today i went to a macdonald’s. wow. the sizes are soooo small. honestly, the dollar menu shake i got (shown above) was literally an american kid’s size. the cake is a traditional japamese cake. it looks so cool. today i also went to an okonomiyaki (which is a japanese pancake). i went to tomo, ruri, and helvia, all students who went to coe. it was soooo good! after that, we went to the game center. i was doing this singing and dancing game. hahaha~

today i went to asakusa! this is old time tokyo. the gate is the entrance into asakusa. there are many shops inside! the dolls are traditional japanese toys. of course, no kids plays with them now so they are collectables! i had traditional japanese icecream, mine was watermelon flavored. yum :D after that, we went to the temple. before you can enter, you have to do the cleansing ritual. you wash the left hand then the right and then clean your mouth before cleaning the ladle for the next person. inside, we are encouraged to reflect on our life’s journey. it’s very serene. after that, we rode a rickshaw! hahaha i loved it! afterwards we went to dinner and had hiroshima style okonomiyaki (japanese pancake). yes, we had to cook it ourselves though some nice people from hiroshima helped us! lastly, as every good night should end, we went to karoke!

today i went to fuji-q highland! it’s a rollercoaster amusement park! as you can see, two of the rollercoasters hold world records! (yes, i rode them both!) i had soooo much fun here! the colorful ride is HAMTARO! i was so surprised to see it! for lunch, i ate fried pork in sauce with rice and eel and rice. it was good! i really wanna come here again! 

today i went…well, everywhere. i know i’ve mentioned it before the walking everywhere thing is a big lifestyle change. for example, today i wanted to take the bus and my friend yuki thought he knew where the station was but actually he didn’t. we ended up walking 4 miles to the next train station… x] in the end, we made it. we went to lunch at a beach bungalow looking kind of place. from there, we went to the tokyo metropolitan building. the views from it. up there, there are many toy shops! the two characters are some of the most popular in japan! japan is so beautiful, truly.

i realized i hadn’t explained one the places i frequent the most! the train stations!in  tokyo unless you’re pretty wealthy, you don’t have a car. therefore, everyone gets around by using the train. the pictures are of the station. in the station, there are all kinds of food, clothes, really, it looks a mall. i took the train for the first by myself from one station to the next and it was still nerve racking!

this is hitomi’s home, a japanese student who came to coe last year. it a normal japanese home. all the wood inside is absolutely beautiful. it’s very open and smells of tea. i felt i was living in a kind of treehouse with all the high beams and stairs. 

after leaving harajuku, we went to saitama for another fireworks festival! i enjoyed this one much more because i was able to wear a yukata (japanese traditional female dress) and eat traditonal festival foods. the first is hiroshima okonomiyaki, a kind of japanese pancake with egg, meat and cabbage. the send was takoyaki, which is sort of like fried squid. they were both very delicious as the fireworks were beautiful!

today i went to harajuku with hitomi! it was well, weird and fashionable and busy and hot and yeah, i had tons of fun though! there are tons of different shops filled with things i’m not sure i would ever buy. :P it’s really fun to see though and especially meet some of the people who work there (i.e. the girl with me in the picture.) i also found that sometimes pictures aren’t always welcome but not understanding japanese makes you kinda exempt from some rules. hahaha. oh! there was this crepe stand. oh my goodness. there were so many different flavors. inside them, they put cakes and icecream and all sorts of goodness. i got a strawberry cheesecake one myself. it was so good! 

things you only see in japan. this huge statue is right out of the sky tower. honestly, it’s terrifying! it really is a giant spider!

as i’ve said before, japan is super organized. no doubt this applies to the supermarket which i love going to! people are extremely friendly and helpful. they also say alot of things. i’ve gotten used to it though. it translates out to being:

” hi, thanks for shopping with us. blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah. your total is xxx 円。do you want a bag? have a good day! 

those are real grapes! (they’re also super expensive). the colorful snack is gift for ancestors. this past weekend, it is said that many ancestors return home so this is a sort of welcoming home snack for them.