8th post: shopping and sakura

So, the weekend started with Kathryn and I deciding it to go to Harajuku - the Softbank store in Omotesando has English speaking staff and I needed a phone, plus there's a big Daiso there for us to get the few remaining things we needed for the house.  And, you know, the Johnny's shop.  To be fair to Harajuku, we did spend much of the morning dicking around instead of setting out early like we'd intended but going to Harajuku on a Saturday is still up there with the stupidest ideas the two of us have ever had.

We decided not to go by our usual station so walked in the opposite direction.  I don't think it was the direction of the other station near our house but it was a way.  We saw some sakura and some people's front gardens and then happened upon a lovely little suburb with a train station and movie theatre and big shopping centre.  Stopped and had tempura for lunch which was super freaking awesome and then attempted to find the entrance to the station, which was trickier than you'd think, and made our way to Harajuku.

First things first, we went and got our ticket to line up for the Johnny's shop - if you're unfamiliar with the process, you go to the smoking area near the station and this dude gives you a ticket for a specific time, you come back at that time and join the line, then get taken single file to go through the shop.  There are lots of rules and it can get a bit complicated (and violent).  We got our ticket at 1.30ish to line up at 2pm, and half an hour wasn't long enough to get a phone, so we headed to Takeshita Dori, popping in at Thank You Mart to get some house stuff on the way.  At Takeshita Dori we made a bee line for the ticket shop and picked up tickets to see KAT-TUN for 6000 yen!  That's for both, not each!  Man, I can't wait until Arashi drop in popularity so much that we can go see them for practically loose change!

Went back to join what we thought was the end of the Johnny's line, but wasn't, it actually doubled back around again - probs about 100 people, so we thought "screw that" and went to buy my phone instead.  I don't need overpriced photos of pretty sparkly people enough to waste half my day, I have them for free on my computer.  Though, it did actually take half a day to get my phone.  The girl spoke good English and signed me up to a contract instead of prepaid like I'd thought I'd have to get.  It's only 310 yen a month with a free phone and your data and messaging is capped at like 4400 yen or something, so I was pretty happy with that.  Plus, my phone is pretty and green and I can put my Arashi phone charm on it, which are the most important things when it comes to phones.  It's not a smart phone though, it's a dumb phone and very hard to figure out, but better than no phone at all by far!

Had coffee at a nice cafe that gave us blankets because we had to sit outside and it was freezing and then went to Daiso.  Oh em gee.  It was nightmarish.  Let's not talk about it.  We got pretty curtains so we can section off our rooms but not a lot else because the noise and the people made our brains melt down.  There was such a bottleneck at the station that we decided to catch the subway home, which was the smartest thing we'd done all day.  I love the subway, it is soothing and not insanely full of people.  Plus you only need to change once to get back to our house.

By the time we got back to our hood we didn't even have enough energy for karaoke.

On Sunday we decided to go to Gutso and have comforting comfort food and study a bit. We had corn and mayo pizza and a Mt Fuji of chips.  Two thumbs up.  Had very low energy at that point but decided we should probs go and see cherry blossoms because that's what everyone else in Tokyo was doing.  Looked up the sakura report and decided the river in Meguro looked pretty.  Bought a camera on the way, a new model sony cybershot for 10000 - pretty happy with that!  Plus the tissue guy was giving out these lucky dip things and I won this pad thing where you can write notes and scan it with your iphone... not really sure it's that useful but it's good to win things!

Went to this coffee shop near our train station and when we looked at the menu the coffees were like 650 yen each (about $8!) so we were about to leave but I'm pretty sure the old lady understood what we were saying because she came over and totally bullied us into buying overpriced coffee.  Not going back there!  Ran away as soon as we could and caught my beloved subway to Meguro.

First up we went to the coffee shop beside the station, where they had the option of a shot of alcohol in your coffee for 100 yen!  We had frangelico coffees and went out to face the crowd!  The sakura were pretty, but honestly, no disrespect to the national flower and all, but they get a bit samey after a while.  All along the river were people with stands selling food and booze, and people walking their dogs in wacky outfits.  It was a jolly old time.  The definite standout was the old couple selling the sakura flavoured sake.  When Kathryn asked for it they started laughing and we weren't sure why but it became obvious pretty quickly.  They said it needed heating up and the old man had to keep tasting full cups of it to tell the temperature - pretty sure he'd been doing it all day.  He kept saying "mou chotto, mou chotto" and like cacking himself laughing, he was hilarious.  There were also these cute kids selling styrofoam cups of karaage (deep fried chicken) and we were totally suckered in by their cuteness, but it was pretty freaking delicious anyway!

Once we got to the end of the sakura we didn't really want to turn around and walk all the way back and we figured there'd be a station close by somewhere, so we walked around for like twenty hours and realised we'd just gone in like a massive triangle.  On the plus side, we got to see the sights of Daikanyama and Ebisu - Daikanyama looks as if it's for douchebags.

Once we were back on the right side of the Yamanote line, we decided to stop off for some karaoke.  We only had an hour's worth in us, but this helpful lady told us we had to go upstairs via the fire escape, which locked us out of the building and took up precious karaoke time!  I can't say we were particularly on fire at karaoke at this point but we did a nice rendition of Rhiannon nonetheless!

Today was more orientation activities, which were both long and incredibly comprehensive.  I filled out the forms to open a bank account and then learned how to use the library (the same as every other country) and... something about computers, I think what we can use our student logins for but honestly by that point I was barely awake.

Had awesome lunch with Liam and Vincent where we got free miso and coffee!  Yay!  After lunch we met up with our buddies from Rikkyo, who were very sweet, and played like icebreaker games, in which I sucked very badly and made my team come dead last every single time.  But we had free snacks and that was the main thing!  Then my buddies gave me a tour of the campus and showed me where to go at the station to get my student rail pass.

Have done nothing tonight and it's been awesome.  Kathryn made yummy dinner and I tried on my new dress and chatted to various family members on FB, then I went to the convenience store and bought parfaits for us to eat while we watched Arashi.  Yay!  Feel a little sick now from all the food but it's a happy sort of sick.

Tomorrow is THE DAY!  The day we get SORTED INTO HOUSES based on our performance in the placement test... so I guess it's more like placed into classes, but still.  I hope I'm not in Hufflepuff.