2/12 Krispy Kreme, gingerbread and a trip to the roof

Before coming to Japan, I had heard how the opening of a Krispy Kreme store in Tokyo genereated hours and hours of lines. Naturally, I got very curious about their donuts and decided that I'd try them out at least once when I'd go to Japan. There's neither Starbucks, Cold Stone or Krispy Kreme in Sweden, which is really strange since we import so many things from the States anyway. I'd say, swap McD's with Cold Stone Creamery!

1. On a weekday afternoon, almost two years after the store opened, there's still a line outside.
2. The donuts! Or at least the remaining two when I realized I hadn't taken a picture yet.

The Krispy Kreme donuts are really sweet, a pure bliss if you like sugar. But you'll feel full for a couple of hours after that, so I don't think it was a very good idea of us to have them before dinner... Oh well. I still prefer Cold Stone over these donuts. :D

A and I picked E up at Shinjuku after getting the donuts, she was coming here with all her luggage cause she'd be staying at my place until my course ends and we leave for Kyoto for a couple of days. Nevertheless, we didn't ride the rush hours train but you still feel like you're a lot in the way when you board the train with huge suitcases. How do the other traveling Tokyoites do it? I've seen people with small, carry-on sized suitcases from time to time, but very rarely the large ones. I think there's this delivery system where you can have your bags delivered to the airport (or home if you're coming the other way). Before coming to Japan, I was seriously considering that alternative but I think we'll just take an early train when we go to Narita in a couple of days.

Back at the apartment, we threw a mini Swedish party. E had bought glögg in IKEA (she went there and to Disneyland without meeeeee! ;o;) and O had told me that you could buy pepparkakor at one of the supermarkets around our area, so I wouldn't have needed to go to Ame Yoko to get them before. How strange how Annas Pepparkakor managed to find its way to a normal, Japanese supermarket in Shimotakaido, Tokyo, Japan.

Later, when O joined us, he told us that you could actually go up on the roof, so we thought, why the heck not? Thing is, I don't think you are supposed to be able to go up there as there was no proper staircase. We had to climb over the corridor wall which is well over a meter tall and then walk (or crawl in my case...) up a steep section and then another (imagine a flight of stairs but without the stairs) of the building to get up. It's especially scary when it's pitch black dark outside and you don't really see the ground below you. But it was well worth it. We had so much space on the roof just for ourselves which left us wondering if we really were in Tokyo. Overwhelmed by this feeling, we started jumping around like little kids. And in the horizon, the lights from the city that never sleeps kept blinking away.

Dance, dance, dance on the roof.

30/11 Shibuya Red Walk

On Sunday the 30th, we were invited to join the Shibuya Red Walk event, organized by wAds, which one of the volunteers is a member of. The purpose of event (and all other events that are organized by wAds) is to increase the awareness of AIDS among young people in Japan.

1. On our way to the meeting point. Shibuya clearly needs to work on its Christmas decorations.
2. Weird speaker Christmas tree. Very... "modern".

Not knowing for sure where the meeting point was, we kept a lookout for anything red - the color for the World AIDS day (or 世界エイズデー in Japan). It turned out we didn't have to look very hard, they had people wearing red and holding red balloons stationed everywhere to guide us lost sheep to the right place. There, we each got to write a sign to hold for the walk. Oddly enough, writing the organization's slogan, "Stop AIDS" was not encouraged. Surely that's the most straight forward message there is, so we all found it strange that we were refrained from writing that.

Getting things organized.

After getting everything set up for the walk, we listened to a couple of speeches, I imagine it was the higher-ups in the organizations speaking. They also had an AV-star as a spokesperson, and she just seemed... gone in the head. A bit robotish. Everyone received a flyer and condoms with her autograph on. Why you would want that on a condom is a mystery though...

The walk started and we all tried to keep the lines neat, but people kept dropping off so in the end we were quite scattered. It's the first time I'm taking part in anything like this, I didn't even do it in Sweden, so it was quite interesting seeing the reactions from onlookers, a role which I am usually taking. Seeing things from the other side was refreshing. During the walk, the AV star would chant "今日は何の日ーー？" ("What day is it today?", she kept saying "today" even though the World AIDS day was actually tomorrow) and we would respond with "世界エイズデー" and it all went quite fine until the amp/speaker broke down. The cord got rolled on too much and decided to stop working. Without a speaker voice, no one wanted to raise their voices. I thought, what the heck, does our commitment only reach as far as the speaker cord? So I took the initiative and did the 今日は何の日shout and it worked a couple of times. Then we stopped, because apparently it was time to move on to the next activity on the event. (And it was getting awkward without a speaker... What did I say about commitment again?) But before that, one of the JLSP guys got interviewed by the cameraman. I suppose they wanted the gaijin perspective of this all as well. @_@

We took the train to a temple close to the Tokyo Tower. Goodie bags were handed out containing mineral water and brochures about HIV and AIDS, which of course were cutely illustrated because we're in Japan.

1. On our way to the train. Follow the red balloons!
2. Jizo-san in front of the shrine, all prepared for the cold to come.
3. Another shot.

