Our Final Night

Our next stop after Yotsuya was Ikebukuro to check in at the hostel. For some reason we got a bit confused with the trains though, but I can't remember why anymore... We managed to make it there in one piece though and before our luggage had arrived too. Seeing a Japanese person and not thinking "oh duh I bet she speaks English..." I checked us in in Japanese, we got our keys, and checked out our rooms. There was two bunk beds and we unfortunately had one roommate, though he was not there at the time (more on him later). It was mid-afternoon by then and we still had not eaten anything that day, so we went to a nearby restaurant. We got our meal tickets, sat down, and got our food within a few minutes.

Looking back at these pictures makes my mouth water!

After we ate, we headed back to Ikebukuro station and headed to Shinjuku to go shoe shopping. I still had not replaced my hole-y tennis shoes, so I decided I wanted to get new shoes before I left Japan. I was so tempted to buy those boots I had been longing to buy at that point, but I ended up not getting them and bought these new pink and black tennis shoes instead. Later when I tried them again though they seemed to be a little bit big...maybe I should have gone with the previous pair that was a little bit tight and I could break into. The ones I bought fit perfect at the time though, I don't know why they felt different later!

Beyond that, we started wandering around. I only took the above picture, which was the entrance to a karaoke parlor.

After it got dark, we headed back to Shinjuku station and rode the trains for the last time. Our luggage had arrived and so had our roommate. He was quiet and, to be honest, the exact definition of "otaku," who had clearly come to pay hommage to Japan. He had some anime character statue which he had set up on the only bureau in the room. We got on our computers to check what was going on in the world of the internet, and eventually got hungry. So, we headed out to see what our options were.

This was one of our many options.

However, we ended up opting for the bar called Beer Saurus across the way, located on one of the floors of the building in the above picture. The beer was very nice although there were not too many people so luckily it was not too smokey.

Our first drinks were as above: that ginormous mug filled with Hoegaarden and my tiny martini (I think it was). Don't remember the drink, but unlike other bars they definitely did not skimp on the alcohol!

After studying the menu for a while, we ended up ordering the "party" size of fish and chips.

And here's a bit of the decor inside of the bar. It was a really nice place, I wish we had discovered it sooner.

Unfortunately all good times come to an end. While we paid the bill, I noticed that the tip jar for the earthquake and tsunami relief was stuffed full of 10,000 yen bills (about $124 at the time of writing this entry).

We began our tipsy walk back to the alpaca...and discovered an arcade. I wanted an alpaca so we went in. Daniel won one last Rilakkuma keychain and then we attempted the big one.

This alpaca was the boss battle of all UFO catchers up until this point. It was stuck between a big Rilakkuma's legs (I think it was) and refused to budge. I think we spent close to 4,000 yen to win this giant alpaca, but win it we did! We went back to the hostel with our spoils of war and had an unfortunate terrible night. Neither of us got a wink of sleep that night. The beds were so uncomfortable and every time we turned over there was squeaking. Our jetlagged roommate was sound asleep though, so who knows if we woke him up or not. The entire night I found myself wishing there was a Glade or Febreeze air freshner in the room though...

Not to mention, the room one over from ours was filled with drunk Japanese people screaming the entire night. It died down eventually, but that was soon replaced by the sounds of retching as dawn approached.

Needless to say, that was not a very pleasant night.

Reunited in Shibuya!

It's been a long time coming, but a few of us who participated in Nogyaru rice harvesting decided to meet up for a girl's day out in Shibuya! Naturally the entire event turned into a huge photo session for everyone, so I managed to take quite a few photos. It was all brought together by Maki, so I'm so grateful to her that I got to see everyone again.

Maki managed to reserve us our own snug little corner in a restaurant called PUBLIC HOUSE. Once everyone who could come was assembled, we started off with brunch!

Mayu and I got this hamburg dish. Unfortunately I wasn't able to finish it. There was just way too much food!

Everyone else got this spaghetti dish. I kinda wish I had gotten it too considering it looks delicious even now!

The desert. I was a bit too full to get one myself though.

A picture I managed to snap of Mei and Nami during our conversing. We talked about a lot of things, from differences between America and Japan, to job searching, to dieting and exercise, and naturally a lot more topics came up. I managed to learn a few new words too!

All of us assembled. From left to right: Me, Mayu, Maki, Nami, and Mei.

On our way out of the restaurant.

Some of the graffiti that can be found around Shibuya.

An advertisement for EXILE's new album. I tripped on the sidewalk and twisted my ankle shortly after this shot. Unfortunately it still hurts a bit now.

 View of Shibuya as we crossed an overhead walkway.

Advertisement for the new Dissidia game that came out. 

Art meets Mode advertisement.

Naturally, the next place we went was an arcade so we could take purikura!

A couple of the purikura machines. There were so many that it was hard to choose which machine to use!

