Here we go! Johnny's!
I'm kinda on time! And up to date with my weeks.. So here follows a pretty long description of last week.
Monday (new trial at getting a phone?):
It was time for me to give getting a Japanese phone number a new try, so I decided to go to the SoftBank store in Harajuku (since they were the closest store with English speaking staff). Actually the weather cast said rain for today and tomorrow and what do I decide to do?? I decide to walk!! A long way as well as a little sightseeing..
So from my school I walked past Shinjuku Station and Yoyogi Station, where I turned and went in to the HUGE park surrounding Meiji Shrine. I mean this green area is beautiful, amazing and greatly HUGE!! And I didn’t get to see the Shrine (which only means I have a reason to go back =P ).
Now it was time for the store and they made a compelling offer so I said I’d come back later this week (that way I could set up a bank account.. seems I didn’t need to but I get to that later in the week). And since I was so close I passed Yoyogi National Stadium and the NHK buildings. I didn’t even try to go in, there was this scary looking guard so I wouldn’t dare.
As I walk down the alley with Yoyogi on one side and the NHK buildings on the other I hear two guys “practice” a comedy routine (as sometimes seen in Shounen Clubs Nekketsu Battle Corner), and thinks it could be some Jrs (if I’m really lucky, which I rarely am) but as I got closer these guys were way too old to be Jrs.
Before I headed home I decided to walk by the restaurant where Saeko told Sota about her marriage plans (Shitsuren Chocolatier ep. 1), but as it now had started raining and I kinda wanted to get home at this point. No pictures this time, I’m sure I’ll get back there though it was actually kinda cheap and really beautiful.
I did stop by the post office before I really did get home too.
Tuesday (making plans):
A day off (not from school but) from everything. Once again the weathercast said rain and this time it was true I went for a "take away" Strawberry Shortcake at the Cozy Corner at the side of the Asagaya Station and I also bought a Match in one of the vending machines on my way home.
Just as I put the fork in my cake Mariko-san arrived back home so I made a trip down to the kitchen and talked to her for a bit. We decided to go to the bank tomorrow so I could get myself a bank account. We also decided to go to Fuji TV sometime during Golden Week since neither one of us is going anywhere..
Wednesday (Bank):
Since my name isn’t in Kanji or even in English letters I always have a hard time knowing how to write my name (every document I have here is different in spelling..) but in the end I did manage to get a bank account with a bank book (with Disney on the cover). I’ll have to wait a few days on my cash card (also Disney) since they didn’t have it in stock. (I could tell you all of the boring process of this but I’ll spare you the details).
Thurdays (Shibuya):
With my new bankbook I dragged アナ-san (the Russian girl who likes Johnny’s) along back to SoftBank to buy myself a phone. (After the short conversation "Do you have your passport?" "No, I forgot it" "Oh, you need it" we left again.) Since she wanted to go to Shibuya we stopped there first, then passed a fully packed entranced to Meiji shrine (which later turned out be waiting for president Obama) to walk around the grounds of Yoyogi National Stadium and NHK. Before finally getting to Shibuya. We started with the Disney store (since we kinda stumbled upon it).
We got to the station and decided to look for Johnny’s Family Club so out with the maps, which didn’t help at all, then we tried the maps at the station, which didn’t show Miyamasu Tower either.. Finally we asked the information inside the station and she knew exactly where it was and gave us a map with the directions. Now it wasn’t really hard to find unless you ended up on the wrong side of the building (like we did). So we knew the address was 1-10-10. But when we found: 1-10 there were no towers anywhere near. And as always in Japan if you stand there with a map and looking really confused some nice soul will come up asking if you need help, first up a young guy who didn’t understand either and didn’t have an answer for us at all. We walked up and down the street trying to find an actual address to see if we really were in the right place, just as I was about to suggest us to walk around the building to see if there were any other entrances another guy asks what we’re looking for.
As he comes to the same conclusion we did, the building it points to is not a tower he asks what we’re doing at the tower, as he hears “Johnny’s” he says : AHH! And basically runs around the building to another entrance. And there it was! Still not a tower it was a three story building but fine we found it.
As アナ-san really wanted to see the messages of both Arashi and NEWS we stood there looking at all of the messages (some groups have two.. and they are all really long, especially when you don’t understand what they’re saying). But no luck on the NEWS front (Tegomass had a relatively short message though) so when we got back to Nakayama Yuma and High Five we decided to head on home.