Inside the temple, we got to hear a talk by this head priest who clearly didn't have any idea of what the event was about. The monks beside him had to (not so) discretely remind him that it was AIDS he was talking about when he got stuck, but suddenly he (the priest) just started babbling about cancer, forgetting all about AIDS. Awkward much? ^^; After that, we listened to a performance to... eh, a famous traditional arts performance guy. We only noticed he was famous afterwards when girls rushed to him and asked to take pictures together. Hm hm. So we asked for one too. :D Hehe. With this, we left the Shibuya Red Walk (they had more activities planned for the day) and went to get some lunch. Btw, I found this video on Youtube from that day! For the 30/11 event, watch until 3:07. We show up quite a lot (check 3:06)!

Anyway, the lunch. It deserves its own paragraph! S, Sv, A and I went to Tokyo Dome City in Suidobashi (where they have that roller coaster we rode on A's bday) to eat at Ichiran, a ramen restaurant. But not ANY ramen restaurant! First of all, they have this ordering system where you get this slip of paper while you stand in line (of course) to fill in your preferences about the noodles - the thickness, spiciness, how much taste the sauce should have and so on. When you reach the ticket machine, you buy the base ticket and any extras you'd want, I went for extra noodles on the recommendation of S. When you get in, you see (well, not actually, I'll get to it in a moment) you sit beside other customers in lines, except everything is being shield off! It's quite difficult to explain, but they had four lines and they all had a wooden board shielding off from curious eyes. On the board for each line, there's a monitor thing to see how many seats are empty. It's quite difficult to explain the layout, so I recommend going to the Ichiran website (link above) and check out the picture at the "Taste Counter" section, they explain it all there. It was all very surrealistic/futuristic, and I felt like I was in a Satoshi Kon movie. And the ramen! Was it good! It's another you-have-to-experience-it-yourself thing, it was really, really, awesomely good! If anyone goes to Japan, I recommend Ichiran very strongly, but it's better if you know some Japanese (to fill out the form).

My ramen.

Tokyo Dome City was illuminated with blinding lights for Christmas as well.

On #5, we went to this place called Gindaco, which serve delicious takoyaki! Also a recommendation if you happen to pass by it. Will probably have lines outside.

Hair check before taking purikura.

We had a hard time deciding if we wanted to go to karaoke afterwards, since heaps for schoolwork had to be done by the day after. But realizing that we don't have many days left (Sv and A are staying for another semester), we went anyway and sang Christmas songs för hela slanten. :D

Getting back to Shimotakaido, we went for a quick stop at the Seven Eleven and ran into the hairdresser who did my hair yesterday - I wouldn't have recognized her if S didn't say "thank you for yesterday". Woops. that was close. ^^;

ただいま

Sorry for the long wait - I'm back in Sweden now. I still plan on catching up with the blog, for memory's sake, cause it's only a matter of time until everything eventually fades away.
So yeah, stick around for a little bit more.

29/11 Got a hair cut

It looks like this now! When it's properly styled, at least...

S, Sv and I went to a hair dresser close to our Shimotakaido station (and we're talking real close here, just 'round the corner basically) and getting a hair cut in Japan is a whole another experience of its own! I think I got my hair washed twice or three times there. And the hairdresser always asks you "Would you kindly let me do..." and I would just nod my head away. I just told her (the only female hairdresser in the salon) to do whatever looks good. Everyone was quite talkative as well, even though you could sometimes notice that they just asked the questions for the sake of asking them, but that's how small talk goes. That was the part I was most nervous about actually, but it went okay on the whole. ^^; They were really friendly.

I've been trying to put wax and style it myself for the last couple of days but I never seem to get the same look. Ngarhhhh. :<

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is the last day of the JLSP program. It's time to say good bye to everyone. T_T

28/11 Roppongi illumination

So on Friday, we had our last D class lunch adventure - except it wasn't really lunch - we went for dinner this time, at a pretty high classy Korean place in Roppongi. H-sensei brought her husband and son with her, and I sat mostly with them throughout the dinner. The meat was so soft and it just melted in my mouth. *w* Korean food is a bit hotter than what I'm used to eating though, but on the whole I enjoy it! H-sensei's husband is quite a yakinikuer, has just the right timing too! He's charismatic but me being me I didn't make much effort initiating a conversation. Get out of shell, self!

Us JLSP:ers + a volunteer parted ways with H-sensei's family after dinner (her son had to attend classes the day after, a Saturday!) and we decided to stroll around the Roppongi area to check out the illuminations. Once Christmas strikes Tokyo, the whole city just lights up with all sorts of pretty and unpretty lights.

Kinda tacky when they go overboard with all the blue lights, but hey, it's Christmas, you're allowed to be tacky! Oh, and check out the huge spider in the last picture. It was right in front of this huge sky scraper department store building too, somehow didn' feel like it belonged there.

Tokyo Tower!

It was getting late so we headed home, about to spend or last weekend as students in Japan.

27/11

Procrastination art.

22/11 Climbing Mt. Takao

Shinjuku station is plastered all over with them. Huge posters showing a Mt. Takao covered in autumn colors, that is. After seeing those posters everyday for a couple of weeks I thought it'd be nice to go, so I suggested to E that we'd do that, and so yesterday we hopped on the local train heading for Takaosanguchi to climb our first (?) mountain. When speaking about seasons in Japan, autumn is well known for its beautiful striking red, orange and yellow hues. Depending on which part in Japan you are, the trees usually change colors from late October to some time in December. Tokyo entered the kouyou (紅葉) season a week or two ago, so it was perfect timing to go see the leaves in Mt. Takao.

