Stuff I'm getting up to on my year abroad =]

Archive for April, 2014

Shinjuku Park, Waffles, and Birthdays

I have always loved that Japan mixes old and new so much; with their super traditional shrines etc and then the most modern of mod cons. Shinjuku-Gyouen really demonstrates this. I guess it being a park in a big city it would naturally do so, but it makes for pretty pictures anyway! I went with a bunch of SOAS buddies on the 19th of April. Look how pretty it is!

After we’d had a nice long day hanging out in the park, I met a bunch of the TUFS lot and went for a good old Karaoke 😀

The next day I took a trip to Kichijouji with Sam and Michelle, to visit Michelle’s favourite waffle stand. They’re pretty awesome there; really tiny bar with tasty waffles and friendly owners. Link: https://tabelog.com/en/tokyo/A1320/A132001/13164007

So for my Japan year abroad birthday, what did I do? I spent time with some of the most wonderous humans in my life. I went with Sam and Marlene to Harajuku for a bit of shopping! I got some hugely thoughtful presents from my TUFS friends too. I felt very loved 🙂 And jacket potatoes for dinner!

That’s it for now; I’ll be back with zoo trips and karaoke soon 🙂

The Start of Spring Term

April term rolled around but I still managed to fit in a load fun things, about which I shall now blog 🙂

My friend Sam and their fam (hehe, it rhymes), came over for a little tourism during April, and I got to spend some time with them on thee 8th of April, visiting a rather controversial shrine called, Yasukuni. It commemorates the war criminals as well as dead so when the emperor goes to pay his respects, many get understandably miffed. But the shrine itself is quite pretty, and it’s so famous that it would be a shame not to see it. I only managed some blurry night photos, but here they are!

When term started I was in the next class up (previously level 400, now level 500), and plenty of my classmates changed. We had one guy of note who may have been Austin Powers, but we never asked him to confirm!

I also managed to pilfer a bunch of chairs that were to be binned (my father would be so proud; he loves nabbing old furniture), bought a cheap fluffy blanket and made myself a sofa on my balcony! It was wonderful. I could now sit outside reading, doing homework, chatting to my friends and gaming 🙂

I took some photos of campus on the first few days, just for a record of what TUFS looks like mid-April.

Have another few random photos of things!

One of the highlights of this week was making okonomiyaki with Marlene in her newly purchased cooking thingy. It was so yum!

Our friend Nadja had her birthday so we all went to the halls one kitchen for a party takeover 🙂 It was good fun! The cake was adorable:

Finally for this post; the night we went to Michael’s place! He has a small place to himself and I got invited to go for dinner. It was good fun, and really interesting to see a proper Japanese place 🙂

Thanks for reading! More delightful adventures soon 🙂

Penis Festival Fun

I promise this is a real thing, honestly, there’s a Wiki on it an everything! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanamara_Matsuri

So naturally we had to go. It was hilarious. Dicks everywhere haha. It was much like any other shrine festival, except everyone was licking penis lollypops and the portable shrine things were giant penises. A good time was had by all 😀

I went with Bekah and her friends, and I’m very glad I saw this at least once! It was so incredibly crowded though. Next time I want to get a willy souvenir!

Sakura Picture Day with the Bestie

You’ll be glad to know I don’t have too much to say about today! Other than it was amazing fun and the cherry blossoms were incredible. We just spent the day on campus, we didn’t need to go anywhere else because there were so many blossoms 🙂 Enjoy the photos!

Touring Tokyo; The Mark and Rob Edition – Harajuku and the Penguin Bar

This was the last day of the whirlwind holiday Mark and Rob spent with me. Sad I know, but we did loads of funny things so all in all, a good conclusion to Touring Tokyo!

I wanted to take Mark and Rob around Harajuku for the crazyness, and to see the Meiji Shrine as it’s so big and pretty. So off we went, checked out the busy busy Takeshita street, munched some crepes, had a laugh in the condom shop and then headed to the shrine. Funny story of note; at the condom shop, I nearly bumped into someone coming out of the shop so I apologised and instead of just walking off, this incredibly smiley lady burst out laughing and said we should take a photo! I have no idea why, but it was a great moment in my life. Photo proof below 🙂

Next up was the Meiji Shrine; that giant one I went to with Mitch previously. It was just as pretty this time 🙂 We had a walk around, and had particular fun trying to get a good photo of us all sat on a bench using the self timer! Spoiler: None of them turned out properly!

After our naturey excursion, we headed to Asakusa quickly to get a fox mask for Rob’s nephew(?). It was pretty cool to see the crowded market at night, and no one tried to get us to buy shiny plastic coins for absurd amounts of money this time!

Next was Penguin Bar time! We met up with Bekah who also really wanted to come, and went to the Ikebukuro bar. Turns out that this place isn’t just a touristy thing, they actually serve quite high profile people who get private rooms and stuff. But they had us riff raff to deal with tonight! The whole experience was pretty awesome. You get your normal wet towel, but it’s penguin shaped!! So adorable. The food was yum too. But best of all, we got to feed the wee critters! I felt quite bad for them in their tiny tiny pen though. But I can’t really resist the pull of seeing cute animals up close >.<

Once we were finished at the Penguin Bar, we decided to try and find some fun nightlife to finish off with. I think we headed to Shinjuku, and just wandered around until we found somewhere to hang out. This ended up being a bar for a little while, where Rob had a beer the size of his head! Bekah had to head home after that, but Mark, Rob and I wondered around a bit more.

We almost ended up in a strip club, but decided against it at the last minute. The guy at the door had to check that it was ok to let me in (as I’m female), and asked me if I like boobs, seemingly as the entry criteria?! We ended up being taken to an almost empty club by a person who was advertising for his establishment, so we had a drink there for a moment or so. We moved on kinda quick and found another pretty empty club, but this one had a fuller dance floor. Rob had a lovely beer shower and made a random friend, while I danced (horribly badly; ugh I wish I didn’t try to move sometimes) with a very cool dude dressed in camo trousers. It was a good night and I got home after it was light!

And that was pretty much the conclusion of the holiday! Mark and Rob came in the evening to visit my campus the next day, about 6pm or so. It was dark so I couldn’t show them much but it was nice to have them over. I don’t think I could have entertained any earlier though; I was very tired from being out all night! A good way to finish off the week. And with their flight home imminent, this concludes the Touring Tokyo chronicles with Mark and Rob 🙂

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