Well, today didn't go exactly as planned...It was a national holiday here, known as "Coming of Age Day", where people who are 20 celebrate because that is the legal age. Girls get all decked out in kimonos, while guys wear suits [not nearly as exciting to see]. Anyway, the plan was for myself and Perri [the girl I went out with yesterday] to return once again to Harajuku and get photos of the ornate outfits. Remember how the title of the last entry was something about how diffucult it is to get photos here? Yeah...it started raining, making it hard to find anyone that wasn't in street clothes, and then when we finally found people, they didn't want their pictures taken...

In our travels, however, we did come across this rock and roll 'museum' [it was more like a shop] that had a live band outside performing some Elvis tunes in Engrish [which, for those that don't know, is the Japanese trying really hard to speak English and mispronouncing certain sounds]. I have pictures of them to go with this entry...

While walking down the street in Harajuku, we passed this guy dressed in gothic Lolita fashion, bunny ears and high heels. I figured at first that it was accepted because of the other outlandish fashion statements that Harajuku is known for, however the two girls walking in front of us turned to look at the guy before turning back with giggles.

Time passed, and we went to the nail salon that Perri had made an appointment at the day before. I know, I know, you're all wondering why both of us went...I wanted to watch, because the way they do nails here is crazy. This isn't the typical french manicure you get in the States. No way. This is 3D baubles that they put on your nails, in the shape of random objects like lime wedges, bunnies and cupcakes. They don't stop there, either. They go so far as to use rhinestones as well.

After Perri got all blinged out, we decided to stop at the same conveyor-belt sushi place we had stopped at the day we had the walking tour of Harajuku. It was yummy yet again, and is starting to become a favored spot of mine. While a lot of conveyor-belt sushi places have a minimum order rule, this particular place doesn't, and the prices are really reasonable. We headed home after that, and she went back to her apartment.

I decided to go out exploring [since I had to go out anyway to pick up some groceries I had forgotten the night before]. I found this little side street that had a big archway sign over the top of it, and found it basically housed a lot of little restaurants and three arcades. I worked my way back, got my groceries and headed home. I cooked dinner for myself again tonight, using the same noodles as before, but this time I covered them in this sauce I got at the 100 yen [dollar] store. It was an interesting sauce packet, coming with corn, mushrooms and chicken pieces. It was good.

…oh. I forgot to mention that for lunch today we had crepes. Apparently Japan has a big crepe thing going on. Mine was kind of like a calzone, filled with tomato sauce, ham and some sort of cheese….I’m dying to try a dessert kind next time I go down that way.

Observations for today:

1.      In listing the various American chains that have made their way to Japan, I forgot to list Outback Steakhouse.

2.      I didn’t think about it before, but now I’m starting to realize that most restaurants have picture menus [or kanji menus] outside their door so that clients can decide what they want to order before going inside the restaurant. This way they don’t take up time and space deciding inside the restaurant.