A sign advertising their stamp card services.

After we chose a random one, the purikura machine gave us this pack of eyelashes as a gift. No one really wanted them, so I ended up taking them.

 Deciding how to divide up the purikura...

Which turns into an opportunity for a silly photo!

The purikura we took together.

After purikura, we decided to head into the next building over for some karaoke.

We got the party room! Which was a bit unfortunate for me since we sat all the way in the back. I had some trouble reading some the lyrics because they were blurry for me without my glasses.

Everyone wanted to hear me sing in English, so I kicked our karaoke session off with Bad Romance.

Other songs we sung were AKB48's Heavy Rotation and the classic Stay Away by L'Arc~en~Ciel. Surprisingly, Shoujo Jidai and KARA songs were also sung (in their Japanese versions, of course).

After our hour and a half of fun we all headed our separate ways. However we did leave with plans to meet up again next day to do cherry blossom viewing. I'm really looking forward to it!

Afternoon Adventures

Two entries in a day? Whoa, how rare of me nowadays.

I was hoping to go out and explore some of the nearby area today, but it's just too cold and windy for my liking. My fingers became numb just hanging up the laundry outside. At the very least I had planned to go to the post office and then stop by the meat vendor two blocks away, but I remembered that I need to get cheese and realized that I would probably need to go to the actual grocery store. It's not too often either of us goes to a grocery store, mostly because it's hard to tell what the heck is actually all of the food in there. Plus it's not like they sell boxes of hamburger helper or mac and cheese or anything I would usually buy in a grocery store. Not to mention I guess there's a kind of etiquette to it? Like having to bag your own bags. Well, that may be the only thing. Or maybe they just forgive me for whatever transgressions I make because I'm foreign and therefore I don't notice them.

When you think about it, it's kind of funny how our methods of getting food has kind of evolved since we got here. First we always went to the 100 yen grocery store, which soon then changed to the Sunkus and Drug Papas right next to the station. Then we discovered there's a Sunkus just two or three blocks away after we did some exploration one day and we have been frequenting it ever since. It's kind of hard to remember or imagine how we had been getting along without the closer Sunkus.

In any case, I decided to wander over to the part of town we used to frequent so often and now don't anymore. You know, the part of town where there's a 7-Eleven. But I guess I shouldn't really call it "town," because when I go over to that area I'm in a completely different area. In fact, Drug Papas is in a completely different ward! Tokyo is confusing.

Along the way I saw that the Sunkus right next to the station is hiring again. They noted that it's for Monday and Fridays only, for 10 hours total a week. Doesn't sound so bad to me! I'll probably go and inquire about it tonight. Hopefully they remember me like they said they would. I suppose this means I really should study because I think my speaking Japanese has been getting a bit rusty over the past month.

It always amuses me that this small steak restaurant has Spider Man sitting in front of it.

At 7-Eleven I pulled out some money and from there I headed across the street to the grocery store, which was filled with little old ladies hobbling around with a basket in one hand and their walking canes in the other. A few felt the need to apologize to me as they shuffled about and got in front of me without realizing it, but it's hardly their fault the aisles in the store are so small so I told them not to worry about it. Some of them were shaking while grasping their baskets. I was afraid they were going to fall over.

These were the things I ended up buying:

About 500 grams (about 1 pound) of what I'm pretty sure is beef. Or maybe it's beef and pork? Doesn't really matter though I suppose.

Pre-cut cheese. I was really surprised to find this since I was expecting to have to buy a block of cheese and have to get something to slice it up like this with.

My favorite kind of chocolate cookies, Alfort. The grocery store sells them a lot cheaper than the convenience stores do.

This time I knew I had to bag my own bags after I got everything rung up. However I guess I made the mistake of waiting away from the counter when I could've been putting the stacking my stuff up to be rung up? And the guy working there handed me a basket, so I guess I should have been carrying one even though all I grabbed was these few things. Oh, whatever.

I took my newly acquired basket over to the counter in order to put my things in a bag. There I found an old lady struggling to open her plastic bag. It was all wrinkly all over from the various places she tried to pry it apart. When I took out my bag and started trying to open it from the center she mentioned how difficult it was to open the bag. I tried it from the top and managed to get it open and the old lady started saying something but it was mumbling old lady speech and I couldn't quite make it out, but it was definitely about how much trouble she was having.

I offered to open it for her and she gladly handed her bag over. I got it open right away and gave it back to her. She said something more in old lady speech, probably more about the trouble the bag had been giving her, but thanked me as I left. I managed to say the proper response, "It was nothing." In the past I've been finding myself fumbling over phrases like this. I guess it's because my natural response in English would be something like "oh no, it's fine, don't worry about it" and that translates weird when I try to say it in Japanese. I'm glad I'm slowly starting to not make weird remarks when I do something nice and instead say it more naturally.

