Shopping here is fun^^

---

First and foremost, I'd like to apologize about the strange times in between updates- my internet connection out here is crap, so it's difficult for me to upload all the pictures for each article I write. And I don't want to publish the article without the pictures, so often I end up with a finished article just waiting for the pictures to get uploaded before I publish it where you guys can see it.

So I found out recently that actually quite a few of my Japanese friends here are interested in seeing the Death Note movies, but have yet to do so, so this will be a great time to watch movies with them^^ So, the other day, I got together with Yuka-san to watch the first Death Note movie together. This was the first time I've actually brought anybody back to the house I'm staying at, and she seemed to really like it. I've got a good view of greenery out my back window, and the side window goes out to a balcony with the view of the picture I posted earlier. She also mentioned that she thought my room was big, despite that, to my knowledge, a standard room is a 6 tatami mat room, and this one is only a 4.5 tatami mat room. Interesting. We also managed to have 2 meals together that day (well, the 2nd one was mostly ME eating, and her having coffee, since she was to eat with her father that night.. but it was incredibly nice of her to stay and visit with me whilst I ate^^) She is SO incredibly nice, we need some of her in Canada, I tells you!

Before coming to Japan, there was 1 person that, by far, I wanted to meet the most-- definately the most interesting and fun person I'd met in Japan, over the net. Well, the next day, I finally got to meet her! Her name is Miyuki (all these names confusing yet?)^^ So, on Sunday, I finally got to meet here- I was so stoked!

Shibuya is known for being one of the busiest fashion centers in Japan, particularly among young people, and also as a major nightlife area. This is also where (it's right next to the station!) the world famous "scramble crossing" intersection is. It's fscking cool! Basically, there's 3 light signals, 1 for north-south traffic, 1 for east-west traffic, and 1 for pedestrians. When the pedestrians can go, they can cross in ANY direction, including diagonally! It's crazy when the pedestrians can go! If I get a chance, I'm going to see about making a video of it with my digicam. I can't even tell you how many times I crossed that crossing tho- it's cool! On top of that, there's 3 GIANT TVs on the sides of buildings, overlooking this crossing, so you even have entertainment while you're waiting^^ I also couldn't even tell you how many broadcasting studios were in the area-- Miyuki kept pointing them out to me. And actually, on quite a few occassions, we saw people running around with cameras and microphones doing interviews of people on the street. Actually, I'm pretty confident that there was a shot or 2 of me and Miyuki walking thru the background of 1 of them. Heh. And this is where we met.

When we first met, she brought me some omiyage (souvenirs) from her trip to China back in Feb, as well as some Japanese sweets for me to eat after I got back home that night. She was also nice enough to get me some maps of the Japanese train system, which are very nice. Up until this point, the only maps I really had were ones in magazines that I had gotten from Toshi (which were incredibly useful, but a bit bulky...) We went out to eat some donburi (bowls of rice with various toppings, typically meat and veggies), and got to really have our first in depth face to face conversation. She is SUCH an incredible girl! I think Canada needs to invest in some of her^^ In case you haven't noticed, I think Canada has a serious shortage of Japanese girls ;p

Anyways, while we were out and about, she took me into a department store called "Tokyu Hands"-- from what we saw (we didn't go to EVERY floor...), there wasn't really clothing, although there was a "bags and accessories" section, but there was a lot of other cool stuff. We found a section for puzzles/games/etc, and there was a display thing where you can try out various metal puzzles- you know, take the star outta the box, that kinda deal. There was maybe a dozen of them on display, so we stood around with various other people, trying them out. In about 1/2hr I'd solved all of them, much to Miyuki's enjoyment^^ After that we looked around the puzzles a bit, since it was discovered that we both quite enjoy them, and I bought some omiyage (souvenirs) for a couple people, as well as a 960 pc 3D puzzle of the star constellations around the world. Pretty cool, and I'm still working on it. It comes with a full stand deal and everything, so when it's done, it'll actually look like a globe (but with star constellations instead of continents) Since I'd been wanting to do some clothes shopping, after Tokyu Hands, we went to look for clothes! Of course, we were in one of the fashion central areas of Japan, so everything was super fashionable/expensive^^ We didn't really have a huge amount of time, since we'd spent some shopping for puzzles and such, so all I really had time to get was a black blazer from the Gap. I really just wanted to see what the Japanese version was like, but I liked the blazer while I was there ;p For a supper thing, we went to another restaurant in the area- it looked like some kinda italian restaurant deal. We ordered a couple different types of spagetti and shared them. Actually. to date, everything we've "gone out to eat", we've shared. After dinner, we explored around and she told me a bit about the nightlife in the area- I wanna check it out someday when I'm not dragging around big bags of shopping stuffs! We went to some swedish sweets shop and shared a parfait (I'd been wanting to do this with her since shortly after meeting her online, when I saw a picture of her looking INCREDIBLY CUTE and really enjoying a parfait, in a picture!) At the end of the night, we parted ways and headed back home.

