Early day, new people and dorkage

Soo! Because we're two happy and energetic super genki girls, we woke up with smiles as bright as sunshine on our faces 0830 in the morning, ready to take on a new day!

No. Not really. We looked like this. ---> D:

Which means that we would've loved to sleep a couple of more hours, but alas, can't make E rot inside my apartment when she's in the big city! And we were going to meet up with a friend of hers anyway, so out we went and got to Harajuku ten o' clock in the morning. While waiting for Y-kun (he's a young one, still in high school) we looked at and analyzed the people around us who also seemed to be waiting for someone. "Hey, it might be that guy in the green hip jacket with the sunglasses!" "Nah, he doesn't look like he's in high school." "Oh! How about that nerdy one over there?" "No way, he's too old." And so on, and so on.

When Y-kun finally found us we took a walk around Harajuku and we managed to make it through a couple of awkward silences now and then, because neither E nor I actually know Y-kun very well. He actually speaks some (a lot) of Swedish and practiced ice hockey when he lived in our side of the world. Tough luck continuing with that in Japan, haha! Anyway, we walked to Omotesando and it's totally different from Harajuku. Omotesando is the place to go if you're looking for exclusive foreign brand-things, while Harajuku has a more DIY-ish atmosphere going on.

We also walked to the Meiji shrine, which is really close to Hara. It's a beautiful area with lots of greens. Peaceful and nice place. I was really surprised when I was there, because of how quiet it was. I didn't think Tokyo could get this quiet, let alone in a place like Harajuku.

When we got to the shrine area we came just in time to see a wedding ceremony. When E and I went back there the day after (read: today) there were at least three weddings going on.

They all looked like this.

Though it's nevertheless still very elegant.

I'm sure that getting wed in the Meiji Jingu means that you'll receive some kind of extraordinaire blessing, but other than that, I don't see why you would want to tie the knot in a place where you'll probably bump into two or three other couples doing the exact same thing at the exact same time, looking exactly the same and on top of this have to deal with hundreds of foreign as well as Japanese tourists just blasting their camera flashes away (like me). I personally don't think it's very romantic or "ideal". But perhaps I'm just thinking too much, they probably just want to share their happiness with everyone, and there's nothing strange about that.

When Y-kun left a couple of hours later to go fishing (hoho, yeah! But not in central Tokyo of course) me and E went to get Harajuku's famous crepes!

Just can't have enough of them. I had chocolate crepe again but I think I'm going to try the peach one next!

At 1300 we met up with another group of people and walked the Takeshita doori again. There's a cool clothing shop called We go, and I really like the clothes they have there. It's not very cheap, but it's not insanely expensive either. Want to go there and get some stuff later!

Later on, we went to meet up with S's friend Kohta-san, who's been studying in Stockholm before. We got to the meeting point late (by 45 minutes x_x) but of course no one complained about that. It felt especially bad because Kohta-san had reserved a table at a hip Thai-fusion restaurant. S apologized about coming late, and now when I think about it, I wish I had made a proper apology as well. Heuh....

The restaurant where we had a table reserved had a dark wood theme going on, it was all very fresh and cool and hip. Even though I felt slightly misplaced, I enjoyed the food and the company. The others only spoke in Japanese so I mostly only answered questions, said "sumimasen" and didn't dare to speak up. Some of them are coming to Sweden in February, so I might meet them there and show them around. (Heh... Me, showing people around in Stockholm? I barely go out and my sense of direction is zero!) I hope it'll be fine... Anyway, it was fun meeting Japanese who weren't somehow involved in the JLSP-program (which doesn't mean I don't enjoy their company, these guys are great people!) because it feels like you're broadening your views a bit. I hope I'll be able to handle the language better as soon as possible so I can keep up with everyone else!

S, E and I went home after this. S needed to ask A (who lives on the first floor) about tomorrow's plans (they were going to onsen!) and somehow it all ended up with us four having a Mario Kart DS party in my room!

Dorks at heart.

I like doing things like this, I feel much more relaxed, and it reminds of the stuff I do back home with Wayis and Gam, so that's probably why. One thing that really got to me, though, was that E, A and I are all veterans when it comes to Mario Kart DS, whereas this was S's first time. Yet he still kicked our asses! What the hell went wrong? Anyway, we didn't stop until A got our revenge. But still, I mean, we're supposed to be able to play this better. Can't let the newbies think that they're good, can we? XD