I had made plans with my friend of 10 years today...Julia! We had met when we were young and she and her mother had come to California (they were friends of my Uncle Al). Ever since we had kept in touch as penpals (with good old-fashioned snail mail, somehow it's much more fun that way haha). In the past year or so we had finally evolved to email and facebook messaging, since I was planning to come to Japan and we needed a faster way to communicate and plan than letters for this. We planned to meet at Kichijoji to eat, shop, and catch up :)
Kichijoji is about an hour from Machida, which I get to using the Yokohama and the Chuo line. While it's not far on the map, I've finally figured out why it takes longer using these trains than subways in Korea. The trains here stop at stations for longer than subways in Korea. This allows more people to make each train, since it pauses for longer! That's why it takes longer to get through the same amount of stops :) I was so confused the first day when I took the trains lol.
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Creepy empty train (never ever seen before lol, seriously) --- Central Entrance where I was supposed to meet Julia at Kichijoji Station except she had written the Japanese name in Romanji...so I couldn't read the Japanese kanji written here! All it says in English is Central Entrance haha so good thing she also wrote the Japanese for where she wanted to meet me; I just walked up to each exit, held up my phone, and compared the kanjis until I found the right one ^.^ --- MORE COOL BATHROOM STUFF. I know I'm obsessed...but these stalls were this cool thick wood and had awesome grooves in it and stuff. Also I LOVE this flushing system. It's automatic but situated to the side so you just wave your hand and it flushes. HOW MUCH MORE EFFICIENT IS THIS. Rather than foot flushers which break all the time so your stomping on it and it still wont flush or automatic flushers behind your butt that flush WHILE youre still on the toilet by accident, these only flush when you want it to AND it's no touch. I likey. America: take note.
However, I had a minor moment of panic at Hashimoto while on the Yokohama line. I have NEVER been on a train or subway where I am completely the only person left on it. It felt eerie...like I was missing something, so I freaked out. BUT as you may have guessed, it turned out everyone who got off the train knew what they were doing. Like I mentioned in one of my early Korea posts, if you're in a foreign country and don't know what you're doing but all the locals are doing it...you'd sure as heck better move your butt and do it too! I realized the train had stopped for too long of a time for a regular station pause so I checked the signs around me.
Just as I suspected, even though this was the same green Yokohama (they have like 5 green lines here so unlike Korea, the names are necessary) on my map, for some reason to continue further the same direction we had to disembark and board a different train for green line. Good thing I got off and checked around. I was headed to Hachioji where I would transfer to the orange Chuo Rapid line to get to Kichijoji, but the train I had taken from Machida stopped at Hashimoto and then went back towards Machida. Also, on this orange Chuo line there are some English announcements!! Hallelujah. I have never been so happy to hear English spoken lol, the lack of English signs and announcements had begun making me feel lonely and homesick, if that makes sense. I just can't read anything so I feel isolated all the time.
Just as I suspected, even though this was the same green Yokohama (they have like 5 green lines here so unlike Korea, the names are necessary) on my map, for some reason to continue further the same direction we had to disembark and board a different train for green line. Good thing I got off and checked around. I was headed to Hachioji where I would transfer to the orange Chuo Rapid line to get to Kichijoji, but the train I had taken from Machida stopped at Hashimoto and then went back towards Machida. Also, on this orange Chuo line there are some English announcements!! Hallelujah. I have never been so happy to hear English spoken lol, the lack of English signs and announcements had begun making me feel lonely and homesick, if that makes sense. I just can't read anything so I feel isolated all the time.
Julia and I went to lunch and I got an udon and katsu set. They have so many options here! Like in the ramen houses, where they ask if you want your noodles firm, medium, or soft, and other little things about it (or they would if I spoke Japanese lol), here, they asked if I wanted udon or soba noodles, if I wanted it hot or cold, and if I wanted a big, medium, or small amount of rice (waste not, want not!). It was DELICIOUS. I really never adjusted to Korean food...I like it enough and I love Korean BBQ & street vendor food. It's just too spicy most of the time though, and I don't really like the taste of pickled vegetables. I'm sure I could develop a taste for it if I spent enough time there :) However, Japanese food is something that is both familiar and delicious to me! I make my own udon, katsu, and curry back home, I like it so much. So this was a welcome meal!
After lunch we spent some time shopping; we went into one of her favorite stores called Lattice. It was awesome! They had purses, jewelry, and hair accessories mainly but all accessories were 315 yen (about $4). Purses were a little more expensive (around the 1,000-1,500 yen mark which is about $13-19), but I found the CUTEST satchel sidebag that was on sale for like $6! It was the only one, so I was very pleased with myself haha. I also got two pairs of earrings, two necklaces, and a leather cord necklace.
