Shimokitazawa

Kat and I used the last day of nice weather for a while to do a quick tour to 下北沢(Shimokitazawa). It’s a part of Tokyo that’s a couple of train stops before Shibuya. I mentioned once I think that Harajuku, right next to Shibuya, is the young and alternative shopping area. Shimokitazawa is just like that, but less expensive and closely resembling Camden as Kat pointed out to me.

We haven’t had food all day so eating was No. 1 on the agenda. We found a nice little café/restaurant that had a bit of a Trof feeling about it. We ordered some banging salad and each had a pizza. All in all a good place if you are willing to spend 450 yen on 190ml Cola.

After eating we just wandered about until it got dark. There are many cool shops, too many to register in the short time we had so I’m definitely going back there again. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I forgot my camera.

Yokohama

Yesterday I went to Yokohama, a city I have already visited years before and enjoyed a lot. I can safely say this time around just as much fun was had, and just as much beauty was found. I’ll start you off with a few pictures:

View from the port of Yokohama. Most beautiful port I have ever seen.

Here by night with a brilliant light display.

Once Kat and I met up with Tatsu, we took the train from Shibuya to Yokohama Chinatown. Chinatown was a neat little place and, I bet due unusually nice weather, also quite crowded. We (Kat) checked out the shops, ate some Nikuman and stopped at a temple:

110% Tourist Style.

After that we strolled down to the harbour to enjoy the views (see pics at beginning). Kat really wanted to go on a roller coaster ride that was close to the harbour, so all three of us went on it. Tatsu isn’t a big fan of them, but we convinced him to try it anyway as it looked relatively mild. The ride was fun and faster than it looked, but Tatsu wouldn’t be able to confirm this because his head was down and eyes closed the whole ride.. haha. Sorry for making you buy that ticket, Tatsu.

We then went shopping a bit in that area and ended up waiting in Starbucks for Tsugumi and Hiroshi to arrive. Once the Manchester gang was reunited, we headed to a nice restaurant close by and had plenty of dishes for our meal.

Ribs! Also had chicken, pizza, rice with meat and salad. Desert was cheesecake and.. some other cake.

And then.. the unexpected happened. Hiroshi called up his girlfriend to come and join us at the restaurant. Until yesterday, I was of the strong opinion that Hiroshi had made up his girlfriend and based or on a manga or some sort of dating simulator game. When she turned up I strongly believed she was an optical illusion.. but once she took my napkin to blow her nose I knew she was the real deal. Here are Toshiko, Hiroshi, Kat and me at said dinner:

Hiroshi you missed.

After dinner Toshiko took the train home and the rest of us went to 大さん橋(Oosanbashi) one last time before we parted from Hiroshi and went home.

Ketchup

HI BLOG! I haven’t written in a long time and thus only remember half of what happened. Therefore, I went through my pictures and shall now present you one photo for each occasion. Here goes:

Snow.

Setsubun is where people go to the shrine for a ceremony that is held within and that can't be seen by public. We waited outside until all the people in neat clothing came out and threw beans at the crowd. Doraemon was there, too. People then grab as many of those beans they can, go home and throw them out of windows and doors to drive off evil demons and invite good luck.

Of course, many a sushi were had. Mhh sushi.

The ryuugakuseika gave out free tickets for some sort of Asian Cup or whatever football matches. I went to the women's finals (China vs. S. Korea) with my tutor Shin, and we routed for China - and they won. There were about 300 spectators in that huge stadium.. which nearly TRIPLED!!! when the men's finals were held between the same countries. China won 3-0, even though I was routing for Korea. Boo. I was supposed to meet up with my friends from the dorm for this game, but they all bailed and left me watching alone in the cold rain. Shame on you.

In Japan, on Valentine's Day girls give boys chocolate etc. and not the other way around. And so, the managers of the TUFS baseball team made the players cookies for V-Day. They're still hanging from my lamp to remind me how good it felt to belong to a team - can't bring myself to eat them.

Apart from all this sort of stuff happening, I was mainly caught up in Japanese class related work and going to baseball practice. Theoretically, we have on average about 4/5 times practice a week now. My body is slowly catching up with training demands, although ye ol’ knee injury frequently keeps me from performing at my best.

Coming Sunday my parents will come to visit me for 3 weeks, out of which 2 weeks we will spend together traveling in the Kansai area. Maybe I’ll find the time then to do some more blogging. During the time I spend with my parents I obviously cannot participate in training and practice games we have against other universities. I’m a bit relieved, to be honest, that I don’t have to go to the practice games, because I feel nervous enough as it is now having to speak and understand Japanese during training with my club mates. Even so, it’s not like I’d be in the starting lineup for a game at my skill level, so cheering on is all I’d have to do.