I put my basket on top of the stack of baskets and headed home. I'm looking forward to tacos tonight!

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

The beautiful view from downstairs, just outside of my apartment.

The past few days it's been so rainy and yucky. It even snowed recently too! This is quite unfortunate, considering we just recently had a day when it was 20C out and all of the trees and flowers seemed to be wanting to come to life. A nearby cherry blossom tree (or maybe it's a peach blossom?) seems to be wanting to blossom as well. It's strange though, considering it's so chilly out these days but the convenience stores are starting to play songs about cherry blossoms. I guess they must start doing that everywhere at the beginning of March or something. It looks like it might warm up for Sunday though, which is good since I'll be meeting up with everyone from Nogyaru that day. I'm looking forward to it, but guess this means I won't be able to buy new shoes quite yet. At least I've got my rain boots for the rainy days so my socks don't get soaked from those holes. I just hope it warms up quickly enough that I can pull out my sandals again!

At the very least, today today is sunny, so I can get some laundry done.

I've noticed that this vacation I've been slacking quite a bit on my Japanese studies. Why does this always happen to me during my breaks? Even though I have so much time I just don't feel like opening Anki and doing it. I guess I should just reset my sentence deck for now and start from the beginning, especially since I'm sure that there's so many reviews that I'd never work up the urge to make them all up.

I Hate Conversations Over the Phone

I reserved a set from a shop called MA*RS for a customer of mine. Today the call came to tell me it was in, however it ended up being a rather frustrating phone call for me. For one thing, she talked very, very fast. I assumed it was a call from the MA*RS shop before I picked up the phone, so I tried to listen as best as I could, however when she got to her question I could not understand it because of her speed.

I've noticed that I've had this same problem before when I've received calls before. Is it just that they speak very quickly over the phone in order to spit all of the introduction, explanation, and questioning as fast as possible, or that without being able to see them face-to-face that I have trouble following what they're saying? I guess it's probably a mixture of both.

In any case, the first time I asked her to repeat herself she said, "You don't understand Japanese don't you?" Second time, "You really don't understand Japanese after all, do you?" She probably just didn't realize how fast she was speaking at all, but saying this directly to me was just kind of annoying.

In any case, I finally understood her final question on the third try: Can you come to the store today? I asked if I could go tomorrow instead, so guess I will be heading to Shinjuku after I head to the post office. After staying inside yesterday and today I kind of have the itch to head out to go somewhere anyway.

Spring Break!

Thursday was the day I handed in my two final essays. Twenty pages worth of essays in total. One was eight pages and the other was twelve. What a pain in the butt that was. Did all this while suffering from my cold too. Luckily today I'm only coughing a little bit now. Daniel's all recovered too. However, this means now that my spring break has begun! Yay!

I still have two or three posts I want to write about concerning notable things that happened to me last month, so I'll probably be going back to last month's happenings soon. But for now I'll talk about some more recent experiences of mine.



I celebrated on Thursday by going to Shibuya 109 and picking up a few items for a customer at my shopping service. I managed to do some job hunting at a few nearby stores, too.

The first one I asked at told me that the deadline for applications had already passed. While disappointing, I did appreciate the fact that she didn't act surprised that I could speak Japanese and just spoke to me regularly.

The second store I asked at the manager wasn't in, so they took my resume and said that the shop manager will call me about an interview whenever she gets in. Well, that was Thursday and today is Saturday. Hopefully the manager has a several day break or was sick or something. I wonder how long I should wait before moving on? Though I think they'd at least send my resume back sooner or later. Unfortunately my picture is kind of plain looking, a lot different from how I looked in real life when I asked about a job. First appearances are everything, so I hope the manager will wait until the actual interview to judge me, and doesn't just judge me based on the picture. Maybe I would have been better off just leaving my phone number.

It was funny though, because I asked one of the workers who had actually spoke to me in English beforehand. She didn't seem too surprised I was speaking to her in Japanese, but she told me she had only started two days earlier and took me over to the other three girls working there at the time. I wasn't sure what to say, so after a few seconds of silence the lady whom I had assumed was the manager says, "Can you speak Japanese...?" It was funny, but from there I think it proceeded smoothly enough and I think I managed to appear charismatic and eager enough. The other two girls seemed excited, so hopefully that was a good sign?

In any case, my heart couldn't take asking at a third place that day so I ended up going home. It's so nerve wracking to ask for a job here! But at least I feel comfortable that I have the correct phrase to ask now and I feel like I'm enunciating cheerily and loudly.

I did, however, get the whole "wow your Japanese is great!" thing when I went to a store called d.i.a. This could have to do with the fact that some other foreigners were shopping in there and trying to talk to the shop staff. I really dislike it when I get lumped in with the tourists.



