Moomin Cafe Adventure

Adventure Time

Lately I've been having lots of adventures with Macee~~

Yesterday, she and I went to Shibuya to apply for jobs at an English school.  Afterwards, we got coffee from Starbucks and walked around for a little bit.  While we were walking, we discovered a pet store.  I'll let the following picture speak for itself....

After freaking out over finding a Meerkat for sale, we decided to go shopping since Macee had never been to 109 before~  Then we came home and cooked dinner together and planned future epic adventuring times!



Today, we walked together to Toyo's second campus because we both have classes there this semester and wanted to be sure that we remembered where it was.  When we got there the sakura were just too pretty to pass up a chance to take pictures~!

On our way home we took a cute little back street and went up some super steep stairs and figured out another way back to school~  It would be an awesome short cut if it weren't for having to climb the staircase of doom.

O-O-O-O-O-Osaka~~~

December 20: MAGICAL BOX

This blog is going to be all out of order....but I guess that's ok.  I'm pausing in my re-cap of November/December to talk about my day today.  After starting out the morning with kanji class and finding out that I made a 63/100 on that IMPOSSIBLE kanji test I took last week, I wasn't feeling so happy.  But not even kanji class can keep me down for long when Taka's around.  He met me for lunch in Takadanobaba and we had ramen.  I was fully prepared to be made fun of for my failtastic ramen eating, but I was actually able to do it right this time (much to Taka's disappointment haha)! Anyhoo, after we ate, he gave me a late birthday gift (<3) Lots of bath salts that smell aweeeeesoooome....AND....a box.  Not just any kind of box mind you.  A box that makes things disappear.  While we were at the restaurant, Taka put a toothpick in it and demonstrated it for me and I was baffled.  He had to show me how to do it and even then I still wasn't sure exactly how it worked! So needless to say when I got home it provided with amusement for much longer than it probably should have, but I was trying so hard to figure out how it works! I'm still not sure I completely understand..... but anyway on to the .....

*drumroll~~~~~~~~~~~~~~* 

DEMONSTRATION VIDEO

November 20th

We went on a "Tour of Shitamachi" with Kenji.  Shitamachi is the area we live in. Kenji and one of his previous teachers took us around and showed us lots of fun things around I-House like a puppet museum, a traditional sake shop, Nezu Shrine, and the cemetery where Yoshinobu Tokogawa is buried.  My favorites were the shrine and the cemetery~  The Shrine was gorgeous and Molly and I had fun running around looking at the koi fish and the turtles haha  When you go to the shrine you go to the alter, throw in a coin, clap, then say a prayer, which I got to do :)  We also got to run through the red gates! Poor Kenji hit his head on them and, despite our concern, Molly and I couldn't help but laugh.  I'll post a video below~  When we went to the cemetery, we all got into an in-depth conversation about why Japan would be the safest place to be during a zombie apocalypse because everyone is cremated here so there are no bodies to become zombies.  This theory held up great until Kenji informed us that during the time of the Samurai bodies were buried and we realized we would have to fight samurai zombies... haha

 

November 13th

Molly and I were SUPER lazy for about 90% of this day.  It was a Sunday so we didn't have to be anywhere or do anything really so we didn't even change out of our pajamas until the evening when we decided to venture to Nippori and try out the "Renoir Cafe" that we pass by all the time.  This turned into an adventure of us being at a place that was WAY too fancy for how we were dressed, where we laughed at the terrible English on the menu and gagged on a 600 yen (aprox $6) scoop of vanilla ice cream that had some gross jelly stuff on it.  While we were at the cafe, Daiki texted us and asked if we wanted to go to an izakaya (a Japanese pub for those of you who might not know).  So we rushed back home to actually dress decently then headed to Shinjuku to meet Daiki.

the vanilla ice cream would have been lovely if the other stuff hadn't been on it.

fantastic Engrish

Izakaya time with Daiki

November 12th

I went to Shinjuku with Daiki, Takuto, Naoki, and Masaki.  Just an evening out with my boys haha We went to Burger King because here in Japan Burger King has an "as many whoppers as you can eat in 30 minutes" deal.  I didn't even try because I do good to make it through one hamburger! But I had fun watching them do it.  I'm pretty sure four was the most any of them ate, but to me that's super impressive.  After we went to eat we wandered around Shinjuku for a while in search of an arcade, where we played air hockey (I lost terribly) and played a zombie shooting game (I was pretty good at this much to everyone's surprise) and then took purikura (this part was per my request of course). I think we had a little -too- much fun decorating our pictures though haha.  It was such a fun day and honestly one of my favorites in Japan thus far.  We weren't doing anything super special but I have so much fun just hanging out with the guys. We are always so goofy and silly and just have a good time, it's great~ :)

air hockey~~

Takuto looks like Mario lol

November 4th

This was one of the longest days of my life, but also one of the most fun.  I met up with Daiki and Eri at Hakusan Station (the train station closest to my school) and we took the train together to Mt. Takao where we met up with Ayaka, Takuto, Naoki, Yoshi, and Masaki.  First, we had some pizza for lunch and Daiki taught us all how to make our napkins look like birds.  Then, we climbed up the mountain.  Yes. I, Lauren Faye Maddox, of my own choosing climbed a real mountain.  I was regretting that decision by the end of it when I couldn't breathe and my legs felt as if they would fall off, but it was totally worth it.  I rewarded myself with some mint chocolate chip ice cream at the top haha  It was dark by the time we came back down the mountain.  Eri and Ayaka walked me back to I-House and we had fun girl-talk time.  After that, I changed faster than I ever have before in my life and ran back out to meet Uki and Haru for dinner.  They took me to this awesome Korean restaurant.  I had never eaten Korean food before so it was really fun~!

 Our napkin birds.  Mine's the one on the far right.

 Our whole group on the way back down the mountain.

 Me and Daiki with our mint choco chip ice cream reward at the top of the moutain haha

Korean food~~~

 Haru was taste tester for all the food to make sure it wasn't too spicy for me to eat lol

Hanabi

Ok.... fastest blog post ever because I am so tired and I have to wake up early tomorrow!

Today I went to my first Japanese festival!
We went to see the Adachi Fireworks Festival next to the Arakawa River~
It was amazing and fireworks will never be quite the same for me again I think.
Thank you Japan, you have spoiled me :P

I'll post more soon and include some videos I took of the fireworks~