So
come Tuesday I was feeling settled and comfortable. But on this day
Lucy had to go into lessons. I believe I merely laid in bed half
asleep, not trying to retain sleeping or stubbornly not waking just
strangely unable to wake properly. Lucy went to her lessons and I
walked her there. I then went for a wander and a bike ride, on her
red bike - Rosy. It was both with hesitation and confidence that I
rolled out among the Nipponese. On the one hand I felt out of place
and the target of suspicion seeing as if I was asked anything I would
fall over, metaphorically, but on the other there was no reason to
feel odd at all. It felt like when I first drove a car on my own,
like as if everyone secretly knew I was a beginner. I headed round
the tight roads and watched other people in case there was some
secret cycling code that I was shockingly ignoring. I quickly learnt
that this was not the case though. I also found that even in Japan
the cyclist are all over the road, something you might more expect in
China or the Vietnam and so forth peninsular.
In
random boldness, I've been feeling more confident recently, I decided
to head into a super market... BY MYSELF!!! argh. I bought an apple,
the only fruit I had there?! I'm not sure but I remember Lucy saying
that I splashed out for it. The shop was full of old women who were
half my height. They also moved for me less than Australians although
in AUS they are at eye level and stare at you in the eye where as
here I wonder if anyone looked up to see I was a gaijin walking
amongst them. On that note I'm sure I scared everyone with my big
beard because no one looked at me. In the end the woman at the til
rushed me through without evening looking at my face and I was out of
there without problem. I returned to the bike park outside and rolled
on off. While waiting for Lucy to finish lessons I took a trip over
to the other side of her University and under the Freeway, which is
raised up to avoid anything from the city getting in the way. It was
on this side of the Freeway that I found two stray cats living under
a car. It was very cute and I took a video to show Lucy. They were
timid of human contact but liked to stare. Lucy called me the cat
whisperer because I saw more cats in Japan in ten days than she saw
in the whole time she has been there.
Later
that day we headed upstairs to the girls in the other flat to arrange
a presentation they had been asked to do simply because they were
from another country visiting a Japanese University, seemed a bit
taxing considering all the other work they had to do.
On
Wednesday we headed to Asakusa, Lucy is fed up of visiting Asakusa as
she has been there so many times. I revelled mostly in the amount of
people there, more than what was actually there.
Posing like a Japanese girl
I
admired the large shameless Americans who love to stick out as
tourist more than anything, is the impression. It gave me the idea
that there are three types of Gaijin who are in Japan, those that
integrate well like Mr. J-list and get a Japanese wife, those that
are loud US style tourists and those that act like hipsters like
something out of lost in translation that act like they liked Japan
before it was cool, Lucy disputes this and she's probably right. I
feel this way when I see people feeling proud that they like sushi
more than someone who hasn't had it before... even if they themselves
have only had it once before! Moving on. The temples were big, cool
and all but Lucy and I had visited a remote one and had got to see it
in peace and that for me was a better experience. Not to turn you
away from Asakusa, its still pretty and pretty awesome. Moving
slightly away from that we found one of Tokyo's weird hidden and
tightly packed amusement parks like the one in Jin-Roh or Giant
Killing and like those two anime the one we same felt depressing in a
strange way with little people actually inside enjoying it. We went
for lunch around the train station. I thought it would be good to
head to somewhere typical Tokyo ish and that meant a slightly tucked
away business lunch. The regular food in Japan, if you be interested,
is the kind of thing they have at Lucy's uni cafeteria, things like
karokke, katsu chicken and curry, ramen noodles, seafood lots of
fried things, a tiny amount of salad, a few pickles and of course...
a ton of sticky rice :D in the place we went to I had a curry which
you order by paying at a ticket dispensing machine, in order to lower
human contact of course, and then handing it to the food counter and
they mix it up for you. There was also a free water dispenser there
which dispensed ice too, I thought it was amazing. We nommed and
headed out quick, which is the idea.
