day 46! asakusa, shibuya, harajuku

We had plans to meet Cathy and Steve today. Unfortunately it ended up being one botched planning session after another (mostly on my part) and well....

We originally were gonna go to the Ghibli museum cuz it's cute and fun and it's close to where they would be visiting Steven's grandmother earlier that day. Unfortunately, tickets for the museum have to be purchased in advance, at a certain chain of convenient stores. The reason being that the museum itself is rather small, so space is limited, and they only allow a certain # of people for every 2 hour time slot. It's far enough out of the way that they don't want people going there and queueing up, only to find out eventually that they can't get in at all. Also there's nothing nearby to do while you're waiting in line. :/

So we went to pick up tickets maybe the day after we landed, but the tickets for all 4 time slots for both days that they would be in Tokyo were all sold out. T^T I was like ?!?!??!? then how do you ever get tourists to go see your museum??? grrrrr. :( :( I was really bummed cuz Cathy really wanted to go. Sigh. So that killed plan #1, which was to meet at Mitaka Station (where the museum is).

So then I heard about this festival at Asakusa, and since Asakusa is a famous area I was like oh! We should go there. And since I didn't know how they would be getting there exactly, I was like oh let's just meet AT Asakusa then, instead of meeting at another station and heading to Asakusa together. That was mistake #1. Mistake #2 was that I said let's meet at exit A4, having googled Asakusa station exits, and coming up with an arbitrary exit, A4. But then I realized....................there are multiple stations that exit in Asakusa. D: So even if I said A4, they could be waiting at A4 in one station, and we could be at A4 in another station! Fortunately we did have some fallback plans, like, they were reachable by email, and I was reachable by phone (they would have to call by pay phone). UNfortunately both of those plans failed. I sent an email saying Kurt and I would be 15 min late, but they were unable to get internet at the station so they never got the email. Also they called my phone, but since we were underground in the subway, there's 0 receptions to phones!! BUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuu planning fail by me. :( :( I felt terrible. We waited around, ran to all the different station exits, then decided to head over to the temple and wait for them to call us, and we'd tell em to meet there. I was hoping that they didn't wait too long and had just gone ahead, since they had limited time there. Just in case, though, I kept my phone clutched in my hand all day so in case they called I'd be sure to get it.

NOOOOoooo I was really looking forward to seeing em. :(

Comically enough though, the day ended up being somewhat of a repeat of the last day...! We started in Asakusa, and since we waited around a few hours for C&S, we ended up re-doing all the different parts of the festival.

Here we are near the station, where an omikoshi is being carried through the gate. For whatever reason there are WAY WAY WAY more people today than yesterday. I guess Sunday is the only day that all Japanese people are free.

Again, <insert a billion videos of omikoshi being carried and flounced about>.

Fighting our way back through the shops, here are some cute Japanese girls wearing yukata, making dango, which is just little balls of rice flour (plain) that usually get covered in some sort of sweet sauce. It comes up in anime all the time, since it's a common festival & summertime snack. You get 3 little rice balls on a stick? And the anime character pops em all off like it's really easy to do and delicious??

I was very excited for em when I first came, but then I found out that they are not very tasty. :(

Tako!!! Look how cute they are. Little octopus veal.

For takoyaki!!!!

Nomnomnom! And two sticks of the most tasteless yakitori I've ever had. :D Yay festival foods!

This yakisoba was a little tasteless too, but not bad. :) Also he gave us a lot. I think mine is better... :o but that's cuz I put mayo on it too hehehehe :3

The huge pan where the guy makes the yakisoba. I want one of these at home...I would seriously eat pancakes all day. I have an awesome smaller portable one that Janet got me though. :D I really want to make okonomiyaki now..........okonomiyaki partayyy!!

After a few hours we sorta gave up and decided to take the same all the way back to Shibuya.

Here are some foreigners that seemed really sweet and respectful (the thumbs up foreigners ^^b) that we saw in the train.

Got to Shibuya, went to the underground mall there to this accessory store I remembered used to be there. It did not disappoint! Accessories and Japanese chicks everywhere. :D

Accessories....

Then we wandered around on the first/basement floor of a department store, which is often filled with delicious and beautiful (but pricey foods). Some are for you to eat yourself, some are more of like gift baskets/sets that you give away.

