I can’t believe we’ve already been here for 3 weeks. We have been doing so much that it’s hard to keep up with these blogs! With the help of my phone, I’ve been writing these entries while I’m going to and from our destinations on the trains. It’s a nice way to pass the time while quietly watching the different cities pass by through the windows of the train cars. (Hopefully that gives you a good visualization).

Here’s some awesome music to listen to while you read, if you do so wish.

TUESDAY, 6/17/14

The weekend prior to the 17th, I met Tyler’s boss/es at the events that we participated in. After we talked a bit, they said that I could come by their office from time to time to help out with any projects that Tyler and Keigo (Tyler’s fellow co-intern) happened to be working on. So on Tuesday, I went in with Tyler. At the office, we worked on one of the tasks that Keigo and Tyler were assigned to and did some brain storming on potential community service projects that we could organize.

After we left the office at 4 or so, we went to SoftBank to buy myself a prepaid phone. It’s pretty cool for only a 30 dollar phone!

While we were there, we got to meet SoftBank’s newest invention: Pepper. Pepper is a personal-household robot that can be purchased for about $2,000 USD. The salesperson who was registering my phone noticed that we were intrigued by her, so he filled us in on what she was capable of. She can speak in different languages, read emotions from your body language/facial expressions, and complete various tasks (ie cleaning) if you buy the corresponding applications. Pretty amazing!

WEDNESDAY, 6/18/14

After my run, Uncle Kenzo told me he wanted to take me on a walk to the Nogawa river. We walked down towards Musashi Koganei station and then over to the stream/river. At this particular point in the river, the depth and gerth was a little shallow and narrow. Uncle Kenzo explained that the Nogawa stretches for about 18 km and gets huge at the end; ‘it serves as home to fish as big as his arm’ I quote.

On the way home, we stopped in at the Koganei Shrine and did a small gasho. It was built about 400 years ago and sits on top of a natural spring that is still active!

After Tyler got off work, we met up at the mall and picked up some groceries for dinner. We fried fish and sausages, cooked some spinach, and steamed rice. Not too bad, if we do say so ourselves! ☺

THURSDAY, 6/19/14

Tyler got a day off from work, so we made the most of it! Auntie and Uncle told us that the city of Kichijoji is super famous and is well traveled by the younger crowds. We decided it sounded like fun so we made our way over to Kichijoji-eki (station) at around 10:30. Once we got there, we could tell why it was so popular. There were all kinds of different stores up and down the streets. Some were small shops that sold phone charms, bracelets, perfumes/colognes , etc. Others were bigger and sold things like Japanese style backpacks, shoes, electronics, and toys.

Since it was about lunch time when we got there, we were hungry so we stopped in at a hamburger restaurant called ‘Freshness Burger’. Believe it or not, we’ve eaten so much ramen, udon, curry, donburi, that we actually wanted a break from Japanese food. We never thought the day would come, but it did, and the break in the form of a hamburger was absolutely delicious. “It tastes like home!” -Tyler

Once we finished lunch and looked around a while, we decided to head out to our next destination: Shinjuku! We walked around and admired the huge buildings that the city is centered around. After about 15 minutes of wandering, we came across the Shinjuku tower. We took the elevator to the 30th floor and were blown away by the view that we were treated to.

Last stop of the day was Shinagawa. The first time we came to Tokyo, Japan (4-5 years ago), we stayed at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel. That trip that we made with ESGVJCC, Nick, Alyssa, Lauren, Paul, Laurie, our parents, Auntie Irene, and Uncle Gary, was one of the best 3 weeks of our lives. Tyler and I always reminisce on that trip. So naturally, since we’re here now, we wanted to make a trip back to the Shinagawa Prince Hotel for old times sake.

We walked around the food court, went up and down the ‘awesome-motion-sensor-escalators’, and re-explored the lobby.
Tyler and I ended our reminscing trip by eating at the Ramen restaurant that was right outside the hotel. That was the group’s favorite place to eat last time, so Tyler and I were really excited to order tantan-men and sit down at the busy little restaurant all over again! ☺

FRIDAY, 6/20/14

Friday was another event day! This time Tyler, Keigo, myself, and a handful of other volunteers were in charge of cleaning at the Saiseikai Infant’s Home at the Saiseikai Hospital in Tokyo. The home is for newborns-3 year olds who’s parents can’t afford, or are not in a position to take care of the child. Keigo cleaned out all the air conditioning filters and window screens while Tyler and I cleaned the fans and washed out the donation storage containers. It was extremely rewarding work; there were cute little kids running around everywhere constantly re-inspiring us ☺.

SATURDAY, 6/21/14

On Saturday morning, we participated in the motor development program; another event hosted by Hands on Tokyo. We worked with intellectually challenged children. Each of us volunteers had a disabled athlete partnered to us. We did various exercise activities: soccer, basketball, musical chairs, dancing, stretching. At first, all the kids were pretty shy, but by the end, they had all warmed up to us. My kid was so rambuncitous! He was not very interested in exercising, but seemed like he was having more fun running to all the corners of the gym and hiding from me and the other leaders ☺.

