Leaving Tokyo - Enoshima

So, I neglected to tell this story last time, but on our way to Kawagoe, V fella sleep on the train. She was leaning on me when this giant nondescript black bug flew into the car as the doors closed. It buzzed back and forth, bouncing off all the windows, and I tracked its movements intensely. Suddenly, it flew above my head and I lost all sight of it. For the next minute or two I nervously glanced around the car trying to figure out where it had gone, when a train from the opposite direction came whooshing by and startled me quite severely. This shook V awake as well, but she fell back asleep soon after.

A similar situation happened today when we got into a packed elevator and a spider-like insect suddenly took off from the ceiling and started buzzing closer. Before it got to V's head (she couldn't see it), I smacked it away and then spent the rest of the elevator ride in a frantic, wondering where it had ended up. Moral of this story: nothing worse than unusual bugs in enclosed spaces.

The second half of our day-trip agenda was 江の島 - Enoshima . I found Enoshima while browsing potential destinations and discovering that this beachy island was small enough to cover in a day. We once again headed out later than planned. Today was a day more reminiscent of summer with temperatures in the low 80's. Really nice weather for visiting an island, actually.

Enoshima is accessible by the Odakyu Line trains which run quite regularly. You need to transfer once, but a one-way ticket costs you only 610 Yen and it takes something like 75 minutes to get there (less if catch an express train). The Enoshima train station is actually listed as one of the top 100 historical stations in Japan. I guess it's kinda cool.

I was pretty tired by the time we actually there, so I went to buy an energy drink and decided to try Ripobitan D which I had seen basically everywhere. It worked pretty well since I didn't start to crash until we took the train home that night, but it tasted like Flintstones chewable vitamins crushed into non-carbonated Red Bull...awful. For 120 Yen though, it's a fairly inexpensive way to genki yourself up.

We arrived at 2:30ish and went to the tourist center to pick up some maps and the Enopass. I had previously read about the Enopass and I'm so glad we decided to get it. It basically allows you unlimited access to the island's escalators, gardens, lighthouse, and caves. Usually, each site will cost a total of 1350 Yen, but the Enopass will only set you back 1000 Yen. More importantly you get to skip all the lines and flash your pass through like a VIP. I would pay 1000 Yen alone for this feature. I don't think many people knew about the Enopass either, making us even more balla.

You can cross to the island either by bridge or by ferry. The ferry is just a little boat which will cart you to the back of the island for something like 500 Yen. This is not a good idea; the escalators are a very convenient way for you to travel up the island and skip all the stairs. So going to the back of the island is actually all downhill, it's the way back that's rough. Hitting up all the sites one by one on foot and then ferrying back to the bridge is the better way to go.

We didn't do that cuz the ferries stop running fairly early. We basically trekked through the island and hit up all the big tourist attractions and stopped by all the shrines just to take pictures.

The first thing you see when setting foot ashore is a resort hotel and a shopping street. The resort hotel allows public admission for use of its hot springs, but we chose to forgo that today and got moving up the island. We probably didn't start up Benzaiten Shopping Street until around 3:00 PM and our objective was to hit up the Samuel Cocking Garden and the Iwaya Caves before they closed at 5.

We looked at all the trinket shops briefly but really wanted to get some random crap to eat first. The famous things to eat on the island are steamed red bean buns and tako senbei. So I don't know exactly how they make these buns or why they're so tasty, but we were heavily considering taking a bunch to go. The problem is that cooked buns just don't last so we kinda just ate them on the spot hoping we could grab more later.

A few moments later we got to the ridiculous line for tako senbei. Senbei is a type of Japanese rice cracker, usually taken with tea. Except whenever the Japanese make something dry and hard (like a cracker), they just call it a senbei. The line for tako senbei went past the front of the stand into the store next door and doubled back into the next aisle. So probably like fifty people waiting for what looked to be some labor-intensive food.

First they take octopus that's been flavored or marinated somehow. Then they bread them and place them onto the giant press. Four small octopi populate a single press, which has been oiled down on all sides.