BUT! The next day, we'd planned to meet again, and did so- this time in Shinjuku! Shinjuku is a huge commercial center, and has the busiest train station in the world! (it's pretty fscking HUGE!) Supposedly, there's about 3 million people who pass thru the station every day. Also, closeby in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, and tho whole area around the station is home to a huge concentration of department stores, electronic shops, restaurants, bars, and theaters. So, our 2nd day was there- we set out shopping pretty much right away so we had more time to try on clothes and such. I found a clothing store that I LOVE- called Taka-Q .. you can think of the styles there as being formal mixed with some industrial influence. VERY cool. On the other, boring, side of the store is some straight formal stuff. I bought myself a nice long white jacket, a while dress shirt with diamond appearance links, and a pair of white pants (cargo-influenced...) with black chain on them. I'll likely go shopping there again- I like their jackets! There's a department store in the area called "OIOI", but since the Japanese word for "circle" is "marui", you're supposed to pronounce the name "maruimarui". Anyways, that store is pretty much just for girls, but Miyuki informed me that they'd apparently recently opened a mens version of it called "OIMENS" (maruimens)- 'course the first time I saw the name, I didn't know that, and said oy-mens, and she thought it was funny, so we continued to call it that all night ;p These department stores are pretty cool tho- typically 8-10 floors tall, and each floor houses maybe 6 or so different "designer" stores, each of them maybe with the floor space of 2 or 3 master bedrooms. There was one place selling a slick looking suit I wanted for just over $1000- I might consider that later, but generally most of the places in THIS particular building were just "ok".. Although I -did- buy a pair of boots I liked at Michel Klein (some fancy paris based place, I think...) We also hit some other place with manga/books, and it was there that I picked up the remaining half of the Death Note mangas. After shopping we hit up another restaurant for dinner, this time I asked her to take me to one of her favorite places- so we went to this little place for okonomiyaki (translation: I dunno.) It's apparently originally from Osaka, or that area, and looks like it's mostly formed from cabbage (used like lettuce, for us..), and various fillings such as meats, veggies, sauces, etc... and grilled on both sides so it's vaguely remeniscant of a pancake, then typically topped with some other sauce(s). I tell you, Miyuki is SO cute, they way she says oishii! (yummy!) with her mouth closed/full while eating- she also sorta shakes her hands around, and is genally just an anime character to a tee. This girl is ALWAYS smiling. You have no idea- ALWAYS. I've -never- met somebody like this before- it's amazing how she can manage it, but I love it! At the end of the night, we again went our seperate ways home. What a great time I always have with that girl^^

