Today was an quite a full day. A group of us went to Harajuku to check out the scene...and for me to check out the fashions and clothes! ha. I LOVE IT HERE! They have a street called Takeshita-dori which has all the hip young fashions for girls and guys and they are not that pricy. Going on the main strip and some of the back roads by Harajuku Street there are higher end designer brand stores. I honestly could have been there a lot longer checking out the shops. I had fun though, but I would next time definitely go there with just some girls because I felt bad for making the guys wait around :) I did end up buying some things that I always wanted to buy, so I was happy I scored them at a nice thrift shop.
For lunch the decision was tempura at this awesome small restaurant. We had to wait for a bit to get a seat but it was worth it. YUM!!
We walked around and checked out stores for a bit longer and then came upon an interesting artists’ house on one of the back streets. The building is REALLY hard to miss. It has crazy cool art and design pieces on the outside. Inside there are many small rooms, used for individual artist display rooms. The artist has their art hanging and anyone from outside can walk in and check out their stuff. If you like their work enough you can purchase it. It is like a fun funky art gallery! I honestly loved the concept.
After that discovery we headed towards the train station to make it to Ikebukuro in the late afternoon.
When we got to Ikebukuro we had one mission and one mission only--denshizishyo!! We went back to Big Camera to the place we went the week before to ask about the device. My friend and I played with the model denshizishyo and I figured out how to do the most useful option on the device: kangi writing and word jumping to search for kanji translation into English. SCORE! I decided on this middle priced one because it did everything I wanted it to do and I didn’t need the fancy options that the high priced ones had. Yeah it was a pretty big decision/investment in my Japanese education ha. Looking back on it now it was sooo worth it because I basically use this thing EVERYDAY!
After that purchase, we were on a search for a place to sit down and chill. My friends found this manga cafe. So they seriously went to go check it out. I on the other hand had to go to yosakoi dance practice. My first trial day! I said bye and went on my own to the train station. I get a Subway sandwich for dinner on the way. I was surprised that the US sandwich chain Subway was in Japan. I didn’t think it was that popular enough to be in a Japan train station but I guess I was wrong. It was delicious of course. I then met up with an American who is a part of the yosakoi group and has been living here for seven years and has been with the izani yosakoi group for a while. It was great to have her help translate some important matters. I would also say that taking a dance class in Japanese was honestly not that hard. If you think about it, it is all gestures and showing how the movement is suppose to look like so it is easy to follow. Plus luckily I remember the names for body parts and dance terminology from ballet etc. It was SOOO much fun and it was great to be able to finally dance! I haven’t moved since I got here. The teacher was amazing and our class got a really good stretch warm up and a work out. The members in my class are a really nice group. I had a chance to talk with some of them on the train back home.
I plan on joining the group for the time that I am here.
Anyway, quite a day full of shopping, walking and dancing. I feel great and am so happy with today!...Though I might add that I am a little sore and will definitely be sore tomorrow :)
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