Then they close the press and seal it shut by turning a handle to tighten the press. This results in the octopi screeching as all the moisture from within gets squeezed out. They let it fry up for a bit and then open it to seal the holes left in the process.

Then they remove the square piece, trim the edges, and cut it in half to produce two servings. Each piece costs 300 Yen and you're only allowed to buy two freshly made pieces at a time. We bought some pre-made ones to go as well.

End result is 幸せ - happiness.

Then it was onward up the slopes of the island. The first set of stairs lead you to Enoshima Shrine, where you can pay patronage to the resident deity of Enoshima, Benzaiten. Benzaiten is generally regarded as the goddess who bestows monetary fortune. But on this island at least, she has an obvious relationship to love.

We continued up a series of escalators to the top of the island where the Samuel Cocking Gardens and the lighthouse sit. The gardens were built by Englishman Cocking in 1880 when he bought a bunch of land in Japan and built the European-style garden for his wife. Evidence that even 130 years ago, Japanese women were high maintenance. OH Snap! October is the wrong month to visit this garden because none of the flowers are abloom. It's really just a small collection of shrubberies at this time of year.

Continuing down to the other half of the island we passed by dozens of stores and restaurants that litter Owaya-michi Street, which is just all the staircases to the caves. All these people clearly live on this island and make their living off of tourists. It's crazy how people actually just live there. I wonder if they have to pay to use the escalators.

There are shrines all over the island, but we just snapped quick pictures trying to get to the caves before they closed. I'm actually really glad we made it there because the views from the rear of the island are amazing. I climbed this rock to show off to V. So did that baby next to me.

We spent at least half an hour maneuvering through this side of Enoshima. It was pretty pleasant because we basically got to see the entire sunset. We also got to take a million artsy sunset pictures. Actually, I think we took 300 Mb worth of pictures today.

The caves aren't normal caves either. There are small shrine statues at every corner. Also they give you these cool candles to light your way. The cave is pretty tight and you need to watch your head, but when you get to the end you find a dragon statue with this cool story about how Benzaiten was actually a maiden on this island that was being sacrificed to the dragon. The dragon instead fell in love with her and her condition on marriage was for him to be a nice dragon. Peace and love...the end.

At this point, I think I realized how many couples there were around us. There's clearly a large draw for couples to come and pray for their love. That's why we next headed back up the dastardly stairs to the 恋人の丘 - Ryuren no Kane - Bell of Dragon's Love. On our way back I sneaked this picture of this puppy we had stalked all the way across the island. Hiii puppy!

We made our way back up all those goddamn stairs to the top of the island to get to the dragon bell. The shop at the bottom sells locks for you to write your names on and then "lock" in your love. Ahaha. The grandma selling us the lock gave us some markers to write onto the lock with, and she insisted that we draw a heart onto the lock and take a red marker...you know to draw the heart with. The heart definitely had to be in red.

So we climbed a couple more stairs and emphatically portrayed our love by smacking the crap out of that bell.

We then wrote up our lock all proper (red heart and all) and left it there for everyone to see.

The last order of business was the lighthouse which we had saved until it got dark. I must say that somehow we rushed through Enoshima a bit, but managed to schedule everything perfectly. The lighthouse has an elevator that takes people up and in said elevator is where the insect incident occurred. Otherwise, it was really pretty.

We spent most of our trip back to the front of the island petting cats. For some reason, Enoshima is known as a place where people from Tokyo come to abandon their cats. So, there are stray cats all over the place. They actually seem to be well taken care of and are all very friendly and pretty fat. There are donation boxes as well for you to help contribute to save the cats. Apparently the bigger problem is that some cats aren't neutered and can overpopulate the island if left unchecked. V was indiscriminate in her cat petting making sure that every one we saw got a turn.

Back to the shopping street we picked the most popular looking restaurant, Takoshima, and waited for thirty minutes or so for another one of Enoshima's famous foods, しらす- shirasu. Shirasu are actually just baby sardines and the way that it's served there is with ikura on top of rice.

