One Last Visit to School

The day after Harajuku, if I remember right we spent the day first going to the post office to mail our stuff off. I managed to successfully ask the kind lady, whom I had become a bit acquainted with because of my shopping serivce, if we could borrow a dollee cart and the post office allowed us to for free. We ended up mailing around 10ish boxes (I think), nearly all of them were shipped by boat. By now my boyfriend has received the contents of our apartment, but unfortunately it took two months to reach us. Two months of waiting with no status update on the post office website. We were so afraid our stuff was lost, but so happy when it all arrived over the course of a few days.

It was so sad to see such an empty apartment after though. I think we spent the rest of the day around town. I remember we went to BookOff one last time and then went to the other side of town at some point to the recycle shop. I bought a Juriano Jurrie onepiece (which, because I have a butt, will have to be worn as a top) and Cecil McBee top. I was tempted to buy a Cecil McBee winter coat I saw there but decided against it in the end. Kiiind of regret that, though I have no idea how that would have fit into my suitcase! I barely got everything to fit int there as it was.

Daniel bought some clothes for himself and also bought one of the Yakuza games from the used and new game shop that was connected to the recycle shop. When we got home though, we realized that it was the wrong one! I went back by myself to see if I could get the proper one. The lady at the counter was very nice and refunded the money for the game. On the way back I ran into the ladies who work at the post office returning home from work and we chatted a bit before I got home.

Despite having paid for a full month's rent, we got kicked out of our apartment a day earlier than we expected. Originally we were going to get our apartment checked out the morning before we left but instead they had to check us out on that Saturday due to the amount of people who were leaving. Luckily for us the guy who checked us out said he could get us a reservation at one of their hostels in Ikebukuro. He was even nice enough to take our bags to the hostel for us aftr he finished his checkouts for the day. This was a great relief considering our plan was to go to Shinjuku, ditch our stuff in coin lockers, and then head to the airport to spend the night there.

Keys taken away, we headed to the university I had attended. I still had the photocopied copy of Chuushingura I had borrowed from my professor, so I needed to drop that off before we left. We got to the school without any major bird attacks, I told campus security I was going to drop off the book and leave, and went in. Dropped the book off, and I took these final pictures of my school before we left.

The last thing we did before we left Yotsuya was give the homeless man who sits next to my school daily all of our change. It was mostly one and five yen coins, but hopefully there was enough in there for him to buy a few meals.

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.

Taiyaki

Recently I've begun the steps for getting a part-time job that is something other than teaching English. The first step is getting what is called a 履歴書 (rirekisho), or a resume. Writing a resume here is completely different from in the states. Every job and company uses the same format and you don't need a cover letter. You can find resume forms at any convenience store or book store, and get a pack of four or so for less than a few dollars. Natsumi, a member from the same club as me, was kind enough to help me go buy one at the book store at my school last Friday (January 7). But first, we took a bit of a detour to a nearby place that is famous for their taiyaki.

The place is called Wakaba. It's a 5-10 minute walk from my school. However, because the road to Wakaba is lined with tall buildings blocking out the sun, we were very, very cold! Yet despite the temperature, there were a lot of people lining up waiting to buy warm and freshly handmade taiyaki. As such, it was a kind of a long wait, so I took a couple of photos of the surrounding area. The whole time the smell of waffles filled the air.

The display case in front of the store.

A cat sitting in front of a real estate agent's office.

Then it was finally our turn.

A plate of taiyaki. I had just eaten a couple of onigiri (rice balls) for lunch, so I wasn't that hungry and opted out of trying them. I'm also not that much of a fan of the flavor of the sweet bean paste they put it inside the waffle. If only it were filled with chocolate...! 

In the corner of the store, they had this on display. All shops display this for good fortune and wealth during the new year. This one's a lot more elaborate than I've seen at other restaurants, but I guess the lobster is common for stores that deal with food. People display a similar thing in front of their houses as well, but it's just pine and bamboo.