Another cool thing about Shibuya, is the Hachiko dog statue. It's a popular meeting location for people. TOO popular. I went there to meet Eriko the next day, and there was literally 100 - 150 people waiting there for their various meeting companions. But I eventually met her and we got away from the crowd to go shopping some more, and look around. First we went to eat, tho. We hit up a restaurant that focuses mostly on okinawa (southernmost Japanese island, usually associated with summer vacations because of the beaches and such) foods, and I got to try all sorts of fun things. Like Yofuya (I think it was called), which was basically tofu made into a cheese. You can think of it as a slightly less powerful blue cheese, and a bit more tasty. I quite enjoyed it. We also got "sea grapes" which are apparently only available in Okinawa. They're like SUPER tiny grapes on little vines about 2 inches long. Each grape was MAYBE 1 or 2 mm diameter. Actually, that's a bit big- maybe 1 mm. After eating, we mostly looked around at girl shopping areas, which was fine with me, cause I actually kinda enjoy that sometimes- Eriko was thinking about buying another suit for work, so we stopped at one of her fav places for her to try on 1 or 2- she looked pretty yummy in them- I love a girl in a suit^^ We also looked thru a couple of department stores- one of which was really cool cause up on like the 7th floor was a walkway (no windows, so you couldn't see out, but it was labelled as such) to the next building, which was the men's building. Neither of us really bought very much, but we still had a great time, so it was all worth it. We were passively looking for a cosplay store for her to buy some kinky kinda cosplay outfits (hey- I'm not complaining!) but we didn't really find anything- although a day or 2 later, I did, so I'l have to tell her about it) At the end of the night, we went to the "Wired Cafe" which basically looked like the internet cafes back home- a mini restaurant that served some basic (typically coffee based) drinks, some desserts, and some simple foods, and had a few computers you could pay to use. But we went for dessert, and ordered some of the fancier looking stuff for dessert. Yum!

Sometime in my travels, I happened upon some other gaijin in a train (unheard of ! haha- joking), and as it turned out they were a couple of Mormon missionaries (I don't suspect it goes well in Japan...), but they were very cool, and quite open minded to my viewpoints and thoughts, so we agreed to meet again someday and exchanged numbers. Well, that day was last wednesday. We met up in Yokosuka-chuo station and went out to this curry restaurant that they enjoy there- and it was really freakin' cool! They have this "create your own curry" thing, where you can choose various (typically only 1) food things, such as pork, chicken, beef (all cooked in various ways..), cheese, different types of veggies, etc... choose your rice portion, and then choose your "spice level". They both ate "normal" level 2 spice levels, and I ordered a level 5. I think I can easily go to 7 or so next time, then from there, I'll probably take it 1 step at a time. I got the cheese curry, and it was SO good! But the problem is that the longer you take to eat it, the harder it gets to eat, because all the cheese is melting and making it gooey and hard to pick apart, hahaha! Afterwards, they took me back to their church, and after they assured me that I wouldn't be instantly immolated upon stepping foot inside, we went inside and played some ping pong. I haven't seriously played any like... ever. But I kicked both of their butts pretty well, so I felt pretty good about it. After that, they had some work to do or something, so we had to part ways, but I'd like to hang out with them again sometime.

So, originally I had no plans for the next day, but Mayumi unexpectedly got ahold of me and asked me if I was available, so I guess I lucked out there-- Yay! Mayumi time! We headed out for that amusement park again, since it was early, so we could see about getting on the ferris wheel, but unfortunately, there was some "special holiday" for the amusement park ONLY ON THAT DAY, so it was closed. Talk about bad timing>< So in the end, we didn't really end up doing much more than going out to eat, then out again after seeing the closed amusement park, to eat dessert. Which was actually quite good. Just unfortunate that that's all we really got a chance to do. But we did manage to both learn some new words in each other's languages^^ I learned kanansha (ferris wheel), and some of the words used to describe the trains that I had previously learned, but forgotten (and mostly forgotten again hehe)

Friday was going to be a mostly free day, but Toshi had been trying to get me out to dinner since he felt he owed me one (because I had proofread some english paper thing he was working on for work...), so we managed to sorta get together for that. It was more like, I was out browsing the stores around Yokohama station (bought some more CDs...) and went out to eat, and he came out and met me after I'd eaten, then ordered food of his own. After that, we managed to hang out a bit, and actually mostly just walked around- at that point, we decided to finally check out what the internet cafes were like in Japan! These things are cool here! The particular one we went to was 4 floors high (or 5? Can't remember...), the basic idea was that you'd either pay by the hour (like $3.25/hr), or get an hour package (like $7.50/3hrs), or get a night package (about $10/5hrs). Once you bought your package, if you went over your time, you had to pay another $1.25 or so per 15 mins. Once inside, they had a HUGE collection of manga (including the adult ones!) that you can collect as many as you want to take with you, and you can also grab some DVD cases to trade in at the front counter for the actual DVDs (and a PS2 controller..). Farther into the building is a drink bar (1 on each floor), where you have access to unlimited drinks, coffees, teas, fruit juices, and pops are all available there. Oh, AND miso soup (yay!) Unless you bought the "pairs" package, you were just paying for 1 cubicle, and each cubicle (it's literally a cubicle, but with high enough walls that even _I_ couldn't see over them) has a PS2 (for DVDs..), a TV, a computer, and a comfy office chair and footstool. Also big earphones you can plug into either the computer or the TV, and a high speed internet connection. Each computer has some popular online games installed already, like LineageII, Ragnarok Online, etc, as well as popular office applications like word processors, spreadsheet programs.. So I got a DVD and a manga, and headed into my cubicle with a cup of miso soup and a cup of Calpis (it looks like carbonated skim milk, but tastes sorta like a fruity pop. The name's kinda disturbing since when Japanese say it, it sounds like they're saying "Cow Piss" hahaha, makes it sound tasty ne?) After watching my movie, and bragging online to my friends about how cool the internet cafes are here, I read my manga and went to sleep in the comfy reclining chair. Toshi did something similar, but I think he got to sleep sooner than me. We managed to wake up only 15 minutes after our paid for 5hrs, and by the time we got to the front desk, we had to pay for 30 minutes extra- not bad, I'd say.

