Deambulation

When my friend and I was heading for DisneySea on a train, we saw an IKEA building outside the window. It just opened two weeks ago.

DisneySea wasn't so crowded than I assumed. We just needed to wait for attractions for 30 minutes mostly and 50 minutes at maximum in spite of the 9 day holiday. I sort of felt anxious about its future.

We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant. The paella was good.

We found a new atrraction under construction. I saw the same one which was also under construction in California Disneyland a few years ago. Anyway, that kind of scary thing had no relation to me.

We shared a sandae named maple anmitsu. I'd never tried red beans paste and ice cream with maple syrup, but it was delicious. That included a souvenir cup which you could get as a bonus.

Today was windy and so I wondered if the night show would be held. The night show used fireworks and water. We saw the daytime show because I thought there was a low possibility for the night show. She said she enjoyed it. I was glad.

Because of the strong wind and the location of bayside, it was getting colder. I thought the indoor attractions should have been last so that we could avoid the colder wind at night.

When we were in a line for an attraction, we were too tired to talk a lot. I wished we could have seen each other anytime.

When I am in an amusement park, I eat a lot of small foods. Especially when I am exhausted, I need energy. I can't eat a lot at once, so I need small things a lot. Maybe. Or I am just a person who is gaining more weight. ;) She said that I had a good metabolism, which comforted me a bit. We had jiao-zi dog which you could have only in there to the best of my knowledge.

In the evening, we found the staff announcing the cancelled night show. It was a pity. I wanted to show her it. After it got dark, we moved to indoor attractions. Those were mainly for younger children and so we just looked around and had light dinner there.

Unlike Disneyland, DisneySea didn't have many attractions yet. She didn't really take the fast-speed ones and we went to most of the attractions until 8 o'clock. We went out of the amusement park and dropped into a shop near the station, then went home. She still had a cold a bit and the chilly wind probably made it worse. I was worried.

Increscent

Before my friend and I went to the nearest city on a bus, we went to a discount shop. On the way there, she found a kind of flower by the roadside which her father couldn't grow because of the Australian climate. He also tried to grow ginkgo, but it didn't grow big.

She got souvenirs in the store and so we went back home once and took a bus. She bought a lot of pair of socks in a department store. She said that she couldn't get socks like those in Australia. We checked shoes in the department store, but we couldn't find good ones and moved to the other department store. Her feet size was the biggest like me and it was hard to find the suitable ones with favourite designs. She somehow got two pairs of shoes there.

Then, we went to art supply store. I asked her to advise me about frames for her father's paintings which he gave me. With her advice, I asked the store stuff to show me the frame samples. I could mostly decide the colour and shape. Just to make sure, I would bring these paintings and buy the frames in several days.

After dropping into a pharmacy, we moved to the other place on a bus. My mother had already waited for us in a kaiten-zushi restaurant, keeping our seats. The restaurant was crowded for the holiday and extremely noisy. Until my friend got used to the noise, it seemed to take a while. We had a lot of sushi. She came to Japan just for the second time, but she could eat several kinds of raw seafood, though I just started eating most of raw seafood five years ago. In Japan, people believe that being able to eat more kinds of food means that he/she has rich sense of taste and is mature. I still have many foods that I can't eat. I'm ashamed of that.

We went home on foot because from there was just two bus stop distance. We walked along pich dark roads but they were not really dangerous here. My friend said that she remembered a dream last night. In the dream, as seeing a full-moon, her friends turned into werwolves and so did she. The moon wasn't full tonight in reality, though. I asked her if I was in the dream, but she said I wasn't. Even though I needed to turn into a werwolf, I sort of wanted to join them. ;)

After we came home, we three packed my friend's things into her suitcase. It was fun because packing into suitcase was just like solving a puzzle. We somehow did that.

I had so many things to do every night such as emailing about my homestay contract. I thought that if I didn't have enough sleeping time tonight, I would feel very ill tomorrow because we would walk a lot. I had a ringing in my ear since yesterday.

Time flies like an arrow (it's true!)

Today was a shopping day in Tokyo. First, we went to Daikanyama to see the city and have lunch at my favourite Asian restaurant. On the way to the restaurant, we dropped into some clothes shops. She found a nice T-shirt in a Paul Smith shop, but there were no size for her. She was very tall here.

In Japan, the other asian cuisines aren't really cheap like in the western countries and it's sort of fashionable. I wanted to take her to my special place, so I was glad to go to the restaurant with her. She seemed to like the city very much and it was one of the happiest things because I loved the city when I was a teenager. We ordered two lunch sets which included drinks and side dishes. We shared the main dishes. The green curry was too spicy for me, but it was nothing for her. She was very strong toward spicy foods!