We originally wanted to get out by ten, but were too tired and went out an hour later later than planned instead. Which was good, for a reason that will be mentioned later in the post. :D There's a local train from Shimotakaido going straight to the Takaosanguchi station, so we hopped onto that one. Sitting on the train for around 90 minutes lets you see a lot of the suburbs of Tokyo, and even if it was my first time seeing these places, I still got this sentimental, natsukashii feeling. At times we almost had the whole train for ourselves.

E and I took a lot of pictures, and most of them are of the same things. E's camera caught the colors much better though, so I hope she won't mind me showing them here on the blog. :D Oh, and I also need to say that the colors were much more intense than shown on the pictures, for most of the cases. It was impossible to catch, so if you think the colors look amazing on the pictures, just imagine how stunning they were in real life!

1. Such beautiful colors already in the start! Seemed like it was worth coming here after all! This is the billboard the climbers were greeted with once you exit the station.
2. Just a picture of the surroundings.
3. We've started walking! The first part was more like a shopping street in terms of both crowdiness and atmosphere. It was still beautiful though.
4. We hadn't even started actually climbing yet and we already went photo-crazy! Greens, yellows and assorted browns and oranges all mixed up.

1. Official starting point! I just need to say it again, the colors were breath-taking.
2. 3.8km to go. よしっ！行こう！
3. But before that, another picture...
4. Autumn Wonderland.

As we climbed the mountain, we noticed that the higher we got up, the greener the trees were. Except by the cable car stations, where the trees suddenly got red again. Hm, conspiracy anyone? And oh yeah, you could actually ride the cable car up to the top if you didn't want to walk by yourself, but then again what's the point? Of course E and I chose to conquer Mt. Takao with our own feet! :D Though we were very tempted to just hop onto the lift a couple of times... There were a lot of people climbing the mountain that day, and there were actually lines forming on the climbing paths. Orderly, too. The ones going up kept to the left and the ones going down (at 13:00?! How early had they been up?!) kept to the right. As expected from Japan!
To think that even mountain climbing would be crowded... I got tired pretty fast and it was mostly me who begged E to stop for a chocolate break. ^^; Hohoho...

1. Our first stop! Still quite a bit left until the top.
2. Lots of other people taking a break too.
3. Every single one of the ojizo-sans that we saw had gotten red hats put on. They'll be able to survive the winter now!

Actually, the halfway point was just around the corner (around 15 minutes after we took the pictures above) and that's where people changed to the next cable car. Needless to say, E and I felt very proud of ourselves having gone all this way by ourselves. Spurred by this energy, we didn't even think of taking the optiton of going up with the lifts/cars! But who could say no to a food break? :D

1. People getting off the cable cars.
2. Mochi dango being made!
3. They were d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s. :D Mmm mochi! I want to eat it again...
4. Closeby to the lift station. What are people looking at?
5. Oooh. This tree. With the sun in the back, it really stood out. But I don't think it warranted such a huge crowd. If I gathered a group of people and just stood somewhere looking at a plain rock, I bet lots of people would join us just for the sake of being in a crowd.
6. Fading mountains in the distance.

The rest of the road up wasn't as harsh as the first half. We passed a shrine (of which I'm too lazy to post pictures of because it's getting late ^^;; hohoho...) and saw typical shrine-y goodness. I'll just skip to the end!

The last obstacle was this flight of stairs!

At 15:47, around two and a half hour of climbing (including breaks) we finally reached the top! Yaaaaaay! We did it! And this is the good thing about getting out later than planned which I mentioned before: we timed the sunrise! :D

1. Colors, colors.
2. Incredibly red leaves. They've sort of got a blue tint to them on the photo, but imagine the brightest red you know and you've got the color of the leaves on this tree!
3. We were really there!
4. The reward of our hard work comes in the form of a sign proving that we got to the top. Yay!
5. But the real reward would prove to be a couple of steps ahead...
6. Fujisan! (Barely visible, but if you squeeze your eyes you'll see a faint shape a little to the left of the center.) I'm glad we made it to the top. :D The sight just seemed to be so much more meaningful when you've worked your way to it!

We walked around the area a bit and felt proud of ourselves, until we finally decided to head down. Thing was, we were so exhausted that we were ready to throw this pride away and ride the cable car down, but it turned out that it was 30 minutes from the top so we just decided to walk down and see if we'd find it. When we did, the line was so long that we just decided to walk down all the way instead. But not before we had a manjuu (饅頭) each! And then we ended up buying another one to share because it was sooo good. *w* (Mooom, can we eat 叉燒包 when I'm home again? I really miss it!) By the time we were finished with the manjuu, it had already gotten dark and we walked in almost complete darkness. Luckily we just needed to follow all the other people going down. A lot of them brought flashlights so there was no problem getting down safely.

Feeling dead tired, E and I slept most for most of the train ride back to Shimotakaido.

