Harajuku, Sushi Conveyer Belts, and Karaoke

I realized that I haven't really shown any of the strange food that you can get at supermarkets here in Japan. So, here is one picture to satisfy your cravings:

Reminds me of Red Snappers from Animal Crossing. It probably is...you can get 3,000 bells for those, you know.

And for Grant, here are the Japanese scotches and their prices from one of the markets by the station:

Oh! And by the way to all readers if you didn't know, you can click the picture to enlarge it. AwWWWw yeaAaAh. Instantly more detail.

Today was....another day of ohmygosh-we-are-in-Japan-and-have-free-time-before-school-starts-kinda day.

First, I woke up around 5:30 a.m. again and felt the urge for a good workout. I went out to venture for a place with some space and maybe some stairs for circuits. Well, I pretty much found the greatest area. By some apartments and a middle school field, there is an area with steps, a ramp, and a square of pavement. It was perfect. Not to mention that there were people running on a pathway around the area. It was like a playground to me! Whoever says that they don't have anywhere to work out or money for machinery is just silly. Sure, I got some strange looks, but hot diggity, an area for tricep dips, burpees, running, stairs, jumps, wall squats. Okay, I won't bore you anymore with exercise talk. A police guy passed me and said good morning, so I was like "ah-ha! So I can do this here."
Faboo! =^.^=

Evan asked if Kirsty and I wanted to hang out again at around 11 today. When he came by, there was another person with him, Tom. He goes to the same school as Kirsty in London.

I thought it was so weird that I was being social in college. I always wondered what it'd be like to have people just stop by and then you hang out all day since I never lived in any dorms. I never really met someone and went out exploring with them on the same day.

lolcutoutevan. And here we are, adding each other on Facebook

So it was like woah! I'm being more social in college! We decided to go to Harajuku. (YES!!)
 We were all pretty hungry, so we went to a local restaurant first near the station, Tsuyaki.

Beef, tofu, corn, lettuce donburi (bowl), a.k.a. ~yummy~
 Then, it was off to Harajuku. They helped me to buy a prepaid train pass called Passmo. Ugh, it makes taking trains so much faster.

First look of Harajuku

LAUREN.

 

SHOPPING.

We really are living in the future

I didn't take as many pictures as I should have of the clothing. A lot of it was hoodies with ears, pins, stitches, stripes, lace, fishnet, big boots with chains, etc. (Paradise)

These crepes looked amazing

SHAWN

LAUREN

We're in Japan, we had to.....

For those of you who aren't familiar with these yet, they're called Purikura. =^.^= It's pretty much a photo booth, but these ones add a special effect, like making your eyes huge and your skin really light. Then, you can decorate them at the end. Kirsty is getting these emailed to her, so I'll try to post them when she sends them to us ^___^.

 Lauren, you would have loved this Fairytale-like store:

HUGE GIZMO just hanging from the ceiling. NBD

This was a Gizmo Kleenex box holder and Evan demonstrating its powers

There was a ton of Rilakkuma stuff, of course            

MoMo! =^.^=

 We went to this food court, and there was pink everywhere. And only little girls. So we sat down and bought some bubble drinks and got funny looks.

Strawberry tea bubble drink plz

 Seriously, Japan. They've got their bathrooms down.

 You get to customize these stick things. I think it's their version of a funnel cake, sort-of.

Then, we went to a British Pub and Tom said that if we never have been to London, then it's in here.

GRANT

Grant, I took some pictures of the beer menu for you!

 Aaaaand, then there's Condomania. It's just what you think it is. I just...I couldn't get myself to walk in. lolol.

 NIKE STORE OMG. They had all this stuff, you guys! ALL THIS STUFF. And stuff that I've never seen before!

 There was a really big park nearby with trees overhead that gave a lot of shade, which was a really nice since it was so sunny and hot. O___O

Barrels filled with sake.

GRANT

 Big Post, Big Hugs.

 The park trail led to a Temple.

 Here's where you pour water on your left hand, then right, then drink some and pour on your left again I think...Oh gosh, I hope.

 We creeped on a wedding ceremony.

 And made a wish here. Bow twice, clap your hands twice, bow once.

 More creeping

 SO THIS GUY. So he walks up to us and asks us where we're from and says how Japanese people are all like "Don't talk to me. Don't ask me. I'm shy." but how he isn't. He also said how he's only been learning English for a month and only went to high school. He kept quizzing us on random things like the Fourth of July and the movie, "Contact." For not knowing English, he sure did say a lot to us for 20 minutes. I think this picture of him really captured a lot. Then, when we would say something, he didn't understand. So, we thought maybe he's been rehearsing this long conversation for a long time.

