Izakaya

The past week it's been raining and snowing a lot, so I've mostly been staying home and hanging out with my roommates. I've still managed to explore a decent amount of Tokyo though. This week was Ueno, Akihabara, Iidabashi, Shinjuku, and Roppongi. The streets and stores are very crowded, especially on the weekends.

In Ueno I just walked around and admired the scenery. Ueno has lots of museums and a zoo. Ueno is one of the poorer areas of Tokyo, so there were a lot of homeless people walking around, especially in the park.

Akihabara is famous for it's electronics, anime, and maid cafes. This is the nerdy area of Tokyo. Me and Toshi went to a giant electronics store there called Yodobashi-Akiba. Maybe the biggest in the world. Its 9 stories tall with each floor being about the size of a Best Buy. Lots of interesting stuff. Especially the phones.

In Iidabashi, me and Toshi went to Toshi's old university (Hosei) to study. I recorded a short video from the top floor of Hosei University (26 stories up I think). I'll upload it later. After that we visited a famous Shrine that I forgot the name of.

I went to downtown Shinjuku with another new friend (Aki). We went to a very big bookstore called Kinokuniya. Its 9 stories tall and two stories underground (11 floors total) with each floor being about the size of a Barnes & Noble. There were three elevators and each elevator had an elevator girl working in it (I guess to make them run more efficiently). They sounded and acted like robots. Looks like a really boring job. I bought a 3rd grade level kid's book to read and practice my Japanese.

Me and Toshi also walked a bit around Roppongi Hills. I recorded a video of that too which I'll upload later.

A couple days ago I met another Korean roommate named Hyou. She's one of the happiest and most enthusiastic people I've ever met. For some reason it's also easier to talk to her than even Japanese natives. Fun to talk to. She's studying Japanese in school and has three part time jobs. Busy! One of her jobs is at an Izakaya (similar to a restaurant) in Ebisu. I've never been to an Izakaya before, so she invited me and my other roommates (Just Masaka and Ri came) to celebrate my first Izakaya experience today at her work. It was probably one of the most enjoyable restaurant-type experiences I've ever had. The food was just ok, but the people working there is what made it special. It was almost like we were celebrating my birthday in some 5-star restaurant.

I got lost in Ebisu for about 30 minutes trying to find the place. I was about 20 minutes late :( ). The manager of the store was waiting at the entrance for me. They reserved a table for us near the back of the restaurant (I guess maybe the tables are normally shared among strangers). When I entered, Hyou gave me a litte hand-made poster welcoming us and wishing us a good experience (or something to that effect).

Masaka and Ri arrived about 10 minutes later. Hyou and Hyou's co-worker (I forgot her name, Chikaro?) cooked the food on the table in front of us. Nabemono. Me, Masaka, Ri, Hyou, and Hyou's co-worker all chatted together. The manager a little bit too. Everybody who worked there was quite cheerful and seemed like a big family. Looks like a fun place to work.

After we got done eating and saying goodbye, Hyou's co-worker sprayed us with some kind of perfume stuff outside.

I wanted to take a picture of the poster thing, but I lost it somewhere on the way home :(.

Masaka will upload the other pictures to his Facebook later.