-------------
23/11
Today, we got out and really felt the pain reminding us of the exercise we got yesterday. Well, at least me because I ignored the stretching. Also, after the JLSP course ends on the 3rd of December E and I are going to Kyoto for a couple of days! \o/ Bought tickets for the night bus and booked a room at an inn just today, so we're all set! Yay, Kyoto, we'll see you soon!

21/11 Kabuki

Only a couple of weeks left until most of us JLSPers head home, and so the last school activity also came. This time we were going to see a Kabuki performance at the Kabukiza in Ginza. Unless you're a fan of Kabuki, even Japanese have trouble understanding what a performance was all about, so we all read up on the plays before to be able to follow the plots.

Ginza is where all these exclusive high class brand stores are located, which the buildings seemed to reflect as well. Tall, finely designed skyscrapers covered in glass, neat store fronts and sophisticated people walking the streets. Very different from Shibuya and Harajuku, which also are areas which are highly fashion oriented. The sidewalks in Ginza were so wide that you didn't have to worry about bumping into other people. A was saying how it was so much like Toronto, and I think it kind of reminded me of Stockholm as well, although everything here seemed a bit... grandier.

After an hour of free time we headed for the Kabukiza.

It was kind of surrealistic seeing a traditional building among all the glassy ones.

Now, onto the Kabuki. Ahem, first of all, I'm sorry Mom and Dad, I fell asleep a couple of times and slept through a lot of the acts. I know I should be there appreciating the fine art of this acting style that has survived for so many hundreds of years, but... I just couldn't. It's not like I can't appreciate it, but somehow it all seemed pretty sleep-inducing... I feel so unsophisticated now. And you know what? Even Japanese people fall asleep too! And we were actually told it was okay to sleep a little! (What the...) So... It's alright! I didn't embarass myself. That much.

Anyway. We sat on the second floor and so had some distance to the stage. Apparently, the second floor is where all the regulars sit. They shout out the actors' (Kabuki only has male actors, some of them specializing in female roles, so called onnagata) names during certain times, which seemed pretty random to me. Some of the name shouting made sense (when a character appears or had said something cool) but others just seemed random. Also, although around half of the audience was female all the name shouting were done by old men. Hmm. Moving on. Watching kabuki felt a lot like looking into a dollhouse, both in atmosphere and the way they act. Kind of plasticky in a good way. Some people really hated the obvious staged feeling to it, but I think Kabuki is just supposed to be that way, what with all the different make up styles for different character types and all, it's so stylized. Not saying I understand the depthness at all though, because I don't. I do wish I hadn't fallen asleep so much though, I would've really liked to see the performances in full (I only stayed awake fully for the second performance out of three...) so I could write down my impressions on the plot and such. But four hours of sitting still proved to be a bit too much after all.

20/11 iroiro

The Starbucks stores all over Japan are getting geared up for Christmas. I really like the Christmas packaging design they have, feels just right. Our Starbucks near school has all kinds of seasonal stuff put out, chocolate calendars, soundtrack CDs (jazzy Christmasy music? Yes!) and exclusive chocolates and coffee beans, all with nicely designed packages of course. If you do anything in this country, you go all the way out, no 中途半端ness here at all!

E was going to spend a couple of days in Tokyo so I went to pick her up at Shinjuku after classes. After a short stop back home to drop some luggage we went out again and did some karaoke. I've found that if I sing Sambomaster's songs I won't butcher them as I do with many other artists' songs! So I guess my vocal range (or lack of) matches Sambo's vocalist... That's always something! Sang a couple of Christmas songs too to get into the mood too. :D Dammit, we need to establish karaoke in Sweden! Just think about it, singing Just D's tune would be so cool!

Back at the apartment, we had a nice little gathering where we ate the ginger bread I bought in Ame Yoko which I saved especially for this occasion. I've been close to eating it all up by myself a couple of times... Also, I drank milk for the first time since coming to Japan ("What?!" was the reaction I got from everyone...) and as everyone had said, it tastes like whipped cream. :<>

17/11 Asakusa

Monday's highlight was going to Asakusa with the free conversation people after a day of classes. Asakusa is mainly famous for the Kaminarimon entrance to the Sensouji temple, where there's this huge red paper lantern (it feels like I'm downgrading the importance of it...) hanging down. It's certainly one of the hottest tourist spots in Tokyo. I'll try to keep this entry short as there's a lot of things to catch up with and I won't have much time left to blog the last couple of weeks here in Japan.

1. We arrived in Asakusa riding on a tacky-looking tourist boat.
2. The Tsukiji fish market grounds! They only hold it early in the morning, hence the emptiness.
3. We passed at least ten or fifteen bridges on our 35-minute ride here. Is there really a need for this many? Most of them looked pretty boring but this was pretty coold.
4. The Yellow Turd. Nah, just kidding. Asahi is a bevereages manufacturer and the turd-looking thing i's supposed to be a drop of delicious golden beer. But it still looks like a turd to me. Oh, and the building to the left is designed to look like a pint of beer, though you can't see it very well in this picture since the top part with the foam is cut off...

1. At the Sensouji! Group picture outside the Kaminarimon. As you can see, doing the V-sign is so common that even a sensei would do it, when they would normally want to assume a more authoritative position and distance themselves from the students in gestures and such in other countries. Or am I reading too much into this?
2. Closeup of the huge red paper lantern. Har har har.
3.The sight you are welcomed with once you go through the gates. Souvenir shops galore!
4. Looking back.

