Only In Japan

Ok, so I have decided to try and start an Only In Japan post. It will hopefully be comprised of ...well...interesting pictures and maybe any other pictures I might feel lik adding.


So, first, lets go SHOPPING!! It's right after New Years, and everything is on sale!! at least...according to TV......Corse, I wouldn't go to this store....cuz, there is only 3 Minutes of Happiness...I want to be happier for longer then that!
Well, I finally found some jeans that I was thinking about buying...then I realized that they were......yes....yes.... 33,000 yen!!! By, the way, it's about 100 yen to the dollar..so, yes...330 dollars. That's more expensive then a dog that craps gold...(Yes, I just made that up to explain how expensive clothes are in Japan)I was starting to get a little bit discourage about how expensive things were....and then I saw...... YES SKANK!! I HAVE TO HAVE IT!!But, I bought my precious Bumboo shirt instead...how cool is that?? good smell yuh know.Sense we are in Japan, there is no way we could get by without.....you guessed it MANGA!!!! HOOORRAAAYYYYYY (by the way, I was lucky to get a shot with only one person in it...)
After shopping, we went to this huge hotell, took the elivator to the top and took pics....Japan reminds me more and more of cyber punk..anyways, this picture isn't that great, but the story behind it is....So yah, we took this elivator to the top of a cicular hotell (the elivator was in the hollowed out middle, it wasreally cool, and kinda creepy..) At the top, there was a REALLY expensive looking restraunt.....with my foreigner Japanese I told them that I just wanted to look out the window! he said..uh ok, and led us to the corner of a restraunt..I took some pictures and then realized that everyone there were all wearing nice suits and stuff...and we were just a rag tag bunch of kids..they were also kidna looking at us...so we smiled at them..and then RAN!!So, time to eat eh? Lets go to the store..and buy.....FISH!! HOORAY!! Just grab a couple chunks of fish, everyone else is doing it.Ok, ok, don't like fish eh? how about.....RAMEN!!! YESS!!You could also get some......SOY SAUCE!!! goes good on EVERYTHINGSo, can't afford food eh? Ok, fine, just get something to drink!...like...SAKE...(by the way, thoes bottles are MUCH bigger then they look)Well, even if you don't have any money at all..you could just eat bugs....(which by the way tasted good)Well, so the bugs made you change your mind on making food eh? That's fine, let just eat out. At a Kaiten Sushi Restraunt. Now these places rock! Sushi goes round and round on the belt, and you just pick what you want to eat...its cheap too..about a dollar to 2 dollars for cheap plates...which still taste good....but it can get up to 3-4 dollars for expensive plates...What's sushi...Raw Fish, and and....RICE!!! Salmon is my favortie by the way.I..uh...didn't want to eat this one that badly...besides..it was over my price range ;)Just wach out...sometime you can't rack up a good amount without realizing it....(this is near the beggining)....so afterwards...lets go to..a arcade!OMG!! WTF!!! TEH ROXORS!!!..........................
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.........ROBOTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok ok, seriously, that thing was cool....like yah...BIG stratagy game, it uses Cards, internet, other people, weapons, ROBOTS, brains, strange hand motions, a touch screen, a big screen that links all the other centers in the world together, and your dog that craps gold.

NEW YEARS

Ok, so for New years I went to Kaori's house and had a big new years dinner there. It was a different experience. The day before 30/31 they make a bunch of special food just for new years. Then on 31/1 they eat and relax all day. In fact, almost everything is closed and the whole town feels kind of liek a ghost town because everyone is spending time with there family. But at night, many young people went to Odori Park and counted down at a concert type deal. It was fun. I went there with some friends of mine. After the countdown, we all went to the Hokkaido Shrine (castle shrine). Japanese tradition is to go the the shrine, thrown in a bunch of money and pray about the new year. It was amazing to see how many people were there. I was really surprised. Afterwords, we went to this bazaar type thing next to the shrine. They had sooooo much good food. We tried to stop at every stand and eat something. Unfortunately, I ran out of batteries on my camera and didn't really take any pictures of that...anyways, here are the other pics:

This is what we put the special Japanese New Years food in...why I don't know....oh yah, because it's pretty!
This is what the inside looks like!!! I WANT TO EAT IT!!!!!And here is the food we are setting up getting ready to eat!! I LOVE SUSHI HERE!! IT SOOO GOOD!!!!! TABETAI!!!!!!!!!! Oh yah, hehehe, we made it ourselves...(I wound up putting too much wasabi in some of them)...ugh..And here is everything all ready to eat!!! It was DELECIOUS!!! I ate a LOT of food!! and it was pretty too right?!?! heheh.So, after the coundown at Odori Park (which I got no good pictures of, sorry) we headed to the Shrine, here is the subway station we started at....huh...guess everyone else had the same idea eh??? SURPIRSE SURPRISE!!Inside the train....arn't Japanese frindly?Some of us inside the train. Yah, Japanese, English, Russian(?), and even someone from Egypt...can you tell who is from Egypt!! I'll give you one guess! *hint: Its not the big Japanese looking guy*We Finally made it to the fron't of the shrine and got to wait in the wonderfull...umm...line? It was actually fun...there were guards at the fron't and they would let a big group go, and then stop the rest of the people and then let a big group go....etc...it was like playing redlight green light!! I WON!!Behind us.........sorry for the blurry pic, I wanted the light so you could see all the other peeps.At the shrine, throwing money, praying, buying good look charms, fortunes, and whatever else.And, looking back from inside the shrine, you can see the line and the guard.....GREEN LIGHT!