Billiards, Ueno and Children

Yesterday was just Interational Business at University. We watched this video about japanese buisnesses in America. The teacher is really funny. He seems to love America. Maybe we can exchange citizenships. Everything said about the western world, particularly the english speaking one, was america. I feel the europeans and especially the british feel kind of left out. He was telling us about how much to read for the class and he said "Those native english speakers from America can read all of the assignment but for the japanese students only half is ok". Mind you most of the other students besides the japanese students speak english fluently especially the british ones. Also during the video there was a picture of a squirrel and he paused the video and talked about squirrels for a bit. Japanese people love them, because they aren't here at all. Unlike in most of the midwest where those little devils are everywhere.

After class I ate some lunch then went back to the dorms. I mostly just loafed about for the afternoon. It was a good break from the week.

Then I went with some of the guys to play pool in Shibuya. To get there we took the Keio line, which is a pretty small line compared to the big JR (Japanese Railways) line that Shibuya has. So when we got out, it took a long time to find the other people we were meeting. We ended up walking pretty much all around the perimeter of the station. And this is no little station, definately a couple times bigger than Times Square. But we eventually found the others. We were meeting some of the guys and Miho. Miho is this really nice student from Hosei that wanted to play pool with us. She is really shy and quiet, so it kind of surprised us all that she wanted to play pool. She had also told us that she plays for money. Pretty funny. We went to the Pool Hall. It was a really chic place. They had a pool table with the American flag it in the front of the hall. And the room had that wearhouse feel, but other than that it was typical japanese really nice place. At the pool hall they kept on playing cheesy pop love songs. Definately not sticking with the pool theme. But the japanese people loved it. The funniest was when they played Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles", pretty much the girly song anthem. Of course I lost every game I played. No surprise there. Attila was getting really into it and in one shot he ended up knocking a glass over on the ground. Making all the people in the pool hall look at us. We left the place soon after...

The rest of the guys wanted to go back to the dorm after pool. So Daniel, Quentin, Miho and I went to look around Shibuya. We ended up going to an Izakaya named "Shirokiya"(White Tree Restaurant). An izakaya is basically a place where everyone orders different dishes and shares it all. It is usually a good social thing. Izakaya means "Food, Alcohol, Restaurant". Sometimes an izakaya is where you pay a set price and then eat and drink as much as you can. Since japanese people don't eat or drink much, these places probably make a killing. Shirokiya was a pay per dish/drink place though. Anyway, at Shirokiya it had this saying everywhere that said "I Love New York". Like on all the wrappers, dishes, plates, doors etc. But there was no mention of new york outside of that. Kind of funny. It was pretty good food but the portions were so small. But it's more of a social thing I guess.

After the Izakaya Daniel wanted to go to this bar in Shibuya that had 200 yen beer. (side note, a yen is about 114 yen to one american dollar. as of today. The easiest way to convert from yen to dollars is to take the two 0's off the end. and you get the approximate price in dollars) 200 yen is dirt cheap for beer in Tokyo. Land of nothing less than 500 yen for a drink anywhere. It ended up being quite a nice little pub with big screen tv's that normally show soccer. Miho and I didn't get any beer being as that beer wasn't too appetizing after all that raw fish stuff. But still. To be in a place that cheap deserves a mention.

This morning I got up bright and early to go to an elementary school festival. It was way too early, but how often do you get a chance like that. It was really interesting. The festival was two days long, but we had only gone for one part of it this morning. The 4th graders put on some play about who knows what. Then the 5th graders played some songs and sang. Then the 6th graders put on another play involving the history of Japan. The last scene was when Commodore Perry came to Japan and the kids were speaking english and then japanese with an american accent. It was really funny. The kids of course were incredibly cute. We all decided that asians have a monopoly on cute kids. Especially the japanese. The kids always wear matching clothes and such.

After the festival I went back with the girls because they were going to Ueno. The guys had gone to Ueno a while ago so they went back to the dorm. Before going back to their flat I was going to eat something so I wouldn't mooch on them. I stopped into this small little hole in the wall soba place. Soba are buckwheat noodles. Really good. I was the only white person, so I know I got some stares but oh well. I'll get used to it eventually.

We left for Ueno a while later. Ueno is a place with lots of parks, temples, shrines and mueseums. I think that it is north Tokyo. Not sure. It was really pretty. Not such a good day since it was overcast and muggy. But pretty none the less. We were going to go to the tokyo metropolitan mueseum since we heard it was free. But you had to pay for each exhibit you saw. Which would get pretty pricey. So we decided to look at all the shrines and temples in the area. The first one we went to was really pretty. I ended up taking 20 pictures just there. The statues all had moss and algae growing all over them and the whole temple had a very weathered look. Very beautiful. We went to some more shrines later and such. More pretty-ness.

A temple is a buddhist temple while a shrine is a shinto shrine. Most japanese people, if any religion at all, claim to be a mix of both buddhist and shinto. Shinto is a native animist religion in Japan while Buddhism is from india and pretty much atheist. So the mixing is pretty interesting.

On a religious note, the other day I found a christian church by Tsutsujigaoka station. The services are in Japanese so it could be very interesting. I haven't gone to a church here yet since all of them are in downtown Tokyo. So hopefully I'll get up sometime to go to this one.

I really need to do an update a day on days I actually do something. Becuase I know I am leaving out more interesting things. For those of you who are interested in the Tokyo happenings. And I imagine if you made it this far you are. I took a lot of pictures today but I am so tired from walking who knows how many kilometres today and don't feel like doing all the picture buisness now.