Mikera Monogatari: Last Days of my Winter Break

Flowers at my house

Ohhhh.... Before I came to Japan I had it set in stone in my mind that I loved sleep and could never be good at pulling all nighters but Japan heard this and was all:

(Challenge Accepted is like my fave internet meme right now btw guyzzz)

What I mean to say is, this winter break my sleep schedule turned from something normal, into something like "go to bed at 4 am, wake up at 1 pm". But what can you do when the trains don't run from 2-5 am? right?

Anyway, this is just a post about some things I did on the last days of my winter break.

Starting with: once upon a time, some friends and I got dolled up and went to a club in Shibuya (now spelled SHOBOOYAH in my mind) . Details will not be described, but it was way fun, and we all danced all night, and got pancakes at 4 am before catching our trains home:

We saw this door on the way to the train station....modeled by Dorothy...But why is it all the way up there?

( I should just go for it and rename my blog "Dorothy and Mikaela Monogatari since Dorothy is in like every post huh? haha <3 )

Anyway, Sucks for me because after finally getting back to my house and in bed at 7am, I had to get up 2 hours later for lunch plans with my friend Kanako. -I'm SOOO glad I did though(even though my feet felt like they were going to fall off, and I could barely hear anything). It was so much fun! My friend Nick (also from Oregon) and I ventured out to her house- which is a temple! Her father is a buddhist priest. So she showed us around her beaaaautful house and fed us snacks:

(cake, teas, rice crackers, and red bean desserts)

We also got to tour the temple area and see some of the thousands of year old artifacts close up. I wish I would've been able to take pictures! However, we had lunch reservations and had to go. This won't be the last time I visit her house though- so stay tuned in the future.
Here's the gigantic and delicious lunch we ate:

Beer, Sushi, Miso Soup, Tempura, salad, veggies, and this egg pudding (don't really care for it...) called Chawan Mushi

Kanako's mom is so nice- not only did she buy our lunch but she also gave us these little charms (rabbits for year of the rabbit! They smell like this spice you rub your hands with before you enter the temple- so nice)

Of course we also did Purikura (of course!)

And then I went home and slept forever haha! (actually I made it to 10 pm. Which hopefully has put my circadian rhythm back on track. )

On my New Year's Post I had mentioned I might be returning to the Meiji-jingu shrine, well plans changed and my friends and I went to the Sensoji Temple in Asakusa instead:

The Gang

The line up was cray cray! Utterly insane but it was so well organized and didn't take too long- I was impressed:

This is the line up guys

Year of the rabbit!

Once you finally make it to the temple- you go and wash your hands and mouth(they allow a select number of people in at a time so it's not crazy crowded), waft incense over yourself, then line up to throw your 5 en (best luck I think) into the alter.

Around the area you can also pick up your lucky fortune for 100 en. You shake up this little box, get a number out, and get your fortune marked by the number.

My luck was "small fortune" which is not bad! (could be worse. If it was worse, you tie it to this fence looking thing around the corner and they burn all the bad ones along with your bad luck!)

They have the english translation of the fortune on the back:

I'm kind of confused by what it's trying to tell me in parts haha. "Building a new horse and enlarging are both good" Yes...I understand completely now.

Did I mention there was TONS of delicious food all around the temple? This is something most westerners would probably find gross, but man, I've grown to like the idea of crunchy grilled fish on a stick: