Busy Streets, giant Koi, fashion and video games

I still can't get over how busy it is here, even the streets in Himonya are always full of people, and bicycles. Went to Shibuya again yesterday, and it was even busier than the previous time. And yet, despite all this, I am yet to be barged into and pushed aside like I would be back home.
At the massive crossing in Shibuya, on the way back from getting my photos, there had to be close to a thousand people trying to cross the road at the same time, and yet I managed to cross with no trouble at all. It's bizarre.

Some tastes appear to be universal though, and it made me smile:


Today was more of a chilled day; I studied some kanji, went for a shower, then out to find lunch, notched up a high score on the taiko game (got 100% on the first piece ^_^), then wandered up to the nearby park. And it is gorgeous! There's a huge boating lake in the middle, so I took a seat nearby and alternated between more kanji and reading Pandaemonium. The weather was a little on the warm side to begin with, but I had a can of coke with me, and it cooled when it clouded over, so I survived. I wish I'd had my camera with me though, as I saw some of the biggest fish in the lake; they could have eaten my goldfish back home and probably wouldn't have noticed!
I saw a genuine koi as well, bright orange with the white star on its head. It's supposed to be lucky, so maybe it's an omen ahead of my first day at uni tomorrow!
There is also a shrine on the little island in the middle of the lake, and as I stood on the bridge trying to remember proper etiquette, the tiniest little old lady came up to me and asked if I was ok. I managed to explain that we had been taught shrine and temple etiquette, but that I couldn't remember which was which, at which point she told me to go with her, and she walked me through it! She was so lovely, I couldn't thank her enough. And again I wish I'd had my camera.

Fashion here seems to be really bizarre too; I mean, you got the obvious student types, who look like they live in jeans, and the slaves to whatever some mental rich people in Paris say is 'in' this season, but then you get the truly bizarre.
I saw a guy yesterday who looked like he had forgotten to take off his pjs, or brush his hair. Then there was the guy with the mini-skirt over his jeans...
And that was just the guys.

There seems to be a trend among girls (yes, they're my age, shut up) to wear tiny shorts, the sort last seen on Lara Croft in the 90s, and team them with the largest boots I've seen since I last played as Dizzy in Guilty Gear. A few of them seem to have taken the 'Tales of Symphonia meets Harry Potter' route with tops and hair. I saw one guy who actuallyhad a lightening scar. And it was real; I stopped and asked.

I think the prize for the weirdest outfit have to go to the chick I saw on the train on the way to Shibuya; flat brown shoes, knee-high white socks, a little yellow blouse, and a short-legged, yellow, woolen, for lack of a better word, romper-suit.

Man I love this city.


There are awesome arcade games also, see below for; Guitar Freaks, Drum Freak, Empress Turntables and anime-version "House of the Dead Ex":

just a quick one

4 volumes of manga for less than £3? Am I full of win? totally ^_^

目黒にいます！楽しいだよ！

Ok, so, better get on with this, I could be here a while ^_^

First view of Japan ( if you look real close, you see Fuji) :

Arrived on Thursday morning, 9:15am local time, 1:15am for those of you in the land of Scot. After a traumatic time in customs, in which I headed in entirely the wrong direction, and thought I was going to be trapped in the luggage hall forever, when it turned out the customs desks were behind me the entire time, I found my way to the front of the terminal, and was met by the lovely Naoko, a fellow 3rd year student at Sophia, who had kindly agreed to come meet me at Narita, so that I wouldn't flake out entirely and end up at the wrong side of Tokyo, or indeed not in Tokyo at all.

First encounter with the population was on the train, where I managed not only to buy the wrong ticket, but apparently upset an elderly woman sitting nearby with my rather clumsy, sleepy japanese-english conversation.

Finally, we made it to where I will be staying; Meguro-ku, which you can find here on google maps: http://maps.google.co.jp/maps?hl=ja&tab=wl I live where the A points.

And this is the house I live in (taken at a clumsy angle, cos I didn't want to end up in the neighbour's garden) :

first day none of you will be interested in; I slept most of it! ^_^ though Papa and I did go for a walk round Himonya (the little bit of Meguro we stay in), and got some awesome tempura for dinner ^_^ :





oh, and this little guy is the marker I need to watch out for to make sure I get the right block ^_^; onigiri-kun! :

and the awesome manga shop two blocks away, I can buy books for less than £1! :

yesterday I went for a bit of a wander, went to Daiei, which is this massive department store/supermarket, it is massive. Connor gets ten cool points for giving me the heads up about this, but minus twenty for not telling me it tastes like bubblegum; even regular Coke is better than that! :
for those of you who don't read japanese, it's grape fanta ^_^

today I ventured to Shibuya with Papa and Tomo, who were very kind and took me to the store I needed to get the right adaptor to be able to plug my laptop in, and the cable for charging my ipod which i forgot to pack. and man was it busy!! and that was at a quiet time of day! :

thing is, I have to go through there in the morning to get to university, and then back again in the evening, so goodness knows what it'll be like then!!

Also went for a wander round one of the music stores, and found a rather amusing graffitied Dave Grohl; the cheeks are my favourite bit :

although somethings never change; attached to the music store was this: