent and child... kind of grim, don't you think?). It was delicious, but I think I prefer the katsudon. Next, we were off to find a Mizuho bank for Hunter and I to start accounts at. We thought we had found one at first, but turns out it was a Mizuho apartment-finding-place. We walked in awkwardly as I noticed all the printouts of floorplans on the walls and the lack of bank-looking equipment. Me: "..Ginkou janain desu ka?" (This isn't a bank, is it...) Worker Guy: "Ginkou janai" (This is not a bank.) Haha. He did direct us to the nearest one though, so that was sweet! I went up and got the rest of my traveler's checks exchanged (minus $200, which I'm keeping for a while just in case), at what seemed to be a pretty good rate, since $600 became more than 60,000 yen! Hunter and Greg needed to find an ATM that would take their cards before we could get started with the accounts, so we found a post office and took care of that.
Unfortunately, the certificate of registered matters is only good for things like cell phones and doesn't cut it when it comes to bank accounts. The super nice ladies there told us to come back once we had our gaijin cards. At least now we know there's a bank that will give us an account nearby the school! But that means poor Hunter will have to wait another two weeks at least before he has the means to get a cell phone =/
By then it was time to see the New Swing Jazz Orchestra! They were pretty good and had a great ensemble sound. Interestingly, the girls WAY outnumbered the boys in this ensemble. I know at least at UVa, the Jazz Band is pretty male heavy. Maybe music is considered more of a girl's hobby in Japan.. (the entire trombone section was girls even! and only one boy in the sax line and trumpet line! piano, guitar, and drums made up the rest of the male musicians). All the music groups seemed to stick to the standards for their genre (It Don't Mean a Thing and Sing Sing Sing from the Jazz groups, Sister Act from the gospel choir) and I was wondering if that's because this is sort of, introduction to our club week, or if that's the sort of thing they normally play.
A nice sax feature
Nice sax solo on a reeealllly old-looking instrument
Their performance didn't last very long, but it was enjoyable. We were about to leave for home when some people we ran into some friends from the DK House and chatted for a while. They started being solicited to come check out the English Speaking Society and somehow we got coerced to go along with them? I think the three of us were all pretty skeptical, since the last thing we came to Japan to do was speak English...much less join a club about it. The people there were all really cool though. It was almost all Japanese people, and they were saying how it's a good way to meet Japanese people, make friends, and then when you hang out together you speak Japanese and get better at that. They meet at lunchtime for an hour to work on English... Sensei did say to make friends with a Japanese person, promise an hour of English practice a day in exchange for Japanese the rest of the time, so maybe this is our ticket ;) It was definitely the easiest place we found to talk to Japanese people so far. All the people were really open and friendly and joked around easily. We'll see if there's time for that with the way clubs work out.
On the train ride home, we happened to be on the same train as Miranda from DK House! She joined us for our early dinner at Yoshinoya (cause they're having an awesome sale this week! And we didn't want to have to leave again to get dinner in this weather) which was her first time there. We also stopped by the arcade so Greg could indulge in a round of drum freaks or whatever. *sigh* that boy is gonna spend all his money on video games. Well... maybe 100 yen every few days on a video game, I guess that's not so bad, haha. I tried to play Pop N Music, but it wouldn't let me get past the enter-your-amusement-pass screen.
After a couple more stops at 7-11 and Shop 99 (where I probably bought too many chocolate snacks..) we were home! I tried to get myself to do something productive, but there still isn't much of that to do right now.. Although now that I'm done blogging, I guess there's still time to do something!
Today, Greg and Hunter and I decided to go back to campus to check out the clubs some more! A friend of Hunter's was performing in the gospel choir at 11:30, and Greg wanted to see the New Swing Jazz Orchestra at 3:00, so that set our timeframe. Everything was in order, except the weather! It was cold and rainy and disgusting outside, and the wind was blowing and making awful sounds! I considered not going since I figured most of the clubs wouldn't be outside, and it was so gross out I just wanted to curl up and stay in, but I decided to go after all, which turned out to be a good decision =)
First, we found the room for the gospel choir. None of us really knew what to expect from a bunch of Japanese students claiming to sing gospel music...especially one named SAfro FAmily, hehe. We all got settled in, the club made some introductions, and then they started their first song: Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee. THE SISTER ACT VERSION! It was sooo amazing, we were all totally blown away! They had such a great sound! They also had some instruments on backup that sounded fantastic as well! After that one, I recorded all of their songs on my camera! I think, if I get into a dance club (or not) and still have time, I'd love to join this group! They all just seemed like they were having such a great time singing this gospel music! It looked like the most fun club of the day and the easiest to fit in with =)
Videos! Please excuse the fact that most of the time it's not a very good shot... I was trying to be somewhat discreet about filming, because I wasn't sure if they wanted me to or not (and I wanted to clap) so most of the time the camera was sitting in my lap.Hallelujah
Sing a Simple Song of Freedom - beginning
Sing a Simple Song of Freedom - ending
"We Are Family" - You can't really see it, but you can hear at the end after each section does its own part, they put them together and it sounds really cool! This was a great performance and there's also a feature of all the instruments in the back.
