Ueno and Ameyoko

This weekend a few of my friends and I took a trip to Ueno. This was my second time visiting Ueno, I'd been there as part of my Ramune class but that time it was raining and I didnt take an umbrella so I didn't enjoy it to much. This time it was nice and sunny and we were going shopping ^.^ yay!

We started off at Ameyoko. Ameyoko is a busy market street in Ueno, just behind the station. It sells a lot of fresh Japanese food, a lot of shoes and a lot of bags. I heard that it also has a lot of spices which are hard to find in Japan but I didn't find them while I was here. I'm fine with my cumin, thanks.

Ameyoko's entrance.

Busy shoppers checking out what Ameyoko has to offer.

I took this photo for my flatmate. She loves Rilakuma and I love Mameshiba. Also...CHRISTMAS MAMESHIBA!!

Will you buy....will you buy...will you buy my FRESH FISH!!

You can see how close we are to the train tracks right there.

A shop assistant trying to lure people in.

Something you don't see everyday, this is 酢だこ (pickled octopus)

Train tracks again.

 There are two stories about how it got its name; one suggests that it is short for 'Ameya Yokocho' (candy store alley) and the other claims that the 'Ame' comes from アメリカ(America), because a lot of american goods were once available here on the black market. Nowadays, you can still find American goods. I actually managed to find some zoo books and some rattlesnake heads but there were also guns, cowboy attire and even a t-shirt featuring Tweety Pie dressed as some sort of gangster. 

American goods at Ameyoko

Afterward we headed into Ueno park. Ueno park was founded in the Meiji period by a Dutch Doctor. When asked his opinion on whether he thought the area should be a Hospital or not, he suggested that a park would be a better idea as they already had everything that was needed for an excellent park. Thanks to him, Ueno park became one of the very first public parks in Japan. 

We were lucky enough to catch a few events going on, I think there must have been some sort of festival or celebration.

We watched this girl, skip whilst on a unicycle.

And we saw some 'british' people.

I think they were a comedy act, they were actually very funny. Water came from the top of their umbrellas and they shouted ridiculous things in English. 'Tenki wa very very very warui!! Oh they don't even understand Japanese!' was one of my favourites. Tenki means weather and warui means bad lol.

We also saw some acrobats. One of them made a tower out of 6 chairs then did some crazy handstand on top and the other had a pile of bowls on her head while some guy spun her round. I didn't get any photos of these unfortunately.

We also checked out the National Science Museum while we were here. It was pretty cool, I would recommend anyone who has the chance to go. They had dinosaurs and of course this made me happy. Also its free if you have an ICU student card so that's always a plus :).

Oh, and I'll leave you with this photo, taken outside my local KFC. The colonel is getting ready for Christmas already.

Thanks for reading :)

Homesickness. Lesson 1: How to keep your mind off it.

 Most likely due to my quiet weekend, I have acquired a little bit of homesickness. It was a total surprise to me but when it hit it hit hard. I wanted to eat a cheese savoury stottie from greggs, go shopping at the Metro Centre, walk the dog along the beach at Seahouses.I wanted to have a cuppa and a Tunnock's Tea Cake (not from newcastle but still northern!) And wanted to party in the third best European city for Nightlife, I wanted a skittles!  I swear being homesick turns you into some sort of obsessive, I don't usually want to eat pease pudding watch Auf Wiedersehen Pet! Still I've enjoyed listening to a bit of Sting and Mark Knopfler.

I looked out across
The river today,
I saw a city in the fog and an old church tower
Where the seagulls play.
I saw the sad shire horses walking home
In the sodium light
I saw two priests on the ferry
October geese on a cold winter's night
And all this time, the river flowed
Endlessly to the sea.

 home·sick 

Pronunciation:  /ˈhōm-ˌsik/

Function: adj

:  longing for home and family while absent from them

home·sick·ness Function: n

On a more serious note, yeah, I miss my home and I miss my family, friends and my boyfriend ♥ that is true, but the way this seems to have effected me the most is by stripping me of my self confidence, some once everyday tasks have now became quite a challenge to me and I have found my self relying upon people from home for comfort quite a lot. Nevertheless I am determined to push through and overcome this obstacle. I'm going to try and turn this into a learning experience. 

Upon hearing I'm homesick, a lot of people have offered words of advice, one of the most popular ones which surfaces time and again is: 'keep yourself busy and keep your mind off it'. Luckily, something has been happening here at Global House recently that should do just that...