How pretty are these cakes???

Japanese people seriously have perfected the art of food (and other) presentation.

Amazing!

Smaller cakes that you can eat yourself.

The bigger ones are probably more for a occasion, seeing as they cost $30+. Not that there's anything wrong with dropping $30 on a cake for yourself......... :D

AWWWWWWWWW who could eat such a thing?!?!? XD

This stand had lots of fried foods, that you'd probably buy a bit and bring home to eat with dinner, with your rice or something. Again, it's a bit pricey though so you mostly see like mom's buying a bit of this and that for their family, not kids stocking up for lunch. :x

Mmm I don't even know what's inside but I already know I would like this. :3

Aahh and of course there are the beautiful fruits stands. Seriously the fruits here (usually meant as gifts) are so perfect that they almost look like wax fruits. But they come with a hefty price tag. $60 for a melon??? :(

And even pricier (perfect) mangoes.

After wandering around paradise foods land for a while, we headed towards Harajuku (same a yesterday). We stopped by a Taito station on the way, which is a chain of arcades. Gloomy bear is still real popular here, and they've added a new character! A bunny rabbit. Super tempted to try to win one for Michael, but as you can see the Japanese crane games (they're called UFO catchers here) are super tricksy. Only two claws to grab with and they're still hella weak. :( Plus every try here is ~$1, whereas in Taiwan it's only 30cents. :( I just...I can't go back. T^T

Another kind of prize machine. :) They build these giant towers of candy, which sits on a platform. There's another platform layered above that one, that slowly slides in and out, but only covers half of the bottom platform so it doesn't actually push the tower over. When you put money in, you press a button, and this scooper (the white thing floating above the platform) reaches down to the bottom pool of candy, scoops up a bunch, and then deposits it on the top platform. The idea is that if enough candy drops onto there, it'll eventually fall or push other candy to the bottom platform. Then the moving top one will push that one INTO the tower, causing the tower to fall over and into the open tray where you can take it. :)

It is sound in principle and looks super easy, but actually the candy tower is damn heavy, and even if you drop a couple candies onto the bottom platform, the force of those candies being pushed into the tower won't be enough to push it over. You need a LOT of candy on there. So. I've definitely seen it happen but it takes time. :) Fun to watch though.

Then I saw this machine....

The plushies on the right are cute but I'm thinking near impossible to get. The boxes on the left though...those look doable. :) There are gloomy bear water bottles in there!

So the only trick that I know with these UFO catchers is that you can't use the claw how you'd want to, intuitively, to grab and pick something up. Those things so weak I don't think they could even pick up a butterfly. The trick I know is that they exert the most strength when the claw is closing? Like, you move the claw to where you want it. Then, without dropping at all, the claw opens to form right angles. Then it drops. Then it closes, lifts up, and moves towards its starting position. I'm saying that there's 0 force exerted by the claw near the end of it closing ( <---> ), only when it STARTS closing (when it's still open at a 90 degree angle |---|).

Ok I'm a horrible explainer but anyway I was somewhat confident I could get the bottle. That confidence rapidly faded when after 2 tries, nothing had changed. :( But...I pushed through, and with some luck....

Soooo close!!!

After about 8 tries I knocked one in!! And the other had gotten shifted around and was so close that I spent another 2 tries and managed to get it too!! :D I was ecstatic. ^^v And that really isn't bad at all, for 2 water bottles! One of them is going to Michael (a future gift), since I gave Kevin a HON water bottle for xmas. Hehe. I was super happy. I actually took some pics with the prizes which I'm tempted to post here buuuuut they look shitty cuz I can't smile so I won't. :( Sorry!

Finished our trek to Harajuku, went shopping at a tshirt store that Kurt really likes called Graniph (it's a chain, I believe only in Japan??)

Tryin' on clotheseses~~

Just a random girl at a crosswalk, but I thought her outfit was cute. :3 Those frilly ankle lace socks are popular. I would never wear them but they do look cute on girls here.

Went into La Foret, a small department store in Harajuku that I really really like. It's sort of like a art museum department store. I don't really know how to explain it but it's sort of hip and quirky and artsy, and I like just looking around (most things are too $$ for me).