1. All light up and pretty.
2. Edo-style resting places with a modern twist in the form of red plastic tarps.
3. Nightmare-inducing dolls. So eerie...

We walked to a nearby shrine afterwards, but it must've been our lucky (or unlucky) day cause the places was packed! Worse than a rush hour train! I think walking from the entrance to the main part of the shrine (where you throw a coin into a box and ring a bell to pray) would normally take less then five minutes, but we must've been lining up for at least twenty minutes until we finally got to do it. They had guards standing on these huge stands leveled above our heads to constantly remind us to think about the safety and be careful. They took turns in repeating the same message over and over again and I just felt kind of sorry for them.

1. Crowdiness level: Tunas in a can.
2. There were stands all throughout the shrine selling kumade. A kumade is an ornament which is supposed to attract good business, much like the maneki neko. Those faces are kind of creepy though, you'd think they'd scare people from coming into your shop rather than the opposite...
3. The side streets were packed too.
4. Soon there! Just right ahead.

Taken just right before it was my turn! Mission successful!

Because we had gotten out so late, by the time we were finished by this it was already past normal dinner time. Sensei headed home and the rest of us decided to grab something to eat, so we went to this family restaurant called Danny's. Judging by the reactions from the volunteers, it apparently is kind of lame (or more like töntigt, but I can't recall a good English word for it) but cute at the same time. Hm, dunno how that works but everyone had a good time so it didn't matter. :D

16/11 Basketball and homemade okonomiyaki

Time to catch up with the blogging again! It's been a pretty eventful week and I am now chewing on some salty biscuit coated with sugar that tastes like chocolate while trying to get into blogging mode.

So! On Sunday the 16th a week ago, A and I got up pretty early to go root for K's basketball game. We went to Nakano and met up with a couple of the other JLSPers and some volunteers and started heading to the sports hall where the game was held. As per usual, going to new places always mean that you have to be lost first, but luckily we made it in time in the end!

I knew that Slam Dunk was a huge hit in Japan when it was serialized, but it wasn't until we started talking about it (some volunteers and I) that I was told that just about everyone read it when it was running. Just a fun little fact I wanted to drop while I'm on the basket topic. :D We've been starting to make references to it a little now and then.

The club K was in wasn't related to his school/university at all (as would be in a lot of cases when it comes to club activities in Japan I think), so everyone plays when they have time to. I have no idea if you have the same kind of obligation in joining club practices/activities in a shakaijin (社会人) club as with the school-bound clubs. Anyway, the K's team (it was called Twenty-Two, so I'll just refer it as TT from now on) was going against a team which seemed to consist of high school students, which they probably weren't but there was still quite an age gap between the two teams. ^^; I noticed that when it goes bad for TT, it goes quite bad, but as soon as they score a couple of points they get with the flow. They weren't really stable as a team I think, and in the end they lost with 30 points to the shrimps. :<>. Oh well!

Taken just right before TT scored a basket, turning the game over to 19-18! The lead sadly didn't last very long... There was another game going on on the other half of the hall, with two girls teams in fact, that would've been interesting to watch as well. :D

Later we went to lunch and K treated everyone to drinks as an apology for making us wake up so early to watch a game his team didn't win. XD; Wow. It's usually the other way around isn't it? But putting winning or losing aside, it was fun experiencing yet another side of Japanese life. Going to watch a friend's game and having fun makes me feel a bit more like a part of the society. I haven't had to seriously think about blending in or not yet, because I know I'll be gone after three months anyway. So I've never bothered trying to adapt to certain things, but once I return to Sweden I think I'll notice the changes I've gone through. Though because I am Asian, sometimes I've wished that I looked obviously non-Asian so I could get away with things easier. Like when I'm not able to make myself understood when I'm trying to say that I need a plastic bag when I buy groceries. I just don't want to seem stupid while people think I'm Japanese. On the other hand it'd be frustrating to always have the fact following you around that people assume you don't understand a single word of the language just because you obviously look like a foreigner. E's getting pretty sick of it and I feel frustrated just hearing what people say to her everytime she has a conversation with them. Urgh.

Getting back to topic, we split up after lunch and A and I headed home. After taking a rest, we met up at her place and she showed me how to make Okonomiyaki! Man was it awesome! :D It was so good and not difficult to make at all! Well, that is putting away the fact that I've already forgotten how to make it, but I think I'll be able to recreate it once I freshen my memory up with the pictures I took. Mm~

13/11 - 15/11 Food food food!

Feels like eating is the only thing I've done for the past few days. :D Just getting some pictures up for la familia!

13/11
N and M took us to an Okinawan restaurant in our hood, Shimotakaido. Okinawan food is quite different from other Japanese food seeing that it's highly influenced by the neighbouring Asian countries. So it's an Asian buffé. But then again, I had tacorice, hrm.

Om nom nom good tofu!

14/11
JLSP-K threw a thank you party for a couple of the many kind volunteers who always help us. Pasta (cooked by K herself!) and snacks were prepared for the occasion.

