I am dreading tomorrow with a passion--the Japanese placement tests for my university are tomorrow and Friday. I'm kind of worried. Studied a bit over the summer, of course, and maintained most of what I know, but I didn't learn anything new, and knowing just that is a little bit unsettling.
I'll do my best, though!
I did do things this weekend, so I'll tell you briefly about that, shower you with pictures (I finally took some! Wow!), maybe show you some of the food I've been making to show you all it's possible, and then wrap it up pretty quickly in order to see about studying some more. Cramming doesn't work very well when you're really tired, I'm beginning to notice. I mean, it's working well enough since it's visual and I'm a bit of a visual learner, but. I'm so tired.
Friday evening while I was exercising, a friend invited me to hang out with her in Akihabara on Saturday or Sunday. Sunday, I already had made plans for because of birthdays and such--a friend of mine who moved from the US to here just recently wanted to take me out to dinner and catch up. So, Saturday afternoon, after talking to my aunt, I packed my pockets with my wallet and the like and walked out the door. Back to Akiba, in hopes that perhaps it would be more fun than it was the time previously. Not that the first time wasn't fun, per se, but after looking at anime figurines is only entertaining for so long.
After meeting with my friend, we decided we were hungry and headed out in search for something to eat. Didn't eat here [though afterwards I rather wished I had], but I managed to find this little gem:
Itarian dog. I don't know a place called Italy, but I may know of a place called Itary.
How charming~
We decided that, since neither of us had gone before, to go to a Maid Café and see what all the fuss was about.
Let me tell you all up front: it is worth it to go once. But only once. The experience is interesting and entertaining, but it is expensive. I ordered takoyaki and a piece of cake, with a soda. That ran me about 1300 yen, plus a 1000 yen fee for sitting and using the space. I guess because they're so outrageously popular, it's all right to do that.
So, for maid cafés? Go once, if you want to--the girls are charming, they have to be, and the food is good. But don't expect to walk out of there without having spent at least 2000 yen.
We weren't supposed to take pictures, but before I realised this, I stole a couple of shots. I'll go ahead and show you guys.
Not the grand menu, but the set menu. You could take photos with the girls if you ordered off this list. My friend and I weren't particularly interested in that, so much, though, so we just ordered off the large menu.
Charming little place. A lot smaller than I had thought it might be initially.
After we ate, we wandered around the streets and went into costume shops and the occasional souvenir shop. Nothing really particularly struck our eyes, as we're not strictly into anime and games, but occasionally something came around that was interesting. I took some photos of the area, at least, as well as some of the things that intrigued and/or amused me.
Walking down one of the streets.
The view of the other side.
Views.
Views.
More views.
A claw machine with Yu-Gi-Oh! characters in them! I almost tried, but I'm terrible at claw machines.
Yu-Gi-Oh! was one of my gateway animes when I was a child, so this was quite nostalgic for me.
Socks at a souvenir shop.
You want Buddha on your feet?
Gundam Café and AKB48 Café side by side. Gundam is an old mecha anime from the 90's, and AKB48 is a HUGELY popular girl band.
...
...
I have no idea.
After a little while of exploration, my friend and I called it a day and returned to our own homes, and then I prepared myself for Sunday. The day finally rolled around, and then I had to do yet more waiting for the evening. So, I talked to my family and some friends while waiting on the friend I was supposed to see to let me know what was going on.
I left the house at about four in the evening and headed to Ikebukuro. We met up at the train station, a very happy occasion, and headed off. I went with said friend and girlfriend while they purchased a couch for their new [adorable] apartment, and then they took me to buy a pair of chopsticks with my name engraved in hiragana on them.
Which was really, really amazing.
Here they are! And if you can read hiragana, you're one step closer to knowing my real name. Haha.
Turtles! And not only is the image of half a turtle on one side, but if you pull them apart and turn one to the side, it still makes a complete turtle. There is a complete turtle on two sides of one chopstick. It's fascinating!
Also, as the drinking age is 20, of course I celebrated by treating myself to a drink. Grape sour. It was quite good.
We ordered three different okonomiyaki.
Sausages, cheese, mushrooms, and beansprouts.
I think this one was Korean?
Japanese curry and cheese.
And Mexican! I miss Mexican food so much.
They were all delicious and quite cheap, for what and where we were. We finished eating, then went to buy dessert and sit and hang out in their new apartment for a little while. It's a really charming place--Built in the 1960's, so it's a nice hybrid of Eastern and Western architecture. I really liked it, but I don't think I'd be able to live with anyone there, unless I really liked the other person. Haha.
I left at about 10:30 and went on home, going to bed shortly after talking to my mother on the internet upon my arrival. It was a good birthday.
Monday I cleaned my room, yesterday I went to work and bought myself my birthday present to me:
You're never too old for PokéMon.
After I came back, I went to the grocery store and bumped into one of my closer friends here. She invited me to go with her and some of the new exchange students to karaoke. I hadn't been, up to that point, so I agreed.
It was quite fun. After a while, though, I got tired of all the bubblegum pop the girls were picking, so I chose to do a song by Miyavi, and my friend chose a couple of old anime theme songs. I enjoyed myself quite a bit.
And today, I've been studying and stretching.
Tomorrow makes my third week of exercise, and it will officially be a habit.
Of course, it's already something of a habit. I feel funny at the thought of not exercising, and the only day I've skipped so far these past few weeks has been my birthday. So, so far, so good on this lifestyle change. I even exercised last night after getting back from the karaoke bar. Found a really good yoga set on YouTube, so I've been following along with that recently.
What else did I promise to show you..?
Oh, yes! Food.
I tried my hand at making shrimp sushi for the first time. I bought the wrong kind of shrimp, of course.
However, I improvised once I realised my mistake. I cut the shrimp in half and laid them on top of each other, two to a shrimp, with a dab of wasabi. It worked out pretty well. I would buy larger shrimp and try again, but that's expensive.
The smaller ones are pretty cheap, though. And it tastes about the same, so feel free to give it a shot if you like shrimp sushi as much as I do.
Fried dumplings! With a side of rice and umeboshi, or pickled plums.
Pretty easy to make, just a little bit time consuming. Worth it, though, because if you make enough in one sitting, it will last you a couple of days before you need to cook again.
Which is nice if you're as lazy as I am.
So there you have it. There may start to be more pictures soon, school's about to start back and people are returning and remembering that there were people left at the dormitory and whatnot.
So, we'll see.
Gotta go study for that test now, though, so I'll catch you all next week!
Take care!
-RD
PS: We broke 900 pageviews over the past week! Thank you so much for keeping up with this, guys! I hope this will prove to be of use to you, should any of you be travelling to Tokyo in the future. If you aren't, I hope you are all enjoying it! Thank you again!
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