harajuku.

i finally got one of those transparent plastic-umbrellas, put on something nice and went to harajuku with ana today. although it was sunday, there weren't as many dressed-up people at the famous bridge of the harajuku station as i'd expected. there were mainly crazy gothics and a few gothic lolitas as well as some crazy guy singing to his cd-player and a very cute boy who was giving out free hugs (more pictures of harajuku fashion here). but if you wanna see people like in the very famous FRUITS magazines, you just gotta walk along the omotesando avenue, i never saw that many trendy people at one place ever! unfortunately it was so crowded, that i couldn't take any pictures except that whacky ojisan you can see on the next picture.

his earrings were actually fish bowls with living goldfish in it! before i went to omotesando, ana and me went to the meiji shrine first because it was near the harajuku station. it was very worth the long walk through the yoyogi park: not only was it beautiful but we also saw a few shintô wedding parties! it must've been very annoying for the bride to be photographed by dozens of tourists at her wedding day but she looked so beautiful in her wedding kimono!

after our visit to the meji shrine, ana left because she wanted to met her friend at the youth hostel so i got myself a chûhai at lawson (convini) and strolled along omotesando avenue. there was a man selling old kimono, obi and other kimono accessories on the street where i bought sashes for a few yen. as i was walking down the avenue, i called my mum and stopped at a corner. while i was talking to her on the phone i noticed that there was a man taking pictures of me. i smiled at him and he continued taking pictures with his big camera and then he was gone. i still don't know what that was about, maybe he thought i was some kind of celebrity or maybe he was just a pervert.

suddenly i spotted a kebab restaurant and as i was already tipsy i went to the guy and asked him if he speaks turkish. he was like "of course, sister!" and gave me turkish cherry juice and we talked in turkish/english/japanese about our lives. as i'm not good at memorizing names, i forgot his but he told me that he's been living in tokyo for 12 years now and that he's planning on opening another restaurant in osaka. i asked him about night life in tokyo and he recommended me roppongi if i don't wanna spent too much money. but then another turkish guy showed up, onur (yeah i remembered his name), and he told me that roppongi sucks and that there's a night club in shibuya i should go to. as he was on his way to shibuya he offered me to show me a around the streets here and as i had no actual plans for the afternoon, i agreed happily. he got us chûhai and told me about why he came to japan, that he's working at a yakiniku restaurant and that he's planning on returning to istanbul and opening a yakiniku restaurant there (damn, what a great idea!). he couldn't speak any english at all so we mainly talked in turkish (as i was drunk it was probably the best turkish i've ever spoken!) and japanese.

we had a great time in shibuya, i was amazed by the large intersection at the shibuya station. onur told me that at around the rush hours, over 5000 people are crossing the streets there at once! we ate a snack at mcdonalds, then went up the love hotel hills and he showed me the club (called "womb") he mentioned. before i went home we exchanged phone numbers because we eventually wanted to meet there in the evening but as the admission was a bit too expensive for julian, him and me decided to visit roppongi in the evening instead. now roppongi really wasn't that spectacular and there were too many gaijins and other strange folks so we walked around for a while, took purikura at a game center and left around midnight. unfortunately the train stopped a few stations before the one we had to get out so we strayed for 1-2 hours along the sumida river till we finally found our youth hostel, ate instant yakisoba at 3am and went to bed.

tokyo, fashion & people

fuzzy navel.

as i've already mentioned, today there's this crazy taifun raging around. it was cloudy all day long and it started raining as soon as i've left the house so we arrived at the university all soaked. fortunately, i had an extra pair of pants with me because i knew something like that would happen today.

we went to this candy factory this afternoon, they gave us azuki icecream which was quite tasty but i prefer matcha! after our trip, a small group of japanese and german students went to the us-mart karaoke bar. we drank lots of chûhai and were quite drunk and sang funny songs all evening long. they ranged from songs by björk, beastie boys and no doubt to eminem, dolly parton and britney spears. julian and me scored a fancy 97/100 when we sang the beatles' groovy back to the u.s.s.r., only outperformed by yuya with an 98/100.

i drank this canned cocktail called "fuzzy navel" because i thought the name was funny but i think there was vodka in it or something. anyway i got really sick by the time i arrived at home. i had drunk a whole big bottle of pocari before to sober up but it didn't really help. we had to ride through the nasty weather, there was strong rain and the wind almost tossed us into the rice fields. i was soaked and exhausted and had this funny feeling in my stomach and guess what we had for dinner - sashimi (raw fish)! urks. my luck i've already accustomed to japanese food. i wonder if they have noticed that i'm a bit drunk...?!

university life

ちょっと眠い~

i like curling up like a cat.
(even without tomcats around, darling)
i'm quite tired and took over 300 pictures again, that's crazy. "camping" was great, the location was beautiful and we had lots of fun - what a pity it's already over! we stayed up until the crack of dawn and drank chûhai (and/or "ureshii wine", bahaha!), we did karaoke, we cooked curry rice and german food (the kartoffelsalat was more like a kartoffelbrei but obviously they liked it anyway) and this morning we went fishing which was a bit boring plus i got a damn sunburn again but standing in the river bare-footed was quite refreshing! speaking of which, today's lunch was cold soba and tempura, oishiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

we also had classes, of course, but they were ok because our tandem partners are great fun people ("superman ist super, das ist doch selbstverständlich!"). i hope that we'll meet them again sometime during the next few weeks (our tandem week is over now, the next three weeks we'll only have language courses at university with a bunch of chinese people).

my japanese is getting better, especially thanks to the last few days. nevertheless, most of the time i have to ask my okâsan to repeat her sentences and then i still have to guess most of it. i'm such a loser. after dinner i watched some japanese "drama" show with the family, the kids danced and sang along to the opening theme which was quite cute. i didn't really get the story but it was hilarious because the acting was so bad! i love japanese tv.

i'm getting quite fond of those flavored pipes, called paipo. i never smoked (although many people thought so for whatever reasons or said it would suit me) but i really enjoy the peppermint ones. the picture on the left is me holding a can of chûhai in one hand and a peppermint paipo in the other (that bloke behind me is julian btw). yeah well gotta go to bed.

Tsu: Camping (Aug 22-24th)