Archive for August 5, 2007

Day 15/Harajuku/Shibuya

{ August 5, 2007 @ 2:01 pm } · { Tokyo }
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•    Morning
o    I woke up at 10:00 this morning and just relaxed for an hour or two after taking a nice long shower.  I caught up with some friends online and watched a show.   I had an amazing breakfast of two rice balls, some kimchi, and a fruity yogurt… all for under $5… typical.  I love the food here, it’s so cheap, healthy, and delicious.
•    Afternoon in Harajuku
o    I decided to explore Harajuku further today and attempt not to buy anything, which I succeeded in doing… yes!  I explored all the shops today… and might just buy something tomorrow, but I did put it off one day… more than I usually do.  I explored Takeshita dori (which is the famous street of fashionable and rather reasonable shops), harajuku street… and I even looked at Ometesando… which is ridiculously expensive shops, but fun to browse.  I ate another crepe in harajuku which was almost as good as last time.  I walked around a little park near Harajuku after looking through shops for a while and found a small, but pristine garden, so I relaxed in the shade for a bit.
o    I decided to head to Shibuya to get a bit of dinner, just because I’d been in Harajuku for about 4 hours or more.  I took the train one stop over and got out at the famous intersection in Shibuya where there are always hundreds of people.  I walked for about half an hour until driven by hunger I walked into the nearest restaurant… turned out this was great timing because dinner was delicious.. whatever it may have been.  Facts: I know it was ramen, and there was beef in it, and it was spicy.  All else, I have no idea.
•    Evening
o    I decided to go to the famous 109 (2) building to look at more clothes after dinner, since looking at temples in the dark would have been rather pointless.  After a while the shops looked mostly all the same, but still the jeans all looked really stylish.  I’m stealing myself to buy an $80 pair of jeans tomorrow, but rationalization has kicked in… for I know they were originally $200, so I’m considering how much money I’m saving and the fact that this is japan… and suddenly $80 doesn’t seem bad.  We’ll see what happens.  After a bit more looking at expensive and stylish Japanese clothing I headed back to the hotel to relax.

Day 14/Shibuya

{ August 5, 2007 @ 1:44 pm } · { Food, Tokyo, shopping }
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• Morning/Afternoon
o Nate and I woke up at around 12… We both managed to make ourselves look slightly awake and then we headed out to meet Iori for lunch. On the way, we ran into her mother, and so we all headed together to meet Iori. We had a nice simple lunch of lots of random Japanese foods (umm… udon, miso soup, the usual suspects,) Iori had to go back to driving school, so Nate and I headed out to Shibuya to look at clothes and just relax.
• Afternoon
o Shibuya is amazing. Nate and I arrived at Shibuya station… at the famous intersection that you often see in photos of japan. This is the intersection where hundreds of people cross it ever few minutes. There are so many people that you can’t see the ground at times. I really don’t miss the ground that much. Another fact of shibuya is that the girls are def more attractive than Osaka… granted, Osaka isn’t bad in that respect at all, but Tokyo in general wins. Osaka sure as hell beats the US, but this isn’t tough ahaha, I’m such a horrible person. I’m going to come back to the US, and look at the percentage of people that are overweight and just close my eyes and hope things will change. Ok, enough about how the US fails. Nate and I walked around Shibuya and I managed to buy a shirt that wasn’t $100… to my relief. Shibuya is rather expensive, more so than Harajuku. Nate managed to buy a $100 pair of jeans and a $100 hoody… but I’d be more lenient with my money if my parents gave me unlimited funds too haha… but enough about that, since he usually pays for my lunch when we hang out I’m in no position to complain. We went to a Korean barbecue place to get a drink after shopping for a while. The weather was so hot, so we were just looking to have a beer and sit and talk for a while. Yet, as we sat down and I ordered two beers in Japanese… hell yeah… the waiter put down the coals in the barbecue so we were rather obliged to order something. We ordered a plate of meat that neither nate nor I really knew what was in it. Luckily, we asked about one suspicious looking piece of meat and it turned out to be stomach… close call, we didn’t end up eating it. The rest of the meal was delicious, but decidedly more Japanese looking than Korean looking. We headed back to Roppongi to meat Iori for dinner.
• Evening
o Iori was exhausted, so we took a quick trip just one metro stop away for dinner. We had Korean barbecue again haha… didn’t plan it. It was better this time and decidedly more Korean. I just had a simple dish and we all shared a bit of meat on the barbecue and a few dishes. Afterwards, I took the long trip back to my hotel and by the time I got there it was almost midnight. Sleep was easy.