I ate about half of this. :D;;

15/11
A took us to Ame Yoko to check out the candy stores there. And man, was there candy! They had a huge section with non-Japanese candy and snacks, and look what I found there!

Pepparkakor! I've never heard of Annas pepparkakor until now but they have that Hans Majestät Konungens approval seal so it must be Swedish... And what are those turd-looking things to the right you wonder? I wonder too! I actually bought them just because Ema from Phoenix Wright eats them all the time. Nerd.

1. We also found giant Pocky in the candy store.
2. Got taiyaki? :D What you see is what you get - it's basically a fish shaped cake. Mine came with red bean paste filling! Mmm.

And that was all for the food report this time!

9/11 Kamakura trip!

One thing that makes our stay so wonderful here in Japan are the lovely volunteers. Most of the ones I've met are all so friendly and helpful, and wouldn't hesitate to give you an arm even if you only asked for a hand. They always seem to be organizing some event to make our stay in Japan as worthwhile and fun as possible, and I really, really appreciate all the effort they put into it!

Last Sunday we had another of those events that the volunteers organized. We were going on a day trip to Kamakura, "a city located in Kanagawa, Japan, about 50 km south-south-west of Tokyo" (thanks Wiki, heehee). Kamakura is known for its long history, but if you want to know more about that, just reference good ol' Wiki!

We departed around 9 o'clock in the morning from Shinjuku, and needless to say everyone was a bit sleepy having had to wake up early on a Sunday and all. At least we could look forward to catch some Zs on the one and a half hour train ride. Or not. The train wasn't packed, but there were enough people to consider it crowded. And as Kamakura is a popular tourist spot (even though we were in the wrong season), we had to put up with the crowd almost all throughout our train ride. Fall/winter (which is it?! It's freezing cold outside but the leaves haven't really started changing colors yet, how confusing...) has made its entrance in Japan and the winds were quite strong that day. So happy I brought my new scarf and hat with me, kept me warm for the most of the day. :D

We had to switch trains twice. The one you see above is the Enoshima-den, which is smaller than the normal commuter trains and which runs super closely to residential houses. If the windows were open, you could have stuck your arm out and touched the facade of some of the houses. The train's namesake, Enoshima, is a small island in Kamakura which is really popular during summer for its closeness to Tokyo. I hear that it's THE place to go if you live in Tokyo and want to go for a swim. So anyway, what I wanted to say is that you could see the sea from the train. It was very peaceful and soothing. :D

One of my favorite pictures from the batch, the Kamakura station. Notice the cute little pot with flowers between the rails.

Almost-empty streets in Kamakura. Compared to Tokyo, everything seems so flat. No skyscrapers as far as the eye can reach.

Our first destination was to the beach (not Enoshima) located closeby to the station. Although it was cold, it was nice having some fresh air to breath. It wasn't crowded at all and it felt like we had the whole beach to ourselves.

1. Entering the beach area.
2. It was all empty except for this man walking around.
3. Should have removed that cigarette butt...
4. M is trying to give me something.
5. For some reason, there was this pile of seaweed and seashells (+ this lonely starfish) sitting right in the middle of the beach.

Next, we headed to the main tourist spot in Kamakura, the Koutokuin, where the famous bronze statue of Buddha sits. There was actually an admission fee for this shrine, which is not very surprising perhaps, considering its popularity.

1. Something is peeking up from behind the gates!
2. Amida Buddha.
3. They were holding a Karate performance in the shrine area. Mostly little kids doing waza, but even that looked cool! They were all so synchronized and there was so much power and determination in the moves they made.
4. Time for some board-cracking bäjbä! Most of the kids couldn't do it but made the cutest faces screaming and running around. Everyone just laughed it off. :D I only saw boys having a go at it though, even though there were girls there too.
5. The Buddha, K and I.
6. For a small entrance fee (a symbolic 20 yen) you could go inside the statue. This is the Buddha's empty head we're seeing.
7. It didn't seem like he had had his nose cleaned for a good couple of hundred years, so I did him a favour.
8. International market held at the grounds.

By this time, it had started to rain, so we made a move and rode the bus to the center part of Kamakura to get some food. I had pasta with nasu (eggplants), one of my new favorites!

Our third destination was Tsurugaoka Hachiman-guu, another famous location in Kamakura and said to be the most important shrine of the city.

1. Transparent umbrellas don't seem to be as popular in Kamakura (at least among the tourists) as in Tokyo.
2. Wet and cold.
3. Masks lined up. I've never seen anyone wearing those. Do they sell at all?
4. There were unsually many people, adults as well as kids, dressed in traditional clothing, hmm, how come?
5. Oh, of course, Shichi-Go-San! A festival day and a ritual to celebrate the three and seven year old girls and three and five year old boys. It's actually one of the few occasions where modern Japanese get to wear fancy kimono (the others being Seijin no hi (for people who've turned 20 years old), weddings, funerals and such), so it's no surprise that parents are ready to shell out huge amounts of money for this.

1. Obligatory wedding ceremony picture! But this time, it is a bit different, it's a wedding between a Japanese woman and a caucasian man. The groom is looking right this way. :D
2. Stairway up to the main part of the shrine.
3. Seen from the top.
4. They were holding some kind of ceremony for the shichi-go-san kids, chanting mysterious words and praying.
5. Waiting room for the next batch.