After that, we wandered the halls of the same building for a bit, since there were a few other music groups practicing/performing (including the "Folk Song Club", which doesn't play folk songs, but actually plays rock music, hahaha) before going outside under a covered area where all the clubs seemed to be today. I found a dance flyer or two while Greg got whisked away to a Jazz performance and Hunter searched for Judo. I eventually found a gym where the dance groups were performing! Hunter was there already and we got to watch most of the performance for G-Splash. They're a reeeallly big hip-hop group split up into 5-7 smaller groups by genre of dance. I couldn't tell most of the genres apart, but one was all girls and was pretty racy I guess, and another was a lot of tricks-based. A lot of them seemed reeeallly gangster, with super baggy clothes and their arms all over the place, I was surprised. None of them particularly looked like the group I was hoping to find, but maybe I'm just spoiled by clean, precise, choreography-based groups like I saw on America's Best Dance Crew. There are still two other dance groups I missed (Sophia Modern Dancers and Beyond Jazz Dance Unit) that might be more my style, so I think I'll try and check them out tomorrow.
My only halfway decent video of G-splash. I think this section must've been the breakers. They seemed to focus on small groups doing tricks and floorwork while the rest watched.
After that, we went and found Greg watching the small Jazz combos. Some of the people from the gospel chorus backup band were in one of the combos, the one we all thought was the best combo! Greg thinks he might join one of those.
By the time that was over, we were all ready for lunch so we headed to our favorite place again! I got Oyakodon this time, which is chicken and egg on rice (Oyako means parent and child... kind of grim, don't you think?). It was delicious, but I think I prefer the katsudon. Next, we were off to find a Mizuho bank for Hunter and I to start accounts at. We thought we had found one at first, but turns out it was a Mizuho apartment-finding-place. We walked in awkwardly as I noticed all the printouts of floorplans on the walls and the lack of bank-looking equipment. Me: "..Ginkou janain desu ka?" (This isn't a bank, is it...) Worker Guy: "Ginkou janai" (This is not a bank.) Haha. He did direct us to the nearest one though, so that was sweet! I went up and got the rest of my traveler's checks exchanged (minus $200, which I'm keeping for a while just in case), at what seemed to be a pretty good rate, since $600 became more than 60,000 yen! Hunter and Greg needed to find an ATM that would take their cards before we could get started with the accounts, so we found a post office and took care of that.
Unfortunately, the certificate of registered matters is only good for things like cell phones and doesn't cut it when it comes to bank accounts. The super nice ladies there told us to come back once we had our gaijin cards. At least now we know there's a bank that will give us an account nearby the school! But that means poor Hunter will have to wait another two weeks at least before he has the means to get a cell phone =/
By then it was time to see the New Swing Jazz Orchestra! They were pretty good and had a great ensemble sound. Interestingly, the girls WAY outnumbered the boys in this ensemble. I know at least at UVa, the Jazz Band is pretty male heavy. Maybe music is considered more of a girl's hobby in Japan.. (the entire trombone section was girls even! and only one boy in the sax line and trumpet line! piano, guitar, and drums made up the rest of the male musicians). All the music groups seemed to stick to the standards for their genre (It Don't Mean a Thing and Sing Sing Sing from the Jazz groups, Sister Act from the gospel choir) and I was wondering if that's because this is sort of, introduction to our club week, or if that's the sort of thing they normally play.
A nice sax feature
Nice sax solo on a reeealllly old-looking instrument
Their performance didn't last very long, but it was enjoyable. We were about to leave for home when some people we ran into some friends from the DK House and chatted for a while. They started being solicited to come check out the English Speaking Society and somehow we got coerced to go along with them? I think the three of us were all pretty skeptical, since the last thing we came to Japan to do was speak English...much less join a club about it. The people there were all really cool though. It was almost all Japanese people, and they were saying how it's a good way to meet Japanese people, make friends, and then when you hang out together you speak Japanese and get better at that. They meet at lunchtime for an hour to work on English... Sensei did say to make friends with a Japanese person, promise an hour of English practice a day in exchange for Japanese the rest of the time, so maybe this is our ticket ;) It was definitely the easiest place we found to talk to Japanese people so far. All the people were really open and friendly and joked around easily. We'll see if there's time for that with the way clubs work out.
On the train ride home, we happened to be on the same train as Miranda from DK House! She joined us for our early dinner at Yoshinoya (cause they're having an awesome sale this week! And we didn't want to have to leave again to get dinner in this weather) which was her first time there. We also stopped by the arcade so Greg could indulge in a round of drum freaks or whatever. *sigh* that boy is gonna spend all his money on video games. Well... maybe 100 yen every few days on a video game, I guess that's not so bad, haha. I tried to play Pop N Music, but it wouldn't let me get past the enter-your-amusement-pass screen.
After a couple more stops at 7-11 and Shop 99 (where I probably bought too many chocolate snacks..) we were home! I tried to get myself to do something productive, but there still isn't much of that to do right now.. Although now that I'm done blogging, I guess there's still time to do something!
Monday, April 7, 2008
Placement Day
WARNING: This post also has NO PHOTOS >_< There just wasn't anything I felt inclined to photograph today... sorry friends!
Today was the other big day: placement test results day! We left for Sophia around 12:30 and nervously made our way to the Liberal Arts office. This week, however, is club week! All the school clubs and circles are out advertising their clubs and trying to recruit members! It was super crowded and it took some effort to get through everyone. We decided to come back to look at all that later so we could make it to the advising sessions at 2:00 if we needed them, and boy did we need them.
The sannin all signed up for Intensive Japanese, which is 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, and we had been shooting for level 2 or 3 out of 3 in that section. Greg got level 2, Jen got level 3, and I got... JAPN 321 Advanced Japanese in the regular twice a week section?? That can't be right.. I didn't even test in the regular testing room! Something was amiss, so after some confusion on where I needed to go and who I needed to talk to, I ended up in line to speak with the adviser for that class.
