Last week we had midterm exams, so the first half of the week was review lessons. After school Tuesday, Kathryn and I decided to go to Shibuya to get our Arashi fanclub memberships sorted out at the Johnny's office. This was incredibly painful. After getting through all the dozers shambling through the Shibs, the girl was very rude and said she couldn't help us, contrary to information on the website. We were very angry and disheartened, so we had pizza. That didn't cheer us up so we went to karaoke and sang k-pop songs. Well, the one k-pop song we know, but it cheered us up a lot.
You know how everyone hanging around Shibuya thinks they're so mecha kakkoii? Well we saw this guy outside the station, right:
He thinks he's so super cool with his leather jacket and guitar, right. But he is wearing PINK CROCS. I rest my case. (I also got super sprung taking this photo, as you can probably deduce from how the guy is looking directly at me.)
On the train home we decided to stop off at Shin Okubo for BBQ. I love niku, it always makes me happy. I made up a little song about niku because niku is my best friend.
The next day I was sick and stayed in bed all day, then Thursday and Friday I had exams. I did good on my exams except for the essay writing one where I wrote about fish by accident. I still got a B for it though, so maybe my teacher just really likes fish.
When Kathryn and I went to the Edo Museum we got this handy little book for 2000 yen that is full of vouchers to places in Tokyo like museums and art galleries so we can get in for free. One of these places was Ueno Zoo. Yay, panda!
I bought a panda backpack because I have not had a handy small bag, but every time I wear it, people seem to think it's okay to just randomly start patting it! WTH, don't stroke my panda, peoples!!! The zoo was very fun, as you probably saw from my 200 or so photos on facebook. After that we went wandering around the back alleys of Ueno and found this little izakaya where we had yummy snacks and beers. We made lots of friends, like the old lady who sneakily paid off half our bill and the old man who talked to us a lot about Japanese economics, or possibly the WW2 war strategies, we're not sure. Then these guys came and sat with us and tried to make us drink hoppy sets, so we left after a polite amount of time and came back home to karaoke. Good times!
Saturday I had to go to the safety seminar with my school people. I wanted to sleep but it was compulsory and it ended up being kind of fun. We got to put out fake fires and had to escape from a fake burning house, and then had to go through this earthquake simulation thing. The old lady who was running it was incredibly hilarious. Then we had to watch this incredibly depressing video about last year's earthquake, which was incredibly depressing, as you'd expect.
Then I had to go meet Kathryn coz we got free baseball tickets through our real estate agency. There were like about 10 other people, most of whom were quite nice except for the douchey guy sitting in front of us who was trying to hit on these two girls by telling them about cricket. He stopped talking to us after we corrected him because he didn't know jack. He nearly got hit in the head with a baseball and killed, that was kind of funny.
The game was very close and went to like three extra innings, it was just like in Rookies where every game was a matter of life and death and they got to the final innings with two outs and bases loaded and the underdog guy who always struck out hit a home run. Well, I don't know if he was an underdog but it was still pretty exciting. They do lots of cool chants, so even though I was going for the buffalos I kept doing the Go Go Swallows chant coz it was fun.
After the baseball we tried to buy tickets for the Jang Geun Suk concert from Lawsons. The Lawsons man was incredibly unhelpful and the ticket machine thing was very confusing so now I hate Lawsons as well as Johnny's.
Sunday we went to Asakusa for the Sanja matsuri, where they take the three big portable shrines out of the temple and carry them around the neighbourhood for luck, then bring them back. We went a few years ago and it was very fun, but this time it wasn't as much fun. There was still yummy food on sticks though! We had some food at this izakaya and this very drunk and dumb girl took my panda and fondled it and I didn't think she would give it back. She didn't realise pandas were bears. Or that they were from China. Or much of anything, really. Then these two girls came along who we'd met the week before at the Asagaya nomiya thing (they remembered us as Nino and Sakurai, lol) so they came and sat with us, and once they got chatting to the bear girl, I took my panda and ran.
We kind of saw one shrine come in, and some geishas, but missed most of the festivities on account of they were wherever we weren't. We gave up and headed home.