I actually went for the set meal with all sorts of shirasu crap and V ordered the shirasu-don with salmon. We also ordered the raw shirasu sushi to try and an Enoshima Beer. I'm pretty glad we ordered just the small pieces of sushi because shirasu itself doesn't have much of a taste raw. We both thought it was better when cooked and seasoned a bit. The Enoshima Beer was some of the best beer I've had in Japan. Obviously microbrewed with sediment still in the bottle and a nice full taste.

My entire set was delicious and enormous. It basically involved everything they could possibly make out of shirasu. It was great, but I don't think I like shirasu all that much because after that meal, I am already so sick of it. V's donburi was really good too, but the ikura was actually kind of unbearably salty. This is sad since V loves ikura.

Enoshima was a ton of fun and we didn't even get to visit any of the spas or beaches. I did eat Mango-Apple ice cream though. Tasty tasty. We probably don't need to come back and see all of the sights again, but it's quite close to Tokyo. There are festivals and such which occur periodically so it would be great to come back if we are also in the area to check out Kamakura or something. Our best little excursion so far. Hooray Enoshima!

Leaving Tokyo - Kawagoe

The original plan was to take a weekend trip while V is still in town. However, it turns out Monday is a holiday and all the hotels everywhere are completely booked. Japanese people love to travel and I have never seen such a huge lack of hotel rooms in my life. Every potential destination was completely booked.

So our new plan was to take two day trips, one on Saturday and one on Monday. This turned out ok since the forecast said that it was supposed to rain all day Saturday and Sunday. Well it didn't end up raining today, but that's ok too. I still like our plan.

We woke up on Saturday and leisured in the morning until we finally hopped onto a train for Kawagoe around 1:00 PM. Kawagoe is supposed to be a throwback town where many of the "Edo" period buildings are still in tact. Essentially, it's a tourist town, but with only four or five real things to see we figured we would spend a few hours there and head back. We didn't know we could have easily spent an entire day there since there are so many random little stores.

Kawagoe's actually really convenient for us to go to as the Seibu-Shinjuku line has an express train that gets there in less than an hour and only costs 480 Yen. It actually wasn't raining too hard when we got there and we had picked up some free guidebooks in Shinjuku so we knew which way to go. It was actually a bit cold, though; V warmed up with a cup of Cocoa and we hit the road.

First guy we saw was this guy decked out in a blazer that looked like it was peeled off a couch. You can't see his front, but his tie and shirt were even crazier. Some people in Japan just dress absolutely insane and I have no idea why. It sure is interesting though.

We walked up towards the shopping district and found little shops selling antiques, dolls, and other crafts. It's hard to buy anything like that though when you're stay in Japan is only temporary. We did see this one shop that had everything that had to do with dogs. There were even couple people inside sipping coffee with their pets in a sort of dog cafe.

We got to a livelier part of town eventually and from there on out it was nonstop shops. We bought some snacks at a beans shop, went into a crafts store and bought a cute pair of bunny statues. I really don't know what it is about Kawagoe and bunnies, but there were little crafts dedicated to them all over town. I know that Japanese people like their cat statues, but I had never seen so many rabbit themed things before. It was awesome.

There was a shop with these amazing handcrafted knives. I would have given a lot of this stuff more consideration if all of it hadn't been totally unnecessary. A lot of stores also had random giant statues outside. No idea what that's about, but here's a cool hippo one:

The end of the street is highlighted by an alley area called Sweets Alley. I'm not exactly sure what the name in Japanese is, but Kawagoe is famous for sweet potatoes. And when we got there I realized I didn't know how to say sweet potatoes in Japanese either. I figured it out when I saw a picture of a sweet potato and the word "おいも" next to it. We bought sweet potato senbei, sweet potato ice cream, sweet potato beer, and a bunch of random other stuff.

You can only see the edge of it here, but the loaf of bread on the right is pretty big (maybe 3-4 feet long?). We'd seen it on TV before and so we wanted to try it, but it's way too much to eat. We'll hopefully be able to share it with other people later this week. V looked kinda French carrying it around since she had an umbrella and was wearing a cardigan with a scarf around her neck. Except it's not French bread and she's not French.

