With so much daytime on my hands I did get some good exploring in yesterday. On Sunday I took a right out of my hotel, so yesterday I decided to explore what was to the left. I walked down the main road, Kananna-dori, for a while (I live along side a highway); went down a few side streets and turned around so I wouldn't get lost; and then, being very careful to remember land marks, made a few turns and ended up accidentally doing a big loop back onto Kananna-dori. I went into a couple of convenience stores to try and buy a hairbrush (the airline baggage handlers broke mine in half) and discovered that finding normally sized hairbrushes in Japan is tricky. I also discovered that the Japanese eat corn dogs, in addition to a number of foods that I did not recognize. I'm not sure if you guys knew this, but 7-11 originated in Japan, so there are lots of them and then a bunch of strangely named stores that are just like 7-11 and they all smell really strange! Like a mix between fishy foods and chemicals... actually, a lot of the streets in Tokyo smell like this too. Sometimes you luck out and the street just smells like good food, but more often than not it's that strange fishy-chemical smell... or sewage. Putting smells aside though, walking the streets in Japan can be quite amusing. At one point I saw a sign that said: "Hair - Rose or Lose". Ummm, what does this mean? I don't think we'll ever know. I also bought from one of the 5 million convenience stores what may be the most amazing notebook ever, I have put a picture of it at the bottom. The cover of it makes about as much sense as the Hair sign, but that's why I love it (plus it was cheap and notebooks always come in handy).
Finally, I turned around and headed back toward my hotel. Despite lots of walking, most of the restaurants I saw looked sketchy or didn't have pictures in their menu's, so I decided to eat at the same place I ate the first day because it was very good and well priced. I forgot to mention this before, but eating out in Japan isn't really more expensive than buying food from a grocery store because the food is priced about the same and you never tip in Japan. When I say never I mean never, not for servers, taxi drivers, delivery people... no one. And if you try to tip anyway, basically they'll get confused and try to give your money back. It's nice, but at the same time, even though I know it's not expected, I feel kind of guilty not leaving anything.
That's about all I can think to write at the moment. Just so you all know, once work starts (that means today) I probably won't be writing in this every day, but I'll do my best. I'm pretty nervous about starting at the school so please keep your fingers crossed for me that everything goes smoothly... oh and feel free to leave comments, I love comments. I'll write soon, take care.
Small print says:
Please have a wonderful time with this notebook. The story of pleasant animals.
4 comments:
hehehe Silly Asians. :P
Lei im in the same boat as you with the sleep thing. I woke up at 6 today too. Hopefully work goes well for the both of us. My school is just me, the JET, and the manager and were all 24! The manager speaks NO english though so my only help is the JET. It's like I don't want to burden her to much but at the same time, no one else can help me. They seem cool though. But I do need some help with shopping since the grocery store is filled with items that look like one thing but are actually another. Good luck! Talk to you soon.
Hi Leila-We're loving your journey and look forward to each posting.
Like the way you write. Ever think of becoming an author?
Love you,
Grandma Judy & Grandpa Bernie
(hereafter known as GJ & GB)
My word....that notebook rocks!!! It makes me smile every time I look at the picture. (It also makes you want to go back and look at it again.)
It's like they waned to put a humorous non sequitur for a picture, but at the same time needed to put it in some kind of Disney-esque context for easy consumer consumption.
...or maybe it's just the story of pleasant animals?
Daddy
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