Exploring

Last Saturday I went to the Izakaya place again with Toshi. Toshi says it's not an Izakaya, but actually a korean-style yakiniku restaurant. haha :p

I haven't done anything too significant this week. Just more hanging out with my roommates and exploring the area around my house. Today I went to the library with a roommate. I read a few kid's books. It's only about a 5 minute walk from home, so I think I'll go there tomorrow too.

Last night at about midnight I decided to go on a walk and get myself lost. I walked down all the scariest streets I could find. I walked down a lot of pretty creepy alleys. On one street I walked past a group of rough-looking guys wearing black and red uniforms. Maybe a gang?

I did manage to get myself lost, but it seems hard to truly get lost here in Tokyo. There are maps on many streets and if you walk for long enough you'll eventually find a train station that you can use to get home. I found out last night though that many of the train stations are closed at night :(.

Living in a big city like this is quite fun and convenient. Everything I need is a 30 second walk from my house. I don't need to store any food. Walk a little further and there are all sorts of interesting shops to be found.

I've explored most of the area around my house, so I want to go to some other, bigger, areas of Tokyo next. Preferably with a friend. I don't have friends around here other than my roommates, don't have a job and I'm not a student, so it's a little hard to make new friends.

On Friday I might be meeting Ran (Another friend from Florida) for Ramen. On Saturday I'm planning on going to a big mall in Chiba with one of my language exchange friends that I've been talking to on Skype for a few months.

To make new friends I can talk to random strangers in restaurants, go to a club or a bar, or make a post on Mixi (Japan's facebook). I decided to try the Mixi route. I made a post earlier and soon had maybe a hundred messages in my inbox. I was very surprised. Learning English is popular here. I spent the past few hours answering them all. I don't want 100 friends, just a few! I'm going to be really really busy :(. Hopefully my Japanese will improve at a faster rate though.

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.