Jeannette and Hunter both met with her before me vying for different spots than the ones they were assigned, but neither prevailed. I was getting pretty nervous at this point! One good aspect was that while standing in line, I met a nice girl named Tuuli (I think that was the spelling I saw on her envelope) who was from Estonia but had done her entire undergrad in Japan! She was having a tough time because she had missed the placement test, and by the time Sophia could get things together to give her a make-up exam and get her placed, it was going to be awfully late after classes would have already started. I hope everything worked out for her!
I entered the office with my best "Shitsureishimasu" (standard phrase when you enter a professor's office, basically means "sorry to bother you") and proceeded to tell her how I had taken the intensive test, but been placed in the regular classes, and in the advanced class of those. She looked at the results and said that I had placed higher than the intensive classes, so that's why I was in the advanced class. This might not have troubled me so much if the advanced class was more than four credits and more than twice a week. I told her that I didn't think this could be right, or that this class was right for me because I had mostly guessed on the intermediate portion of the exam and I didn't feel like I was at that level. She kept insisting that my scores were quite good, and that since that's what the test had said, I should take that level, so I asked her what textbook the course used. She got it out for me and I looked through it for a bit. I think I found a total of 10 English words in a whole chapter.... this definitely was not the class for me! Meanwhile, I noticed that she was staring at my folder inquisitively, and mumbling something to herself. After a few moments she realized that the class on printed on my sheet did not actually match up with the results of my test!! Instead, she decided I should have been placed in Japanese 212, which would let me be in the Intensive equivalent, Intensive level 3, so she sent me off to that professor's office.
At that point I was starting to get pretty stressed about the whole thing. Ending up in a regular class for 212 was just about as bad as being in the advanced class. I had been counting on being in intensive for the learning experience and the credits. I came to Japan to learn Japanese, not to take more culture classes that I can take at UVa. I kept hearing from people in the hallway that they were being turned down from the intensive classes because they were full, and all I could think was that the professor was going to tell me that yeah, there had been a mistake, but the classes were full now so too bad. I tried to just pray that things would work out and God would work things out the way he wanted and that I'd be able to accept it.
Luckily, the professor was very nice and seemed to understand fairly quickly what had happened and that there had been a mistake. It was a great feeling to hear her say she would put me into the intensive class ( "shimashou" has never sounded so sweet!)!! She didn't let me out, however, without a good talking to about how it might be pretty difficult in level 3, and how I didn't know very many kanji and those are important, and how study time is important. I tried to seem as eager and studious as I could with my "hai"s and "mochiron"s and she eventually let me leave on the promise that she would get me into Intensive 280! Hooray!!
After that mess was all over, we met up with Greg and Hunter in the midst of the club parade and went on to lunch at our favorite local vending machine restaurant where I enjoyed another katsudon. I had been waiting for that thing all afternoon XD Back at Sophia, Greg left us for his meeting with the baseball club, and the remaining three of us went to find a copier to make some copies for Uzuki-san. We also checked out the bookstore while we were there, which really made me want to know enough Japanese to read a novel because they had so many of them! We also turned in our certificates of registered matters to the foreign liaison office, and I got to speak a little bit of good Japanese =)
So far, I haven't really felt the excitement I thought I would about being in Japan and surrounded by the Japanese language. The fun of learning Japanese was the reason I became a Japanese major, and before when I would think about being in Japan, I would get really excited thinking about being surrounded by the language and learning so much. I think the reason I've felt so mellow still is maybe that it's sooo easy to get by in Japan without knowing much Japanese at all. (I know my professors don't want to hear this, haha). We've needed to know the basics+ for some of the more complicated things like alien registration and JJ Club 100 (haha), but for example.. our guesthouse manager, Mr. Uzuki, speaks pretty good English and all the information about the place is in English as well. At the store, you don't really need to know much Japanese, the train system is pretty straightforward, if you just know some katakana you can read a LOT of signs and labels in Japan, and a lot of times workers and other people know at least a little English to help you out.
I think another reason for my lack of excitement has been my lack of schedule. We've been doing a lot of running around, doing this and that, seeing the sights and taking care of school stuff, so whenever we have some downtime, I've pretty much been vegging out. After thinking about classes all day and walking through that bookstore and seeing textbooks, however, I started to get that little feeling of excitement inside again. I wanted to just buy all the study books and kanji books they had and set aside a time each day to work in them. I can never just make myself a schedule arbitrarily though, especially with our daily plans being so erratic all the time, so I'm very very excited and anxious for school to start so I know where I'm going, when I'm going there, when I'm getting up each day, and when I should go to bed. Also, having study goals will be a huge plus for me. As long as I have a clear and concrete goal to strive for, I can work work work towards it!
That's about all that happened today, as the rest of the evening has been spent doing said vegging out. I think tomorrow a few of us are going back to campus for various reasons. Hunter has a friend who is performing in the gospel choir in the morning, which is something I'd be interested in seeing, and Greg wants to see the big band play tomorrow, which is something else I'd be interested in seeing. For me, since I was busy taking care of my placement mishap, I didn't really get a chance to go through the clubs and circles or get many fliers, so I'd like to do that tomorrow. Here's hoping I find the perfect beginner-friendly hip-hop club! =) The club advertising thing also has proven to be a great place to speak Japanese and (sometimes amazing, sometimes HILARIOUS) English with the Japanese students, so I'm looking forward to it!
Today was the other big day: placement test results day! We left for Sophia around 12:30 and nervously made our way to the Liberal Arts office. This week, however, is club week! All the school clubs and circles are out advertising their clubs and trying to recruit members! It was super crowded and it took some effort to get through everyone. We decided to come back to look at all that later so we could make it to the advising sessions at 2:00 if we needed them, and boy did we need them.
