Japan Day 6 - Touristing with Kowalski (Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ginza, Ueno, Kanamecho, Ikebukuro)
so today started when, as i mentioned at the last entry, my friend dave picked us up at the ryokan. wow! so dave is a really old friend of mine, he was one of my students at PGSS 96 and unlike a lot of other people we stayed in touch over the years, i last saw him at otakon 2001 by accident... well... he is in JET now, so he came down to Tokyo for the weekend to hang out with me today! how cool of him :) dave still hasnt changed a bit, he's still a total sweetie. we talked a lot today about the past, and about our other friends from pgss, and about college, and grad school, and anime, and marching band, and japan, and jet, and seattle, and everything, and it was just so good to catch up! but i felt kinda bad for DJ because dave and i would just sit there babbling about stuff.
yeah, so dave is more of a touristy person than we are, so we did lots of touristy things today. bought an all-day JR pass for Y730 and train hopped all day.
first stop: shinjuku. went to west shinjuku again and ended up by sportsworld AND Yellow Submarine the gaming store, so i bought more Kanji d6es - I think I have like 10 now, to give to people. I also got Drsgonlance vol 1 in Japanese. HOW AWESOME :) We got kaiten sushi for lunch and it was fantastic and relatively uncrowded so we kept asking the sushi chef guy what different stuff was called and so it was funny since we kept talking to him in Japanese. I think i was putting on a better accent than normal to impress Dave, heh. So after that we headed to the Metropolitan Buildings or whatever they are called. On the way we saw a dancing festival, took some movies and pictures of it! it was awesome. the TMB or TGB or whatever they called it was pretty cool - so it's just as high as the tokyo tower, they have two buildings, a north and south one, with observation decks - and its FREE, best of all. We took a ton of pictures of Tokyo from up there, sadly it was so foggy out you couldnt see the mountains in the distance or anything, but oh well.
After the Metro building we went to a small shrine next to the park by the metro buildings... and then we headed out of Shinjuku, to Shibuya. All we did in Shibuya was look at Hachiko, take pictures, and get back on a train. Oh, in Shinjuku I also bought a IIDX controller since ive wanted a second one and hadnt seen many this trip. It appears to be new and it cost me Y6950 - take that for what its worth. yay new controller :)
ok, so after shibuya we decided to head to Ginza. Oh man, Ginza is scary expensive, its like walking down 5th avenue in new york or something... but, they block traffic off on sundays or smoething so we walked through the middle of the streets. saw lots of people out with their kids and dogs, like seattle! whee! we went into a GIGANTIC toy store, it was crazy packed with people and fun toys. I saw a lot of board games in japanese, took some pictures of Catan games and even took some Apples to Apples japanese pamphlets, i'll give em to some of you guys when i get back! the store had a huge stuffed animal section. On impulse (and won't![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
nickjong be jealous) i bought a stuffed Jiji, like the cat from Kiki's delivery service. ITS SO CUTE. I think i will be Kiki for halloween this year as a result! Yeah. Anyway, after the toy store we decided to leave ginza since we'd been wandering around a lot and they dont have comics or videogames or CDs there and what else do we care about anyway? yeah. We did find the statue of Godzilla on the way out and took pictures. heh.
Went to Ueno to get dinner and hang out. CARL BRAD OREN youll never believe this but we went to the EXACT same Tempura place for dinner that I went to two years ago with you guys! it was so cool! we had tempura and tonkatsu and it was awesome! unfortunately i could not find the arcade brad and I spent so much time in, where i first placed PPP. oh well. sad! but otherwise it was good. Went to Ueno station to see off Dave... they have a Hard Rock CAfe there in the eki now, isnt that crazy? So i bought a t-shirt of course, for the 20th anniversary of HRC in japan. the ueno station shirts spelled it Uyeno and i didnt like that. Dave went to an omiyage shop and picked up a bazillion cookies to bring back to his JET office and stuff. Then I had to say goodbye to him. So sad! But, if anything, I feel confident that I'll keep in touch with him more. Maybe I should come back and visit Fukushima sometime next year! it's near Sendai, and I kinda want to go there sometime.
DJ and I stopped in a bakery in the station because DJ now has an uncurable addiction to melon bread, and then we headed back to Ikebukuro... well, we also stopped back off in Kanamecho so I could get I-gene his IIDX 4th, since I didnt grab it last time. rawr. Now we are here in the arcade. DJ's playing PNM upstairs and Im writing this stuff... and I just sent email to Yasu. I wonder if he will actually write back. That would be so cool :) (Yes, to those wondering in the last few posts who I am talking about, I do mean aaroninjapan and yes THAT yasu and take and the rest of the gang. And they really are that crazy and scary in real life!)