I told the family about my plans for the weekend, almost completely in Japanese. Though I guess it became a lot of information and I know how it is, I mean I basically got one of the worst memories in the history.. Not easy keeping up with everyone.
Friday (Kimono and Ryutaro):
Since it was the last day in school before Golden Week the school was arranging a Culture Day (actually kinda nice ending for all of the people who only stay a month) and almost everyone in our class were in the Kimono trying session. And boy did we have fun!! Mainly because we all decided イム-san was a good choice for model, and he was!
アナ-san just like ヴィカ-san is going back to Russia at the end of the month so アナ-san and I decided to have a ramen lunch in Sagamihara, Kanagawa at Ruytaro so we took the train for over an hour (after a stop at the post office I needed to pick up some “harai komi yoshi”).
But when we get there the whole town is basically closed to lunch and they open at 6pm. We had a hard time finding a restaurant that served lunch.. Eventually we passed a sushi bar entered it and the sushi were absolutely delicious!
Back in Tokyo we went back to SoftBank (as I had my passport with me today), and I were able to buy my phone! So I finally have a Japanese phone number (and a pocket WiFi so I can use my old/new iPhone 5S as well for only ¥5000/month). Though I just have to say, why in the world did I need to bring my passport?? When all they wanted to see was my national insurance, school ID (to make sure I was an international student) and a credit card..
“Do you have your passport with you?”
“Yes”
“Okay, Good”
End of discussion.. (I never actually showed my passport..) They also threw in a lunch box and some heat-and-eat-food for me (a drive they had that day, the free charger I got because I’m an international student will arrive in the mail as they didn’t have in stock, seems to be going around..).
And since we were so close we headed over to Johnny’s Shop so アナ-san could buy some shop photos. I however am still looking for a cute/funny phone strap, even after a trip to Harajuku.
We then made quick stop by a restaurant in Shinjuku so she could take a picture of a Kirin poster with all of the members pics on it (we’re only seeing the Ohno-kun pic on the billboards around here), as I saw when I went to al Boheme the other day.
I then had to make a run for the train to Shin-Okubo (and realised how HUGE Shinjuku Station actually is..) to make the meeting time for our farewell dinner with the Russians in our class who are leaving. (I didn’t make it, as I was about 2 minutes late, but then again I wasn’t the last person to arrive). With the 14 of us (including キム-san’s son) we tried to find a place to fit everyone at the same table. Ended up at pizza place.
Just as we had ordered Mariko-san texted me and asked if I was coming home soon (good thing I had my pocket WiFi or I wouldn’t have gotten the message), felt so bad as she’d misunderstood and prepared dinner for me as well.
Finally home my family (real one back home) thought it was a perfect time to make a video call which lasted for about an hour (seems we had a lot to talk about even though text each other almost every day).
Saturday (Chiba):
Breakfast at 9 today (which later got prepared for buy しげ-san as he was up), before I went to meet アナ-san for another long trip lunch (this time we’d checked if they were open, actually I had checked this restaurant even before yesterday’s trip but the thought of checking that restaurant didn’t even cross my mind). This time we took the Chuo Soba Line all the way to Makuharihongo, Chiba (as we passed Iidabashi I realised it's easy getting to the Canal Cafe, Haikei, Chichi-Ue Sama) and walked to Keikarou (I’m not going to make yet another review of the place or a “how to get here” description because there are already so many good ones out there, just Google it, Bing it, Yahoo it or use any other way you like to search for stuff on the internet or you can just head on over to int_je).
It was a way shorter line than I’d expected and only took an hour to get in, we decided to order today's lunch.
Now I rarely criticize food (it’s way too enjoyable for that) and if you’re Chinese you probably don’t like it but this was close to the Chinese food we have back home so I liked it a lot. It was a little spicy for アナ-san though.
Afterwards we decided to walk around the area to see if we could find a karaoke place but since it’s a residential area we had no such luck and decided to head on back to Tokyo instead. On our way to the station we ended up in a sakura flower shower and we both felt like we’d ended up in a drama (or NEWS’ Sakura Girl PV).
We had time just enough time for an hour long session of Johnny’s karaoke (mainly Arashi and NEWS, actually only those two..) before our meeting time with まり-chan and あや-chan. As we were running a few minutes late I texted them about it. まり-chan answered that she were going to be late too, but あや-chan had just been called in for work so she couldn’t come anymore (such a shame since it was あや-chan who wanted to go from the beginning). But since we were all already on our way to Tokyo Station (and the maccha place あや-chan and I tried to get into last week) we chose to go anyway and just come back later with あや-chan as well.