We finished up Sweets Alley and realized it was 5:00 PM. All the other sites including a temple and a museum had already closed. Kawagoe is famous for one of its gardens, and we considered trekking across to check it out. However, it had gotten colder and started to rain much harder. So, we went to look at the bell tower nearby and just decided to head home.

Not the best trip planning, but we had fun. We can come back so easily, so it didn't really feel like that big of a waste. When we got to the train station there was this incessant screeching in the entire area. I had no idea what was going on, but I realized that there was a giant flock of birds just circling the area and hanging out in this one big tree. The whole thing was pretty ominous, but it won't keep us from coming back to explore all the stuff we didn't get to see.

Also I want more sweet potato ice cream. It was way better than I thought it would be.

Woke up today and ran out the door to catch the final showing of Hanamizuki. Literally, this movie would not be in the theater after the 11:30 AM showing this morning. Surprisingly, it was basically sold out, and we had to separate to get seats for the movie. For those who don't know, movie theaters in Asia generally give you seat numbers. I sat next to these two middle school girls, one of which was sniffling and blowing her nose throughout the movie. I thought she was sick or something, but at a certain point she actually started crying. The movie was a real tearjerker, so I told her it was gonna be ok and we cried together.

No but seriously, it was a good movie. The dialogue was super simple, and there wasn't really anything we didn't understand. I'm glad we went to watch the movie even though movie theaters in Japan are super expensive. We paid 1500 Yen each with a student discount. Also, the cheapest showings are actually the ones late at night since a lot of people can't stay to watch a movie lest they miss their train.

We walked home from there and passed a Shinjuku artists festival with people doing puppet shows, magic shows, and all sorts of other stuff. We passed by this guy who had a magic routine timed to music, but he didn't do anything for the two minutes we watched him. He danced for two seconds and then went into a pose waiting for the next song to cue him. I commented to V that if this was America, someone would have shouted, "You suck!" by now. I miss home.

Girl's Night Out

Every night out is a girl's night out here. I only hang out with girls...also, I can't sing in Japanese. Not yet anyway. I can't believe how long it's been since I went to karaoke. My range was minimal and my throat hurts way more than it should. I should have plenty of chances to practice though. V on the other hand breaks out into song on a regular basis: God Bless America.

No seriously, we miss the US and our house in Chicago. We had it pretty good back there. I've always thought about moving to somewhere in Asia for a couple of years before relocating back to the States for good, but I'm starting to reassess that thought. I had no idea how much I would actually miss home (albeit not as much as V). Is it sad that one of the people we miss them most is Andre, our go to rep at Bloomingdales? Yes it is sad. We cry daily.

Although realistically, I would only move to Asia if I could leverage my degree into a ridiculous salary. In which case, living in Japan would not be much of a problem. Then again, living anywhere isn't much of a problem if you're rich. Hmmm.

Last night was Okinawan food at Maruhachi in Shibuya and karaoke afterwards. Let's congratulate Miwa and Izumi for achieving initial status: M and Iz (cuz I might get confusing - i.e. "I was happy." So dinner was with M and D, and we met up with Iz later.

Okinawan food was really good. It's some kind of weird fusion between more traditional Japanese, Polynesian, and Hawaiian foods. We had slabs of bacon, fatty salmon, taco rice (above: like a taco salad with rice), a salmon salad, fish cakes, and a whole bunch of other things. There were only four of us, and we ended up with a pretty hefty bill cuz M wouldn't stop ordering food!

We had some pretty strange things as well, such as fried chicken cartilage. I had a really good time with all the veggies though. I can't remember the last time I had a fresh tomato. I pretty much single-handedly killed off the bean-sprouts.

Look at my Asian eyes. M took the bacon to school.

We somehow managed to finish every single dish because I split up the last piece of salmon and force fed everyone.

Then it was on to karaoke!

Iz met up with us and while V, M and I went inside, Iz and D hit up the nearest combini for some alcohol to sneak in. Karaoke was pretty solid; I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find pretty much any song I want to find.

