12th post: routine

So, I've been in Japan almost a month now, and I've had three weeks of classes.  Things are going fine and I'm starting to develop a routine.

Most days I get up about 6/6.30 and try to catch the train by 7 so I miss the morning rush.  The morning rush is horrible, people squish up all close to you and sometimes they're a bit smelly. That myth about Japanese people not sweating is a big fat uso.  Sometimes I read by book or study vocab but it's usually a pretty uneventful trip, except for that one time I ran for the train at Sugamo and made it just as the doors were closing and nearly got squished to death or thrown on the train tracks and ended up in the Gantz ball.

Once I get to Ikebukuro I go to Excelsior cafe and study.  I have Morning Set A, which is a ham and cheese toastie with an iced latte for only 320 yen.  This is my favourite time of day.  There are always guys sleeping in their chairs and girls who must've got up at like 2am to get that much make-up on their faces.  This pair of salary men meet their every morning and gossip about people they work with. It's comforting to have a routine.

Our uni has 20,000 students and most of them are walking to school when I am.  The streets are very small and crowded so they have police-type guys directing where we should walk.  You would think if you can get into uni you can walk down the street okay, but some people can't do that while checking their phones, so it's probably for the best.

Classes are pretty good.  The two other guys are nicer now and I have more confidence in talking Japanese.  My teachers are all really lovely.  I signed up for the speech contest because you can win a big fat wad of cash, so that will be helpful too.  On the days I finish at 3, I usually meet Liam to study together while we have coffee/lunch.  This is basically the only time I ever see him because we don't have any classes together except haiku.  On the days I finish at 10.30 I head home so Kathryn and I can have fun adventures.  Well, honestly mostly I just study, and last week we were too sick to do anything but sleep, but sometimes we have adventures!

The Tuesday before last we went to the Edo museum.  We got to see documents signed by Tokugawa Ieyasu after he conquered Hideyoshi, and some awesome swords, and pottery from the Jomon period, which was pretty cool.  There were lots of reconstructions of what Edo looked like before the Meiji Restoration and some really creepy life-sized kabuki actor mannequins and so forth.  We couldn't find much from the bakumatsu period, except for a portrait of Katsu Rintaro where he looked kind of hot.  Who knew!  There was also stuff from about the Great Kanto Earthquake and like the Showa period and whatnot.  The stuff from Showa... some of it kind of annoyed me, but this probably isn't the best place to get into that kind of thing.  Anyway, at the train station there was an ad for the stage play of Kafka on the Shore!  We really want to go but we couldn't read any of the stuff about where it was on or how to get tickets, so we took a photo of it.

The day after that we met up with some girls I knew from online who were over here for the KAT-TUN concert.  We went to karaoke and they did KAT-TUN songs and we did Arashi, it was fun.  They were decent singers and knew stuff about like putting the karaoke settings in the right key for them and stuff - who knew that was possible!  How do you even know what is the right key?  Possibly for me there isn't one.  Anyway, after karaoke we went to the 270 yen izakaya and ate lots of food, then to this British pub for some beers, it was a jolly lark.  We were going to catch up with them again before the concert but Kathryn and I were too sick so we just stayed at home and watched Gantz on tv instead.

One time Kathryn made very awesome pasta with meatballs and pesto.  It was delicious and tasted like Melbourne.  Not literally, obvs.

After being too sick to do anything for a week, the other day Kathryn and I decided to go to Aoyama to this cafe that exhibits heaps of artwork by Yoshitomo Nara.  There was cool artwork everywhere and a great view and amazing food (all of which Kathryn has posted pics of on her fb so you've probs seen already).  We bought a book of postcards of his art to display around the place but haven't done so yet.  This pic is of me in my new hat and onesie/playsuit that I bought because I wasn't dressed weather appropriate.  I also got stockings - all for under 1000 yen!  Yay, Golden Week sales!

Friday night we went to Shin-Okubo, which is Korea town.  Because we'd been sick we thought we should eat meat so we went and had Korean BBQ and it was awesome.  We also bought BB cream which is like this Korean make-up that has SPF and is really smooth and nice and stays on your face all day.  It was only 280 yen!  The pushy but funny sales guy really wanted us to buy Korean idol socks, but we didn't.  He also tried to sell us a 30 pack of face masks for 1000 yen, which was a bargain and we may go back for.  The best thing is that in Shin-Okubo, you can buy anything with your favourite Korean idol on it.  I got Jang Guen Suk gum and it came with a free clear file!!!

Today we headed off to Yoyogi Park for Gay Pride, only we couldn't find it.  It is a very big park and the directions weren't very clear on the website, so we just wandered around watching people do wacky stuff.  There was a dog run and lots of cute dogs!  Beagles and wire-haired pointers and a wolfhound!  I wanted to go in and play with all the dogs, but you needed a pass or something so I just patted them over the fence.  These people were doing wacky dances so I tried to take a photo of them, but it doesn't capture the true wackiness.

Then we went to this nice cafe in Harajuku where I got banana pancakes.  They were yum but I think I ate too much cream because then I felt sick.  The coffee was super good though and I got to read an article about Ohno Satoshi being GQ man of the year.  I could read like half of it but I don't know if that's because of my awesome Japanese skillz or because they always ask Arashi the same questions in every interview ever.

On the way home at Sugamo, someone had dropped this guy on the ground!  A girl stood on his face, so I had to rescue him.  Everyone looked at me funny but I think it was just their guilt because deep in their hearts they knew they should've saved him themselves.  What sort of Japanese people are they, to let their national treasure be trampled on???

So that's everything I've been doing for the past few weeks.  Mostly studying but occasionally adventuring.  I have school tomorrow and Tuesday but then the rest of the week off for Golden Week. Kathryn and I are going to explore the other stops on our train line during Golden Week, and maybe go to Chiba if we are super motivated.  We want to go to the cat town from 1Q84, so if you never hear from us again, we're probably stuck there!