7 week review.

Time is absolutely flying here. Yesterday was 7 weeks since I arrived. That's more or less a third of the way through, and that is quite terrifying. When I first got here I thought I was doing so much - almost too much - each day and that I would run dry of things to do. Things couldn't be further from the truth ^_^ 

So far I have travelled solely within Saitama and Tokyo. I've been to Akihabara, Ikebukuro, Asakusa, Ueno and Harajuku. I still want to go to other places within Tokyo, such as Shibuya and Shinjuku, and go back to places I have already been. Living just 30-45 minutes away on the train is so, so convenient. I also want to go to Kyoto if nowhere else outside of Kanto. We also want to go to the Ghibli Museum ^o^ 

Studying has been pretty intense. We have three 1.5 hour lessons a day, between 9 and 2.45. After that, I go home and study for most of the evening -_- There really is always something I could be doing work-wise, so I can never feel totally relaxed. I'm sure my Japanese is improving, especially kanji recognition, so I guess I should just get my head down and deal with it for the next 2 months... 

Lifestyle-wise, I'm surprised how easily I have adapted. It feels a lot more natural than I expected. The timetable of eating and waking and sleeping and lessons is more similar to the UK than Spain, which I think helps. Yes, there are lots of oddities, and it never stops being annoying getting stared at for being a foreigner, amongst other small things, but I'm still enjoying it. 

I was planning to do a post on food here later, but generally speaking fruit and vegetables are somewhat scarce. They're expensive in supermarkets and practically non-existent in most dishes in the cafeteria and in restaurants. It says something that having a glass of juice or a bowl of salad feels like somewhat of a luxury. Next time I go shopping I am planning to splash out on having a proper supply of fruits and veggies. It's just not worth the money saved not having them -_- 

Finally, the people here are generally very friendly. Younger people tend to either be very very shy, or quite uh, mad and confident enough to approach you around campus and ask you about yourself. They're also big on giving compliments, genuine or not, and that is wonderful for the ego ^_^ 

The next few weeks are going to be filled with tests, a presentation, various visits and a birthday. I'm slightly concerned that May will disappear before I realise it...

Curry house.

Today, after being somewhat nostalgic for non-Japanese style curry, we went to an 'Indian' curry house a short cycle ride from the university. I think it was actually Nepalese judging from the artwork and posters on the walls, but I couldn't be certain... ^_^ 

We had the cheapest lunch set menu, which meant we got a curry, a naan, rice, a small side salad and a glass of lassi for 700 yen, which is ~£5.50. The portions of rice and curry were on the smaller side, but the naan was monstrous and about half a metre long, so the meal was satisfyingly filling. 

The waiter/cook was on his own in the restaurant, so he had to bring out our curries in three batches as there were 8 of us. We also could see him making the naans from scratch in the kitchen, which was cool.

Curry is a very popular dish here, but the Japanese style curry is the same flavour pretty much anywhere, save for a slight difference in spiciness. And spice in Japan is not really that spicy, they tend to prefer the sweeter curry. Supermarkets usually have a whole aisle dedicated to curry roux blocks and sauce packets, and about half the dishes you can buy in the student cafeteria involve curry in some form. I'm not complaining ^_^ 

Golden Week/Asakusa.

Last week there were a group of bank holidays that are all very close together. It is known as 'Golden Week'. Some businesses close on the days in between the bank holidays so people get a full week off. We still had lessons on Monday and Tuesday, but then had the 'rest' of the week off. 

On Friday I went to Asakusa with Nozomi. I've been to Asakusa before; it's in Northern Tokyo so one of the closer cities and convenient to get to. It's famous for Kaminarimon, a large entrance gate and Sensou-ji, the Buddhist temple which Kaminarimon leads to. 

For lunch we had okonomiyaki and monjayaki, the Kanto region equivalent. Okonomiyaki is a type of savoury pancake that can have pretty much any ingredients. The particular place we went to was cook-it-yourself, so you sit either side of a hot plate, they just give you the raw ingredients in a bowl and you fry it and flip it yourself. Monjayaki is more liquidy, and you scrape bits off the hot plate and eat them rather than chopping it up into bits. 

After that we headed to Sensou-ji. Being Golden Week, it was packed with a mix of Japanese people and tourists. It was also heavily raining, so just walking up to the temple was a bit of an umbrella-dodging nightmare. The temple is very impressive and definitely worth it, however. We got fortunes for 100 yen and went inside the temple, where people throw money into a grate and pray. As it was so busy, people were throwing money from several metres back; all the money flying through the air was an interesting experience ^_^ 

We went and had a look in some of the kimono shops, got a bit frightened by the prices, and bought some of the local sweet treats, ningyouyaki. They are pastry/caky casings filled with red bean paste, which is a common ingredient in sweets here. It is sort of a savoury sweetness, and very tasty.

After that we went over towards the bank of the river and looked at the Tokyo Sky Tree. It's a new building due to open later this month which is now the second tallest in the world. It's about twice as tall as Tokyo Tower. 

So I had a good Golden Week, even if most of it was spent studying. The weather on the Saturday was also wonderful, which put me in a very good mood ^_^

(Photo is from the first time we went to Asakusa, so there were a lot less people. Still raining, though :p)

Mos Burger.

