I spy with my little eye...

Guess who I saw this weekend, guys?!?!?



BAM. UVA KIDS BE TAKIN' OVER JAPAN.

 So for those of you who don't know, these are my friends from UVA. It's crazy, I went to Japan, they went to Japan, and then we were in Japan TOGETHER. Scary how that happened, I know.

Since they were staying in the Tokyo area for a few days, I hung out with them for pretty much the whole weekend. Fun times! Unfortunately, though, they flew in the same time when the "typhoon" (it was a pretty sissy typhoon, but I'm not complaining too much haha) was rolling in, so it was a pretty wet and gross Saturday. The first 2/3 of Sunday were beautiful though! So all in all, I guess it was a 2/3 gross and 1/3 beautiful weekend, ahaha. If you think my math is wrong, then you are wrong and should leave the math-ing to me, thank you very much. XD

            Dark, dank, and damp...                                                                           Gooooorgeous day!

Anyway, friends! I have friends! And they are in Japan! And I am in Japan! But one small problem. None of us had cell phones to use in Japan. How would we meet up then? None of us were familiar enough with Japan to know what a unique location to pick would be, let alone how to get there ourselves. Not only that, but our travel depended on the train, so what if one of us missed the train? Or missed our transfer? Or got lost? How would we let the other side know if we would be late or not? First world problems, haha. So we did it the ol' fashioned way. Picked a time and a station to meet at and said "Ok, let's look for each other around the West exit". Sounds nerve-wracking, right? Not only that, but when I finally found my way to the station, I stepped out of the train onto the platform with signs pointing towards the stairs only to realize that there was no West exit. Just North and South. Fhuuu, good thing Watt had a good eye and somehow managed to pinpoint me out of the crowd lol.

Oh yes, I forgot to say, but we decided to meet up in Nakano. I'd never heard of it before, so I wondered what was there, but apparently there's this huge mall-like building that's officially called the "Nakano Broadway Building" and unofficially called "The Otaku Building". As soon as we take a step inside, it's immediately apparent why it earned that unofficial name....

Figures everywhere! Keychains galore! Rows upon rows upon rows of manga and art books! Stacks and stacks of DVDs and CDs! Merch from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling, from old to new! There were all kinds of wonderful and terrifying things there, but I'll just show you this one.

Would you look at how stinkin' cute this is?! Ok, so I think maybe only a pinch (not even a handful) of you would get this/agree here, but that's ok. Just agree with me and move on...

We spent maybe an hour and a half in that building? And that was only on 2 floors too! Don't even know how many more there are. Alena and I had to dash behind Watt the whole time, following his excitedly rushed pace as he, wide eyes gleaming with wonder and joy, magically transported from store to store.

After we finally pried Watt away from the building, Watt's sister's friend (who lives in Japan and is rather extremely fluent in the language too) took us to Shinjuku and showed us to a nice little restaurant that was sneakily hidden beneath a building. Sneaky, I say, sneaky! With his bargaining prowess (he basically asked the waiter "Can you give a lower price?" and boom!), he got us in at a discount. He was also kind enough to help us order our food, since we didn't know much Japanese, and the waiters didn't know much English. Here's what I got.


Eel Rice Bowl! Also, some kind of little side salad and a kettle of hot broth? We had no idea what the broth was for.

 After dinner, that was pretty much it for that day. It was wet and getting chilly, and I could literally feel my feet sloshing and swimming around in my shoes, that's how much water was in there. Anyway, so we start heading back to our respective places, and we make an appointment to meet at a different station/place for the next day. Now that we're more experienced, we know to make a contingency plan! Ok, meet at the North exit, but if there is no North exit, then go to the West exit! If there are all 4, North takes priority, so go there!



The next day, when I got off the train at the station we were to meet at, I go looking for the signs that point out what exits there are and which way to them. And I see.... Central Exit, South Exit, and New South Exit. What the heck?!? This place not only has neither North nor West, it has *two* South exits... for what reason?? In addition to this madness, this station looks like it's significantly larger than the other stations I've been to. So if they're not at one gate, I'll hafta cross the whole terminal again (which took like 8 minutes of walking. SO LONG, I KNOWWW) and it seemed there were exits on both the upper and lower floors. Ahhhh! Luckily, as I start heading out to the more main area, I see other signs pointing to a West exit. YESSSS, saved! So I made it to the right exit and found them waiting there for me.

Now, its a beautiful Sunday, and we're in Shibuya, a shopping district of sorts. This means that it is insaaaanely crowded. So many people everywhere! Now it's time to go out and follow our touristing ways! We pretty much just walk around and look at all the shops, pointing at weird things that we don't see in the U.S. Oh, but look what else we found there!

