Saturday, February 2, 2013

Pokemon Center, Sakuras, and Fire Eyes' Hut

Two days ago, the exchange students met up with Toyoma sensei to go to a farewell lunch together in Shibuya before Mitchell's party ^___^. The restaurant was so nice. Not only did you get a main course, but there was a buffet of smaller dishes as well as all-you-can-drink tea, coffee, juice, milk, and water. So much...tea...
It was located on a pretty high floor and this was the view:
 I got tuna steak with sprouts ^___^:
And then they poured the sauce over it. It was pretty fantastic. Definitely one of the top 3 meals in Japan so far.
The sugared sweet potatoes and sweet cucumbers were some of the things available at the snack buffet. The sweet potatoes were seriously like dessert, so I didn't get any. However, I did take a picture of Mitchell's:
O___O. Oh gosh. Then, Sabrina had brought me some dark chocolate that she had from Germany. It's pretty fantastic. She told me that it's really cheap, about $1 in American money. I couldn't believe it. It tastes like chocolate you buy for maybe $4. O___O

Here is Tom being a model:
 Wendy brought two of her friends from Belgium that are visiting ^___^.
lolol. Oh yeah. This was when Tom tried some of the Matcha powder that was sprinkled on one of the dessert's plates while the person wasn't looking. I didn't capture his disgusted face.
The group:
Toyoma sensei paid for everyone O___O. The generosity here, I'm telling you!

Then, Sabrina, Julia, and I went off to shop around Shibuya. Julia had to leave early for a concert, so it was just Sabrina and I after about an hour. We were looking for a pretty bag for her and succeeded!
We shopped around some more and went to a Purikura ^__^:
We still had some time before Mitchell's party, but not enough time to go home inbetween, so I asked Sabrina if she wanted to go get fro yo. Since she did have dessert at lunch, she wasn't hungry, so it was just me. ()(^.^)()' They added new available toppings! That's when you know they're doing well XD. There were different pocky sticks, marshmallows, and COOKIES.
Totally snatched a chocolate chip cookie. Finally! w00h00! ^___^
We wandered for a bit more and then headed off to Shimokitazawa to meet up with the party.

The bar was really nice and quite a lot of people were there. I got to talk with Wendy's friends, Sara and Heel (sp?) a lot. They asked me if high school in America was just like the in movies. I asked what they meant and they said "yellow school bus, lockers" etc. Haha, apparently they don't have lockers in Belgium! They always have to carry their books. One thing that is similar though, is that seniors carry less books-not because they have less-but because they no longer care. lolol.
Also, universities and colleges are two different things in Belgium.
I asked them about Belgium chocolate and if it's really that much better. They explained how Belgium requires a certain percentage of cocoa and quality in order to be produced. Hot dang. They also confirmed that their chocolate really is the best.
w00f, they were so cool! They went traveling around Europe for 6 whole months. O_O  That sounded fantastic.
Sarah said it was cool that I was from America. I've never heard that before XD. It's usually just me being psyched to hear that someone is from Australia, England, Germany, etc.

Anyhoo! I took these pictures from the party from people on Facebook XD.

I guess Chen is now the spider instead of the spider-slayer now:
I think this pretty much represents the party:
We talked. We danced. I met a few new people and said goodbye to others. It was probably the last time I would be able to see some of my friends, like Shota and Sabrina.

Sabrina is going home for a few weeks in Germany, so we had to say our goodbye =[. I'm really happy that we were able to hang out these past few days though. We got matching Gachapon kitty charms too ^___^.
After riding the train home together and saying goodbye, I headed home for the night. It was just the beginning of the night for some of the exchange students, as they went clubbing after and would probably be out until 5 or 6 in the morning O__O. lololol, no plz.

When I was talking with Wendy, she said she went to the Pokemon center with her friends and I asked where it was O__O. Then, Evan said it was in Hamamatsucho and really close the station. So, yesterday I decided to go check it out after going to the gym ^___^. It was only about 20 minutes from Shinjuku and really easy to find, located about 2 minutes from the station. There were these signs everywhere to guide the way too:
 They almost got the Beetles thing down:
 AWWwWWw YeaaAahh!
 Pikachu, plz halp me cook.
 PLUSHIES:
There was a ton of stuff, anywhere from school supplies to Pokemon shaped desserts to booster packs to keychains to bags, etc. They had a pretty good amount of old-school Pokemon stuff too, mainly Pikachu and Eevee.
It was really crowded the entire time too. I definitely picked up a few stuff from here ^___^.

