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 :)

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 :)