There was a park between the station and the restaurant and we droppped into there a bit. The park had much more people for the holiday than usual. We saw Tsutsuji again. You can see Tsutsuji in this season everywhere.

Then, we moved to Shibuya where must have been most crowded and it actually was.

The main purpose in there was an art supply store near the station. She got several brushes and some stones for making seals. We went around the city, taking photos and movies a lot.

The next city to go was Harajuku. There were a lot of people from the JR station to Omotesando hills (actually no hill there, though). After going two cities, I was already getting tired and so I had no energy to offer to drop into its buildings. We went to an art goods and book shop near there. She got a couple of Japanese picture books there.

Next was Shinjuku. When we were going back to the station, she said that she wanted to go to a toy store "Kiddy Land" and a fashion building "Laforet Harajuku" where we went last time together too. It was already 7 pm, but we had planned to go to the other art supply stores in Shinjuku. In Japan, basically shops closed at 8 (but sometimes 9 only in big cities). She told me that she preferred enjoying shopping in Harajuku to hurrying up and shopping in those art supplys, so we went to the toy store. She got a donkey shape doll (a kind of ride-on) which she had wanted to buy since last time and so on. In Laforet, when we started shopping, the whole building was closing. However, as long as you somehow go into the entrance before 8 you can enjoy shopping for a short while. Customers have top priority in this crazy country (so they always need to work until late). The main doors were already closed, but we could continue to shop. She got a big ring in a shop in the building.

I was tired and sick a bit, so I didn't really need proper dinner. She offered to have crape for dinner which she had last time too.

She said that people in Japan always must have been lacking time because of the too many shops and places to go. So did we. Everywhere was very crowded today.

A short day

In the afternoon, my mother and I was wondering about my friend, worring about her cold because she hadn't come out of her room. The time she got up was about four o'clock and she was sort of shocked at that late time. Apparently, her cold and fatigue and the wine we had last night made her sleep for a long time and so I said to her that she didn't have to mind. We had eel bowl at home today. It is said that eel is good for fatigue.

Although my friend and mother were supposed to go to Nedu shrine where beautiful Tsutsuji was blooming, my friend was gettting a cold for the cold weather and fatigue yesterday and so she decided to stay home with me. My mother also wanted to take a rest today and so we were at home all the day relaxing. She took chinese medicine for cold as well as last night.

My friend and I watched a movie and some stories of a comedy series in English in my library this evening. We enjoyed them.

Lively conversation

We walked a lot yesterday and so we left home two hours later than we planned today. It was raining all the day, but our schedule for today was just shopping at the outlet mall. Despite the long holiday, there were less people than usual weekends. We were lucky.

Although my friend couldn't find good clothes for her, she got two bags and a pair of shoes. I bought several tops for my sister who needed business clothes for internship and some tops for me. We had tenpura udon noodles for late lunch. Walking to the udon restaurant, my friend found a cake shop which had a big showcase. She told me that people in Australia wouldn't think cakes with such a lot of decorations look delicious, because they regard that kind of cakes as cheap ones. However, that was not true here. We found some kinds of green tea cakes in the showcase.

When we were almost finishing our shopping, it'd already got dark. She said that time passes quickly in Japan. I agreed. Perhaps the reason is its late business hours and width of the greater Tokyo area.

We decided not to have dinner tonight because of the late lunch, but we still needed something and so we had desserts, green tea cakes instead. We were talking a lot at the cafe of the cake shop while we enjoyed herb tea and the cakes. I thought that I shouldn't have used Japanese short words when I was trying to find English words. I decided not to do so and she helped me for that. We kept talking lively until we reached home.

She said that she felt like watching a movie tonight and I thought it was a good idea. We bought a bottle of red wine and a snack at the nearest convenience store. My mother served chestnut uiro cake which was made of rice powder, kudzu powder and sugar. I knew my mother also wanted some wine and I poured a glass of the wine for her. We two watched the sequal of out favourite movie in my library because she hadn't watched it yet. I didn't really remember the details of the movie and so I also enjoyed a lot. I even could ask her about some English words in the movie and it was quite helpful. Probably because of my accumulated fatigue, I suddenly felt very dizzy and couldn't move when I started drinking the third glass of wine. I lying down on the floor until the movie finished. She said that the movie was very interesting and so I was glad. We went to bed very late.

Such a productive day

Today was a very long day. First, my mother, my friend from Australia and I went to Ginza for lunch at my mother's favourite Japanese restaurant. We ordered three lunch sets and a sashimi dish. Those were quite good.