The sannin all signed up for Intensive Japanese, which is 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, and we had been shooting for level 2 or 3 out of 3 in that section. Greg got level 2, Jen got level 3, and I got... JAPN 321 Advanced Japanese in the regular twice a week section?? That can't be right.. I didn't even test in the regular testing room! Something was amiss, so after some confusion on where I needed to go and who I needed to talk to, I ended up in line to speak with the adviser for that class.
Jeannette and Hunter both met with her before me vying for different spots than the ones they were assigned, but neither prevailed. I was getting pretty nervous at this point! One good aspect was that while standing in line, I met a nice girl named Tuuli (I think that was the spelling I saw on her envelope) who was from Estonia but had done her entire undergrad in Japan! She was having a tough time because she had missed the placement test, and by the time Sophia could get things together to give her a make-up exam and get her placed, it was going to be awfully late after classes would have already started. I hope everything worked out for her!
I entered the office with my best "Shitsureishimasu" (standard phrase when you enter a professor's office, basically means "sorry to bother you") and proceeded to tell her how I had taken the intensive test, but been placed in the regular classes, and in the advanced class of those. She looked at the results and said that I had placed higher than the intensive classes, so that's why I was in the advanced class. This might not have troubled me so much if the advanced class was more than four credits and more than twice a week. I told her that I didn't think this could be right, or that this class was right for me because I had mostly guessed on the intermediate portion of the exam and I didn't feel like I was at that level. She kept insisting that my scores were quite good, and that since that's what the test had said, I should take that level, so I asked her what textbook the course used. She got it out for me and I looked through it for a bit. I think I found a total of 10 English words in a whole chapter.... this definitely was not the class for me! Meanwhile, I noticed that she was staring at my folder inquisitively, and mumbling something to herself. After a few moments she realized that the class on printed on my sheet did not actually match up with the results of my test!! Instead, she decided I should have been placed in Japanese 212, which would let me be in the Intensive equivalent, Intensive level 3, so she sent me off to that professor's office.
At that point I was starting to get pretty stressed about the whole thing. Ending up in a regular class for 212 was just about as bad as being in the advanced class. I had been counting on being in intensive for the learning experience and the credits. I came to Japan to learn Japanese, not to take more culture classes that I can take at UVa. I kept hearing from people in the hallway that they were being turned down from the intensive classes because they were full, and all I could think was that the professor was going to tell me that yeah, there had been a mistake, but the classes were full now so too bad. I tried to just pray that things would work out and God would work things out the way he wanted and that I'd be able to accept it.
Luckily, the professor was very nice and seemed to understand fairly quickly what had happened and that there had been a mistake. It was a great feeling to hear her say she would put me into the intensive class ( "shimashou" has never sounded so sweet!)!! She didn't let me out, however, without a good talking to about how it might be pretty difficult in level 3, and how I didn't know very many kanji and those are important, and how study time is important. I tried to seem as eager and studious as I could with my "hai"s and "mochiron"s and she eventually let me leave on the promise that she would get me into Intensive 280! Hooray!!
After that mess was all over, we met up with Greg and Hunter in the midst of the club parade and went on to lunch at our favorite local vending machine restaurant where I enjoyed another katsudon. I had been waiting for that thing all afternoon XD Back at Sophia, Greg left us for his meeting with the baseball club, and the remaining three of us went to find a copier to make some copies for Uzuki-san. We also checked out the bookstore while we were there, which really made me want to know enough Japanese to read a novel because they had so many of them! We also turned in our certificates of registered matters to the foreign liaison office, and I got to speak a little bit of good Japanese =)
So far, I haven't really felt the excitement I thought I would about being in Japan and surrounded by the Japanese language. The fun of learning Japanese was the reason I became a Japanese major, and before when I would think about being in Japan, I would get really excited thinking about being surrounded by the language and learning so much. I think the reason I've felt so mellow still is maybe that it's sooo easy to get by in Japan without knowing much Japanese at all. (I know my professors don't want to hear this, haha). We've needed to know the basics+ for some of the more complicated things like alien registration and JJ Club 100 (haha), but for example.. our guesthouse manager, Mr. Uzuki, speaks pretty good English and all the information about the place is in English as well. At the store, you don't really need to know much Japanese, the train system is pretty straightforward, if you just know some katakana you can read a LOT of signs and labels in Japan, and a lot of times workers and other people know at least a little English to help you out.
I think another reason for my lack of excitement has been my lack of schedule. We've been doing a lot of running around, doing this and that, seeing the sights and taking care of school stuff, so whenever we have some downtime, I've pretty much been vegging out. After thinking about classes all day and walking through that bookstore and seeing textbooks, however, I started to get that little feeling of excitement inside again. I wanted to just buy all the study books and kanji books they had and set aside a time each day to work in them. I can never just make myself a schedule arbitrarily though, especially with our daily plans being so erratic all the time, so I'm very very excited and anxious for school to start so I know where I'm going, when I'm going there, when I'm getting up each day, and when I should go to bed. Also, having study goals will be a huge plus for me. As long as I have a clear and concrete goal to strive for, I can work work work towards it!
That's about all that happened today, as the rest of the evening has been spent doing said vegging out. I think tomorrow a few of us are going back to campus for various reasons. Hunter has a friend who is performing in the gospel choir in the morning, which is something I'd be interested in seeing, and Greg wants to see the big band play tomorrow, which is something else I'd be interested in seeing. For me, since I was busy taking care of my placement mishap, I didn't really get a chance to go through the clubs and circles or get many fliers, so I'd like to do that tomorrow. Here's hoping I find the perfect beginner-friendly hip-hop club! =) The club advertising thing also has proven to be a great place to speak Japanese and (sometimes amazing, sometimes HILARIOUS) English with the Japanese students, so I'm looking forward to it!
