The rest of the first day

(8:22 pm)

Uh lets see where did I leave off? Well we met up after that little break in the schedule (thats when I posted the last one) and we headed over to this Japanese style restaurant. It was a very unique experience for sure. We entered this building on one of those business alleys that aren't exactly crowded but wide-ish. We enter it then go up a lot of stairs and enter this room with three long tables low to the ground. We take off our shoes and put them in a shoe locker then sit down at the tables, the floor is sunken there so it felt like sitting normally but you weren't. Also in the center, sunken into each 1/3 of each table was this wok type thing with cabbage and what i think is chicken.

The waiter came in and turned on the gas oven below each to get it start cooking. We didn't know what to do exactly, like when it was ok to eat so we just waited a while until someone took the initiative and grabbed some. It was good slightly spicy. There was also a salad that had lemon rines in it. I don't know if the rines are supposed to be eaten or not, it tasted terrible (I only took one bite). Then he brought out what he called pizza but was basically a cracker with corn and tiny fried whole shrimp. The shrimp part of that was weird to see but didn't have any really texture when you ate it. The little shrimp looked like dead bugs so you had to make sure not to think about that part of it too much. Then he brought out this pasta which was like spaghetti but um cold and like I guess a little bit more of a fresh taste.

Then came the thing that really threw me off, he brought french fries, onion rings and rice cracker like thing. The rice thing looked like styrofoam but tasted like a regular rice cracker thing. There was also three more dishes a fish something in a light soup, yakisoba, and something closer to pizza but had weird japanese twists on them. I had a piece of the potato one myself. It was really cool eating like that, but I would have enjoyed it more if I was just feeling like myself. I'm tired and my stomach keeps acting up.

We walked then took the JR line to sumiyoshi then at that station transferred to rakko-liner and road that for four stations until island center. We got back and I checked out the 100 yen store, I was surprised by the quality of stuff they had. They had belts and hats and slippers, I was really surpsied. I bought a hankerchief because bathrooms don't have paper towels and one of those colapsible fans because geez the humidity just destroys you, oh yeah and also a DS screen protector (I need to see how that one goes).

I also tried to find some place that I could buy aspirin or some sort of stomach relief. I tried the family market and they didn't have it but they did have some really cool dragon ball items like a big dragon ball pillow and a Bulma statue and chibi goku plushies for 200 yen. If I was at a con and saw those for 2 bucks I'd buy them all but I had to stop myself because I need to be very cautious with my money until the jasso money comes in and where would I put something like that. I went to the mall thing again looking for somewhere to buy some medicine, and I found a pharmacy but it was closed, I continued walking in it but then all of a sudden I was back in the hotel. It was really confusing.

Japan has a weird night life it looks like. From what little I have seen it appears that people have specific destinations that they go to in the evening and thats that. By 8pm most people on the street are just a few stragglers trying to catch up. Well I sure wrote a whole lot for one day. I guess as my first full day in Japan it wasn't too bad. It could have been much better if my stupid body would just work with me here but I've seen more new things in one day then I did all of last year.