Canal City

We went to Canal City on Saturday, it's really an amazing place.  We forgot to bring the camera, but never fear my dear legions of blog followers (by which I mean "Hi Dad!") the Studio Ghibli shop is calling, so I will return there.  I made it out alive without buying much this time (I rock!) but I did buy a bag (Hello Kitty, it had to be done) for my bento box.  Not that it really needs protecting, it just needed it's cuteness to be completely maxed out.  

While we were there we watched the end of a magic show and a boy band concert.  I really liked watching the people watching the show.  This one guy (23ish?) had huge apple cheeks when he smiled, and he was inordinately amused by the magician.  He was awesome.  The boy band sounded pretty good, and their crowd way 94% young females and 6% disgruntled boyfriends was highly amusing.

We also ate at our first restaurant (shabu shabu didn't count, we were completely on our own this time).  They liked us a lot, mostly because we said "domo arigato" everytime they did anything.  We both got the una-don (eel rice bowl, it was super good)

After we shopped for a while *reminder: post on the pokemon store later* we got some ice cream!  At the last second I forgot the word for the grape ice cream (kyohi) so I just tried "grape?" the lady nodded and said grape back . . . but they gave us grapefruit ice cream instead.  Laugh!  I don't like grapefruit, so now I won't ever forget a word like that again.

An adventure!

Turns out I can eat a lot of beef in one go.  I don't think I've ever eaten that much meat that quickly before.  I was also drinking the violently green Fanta Melon (another student, from France, said it was an alien drink from Mars).  So I had a sugar rush and then another slice of beef- whoa.  It's lucky that I have to bike everywhere.

As we left the party we got turned around in the outdoor mall corridors.  We ended up going the opposite direction.  Of all the places two teenage girls could end up . . . you guessed it,

     the red light district.

It was getting dark, and because the landmarks were completely changed (I don't think I've seen this love hotel before . . . ) we were thoroughly lost.  We went to a family mart to ask directions, and the shopkeeper there was very kind.  He was worried that we were lost and made sure we understood where to go- we bought some candy while we were there (mine was really gross- but that's another story).  We walked back through the district and across the big bridge with the scary performer, it was really tall, masked and in a golden yellow kimono- it pointed at us and held up two fingers.  It was like those statue people you can find in the U.S. only this guy was scary and was standing on a really tall box.  We asked for directions again, this time of a helpful subway attendant (who I thought was a man until she talked, sumimasen attendant-san) and eventually found our way back into the Tenjin we knew.  Luckily we're pro's once we hit the Meiji/Shokan street Tenjin area (all thanks to Daiei).

All in all, it's really painful to walk all over the place when you have just eaten 7 pounds of beef and 4 glasses of melon soda.  But I liked having an adventure (mostly after we were back home).

The bakery door

Yesterday Rebecca and I decided to go the Simon's bakery across the street because we ate all of our pan (bread).  Upon arriving however, we found it to be more than just a mere bakery.  It was gaijin-proofed.  I tried everything to get the door to open, pulling all directions, sliding, begging, "open sesame", jerking it- but nothing worked.  The shopkeepers inside, smiling at how sucessfully their door defeated us, finally let us in (most likely in the hope that we would entertain them further).  Turns out, you TAP the black box/button thing.  Oh.  They were still laughing when we left with our loaf of bread, custard pan, and acorn shaped melon pan.  What a heavy price to pay for a few carbs.  I hope to get a picture of the offending door tomorrow.

Daiei

Just FYI, Daiei is huge.  You could live there indefinitely.

So this blog upkeep thing is pretty hard.  Looking back, we've done a lot the last few days.  Our first two days we walked as far as our legs would carry us (I have the blisters to prove it) and now we've started at GenkiJACS.  I'm glad I can finally start to study, I'm tired of being ignorant.  I want to communicate and understand.  So far people have been pretty nice to us, some kids in the park shouted "herro" after us, an old man thought really hard and then said "have a nice day", and the food stall guy outside of gourmet city was very helpful when I tried to buy takoyaki the other day. He now nods and smiles whenever he sees me.  Some people are rude- like the high school kids who were filming us.  But overall I really, really like everyone.  Our dorm head lady puts up with our stupidity (although she never explained what we were actually supposed to do . . . she just tells us when we mess up).  Our teachers and the school receptionists are very kind and usually hilarious.  I also made friends with some of the girls in our dorm!  It was a challenge to communicate- but we did pretty well.  They are very nice, and it was a lot of fun to talk to them.  It'll be nice to see them tomorrow.

Well, oyasumi.

The monster of Fukuoka

You may think it's little, and therefore harmless, based on this picture.  But it's not.  This is the feared fiend of Fukuoka.

The terror of this city, so monstrously horrible that his mug shot is painted on half the vending machine/garbage disposal population.

  At about the same size as a 500 en coin, if it takes a dislike to you, you're done.  To top it off, they hang out in violent gangs and hover above defenseless gaijin on park benches.  Fortunately for us, they didn't have their spears with them.  As the picture indicates however, the majority are fully armed.  They also wear sneakers.

Fukuoka Day 1

After I woke up (at 8) Rebecca and I showered.  It was pretty difficult, but luckily we're very good at trial and error.  

After we got all ready we explored the city, it's very pretty.  Fukuoka has tons of trees.  We went to the Ohori Park, the peony garden, and downtown Tenjin.  It was a lot of walking, and we got stared at quite a bit.

We also went grocery shopping!  We got crackers, butter, grapefruit juice and POCARI SWEAT.  For lunch we had a salmon onigiri and some ham/cheese pan from Lawson's.  We also shared with pigeons.

Nihon

I leave for Japan tomorrow, its been a long time coming.