We ended up at the Maccha place for about 3 hour eating maccha udon/soba (didn’t taste any maccha at all) and parfait.
Recived a gift from アナ-san's home town.
Sunday (picknick):
As a last goodbye to ヴィカ-san, セツ-san had promised to make her a real Chinese dinner and so we decided to move our picnic spot from Inokashira Kohen to a park near セツ-san and her boyfriend’s apartment building. Which meant ヴィカ-san and I met up at Asagaya Station around 11:20 and took the train to Asakadai Station (Saitama). And then since it was so hot outside had the picnic inside their apartment instead.
Just a tiny fotnote here, their apartmen complex is called Urban Forrest.
After which we went to the park for some Soccer (football), セツ-san really seems to like swings so obviously we ended up there too, I started singing and a little girl came running up to us hoping up on a swing and started to sing another song. I guess she didn’t like my choice in music.
Back in the apartment セツ-san and her boyfriend started on the food while ヴィカ-san and I just relaxed (since neither of them wanted any help). After a while we started playing some card games and the boyfriend (I’m sorry I can never seem to remember his name) joined in.
The dumplings were a little big but very delicious! (I'm sorry I don't have any pics of them.) We had so much food both me and ヴィカ-san had to bring some with us home (though I think ヴィカ-san stayed the night there). As we had so much fun playing games I didn’t think about the fact I have a curfew until 9pm (which would make it impossible for me to be home by 10pm).
First up, check what station we have to get to. Second mission, can we make it there in time for 9:18 departure? Third mission actually getting there. I don’t think I’ve really run, like really run (not jogging or just running a few steps but actually running) since I was in High School (which is what 6, 7 years?), which made me not only really tired and breathless but it also made my chough a lot when I got on the train. But I did make it with a 2 minute margin to the train, leading me to my next mission, letting the family know I’d be about 15 minutes late. And that time line I did manage to keep.
Back home I was still full so I gave the dumplings/gyosa to あや-chan (and まり-chan) who fully enjoyed it.
Okay, it time for me to actually do my homework for Golden Week (fits perfectly as it's raining outside) unless I end up watching TV..
Hope you're all having a great day!
Monday (new trial at getting a phone?):
It was time for me to give getting a Japanese phone number a new try, so I decided to go to the SoftBank store in Harajuku (since they were the closest store with English speaking staff). Actually the weather cast said rain for today and tomorrow and what do I decide to do?? I decide to walk!! A long way as well as a little sightseeing..
So from my school I walked past Shinjuku Station and Yoyogi Station, where I turned and went in to the HUGE park surrounding Meiji Shrine. I mean this green area is beautiful, amazing and greatly HUGE!! And I didn’t get to see the Shrine (which only means I have a reason to go back =P ).
Now it was time for the store and they made a compelling offer so I said I’d come back later this week (that way I could set up a bank account.. seems I didn’t need to but I get to that later in the week). And since I was so close I passed Yoyogi National Stadium and the NHK buildings. I didn’t even try to go in, there was this scary looking guard so I wouldn’t dare.
As I walk down the alley with Yoyogi on one side and the NHK buildings on the other I hear two guys “practice” a comedy routine (as sometimes seen in Shounen Clubs Nekketsu Battle Corner), and thinks it could be some Jrs (if I’m really lucky, which I rarely am) but as I got closer these guys were way too old to be Jrs.
Before I headed home I decided to walk by the restaurant where Saeko told Sota about her marriage plans (Shitsuren Chocolatier ep. 1), but as it now had started raining and I kinda wanted to get home at this point. No pictures this time, I’m sure I’ll get back there though it was actually kinda cheap and really beautiful.
I did stop by the post office before I really did get home too.
Tuesday (making plans):
A day off (not from school but) from everything. Once again the weathercast said rain and this time it was true I went for a "take away" Strawberry Shortcake at the Cozy Corner at the side of the Asagaya Station and I also bought a Match in one of the vending machines on my way home.
Just as I put the fork in my cake Mariko-san arrived back home so I made a trip down to the kitchen and talked to her for a bit. We decided to go to the bank tomorrow so I could get myself a bank account. We also decided to go to Fuji TV sometime during Golden Week since neither one of us is going anywhere..
