Tokyo Tokyo Tokyo!

After a lovely last night at home spent with my family and my best friend (and my mom's amazing tacos, and about a pound of frozen yogurt), I got on my 1:20 pm flight from LAX to Narita without too much trouble. We were running a little late so I didn't have time to pick up some last minute items I needed or take advantage of a no-international-fees ATM in LAX, unfortunately. Dealing with money stresses me out :( but oh well, what's done is done.

The flight was pretty nice – not as nice as the flight Claire and I took to Japan and back last year, but still nice. I slept for the first hour or so, then watched Valkyrie, a Japanese movie called The Triumphant General Rouge, and (I don't even know if I should admit to this) Confessions of a Shopaholic. See my only real problems with the flight (I was on Japanese Airlines) were that you couldn't pick when to start the movies, and that the movie selection (in English) was so poor. On my last international flight I took the opportunity to watch a bunch of foreign language films because I figured they'd be much harder to come by than American ones back home. I even lucked out on a 6-hour flight home from Yale once – the plane was a connecting flight from somewhere international, so I had my pick of movies for free instead of the $6 or $7 fee they charge per movie domestically. But on the flight I was on this time, only two Japanese movies had English subtitles; everything else came in only the original language with Japanese subtitles. Disappointing, but not the end of the world. The food was great. Other than watching movies, I slept and read my Chinese dictionary.

We got into Narita around 5 pm, and by 6 pm I had a bus ticket to Shinjuku and was figuring out how to contact my parents. Turns out I had my watch set for Chinese time and forgot to remind myself that Japan time is an hour later, so I took a bus an hour later than necessary, but it worked out ok. I had an adventure trying to use a Japanese cell phone to text John and then met him at Shinjuku station with the help of payphones. Because it was raining pretty hard by then (rain season in Tokyo), we headed straight back to his cute little house near Shinjuku. John wins for getting my embarrassingly heavy suitcase up the two narrow staircases to his room. Tatami mats! Shoji doors! So wonderful. We did some catching up and some planning for Tuesday and then went to bed.

Tuesday was amazing, in one word. We started off in Akiba for some wandering and found a really cheap, fast, and generous curry place for breakfast/lunch. After some more wandering (Yodobashi Camera!)(did you know they make puzzles of Kingdom Hearts? And Final Fantasy? I was amazed and covetous), we stopped at a bakery for Japanese-style pastries. So good.

Melon Bread with whipped cream, melon custard, and melon jam-ish-stuff inside. So gooood.

After a little more wandering, we headed to SEE THE GIANT GUNDAM HOMG!!!!!!!!!!! I was so happy when John suggested we go see it – I thought Odaiba was too far away, but I was wrong! I don't think they're entirely finished yet but…wow.

Gundam towering over the people.

We also saw another Statue of Liberty? Does France just give these away for kicks?

???

Then we went to Roppongi looking to hit up the Tokyo Tower. It took us a looong time to find it, so by the time we did dusk was falling and it had just lit up. Beautiful, and worth the effort (but not worth the ¥800-something to go up to the observing deck).

Upshot

We were assaulted there by middle schoolers who wanted a picture with the exotic Americans. "Herro?" is not a stereotype of their accent, it was actually that thick. But speaking of herro,

We also saw this there. Japan = cute embodied.

From Roppongi we headed to Harajuku, for precisely the reason I came to Japan: absolutely delicious food.

KYUSHU JANGARRA RAMEN. THE. BEST. EVER.

So it was raining a little when we left Harajuku station to head for ramen. While we were at Jangarra, it started pouring harder than I think I've ever seen it. But this did not keep us from our final destination: crepes, Japanese-style!

Mixed berries and frozen yogurt + chocolate ice cream, caramel, and cinnamon. Oh my, so worth the wetness.

We huddled under an overhang to eat, and continued huddling for a while trying to wait out the rain, but it was not to be. I tried to take John to Kiddyland, this really cool store with floors and floors of toys, but it was closed :( Since it was still pouring, we decided to head back home.

I thought about heading to the Tsukiji fish market for amazing morning sushi since Claire and I didn't manage to wake up early enough on our last trip, but I decided against it. I didn't want to risk missing my flight. I want to come back to Japan sometime within the next year with Light, so hopefully I'll be back soon!

The next morning I left John's house around 7 am to get to Shinjuku station for my 85 minute bus trip to Narita.

John's cute little house. I'm mad jealous of it.

Realizing I hadn't taken any pictures of myself here, I tried to get one using the self-timer on my camera. My battery died before I could get a non-blurry picture, though.

Sorry, Mom.

I had epic misadventures trying to get from where John lives to Shinjuku station, and pushing my suitcase all over was not too much fun. I made it to the bus about an hour later than I intended, but thankfully security at Narita didn't take too long. I did have a rough stop, though: after making it on to so many flights with me, my little pink pocket knife finally got confiscated. R.I.P. little buddy, I'll miss you :(

I'm going to end this entry here and start a new one regarding my adventures so far in Beijing – after this, my Light Fellowship summer abroad begins for real. Goodbye, Japan! Be back soon!