That day, Toshi had plans to meet a friend of his, so I headed back to Yokosuka to freshen up a bit, and try to convert my new CDs into MP3s for my ipod. I got some of them before I realized I was running late for my plans that day, which was to meet up with Miyuki again and take her out to meet Toshi for a party on his boat with some other friends of his! So, off I ran with all but 2 CDs converted onto my ipod, to meet Miyuki once again, this time in Shinagawa. The cool thing about the trains in Tokyo, is that there's 1 particular train line, the Yamanote line, that runs in a circle inside of tokyo. It hits all the major places you'd wanna go there as well- Shibuya, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Harajuku, Ikebukero, Akihabara, etc.. One such location it also hits is Shinagawa, which is one of the busiest stations in Japan, and happens to be the closest station on the Yamanote line, to where I'm staying. This station is the station that Miyuki and I met at this time, since ultimately we were heading for a place in tokyo, I decided it would be pointless for her to leave the tokyo area just to meet me. So we hooked up in Shinagawa, and since I was running late, we quickly made a mad dash for the next train we needed, to get going in the right direction. We eventually got to the station we were going to meet Toshi at, but since we were running late, thru email it was decided that he would scurry on ahead and untie the boat and get it otherwise prepared for running, meaning I had to mostly get directions from him thru email, on how to get there. That was fun^^ We finally got to the correct location, and he sent out his other friend, Dan (from England, I think...) to meet us and show us the last leg of our journey- whilst Dan was on his way to meet us, we ran off to the liquor store (read: Supermarket) and grabbed something to drink. Go figure, after we return and meet up with Dan, DAN'S friends were off at the liquor store! So we had to wait around for them this time. I guess _I_ wasn't the only one who was late, so I didn't feel TOO bad about that. I only get half the blame, hehe ;p Once we finally managed to get everybody to the boat who was supposed to be, we all quickly introduced ourselves to each other, since, for the most part, nobody knew each other.. We had Toshi, some friend of his (I think he knew him from boating...), Toshi's English friend Dan, and a buncha friends of Dan's-- 2 or 3 other guys, and 3 Japanese girls, some of whom were dating some of the guys, and then myself and Miyuki. It was a pretty full boat, on the outside. But there was still plenty of room for people downstairs if we had wanted to bring more along hehe^^ Miyuki had never been on a boat before, so this was all a huge experience for her- and out of everybody I know, this girl smiles BY FAR the most! She never stopped smiling this whole trip, she's so cute! And you should've seen the smile on her face when Toshi allowed HER to drive! This girl has the EPITOME of an anime smile, no word of a lie. And I have pictures to prove it (this girl loves to take pictures with me, which is fine by me!) Once we got ourselves outta the area filled with commercial craft and whatnot, we could open up the motors and go full speed, and (if this is even possible) Miyuki's smile got even BIGGER. She was having such a great time! What a fun girl^^ She'd brought her digicam along, and good thing too- I pointed out disneyland, and she took a picture of the castle, and she took some pictures of a flock of seagulls (not the band!) that we disturbed by boating right into them while they were sitting on the water ;p She also took various landscape photos, and a whole bunch of myself and her-- she's so fun to just generally BE WITH. She gives off so much excitement and good energy^^ There was a few times that she wanted to take a picture somewhere, but the boat was really going, and there was no way she could stand without holding something and take a picture, so I held up her (pretty much by just hugging her really tight) so she could stay standing long enough to take a shot or 2^^