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Game Day
WARNING: This post has NO PHOTOS =( It might be kind of boring.
Sunday was a pretty relaxing and laid back day for the most part! I ate lunch on my own since I had sushi from the Yaoko market that I needed to eat (you can read about the rest of yesterday's eating in the post before this one..) Then I blogged for a while before our evening adventure. It was time once again to attempt the journey to the JJ Club 100!
We met up at 5, this time joined by Jen and the somewhat unwilling (read: tricked into going) Jeannette! When we arrived at Minami-Urawa station, we were promptly lead out the wrong exit again by an anonymous member of the group. After some thinking and checking, we went back in and out the other side to a new and unfamiliar square. I lead us according to the streets and landmarks I had written on the map, and eventually we got there without any trouble!
Sada had warned me in her comment on my last JJ Club blog post that the signup process for the card was kind of difficult, but totally worth it. Luckily, the staff at JJ Club were suuupper nice and understanding of the fact that we were foreigners. The first thing the guy asked was, Is Japanese ok? Are you all ok with Japanese? A little? Haha, ok, is this your first time here? (In Japanese of course). Then they got us started on the computers to set up our accounts. It wasn't too difficult of a process since we knew most of the vital kanji on each page, but it was pretty intensive as far as the information they wanted. There was even a part asking how you got there and how you heard about the place.
Next thing we knew, we were JJ Club 100 members! The cards cost about 300 yen, and the way the place works is this: They print out another little card with your name on it and the time you checked in. When you check out, they charge you 100 yen for every 15 minutes you were there. Now let me tell you why this was an amaaaziiing deal unlike any other. There were two floors of awesome entertainment! There were video games on both floors, including a bunch of rhythm games we love like the drum master game, Taiko master, and some new ones we hadn't tried like Pop N Music, a piano game, and Beatmania (although the speakers were a little too quiet). These were the kinds of games we had been paying 100 yen or more just to play one time in a regular arcade!!
Aside from the video games, they had a variety of other activities you could do for free, including ping pong, indoor soccer, pool, batting cage, fishing (?!), manga to read, videos to watch, internet, and karaoke! This place was just full of fun things to do and for a super cheap price. We all played a lot of games first, especially the rhythm games! I liked the piano game a lot, although it wasn't much like real piano. Jen and I had a fun round where our song was playing about 5 times as loud as all the rest of the songs with a really obnoxious instrument, and we were missing most of the notes. =)
After a while, we decided to do karaoke! This was my first time doing proper karaoke, so it was a neat experience for me. I bombed a couple attempts at Japanese songs I thought I knew (it's amazing how much you don't actually know once there's no vocal track and kanji is thrown into the mix..), but luckily there were plenty of fun English songs for us to choose from as well. Greg and Hunter were hilariously theatrical and entertaining the whole time, and us girls just got to sing when we wanted =) We wondered if any Japanese people had *ever* sang the songs we were choosing (Gunther, The Darkness, West Side Story, etc..).
Before we knew it, it was 10:30 and we had to head out before we missed the last train and ended up stuck in Minami Urawa! X( I think our total came to something just over $20 for four hours of entertainment, and at the end they have a little lottery thing you get to play and maybe win something. We all got the consolation prizes, which I think is 60 minutes free under some conditions. One of the staff challenged Greg to a game of pool next time we go there, even after Greg almost destroyed the guy's hand with his signature inappropriately powerful high five.
For late-nite dinner, we hit up the same vending machine noodle place in the Minami-Urawa station as we did last time, and I enjoyed my Tsukimi udon for the second night in a row! That stuff is pretty darn good.
All in all there was fun had by all, and I'm sure we'll be going back there at some point for more cheap and fun times.
Sunday was a pretty relaxing and laid back day for the most part! I ate lunch on my own since I had sushi from the Yaoko market that I needed to eat (you can read about the rest of yesterday's eating in the post before this one..) Then I blogged for a while before our evening adventure. It was time once again to attempt the journey to the JJ Club 100!
We met up at 5, this time joined by Jen and the somewhat unwilling (read: tricked into going) Jeannette! When we arrived at Minami-Urawa station, we were promptly lead out the wrong exit again by an anonymous member of the group. After some thinking and checking, we went back in and out the other side to a new and unfamiliar square. I lead us according to the streets and landmarks I had written on the map, and eventually we got there without any trouble!
Sada had warned me in her comment on my last JJ Club blog post that the signup process for the card was kind of difficult, but totally worth it. Luckily, the staff at JJ Club were suuupper nice and understanding of the fact that we were foreigners. The first thing the guy asked was, Is Japanese ok? Are you all ok with Japanese? A little? Haha, ok, is this your first time here? (In Japanese of course). Then they got us started on the computers to set up our accounts. It wasn't too difficult of a process since we knew most of the vital kanji on each page, but it was pretty intensive as far as the information they wanted. There was even a part asking how you got there and how you heard about the place.
Next thing we knew, we were JJ Club 100 members! The cards cost about 300 yen, and the way the place works is this: They print out another little card with your name on it and the time you checked in. When you check out, they charge you 100 yen for every 15 minutes you were there. Now let me tell you why this was an amaaaziiing deal unlike any other. There were two floors of awesome entertainment! There were video games on both floors, including a bunch of rhythm games we love like the drum master game, Taiko master, and some new ones we hadn't tried like Pop N Music, a piano game, and Beatmania (although the speakers were a little too quiet). These were the kinds of games we had been paying 100 yen or more just to play one time in a regular arcade!!