Man, I'm gonna miss Japan so much. SIGH...
bye again, gonna go check what time the game is tomorrow... I cant wait for baseball! WHEE!
yeah, so dave is more of a touristy person than we are, so we did lots of touristy things today. bought an all-day JR pass for Y730 and train hopped all day.
first stop: shinjuku. went to west shinjuku again and ended up by sportsworld AND Yellow Submarine the gaming store, so i bought more Kanji d6es - I think I have like 10 now, to give to people. I also got Drsgonlance vol 1 in Japanese. HOW AWESOME :) We got kaiten sushi for lunch and it was fantastic and relatively uncrowded so we kept asking the sushi chef guy what different stuff was called and so it was funny since we kept talking to him in Japanese. I think i was putting on a better accent than normal to impress Dave, heh. So after that we headed to the Metropolitan Buildings or whatever they are called. On the way we saw a dancing festival, took some movies and pictures of it! it was awesome. the TMB or TGB or whatever they called it was pretty cool - so it's just as high as the tokyo tower, they have two buildings, a north and south one, with observation decks - and its FREE, best of all. We took a ton of pictures of Tokyo from up there, sadly it was so foggy out you couldnt see the mountains in the distance or anything, but oh well.
After the Metro building we went to a small shrine next to the park by the metro buildings... and then we headed out of Shinjuku, to Shibuya. All we did in Shibuya was look at Hachiko, take pictures, and get back on a train. Oh, in Shinjuku I also bought a IIDX controller since ive wanted a second one and hadnt seen many this trip. It appears to be new and it cost me Y6950 - take that for what its worth. yay new controller :)
ok, so after shibuya we decided to head to Ginza. Oh man, Ginza is scary expensive, its like walking down 5th avenue in new york or something... but, they block traffic off on sundays or smoething so we walked through the middle of the streets. saw lots of people out with their kids and dogs, like seattle! whee! we went into a GIGANTIC toy store, it was crazy packed with people and fun toys. I saw a lot of board games in japanese, took some pictures of Catan games and even took some Apples to Apples japanese pamphlets, i'll give em to some of you guys when i get back! the store had a huge stuffed animal section. On impulse (and won't
nickjong be jealous) i bought a stuffed Jiji, like the cat from Kiki's delivery service. ITS SO CUTE. I think i will be Kiki for halloween this year as a result! Yeah. Anyway, after the toy store we decided to leave ginza since we'd been wandering around a lot and they dont have comics or videogames or CDs there and what else do we care about anyway? yeah. We did find the statue of Godzilla on the way out and took pictures. heh.Went to Ueno to get dinner and hang out. CARL BRAD OREN youll never believe this but we went to the EXACT same Tempura place for dinner that I went to two years ago with you guys! it was so cool! we had tempura and tonkatsu and it was awesome! unfortunately i could not find the arcade brad and I spent so much time in, where i first placed PPP. oh well. sad! but otherwise it was good. Went to Ueno station to see off Dave... they have a Hard Rock CAfe there in the eki now, isnt that crazy? So i bought a t-shirt of course, for the 20th anniversary of HRC in japan. the ueno station shirts spelled it Uyeno and i didnt like that. Dave went to an omiyage shop and picked up a bazillion cookies to bring back to his JET office and stuff. Then I had to say goodbye to him. So sad! But, if anything, I feel confident that I'll keep in touch with him more. Maybe I should come back and visit Fukushima sometime next year! it's near Sendai, and I kinda want to go there sometime.
DJ and I stopped in a bakery in the station because DJ now has an uncurable addiction to melon bread, and then we headed back to Ikebukuro... well, we also stopped back off in Kanamecho so I could get I-gene his IIDX 4th, since I didnt grab it last time. rawr. Now we are here in the arcade. DJ's playing PNM upstairs and Im writing this stuff... and I just sent email to Yasu. I wonder if he will actually write back. That would be so cool :) (Yes, to those wondering in the last few posts who I am talking about, I do mean aaroninjapan and yes THAT yasu and take and the rest of the gang. And they really are that crazy and scary in real life!)
Man, I'm gonna miss Japan so much. SIGH...
bye again, gonna go check what time the game is tomorrow... I cant wait for baseball! WHEE!
no subject
no subject
<sigh>
no subject
Must.. save.. money.. for.. trip.
no subject
no subject