Today, our trip started with a combination of
2 trains and a subway trip to Asakusa. (it wasn't until much later that we
realized we could have taken the yellow JR-Line and got there without paying
for a subway ticket. Lesson learned.) Asakusa was the site of a HUGE
buddhist temple. After taking a group picture in front of the entrance we
entered into the Nakamise, various souvenir shops which lined the path to the
temple on both sides. I hadn't intended on buying stuff there, however, it was
one of our last days in Tokyo, and there was a few things that seemed perfect
for family members... so I bought... a lot. But I basically finished all that
shopping. I got these great solar powered mascot toy-like things, a few
keychains, slippers, and a window charm.
From Asakusa, we headed to Akihabara, the electronic/anime district. It was
Full of Men. Seriously, at least 95% of the people there were guys. Aside from
that, the only girls we ran into were either working (like the girl at the
crepe stand, chocolate strawberry was delicious!) and the girls advertising for
the maid cafes. Their voices were SOOOOooOSOososos high pitched, it was scary
O_O. Anyway, there was a model shop having a sale so I bought two Gundam models
for my brothers, and by then I was overwhelmed and generally "over"
Akiba so we left.
A group of us returned to Ikebukuro to relax a bit. Lynnette and I went
exploring around Ikebukuro again (only in the opposite direction) and found two
more pet shops. Oddly enough, we both checked Google maps before the trip and
saw that there was a dance studio nearby, but we couldn't find it :/ Before
heading back to the hotel we bought a whiteboard at a hyaku yen shop for
Brittany, because it was her birthday and she wanted to use one for her photo
project.
Then things got.. interesting >_>
For the photo project we went to different stops along the JR Line:
Hamamatsucho, Shin-Okubo, Takadanobaba, and Mejiro. The gist of the project was
to ask someone what they wanted to say to the world, if they could say any one
thing, and then have them write in on the board and take a picture of it.
Simple enough, however, translating this idea didn't always work :P Somehow,
through consequence of being comfortable speaking, I ended up as a sort of
translator.
The first guy we talked to was pretty cool and understanding; at first it was
going great, but my mind went blank on the word for human/humanity. I knew
'nin' was part of it, but couldn't decide on the second half. I ended up
spitting out 'ninjin' which means carrot... not human. The guy was like
"carrot?" so I knew immediately that was not the right word, but I
played it off and said "yeah, you know, like watermelons and
tomatoes..." so we joked about that.
After him we ran into a guy from Southeast Asia, and a guy from France... or
maybe Canada who spoke french. Then at one of the stops we ran into a huge
group of students who were out partying. One of the girls spoke English better
than the others and they shoved her forward, so Brittany handled these three. A
few people were too busy to help, but it was getting late so we headed back to
the station. Before we left the station we talked to two more guys, but I think
by then a lot was getting lost in translation so it didn't really work out the
way we wanted- but a great conversation/speaking experience!
Tired, we returned to our hotel and did some laundry. There were only 3
machines available, and it took about 90 minutes to dry everything, so really
we just chilled~
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