Aside from the video games, they had a variety of other activities you could do for free, including ping pong, indoor soccer, pool, batting cage, fishing (?!), manga to read, videos to watch, internet, and karaoke! This place was just full of fun things to do and for a super cheap price. We all played a lot of games first, especially the rhythm games! I liked the piano game a lot, although it wasn't much like real piano. Jen and I had a fun round where our song was playing about 5 times as loud as all the rest of the songs with a really obnoxious instrument, and we were missing most of the notes. =)
After a while, we decided to do karaoke! This was my first time doing proper karaoke, so it was a neat experience for me. I bombed a couple attempts at Japanese songs I thought I knew (it's amazing how much you don't actually know once there's no vocal track and kanji is thrown into the mix..), but luckily there were plenty of fun English songs for us to choose from as well. Greg and Hunter were hilariously theatrical and entertaining the whole time, and us girls just got to sing when we wanted =) We wondered if any Japanese people had *ever* sang the songs we were choosing (Gunther, The Darkness, West Side Story, etc..).
Before we knew it, it was 10:30 and we had to head out before we missed the last train and ended up stuck in Minami Urawa! X( I think our total came to something just over $20 for four hours of entertainment, and at the end they have a little lottery thing you get to play and maybe win something. We all got the consolation prizes, which I think is 60 minutes free under some conditions. One of the staff challenged Greg to a game of pool next time we go there, even after Greg almost destroyed the guy's hand with his signature inappropriately powerful high five.
For late-nite dinner, we hit up the same vending machine noodle place in the Minami-Urawa station as we did last time, and I enjoyed my Tsukimi udon for the second night in a row! That stuff is pretty darn good.
All in all there was fun had by all, and I'm sure we'll be going back there at some point for more cheap and fun times.
Fancy Cake Day
So after I made myself get up around 1:00 on Saturday, it was pretty slow-goings. I managed to get myself to the shower and back, and then finally got put together enough to make a trip to the Yaoko supermarket to get some lunch and groceries. Everyone else was still asleep or had already eaten, so I was going to be going by myself, but I actually met Jen coming in right at the door! So we had a nice walk there together (where I successfully lead the way to Yaoko for the first time, as per Hunter's previous instruction) and I bought a ton of snacks...
There's something I had begun to notice about my eating habits over the past year or so, and that is that once I start to feel the slightest bit full, unless I'm eating something truly amazing, I stop eating. I don't really like the feeling of being full, it makes me feel a little ill, and I'm usually tired of what I'm eating by that point. At UVa, I'll find myself buying snacks, only for them to sit in my room for weeks because I'm never really in the mood to eat them.
All of these former truths seem to no longer be the case. While my first batch of groceries lasted me a pretty long time, they've started disappearing quicker and quicker. Yesterday, I ate 16 tuna sushi rolls, followed by half a bag of corn/choco snacks that I've become addicted to despite their unusual taste combination, a small package of pocky, and a small bag of Cheetos. For some reason I just can't stop eating! I've lost that full feeling somehow... I wonder if Japan has finally destroyed the metabolism of my youth which made it possible to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, because my appetite was fairly conservative. Nick suggests that it's just because I'm walking about 20 times as much as I was before I came here, so I'm actually more hungry than I think I am to begin with... I sure hope so, because I've gotten mighty used to not ever having to think about how much I eat of what.
So after I bought all my groceries, which I would apparently consume half of within the next 24 hours, and headed home, I was pretty much too worn out again from lack of sleep to do much of anything. I decided to just lay back down and relax for a while. Four hours later, I'm awakened by my new cell phone buzzing on my floor. I checked it, and Greg had messaged asking if I had eaten. Let me tell you another thing about me pertaining to food. I'm not sure if this is how it goes for everyone else too, but if I take any kind of nap right after I eat, I feel absolutely miserable when I wake up. I'm exhausted and groggy, but mostly my whole insides just feel bleh. I think it's because I'm taking gravity out of the digestion process by laying down. Anyway, I felt awful and not hungry at all, but I knew I should eat because it was 8:00pm and I wouldn't get another chance.
The guys were in the mood for train station udon, so we made the journey to Nishikawaguchi Station, where we discovered that there are several floors of restaurants we were unaware of. The real restaurants were too pricey for us, but we found a great vending machine udon shop on the 2nd floor! I got the Tsukimi (moon viewing festival style) udon. Time for more explanations... Udon noodles are thick wheat noodles, I can't really think of pasta equivalent in America. They're an enjoyable size and consistency and easy to eat! I had been hesitant to try any so far because I had first tried them at Sakura in Charlottesville and thought they were no good (they kind of tasted like wood...), but of course, Japan's udon is delicious. It's my new favorite noodle!
Now let me explain something about Japanese food and eggs. The Tsukimi udon is udon with an egg on top. A lot of Japanese dishes feature eggs as a standard part of or an extra bonus to the dish. While we generally think of eggs as a breakfast food, or to be included in the making of something only (like in cookies or cakes), it's not uncommon at all to see a regular version of a dish here, and then a slightly more expensive one that includes an egg. I first saw this on the first night of being here, when Dan got an egg on the side with his gyuudon at Yoshinoya. Usually you mix it in with whatever you're eating, often rice or noodles.
