Liz, Olivia, and I went to Harajuku to do a little shopping and sight seeing on Sunday. Harajuku is famous as the stomping grounds for hip Japanese teenagers. It's filled with little shops and boutiques that are perfect for a trendy teen on a budget. Liz bought a pair of tights and a cute t shirt but that's about it. The girls were looking for some shoes to wear to castings, but we weren't lucky enough to find any. They barely carry any sizes above women's size 8, so while it's not impossible to find an 8.5 or 9 for Liz, it would absolutely be a nightmare for me to find anything at all in size 11. Good thing I brought enough foot wear with me! While in Harajuku, we stopped at a delicious pastry place and I had the most scrumptious creme puff! Liz saw a T.G.I Friday's so obviously that's where we went for lunch. It's hard to find buffalo wings anywhere here, so she was thrilled to find a place that served them. Our meals were VERY delicious. Olivia had chicken strips and I had a cheeseburger with basically an entire avocado on it. Liz and I both tried this blue slushy drink that was fantastic as well.
Even though I prefer to taste the local cuisine when I can, I'd definitely go back for that burger. While exploring the area, Liz snapped an amazing picture of a mirrored tunnel that I will find and share with you later. We didn't have a whole lot of time to spend in Harajuku because the girls had to get back to do homework, but it was a perfect place to spend an afternoon window shopping and people watching.
Roppongi
Monday morning, I watched the Seahawks annihilate the Broncos live at a tiny little bar in Roppongi called New York Bay. I invited my new friend Yui to accompany me. She's the one I met at the Mirumasu scarf shoot, the one that is so excited about everything American. I figured she'd be the perfect companion as long as she didn't have work or school on Monday. She was extremely excited to get the invite, and it worked out that she didn't have to go to class until noon. She said she had never done "morning drinking" before and I told her it's pretty much a favorite American pasttime. I met her at the subway station at 7:45am and we began our Super Bowl adventure. Yui really didn't know much about football at all and continued to call it the Super Ball. It was adorable! She and I both cheered for the Seahawks. I have some close friends from the area, plus I like lime green. Yui studied abroad for a year in Seattle and that's where her boyfriend lives now. Anyway, of course we got lost on the way there. Eventually we found the tiny bar and found ourselves smushed in a sea of football fans. Strangely, very few people were Broco fans. I guess all for the better since it was a pretty embarrassing game. The bar was poorly arranged. Many couches were pushed together toward the side in front of a giant live projection of the game. Two smaller tvs were on the back wall of the bar. About 100 people were crammed in there, but only about 20 could fit in the seats to watch the big screen. Everyone else was crammed like sardines in front of the bar. Yui is barely 5 feet tall, so she had a hard time seeing anything, especially with taller Americans in the vicinity. Luckily, I spotted a small corner of the room that was unoccupied, so I pushed us both through. It was a great decision, because we could view the big screen and we had easy access to the bar. We also had more space to socialize and chat with others. Unfortunately for the many boisterous fans in the building, the bar ran out of beer after the first quarter. Ridiculous! Clearly they underestimated the drinking power of American football fans. One other unfortunate event was that the Japanese station broadcasting the game didn't show any commercials. This was the only time in my life I was disappointed that I didn't get to see commercials. Throughout the game, I taught Yui some things about football. Baseball and soccer are the big sports in Japan. She didn't seem to care that she didn't know what was going on. I think she had a great time enjoying the atmosphere and meeting new people. We met Jake, a Canadian skier living in Whistler, Canada and his friend. We also met Bryce from Hawaii and Trevor, a Japanese guy from California. Gwen showed up a little later, a Steelers fan from Boston. She had recently moved to Japan to reunite with her Japanese husband, and she was very social and sweet.
After the game, we all went to eat at McDonald's because Jake's friend had to leave for home and really wanted a burger and fries before he left. Yui had to go to class, but promised she'd meet up with me later for karaoke. After McDonald's, Jake, Trevor, and I ventured to Shinjuku. There wasn't a whole lot to do there, but we did see some intereesting buildings.
After wandering around Shinjuku, I said good bye to the guys and went back to take a much needed nap back in Roppongi. We promised we'd meet up later for karaoke.
Shibuya
Yui found a cheap karaoke place in Shibuya and wanted to get some dinner before hand at her favorite noodle joint. I told the guys what we were doing, but they all had other plans. So Yui and I met at the Shibuya station and headed out on our own. When we got to her favorite place, everything was dark inside. She was disappointed, but we picked a tiny ramen place right next door instead. Outside the door was a ticket machine to order. We put in money and pressed buttons for what we wanted. The machine then spit out a ticket to hand to the cook inside. I was so excited to be eating some authentic food! My miso ramen was delicious so I will have no trouble ordering something similar in the future.
Yui and I chatted over dinner and she laughed at how terrible I am with chopsticks. We talked a little about everything, and I realized I lucked out with meeting her. She's a great person and I'm sure we would be really great friends if we lived in the same area. She's the type of person I would come back to Tokyo just to visit. When we were almost done eating, a man sitting near us asked where we were from. He was Australian and I fell in love with his accent immediately. We got to talking a bit and I invited him to karaoke. He had originally planned to leave a week earlier, but he didn't want to go. He cancelled his flight and decided to sight see some more on his own. I think it was pretty awesome to find such a cool guy so randomly and we all became a little closer when we belted our hearts out at karaoke. None of the people we met at the Super Bowl showed for karaoke, but it was super fun just the same.
Fun reading! Thanks, Jessa.
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