sashiburi

This why I haven't had time to blog in the past few days.

Went down to Kamakura again, but this time with my dorm mates. I was just there a week ago, but I thought it would be a great opportunity to get to meet some new people.
Kamakura was PACKED on Sunday. The main shopping street was filled with tourists and vendors.

The smells while strolling through the shopping street were amazing. We stopped at one of the vendors selling Oni Manju (Demon buns). The hot and freshly steamed buns were packed with sweet potato.

We found one vendor selling steamed sake buns.

The cherry blossoms weren't fully bloomed last time, so today was a perfect day to come. The middle of the main street leading up to the shrine has a long park lined with hundreds of sakura.

This is Hachimangu Jinja. Street food is my favorite!!

Our lunch group.

There were a lot of weddings going on that day. One after another, they would have a procession to the shrine with ancient music, have the ceremony, and then take photos.


Rock Paper scissors for pineapple. You pay 200 yen to play. If you win, you get two sticks, if you tie or lose you only get one.

Sakura in full bloom.

Wata Ame. A giant cloud of cotton candy. However, it's fluffier than American cotton candy.

The vendor got it all in his hair, so we had to take a pic.

The musicians and the wedding ceremony

One of the shrine maidens doing a dance.

The public go crazy when they see weddings and all flock to take photos with their cell phones...I also joined in.

stairs to the shrine.

another wedding

My fortune wrote bad luck.

When you get a bad fortune, you tie it to a tree or this string. By tying the fortune, you leave the bad behind.

Looking down into town. You can see the avenue of cherry blossoms in the far distance.


candied grapes.


some macro shots. i really don't have any idea how to use my camera. :)


Today I found out that all these times I've been to Kamakura, I've been so close to the beach. I thought I was in the middle of a forest, but we were only minutes from the ocean.
We all took the train to Enoshima, a close by resort beach town for sunset.

beautiful sunset



On the way back, we found a small arcade that had old-style pachinko machines. the balls were plastic and the prizes were vintage toys.

dorm mates. roy and oki-chan


Monday:
Today we had medical exams. This was an interesting experience for us foreigners. It felt like we were entering the military. They had us undress half way and then walk through several stations of rooms where they took xrays, checked our eyes, and asked us questions. After that wierd experience, we walked campus.

Found the large perfectly trimmed christmas tree that they light up every winter.

While waiting for laurel at shibuya, some Japanese nationalists were preaching their arguements. After a while, they started banzai-ing.

Tuesday:
It was 70 degrees today. Warm with a nice breeze. A fellow dormmate and I rode to Shibuya since a katsu curry lunch is only 360 yen at the cafeteria.
my balcony at sunset.

yozakura.

we did yozakua (cherry blossom night viewing) in the park tonight, so I got back late again. I will try my best to update pics tomorrow......hopefully?

too late.

it's too late, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow morning to blog. A large group of us went to Kamakura and to the ocean today. I have some pretty cool pics, so I'll post after breakfast tomorrow. good night.

Skyscrapin

A couple of friends and I rode the densha to Shinjuku to check out the skyscraper district. We heard from someone that you can ride up to the observatory of the Tokyo Municipal Building for free.

After almost 50 stories up, we looked out to the city below.

We then realized that this city is huge. Walking around 360 degrees, all we saw were more and more buildings.

Across the street, we found a park where people where having picnics under the blooms. Here's the tower looking back up.

Walked through a small flea market selling the most random stuff.

Met Laurel in Shibuya later on. This guy was chilling under the Hachiko statue the whole time I was there...smiling...for almost an hour....with a bottle of wine.
Harajuku was packed today, so we decided to cut over to yoyogi park and check out Meiji Shrine.

The huge famous tori you see in magazines and books.

Sake Barrels

Lolo chan and I


We saw a traditional wedding procession. Pretty cool. The priests and couple looked so clean and pure.

To end our excursion, Laurel and I decided to go to Kaiten Sushi and eat as many wierd kinds of sushi as we could find.
We started out with the normal hamachi.

Laurel tried a seared mackeral. She said it was really fishy.

The tuna looked really fresh so I had to try it. It was tasty.

And finally, we both tried sea urchin. Like Laurel said, it looked like poop, felt like poop, and tasted like the ocean. yum.

perfect weather

Great weather today here in Tokyo. We had a couple orientation sessions and then wandered around shibuya.
My campus at dusk

There's a United Nations University across the street.

My new playground: Senta Gai

On the way home, we got caught in the evening commute and had to ride shoulder to shoulder on the train.

Today wasn't even that bad. A couple nights ago, I was cramped in the middle and could barely breathe since it got so hot. The windows fogged up and at one point, 10 of us fell over after a sharp turn. It's interesting that no one gets mad even when people push themselves in.
Later that night I went to our public bath and soaked for a half hour. Kinda weird that everyone is butt naked, but so relaxing to do at the end of the day.
I soaked for so long that my body was sweating when I got out, so I walked down to the convenience store and bought my favorite ice cream.

It's a crispy wafer outside with vanilla ice cream and chocolate in the middle.

It's 57 outside and I'm chilling in my room with my balcony door open.

Crazzzzy day.

Today has to be the craziest day I've had in Japan so far. We started off early and headed out to AGU in Shibuya. We had and orientation session and also met our tutors. Mine is an English major named Saki. She was very helpful and fun. We had lunch at the University's cafeteria. Contrary to the HUB's 7.00 rice box thing, I got a katsudon set for around 3 dollars. Katsu curry set was only 4 bucks, and it was mighty tasty.

After lunch we had a placement exam. THEN.....the fun began.


The group mobbed through shibuya over to yoyogi koen to have Hanami (flower viewing). But actually its just an excuse for the Japanese to get drunk in the middle of the day. It was around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and the Japanese students bought an unbelievable amount of snacks and beer. Tarps were laid out and the party began.

We have a midnight curfew so we had to start early. :)

My tutor Saki!

Umaibo: giant cheeto-like snacks (flavors: cow tongue, salami, corn soup)

Around 125 exchange and Japanese students

beautiful day.

Of course some person from a different group blacked out face down on their tarp and had to call and ambulence to pick the person up... keep in mind that it's still light out.

all pau!

hanahou! we continued on to a British pub called The HUB(!!!) in Shibuya for happy hour. 2 dollar gin tonics. It reminds me of college inn.

ice skating on tv in the bar? chotto hen.

copped.

Tokyo is DANGEROUS for shopping. Laurel and I spent a whole day roaming around Shibuya. We managed to get through only one of the dozens of large department stores. Laurel went crazy and bought a lot. The girls that work in these stores are abnormally attractive. For lunch we ate at matsuya; cheap and satisfying. Laurel accompanied me while I went on a hunt to find a particular shoe. Found it and copped it!Pics below

Misty day in Tokyo. It's interesting how everyone knows when to bring an umbrella. Laurel and I both forgot ours. Its like magic. When it starts raining, EVERYONE pulls out their non-collapsible umbrella.

Laurel and I decided to meet by the famous Hachiko dog statue in Shibuya. After a half hour of waiting, I found out that we had been waiting by two different dog statues.

Laurel had a good time here at Shibuya 109. 8 floors of ladies boutiques.

After three stores, I finall found them.

Atmos!

The food at my dorm is mighty delicious. For breakfast I had udon and maze gohan. For dinner we had rice and stew. It kinda feels like church food. The old obaachan ladies cook for us.