 It was really pretty. Very "Lord of the Rings". Huge spider webs in the forest area too.
After finding out that most Kitty Cafes were not just sitting down, having a cup of tea, and having a cat come by and put its tail in your drink, but instead paying for a certain amount of time to be in a room with cats, we decided to go to Shinjuku instead.

Here is a really tall observation building:

 And here are views from the top of the observation tower, located on the 45th floor (sorry, Grant!):

We're all wearing the futuristic glasses here. Not so great at capturing it though...

 THIS MACHINE IS GREAT.

 LOOK WHAT IT MADE FOR EACH OF US.

 Yes, those are our faces. lolol It will be really awkward if our face pops out of the dinosaur because then someone will just find my plastic face lying around...It'll be almost like Mrs. Doubtfire. Almost.

 Getting darker out and now you can see Mt. Fuji. He sure can paint 'em.

 We didn't go to a Kitty Cafe, but we did find cats tied up to here on the street.

Then, we were pretty hungry again and decided to take a train to Shibuya to try to find a Kaiten Sushi, which is a sushi conveyer belt (Endless amounts of plates of sushi slide by you on a conveyer belt and you take what you want). On the way to finding one, there was a parade on the street. I'm not sure if they call them parades here too, though.

 

 These guys really liked stopping and posing for everyone..

THEN THEY ALL STARTED SPINNING, AHHH. (I could hear Beth saying "W-wwahhtt?! What's going on?!)

 They were pulling this big thing.

Some people call this place "Fucking." lolol.
 (plz excuse the language, MoMo ^___^')

We didn't find a Kaiten Sushi, but locals helped us to find a place pretty much just as great. The thing about when you ask for directions in Japan, is a lot of the time they go out of their way to show you instead of just telling you directions.
All you have to do to order is touch the screen of the item you want and hit "order" and it comes to you on that conveyer belt a few minutes later and you pay per plate. 2 pieces of sushi usually for each plate.

 I started to take pictures of all the kinds of different sushi I got, but then it ended up being too many...
That one on the right was absolutely terrible. It was tuna and natto and I had no idea. lolol. Natto, a fermented soybean, here is kind of like a joke for foreigners because a lot of people don't like it.

 5 plates down...

 THEN THERE WAS CAKE WE COULD ORDER. HAHAYES. SWEET CHOCOLATELY FLUFFY GOODNESS. It really helped eating this after having an octopus sushi which was probably the hardest thing to eat. Well, I guess I didn't really eat it, I had to spit it out in Evan's Coca Cola cup. It was empty. He had spit out the Tuna/Natto one his other cup, lolol. But yeah, it was really chewy, but then it had no flavor. I called it like eating unmolded dentures. What I meant was more of like eating that chewy gum thing they use to make mold impressions for retainers. The chewiest, thickest, flavorless gum. halp.

 Evan beat me 9 to 8. Tom had 5, I think, and Kirsty had maybe 4, but she didn't have sushi 'cause she doesn't really like the taste of fish (craziness!) Maybe this is an example of what American portions are like compared to other countries...lololol.

HAHA, WE WENT TO KARAOKE. which I still have troubles spelling. In Japan, they have tons of places to do Karaoke. Unlike in America, your group has separate rooms to sing in. Since the trains only run until 12 midnight and some people stay out later than that, they sometimes sleep in the Karaoke rooms and wake up when they can take the next train home.

 They had the strangest music videos to go with the songs. Like for "Golddigger," there was a girl that was freaking out and all sad and in agony and crying and ripping out her hair. I have no idea.

 Evan got really into it.

Yesterday was a really awesome day. I would love to go back to Harajuku on my own next time so I can spend time shopping like I did in Shibuya. I felt bad for everyone else 'cause they didn't seem as into shopping as me and I kept stopping and looking at stores. I was kind of surprised at how few people were dressed up in Harajuku when we went though. Maybe we went at a slower time. When I do go, I'll definitely take more pictures of all the awesome clothes there and accessories there. I know Lauren and Beth would love it.
If anyone does come to Japan, be sure to bring good walking shoes. And I mean shoes that you can walk in for at least 5 miles at a time, if not more (a.k.a. LAUREN NONE OF THOSE FANCY CLICKING-I-CAN-HEAR-YOU-ACROSS-THE-STORE BOOTS). When I think of all the things we did, we really did walk a ton of miles, but you don't realize it from all the excitement.
Today, we're all going to meet up and go on another adventure. =^.^= School starts in 2 days and I'm pretty excited but mainly nervous. I know my Japanese skills aren't as good everyone else's, but I'm here to learn, so learn I shall. That, or I'll just snuggle up in my big hoodie and play Chrono Trigger all day.