This weekend has been both relaxing (which I desperately needed) as well as a little productive. Well, productive only in the sense that I figured out which songs i'm going to perform in two weeks. I taught one lesson as well (which will be the focus of this post).
I met up with one of my best students (and friend) Yuriko, to have our weekly discussion on linguistic theories in English (see why she's my favorite?). During our discussion we somehow got on the subject of Chinese New Year, which led to us going to Korea Town, aka Shin-Okubo (because the big China town was too far away; Korea town was in walking distance).
Koreatown is much like you would expect it to be; Korean shops, restaurants, supermarkets, advertisements, etc cut into a small section of town. This section of Tokyo is called "Shin-Okubo" officially and it's accessible from the Yamanote line, just one stop after Shinjuku going towards Shibuya.
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| Like a Chinatown only with less China and more Korea. |
We walked there easily enough from Higashi Shinjuku (East Shinjuku) and on the way we past under this sign:
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| "American Blvd" This way --> |
We didn't follow it but there was a 100 yen shop (dollar shop) across the street called "US MART" which didn't sell anything from the US (except for a penis toothbrush which we figured might be from America) but I did find an apple flavored Oreo candy bar. It was interesting...not bad, but not my favorite. Tasted exactly like it sounds; apple flavored Oreo. Anyway..
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| Massive crowd. I was a little intimidated. |
Once we got into Korea Town it was instantly recognizable as such. What gave it away other than the intelligible Korean signs? The hundreds of girls crowded outside of numerous idol shops.
Now i'm not talking about religious idols (although most of these girls probably revere them as gods) but rather pop idols from Korean. At these stores adoring fans can buy anything from posters to pens that have their fav artists image stuck on it. We braved a look around inside because they also sold beauty products and my friend wanted some new skin care stuff (and I guess stuff from Korea is supposed to be good?).
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Once it would have been prudent for me to
know who all these people were; but then
I hit puberty. |
The posters of these pop idols staring at me from all over the walls was a little unnerving, as was the fact that guys were also in there buying just as much goods as the girls (they say they're in there buying things for their GF's but we all know they bought those 5 posters of Tohoshinki for themselves). After fighting our way out of that mess we found a Korean grocer and proceeded to buy corn tea (yeah, tea from corn; sorta tasted like liquid popcorn minus the butter), kim-chee (pickled and spiced cabbage), and Korean cookies (cookies).
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Notice how no one is crowded around the
cosmetics? |
We also partook in these Korean style gyoza ( meat filled pot stickers) which were delicious and juicy; very very juicy. So juicy that when I bit into mine it squirted all over my friend Yuriko. But it was okay because she smelled delicious for the rest of the night!
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Although the sign suggests that these are
actually from Shanghai China (the characters at the very top say so at least) |
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| Who cares where they were from though, cuz they were tasty. |
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| Fresh off the skillet |
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| Yuriko was pleased, but they looked too hot so she was like "you take the first bite, Jamie" |
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| "Okay, here I go~!" *squirt* |
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| It was just too good, couldn't control myself. |
Korea town gets 4 thumbs up (outta ten) simply because it was just your generic sorta ethnic community town; nothing too spectacular to offer unless you're into the Korean pop stars then I suggests going here for all your fan girl (or boy) needs.
Tomorrow I go to my learning studio for the first time to set up my work schedule~
PEACE OUTSIDE
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| Sorry Jesus but... |
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| Tohoshinki's got it made |
