As promised...

Here are some pictures that I've taken since the beginning of my adventure abroad. I still have more recent ones though I haven't loaded them up onto my hard drive yet.

The multinational beauty that is Kentucky Fried Chicken. This is some kind of sandwich combo with bright green radioactive looking melon soda as the beverage. The sandwich was quite good but the mayo had some kind of mustardy wasabi flavour thrown it. Strange but delicious. More recently I had the fall KFC combo which there is no picture of. It had a bowl of very asian tasting soup with a sticky rice ball and a piece of fried chicken coated in Furikake, a seaweed seasoning of sorts.

The entrance to the Gyeon National Gardens in Shinjiku. Whats interesting about this place is that this garden is situated right in the heart of Shinjiku, filled w/ skyscrapers and people: An extremely busy place.

I just like this picture because of the black butterfly among the white patch of flowers. This butterfly was quite the bastard though as it kept flying away every few seconds before I could take the shot properly.

I have no clue what type of flower this it, but quite beautiful, ne?

Its amazing how a place so beautiful and serence can be in the heart of a major bustling area like Shinjuku.
One of the most famous areas the of the park, its a Japanese style garden (There were also English and French Gardens but obviously not impressive enough for me to post a picture on my blog) and the sea of green that you see is actually giant lily pads that are floating on a pond.

Meiji Jingu, Harajuku. This is a cleansing area before you enter the actual shrine part. There is a thing of water where you can dip those ladle like things in. You wash one hand first, than the other as well as rinse your mouth. After you tilt the ladle upright so the remaining water pours back over it thereby cleaning it. How did I figure this out? This is one of the only places that had english signs fully posted beside the Japanese ones. :)

The entrance to Meiji Jingu. Quite impressive as the pillars are perfectly rounded and smooth. There are more of these as your walk in towards the shrine but this one was by far the biggest.

Buying charms from the Miko (priestess). Like in anime and drama, the priestesses really wear those long flowing robes that are white on top and red on the bottom (Think Sailor Mars while in normal clothes at her shrine). You can buy charms from them for various things like doing well at school, victory, love, health and even safe driving.

A crepe store in Harajuku. The crepes were quite delicious as they were made fresh. They make it into a cone shape, and give it to you so you can eat it on the go. Its strange but in Japan, its not really that acceptable to eat or drink on the street, but I guess some people don't care. Mine had banana and whipped cream, although the whipped cream was not so good to me due to my lactose intolerance but at the time of eating, it was quite good. Roberta had one w/ strawberries, chocolate and strawberry icecream.

Ah, another picture from Meiji Jingu, this is near the actual shrine after having done the purification thing. There's a priest-type guy in full attire.

A picture taken in Harajuku while walking down Takeshidori (Idol street as Roberta and I call it since the street is lined w/ places where you can buy Japanese Idol goods and even dress like them :S ) On this street, you can buy costumes and accesories for all your dress up needs.
As seen here, Maid outfits can be purchased among other things. Apparently its a trend fro girls to dress up as Lolitas or something. I saw quite a few and couldn't help staring at them but I guess if you dress like that, you are attention starved. We went on a weekday so there weren't that many but I heard that if you go on Sundays, there's an insane amount of dressed up people. Unfortunately, I have to work on Sundays :(

Natto Sushi. The FOULEST thing I have tasted in my 22 years of life. I thought I would throw up right after eating it. It has this weird sticky texture and the taste is quite disgusting not to mention the smell. Some people told me that natto is an acquired taste and you know me, I will try anything once. But if acquiring the taste for natto means I have to eat it again I rather not acquire said taste. I asked my students about it and they all LOVE the stuff, the Japanese people who hate it out of the multiple people I've asked... I can count them on one hand only. Apparently people eat it for breakfast here, and LOVE it.. They will try to convince me that its healthy and nutritious etc... : I've nvr been so disgusted w/ a type of food before... and if you know me, that's rare.

Kaiten Sushi!! Sushi that comes to you on a conveyor belt. This is totally awesome, whatever you want, just pick it up and eat it. Each dish costs about 100 Yen which is equivalent to $1 Cdn and there are 2 pieces of sushi on it. Its at Kaiten sushi that we picked up the Natto by accident and almost died from it :S But they have all sort of other delicious things like tuna, salmon and even fruit. Quite a great experience although at first we were really confused due to the lack of Japanese skills but had help from the staff (kind of) and by watching other people. After you're done, there's a slot on the side of the table where you slide your dishes one by one into. That's how they count how many plates you've had and the you press a button on a touch screen and someone comes to hand you your bill. Ingenious.

Akihabara, a.k.a Nerd Town as I like to call it. Hang out of the infamous otaku with maid cafes, loads of electronic stores and anything a nerd could dream of. The first thing I saw when I left the station was a girl dressed up in a maid outfit handing out advertisements... Tried to take a picture but some man got in the way and I felt quite dirty taking a picture of her as I believe she -noticed after the first time (Sorry, I'll try again next time) *Creepy Story - Roberta and I enter this anime store and start walking around only to notice that all the anime and games are of cute little anime girls and some..maybe slutty ones. There's also an over 18 section that we DIDN'T go into. We quickly relized that maybe we were in a niche store that catered to a specific type of customers. After looking around we see that we are the only females in the ENTIRE store (and there are like 5 floors) and all the other customers are greasy looking nerd men one associates w/ strange habits.... We were so creeped out! *

Me at Denny's eating an OMURICE, which is a bastardized version of the beloved omlette. There's tomato flavored chicken fried rice under a giant sheet of egg smother in cheese and demi glass sauce. Quite delicious but not has good as the Hamburg which is my current obsession.