Shinjuku & Kahimakahari, Japan

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Again, like Harajuku, we have already been to Shinjuku more than once...

The first was not too eventful, but fun nonetheless. On this first trip to Shinjuku, Larry had to drop off some paperwork for his job, so we headed out later in the afternoon by train. After about an hour ride, and taking care of Larry's work business, we were able to start wandering the streets. We did a little shopping here and then browsed through a couple of electronics stores as well. We also found my favorite bear character walking along the streets and stopped him for a few pictures. Isn't he so cute??!?

After working up an appetite shopping, we both decided it was time to start looking for a place to have dinner. We were NOT disappointed when we found the SIZZLER!! Don't get me wrong, we both love Japanese food, but it's exciting to find a good old American steakhouse every now and again too!

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On our second trip to Shinjuku, we went to spend the entire day there because we had bought tickets to see the Broadway tour of "Tommy," which was playing in Shinjuku for a couple of weeks. After arriving in the late morning and having a nice conveyor-belt sushi lunch, we once again went exploring (and yes, of course, shopping)! But shopping didn't last too long when we both realized that neither one of us had checked to see the name of the theatre that "Tommy" was playing, let alone how to get there! However, after asking a couple of random Japanese people walking down the street and showing them the "Tommy" ad in a magazine we had found, we thought we were in luck when one girl gave us very detailed directions on how to get to, what we thought was, the theatre.

So, we got on a train and headed out of Shinjuku, following our directions. But almost 45 minutes later, after arriving to a small office-looking building, we were definitely confused -- especially when our directions told us to go to "Floor 3". With no other directions at hand, we decided to check out the 3rd floor and see why we were led to this place. It all made sense (well, kind of) when we saw all of the show posters on the walls. We were given directions to the ticket office for "Tommy"!!

Well, from there we were finally given the correct directions to see "Tommy," and were very disappointed to learn that we had to head all the way back to Shinjuku! Luckily we made it back in time to see the show (which, by the way, was great)!

After the show, we met up with Tammi (one of Larry's coworkers from Angelo & Maxi's in NYC) and went out for dinner and drinks. Her husband was working on "Tommy" (small world, right?), and so it was very convenient for all of us to find eachother to go out. We went to a great little "all-u-can-eat" shabu-shabu place, which was very quaint and cozy. We all had a very nice time together and it ended up being a great way to end our long, but much enjoyed, day...

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Our travels to Kahimakahari were on a rainy day...we heard there was an outlet mall called "Garden Walk," and so we spent the majority of the day there. This also happened to be the place where the famous Chiba Marines baseball team plays...we hope to attend a game as soon as we get some nicer weather!

After shopping, Larry and I found a little mexican restaurant which we, of COURSE, had to try. The food was good, but had a little more Japanese influence than most we've had. On the walls of this restaurant were some interesting signs, particularly because most of the words on them were not spelled correctly and didn't make much sense. We got a kick out of them though, and so we took a couple pictures. While we ate, we watched a large screen tv in the restaurant that played literally EVERY single Brittany Spears' music video that ever existed! The Japanese are CRAAAA-ZY (pun intended) over Brittany!!! haha!

Love and miss you all!

Love,
Larry and Melanie

Japanese for the day: Geki wa yokatta des ka? ("Did you like the play?")

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