gallivanting around tokyo 2!!!

So! hello again, dear blogdom! this is your correspondent liz, writing in to report on the haps in japan! mostly i'm just going to let you know what else happened yesterday...yesterday was a huge day!!

so we met ryan at our hotel and he took us on a train trip to show us where the office was, where we'd be commencing our teaching training! after that, we were going to go up to shinjuku to find a place to eat. however, while we got off on the right train stop, we left the station from the wrong exit and therefore wandered around shinjuku for about an hour. it was pretty neat; we were right in the middle of the skyscraper district and saw a lot of neat buildings. however, by that time, we were all so tired and our feet hurt from walking and we were all staaaarving. so we didn't get to appreciate it much. i was getting a little cranky...haha. luckily though, after about another half an hour of hunting, we found a restaurant. haha, you should have seen us all plop down in our seats. we probably looked like we all fainted! we were dead on our feet, i tell you.

and thus commenced my first restaurant ordering experience in japan. they must be used to foreigners trotting in and out of their restaurant. there were pictures of every dish and it listed the main ingredients in english. i ordered a chicken miso soup with super loooooong udon noodles by pointing to the picture of it in the menu and saying "kudasai?" (please?). oh my stars, it was DELICIOUS. i didn't know if it was because i was starving and would eat a horse (which they actually have here) though. it was way good though. after that, we were all considerably happier. and from there, we went to a lovely place called shibuya. it looks quite similar to times square, except that it's japanese! shibuya is also where you'll find the busiest intersection in the world...as far as foot traffic is concerned. don't worry, we all crossed it. :) at shibuya, we wandered around, looking in shops. we actually went into a couple of them; we went into a cd/dvd store and then went into a "book off" where they sell used cds, dvds, and books. a lot in english too! i found a couple police cds that were about 250 yen (like 3 bucks!), but since we pretty much have every police song ever produced, i didn't pick one up. they also had the english and american copies of the harry potter books. it was kinda neat to compare those. there was a really friendly man who came up to us and spoke to us in impeccable english. he gave us his meishi (business card) and told us that he was writing a book and to look for it! yes, we found a friend. pretty neat.

after that, being exhausted again, we went back to asakusa where i was last typing, about to go into the festival again. i got my chocolate banana from a hello kitty booth. it was SO GOOD! except that the chocolate here doesn't compare to american chocolate, not even coming close to british chocolate. oh, what a nice treat it'd be in the uk!! i also got me a crepe with strawberries, chocolate, and cream. it was DELICIOUS!! mmmm, best crepe EVER!! however...it made me so sick. went right through me. :( i don't even know why. but it was so absolutely delicious that i'm more than willing to risk having a crepe again.

ooooh man, i keep running out of time! of course, i have more to type! however, we're going to go party at a karaoke box because it's ashley's birthday!! yaaaay, happy birthday, ashley! let's go sing poorly in public!