Here's the part that's going to make the parents unhappy.. a lot of times the egg is raw. That's right, raw eggs! Oh no!! In some dishes like katsudon and curry, the egg will be sort of scrambled I guess and placed on top, but if you order an egg on the side, or something with egg on top, there's a good chance it's going to be raw. Now normally, I would never dream of eating a raw egg with anything except a skillet. But for some reason, I trust the Japanese food methods, and for some reason egg just makes everything richer and more flavorful. It's awesome in rice, and adds a lot to the broth of a noodle dish. Also, it's fun to watch because your clear raw egg whites will start to turn white as they cook in the hot soup broth =) If I think about the raw egg thing too long, it starts to weird me out a little bit... but when it's sitting on top of a bowl or rice or udon, it just seems so natural, like "Of course there's an egg in here! Awesome!"
After that, I decided I would give in to some indulgance after such a long day the day before (and since I had money to spare by not buying any drinks the night before...) and buy a lovely cake from the lovely dessert store in the station. It was called Ginza Cozy Corner (that must be where home-base is, because we're not really anywhere near Ginza). There were a lot of cute strawberry cakes and cheesecakes, but I was in the mood for chocolate of course. I paid a fairly reasonable 302 yen for a small slice of chocolate mousse cake, which the cake worker lady put in a small box, whose make and model was apparently determined by asking me how I would be taking it home (walking) and how far away my home was (about 10 minutes). Some might consider this purchase an extravagance, or unnecessary, but I knew at least one person wouldn't think that way, as long as I provided detailed photos and taste descriptions. This one's for you mommy! =)
The bag
The box in the bag, it says I have to eat it today! Looks like I have no choice...
The setup inside the box. The cake wedge stuck in the corner, with a cardboard square housing a napkin to take up the rest of the space in the box. They had so many cake pieces this shape, I would've thought they would have a smaller, more suitable box for just one slice. Then again, maybe only poor foreigners just buy one piece. The way the perforation came down the front was kind of cute and convenient for getting the cake out safely. There were no utensils in the box, which was disappointing. I ended up borrowing one from the kitchen, which I still need to return....
It had a fancy chocolate/caramel (I'm assuming) triangle piece stuck in the top. It tasted alright!
There was a long plastic rectangle wrapped around the edge to keep it safe! It peeled off pretty easily and didn't take too much cake parts with it.
Ta-da! It's my cake. It came on a cute little doily thing with ribbons printed on it. The darker layers are cake and the light layers are mousse.
Notice the layer second from bottom that looks a little different. It was sort of a chocolate and crunchy stuff mixture, a la Nestle's Crunch Bar (but it was still fairly soft). That part was super delicious!
It took me a while to realize what was going on with the top part here. I guess I just assumed it was a magical thin layer of darker chocolate mousse, but once I inhaled some cocoa powder/knocked some cocoa powder off on my desk, I realized it was just the regular mousse, shaped into a cool design and then covered in cocoa powder. It made the mousse more chocolaty, which is always good, but it was a little overpowering if you tasted it right off the bat. And it was a little too easy to inhale/knock off on your desk.
I'm curious as to how they made the design on the top with the mousse.. maybe o
The crunchy part revealed. It was delicious, but it was so much tougher to cut than the rest of the cake that I would pretty much destroy the next part of the cake when trying to cut it.
Overall, it was a delicious cake and I enjoyed it very much! I felt very gourmet and chic, and with prices the way they are in Japan/Tokyo, I didn't feel too bad about paying $3 for it. (I kept trying to compare it to Dairy Queen Blizzard prices..) Maybe I'll be able to find a more local-ish place that's not at the station where I can get delicious desserts for cheaper...
After enjoying my delicious cake, and staying up for a while longer because I had slept too much before, I hit the hay after a long and exhausting 48 hours. I hope you enjoyed this post! Since there weren't as many events, I was able to go more into detail about my thoughts and aspects of Japanese culture! That's probably the direction these posts will take once school gets started and I'm in more of a routine! I kind of like it better that way =) Sorry they're a little behind, by the way! There was just toooo much exhaustion to stay on schedule, but I should catch up today!
There's something I had begun to notice about my eating habits over the past year or so, and that is that once I start to feel the slightest bit full, unless I'm eating something truly amazing, I stop eating. I don't really like the feeling of being full, it makes me feel a little ill, and I'm usually tired of what I'm eating by that point. At UVa, I'll find myself buying snacks, only for them to sit in my room for weeks because I'm never really in the mood to eat them.
All of these former truths seem to no longer be the case. While my first batch of groceries lasted me a pretty long time, they've started disappearing quicker and quicker. Yesterday, I ate 16 tuna sushi rolls, followed by half a bag of corn/choco snacks that I've become addicted to despite their unusual taste combination, a small package of pocky, and a small bag of Cheetos. For some reason I just can't stop eating! I've lost that full feeling somehow... I wonder if Japan has finally destroyed the metabolism of my youth which made it possible to eat whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, because my appetite was fairly conservative. Nick suggests that it's just because I'm walking about 20 times as much as I was before I came here, so I'm actually more hungry than I think I am to begin with... I sure hope so, because I've gotten mighty used to not ever having to think about how much I eat of what.
So after I bought all my groceries, which I would apparently consume half of within the next 24 hours, and headed home, I was pretty much too worn out again from lack of sleep to do much of anything. I decided to just lay back down and relax for a while. Four hours later, I'm awakened by my new cell phone buzzing on my floor. I checked it, and Greg had messaged asking if I had eaten. Let me tell you another thing about me pertaining to food. I'm not sure if this is how it goes for everyone else too, but if I take any kind of nap right after I eat, I feel absolutely miserable when I wake up. I'm exhausted and groggy, but mostly my whole insides just feel bleh. I think it's because I'm taking gravity out of the digestion process by laying down. Anyway, I felt awful and not hungry at all, but I knew I should eat because it was 8:00pm and I wouldn't get another chance.