Day 13/Harajuku/Roppongi

{ August 5, 2007 @ 1:12 pm } · { Food, Tokyo, shopping }
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• Morning
o The trip to Tokyo was mostly uneventfull… I took a few trains and a shinkansen and had a tasty bento box along the way. I wish I’d seen mt fuji out the window, but I fell asleep for part of the trip, so didn’t notice.
• Arrival
o I got into Tokyo a bit after two… and realized I had to walk ten minutes to my hotel… grrr… that’s going to suck when I have to take my suitcase back to the train station to go to Hiroshima. Shortly after arriving I headed to Harajuku to meet up with Satomi. We browsed Harajuku for clothes, talked, and just hung out. We bought some famous harajuku crepes… which were amazing. These crepes consist of crepes that are wrapped up in the shape of an icecream cone and stuffed with fruit, icecream, whipped cream, and mine had cheesecake… it so delicious, probably the least healthy thing I’ve eaten in japan so far. Granted, beer isn’t especially healthy, but it sure has less calories. We followed the crepes up by shopping some more and I bought a pair of black leather shoes (or atleast black… leather… maybe). Harajuku has amazing clothes and accessories at reasonable prices… and everyone looks as though they have watched too much anime and wanted to dress as their favorite characters; I love it. Satomi and I hung out for a few hours and then she had to get back to school, so I headed back to my hotel to take a shower. I arrived at my hotel and phone rung… it was Nate… we decided to meet in Roppongi.
• Night Time
o It took about an hour for me to get to Roppongi with the help of two trains and a bus. I arrived at Nate’s apartment (or rather… the apartment of his ex girlfriend where he’s staying.) We just talked for a bit and then decided to grab some dinner; it was about 9 oclock, so we were both game for a bit to eat. Iori (nate’s ex) arrived as we got to the apartment, and we headed out. We went to a bar/restaurant… in that there were drinks, smokes, and small dishes… but somehow we made it into a dinner. Iori stuck with one drink, while nate and I ended having two… no matter how non intoxicating rum and coke may be. Yet…. As with most things, it tastes better in japan. I don’t remember all the dishes we got, but one was raw horsemeat which was delicious. It was just like sashimi. After dinner Iori was a bit tired so she headed back to the apartment while Nate and I headed out to a bar. We headed to the wallstreet bar where the bouncer asked me “how old are you?”… “20” I answered and yep “forgot my id”…ahahaha. He looked at me and gave me this ‘I don’t believe you’ look, but still let me in. Nate and I started with a carona each and we just sat at the bar and smoked a cigarette. Nate ran into a salaryman that he’d met before and we all talked for half an hour or so as the night went on… the guy was so happy to meet me and see Nate again that he bought us all a shot of whiskey (shots go for ten dollars)… but I wasn’t stopping him. We had another carona… and just hung out at the bar… which was basically a club by this point, everyone was dancing (or… in their inebriated state… I’m sure they thought they were dancing.) I decided to be adventurous and ordered a b52 since I still wasn’t feeling much… this turned into a great idea. While ten dollars for a shot is indeed insane, this was just beautiful. The b52 is a mix of kahlua, ameretto, and one other liquor which I forget… it is then lit on fire… and drunk straight down with a straw…. Smooth… intoxicating, and delicious. The only way to go. At 2 am, we both were a bit tired, so decided to get a snack at first kitchen. We both got these tiny pizzas and then headed back to Iori’s apparment to crash.