Typical lovu lovu photo for the memories.
We
also wanted to head to the Sky Tree and instead of getting the train
one stop we instead decided to walk, and that left us with a good
photo opportunity and ever the tourist I am doing something silly in
one photo at least. Lucy also showed her confidence and skills and
asked a man to take our picture, and its a really nice picture of us
together.
Sky Tree hat
On
the long walk to the Sky Tree in the heat we stopped for a drink at
the vending machine. The thing about these machines apart from them
being everywhere is that they are also cheap and the drinks cost
about the same across the choice. Some are 100Y for everything some
go up to a sky high 130Y. But what this means is that you tend to
head for the biggest thing in there which in this case was a half
litre can of coke and energy, because we wanted to feel so energetic.
On the walk we also crossed at a crossing which played what I think
is a famous pop song some where, but I couldn't put my finger on what
song.
The
Sky Tree..... is big!! Or tall more likely. Its pretty serious on the
tall front. I wanted to get a size of how large just one of those
beams was that make up the design, so I did :3 Then we entered the
little shopping village... I say village... it was a mall, there I
said it. There was a big Hello Kitty doll and we weren't supposed to
take photos. We got a little lost because I didn't realise how big it
was in there and then we found the Shounen Jump shop, which is a
magazine that runs manga serializations. Of course half of it was One
Piece and the other half almost completely made up of Bleach and
Naruto but I found some Bakuman things in there. It made me realise
just how big One Piece is here but also how valid Bakuman's story is,
which is a story about two boys trying to get a feature in a parody
of the Jump magazine itself.
The size of a single beam on the Sky Tree.
On
the Thursday we headed to Laketown which is the name of a shopping
mall, a big one too. Little did I know that it is basically three
merged together and unlike the shopping malls in Perth which are
about a quarter of the size you can get really lost in these. The
first thing we did was see some incredibly cute kittehs and puppies
in a pet shop and I literally had to pull Lucy away from watching
them roll around looking massively cute. On the third floor there
were eating places with about no one in them, the staff stared at you
as you walked by and you could almost hear them sigh as you decided
not to go in. Instead we wheeled round and headed into that 'family
restaurant' by the station. A family restaurant is a bit different to
anything that we have back home. The closest thing is a harvester or
sizzler but those are pub-like whereas here there is no bar, hence
the family bit. Its basically a cafe that wanted to be a restaurant.
You head in and wait to be seated, then you scan the menu, smash
tap the buzzer when you want service and order foods and drinks. When
they come they bring the receipt and when you are finished you
approach the buzzer again and pay at the little desk thing they have
in eating places and head out and the reason why that is not like a
restaurant? Well ask how it is different to a cafe/diner.
Posing beautifully on a duck.
I
posed on a duck, we attained the Ghibli shop and looked around about
a third of the place, had a look at the outside which at the moment
is a massive surroundings of grass and I did wonder if we were still
in Tokyo, considering. After Laketown we headed back to Soka and were
determined to discover the Japanese secret art of Pachinko!!!!! Big
mistake. We were very intrigued and felt a duty to explore this area
of Japan for the adventure sake. But not only did we have no idea
what we were doing we also couldn't have been more out of place in
there. The guy smiling crazy at me first completely ignored Lucy and
turned to the guy, even though I knew barely any Japanese and I
couldn't understand him in there regardless due to the noise.
Needless to say we blew our money and wandered out of there more
confused than anything but richer for the experience. We made so many
jokes about it that it was hard to breath as we were laughing so hard
on the way back. That's when we got some delicious pork and cheese
fried ball things that were awesome. It also makes a good story and
I've learned that these things are one of the most important things
you can gain from your adventures and make me feel that even though I
only stayed in Perth this whole time in AUS I have a lot to say
because of what I did here, the stories may not be as varied as they
would be from all over AUS but they are still interesting.
P.S about that last photo, she couldn't duck out of it ^__^
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