Yesterday there was disappointingly miserable weather, however Laura and I decided to walk to Soka station to get lunch at Mos Burger. Mos Burger is a chain of fast food restaurants, akin to McDonalds or Burger King. The experience was very different, however.

I ordered the curry chicken burger, which is limited edition. Laura had the eponymous Mos Burger. After ordering, you go and sit down and they bring the order to your table once it is ready.

It came in a dinky little basket, with our sides of onion rings and fries, and free water even though we didn't ask for it. Perhaps the most impressive thing was that the burger actually looked like the photo on the menu board o_o.

It was very tasty, and the fries weren't drowned in salt which made a nice change. My burger and fries/onion rings side came to 490 yen, ~£3.75. Definitely worth it.

Pizza tabehoudai.

All you can eat restaurants are popular in Japan. They are known as 'tabehoudai' or 'baikingu' (Viking). Yesterday a few of us went to a pizza tabehoudai restaurant near to the university campus for lunch. We got the cheapest option, which was 1000 yen, or ~£8. 

For this, we got to choose a pasta dish to have as a main. Some dishes had a small surcharge (50-100 yen) on top if they had any expensive ingredients in. I went for carbonara which was no extra charge. On top of this, they bring round pizzas every few minutes, offering you a slice. And this repeats until you get full or they close. 

The pizza options varied from the usual (margarita, pepperoni) to the different (tuna and pesto) to the strange but still delicious (cheese and curry). If you pay for a slightly more expensive menu you can have a drink and dessert on top, but after having a full plate of pasta and then many slices of pizza on top, this really wasn't necessary ^_^ 

This particular restaurant also had a mix of traditional and modern seating. We were put in a more traditional booth, where you take off your shoes and climb into a raised area and sit on little cushions. They also had honey to put on your pizza which I didn't try, but the Japanese women sitting next to us were quite enthusiastically using it... 

Overall a nice lunch and a welcome escape from the miserable weather that day ^_^ 

Harajuku.

On the 1st April a group of us travelled to Harajuku. It takes about an hour to get there including changing trains, so it's pretty convienient. The 1st was a Sunday, which is the most popular day to go to Harajuku. Shops don't close on a Sunday here, so it can get pretty busy, especially if the weather is nice. On top of that it was still the school holidays when we went.

One of the more famous areas in Harajuku is Takeshita Street, which connects two more major roads. It is fairly narrow and is filled with (mostly clothes) shops and restaurants. It has a similar feel to Camden. Once you have walked through Takeshita Street, you are in the area called Omotesando, which contains more upmarket shops and cafés. Here you can find the flagship stores of brands like Chanel, Louis Vuitton and other such places which don't put the (probably horrific) prices in the window. 

Also in Harajuku is Yoyogi Park, which is huge and was busy when we went. There were several different groups practising dancing, lots of families and groups eating picnics, and also lots of dog walkers. Dog watching in parks here is lovely, especially as there is a tendency towards having the small, fluffy varieties ^_^

Creperies are popular in Harajuku, and on our first visit I had a blueberry cheesecake crepe. It was full of whipped cream and I probably shouldn't have had one due to the extreme amounts of dairy, but it was so delicious o_o

On the 5th, Laura & I went back to visit Meiji Shrine, which is on the edge of Yoyogi Park. It's one of the more well known Shinto shrines in Japan. It's also used for weddings, and whilst we were there we saw a wedding procession.

Harajuku is one of the more far away places in Tokyo to get to from where I am, but it is still definitely worth visiting and is also in the vicinity of Shibuya and Shinjuku stations, two places I have yet to visit but definitely wish to ^_^

Nekorobi cat café, Ikebukuro.

On Sunday 15th I travelled to Ikebukuro with Laura. Ikebukuro is a district in Tokyo, with lots of department stores and a more female-orientated air. After getting lost in some of said department stores we found the cat café I had researched online, Nekorobi. It is on the 3rd floor of a building and is pretty hidden away aside from a small sign outside. Space is such a commodity here that many businesses can often share one building.

Cat cafés usually charge by the hour to spend time with the cats. As it was a weekend they charged slightly more, 1200 yen (around £9) for an hour, but this included unlimited free drinks and some snacks. It was busy when we there. There were 12 cats, most of whom were very sleepy. As I had heard before, cats in cat cafés tend to be very...cattish and at Nekorobi they were no exception. Most of the time the cats would run from perch to perch, so rather than expecting the cat to come to you, you have to go to the cat. Very cattish, as I said ^_~ 

The cats were lovely, so soft. Some of them were absolutely huge. They had a cat tower they could sleep on, little cages to lie in if they didn't want to be disturbed and there were many toys for the cats to play with too. Some of the cats found interesting places to sit, like on top of the café's laptop or on the slipper rack. Each cat also had a little booklet with information and photos.

All in all it was a lovely experience. The atmosphere was nice and the staff were friendly, and I think it is a very relaxing place to spend an hour, whether you are a cat lover or not. Maybe not if you hate cats though. There may be times when the cats outnumber people.