Today I did not have class and met up with a few people in the evening. Together, we went to Takashimaya Department Store in Shinjuku and visited the 7th floor which houses the most famous "Tokyo Hands" store. Capibara-san is a very cute plush-toy. Austin and Jon and I found the most amusing thing to be this:
You could effectively battle your capibara-sans against each other. The controls are fairly simple:
-squeak and hop in place
-hop forward
There was even a calendar featuring Capibara-san (and sometimes a real capibara) contemplating various seasons changing, the ocean tides, or simply enjoying the product of a long day's work: warm cookies. I was very tempted to purchase one or five but I think I will wait until it gets colder and then buy one for warmth. "What's that sticking out of your jacket?" ... "Oh, you mean capibara-san?"
Tokyo Hands has a lot of neat things. Among the vast acreage of small trinkets were Geta (Japanese wooden-clog-like-traditional sandals), various micro-versions of furniture and houses, neat things you could bend out of a sheet of paper that was perforated to make a neat design:
On the bottom floor of most department stores (Basement-1 usually) they have a super market. It's unusual to associate a mall-like setting with food for me, being from America, but whether or not I can appreciate the convenience truly enough is a separate issue, I still find the snacks snackable and the delectables delectable. Surprisingly enough, the super-market on the first basement floor was called "Kinokuniya" which is the name of a large used-(and-new-)book retailer in both Japan and some large cities in America (although at base a Japanese corporation).
After parading about the Shinjuku streets we got some dinner at a make-it-yourself place. You have a small stove in front of you, order your ingredients, and then cook the small patty-like vegetable and meat dishes yourself. It might sound cumbersome but it's a really fun and social way to make some cheap dinner. The four of us (Nikki, Austin, Jon, and me) continued our exploration of the Shinjuku life and found a middle-eastern goods store, full of various colorful jewelery and clothing.
Even the Wendy's in Japan has a "dollar menu" (actually 105 Yen which is, currently, about 92 cents).
Nikki had to part ways but the three musketeers ventured onward and stumbled upon an arcade, full of claw-games on the first floor (like most of them are), and then lots of card and Gundam games as you work your way up the building. There was this one game in particular that caught my eye, not because of the difficulty or prizes, but because a teenage couple was very intent on winning a pile of "Choco Baby" candies through a very regular, monotonous, and difficult task involving timing and a lot of money. I am not sure if they ended up winning or not but the three of us watched them for a while, me myself watching for a bit after Austin and Jon went upstairs to check out other games (like the Gundam-Pods which look really fun).
When I eventually headed upstairs in search of Jon and Austin I checked every floor on the way up. When I was heading back toward the stairs on some floor, the girl that was playing the game on the first floor came up the steps, slightly out of breath, and quickly handed to me a pack of Choco Baby candies. I was very moved.
Our journey continued into the night, as we were supposed to meet up with Steven to get some hole-in-the-wall-restaurant-quality fried meats on a stick.
We met up with Steven and eventually found a nice place, surprisingly run by Chinese people, and had a seat. We met a guy who actually graduated from Waseda a few years ago, currently an architect working in a place that is not very close at all to where we were dining.
The bill for that evening was more or less a terrible joke, glancing at the description of the cost and seeing but a scribble was a bit saddening, but sometimes I figure that people just really need the money. We coughed up, vowed to eat at places with more realistic pricing means, and parted ways until school the next day.
Shinjuku is a kick'n place.
No comments:
Post a Comment