Yesterday I went to the post office to weigh the items for my customer and an old lady stopped halfway while crossing the street to gawk at me. I know I wasn't wearing any makeup because I was just going a few blocks down the street and home, but I don't think I looked too weird. The funny thing is that I feel like this rarely happens to me. Sure. on the train some people will look at me a few seconds longer than normal and some little girls will look at me with some wonder in their eyes, but most don't care at all and I've never felt like people try to get away from me, try not to sit next to me on the train, or just make me feel alien.

Silly old people.



On Thursday I got a message from Maki inviting all of us who went on the Nogal trip (which I participated in on October 1, October 2, and October 3, if you don't remember) and live in the Tokyo area to get together once again. The other girls in my immediate group all agreed and it seems a few other girls who also participated will join us as well. I really hope I can go, I've been wanting to see them all again.

Speaking of Nogal, I guess a documentary of the whole thing aired during the last week. I didn't get to see it, but maybe it's better that I didn't see what a fool I probably had made of myself.

Sickness Has Struck Again

There's been a bunch I've been wanting to write about, but I've gotten so sick! It all started during Monday morning during school for me. As such, Monday was a pretty terrible day for us. On top of falling sick, I also got the rejection letter from the job I applied to. Unfortunate, but I guess the reasons were that I was so nervous I wasn't really charismatic or enthusiastic. Maybe too quiet with my Japanese too. I guess I'm really quiet than I think I am when I speak Japanese.

I'm starting to think it might be a good idea to take a shot or two of liquid courage when I go around handing in resumes and for the interview.

Tuesday was my last day of classes, so now all that's left are the two essays I have due in a week and my Japanese finals on Friday and Monday. I've been so sick though that I haven't been making much progress with the essays. I've been making flashcards for my finals, but haven't really had the energy to study them. I'm not sure if what I have studied has even stuck much.

The last time I was sick was shortly after the Nogal trip to harvest rice in Akita and right before Daniel went on his trip to see the Gundam. Now sickness has struck again right before he gets to go to Kyoto and places over there, so maybe since I haven't done anything awesome recently this will balance out my karma so I can find an awesome job? I've been studying up like crazy every day on the internet about what to do and it seems like appearances and that super-duper genki attitude are everything. Tomorrow I think I'll buy some more resumes and apply for any convenience stores I can find too.

I really wish I had some new shorts though. And a new hair cut. And a job. Sigh.

I also wish that my cough would go away. It's just non-stop and painful. Cough drops don't really help anymore although ginger tea seems to have some good effects. However, since it's tea and tea=caffeine, I don't dare to drink it after 3pm. I wish I could buy some medicine, but it's just so expensive...

It's funny though since it appears that there's been an increase in people wearing masks recently. I guess we've all just caught the same thing.

My First Interview

Today was my first Japanese interview for a part-time job. I was so nervous, I had trouble sleeping last night. After much deliberation and critical thinking, this is what I came up with for my outfit:

Layered dress: Gilfy

Inner tanktop: Uniqlo

Tights: WC

I was also wearing my Disney Couture locket necklace and Micky Mouse scarf, but I had taken them off by the time I took that picture.

Speaking of which, I was kind of dreading going out in this cold weather in tights. I see Japanese girls wearing them all winter, and yet I just couldn't understand how they do it. Since I wore a dress today though, I figured I had no choice but to wear tights as well and decided I would give the new tights I got over Christmas a shot. Boy was I surprised! I think these tights are warmer than my skinny jeans. I really need to get myself more Japanese tights.

Right before the actual interview itself, I started to freak out a bit. Luckily I managed to get myself to Shinjuku and up to the second floor for the interview. I was there about 5-10 minutes early, though I'm not sure if that's actually considered a bad thing or not here in Japan.

I'm drained now that it's all over and done with, but I don't think the interview went too badly. We ended up going to the roof of the building, which I was pretty surprised about. My interviewer seemed to be pretty cold though I wasn't too badly off. However, I guess that meant I didn't need to put so much thought into my clothing since we went outside and I ended up being zipped up in a coat the whole time!

When my interviewer read over my resume he was impressed with my kanji, but probably because he wouldn't have expected it of me. He mostly asked me things like my past work experience, transportation to Shinjuku, school, and interests. He also asked me what kind of magazines I read and where I shop at, along with what I want to become in the future, which I answered translator. Come to find out though, you're only allowed to wear heels at their store! No flat shoes.

All in all, I managed to understand everything and answer everything. I hope I portrayed enough genki-ness which would be required of the job. My interviewer said there's five other candidates applying (I noticed they had taken down their help wanted sign), so I'll find out whether I'm hired or not by Monday or Tuesday of next week.

After my second class, when I came home I discovered that Mister Donut had a booth opened in the station. I wouldn't have cared, but I just couldn't pass up on buying cheap donuts that came in such a cute Rilakkuma box!!

And I guess I earned some donuts after I went through that, right?

Now all I can do is wait until next week.