The guys were in the mood for train station udon, so we made the journey to Nishikawaguchi Station, where we discovered that there are several floors of restaurants we were unaware of. The real restaurants were too pricey for us, but we found a great vending machine udon shop on the 2nd floor! I got the Tsukimi (moon viewing festival style) udon. Time for more explanations... Udon noodles are thick wheat noodles, I can't really think of pasta equivalent in America. They're an enjoyable size and consistency and easy to eat! I had been hesitant to try any so far because I had first tried them at Sakura in Charlottesville and thought they were no good (they kind of tasted like wood...), but of course, Japan's udon is delicious. It's my new favorite noodle!
Now let me explain something about Japanese food and eggs. The Tsukimi udon is udon with an egg on top. A lot of Japanese dishes feature eggs as a standard part of or an extra bonus to the dish. While we generally think of eggs as a breakfast food, or to be included in the making of something only (like in cookies or cakes), it's not uncommon at all to see a regular version of a dish here, and then a slightly more expensive one that includes an egg. I first saw this on the first night of being here, when Dan got an egg on the side with his gyuudon at Yoshinoya. Usually you mix it in with whatever you're eating, often rice or noodles.
Here's the part that's going to make the parents unhappy.. a lot of times the egg is raw. That's right, raw eggs! Oh no!! In some dishes like katsudon and curry, the egg will be sort of scrambled I guess and placed on top, but if you order an egg on the side, or something with egg on top, there's a good chance it's going to be raw. Now normally, I would never dream of eating a raw egg with anything except a skillet. But for some reason, I trust the Japanese food methods, and for some reason egg just makes everything richer and more flavorful. It's awesome in rice, and adds a lot to the broth of a noodle dish. Also, it's fun to watch because your clear raw egg whites will start to turn white as they cook in the hot soup broth =) If I think about the raw egg thing too long, it starts to weird me out a little bit... but when it's sitting on top of a bowl or rice or udon, it just seems so natural, like "Of course there's an egg in here! Awesome!"
After that, I decided I would give in to some indulgance after such a long day the day before (and since I had money to spare by not buying any drinks the night before...) and buy a lovely cake from the lovely dessert store in the station. It was called Ginza Cozy Corner (that must be where home-base is, because we're not really anywhere near Ginza). There were a lot of cute strawberry cakes and cheesecakes, but I was in the mood for chocolate of course. I paid a fairly reasonable 302 yen for a small slice of chocolate mousse cake, which the cake worker lady put in a small box, whose make and model was apparently determined by asking me how I would be taking it home (walking) and how far away my home was (about 10 minutes). Some might consider this purchase an extravagance, or unnecessary, but I knew at least one person wouldn't think that way, as long as I provided detailed photos and taste descriptions. This one's for you mommy! =)
The bag
The box in the bag, it says I have to eat it today! Looks like I have no choice...
The setup inside the box. The cake wedge stuck in the corner, with a cardboard square housing a napkin to take up the rest of the space in the box. They had so many cake pieces this shape, I would've thought they would have a smaller, more suitable box for just one slice. Then again, maybe only poor foreigners just buy one piece. The way the perforation came down the front was kind of cute and convenient for getting the cake out safely. There were no utensils in the box, which was disappointing. I ended up borrowing one from the kitchen, which I still need to return....
It had a fancy chocolate/caramel (I'm assuming) triangle piece stuck in the top. It tasted alright!
There was a long plastic rectangle wrapped around the edge to keep it safe! It peeled off pretty easily and didn't take too much cake parts with it.
Ta-da! It's my cake. It came on a cute little doily thing with ribbons printed on it. The darker layers are cake and the light layers are mousse.
Notice the layer second from bottom that looks a little different. It was sort of a chocolate and crunchy stuff mixture, a la Nestle's Crunch Bar (but it was still fairly soft). That part was super delicious!
It took me a while to realize what was going on with the top part here. I guess I just assumed it was a magical thin layer of darker chocolate mousse, but once I inhaled some cocoa powder/knocked some cocoa powder off on my desk, I realized it was just the regular mousse, shaped into a cool design and then covered in cocoa powder. It made the mousse more chocolaty, which is always good, but it was a little overpowering if you tasted it right off the bat. And it was a little too easy to inhale/knock off on your desk.
I'm curious as to how they made the design on the top with the mousse.. maybe o
The crunchy part revealed. It was delicious, but it was so much tougher to cut than the rest of the cake that I would pretty much destroy the next part of the cake when trying to cut it.Overall, it was a delicious cake and I enjoyed it very much! I felt very gourmet and chic, and with prices the way they are in Japan/Tokyo, I didn't feel too bad about paying $3 for it. (I kept trying to compare it to Dairy Queen Blizzard prices..) Maybe I'll be able to find a more local-ish place that's not at the station where I can get delicious desserts for cheaper...
After enjoying my delicious cake, and staying up for a while longer because I had slept too much before, I hit the hay after a long and exhausting 48 hours. I hope you enjoyed this post! Since there weren't as many events, I was able to go more into detail about my thoughts and aspects of Japanese culture! That's probably the direction these posts will take once school gets started and I'm in more of a routine! I kind of like it better that way =) Sorry they're a little behind, by the way! There was just toooo much exhaustion to stay on schedule, but I should catch up today!
Saturday, April 5, 2008
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!
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 ladiesNow, 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!
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