Day 3 & 4

August 5th and 6th

It's amazing how you can not see people for over a year but then meet up again and it's like no time has passed at all. That's how I felt Sunday when I met up with my friends Sayako and Kanae. I met these two when they were in Portland as part of one of the short term summer exchange programs, Wayo. They were a great group and they left Portland about the same time I left Portland for Japan two years ago. We used to go on dinner dates every couple months or so when I was here studying, and we had scheduled one for a couple days after the earth quake hit but I missed it because I had to go home. Being able to meet up with them again was awesome and heartwarming (they live pretty far away from Tokyo so I was especially happy that they could make a special trip out here to see me).

We met in Shinjuku and ate at an Izakaya (sort of like a Japanese restaurant but you keep ordering food as you go). We reminisced about our time together in Portland, talked about how they're just finishing up job hunting (a tedious tradition that college kids have to start their junior year so that by the time they graduate they have a job....not a bad idea I suppose), about boys, about food, about Japanese English, about everything. It was a great night out. I hope I can see them again soon!

You can just ignore my stupid face haha

August 6th

This day, one of my closets friends from Johoku High School, came all the way from Shizuoka to hang out with me for the day. She came and visited me in Oregon last summer for a month and we had the bestest time (seriously, she was saying how because she had such a great summer last year, this summer has been like hell). Her bus came in at around 10am to Shinjuku (always the best meeting place), and we headed off to a Matsuri (festival). I don't remember where it was held at or what it was called but it was a neat one, that's for sure. It was in this covered area (which was lucky because it started to pour down rain), sort of like a covered mall area. The festival started at 10 so by the time we got there most vendors where still setting up. We walked the whole length, smelling the food, looking at all the color paper machete characters hanging from the ceiling, talking about nothing and everything. I bought some dango (mochi balls on a stick covered in a sticky brown sweet sauce stuff, my personal favorite) and Ayano bought sweet potato sticks covered in sugar (yum!). 

on the train

It was probably better that we came in the morning
because otherwise it would have been crowded
and I hate crowded.

Spider Man!! 

It took us maybe an hour and a half to walk down and back. It was still raining when we were done and so I wasn't able to ditch my umbrella like I wanted to (I know, being from Portland it's blasphemous to use an umbrella but hey, when in Rome right?) so I bucked up and kept it with me the whole damn day.

Before I left for Japan I was talking to my dad  about this Dinosaur exhibit being held in Tokyo that supposedly was showcasing something new and big. Now me and Ayano have this sort of unintentional tradition going on that whenever we hang out we go to some sort of Dino exhibit. Seriously. The first time we hung out in high school we went to a reptile exhibit; when we hung out in America we went to a Dino exhibit in Canada. So I thought it would be perfect if we went to this one. Turns out in was in Chiba though, so it took us about an hour to get there but it was worth it! Of course we were probably the only adults there who weren't accompanying children, but whatever. YOLO. 

 

It was a bit unreal having my perception of the hairless dinosaur being forcibly replaced with one of dinosaurs with hair. Childhood ruined. They don't look like dinosaurs anymore but rather some made up creature directly out of a Disney movie. Oh well...thus is science I suppose. 

After getting our Dino fill I suggested we go to the Imperial Palace since I had never been there before and it's right outside Tokyo Station. Ayano was convinced that they never let people inside of it and that we couldn't even see it from the outside, but I was determined to prove her wrong!  

There were a couple gates guarded by at least five guards each and Ayano was intimidated at first and tired to convince me that we weren't going to be able to get in, so we needn't bother asking. I convinced her otherwise though! After all, they didn't carry any guns so they weren't that intimidating seeing as the worse they could do was say no.

 

We attracted a couple wild foreigners when we asked the guards whether or not we could go inside. It appears that the other people were too shy/didn't know enough Japanese to ask so I was bombarded with "what did he say? Can we go in?". I was sorry to disappoint them.

Turns out the Palace isn't open on Mondays for Fridays so we were limited to the outside garden. Alas, Ayano was right.

But only partly right. You can go inside, just only on certain days.

The grounds were pretty enough

intimidating gate

This bridge apparently looks like a pair of glasses and is thus
called "glasses bridge". 

One of the wild foreigners tried to attach himself to us
after I translated for him, but we shook lose of him eventually
(he was nice, i just wasn't looking to making new friends). 

After that we ran into le wild Tim (friend from Portland just arrived here on JET)! 

Well, not really ran into. I coordinated our meeting but he was no less wild (jet lag will do that to you). We went and took Purikura together in Shinjuku and then did some Karaoke and just generally had a good ole time out on the town. However 10pm rolled around much too fast and it was time to say bye bye to Ayano. After see her safely to her bus me and Tim likewise parted ways because he was dead on his feet and my feet were just plan dead from walking around all day.

Good times.

Next up, Waseda friend and Okaasan Karaoke.

Jamie