On the way home we were starving so we went to Hard Rock Cafe at Ueno station and bought lots of awesome food like mashed potato and mac & cheese. I had never been to Hard Rock Cafe before and while it was kind of lame and overpriced, the food was super awesome.
After my big weekend, I was way too sick to go to school, so I stayed home and slept and did homework. Tuesday, Lynne got here! I met her and Kathryn at Sugamo and we went for coffee, then headed back to the hood. Lynne made herself at home on the subway.
Lynne was very impressed with her futon. Hers is way more comfy than mine, even though it is exactly the same. We are totally going to swap them after she leaves!
We took her to Gutso and she was very impressed with the corn & mayo pizza and Mt Fuji of chips, though as you will note from the photo it isn't a Mt Fuji anymore, more like a Mt Ossa.
That night we went to Akabane for dinner at the 280 yen izakaya and ate lost of deep fried food with cheese in it. It was awesome. Then we went to karaoke. Lynne didn't sing because she was trying to get wi-fi on her ipad, but she said that we are much better singers than we used to be. We have video of her saying it if anyone wants proof.
I was still very tired on Wednesday and wasn't sure I'd make it through class but I really wanted to know what happened next in Totoro, so I held out. When I got home Kathryn and Lynne were still out seeing the sights of Harajuku and Shibuya, so I got lots of homework done. I can't remember what we did Wednesday night and Kathryn won't tell me because she just had to tell Lynne when Lynne was updating her blog, so we'll all just have to live with the mystery, I guess. It might've been the night I changed my flight home, actually, so yay to that.
Thursday I didn't go to school and slept til 6pm because I was very sick. Sleeping is awesome. Then I made awesome curry rice for everyone and we watched Arashi and also ate lots of those Lotte crispy chocolate almonds. Good times.
Today we went for more wacky sister adventures in Shin Okubo. Lynne was very amused at everyone sleeping on the train so she decided to impersonate them.
There is this place in Shin Okubo called Happy Time, and it really is. There's a street stall at the front that sells these little pancake things with cheese in the middle, then inside they have these help yourself frozen yoghurt machines and you can put your own toppings and things on it like m&ms and oreos, etc, and you get charged by the weight. They also have crepes and things, and they are always playing k-pop videos and there is also a section that sells beauty products. And the waiters are all hot Korean guys. It really makes for a happy time. This nutso old lady who was selling cosmetics kept putting stuff on our faces, it really made our eyes less puffy though! We told her we were sisters but she thought Lynne was our mum on account of Lynne is so tanned from India, and I was obviously the youngest because I was kawaii chibi chibi. Kathryn and Lynne had half-eaten their fro-yo parfaits by the time I took this photo:
Lynne won a water filter system in a lucky dip, but it was very big and she is a travelling hippie so she swapped it for a chocolate. I think the girl was kind of relieved because it would've been complicated to organise it all in Japanese. We were also relieved as we think it was some sort of swindle. Still amusing though.
Then we went to the Korean idol/beauty products shops so I could get my 300 yen idol socks. The girl was very sweet in the shop, she kept trying to make Kathryn buy all this Hyun Bin stuff because she likes Secret Garden, and these two old ladies were so happy that I liked Jang Geun Suk that they kept finding merchandise and giving us to buy, like water bottles and keychains and stuff. It was so hilarious. The cute salesgirl told us the JGS calendar was on sale and showed us the price on a calculator, then she said "this is money" and was super embarrassed. It was so cute. She was very happy I'm studying in Japan because she is too, and then she said "I am Korean". I wanted to take her home and keep her, she was so cute. Anyway, idol socks are awesome but kind of weird because they're very small so JGS kind of has a bit of a boofhead when he's on my feet.
Lynne found a novel way to get a seat on the Yamanote line by going through all the teams in the AFL and singing their club songs. Note how the guy beside her is backing away.
There is this really cheap massage place where we change trains, 2980 yen for an hour, so we went and got awesome massages on the way home. We were a bit woozy-headed on the subway, but decided to stop off and have okonomiyaki so that we didn't have to leave the house again once we got home.
It was really freaking delicious. We got one with cheese and then a monja with corn and mochi. Mochi monja!!!
We ate it all. It was awesome.
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