Amity Pom Pom Camp

Exactly as it sounds. Went with the pom dance gals to a club camp type thing. It was good fun! We stayed at a place that is designed for sports clubs to stay and practise for a few days. You get fed and you stay in big old rooms and there’s a beach nearby to let off steam and fireworks. I had a good time, but I definitely felt some outsidery third-wheel feelings. But it was nice of them to include me.

We stayed for three days, practised some dances, made up some silly ones for evening entertainment, and hung out as a club which was nice. In terms of photos, I think a big chunk of girls having fun will suffice! (It was WAY more innocent than I just managed to make that sound….)

Shuttle bus to the hostel!

Gorgeous area

Our little sign for our shoe place

First glimpse of our training hall

View from the window

One of the rooms

Tatami is very pretty.

Another view from the window.

Dinner!

Time for fireworks!

On the way to the beach for the night

Sparkler fun

Cosy cosy

Relaxing

They fishtailed my hair!

Beach!

It says Amity if you look hard enough

Satisfying layers

No one else would come in the sea with me….

We took silly shots to see if anyone’s partner would get jealous…. because why not?

Very pretty house on the way to the beach

Entertainment evening. Silly dances made up by silly groups!

Julia and I did the Mean Girls Jingle Bell Rock skit, even though it was high summer… XD

Beach snap

Practising my jumps

Many humans in one room = many and unkempt shoes

slumber party!

All in all, quite a good few days! Boy was it boiling though.

I’m going to add an odd bonus day in here too; shortly after the camp I went on a meeting people mission. I managed to squeeze in a lunch and a dessert with Amyin Kichijouji, A butler cafe with Eriko, a spot of karaoke with the TUFSies, and a very drunken evening with a bunch of people in a new friend’s room!

Kichijouji, looking distinctly Japanese

This is where I had lunch with Amy; a random but funky rice bowl place

It felt very run down, but it sort of added to the charm.

Delicious grub, though!

Dessert time! Nana’s Green Tea. A pretty fancy place!

Naturally, purikura happened

This is the butler cafe. It was really interesting. You pay extortionate amounts for incredibly pretty food and waiters in tuxes. I’d give it a 6.5 out of 10.

Couldn’t get any more pictures before they caught me 😛

And another purikura!

Karaoke time with this fine human

And now the drunken evening… we were all kings this night.

Kings I tell you.

Crazy ones.

Thanks for reading this far! Only a couple more until this wonderful year abroad is at an end… stay tuned…

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 🙂

Made it to Takeshita street!

Gotta love good peep hole trousers

Mark chows down

Seems tasty 😀

Thoughtful crepe consumption

Some pretty pansies where we were crepeing

The random lady who wanted a photo with a foreigner outside a condom shop.

Just some of the many types of condom…

Giant size. Yeowch.

This dude was incredible. I wish I’d bought his CD. Such lovely music.

Pokemon were popping up on my map today 😀

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!

I really like this photo of us 🙂

Rob and I looking touristy!

Exploring the gardens

More gardens

The first of many attempts!

Ooops, we missed this one

I missed this one….

Nearly

That’s quite nice 🙂

Missed

We tried the “looking off into the distance” pose

not sure it worked though!

kinda…

My favorite 😀

The crazy well thingy

Adorable!

Reading the prayer thingies

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!

Lit up all nice like.

Bingo!

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 >.<

“Penguisare”

My drink; I think it was Matcha?!

Look at the cute little towel!

Dawww

Bekah and her friend 🙂

They were steaming; not sure how I feel about steamed penguins 😛

The waiter showed us how

I went first!

Rob had a go too

And Mark! I don’t seem to have a photo of Bekah though 😦

They really crowd for the food. I hope they’re just greedy and not underfed >.<

Their wee pen

Fuzzies

Selfie!

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!

Looking around for somewhere fun

We look far too sober

First bar

That is some foamy foam right there.

GIANT!

Rob looks like a blob fish!!

Weird club 1

Club 2; post beer shower, plus new friend

I just love the juxtaposition of “toilet hole” and “therely” XD

Coming home in the light; dirty stopout me!

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 🙂