How do you walk past this and NOT buy it?

Someone answer me this...how can you not buy this after seeing it? You know those little toy machines where you put a quarter or whatever in and they give you a prize...well Japan has a bunch of them- but today, one in particular caught my eye:

IN CASE YOU CAN'T READ JAPANESE, (or pictures?) THAT WOULD BE "DOG WIG"

Oh Japan you are so crazy-  Dorothy and I had to buy one: we ended up with the pink Mohawk. Dorothy let me take it home first so I could try it on Rara, my host familie's dog...but I think eventually we'll be sending it to our friend Tania for her chihuahua, Tank.

OH RARA:

Obviously not amused

 Hanako and Rara

BUT CUTE.

Anyway, Today we went to Ikebukuro. We were supposed to go to a Jazz Festival in Yokohama but the rain halted our plans. But that's okay! Because we had a lot of fun. In Ikebukuro they have this huge, I don't know what to call it even...Mall? It's called "SUNSHINE CITY" in the Sunshine 60 building and it is the most random place ever. The whole time I was so confused. Wikipedia says this:  "The complex, which was opened in 1978, contains the Sunshine 60 building with an observatory (observation deck) located at the top, the Ancient Orient Museum, an aquarium, and a planetarium. It also features a Prince Hotel, Namco Namja Town, a convention centre, theatre, and a shopping mall." 

I guess it also has one of the fastest elevators in the world (22.4 mph). Namco Namja is where we spent a lot of time. It's sort of like a carnival...it has a whole bunch of food, a haunted house, and a ton of games. The whole place is huge too and has different themes. One was "ice cream world" (yeah, had to go there)...I had "sea salt vanilla", which I have been wanting to try for forever!

 There's a promo going on in Namco Namja for this anime called "Kuroshitsuji" or "Black Butler." Rex went to stand next to this nice poster and some random Japanese guy joined him for the photo haha! Many high fives followed.

In the "haunted" part of the Namco Namja, there's a whole bunch of things you can interact with. For example, you have to be careful where you sit or you'll end up activating some trigger and a scary dead thing will pop up out from nowhere.
We told Nick to go sit in this demon chair:

He looks so scared! Haha

It lit up and this creepy voice came on and crazy lights happened followed by the whole chair shaking. It was a neat place, considering the fact that the bathroom even was decked out.

There's normal stalls too, but they're all Japanese style toilets! Haha, so if you want to use a western style you gotta go here or find a different bathroom. When you shut the door, theirs flashy lights and all that fun stuff accompanied by a creepy voice. 

All in all good day, but JEEZ WHY DO WE HAVE TO HAVE SCHOOL ON SATURDAYS? I want you all to be thinking of me at 6:30 AM on Saturday when you're cozy in bed and I am usually riding my bike in the rain to catch a train for my 9 AM class. ;)

Other shots of the day:

Hmm? HMM!

Sorry it's a bit blurry :(

Fashion shot of the day!  Working on my photography skillz

Purikura again of course! 

Sorry, the left hand side got cut out a bit for some reason...

Last note...This is what I ate for lunch a few days ago...TAKOYAKI. In english that would be GRILLED OCTOPUS

Soo good! They're little balls filled with pieces of octopus, and then on top is this sweet sauce and Japanese mayonnaise and then fish flakes (Just like Okonomiyaki...if you can remember from my previous post!)

One is cut in half so you can see the inside

Some people have asked me if I think my Japanese is getting better yet...I can't tell really. As far as I know, it is...but I still feel like I'm bad of course!

(*Also side note, Tokyo is the best diet ever. Already have lost 4 pounds from all the walking, biking, stair climbing, and of course vegetable induced diet. <3! Yay! )

Normal Life

So school started last week and my life has return to "normal" or so it feels like. I'm getting more used to riding trains and my host families house feels like my home too. But of course, Japan sneaks in there and surprises you still.

Tuesday morning 7:30 am waiting for the train. It flashes by and my eyes go wide. It comes to a stop and the doors open. The only thought I have in my head is, "UH... HOW I GET IN TRAIN?"  It is packed to the brim! I understand why there are women only cars now for the morning commute (which is the ones I ride in of course). I somehow, along with 3 other ladies, managed to squish in. It's amazing basically.

Last Sunday some Japanese and Oregon friends and I went to Shinjuku. Sunday is kind of everyone's "yasumi no hi" or day of rest. In Shinjuku, it gets really crowded - so I guess they close down certain streets so people can just walk down the middle of it instead of really crowding the sidewalks..

Sunday also means all the srs business fashionistas come out. You see a lot of Lolita (kind of doll fashion for those of you who don't know. google search) And I saw some cosplay too (costume play):

THEY LOOK SO MUCH LIKE JOHNNY DEPP!!!
"sumimasen, shashin wo totte mo ii desuka? @A@" 

They were advertising something but I'm not sure what. (photo by Dorothy by the way).

Found this on my camera later...either the boys or Doro stole my camera haha.

Extreeeeeme Closeup! 