ASSASSINS

The game takes place over three days and it started at midnight yesterday. There are 41 players, each with a target, you must 'kill' (or tag) your target and make sure you get a witness to the assassination. Then your team receives points. The team with the most points wins, sounds simple I guess. So far its bloody terrifying! I've heard many stories of how in previous years people have assassinated their targets, hiding in cupboards, jumping from balconies and climbing through windows. All I can say is wish me luck.

Thanks for reading :)

October's Adventures

Ahhh!!　ごめんあさい！！(SORRY!!) It seems that I haven't written anything here for quite some time. This week at ICU has been very busy. Though I haven't had midterms like most of the other students, I have had two speeches and a Japanese speaking test. TGIF, right? "So what have you done lately except school work?" I hear you beg. Well guys, what haven't I been up to!

One of my favourite recent adventures happened one quiet Saturday night not so long ago. I was just chilling out in my room when I received a text from a friend asking if I wanted to check out a local Matsuri (festival). Why not right? I had nothing else to do. So we quickly got a little group together and headed out. The matsuri itself was surprisingly not far, it was actually on the same block as our campus.We walked into the shrine but it was pretty quiet

As there werent many people there we thought that maybe we had got the time wrong, we considered going to a local conbini and getting some snacks or even just going for a walk around the area untill more people came and just as we were about to leave an old man approached us. He wore a blue jacket, (there must be a japanese word for this but I dont know it) and I guess that meant he was running the festival because there were a lot of old men dressed like this running around.

You can see them here, the kanji on the back of the 'jacket' says Matsuri.

He recognised one of the girls we were with who had visited the shrine earlier that morning as part of a class field trip and he invited us all to sit down. Then he brought over two huge bottles of beer and two plates of onigiri and dished it out to all of us. We were a little worried about how much this was going to cost us but we drank the beer and ate the onigiri and thanked him, for fear of being seen as rude 外人 (foreigners). When he returned a few minuets later with おでん (a popular Japanese winter stew) and handed them out we had to ask if there was a price for this special treatment but he told us it was free. After that I guess we couldn't complain lol. 

The old man and his festival friends gathered round us asking the same questions over and over in Japanese: Where are you from? America? Do you study at ICU? At least we had plenty of practice answering the questions correctly. After some time the conversation turned to the activities at the festival, the men started telling us about something that was about to happen which would involve bananas. As they were speaking Japanese in a form we had never heard before ( i guess it was very informal male language) we had had some trouble understanding them up until now but when we got to the bananas we couldn't help but think WTF! We thought we might have to bang bananas on a drum, or buy all of the bananas. Then we gathered that we had to shout 「はい！！百円」 (yes! 100 yen!) and then bang our hand on something. We did not understand in the slightest so we tried to explain to the lovely old men but I think they took this confusion to mean that we had no money and the next thing they knew they were pooling together to give us 100yen each. What the hell was going on?!

Finally the time came for the banana game and the men took us over to this stand.

My main concern was that if I did something wrong, I wouldn't be able to afford all those bananas.

Another old man to the left of the stage noticed we were 外人(foreigners) and offered further explanation by shouting: 「はい！バナナ、バナナ！分か？ OK！」　which roughly translates to 'Yes! banana, banana, do you understand? OK'. Except we definatley did not understand. 

In the end it turned out that this game was a mock auction, in which the host would tell a story to distract the audience and then shout out random prices and the fastest person to raise their hand and accept the price would pay that price. The trick is to listen out for the low prices and avoid the high prices. It was fun once we understood and I think our group alone walked away with at least 60 bananas. 

Most Matsuri have a great selection of traditional Japanese fast food. 

This guy right here is making Takoyaki, its sort of like an octopus dumpling. Its tastes really good!

And this is a Yakisoba stall.

 The old men had fed us well with onigiri, oden and yakitori but I still had some Takoyaki because its awesome. Very had to eat 8 in one go though!

By this time the matsuri was getting pretty busy!

I've only been to two matsuri so far but they always seem to have a kids game slightly resembling hook a duck.

So what else have I been up to recently...hmm, nothing much. I guess I should just end my post here. Oh wait I went to Disney Sea. but you don't want to hear about that right? Haha can you tell that I'm still super happy that I was able to go? 21 years of life and I'd never been to Disneyland until last week, I honestly can't say I would have enjoyed it more as a child because tbh it was pretty frikkin awesome.