Kazam and bam! A (Tokyo) Disney store!
Side note: I still feel a bit awkward doing typical-Asian picture pose. Need more practice.

So anyhow, Shibuya was a cool place to see. I don't think I would go there again though, because it's mostly just shopping and pricey shopping at that. For the most part, we just walked around and debated off and on whether we should eat there or eat at our next destination, Ebisu. We finally decide to wait til later since mostly everyone didn't even feel hungry yet (I, as always seems the case, was rather hungry tho lol). And in order to promote our appetite, we decided to walk to Ebisu too! (read: we didn't want to pay for another ticket to go to a place that was literally one station away. Yaaay, we're Asian! XD)

The walk to Ebisu was maybe about 25-35 minutes? As we left Shibuya, we noted the gradual lessening of people and noise, as the shopping district area slowly shifted to a more business-like area. Even though there weren't as many flashing signs or crazily dressed people about, it was still an interesting walk. I like to just look at things, seeing how different everything is from what I'm used to. American vs. Japanese. Urban vs. Suburban. Tall things vs. Short things. Loud, noisy, snotty children vs. Cute, well-behaved, shy children (haha j/k! ... sorta... lol). Boring things vs. CRAZY things. Like so.

ALIEN X-ING

Since the walk to Ebisu was longer than we expected, we got hungry more quickly than we thought we would. So along the way somewhere (I JUST REALIZED I FORGOT TO TAKE A PICTURE OF THE STORE FRONT DDD: ), we ended up stopping for food. The 'kids' went to a sit-down diner of some sort. It was one of those places where they have a ticket machine near the door where you select and pay for your food, the machine gives you a ticket, and you wait and give the ticket to the chefs behind the counter (where they very speedily made your food) to receive your meal. Here, have a cool picture of my food and where we sat. 

Once we'd recharged ourselves with satisfied stomachs, we happily completed our journey to Ebisu! We wanted to go to a specific place, Ebisu Garden or Park or something like that? Darn, can't remember. But yea, so after using a little broken Japanese and handy hand gestures, we found our way there, and oh me, oh my! What a classy place! You can tell it's a high-end sort of place from the way most of the people are dresesed. There was also this funny structure. (I later found out that it's sorta kinda famous/well-known).


This is, apparently, the exact spot where an emotional scene took place in the drama Hana Yori Dango.

It's a really nice place to (window-)shop and just relax. Very peaceful and pretty. After the rowdy and bustling crowds in Shibuya, this calm and dainty place in Ebisu was a nice refresher. 



Perfect day. Classy place. Lost-looking people

Also, look at what I found there! A BASKIN-ROBBINS. If you can't tell from the coloring of the ice cream menu what store this is, you are clearly not experienced enough. Or you are lactose-intolerant. I shall accept the latter excuse, I suppose.

Haha, you would never find "Matcha" as a standard flavor in the U.S.

There was too much of a line in there, though, and since I was traveling with a group and not on my own, I didn't get to go in and try something ;-;. One of these days, though! I swear, I'm going to try matcha flavored Baskin-Robbins ice cream! It sounds WONDROUS.

Anyhoo, we're just leisurely wandering about and soon we see.... uh-oh...

VOLDY'S A-COMING

Rain clouds approacheth! The parents decide that the lot of us are too much of young whipper-snappers for them, and they head home to the hotel. The rest of us, though, head to Akiba (remember, that fun-times-geeky place I went to before?). We get there just as little droplets start splattering about and search the stores there for more of the souvenirs/merch that Watt was looking for (he had a whole list!). Although I went to different stores than I did last time, they are, for the most part, very similar. Manga store. Dvd store. Game store. Maybe a figurine store. But I did get to try something new that was on my to-do-in-Japan list!



THAT'S RIGHT, CRAZY CREPES. CREPES FILLED WITH INSANITY AND DELICIOUSNESS.　

 It's not that I heard that Japanese crepes were amazing or sooooo gooood or gorgeous or a must-try6 or anything like that. But I want to try 'international' food in Japan for the pure reason of curiosity. I've tried pizza here, and I want to try Italian, Mexican, Chinese. How are these different from the 'Americanized' versions I'm accustomed to and how are they different from the (allegedly) authentic versions I've tried? So curious! Also, it has to do with how I LOVE FOOD. :D

Here, however, is a picture of something that is both gorgeous and most likely amazing (in addition to being so terribly pricey T____T).

AMG, WHY ARE THEY SO BEAUTIFUL.

Wooo, back to a normal post length! Yaaaaaay! lol