Wednesday (Bank):
Since my name isn’t in Kanji or even in English letters I always have a hard time knowing how to write my name (every document I have here is different in spelling..) but in the end I did manage to get a bank account with a bank book (with Disney on the cover). I’ll have to wait a few days on my cash card (also Disney) since they didn’t have it in stock. (I could tell you all of the boring process of this but I’ll spare you the details).
Thurdays (Shibuya):
With my new bankbook I dragged アナ-san (the Russian girl who likes Johnny’s) along back to SoftBank to buy myself a phone. (After the short conversation "Do you have your passport?" "No, I forgot it" "Oh, you need it" we left again.) Since she wanted to go to Shibuya we stopped there first, then passed a fully packed entranced to Meiji shrine (which later turned out be waiting for president Obama) to walk around the grounds of Yoyogi National Stadium and NHK. Before finally getting to Shibuya. We started with the Disney store (since we kinda stumbled upon it).
We got to the station and decided to look for Johnny’s Family Club so out with the maps, which didn’t help at all, then we tried the maps at the station, which didn’t show Miyamasu Tower either.. Finally we asked the information inside the station and she knew exactly where it was and gave us a map with the directions. Now it wasn’t really hard to find unless you ended up on the wrong side of the building (like we did). So we knew the address was 1-10-10. But when we found: 1-10 there were no towers anywhere near. And as always in Japan if you stand there with a map and looking really confused some nice soul will come up asking if you need help, first up a young guy who didn’t understand either and didn’t have an answer for us at all. We walked up and down the street trying to find an actual address to see if we really were in the right place, just as I was about to suggest us to walk around the building to see if there were any other entrances another guy asks what we’re looking for.
As he comes to the same conclusion we did, the building it points to is not a tower he asks what we’re doing at the tower, as he hears “Johnny’s” he says : AHH! And basically runs around the building to another entrance. And there it was! Still not a tower it was a three story building but fine we found it.
As アナ-san really wanted to see the messages of both Arashi and NEWS we stood there looking at all of the messages (some groups have two.. and they are all really long, especially when you don’t understand what they’re saying). But no luck on the NEWS front (Tegomass had a relatively short message though) so when we got back to Nakayama Yuma and High Five we decided to head on home.
I told the family about my plans for the weekend, almost completely in Japanese. Though I guess it became a lot of information and I know how it is, I mean I basically got one of the worst memories in the history.. Not easy keeping up with everyone.
Friday (Kimono and Ryutaro):
Since it was the last day in school before Golden Week the school was arranging a Culture Day (actually kinda nice ending for all of the people who only stay a month) and almost everyone in our class were in the Kimono trying session. And boy did we have fun!! Mainly because we all decided イム-san was a good choice for model, and he was!
アナ-san just like ヴィカ-san is going back to Russia at the end of the month so アナ-san and I decided to have a ramen lunch in Sagamihara, Kanagawa at Ruytaro so we took the train for over an hour (after a stop at the post office I needed to pick up some “harai komi yoshi”).
But when we get there the whole town is basically closed to lunch and they open at 6pm. We had a hard time finding a restaurant that served lunch.. Eventually we passed a sushi bar entered it and the sushi were absolutely delicious!
Back in Tokyo we went back to SoftBank (as I had my passport with me today), and I were able to buy my phone! So I finally have a Japanese phone number (and a pocket WiFi so I can use my old/new iPhone 5S as well for only ¥5000/month). Though I just have to say, why in the world did I need to bring my passport?? When all they wanted to see was my national insurance, school ID (to make sure I was an international student) and a credit card..
“Do you have your passport with you?”
“Yes”
“Okay, Good”
End of discussion.. (I never actually showed my passport..) They also threw in a lunch box and some heat-and-eat-food for me (a drive they had that day, the free charger I got because I’m an international student will arrive in the mail as they didn’t have in stock, seems to be going around..).
And since we were so close we headed over to Johnny’s Shop so アナ-san could buy some shop photos. I however am still looking for a cute/funny phone strap, even after a trip to Harajuku.
We then made quick stop by a restaurant in Shinjuku so she could take a picture of a Kirin poster with all of the members pics on it (we’re only seeing the Ohno-kun pic on the billboards around here), as I saw when I went to al Boheme the other day.
I then had to make a run for the train to Shin-Okubo (and realised how HUGE Shinjuku Station actually is..) to make the meeting time for our farewell dinner with the Russians in our class who are leaving. (I didn’t make it, as I was about 2 minutes late, but then again I wasn’t the last person to arrive). With the 14 of us (including キム-san’s son) we tried to find a place to fit everyone at the same table. Ended up at pizza place.