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Dango, mochi, and delicious things GALORE!!!! We picked up some dango and chestnut mochi, because it was interesting sounding lol. They also have the right attitude about coffee. There are numbers on the front of the instant coffee packets, indicating how strong the coffee was (ratio of coffee grains to sugar + creamer in it). So they had stuff labeled 1 for people like my Dad who drink it like water and stuff labeled 3 which is the (1/2) one Julia is pointing to for people like me who can't handle much coffee :) Excellent. --- They also have the right mindset about plastic bags. They also charge you for plastic bags in Korea (no more than 10 cents or less), but here they have them so you pick them up and pay for them yourselves! This is awesome. This is exactly what we need in America. The markets all try to encourage you to bring your own bags but were never EVER going to do it unless they kick us in the butt and force us to by charging for bags. This way they reduce waste and make money otherwise, while people get more responsible or pay for it.
Almost as soon as I arrived in Japan, I had been longing for my favorite Jasmine tea. I don't know if it's actually Japanese but it's my favorite type of tea and all they gave you in Korea was barley tea (which is absolutely delicious and probably my second favorite type of tea, but I had spent a month and a half drinking it lol). So we set off looking for tea. We went into a cool legitimate tea shop with traditional Japanese teas and tried some samples. However we ended up just at a big supermarket called Seiyu. CAN I JUST SAY HOW EXCITED I AM FOR A REAL GIANT SUPERMARKET?? I hadn't been able to locate one bigger than a corner store in Korea (I know they are out there somewhere but I hadn't been able to find one -.-), so this was wonderful. I found my tea (as well as like 5 others I picked up lol) and other snacks and stuff I wanted. Julia took me on a tour of the store to explain various Japanese foods I had always wanted to know what looked like. In addition to my dry goods, I got some yummy looking chestnut mochi and some dango! So many delicious things in there, OMG @.@
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Pretty holiday displays, a temple (closed though because it was night so we couldn't go in), and this unique Japanese way of bagging things. When they bag your purchase, they tape the middle opening closed with some matching store tape. I asked Julia and apparently they do this everywhere! So interesting haha, it's not something I've ever thought of. It's a nice touch :)
After the market, Julia took me to Inokashira Park, a large park located in the area. Although it was pretty dark by then, I could tell how absolutely gorgeous the park was! It was airy and spacious, with giant trees shading wide dirt paths everywhere. There was a central lake (where you can rent paddle boats!) and a big bridge covering the middle of it. It was beautiful in design and very peaceful. I had fun trying to explain what I meant to Julia when I said I wanted to meditate here; I ended up just doing a Buddha be-at-one-with-thyself squat while still standing haha, I hope nobody was watching...
After the park, we hit a Japanese pub! Well not exactly a pub; they call them いざかや (ee-zah-kah-yah). They are like pubs with with a wide menu of yummy food dishes AND drinks and are less expensive than bars. Sounds like my kind of place :) I had to try Japanese beer of course, and it was yummy! Light and crisp. We got two kinds of yakitori and a vegetable miso salad (or that's what it looked like). For our next round, I got a mango sour (or that's what it sounds like lol. This not being able to read a lot of the Japanese characters thing SUCKS). Now it was Julia's turn to have fun explaining what sours were to me, since we don't really have a separate category of drinks called sours. It turns out they are like mixed drinks but the carbonated variety, like ones made with sparkling soda or something. It was SO GOOD, really fresh and tasty. I could drink those forever, they had very little alcohol in them so they tasted great haha. Thank you so much for taking me out Julia! I had so much fun and I will see you in a few days again :)
For the first time I had a person on the subway actually fall asleep on my shoulder haha. I've always been amazed how regular commenters can totally pass out, mouth open, drooling and all for fifteen stops then magically snap awake right before their stop and step off like nothing had happened. HOW DO THEY DO THAT. This was a younger guy though, probably a student. Poor guy haha. He totally was nodding off for ages then slowly plopped on my shoulder throughout the span of about 5 stops. I shifted in surprise to look at him and he shifted back up (totally still passed out by the way) and resumed sleeping, mouth wide open, head tilted up to the ceiling. LOL. It was only like 9 o clock...I'd even been drinking and I wasn't as tired as the poor kid was. I can't even fathom how difficult being a student in Asia is.../shiver. I salute you brave souls.