craziness!

On Thursday, I made my first trip to Harajuku. There are so many stores and so many young people. Some of them look quite interesting. There are stores for just about every style there. The lolita/goth style stores kind of freaked me out a bit. There was a Johnny's Jr. Entertainment store that we were going to go see, but you had to get a ticket to wait in line. We got there around 4 and the tickets weren't good until 5:30. I couldn't believe it. From the outside, the store didn't look like anything special, it just had a bunch of goods of singers and talents in the entertainment company. After that, we walked over to Omotesando Hills, which wasn't very far but walking just a few blocks made a huge difference in social/economic class. We all felt grossly underdressed. The mall was filled with stores we could never easily afford...and we weren't allowed to take pictures. Unfortunately, I missed going to the Bape Cafe, but I'll probably make another trip out there to shop, so that'll be on my list of places to visit. (Below: Jameson and the funny Engrish window. We couldn't figure out what they sell.)


On Friday I ran into a bunch of EAP kids going to ICU for fall quarter. They just moved into the Weekly Mansion a few days ago. We went to eat and drink with a couple of them. They showed us to this dart bar that's really close by, but it ended up being sort of expensive. I played darts with Alex, Jason, and Aya. Aya and I had never really played before, so it was probably really amusing for everyone there to watch us, but it was fun. (My team won. =D) It was a nice laid back Friday night thing to do since everyone else had gone out to nomihoudai (all you can drink) or clubbing.


Yesterday was crazy. Just crazy. Half of our class went over to Jae's apartment. (He's also in our class but doesn't live in Weekly Mansion.) It took us a little while to figure out how to get there, but when we did Jae treated us all to Korean food and soju, which was yummy. (The above picture is before everything started.) Angie and Schroder ended up going home early, but Michael, Hank and I decided to stay longer. Michael and Jae got into some really crazy conversations and I learned a lot about everyone. After listening to people's life experiences and attitudes toward life, I actually think it changed some of the way I think. I don't want to duplicate all those life stories here, but it was amazing what these people have gone through...it makes me sort of feel childish and unexperienced on one hand and extremely blessed and grateful on the other. We missed the last train back to Kameido and ended up staying there until 5:00am or so. Then we caught the early train back. I got back around 6:15am. On the way back, we were crossing (the almost completely deserted) street, and we saw the Tokyo Tower. (This is the after picture.) From the middle of the street, it made a really great shot. Japan at 5:00am in the morning is so refreshing. It feels entirely different from when everyone is out and about. I know that staying out that long probably wasn't good for my sleeping schedule or for all the stuff I have to get done by tomorrow, but in some ways I think it was probably for the better.

So after sleeping until around 2 (and consequently ignoring all phone calls and emails during that time) I decided to try to catch Yuhki before he went back to Tochigi. I thought I was just going to sleep through the rest of the day, but I woke up just in time to go to Shinjuku and meet him and his girlfriend (who make a very, very cute couple) for dinner. It was really nice to be able to talk to someone who knew people and things from home. It's been well over a year, so I was happy. =D Now I have to write my 3rd speech, memorize my 2nd one, and study for my kanji quiz and chapter test. Whoo! 6:30am and I'm off to a sumo stall! Man, I'm going to be tired. (Wish me luck...)