Just as we had ordered Mariko-san texted me and asked if I was coming home soon (good thing I had my pocket WiFi or I wouldn’t have gotten the message), felt so bad as she’d misunderstood and prepared dinner for me as well.
Finally home my family (real one back home) thought it was a perfect time to make a video call which lasted for about an hour (seems we had a lot to talk about even though text each other almost every day).
Saturday (Chiba):
Breakfast at 9 today (which later got prepared for buy しげ-san as he was up), before I went to meet アナ-san for another long trip lunch (this time we’d checked if they were open, actually I had checked this restaurant even before yesterday’s trip but the thought of checking that restaurant didn’t even cross my mind). This time we took the Chuo Soba Line all the way to Makuharihongo, Chiba (as we passed Iidabashi I realised it's easy getting to the Canal Cafe, Haikei, Chichi-Ue Sama) and walked to Keikarou (I’m not going to make yet another review of the place or a “how to get here” description because there are already so many good ones out there, just Google it, Bing it, Yahoo it or use any other way you like to search for stuff on the internet or you can just head on over to int_je).
It was a way shorter line than I’d expected and only took an hour to get in, we decided to order today's lunch.
Now I rarely criticize food (it’s way too enjoyable for that) and if you’re Chinese you probably don’t like it but this was close to the Chinese food we have back home so I liked it a lot. It was a little spicy for アナ-san though.
Afterwards we decided to walk around the area to see if we could find a karaoke place but since it’s a residential area we had no such luck and decided to head on back to Tokyo instead. On our way to the station we ended up in a sakura flower shower and we both felt like we’d ended up in a drama (or NEWS’ Sakura Girl PV).
We had time just enough time for an hour long session of Johnny’s karaoke (mainly Arashi and NEWS, actually only those two..) before our meeting time with まり-chan and あや-chan. As we were running a few minutes late I texted them about it. まり-chan answered that she were going to be late too, but あや-chan had just been called in for work so she couldn’t come anymore (such a shame since it was あや-chan who wanted to go from the beginning). But since we were all already on our way to Tokyo Station (and the maccha place あや-chan and I tried to get into last week) we chose to go anyway and just come back later with あや-chan as well.
We ended up at the Maccha place for about 3 hour eating maccha udon/soba (didn’t taste any maccha at all) and parfait.
Recived a gift from アナ-san's home town.
Sunday (picknick):
As a last goodbye to ヴィカ-san, セツ-san had promised to make her a real Chinese dinner and so we decided to move our picnic spot from Inokashira Kohen to a park near セツ-san and her boyfriend’s apartment building. Which meant ヴィカ-san and I met up at Asagaya Station around 11:20 and took the train to Asakadai Station (Saitama). And then since it was so hot outside had the picnic inside their apartment instead.
Just a tiny fotnote here, their apartmen complex is called Urban Forrest.
After which we went to the park for some Soccer (football), セツ-san really seems to like swings so obviously we ended up there too, I started singing and a little girl came running up to us hoping up on a swing and started to sing another song. I guess she didn’t like my choice in music.
Back in the apartment セツ-san and her boyfriend started on the food while ヴィカ-san and I just relaxed (since neither of them wanted any help). After a while we started playing some card games and the boyfriend (I’m sorry I can never seem to remember his name) joined in.
The dumplings were a little big but very delicious! (I'm sorry I don't have any pics of them.) We had so much food both me and ヴィカ-san had to bring some with us home (though I think ヴィカ-san stayed the night there). As we had so much fun playing games I didn’t think about the fact I have a curfew until 9pm (which would make it impossible for me to be home by 10pm).
First up, check what station we have to get to. Second mission, can we make it there in time for 9:18 departure? Third mission actually getting there. I don’t think I’ve really run, like really run (not jogging or just running a few steps but actually running) since I was in High School (which is what 6, 7 years?), which made me not only really tired and breathless but it also made my chough a lot when I got on the train. But I did make it with a 2 minute margin to the train, leading me to my next mission, letting the family know I’d be about 15 minutes late. And that time line I did manage to keep.
Back home I was still full so I gave the dumplings/gyosa to あや-chan (and まり-chan) who fully enjoyed it.
Okay, it time for me to actually do my homework for Golden Week (fits perfectly as it's raining outside) unless I end up watching TV..
Hope you're all having a great day!