I met Hitoshi-san and Julia in Kyoto while staying at the Uno House and gave him a little jingle this weekend. I think ive mentioned before that theyre part of this language club, the "Hippo family club" which promotes the speaking of foreign languages. They currently "support" 18 different languages.
Anywho, Hitoshi-san or Nyu-yu as he likes to be called (its a russian nickname apparently?) met me at my hotel at 10AM and we were off to Asakusa to check out the temple. I didnt know it, but this weekend was a holiday weekend (with monday off), so people were out in droves. The main gate of the temple leads through a huge shopping arcade selling the typical sweets and also shoes, kimono, and a wad of other stuff. Finally after fighting our way through the crowds, we ended up at the temple which was altogether the same as any other temple. We wandered around a bit more, taking in the sites of Asakusa which was the former Edo downtown/entertainment area. Its a little run down now, but it still sports an amusement park, some theaters, many shops, and the famous kappabashi-dori which was where myong and i went previously. We took a pit stop for some food at an Udon place where lines started to form out the door. I had an interesting Miso udon which had a whole scoop of miso plopped in. Unfortunately, there was a long ass hair in my food (luckily Hitoshi saw it) and i got another. First time for everything i suppose. Still, the stuff was pretty darn good!
Afterwards, we headed for Ikebukuro to meet up with Julia (who was wit Hitoshi in Kyoto, though theyre not a couple) and her friend Simone. Of course, these are both nicknames they go by...i never caught their real names. After waiting about 30 min for Julia (apparently the trains running into Ikebukuro from the suburbs are a little infrequent) we caught the yamanote to Harajuku.
So, one thing i learned on the subway trip to Ikebukuro was that Julia and Hitoshi are 43 (!!!!) years old. I dunno how old Simone is, but i would guess shes not too far off.
So wandering around Harajuku with the Hippo group was a little interesting, mostly cuz they seemed like a tight group of friends and at times seemed to forget i was even there! So this left me emptily blinking at times, trying to figure out what the heck they were saying (although at times, Julia who spent 9 months in the US, would sometimes stop to explain stuff), but at the same time it was cool cuz it was almost like really being Japanese as opposed to a foreigner being led on a tour.
So around Harajuku, we didnt really do much. Just wandered around mostly...We entered a cafe cuz the ladies were hungry and ordered a Crab pasta and a ham pizza with a soft cooked egg on it (my choice though i didnt know about the egg part). The crab pasta was stinky as hell, but they all seemed to enjoy it. The pizza had some hidden anchovie (or something else really fishy) which changed the expected taste a bit...Oh yeah, and we had some weird icecream (i tink there were raisins in it!) and flan for dessert.
We wandered around some more, stumbling across a couple weddings where i first caught the hint that Simone's clock is ticking as she got a little too into watching other peoples weddings...We got to one wedding, right as the bride was tossing the boquet. We walso wandered through this male j-pop center where a buncha teeny boppers were buying pictures of their favorite aspiring hunks.
So we eventually stopped for coffee where we ended up staying for quite a while. Simone pulls out all these sheets of paper and a broshure labeled "www.kekkon.com" which translates to marriage.com! Of course, the sheets were all prospectives with all sortsa stats, from income, to eye sight, bloodtype, etc, etc. She also even checked for matches on here phone (160 of them!) and then proceeded to reject a few....
So we spent a LONG time at the cafe, before searching out for a place to eat dinner. Julia even painted Simone's nails for her (she had gotten her nail polish as a gift when they met earlier)...and even painted Hitoshi's pinky nail (yea, slightly weird...).
We ambled a little thorugh the streets of Harajuku, looking for something, thinking of taking off to Ikebukuro for an izakaya when we were approched by a restaurant "promoter" at the Meiji-dori/Omotesando crossing. The talked and talked and talked, walking away a few times, and finally we got a 15% off deal.
The restaurant ended up being a pretty upscale one located a couple floors down below a karaoke place. This was the first time i had to take off my shoes! We got a regular booth, but there were other tables atop mini gardens with transparent floors.
We ran a whole gamut interesting food: caesar salad, edamame, avacado w/tuna ceviche thingy, seafood paella, bitter melon w/pasta. and liquor: A mini-cooler of beer, sake from Sendai, Sochu, and red wine. and dessert: green tea ice cream and one of those many layered sponge cakes. Overall cost of the meal: 2403 yen each.
Hitoshi also admitted he often forgot i was american which is why he would always speak japanese to me...and at times would even speak korean to me!
Ah yes, that brings me to some of their quirks...Of course, they belong to this language club, so they love speaking all these other languages. Half the time though, they dunno what theyre saying as i FINALLY figured out what Hitoshi was trying to say in Taiwanese (he was combining a question with a response, esentially talking to himself!). Hitoshi's specialty is Korean and Simone's is French.
That reminds me...while walking through Harajuku, we came across a german lady getting her hair dyed. They proceeded to chat it up with the german lady (or attempt to) and even took pictures with her! We then entered a european-esque building which is apparently used for weddings, and simone dragged us into a shop selling traditional french dresses (with all the frilly thingys). She loves all things French.
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One little side note is that we pretty much always split the bill evenly....seems weird cuz the guide says that this is rare, even though the couple times i went out with the japanese peeps, weve always split the bill fairly evenly.
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So after dinner, we went up for none else than karaoke! On the whole, not all too different than the American establishments except that you can order drinks.
So we all spouted off some Japanese, American, Korean, and even Taiwanese songs for the night and ended up only paying about 5 bucks each for an hour or so. It seems like Julia wears the pants in this group as she was constantly calculating and correcting our bill; the cashier would conveniently forget about our discount and the like...
So we parted ways at the train station in time for me to catch the 3rd to the last train. I gave them my e-mail and invoted to the states upon which Julia and Hitoshi cautioned me that Simone would probably actually come! Ohwell...
On the whole, it was a pretty darn expensive day but entertaining to say the least. This was probably the 2nd coolest day/night in japan below Aki-san's dinner, but above the night out to the Izakaya with Yoshi.
Welp, thats that. Tomorrow i should be on my way home! I got a dinner with Wendy tonight and possibly a lunch with Hammad (the Pakistani dude i met in Kyoto) tomorrow. Ill be glad to be back home, but overall, its been a pretty damn amazing trip with such an amazing variety of sites, people, and events.
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Another interesting note. I read in the newspaper the other day that 32.4% of japanese surveyed are against promoting more tourism, citing an increase in crime as the number one reason. Also, over 50% were against relaxing visa restrictions.
Interesting information on this blog, thanks
Posted by: popup killer at July 16, 2004 03:12 PM