MUM SAYS ITS JUST MAGICAL!!!

If that photo doesn't look like an advertisement for Disneyland I don't know what does!

We had to get up at 6am, to leave campus for 7 and get to the park at about 8.30 but it was well worth the early start. The park itself is split up into several sections, the themes are; Venice, 1920s America, Medieval times, Arabian Nights, The Aztecs,  Mermaid Lagoon, Cape Cod and Mysterious Island. The attention to detail is absolutley amazing, I hope you will be able to see from the photos. 

This is the castle area, can you see the big tower in the distance? That's the tower of terror - Disney's drop ride.

This is the central lake where all the shows are performed. You can see 'Venice' on the other side.

Part of 'Venice' and part of the Volcano

The Tower of Terror - 199ft of fun? I guess :|

Venice!

We managed to go on four rides while we were there; Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and The Tower of Terror x 2. I had never been on a drop ride before the tower of terror and though the first time wasn't to bad the 2nd time left me shaking so I think maybe twice is enough for me. If you cant really tell how tall it is in the photos its 199ft. To put that into perspective, I heard that if it was 1ft taller it would need to have lighting on it so that aeroplanes would be aware of it. ...yeah. I have to say I did enjoy the other rides though.

We had fun doing other things too. Apparently the thing to do at Disneyland in Japan is to buy character ears and walk around wearing them all day, I went for princess Minnie.

Another thing about Disneyland over here is that they like their popcorn, in all different flavours and in different sized and shaped containers (that people don't mind paying £15 for lol). I opted to try the curry flavoured popcorn which is offered in the Arabian Nights section of the park, it was actually really good so much so that I might even try making it at home in the future. Curry powder + popcorn = tasty snack! They have other flavours to try in the park like black pepper, strawberry, chocolate, milk tea, caramel, etc. I tried the chocolate and milk tea but they didn't really compare to the curry. Next time I want to try strawberry!

Heres a few more pictures of my day at Disney Sea. My camera ran out of battery pretty quickly so a lot of these have been 'borrowed' from a friend :)

With some lovely friends of mine, another reason why we went last week was to see the Halloween decorations.

This actor was awesome. Terrible English accent, awesome insults.

We got to see one of the shows while we were there, how realistic is this unicorn please?

The Hercules Gospel Singers!

So that's all my adventures for now. Thanks for reading :) x

Neko Cafe: Part 2

As promised, heres the video with footage from the Neko Cafe in Kichijoji. I tried not to make it too long as I am aware that it is just a bunch of cats, but I hope you'll be able to see how surreal the whole experience was. It still strikes me as kind of awkward that people pay to sit and play with cats for an hour but hey, thats Japan for you. Enjoy!

Spirited Haway - Vlog Episode 1

This was pretty embarrassing so I'm kind of relying on feedback here to see if I will do another one, so let me know what you think and what you'd like to see, where should I take my camera, etc, etc. Also, sorry about the end I was planning on adding to this then I had a codec problem and ended up just wanting to upload it so yeah...

Thanks for watching :)

Cakes, Castles and Cheese!

Wednesday was our dorm initiation and the Bakayama performance. In order for all the new students to become a part of the dorm we have to do a performance on top of Bakayama, which is a little hill outside the university Hall. This performance is usualy in the first week of term and we have to wear our costumes in class every day untill the performace. You can see our performance below,

Our theme was decades. We also had the chance to watch a few from previous years; one of my favourites was Ninjas vs Mummies,

If you dont feel like watching the whole video just make sure you watch it from 2.55 till about 4.20, its awesome! The last bit just reminds me of Britains Got Tallent lol.

On Friday night we took a trip to The Hard Rock Cafe in Roppongi to celebrate the birthday of one of the girls in the dorm. Roppongi is an area of Tokyo which used to be considered a bit sketchy but more recently it has cleaned its act up. I'm told the nightlife is quite good and that they cater for foreigners as there are a lot in this area. We saw a lot of girls trying hard to impress and get themselves a western boyfriend...but then again I also saw a girl with a t-shirt with 'dont talk to me' written on it...so each to their own.

It was kind of nostalgic being in the Hard Rock Cafe, although I've never been to one before. I wasn't quite homesick but the music and the environment made me miss my friends. The food was good but I'm not really missing western food yet...except cheese. The cheese situation here is dire, so we got NACHOS! One of my favourite things about going to Roppongi was getting to see Tokyo Tower for the first time, its something I've wanted to see for as long as I remember and even though it wasn't a proper visit, it still meant a lot to me. :)

Nacho Cheese!

