Shibuya

I think we got out of the apartment around 9am this morning. Our first stop was naturally Mister Donut.

This time I took a picture of what we ordered. Since Daniel ordered as well and they have a special going on where you get double points if you order more than 700 yen, I got double points today. = 3= Half way to getting my free donut! We got two strawberry ring donuts, and a "honey dip" one, which is just a glazed donut. Also got melon soda again, and accidentally ordered Daniel a hot coffee, when he originally told me he wanted iced. I felt pretty bad about it since it was sweltering outside. (..;)

The heat today was absolutely unbearable. It's not like Florida where the second you step outside you're covered in sweat, but boy it sure doesn't take long for that to start happening. I should probably head down to the local convenience store and buy myself a hair band, since my hair was stuck to my back all day long. At one point I could even feel sweat dripping down my back.

After Mister Donut we stopped at home to grab our passports and then headed to the train station to head towards Shibuya. Once we arrived, our first stop was to head towards the Softbank store in order to buy our cell phones, but we took some photos first.

Down the road from the station, we managed to get a good shot of Shibuya 109. Unfortunately we didn't go in since by the time we were done with the other stuff we did we were rather tired.

I didn't realize it when I took this, but I guess this is an ad for STD awareness. It's right next to a shoe store.

Anyway, our first stop was the Softbank store pictured above. I asked if they had any prepaid phones, but the representative I spoke to said they were sold out and recommended that I try the nearby store in north Dogenzaka. We tried Bic Camera just in case, but the guy working there just pointed us back to the Softbank store we were just at, so we went in search of north Dogenzaka...which I didn't realize it, but we ended up going to south Dogenzaka first! We ended up crossing the famous four-way crosswalk though and looked at a map of Shibuya, just for us to realize that we went the wrong way.

Here are some pictures I took of the view from the opposite side of the crosswalk:

On our way through Shibuya, we could hear some guy's constant shouting. On the other side of the crosswalk, we were at the source of this noise. I noticed that the announcer had flags and I was a bit shocked to read that one flag stated that the Nanking Massacre was a lie. In the bottom right and left of the two above photos, you can see where the announcer was and the flags he had.

We managed to make it to north Dogenzaka and successfully got our very own cell phones! Through a mix of Japanese and English everything went smoothly.

The inside wallpaper looks like tasty cookies with sprinkles, as you can see. I'm happy to finally have my very own pink phone and even happier just to have a cell phone again. I don't wear watches, so I rely on my cell phone to tell me the time. It even has a button to open itself automatically with, so that's kinda fun to play with. Since Daniel's G1 didn't work with the sim card, he ended up getting the gold version of my phone.

As we left the Softbank store, Daniel noticed there was an Irish pub just across the way, so we ended up stepping in there for lunch.

I got these pizza rolls, but they ended up having bacon on them. I wasn't much a fan of that, but I wasn't really hungry at the time anyway so I didn't finish eating them. Daniel had an omelet with rice and a half pint of Guinness.

I need to mention that smoking is allowed in restaurants in Japan, though places like Mister Donut have a designated smoking area. It's kinda strange to see people smoking in a donut shop...

After food, we set out in search of a home goods store called Tokyu Hands that a Japanese friend of mine on Ameba recommended to me.

Along the way, we saw this awesome ad for Dole bananas.

Looking back on the pictures I took, I noticed that there's actually a Burger King located here.

Coca Cola vending machines. Despite this, still no Diet Coke in sight. I guess they just don't have it here? '-'

Also managed to snag this photograph of an advertisement for Ayumi Hamasaki's latest single.

We also ran across a multi-story arcade. The first story was all UFO catchers, and this Hello Kitty one was the only picture I managed to snag before we were told we weren't allowed to take pictures. We wandered around the rest of the floors, but stopped on the top floor for a bit so Dan could play a quick game of Beat Mania.

Back on the streets I spotted a Japanese claire's but we didn't go in. Instead we made it all the way to Tokyu Hands and bought necessities like a mirror, towels, slippers for the balcony where we hang our laundry, and a cup for our tooth brushes.

On our way back, I spotted an HMV, which is a popular store for CDs, movies, and books. We wandered around for a bit, but we were pleasantly surprised on the second floor. Today the Shibuya HMV was having a special event where they were having DJs and groups giving free performances. We caught the performance of an R&B group called Squarehood. We caught two of their songs, and they were pretty good.

Unfortunately these were the best pictures I was able to take because there were so many people and I was pretty far away.

After their performance slot was over, we left and ended up taking the train home.

Some more mosquitoes decided to snack on me again today, despite the fact that I was even wearing a long dress. I've got even more bites now and they've been pretty itchy!! (;゜ロ゜)

I've spent some time fiddling with my cell phone and found a cute ring for when I receive text messages (which are actually sent to my phone as emails). I wanted to play with it further, but then the battery ran out.

At first I was nervous about ordering things in Japanese, but now I think I'm feeling more comfortable with it. I'm kinda surprised by how easy it is to get things done even if you don't really understand what they're saying at all.

Now as I lay on my futon while writing this, my poor feet are throbbing and I've been feeling like it's time for bed for about 2 hours now, but I've been forcing myself to stay up by writing this entry. I really miss having a couch to kick my feet up on with and relax.