Once my club mates finished their taiyaki, we saw that there was writing on the plate. It says, "May the tails of your taiyaki always be filled with bean paste." I thought this was peculiar and asked my club mates if in the past they didn't put the bean paste in the tail, but I guess that wasn't the case. All the same, it's kind of cute.

Speaking of cats, I saw this one on my way home from school. Perched on top of the place where everyone throws their trash bags on the appointed days, it felt like it was piercing into my soul...

Preparations For a Christmas Party

On Sunday my circle hosted a Christmas party. For some reason I actually volunteered to wake up early and help them set up and go food shopping. Unfortunately I didn't get much sleep that night, so I was pretty sleepy the whole time.

We went to a supermarket called Prospec Wholesale Store. It's a lot bigger from the grocery store near my apartment. I was in charge of the drinks with two other girls, though they mostly took charge. Boy, they sure got a lot of tea! After we chose out the drinks, we started to help choose snacks.

Down one of the aisles, I spotted something familiar...

My favorite brand of peanut butter! But holy cow look at that price: 449 yen ($5.40) for that little jar! Sheesh, that's expensive.

They even had Doritos, so I guess if I ever need a Doritos fix I know where I can go nearby.

But snacks aside, they had some very interesting items at that supermarket.

For one thing, I felt like all of the back shelves and sides of the store were fish! Fish, fish, fish. Fish of all kinds and flavors.

They even have big octopus and little octopus.

Going into a supermarket here is always an interesting experience.

Recently

Recently the weather has been so cold and harsh, often times rainy. Luckily not cold enough for snow, but that wind can be mean.

Since I've decided I want to test out doing a shopping service, I've been visiting Shinjuku a lot.

Studio ALTA has been where I've been frequenting, especially since it's connected right to the Shinjuku station.

Also, for the first time in a long time we actually went out to a restaurant to eat some time last week, I think it was.

I don't remember which day it was exactly, but this was my brunch: Chicken Caesar salad, hot dogs, sausages, and hash browns, and French fries. I couldn't finish it at all, but it was pretty good.

Scenes From School

Wednesday was my day off, so we didn't do much, although we did go out in search of a scale.

It was freezing that day! We both bought warm drinks just to warm our hands while we walked.

A picture of some nearby estate's trees and fruit.

Thursday was unfortunately not a very happy day for me for certain reasons. I did manage to take a bunch of pictures of my school though.

Yotsuya

Friday was not a very good day for us. We went to Yotsuya to visit my school.

This is a shot of the opposite direction from my school, where there's a busy city-like center.

Shot of some billboards and stuff. And luckily for me, my school is just a five minute walk from the station. It's also a pretty short train ride, although I have to jump lines once.

Instead of taking the direct route to the main gate, we kinda took a roundabout way and passed through a road that takes us to the back entrance. On the left you can see a sign for a church.

Here's the main gate to my school.

And then it was at this spot that bad things started happening. A huge bird in a tree took a ginormous crap on Dan. He was not very happy, and ended up using my Totoro handkerchief-towel to wipe himself off. Yeah, I ended up throwing it away. Not gonna wipe sweat off my face with a towel that's been covered in bird poo!

After walking through the main campus of the school (which was just buildings so it wasn't too impressive) we left and headed to a restaurant called Jonathan's. I didn't take a picture, but I ended up getting steak with what I think was called Damascus sauce since I'm really not a fan of the garlic sauce Japanese just love to put on their steaks.

After that, we headed to Shinjuku to go check out TVs at Bic Camera since the one that Sakura House gave us sucks and is impossible to play games with. They were all super expensive and fancy, so I told Dan let's check out a used shop first. Though unfortunately we didn't really get to do that. On the way back through Shinjuku station, I ended up slipping on the stairs and twisting my ankle in a weird way. I had done it earlier too on the stairs at our aparment, so my ankle felt like it was throbbing and it was not happy.

After a stop at a Sunkus, we ended up going straight home and staying in for the rest of the night.