Tokyo Tower

On Saturday we visited Edo castle as part of our Japanese Culture class. I knew it had been burnt down but I was a little disapointed at the castle, you can see why...

Whats left of the castle.

Seeing other parts of the castle grounds made up for this.

 On Saturday my flatmates and I went to Shinjuku to go shopping. For lunch we went to this cute little restaraunt called Bitter Sweet Buffet. It was around 1,800 yen (about £13.50) for an all you can eat buffet. Though we had to wait about an hour to get in, it was worth it because of the huge choice of cakes!

I didnt take many good photos so this isnt mine...shhh!

The cakes!

They also have; mini hamburgers, salad, pizza, pasta, crepes, waffles and more! It was so good!

Anyways thats all for now, thanks for reading!

Week 2!

This week I started uni so things have been a little busy. I'm going to post a quick update to get up to speed then I shall be trying to post more regularly.

Registration was spread over Monday and Tuesday, it sounded super complicated because we had to use a computer at the library to register for classes, then we had to print a form, then get it signed by our individual advisers, then hand it in in a certain room and there was a lot of other stuff to do that day like collect the JASSO scholarship money and hand in an address card and passport to the student affairs office. We thought the place would be pretty crowded so we left Global House at about 8.20, I was glad we did because although we were the first to arrive at the library, it got busy really quickly! I actually managed to get finished by 10am!

On Wednesday our classes started. In our first class we had to write an essay straight away and include as many grammatical items we knew as possible. I was a bit taken aback by this as I was expecting your typical western first class of the semester (eg. hi this is what we'll be doing, thanks, see you tomorrow for the real stuff). So I wasn't as prepared as I would have liked to have been, my Kanji was pretty terrible but I managed to write some down.

Thursday was a long day for me. We had a vocab test in Japanese class (yes, already!) and then I headed off to my evening classes. On Thursdays I actually have class from 3-7, which is pretty long lol. I was planning on taking Introduction to Japanese Society, but the first hour of lectures was so bad over half of the class left and decided to drop it. A few friends and I headed to ILC to see what we would be able to take instead and we were actually able to take a much more interesting course in the same time slot: Contemporary Culture: From Ramune to Anime. We then headed to this class to try and catch up. It seems pretty fun, we did a little on the history of Japan and even though I've done that for the past two years I was learning some stuff I'd never been told before. We also got a free bottle of Ramune, which is this traditional Japanese drink. Apparently its one of the first carbonated drinks in the world and its known specifically for its unique bottle design which uses a marble to keep the fizzy drink in the bottle.

For the rest of the class we just watched cartoons lol, it was pretty cool. We also talked about the field trip element of the course, they re held on Saturdays but this week I'll be going on Tuesday because this Saturday kinda wasn't good for me lol.

On Thursday night the amazing members of Global House surprised me at midnight with a homemade birthday cake and party. I also received a LUSH gift set from my flatmates which I'm super happy about, a mameshiba card and a mameshiba bag. Thankyou to everyone!! It was so nice!

By the way, Mameshiba is this funny Japanese character who makes people feel really awkward...usually while they're eating. He makes me laugh!

Friday was my actual birthday and unfortunately I had another test! I then had to go to an interview with my Japanese teacher which is another placement procedure I guess, they just need to check you're in the right class. She pretty much told me what I expected to hear, I'm in J3, its a review for me so try hard and my Kanji is chotto (in English: not that great lol). After the interview I jumped on my bike and headed straight to Musahisakai station to meet my friend Hannah. Hannah's from Edinburgh Uni and she's going to be studying at Tsuda College which, thankfully is just up the road from me. It was really nice to see a friendly face as I was feeling slightly homesick from all the birthday wishes I had been receiving on facebook. Hannah had also bought me a birthday present so that was really nice of her. She bought me Vogue to 'keep me sane' ha, and Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami which she highly recommended to me so I'm looking forward to reading it.

On Friday night we went clubbing in Shibuya, it was a really good night! The trains stop really early and they don't start until 5am so it was kind of weird experience to be coming home when people were leaving for the day but it was so fun and now I can say I went clubbing in Tokyo on my 21st! I'm hoping to steal some photos of the night from Hannah soon so I will post them when I can :)