We had a very healthy mix of songs. I sang the only Korean song I know well enough to try; the girls contributed a number of Japanese tunes I had and had not heard before. M and Iz work pretty well together, and M is a good rapper. They could probably start a group or something. I think the American songs were probably the most entertaining. We had Stacy's Mom by Fountains of Wayne, Low by Flo Rida, and Sometimes by Britney Spears. I heard through the grapevine that Iz wanted some more embarrassing songs, but I'm not sure how much more embarrassing you can get. Near the end, D put in A Whole New World, and I duetted that with her. It's pretty crazy that I used be able to do that with Jieun and now I don't have the range for that anymore. V thinks it's cuz I've matured in which case I can't complain, can I? Did I mention that D serenaded M with some Boyz 2 Men? "I'll make love to you~~."

Iz sang the song from the movie Hanamizuki which reignited V's desire to watch that movie. So we'll probably go do that this weekend. For M and Iz's reference, the two Japanese songs I failed miserably on were Sakanaction - Aruku Around and Base Ball Bear - Aishiteru. V also input Yuko Sasaki - Pure Snow, but we couldn't do that either. It was fun, but I feel like I need to step up my game. Is that weird? Before I'm done with my time here, I will be able to sing all of these.

Didn't do much today, but we did head back to Okubo to do some household crap shopping. I think I've talked about Donkihote before without any pictures.

We've been to the one in Kabuki-cho but this one is still way crazier. Sure the other one was more densely packed, but the sheer volume of the Okubo Donkihote is ridiculous. The inside looks like this:

And goes like this for miles. Well it feels like miles. Today I saw a Pikachu costume for 4000 Yen and really wanted to buy it. Is it weird to be Pikachu to be Halloween? V and I were Misty and Ash last year... Is 4000 Yen too much for something I'll only wear once? Maybe I can just wear it in Yoyogi Park on weekends.

I had been craving ramen, and although I had Ippudo the other day, it didn't quite fulfill me. Menya Musashi was definitely fulfilling.

We're lucky enough to have the original location within a few blocks of us, and although the line was a good ten people long, we got seated within 15 minutes or so. Menya Musashi is probably the most expensive ramen we've had at 1000 Yen per bowl, but damn it was good. The normal broth has a very distinct bonito flavor that was just ok, but the miso ramen was とても美味しい.


It starts off really heavy, and for sure, it's super rich from start to finish. However, the flavor grew on me and by the time I was done, I was super full yet kind of sad that it was over. I think part of the draw of Musashi is the giant cuts of pork belly, also very delicious. I don't think I've ever managed to eat ramen without breaking into a sweat. We have at least three other ramen places on our street we need to try, but we'll be back to Musashi sometime for sure.

We rushed through dinner a bit because I wanted to get to a school get together. There was a meeting at a wine bar in Takadanobaba that one of the French students had organized (typical). It was good to make friends with some other people (Sorry girls!). I'm in business school after all; I should get to know my classmates. The best part of the experience was the discovery of Japanese wine.

I didn't actually know they make wine in Japan. There are actually grapes specific to Japan as well. This requires some "research."

P.S. I bought this pudding from Sunkus on our way home yesterday. It was delicious. I regret not buying it today.

University Life in Tokyo

Well, quite frankly I don't have much of one. I spend Tuesday-Thursday on campus, and pretty much attend classes, then head home. I did go to the gym for the first time today. It was a fairly small facility with an annoying lack of weights. What's the point of having four benches if you only have enough weights for two of them?

I kept unknowingly stealing weights from the Barbell Club. Those guys were the only ones in the gym who were really ripped (except one white kid), and for some reason, they were also all really tanned. I was a little surprised that I didn't see any Koreans in there. Japanese and Koreans both really care how they look, but most Japanese guys go for the skinny fashionable look. This makes it very difficult to figure out who's gay.

I mean there are the gay guys who are just super homosexual, but all the borderline gay people just kind of blend together. Korean guys tone down the gayness a bit but also care more about how they look naked. Difficulty in differentiating gay guys: Japan > Korea > Taiwan (super easy to figure it out in Taiwan). Overall fitness: Taiwan > Korea > Japan (I feel like there are a few more fat people in Korea too though). Muscle mass: Korea > Taiwan > Japan. I'm short and a surprising amount of Japanese guys are pretty tall, but I fear nothing here because I could veritably break any opponent.

