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Monday, October 6, 2008

Vol 6



おひさしぶり。
元気ですか。
私は元気です。


As I mentioned before, I am in Tokyo.
I arrived Friday afternoon around 3:30pm.
My friend Lena met me at the airport, so she showed me how to operate the train system, and how to purchase my train ticket/pass.
It took us about two hours to get from Narita airport, which is located in Chiba, down to my hotel in Tokyo.
The best way to get from the Narita would be by train or Limo Bus.
The Limo Bus cost about $30 and it makes different stops in Tokyo.
It takes about 1 hour 40 minutes on Limo Bus.
We caught the train from Narita to Tokyo.
Depending on what train you caught will determine how much you pay in the end.
It took us about 1 hour 30 minutes to get from the airport to my hotel, and cost about $15.
I stayed at the Sakura Hotel in Ikebukuro.
The Sakura hotel is basically a hotel for foreigners.
They own 4 hotels, 2-3 guest house, and about 4 dorms., with most of it’s occupants being from a different country.


Anyway, after I checked in the hotel and dropped off my luggage, I went out with Lena to explore Ikebukuro.
I should mention that Ikebukuro is one of the 23 wards (cities) that is located within Tokyo.
So you can say Tokyo is a city made up of 23 other cities.
First we were just walking around looking for nothing in particular.
Then we got hungry so we started to look for some place to eat.
No matter where you are in Tokyo there will be dozens of places to eat.
Different kinds of places.
Japanese, Chinese, American, Italian, Mexican, Indian, sub shops, sports bars, just dozens of places.
The problem is choosing where you want to eat.
While walking up one of the many crowded streets this Chinese guy approached us and showed us a menu of the place he worked.
It’s pretty much like the place where I eat Korean BBQ at back in America, only you buy the meat by single potions for a cheap price.
We decided to check this place out.



It was a small size restaurant but decent.
You can choose what kind of meet you want and they’ll bring it to you along with a coal table top grill.
We choose two different kinds of beef for about $2 a serving, but those two servings wasn’t enough so we ordered more and more.
The food was great.
It put the Korean BBQ, which I love so much, to shame.
We went there long, only about 40 minutes before we left.
We were suppose to meet up with Lena’s friend Casey and her boyfriend, so we went to HMV to wait for them.
HMV is the really huge music store.
It’s about 3-4 floors, and in some other places it occupy even more floors.
Around 10:30pm we met Casey and her boyfriend in front of the Hello Kitty shop.
We had to wait from Casey’s boyfriends’ friend to show up.
Once that guy arrived we went out to eat again.
He took us to this place about two blocks up from where we were standing called “The Lockup”.

The Lockup is the haunted prison style place where they handcuff you as they show you to your cell/table.
It was really cool.
The kind of place you would have a Halloween party in.
The down side about that place is that it’s so popular you only have 75 minutes in there.
They offered a variety of food which I will not name, but we got something called Russian Roulette potato balls.
It’s 5 potato puffs but the catch is that one of them will be extremely spicy while the rest are plain.
So each of us took one and Lena loss.
So the guy ordered another set but requested that they make 4 out of the 5 spicy.
Everyone lost except Lena.
This is a place for people who like to drink.
They have a large selection of drinks.
Casey ordered the Chemistry set drink where you mix the different fruity flavored alcohols together.
They also had something like a alcohol pill.
I don’t remember since I don’t drink, although in Japan I am legal.
We left there around 11:50pm and everyone decided to go home because the trains stop at 12am and taxis are dumb expensive here.
We were still in Ikebukuro so I walked back to the hotel.
Japan is a really safe place.
I won’t say safe but busy, so it’s almost impossible to do something to someone here without tons of witnesses.
That was pretty much my Friday night.
You can see pictures I took of Japan if you click the link below.


4 comments:

Unknown said...

Great pictures. How much is a big mac at McDonalds in Japan?

Cherry said...

About the same amount it is in America. But Im not to sure since I dont eat from McDonalds

Unknown said...

I love the gifts your host family gave you, especially the orgami gifts. Ha Ha, I know what that is. Your sister will try and steal the Hello Kitty gifts.

Cherry said...

The oragami present is actually from my host mom to Deja and the Hello Kitty stuff is for Deja's bday. I have to ship it home.