Part of the reason for taking the boat out was that Toshi wanted to get it to the Yokohama marina from where it was moored in Tokyo (about 1.5hrs by boat)- cause apparently that's where he wants it during the summer. He just decided to make a bit of a party outta it by bringing everybody along instead of just having a boring trip. Good choice Toshi! So after we arrived in Yokohama, unfortunately, Dan and company didn't wanna stick around to drink and such afterwards, and they all kinda wandered off on their own ways.. Whereas myself and Miyuki stuck around for some time- we went out to dinner in this cute little restaurant in the marina area (it's got this little collection of designer clothing stores/restaurants/etc right there). Interesting restaurant tho- they formally request that when you're finished eating, you bring your dishes up to the front, to make it easier on them. Not a -weird- request, but with the Japanese's dedication to service, and to giving many people pointless jobs, I'd have thought they'd have just hired somebody to go picking up the dishes, heh ;p Afterwards, we went to this little truck parked closeby, selling Crepes, and bought a couple for dessert- I love spring in Japan, strawberries are in season! *strawberry dance* Unfortunately, that day had to come to an end, as Miyuki couldn't spend the night on the boat (like the rest of us) since she had plans for the morning of the next day, back in Tokyo... zannen (unfortunate);; So, I walked her to the closest station, we said our goodbyes, and I headed back to the boat to crash for the night. Come morning, the 3 remaining of us (Toshi, myself, and his boating friend) headed out to the station together until Yokohama, where I believe we all went our seperate ways- I wanted to do a touch of shopping in Yokohama before heading back to Yokosuka, Toshi's friend had to head back home near Tokyo, and I believe Toshi had plans with somebody else that day.

---

Photos

I want a TV this big!
This is 1 of the 3 buildings overlooking the famous "scramble crossing"-- it has a HUGE TV on the side of it.

Cool building!
The entire side of this building is glass, and the hallways inside run right alongside the glass, so you can see everybody walking the hallways inside, AND you can actually see the floors in between them, thru the glass, which was kinda cool, in my opinion.

Niche market store
I saw this store when I was leaving the swedish sweets cafe with Miyuki- for all intensive purposes, it appears to sell normal clothing and whatnot, but the name would lead you to believe otherwise..

Hachiko!
This is the super-famous dog statue near the train station that is used by everybody and their dog (pardon the expression) to meet people at.

Yokohama landmark building art
The Yokohama landmark building is connection to a series of other buildings all the way up to their 2nd or 3rd floors, at the top of said connections, you can cross, uncovered from the elements, to the next building- this piece of art is on top of one of said connections between the buildings. There's actually a 2nd identical (to my eyes) piece to the left of the picture, but I couldn't get it all in 1 shot.

No holds barred!
This is a display case inside a Lego store in one of the various department stores I've gone to- it's sorta hard to tell, but there's 1 robot (with a bloody sword-arm) who's got the other robot pinned to the ground, and is ready to run the sword thru the driver. Talk about good influence on the children^^

Yokohama home
This is Toshi's actual home in Yokohama, the super expensive one. I took this picture from across the street against the fence, and still had issues getting the whole thing in. Not to mention he has a brick wall in the front of his house too><

Yokohama home part deux
Again, the same house, but I took a shot thru the archway in the brick wall, to show the dual doors. Unlike most Canadian houses like this, both doors work perfectly fine, AND go to completely seperate parts of the house! The left one leads to a landing where you can immediately go further left, or go upstairs. The right one leads to the right half of the main floor, or you can go down the hall a bit and turn left to access the hallway at the bottom of the stairs of the left half.

Artistic structures, and stuff
I was just walking around Yokosuka (city I'm staying in) with Yuka one day, exploring a little bit, and came across a playground for children, surrounded by rather large open spaces. It was pleasant to find open spaces in the middle of a Japanese city- a rare sight indeed. The park was boring, but to the right of it was this rather cool looking stone art structure, which I delibrately took while people were there, to give a sense of size.