Friday, December 14, 2012

Last Day in Tokyo

Today marks the end of a short chapter in my life.  I am currently trying to figure out how I am going to fit everything that I have purchased these past 3 months into one suitcase.  We'll see how that goes.

I am very grateful to have this experience.  Last night at the goodbye party, it was hard to say goodbye to everyone, even though some of them I will see again.  But we will never meet under these same circumstances again, as study abroad students.  Many are going home for good, some are happy about that, others not so much.  I and a few others will return as year-long students, but I am the only one switching schools and city.  I am looking forward to moving to Nagoya, a whole new experience awaits me there!

But for now I am just super happy to go home and see my family and friends - 3 months without them has been the hardest thing I had to overcome.  But I have no regrets.

See everyone soon!

Saturday, December 8, 2012

The End is Neigh

It's hard to believe that I only have one week left here in Tokyo.  So this weekend I finally went to a place I have always wanted to go to, Harajuku! The fashion heaven where the clothes are amazing and the prices don't kill your wallet so badly (unless you shop like me and buy like....15 things.. XP)

At first I wasn't fond of Harajuku - it was crowded, a creepy guy kept pinching my arm, telling to sell me something while I was on the phone; I had to run away to get away from him.  Then there are the big scary African guys who will also call you out to try and sell you something.  They're are a bit intimidating  but usually if you walk quickly and don't respond you can get by them without harassment   Now if you are a foreigner (not of Asian decent)  like my friends and I, you also run the risk of random Japanese people talking to you.  Which can be fun, or creepy, depends on the situation. As we are girls, Japanese guys wanted to take pictures of us.  It didn't bother me really, but for others that can be really creepy.  I just accepted the fact that I am a novelty here in Japan, and thus something exciting for those guys to talk about to their friends.

But the shopping is great.  If you want something interesting and unique  Harajuku is the place to go.  Mainly Takeshi Dori (I think that's how it's spelled - something along those lines) street.  It's one street with a huge sign in front of it (hard to miss).  It's narrow and crowded, but there's enough stores packed into that one street to easily spend a whole day there alone.  I went to this Lolita shop and got a very cute Victorian style blouse for my steam-punk costume that I'm currently working on - and two tiny top-hats and a tie.  At Forever 21 I bought a lot of cute sweaters.  There are Forever 21s in America too, but the Japanese ones carry different things.

After shopping till I was dropping.  I met up with some friends of mine to go karaoke.  This was my first time going karaoke, and it was so much fun! I highly recommend it.

All in all it was a great day.  Now time to spend my last week here finishing school and saying goodbye to all of the friends I have made.  Thank goodness they're all on Facebook.