Also I was pooped on by a bird for the first time in my life. NIIIICE right, well I guess Daichi tells me it's good luck. But I didn't believe him, so after I told my other Japanese friend the story the first thing she says is "IT'S GOOD LUCK!" Whaaat Japan whaaaaat?

The next week (on Saturday) we went to see Bio-Hazard finally. (aka Resident Evil 4) But while at the movie theater, a surprise guest made an appearance....Shoko Nakagawa!  She is a famous Japanese pop singer and just showed up at the movie theater and had a mini concert. How random:

Anyway, it's interesting because most Japanese stay put during the credits after a movie ends. I was like "kay are we going? ....Nope guess not" haha

This last Sunday we had a Barbeque with the Niji no Kai (international student) club. Like, 206 people showed up to this place known as Izumitamagawa (which apparently is where everyone goes to have BBQS). It was a looot of fun. Japanese BBQs consist of Yaki soba, yaki niku, and veggies. (In English that would be grilled noodles and meat).

I don't know what's going on here. 

GUESS WHICH FOOT IS MINE:

If you said the one with the Alpaca on it then YUS. Alpacas for me are the new Tofu btw. At Harajuku, you can buy all these ridiculously cute socks. It is dangerous.

In other news, I'm getting more used to riding a bicycle kind of....The fact that I'm wearing a skirt and heels doesn't slow me down! haha.

Other shots:

This Basically sums up Karaoke Night

Karaoke is really fun in Japan because you rent a room for like 2 hours with your friends and can order food or drinks and just have fun! I think in this picture we were all singing Spice Girls.

AND HI

Me and Yusuke.. but What am I doing? 

That's all for now. I am crazy busy with everything going on still and it doesn't look like it'll slow down anytime soon (good!).  I got my Japanese bank account all set up, and my phone is awesome! Here's a video of it in action:  



My service bars are shown in Matroshka dolls! There's a big hype for them right now. (I even bought Matroshka socks. )

Kamakura

First day of class was yesterday! I only had one class but it was very interesting (kabuki and bunraku ) except it's a double which means it's 3 hours long- and since the building is so old, so are the "desks". ahem, I mean the little rickety tables with the 5 inch bench. OW my back.
Today I had more classes though including my Japanese class- I feel like I tested into the right place- I WANNA GET TO LEARNIN SO I CAN HAS SPEAK BETTR? Except the weird thing is we're not learning any new kanji in this class! - we are responsible for learning on our own or taking a kanji class which I thought was interesting...(kanji is one of the alphabets used in Japan by the way-thousands of characters...you have to know about 3000 to be able to read a newspaper. These are the 'chinese characters' which foreigners often turn into bad tattoos....)

anyway

3 days ago, the group of Oregon kids ventured out to Kamakura with our Japanese friends.

The first stop we made there was to see the famous "Great Buddha" or Daibutsu. (Built from 1252-1262) The special thing about this giant Buddha is you can walk inside of it! Really neat and really beautiful~.

Giant straw shoes that belong to the Buddha

The idea was to make it look like they were holding it...but I may have failed portraying that.

 Here's the inside...that hole is the head:

The next stop was to eat lunch at Yuigahama beach. It was so nice! I will have to take another trip out here to go swimming (the water was pretty warm, well at least compared to Oregon beaches haha). There were a lot of surfers. 

Our last stop was to visit Enoshima (a small island connected to the beach). Walking around was fun: a lot of shops, trying lots of different types of famous snacks, and seeing a shrine.... So, prepare for pictures!

You walk down this long street of shops and then walk past the "tori", entering the shrine. In shintoism, this signifies that you are entering a new ethereal world.

When standing on the stairs and looking back towards the shops you would see this:

As you travel up you can see statues:

And guardians:

Walk up the stairs, and you will see this area, so you may cleanse your hands before praying:

Eventually you will make it to the shri-OH hey guys!

Me and Dorothy walking through the straw circle, for luck I think...?

You usually buy lucky fortunes here too. Although, not all are lucky. If they are bad fortunes, you are supposed to tie it to this fence like thing, and eventually it will be burned (hopefully along with your bad luck!)

Other shots:

 

He reminds me of Tatsu (my pug baby)

The view from up top:

You can see the beach we ate lunch at!

This little kitty crawled right into Demian's lap (one of the Oregon students). Looks can be deceiving but this kitteh could tell he is a good person.

If that's not good luck I don't know what is.

Nick and the girls

That thing Dorothy is eating is OCTOPUS. It wasn't half bad ;)

I can just picture Cristi Steiert (my friend's mom) going EWWWW

As we were leaving, the sun was setting and we saw this:

Oh Japan

And on the train home, I caught a glimpse of something else: THE GIANT KANNON I STUDIED IN MY BUDDHIST ART HISTORY CLASS LAST TERM! ughhh I will be making another trip to see it some other time. It's beautiful too!

As promised earlier, I finally got around to getting pictures on the internet from the famous photo booths known as*~* PURIKURA *~* :
Big eyes are cute in Japan...but what happens when you already have them..AHHH

I know what you're thinking...oh gawd why?

WELCOME TO OUR "VIGAN LABORATORY" ....?

until next time.