I digress...was surprised not to see more Koreans in the gym. Had myself a decent workout, but I'm not sure how much I really need it. I feel like I'm wasting away here in Japan; I haven't been trying to lose weight at all, but the combination of biking to school and eating here has dropped me to 62.8 kg or 138 lbs. I don't eat anything that can really help me gain muscle mass. I've only been here for a month and remember a solid week of that was eating and drinking as much as I could...ugh.

The majority of my classes are in these oddly shaped rooms. The professor sits in the middle with the AV equipment and everyone else just sits in a circle around him. Whatever works.

I've almost finished deciding all my classes, but I have this strange predicament where I need to balance the course content with the professor's English speaking ability. Well regardless, I plan to thoroughly enjoy never having any work to do. Some of my classmates spend a decent amount of time in the library, but I have absolutely no idea what the hell they do there. I'm gonna go back to Chicago and suffer greatly when I have to return to multiple case studies a week per class.

There are some things about school that make you appreciate how uniquely Japanese things are. There's actually a shrine on campus, and I headed up there today led by a bunch of lit lanterns.

In my head, I was thinking, "Matsuri!" Alas, it was only a used books sale. Still it was my first time in the shrine and with the nice weather the atmosphere was quite calming.

Dinner was ramen in Takadanobaba with classmates Wei and Micah. Went to Ippudo for the first time and ate the spicy ramen (although V tells me that the white ramen is what's famous there). Wei and I both went for the second highest spiciness. It didn't disappoint. My tongue could handle the heat, but my nose wouldn't stop running. Nothing I can't handle, but in retrospect, it was probably a bad idea since the ramen is crushing my insides as we speak. I can't wait til it exits in all its flaming fury. That's right. I said it.

D is back in town and we have plans for karaoke on Thursday! Time to find out if I can sing in Japanese...I can't.

Gotta find me some matsuri somewhere, now. Feelin festive.

French Date in Tokyo

Took V on a date today to Iidabashi to try out how the Japanese do French cuisine. Our original plans for lunch got trashed since we woke up too late, but we quickly recovered for dinner plans.

The Kagurazaka area is home to a decent French population due to the presence of multiple French academies, and with the French comes French food. As far as I can tell Kagurazaka is actually closer to Iidabashi Station rather than Kagurazaka Station for some reason. I did a little research, found a place heralded for its value, called Tokyo Paris Shokudo in the early afternoon and successfully made a reservation for 8 PM (*pat on the back). Shokudo actually is in Iidabashi rather than Kagurazaka, so we might have to head back sometime to check out if there are any patisseries in the area.

V and I both dressed up a bit just in case (well actually I told her to dress up cuz the whole thing was a secret), but when we got there we found a cozy shop low on decor and fancy-pants-ness in general. I realized that putting on a shirt and tie in Japan just makes me look like I came from work in Tokyo. In the US, most people don't wear a tie, but it's totally common practice here. Not sure what I can do about this. I think I need to find another outfit for a nice dinner.

Either way, we totally didn't need to dress up for Shokudo. The crowd was mostly Japanese, the tables were laminate, the tableware a little overused, and the napkins paper. It did make for a nice and cozy bistro feel, but for all the atmosphere would it deliver on taste?

The menu choices were available only in sets; the smaller set included an appetizer, entree, and dessert and cost 2800 Yen. This was more than enough food for us, and there were plenty of choices in terms of appetizers and entrees. We had a lot of difficulty making our way around the menu as it was handwritten. V had difficulty reading the kanji and I had difficulty reading the kana. Shoot, I even had difficulty reading the French.

Interesting side-note: anyone who has experience ordering French knows that les entrees are actually the appetizers and les plats are the entrees. When you talk to each other in English, this can get very confusing, and V and I had a disjointed conversation about what to order because of this.

