渋谷 (Shibuya)

Alright, I should have already posted this a long time ago. In fact, I was working on my blog and about half way done, when some guy comes up to us as we are in the lobby and is going "hi, I'm the hall director. We have quiet hours starting at 10, and you know, voices carry, so I'm going to have to kick you out". One, it was barely after 10, two, how were we supposed to know that, and three, the whole frickin group was there in the lobby because they had just arrived! Jerk. So anyway, I saved the blog and closed my laptop, but I guess the internet decided it didn't want to be open, because when I got back to my room (and borrowed an ethernet cord from Alex- I guess we were supposed to bring one :/), the internet was closed, my blog entry no where to be found...so. I am tired and frustrated, but I don't want to get more behind on blogs than I already am, so I'm going to start from scratch.
So yesterday Mizuho and I went to Shibuya, which is the crazy, busy, lit-up, tall-building ward of Tokyo that everyone pictures when they think about Tokyo. This ward is only 5 square miles, but its population is over 200,000 people. And google shows, it looks like this:

I'm pretty sure I crossed that street. But in the day time of course. And my own pictures go like this:

 ^the scramble

 ^golden stairs of the mall

 ^the 8 story mall Mizuho and I shopped at

 ^THE SCRAMBLE

 ^THE SCRAMBLE

 ^signs, signs, everywhere

 ^the Yoyogi building- the third tallest building in Tokyo, and the tallest clock tower in the world

^the new mall in Shibuya. Yes, that is a mall.

Here is some more detail about The Scramble:

So if you noticed all of those cross walks across the streets, that's for the scramble. All the lights turn red for the cars at once, and all people cross the street, every which way. Those pictures of mine up there with all those people are from the scramble. I couldn't film it because my camera battery died and it shut off, unfortunately. It was absolutely crazy though.
That mall we had come out of was attached the the Shibuya station, which is one of the busiest stations in Japan, with 2.4 million people a day going through on average. It's also HUGE. You have to make sure you don't get lost and go out the wrong door at the station, because  you could end up in an entirely different part of town. 
My experience at the mall was crazy- but I think on a day I don't have anything to write about, I will make a post dedicated to Japanese malls. They are VERY different than what I'm used to in the U.S. Mizuho's grandmother had given us some money for lunch when we saw her that afternoon, so we treated ourselves to some good food, but also to Japanese cake for dessert, which is almost too adorable to eat.
After leaving that mall and browsing the first two floors of the new mall (it was much too expensive, so we left), we found an arcade that had Purikura stations. Japanese girls LOVE purikura- even the guys like purikura (as long as they are with girls too, because doing it with just dudes seems more than slightly gay)- and it's an absolute must do if you're in Japan since there isn't anything like this in the U.S. So you go in a giant photobooth and you chose certain themes for your pictures, and then you are given a very short amount of time to chose poses in between each shot. You end up doing several close ups and one far one, and the machine literally talks to you and tells you step by step. After you take the pictures, you go around the corner and you have a computer with a stylus that works on the screen. You have access to stamps and pens and borders and fonts, and you decorate your pictures like crazy. But you are given only limited time, so we didn't finish all the pictures XD. Purikura pictures look different than regular photobooth pictures for other reasons beyond the decorations. The camera...does something...do it, and it makes Asian girls look adorable. It smooths their skin, it makes their eyes large and pronounced, it brightens your skin tone...but on foreign girls, it usually makes them look freaky. Well...you'll see what I mean. But some of them turned out alright! You can cut them out and peel the back off like a sticker, and Japanese girls often post them to cell phones or laptops. It's never very clear taking a picture of a picture, but most Japanese girls can get the pictures sent to their fancy phones so they can easily post them to the internet. You will just have to do with the picture of a picture.

We then took the loooong train ride home, where we relaxed for the night and I wrote my blog. A-chan finally accepted me. Too bad it was the night before I was leaving.

So I'm here in Hikone now, and I already miss Mizuho. It's so rural here- especially here at the university, in the corner of the city where there is nothing else but trees on mountains. But I will get to that tomorrow. I'm tired, and I have to wake up early tomorrow. Ja mata!

Mary

Location: At my desk in my dorm at JCMU

Mood: A bit sad (*￣m￣)

Listening to: Numquam Vicar - Yuki Kajiura

Japanese of the day: 今、何時ですか。(いま、なんじですか。) ima, nanji desu ka? - what time is it (now)?