Right after the event ended, we headed home to eat dinner with Auntie and Uncle. They prepared a delicious meal.. korroke, pork, nasu (eggplant), carrots, and seafood miso soup. I have to say, it was much better than the dinner that we cooked the previous night. haha

SUNDAY, 6/22/14

Tyler, Keigo, and I participated in our second set of beginner and intermediate basketball practices on Sunday. Unfortunately, there wasn’t as many kids present as there were the previous week. The head coach of their special Olympic Basketball team took two big teams (Beginner/Intermediate) to Tochigi prefecture to participate in a tournament/event for the weekend. That left us with about 20 total athletes for both the practices combined. Despite the smaller number of participants, we still had a lot of fun working with the people who came!

Once we finished the two practices, we went to the same ramen restaurant that we went to after the first time we participated in the basketball practices. Based on the two times we’ve eaten there, I’ve concluded that their ramen is the best I’ve had in Japan. And that’s saying a lot. This time around, I ordered tsukemen. Delicious!

Seeing as how were already pretty far from home, Tyler and I decided we wanted to go to see Akihabara. We hopped onto the chuo-sobu line and got two seats ( a really good sign of fortune during rush hours). Everything was going great until we underestimated how tired we were. We ended up both falling asleep and missed our stop by not 1, not 5, not 8, but 10 stops. According to google maps, we overslept for 33 minutes… -_-
Once we got back on track, we had a good laugh about it though. ☺

When we finally got to Akihabara, we were amazed. There were so many lights and so many people. Tyler and I walked into lots of different arcades, card shops, electronic stores, and toy shops. Among many of the enticing items for sale, there were tons of Attack on Titan and Dragon Ball Z figurines, fan art, phone trinkets, etc.. My whole anime childhood was able to be summed up and sold back to me in a single shop alone, and it was AWESOME.

MONDAY, 6/23/14

Tyler got home from work early so I decided to show him the Nogawa river and Koganei shrine that I visited with Uncle a few days prior. The only difference between this time and last was the fact that we left at dusk, and it got dark really quick. We walked along the river for longer than I did with Uncle and ended up in a new area that both Ty and I were unfamiliar with. We happened upon a driving school eventually. Apparently, in order to receive your license here you have to take driving lessons at these enclosed courses. We stood there for a bit and waved/watched the new drivers maneuver the streets.

We walked further, and split off from the Nogawa (hindsight being 20-20, this was not a good idea). We got a little lost in the neighborhoods but ended up finding some old temple grounds; IMO, extra exercise was worth it.☺

We tried heading back towards home, but got a little more lost and ended up walking in the wrong direction all the way to the next city over. After about an hour and a half of walking and some directions from convenience store clerks, we finally found our way and ended up eating curry udon at musashi koganei mall’s food court. Getting lost made for a very exciting night, to say the least. :P

TUESDAY, 6/24/14

Tyler had another volunteer event Tuesday. I went with him but went exploring on my own once he met up with the event leader. After window shopping for a while, I ate lunch at a Thai restaurant. Super good food! Again, it was kind of a nice change of pace as far as food good. After lunch, thunder stroms started up and the rain started coming down.. It was the hardest it’s rained since we’ve been here!

After Tyler’s event, we headed over to Shibuya-eki to try to take a time lapse of the famous intersection. After about a hundred shots, we were approached by a JR (Japan Railway) worker. He told us that tripods were not allowed, so we packed up and headed back towards home.

It was kind of a last minute decision on my part, but I told Tyler I wanted a haircut and dragged him along. We got off at Kichijoji-eki and went to a $10 USD hair salon that we saw the first time we went to Kichijoji early in the week. Although I wasn’t able to get my normal super short haircut (It’s surprisingly hard to explain haircuts with limited Japanese… haha), I ended up liking what he did with my hair. Tyler says it makes me look less “Gai-jin”. The guy who cut my haircut was super excited to hear that Tyler and I are from California. We talked about skateboarding, dogtown, Hawaii, surfing, the differences between Japanese subway and US subway systems, and our trip thus far in Japan. Tyler said when he needs to cut his hair that we’re going back to him. ☺

WEDNESDAY 6/25/14

I met Tyler over at Yotsuya-eki at about 4 pm. Our goal for the night was to visit Harajuku. Unlike Kichijoji’s shops, Harajuku’s stores are known for being big. We stopped in at all sorts of familiar stores: H&M, Nike, and Apple to name a few. We each bought ourselves a new backpack!

THURSDAY, 6/26/14

Tyler had a day off today! woot woot! We went over to Ueno-eki and met up with Keigo and a couple of other friends that we met through one of the Hands On Tokyo events. Since it was around lunch time, everyone was a little hungry, so we headed over to a retaurant called Pepper Lunch. YUM.

I don’t know who’s idea it was, but somehow we ended up going doing purikura. Again, I don’t know who chose the machine, but we ended up getting pretty prettied up by the automatic photoshop + Keigo/Angela’s supreme purikura skills. Gotta love the makeup… haha

Following the picture taking, we went to the dobutsuen (Zoo). Ueno’s zoo is known as the most famous zoo in Japan, and deservedly so. The park was huge and had all sorts of different animals. This particular zoo is a ‘public zoo’ and is sponsored by the government, which is why we only had to pay 600 yen (~ $6 USD) to get in.

We walked around the zoo for about 3 hours, and then decided that we wanted to go shopping at Daiso. Tyler bought some green tea oreos and I got a cold coffee.

Since we all didn’t have to go home yet, we decided that we would go eat dinner together. We had a good time talking about eachother’s cultures, learning/teaching Japanese slang, and getting to know one another better over ramen and gyoza. Super fun day!