We figured out what everything was eventually and I ordered the fish of the day and the smoked duck breast for myself and the lamb as well as a smoked salmon mille crepe for V. I'm not sure why I decided to get smoked duck breast since I don't really enjoy it that much. Pretty good this time but I probably wouldn't order it again. The smoked salmon mille crepe was actually really good. Layered pastry with cream cheese and smoked salmon...yep, delicious. The lamb was topped with a basil sauce and was unfortunately overcooked a bit and quite tough. My fish was prepared classically with a butter sauce. The Thai fish that was used had a fishiness similar to mackerel, and I didn't really feel like it fit the dish well.

Overall dinner was good and worth 2800 Yen, but certainly not good enough to bring us back anytime soon. I was hoping for something a little better, but now I'm left with this feeling of whether or not I can trust the Japanese to do French food. We still have some exploring to do, but do we really have the resources to hunt down the good eats? Do we have the money to keep experimenting? More dates?

We Buy Crap

We set aside a couple of days to actually try to shop in Tokyo. Things have been expensive in general, and both V and I have fairly Western tastes in clothes. However, while I'm out here, I plan to make an effort to shop Japanese and we did manage to check out some Japanese boutiques yesterday in Harajuku.

Takeshita-dori was bustling as usual. I had the opportunity to snag a good pic, so there you go. It may seem like we've been hanging out in the high-schoolers area a lot, but it has the closest Daiso to us, so we don't really have a choice. Daiso wasn't our objective today though; if you continue down Takeshita-dori and then cross Meiji-dori, you can get to a boutiquey section North of Omotesando without the high-schoolers.

On the way there, we stopped by McDonald's to grab a bite. The Japanese call McDonald's simply "Mac." I supposed it makes sense cuz the katakana is pretty unnecessarily complicated: マクドナルド. A friend of ours, Laura, had told us to try the ebi-filet, and so we decided to check it out.

Have to admit, it was tasty. V said yesterday that it was good, but she wouldn't go back to Mac just to get it. She's a liar cuz all day today she's been talking about how she wants to go get an ebi-filet.

It took us a little while to cross Meiji-dori because in addition to the kids, there were all these random old tourists. It bothers me that I'm trying to walk down this street, and there are these old people leisurely walking in a horizontal pattern and taking in the sights. I understand that you're tourists, but don't block off half the street with your uselessness!

The other side of Takeshita-dori is pretty interesting. The stores in this area seem to have three central themes: hip-hop, outdoors, or surf. Other than those lines of fashion, there isn't anything else really out there. We did find an APC Underground tucked away in a corner. We were running a little short on time, so I think we need to go back to check out all the nooks and crannies, but for the most part, not too much luck. On Cat Street, I trekked all they way down to the end around Shibuya where there's a Momotaro Jeans.

I've been eying this store for a while as it just seemed really interesting. I'll get a picture of it up eventually. Not sure to say if it disappointed or not. It's basically a premium denim store with some really nice cuts of jeans. So now I really wanna buy a pair, but they're also really expensive...bahhh.

Back in Shinjuku, we checked out this little alley of food that we always walk by. The majority of the restaurants inside are some sort of yakitori, and we picked one earlier that had looked really good. They had been grilling up some enoki mushrooms wrapped in bacon, but when we ordered we found that those were already sold out. Let's face it though, it's not hard to wrap mushrooms in bacon.

Ended up ordering some shiitake and various parts of a chicken (heart, liver, kidney...). It was pretty good, but I still can't say I really enjoy liver. The two people sitting next to us started to chat us up. Everybody had been calling the old man at the end of the bar, "Sachou" - Chief. He initiated the conversation by guessing that I was Korean. First time ever someone has thought I looked Korean. This OL, Office Lady, was actually Chinese and I think that the owners of the establishment were actually Chinese as well. The owner kept trying to talk to me in Chinese and we probably would've been better off if V just talked to her, but instead we roughed it out in Japanese.

I think that the alley is meant for people to go, drink, and eat random crap. There's a tempura soba place that looked really really good that I wanna go back and try sometime.

