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.

A Final Visit to Harajuku

The order to return home was really shocking. My parents seemed to be in a hurry to get us out ASAP, but we had things to settle. For example, we had to ship all of our stuff off. So, we spent the day packing in a fever. I think it was this same day that when we were done, we decided to go to Harajuku. I was not at 100% though since I was still upset and overwhelmed because of the turn of events. The stores were still closing early, so we only had a few hours to hang around. This was rather unfortunate but I guess not too bad since I was so out of it.

A random advertisement inside of our local subway station.

I did not take too many photos because it was getting dark quickly, but I managed to take these three. One is of the capsule machines and the other two are advertisements for purikura machines.

We went down a side alley I never went down before during my trips to Harajuku. I purchased some cute socks and Daniel bought several funny T-shirts from a nearby street vendor (you know, the kinds you would expect to see in Japan with the Engrish and stuff).

We stopped by a few stores and I was too out of it to make any decisive shopping at the  time. I wish I had bought a few things at the one store we had gone to, like one of those cute white lacy maxi-skirts I have longing for.

When we made it to the end of Takeshita-doori, we bought crepes and made our way back to the train station to go home.

The Edo-Tokyo Museum Part 2: Tokyo

Now to continue on with our tour of the museum...

This side was a lot smaller compared to the Edo portion. All of the models and artifacts are from the Meiji period and Taisho period, including World War II. I guess I was feeling like I was ready to go home by this point, since I did not take as many pictures as I thought I would have.

Not sure what this was a model of.

Tiny models of the daily lives of people who lived in Tokyo during the Meiji period.

A cute poster.

A little girl trying out the life-size replica (?) of a telephone booth.

A signpost from near the area where one of the bombs dropped. Reminded me of the Fallout games.

A photograph of Yoshibayama, the 43rd Yokozuna (best sumo wrestler at the time), riding in a Subaru 360.

Old model of a car.

And that's all from what I took at the museum! I wonder if my camera had started dying or something. There were airplanes hanging from the ceiling, life-size models of the way soldiers lived, and a lot of other interesting things as well.

Next up is probably some random pictures or the final pictures I took of the neighborhood I lived in.

Souvenirs

I guess my posts will be a bit scattered now in terms of time as I dig through old photos that never got posted. These are the souvenirs Daniel got for me during his trip to areas in western Japan, which if I remember right he went to some time back in February:

The monkey is from Monkey Park. The Hello Kitty handkerchief and Hello Kitty dressed as a deer are from Miyajima. I do not remember where the strap of Hello Kitty dressed as a Buddhist nun came from me (and unfortunately I'm pretty sure it got shipped in one of the boxes we shipped by boat).

Daniel also won me a big Rilakkuma plushie and got me a fox tail. Unfortunately they both got put in boxes too so I won't get to see them again for a while...

He also got us some cookies! One box was the same kind as the Namahage cookies I got from Akita, which were good. I think they had deer on them. Some others had bean paste and brandy I think? I am not a fan of bean paste though.

We both already miss UFO catchers so much. I'd like to take a picture of our final collection of stuff Daniel's won, but all of them got shipped by boat!

A Dark, Lonely Shinjuku and Ikebukuro

It's been four days now since the quake. Our town has been very quiet. There haven't been too many trucks coming by, but the earthquake hasn't stopped the baked sweet potato vendor from coming by twice since. The shelves are still empty at most of the convenience stores and supermarkets everywhere.

Since yesterday was relatively quiet and warm, I decided to head out to Shinjuku and then to Ikebukuro.

I went around 2:30 and the trains were pretty much empty.

Surprisingly, Shinjuku Station seemed even more empty. Usually there is at least three times as many people walking through this walkway over the Marunouchi train line. As it had been a day when people were instructed to stay home, the only ones out were pretty much only foreigners and couples because it was White Day, a day in which guys give girls gifts for what they received on Valentine's Day.

I stopped by Shinjuku ALTA to buy some cosmetics for a customer. There weren't that many people in there, but there usually isn't. I took this picture of the Liz Lisa display as seen from outside. So cute!

Then I headed over to Ikebukuro. Unsurprisingly, there were still plenty of people riding the JR lines. As you can see though, the lights on these buildings are not turned on. Since it had gotten cloudy, Ikebukuro seemed like a very dark place.

There were not so many people on the street heading to Sunshine City either. Normally these streets would be filled with shoppers. But no music played as you walked through the street, there were no maids handing out fliers for their maid cafes. In fact, there were hardly any people advertising their restaurants at all! Normally the street is lined with people shouting at the top of their lungs about the special deals and services their restaurant offers, but yesterday there were absolutely none. Surprisingly the arcades were still open, but only for a limited time.

When I got to Sunshine City, most of the stores were closed shut as in the picture above. It was a bit shocking to see store after store in this condition. I went over to the ALTA side and there were still up and running, luckily. I couldn't find what I was looking for though, so I backtracked and headed outside to Animate.

Pictures of Animate that I managed to take from the outside. I got inside of it just minutes before they closed at about 5pm I think it was. A lot of stores were closing up shop at 4 to 6pm. It was the strangest thing though, since they had an anime-sounding guy come on to tell us that they were closing and hoping we could meet again. Then they played this song about parting and meeting again. They played this over and over on a loop in order to drive customers out of the store. It was a bit surprising they let us all the way up to the fifth floor though as Donki had the stairs leading beyond the second floor blocked off.

A vending machine outside of Animate. Apparently the drinks taste horrible though.

After I checked out a few other nearby stores, I decided to start heading home.

Cute advertisement of fat kitty on top of an arcade.

All of Ikebukuro was so dark it felt so strange. Normally the entire place is so lit up that you might not even notice that it's night time. I was glad I had gone back to the train station when I did though, since I managed to catch the very last train out before they shut down the trains for an hour. When I got to my station, I stopped by McDonalds and grabbed us dinner. Walking home I noticed there were a lot of restaurants closed. Those that had remained open were completely empty. The area I live in, which can be a bit bustling in its own right around the "Ginza area," kind of felt like a dark ghost town.

Today we're staying inside for the most part again. Pretty much all of the major shopping malls have been closed again, too. Luckily there were no blackouts yesterday because of everyone's efforts to conserve energy. I hope today is the same.

The Hello Kitty Bus

Today I left school later than I usually do because I had to meet with one of my professors. As I was exiting the gates of my school, I spotted this:

A Hello Kitty bus...!?

There were only two passengers and a huge Hello Kitty plush doll sitting in one of the window seats, which you can kind of see in the picture above.

I wonder if it's a tour bus? If so, I want to find out how to take a Hello Kitty tour of Tokyo.

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.