Then, we dropped into several shops such as a stationery store, an art supply store and a toy store. Not to make ourselves so tired, we tried a bicycle taxi once to move between shops. Recently, it's getting popular for its non-pollutional system (it's just human power, though) and easiness to use. Although many people watched us on the rare vehicle, that was interesting. Most of the places weren't for my mother and so she killed the time in somewhere. My friend got special pens, some good quality art supplies and a couple of souvenirs in that city.

We all move to Shiodome on foot afterward. We were already getting tired because of a lot of walking, but having green tea perfait again (my friend and I had it in Kyoto) was important to us! It was getting dark and we found a organic deli cafe and had light dinner. The city of Shiodome was new and beautiful, though it was a kind of business city. We saw the driverless trains of Yurikamome line there which went to Odaiba. I thought I wanted to take my friend to Odaiba this time, but we couldn't for our schedule. We somehow found the cafe of the green tea products. For my mistake, we happened to have green tea sundaes (smaller ones than perfait), though. There was also roasted tea one and it was also delicious. When we left the cafe, it was a little after 8 o'clock. We were sort of running out of time because we planned to go to Roppongi next.

Omotesando Hills opened three months ago, so Roppongi Hills had much less people. When we were heading for the observatory of the tower building, my mother complained a bit. She wanted to go up there in daytime. However, she should have thought that she didn't go there if my friend didn't come to Japan. We three went up and bought its tickets which included tickets for the art gallery on the next floor. We needed to look at the artworks quickly thinking about the time of the last bus to home, but we were with my mother today and rethought not hurrying. Three people would deserve taking a taxi. At the end of the exhibition, there was an art goods shop and my friend got two very special things of her favourite artists and so on. She seemed to be so glad to get those and so I was also happy to see that. The tokyo landscape at night was superb, though the digital cameras didn't work properly for the night shots. We were exhausted but enjoyed the view.

We came home after midnight (the time of this diary has no meaning). My energy was all gone, but to seal fatigue deep inside myself until I can have time is one of my specialty. Tomorrow will be ok.

I just thought how fun it was to talk with my friend who stayed at my home. Even in Japanese, I would have a pain in my weak nerves from a lot of talking in a hard day, but it was not with the friend. In the Japanese culture, people often lie to conceal something on purpose to keep harmony and it makes my nerves tensed. I don't have to care anything toward her and it is so comfortable. She can stay at my house forever as long as she wants! ;)

Heirloom

My friend from Australia arrived today! I couldn't believe that such a happy thing happened to me. She seemed fine in spite of the long trip, though she already went to bed. I am so glad to have her here.

On the way home from the airport, we dropped into a couple of stores and then a MOS Burger restaurant for lunch. When she came to Japan last time, I couldn't take her to mamy places and so I wanted to take her to as many places as possible, where I usually went.

She tried a rice burger for the first time.

>>Photo of rice burgers

She gave me a lot of gifts which were from her, her father and my other favourite friends in Australia. Those were so many. Only one thing was pity that I hadn't have time to enjoy those at the moment. Probably, I could do after the holiday. This holiday was fully booked up. I thought that there were no sense of interval between us even though we hadn't met since last summer.

This is most of what she gave me today. How happy!

My mother and we went to an okonomiyaki restaurant. We needed to fry the okonomiyakis by ourselves and so we were kind of busy to take photos and movies and to eat those okonomiyakis. Mother and she enjoyed beer too, but I was sort of dizzy and so didn't drink it. I needed to keep the rest of my little energy for tomorrow.

Reunion

The friend from Australia already left there and she's now in Kuala Lumpur to change the airplanes. I tidied up the rooms, though those were not really good because of the cheap furniture.

Hubble

I went shopping with mother to the nearest town. Mother bought an IH pressure rice cooker because I told her that her way to freeze rice was often not proper and the rice lost taste as a result, though I suggested it several times until then. She had used a pressure cooker (a kind of pan) and she needed to put rice into the freezer with its temperature still very hot. I couldn't help the time limited thing so often. We hadn't used the type of rice cooker so far, but I was sure it worked well. She seemed to want to serve our guest from Australia tastier rice. ;)

I sometimes think my daily duties are too many, but all things are very important for my future work. Umm...

Redd

The college contacted me because they didn't accepted my sister's check. Her university always accepted hers with her current address handwritten on it. That seemed to depend on the school.

My sister is spending very hard days lately because her study is getting more difficult. Probably, she need to devise more effective way for studying.

A holiday starts from 29th this month. I need to tidy up the rooms before my friend from Australia arrives here.