The bottom couple of floors (the floors go by .5 floors, it's like a split level mall, gaah! hard to explain but it's part of why it's cool) are sort of more goth/punk-y which might also explain why I was super into it when I was studying abroad there.

So. gorgeous. I so want to wear this. T^T I don't have the balls....

There are also some of the "pretty" goth styled stores. Like innocent, girly, lacy, white.

There was this really awesome/weird/stylish store that Kurt dubbed "the burning man store". Here are some crazy shoes.

Crazy sunglasses.

Left La Foret and went to Takeshita-doori, where I actually did some shoe shopping...was trying to find comfortable boots to walk around in since I'd chucked mine out when I left Taiwan.

Ooooo found some boots. :3 I ended up getting two pairs, although both are sort of winter-styled boots so not sure they were what I was aiming for. Wtf is with the shoe shopping this trip?!?!

After some more walking around, we were tired (and had a huge shoe bag to carry around) so we headed back for our station. Took a pic of a vending machine cuz the ones here are pretty nifty. :3 The blue line across the bottom indicates which are cold drinks, and the red is for hot drinks. Meaning that yes, if you get a cold drink it's cold (normal) but the hot drinks?? actually come out warm. :D It's AWESOME in the winter!!!

Decided to eat in Takadanobaba. We headed towards Waseda University, thinking (correctly) that there would be lots of food in the college town direction. And we struck gold :D an all you can eat okonomiyaki place!!!!!

They had many different options, like JUST all you can eat, or all you can eat + all you can drink, or all you can eat + all you can eat yakisoba for $3 more, etc etc. We were just gonna do all you can eat, but as is usually the case with these deals, they'll require you to get x or y and in the end you're paying a lot more than you'd bargained for. :/ In this case they require you buy at least 1 drink (which would be about $3 or $4). But for just $10 you can get all you can drink AND get an extra 30 min onto your time. D: Who wouldn't say yes?? It's basically like the super size option, geared towards making you pay more and get fatter. :p damnit.

But that is the option we chose. :) Here are our first drinks! Cassis orange <3

The teppan (iron griddle).

Our first orders.

Waiting is the hard part...

Dekita! XD (It's done!) And so delicious....

We tried kimchi okonomiyaki, curry okonomiyaki, pork okonomiyaki, scallop okonomiyaki...my favorite is kimchi. ^^v

We also tried a monjyayaki. Okonomiyaki came from kansai (Osaka area), and was sort of a commoner's food, since it's largely made up of cabbage and batter, which are both cheap and filling. Monjyayaki, on the other hand, is a completely Tokyo-ian invention, and is sort of a snack food. Most places that have okonomiyaki that you cook on your own pan will also have monjyayaki. The cooking method is rather ...special. You first scoop all the lettuce out of the bowl, and grill it on the griddle, while using your iron paddles (?) to chop up the lettuce really fine. You then form the lettuce into a sort of donut shape, leaving a large space in the center. You pour the batter from the bowl (it's very watery) into the center of the lettuce, let it cook just a bit, and then start mixing the lettuce and batter up. You end up with a big flat watery pancake mess, as shown above. :D

Then you take these tiny iron spoons/paddles, scoop a bit of the mess away, press it down against the grill to cook it, and then pick it up and eat it. The way the batter is, it gets to be a bit...burnt? Like kinda chewy burnt dough? It's still pretty viscous.

Anyway even though the restaurant I'd worked at had had monjyayaki, this was my first time trying it. It's ooook. It's good for chatting and hanging out cuz it takes fucking forever to eat. :p But I definitely definitely prefer okonomiyaki.

Anyway we ate a TON, (4 okonomiyakis is a freakin lot for two people, when one of those people is Kurt). I'd also had a couple of drinks so I was reaching my limit. They took our last order half an hour before our 2hr time limit was up, and we rashly decided to try one more, and another drink. They reminded us that if we didn't finish all our food/drinks by the time limit we'd have to pay extra. We were like fine fine.

But as it turns out :( We didn't finish ALL our stuff. We were super close. But they were hella stingy and we were the last ones in there so I think they wanted to kick us out and go home. Or maybe make some extra money or something. I dunno. >< Anyway they charged us a bit more for the leftovers and we left kinda thinking wtf -_-;;

But all in all it was super super yummy, I LOVE okonomiyaki, and it was fun. :)

Then home, then food coma.