Last weekend I went to Toukyou with some of the other ryuugakusei and tutors. On Sautrday we went to Shibuya and Harujuku to go clothes shopping. A lot of the stores we went to were very punkish / Nightmare Before Christmas-y...think like a bunch of Hot Topics. That punk look is very big right now in Japan, though unfortunately for me I can never really see myself wearing skulls or black and white stripes. The other ryuugakusei really liked those clothes, though, and we had planned to go shopping for clothes more my taste on Sunday, so it was fine that I didn't really do much shopping on Saturday. That night I took the other ryuugakusei and tutors that were with us to the club that I had gone to two weeks ago. They were playing more techno this time around, as well as having live karaoke to 80's music (Oh, those poor, poor songs that were butchered by their botched English).
Shopping in town...very hectic, a lot of hole-in-the-wall stores, but fun nonetheless.
For lunch we went to a sushiya (sushi store). I'm not sure if this particular style of sushiya has a specific name or not. Baiscally there's a big oval conveyor belt that you sit next to, with the chefs in the middle. As they make the food they put it on the conveyor belt, and it's your duty to snatch the delicious looking sushi dishes. The price of the sushi is determined by the type of plate that it's on. Itadakimasu! (said before you eat)
Gochisousama! (said after you eat)
I like how they do fighting games in Japan - they put screens across from each other so you can't see the other player's movement or interfere with his concentration.
A small glimpse of what the inaka (rural) country side looks like. I'll be taking some pictures of Tsuru soon - it's a beautiful machi (town).
I don't even remember what was here, but this daemon model looked really cool.
A lot of crazy cosplayers (people who dress up in costumes) in Harujuku. Some of them are extremely outlandish...makes one wonder if these people are just dressing up for fun, or if they actually have some kind of self-image mental problem.
Toukyou nightlife. Yes, it looks really big and bright, but when you're actually there, it's just not THAT impressive. You get over it pretty fast ;)
We slept in a McDonald's to save money. In Japan there are a variety of places, like McDonald's or Manga Kissatens (Comic coffee shops) where you can sleep for free, until they kick you out in the morning to make room for patrons. So, if you ever go into a McDonald's at 3AM, you'll see a ton of people just sleeping. A lot of people also stay up till 5 or 6 AM, whenever the first trains start, then catch those and sleep.
The next day we went shopping around for clothes that I would like. Unfortunately they don't really have any chain clothing stores like JC Penny's or Gottschalks or Sears, so it's all about finding random buildings that would have clothes in them. We found a Big & Tall store on the corner of some random street, but unfortunately the clothes were too big and too tall. Although there were shirts that were the right length, and at a reasonable price too, they were all 3XL-6XL sizes (I fit into their XL equivalent, LL). They didn't quite get that in a Big & Tall store you're supposed to have clothes for both tall people and big people, not just tall, big people :(
We went to Shibuya afterwards to find some more clothes stores, but again, to no avail. I'll keep looking, though, because I know that there are clothes out there that I want, I just have to find them my size.
At least I go to go to the Disney store! Unfortunately, though, everything has been turned into Halloween goodies. I prefer to buy things that don't have to do with specific holidays, that way I can enjoy it year round.
The entrance to the shopping district in Asakasa.
Shopping district in Asakasa (the name of which I forget). A lot of interesting tchotchkes and omiyage (presents) for purchase.
I'm not sure what this temple is called, but it looks cool and is right next to the shopping district.
Me in front of it. Unfortunately we couldn't get a good snapshot of me and the tip of the tower together, despite our approximate size.
These clogs put American platform shoes to shame.
Nice scenery, cool cloud formation on the train ride back.
My card at first didn't work, so I had to go talk to the tenin (store employee) to get it dealt with (now it's all good, I got my picture pasted on it and it now works in Japan). Unfortunately, in all my wisdom, I forgot to take my camera out of my backpack before paying 100 Yen (~$1) to store my backpack in Costco's storage cubbies (of course what we also didn't realize is that you got your 100 yen back when you opened it...doh!). So, I don't have any pictures of the Costco, though they wouldn't really be that impressive, since it looks identical to any other Costco at home. Which means...
YES! They DO indeed have a food court, with all of Costco's signature shokuryouhin (food)! They have pepperoni, cheese, and combo pizza, some korean meat and spicy pork bake (which I first read as "bah-keh", not understanding what it meant...too much Japanese ^_<), yogurt (which they had a really funny name for that unfortunately I forget), churros, hotdogs, and soda. At this point there were only 3 of us, myself, my friend John, and one of the tutors Kim (the others had gone home). We treated Kim to real, delicious American pizza. An entire pizza was 1,500 yen, or about $13 (I'm not sure what the price is on a whole cooked pizza at Costco back home, but for the amount of pizza they give you, it definitely seemed like a good deal). She loved it, as did the "mugen refill no shuukan" (unlimited refills custom) that we taught her about. She thought that our standard-size cup was 'dekai' (huge, I get that word thrown at me a lot ^_<), and didn't believe us when we told her that there are much larger cups to fill sugary syrupy goodness with. We also taught her how, whenever you leave a restaurant that allows for free refills, you always top off before you leave. You just do it, you don't even think twice about it. We're Americans, we gotta get the most calories for our dollar, after all! The Costco's shouhin (goods) were about 80% American and 20% Japanese. The only thing they didn't have that I wanted to get was Kraft Macaroni & Cheese...they had a "Macaroni & Cheddar" substitute, but it just ain't the same if it isn't in the signature commercial blue box. Unfortunately, Japan doesn't really understand that when you buy something in bulk, you're supposed to get a discount. Their cartons of Goldfish cost about $15, as do their bags of mixed Mars Company bars, or their Kirkland Signature Cashews. A lot of other stuff that comes in packs of two or three also cost about the same price if you were to have bought them individually. That's not true for all their products, though. The best deal, without a doubt, that I saw was their Skippy peanut butter, where for less than issenyen (<$10) I was about to buy a 64 oz. tub, compared to their 9 oz. dollop that runs at $5 a pop. That right there will save me a lot of money, seeing as how I'm still as much of a PB&J cretin as I am back home =) Anyways, I bought said tub of peanut butter, the college-life quintessential Costco sanitize wipes, and two things of Heinz mustard (since you can't get it elsewhere). Now, you might be wondering how we brought all the purchased merchandise back home? Well, I'll let you know, I had the sublime honor of carrying all our crap in an bigger box, all the way back home, with a 20 minute walk from Costco to the train station, sitting on the train with it between my legs for an hour (and enduring all the "Huh? Stupid gaijin (foreigners)" stares I got from the other travelers), then all the way back from the train station to our apartment. And, of course, I ended up going back on Tuesday, though thankfully this time we had one of the coordinators drive us. She wanted to become a member so her, her husband, and her son took a few of the other ryuugakusei who didn't get a chance to go last time on a Costco run (of course, I had to be there since I had the card). Much to my dismay we had left right after class, so I didn't have time to go back home to get my camera. Though, now that someone with a car is a member, I'm sure I'll be going back more often, and the next time I go I'll try to take some interesting pictures. Also, next time I go I hope that they'll have frozen pepperoni pizza...they have the take-home frozen cheese, shrimp, and BBQ chicken pizza, but no pepperoni pizza :( It'd be nice to be able to have regular pizza whenever I'd want, though I'd have to somehow magically fit it into my chichai reizouko (small fridge) :)
Kind of a random picture, but there's me on TV during the Hassaku Matsuri! See if you can figure out which one I am :)
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