We didn't go to sleep as early as we should have because we were supposed to wake up early to catch the bus to Gotemba Premium Outlets. The best outlet mall in Japan is a 100-minute ride out of Shinjuku Station. Getting there and back is actually pretty convenient. Unfortunately, actually buying the tickets is a huge pain in the ass.

What is the point of having a website if it's closed between 1 AM and 5 AM? Who closes a website? V figured out how to reserve the tickets and we woke up at 9 AM to try to figure out how to actually get our tickets. People say that New York never sleeps, but every city sleeps on Sunday morning. Doesn't matter where you are; unless you're in a neighborhood with a lot of old people, the city is always dead on Sunday morning.

One problem with Japan is that it's really really convenient to use your cell phone and convenience store to take care of a lot of business, but really inconvenient to figure out how to do it the first time. This stuff is not that natural and everybody just assumes that it's easy. We had a hard time using wireless at a coffee shop for the same reason. At a convenience store, I can basically pay for all my bills, but I've been avoiding it because it's gonna be a pain to figure out how to do it.

One thing I really miss about the US is how everything is online. I can pay all my bills online. If I wanted to, I could even automate the payments so that I would never really have to bother looking at my bills. I logged onto google.co.jp hoping to do some research via google shopping. No such thing.

As far as I can tell there just aren't that many online retailers in Japan. I was looking for Timberlands online and found like three stores. In the US I could spend hours clicking through every single link. I guess you could say I miss online shopping.

That was one of our main reasons for going to Gotemba anyway; I wanted to get some boots for the rain. We managed to put our tickets on our cell phone and just showed that to the bus driver; then, we were on our way.

Gotemba Premium Outlets is kind of out in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sure why they decided to build it all the way out in the boonies, nestled in mountains, but it does make the place fairly scenic. V said it reminded her of Ithaca, and I have to say that's a spot-on comparison.

The bus left at 10:40 AM and arrived after noon. Our ride back left at 5:00 PM and arrived after 7:00 PM. But Gotemba is big enough to amply fill those 4.5 hours. There are two stores in particular called United Arrows and Beams that were kind of overwhelming. They're just packed to the brim with clothes and people. Somehow we navigated the mess; V left Beams with a skirt and I got a vest at United Arrows. Yay, a vest!

The weather reports for Gotemba had been improving all day, and when we first arrived at the mall, we were disappointed that it was too cloudy to get a clear view of Mt. Fuji. Luckily, they did clear enough before we left to take this one:

きれい～。　Bought a couple of other things and passed out on the bus back. I had plans to go to a fashion show with one of my classmates and so we booked it home. A friend of his from California was showcasing a line in Shibuya. I wasn't sure if this was going to be a legit show, or one of those club fashion events. It ended up being closer to the latter, but something else altogether.

The venue was this place called Vuenos Tokyo off Dogenzaka. On my way there the area started to seem pretty familiar because we had considered an apartment around here. It's a good thing we didn't end up here because I got followed for half a block by three different guys trying to sell me unsavory services.

These guys just hang out on the street and try to take you into fairly discretely marked stores and before you know it you're having sex with Japanese prostitutes and being robbed!

I arrived a little late and by the time I made it in, the first act, a female beat-boxer, was in full swing. She brought out a dancer, and the two performed a pretty creative routine. The fashion show was next and it turned out to really be a show. Actually, the whole thing was pretty sweet. Models basically danced on the stage showcasing the line and I was kind of interested in some of the crazy pieces.

After that, I have no idea what happened, but it turned into a dance competition. Dance troupe after dance troupe came out on stage and performed for the crowd. Some of them were actually really good, but people were sitting down watching them and nobody was drinking. I'm pretty sure everyone there was just a friend of someone performing and the club made money on a Sunday night by charging cover to people who wanted to watch a dance-off.

I left after a while completely exhausted and never met up with my friend. A lot of Japanese clubs don't seem to get cell phone service. It's pretty annoying and he didn't manage to reach me until I was back in Shinjuku. Not that it mattered because I actually have homework due by tomorrow morning that I still haven't done. I should probably do that...