Challenge is the Life of Spice!

Alas Golden Week has since passed and I am back to the not-so-fun reality of school, but on our last day of Golden Week, Tony, Marina and I hopped on the Joban line headed for Tokyo! We woke up ridiculously early and it took 2 hours by train to get there, but we eventually made it!

We went to Tokyo to meet with my sisters, Kana and Yuka, and Kana's friend Mayo, whom I affectionately call Mayo-rin. When I first met her two years ago, she assumed that the "rin" part of my name (that's 'lyn' for all you English speaking folk) was actually an American version of "chan". (a suffix used at the end of a name for a close friend) She called herself "Mayo-rin" (since Japanese has a severe lack of pronouns and refer to themselves in the third person) and when we informed her that "rin" was an actual part of my name, she was mortified...aaaaaaaand we pretty much haven't let her live it down since.

After we met at Hachiko, Kana and Mayo showed us where the Apple store was, and then we went to the Disney store, which was about the sickest Disney store ever. It had a fun castle facade on the outside, and on the first floor there was a huge statue of Sorcerer Mickey and other characters along the walls.

The spiral staircase leading to the second floor was painted to make it look it like you were tumbling down the rabbit hole, so that was really cool. The second to third floor stairwell started as a castle tower and eventually blended into the night sky, with Tinkerbell sitting on top of a lamp post at the top. They also had recreations of Gepetto's workshop with Pinocchio on the table, a wardrobe with Peter Pan's shadow trying to hide behind it, and Andy's room.

We took some Purikura, walked to Harujuku, stopping at all my favorite stores (aka. Kiddyland and Oriental Bazaar). It was a major life achievement for me when I went to Kiddyland...and didn't buy anything. But Kana and Yuka did. It was very surreal O_O. We made a quick swing around Takeshita-dori (the street to be for crepes, anything young, kitschy, flashy, gothic-loli fashion and anything to do with Japanese idols) and Meiji shrine before going to Monja!

Monja is the Japanese Okonomiyaki restaurant I went to last time with Kana, Yuka, Mayo, Saki and Kawa-chan. I had so many fun memories there, and I personally think its the best okonomiyaki I've ever had, so I asked if we could go again. :) Mayo couldn't join us for dinner, but Saki and Naruse did! Naruse is also a friend of Kana's I met when I went to her school for a day. When I was here last, he got in an accident with a car while riding his bike..and when I say that I mean he was special enough to run his bike INTO the car. So I constantly tease him about that. Saki hadn't changed much, but Naruse sure had. I barely recognized him at first, though his personality was the same as ever. He's very much the comedian and we get on well because I'm convinced he's the only Japanese person I'm ever met who actually gets sarcasm.

The food was delicious as ever, and a lot cheaper than the ones in Mito, so I was happy :) The heat from the griddle was so hot though, that I had to steal Naruse's glasses to use as "safety goggles" because I kept crying from the heat and smoke. The most interesting Okonomiyaki we had was by far the Potato Chip okonomiyaki, which was actually quite good, but my favorite was the one where I mixed corn beef and some kind of Chinese crunchy noodle into one huge okonomiyaki...I had to have Naruse use the other two paddles to help me flip it O_O

After that we exchanged numbers and said our farewells before heading home. We got home sometime around 1....needless to say waking up for school on Thursday was a very, very painful experience.

Thursday and Friday were...well another Thursday and Friday at school. After school on Friday we had E.S.S. and for the first time since I've joined, we DIDN'T go to the Ramen place (and I actually brought my camera to take a picture this time too!) There were way to many of us and we ended up having to split up. Yasu, Masashi (not the one that I went to the beach with), Nagai, Takami and two of the freshman whose names I unfortunately forget went to Ghandi, and Indian curry restaurant near school while everyone else went to Tempura.

The food was delicious (and as usual I pulled the "I'll have what Takami's having" because he hasn't steered me wrong yet), the atmosphere fun and the wait staff was friendly, though I think the Nepali waiter was a little to happy to meet me. When I walked in he got really excited and told me I was the first ever American girl to be in the place and kept talking to me all throughout dinner...I was trying to talk with the boys in Japanese, since I asked them outside of E.S.S. to speak at least some Japanese with me, but he kept coming over and insisting they speak English with me. O_O He kept saying how lucky they were to have me and that I was an "American Beauty"...He was funny and certainly a nice guy, and it was very flattering, but it was also quite awkward to sit there and try to have conversations with your friends while all this was going on.

My favorite moment from the restaurant, bar none, was when I told them because I didn't grow up eating fish, I just didn't eat it. Masashi looked at me at said "Challenge is the life of spice!" ....After an elongated Japanese explanation, I figured out that he was trying to challenge me to eat fish by saying that "variety is the spice of life"...almost Masashi...almost. Do give him kudos for knowing the phrase...kind of

Oh! And as a random discovery, I swear that Nagai is the most un-Japanese person EVER! He doesn't like seafood at all and he doesn't finish every thing on his plate. I kind of just stood there and stared at him when I found that out. O_O I was like "Haha, that's a good joke", because I thought he was teasing me because I don't like seafood...but then he was like "No, really. I don't like seafood."

Saturday I met up with Nimo, who is, I think, the vice-president of UNESCO, to go do some volunteering. We ended up somewhere near Semba Lake with some of the other members of UNESCO cleaning instruments for elementary school children. It was fun, and the people were really nice, but I think if I have to see another Japanese toy piano, it will be far too soon. I gave up counting how many I had cleaned by number 15 or 20.

One of the men who worked at the place where we were cleaning the instruments offered to drive the UNESCO girls who had walked a ride home, and then told Nimo and I he wanted us to meet him at Cocos for some food.

The man was really nice and just sincerely wanted to know about America, and he actually bought Nimo and I dinner. His name is Oonuki and he invited Nimo and I to come visit him in Hitachi some day to try fish, since I told him I don't really eat it in Pennsylvania. We stayed at Cocos for a while just talking, and it was fun...though it was a little weird when Nimo took out a notebook and was literally taking notes on me and the things I said...such as how you spelled my name, where I was from, the population of my school and when I was going home. It made me kind of wonder if this was some sort of reconnaissance mission and would they eventually ask me to take them to my leader...

Well, I best be off. I'm having a Pirates of the Caribbean Movie Marathon at my place, and I need to get some cleaning done before then :) TTFN!