I had plans to shop at Harajuku after to pick up a few presents for people (No, Lauren and Beth. You got your presents already. lolol), but then I was like hey! Adventure time! I'm already in this random city, might as well explore a little. I looked at a nearby map and saw there was a huge garden you could go to, so I headed that way.
Oh yeah, I didn't mention that it was about 60 something degrees. This is what I wore out:
With my sleeves rolled up because it was so warm O___O. Seriously an amazing day to go to a big garden.
So much to explore:
 I met these guys in an Italian park along the way:

They were pretty nice. Kinda quiet though.
The garden was extremely easy to find. Guys. Guys, I can read a map!
Hama-rikyu Garden ^___^. I didn't realize until now that it was one of the gardens I had looked up and debated on going to go see. I keep on going to these places without planning. I love it.
There were this structures to peek into to look into the water. It had something to do with spotting ducks, I think...
Duck Memorial =[
Quack =[
It's kinda awesome that these gardens are located in the middle of cities.
What's in here?
Moat!
This is Fire Eyes's house.
She was so B.A. And all in a pink dress, too.
Through another lookout hole:
This kind of reminds me of The 10th Kingdom cover:
THIS is pretty much the shot of Japan I've been waiting for:
Tea house:
You could go to another tea house more near the water to get some green tea and sweets, but I decided to venture some more around instead. =^.^=
These smelled so good:
lololol, this guy was just chilling nearby with its eyes closed, bathing in the sun.
It was definitely one of the most beautiful days here.
Kinda like Milwaukee...
 But you can see through the water:
lolol.
There was a water boat tour you could take, but this guy wasn't working today:
so I didn't bother.

THE BRIDGE:
Okay, maybe a little different.

This was cool because
these guys were chilling on the walls:
This reminded me of MoMo:
BET YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN A FLOWER SHOT LIKE THIS BEFORE:
BAM:
That picture just looked so powerful that it needed the sound effect.
These smelled amazing too:
A woman told me it was an ume tree (plum blossom).
Oh hey there, little guy.
I still can't believe how empty it was on such a nice day. Everyone just decided to go to the Pokemon Center instead.
YES! MY STAY AT JAPAN IS COMPLETE! Well, almost. But seriously. I was so excited to find a two Sakura trees with some blossom on them. I didn't think I would be able to!
One with pink.
The other with white:
So happy =^.^=.
More MoMo flowers:
300-year old pine with many crutches to help it in its old age:
After the garden, I was going to go back to the train to go to Harajuku, but then I looked around me. There was so much to see! So much to explore! Why would I leave now? So, I just kept on walking.
And then
found myself in Ginza. It was so close XD. That's one thing I love about Tokyo - everything is so close.
There are a lot of food places like this where it's a tunnel of restaurant and you sort-of picnic outside on a table to eat:
I went back to the toy store Mitchell and I had gone to and then walked around a bit more before taking a train to Harajuku where I got a few presents for people ^___^. Luke was having his going-away party and they were going to meet by Hachiko in Shibuya at 7. It was already about 6:55 and I wanted to say goodbye, so I busted over to Shibuya.

Grant, I passed this store along the way =[[[
I was able to catch Luke and his friends before they left for dinner =^.^=. I talked with Andy for a little bit and then said a quick goodbye to Luke.
After, I went around Shibuya for a bit, I bought some more presents and then headed home. I wasn't expecting to be gone that late!

I'm feeling very rushed for time here, with only a few days left. There's still so much I want to do. Today, I'm meeting up with Yuuki, Kazuya, and Mitchell to go to Odaiba and explore ^___^. We found out Tsukiji is closed on Sundays, so that was cancelled. It looks like another beautiful day outside, though so I'm pretty excited. =^.^=


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