After this, some more volunteers joined up and we were split into two groups, one for going to Enoshima, and the other to yet another shrine. First, I was set on going to the island, but when I heard that the other place was a cool bamboo shrine, I couldn't help but change! It didn't seem to be that far from Tsurugaoka, but the rain made us give up and we decided to go by bus instead. Warm and cozy, almost wanted to just remain in it and see where it took us.

1. Bamboo forest!
2. Haiku post box.
3. More bamboo. As usual, the pictures don't the beauty justice.
4. Seemingly endlessly towering above us. It was starting to get dark so most of the time there wasn't enough light to take decent photographs. In real life though, the hues and colors were much more breathtaking.


1. Touching the bamboo.
2. Silent graveyard hiding behind the forest.
3. There was a teahouse by the end of the road. They were just closing up when we got there so we didn't get to take a rest there.
4. Cave with ornaments.
5. Leaves in pretty colors by the tea house.

Everyone was getting tired, so we decided to call it a day and headed back home. Even though we spent a whole day in Kamakura, I felt like there were lots of things we hadn't seen yet, so I'd love to go back sometime to see the rest of the shrines, eating the huge famous senbei and going to the beach in Enoshima. We'll see about that!

8/11 Ishibashi Eiko x Achico

As mentioned in the previous post, I went to see Ishibashi Eiko and Achico perform live on Saturday. I've been wanting to go to lives since coming to Japan, but always kind of decided not to in the end, because I didn't want to go alone. But this time, I had company! It was a short free live at the Shibuya Apple store, so I made A come with me (thanks!).

We came a bit early, so we stood around and looked at the products. There's a small stage in the Apple store and the staff had reserved some floor space around it for the performance. It looked like this (not my picture and not Eiko x Achico, just one I found on flickr). As soon as the whistle went, A grabbed me and we went to the stage. Good thing she paid attention because we got just one line behind the front one. :D There was especially this girl in the front who seemed to be a really big fan of Eiko x Achico. She was so enthusiastic and looked like she had the greatest time of her life all throughout the performance.

Soon, Ishibashi Eiko came out and took a seat by the keyboard. She started playing a tune and not long after a girl came sliding down the bar by the stairs, it was Achico! Eiko's piano playing coupled with Achico's voice was really soothing, and I really like the sense of melody they have. It's sounds so innocent but on the same time, gives a feeling of hiding something darker under the surface. It has this slight fairy tale-feeling to it as well. Someday, I'd like to draw something that matches their music, that's how I want my work to feel like.

I didn't take any pictures, somehow I felt too self conscious about it. One of the reasons is that because we stood up front, if I had grabbed my camera to shoot pictures I'd be blocking someone's view (but then again, I shouldn't have cared about that! This feels so Japanese...) and another one was that I was afraid to be told off by the staff not to, since we were inside a store and all. Oh well, at least I enjoyed my time! Sometimes I feel that I'm not appreciating things as much when I look at them through a camera's view finder. Anyhow, I think there should be a report coming up on Apple's site soon though, they already have a couple of them from previous events on their site, so I'm keeping my eyes open!

Do I even need to mention that we went for crepes afterwards?

Ikebukuro shopping

Went shopping in Ikebukuro Sunshine City with A yesterday (7/11). My goal was to get a light autumn jacket (the one I brought from Sweden is a bit too thick. To think that I had to wear it when I flied here from in September, when it's still too hot to use in Japan although it's already November...) and a scarf. I ended up with... a little more than that. ^^;

Hat, scarf, dress, cozy socks, legwarmers, tea (gift), jacket and short pants.

It's difficult not becoming a socks-addict if you're in Tokyo, there are just too many cute and original styles! If I could, I would've brought home the entire collection from that socks-store. :D

I also got a free gift from the them, royal blend tea in a cute metallic container. Haven't tried it yet.

I love my new socks.

Oh no, this is getting dangerous, can't let this become a "today's-outfit" or "I-bought-this-today"-blog! I promise that the next post won't follow have anything to do with shopping.

I'm going to see Ishibashi Eiko x Achico live today at the Shibuya Apple Store! Can't wait!

3/11 Waseda University School Festival

Having always seen school festivals in dramas, manga and anime, I was really excited about going to the Waseda one. Waseda University is one of the top universities in Japan, sitting right at the top together with Tokyo University and Keio University.

A-san, the volunteer who invited us to come, had warned us about the hugeness of the Waseda festival. And true enough, the place was packed! It was like the morning rush train but on the street, you kept on bumping into people's shoulders and it was unfortunately really difficult to get a general picture of how the festival was like. There were stalls and stages set up outside the campuses while clubs held activities inside the buildings. We walked around for a bit, mostly trying to keep track of where everyone walked and to make sure that no one got lost. As many as 150 000 people were expected to come on the two days the festival was opened, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were way more than that. Just looking at the amount of people, it was pretty amazing.

