Its the snowpocalypse!!
Ooookay. It doesn’t look like a lot. but we’re going to a LAKE tomorrow. to stay in a CABIN. Where they presumably don’t have wifi. Remember how I like to sit inside and read about nature on the internet?
it’s going to be a cold, cold few days.
Every few years I have a minor mental breakdown, where I sleep during the day and mope about because I don’t have any mad-skillz. It nearly always results in me going “oh. wait. I’m a graphic designer…. I forgot.” It just happens that I get caught up in the pay check part of my life and forget that there are pictures in my soul.
So I’d like to bring those out. And I may end up sharing them on teamEggers… Just as a forum for myself. If you see anything up in the next few weeks, feel free to completely ignore it or leave a comment on it. I’m really into constructive criticism.
Now, for some totally random japanese culture. Here’s the construction signs!
I seem to have gone missing for a week or so. Anyone notice that I wasn’t posting three times a day? Hah.
Technical issues on my end (leftover from the server transfer a few weeks ago) have been irritating me something fierce (tell me…. is the background of the blog BLUE or PINK? There’s a difference!) and I have, unfortunately, been taking it out all angsty like on you, dear readers.
Or… maybe what’s happened is that jon and I have just been busy living. Not doing anything exciting and noteworthy, but the normal “I worked too much today and now I’m stressed out so I’d like to stare at the wall for a few hours” sort of thing. For your sake and mine, I hope to change that ASAP.
As we all know, I have a very addictive personality. This is particularly unfortunate when surrounded by a convenience store full of wacky-japanese-candies. I found grapefruit flavoured fanta and caramel flavoured mentos! Now I have a stomach ache and my jaw is sore. On the inside, I am essentially still 13.
Jon and I had a really nice dinner at (the mall, of course). Tasty, tasty indian food that made jon sweat like a fat kid in summatime.
Tasty food:
In a hip location: (we were about an hour early for dinner rush)
And then after dinner we had some chai! And these were the ingredients! and isn’t that cool!
While Harajuku is famous for its giant shrine and its collection of wacky japanese teenagers, we managed to have a great day exploring while entirely missing both sights. We decided that we’d have to go back because, like the day before, we seem to have lazed away the morning before really starting out for the day. At the very least, I can say it’s really nice to sleep in.
You must be wondering… what DID we see in Harajuku? Funny you should ask. I just happen to have a few photos here for you.
Any day that starts out with food from a street vendor is bound to be a good day. What we ate was a mystery. It appeared to be a ball of undercooked dough with mystery fillings. Mystery. I’m serious. We found a hot dog, a hard boiled egg, some picked taro, mushroom, cheese AND MORE! Don’t get me wrong, it was *really* tasty. It was ooey and goooey and appealed to the mid-westerner in me.
Next up was a bit of wandering around and a lot of window shopping. As I mentioned earlier, this is an area where teenagers hang out, and us old folks come to gawk at them so the stores reflected that. Lots of… purses. And oh my … so many shoe stores. But most of all, so many PEOPLE.
After the street-with-7-million-people, we wandered off the beaten path a bit into a neighborhood and past a shrine.
The shrine was beautiful in itself, but as a bonus there was a traditional wedding going on! (I say traditional because there is a wedding consultation shop right next to our apartment and the weddings THEY plan look surprisingly like the princess-in-a-hotel weddings that Americans favour)
(The bride is on the left, in pink:)
The wedding party begins walking, then picks up the groom-to-be and the rest of the family along the path. They continue through the gardens until they reach the shrine. Shinto is a religion centered around weddings and new births – events that grow the family.
After stalker-time, we stopped for a bit to enjoy the gardens of the shrine. While it doesn’t feel like it most days, spring is coming.
By this point in the day, we had to find lunch. We ended up in a japanese pancake shop where they grill your food right in front of you.
The pancakes have a cabbage / egg / flour base and then other ingredients mixed in. One of ours had scallops and pork and the others had…. lots of stuff and noodles. When they’re done cooking it, they slide it over to the grill in front of you and add some crazy sauces too it. It looked a bit pre-chewed, but MAN was it good.
Feeling rejuvenated, we set out exploring again. After some souvenir shopping…
…we grabbed a bit of dessert from a crepe stand. Crepes are EVERYWHERE here. It has to have something to do japan’s fascination for the french. Most look rather mediocre at best, but i think we stumbled upon a winner.
Jon was saying it reminded him of the back-ally crepe shops they found in France. Narrow streets and not many pedestrians, but really awesome desserts.
As with all things in life, jon was much more graceful eating than I was. I managed to squirt hot caramel out of mine and burn my face. Seriously. I burnt my FACE. On a crepe. The guy in the cart was laughing.
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