Over the past while we went on a few adventures, however.... And wonderful Spring weather has begun, so I think there will be more adventures in the VERY near future!
Michael and I went to Harajuku to visit Meiji Shrine! It was a lot of fun, though it was raining (lightly) the entire time we were there.
For 500 yen, you could buy a piece of wood from the Miko (shrine maidens) and write your own wish/prayer. Mine is so very lame, but I couldn't think of anything at the time that I really wanted to wish for. Now I wish I had prayed to pass all of my classes hahah!! Oh well. We'll be going back one more time, I think, so maybe I'll make another one! XD
We even purified ourselves before entering the temple (we were the only foreigners we saw do this, so that was pretty awesome hahaha) and we also tossed some coins in and prayed, albeit a bit nervously, along with everyone else. It was really a lot of fun, and one of the more traditional Japanese experiences we'd had so far.
On the shrine grounds, there were little eateries and a souvenir shop that we ventured through after exploring the main temple. In the food area, we found icecream that I fell in love with! Green tea and vanilla swirl soft serve ice cream. For those of you who know Zips, you know how amazing the choco vanilla swirl cones are (especially in the summer haha!), these were just as amazing. And GREEN TEA? They even had Strawberry, which Michael got! I wish they had had Green tea + strawberry swirl... now THAT would have been amazing.
I'd already taken a bite off of it when I thought about taking the photo haha. But look! I mach the icecream so well! XDAfter Meiji, we went to a shopping district in Harajuku and explored a bit. The umbrella madness was... well, mad! EVERYONE had an umbrella, which meant that if you didn't, like Michael and I, you were vulnerable to umbrella rape in the face (you can see the parade of umbrellas in the very first image of this blog post). We did a lot of blocking and dodging while walking down the crowded streets of Harajuku, but we made it away in one piece.
At a shop called Nudy Boy, Michael and I both found something to buy. He bought a hot little zip up hoodie, light and thin, and I bought a sweet bag. Both items are from MAD PUNK, which may be one of my new favourite Japanese punk clothing lines. Someday I'll be able to wear them too hahah! Someday. Gotta lay offa that icecream up there though! (actually, it's the COKE man, the coke. So addicting.)
We called it a night after walking around for quite some time. It was a lot of fun for sure!
Alex and I went on another trip not too long ago to Ueno Zoo. That was FANTASTIC because it was a VERY nice, warm day. Perfect zoo going weather. Besides, I had never been to a REAL zoo--we went to one in Seattle, which I'm sure would ahve been more exciting if it hadn't been raining, but this one was definitely 2-4 times the size of that one! So much fun!!
We made it through pretty much all of the zoo in 2 hours or so before they ushered everyone out for closing around 5 pm. Afterward we decided to get Mc Donalds, undoing all the walking we'd done by chowing down on some very tasty, but very greasy, burgers. Here in Japan they are currently doing a special American burger line where they create burgers for certain cities in the US. So far we've had the Texas, New York, Hawaiian, and California burgers. I don't know if or when more burgers will come out, or where they will come from, but so far the New York burger was the BEST in my opinion. It had this FANTASTIC bite to it with some spicy mustard on it. Delish.
I'll do another update later. Right now there's a HUGE thunderstorm I want to be watching and I don't think my computer should be sitting by the window with me while I do hahah. Besides, it's bed time. 6 am again, and I would be sleeping by now if this storm wasn't so loud! Hahah! Love it though.
Update #2 coming soon!
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