After a while, we got tired with just walking around so we decided to go to the main performance stage to see if something fun was happening there. And guess what? We came just right in time for the Boys Cheerleading performance! I think it's a great thing that a club like that exists, that it just isn't a girls-with-short-skirts-and-pompoms-thing anymore. Some of the guys seemed to be afraid that it'd look "gay" and really put a distance between themselves and that word. I don't really understand this unjustified fear towards gay people that a lot of men (not trying to be sexist, but it just seems like that) have. It's not like you'd get jumped on just because someone is gay or bi or anything that isn't heterosexual. We need to get past labels and view people as people! Although I do admit that labels are a comfortable system for people to choose who to deal or not to deal with. I'm not sure how Japanese people view this though. Sure there's a huge yaoi market, but I don't think it's representative of the whole population. You don't see homosexual couples openly showing their sexuality (we're just talking about holding hands and such) here much, so in terms of that I think Japan resembles Sweden. Though I'd like to think we're a bit more open, because, yeah, we Swedes like to point out how open we are about different sexualities and we pride ourselves on our welfare system and gender equality and so on. :D

Back to topic! The cheerleading acrobatic guys were amazing! They were so synchronized with each other and did breath-taking moves left and right, bulding human towers, air loops and what not!

They did seem a bit like idol boys though. I'm sure they have a loyal following of girls, heehee.

Walked around some more and went inside one of the buildings to check it out. We saw the last two minutes of a traditional Japanese dance performance. The moves were so refined and elegant, that was very interesting to watch. They also had a room where they played Morning Musume (girl idol group) music which people could freely dance to. I thought it'd mostly be otakus doing it but there were girls dancing too. A really wanted to but I think she didn't want to keep us back so she didn't try it. >_< We left the festival not long after, and on the way back to the station, a couple of Keio University students were handing out flyers about -their- school festival! Waseda and Keio are huge rivals so it was kind of fun to see Keio students trying to fetch more people to their side. They couldn't keep themselves from laughing while they handed their flyers out either, so I don't think they were taking it very seriously.

Most of the others went to the Sunshine City shopping mall in Ikebukuro to check out the Ice Cream City after that. I was tired so I went home, but I regret not going now! Some of you might've heard about all the strange flavours of ice cream they have in Japan, Ice Cream City is where you find all those! Curry ice cream, squid ice cream, sunflower ice cream... You name it! I think they had curry flavoured tea as well. Oooh, I should've gone!

6/11
So I finally caught up! Nothing out of the ordinary has happened the last couple of days, but hopefully I'll have new material to post soon. :D お待たせしました！

1/11 Got to wear kimono again!

Thanks to N-san's friend, who studies at a beauty school, we were given the chance to try wearing kimono again! This time, we had our hair set up by said friend and got to act as "practice models" for the other students at the school.

1. Pretty hair-ornament that N-san's friend brought with her. Expensive, too.
2. Real human hair on the wigs in the background...
3. KE, one of the JLSP:ers, was the first to get styled. So pretty!
3. Amy's turn! In the background, KO and boyfriend DS.

My turn! We were sharing the room with another group of beauty school students. Seemed like they were practicing for something, a contest perhaps. There was a teacher walking around clocking their performances.

Hair finished! KE, KO and A all had longer hair which gave N-san's friend more to play with, whereas mine was too short to have any advance setup. Still got it curled on the side though. :D

1. Getting dressed up! I as stiff all the way through. Need to think more about posture!
2. I got to wear a pink kimono. :D I don't think I've worn so much pink in all my life. But it looked really fresh and modern in terms of colors.
3. Tying the obi. It was really beautiful, such handicraft! These girls have been trained to help people get dressed in kimono for two years, so they were really smooth for the most part. As when we got our hair styled in the classroom, a teacher was walking around examining the students' work. There seemed to be a kimono-dressing contest coming up, so a lot of people came to practice on their free time even though it's a Saturday.
4. Stiffetystiffstiff. Underwear showing in the sleeves, oopsie. My hair ornament is matching the obi!
5. Group picture! Everyone looked so nice and pretty and elegant.

Amy was wearing a wedding-kimono. So elegant. *_*

The whole hairstyling and kimono-dressing process had taken about three or four hours, and it was all free of charge for us! We're really grateful about receiving this unique opportunity to try one of the most traditional aspects of Japan first-hand. It makes the our first kimono-dressup seem kind of cheap though... But this was definitely more classy and thorough.

After this, we all went to an Italian pasta place in Shibuya where they had this really tasty nasu pasta! Mm, the best pasta I've eaten in Japan so far! (Although I feel that the pasta in the school cafeteria doesn't really count...)

Yummers.

Then we went to a Cold Stone Creamery nearby to try their ice cream. Cold Stone apparently has quite a nice reputation worldwide (I didn't know about it until coming to Japan) because of their unique store concept and delicious ice cream. You pick your desired ice cream and watch while the staff mixes and puts the whole thing together on a cold stone (hence the name!). I had the Mud Pie Mojo, which must've been the best ice cream ever created in the universe!

Coffee ice cream, oreo cookies, almond, peanut butter (!!!!) whipped cream and chocolate fudge. Mmmm! It's rivaling the crepe as the top must-have-dessert, it was that good! Why can't Stockholm have a Cold Stone? Why is the world so cruel? ;_;

Ended the day with some purikura. It was my first time!

It feels like purikura machines have some kind of a built-in photoshoppy skin edit function. My skin looks way smoother than what it actually is. @_@ How controversial...